EAST CAMBRIDGE (MA)
Court TV
By Emanuella Grinberg
Court TV
EAST CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Prosecutors rested their child rape case against defrocked priest Paul Shanley by calling his accuser's Sunday School classmates, who offered the only testimony to corroborate the accuser's claims of abuse 15 years ago.
Four of his peers from catechism class at St. John's Parish in Newton, where Shanley was assigned in the 1980s, testified that the accuser was part of a "rowdy" group of boys often sent from class to visit Shanley for disciplinary action.
"The best word I can use is very chaotic, it was hard to pay attention," Kerry Lessard testified of the classroom environment.
"The three boys seemed to get in a lot of trouble," Christine Michelon said.
The three boys were all included in the indictment against Shanley in June 2002. In an effort to "streamline" the case, prosecutors dropped the other accusers from the indictment, letting stand just the charges pertaining to one accuser.
GHANA
Ghana Web
Accra, Jan. 31, GNA - A 44-year old Nigerian Pastor accused of fondling with the breast of a 12 year-old girl resulting in injury has appeared before an Accra District Magistrate's Court charged with indecent assault.
Joseph Okafor, the Pastor, pleaded not guilty and the Court admitted him to a 10 million cedis bail to reappear on February 16.
Prosecuting, Police Chief Inspector Alice Yeboah told the court that Okafor was in charge of the United Faith Church at Dome, Pillar Two, in Accra while the Victim is a member of the Church.
Chief Inspector Yeboah said on November 25, 2004 the Victim's mother detected that the she was unable to sleep during the night and asked her why she could not sleep.
The victim showed her swollen left breast with a sore on it to her mother and alleged that Okafor had been fondling with her breasts anytime she attended church service.
CAMBRIDGE (MA)
Telegram & Gazette
By DENISE LAVOIE
AP Legal Affairs Writer
CAMBRIDGE, Mass.— A psychologist testifying in the child rape trial of defrocked priest Paul Shanley said Monday that it's not uncommon for adults who suffer trauma as children to repress memories of the experience.
Shanley's accuser, now a 27-year-old firefighter, says he remembered in early 2002 that he'd been repeatedly raped and molested by the former priest from 1983 to 1989 at a Newton parish. Shanley's lawyer has questioned the science behind repressed memory, also known as dissociative amnesia.
The condition is "not common, but it's not at all rare," said prosecution witness Dr. James Chu, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School.
He said repressed memory is more common among people who suffered repeated trauma as children than in those who suffered a single traumatic event.
"It really is more this repeated trauma that tends to be forgotten by some mechanism," Chu said.
CAMBRIDGE (MA)
Union-Tribune
By Denise Lavoie
ASSOCIATED PRESS
12:55 p.m. January 31, 2005
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – Prosecutors wrapped up their case against defrocked priest Paul Shanley on Monday after a psychologist testified that it is not uncommon for adults who suffer trauma as children to repress memories of the experience.
Shanley's accuser, now a 27-year-old firefighter, says he remembered in early 2002 that he had been repeatedly raped and molested by the former priest from 1983 to 1989 at a parish outside Boston. Shanley's lawyer has questioned the science behind repressed memory.
The condition is "not common, but it's not at all rare," said prosecution witness Dr. James Chu, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School.
He said repressed memory is more common among people who suffered repeated trauma as children than in those who suffered a single traumatic event.
Under cross-examination by Shanley's lawyer, Frank Mondano, Chu acknowledged that there is an intense debate within the psychiatric community about the validity of repressed memories. He also conceded that false memories can be implanted in a person's mind through repeated suggestions by someone they trust.
CAMBRIDGE (MA)
Turnto10.com
POSTED: 5:25 pm EST January 31, 2005
UPDATED: 6:02 pm EST January 31, 2005
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- The state has rested its case in the child rape trial of defrocked priest Paul Shanley. Earlier Monday, an expert in so-called "repressed memory" took the stand.
Testifying for the prosecution, psychiatrist James Chu said it was unusual but not rare for adults who were traumatized as children to repress memories of that trauma.
Under cross-examination, however, Chu acknowledged there is intense debate in the psychiatric community about repressed memory.
After prosecutors called their final witness, Judge Stephen Neel threw out one of the three child rape charges.
FORT WORTH (TX)
Star-Telegram
By Melody McDonald
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
FORT WORTH - An indictment has been returned against a 55-year-old former pastor alleging that he sexually abused six males over a 14-year period, many inside his Westside Victory Baptist Church.
On Friday, a Tarrant County grand jury returned seven separate indictments against the Rev. Larry Nuell Neathery, accusing him of sexual misconduct from 1990 to 2004.
Those alleged to be his victims include:
* A 13-year-old church member who says Neathery sexually assaulted him several times in late 2003 and early 2004.
* An adult who says Neathery fondled him as a youth in 1990 and, later, tried to sexually assault him as an adult in 2003.
* A juvenile who alleges that Neathery befriended him and then exposed himself in early 2002.
* Three brothers -- then ages 7, 11, and 12 -- who accuse Neathery of varying degrees of sexual misconduct.
Neathery, who resigned as pastor of the Westside Victory Baptist Church in December, remains in Tarrant County Jail awaiting trial.
ROME
Catholic World News
Rome, Jan. 31 (CWNews.com) - In a message to the Legionaries of Christ, Pope John Paul II (bio - news) has conveyed his regards to the founder of that movement, Father Marcial Maciel Degollado, and to his successor.
Father Maciel stepped down last week as head of the Legionaries, declining re-election at the meeting of the group's chapter general. Father Alvaro Corcuera was selected to replace him. The Pope's message, issued January 31, acknowledged the change in leadership, but said that the Legionaries should continue on the same path. The Legionaries, the Pontiff said, should continue to provide intellectual and spiritual formation for young people, while respecting their freedom and personal responsibility.
The decision by Father Maciel to remove himself from leadership came at a sensitive time, shortly after reports that Vatican officials were re-examining sexual abuse charges against the Mexican priest. Father Maciel and the Legionaries have denied the charges, and the Legionaries said that their founder stepped down because of age. Father Maciel is now 84, and another 12-year term as head of the congregation would make him 96 years old before the next scheduled meeting of the chapter general.
NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News
By Brendan McDaid
31 January 2005
THE decision to allow a Londonderry priest to stay in office despite a sexual assault allegation has been "vindicated", the Bishop of Derry has claimed.
In a highly unusual step, Catholic Bishop, Dr Seamus Hegarty took over weekend Mass at St Patrick's Church, Dungiven - the parish where the priest involved, Fr Andy McCloskey, had served.
Defending the decision from the pulpit, Bishop Hegarty told those gathered that Fr McCloskey had ministered in Dungiven as a "broken, wounded man".
He added: "Fr McCloskey came to you within a few months of his having received treatment for his problem with alcohol.
"It is a further tribute to all of your priests, past and present, and you the people of the parish, that you have contributed so effectively to his recovery.
"The decision to reinstate Fr McCloskey in ministry in 1993 has been vindicated by the quality of his ministry since then."
ARIZONA
East Valley Tribune
By Gary Grado, Tribune
The cost of defending lawsuits against priests sent behind bars for sex offenses keeps rising for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix.
Since December 2002, when the first of eight priests was indicted after a yearlong investigation, at least 14 lawsuits have been filed against the diocese alleging sexual misconduct.
The latest involves Monsignor Dale Fushek, pastor of St. Timothy Catholic Community in Mesa. On Friday, the Rev. Karl LeClaire became the third priest to plead guilty and to be sentenced for his crimes.
Diocese officials refuse to disclose how much they are paying the private law firms defending the cases, but insist their finances are in good shape.
"The diocesan resources and insurance resources are sufficient to resolve these cases," said Mike Haran, diocesan attorney. Insurance will cover some of the cases, but not all, he added.
In September 2003, Archbishop Michael Sheehan said allegations of sexual abuse of minors by priests had cost the diocese $2.7 million in settlements, legal fees, counseling for victims and other costs.
STOCKTON (CA)
Record
By Jeffrey M. Barker
Record Staff Writer
Published Sunday, January 30, 2005
STOCKTON -- A lawsuit charging a former Stockton priest with molesting two girls while visiting their home has been scheduled for trial next month in San Joaquin County Superior Court.
The suit against the Rev. Francis Arakal and the Diocese of Stockton accuses the priest of fondling two girls in 2001. It also charges another priest and the church with reacting inappropriately when one of the girls attempted to report the molestation.
"Very rarely do these cases get to the point where trials are set," said Anthony Boskovich, a San Jose attorney representing the two girls, who are sisters, and their mother. All three live in Hughson.
Arakal is listed as a parochial vicar for St. Joseph's Church in Modesto.
Attorneys for the Stockton diocese -- Paul Balestracci and Vladimir Kozina, both of Stockton -- and for Arakal, Michael Coughlan of Stockton, each declined to comment on the case.
NORTHERN IRELAND
One in Four
Irish Independent
THE Bishop of Derry, Rev Seamus Hegarty, told parishioners in Dungiven, Co Derry, yesterday that their curate, who has been given leave of absence as the result of a sex abuse allegation, was a broken, wounded man.
Fr Andrew McCloskey (55), had admitted during masses in St Patrick's Church, Dungiven, eight days ago that he was the un-named priest reported to have paid an out-of-court settlement earlier this month to a man who claimed he had made sexual advances to him in 1992.
The €15,000 payment was made without any admission of liability. Fr McCloskey said that in 1992 he was an alcoholic. The injured party claimed that the incident occurred when he was 19 years of age after he'd gone to the priest seeking counselling.
Fr McCloskey was administrator of St Mary's Parish in the Creggan area of Derry and the incident is alleged to have taken place in the parochial house.
CAMBRIDGE (MA)
The Leadership
On this page, experts on trauma and memory will offer commentary on issues that are being raised by the criminal trial of Paul Shanley --the former Boston priest who has been charged with child rape. This is not a forum where we will speculate on guilt or innocence. Those are issues for the jury to decide. Instead, we will attempt to use our expertise to respond to important issues or questions that are being raised by the case.
