RENO (NV)
KRNV
July 31, 2005, 09:58 PM
Former Bishop Phillip Straling of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Reno has been named as a key witness in more than 150 lawsuits in Southern California against priests accused of molesting children.
According to a published report in News 4's news partner the Reno Gazette-Journal, the suits allege Straling should have known that some priests were having sex with children in his former Diocese of San Bernardino but did nothing to stop them. Straling was bishop in San Bernardino from 1978 to 1995 when he moved to Reno.
Straling, who retired in June at age 72, is not accused of sexual abuse himself. Straling declined comment and referred all questions to the San Bernardino diocese.
TOLEDO (OH)
Wired News
Sunday, July 31, 2005 8:12 p.m. ET
TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) -- Police helped the Catholic Diocese of Toledo cover up sex abuse allegations for several decades, refusing to investigate or arrest priests suspected of molesting children, a newspaper reported Sunday.
The (Toledo) Blade, relying on interviews with former officers and a review of court and diocese records, found at least five instances since the 1950s of police covering up allegations of abuse.
Four former officers said Police Chief Anthony Bosch, a Catholic who headed the Toledo department from 1956 to 1970, established an unwritten rule that priests could not be arrested.
"You would have been fired," said Gene Fodor, who served on the force between 1960 and 1981.
In some cases that resulted in charges, authorities blocked the release of files to the public. In others, priests were transferred to different churches or sent away for treatment.
HAWAII
The Maui News
By VALERIE MONSON, Staff Writer
WAIHEE – Their voices were rich in song and smiles were bright as the faithful of St. Ann Church gathered Saturday night to commemorate the feast day of their patron saint with the blessing of a new statue.
But it was hard not to hear their hearts breaking as their faith was being tested like never before.
On the other side of town, the man they still call their shepherd – Deacon Ron Gonsalves – was being held in jail on 62 counts of sexual assault against a boy.
“Dear God, all of us at St. Ann are suffering,” parishioner Cathy Riley sang to the heavens during the service when prayers were offered for various intentions. “Bless us, God, bless Deacon Ron and his family, bless the child and his family.”
If the outpouring of aloha at the Feast Day Mass celebration was any indication, Gonsalves’ flock remains as devoted to him as ever, standing firm in his defense. Some of the women who regularly bake bread with him were even talking about showing their support by going to the courtroom for his bail hearing Monday to boost his morale.
“We all love him,” said Agnes Cockett. “He’s such a bighearted, generous person. He has been so good to us, not just to our parish, but to the entire community.”
SPOKANE (WA)
Spokesman-Review
Bill Morlin
Staff writer
July 31, 2005
Three decades ago, while Spokane reveled in its changing skyline and the limelight of hosting a World's Fair, the city frequently was described as a great place to raise a family.
But beneath the surface lurked a dark secret – actually several of them.
Young boys – some from troubled backgrounds and others from prominent families – were being sexually abused by a group of men who were supposed to be role models and authority figures. Growing evidence suggests that people who knew about the abuse did nothing to stop it or report it.
Two attorneys who represent several alleged victims from the era believe there was a pedophile ring operating in Spokane.
Others blame a culture of secrecy, denial and ignorance for allowing revered, male-dominated institutions like the Catholic Church, the Boy Scouts and the Spokane County Sheriff's Office to ignore abusers in their midst.
"The people and institutions who helped keep these secrets are almost as guilty as the perpetrators," said Seattle attorney Tim Kosnoff, who represents two of at least four men who allege they were passed around among abusers.
"There was definitely a sex ring operating in Spokane, preying on young boys," Kosnoff said, using the FBI's definition of two or more individuals sharing information and victims to make his point.
LOS ANGELES (CA)
San Gabriel Valley Tribune
LOS ANGELES -- Family members of clergy-molestation victims who committed suicide, along with abuse survivors, will carry a 6-foot casket covered with pictures from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Sunday from the Los Angeles Criminal Courts building to the Los Angeles cathedral.
About 100 people, most members of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, a confidential support group, are expected.
A memorial service and candlelight vigil are planned.
The group will meet at 6:30 p.m. outside the courthouse, 210 W. Temple St., and at 7 p.m. at Our Lady of the Angeles Cathedral, 555 W. Temple St.
Speakers include a woman whose son took his own life, even though the pedophile priest who assaulted him was sent to prison.
CALIFORNIA
Fresno Bee
By DOUG HOAGLAND
THE FRESNO BEE
Last Updated: July 31, 2005, 04:35:35 AM PDT
Barbara Levey said she was glad to hear that a former Merced priest who faced allegations that he used a dating Web site would soon be working with prisons and living in residence at a Fresno church.
"I hope it works out for him," the Merced resident said Saturday. "Hopefully, people will now let go of this and move on."
Jean-Michael Lastiri, who was ousted from St. Patrick's Catholic Church in Merced a year ago, will be director of detention ministry in the eight-county Diocese of Fresno, said Pat Gordon, director of human resources for the diocese.
Gordon declined further comment Friday except to say that Lastiri will be "in residence" at the Shrine of St. Therese, a Catholic church in Fresno's Tower District near downtown. He will live at a rectory on church property, said Monsignor E. James Petersen, pastor at St. Therese.
A priest who is "in residence" at a parish is not assigned there, but sometimes helps celebrate Mass and hears confessions on weekends while working outside the parish during the week.
KENTUCKY
Lexington Herald-Leader
By Frank E. Lockwood
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER
When three former clients accused him of misconduct and the state ordered him to stop offering marriage and family therapy, the Rev. Robert G. Humphreys didn't get out of the business -- he merely changed his title.
By dropping the word "licensed," and by branding himself a "pastoral counselor," the Southern Baptist preacher found a loophole that he says allows him to stay in business. That dismays clients who say Humphreys made inappropriate sexual comments and revealed their secrets without proper authorization.
While it requires most counselors and therapists to be licensed, Kentucky -- like most states -- does not require pastoral counselors to be licensed.
"It's a technicality," said Humphreys, 69, interim pastor of Lexington's First Baptist Church in the 1980s and a 1962 graduate of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. "When you're dealing with the law, I'm not sure that you're dealing with common sense."
Mary Baker, one of Humphreys' accusers, says the state marriage and family therapy licensure board should stop him.
HAWAII
Maui News
WAILUKU – A Maui Catholic deacon charged with sexually abusing a boy had his bail hearing delayed after 2nd Circuit Judge Joel August recused himself Friday from handling further proceedings in the case.
Ron Gonsalves, who was placed on leave last month from his position as administrator of St. Ann Church parish in Waihee, was being held in lieu of $790,000 bail.
The 68-year-old Wailuku resident is charged with 62 counts alleging he sexually abused the boy during a three-year period beginning when the boy was 12 and ending last month. Police said the sexual assaults allegedly occurred at Gonsalves’ home and at the church.
The charges include 32 counts of first-degree sexual assault, alleging sexual penetration, and 30 counts of third-degree sexual assault, alleging sexual contact. A Sept. 26 trial date has been set.
Gonsalves, who was being held at the Maui Community Correctional Center, is scheduled to appear for a bail hearing Monday morning before 2nd Circuit Judge Shackley Raffetto.
In court Friday, August said he was recusing himself because of information he had learned but did not give details.
NEVADA
Reno Gazette-Journal
Martha Bellisle RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL
Posted: 7/30/2005 10:15 pm
In response to allegations of sexual abuse by priests, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2002 created the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.
The Dallas charter established guidelines and commitments for accountability, healing and helping to prevent additional abuse, according to the organization’s statement. Bishops revised the charter during their annual meeting last month in Chicago.
“The sexual abuse of children and young people by some deacons, priests, and bishops, and the ways in which these crimes and sins were addressed, have caused enormous pain, anger and confusion,” said Monsignor William Fay, general secretary for the USCCB.
“As bishops, we have acknowledged our mistakes and our roles in that suffering and we
NEVADA
Reno Gazette-Journal
Martha Bellisle RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL
Posted: 7/30/2005 10:50 pm
Modified: 7/30/2005 10:59 pm
Reno Catholic leader Bishop Phillip Straling, who retired unexpectedly last month, is a key witness in more than 150 lawsuits in Southern California filed against priests accused of molesting children. In some cases, he is accused of negligence for failing to stop the abuse.
And prosecutors last week seized records from Straling’s former diocese in San Bernardino looking for information on the religious leader’s former aide, Jesus Dominguez, who recently disappeared after being charged with 58 counts of sexual assault.
The lawsuits and lawyers say Straling, while a priest in San Diego and bishop of San Bernardino, might have known that the accused priests were having sex with children but did nothing to stop them. Many believe he played a part in shuffling abusive priests to new parishes where they had access to and sometimes continued to molest children.
After moving to Reno in 1995, Straling transferred at least one accused priest, Robert
UNITED STATES
Washington Post
By Caryle Murphy
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 31, 2005; Page C01
One spring day last year, Baltimore Cardinal William H. Keeler and a dozen priests knelt before more than 100 people in a Maryland church. In an act of public atonement to victims of clerical sexual abuse, they recited the confiteor, the traditional Catholic confession of sin. For some in the audience, it was a long-awaited catharsis.
"You have no idea of the healing that came out of that for me," said Edwina Stewart of Frederick, who was sexually abused by a priest 40 years ago. She recalled breaking into tears during Keeler's prayer.
David Fortwengler never has had such a moment. The North Carolina contractor, abused in the late 1960s as an altar boy at Oxon Hill's St. Columba Catholic Church, appreciates that the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington is paying for his counseling and that an auxiliary bishop personally apologized to him. But all this has not quite closed his wound.
"It's not a matter of sitting down with a bishop for five minutes and him apologizing and [me] being able to move on -- it's more than that," Fortwengler, 48, said.
JOLIET (IL)
Chicago Daily Herald
By James Fuller
Daily Herald Staff Writer
Posted Saturday, July 30, 2005
The Diocese of Joliet is urging a DuPage County judge to seal the personnel file of a former Catholic priest accused of sexual abuse, setting up a legal battle to force church officials to name both victims and other priests with similar charges.
