GREECE
Kathimerini
The head of the Church of Greece yesterday gave his boldest indication yet that he has no intention of stepping down over the spate of scandals in which the institution has been caught up, while calling on worshippers to show their support in the face of outside threats.
«If those that are attacking me think I will resign or that I will stop talking, they are deeply misguided,» said Archbishop Christodoulos during a service at a church in the Athens suburb of Kallithea. Christodoulos was the subject of isolated opposition within the Church over the last 10 days, especially in the wake of allegations linking him to fugitive drug-smuggler Apostolos Vavilis and jailed Archimandrite Iakovos Yiossakis.
He also claimed that some people were annoyed by the fact that Greeks were the most religious people in Europe and that those interested in seeing globalization advance were responsible for the scandal-mongering the Greek Orthodox Church has been suffering for over a month. Christodoulos called on the faithful not to abandon the Church.
His comments were echoed by Irenaios, patriarch of Jerusalem. «These days the gates of hell have opened and the darkness of lies, defamation and war against the mother of churches has emerged,» he said yesterday. «Demons are circling the walls of the holy city and trying to crush those who support the Jerusalem patriarchate and the brotherhood of the Holy Land,» added Irenaios.
GREECE
Macedonian News Agency
Archbishop Christodoulos of Athens and All Greece will have meetings with the Metropolites of Piraeus, Dimitriados, Kalavriton, Thevon, Nafpaktou, Thessalonikis and Spartis today in search of solutions that will take the Greek Orthodox Church out of the crisis.
Metropolite Theoklitos of Thessaliotida will tender his resignation to the Holy Synod tomorrow assuming the responsibility for the proposal he had made to the Archbishop to use Giosakis, while faithful from Karditsa are getting ready to hold a rally in his support outside the Petraki Monastery.
In an interview with the Athens daily “TA NEA”, Metropolite Theoklitos alleges that the ecclesiastical organization of Chrisopigi was at war with him for 20 years and certain clerics had even involved the state secret service in the effort to find incriminating evidence against him.
TOLEDO (OH)
WTOL
TOLEDO -- A Roman Catholic priest accused of strangling and stabbing a nun in 1980 failed one of two lie detector tests in the days after the killing, according to court documents released Monday. The Rev. Gerald Robinson's failed test indicated he was involved with the nun's death, according to a document filed by investigators. A second polygraph test however indicated that Robinson "passed" the test, but investigators say the results were marginal and inconclusive.
Robinson's attorney, Alan Konop, would only say that lie detector tests mentioned in the search warrants were "not a true representation of what happened." He did note that Robinson passed a second polygraph test, clouding the results of the first. Neither test is admissable in court.
The reports of the lie detectors tests came in a series of search warrants which were opened today and given to the news media by the courts. The opened warrants also indicate that Toledo Police investigators tried to months to obtain so called "secret archive" files from the Diocese and finally in September of 2004, they obtained search warrants to look for those alleged files at the Catholic offices in downtown Toledo.
The Diocese of Toledo issued a statement late this afternoon disputing the existence of a "secret archive." The statement of Leonard Bishop Blair says the Diocese of Toledo has never maintained such an archive and there is nothing more for the church to turn over to police regarding the investigation of Father Gerald Robinson. They say all confidential information collected by the church is now in the hands of the prosecutor and police.
ST. LOUIS (MO)
Duluth News Tribune
JIM SALTER
Associated Press
ST. LOUIS - A retired priest previously convicted of sexual misconduct in Wisconsin will go to prison for at least five years after pleading guilty to child pornography charges, federal officials said Monday.
David Malsch, 66, was convicted of child enticement in 1993. In 2001, Malsch was sent to the Wounded Brothers Recon Facility, a home for troubled priests in the eastern Missouri town of Robertsville.
In 2003, federal authorities searched Malsch's room there and found 28 photos of child porn. U.S. Attorney James Martin said Malsch also had forwarded some of the pictures to a Pennsylvania pen pal.
Malsch pleaded guilty Monday to one felony count of receipt of child pornography. Under the PROTECT Act, adopted two years ago to strengthen the government's ability to investigate and punish violent crimes against children, he will go to prison for at least five years and up to 20 years.
WESTFIELD (MA)
Republican
Sunday, February 27, 2005
By BILL ZAJAC
wzajac@repub.com
Two houses away from the school bus stop at Belleview Drive and Montgomery Road in Westfield, the Rev. Edward O. Paquette Jr. lives in a small, ranch-style home with his dog.
To his neighbors, Paquette is a friendly man who keeps to himself. Many neighbors only see him when he walks his black Labrador in the morning.
But to a prosecutor, a retired police officer and dozens of former parishioners in three states, he's the priest who broke a sacred trust and escaped criminal prosecution for alleged sexual assaults on young boys.
Paquette, 77, was removed from ministry in 1963 after allegations arose in the Fall River diocese that he sexually molested boys. But the Catholic priest went on to serve in Indiana and Vermont before his permanent removal from ministry in 1978.
The Vermont bishop who removed him from ministry for the final time - the late John A. Marshall - would later become bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield amid a clergy abuse scandal here.
NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News
A letter explaining the decision to scrap a controversial levy on church collections has been read out at masses in the Derry diocese on Sunday.
Bishop of Derry Dr Seamus Hegarty's letter apologised for not telling parishioners that a 3% levy was going towards a fund for victims of clerical sex abuse.
The revelations were made in BBC NI's Spotlight programme on Tuesday.
The letter told parishioners they had a right to know where their money went.
The bishop has accepted a recommendation from the priests of the diocese that the levy should be abolished.
AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald
The woman at the centre of sexual abuse allegations which helped push former governor-general Peter Hollingworth from office has identified herself publicly for the first time.
Dr Hollingworth, on ABC television's Australian Story program in 2002, appeared to condone a relationship between a priest and a 15-year-old girl.
But the priest involved in the scandal, retired bishop Donald Shearman, 78, was last year stripped of his holy orders over the matter, which dated back to the mid-1950s.
Beth Heinrich, who was a boarder at an Anglican hostel at Forbes in western NSW at the time, has told Australian Story the priest promised her a future with him.
"Whenever his wife was away, padre used to get me to lie naked on their bed with him or else in front of the fire in their lounge room," she said, in an extract aired on AM this morning.
"He got me to read a book called Love in Marriage, which was about sexual techniques and he said: 'This is the way it should be. This is what God wants it to be'."
TOLEDO (OH)
WTOL
TOLEDO -- A northwest Ohio legislator is doing what she can to help victims of sexual abuse and a national victim's rights group is cheering her on. Claudia Vercelotti from Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests wants see a change in Ohio law when it comes to child sexual abuse victims.
"Ohio civil law right now, unfortunately, favors child molesters," said Vercellotti. Her champion is Senator Teresa Fedor. "I believe this is even more important issue than the child labor laws that we addressed 100 years ago," said Fedor.
In 1999 the criminal law was strengthened, so anyone who was 18 years old had 20 years to report sexual abuse. Currently, the civil law only allows two years past age 18.
Here's what Fedor wants to propose: "We want to mirror the criminal law with the statute of limitations for civil law," said Fedor. She says extending it back 20 years would be a benefit because, "It would be justice for the victims and unearth some of these child predators."
TOLEDO (OH)
Toledo Blade
Father Gerald Robinson, accused of strangling and stabbing to death an elderly nun in 1980, “failed” a first of two polygraph tests in the weeks after Sister Margaret Ann Pahl’s body was found, according to documents released this morning.
A second test was administered later, and police said results were inconclusive or “of marginal utility for diagnostic purposes,” according to the documents released today in Lucas County Common Pleas Court.
Asked about the polygraph results, Father Robinson’s attorney, Alan Konop, said only “that’s not true.” He declined to elaborate, citing a gag order on the case.
The papers were among those released after The Blade revealed on Feb. 20 that authorities searched the downtown church offices twice last year. Cold case detectives reopened the 1980 murder case after a woman came forward with several allegations of sexual abuse. Among her abusers, she said, was Father Robinson.
Investigators said they were seeking the church’s “secret files” that were kept under canon law. The files, they said, might provide more information about the long-time cleric and any investigation the church may have conducted into the murder, according to the papers.
WASHINGTON (DC)
Catholic News Service
By Agostino Bono
Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- With child sex abuse prevention programs in place throughout the U.S. church, the next task is to test their effectiveness, said Kathleen McChesney, who spent two years helping dioceses and Eastern-rite eparchies establish the measures.
McChesney, who resigned at the end of February as executive director of the U.S. bishops' Office of Child and Youth Protection, said that child sex abuse can never be totally eliminated in the church or society, but effective, constantly updated programs can dramatically reduce the cases.
The issue before the church now is "developing mechanisms to determine the effectiveness of what has taken place and the quality of what has been put into place," she said in a Feb. 22 interview with Catholic News Service.
McChesney was hired in November 2002 as the first head of the child and youth protection office set up to help dioceses and eparchies apply prevention policies and to monitor their implementation. The office was established by the bishops in their 2002 "Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People," which spelled out their child sex abuse prevention policies.
AUSTRALIA
The Age
By Barney Zwartz
Religion Editor
March 1, 2005
Beth Heinrich hoped for 40 years that she and Donald Shearman could make a go of it. But he continually betrayed her, and eventually their affair brought down a governor-general.
Mr Shearman, now 79, the former bishop of Grafton, was defrocked as an Anglican clergyman last year. Peter Hollingworth was forced to resign as Australia's viceroy after a church investigation in 2002 found that his handling of the case when he was an archbishop was "inappropriate and unfair". The beginning of the end for Dr Hollingworth was an Australian Story documentary on the ABC, in which he suggested the then 15-year-old Beth initiated sex with Mr Shearman, a priest in charge of the Anglican hostel in Forbes, where she boarded.
Last night Ms Heinrich - now in her 60s, and publicly identifying herself for the first time - took centre stage on Australian Story. Her relationship with the charismatic preacher the girls called Padre, and most of them idolised, started when she was 14 in the mid-1950s.