SWAMPSCOTT (MA)
Lynn Daily Item
By Debra Glidden
Monday, January 31, 2005
SWAMPSCOTT - Parishioners at St. John the Evangelist Church consoled one another and expressed disbelief over allegations made against their former pastor, who resigned on Friday after allegations were made he tried to solicit sex for a fee.
At the 10 a.m. Mass at St. John the Evangelist on Sunday, which was attended by more than 200 people and presided over by Monsignor Paul Garrity of St. Mary's Church, the mood among parishioners as they entered the church.
The Rev. Jerome Gillespie, 55, who was sent to St. John's in September, is scheduled to appear in Chelsea District Court on Feb. 17 to face charges of enticement of a child under age 16, solicitation of sex for a fee, and annoying and accosting a person of the opposite sex. He is alleged to have propositioned a 12-year-old girl and her mother at a Chelsea restaurant last Tuesday night.
The parishioners at the Sunday morning service said they doubt the allegation.
LOUISIANA
Times-Picayune
Monday, January 31, 2005
By Gwen Filosa
Staff writer
Confession is sacred in the Catholic Church, each spoken word sealed forever by the rules of Rome.
If a priest were to divulge what he hears in a confession -- even the admission of a murder -- it would amount to a mortal sin, church law says. Punishment in this world includes excommunication.
Louisiana law also takes the act of spiritual guidance into consideration in criminal cases, and not for Catholics only. The "clergyman's privilege" is the right to keep what is said in such religious meetings confidential.
But the law isn't going to help two young men from New Orleans accused of robbing and shooting a cabdriver in 2002, the Louisiana Supreme Court has ruled.
The minister whom two cousins trusted cannot be stopped from taking the witness stand to repeat a purported confession of the cabbie attack, the court said. The 6-1 decision saves the case from the legal dustbin at Orleans Parish Criminal District Court, because the minister remains the state's central witness.
HOUSTON (TX)
Houston Chronicle
By RICHARD VARA
Houston Chronicle
Despite overcast skies and chilling winds, more than 1,200 Roman Catholic clergy and laity turned out Sunday to celebrate a ground blessing for a new $32 million cathedral for the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston.
The event was celebrated with choirs, a brass ensemble and a colorful procession of robed clergy, altar servers and teens carrying banners.
Work is scheduled to begin immediately on the 1,820-seat cathedral, with completion in 28 months.
"I am so grateful that so many of you are here to ask God, with me, to place his particular blessing upon this square block upon which will be built the Co-Cathedral of the Sacred Heart," Archbishop Joseph A. Fiorenza said. ...
Fiorenza said Sunday that he had hoped to be dedicating the cathedral at this time but acknowledged that several events during the four-year capital campaign had intervened and forced a downsizing ofplans.
"First came Sept. 11, a terrible blow to this country and to our hearts," Fiorenza said. "Then there was the collapse of Enron and other large companies based in Houston. The economy began to go south.
"We had to face the terrible tragedy in the church of the clerical sexual abuse of minors."
AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald
By Linda Morris
February 1, 2005
In a rare personal message, the Pope has appealed to Australia's Catholic lawyers to defend the rights of the unborn and aged.
Conferring his blessing on the St Thomas More Society, the Catholic lawyers' association, the Pope John Paul II urged its members to defend the "inviolable dignity and rights of every human being - from conception until natural death".
The message came as the society marked its 60th anniversary at St Mary's Cathedral with a "Red Mass" to mark the start of the legal year. The mass was celebrated in the presence of three cardinals and before some of the state's most senior judges, barristers and solicitors.
The society, named for the lawyer and politician beheaded by Henry VIII in 1535 for refusing to accept the king's claim to be supreme head of the English church, has quietly lobbied for changes to the abortion laws.
The society has also opposed euthanasia and advised on the Catholic Church's formal protocol for dealing with sexual abuse claims. Most recently, it argued for the NSW Government to give legal protection to foetuses and is now urging Federal Parliament to hold the line on banning the use of embryos in stem-cell research.
TOLEDO (OH)
Toledo Blade
NOBODY likes to have their dirty laundry aired in public, and certainly Toledo would prefer to be thrust onto the national stage for its contributions to jazz or its place in industrial history rather than for its part in the national clergy-abuse scandal. Sometimes, however, as in the case of the documentary Twist of Faith, which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival recently, it is painfully necessary.
The movie, by veteran filmmaker Kirby Dick, is about the sex-abuse scandal that rocked the Toledo Catholic Diocese, seen primarily through the anguish of one man, Toledo firefighter Tony Comes, who claims he was abused as a teen by Toledo priest Dennis Gray.
Mr. Gray, who left the priesthood in 1987, was forced to step down as dean of students at Rogers High School in September, 2002, after The Blade revealed allegations of sexual misconduct while he was a priest. He denied the allegations.
Most of the cases against the diocese were settled out of court and Mr. Comes received a $55,000 settlement.
ALBANY (NY)
Albany Times Union
By MIKE GOODWIN, Staff writer
First published: Monday, January 31, 2005
Edward N. Leroux, one of the first priests removed from ministry by the Albany Catholic Diocese for child sexual abuse, has died. He was 75.
Leroux died at Glens Falls Hospital on Jan. 16 after a brief illness. Though he removed Leroux from active ministry, Bishop Howard Hubbard officiated at the fallen priest's funeral at St. Mary's Church in Glens Falls.
Leroux and five others priests were removed by the Albany diocese leadership in June 2002. They were the first area clergy forced out of the ministry after the U.S. Conference of Bishops adopted a strict policy weeks earlier that banned all priests with any known history of abusing minors.
John Aretakis, an attorney for at least three men who claim they were abused by Leroux in the late 1970s and early 1980s, said his clients felt cheated because they will never be able to confront their abuser. Aretakis said one of Leroux's victims was 12 at the time of the abuse and the other two were 14 when it began.
WORCESTER (MA)
Worcester Voice
A review of Worcester Superior Court case # WOCV1995-00267, which is contained in four folders and thousands of pages of legal filings, contains information so disturbing that the previously unknown facts need to be told.
A new link has been added to the Worcester Voice web site called Notre Dame Academy.
Notre Dame Academy is a college preparatory school for young women and their web site said that their education should prepare students for their role as Christian women. In 1995, the school was location of sexual abuse allegations by a 14-year-old female student who said she was sexual abused by the music teacher, Mr. Kallin Johnson.
The Worcester Voice goal is not to comment on the guilt of innocence of the accused teacher. The intent here is to expose the carefully calculated campaign by this private Roman Catholic school, which exists in the Worcester Diocese, to discredit the female student before the facts were known. To show the power of Notre Dame Academy and the Worcester Diocese, along with their unlimited dollars, to apply the staunchest defense of the accused teacher.
"Everything she's suffered as a result of his conduct, they now want to use against her," said Boston lawyer Wendy Murphy. "It's your basic "nuts and sluts' defense: She's made it up before, and she's crazy. But she has no motivation to lie. Nothing good has come from this. On the contrary, she's been shunned by the school," Ms. Murphy was quoted as saying.
The Massachusetts Department of Social Services supported the sexual abuse allegation against Mr. Johnson after a January 19, 1995 child abuse investigation. Mr. Johnson was then placed on the DSS central registry as a sex offender, according to Attorney Murphy. Mr. Johnson was never removed from his teaching position in 1995 by Notre Dame Academy and continues to teach there today.
VATICAN CITY
Zenit
VATICAN CITY, JAN. 30, 2005 (Zenit.org).- Officials of the U.S. bishops' conference and the Holy See will meet here to analyze the application of norms adopted in the wake of the clerical sex-abuse scandals.
Joaquín Navarro Valls, director of the Vatican press office, made the announcement Saturday.
"On January 31 and February 1, as expected, the Mixed Commission will meet in the Vatican to examine the application of the norms of cases of accusation of sexual abuse of minors," he said in a statement.
"The commission is made up of delegates of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and representatives of the dicasteries of the Roman Curia," he said.
NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News
A Catholic bishop has praised parishoners for the way they responded to their local priest who is at the centre of sex abuse allegations.
Dr Seamus Hegarty told parishioners at St Patrick's Church, Dungiven, on Sunday that he admired and commended their understanding and forgiveness.
Last week, Father Andy McCluskey told the congregation that he was behind a sex abuse allegation 12 years ago.
He told them he had made a mistake for which he was paying dearly.
Dr Hegarty also prayed for the man who made the allegations against Fr McCluskey.
It is understood a five figure compensation pay-out had been made without admission of liability.
ALASKA
Fairbanks News-Miner
By CHRIS TALBOTT
Staff Writer
The attorney for the Catholic Bishop of Northern Alaska has requested that a Bethel Superior Court judge move the trial of a former priest accused of sexual abuse out of the southwestern Alaska town.
In his motion, Bob Groseclose asked Judge Dale Curda to consider holding the Nov. 15 trial in Anchorage or Nome, two locations he said better fit the civil suit filed by Jane Doe 1 against the Rev. James Poole.
Chief among his complaints about a trial in Bethel was the expense of flying the accused and his accuser, their lawyers and witnesses to the Kuskokwim River Delta rather than the more centrally located Anchorage. Short of the state's largest city, Groseclose also argued that Nome is a more fitting trial site since most of the abuse Jane Doe 1 accuses Poole of occurred in that Bering Sea coast town.
"What the Catholic Bishop of Northern Alaska wants is to be treated like litigants are generally treated at trial," Groseclose said. "We don't want to travel to Bethel if there is no reason to."
In his response, Jane Doe attorney Ken Roosa produced a list of 50 potential witnesses who live in the Bethel district. Roosa wrote that Bethel is more appropriate because some of the charges Jane Doe made occurred in the Bethel area and the Fairbanks Diocese, one of four defendants, is based within the state's 4th Judicial District.
SWAMPSCOTT (MA)
Boston Globe
By Kathy McCabe, Globe Staff | January 30, 2005
SWAMPSCOTT -- Parishioners at St. John the Evangelist Church expressed a mixture of sadness and sympathy yesterday for their former pastor who resigned Friday after accusations that he propositioned a 12-year-old girl and her mother for sex while dining at a Chelsea restaurant.
"It's a sad day," said Flo DiPietro, a 53-year-old parishioner. "He is such a good man, he lifted this parish up."