A Glen Ellyn man in his late 40s identified only as “John Doe” is embroiled in a civil lawsuit against Edward Stefanich. Doe accuses the defrocked priest of repeatedly sexually abusing him between 1969 and 1970. Doe was a 12-year-old student at Christ the King Elementary School in Lombard at the time. Stefanich, now in his late 60s, served six months in jail on a separate aggravated criminal sexual assault charge in 1987, committed while he was a priest.
Doe’s attorney, Jeff Anderson, said the diocese has been bulletproof until his client’s case He said church officials shook off at least half a dozen similar accusations in the last decade because the alleged abuse traced back beyond the statute of limitations for such charges.
“The Diocese of Joliet has yet to be held legally accountable, and this is the first case where any survivor may get a chance to make his sordid story known,” Anderson said. “The bishop and his officials have hid behind statute. Now the wall of deception and deceit has begun to crack.”
NEVADA
Reno Gazette-Journal
Martha Bellisle RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL
Posted: 7/30/2005 10:19 pm
Reno Bishop Phillip Straling lived and worked most of his life among many of the Southern California Catholic priests who are accused in lawsuits as child molesters or are convicted pedophiles. Some of these priests held leadership positions in Straling’s diocese and later ended up in prison for their abuse.
Straling, who retired last month, has declined comment on his relationship with the accused priests and has referred questions to the San Bernardino diocese. Lawsuits also were filed against priests from the San Diego diocese, where Straling served as a priest from 1959 until 1978.
NEVADA
Reno Gazette-Journal
Martha Bellisle RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL
Posted: 7/30/2005 10:17 pm
Prosecutors in Southern California have charged Reno Bishop Phillip Straling’s former aide with 58 counts of child molestation concerning abuse that occurred while Jesus Dominguez was a priest in the San Bernardino, Calif., diocese.
Dominguez, 56, Straling’s assistant during special Masses, is accused of sexually assaulting two boys, ages 16 and 17, in two different parishes in 1988 and 1989, said Riverside County Deputy District Attorney Morgan Gire.
He faces 11 counts of engaging in oral copulation with a minor and two counts of sodomy with a minor for the first victim, said Gire. He’s charged with 19 counts of oral copulation with a minor, 13 counts of unlawful sexual penetration and 13 counts of sodomy with a minor with the second victim, the prosecutor said.
Dominguez has disappeared from his Los Angeles residence and is believed to have fled to Mexico, Gire said. If found and convicted, he faces a maximum of more than 44 years in prison, Gire said.
When asked about Dominguez and other accused priests, Straling declined to comment and referred all questions to officials in San Bernardino, where
VERMONT
Times Argus
July 31, 2005
By KEVIN O'CONNOR Staff Writer
The statewide Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington faces at least 10 priest misconduct lawsuits seeking liens on church property that could total up to $30 million.
Jerome O'Neill, chairman of the Burlington Police Commission and a former federal prosecutor, compelled the diocese to settle one case last year for a $150,000 cash payment – the largest such agreement in state history – and another for $120,000.
Now O'Neill has filed civil lawsuits in Burlington's Chittenden Superior Court on behalf of 10 more clients charging four former Vermont priests with child sexual abuse. The lawyer's past cases didn't request specific dollar amounts in damages. But this time, at least three lawsuits are seeking liens on church property – one for $4.5 million, two others for $2.5 million each.
"We expect to seek attachments in the $2.5 million range in all of the cases we have filed, for a total of around $30 million," O'Neill says.
TOLEDO (OH)
Toledo Blade
By JOE MAHR
and MITCH WEISS
BLADE STAFF WRITERS
For Sgt. John Connors, it was an urgent request from one of Toledo's most powerful priests.
The veteran police detective was summoned by the Rev. John "Archie" Thomas to Central Catholic High School before classes to talk about a deep secret brewing behind the walls of the diocese headquarters.
Church leaders feared a popular priest known for helping wayward youths - the Rev. Dennis Gray - was raping and molesting boys at the cleric's cottage, and Father Thomas, superintendent of diocesan schools, wanted the officer's advice on what to do.
"He said, 'We've got a problem,' " Mr. Connors recalled of the meeting nearly two decades ago.
The officer said he told the priest to keep Father Gray away from kids, and that was it.
Case closed.
The longtime detective did not file a police report, nor did he initiate an investigation into the man later accused of abusing more than a dozen boys.
MAINE
Portland Press Herald
By GREGORY D. KESICH, Portland Press Herald Writer
In the summer of 1963, Francis McGillicuddy, a young priest and director of a church-run girls camp on Poland's Worthley Pond, noticed something odd about one of the camp's guests, the Monsignor Henry Boltz.
Boltz, a leading figure in Maine's Roman Catholic Church, had befriended a teenage boy from the camp staff. This boy, McGillicuddy observed, accompanied the elderly prelate on shopping trips and to the movies and made long visits inside Boltz's private cabin on the grounds of Camp Pesquasawasis.
McGillicuddy felt something was wrong. He couldn't say what it was, but he wanted to stop it.
"I called the staff together and said the monsignor's cabin was out of bounds," he recalled. "No one was to go down there for any reason."
Within days, Boltz left. For years, McGillicuddy never really knew why.
JOLIET (IL)
Daily Southtown
Sunday, July 31, 2005
By Ted Slowik
Special to the Daily Southtown
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Joliet is again asking a court to bar the release of documents that could shed light on how church officials responded to allegations of clergy sexual abuse.
The diocese is asking a DuPage County judge to issue a protective order that would shield the personnel file of former priest and convicted sex offender Ed Stefanich from public view.
Judge Stephen Culliton is expected to rule on the request Aug. 8.
The diocese is arguing that failure to obtain a protective order would dissuade other victims of clergy sexual abuse from coming forward, and that the privacy of others would be violated.
"The absence of a protective order could have (a) chilling effect and discourage parishioners from logging complaints or writing to the bishop regarding a variety of sensitive issues," diocese attorney James Byrne wrote in a motion.
UNITED STATES
Philadelphia Inquirer
By Jim Remsen
Inquirer Faith Life Editor
At a time of heightened national concern about the need to track sex offenders, the Catholic Church in America has begun cutting loose dozens - perhaps hundreds - of priests who have molested children.
The church had already suspended the clerics after finding the child-abuse allegations against them to be credible. Now, as it defrocks them, expelling them from the priesthood, the men are quietly reentering civilian life with only the barest notice to the public, and no ongoing oversight by the church.
Nor is law enforcement certain to be watching them.
In most instances, the statute of limitations in their cases expired years ago. This means they face no prospect of prosecution for past sex offenses.
"As a citizen, I would be concerned and would want to know if such an individual was living on my block," said Capt. John Darby, head of the Philadelphia police Special Victims Unit, which investigates sex crimes.
MADISON (WI)
Duluth News Tribune
RYAN J. FOLEY
Associated Press
MADISON, Wis. - A Catholic priest's defamation lawsuit against a man who claims the priest abused him as a boy heads to trial in Janesville on Monday.
The case will pit supporters of the priest, the Rev. Gerald Vosen, against advocates for victims of clergy sexual abuse who say the lawsuit is retaliation against a victim.
While hundreds of people have sued priests during the Catholic church's sexual abuse crisis over the past few years, observers say it's unusual for a priest to sue - especially when a church investigation has called the allegation in question credible.
Vosen, on administrative leave from his job as pastor of St. Joseph Parish in Baraboo, and his supporters have disputed the abuse allegation and say they look forward to proving it false in court. The lawsuit names the man and his parents and claims their allegation ruined his reputation.
FRESNO (CA)
KESQ
FRESNO, Calif. A Catholic priest who was removed from a Merced church after he reportedly used a gay dating Web site has been assigned to work with prisons.
Church officials say the Reverend Jean-Michael Lastiri will be director of detention ministry in the eight-county Diocese of Fresno.
Bishop John Steinbock removed Lastiri from the Saint Patrick's Catholic Church in Merced last year and said he was sending him to a treatment center in Maryland because of indications Lastiri had used a totally inappropriate Web page and chat room.
INDIA
NewIndPress.com
Sunday July 31 2005 00:00 IST
THOOTHUKUDI: Police arrested a temple priest on charges of sexually exploiting a 23-year-old devotee in Sernthapoomangalam, near Athoor, here on Saturday.
According to police sources, Ganapathy Kannan (48), a temple priest, sexually abused a female devotee for the past four months, as a result of which the woman became pregnant. However, when the woman told the priest to marry her, he refused.
Hence, the victim lodged a complaint with the Athoor police on Saturday.
DAVENPORT (IA)
Quad-City Times
By Ann McGlynn
A retired Davenport priest pleaded guilty Friday to his fourth count of prostitution since 1998, court documents show.
Monsignor Robert John Walter, 84, was arrested in the early morning hours of May 23, records state. The judge gave him a $1,000 fine and one year of unsupervised probation.
Walter declined comment when contacted Friday by the Quad-City Times.
Walter served at St. Paul the Apostle Catholic Church, 916 E. Rusholme St., Davenport. He was the principal of Assumption High School in Davenport from 1962 to 1970, as well as other assignments outside of the Quad-Cities. Ordained in 1945, he retired in 1991.
His first arrest came in July 1998, one of 33 arrested during a police sting near downtown Davenport. During the two-day operation, three female undercover officers, all clad in plain, button-down tops and shorts, lingered on a street corner known as a hotbed for prostitution.
NASHVILLE (TN)
Tennessean
By SHEILA BURKE
Staff Writer
A Davidson County Judge yesterday quashed subpoenas seeking the release of all financial data from nine Catholic organizations but agreed that plaintiffs in a priest molestation suit should get records detailing the relationships between the businesses and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Nashville.
Lawyers for the businesses, which include two area Catholic high schools, had asked to be left out of the court battle between the victims and the diocese. They argued that the organizations are separate financial entities from the diocese and were not defendants in the suit, scheduled to go to trial in March 2006.