AUSTRALIA
News.com.au
By Greg Roberts
March 01, 2005
THE woman whose claims of child sex abuse led to the downfall of former governor-general Peter Hollingworth is to be offered a six-figure compensation payment by the Anglican Church.
Beth Heinrich, 65, identified herself for the first time last night, appearing on the ABC's Australian Story to reveal details of the abuse.
Mrs Heinrich claimed anonymously in 2002 that Dr Hollingworth - as archbishop of Brisbane - ignored her claims that bishop Donald Shearman, now 78, sexually abused her at a church boarding school in the central-western NSW town of Forbes in the mid-1950s.
Countering the argument at the time, the then governor-general suggested - on the same ABC program - that she had initiated sexual contact as a 14-year-old.
Dr Hollingworth told Australian Story he believed what happened between Bishop Shearman and Mrs Heinrich "was not sex abuse". "Quite the contrary, my information is that it was, rather, the other way around," he said.
TOLEDO (OH)
Toledo Blade
By DAVID YONKE
BLADE RELIGION EDITOR
As a child growing up in Toledo, Tony Comes would sit in the Showcase Cinemas, gaze up at the screen at the larger-than-life actors, and fantasize about someday being an actor.
"I wanted to see my name on the screen," said the 34-year-old Toledo firefighter.
Tony Comes, in a scence from the Oscar-nominated documentary "Twist of Faith," received a $55,000 settlement from the Toledo diocese last year, but he did not want any money for his part in the film.
Tonight, that dream will come true. But it's not the way he imagined.
Though Mr. Comes will don a tuxedo and walk onto a red carpet and down the aisle to sit among the movie elite, his role in an Oscar-nominated film is nothing glamorous.
He is the subject of one of the darkest documentaries ever considered for an Academy Award: sex abuse in the Roman Catholic Church.
ST. LOUIS (MO)
St. Louis Journalism Review
by Don Corrigan
Can a TV newsman, who fancied himself an ace investigator of journalistic truth, suddenly take up a new life as a PR flack for an institution notoriously known for keeping its darkest secrets hidden from public view?
That is the perplexing question-and paradoxical drama-playing out in St. Louis, thanks to the unlikely professional path of Jamie Allman, the unusual protagonist of this Arch City plot.
In describing his career move from press sleuth to pulpit spokesperson, Allman told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, "I feel like I've connected the most important elements of my purpose here on earth." In the new American Century of overblown, faith-based rhetoric, certainly Allman cannot be faulted for engaging in a little religious hyperbole.
Even presidents do that.
Nevertheless, critics of the St. Louis Catholic Archdiocese, Allman's new employer, contend that the former TV newsman could not have connected all the dots before making his decision to report for duty with Archbishop Raymond Burke. They also contend the marriage of Allman to the archdiocese is an odd arrangement made, well, not exactly in heaven. ...
With the Missouri Supreme Court's refusal late last year to prevent prosecution of a Catholic priest accused of sodomizing a youngster 25 years ago, the door may now be opened for decades-old clergy sex abuse lawsuit cases that once faded due to the road block of the statute of limitations.
Indeed, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) has been sending the news media a steady stream of releases about clergy abuse cases and new lawsuits since the first of the year. Some members of SNAP speculate that Allman may have been brought on to try to deal with hundreds of credible clergy abuse complaints that once were held in limbo.
"Embattled bishops often look for a quick fix," said David Clohessy, a local and national leader for SNAP. "It shows a sad, but all-too-typical concern for image-building rather than healing and prevention. Bringing on another mouthpiece rarely leads to reform."
Clohessy made note of Allman's predecessor, Jim Orso, a Fleishman-Hillard public relations professional. Orso was brought on by Rigali two years ago to help the archdiocese navigate the press storm of clergy sex scandals. Orso told the Post he was looking forward to "going out to the real world" as Allman took his post.
MARYLAND
The Courier
UPPER MARLBORO, Md. — The sentencing hearing for Frank Benham of Lincoln has been rescheduled for 9 a.m. Friday after Benham missed a court date Thursday morning.
Benham is to be sentenced on second- and third-degree sex charges dating to the 1970s when he was a priest at Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Forestville, Md.
Benham has entered into a plea agreement with Princes Georges County Assistant State’s Attorney Renee Battle-Brooks, chief of sex and family crimes for the office, in which he admitted to one count of child abuse with a 10-year-old boy and one count of sodomy with a girl, 15.
Through his attorney, Fred Bennett, of Greenbelt Md., Benham was to seek a lesser sentence of probation or home monitoring, according to Ra-mon Korionoff, spokesman for States Attorney Glenn Ivey.
TUCSON (AZ)
Tucson Citizen
SHERYL KORNMAN
Tucson Citizen
Allegations of sexual misconduct years ago by five priests and one deacon employed by the Tucson Diocese were reported to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for its 2004 audit of the nation's dioceses.
The audit's aim is to determine if bishops are complying with a conference charter requiring allegations of sexual misconduct by clergy to be reported to law enforcement.
Members of the audit team were in Tucson from Dec. 6-9 to interview diocese staff and Tucson Diocese Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas.
The nationwide 2004 report of the bishops' compliance with the conference's new codes of conduct was released Feb. 18.
In it, the Diocese of Tucson was found in compliance with requirements to report credible allegations of sexual misconduct by clergy and to train its lay and clergy employees in recognizing and reporting sexual misconduct.
In 2004, the diocese found that allegations of sexual misconduct against five priests who had been employed by the Tucson Diocese were "credible," meaning they were prosecutable - if the priests were alive.
PHILIPPINES
Manila Standard
By Christine F. Herrera
The Washington-based Catholics for a Free Choice has found that because of the policy of secrecy in the Roman Catholic Church, erring men of the cloth are practically untouchable, at least in the Philippines.
Standard has obtained a copy of the 27-page report that details a dozen cases of sexual abuse involving local and foreign priests in the Philippines.
The report recommends that the Holy See and the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines rescind the requirements of “secrecy” on sexual abuse cases involving members of the clergy.
It said the Holy See was “delinquent” in its obligations, and failed to submit a full report on child abuse by clergy and members of religious orders.
The report was submitted last month to the United Nations, the Holy See and the CBCP Convention on the Rights of the Child.
CfFC commissioned two Philippine nongovernment organizations, the Linangan or Likhaan ng mga Kababaihan Inc. and the Child Justice League Inc., to conduct a study for the United Nations on how the laws of the Holy See affect the Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines.
TOLEDO (OH)
Toledo Blade
By ROBIN ERB
BLADE STAFF WRITER
Documents supporting an unprecedented police search of Toledo Catholic Diocese files during the investigation into the 1980 murder of an elderly nun will remain temporarily sealed, despite the approval by the defendant in the case that they be released.
Dressed in his clerical collar, the Rev. Gerald Robinson, who is accused of strangling and stabbing Sister Margaret Ann Pahl, appeared briefly late yesterday before Lucas County Common Pleas Court Judge Thomas Osowik, who was to decide whether The Blade would be allowed access to search warrant affidavits signed by homicide investigators.
In soft-spoken, one-word answers, the 66-year-old priest said he had no objections to the release of the papers.
His appearance came after several hours of behind-closed-door arguments in the judge's chambers among prosecutors, Blade attorney Fritz Byers, and Thomas Pletz, attorney for the diocese.
GREECE
Athens News Agency
Archbishop of Athens and All Greece Christodoulos on Friday emphasized that he will not resign from his post as the powerful head of the Church of Greece, as an ongoing furor over corruption and inappropriate behavior continues to plague a handful of top ecclesiastical leaders, including some of Christodoulos’ closest allies.
Christodoulos made the statement to reporters as he entered the archbishopric in downtown Athens, where he characteristically said the "Archbishop does not resign, he is annihilated."
ALBANY (NY)
Capital News 9
Updated: 2/26/2005 5:05 PM
By: Capital News 9 web staff
Clergy sex abuse has certainly been in the news lately, and often times victims don't have a place to turn for help.
In Albany, the Independent Mediation Assistance Program or IMAP was designed in September by Judge Howard Levine.
Last year, Bishop Howard Hubbard suggested there be a program independent of the Albany Roman Catholic Diocese.
But the spokesperson of the Survivors Network of those abused by Priests is questioning how IMAP is funded. He said the program got $5 million from the Albany diocese.
Bishop Howard Hubbard suggested there be a program independent of the Albany Roman Catholic Diocese, IMAP was then created in September by Judge Howard Levine.
"First of all I think this is a public relations ploy by the diocese in Albany to actually make it look like they are doing something to help survivors," said Mark Furnish, SNAP.
GREECE
Kathimerini
Those who thought that the corruption scandals and shady intrigue bedeviling Greece’s Orthodox Church were just a passing phase have been forced to reconsider. But the latest wave of revelations has swept away any leftover delusions nourished by senior Church clerics as well as by the political class. The embarrassing failure of the Church Hierarchy to shoulder its share of responsibility and kick off a process of self-cleansing has made state action imperative.
The longer ruling officials remain paralyzed before the turmoil, the more the crisis will deepen. The inertia has opened the door to dangerous shady games. The relentless competition between private television channels means that the hidden agenda and ulterior motives of the different sources are not put under scrutiny.
True, the noise generated by the disturbing revelations serves the government’s objectives, for it deflects public attention from everyday problems. As a rule, of course, politicians are keen to steer clear of such ailing phenomena. Even more so when these concern the Church, which, save the political parties, is the most influential institution voter-wise.
NORTHERN IRELAND
U.TV
A Catholic diocese in Northern Ireland is to scrap a controversial levy in support of a fund for clerical sex abuse victims, it has emerged.
Bishop Seamus Hegarty caused outrage over his decision to charge parishioners without many of them knowing.
A three per cent levy had been put on parishes in the diocese of Derry as part of the church`s arrangement to pay for any cases.
Even though Dr Hegarty expressed his sincere regret over the affair, the controversy has raged all week.
Priests held an emergency meeting yesterday without the bishop being invited in a bid to resolve the issue.