The Rev. Jerome Gillespie, 55, who had served the Catholic parish for only seven months, is scheduled to appear in Chelsea District Court on Feb. 17 to face charges of enticement of a child under age 16, solicitation of sex for a fee, and accosting a person of the opposite sex, police said.
Chelsea police issued the summons on Friday, the same day the Archdiocese of Boston said Gillespie had resigned as pastor of the North Shore parish. Gillespie is alleged to have propositioned the girl and her mother at about 9 p.m. Tuesday while dining at Floramo's, a popular Chelsea restaurant.
At 4 p.m. Mass yesterday, Auxiliary Bishop Francis X. Irwin was in attendance in an effort to reassure parishioners.
"A terrible tragedy has hit this parish," Irwin told the silent congregation. "One so full of promise and vitality is gone from our midst. There is nothing I can say."
But Irwin offered his personal support for Gillespie, whom he said he had known for years and spoke with twice on Friday. "I did admire and do like Father Gillespie," he said. "I tried to give him encouragement."
Irwin made reference to recent pressure in Gillespie's life.
WISCONSIN
Duluth News Tribune
BY KEVIN HARTER AND ALEX FRIEDRICH
ST. PAUL PIONEER PRESS
When he was assigned to a cluster of churches around Hurley, Wis., last August, everything seemed to come together for the Rev. Ryan Erickson.
Four years after fulfilling his boyhood dream of becoming a priest, the 31-year-old had his own parish.
Clad in a traditional cassock, he conducted Masses in a style comforting to his older parishioners but with an energy and flair that drew the younger crowd as well. Attendance at worship increased by 50 percent.
He seemed happy, friends said, trading practical jokes with the church staff and getting a dog -- a golden retriever mix he named Beast.
But in early November, his life started to unravel when investigators from Hudson, Wis., arrived to question him about a double homicide at the O'Connell Family Funeral Home in Hudson in 2002 -- during the time he served a church there.
He denied any involvement, but the questioning rattled him, friends said. Five weeks after investigators first met with him, he hanged himself from a fire escape outside the Hurley rectory.
All of a sudden, the public learned he was a "person of interest" in the Hudson slayings and, a few weeks later, that he also had been questioned by Hudson police about a possible crime involving one or more minors. No details were given on the case involving minors.
TUCSON (AZ)
MSNBC
By Stephanie Innes, Arizona Daily Star
Azstarnet.comTucsonAZUSA - In the four months since the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tucson filed for federal Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, the case has amassed bills of nearly $800,000 for attorney and other business fees, according to recent court filings.
Bankruptcy experts say the tally of expenses in the case so far - $791,036 in what is mostly legal fees - is in keeping with that expected in a Chapter 11 case, although future expenses will depend on how long the case is in the court system.
An attorney working on the Chapter 11 case of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Portland, Ore., estimates that case's bankruptcy expenses are significantly higher than Tucson's so far - partly because the Portland archdiocese filed for Chapter 11 protection July 7, slightly more than two months before the Tucson diocese did.
There were no estimates available last week on bankruptcy costs for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Spokane, which filed for bankruptcy protection less than two months ago.
The Tucson diocese filed for federal Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization Sept. 20 in the face of 22 pending legal actions alleging sexual abuse of children by priests. The court has set a deadline of April 15 for those who believe they were sexually abused by a diocese priest to file a claim. The Chapter 11 plan could be approved this year if all the creditors can agree.
CAMBRIDGE (MA)
The Daily Free Press
By Danny Lauridsen
Published: Friday, January 28, 2005
Article Tools: Page 1 of 1
An alleged sexual abuse victim took the stand twice Thursday at Middlesex Court in Cambridge to testify against Paul Shanley, a 74-year-old former Catholic priest from St. Jean's parish in Newton, who is facing three charges of raping a child and two charges of indecent assault and battery on a child.
During the second day of cross-examination, the accuser, a 27-year-old Newton firefighter, answered questions from defense attorney Frank Mondano, who said the alleged victim's memories of sexual abuse were unreliable because they had been repressed until January 2001.
Mondano focused on the accuser's history of substance abuse and gambling addiction.
The accuser admitted to using steroids for about eight years, between the ages of 16 and 24, blaming Shanley for his "poor self-image."
"People said I wasn't fat," he said, adding that because of Shanley, "I thought I was. [Taking steroids] just made me feel better about myself."
The accuser said he sometimes used multiple steroids while he was a military police officer for the Air Force in Colorado and while he played semi-professional baseball in Tallahassee, Fla. He said Shanley ruined his aspirations to play professionally.
CAMBRIDGE (MA)
Boston Globe
By Eileen McNamara, Globe Columnist | January 30, 2005
The Cambridge courtroom in which Paul R. Shanley is being tried for the rape and sexual abuse of a child will become a political forum as well as a judicial arena this week when testimony turns to the reliability of human memory.
The tears of the now 27-year-old accuser during his testimony last week against the defrocked Catholic priest were no more than a manipulation by an avaricious charlatan, according to the defense, which wants the jury to dismiss as junk science the notion that people can forget traumatic events. Those tears were no less than a manifestation of the pain of a little boy who was molested for years by a trusted parish priest, according to the prosecution, which wants the jury to believe that the sexual abuse scandal in the Archdiocese of Boston triggered his long-dormant memories.
It is hard to think of a topic that incites more passion and less insight than the often-ugly public debate about the role of memory in sexual abuse cases. That science has yet to definitively explain the mysteries of how the mind stores and retrieves our memories has not made partisans more humble in their view; it has only fueled their fury to debunk the opposition. The Shanley case is unlikely to settle the matter.
Prominent on the witness list for the defense is the memory researcher whom Psychology Today magazine once dubbed "the diva of disclosure." Elizabeth Loftus is a professor of psychology and social behavior at the University of California at Irvine whose research on the malleability of memory first called into question the reliability of eyewitness accounts of crime and accident scenes. She is better known, however, as a best-selling author and a busy expert witness called by defendants in sexual abuse cases to discredit the legitimacy of claims of "repressed" or "recovered" memories.
The problem in the courtroom as well as the laboratory is how loaded those words have become politically, the scientifically neutral question they raise about the function of memory hijacked by the well meaning and the self-serving alike. The phenomenon of recalling previously unremembered incidents of abuse is itself put on trial, the defendant and accuser reduced to onlookers.
OREGON
The Oregonian
Sunday, January 30, 2005
STEVE WOODWARD
The 450 families of St. Mary, Our Lady of the Dunes Catholic Church in Florence, have no doubt that the parish belongs to them.
The congregation dates to at least 1949, when the parish priest in Reedsport made monthly trips to Florence to celebrate Mass in people's homes. Since then, the church has been housed in an American Legion hall, the upstairs of Cooper's Mercantile Store and a 20-by-50-foot donated building that had to be trucked to a previous site in 1953.
Today, parishioners have pledged $1.9 million toward a major building expansion, said Ken Janowski, fund-raising chairman.
There's just one problem: The parish might not actually exist -- at least legally. If that's the case, St. Mary's could see $1.5 million in property, cash and savings used to help settle a staggering $534 million in claims against the bankrupt Archdiocese of Portland for alleged clergy sexual abuse of at least 72 men and women.
As a result, the building expansion, which had already gone out to bid, is on indefinite, and perhaps permanent, hold.
That's why St. Mary's, 123 other parishes, 24 missions and 44 Roman Catholic schools in Western Oregon -- as well as the archdiocese itself -- are scrambling to prove that parishioners never intended for their money to be used for any purpose other than to build and operate their parishes and schools.
TEXAS
The Dallas Morning News
12:12 PM CST on Saturday, January 29, 2005
By STEVE BLOW / The Dallas Morning News
"I was lonely," he said.
Simple as that.
And even when he outlines the full dimensions of his predicament, he still keeps it pretty plain.
"I want to be a priest," he said, "and I want to be married."
Now you see the complications begin to arise.
Father John has the priest part of this down pat. He left home for the priesthood at 18 – some 47 years ago.
And as for the marriage part, well, he'll take that plunge very soon. At the age of 65, John will marry in May.
Half jokingly, I asked how many centuries of Catholic tradition he is bucking here.
"Oh, 10 or 11," he said with a wry smile.
He seems unfazed. "I'm so happy," he said. "I feel such a peace about everything."
The Roman Catholic Church, of course, is less thrilled. This month, the bishop of the Dallas Diocese officially branded him a renegade. ...
John doesn't want the marriage debate to get sidetracked into the controversy over pedophile priests. But in that regard, he simply said, "I think a married priesthood would be a healthier priesthood."
The spokesman for the local Catholic diocese said it's fine to debate the marriage issue.
"But he's not doing it in an honorable way," said Bronson Havard. "He's doing it in a defiant, I-want-my-cake-and-eat-it-too kind of way. It's not proper, and it's a sadness for the church."
UNITED STATES
The Dallas Morning News
10:07 AM CST on Saturday, January 29, 2005
By DARLA ATLAS / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News
In 1997, Scott Steinke asked God to help him find answers.
Things weren't going well for the onetime soundman for ZZ Top and Alabama. After his engagement broke off, he was driving and "yelling at God to give me something here. I said, 'If you want me to be a priest, you're going to have to let me know.' "
He was passing a church with a lighted cross "and as soon as I looked up, that thing clicked on," he recalled. "I said, 'OK, that's what I needed to know.' "
Mr. Steinke is one of those profiled in the Discovery Times Channel documentary Keeping the Faith: Becoming a Priest in Today's Catholic Church. Airing Tuesday, the show follows several men who were at Cincinnati's Mount St. Mary's Seminary of the West in 2002, at the height of the Catholic Church's sexual abuse scandal.
The documentary notes that the year after filming wrapped, the archdiocese of Cincinnati pleaded no contest to failing to report sex crimes by priests against minors.
The show examines the scandal's impact on seminarians, but also provides a broader look at their religious training – from practice baptisms using baby dolls to pretend confessions acted out by fellow students.
ARIZONA
East Valley Tribune
By Mary K. Reinhart, Tribune Columnist
The young man with the crew cut sat quietly in the front row of the Mesa courtroom.