Davidson County Circuit Court Judge Walter Kurtz said the plaintiffs' lawyers were entitled to review evidence showing the links between the organizations and the church. The judge has yet to decide whether that information will be provided to a jury once the trial is under way.
"What we'll do with that (during trial) is a completely different issue," Kurtz told the lawyers.
The plaintiffs' lawyers are trying to see how much the diocese is worth. They want to know if records show that parish properties and some Catholic businesses should be calculated as part of the net worth of the diocese.
INDIA
Express India
Janyala Sreenivas
Ahmedabad, July 29: When holy men are involved in unholy acts, what does the sect do?
Facing embarassment over their sadhus’ involvement in sex scandals and questions galore from angry devotees, various Swaminarayan sects in Gujarat have devised a way out: a code of conduct.
While the Vadtal Lakshminarayan Gadi Sansthan sect has decided to minimise interaction between sadhus and disciples at hostels, the Swaminarayan Gadi Sansthan, Maninagar, will hold meetings of priests and disciples to ‘purify’ their thoughts twice a week and do away with rooms alloted to separate priests or disciples.
CANADA
London Free Press
APRIL KEMICK, Free Press Reporter 2005-07-30 04:35:58
An 82-year-old retired priest, who worked in the Chatham area, is charged with five sexual offences involving girls more than 30 years ago.
The charges relate to complaints dating back to between 1971 and 1973.
The priest -- now living in Belle River, near Windsor -- at the time was the head pastor at St. Ursula's Roman Catholic Church in Chatham, police said yesterday.
All three female complainants, between ages 10 and 13 at the time, were parishioners at the church, police said.
No one at St. Ursula's or the Roman Catholic diocese could be reached for comment yesterday.
After receiving one complaint a few months ago, police began investigating and two more victims came forward.
Chatham-Kent police are continuing to investigate allegations involving other complainants, which could take some time, police said.
"Historical allegations of sexual assault are complex and time-consuming to investigate," said Insp. George Flikweert.
Charles Henry Sylvestre of Belle River was arrested July 21, police said.
HAWAII
Honolulu Star-Bulletin
By Gary T. Kubota
gkubota@starbulletin.com
WAILUKU » James Ronald Gonsalves was the exception among about 50 deacons in the Catholic Diocese of Hawaii.
While most deacons are volunteers, he was hired six years ago to be a full-time paid administrator for a parish on Maui and gained praise for bringing St. Ann Church in Waihee out of debt and more than doubling its membership.
"By all measures he was doing a great job," said diocesan spokesman Patrick Downes.
Recent allegations that Gonsalves repeatedly sexually assaulted a boy over three years have stunned many parishioners who valued his friendship and leadership. And the accusations have once again brought attention to the conduct of clergy in Hawaii -- a diocese where at least three other priests have been accused of molesting male youths.
Gonsalves, 68, pleaded not guilty to 62 charges related to the sexual assault of a boy between June 2003 and last month while the deacon was employed at St. Ann. The charges included 30 counts of first-degree sexual assault, which under Hawaii law means forced sexual penetration. The boy was 12 years old when the alleged acts began.
MASSACHUSETTS
The Standard-Times
More than 500 members of the Catholic laity from 200 local affiliates and 32 states recently gathered at the Convention Center in Indianapolis to attend theAbuse Tracker Voice of the Faithful Convocation. The theme was "Accountability Now."
Among the laity attendees were seven members of the SouthCoast affiliate and nine members of the Falmouth affiliate.
One of the highlights of the gathering was the commissioning of members of the newly formedAbuse Tracker Representative Council. Representatives from 13 regions throughout the United States were commissioned thus solidifying the group's national stature.
The Catherine of Sienna Distinguished Lay Person Award was presented to Justice Anne Burke, the former chairwoman of the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops'Abuse Tracker Review Board for the Protection of Children and Young People. Illinois Appellate Judge Burke spoke eloquently of the need for greater openness and responsibility within the church. She also advised the group to keep pressure on bishops to ensure financial accountability on church affairs. The laity should be kept informed.
The Rev. Tom Doyle, the first recipient of the Priest of Integrity Award, in 2002 presented the Rev. Monsignor Laurence Breslin of Cincinnati, Ohio, with the 2005 Priest of Integrity Award. The Rev. Monsignor Breslin commended those present for the caring they have demonstrated for the future of their church. He stressed that laity, hierarchy and clergy should be good listeners, be empathetic and strive to change hearts. He noted that a more participatory, less autocratic decision-making process is needed.
ILLINOIS
Herald News
By Ted Slowik
STAFF WRITER
WHEATON — The Roman Catholic Diocese of Joliet is once again asking a court to bar the release of documents that could shed light on how church officials responded to allegations of clergy sexual abuse.
The diocese is asking a DuPage County judge to issue a protective order that would shield the personnel file of former priest and convicted sex offender Ed Stefanich from public view. Judge Stephen Culliton is expected to rule on the request Aug. 8.
The diocese is arguing that failure to obtain a protective order would dissuade other victims of clergy sexual abuse from coming forward, and that the privacy of others would be violated.
"The absence of a protective order could have (a) chilling effect and discourage parishioners from logging complaints or writing to the bishop regarding a variety of sensitive issues," diocese attorney James Byrne wrote in a motion.
Attorneys for a man reportedly abused by Stefanich want the judge to deny the protective order. They say they've proposed releasing the priest's file with the names of reported victims and others blacked out, but the diocese rejected that offer.
DAVENPORT (IA)
Des Moines Register
By SHIRLEY RAGSDALE
REGISTER RELIGION EDITOR
July 30, 2005
A former top administrator for the Davenport Catholic Diocese has been accused of child sex abuse in a lawsuit filed last week.
The diocese on Friday acknowledged that Scott County resident D. Michl Uhde has sued, alleging that beginning in 1957, Monsignor Thomas Feeney sexually abused him while they were on bird-watching outings at Credit Island Park in Davenport.
Feeney died in 1981. He was vicar general, the diocese's top administrator, from 1968 to 1981, according to Craig Levien, the Davenport lawyer who filed the lawsuit.
In a statement, Bishop William Franklin said the diocese had hoped that mediation, rather than expensive, time-consuming lawsuits would be the "best and fairest way to resolve these cases."
Levien, who in October negotiated a $9 million settlement for 37 clients against the diocese, said his client had little choice but to sue.
HAWAII
KGMB
Brooks Baehr – bbaehr@kgmb9.com
Ron Gonsalves, a deacon with the Catholic church, was back in a Wailuku courtroom Friday. He is charged with 62 counts of sexual assault against a teenage boy.
Gonsalves was hoping to have his $790,000 bail reduced, but it didn't happen.
Maui Circuit Judge Joel August took himself off the case and postponed the bail hearing before Gonsalves' defense attorney, Philip Lowenthal, could ask that the bail be lowered.
August didn't explain in court why he recused himself, but Lowenthal's son and law clerk says it has something to do with the fact that Lowenthal and August were long-time law partners.
DAVENPORT (IA)
Sioux City Journal
DAVENPORT, Iowa (AP) -- The Roman Catholic diocese of Davenport announced Friday that it has been named in another lawsuit alleging sexual misconduct, this one naming Msgr. Thomas Feeney, a former vicar general of the diocese who died in 1981.
The lawsuit, filed Monday, involves allegations that occurred more than 48 years ago, Bishop William Franklin said in a statement.
Diocese officials are reviewing the complaint. Franklin said the diocese had hoped that mediation, rather than lawsuits, would be the best way to resolve such complaints.
Feeney died July 27, 1981. He was on the faculty at St. Ambrose University in 1937-38; was chaplain at Mercy Hospital in Davenport from 1942 to 1948; served as pastor of Sacred Heart Cathedral in Davenport from 1953 to 1968; and as pastor of St. Anthony's in Davenport from 1968 to 1981. He served as vice chancellor of the diocese in 1941-42; chancellor from 1942 to 1952; and vicar general from 1968 to 1981.
SOUTH CAROLINA
Hilton Head Island Packet
Story by JANUARY HOLMES
The Island Packet
Published Saturday, July 30th, 2005
Michael Cassabon says his happiness is driven by God's love.
And in return for that love, all the 25-year-old wants to do is serve 24 hours a day.
So he's joining the Roman Catholic priesthood.
"My goal is to do God's will -- whatever it is," says Cassabon, who is spending his summer break from seminary in Rome to intern at St. Gregory the Great Catholic Church in Bluffton. "It's my overall goal, my daily goal and also my goal for the next 10 seconds."
The Greenville native feels his calling to the ministry so strongly that he isn't deterred by past scandals or ongoing accusations of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy.
"They are inexcusable," he says of the abuse. "But this is still God's church."
In fact, Cassabon says he and his 150 American seminary classmates in Rome are more determined because of the scandals, feeling that it is their calling to rebuild the honor of their profession.
METUCHEN (NJ)
Courier News
By RICK MALWITZ
Gannett New Jersey
Eugene O'Sullivan, whose past was hidden from the Diocese of Metuchen when he came to serve as a priest in Hillsborough, North Plainfield, East Brunswick and South Brunswick, has been defrocked by the Vatican, the Archdiocese of Boston announced Friday.
When O'Sullivan came to New Jersey, church officials here were told by church officials in Boston that he was a recovering alcoholic. But they were not told he was convicted in Massachusetts of sodomizing a 13-year-old altar boy.
"This was typical of the Boston Archdiocese," said Monsignor Michael Alliegro of St. Bartholomew's Church in East Brunswick, describing the lax attitude of the Boston church in a sexual abuse scandal that has rocked the Roman Catholic Church in the United States.
"Now that all this has come forward, it hurts even more, knowing that at the time (O'Sullivan) was only the tip of the iceberg," Alliegro said Friday. "Not only did they flim-flam the pastors, but the bishops as well."
DAVENPORT (IA)
Quad-City Times
By Times staff
The Catholic Diocese of Davenport announced Friday that it is a defendant in a sexual misconduct lawsuit filed against a priest who died 24 years ago this week.