NORTHFIELD (NH)
Foster's Daily Democrat
NORTHFIELD, N.H. (AP) — A church employee charged with sexual assault and theft will be returned to the state after a hearing next week, authorities said Friday.
Scott Nash, 46, of Northfield, was arrested Wednesday at Kennedy Airport in New York as he got off a flight from Aruba.
He is charged with molesting three young girls who are members of Trinity Episcopal Church in Tilton and taking more than $5,000 from the church.
According to a spokesman for the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire, Nash had been employed by the church for three years as a part-time adminstrator. Since becoming a member five years ago, he had been elected as senior warden and was one of two youth ministers.
BEAVERTON (OR)
The Oregonian
Saturday, February 26, 2005
HOLLY DANKS
BEAVERTON -- A Sunday school teacher has been accused of sexually abusing a girl he met through his volunteer job with the New Vision Fellowship Church in Beaverton.
Keith Trevor Robinson, 37, was arrested Thursday afternoon at his home on Southwest Hargis Road in Beaverton on one count of first-degree sexual abuse, a Measure 11 crime that carries a mandatory minimum of six years and three months in prison.
Beaverton police said Robinson is accused of touching a girl sexually three or four years ago when she was 6 or 7 and again two or three years ago.
Police also are investigating another complaint involving a younger girl that they say occurred outside the Portland area.
None of the alleged abuse happened on church property or during church events, said Officer Paul Wandell, Beaverton police spokesman. The older girl allegedly was abused at Robinson's house, and police are still investigating which police agency has jurisdiction over the other alleged incident.
Police began investigating in mid-February after both girls told their parents, who contacted authorities.
DALLAS (TX)
The Dallas Morning News
By BROOKS EGERTON / The Dallas Morning News
Catholic peace activists failed to disclose the sexually abusive past of one of their key allies in strife-torn Haiti, a prominent U.S. congresswoman said Friday.
Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., spoke after she had urged the U.S. ambassador in Haiti to safeguard defrocked American priest Ron Voss, who has been detained twice this week for questioning about a massive jailbreak there.
Ms. Waters said she learned only later, from a Dallas Morning News report Friday, that Mr. Voss had admitted abusing many adolescent boys.
"They probably should have told me," she said of Pax Christi USA, which had asked her to write the ambassador. "Certainly this is problematic and unfortunate."
A Pax Christi spokesman said executive director David Robinson also learned about Mr. Voss' past from The News. But some people active with the group's Haiti task force knew earlier.
One of them, William Slavick of Maine, said the failure to inform the congresswoman was "probably an innocent mistake." Task force leaders thought highly of Mr. Voss and did not want to believe reports about his history, he said.
Mr. Voss left his native Indiana to work in Haiti in the 1980s, when his victims began complaining to church officials. He never faced criminal charges.
Mr. Voss later became a leader in the Parish Twinning Program of the Americas, through which hundreds of U.S. congregations have "adopted" needy ones in Haiti. It is based in Nashville, Tenn., where diocesan leaders recently learned about Mr. Voss and pressed the program to cut ties with him.
Mr. Voss also runs Visitation House in Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince. It provides lodging for U.S. missionaries, as well as various services to locals.
NEW HAMPSHIRE
The Keene Sentinel
In 1983, Reverend Gordon MacRae was involved in a child-molestation incident in Hampton. The victim was a 14-year-old boy. Shortly afterward, the Diocese of Manchester assigned MacRae to St. Bernard’s Church in Keene, where he became associate pastor. No one at St. Bernard’s knew about the Hampton matter, but church officials did. They had even notified the N.H. Attorney General’s Office, which decided not to prosecute.
Four years later, MacRae became acting parish administrator at St. Bernard’s, replacing Reverend Steven W. Scruton, who had just been convicted of indecent exposure and was being sent off for what was described as intensive counseling. Unbeknownst to local parishioners, Scruton had been arrested in 1984 after a similar incident in Londonderry, but charges were dropped. When he left Keene, Scruton moved to Dover. But, instead of being counseled, he became a counselor himself — to sex offenders in a Massachusetts prison.
In Keene, MacRae took on a new assignment in addition to his church duties. He was named executive director of Monadnock Region Substance Abuse Inc. That position brought him into contact with troubled children at the Spofford Hall rehabilitation center, where he also said mass. The Diocese of Manchester raised no alarms.
TENNESSEE
News Channel 5
Several sex charges levied against a Clarksville minister have been dropped.
Defense attorneys for the Reverend LaMonte McNeese successfully argued Monday that six sex-related charges involving a minor girl violated the statute of limitations.
Four other charges were retired but could be brought to trial at a later date.
Police arrested McNeese, 44, in August 2002 and charged him with 19 counts of statutory rape, eight counts of sexual battery and two counts of child rape.
Eighteen of the charges were later dropped by prosecutors.
TENNESSEE
News Channel 5
A Stewart County judge has reversed his conviction of a Clarksville-area minister on a misdemeanor sex charge.
The ruling clears the Reverend LaMonte McNeese of the charge of inappropriately touching a 13-year-old girl in 2001.
McNeese is the founder of the One Way Apostolic Assembly. He has initially been indicted on a charge of sexual battery by an authority figure.
Circuit Judge George Sexton had convicted McNeese on the lesser charge in October.
McNeese still faces two counts of child rape and one of sexual battery, stemming from a 2003 indictment involving the same girl.
A trial is scheduled for March 28.
INDIA
Rediff.com
Merril Diniz | February 25, 2005 19:03 IST
The story of Sins is set in a nondescript coastal Kerala town. Father William is a local parish priest in his mid-30s, and a very good looking one at that.
One day, his Ambassador collides into a bicycle and he literally bumps into Rosemary, a coy, naïve young girl, in a tearing hurry to reach her examination venue. Father William offers to give her a lift and Rosemary agrees.
Taken in by his chivalry, good looks and dashing persona, a few weeks later, she visits him with gifts as a token of her appreciation.
She asks father for his blessing. He grants it and plants a kiss on her forehead.
A sexual tension builds up between the two, a tension that receives vent, shortly a few weeks later, when in a moment of weakness, the two consummate their lust. The two become lovers, and the film tracks the path of their liaison.
NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph
By William Allen
bustel@belfasttelegraph.co.uk
26 February 2005
The Bishop of Derry will today write to parishioners after scrapping a levy they unknowingly paid to raise cash for victims of clerical sex abuse.
A spokesman for Bishop of Derry Seamus Hegarty said a letter was being prepared for the people of the diocese after the decision was taken to abolish the 3% levy used for the Stewardship Fund.
The controversial cash-raising method angered many parishioners who did not know what the money was being used for.
It is believed Bishop Hegarty's letter will be read out at Masses today and tomorrow.
This follows a meeting of more than 50 priests in Derry yesterday.
After the two-hour meeting, priests said it had been agreed with the bishop that this method of raising funds would be abolished.
A payment was due to be made on Monday, but it is believed the money will now be returned to the parishes.
GREECE
Kathimerini
After several weeks of scandal, the crisis in the Church of Greece claimed its first victim yesterday as the Bishop of Thessaliotis tendered his resignation but Archbishop Christodoulos maintained he would not stand down, despite some calls for him to do so.
«Every idea imaginable has passed through my mind and I have studied and weighed everything up. Of course I thought about resigning but I finally rejected the idea. I am determined to lead the effort to clean up the Church,» said Christodoulos in an interview shown on private television channel, Alpha, last night.
The head of the Church came under pressure to quit from Chrysostomos, Bishop of Zakynthos, following claims linking him closely with fugitive drug smuggler Apostolos Vavilis and Archimandrite Iakovos Yiossakis, the priest alleged to be at the center of a trial-fixing ring.
Yesterday, Christodoulos again denied sending Vavilis and a retired policeman to oversee the election of Patriarch Irenaios four years ago in Jerusalem. «We did not send them to Jerusalem. That is the truth,» said the archbishop, who admitted seeing Vavilis dressed as a security guard at the Patriarchate. Christodoulos said he did not talk to him at the time and could not recall meeting him again since.
WETUMPKA (AL)
Montgomery Advertiser
By Marty Roney
Montgomery Advertiser
A former Wetumpka minister charged in January with the sexual abuse of two girls now is being accused by police of abusing two more children.
Garett Albert Dykes, the former pastor of Calvary Baptist Church, was charged Jan. 10 with three counts of sexual abuse involving two girls younger than 10. Dykes, 38, of 909 Oak Crest Court in Wetumpka, is in the Elmore County Jail under $1.5 million in bonds.
The parents of the additional victims came forward to police, said Elmore County Chief Deputy Ricky Lowery. The abuse is believed to have taken place at Dykes' home and not at the church or on church property.
"The victims tell stories that are very similar to the statements of the first victims," Lowery said.
Dykes has not yet been formally charged with abusing the additional victims. The information about the two new victims will be presented to the Elmore County grand jury, said Lowery. The next session of the panel is set for April.
TOLEDO (OH)
Toledo Blade
By ROBIN ERB
BLADE STAFF WRITER
Documents supporting two police searches of the Toledo Catholic Diocese in the murder investigation of Sister Margaret Ann Pahl most likely will be released Monday.
The Lucas County Prosecutor's Office yesterday decided not to fight a decision by Common Pleas Judge Thomas Osowik Thursday to release the records, said Dean Mandross, a senior assistant prosecutor.
That means search warrant affidavits, possibly outlining why police felt they needed a court order to search the downtown church office on Sept. 15 and 17, may be released at 9 a.m. Monday.
Prosecutors were looking for any church records about the Rev. Gerald Robinson, who was charged in the slaying of the nun in the Mercy Hospital chapel 24 years ago.
Mr. Mandross said prosecutors originally fought The Blade's request to make the records public because they felt the newspaper made a procedural error in asking for them. But whether an appeals court agreed with the prosecutors' argument, the records most likely would have been released eventually, he said.
