SUNNYVALE (CA)
CBS 5
03/31/06 1:50 PST
SUNNYVALE (BCN)
Police arrested a priest Thursday on suspicion of raping a 29-year-old Oregon woman in a Sunnyvale motel room.
Police booked the Rev. Randy Benas in Santa Clara County jail after questioning the priest Thursday.
According to the Sunnyvale Police Department, the 29-year-old woman from Grants Pass, Oregon had been corresponding with the priest for over a year.
UNITED STATES
The Washington Times
By Julia Duin
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
March 31, 2006
Sex-abuse accusations against the nation's priests were down last year, but the flood of millions of dollars in payouts more than tripled and shows no signs of stopping, the United States' Roman Catholic bishops said yesterday.
"It is disheartening to us bishops, as it must be to all Catholics, to find that there are still some allegations of abuse by clerics against today's children and young people," Bishop William S. Skylstad, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), said during the release of the conference's annual report on sex-abuse statistics.
The report, commissioned in 2002 by the USCCB's Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, tracks what the country's 195 Catholic dioceses are doing to end a sex-abuse crisis that has involved 12,537 youths -- mostly boys and young men -- and 4,827 priests.
UTICA (NY)
Observer-Dispatch
Friday, Mar 31, 2006
Rocco LaDuca
Observer-Dispatch
UTICA — After a defrocked priest was found guilty Thursday of approaching two young teens to pose for naked pictures in Rome last summer, prosecutors emphasized how harmful child pornography can be.
James Tamburrino argued during his trial this week that he never realized how young one of the 15-year-old boys was when he took sexually explicit pictures of him, and that he only arranged to meet the other boy after police made him call Tamburrino.
After considering Tamburrino's defense of entrapment, an Oneida County Court jury felt otherwise and found Tamburrino guilty of using a child in a sexual performance, attempting to use a child in a sexual performance, possessing a sexual performance by a child and two misdemeanor counts of endangering the welfare of a child.
FLORIDA
CBS 47
Last Update: 3/30/2006 4:46:29 PM
The Episcopal Church Diocese in Florida has been slapped with a five million dollar lawsuit.
A woman who grew up in Jacksonville says she was molested several times by her priest. That priest was allegedly Father Joseph Noll. The woman claims the acts happened at St. Stephen's Church in 1969, a church which no longer exists in Jacksonville.
The alleges victim says it started when she was 11 and that the priest locked the door, showed pictures of naked men, undressed and fondled her. She even alleges that the priest made inappropriate use of ceremonial candle.
The plaintiff says she suffered permanent psychological, emotional and physical injuries.
TEXAS
San Angelo Standard-Times
By BRYAN RUSSELL, brussell@sastandardtimes.com or 659-8264
March 31, 2006
A 2006 report by the United State Conference of Catholic Bishops found the Catholic Diocese of San Angelo to be in full compliance with the church's Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.
More than 190 dioceses and eparchies in the United States were audited between July and December of 2005 to ensure compliance with the charter. The charter was drafted in 2002, when allegations of sexual abuse by clergy began surfacing around the country.
''I very pleased with the report that came out on our diocese,'' said the Most Rev. Michael Pfeifer of the San Angelo diocese. ''I think we're on the right track. The message we want to give is that we have a deep concern and care for the children. They're the most precious gift God has given us.
''I've worked hours on this issue,'' he continued. ''It's like taking on a whole new job, but it's an effort to show parents we're doing our best to make a safe environment for our children.''
COLORADO
The Coloradoan
Natalie Costanza-Chavez
A scene on a black-and-white film reel captures the ploy - a policeman grabs a bad guy on a city street, a crowd peers at a pile of evidence spilling from a satchel, and the "caught" points dramatically to the sky as if to say - wild-eyed - "Look! It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a bomb!" Everyone turns to look and the guilty ducks away, self-satisfied and smug.
Deflection. We expect it at the movies, from small children, at magic shows. It is, however, a surprise when the highest echelons of Colorado's Catholic Conference use it at the expense of people who have been abused by bad priests and at the expense of all Colorado Catholics by making their institution look even worse.
The church is arguing two bills (one in the House and one in the Senate) that would make it easier for victims of priests to sue the church are anti-Catholic and unfair. Their initial argument? That public schools aren't held to the same standard.
Is this how it went? A group of the Catholic powerful sat in a room discussing a strategy to keep the church safe from paying out potentially devastating amounts of money - and someone floated the idea of attacking the public schools as notorious enablers of sexual abuse?
COLUMBUS (OH)
Toledo Blade
By JIM PROVANCE
BLADE COLUMBUS BUREAU
COLUMBUS - Two lawsuits claiming several House Republicans illegally plotted behind closed doors were filed yesterday seeking to invalidate a vote that killed a proposal to allow lawsuits in child sexual-abuse cases dating back 35 years.
"Participating in the legislative process has been personally devastating and a rude awakening. We never stood a chance," said Claudia Vercellotti, Toledo coordinator for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.
Judge John Connor of Franklin County Common Pleas Court, whom House Speaker Jon Husted (R., Kettering) had suggested should resign or be impeached just weeks ago for his lenient sentencing of a sex offender, declined to issue an injunction preventing Gov. Bob Taft from signing the bill. He set a hearing for May 2.
Christy Miller and Dan Frondorf, both of Cincinnati, and Ms. Vercellotti, all of whom claim to have been abused by priests or other representatives of the Catholic Church, contended Mr. Husted met with a majority of House Judiciary Committee members Tuesday in violation of Ohio's open-meetings law.
NEW HAMPSHIRE
New Hampshire Public Radio
Reported by Josh Rogers on Friday, March 31, 2006.
listen: No audio currently available. Order on CD (pdf).
A long-delayed audit of the Roman Catholic diocese of Manchester found the church has made some progress toward protecting children from sexual abuse. But many basic problems remain
WASHINGTON (DC)
WQAD
WASHINGTON The head of a lay watchdog panel created by Roman Catholic bishops says a key reform adopted to protect children from clergy sex abuse is insufficient.
Patricia Ewers of theAbuse Tracker Review Board made her comments yesterday as the U-S Conference of Catholic Bishops released results of its audit of child protection policies.
Ewers says the audit's shortcomings are especially clear in its review of the Archdiocese of Chicago.
The archdiocese was found to be in full compliance, but it had failed to remove an accused priest from church work for four months last year until he was criminally charged.
CINCINNATI (OH)
Cincinnati Post
Post staff report
The Archdiocese of Cincinnati is not in full compliance with church rules on the protection of young people, according to a national report issued Thursday.
The archdiocese - which reported the non-compliance a month ago in its newspaper, the Catholic Telegraph - cites a change in the interpretation of the specific rule it violated. The archdiocese was in compliance with all the rules in the 2003 and 2004 reports.
But on Thursday, it was cited as one of 22 dioceses in the country not in full compliance in the 2005 Annual Report on the Implementation of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.
The charter was part of the national review process that theAbuse Tracker Conference of Catholic Bishops implemented in 2002 to deal with the church's growing scandal of sexual abuse by its priests.
Cases arising from the scandal locally culminated in a $3 million settlement with the Archdiocese of Cincinnati in 2003 and an $85 million settlement of a class-action suit with the Diocese of Covington last year.
CONCORD (NH)
Portsmouth Herald
By Beverley Wang
Associated Press
CONCORD - New Hampshire’s Roman Catholic Diocese must step up training and screening of church employees and volunteers who work with children and keep better track of people, according to an independent audit released Thursday.
The diocese does not have a standard for ensuring everyone working in a parish camp, school or church has completed a criminal background check and child-abuse prevention training. It also doesn’t regularly check whether a staffer is a registered sex offender. There’s also no consistent method for keeping accurate personnel records, auditors concluded.