The lawsuit was filed in Scott County District Court by D. Michl Uhde, and it lists Monsignor Thomas Feeney as a defendant along with the diocese. The suit alleges instances of sexual misconduct that occurred more than 48 years ago.
Further details about the case were unavailable Friday night.
A spokesman for the diocese said officials are reviewing the complaint they received Monday.
Feeney died July 27, 1981, having retired earlier that year. The priest began his career when he was assigned to the faculty of what is now St. Ambrose University in 1937. He served as chaplain of Mercy Hospital, Davenport from 1942 to 1948 and 1953 to 1963, as pastor of Sacred Heart Cathedral, Davenport, from 1953 to 1968 and as pastor of St. Anthony's Catholic Church, Davenport, from 1968 to 1981.
BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe
By Ralph Ranalli, Globe Staff | July 30, 2005
Eugene O'Sullivan, believed to be the first Massachusetts priest convicted of sexual abuse more than two decades ago, has been dismissed from the priesthood by the Vatican, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Boston said yesterday.
O'Sullivan, who served at a number of parishes in the area, including St. Agnes Church in Arlington, was sentenced to probation in 1984 after he admitted sodomizing a 13-year-old altar boy at St. Ann's Parish in Marshfield. One condition of his probation was that he not be allowed to work with children, but church officials, who had pleaded with a judge for leniency on his behalf, later assigned him priestly duties at four New Jersey parishes.
Terrence Donilon, a spokesman for Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley, said church officials had no comment on the matter beyond the fact of O'Sullivan's official removal from the priesthood.
The Vatican has dismissed another priest, Paul E. McDonald, who had served in parishes in Hyde Park and Marlborough, Donilon said.
McDonald was accused of raping boys when he was a priest at St. Joseph Church in Hyde Park in the 1960s. He eventually left the priesthood voluntarily in 1976 after getting a woman pregnant.
LOUISIANA
Court TV
By Emanuella Grinberg
Court TV
Authorities in the small, rural Louisiana town of Ponchatoula were shocked when a local pastor walked into their office in mid-May and allegedly confessed to having sex with children, cats and dogs at his Hosanna Church.
Louis Lamonica allegedly implicated eight other members of his flock, including a deputy sheriff, in "cult-like" rituals involving the rape of as many as 24 young victims, from infants to teens, between 1999 and 2003.
But lawyers for the nine codefendants, ages 24 to 55, say that, not only are their clients innocent but they are the victims of a brainwashing scheme.
"There is absolutely no evidence, medical or otherwise, to suggest that there is any truth to these allegations," said A. Wayne Smith, lawyer for codefendant Allen Pierson, who pleaded not guilty in June to four counts of aggravated rape of a child under 13.
IOWA
Radio Iowa
by Stella Shaffer
A small group went to St. Josephs' Parish south of Dubuque this morning to stage a "sidewalk news conference" over the latest case involving accusations of priest abuse. A man who now lives in Texas has sued the diocese charging a priest molested him in the 1960s. The priest, William Roach, has since died. Steve Theisen with SNAP, the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, says the diocese is trying to put blame on the victim instead. "They're trying to put the onus on the victim instead of the perp," Theisen says. He says the defense argued that the victim, who was 17 at the time, was not a child. "We think that's very wrong to say that basically fifteen, sixteen and 17-year-old kids are fair game." The lawyers for the Dubuque diocese are also using a novel tactic in trying to deflect the accusation. They're saying that Monsignor Roach was not an employee of the diocese -- that he was an independent contractor.
IOWA
KWWL
Members of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests rallied outside St. Joseph's in Key West with a clear message to Archbishop Jerome Hanus and the Archdiocese of Dubuque.
"To not use hardball legal tactics when it comes to fighting the lawsuits." said local group founder Steve Theisen.
The group is unhappy the Archdiocese is fighting a sexual abuse lawsuit filed by NBC News Correspondent Jim Cummins. "W e believe he has every right to defend the Archdiocese and his priests but we do not believe he has the moral right with some of the tactics he is using." added Theisen.
In the documents filed last week, church leaders claim Cummins, who was 17 when the alleged incidents occured in 1962, was actually an adult. They also say Cummins alleged perpetrator Monsignor William Roach, was an independent contractor, not a church employee.
BOSTON (MA)
TheBostonChannel.com
POSTED: 3:31 pm EDT July 29, 2005
UPDATED: 3:33 pm EDT July 29, 2005
BOSTON -- The Vatican has defrocked Eugene O'Sullivan, who became the first Massachusetts priest convicted of sexual abuse more than two decades ago, the Boston Archdiocese announced Friday.
In 1984, O'Sullivan was sentenced to probation after he admitted sodomizing a 13-year-old altar boy. A condition of his sentence was that he not be allowed to work with children.
But O'Sullivan was later assigned to four New Jersey parishes. He was recalled to Boston in 1992 after church officials learned of another allegation against him dating back to his time in Massachusetts.
The Vatican's action to defrock O'Sullivan means he may no longer function as a priest in any capacity, except to offer absolution to the dying. Defrocked priests also are cut off from any financial support from the archdiocese.
O'Sullivan served at a number of parishes in the Boston Archdiocese, including St. Agnes Church in Arlington and St. Ann's in Marshfield.
Documents from O'Sullivan's personnel file, made public in 2002, show that that the archdiocese was alerted as early as the 1960s to allegations against him.
A woman wrote in 1964 to then-Cardinal Richard Cushing that O'Sullivan had picked up her 12-year-old son from their summer cottage and took him to the sacristy "under the pretense of checking the altar boy assignments" for St. Ann's parish. Her son was very upset when he returned home and told his parents the priest had reached into his bathing trunks and "touched him repeatedly in the private area." The woman said her son told her the priest had touched him there on previous occasions.
HAWAII
The Maui News
By LILA FUJIMOTO, Staff Writer
WAILUKU – Deacon Ron Gonsalves, who was placed on leave last month from his position as administrator of St. Ann parish in Waihee, has been indicted on 62 charges alleging he sexually abused a boy during a three-year period.
A Sept. 26 trial was set for the 68-year-old Wailuku resident, who was arraigned Thursday in 2nd Circuit Court. He pleaded not guilty to the charges.
A bail hearing is scheduled today for Gonsalves, who was being held in lieu of $790,000 bail at the Maui Community Correctional Center. He was arrested Wednesday after turning himself in at the Wailuku Police Station.
The indictment alleges that the sexual abuse occurred over a three-year period, beginning when the boy was 12 years old and ending last month, said Lt. Glenn Cuomo of the Criminal Investigation Division. He said the sexual assaults allegedly occurred at Gonsalves’ home and at the Waihee church.
Cuomo discussed the indictment before Gonsalves appeared in court and Judge Joel August agreed to seal the indictment against Gonsalves, at the request of both Deputy Prosecutor Robert Rivera and defense attorney Philip Lowenthal.
IOWA
Gazette
Published: 07/29/2005 5:15 PM
By: Associated Press - Associated Press
DAVENPORT, IA - The Roman Catholic diocese of Davenport announced Friday that it has been named in another lawsuit alleging sexual misconduct, this one naming Msgr. Thomas Feeney, a former vicar general of the diocese who died in 1981.
The lawsuit, filed Monday, involves allegations that occurred more than 48 years ago, Bishop William Franklin said in a statement.
Diocese officials are reviewing the complaint. Franklin said the diocese had hoped that mediation, rather than lawsuits, would be the best way to resolve such complaints.
Feeney died July 27, 1981. He was on the faculty at St. Ambrose University in 1937-38; was chaplain at Mercy Hospital in Davenport from 1942 to 1948; served as pastor of Sacred Heart Cathedral in Davenport from 1953 to 1968; and as pastor of St. Anthony's in Davenport from 1968 to 1981. He served as vice chancellor of the diocese in 1941-42; chancellor from 1942 to 1952; and vicar general from 1968 to 1981.
HAWAII
TheHawaiiChannel.com
POSTED: 2:19 pm HST July 29, 2005
WAILUKU, Maui, Hawaii --
A Catholic deacon accused of sex abuse appeared in a Maui courtroom Friday for a bail hearing, but due to an unusual twist in the proceedings, James Ronald Gonsalves remains in jail without the hearing.
Police charged Gonsalves with 62 counts of sexual assault against a boy. Officers arrested Gonsalves on Wednesday. He is being held on $790,000 bail.
Gonsalves appeared in Circuit Court Friday morning with his attorney, Philip Lowenthal.
At the start of the hearing, Judge Joel August announced he would recuse himself from the case. August and Lowenthal, one of the state's noted defense attorneys, shared a Wailuku law practice for more than 20 years until August was selected as a judge in 2002.
"Judges are bound by an ethical code. It's called the Code of Judicial Conduct and that states out that judges are supposed to avoid even the mere appearance of an impropriety," Lowenthal said.
DALLAS (TX)
The Dallas Morning News
07:13 PM CDT on Friday, July 29, 2005
By BROOKS EGERTON / The Dallas Morning News
The Dallas Catholic Diocese soon will be paying millions more dollars to sexual abuse victims.
This time, however, the abusers in question are former child-care workers, not priests. But otherwise much is familiar: Plaintiffs say church officials ignored "red flags" about suspicious employees, while the defense says those individuals long managed to fool everyone around them.
Now, to avoid the risks of trying lawsuits, the diocese has agreed to pay a total of $2.6 million to three victims of Julio A. Marcos, who worked at St. Pius X's child-care center for much of the 1990s and is now serving a life term in prison.
Plaintiffs' attorneys say they expect to reach similar settlements soon for three more girls Mr. Marcos abused at the Far East Dallas church.
As part of the deals, diocesan officials admit no wrongdoing. Their attorney, Randy Mathis, declined to comment Friday.