WORCESTER (MA)
Telegram & Gazette
By Kathleen A. Shaw Telegram & Gazette Staff
kshaw@telegram.com
A judge in Fort Worth, Texas, yesterday took under advisement testimony taken during the last two days on whether to accept as experts two clinical psychologists being called in a civil lawsuit against the Catholic dioceses of Worcester and Fort Worth and two bishops.
Judge Len Wade of the Tarrant County District Court in Fort Worth said he expects to rule on the expert witnesses within two weeks.
Two Texas men, listed as John Doe I and John Doe II, allege they were sexually abused by the Rev. Thomas H. Teczar, a priest of the Worcester diocese when he left Worcester in 1988 and took an assignment in the Fort Worth diocese. Khan Merritt, the lawyer for John Doe II, alleged in the lawsuit that the Worcester and Fort Worth dioceses conspired to get Rev. Teczar in and out of both dioceses after misconduct allegations were made.
Ms. Merritt of Dallas, the lead lawyer in the suit, wants to call John Daigneault of Braintree and Rycke Marshall of Dallas, both forensic clinical psychologists, to testify on behalf of the men bringing the suit. They believe it is possible for a victim of sexual abuse to repress memories of traumatic events.
Dr. Daigneault previously testified during a 2002 civil lawsuit brought by David A. Lewcon, now of Uxbridge, who also alleged sexual abuse by Rev. Teczar when he was assigned to St. Mary’s Church, Uxbridge, during the early 1970s.
The dioceses of Fort Worth and Worcester brought in Dr. Harrison G. Pope Jr., a psychiatrist from Boston, who told the court that he does not believe in repressed or suppressed memory.
Worcester Auxiliary Bishop George E. Rueger was named in the suit because it is alleged that he in 1988 asked Fort Worth Bishop Joseph P. Delaney to take Rev. Teczar into his diocese. Bishop Delaney is also named in the suit.
Rev. Teczar denies that he has ever met John Doe II and said he only knew John Doe I from the gas station in Ranger, Texas, where the man worked. Rev. Teczar was barred from priestly duties in 1986 by the late Bishop Timothy J. Harrington of Worcester, but he received permission to perform as a priest in the Fort Worth diocese by Bishop Delaney.
The judge yesterday opened a hearing into the dioceses’ request that the lawsuit be dismissed, and it will be continued in early March. The dioceses are arguing that the lawsuit is beyond the statute of limitations.
The Worcester diocese and Bishop Rueger are represented by Mark D. Hatten of Shannon, Gracey, Ratliff & Miller of Fort Worth, and the Fort Worth diocese and Bishop Delaney are represented by James G. Bennett of Bennett & Catania of Fort Worth. Neither lawyer has returned telephone calls seeking comment. Rev. Teczar is representing himself. John Doe I is represented by Daniel J. Shea of Houston.
DALLAS (TX)
Macon Telegraph
BY BROOKS EGERTON
The Dallas Morning News
DALLAS - (KRT) - Catholic peace activists failed to disclose the sexually abusive past of one of their key allies in strife-torn Haiti, a prominent U.S. congresswoman said Friday.
Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., spoke after she had urged the U.S. ambassador in Haiti to safeguard defrocked American priest Ron Voss, who has been detained twice this week for questioning about a massive jailbreak there.
Waters said she learned only later, from a Dallas Morning News report Friday, that Voss had admitted abusing many adolescent boys.
"They probably should have told me," she said of the antiwar group Pax Christi USA, at whose behest she had written the ambassador. "Certainly this is problematic and unfortunate."
Pax Christi USA spokesman Johnny Zokovitch said he and executive director David Robinson also learned about Voss' past from The Dallas Morning News. But some people active with the group's Haiti task force did know, according to interviews and correspondence.
One of them, William Slavick of Maine, said the failure to inform the congresswoman was "probably an innocent mistake." Task force leaders thought highly of Voss and did not want to believe reports about his history, he said.
ALABAMA
Decatur Daily
By Eric Fleischauer
DAILY Staff Writer
eric@decaturdaily.com · 340-2435
Central United Methodist Church's five-year nightmare ended jubilantly Friday when a federal jury decided it was not liable to a former secretary for sexual harassment.
For Rita Cobbs, however, the ruling brought to an abrupt end her lengthy trek toward an elusive verdict.
The jury reached the unanimous decision Friday after deliberating for about two hours.
Cobbs accused Central of failing to protect her from a part-time minister who she said physically assaulted her in 1999 and repeatedly targeted her with obscene phone calls until March 2000.
Central did not dispute the misconduct of the Rev. Sheats Summerford, a 78-year-old man who worked as a visitation minister. The church did dispute, however, that the Rev. Hal Noble, Central's senior pastor at the time, failed in his supervisory duties.
The Rev. Mitchell Williams, now Central's senior pastor, sat through most of the trial with two dozen church members. After the verdict, he said that he had expected the church to prevail.
YAKIMA (WA)
KGW
02/26/2005
Associated Press
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Yakima has formally denied the accusations made in a recent lawsuit alleging sexual abuse by a priest.
Rose Yates Lamey, formerly of Zillah, filed suit in early February in Yakima County Superior Court, claiming she was raped by the Rev. Michael Simpson in 1962 when she was 10.
On Wednesday, lawyers for the diocese said the church had no knowledge of any alleged abuse at the time by Simpson, who is deceased.
"Defendant is without information sufficient to form a belief as to the truth of the allegations and therefore denies them," Seattle lawyers Thomas Frey and Michael Bolasina wrote.
The diocese attorneys also argued that the statute of limitations has elapsed. Generally, juvenile victims of sexual abuse have three years after they reach adulthood to file lawsuits. One exception could be "repressed memory," in which the victim doesn't remember the incident until undergoing therapy.
The next step for Lamey's lawsuit will be a scheduling order set by the court.
MUNCIE (IN)
Muncie Star Press
STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS
MUNCIE - A former Muncie priest who had been accused of child sexual abuse in Indiana was detained and questioned this week by police in Haiti amid allegations his residence was used to plan a massive prison break there.
Ron Voss, who left the priesthood in 1993, was questioned for more than five hours Wednesday in the Feb. 19 prison break at Haiti's largest prison in which nearly 500 inmates escaped and one guard was killed.
Police also seized Voss's passport during the raid on Visitation House, a stopover residence Voss runs for missionary teams visiting Haiti.
Twelve officers wielding machine guns entered the house to search for escaped prisoners, weapons and evidence linking it to the prison break plot, said Bill Quigley, an Indianapolis native helping set up a clinic in Haiti.
"They were coming into what they thought was an armed camp. It was a sight that I hope few people ever have a chance to see," said Quigley, a law school professor at Loyola University in New Orleans.
The Muncie Evening Press first reported in October 1994 allegations that Voss had molested adolescent boys in connection with activities at the Center for Peace and Life Studies, a retreat in northern Delaware County.
SAN ANTONIO (TX)
MySA.com
Web Posted: 02/25/2005 06:00 PM CST
Dionne Anglin
KENS 5 Eyewitness News
A 56-year-old Florida woman is suing the Archdiocese of San Antonio, claiming she was sexually abused.
The lawsuit reveals some startling allegations involving a priest.
Judy Rakestraw of Miami said the alleged abuse began at St. John the Evangelist School about 40 years ago.
In her lawsuit, Rakestraw says Father Myron Suize, who worked at the school as a teacher and volleyball coach, repeatedly fondled her over a period of three years, and at one point, attempted to rape her.
"The abuse our client sustained was so traumatic, that it was only within the last few years, as a result of on-going psychotherapy that she recovered her memory," said Adam Horowitz, Rakestraw's attorney. "Our client is a very brave woman; she's actually the head of a survivors' group of victims in Miami. She's made the decision to sue in her own name, because as head of the survivors' group, she's come across so many victims that she wants to send a message to the Catholic Church."
The archdiocese has responded only in general to the lawsuit.
COVINGTON (KY)
The Kentucky Post
It must have been an agonizing nine months for the Rev. Gerald Reinersman. As The Post reported last Saturday, he was finally cleared of an allegation that he had abused a young boy in 1979 at Mary Queen of the Holy Rosary Church in Lexington.
People who know Reinersman were absolutely flabbergasted when the allegation was made public last May. The allegation involved a repressed memory, and Reinersman, then the diocese's No. 2 official, was absolutely adamant the abuse had never happened.
Illustrating the seriousness with which the diocese now takes any such allegation, however, it suspended Reinersman. And given that Reinersman had worked so closely with the diocese's own sexual misconduct committee, Bishop Roger Foys asked the Archdiocese of Chicago to review the allegation. But the archdiocese was unable to arrange an interview with the accuser, so the bishop recruited three laymen -- a retired judge, a media executive and a clinical psychologist who specializes in such cases -- to do so. After researching old records and similar cases and interviews, the panel cleared Reinersman. It didn't rule out, however, that the man simply accused the wrong priest.
TOLEDO (OH)
Toledo Blade
By ROBIN ERB
BLADE STAFF WRITER
Documents supporting two police searches of the Toledo Catholic Diocese in the murder investigation of Sister Margaret Ann Pahl most likely will be released Monday.
Common Pleas Court Judge Thomas Osowik ruled Thursday to keep the records sealed until Monday to give Lucas County prosecutors a chance to appeal his decision to make them public, and prosecutors yesterday decided not fight his decision to release them, said Dean Mandross, a senior assistant prosecutor.
That means search warrant affidavits, possibly outlining why police felt they needed a court order to search the downtown church office on September 15 and 17, may be released at 9 a.m. Monday.
Mr. Mandross said prosecutors originally fought The Blade’s request to make the records public because they felt the newspaper made a procedural error in asking for them. But whether an appeals court agreed with the prosecutors’ argument, the records most likely would have been released eventually, he said.
The Blade’s attorney, Fritz Byers, argued for the documents based on federal public records law.
BRIGHTON (MA)
Allston-Brighton Tab
By Erin Smith/ STAFF WRITER
Friday, February 25, 2005
Four Boston Archdiocese priests have been defrocked, including one priest accused of abusing children in Brighton.