He stared straight ahead as people stood before the judge and called him a liar and an extortionist.
He met the eyes of the Rev. Karl LeClaire as the former pastor of Mesa’s Queen of Peace Catholic Church turned and apologized to him. Then LeClaire told Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Sherry Stephens what a wreck his life has become since the young man accused him of child molestation.
"It has been a nightmare. Three years of hell," LeClaire said at his sentencing Friday. "Being robbed of my priesthood and my parish."
The young man listened as Stephens imposed the maximum sentence under LeClaire’s plea deal — three years’ probation and a year in jail — and required him to register as a sex offender. He watched as deputies handcuffed LeClaire and led him away.
He heard LeClaire’s supporters gasp and sob. A travesty of justice, they said. A brilliant career in ruins. A flock adrift without their spiritual adviser. Their beloved priest set up as a fall guy for the true sex offenders in the Roman Catholic Church.
ARIZONA
East Valley Tribune
By Lawn Griffiths and Toni Laxson
Tribune
An attorney for Monsignor Dale Fushek of Mesa’s St. Timothy Catholic Community on Friday called the latest accusations of sexual misconduct with a child "an absurd collection of stories . . . to extort money."
The complaint filed Thursday by William J. Cesolini, now 33, of Gilbert, centers on a 1985 assault allegation and also names youth minister Phil Baniewicz of Mesa, who cofounded Life Teen.
Cesolini attributed repressed memories, or dissociative amnesia, for only now stepping forward.
Michael Manning, Fushek’s attorney, called the lawsuit a "reprehensible tragedy" on Friday. It’s an "absurd coll- ection of stories made up for the purpose of trying to extort money," he said. Manning emphasized that Cesolini originally made no mention of Fushek’s presence when his 1985 memories were recalled in 2003.
"Suddenly in 2005, he recovers the memory once again and Monsignor Dale is standing by watching this occur?" Manning asked.
ARIZONA
East Valley Tribune
By Gary Grado, Tribune
A judge threw a Mesa priest into jail for a year Friday, leaving his friends and parishioners from Queen of Peace Catholic Church shaking their heads and suggesting he was the true victim.
Judge Sherry Stephens of Maricopa County Superior Court also ordered the Rev. Karl LeClaire to serve three years probation and register as a sex offender as punishment for pleading guilty to committing a sexually motivated aggravated assault against a teenage parishioner in 1996.
LeClaire admitted to giving the teenager, now a 23-year-old Navy recruit, a sensual massage. One year was the longest Stephens could sentence LeClaire under an Oct. 28 plea agreement.
"I’m disappointed," said Anthony Chacon, 24, who said he has known LeClaire and the victim for years. "There was a lot that wasn’t recognized."
Chacon said he doesn’t believe Stephens took into account LeClaire’s positive impact he had on the Queen of Peace community when he was the church’s pastor and school’s principal.
He resigned in 2001 after the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix got word of the allegations. "He’ll never get the credit he deserves," Chacon said.
MANATEE (FL)
Herald Tribune
By CORY SCHOUTEN
cory.schouten@heraldtribune.com
MANATEE COUNTY -- Assistant Principal Joseph Gilpin remained in the Manatee schools despite several accusations of inappropriate behavior with students, including one in November where he reportedly patted a boy's bottom and made indecent remarks to two others.
Gilpin denied doing anything wrong, was never charged with a crime and kept his job at Haile Middle School in East Manatee.
But on Friday, Gilpin resigned, two days after the school district learned of allegations he raped two boys in the late 1960s while studying to be a priest in the Northeast.
In his resignation, Gilpin, 60, said he was sorry for "the notoriety that this situation has brought upon you, my colleagues and the school board."
Gilpin had been suspended since Wednesday, when an advocacy group informed the district of the 1960s abuse allegations. He had worked in Manatee schools since 1971. Gilpin did not return calls seeking comment, but has denied the molestation allegations in the past.
Manatee school officials said Thursday they did not know about the allegations against Gilpin until the group told them.
PEORIA (IL)
Journal Star
Saturday, January 29, 2005
By MICHAEL MILLER
of the Journal Star
PEORIA - A lawyer for a priest suing the Catholic Diocese of Peoria for defamation suggested at a Friday hearing that the diocese is using delay tactics to deny the priest his "day in court."
The diocese denied the suggestion.
Edward Bush stepped down from public ministry in 2002 after the diocese accused him of sexual misconduct involving two minors. He later sued the diocese, Bishop Daniel Jenky and vicar general Monsignor Steven Rohlfs for defamation.
Bush's attorney Carla Labunski on Friday argued in Peoria County Circuit Court that the diocese should be sanctioned for not meeting several deadlines for providing information. Diocesan lawyer Joe Feehan said the delays were caused by postal service problems and other factors and that his firm, Heyl, Royster, Voelker & Allen, had not purposely held off on supplying the required documents to Bush's lawyers.
Circuit Judge Joe Vespa turned down Bush's request for sanctions, which included attorney fees of $10,402, but told Feehan he found the delays "troublesome."
TOLEDO (OH)
Toledo Blade
By MARK REITER
BLADE STAFF WRITER
A Toledo priest accused in the slaying of a nun nearly 25 years ago has a new judge and a new trial date.
Newly elected Lucas County Common Pleas Court Judge Thomas Osowik yesterday pushed back the trial of the Rev. Gerald Robinson to Oct. 17. It was set to begin Feb. 22.
Father Robinson, 66, who did not appear with his attorneys at the hearing, is charged with aggravated murder in the 1980 stabbing and strangulation death of Sister Margaret Ann Pahl in the sacristy of a chapel in the former Mercy Hospital.
Judge Patrick Foley was assigned to handle the case when the semiretired Roman Catholic priest was indicted in April. However, Judge Foley lost his seat in the November election to Gary Cook, a Lucas County prosecutor.
As Judge Foley's successor, Judge Cook normally would have inherited the case. But because he was on the prosecution team that investigated the murder, it was assigned to Judge Osowik.
The hearing was delayed about 20 minutes while the priest's attorneys, Jack Callahan, John Thebes, and Alan Konop, and assistant prosecutors J. Christopher Anderson and Dean Mandros huddled in a conference room with Judge Osowik.
BRITAIN
New Kerala
[World News]: London, Jan 29 : A Hindu priest in Britain has been convicted of raping a devotee of Tamil origin at a temple here.
Ramanathan Somanathan, 41, a priest at a temple in Thornton Heath near Croydon, south London, told his victim that she had been his wife in a previous life, and that god had reunited them.
He raped the 29-year-old Tamil woman on two separate occasions, once in 2002 and again in 2003, after which she became pregnant and had an abortion, the Croydon Crown was told.
The police praised the victim for the "tremendous courage" it took her to come forward and seek justice.
"This case has been particularly distressing for both the victim and witnesses involved. They ran the risk of being isolated by their own community," said detective Rob Buckell of the Croydon police.
ST. LOUIS (MO)
Post-Dispatch
By Tim O'Neil
Of the Post-Dispatch
Friday, Jan. 28 2005
A former Protestant bishop was sentenced Friday to at least 120 days in prison
for committing sodomy with a teenage boy who belonged to his congregation in
St. Louis.
"I know the words 'I'm sorry' are inadequate," Shelby E. Shannon, 61, told a
crowded courtroom. "I will live with this for the rest of my life in shame for
what I have done."
Shannon, former bishop in three states for the Church of the Living God,
pleaded guilty Dec. 13 of two counts of sodomy. He was arrested one year
earlier after the boy, now 18, alleged that Shannon abused him beginning in
December 2002.
Shannon was pastor of two Church of the Living God CCWF congregations in the
St. Louis area and was bishop in Missouri, Illinois and Wisconsin for the
Cincinnati-based denomination, which was founded by a former slave in 1889. His
churches were in Cool Valley and at 1034 South Kingshighway.
SWAMPSCOTT (MA)
Boston Globe
By Kathy McCabe, Globe Staff | January 29, 2005
SWAMPSCOTT -- The Rev. Jerome F. Gillespie resigned yesterday as pastor of St. John the Evangelist Church in Swampscott after he was accused of asking a 12-year-old girl and her mother to perform a sex act at an Italian restaurant in Chelsea Tuesday night.
''Father Gillespie's resignation was accepted in the interest of all parties involved and does not represent any indication of Father Gillespie's guilt or innocence as it pertains to this allegation," the Archdiocese of Boston said in a statement late yesterday. Gillespie did not return a call placed to the parish yesterday.
The Globe reported yesterday that the Suffolk district attorney was seeking the 55-year-old priest in connection with the allegation that he propositioned a girl and her mother. The archdiocese said it learned of the matter Thursday night.
His resignation stunned parishioners at this North Shore church overlooking the sea.
''My own 13-year-old daughter just served Mass with him last Sunday," said Daniel Santanello, 46, a father of three. ''This is the last thing I would have expected to hear of him. . . . I would like to give him the benefit of the doubt, but this is a very serious situation."
Gillespie took over as pastor July 1, replacing the Rev. Thomas Sheehy, who retired. Gillespie was formally installed the Sunday after Thanksgiving in a Mass that drew hundreds of parishioners.
ARIZONA
The Arizona Republic
Jim Walsh
The Arizona Republic
Jan. 29, 2005 12:00 AM
Supporters of a priest gasped Friday as a Maricopa County Superior Court judge sentenced Father Karl LeClaire to a year in jail for sexually abusing a former parishioner.
Judge Sherry Stephens imposed the maximum sentence possible under LeClaire's plea agreement over the objections of supporters jamming a Mesa courtroom and pleading for leniency. LeClaire must serve the entire sentence without opportunity for early release.
Anthony Chacon, 24, said he was disappointed in the sentence, which also requires LeClaire, 48, to register as a sex offender. The former pastor of Queen of Peace Catholic Church in Mesa also got three years' probation.
"He's a great friend. There's no doubt in my mind this didn't occur," Chacon said.
But Joe Baca of Chandler, a member of SNAP, the Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests, said LeClaire's supporters are in denial. "In that one incident, he took that child's faith and murdered his soul," Baca said.