HAWAII
Honolulu Star-Bulletin
By Gary T. Kubota
gkubota@starbulletin.com
WAILUKU, Maui » A Maui Catholic church deacon has been charged with 62 counts of sexual assault against a boy, an accusation that stunned the tiny rural parish where a bake sale is usually the big news of the month.
James Ronald Gonsalves, 68, deacon of St. Ann Church in Waihee, pleaded not guilty yesterday to the charges, which include 30 counts of first-degree sexual assault, 30 counts of third-degree sexual assault and two counts of first-degree attempted sexual assault.
Police said the crimes occurred between June 2002 and last month, starting when the boy was 12. They said some of the assaults occurred in the church.
While parishioners expressed shock at the allegations, many of them also said they supported Gonsalves.
"He's my friend. He's done so much for me. My feeling is that he has done so much for the church that I am willing to overlook the bad that he has done, if he has done anything bad," said Beatrice Dadez.
"We don't know he's guilty until he's proven guilty," she added.
CANADA
Canada.com
Broadcast News
July 29, 2005
WINDSOR, ONT. -- A retired Catholic priest who now lives in Essex County has been charged with several sex-related offences.
Police say the offences occurred in the Chatham-Kent area between 1971 and 1973.
Inspector George Flikweert says police know about three alleged victims, but the investigation continues and they have not ruled out finding more.
Police first started looking into the allegations in late 2004.
Eighty-two-year-old Charles Sylvestre of Belle River faces three counts of indecent assault, one charge of rape and one charge of sexual intercourse with a female under 14.
BOSTON (MA)
KASA
BOSTON The first priest in Massachusetts to be convicted of sexual abuse and a Boston priest have been defrocked by the Vatican.
The Vatican's action means Eugene O'Sullivan and Paul McDonald are no longer allowed to function as priests in any capacity -- except to offer absolution to the dying.
Both are also cut off from any financial support from the Boston archdiocese.
O'Sullivan had been sentenced to probation in 1984 after admitting to sodomizing a 13-year-old boy.
McDonald was accused of sexually abusing several boys in the 1960s.
WHITTIER (CA)
Whittier Daily News
By Tracy Garcia, Staff Writer
WHITTIER -- A group representing alleged victims of abuse by priests is asking St. Mary of the Assumption Roman Catholic Church parishioners to set up a fund for the son of a priest, officials said Thursday.
Members of SNAP -- Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests -- say they plan to distribute leaflets in front of the Whittier church Sunday, extolling parishioners to "take a step of compassion" on behalf of the boy.
SNAP Western Regional Director Mary Grant said members also want to inform parishioners about the circumstances regarding the illegitimate son of the Rev. Jose Arturo Uribe, 47.
Uribe has been transferred to a church in Chicago, according to published reports. He presided over his final Mass at St. Mary on July 17. Uribe is now reportedly on a trip to Mexico. He was not able to be reached by telephone Thursday.
"This is our way to reach out, in a way that we believe that church officials and the parish should be doing," Grant said. "By leafleting, we're educating parishioners and helping heal the hurt that's been done by urging parishioners to reach out to Stephanie and her son."
ARIZONA
The Arizona Republic
Michael Kiefer
The Arizona Republic
Jul. 29, 2005 12:00 AM
The Irish High Court ruled this week that it would not extradite a Catholic priest to stand trial in Arizona on two felony counts of sexual conduct with a minor.
Patrick Oliver Colleary is accused of having sex with a teenage boy in 1978, while Colleary was a priest at a church in Scottsdale. But he was not charged until 2003, after he had already returned to Ireland.
In a rambling 37-page decision released Wednesday, Judge Phillip O'Sullivan of the Irish High Court noted that the case would probably be thrown out of Irish courts because the charges were filed 25 years after the alleged crimes took place.
He also stated that Arizona's practice of denying bond to certain accused sex offenders violated rights under the Irish Constitution, and that prior newspaper coverage would endanger Colleary's chances of getting a fair trial.
Furthermore, O'Sullivan feared that Colleary would be sent to a Maricopa County jail and kept under inhumane conditions that included wearing pink underwear.
SOUTH AFRICA
Vaal Weekly
SHARPEVILLE. - Action still has not been taken against a Mohlodi Secondary School teacher in Sharpeville who allegedly fondled a female learner at the school premises this year.
The incident was apparently brought to the attention of school authorities after the learner blew the whistle on the teacher.
Vaal Weekly was inundated with calls from anonymous people within the Education Department who demanded that justice prevails.
The anonymous callers accused the regional Education Department in Sedibeng East of trying hard to protect the teacher who further embarrassed the school after its disappointing matric results. ...
The teacher who is also an apostolic church priest is said to still be reporting to work months after the allegations surfaced. The learner is also apparently still going to school.
HOUSTON (TX)
Houston Chronicle
By ANDREW TILGHMAN
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle
Several members of a small Pentecostal church in Aldine collapsed on a Harris County courthouse floor and wailed unintelligible prayers Thursday after their longtime pastor was convicted of sexually abusing a teenage girl more than 10 years ago.
The Rev. Curtis Bass of the International Pentecostal Church was sentenced to 10 years in prison on two charges of indecency with a child. A woman, now 26, testified that he touched her breasts and vagina on two occasions when she was 16 years old in 1994.
"God is still in control," Bass, 53, said to dozens of church members seated in the courtroom after his sentencing. He took off his silver wristwatch before court bailiffs took him away.
Defense witnesses said the former construction worker who went to theology school in Jackson, Miss., was a longtime youth minister known for encouraging teens to participate in the church, which has about 100 members.
"It's sickening, from someone who supposedly does the Lord's work," Assistant District Attorney Robert Freyer told jurors Thursday.
At least three women have lodged sexual abuse complaints against Bass, said deputy investigator Russell Ackley of the Harris County Sheriff's Department.
HOUSTON (TX)
Click 2 Houston
POSTED: 6:52 am CDT July 29, 2005
HOUSTON -- A longtime pastor of a Pentecostal church in Aldine has been convicted of sexually abusing a teenage girl in his congregation 10 years ago.
The Rev. Curtis Bass of the International Pentecostal Church was sentenced Thursday to 10 years in prison on two charges of indecency with a child.
A woman, now 26, testified that he touched her breasts when she was 16 years old in 1994.
"God is still in control," Bass, 53, said to dozens of church members seated in the courtroom after his sentencing.
Defense witnesses described Bass as a longtime youth minister known for encouraging teens to participate in the church, which has about 100 members.
"It's sickening, from someone who supposedly does the Lord's work," Assistant District Attorney Robert Freyer told jurors Thursday.
HAWAII
Honolulu Advertiser
By Christie Wilson
Advertiser Neighbor Island Editor
WAILUKU, Maui — A well-regarded Catholic deacon credited by parishioners for reviving a small-town church on Maui pleaded not guilty yesterday to 62 charges that he sexually assaulted a boy for three years.
A Maui grand jury indicted James "Ron" Gonsalves, 68, on 30 counts of first-degree sexual assault, a felony punishable by a 20-year prison term; and 32 counts of third-degree sexual assault, which carries a maximum five-year term. He was being held with bail set at $790,000.
Maui police said the incidents allegedly occurred between June 2002 and June 2005, when the youth was ages 12 to 15. Some of the assaults were reported to have occurred at St. Ann Church in Waihe'e, in the Wailuku district.
News of Gonsalves' indictment brought heartbreak and tears to many St. Ann parishioners and cast a pall over tomorrow's celebration of the church's feast day. Church members described their deacon as "big-hearted" and "generous," and said he rescued the struggling parish from the edge of extinction with new programs and fundraising.
HAWAII
KHON
Kirk Fernandes
A church administrator on Maui has been charged with sexual assault. Sixty-eight-year-old James Gonsalves is accused of molesting a boy at his parish over a three-year period.
James R. Gonsalves has been on administrative leave since the allegations surfaced last month.
Gonsalves made a court appearance today and pleaded not guilty to the charges.
As a deacon, he ran the 250-member Saint Ann church, but did not preside over mass because he's not a priest.
A diocese spokesman says the alleged victim's family contacted them last month.
MASSACHUSETTS
Barnstable Patriot
By Richard Elrick
With Rick Santorum, the third ranking Republican in the U.S. Senate leading the right-wing charge, the Democrats may actually have a chance to win back his Pennsylvania Senate seat, and even the White House in 2008.
Earlier this month, Santorum reiterated his bizarre view, as expressed in a 2002 Catholic Online opinion piece, that the liberalism of Boston was responsible for the tragic child sexual abuse scandal that has rocked the Catholic Church the last few years. By uttering such inane absurdities, he demonstrates, by blaming the culture of the victims, not only a callous disregard for those young victims, but even more disturbingly, an ignorance of the facts and of the history of the Catholic Church, itself.
What he said exactly was, “When the culture is sick, every element in it becomes infected” … “it is no surprise that Boston, a seat of academic, political, and cultural liberalism in America, lies at the center of the storm.” How ridiculous. I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised by such comments. This is the same Republican senator who intruded on brain-dead Terri Schiavo’s deathbed, saying she had been executed, and who said that consensual homosexual behavior by adults was like “man on dog” sex, and that gay marriage “absolutely” threatens his own marriage.
What happened with the Catholic sex abuse scandal had nothing to do with Boston being the bastion of liberalism, other than that it was the first place where actions occurred to stop the abuse. If the esteemed Senator Santorum had researched the issue or had any historical or intellectual understanding of his Church’s background and culture, he would have discovered that the curse of pedophilia has been an affliction of the Catholic Church since the Middle Ages-and before. He would have found that the current history of sexual abuse cases in Boston goes back to the 1950s and 1960s, long before Boston became the great beacon of liberalism it now is. He would also have found that Catholic priest abuse of children has occurred, according to a study commissioned by the national Review Board for the protection of Children and Young People (an arm of the US Conference of Bishops), in greater percentages in such not-so-liberal strongholds as Jackson, Miss., and Belleville, Ill., to say nothing of that beautiful Catholic island of Ireland.