"The diocese’s inability to ensure that all personnel are adequately and timely screened could afford potential perpetrators access to minors," said the report by KPMG International, an audit, tax and advisory firm.
NEW HAMPSHIRE
Eagle-Tribune
Yesterday's release of the state's first audit of the Manchester Catholic Diocese's sexual-abuse prevention efforts raises once again the question of why the church allows John B. McCormack to continue as bishop. His central role in the clergy sex-abuse scandal taints the moral authority of his position. He should do the right thing and resign.
As a top deputy to the disgraced former archbishop of Boston, Cardinal Bernard Law, McCormack was a key enabler of the massive and prolonged mistreatment of children, the revelation of which so shook and disgusted the region, the nation and the world. Assigned to "investigate" abuse charges against priests, he accepted their denials of sexual involvement with children at face value, put too much faith in their potential for rehabilitation, and worst of all, participated in shuffling abusive priests off to other parishes, where they preyed on new crops of victims.
MANCHESTER (NH)
Boston.com
By The Associated Press | March 30, 2006
Key dates in the state's investigation of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Manchester:
-- February 2002: Attorney general's office begins criminal investigation of the diocese.
-- December 2002: State prosecutors settle with diocese, averting criminal charges. Settlement terms call for annual audits of the church's sexual-abuse prevention policies.
-- May 2004: After months of legal wrangling between the state and church over the scope and cost of the audits, the church asks a judge to force the state to begin its first audit.
-- March 2005: Siding with the state, a judge orders the church to submit to a thorough audit of its policies and to split the cost of it with the state.
NEW HAMPSHIRE
The Union Leader
By J.M. HIRSCH
Associated Press
Thursday, Mar. 30, 2006
Concord – The state's Roman Catholic diocese has made progress toward protecting minors from sexual abuse, but many deficiencies remain, including a failure to ensure criminal background checks have been done on staffers who work with children, according to a long-delayed audit of the church's sexual abuse prevention strategies released Thursday.
The diocese also has failed to determine which workers and volunteers even need to be checked, Attorney General Kelly Ayotte said. The problem needs to be dealt with immediately, she said.
"There's still significant work that remains for the diocese to do and in some respects the level of compliance is disappointing," she said at a news conference. "The fundamental problem seems to be a failure to take responsibility at the top of the diocese."
DES MOINES (IA)
Radio Iowa
by Stella Shaffer
The Des Moines Catholic Diocese gets a favorable review from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, in its third annual audit.
Ann Marie Cox, a spokeswoman for the diocese, says the diocese is found to be in compliance with the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People. She says it's confirmation that the Bishop and diocese are doing all they can to follow the guidelines for protecting children, protecting them, and trying to prevent sexual abuse by clergy. She says a sign of that may be the fact that 2005 brought just one complaint of a child abused by a clergy member, and it was an incident that happened more than two decades ago.
It's been a "monumental effort" on the part of the diocese, she says, and across the country. The Des Moines diocese has adopted a program that helps teach coaches, teachers, parents and others learn what their role is in protecting children. The goal is to shield children from all the burden of resisting abuse, and teaching others to make sure there aren't opportunities to prey on children.
WASHINGTON (DC)
Washington Post
By Alan Cooperman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 31, 2006; Page A03
The financial costs of the sex abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church rose dramatically in 2005, even as the number of new allegations fell, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said yesterday.
Releasing an annual report on their efforts to prevent abuse of minors by priests, the bishops said U.S. dioceses spent $399 million last year on legal settlements with sex abuse victims and $68 million on lawyers' fees, psychological counseling and related expenses -- about three times more than they paid in 2004.
The church's cumulative expenditures on sex abuse claims in the United States are approaching $1.5 billion. The tally of known victims has topped 12,500. The number of priests and deacons who have been credibly accused since 1950 is close to 5,000.
In releasing the blizzard of statistics, Catholic Church officials and their academic consultants put a generally positive gloss on the data, suggesting that the worst of the crisis is over.
CHARLOTTE (NC)
Charlotte Observer
WASHINGTON - Figures released Thursday by the nation's Roman Catholic bishops show the unrelenting toll of the clergy sex abuse crisis: 783 new credible claims last year, most of which date back decades, and costs of nearly $467 million.
While researchers who analyzed 50 years of data on molestation claims concluded the number of new cases is declining, the church is still paying a heavy price for predatory clergy.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Charlotte issued a news release Thursday saying that it received no new allegations of sexual misconduct with children during the reporting period for the 2005 audit.
The diocese reported that it provided $14,215 in ongoing financial assistance to, or on behalf of, victims, all for counseling services. None of the church workers against whom an allegation was made is in active ministry. The Charlotte-based diocese is not releasing the number of victims or dates of their cases so as not to identify victims.
WASHINGTON (DC)
Boston Globe
By Susan Milligan, Globe Staff | March 31, 2006
WASHINGTON -- The church sexual abuse crisis cost Catholic dioceses and religious institutes nearly $467 million last year in settlements to victims, legal expenses, therapy, and training, a staggering amount in the aftermath of the abuse scandal that surfaced in 2002, according to an independent audit released yesterday by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
The data, collected by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University, also showed that 783 new and credible allegations of sexual abuse by clergy were reported last year, down from 1,092 allegations reported in 2004 and bringing the total number of accusations to more than 12,000 nationwide since 1950.
While the number of allegations is decreasing, the financial cost to the church increased over the last year due to some large settlements paid in 2005, said Teresa M. Kettelkamp, director of the USCCB's Office of Child and Youth Protection. The church paid more than $399 million last year in settlements alone, and spent $67 million more on therapy for victims, legal fees, and counseling for offenders, according to the data.
WASHINGTON
The News Tribune
STEVE MAYNARD; The News Tribune
Published: March 31st, 2006 01:00 AM
The Catholic archdiocese covering Tacoma and all of Western Washington reported Thursday that its costs for dealing with clergy sex abuse cases soared by nearly 50 percent – about $8 million – last year.
As a result, the church dipped into a reserve fund for the first time to help pay abuse costs.
The total spent by the Archdiocese of Seattle on clergy sex abuse since 1987 increased to $26 million last year as cases were settled and new accusations surfaced.
The archdiocese tapped its reserve fund because cumulative costs in sex abuse cases exceeded its self-insurance program, said spokesman Greg Magnoni.
RENO (NV)
Gazette-Journal
MARTHA BELLISLE
RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL
Posted: 3/31/2006
While a survey found there were 783 new credible claims of sexual abuse by clergy against minors in 2005, the Diocese of Reno received no new allegations during that period, its spokesman said Thursday.
Nationwide, dioceses and religious institutions paid almost $400 million in settlements for claims in 2005, according to a survey released Thursday by Roman Catholic officials. In Reno, the diocese paid $35,150 in settlements last year, said Brother Matthew Cunningham, church spokesman.
In addition to legal settlements, the diocese paid $8,000 in 2005 for therapy for victims, Cunningham said.
The highest percentage of payments gone to programs directed toward child safety, he said. Last year, the diocese spent $52,920 for child safety, background checks and fingerprinting for volunteers and workers, as well as child education, among other programs, he said.
"The bigger thing for us is to make sure our parishes provide the numbers for victims advocates," Cunningham said. "We are continuing to do training for adults and are trying to make sure these things get out to parishes, to remind people that if there's a problem, here's what you do."
GREEN BAY (WI)
Press-Gazette
By Jean Peerenboom
jpeerenb@greenbaypressgazette.com
The Catholic Diocese of Green Bay recorded a third consecutive year of compliance with national standards for keeping children safe in 2005, at the same time that the national church revealed that it received 783 more complaints of sex abuse by clergy.
Green Bay's on-site audit was requested by Bishop David Zubik, who is in Rome this week, and a diocesan spokesman said the voluntary step was evidence of local efforts to keep children safe.