SWAMPSCOTT (MA)
Lynn Daily Item
By Debra Glidden
Saturday, January 29, 2005
SWAMPSCOTT -- The pastor of St. John The Evangelist Church resigned on Friday after being accused earlier in the week of asking a 12-year-old girl and her mother to perform a sex act for money.
The Rev. Jerome Gillespie, 55, who was formerly the pastor of Sacred Heart Church in Lynn, is accused of propositioning the girl and her mother Tuesday evening at Floramos Lounge, an Italian restaurant in Chelsea.
David Procopio, a spokesman for the Suffolk District Attorney's Office, said Gillespie would be summoned to Chelsea District Court to answer charges of child enticement, soliciting sex for a fee and annoying and accosting a person of the opposite sex.
The Archdiocese of Boston, in a statement released late Friday afternoon, said, "In light of the criminal investigation launched earlier this week, Father Gillespie has resigned as pastor of St. John The Evangelist Church. Fr. Gillespie offered his resignation to Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley, who earlier today granted his request."
The statement continues: "Fr. Gillespie's resignation was accepted in the interest of all parties involved and does not represent any indication of Fr. Gillespie's guilt or innocence as it pertains to this allegation."
LITCHFIELD (CT)
Register Citizen
TRACY KENNEDY, Register Citizen Staff 01/29/2005
LITCHFIELD - The Rev. W. James Johnson, a Waterbury pastor who denies he sexually assaulted a 4-year-old Torrington girl, pleaded not guilty to criminal charges in Litchfield Superior Court on Friday.
Johnson, a minister for 25 years, stood before Judge Charles D. Gill on Friday to answer charges of first-degree sexual assault and allegedly having illicit sexual contact with a minor under 16 years of age in May. The case was continued until Feb. 18.
Behind him every seat of the gallery was filled with family members, friends, and members of his church, The Community Tabernacle Out-reach Center, Waterbury, which serves 275 members. Many of Johnson’s supporters who waited about four hours for the hearing to begin, held colorful posters that read "We love you pastor."
At liberty after posting a $200,000 bond, Johnson said he flatly denies the allegations. "It’s absolutely false," he said. "People definitely don’t have all of the details."
Defense attorney Leonard Crone said, "My client has consistently denied these allegations. The case has been continued three weeks and during that time we will do some discovery and investigation of our own to prepare a defense in this case."
CALIFORNIA
The Daily Journal
By LAURA CLARK/ The Daily Journal
Retired visiting Judge Robert Vonasek on Thursday sentenced Daniel Aram Garcia, 47, of Willits, to three years in state prison for child molestation.
Garcia was arrested and booked into jail Dec. 14. At his arraignment Dec. 16, the well-known and well-liked figure at the courthouse, former candidate for county clerk, and a pastor at a church in Redwood Valley pleaded guilty to one count of lewd and lascivious conduct with a child of 14 or 15 years of age. He was then released from jail on his own recognizance with orders not to try to contact his victim or be alone with anyone under the age of 18 without another adult present.
On Dec. 23, Garcia attempted to write to the girl he molested and was rearrested and taken back to jail, where he remained until Thursday's sentencing.
"I am to blame. It's not (the victim's) fault. I want her to understand it's not her fault," a tearful Garcia, in handcuffs and chains and clad in a white jail suit, told the judge.
LITCHFIELD (CT)
Republican-American
Saturday, January 29, 2005
By Brigitte Ruthman
Republican-American
LITCHFIELD -- A 4-year-old Torrington girl described to police how a Waterbury pastor sexually assaulted her while he babysat for his girlfriend, according to the warrant for his arrest.
Torrington police launched an investigation against the Rev. W. James Johnson, 48, formerly of 91 Spring Brook Road, Waterbury, after the girl's mother -- Johnson's girlfriend -- took her to the emergency room at Charlotte Hungerford Hospital in Torrington. The child complained of vaginal pain and burning with urination, according to the warrant for Johnson's arrest, which was unsealed Friday in Litchfield Superior Court. The woman alleged Johnson had sex with the girl May 14, 2004 while babysitting.
A physical examination concluded a history of sexual abuse existed, according to state police.
Johnson, 48, who is known as Willie, was arrested two weeks ago on first-degree sexual assault charges and risk of injury to a minor with sexual contact. He is affiliated with the Community Tabernacle Outreach Center, a Pentecostal church at 12 Hewlett St. in the Overlook section of Waterbury.
Johnson, dressed in a suit, pleaded innocent Friday during a brief appearance before Judge Charles Gill in Litchfield Superior Court. His attorney, Leonard Crone of Waterbury, was granted a three-week continuance to review the case. Crone declined to comment about specific allegations.
NEWARK (OH)
Advocate
By Erik Johns, ejohns@nncogannett.com
Advocate Reporter
NEWARK -- A Hebron pastor faces a second sex-abuse charge involving another girl after being re-arrested Thursday evening shortly after he posted a $250,000 bond on an earlier sexual battery charge.
Lonny J. Aleshire Jr., 503 E. Main St., Hebron, received another $250,000 bond Friday in Licking County Municipal Court from Acting Judge Larry Arnold. As of 9 p.m. Friday, he was still in the jail.
The most recent charge alleges he engaged in unlawful sexual conduct with a now 15-year-old girl over a two-year period, Assistant Licking County Prosecutor Melinda Seeds said.
Seeds added that her office is continuing to interview people and investigate the case, although she said they have not yet identified any further possible victims.
Aleshire is the associate pastor at the Licking Baptist Church, 1380 Beaver Run Road, in Hebron.
PEORIA (IL)
Pontiac Daily Leader
PEORIA -- The Catholic Diocese of Peoria remains in full compliance with the provisions of the U.S. Conference of Bishops' "Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People," Bishop Daniel R. Jenky announced this week.
The United States Conference of Bishops requires dioceses nationwide to partake in audits for the charter, and the audits were conducted by The Gavin Group, an independent audit firm based in Massachusetts, Jenky said in a news release Tuesday.
The Peoria diocese, in December, participated in "an extensive examination of all procedures and policies," conducted by two retired FBI agents hired by The Gavin Group, Jenky said. Results of the audit were reported on Jan. 13 to the diocese, concluding that the diocese remains in full compliance with all aspects of the charter. The auditors' report commended the diocese for the level of detail and documentation provided to them for review, Jenky said.
"Bishop Jenky is very grateful the people in the diocese have embraced the charter," said Patricia Gibson, diocesan chancellor. Her office was responsible for compiling the bulk of information to the auditors for review. The diocese is required to mandate that all employees and volunteers who come in contact with minors participate in the safe-environment program, as well as undergo fingerprinting and child-abuse background checks by the state's Department of Children and Family Services.
ARIZONA
The Arizona Republic
Michael Clancy and Joseph A. Reaves
The Arizona Republic
Jan. 29, 2005 12:00 AM
The president and co-founder of Life Teen youth ministry was placed on administrative leave by the organization's board of directors on Friday, a day after a lawsuit alleged that he and two others engaged in sexual misconduct with a teenager in 1985.
Phil Baniewicz, who has spent most of his adult career in the ministry to Catholic youth, was "devastated" by the news, said Mary Jo West, public information officer for the Diocese of Phoenix.
Baniewicz was accused in the lawsuit of abusing William Cesolini, a minor at the time, on more than one occasion. advertisement
Others named in the suit were the Rev. Mark Lehman, who already has served a 10-year prison term for abuse; and Monsignor Dale Fushek, pastor of St. Timothy parish in Mesa, who is accused of watching as Lehman abused Cesolini.
The diocese has asked the Vatican to defrock Lehman. Fushek was suspended Dec. 29, when the lawsuit's allegations first surfaced.
Baniewicz remained clear of the allegations until Thursday.
MAINE
Portland Press Herald
By JOHN RICHARDSON, Portland Press Herald Writer
A Florida school district suspended an assistant principal this week after being told that he is accused of sexually abusing a student at a Catholic school in Biddeford more than 35 years ago.
The Manatee County School District placed Joseph Gilpin, assistant principal of Haile Middle School, on paid administrative leave Wednesday afternoon, minutes after the superintendent got a call about the allegation from the leader of a group that supports victims of abuse by the clergy.
The school district plans to investigate the report before deciding whether permanent action is warranted, said Margi Nanney, the district's spokeswoman. Gilpin could not be reached Friday.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland confirmed that a former student at the St. Mary's School came forward with the allegation in September 2003. The diocese forwarded the information to law enforcement agencies, although the statute of limitations to bring criminal charges had already expired.
After checking into the report, the diocese has offered to pay a settlement to the victim, said spokeswoman Sue Bernard.
Bernard did not disclose details of the complaint, which has not been settled. No other allegations have been made in Maine against Gilpin, she said.
Gilpin was a teacher at St. Mary's, which is now closed, from October 1967 to June 1968, Bernard said. The diocese then sponsored him to go to the Roman Catholic seminary in Ottawa. He was dismissed from the seminary after a year, she said, for reasons unrelated to any abuse allegations.
CAMBRIDGE (MA)
Boston Globe
By Joanna Weiss, Globe Staff | January 29, 2005
CAMBRIDGE -- A day after he pleaded with a judge not to make him return to the witness stand, the man who accuses defrocked priest Paul R. Shanley of sexually abusing him as a child came back to court yesterday to complete his testimony, submitting to the final hour of what was a grueling cross-examination.
The strongest emotions yesterday came from a different witness: the accuser's wife, who broke down while recounting her husband's behavior in February 2002, when he allegedly began remembering years of abuse by Shanley at St. Jean Parish in Newton.
Asked to recall the first night of a visit home from her husband, who was then her fiancé and was stationed by the Air Force in Colorado, the 23-year-old woman began to cry. She clutched a tissue and, in a near whisper, said, ''I'm so sorry."
Superior Court Judge Stephen E. Neel asked her to stop and sent the jury from the room, the second day in a row the judge halted proceedings so a witness could regain composure. When court resumed, she continued her testimony, still sobbing softly.
''He had soaked the sheets with sweat," she said. ''He got on the floor, curled up in a ball. He shook."