HAWAII
KGMB
Brooks Baehr – bbaehr@kgmb9.com
Parishioners at Saint Ann's Church on Maui are in shock after the head of their parish was arrested on 62 counts of sexual assault.
Deacon James Ron Gonsalves, 68, was behind bars at the Maui Community Correctional Center Thursday night. Gonsalves had been in charge of Saint Ann's for the past six years, but he's been removed from that post and put on leave because of the alleged sexual misconduct.
Saint Ann's has a relatively small congregation of about 230 active parishioners. It didn't have a full time priest, so in 1999 deacon Gonsalves was hired as church administrator.
"A priest would come in on weekends to say mass and to hear confessions, that sort of thing, because a deacon can not do that. But everything else in the parish. he was in charge," said Patrick Downes, spokesman for the Catholic diocese of Honolulu.
Downes said church leaders heard late last month that Gonsalves was the subject of sexual abuse allegations.
MILWAUKEE (WI)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
By TOM HEINEN
theinen@journalsentinel.com
Posted: July 28, 2005
Attorneys representing four victims of clergy sexual abuse filed a court appeal Thursday that advocates hope will end the legal impediments that have made it virtually impossible in Wisconsin to sue the Archdiocese of Milwaukee or other denominations and churches in such cases.
"We are taking one more big step to protect the children of our state and bring justice for victims of clergy sexual abuse," Peter Isely, Midwest coordinator of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said in front of the Milwaukee County Courthouse. He said he thinks the appeal will overturn Wisconsin state law.
At issue are two major questions for people abused by clergy as minors: How soon after the abuse must victims sue? And does the Constitution's separation of church and state prevent such suits?
This month, a number of Wisconsin Supreme Court justices indicated in a clergy-abuse decision that they would be willing to deal with those questions given the right case.
SCITUATE (MA)
Boston Globe
By Raja Mishra, Globe Staff | July 29, 2005
The Scituate tax board concluded this week that St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Church is no longer a church and thus should pay property taxes, a decision that could cost the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston thousands of dollars in unforeseen tax bills.
The archdiocese, whose properties are exempt from taxes by state law, opposes the ruling. It has been trying to shut down St. Frances, but since October parishioners have been holding a vigil to keep it open. While the Vatican debates the church's fate, the archdiocese has paid no taxes on the 30 acres of choice South Shore real estate nestled among tony houses and seaside bungalows.
On Tuesday, the Scituate Board of Assessors voted 2 to 1 to require the archdiocese to pay $42,000 in taxes annually on St. Frances, determining that the property was worth $4.45 million.
''My feeling is if they decided they no longer want to use it as a church, I would consider it a taxable property," board chairman Fred Avila said yesterday.
The archdiocese, facing a dwindling membership and struggling with financial fallout from the clergy sexual abuse scandal, has closed 62 parishes, with another 14 slated to be closed, while six await word on appeals to the Vatican, including St. Frances. Currently, all properties still owned by the church remain tax-exempt until they are sold.
LOS ANGELES (CA)
Los Angeles Times
By Jean Guccione, Times Staff Writer
Cardinal Roger M. Mahony's lawyer told a state appellate court Thursday that the church should be allowed to release summaries of the personnel files of more than 100 Roman Catholic priests accused of molesting children.
But an attorney for several accused priests, Donald Steier, argued that making the summaries public would violate the individual clerics' privacy rights, as well as the confidentiality of mediation talks underway to settle 544 claims that the archdiocese failed to protect parishioners from predators.
The summaries would identify accused priests, but not the church officials who critics say transferred or referred the priests for treatment without warning parishioners.
In an unusual twist, Raymond P. Boucher, the lawyer for the alleged victims, joined with church attorney J. Michael Hennigan in urging the release of the summaries. Hennigan argued they would help settle the 3-year-old legal claims.
UNITED STATES
The Oregonian
Friday, July 29, 2005
By MARC MOHAN
BAD RELIGION -- The wide-ranging scandal involving sexual abuse by Catholic priests has appalled millions, both for its immense scope and for the depravity reported by the thousands of victims. It's difficult to even conceptualize the damage done while considering the affair as a whole -- which is why Kirby Dick's documentary "Twist of Faith" is so important. Looking at one instance of alleged abuse, the Oscar-nominated film focuses on Toledo, Ohio, firefighter Tony Comes and his quest for justice and peace of mind 20 years after being allegedly raped by a priest named Dennis Gray.
What gives "Twist of Faith" such power and immediacy is a technique that Dick had used in the documentary "Chain Camera." By providing video cameras for his subjects to film themselves, he achieves a remarkable level of trust with the subjects who are opening up their lives, in this case Comes and his wife. This leads to a level of intimacy rarely seen on movie screens, as Comes bravely allows viewers to see him at his most vulnerable, surely a tough decision for a regular sort of guy who drives a pickup and is a Buccaneers fan.
MILWAUKEE (WI)
The Post-Crescent
The Associated Press
MILWAUKEE — Four people who have accused two priests of abusing them in the 1970s and 1980s filed an appeal Thursday of a judge’s dismissal of their lawsuits against the Catholic Archdiocese of Milwaukee.
The appeal will provide a new legal challenge of a decade-old court ruling that gave religious organizations in Wisconsin blanket immunity from civil claims over their supervision of priests, attorneys for the accusers said.
It could open the door to new civil lawsuits against the church in cases where evidence shows church leaders transferred known sex-offender priests to a new church and didn’t tell the parish about it, attorney Jim Smith said.
“What we are alleging is the church should not enjoy First Amendment protection under these circumstances,” Smith said.
The appeal, filed with the 1st District Court of Appeals, seeks to overturn decisions by Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Michael Guolee this year involving three alleged cases of sexual abuse by the late Rev. Siegfried Widera between 1973 and 1976 and one by the Rev. Franklyn Becker in 1982.
WORCESTER (MA)
Telegram & Gazette
By Kathleen A. Shaw TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
kshaw@telegram.com
WORCESTER— Bishop Robert J. McManus yesterday announced a change in operation for the Office for Healing and Prevention resulting from the resignation of director Patricia O’Leary Engdahl.
Sister Paula Kelleher, S.S.J., currently vicar for religious, will serve as co-director with Frances Nugent, the licensed social worker who is also the victim services coordinator. The office, which was founded three years ago as the clergy sexual abuse scandal raged, started with Ms. Engdahl, a lawyer, as director and Ms. Nugent as the victim services coordinator.
Ms. Engdahl recently took a new job at Anna Maria College in Paxton.
Sister Kelleher will be responsible for training and education involving safe environments and other topics for workers and volunteers for the diocese, the Catholic schools and the 126 parishes. Ms. Nugent will continue in her role of giving support to victims.
Sister Kelleher, a sister of St. Joseph of Springfield, has been vicar for religious here for more than 10 years. She will remain in that role and will continue oversight of the Annual Retirement Fund for Religious.
She is also a member of the diocesan review committee and years ago was one of the contacts for a hot line set up by the diocese where people could report clergy sexual abuse.
“I am grateful to Sister Paula for accepting this important responsibility for our diocese and thereby assisting in the healing ministry we offer through this office. I am confident that her experience will give us the necessary direction to continue to expand our already extensive education efforts as we seek to protect all children and youth in our programs, our schools and in our parishes,” the bishop said.
Raymond L. Delisle, diocesan spokesman, said more than 10,000 people either work or volunteer for the Catholic Diocese of Worcester through parishes, agencies and ministries and have been through background screening with the state, and by law are mandated reporters of suspected child neglect and abuse.
Most have attended mandatory awareness seminars on identifying signs and symptoms of abuse. The diocese also provided “Train the Trainer” classes so parishes have resources available within their communities.
More than 30,000 children and teenagers are enrolled in parish religious education programs, and nearly 10,000 students attend Catholic elementary and secondary schools in Central Massachusetts.
DENVER (CO)
Denver Post
By Eric Gorski
Denver Post Staff Writer
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Denver was told at least three times of child sex-abuse allegations against one of its priests but continued to allow him to serve and moved him from parish to parish for years, according to interviews with alleged victims, one of his former superiors and church documents obtained by The Denver Post.
Since the newspaper on Tuesday detailed one allegation against the former priest, 72-year-old Harold Robert White of Denver, seven other men have come to The Post with allegations of being fondled or sexually abused by White in the 1960s.
The men, all of whom are now in their 50s, described being fondled by White in a swimming pool, while driving his car, at church rectories and at a mountain cabin. While some alleged victims kept quiet, others said they alerted parents or church officials as early as the middle to late 1960s, when White was still early in his career as a priest.
In an interview with The Post last week, White said he did not recall the alleged victim who had been interviewed, and he would not answer questions about whether he had ever been accused.
TOLEDO (OH)
Toledo Blade
By CLYDE HUGHES
BLADE STAFF WRITER
The Muslim Community Center is attempting to raise $500,000 for bail for its imam who was convicted earlier this month in the rape of a local girl four years ago.
Yusuf Lateef, of the community center, said members believe that Imam Hisham El-Amin, 53, has been falsely accused of raping the daughter of one of the center’s members at various times from June 1, 2000, to Aug. 23, 2001.
El-Amin has been the imam of the Muslim Community Center, 1125 Hamilton St., for at least the last 25 years, members said.
A Lucas County Common Pleas Court jury thought differently. El-Amin’s trial ended July with convictions on two counts of rape.
El-Amin was indicted on the charges Oct. 10, 2003. The case dragged along after a change of defense attorneys and judges.
Prosecutors said the jury relied on the believability of the 16-year-old victim, who was 12 when the incidents occurred, to find El-Amin guilty.
El-Amin, who is being held in the county jail, will be sentenced Aug. 5 by Judge Gary Cook.