Robert A. Ward, a former priest at Our Lady of the Presentation, was defrocked by the Vatican, the archdiocese announced this month.
Ward had been removed from public ministry since February 2002, after a man alleged Ward molested him in the mid-1970s at OLP, the Boston Herald reported.
Despite Ward's past cocaine addiction and child pornography found on his computer in 1999, he was reassigned to the Development Office at the archdiocese in 2001, the Herald reported.
But the Vatican still has not released a decision on the status of the second priest accused of abuse in an Allston-Brighton parish.
ALABAMA
Montgomery Advertiser
By Marty Roney
Montgomery Advertiser
WETUMPKA - The Elmore County Sheriff's Office has identified two more victims in the sexual abuse case involving the former minister of a Wetumpka church.
Garett Albert Dykes, the former pastor of Calvary Baptist Church, was charged Jan. 10 with three counts of sexual abuse involving two girls below the age of 10. Dykes, 38, of 909 Oak Crest Court in Wetumpka, is in the Elmore County Jail under $1.5 million in bonds.
In addition to the sexual abuse counts, he faces three counts of production of obscene matter of someone under 17, and one count of sodomy, Elmore County Sheriff Bill Franklin said. Investigators say Dykes videotaped his crimes.
No new charges have been levied against Dykes. The information about the two new victims will be presented to the Elmore County Grand Jury, said Chief Deputy Ricky Lowery. The panel next meets in April.
"The parents of the additional victims came forward," Lowery said. "These victims tell stories that are very similar to the statements of the first victims. At this time we feel the abuse occurred at the Dykes' home. There is no evidence that shows any abuse occurred at the church or on church property. Dykes has given us a statement about his activities with the additional victims."
CANADA
Toronto Star
MARK BELLIS
SPECIAL TO THE STAR
CORNWALL, Ont.—Two civil lawsuits filed in London, Ont., allege sexual improprieties at the hands of a former Cornwall priest who was cleared of sex abuse charges more than two years ago.
In two separate statements of claim filed Friday, the two victims allege sexual abuse by Rev. Charles MacDonald when they were 11 and 20 years old and are each suing for $3.1 million.
Also named in the suit are the Roman Catholic Diocese of Alexandria-Cornwall, Eugene LaRocque, the former bishop of the diocese, and current bishop Paul-André Durocher.
The allegations have not been proven in court and corresponding statements of defence have yet to be filed.
When reached at his home in Glen Robertson yesterday, MacDonald acknowledged the lawsuits and had no further comment.
MacDonald was charged with seven sex abuse counts in 1996 and another six in 1998. The charges related to alleged assaults on boys, some of them altar boys, between 1967 and 1983.
NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News
Levies imposed on parishes to pay into a fund for victims of clerical sex abuse are to be abolished, the Catholic diocese of Derry has announced.
Bishop Seamus Hegarty and his diocesan priests have also decided to return all money already paid by parishioners.
It follows an emergency meeting in Londonderry to which the bishop was not invited.
He had faced criticism because he paid into the Stewardship Trust Fund without the knowledge of many parishioners.
Dr Hegarty told BBC Northern Ireland's Spotlight programme he was raising the money through a 3% levy imposed on all parishes.
SOUTH DAKOTA
Keloland.com
A seventh lawsuit filed tonight against a former South Dakota priest brings up more allegations of sexual abuse. A South Dakota woman alleges Father Bruce MacArthur molested her while he worked in Yankton from 1961 to 1963. Later MacArthur would serve time in prison for rape and then be reassigned by the Diocese to other locations.
The Sioux Falls Diocese, not aware of the suit but named in it, says it's sadden by the situation, but adds that nothing will change in handling these cases since Bishop Robert Carlson left. Jerry Klein with the Sioux Falls Catholic Diocese told KELOLAND NEWS Friday, quote, "We encourage people to trust that we're going to continue providing whatever support we can to them."
NEW JERSEY
Observer-Tribune
The way the Catholic diocese of Paterson has handled the latest issue involving one of its priests is yet another example of the church’s failure to be candid with its followers.
About 360,000 Roman Catholics make up the Paterson Diocese, encompassing three counties and numerous towns.
These Catholics have legitimate concerns and they should not have to learn about important church issues from the newspapers.
Yet that is what happened in the matter involving the Rev. Phillip Briganti.
Many of the Catholics in Morris County ask a rhetorical question: Why does the Paterson Diocese have to be so secretive?
NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph
By Sarah Brett
25 February 2005
The Bishop of Derry ignored priests who railed against taxing their parishioners to cover costs in paedophile priest cases, it was claimed today.
More revelations about Seamus Hegarty's controversial cash-raising methods for the Stewardship Fund emerged this morning ahead of a crisis meeting of the local Catholic church, to which he was not invited.
In November last year, Bishop Hegarty began to extract a 3% annual levy from parish incomes (£200,000) to go towards the dwindling fund, set up in 1996 to cover legal, compensation and counselling costs in clerical child sex abuse cases across Ireland.
Priests who were reluctant to contribute in such a way were ignored, Strabane Priest Father Michael Doherty said today.
"I and other priests wrote to him expressing our reservations about the levy - but he never wrote back to any of us as far as I know," he revealed.
Most of Bishop Hegarty's parishioners had no idea about the tax, or where it was going.
AUSTIN (TX)
News 8 Austin
Updated: 2/24/2005 10:04 PM
By: James Keith
According to court records filed this week, The Roman Catholic Diocese of Austin has spent more than $1.2 million on six different sexual abuse cases: $878,000 is in settlements and $243,000 is in attorney fees.
The diocese says five insurance providers breached contracts with them
Court documents say, "As a result of these breaches, the Diocese incurred attorneys' fees and expenses, costs of Court, and/or settlement costs with regard to the John Doe 1, John Doe 2, John Doe 3, John Doe 4, John Doe 5, John Doe 6 claims."
Proving negligence might be tough.
"Insurance companies provide coverage for negligence or accidents but insurance policies exclude coverage for "criminal acts," Mark Hanna, a spokesperson with the Insurance Council of Texas said.
NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph
By Alf McCreary
newsdesk@belfasttelegraph.co.uk
25 February 2005
No money from parish collections in the diocese of Down and Connor have been used to fund the Catholic Church's Child Protection Policies, according to the Bishop Dr Patrick Walsh.
In a statement Dr Walsh emphasised that no parish money from collections had been given to the Irish Bishops' Stewardship Trust which was set up to meet the costs of theAbuse Tracker Child Protection Office and initiatives undertaken throughout Ireland for the response to the victims of child abuse.
According to Bishop Walsh these include "financial redress to victims of child sexual abuse by priests, and research undertaken for the College of Surgeons' Report."
He gave a "categorical assurance that in paying the contribution due from the Diocese to the Trust, there has been no money used from any parish collections, whether for the parish or for specific purposes, for example the Diocesan Care Home for the elderly at Beechmount, the missions, support for needy parishes, the education of students for the priesthood, and the care of sick and retired priests."
CANADA
Cornwall Seaway News
by John Divinski
Three separate lawsuits totalling almost $10 million were publicly announced on Tuesday, February 22nd, 2005 by three men who say they were sexually abused in Cornwall when they were younger. Stuart Gerald Labelle named Cornwall lawyer Jacques Leduc as the plaintiff. Albert Joseph Lalonde and Robert Renshaw named former priest Charles MacDonald of Glen Robertson as plaintiff and the Diocese of Alexandria-Cornwall is also named. Leduc says he will challenge the charges and is considering a counter-suit. Bishop Paul-André Durocher of the local diocese says the matter has been turned over to their legal representatives for future comment. Father Charles MacDonald had no comment on the matter when contacted at his home.
OHIO
Dayton Daily News
By Jacqui Theobald
For the Dayton Daily News
As a professional counselor and art therapist, I have treated and worked with both sexual abusers and the victims/survivors of sexual abuse for 20 years. The recent media attention to abusive priests and other child molesters — and subsequent pro and con comments — have the sound, to me, of a very old scenario. Even though open discussion has become more common through the years, there are still myths and mindsets that seem never to progress.
"Forgive and forget," they say.
Offenders are champions. They are champions of denial and rationalization and minimization and intellectualization, all used to make themselves feel better. First and most used is denial. They simply convince themselves that whatever they did wasn't abusive.
It was loving or kind (in their own minds). They were paying attention to someone who had been ignored or mistreated by others. Soon, they are able to feel quite noble about the progressive intrusion into someone else's life and space.
Over time they edge right in, getting closer, being a good listener, being a resource or a refuge. There's a name for that. It's called grooming, and it happens in various ways, but it always happens.
They want to remove any sense of danger the target person may feel. After all, they aren't "abusive," certainly not violent; they're just a "good guy."
Offenders, when confronted by a name for their own activities, usually respond with wounded innocent denial. They like to proclaim they're being misunderstood or misinterpreted. "That's not what I was doing."
GREECE
Macedonian News Agency
Athens, 25 February 2005
The official stance of Patriarch Ireneaus of Jerusalem will clarify what was the status of the presence of Apostolos Vavilis and Yiannis Triantafillakis in Jerusalem.
The Patriarchate's legal adviser Alexis Kougias stated last night on behalf of Patriarch Ireneaus that the statement of Metropolite of Nazareth according to which the two were sent to the Patriarchate by Archbishop Christodoulos of Athens and All Greece is not a formal one.
Minister of Education and Religion Marietta Giannakou stated that the government is not raising the issue of the Archbishop's resignation commenting on calls for the resignation of the Archbishop.
The Archbishop stated late last night that the Church is uncompromising in the implementation of the Hierarchy decisions while his close associates attributed the crisis to a well-orchestrated plan that was prepared a long time ago by foreign secret services and politicians.
GREECE
The Guardian
Helena Smith
Friday February 25, 2005
The Guardian
The tale has it all: drama, conspiracy and intrigue. No surprise, then, that for the past month every newspaper across Greece has spoken of little else but the scandals besetting the country's Orthodox church. Senior clerics have faced allegations of, among other things, drug dealing, embezzlement and homosexuality.