"He didn't have to do that," said Tony Kuick, director of communications. "We could have just done the paperwork."
The two independent auditors were former FBI agents from The Gavin Group, an independent, non-church organization based in Winthrop, Mass., Kuick said. The group has been auditing dioceses across the country for the past three years.
GREEN BAY (WI)
Appleton Post-Crescent
By Jean Peerenboom
Gannett Wisconsin Newspapers
GREEN BAY — The Roman Catholic Diocese of Green Bay recorded a third consecutive year of compliance with national standards for keeping children safe in 2005.
At the same time, the church revealed that it received 783 more complaints of sex abuse by clergy nationwide.
Green Bay's on-site audit was requested by Bishop David Zubik, who is in Rome this week, and a diocesan spokesman said the voluntary step was evidence of local efforts to keep children safe.
"He didn't have to do that," said Tony Kuick, director of communications. "We could have just done the paperwork."
The two independent auditors were former FBI agents from The Gavin Group, an independent, nonchurch organization based in Winthrop, Mass., Kuick said. The group has been auditing dioceses across the country for the past three years.
ST. PAUL (MN)
KTSP
Updated: 03/30/2006 09:43:03 PM
ST. PAUL (AP) - The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis is among about two dozen dioceses around the county that don't meet church child-protection guidelines, according to a new audit by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
The diocese has lagged in offering "safe-environment training" to all children in its parish programs and schools, according to the audit released on Thursday.
Archdiocese officials said they weren't surprised by the findings. While a few pilot programs are in place, more widespread training in the schools and parishes is scheduled to begin this fall.
"We're piloting these programs in about 10 parishes right now," said Sister Fran Donnelly, the archdiocese's parish life director. "We'll have parents' meetings before school starts this fall, and they'll be implemented during the school year of 2006-07.
NEW HAMPSHIRE
Concord Monitor
By ERIC MOSKOWITZ
Monitor staff
March 31. 2006 8:00AM
Although a state audit of the Diocese of Manchester uncovered no unreported cases of sexual abuse, auditors revealed a case of a priest who might have used a parish computer to access child pornography.
The auditing firm KPMG reviewed the diocese's compliance with the terms of a 2002 agreement that spared the New Hampshire Catholic Church from criminal charges. In reviewing the screening and training of priests, KPMG identified one priest who used a parish computer to visit pornographic websites - and to possibly access child pornography - despite medical orders that he be kept away from computers because of past behavior, the audit said.
As a result of the audit, diocese officials came forward to the state in late June 2005 about the priest's behavior, said Will Delker, a senior assistant attorney general.
The state is investigating whether the reporting delay violated state law about reporting child abuse or the terms of the 2002 agreement, which holds the church to stricter terms, Delker said.
NEW HAMPSHIRE
Concord Monitor
March 31. 2006 8:00AM
The state attorney general's office says the Diocese of Manchester must fix problems in its program for preventing sexual abuse by church personnel. In a letter to Bishop John McCormack, Attorney General Kelly Ayotte cites deficiencies that "undermine some of the core principles of the agreement":
• Lack of oversight. The state says the diocese has been ineffective in enforcing compliance with the agreement and its own policies. "This ineffectiveness has resulted in repeated missed deadlines . . . incomplete training, incomplete written acknowledgements, lack of background checks and unfilled positions," Ayotte wrote.
• Inconsistent compliance.Ayotte cited one parish in which "only 16 percent of employees of volunteers who worked with children had a sex offender registry check completed."
NEW HAMPSHIRE
Concord Monitor
By ERIC MOSKOWITZ
Monitor staff
March 31. 2006 8:00AM
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Manchester has failed to ensure that priests, employees and volunteers who work with children have passed criminal background checks or attended training aimed at preventing and identifying abuse, a state audit of the church revealed.
The audit, released yesterday, identified flaws in the Catholic Church's attempt to live up to the terms of the agreement it reached with the state in 2002, a deal that enabled the church to avoid criminal charges of child endangerment despite decades of protecting abusive priests in its handling of sexual-abuse allegations.
The church has taken some important steps to protect children in the three-plus years since the agreement, Attorney General Kelly Ayotte said. But the deficiencies named in the audit - which was delayed nearly a year-and-a-half by a protest from the diocese over the terms and cost - must be addressed immediately. The church has 30 days to come up with a plan to fix the problems or risk facing legal action from the state, said Ayotte, who blamed Bishop John McCormack's administration.
"The fundamental problem appears to be a failure to take responsibility at the top of the diocese," said Ayotte, who submitted the inch-thick audit report to the church earlier this week with a letter listing the specific findings that need to be addressed.
SANTA FE (NM)
The Albuquerque Tribune
By Associated Press
March 30, 2006
A teenage boy is seeking unspecified damages from the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, alleging he was sexually abused by a priest last year.
The teen's lawsuit, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque, names as defendants Archbishop Michael Sheehan and George S. Silva, a former Raton priest indicted by a federal grand jury last month on four counts involving transporting a minor from New Mexico to France and Portugal for criminal and illicit sexual activity.
The teen, identified only as John Doe, suffered physical injury, emotional distress, loss of self-esteem, disgrace, lost wages and expenses for medical care and counseling, the lawsuit said.
WASHINGTON (DC)
Catholic News Service
By Agostino Bono
Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Although child sex abuse allegations against Catholic clergy may continue, there is a marked decrease in the number of cases that have occurred in recent years, said a report by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.
Most of the recent allegations concern events that took place decades ago, it said in a supplemental report to its mammoth study of the nature and scope of the U.S. clergy sex abuse crisis.
The original study, covering the years 1950-2002, was released in 2004 and commissioned by the U.S. bishops'Abuse Tracker Review Board. The supplemental study contained further analysis of the same data and was released in Washington March 30 along with the 2005 audit of how the U.S. church is applying its sex abuse prevention policies.
WASHINGTON (DC)
Catholic News Service
By Jerry Filteau
Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The U.S. bishops need to step to a new level in assessing their programs and policies to protect children and prevent clerical sex abuse, the head of the bishops'Abuse Tracker Review Board said March 30.
"The present audit process is insufficient," Patricia O'Donnell Ewers, the board's chairwoman, told journalists gathered at Washington'sAbuse Tracker Press Club for the public release of the 2005 audits of the sex abuse responsiveness of dioceses and male religious orders.
The process must move from seeing whether dioceses have requisite policies and programs in place to assessing how effectively those policies and programs are being implemented, she said.
The board, a 13-member panel of prominent lay Catholics, was established by the bishops in 2002 to monitor the compliance of dioceses with the provisions of the bishops' "Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People." One of its tasks is to review annual audits of diocesan child protection and sex abuse response policies and programs and make recommendations to the bishops for improvements in those areas.
COLUMBUS (OH)
Beacon Journal
CARRIE SPENCER GHOSE
Associated Press
COLUMBUS, Ohio - Victims of sexual abuse by priests sued Thursday to stop the state from enacting the abuse reporting bill that lawmakers sent to Gov. Bob Taft a day earlier, saying critical changes were crafted in what the victims called an illegal secret meeting.
The House deleted a provision allowing lawsuits over 35-year-old abuse cases before passing the bill Wednesday, and the Senate reluctantly agreed to the change. Taft intends to sign the bill - unless the lawsuit ties it up, spokesman Mark Rickel said.
Three members of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, said they were kept out of negotiations leading to the cut that hurts them directly.
Their two lawsuits, filed in Franklin County Common Pleas Court, say Republican members of a House committee met illegally Monday with Speaker Jon Husted and another GOP member, Rep. Bill Seitz, while a guard kept the victims out of the room.
"Every time the door opened we could see them in there, but we had no access," said Claudia Vercellotti, a victim from Toledo.