ROME
Chiesa
by Sandro Magister
ROMA, July 28, 2005 – On July 19, the Catholic newspaper "Avvenire" published the following note from the general secretariat of the Italian bishops' conference (CEI):
"Following the decree handed down on May 27, 2005, by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, notice is hereby given that the following canonical provisions will be applied to Fr. Luigi (Gino) Burresi, of the congregation of the Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary:
"1 – revocation of the faculty to hear the confessions of any member of the faithful in any place, as provided in canons 966 and 969 of the code of canon law;
"2 – definitive prohibition against carrying out the ministry of spiritual direction for any of the faithful, whether a layperson, a clergyman, or a consecrated religious;
"3 – revocation of the faculty of preaching, as in canons 764 and 765;
"4 – prohibition against celebrating the sacraments and sacramentals in public;
"5 – prohibition against granting interviews, writing in newspapers, pamphlets, periodicals, or on the internet, or participating in radio or television broadcasts on any matter involving Catholic doctrine, morality, or supernatural or mystical phenomena.
"This is made known for the understanding and profit of the faithful."
Practically speaking, the CEI has made it known that Fr. Gino Burresi, founder the Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, must leave the ministry and retire to private life.
Among the reasons for the action taken, the decree from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith cites abuses in confession and spiritual direction. But Vatican sources have confirmed that to these reasons must be added the accusations of sexual abuse made against Fr. Burresi by some men who were his followers and seminarians during the 1970's and '80's.
AMITE (LA)
TheNewOrleansChannel.com
POSTED: 9:18 am CDT July 28, 2005
UPDATED: 9:26 am CDT July 28, 2005
AMITE, La. -- A suspect in an alleged child-sex ring allegedly based at a now-closed church has been released on bond.
Authorities said Allen Pierson, 46, of Hammond, was released after he posted a $300,000 bond.
Pierson is one of seven members of the Hosanna Church in Ponchatoula indicted on child-rape charges. He faces four counts of aggravated rape of a juvenile.
TEMPE (AZ)
AZCentral.com
The Associated Press
Jul. 28, 2005 09:36 AM
TEMPE- An Irish judge has refused to order extradition for a former Arizona priest accused of molesting an altar boy in 1978.
Judge Phillip O'Sullivan of Ireland's High Court decided not to extradite the Rev. Patrick Colleary because the accusations date back so many years and because Arizona law allows judges to withhold bail for accused sex offenders, according to a written judgment.
Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas said he was extremely disappointed in the decision. But he will not dismiss the charges unless there is some fundamental change in the case.
Colleary moved to Ireland in early 2003 before a grand jury indicted him on charges he abused a 10- or 11-year-old parishioner at Church of the Holy Spirit in Tempe.
ARIZONA
East Valley Tribune
By Gary Grado, Tribune
July 28, 2005
An Irish judge denied the extradition Wednesday of a former Scottsdale priest accused of molesting an altar boy in 1978. Judge Phillip O’Sullivan of Ireland’s High Court based his decision not to extradite the Rev. Patrick Colleary on the age of the case and Arizona’s law that allows judges to withhold bail for accused sex offenders, according to the written judgment.
"I’m extremely disappointed," said Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas. "It’s an arrogant decision. It’s interesting because it’s the second time in a week that a foreign country has made clear that it intends to dictate to us how we may bring to justice their citizens when they come here and allegedly commit crimes."
Mexico has indicated it won’t extradite Rodrigo Cervantes Zavala to face trial on charges he killed the uncle and grandparents of his children July 11 near Queen Creek, unless Arizona drops the death penalty, Thomas said.
Colleary’s friend, the Rev. David Myers of Guadalupe, said he spoke with Colleary early Wednesday and he was thankful to God and everyone who helped him.
GREEN BAY (WI)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
By STEVE SCHULTZE and MARIE ROHDE
sschultze@journalsentinel.com
Posted: July 27, 2005
A Brown County jury convicted a 62-year-old former priest in Green Bay of two felony child sex assault charges Wednesday, in an unusual case involving attacks during counseling sessions at a Catholic parish school in 1988.
Donald J. Buzanowski faces up to 40 years in prison on the convictions for indecently touching a 10-year-old boy at Green Bay's Ss. Peter & Paul Catholic school. Buzanowski at the time was pastor of an associated parish.
The victim, David Schauer, now 27, went to the sessions because of trouble he'd had with a school bully.
"It's nice to be believed," a relieved Schauer said after the verdict Wednesday. "For so long, I felt that I was the only one that something like this ever happened to."
Buzanowski left Green Bay in 1989 for Milwaukee and worked as a drug counselor for Children's Court during most of the 1990s. He served 21 months in federal prison on a 2000 child pornography conviction and was back in Milwaukee as a volunteer for an east side Protestant church after his release in 2002.
Buzanowski's sentencing is Sept. 16.
CALIFORNIA
Los Angeles Times
By William Lobdell, Times Staff Writer
A Roman Catholic religious order that had until now refused to increase child support payments for a boy fathered by one of its priests pledged Wednesday to provide additional financial support and counseling for the 12-year-old.
Father Thomas Picton, who heads the Denver Province of the Redemptorists, said he would also encourage the Whittier priest, Arturo Uribe, to get counseling to learn how to be a proper father.
"This should never, ever have happened," said Picton, who since March has run the Denver Province, which oversees 200 priests in 31 states. "You don't not take care of the kid."
This month, Stephanie Collopy, the boy's mother, fought unsuccessfully in court for increased child support payments from Uribe.
She argued that, as an unemployed single parent of a child with chronic asthma and other health problems, she needed more than the court-ordered $323 a month paid by the Redemptorists. She also asked that Uribe be ordered to provide health insurance for the boy.
OAK HARBOR (WA)
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
By CLAUDIA ROWE
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
The Rev. G. Barry Ashwell, who served for more than two decades in Oak Harbor, is the target of a lawsuit filed Monday by three men who claim that he sexually abused them after making their acquaintance at a youth camp, elementary school and church parish between 1970 and 1985.
The Seattle Archdiocese removed Ashwell from the ministry in 2002, several years after earlier abuse allegations against the priest began to surface. An archdiocese representative did not return a call seeking comment about the new claims.
The lawsuit says that Ashwell met one boy at St. Matthew School in Seattle and molested him during the early 1970s.
Another became acquainted with the priest at Camp Blanchette, run by the Catholic Youth Organization, in 1972, and a third encountered Ashwell at St. Augustine's Parish on Whidbey Island between 1984 and 1985.
SACRAMENTO (CA)
TheKCRAChannel.com
POSTED: 3:36 pm PDT July 27, 2005
UPDATED: 5:06 pm PDT July 27, 2005
SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Almost exactly one month after the Sacramento Catholic Diocese announced a multimillion-dollar sexual abuse settlement, some victims claim the church is not doing enough to make restitution.
Several victims of clergy sex abuse Wednesday publicly asked the diocese to post the names of priests who are proven sexual offenders on the official church Web site. The victims said their faith is at stake.
"I cannot go into the church and practice the faith I once loved with the conditions that are in right now, with the continual lies and denial," said sexual abuse victim Nancy Sloan.
BURLINGTON (KY)
The Boone Community Recorder
By Paul McKibben Staff Reporter
BURLINGTON - A judge has officially given preliminary approval to a proposed settlement between the Diocese of Covington and victims of clergy abuse.
The deal still needs Judge John Potter's final approval. His order on the preliminary approval was filed last week in Boone Circuit Court.
A hearing has been scheduled for 11 a.m. Jan. 9, 2006. Objections to the proposed settlement must be made in writing and filed with the court on or before Dec. 19.
"We're glad that this milestone has been reached," said diocese spokesman Tim Fitzgerald.
GENEVA (IL)
WQAD
GENEVA, Ill. A Kane County Judge has ruled the personnel files of a priest serving eight years in prison for abusing two girls does not have to be turned over for use in a civil lawsuit.
An attorney representing the victims in a civil suit against Mark Campobello and the Catholic Diocese of Rockford asked for the medical records of Campobello and any other diocesan priest accused of sexual misconduct from 1960 to 2004.
Campobello objected to the release of his records, and in a July 22 ruling, Judge F. Keith Brown said the diocese has neither the right nor the obligation to release them without his consent.
GREEN BAY (WI)
Post-Crescent
By Andy Nelesen
Gannett Wisconsin Newspapers
GREEN BAY — It took a Brown County jury 39 minutes to decide that former priest Donald Buzanowski was not praying with the 10-year-old boy he was counseling at Ss. Peter and Paul Catholic Church in 1988.
They decided he was preying on the fifth-grader and convicted him Wednesday of two counts of first-degree sexual assault of a child. Buzanowski now faces up to 40 years in prison.
For 27-year-old David Schauer, who has been telling people of the molestation for 15 years, the guilty verdict was a sweet sound.
“For so long I’ve gone without feeling believed, thinking that I was the only one this has ever happened to,” Schauer said. “Knowing they heard what happened and they believed me, it gives me a lot of strength.
ROCHESTER (NY)
Democrat & Chronicle
The arraignment of a Roman Catholic priest charged with third-degree sexual abuse and endangering the welfare of a child has been postponed.
The Rev. Dennis R. Sewar, 54, was scheduled to answer the charges Wednesday in Rochester City Court. But the arraignment was postponed until Tuesday because his lawyer wasn't available.
Sewar faces the misdemeanor charges from an alleged incident that occurred when he was pastor of Church of the Annunciation on Norton Street in northeast Rochester. He was pastor from 1999 to 2001.
PORTLAND (OR)
The Oregonian
Thursday, July 28, 2005
STEVE WOODWARD
The judge in the Archdiocese of Portland's bankruptcy has agreed to let former Portland Archbishop William J. Levada skip an August date to answer questions under oath about how the church handles child sexual-abuse allegations.
In return, the newly named No. 3 official in the Roman Catholic Church must personally guarantee that he'll make himself available in January to undergo questioning by lawyers for priest sex-abuse plaintiffs in Oregon. In addition, he must agree not to claim diplomatic immunity as a high-ranking official of the Vatican.
Levada has until Tuesday to respond. Otherwise, his deposition in Hayward, Calif., is expected to proceed as scheduled Aug. 12, five days before he resigns as Archbishop of San Francisco and moves to Rome.