For the first time in decades, Greece's famously partisan media have put aside their political predilections to get to the bottom of a story that looks set to run and run. What they have come up with is eye-popping stuff.
"Divine comedy," screamed Eleftherotypia from its front page after the church's ruling body held an emergency meeting to discuss how to cope with the revelations. "They're trying to show that they're cleaning themselves up with a series of reforms that are not expected to have any immediate effect," said the centre-left daily.
There was, wrote the conservative tabloid Hora, "no end" to the "rot". The scandal extends throughout the church - and pictures of a 91-year-old bishop naked in bed with a young woman have appeared in the press.
GREECE
Turkish Daily News
ATHENS - The Associated Press
The head of Greece's powerful Orthodox Church faced calls to resign on Thursday after being further caught up in escalating scandals that have stunned the country.
Pressure on the 66-year-old Archbishop Christodoulos grew following revelations that -- despite earlier denials -- he was acquainted with lower-ranking clergy directly implicated in trial-fixing and other major corruption allegations.
"There is no other solution ... the only thing left for the archbishop to do is resign," Metropolitan Bishop Chrysostomos of Zakynthos, a longtime rival of the church leader, told private Flash radio.
The Orthodox Church, which represents the official state religion and holds vast property assets, has been overwhelmed by daily allegations of embezzlement, corruption and sexual escapades.
The embarrassing saga has been fueled by revelations in both liberal and conservative media, including the nightly broadcast of alleged wiretaps of telephone conversations containing lurid sexual details.
ALABAMA
Decatur Daily
By Eric Fleischauer
DAILY Staff Writer
eric@decaturdaily.com · 340-2435
The woman suing Central United Methodist Church for sexual harassment explained Thursday that she misspoke when she claimed a minister gave her pornographic pictures.
The mistake, she said, was the result of a flashback she had during her testimony Wednesday.
Rita Cobbs, formerly a secretary at Central, sued the Decatur church for failing to protect her from sexual harassment by a 78-year-old, part-time visitation minister, the Rev. Sheats Summerford.
Thursday was Day 3 of the trial. U.S. District Judge R. David Proctor said he expects testimony to end and jury deliberations to begin this afternoon. The plaintiff rested its case Thursday.
The only witnesses Thursday were Cobbs and the Rev. Hal Noble, former pastor of Central.
During cross-examination of Cobbs, Central's lawyer, John Wilmer, highlighted inconsistencies between statements made by Cobbs in the years since the harassment and her testimony Wednesday.
DENVER (CO)
Denver Post
By Eric Gorski
Denver Post Staff Writer
One of the new allegations of child sex abuse fielded by the Denver Roman Catholic Archdiocese last year was leveled against a religious order priest who was mentally ill and died in 1975, a representative of his community said Thursday.
The alleged incident took place in 1963 and involved a boy in his midteens, said the Rev. Anthony O'Connell, provincial of the Servite Fathers, a Chicago religious order that at one point had priests in four parishes in the Denver Archdiocese.
As part of an annual report card on reforms adopted in response to the clergy abuse scandal, the Denver Archdiocese announced last week it had received fresh allegations against eight priests in 2004, though some of the cases go back decades. Three involved diocesan priests, and five were members of religious orders that served in the 24-county archdiocese.
GREECE
Kathimerini
The head of the Church of Greece came under increasing pressure to step down yesterday after the emergence of claims linking him closer than ever before to a fugitive drug dealer and a priest alleged to be at the center of a trial-fixing ring, but the government refused to join in the calls for his resignation.
Archbishop Christodoulos’s press office issued a statement late Wednesday denying claims by Kyriakos, Bishop of Nazareth, a spokesman for the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, that Christodoulos had sent Apostolos Vavilis, a convicted drug smuggler wanted by Interpol, there in 2001 to help with the election of Patriarch Irenaios. Wednesday’s accusations came just a day after a senior member of the judiciary reportedly said that Archimandrite Iakovos Yiossakis — who is in jail pending trial for antiquities theft and is allegedly implicated in a trial-fixing ring — had helped him meet Christodoulos twice. The archbishop subsequently acknowledged the priest’s presence at the meeting, having previously denied knowing him.
CONNECTICUT
The Hour
There is renewed interest in passing a shield law on both the state and federal levels, spurred on by the recent cases of reporters facing time in jail for refusing to reveal their sources. The most prominent ones involve a New York Times reporter, a Time magazine reporter and a Rhode Island television reporter. We have noted before that we may have been naive in assuming the First Amendment of the Constitution was sufficient protection. Apparently, that's not the case. We admit to some ambivalence on the matter. Journalists don't have to meet certain requirements to ply their trade, as do doctors and lawyers, for example. There is no question of the expectation of doctor-patient or lawyer-client confidentiality. Since there is no such "licensing" of journalists, do they deserve the same protection? The best case you can make is based on the examples in our own history, where it has been the diligence of the press that has revealed corruption in government. Whether it's Watergate, the Pentagon Papers, the priest scandals in the Catholic Church or the political scandals here in Connecticut, it was the press that brought them out in public view.
FORT WORTH (TX)
Telegram & Gazette
Kathleen A. Shaw Telegram & Gazette Staff
kshaw@telegram.com
A hearing on whether to dismiss a suit brought by two Texas men who said they were sexually abused by the Rev. Thomas H. Teczar, a priest of the Worcester Diocese, began yesterday in Tarrant County District Court in Fort Worth, Texas.
The hearing was adjourned yesterday afternoon and will resume at 9 a.m. today.
Two men, identified as John Doe I and John Doe II, allege they were sexually abused by Rev. Teczar when he left Worcester and took an assignment in the Fort Worth Diocese.
The alleged incidents happened in Ranger, Texas.
The suit named the Fort Worth Diocese, Bishop Joseph P. Delaney of Fort Worth, individually and as bishop; Rev. Teczar, the Worcester Diocese; and Bishop George E. Rueger of Worcester, individually.
Rev. Teczar served in Worcester parishes until his faculties to perform as a priest were removed by Bishop Timothy J. Harrington.
In Texas, he was given permission to perform priestly duties by Bishop Delaney.
Rev. Teczar said that he has never met John Doe II and only knows John Doe I from a Ranger gas station.
The two men claim there was a conspiracy to move Rev. Teczar from Worcester to Texas and back again to avoid allegations of sexual misconduct.
The dioceses are seeking to dismiss the suit on grounds that the statute of limitations has run out and other issues.
ARIZONA
The Arizona Republic
Feb. 25, 2005 12:00 AM
Incrementally - and without any great demonstration of courage on the part of law enforcement - the noose is closing around the neck of Arizona's most notorious polygamist.
Of course, Warren Jeffs is likely hidden away in his cult's new digs in Texas. And the slight tug on the rope came from a court motion that's part of a lawsuit against Jeffs, not from a bold law enforcement effort.
Nevertheless, it is progress against the cult that likes to go by the respectable sounding name of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. It is not associated with mainstream Mormons, who reject polygamy.
With colonies in Colorado City, Ariz., Hildale, Utah, Bountiful, British Columbia and a 1,691-acre compound in western Texas, Jeffs' cult is under investigation for welfare fraud, financial irregularities and child and sexual abuse.
Two lawsuits against Jeffs give an indication of what life is like under his rule. One was filed by his nephew, who accuses Jeffs of sexually abusing him as a child and dubbing it "God's work."
MANATEE (FL)
Bradenton Herald
What did they know and when did they know it? More importantly, what do they know that they still haven't shared with the news media or general public?
The questions relate to the Joseph Gilpin case, and they apply to school officials and now perhaps the Manatee Sheriff's Office. After pretending for weeks that no one was aware of sexual allegations against the former Haile Middle School assistant principal, it turns out that at least the school district's attorney and former superintendent knew of them three years ago. They just apparently never told anyone else that Gilpin had been named in a civil lawsuit in Massachusetts alleging sexual abuse.
Moreover, the sheriff's office has known for several weeks that a former Bayshore student had filed a complaint about improper advances by Gilpin on an overnight trip, but didn't see fit to release that information. Surely that news would have been relevant to the public as the Gilpin story has unfolded, mostly gleaned from obscure files by Herald investigative reporters, not honest assessments from officials.
Certainly there is a need for caution in protecting the rights of the accused. There is also a need to preserve evidence in ongoing investigations. But in a case of this nature, there is also a need to protect the public, especially children. By keeping information about this case secret, these two agencies ignored that obligation.
PROVO (UT)
Desert Morning News
By Carrie A. Moore
Deseret Morning News
The man many consider to be the pre-eminent in-house scriptural scholar for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints died Thursday after a long life spent researching and defending the faith's canon.
Hugh Winder Nibley died Feb. 24, 2005, at his home in Provo of causes incident to age. He was 94.
Students of scripture unique to the LDS Church — including the Book of Mormon and the faith's Book of Abraham — have been influenced by Nibley even if they don't know him by name, according to fellow scholars at Brigham Young University, where he taught for several decades. ...
Seven of his eight children have rallied around him in recent weeks with the news that one daughter, Martha Nibley Beck, has written a memoir dubbed "Leaving the Saints: How I Lost the Mormons and Found My Faith." It details what she said are "recovered memories" of sexual abuse at the hands of her father, and is set to be published next month.
Alex Nibley declined comment Thursday on the book, referring to a statement the family issued on Tuesday saying the book "is false" and contains "countless errors, falsehoods, contradictions and gross distortions" that "misrepresent our family history, the basic facts of our lives, our family culture, the works of our father and the basic principles" of the LDS Church. It says allegations that Nibley abused her and the family covered it up are "not true."
The LDS Church has also characterized the book as "seriously flawed in the way it depicts the church, its members and teachings."
BOSTON (MA)
Boston Herald
By Marie Szaniszlo
Friday, February 25, 2005
Faced with a $10 million deficit, the Archdiocese of Boston has taken in more than $3 million in assets since it decided last year to close more than a quarter of its parishes. But its reconfiguration fund still had to borrow $4.6 million to cover the cost of reconfiguration, an archdiocesan official said yesterday.