CAMBRIDGE (MA)
Boston Herald
By Marie Szaniszlo
Saturday, January 29, 2005
A day after he begged a judge not to make him return to court, the man accusing defrocked priest Paul Shanley of raping him as a child finished testifying yesterday, but defense lawyers are preparing to challenge his claim that he recovered memories of the alleged abuse nearly 20 years after he says it occurred.
Next week, the defense will call Elizabeth Loftus, a University of California at Irvine psychologist frequently paid to testify as an expert about what she has called the ``myth'' of repressed memory.
The alleged victim, a 27-year-old firefighter and former military police officer, claims Shanley repeatedly molested him between the ages of 6 and 12 while he was a Sunday school student at St. Jean's parish in Newton, but says he buried any memory of the abuse until he began having flashbacks in 2002.
The Herald is not naming the man because he is an alleged sexual assault victim.
His wife testified yesterday about his behavior after recovering memories of the alleged abuse.``He woke up. He was very agitated and restless. He had soaked the sheets with sweat,'' she said, her voice breaking as Shanley, 74, sat impassively, his hand to his chin. ``He got on the floor and curled up in a ball and shook. I tried to hold him, but he wouldn't let me.''
The testimony was some of the most dramatic to date in a case that appeared to be headed for a mistrial Thursday after the alleged victim pleaded with Middlesex Superior Court Judge Stephen Neel to spare him from a third day of questioning.
MANATEE (FL)
Bradenton Herald
MANATEE - 'notoriety,' resigns job
Haile Middle School Assistant Principal Joseph Gilpin resigned Friday, just two days after allegations resurfaced that he molested two young boys while he was a Catholic seminarian more than 30 years ago.
"After some thought and prayer, I think it best that I terminate my employment with the Manatee County school district," Gilpin wrote in his resignation letter, addressed to Manatee County School Superintendent Roger Dearing.
Dearing accepted the resignation, but indicated the district still plans to learn more about Gilpin's past.
"That closes one chapter and opens another," Dearing said. "I believe it's incumbent upon us as a school district to make sure nothing untoward has happened here in this school district.
"The main thing is to make sure current and former students were protected when under his charge."
In reviewing school district and law enforcement records in Manatee, The Herald found at least three instances where Gilpin had been accused of inappropriate contact with students during a career that spanned more than 30 years.
CAMBRIDGE (MA)
Kentucky.com
DENISE LAVOIE
Associated Press
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - The wife of the man who has accused defrocked priest Paul Shanley of raping him as a child testified Friday that he had night sweats and curled up in the fetal position on the floor after recovering memories of the alleged abuse.
The woman took the witness stand shortly after her husband finished more than 10 hours of testimony over three days, much of it under grueling and graphic cross-examination by Shanley's attorney.
The man returned to the stand Friday morning despite begging the judge a day earlier to spare him further questioning. That had raised the possibility the case would collapse, since he is the lone accuser in the case against the 74-year-old former priest, one of the central figures in the Boston Archdiocese's clergy sex abuse scandal. Three other Shanley accusers were dropped from the case earlier by prosecutors.
Before the jury entered the courtroom, Shanley attorney Frank Mondano asked Judge Stephen Neel to declare a mistrial, contending the man's emotional outbursts during his testimony would taint jurors and prejudice them against his client. Neel rejected the request.
The accuser, now a 27-year-old firefighter, says Shanley raped and molested him at a Newton parish, beginning when he was 6. He says he didn't remember the abuse until early 2002, when he heard a friend's account of being abused as a boy by Shanley.
CAMBRIDGE (MA)
Lexington Herald-Leader
By Pam Belluck
NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - A day after he says he recovered memories that he was abused by a priest, a 27-year-old man was talking to a lawyer about pursuing a lawsuit against the Roman Catholic Church, according to testimony and documents presented yesterday in the criminal trial of the now-defrocked priest.
The testimony was brought out in the trial of Paul R. Shanley, who became a lightning rod in the clergy sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church that broke in Boston in early 2002. Shanley is accused of molesting the man when he was 6 to 12 years old by pulling him out of Christian doctrine classes at St. Jean's Parish in Newton and raping him.
Shanley's lawyer, Frank Mondano, contends that the accuser concocted his accusations to join a lawsuit with three other men against the Archdiocese of Boston. Last year, the archdiocese paid the accuser, now a suburban Boston firefighter, $500,000 to settle the case. Since then, prosecutors have dropped the other three men from the criminal case, pursuing only the 27-year-old accuser's allegations.
Yesterday, the jury heard testimony from a psychologist who examined the accuser on Feb. 12, 2002, when he was an Air Force policeman in Colorado.
LOS ANGELES (CA)
Monterey Herald
LOS ANGELES (AP) - An appeals court Friday at least temporarily delayed a lower court's decision that the Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles must give prosecutors its records about the counseling of priests accused of sexual abuse.
The 2nd District Court of Appeal halted the release of the records after archdiocese attorneys asked the panel to resolve two judges' opinions on the matter -- including one decision that would have required the archdiocese to give the records to Los Angeles County prosecutors on Friday. The defense motion was filed Tuesday.
In February 2003, a Ventura County Superior Court judge agreed that some documents in the personnel files of priests should remain confidential.
But Judge Thomas F. Nuss, a retired judge serving as a referee in the case, ordered the archdiocese in September 2004 to turn over certain records to prosecutors as part of a Los Angeles County grand jury investigation.
He said the church could withhold documents involving discussions between therapists and patients.
Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office, said the ruling was disappointing.
ST. LOUIS (MO)
Post-Dispatch
By Tim Townsend
Of the Post-Dispatch
Friday, Jan. 28 2005
Three St. Louis priests have been laicized, or defrocked, by the Vatican,
according to a statement by the archdiocese.
Archbishop Raymond Burke asked the Vatican to return Michael McGrath, Donald
Straub and Robert Yim to "the lay state," according to the statement, because
"all three had credible allegations of sexual abuse of a minor against them."
David Clohessy, director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests,
said the acknowledgement by the church would be helpful for the priests’
victims.
"I hope it provides a bit of comfort for dozens of people who those predators
have hurt," he said.
VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Service
By John Thavis
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Two years after adopting special norms for dealing with priestly sex abusers, U.S. bishops and Vatican officials are sitting down in early February to review how the new policies have worked and to consider possible revisions.
Vatican officials described the meeting as a simple consultation. They said the talks were expected to be positive, reflecting progress made since the first major U.S.-Vatican meetings on sex abuse in 2002.
"The climate has matured. The norms have been in place for two years, and a lot of cases have been handled. On all sides, there is recognition that much has been accomplished," said one Vatican official.
The "Essential Norms" laid out a strict policy on priestly sex abuse, providing for removal from ministry or laicization of priests who have sexually abused minors. The Vatican approved the norms on an experimental basis for a two-year period beginning in March 2003; new Vatican approval, called a "recognitio," would presumably have to be given again this year, whether or not revisions are made.
Some Vatican sources said they do not expect major changes to the norms. They pointed to improved coordination on sex abuse cases over the last two years between U.S. bishops and the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which was given special competence over such offenses.
ARIZONA
KPHO
(CBS 5 News) - The cofounders of a Roman Catholic church ministry in the Valley are accused of covering up a molestation.
Dale Fushek and Phil Baniewicz were creators of the Life-Teen Program. It's the largest catholic youth organization in the nation.
Now a lawsuit claims Fushek watched as a teenage parishioner was sodomized by another priest in 1985. It also claims the program at St. Timothy's church in Mesa fosters inappropriate sexual behavior.
A spokeswoman for Life Teen denies the claims.
Star Tribune
Jeff Strickler
January 30, 2005
A pedophile reentering society after 12 years in prison moves into a quiet, family-oriented neighborhood. A man sexually abused by a priest when he was a child sets out for revenge. A despondent crippled man tries to kill himself.
Events from the daily news reports? They could be, but in this case they're all plots from movies.
Filmmakers are increasingly turning to real-life situations for their stories, and, in the process, they are setting off a complex and sometimes bitter debate over the appropriateness of their movies.
On one hand, they are applauded for tackling difficult issues with real-world implications. At the same time, they open themselves to criticism that they're making money off someone else's misery.
CAMBRIDGE (MA)
San Francisco Chronicle
DENISE LAVOIE, Associated Press Writer
Friday, January 28, 2005
(01-28) 15:21 PST CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) --
The wife of the man who has accused defrocked priest Paul Shanley of raping him as a child testified Friday that he had night sweats and curled up in the fetal position on the floor after recovering memories of the alleged abuse.
The woman took the witness stand shortly after her husband finished more than 10 hours of testimony over three days, much of it under grueling and graphic cross-examination by Shanley's attorney.
The man returned to the stand Friday morning despite begging the judge a day earlier to spare him further questioning. That had raised the possibility the case would collapse, since he is the lone accuser in the case against the 74-year-old former priest, one of the central figures in the Boston Archdiocese's clergy sex abuse scandal. Three other Shanley accusers were dropped from the case earlier by prosecutors.
Before the jury entered the courtroom, Shanley attorney Frank Mondano asked Judge Stephen Neel to declare a mistrial, contending the man's emotional outbursts during his testimony would taint jurors and prejudice them against his client. Neel rejected the request.
ARIZONA
The Arizona Republic
Jim Walsh
The Arizona Republic
Jan. 28, 2005 05:30 PM
Supporters of a priest gasped Friday as a Maricopa County Superior Court judge sentenced Father Karl LeClaire to a year in jail for sexually abusing a former parishioner.
Judge Sherry Stephens imposed the maximum sentence possible under LeClaire's plea agreement over the objections of supporters who jammed a small Mesa courtroom and pleaded for leniency. LeClaire must serve the entire sentence without opportunity for early release.
Anthony Chacon, 24, said he was disappointed in the sentence, which also requires LeClaire, 48, to register as a sex offender. The former pastor of Queen of Peace Catholic Church also was placed on three years probation. advertisement
"He's a great friend. There's no doubt in my mind this didn't occur," Chacon said.
But Joe Baca of Chandler, a member of SNAP, the Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests, said LeClaire's supporters are in denial.
ST. LOUIS (MO)
The Kansas City Star
JIM SUHR
Associated Press
ST. LOUIS - Three priests accused of sexual abuse years ago have been defrocked, including one blamed in the alleged suicide of an ex-Marine he was said to have molested in youth, St. Louis' archbishop announced Friday "with deepest regrets to all who have been harmed."