BARABOO (WI)
Baraboo News Republic
Brian Bridgeford
BARABOO - Baraboo priest Father Gerald Vosen will defend his reputation against sexual abuse charges when his defamation lawsuit against a Janesville man and his family goes to court next week.
Vosen, former pastor at St. Joseph Catholic Church, is scheduled to be in Rock County Circuit Court in Janesville Monday for the civil action against Peter L. Arnold and his parents, Leland and Nancy Arnold. According to court documents, they told church authorities in 2003 that Vosen abused Peter when he was 11 and 12 years old while Vosen was pastor at Janesville's St. John Vianney Catholic Parish in 1989-1991.
Vosen's supporters will gather at the church's new parking lot on East and Second streets at 8 a.m. Monday, said Kathy Siberz, a parish member. They will car pool to Janesville for the trial, she said.
"Certainly, anyone who would like to support father is welcome to join us," she said. "This is just a few of us who support Father Vosen and want to clear his name and who believe him."
EVANSTON (IL)
Evanston Review
BY BOB SEIDENBERG
CITY EDITOR
The media's constant penchant to look for conflict in stories sometimes drives religious people to be frustrated with the media and feel that journalists aren't covering the most important issues, Cardinal Francis George and other religious leaders said Monday during a symposium in Evanston.
Cardinal George and several other religious leaders served as presenters at the symposium on religion and the press at Northwestern University. The gathering was co-sponsored by the Sheil Catholic Center and Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism.
Meanwhile, a number of journalists who regularly cover religion, including NBC News 5's Mary Ann Ahern and Evanston resident Robert McClory, a former Roman Catholic priest and professor emeritus at Medill, served on the media panel, asking questions in between and after the presentations. ...
Similarly, on the sexual abuse scandal involving priests, the media necessarily reported the story about the abuses, which Cardinal George called "deeply perverse" and a "betrayal" to church members.
He said some rumors, though, were accepted as true, and the great efforts of the Roman Catholic church to help victims often went unreported.
The church and other faiths are centuries old, and have a different relationship with their followers than secular institutions, he said.
Perhaps, "we (religion and the press) simply have to live with that (the difference) ... and do the best with it" we can, said the cardinal.
GREEN BAY (WI)
Duluth News Tribune
Associated Press
GREEN BAY, Wis. - A jury found a former priest guilty Wednesday of sexually assaulting a a 10-year-old boy in 1988.
Jurors deliberated for about an hour before concluding Donald Buzanowski was guilty of two counts of assaulting David Schauer, now 27, when Schauer was a fifth-grader at Saints Peter and Paul Catholic School.
Schauer testified he was pulled out of class in the fall of 1988 and sent to see Buzanowski, 62, for counseling. When the session ended, Buzanowski grabbed his arm, drew him over his lap and began fondling him, Schauer said.
Buzanowski is accused of touching the boy on different occasions, fondling him over his clothes and kissing him on the lips.
Each encounter ended with Buzanowski escorting Schauer to the door and parting with the words: "This is just between you and me," Schauer said.
CINCINNATI (OH)
The Catholic Telegraph
By Eileen Connelly, OSU
ARCHDIOCESE — With the hope it will serve as an educational tool, promote dialogue in area parishes and raise awareness of the organization’s three-fold mission, the Cincinnati affiliate of Voice of the Faithful (VOTF) has released a new DVD entitled "Faithful Voices."
According to Bob Schoettinger, who serves on the local affiliate’s outreach committee, the group believed there was a need for a "real, human presentation," of the experiences of survivors of clerical abuse, along with VOTF’s mission. Working together with David DeWitt, a recent high-school graduate and parishioner at St. Robert Bellarmine Chapel, the two set out to accomplish this.
The project took nine months and involved every aspect of production, said DeWitt, including interviews with priests, VOTF members and abuse survivors. "Watching the people we interviewed, hearing the emotion in their voices and seeing the tears in their eyes was powerful," he said. "I think the DVD will make people aware of the reality of the problem and that it’s something we should all be concerned about."
The production also clarifies VOTF’s mission and purpose, Schoettinger explained, which is to support the survivors of clergy sexual abuse, support priests of integrity and shape structural change within the church.
NEWARK (NJ)
The Star-Ledger
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
The nation's Roman Catholic bishops agreed three years ago that the church must be transparent about sex abuse by its clergy, and yet the Newark Archdiocese continues to protect the identities of priests who have been credibly accused of sexually assaulting minors.
The Newark Archdiocese is the only Roman Catholic diocese in New Jersey that does not identify such men unless the priest is a pastor or a reporter asks about a specific priest.
The failure of this approach was underscored recently when the Rev. Gerald Ruane, who is not a pastor but who had been ordered not to present himself as a priest, was found concelebrating Mass in Morris County. Ruane, the archdiocese determined, had been credibly accused of sexual abuse. He agreed to retire and not to wear priestly vestments or to present himself as a priest in public.
But clerics at St. Joseph's Shrine in Stirling, where Ruane said Mass on Holy Thursday, knew nothing of the order, nor had they any way of knowing about it. Dressed as a priest, Ruane also gave a television interview while in Rome following the death of Pope John Paul II, and until recently, he sold books and tapes through a Catholic publisher.
A spokesman for the archdiocese said its privacy policy was predicated on a desire to protect the reputations of accused priests. Ruane was never criminally charged. The statute of limitations had long expired, but the archdiocese, after an investigation, concluded it didn't want him representing himself in public as a priest.
ROCHESTER (NY)
Catholic Courier
(Publication Date: 07-27-2005)
Originally scheduled to take place this morning (July 27), the arraignment of Father Dennis R. Sewar, a diocesan priest currently on administrative leave, has been postponed until 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 2, in Rochester City Court.
Investigator Joseph Dominick, spokesman for the Rochester Police Department, said Father Sewar was arrested at his home in Henrietta July 22 and charged with third-degree sexual abuse, a Class B misdemeanor, and endangering the welfare of a child, a Class A misdemeanor.
PORTLAND (ME)
Portland Press Herald
By DAVID HENCH, Portland Press Herald Writer
Advocates for victims of sexual abuse by clergy demonstrated outside the chancery of the Portland Diocese on Tuesday, calling on the state's bishop to publicize the names of priests who have been accused of abuse.
The group of 15 included relatives of abuse victims and Boston-area activists. The group delivered a letter asking Bishop Richard Malone to release the names of 33 clergy who were accused of sexual misconduct with children. The group said disclosure of the priests' names would alert the communities where those priests now live.
"These people need to be identified because other kids have been abused," said Pauline Salvucci of Westbrook.
"There's no excuse for hiding these people anymore," said Rick Webb of Wellesley, Mass., who helped start Speak Truth to Power, an advocacy group.
The diocese July 8 released the names of nine deceased priests who would likely have been removed from active ministry based on the allegations against them. The release followed a lawsuit by the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram that compelled the state to release the names of 25 deceased clergy who had been accused.
DENVER (CO)
Rocky Mountain News
By Jean Torkelson, Rocky Mountain News
July 27, 2005
A Denver-based province of Catholic priests has agreed to continue child support for a 12-year-old boy fathered by one of its own.
"We want to do more than the letter of the law to provide for the needs of this boy," said the Rev. Thomas Picton, leader of the province of Redemptorist priests based in Denver. The province has jurisdiction over 31 states.
Since the mid-1990s, the Redemptorist Province has been quietly paying support for a son born of a consensual relationship between a man who is now a priest, the Rev. Arturo Uribe, and a woman he met in Oregon before he became a priest, according to a story in the Los Angeles Times.
However, it was only on Sunday, when the story broke, that Uribe's parish of more than 1,200 families in Whittier, Calif., learned of the situation.
Picton said the newspaper account of the child-support proceeding, held earlier this month in an Oregon court, was unexpected. Uribe, who had already left for a previously scheduled trip to his native Mexico, composed a statement that was read at Sunday's Masses.
COLUMBUS (OH)
Canton Repository
By PAUL E. KOSTYU Copley Columbus Bureau chief
COLUMBUS — Sex and money.
That’s the crux of the accusations that could cost Dennis Bliss his counseling license in Ohio.
The Plain Township man was fired by Nova Behavioral Health after he was accused of inappropriate behavior and relationships with clients. Nova is losing millions in tax funding because the Stark County Community Mental Health Board concluded Nova didn’t do enough to protect its clients from Bliss.
Now Bliss faces the loss of his license amidst accusations that he engaged in oral sex, made threats to keep clients quiet and filed falsified bills for counseling.
Bliss said Tuesday the accusations are false and he wants a hearing to prove it.
The Ohio Counselor, Social Worker, Marriage and Family Therapist Board notified Bliss of the charges in a letter sent Friday. He has 30 days to request a hearing. He faces revocation or suspension of his license or other disciplinary action.
Bliss, a suspended Catholic priest, said he is out of work and has applied for unemployment benefits.
TOLEDO (OH)
Toledo Blade
IN A blatant show of arrogance, the Toledo Catholic Diocese just doesn't get it. It has allowed a priest who served 21 months in prison for possessing child pornography to move back into a church-owned apartment near Corpus Christi University Parish. There's more: The diocese continued to keep him on the payroll while he was incarcerated.
That's a slap in the face to parishioners who have been asked to believe the church isn't coddling molesters.
State law allows authorities to force convicted sex offenders to move when they live within 1,000 feet of a school. So it logically follows that Stephen G. Rogers, former Central Catholic High School religion teacher and associate pastor, shouldn't live a mere 100 yards from the Dorr Street church that caters to University of Toledo students and hosts events for young children.
This case didn't accidently slip through the cracks. Both Toledo Diocese Bishop Leonard Blair and federal law enforcement officials signed off on the move. The feds conducted a raid and seized a large volume of child pornography from the apartment in 2002. Lord knows why the bishop approved the move, and the public has a right to know why federal officials didn't deny it.
At a time when the diocese was facing dire financial problems, it kept Rogers on the payroll while he was in prison. Although he is still a priest unless the Vatican decides to laicize him, he cannot