``It clearly is not our desire to use the proceeds of property sales to support the ongoing operations of the archdiocese,'' said Chancellor David Smith. ``But we provide a tremendous amount of services to parishes'' - an estimated $800,000 a month.
In his sixth monthly report to the committee overseeing the closing of more than 80 of the archdiocese's 357 parishes, Smith said the parish reconfiguration fund's expenses exceeded its revenues, leaving the fund $4.6 million in debt.
Of that amount, the fund borrowed $3.44 million from a revolving loan fund and $1.17 million from its central fund. ...
Sunday collections are up, albeit marginally over last year. And the archdiocese's annual fund-raising appeal has raised $10.8 million - far short of the roughly $18 million raised three years ago, before the archdiocese's clergy sexual-abuse scandal, but still $300,000 more than what church officials expected to raise.
MANATEE (FL)
Bradenton Herald
MICHAEL BARBER and AIMEE JUAREZ
Herald Staff Writers
MANATEE - Knowledge of sexual abuse allegations against Joseph Gilpin could make the Manatee County School District liable if other cases of abuse occurred within the past three years, attorneys said.
In February 2002, then Superintendent Dan Nolan and school district attorney Rob Shapiro were informed of a civil suit filed in Massachusetts alleging the former Haile assistant principal molested a boy while he was a Catholic seminarian in the late 1960s.
No mention of the lawsuit was placed in Gilpin's district personnel file and school board members said they weren't apprised of the situation until the allegations were made public by a national advocacy group in late January.
The fact district officials knew of the allegations dating back to 2002 could place them in a precarious legal situation, according to attorney Joe Campoli, president of the local chapter of the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
PROVIDENCE (RI)
Kent County Times
Tracy Scudder 02/25/2005
PROVIDENCE -- The Diocese of Providence is taking a proactive approach in an effort to prevent youths from being harmed by adults.
Adults working with children in the diocese now have to go through "safe-environment training" and a criminal background check.
Diocesan Office of Human Formation and Outreach Coordinator Dr. Michael Hansen worked with a curriculum committee comprised of representatives of Catholic schools in the diocese in the fall of 2003.
They developed the training program that provides adults working with children some knowledge that can help them identify children that are being neglected or abused.
They provided training to administrators for all of the Catholic schools in diocese.
BELLINGHAM (MA)
Country Gazette
By Brian Eastwood/ Staff Writer
Friday, February 25, 2005
A Canadian court has upheld the Canadian Minister of Justice's decision to extradite the Rev. Paul M. Desilets, the former Assumption parish priest accused of molesting 18 altar boys between 1974 and 1984.
Worcester County District Attorney John Conte said in a statement that his office was notified by the federal Department of Justice last Thursday that the Quebec Court of Appeals had made its decision.
"Father Desilets now has the right to appeal the Court of Appeals decision to the Canadian Supreme Court," Conte said in a statement. "He has until approximately March 11 to file his appeal."
Elizabeth Stammo, spokeswoman for the district attorney's office, said the office had no further comment.
DUBUQUE (IA)
Globe Gazette
By PAT KINNEY, For The Globe Gazette
DUBUQUE — A former priest who served several North Iowa parishes, defrocked in 1997 in connection with sexual abuse complaints, has died in Mexico.
Archdiocese of Dubuque officials confirmed Wednesday that Robert Reiss, who served at more than a dozen parishes, died Feb. 3 in Chilpancingo, Mexico. A cause of death was not specified.
Ordained a priest in 1955, Reiss served at Sacred Heart in Osage, St. Boniface in Garner, St. Michael in Nashua and Visitation in Stacyville during his 35-year career. Pope John Paul II defrocked him on Sept. 29, 1997.
HAITI
Indianapolis Star
By Robert King
robert.king@indystar.com
February 25, 2005
A former Roman Catholic priest from Indiana was detained and questioned Wednesday by Haitian police amid allegations that his residence was used to plan a massive prison break that occurred Saturday.
Ron Voss, who moved to Haiti after accusations of child sexual abuse were made against him in the Diocese of Lafayette, was questioned for more than five hours Wednesday night. Police also seized his passport.
Voss runs Visitation House, a stopover for mission teams visiting Haiti.
Bill Quigley, an Indianapolis native and law school professor at Loyola University in New Orleans, was part of a team setting up a medical clinic in Haiti and was a temporary resident at Visitation House when police arrived.
Quigley said 12 officers in riot gear, wielding machine guns, cut a lock on the gate and entered the house to search for escaped prisoners, weapons and evidence of the plot that freed nearly 500 inmates from theAbuse Tracker Penitentiary.
TOLEDO (OH)
Toledo Blade
Documents supporting an unprecedented police search of Toledo Catholic Diocese files during the investigation into the 1980 murder of an elderly nun will remain temporarily sealed, despite the approval by the defendant in the case that they be released.
Dressed in his clerical collar, the Rev. Gerald Robinson, who is accused of strangling and stabbing Sister Margaret Ann Pahl, appeared briefly late yesterday before Lucas County Common Pleas Court Judge Thomas Osowik, who was to decide whether The Blade would be allowed access to search warrant affidavits signed by homicide investigators.
In soft-spoken, one-word answers, the 66-year-old priest said he had no objections to the release of the papers.
His appearance came after several hours of behind-closed-door arguments in the judge's chambers among prosecutors, Blade attorney Fritz Byers, and Thomas Pletz, attorney for the diocese.
The search of the downtown church headquarters in September marked one of the first times in the country a law enforcement agency has used a court order to search diocesan files.
HAITI
Miami Herald
By JANE REGAN
Special to The Herald
PORT-AU-PRINCE - A U.S. citizen and former priest was held and questioned for more than eight hours by Haitian police Wednesday in connection with Saturday's jail break in which heavily armed gunmen freed almost 500 prisoners.
Ron Voss was released Wednesday evening.
''Police let him go home for the night but they kept his passport, and he has to go back [Thursday] morning for questioning,'' said Bill Quigley, an American lawyer who was with Voss at the time of his arrest.
Voss, the director of Visitation House, a guesthouse in Port-au-Prince, the capital, was led away by a judge and a dozen police officers Wednesday afternoon. The arrest came less than 24 hours after Haitian Minister of Justice Bernard Gousse said the prison break was planned at Voss' guesthouse.
MISSISSIPPI
WLBT
The Mississippi Supreme Court has refused a request by the Catholic Diocese of Jackson, to review what the Diocese believed were conflicting judicial rulings on sex abuse cases, and a judge's refusal to dismiss a lawsuit brought by two people.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Jim Smith Thursday signed an order declining to hear arguments from the Diocese and other defendants. Last year, Hinds County Circuit Judge Bobby Delaughter ruled he would not dismiss the abuse claims of two plaintiffs against the Diocese.
GREECE
The Herald
The head of Greece's powerful Orthodox Church faced calls to resign yesterday over escalating scandals.
Pressure on Archbishop Christodoulos, 66, grew following revelations that, despite earlier denials, he was acquainted with lower-ranking clergy who are directly implicated in trial-fixing and other corruption allegations.
"There is no other solution. . . the only thing left for the archbishop to do is resign," said Chrysostomos of Zakynthos, the Metropolitan Bishop and rival of the church leader.
HAITI
Haiti Info
24th February 2005
PORT-AU-PRINCE - A U.S. citizen and former priest was held and questioned for more than eight hours by Haitian police Wednesday in connection with Saturday’s jail break in which heavily armed gunmen freed almost 500 prisoners.
Ron Voss was released Wednesday evening.
’’Police let him go home for the night but they kept his passport, and he has to go back [Thursday] morning for questioning,’’ said Bill Quigley, an American lawyer who was with Voss at the time of his arrest.
Voss, the director of Visitation House, a guesthouse in Port-au-Prince, the capital, was led away by a judge and a dozen police officers Wednesday afternoon. The arrest came less than 24 hours after Haitian Minister of Justice Bernard Gousse said the prison break was planned at Voss’ guesthouse.
MENDHAM (NJ)
Observer-Tribune
By MARIA VOGEL-SHORT Staff Writer MENDHAM - The pastor of St. Joseph Church resigned his post after he became a victim of an attempted extortion, authorities said on Tuesday.
The Rev. Philip Briganti, 57, agreed to step down from his post after meeting with Bishop Arthur J. Serratelli, the head of the Catholic diocese in Paterson.
Briganti is part of an ongoing investigation that began on Friday, Feb. 11, when the priest went to the police headquarters and asked for help, according to Mendham Lt. John Taylor.
An individual contacted Briganti three times over the Internet to extort money from the pastor, Taylor said. Taylor would not identify the suspect nor would he say the amount of money requested.
“He (Briganti) is the victim of the investigation,” said Taylor. “He is not a suspect related to this investigation.” ...
Pat Seranno, a Maple Avenue resident and long-time parishioner who has been involved with the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), said she was surprised with the resignation, but didn’t know Briganti that well. She said she was not connected with him, other than when he came to a SNAP meeting.
“He came to one meeting and I wasn’t involved with him after that,” Serranno said.
Her son, Mark, a SNAP leader who was sexually assaulted by former St. Joseph’s pastor James Hanley when he was 9, also said the resignation did not come as a surprise.
“Nothing’s a surprise for me, especially nothing from the diocese,” said Mark Seranno. “There is a long legacy of corruption in the diocese. People were originally told over the weekend that (Father) Briganti was sick. This follows a continued pattern of secrecy with the diocese. Everything is done in secrecy. And a replacement is found instantly, where it took months to find a replacement for (Monsignor) Lasch.”
IOWA
Courier
By PAT KINNEY, Assistant City Editor
WATERLOO --- A former Evansdale priest, defrocked in 1997 in connection with sexual abuse complaints, has died in Mexico.
Archdiocese of Dubuque officials confirmed Wednesday that Robert Reiss, who served at St. Nicholas Church in Evansdale from 1971 to 1974, died Feb. 3 in Chilpancingo, Mexico. A cause of death was not specified.