NEW HAMPSHIRE
OregonLive
3/30/2006, 4:53 p.m. PT
By J.M. HIRSCH
The Associated Press
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — Efforts by the state's Roman Catholic diocese to protect minors from sexual abuse have failed to make sure all workers, volunteers and clergy have passed criminal background checks, according to a newly released state audit.
While the Diocese of Manchester has made some progress implementing steps to protect children, the background checks issue is something that must be addressed immediately, Attorney General Kelly Ayotte said Thursday.
"There's still significant work that remains for the diocese to do and in some respects the level of compliance is disappointing," she said at a news conference. "The fundamental problem appears to be a failure to take responsibility at the top of the diocese."
SPOKANE (WA)
KGW
03/31/2006
By JOHN K. WILEY / Associated Press
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Spokane and one of its main insurance carriers have agreed to a $5.25 million settlement in a dispute over coverage of clergy sex abuse claims.
The proposed settlement with General Insurance Co. of America, a subsidiary of Safeco Insurance, must be approved by federal district court and bankruptcy court judges, Shaun Cross, a lawyer representing the diocese, said Thursday.
"This proposed settlement will bring an end to the diocese's legal disagreement with General about whether or not the company is obligated to provide insurance coverage for allegations of sexual abuse by clergy in the diocese," Cross said.
Paul Hollie, a Safeco spokesman in Seattle, confirmed details of the settlement announced by Cross, but said he could not make additional comments Thursday.
WASHINGTON (DC)
The New York Times
By NEELA BANERJEE
Published: March 31, 2006
WASHINGTON, March 30 — A total of 783 new accusations of priests' sexual abuse were received by the nation's Roman Catholic bishops last year, with about 13 percent of the cases dating from 1990 or later, the bishops reported Thursday.
In issuing its third annual audit intended to assess efforts to prevent such abuse, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops emphasized that accusations had declined from the 1,092 reported in 2004.
The bishops also said that as a result of a provision they adopted in 2002 under a toughened policy, 94.5 percent of children in Catholic schools and Sunday school classes had been educated on keeping themselves safe from abuse, an increase from 51 percent the year before.
The survey said 87 percent of the new accusations involved abuse that occurred before 1990, some of it as early as 1950. Only nine accusations concerned abuse last year.
NEW HAMPSHIRE
The Union Leader
By KATHRYN MARCHOCKI
Union Leader Staff
Concord – The Roman Catholic Diocese of Manchester still has not fully implemented child protection policies it promised to enact under the agreement it struck with the state in 2002 to avoid criminal prosecution for child endangerment, an independent auditor’s report released yesterday revealed.
Auditors found instances where church personnel who work directly with children had not received required training in child sexual abuse policies and had not even had their names checked against on-line sexual offender registries or undergone other criminal background checks.
“That’s basic information that I would expect that parents would want to make sure gets done for anyone who works with children,” state Attorney General Kelly A. Ayotte said at a news conference.
“Overall, this audit demonstrates that, while the diocese has taken some important steps by establishing policies and programs to protect children, there is still significant work that remains for the diocese to do. And, in some respects, the level of compliance is disappointing,” Ayotte continued.
FARGO (ND)
In-Forum
By Sherri Richards, The Forum
Published Friday, March 31, 2006
The Diocese of Fargo is one of 22 U.S. Catholic dioceses not in full compliance with a national church abuse prevention policy.
A November 2005 audit found the diocese did not meet the requirement for safe environment training.
Results of the audit were released Thursday by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
The Diocese of Crookston, Minn., and the Diocese of Bismarck were in full compliance.
The Fargo diocese does have a training program in place, but all of the training had not been completed at the time of the audit, said the Rev. Gregory Schlesselmann, vicar general of the Fargo diocese.
“Part of the reason is it’s on ongoing process,” Schlesselmann said.
VERMONT
Rutland Herald
March 31, 2006
By KEVIN O'CONNOR Herald Staff
Vermont's Catholic Church is one of 11.5 percent of the nation's dioceses that have yet to fully comply with all provisions of a toughened sex abuse policy, an independent report said Thursday.
Bishop Salvatore Matano said the statewide Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington is one article away from compliance with the "Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People" adopted by U.S. bishops four years ago at the height of a priest misconduct scandal.
The diocese still is working on "safe environment training," having completed programs in all 17 of its Catholic schools and hoping to finish in the state's 130 parishes by June 30.
The church also is reviewing its background checks on all its employees, said Kevin Scully, diocesan director of Safe Environment Programs.
WASHINGTON (DC)
The Seattle Times
By Rachell Zoll
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — New figures released Thursday by the nation's Roman Catholic bishops show the toll of the clergy sex-abuse crisis: 783 new credible claims last year, most of which date back decades, and costs of nearly $467 million.
While researchers who analyzed 50 years of data on molestation claims concluded the number of new cases is declining, the church is still paying a heavy price for predatory clergy.
The abuse problem was already known to have cost dioceses more than $1 billion since 1950, including some expenses paid last year. Still, Teresa Kettelkamp, director of the bishops' Office of Child and Youth Protection, said the total abuse-related expenses shelled out in 2005 were likely the largest for a single year.
The total number of accusations against Catholic clergy stands at more than 12,000 since 1950.
SIOUX CITY (IA)
Sioux City Journal
The Diocese of Sioux City settled 19 sexual abuse claims against priests in 2005 for more than $1.8 million.
The diocese settled the claims for $1,835,000, of which 69 percent was covered by insurance. The diocese paid $457,500 of the costs and George McFadden, $96,250. McFadden was named in all but one of the claims.
The diocese settled 11 claims in 2004 for $805,000.
Since 2003, 28 lawsuits have been filed against the diocese, all but one of them naming McFadden. Five of them are pending, 22 were settled and the remaining one was dismissed by a judge, a decision now on appeal. Now retired, McFadden has been stripped of his priestly duties, and the Vatican has ordered him not to present himself as a priest.
In a news release Thursday, the diocese announced that it has been found in full compliance with the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People. The ruling was made by the Gavin Group, a national research organization that has audited U.S. dioceses for the past three years
MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press
BY STEVE SCOTT
Pioneer Press
Months of local controversy over proposed sex-abuse prevention programs in the Roman Catholic Church have left the Twin Cities archdiocese out of compliance with the U.S. bishops' child-protection guidelines, according to a national report released Thursday.
The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis was one of 22 U.S. dioceses — out of 191 surveyed — not fully meeting requirements of the bishops' guidelines, which require that dioceses offer "safe-environment" programs to all children, parents, educators, staff and clergy to help prevent abuse.
Foes complain some programs amount to inappropriate sex education that usurps parents' rights.
"The delay at this point is that parents are rightly sensitive about this,'' said the Rev. Kevin McDonough, the archdiocese's chief of staff. "We think parents not only have the right but the responsibility to be the primary educators of their kids.''
The archdiocese has trained its clergy, staff and educators and is completing training for all volunteers who may have contact with children in its parishes and schools.
But since last fall, some parents have besieged the archdiocese with complaints about a proposed "safe-touch" program, particularly one called Talking About Touching, intended for Catholic grade-schoolers in kindergarten through fourth grade. Different programs are planned for middle school and high school students.
DETROIT (MI)
The Detroit News
Gregg Krupa / The Detroit News
The Archdiocese of Detroit is one of only 13 Catholic dioceses in the nation out of compliance with a new rule to train and educate children, youths, parents, priests, ministers and educators in the prevention of sexual abuse of children.
An audit by the United States Council of Catholic Bishops released Thursday determined that 88.5 percent of 191 dioceses or eparchies -- the Eastern Orthodox equivalent of a diocese -- are in compliance with the training mandate, adopted by the bishops in 2002.