Archbishop Raymond Burke said he launched the proceedings - what the Roman Catholic church calls laicization - last year against Michael McGrath, Donald "Father Duck" Straub and Robert Yim in light of "credible allegations of sexual abuse of a minor against them."
Burke said he took the often-lengthy action "for the welfare of all children and for the welfare of the Church," and after careful examination of each allegation, the archdiocese said in a statement.
All three men, who each served in several St. Louis-area parishes, have been notified they have been "dismissed from the clerical state."
CAMBRIDGE (MA)
MSNBC
The Associated Press
Updated: 1:08 p.m. ET Jan. 28, 2005
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - The man accusing defrocked priest Paul Shanley of sexually abusing him as a child finished his testimony Friday after the judge refused to spare him from a third day of questioning.
The man adamantly stood by his claims of abuse before stepping down from the stand after 10 hours of testimony, much of it under grueling cross-examination by Shanley’s attorney, Frank Mondano.
Late Thursday, with the jury out of the room, the man told the judge that he could not bear to continue answering Mondano’s intense and sometimes graphic questions. But the man returned Friday to resume his testimony.
His breakdown raised the specter that the case would collapse, because he is the lone remaining accuser in the case against Shanley, 74, one of the central figures in the Boston archdiocese’s clergy sex-abuse scandal. Three other accusers were dropped from the case by prosecutors.
Friday, before the jury entered the courtroom, Mondano asked Judge Stephen Neel to declare a mistrial, contending that the man’s emotional outbursts during his testimony would taint jurors and prejudice them against his client. Neel rejected the request.
CAMBRIDGE (MA)
Reuters
by Greg Frost
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (Reuters) - A Massachusetts judge refused to declare a mistrial on Friday in the child rape trial of defrocked priest Paul Shanley, saying he would instruct jurors to disregard an accuser's emotional outburst.
After intense cross-examination on Thursday that left the accuser sobbing, Shanley's defense attorney Frank Mondano asked Superior Court Judge Stephen Neel to declare a mistrial on the grounds that the outpouring of emotion would compromise the jury's impartiality.
But Neel rejected the motion, saying such outbursts are "unavoidable" in cases like this and "rarely" the basis for declaring a mistrial.
Neel said he would instruct jurors to disregard the accuser's emotions during their deliberations.
Prosecutor Lynn Rooney said she was outraged by Mondano's request, suggesting that his tough line of questioning on Thursday contributed to the accuser's breakdown on the witness stand.
MANATEE (FL)
Herald Tribune
By CORY SCHOUTEN and TIFFANY LANKES
cory.schouten@heraldtribune.com
tiffany.lankes@heraldtribune.com
MANATEE COUNTY -- As a young man, Joseph Gilpin was torn between the priesthood and a career in teaching. He spent eight years in seminary in the North before seeking a new start in Florida.
He found it. He spent more than 30 years in the Manatee schools developing a reputation as a hard-working educator who had a good rapport with students.
But remnants of his past have returned, and now Gilpin has been suspended from his job and is facing a crisis that threatens his career and reputation.
Details of a lawsuit settled in 2004 portray Gilpin as a man who took advantage of his position as a spiritual leader. Gilpin is accused of raping and molesting a young boy in the late 1960s while Gilpin was studying to be a priest. Another man who says Gilpin molested him from 1968 to 1970 recently brought forth his allegations, and a Catholic church official in Maine says they seem credible.
IRELAND
One in Four
Patsy McGarry, Religious Affairs Correspondent - Irish Times
A final policy document on child protection for the Catholic Church in Ireland was agreed at a meeting in Maynooth yesterday. The Church's Working Group on Child Protection arrived at the decision in what became its final meeting.
The working group disbanded last September after a row with church representatives over whether professionals or church leaders should decide how sex-abuse complaints were handled. It is understood church representatives felt such control should rest with church leaders. It is now clear that the handling of complaints will rest with relevant child protection specialists in each area.
Ms Maureen Lynott, chairwoman of the working group, indicated then she would remain available to meet the steering group, which represented the church bodies involved, should they develop a resolution to the differences.
Yesterday, Ms Lynott said members of the group had "unanimously" endorsed the Our Children Our Church policy document on child protection, and were satisfied that it was "a significant advancement in child protection and that all outstanding issues have now been resolved".
SOUTHINGTON (CT)
Record-Journal
By Caroline D. Porter, Record-Journal Staff
SOUTHINGTON — James J. McCoy, a former youth pastor at Central Baptist Church and basketball coach at Central Christian Academy, has pleaded no contest to reduced sexual assault charges in a 2003 case.
In July 2003, McCoy, then 29, of 142 Armour Place, Murfreesboro, Tenn., turned himself in on a warrant for second-degree sexual assault, after a woman who had been on his team accused him of having had a sexual relationship with her between November 1998 and December 2000. The relationship allegedly started when the woman was 17.
Sources say he made a public confession of the improper relationship in the spring of 2001, and was asked to leave his post. The church doesn't deny that McCoy had a relationship with the victim, and says it handled the matter appropriately.
The church operates the school on its property at 1505 West St.
In late July 2003, McCoy pleaded not guilty to the charge in Bristol Superior Court.
BRISTOL (CT)
The Day
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published on 1/28/2005
Bristol (AP) — A former youth pastor and basketball coach at Central Christian Academy in Southington has pleaded no contest to charges of sexually assaulting a teenage student.
James J. McCoy, 31, could get up to two years in prison and three years of probation when he is sentenced in March in Superior Court.
McCoy was originally charged July 1, 2003, with second-degree sexual assault. But that charge was downgraded to two counts of fourth-degree sexual assault before McCoy entered his plea on Monday.
The victim, in a civil lawsuit, has accused McCoy of repeatedly sexually abusing and assaulting her over a period of six months in the late 1990s. She was 17 at the time, according to the civil suit.
CAMBRIDGE (MA)
Boston Herald
By Marie Szaniszlo
Friday, January 28, 2005
After a second day of intense cross-examination, the only alleged victim to force defrocked priest Paul Shanley to face child-rape charges to date begged a judge yesterday not to compel him to continue testifying.
``Please don't make me,'' the accuser, now a 27-year-old firefighter, said to Middlesex Superior Court Judge Stephen Neel. ``I can't start over again.''
In a statement released shortly afterward, the Middlesex District Attorney's Office said the man would take the stand again today. If he does not, the defense could request a mistrial, a potential death blow to a case that began with four accusers and now hinges on one.
All four men alleged that Shanley, now 74, raped them in the 1980s, when they took Sunday school classes at St. Jean's parish in Newton. In July, charges brought by two of the men were dropped, and last week, prosecutors dropped charges involving a third, who vomited after a grueling hearing last October and never contacted them again.
Yesterday, Shanley's sole remaining accuser was at turns defiant and distraught as defense attorney Frank Mondano hammered away at his memory and motives.
SWAMPSCOTT (MA)
Boston Globe
By David Abel, Globe Staff | January 28, 2005
A 55-year-old Swampscott priest was being sought yesterday for allegedly asking a 12-year-old girl and her mother to perform a sex act, authorities said.
The Rev. Jerome Gillespie, a Roman Catholic priest assigned to St. John the Evangelist Church, is wanted on charges of child enticement, annoying and accosting a person of the opposite sex, and offering money for sex, said David Procopio, a spokesman for the Suffolk district attorney's office.
Gillespie, a priest in the Archdiocese of Boston since 1982, did not return messages left last night at his church's rectory. An archdiocesan spokeswoman said church officials learned about the allegations last night.
''We're aware the police in Chelsea are investigating an incident involving Father Gillespie," said Ann Carter. ''The archdiocese is in the process of obtaining additional information about the investigation, and until that takes place, we cannot comment any further."
Gillespie allegedly propositioned the girl and her mother Tuesday night at Floramos Fifth Ave. Restaurant Lounge, an Italian eatery in Chelsea, said Procopio. He would not reveal what the priest is accused of saying.
BRIDGEPORT (CT)
Connecticut Post
By DANIEL TEPFER dtepfer@ctpost.com
BRIDGEPORT — A former seminary student was convicted Thursday of molesting a 16-year-old girl.
Leonardo Montoya, 30, showed no emotion as the six-person Superior Court jury found him guilty of fourth-degree sexual assault following 90 minutes of deliberations.
Montoya, dismissed from the seminary by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport just before his arrest, faces up to a year in prison when he is sentenced March 31 by Judge Heidi Winslow.
Assistant State's Attorney Pamela Esposito said the jury arrived at the appropriate verdict.
"I admire the young woman for her bravery," Esposito said. "This is not something that she should have gone through or wanted to relive, but she did and I hope she can get on with her life."
BRIDGEPORT (CT)
Boston.com
January 28, 2005
BRIDGEPORT, Conn. -- A Superior Court jury has convicted a former seminary student of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl.
Leonardo Montoya, 30, was found guilty of fourth-degree sexual assault following 90 minutes of deliberations Thursday.
Montoya, dismissed from the seminary by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport just before his arrest, faces up to a year in prison when he is sentenced March 31.
Montoya, formerly assigned to St. Augustine Cathedral and churches in Trumbull and Norwalk, is accused of molesting the girl while he was visiting her Bridgeport home on Nov. 30, 2003.
The girl's family met Montoya while he was working at St. Augustine and befriended him after he helped them with arrangements for a baptism.
CAMBRIDGE (MA)
Telegram & Gazette
By DENISE LAVOIE
Associated Press Writer
CAMBRIDGE, Mass.— A man accusing defrocked priest Paul Shanley of sexually abusing him as a child returned to court Friday despite pleas from him the day before that he couldn't endure another day of questioning.
On Thursday, with the jury out of the room, the man told the judge he couldn't bear continuing to testify. He'd been through two days of intense and sometimes graphic questioning by Shanley's attorney, Frank Mondano.
"I can't do this again," the accuser said in court. "I can't start over again. Every time I come back I have to start over. It's been three years."
After learning he would face a third day of questioning by Mondano, the man later asked the judge: "Can I ask a request of you? Please don't make me."