Reiss, ordained a priest in 1955, also served at Northeast Iowa parishes in Fort Atkinson, Nashua and Stacyville as well as other eastern Iowa communities over a 35-year career.
"Some may remember his priestly service with gratitude. Others claim they were abused by him," Archbishop Jerome Hanus wrote in a press release announcing Reiss' death, encouraging all clergy sex abuse victims to contact the archdiocese for help.
The archdiocese's release provided no information as to when or where alleged abuse incidents occurred. Follow-up questions e-mailed to the archdiocese were not immediately answered.
NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News
No money paid by Catholic parishioners for specific purposes has been used for a fund for victims of clerical abuse, the Archbishop of Armagh has said.
Catholic Primate Sean Brady said cash donated by congregations for missions and the education of student priests was not diverted to the fund.
It follows the Bishop of Derry's regret about the "disquiet" caused by paying parishioners' money into the fund.
Dr Seamus Hegarty made the statement after parishioners' complaints.
HAITI
Duluth News Tribune
BY BROOKS EGERTON AND BRENDAN CASE
The Dallas Morning News
DALLAS - (KRT) - An American questioned this week in connection with a massive jailbreak in Haiti is an admitted child molester whom the Vatican removed from the priesthood.
Ron Voss sought his own expulsion in 1997, and got it a year later. His petition, according to his former Diocese of Lafayette, Ind., included this admission: "My sins are too numerous to detail, but the most grievous gather around the sexual abuse of many adolescent boys, including some minors."
Yet the defrocking hasn't kept him out of Catholic Church work or away from children. Clergy and lay leaders, some knowing of his past, have helped Voss continue a powerful ministry he began in the early 1990s in Haiti, the Western Hemisphere's poorest country.
He has long been a leader in the Parish Twinning Program of the Americas, through which hundreds of Catholic congregations around the United States assist needy ones in Haiti. The Nashville, Tenn.-based charity says it has facilitated aid to Haitian parishes that serve more than 2 million people, about a quarter of the Caribbean nation's population.
The Nashville Diocese, facing questions from clergy-abuse activists and The Dallas Morning News, recently asked twinning program executive Theresa Patterson to cut ties with Voss.
UNITED STATES
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
From the Journal Sentinel
Posted: Feb. 24, 2005
The report last week by the Roman Catholic Church that it received 1,092 new allegations of sexual abuse of children against at least 756 priests and deacons in 2004 highlights how much work remains to be done by the nation's bishops in bringing this scandal under control. The good news is that church officials appear to recognize the reality: "The crisis of sexual abuse of minors within the Catholic Church is not over," one official said. The bad news is that it's not clear what additional steps the bishops are willing to take.
In fact, as we noted in December, church officials are moving to reduce the number of on-site audits of dioceses and their child protection programs. Given the history of coverup by officials and that allegations continue to be made about abuse that occurred in the 1960s and '70s, one would think it would be in the church's interest to continue on-site inspections. Such inspections would be in the church's interest because they could serve to reassure parishioners that the church is willing to do what is necessary to protect children.
Such reassurance seems necessary: A recent survey showed that the bishops' approval rating among Catholics was at 57% last fall, the lowest since the clergy sex abuse scandal broke in 2002. The survey also showed that parishioners are uneasy about the church's finances and that although the amount of money being given to the church remains steady, donations are coming from fewer people.
The New York Times
By EDWARD WYATT
Published: February 24, 2005
The daughter of one of Mormonism's most prominent religious scholars has accused her father of sexually abusing her as a child in a forthcoming memoir that is shining an unwelcome spotlight on the practices and beliefs of the much-scrutinized but protectively private Mormon religious community.
"Leaving the Saints: How I Lost the Mormons and Found My Faith" details how the author, Dr. Martha Beck, a sociologist and therapist, recovered memories in 1990 of her ritual sexual abuse more than 20 years earlier by her father, Dr. Hugh Nibley, professor emeritus of ancient scripture at Brigham Young University and arguably the leading living authority on Mormon teaching.
The book, being published next month by Crown, an imprint of Random House, has attracted significant criticism both for its depiction of sacred Mormon ceremonies and for the author's effort to tie her sexual abuse to what she says were mental disturbances suffered by her father because of his role as the Mormon Church's "chief apologist."
Dr. Nibley, who is 95, is ailing and is physically unable to respond to questions, Alex Nibley, one of eight Nibley children, said in a statement. Dr. Nibley has been aware of Dr. Beck's accusations for several years, Alex Nibley said, and maintains that they are false. As part of a defense of their father, Dr. Beck's seven siblings have condemned her assertions and have hired a psychologist and lawyer who has worked on lawsuits against therapists practicing recovered-memory therapy.
GREECE
Macedonian News Agency
The government expects from the Greek Orthodox Church to adopt bold moves for its cleanup and supports the measures it has announced, stated acting government spokesman Vangelis Antonaros.
Responding to the question if the Church can promote its cleanup given the fact that its head appears to be part of the problem, he stated that the government has already commented on the issue.
On the information that Israel has blocked the bank accounts of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, Mr. Antonaros pointed out that this is a court decision, adding that the Greek state embraces all Patriarchates with love and interest. Every time there is a need for certain moves they are being made in a discreet manner, said Mr. Antonaros.
INDIA
The Telegraph
SEEMA GUHA
New Delhi, Feb. 24: Director Vinod Pande’s Sins, a film that has triggered protests from Christians across the country, will not be banned despite an appeal by theAbuse Tracker Commission for Minorities that the government review the film again.
Sins, which reportedly tells the story of a priest who falls in love with a woman, is slated for an all-India release tomorrow. Catholic priests are not allowed to marry and must remain celibate after joining the Church.
Tarlochan Singh, the chairman of the commission, had written to information and broadcasting minister S. Jaipal Reddy to review the film after the archbishop of Delhi, Vincent Concessao, lodged a complaint.
The government is relieved that the matter is now out of its purview. The film’s producers had gone to Bombay High Court to ensure that Sins is not banned. Today, the court passed orders saying that the film can be screened.
HAITI
Haiti Info
24 février 2005
It is a sad day indeed if so-called lovers of democracy and justice take up arms to defend a defrocked priest who has abused hundreds of boys while a priest in Indiana. What does this say about the morality of Marguerite Laurent, of her network and of her allies, when they defend and protect dangerous social deviants and sociopaths who have caused untold damage and committed unspeakable acts on defenseless young children in the United States and in Haiti ?
Who is Ron Voss ?
Ron Voss is an American who was a Catholic priest in Indiana for many years. In 1997, many years before the well-publicized hunt for sexual predators in the Catholic Church resulted in arrests and convictions, the Indianapolis Star published a series of investigative articles which identifid Ron Voss as a pedophile and sexual predator. This happened four years after he fled the United States to settle in Haiti, with the complicity of his superiors in the Catholic Church - Bishop William Higi in particular who has made a career out of protecting pedophile priests and sabotaging investigations into sexual crimes committed by these sexual predators. What is interesting is that Ron Voss has gone back to callim himself a PRIEST in Haiti, when in fact he chose to return to lay life to escape prosecution and a church inquiry in Indiana. [1] [2] [3]
ARLINGTON (VA)
NBC 4
POSTED: 6:42 am EST February 21, 2005
UPDATED: 6:54 am EST February 21, 2005
ARLINGTON, Va. -- An activist in Loudoun County, Va., is calling on the archdiocese of Arlington to reveal the location of a priest facing child pornography charges.
Mark Serrano of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests wears the reason why he was outside the St. Johns the Apostle Catholic Church. Around his neck is a picture of himself the year he was abused by his priest. He now wants more answers for the parishioners of St. John the Apostle. Their former minister is facing charges for obtaining child pornography..
Serrano told News4, "Bishop (Paul) Loverde is telling us a half story. Father (Robert) Brooks was taken out of the ministry in the dark of the night and people didn't know why. Well now we know why so now the unanswered questions should be addressed and I want to encourage parishioners to do that, for instance, where is Father Brooks now."
Sunday, parishioners at St. John the Apostle were read a letter explaining why Father Brooks was removed from his post.
"Father Brooks is not serving in ministry. He has been forbidden to present himself as a Catholic priest. He is being monitored that he does not have access to children until these charges have been resolved." Said archdiocese spokesman Father Terry Specht.
NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News
By Sarah Brett
24 February 2005
Bishop Seamus Hegarty today apologised for any "disquiet" caused by taking money off parishioners to cover costs for paedophile priest cases without asking them.
In a climb-down from his stance on BBC's Spotlight programme this week, the Bishop of Derry issued a statement last night after parishioners complained about what was seen as a covert tax.
Meanwhile, priests from the diocese are to meet in private tomorrow to discuss the levy and continuing fallout from the case of Fr Andy McCloskey, who paid a £19,000 out of court settlement to a man who claims he sexually assaulted him when he was 18.
It is understood several priests are unimpressed with how the money issue was handled.
Since November 2004, around 3% of parish income - about £200,000 - goes into the Stewardship Trust.
The fund was set up in 1996 to cover compensation, counselling and legal costs of clerical child sex abuse cases and, more recently, the costs of the Irish Bishop's Conference Child Protection Office.
LOUISVILLE (KY)
The Courier-Journal
By Gregory A. Hall
ghall@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal
The Rev. Edwin Scherzer will be arraigned Monday in Jefferson Circuit Court on charges that he sexually abused four boys in the late 1950s and mid-1960s.
Three of the four alleged victims previously filed lawsuits against the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Louisville, accusing the priest of abuse, and were part of the $25.7 million sex-abuse settlement that plaintiffs reached with the archdiocese in 2003.
A Jefferson County grand jury indicted Scherzer this week.
"It's a long time coming," Thomas Weiter, one of the accusers, said in a telephone interview.
Scherzer, 79, is ill, said Brian Reynolds, chancellor and chief administrative officer for the archdiocese. He would not discuss details, however, saying to do so would be inappropriate.