Ned McGrath, director of the Department of Communication for the Archdiocese, said a factor in the lack of compliance is the archdiocese thought it had three years from when it developed a program to complete all training. In fact, it was required to complete training by Dec. 31, 2005.
COLUMBUS (OH)
Canton Repository
Friday, March 31, 2006 Advertisement
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Victims of sexual abuse by priests sued Thursday to stop the state from enacting the abuse reporting bill that lawmakers sent to Gov. Bob Taft a day earlier, saying critical changes were crafted in what the victims called an illegal secret meeting.
The House deleted a provision allowing lawsuits over 35-year-old abuse cases before passing the bill Wednesday, and the Senate reluctantly agreed to the change. Taft intends to sign the bill — unless the lawsuit ties it up, spokesman Mark Rickel said.
Three members of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, said they were kept out of negotiations leading to the cut that hurts them directly.
Their two lawsuits, filed in Franklin County Common Pleas Court, say Republican members of a House committee met illegally Monday with Speaker Jon Husted and another GOP member, Rep. Bill Seitz, while a guard kept the victims out of the room.
“Every time the door opened we could see them in there, but we had no access,” said Claudia Vercellotti, a victim from Toledo.
COLORADO
Rocky Mountain News
By Jean Torkelson, Rocky Mountain News
March 31, 2006
Six priests were reported as alleged sexual abusers to Catholic Church authorities in Colorado in 2005; all of the incidents are at least several decades old and some happened outside the state.
The data were reported as part of an annual survey on sexual abuse released Thursday by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. The survey showed that U.S. dioceses reported 783 credible allegations of sexual abuse against children last year, a 28 percent decline from the year before, according to the survey, compiled by a department at Georgetown University, the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate.
The survey was first commissioned in 2002 by Catholic bishops as part of an annual accountability program on sexual abuse allegations, called the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.
The survey found that 87 percent of the national allegations involved incidents that happened before 1990. Nine allegations, or 1 percent, involved victims who were minors in 2005, according to the survey.
WASHINGTON (DC)
Belleville News-Democrat
RACHEL ZOLL
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - The head of a lay watchdog panel created by Roman Catholic bishops says a key reform the prelates adopted to protect children from clergy sex abuse is insufficient.
Patricia Ewers, chairwoman of theAbuse Tracker Review Board, said annual audits by a private firm that checks whether child protection programs are in place should be expanded to measure whether the polices are effective.
Her comments came Thursday as the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops released results of the third annual audit of child protection policies in the 195 American dioceses.
Auditors found that 88.5 percent of dioceses had put in place full safeguards for children, as required by the bishops' reforms. However, 104 dioceses conducted a "self-audit." In previous years, teams from the Gavin Group, led by former FBI agent William Gavin, had conducted onsite audits in all participating dioceses.
CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune
By Manya A. Brachear
Tribune staff reporter
Published March 31, 2006
The Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago will hire investigators to comb seminary files for evidence of sexual misconduct by priests before they were ordained, Chancellor Jimmy Lago said in an interview Thursday.
"I don't expect to find misconduct in those files," Lago said. "If there is misconduct in them, it would be a priest that would not be in ministry. The issue is to make sure that's the case."
The need to examine personnel and seminary files in all dioceses was echoed by U.S. Catholic bishops' national lay watchdog panel, which on Thursday released results of its third annual audit of dioceses' policies to protect children.
Patricia Ewers, chairwoman of theAbuse Tracker Review Board, urged all bishops to compile personnel and seminary records for all living priests "and have them available to the appropriate authorities." She also asked that bishops be made aware of abuse allegations as soon as they surface.
COLUMBUS (OH)
Dayton Daily News
From Staff and Wire Reports
COLUMBUS | Victims of sexual abuse by priests sued Thursday to stop the state from enacting the abuse reporting bill that lawmakers sent to Gov. Bob Taft a day earlier, saying critical changes were crafted in what the victims called an illegal secret meeting.
The House deleted a provision allowing lawsuits over 35-year-old abuse cases before passing the bill Wednesday, and the Senate reluctantly agreed to the change.
Taft intends to sign the bill — unless the lawsuit ties it up, spokesman Mark Rickel said.
Three members of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, said they were kept out of negotiations leading to the cut.
GRAND RAPIDS (MI)
Press
Thursday, March 30, 2006
By Charles Honey
Press Religion Editor
GRAND RAPIDS -- Four years after the sexual abuse scandal rocked Catholic Churches in West Michigan and elsewhere, more than 28,000 local church personnel, volunteers and young people have been trained to prevent more children from being molested, according to a report released today.
An annual audit of U.S. dioceses shows the Grand Rapids Catholic Diocese spent $35,000 on abuse-prevention programs last year, a $10,000 increase from 2004.
However, the diocese also shelled out $52,500 on counseling for abuse victims and related legal fees, according to the report by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Another $35,000 was spent on counseling and support for clergy who have been dismissed for abuse.
For the third consecutive year, the audit found the 11-county diocese in full compliance with the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People adopted by U.S. bishops. The report said no new abuse allegations were made against local priests last year.
UNITED STATES
The Tidings
At their meeting in Dallas in 2002, the bishops of the United States stated as policy:
"…that for even a single act of sexual abuse of a minor --- whenever it occurred --- which is admitted or established after an appropriate process in accord with canon law, the offending priest or deacon is to be permanently removed from ministry and, if warranted, dismissed from the clerical state."
This is what is commonly referred to as "zero tolerance." Does this mean that any priest who is accused anywhere in the United States by anyone will be removed from ministry? Many priests feared that they might be at the mercy of every accuser.
However, that is not what has happened. A number of priests have been accused, but they have not been removed from ministry because the accusation was not credible.
The policy requires that an accused priest either admits to the accusation or that it be verified by appropriate evidence. In the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, this means that if a priest denies an allegation of abuse, it will be examined by a thorough investigation. Many of the investigators used have worked for the FBI.
UTICA (NY)
Newsday
March 30, 2006, 2:06 PM EST
UTICA, N.Y. (AP) _ A defrocked priest was found guilty Thursday of taking nude photos of underage boys.
An Oneida County Court jury found James Tamburrino, 38, of Rome, guilty of charges including the use of a child in a sexual performance, attempting to use a child in a sexual performance, possessing a sexual performance by a child and two misdemeanor counts of endangering the welfare of a child.
Tamburrino was accused of taking naked pictures of a 15-year-old boy in July and then approaching another 15-year-old boy to arrange a meeting to take erotic pictures of him, as well.
Defense attorney Pal Lengyel-Leahu had argued that Tamburrino believed one of the boys was older than 17 when he took naked photographs of the 15-year-old in a Rome motel last summer. Lengyel-Leahu said Tamburrino arranged to meet the second boy only after police made the teen call Tamburrino.
ARLINGTON (VA)
Catholic Herald
Special to the HERALD
(From the issue of 3/30/06)
Introduction
In his Feb. 17, 2005, letter to Catholics of the diocese, Arlington Bishop Paul S. Loverde wrote, “In keeping with the commitments we have made in the Charter and by our policy, annual reports on child protection efforts and victim outreach are a critical component to the framework we have put in place to heighten the safety of children under our care.”
The diocese was established in 1974 and encompasses 21 counties and seven cities in the northern tier of Virginia. The diocese consists of 67 parishes and 39 Catholic elementary and secondary schools, 155 diocesan priests, 73 religious priests, 58 deacons, and serves a population of over 400,000 registered Catholics. A total of 891 priests have served in the diocese since it was established. Bishop Loverde was installed as the third Bishop of Arlington, on March 25, 1999.