But he returned Friday to resume his testimony. Still, Mondano asked the judge to declare a mistrial, contending the man's emotional outbursts during his testimony would taint the jury and prejudice them against his client. Superior Court Stephen Neel rejected the request.
PEORIA (IL)
Journal Star
Friday, January 28, 2005
PEORIA - The Catholic Diocese of Peoria is in "full compliance" with the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, according to the results of a recent audit.
That means, spokeswomen Elizabeth Smarjesse said, that the diocese is meeting the standards set by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to protect minors from sexual abuse.
As a result, the diocese won't have to undergo an outside audit in 2005, although it still must conduct a self-audit to document compliance with the charter.
Among other policies, the diocese is required to mandate all employees and volunteers who come in contact with minors take part in safe-environment training, fingerprinting and background checks. It also must provide a reporting process for misconduct and procedures on handling complaints.
BRITAIN
ic Croyden
Jan 28 2005
HER voice is quiet and gentle on the other end of the line, it sounds like she has been crying.
She begins by saying that she does not want to speak for long. But, once she starts, there is a lot to say.
Last week, this brave woman heard the news that her priest, Somanathan Ramanathan, the aya of the Hindu Temple in Thornton Heath, had been found guilty of raping her twice.
It is the result she has been praying for since she first went to the police. But, now, excluded from her community for daring to speak out, she faces rebuilding her life on her own.
She said: "I feel like I have been in prison for two years. Now I'm free, but not free to go where I belong, which is with my community. I have been totally betrayed by my own people. Now that he has been found guilty, they feel sorry for him.
"They look at me like I was a slut. But, the community make it so that we are the guilty party. We are made to feel that we should shut up about it.
ALASKA
Fairbanks News-Miner
By CHRIS TALBOTT
Staff Writer
An attorney representing the Rev. James Poole denied Thursday some of the statements attributed to his client during a hearing in Bethel Superior Court a day earlier.
While Timothy Lynch confirmed in a written statement that his client admitted French-kissing Jane Doe 1 as a child, he denied several other claims made by attorney Ken Roosa, including that the former Catholic priest molested another child and that he was expelled from Alaska for a year because of other abuse allegations.
"Attorney Roosa has made outright misstatements and has mischaracterized testimony," Lynch wrote.
Roosa told the court Wednesday during oral arguments on the defense's proposed protective order that Poole admitted to several allegations made against him. Roosa used the admissions to illustrate his point that some of the documents defense attorneys would have protected from public scrutiny don't merit protection.
Among other things, Roosa said Poole admitted to French-kissing Jane Doe 1 on hundreds of occasions, molesting a 6-year-old girl and being sent away from Alaska because of abuse allegations years before Jane Doe 1 claimed she was abused by Poole, who is now 81 and living in Spokane, Wash.
Poole attorney Madelon Blum declined to address Roosa's statements Wednesday during arguments over the gag order and was traveling afterwards. In his e-mail, Lynch objected to several statements by Roosa, including that Poole admitted that he committed every act Jane Doe 1 alleged in the March 2003 civil complaint she filed against Poole; the Catholic Bishop of Northern Alaska; the Society of Jesuits, Oregon Province; and the Society of Jesuits, Alaska.
AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald
Jan. 29, 2005
NSW police and the DPP are using laws repealed two decades ago to prosecute homosexuals. David Marr reports.
A two men swam at Cronulla on a hot night 23 years ago, one fondled the other in the dark. They were not youngsters. One was a skinny teacher of 29 and the other a priest in his early 40s. The teacher had an erection but dived under the water and swam away. After this brief encounter in the pool, they drove back to the presbytery together and had sex.
What they did that night in January 1982 was criminal. The law in NSW was about to change after a long and acrimonious campaign for reform, but when these men had their one-night stand in the presbytery of St Catherine Laboure Church at Gymea, each was committing an "indecent assault" that might land them in jail for five years. Consent was no defence.
The police came for Father Terry Goodall at his Penshurst parish in September 2003 and arrested him - under the old law - for having sex with the teacher all those years ago. Judge Philip Bell, of the NSW District Court, remarked that on the facts before him, "you'd never get a conviction if you ran this trial today", but under the old law Goodall had no choice but to plead guilty. Having sex with a man was enough to convict him. He was sentenced last week.
ARIZONA
East Valley Tribune
By Kristina Davis, Tribune
A Valley man who says he’s retrieved repressed memories of sexual abuse by Mesa priests and a youth minister filed a lawsuit Thursday filled with sweeping accusations against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix.
The complaint, filed by victim William J. Cesolini in Maricopa County Superior Court, named the diocese; St. Timothy Catholic Community in Mesa; Life Teen; Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted, leader of the Phoenix diocese; Bishop Thomas J. O’Brien, former leader of the Phoenix diocese; two priests; and a youth leader.
The suit says Monsignor Dale Fushek, pastor of St. Timothy and arguably one of the diocese’s most popular priests, masturbated while watching another priest sexually abuse a 14-year-old Cesolini in 1985.
"He knew of the sexual abuse . . . and did nothing to stop or prevent it; nor did Fushek report the sexual abuse to authorities," the lawsuit stated.
Fushek also is accused of giving the teen alcohol.
Attorney Frank Verderame notified church officials Dec. 22 that a former parishioner claimed to have recovered repressed memories of molestation by the Rev. Mark Lehman, who served 10 years in prison for molesting students in the late 1980s at St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic School in Phoenix.
GREEN BAY (WI)
News-Chronicle
By Anna Krejci
News-Chronicle
A priest accused of sexually assaulting a boy in a Green Bay Catholic school pleaded not guilty to two counts of first-degree sexual assault of a child in Brown County Circuit Court on Thursday.
Donald Buzanowski, accused of sexually assaulting a 10-year-old boy he was counseling at Ss. Peter and Paul School, 1420 Harvey St. in Green Bay, in 1988 appeared in court beside his lawyer Owen Monfils.
The defendant and his lawyer requested a signature bond or that the cash bond be reduced from $100,000 to $1,000. The motion was denied by Brown County Circuit Court Judge J.D. McKay. In argument for a reduced cash bond, Buzanowski's lawyer filed a motion Jan. 18.
The motion states that Buzanowski can safely be released into the community and cited a Jan. 14 letter in which a psychologist studied Buzanowski's history in treatment programs while incarcerated for possessing child pornography. Buzanowski was convicted on a federal child pornography possession charge in 2000. The psychologist concluded that Buzanowski's treatment left him at a pretreatment risk level allowable for placement in the community with formal supervision. The motion also stated if Buzanowski were released, a federal probation officer's supervision over him would resume.
CONCORD (CA)
San Francisco Chronicle
Katherine Seligman, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, January 28, 2005
Soon after they met as freshmen at De La Salle High School in Concord, Chris Barbour and Will Lopes became the kind of friends who expected to know each other forever.
Barbour was a driven student who dreamed of being a pilot. Lopes was the homecoming king and the starting quarterback on the football team. The two former altar boys were popular, good-looking, well-liked by teachers.
But the two shared something else -- something that would derail their friendship and their lives, and, ultimately, embarrass the Roman Catholic order whose San Francisco district runs the prestigious school and at least 15 others in the region.
In 1980, both boys went to see a counselor they called Brother Joe, a member of the Christian Brothers order who sexually abused them, according to interviews, lawsuits and government documents.
What they didn't know was that Brother Joseph Jesse Gutierrez had been transferred by the Christian Brothers to Concord from Berkeley, where he'd had relationships with students that had "sexual overtones." That much was made public last month after the Christian Brothers paid Barbour $4 million -- one of the largest payments so far in the nationwide surge of lawsuits against the Catholic Church -- to settle a lawsuit.
OHIO
WBNS
A Licking County pastor is accused of having sex with underage girls he ministered. And investigators believe with his access to teens, other victims may exist if the claims are legitimate.
Lonny Alshire, Jr., age 34, is being held in the Licking County jail with bail set at $250,000.
Sheriff investigators say Alshire, an associate pastor at Licking Baptist Church of Hebron, sexually assaulted at least two teenage girls inside the church.
"People like this always place themselves close to children,” Capt. Rod Mitchell of the Licking County Sheriff’s Department said.
For 12 years, Alshire worked closely with teens at the church. He was arrested at his Hebron home after an accuser told a school resource officer that she had engaged in sex with Alshire at the church.
Authorities say the investigation then led to a second victim.
MISSOURI
The Kansas City Star
By CHRISTINE VENDEL The Kansas City Star
Jackson County prosecutors on Thursday accused a Sunday school teacher of having a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old girl who attended his Kansas City church class.
Darren C. Hall, 36, of Kansas City, was charged with one count of statutory rape and three counts of statutory sodomy. He was in jail Thursday in lieu of $75,000 bond.
Prosecutors allege he began a sexual relationship with the girl last February when she was 15. Hall, who is married, has known her since she was 11.
They met at Friendship Baptist Church, 3530 Chelsea Ave., where Hall taught Sunday school, court records said. He also helped schedule recreational activities for the church, according to police.
A woman who answered the church's phone Thursday said the pastor was out of the city and could not be reached. She said no one else was available to comment.
The alleged relationship came to light a few days before Christmas when someone called the Missouri Children's Division. The caller said the girl's grandmother, who is her legal guardian, knew about the relationship.
SOUTH AFRICA
Daily News
January 28, 2005
By Barbara Cole
A Shembe Church pastor who allegedly lured young boys to his flat on the pretext of watching a Mr Bean movie, then sexually abused them, is being hunted by the police.
And the horrified, "disgusted and very angry" parents of five Durban boys, aged between 9-12, said yesterday they would not rest until the man, who is in his 50s, is caught.
Now, the traumatised victims and their distraught parents are undergoing counselling at the Oasis Crisis Care Centre in the city's Albany Grove.
The alleged abuse was carried out over the past three weeks, said Oasis founder and director, Merle Martin.
Fighting back tears, one victim's mother said: "This man was well known and respected in the church. My son trusted him."
The pastor, who works at a block of flats on Durban's Victoria Embankment - he did not report for duty yesterday - is said to be "the last person you would expect this sort of