Background, 1974-2004
In accord with the Child Protection Policy, the diocese and its Advisory Board for Child Protection shall give an annual public report of the status of the Diocesan child protection activities, including any allegations of sexual abuse of minors by clergy in the Catholic Diocese of Arlington. On Feb. 19, 2004, the diocese issued its “Report on the History of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Clergy of the Diocese of Arlington, 1974-2004,” in which all cases of sexual abuse of minors by clergy reported to the diocese since the diocese’s founding in 1974 were reported.
FLORIDA
WAWS
Last Update: 3/30/2006 11:07:39 AM
A five million dollar lawsuit will be filed against the Episcopal Church based on sexual abuse allegations involving a former Jacksonville priest and a minor.
Miami law firm Herman and Mermelstein will handle the suit against the Episcopal Diocese of Florida.
According to the suit, back in 1969 Father Joseph Noll molested a girl under the age of 12. The suit says Father Noll was a former pastor at St. Stephen's in Jacksonville.
WASHINGTON (DC)
Catholic Explorer
By Agostino Bono - Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Although child sex abuse allegations against Catholic clergy may continue, there is a marked decrease in the number of cases that have occurred in recent years, said a report by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.
Most of the recent allegations concern events that took place decades ago, it said in a supplemental report to its mammoth study of the nature and scope of the U.S. clergy sex abuse crisis.
The original study, covering the years 1950-2002, was released in 2004 and commissioned by the U.S. bishops'Abuse Tracker Review Board. The supplemental study contained further analysis of the same data and was released in Washington March 30 along with the 2005 audit of how the U.S. church is applying its sex abuse prevention policies.
"The decrease in sexual abuse cases is a true representation of the overall phenomenon," said the John Jay supplemental report.
"Even if more cases are reported, they will be based primarily on abuse that occurred years before," it said.
A major reason for this is that people often have been waiting for many years before reporting abuse by a clergyman, it said.
WASHINGTON (DC)
Yahoo! News
By RACHEL ZOLL, AP Religion Writer
WASHINGTON - The nation's Roman Catholic leaders received 783 new claims of sex abuse by clergy in 2005, with most of the allegations involving cases that are decades old.
The new claims, reported Thursday, bring the total number of accusations against Catholic clergy to more than 12,000 since 1950.
The latest figures were released as part of the third audit the bishops have conducted to restore trust in their leadership after abuse allegations soared in 2002. Church leaders, however, drew criticism for changing how this latest review was conducted.
In the first two annual audits, all 195 dioceses received an onsite visit. During the most recent review, 104 dioceses were allowed to fill out a questionnaire instead while auditors visited the others.
All three audits were conducted by the Gavin Group, a private firm that employed teams comprised mainly of former FBI agents.
ILLINOIS
Mundelein Review
BY JULIE MURPHY
STAFF WRITER
Mundelein Police Chief Ray Rose is one of several members serving on an Ad Hoc committee created by the Archdiocese of Chicago that will review the "retrospective 'lessons learned' audit" conducted by Defenbaugh and Associates.
The independent audit examined the Archdiocese's handling of the allegations of sexual abuse with a minor against Father Daniel McCormack and Father Joseph Bennett.
Archdiocese spokesman Jim Dwyer said the committee will advise the Archdiocese on the implementation of the recommendations.
"We assembled a good group to perform an independent review," he said. "We want to maintain the momentum of the report."
Dwyer said the group assembled, which includes children's welfare advocates, a circuit court judge, an attorney who represents victims of sexual abuse, the vice chair of Catholic Charities, a financial analyst and a news and information officer for Notre Dame, was chosen for its diversity and commitment to see that Archdiocese policies are properly implemented.
WICHITA (KS)
Wichita Eagle
Robert Larson, a longtime priest in the Catholic Diocese of Wichita who admitted molesting altar boys in the 1980s, was released from Lansing Correctional Facility on Wednesday after serving five years in prison.
Larson, 76, was transferred to the Harvey County Jail, where he will stay until a judge determines whether probable cause exists to have the former priest declared a sexual predator.
Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline filed a petition in Harvey County last week seeking that declaration. State law allows offenders who are designated sexual predators to be held in state mental hospitals to undergo treatment indefinitely, even after their prison sentences are up.
"We're doing everything we can to make sure that he is not put in a position to re-offend," said Whitney Watson, a spokesman for Kline.
Larson pleaded guilty in 2001 in Harvey County District Court to abusing three altar boys and a 19-year-old man while he was pastor at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Newton in the mid-1980s. As part of a plea agreement which was offered to Larson in 2001 by then-Harvey County Attorney Matt Treaster, the state agreed not declare Larson a sexual predator.
ALBUQUERQUE (NM)
The New Mexican
By Andy Lenderman The New Mexican
March 30, 2006
ALBUQUERQUE — A boy who claims his former priest sexually abused him has sued the priest, the Rev. George S. Silva, in U.S. District Court.
The civil suit filed Wednesday also names Archbishop Michael J. Sheehan and the Archdiocese of Santa Fe as defendants.
The boy, identified as John Doe in court records, once served as an altar boy in the St. Patrick’s /St. Joseph’s Parish in Raton, where Silva served, according to the civil complaint . The boy was younger than age 16 at the time, a separate criminal indictment says.
After gaining his family’s trust, Silva took the boy on a religious pilgrimage to Lisbon, Portugal, last June and performed a “non-consensual sexual act” on him in a hotel room there, according to the complaint.
At the time, the complaint reads, Silva had control of the boy’s passport, airline tickets and money.
CINCINNATI (OH)
The Cincinnati Post
Post staff report
A former chaplain of Mount Notre Dame High School in Reading has been removed from the priesthood by the Vatican.
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cincinnati reported Wednesday that the Rev. Thomas Brunner's petition for laicization from the priesthood was approved by Pope Benedict XVI.
Laicization means a priest may no longer function as such.
Brunner was removed as pastor of St. Patrick Parish in Troy in September 2003 because of a new church law that said a priest who has offended against a child can't continue in ministry.
SPOKANE (WA)
The Oregonian
Thursday, March 30, 2006
SPOKANE -- The Roman Catholic Diocese of Spokane is so strapped for cash that it has stopped paying its lawyers, even as its complicated bankruptcy case enters a critical stage.
The diocese sought bankruptcy protection because of claims filed by people who contend they were sexually abused by priests.
The diocese for the past 16 months has paid both its own legal bills and the bills of lawyers for victims, and is running out of money even as the two sides try to settle.
"I'm very concerned, obviously, about the fact that frankly every month this debtor goes further and further in the hole in terms of cash," U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Patricia Williams said during a hearing this week.
"That's a fact of life that is getting worse every single month and I ask myself periodically, you know, how many churches are we going to have to sell just because we can't get to plan confirmation?" Williams said.
Williams wondered whether churches or other diocese assets may have to be sold just to pay the mounting costs of the case.
UTICA (NY)
Observer-Dispatch
Thursday, Mar 30, 2006
Rocco LaDuca
Observer-Dispatch
UTICA — An Oneida County Court jury could decide today if a defrocked priest is guilty of approaching two 15-year-old boys to pose for sexual photographs in Rome.
The jury began deliberating late Wednesday afternoon following two days of trial testimony in which one boy described posing for pictures that James Tamburrino took, while the other recalled the encounters that led police to Tamburrino.
In their closing arguments Wednesday, attorneys for both sides left the jury with two different pictures of Tamburrino's actions involving the two boys in July.
Tamburrino, 38, of Pilmore Drive, is charged with using a child in a sexual performance, attempting to use a child in a sexual performance, possessing a sexual performance by a child and two misdemeanor counts of endangering the welfare of a child.
UNITED STATES
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
By RACHEL ZOLL
AP RELIGION WRITER
The nation's Roman Catholic bishops have undergone another audit to see if they are complying with the U.S. church's toughened sex abuse policy, though not all the dioceses have been visited by investigators.
And critics say results of the audit, scheduled for release Thursday in Washington, D.C., are not a true measure of the bishops' commitment to their own policies.
The bishops hired investigators to determine whether dioceses are implementing the national policy church leaders adopted in 2002 at the height of the clergy sex abuse scandal. But the auditors from the Gavin Group, a private firm led by a former FBI agent, were not asked to judge whether the programs are effective.
Also, church leaders changed how the review was conducted.
In the first two annual reviews, all 195 dioceses received an onsite visit. During the most recent review, dioceses that had been judged compliant two years in a row were allowed to fill out a questionnaire instead.
PITTSBURGH (PA)
KDKA
(KDKA) PITTSBURGH A Homestead pastor accused of sexually abusing a teen he was counseling over three-year period is expected in court today for a preliminary hearing.
The Rev. Duane Youngblood of the Higher Call World Outreach Church in Homestead turned himself into police March 16.
According to police reports, the victim’s mother sent the then 15-year-old boy to Youngblood for counseling, after she read his journal that he was sexually assautled by an older cousin.
CROSSVILLE (TN)
WVLT
Crossville, Cumberland County (WVLT) - There was no doubt a big surprise for a Cumberland County minister as he walked out of a hearing at the old courthouse where he was met by sheriff's deputies waiting for him with a warrant for sexual battery by an authority figure.
Benji Dale Persinger is accused of inappropriately touching a 14-year-old girl at his home in Crossville.
Volunteer TV's Eric Waddell was there when Persinger was arrested behind the old Cumberland County Courthouse.
Persinger wasn't shy as sheriff's deputies and TV cameras surrounded him Wednesday. He claims, among other things, that he's innocent.
COLUMBUS (OH)
Toledo Blade
By JIM PROVANCE
BLADE COLUMBUS BUREAU
COLUMBUS - Ohio House members navigated photographs of children and chants of "Shame on you" yesterday shortly before a majority of them voted against opening a one-time, one-year window for the filing of lawsuits for child molestation that occurred as long as 35 years ago.
Amid finger-pointing and allegations of deal-making, the Ohio Senate soon finished the job, voting 18-13 to accept the House changes and forward the bill to Gov. Bob Taft, who plans to sign it. The Senate had unanimously and emotionally approved the bill with the window attached a year ago.
The bill now contains an untried civil registry. Victims of past abuse could seek a court order to place an accused sex offender's name on the public list, regardless of whether the person has been convicted or charged with a crime. Those placed on the list would be treated much like sex offenders who are required to register their whereabouts.
"The defeat came in a 12-hour period," said Barbara Blaine, a Toledo native and president of the Survivors Network of Those Abused By Priests. "This half-baked, last-minute scheme is unconstitutional. It won't stand up in court. This registry is a shallow, empty promise that will provide no measure of protection for children or justice for victims."
CONCORD (NH)
Boston.com
By J.M. Hirsch, Associated Press Writer | March 29, 2006
CONCORD, N.H. --More than three years after a landmark agreement between the state and New Hampshire's Roman Catholic diocese mandated annual audits of the church's sexual-abuse prevention strategies, the results of the first audit are in.
The audits were a key part of a 2002 settlement between the state and the diocese that ended a criminal investigation of whether church officials knew priests were molesting children, but failed to protect them over a period of decades.
But the audits have been delayed as state and church officials sparred over their scope and who would pay for them. The attorney general's office was expected to release the audit results Thursday.
The state sought a comprehensive audit that evaluated the effectiveness of the diocese's new policies, many of which were implemented following accusations several years ago that church officials nationwide had failed to protect children.
CANADA
Canada.com
Tara Brautigam, Canadian Press
Published: Wednesday, March 29, 2006
CORNWALL, Ont. (CP) - Alleged child abuse victims should not take the stand at an eastern Ontario inquiry into the handling of such accusations because it would effectively retry a retired priest, a lawyer argued Wednesday.
"For them to come here and now make a criminal accusation against our client and to leave it at that without more would not be a full inquiry," said Giuseppe Cipriano, a lawyer for Rev. Charles MacDonald.
The retired priest was accused of being part of a group of pedophiles that allegedly victimized children for decades, but charges against him were stayed in May 2002 after a judge ruled his right to a speedy trial had been violated.
A lengthy police investigation in the 1990s concluded that there was no evidence of a pedophile ring.
ALBUQUERQUE (NM)
TheNewMexicoChannel.com
POSTED: 8:10 pm MST March 29, 2006
UPDATED: 8:31 pm MST March 29, 2006
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- A teenage boy is seeking unspecified damages from the Archdiocese of Santa Fe in a lawsuit filed Wednesday.
The boy -- identified only as John Doe -- alleges he was sexually abused by a Raton priest last year.
The lawsuit also names as defendants Archbishop Michael Sheehan and former Raton priest George Silva.
Silva was indicted by a federal grand jury last month on four counts involving transporting a minor from New Mexico to France and Portugal for criminal and illicit sexual activity.
The lawsuit alleges the boy suffered physical injury, emotional distress, loss of self-esteem, disgrace, lost wages and expenses for medical care and counseling, the lawsuit said.
BOSTON (MA)
Transcript
By David L. Harris/ Staff Writer
Thursday, March 30, 2006
Just weeks after a former Catholic Memorial chaplain was defrocked amid allegations that he sexually abused at least three students in the early 1980s, more allegations are coming forward.
The Rev. Robert Hoatson, a former teacher and assistant headmaster at CM from 1981 to 1985, said Frederick Ryan kept a "Wall of Fame" bulletin board in his residence at the chancery that showcased hundreds of student-athletes in various states of dress and undress.
But that’s not all. "After football games, he [Ryan] would massage athletes’ backs while they were showering," Hoatson told the Transcript.
Another victim has corroborated Hoaston’s account.
Archbishop Sean P. O’Malley defrocked Ryan two weeks ago while current CM President Brother James MacDonald has said all of the alleged abuse took place outside of the school.
But Hoatson maintains some of the abuse occurred on school property and was more extensive than has ever been reported. He also said he warned the administration about Ryan back in the 1980s.
OHIO
Dayton Daily News
By Tom Beyerlein
Dayton Daily News
For the second time in a month, the Vatican has announced the forced removal of a priest with Dayton-area ties who was credibly accused of child sexual abuse.
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cincinnati said Wednesday that the Vatican approved what amounts to the forced resignation of Thomas Brunner, former pastor of Miami County's largest Catholic church, St. Patrick in Troy. The Vatican announced similar action against Lawrence Strittmatter this month.
In the 1980s, several women in the Cincinnati area accused Brunner of molesting them as minors, and he didn't deny it. Under the rules of the time, the archdiocese transferred him to another post after he underwent psychological tests and counseling. He came to Troy in 1995.
Cincinnati Archbishop Daniel E. Pilarczyk suspended Brunner with pay from St. Patrick in September 2003 under the U.S. bishops' new zero-tolerance rule. He has not been permitted to serve as a priest.
COLUMBUS (OH)
Cleveland Plain Dealer
Thursday, March 30, 2006
Reginald Fields
Plain Dealer Bureau
Columbus- The Ohio House saved its busiest day of the year for its last day before a short break, moving a slew of bills on Wednesday that could affect high-profile issues such as taxes, clergy sex abuse and bad mortgage deals.
A $2.8 million budget correction bill won final passage and heads to Gov. Bob Taft's desk. Among scores of provisions, the bill allows Cuyahoga County to seek a cigarette tax to benefit the arts and appropriates $665 million for schools construction statewide.
The day got off to an emotional and bizarre start as people who said they were sexually abused by priests as children lined the main doorway into the House chamber, shouting and calling lawmakers names like "coward."
They were upset that House Speaker Jon Husted had removed a provision in a bill that would have allowed victims a one-year window to file lawsuits seeking monetary damages against clergy for alleged abuse from up to 35 years ago.
Most lawmakers ducked through another door behind an area where lobbyists and media were standing. Husted, Republican of Kettering, avoided the area altogether, taking a side door into the chamber.
COLUMBUS (OH)
Cincinnati Enquirer
The victims of sexual abuse were dealt a huge setback in the Ohio Statehouse on Tuesday when a controversial provision of a proposed child protection law was dropped.
The 35-year "look back" period would have let victims file suits as much as 35 years after abuse occurred for a period of one year, but the provision did not survive a subcommittee vote. Under the statute of limitations, victims of abuse have two years past their 18th birthday to sue their abusers. Instead, Senate Bill 17 allows victims to go to court to place their abusers on a registry of sexual offenders to let others know of an abuser's past.
That's a positive gesture, but it does not do enough to hold abusers and institutions that may have protected them accountable for sexual abuse committed years ago.
COLUMBUS (OH)
The Columbus Dispatch
Thursday, March 30, 2006
Jim Siegel
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
In a legislative staredown over whether to allow victims to file lawsuits for old instances of child sex abuse, the Senate blinked first and the Roman Catholic Church won.
A reluctant Senate gave final approval yesterday to a Housepassed bill that requires church officials to report suspected instances of abuse and creates an Internet registry of unconvicted sex offenders who are found liable in a civil case.
After heavy lobbying by Ohio Catholic bishops, the House stripped a provision that would have given victims a one-year window, or look-back, to file a lawsuit for child sex abuse that occurred as long ago as 35 years.
"I have never felt more ashamed of my church than I do today," said Rep. Chris Redfern of Catawba Island, a Catholic and chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party. House Democrats tried to return the look-back provision to Senate Bill 17, but majority Republicans defeated it in a party-line vote.
IRELAND
Irish Examiner
By Rónán Mullen
A FEW years ago I took part in a Late Late Show discussion about child sexual abuse and the Catholic Church. On the show that night were Fr Brian D’Arcy and a number of people who had suffered abuse by Catholic priests.
Fr D’Arcy had to leave immediately after the show but, on our way out to the hospitality suite, he spoke to one of the abuse victims in a voice of great familiarity and intensity. “Won’t you mind yourself?” he pleaded.
Chatting to me afterwards, the person in question commented on ‘how upset’ Fr Brian seemed to be. “Do you know him well?” I asked. The person didn’t know him at all, it turned out.
On one level, Fr D’Arcy’s obvious compassion was commendable. But I was left wondering, nevertheless. Was this man a hyper-emoter, a man far too in touch with his touchy-feely side, too ready to feel everybody’s pain? How was it that he was never to be found on the unpopular side of a controversial argument, that he never defended his Church against unfair criticism, and that the only people he criticised over the years were erstwhile authority figures such as Cardinal Daly or the Vatican - people who were, by then, easy to criticise.
However, a lot of people have great time for Fr D’Arcy. He is, by all accounts, a compassionate man who has been of great support to many people over the years. Like many priests, he has been there for people at crucial moments and they will not forget it. Nor should they.
NEW YORK
New York Post
By ALEX GINSBERG
March 29, 2006 -- A pervy priest who pleaded guilty to child endangerment in connection with the sodomy of an 11-year-old Brooklyn altar boy was sentenced to three years' probation yesterday.
The Rev. Joseph Byrns, 63, who pleaded guilty to the charge in January in exchange for the slap on the wrist, also was told by Brooklyn Supreme Court Judge Robert Collini that he's banned from working with or having any unsupervised contact with children.
UNITED STATES
National
By JOE FEUERHERD
Washington
In a series of emotional hearings taking place in state capitols across the country, clergy sex abuse victims and church lobbyists both say they want justice, though there’s no consensus on what that might look like or how to get there.
Proposals in more than a dozen states would eliminate or temporarily suspend the statute of limitations on child abuse. Laws vary by jurisdiction, but typically forbid civil suits against alleged abusers and those who covered-up their crimes several years after the victim reaches age 18. Statute of limitations restrictions on criminal prosecutions tend to be more open-ended, but are also the subject of scrutiny in legislatures across the country.
Legislative fights are hottest in Colorado, Maryland, Massachusetts and Ohio. Other states where legislation has been introduced include Florida, Hawaii, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Washington and Wisconsin.
On one side are abuse victims and their advocates, who argue that restrictions on civil suits involving child abuse reward molesters and the abettors who covered up their crimes. “The incentive is backwards,” said David Clohessy, national director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. “With this reform every agency dealing with kids will be forced to work harder to prevent abuse and respond pastorally when abuse happens; without it, it’s in their self-interest to stonewall, lie, hide and intimidate,” said Clohessy. “In every realm of human behavior the threat of negative consequences deters recklessness.”
NEW HAMPSHIRE
The Union Leader
By KATHRYN MARCHOCKI
Union Leader Staff
The state Attorney General’s office tomorrow will release the results of its first annual audit of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Manchester.
The audit will reveal how effective the diocese’s polices are in protecting children and whether it is complying with the terms of the 2002 agreement the diocese reached with the state to avoid criminal prosecution for its handling of child sexual abuse in the past.
In striking the agreement, the diocese acknowledged it failed to protect children from sexually abusive priests. The alleged abuses date from the 1930s through the 1980s.
The diocese agreed to submit to annual audits by the Attorney General’s office through 2007 as one condition of the agreement.
CANADA
Ottawa Citizen
Tara Brautigam, The Canadian Press
Published: Wednesday, March 29, 2006
CORNWALL - An inquiry probing how public institutions responded to historical allegations of child sexual abuse does not have the authority to issue recommendations to the Catholic Church, a lawyer for the diocese said yesterday.
The Alexandria-Cornwall Roman Catholic Diocese doesn't want to be considered a "public institution" as is spelled out in the terms of reference established for the inquiry last year by the Ontario government, said lawyer David Sherriff-Scott.
Considering the diocese a public institution just because it provides services to the poor and downtrodden would be unfair and would distract the inquiry from its true mandate, Mr. Sherriff-Scott told commissioner Normand Glaude.
The inquiry is investigating the handling of long-standing allegations of child sexual abuse in Cornwall.
CHICAGO (IL)
Philippine News
Ted Regencia, Mar 29, 2006
CHICAGO, IL – In an effort to stem an ongoing abuse controversy, the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago released on March 21 the result of an investigation, which named 55 diocesan priests who are facing “substantiated allegations” of abuse.
One of them is now deceased Filipino priest Fr. Albert Tanghal
The names of the priests are listed in the archdiocese’s website www.archidiocese-chgo.org. Details of the allegations, which date as far back as 1950, were not made public.
At the Tuesday press conference, Francis Cardinal George endured sharp questions by the media, and offered his apology, "for the tragedy of allowing children to be in the presence of a priest against whom a current accusation of sexual abuse had been made.” “I am most truly sorry," the cardinal said on TV.
Fr. Tanghal, who was ordained in 1991, was last known to have served St. John Vianney Parish, located in the northwest Chicago suburb of Northlake, and which has a significant number of Filipino churchgoers.
PENNSYLVANIA
The Morning Call
By Kathleen Parrish
and Daniel Patrick Sheehan Of The Morning Call
In the years after his 1988 conviction for molesting a child, the Rev. Thomas J. Bender lived and worked at St. Anthony of Padua Parish in Easton, home to a school and a popular youth center.
Serving out probation, barred from saying Mass and other priestly functions, he worked in the parish office — a situation that lasted until Bishop Edward Cullen took charge of the Allentown Catholic Diocese in 1998 and removed him as part of a revision of policies on troubled clergy.
Bender, 72, a one-time pastor whose priesthood was essentially nullified two years ago, was arrested March 21 on Long Island, N.Y. He is accused of traveling there to have sex with a 14-year-old online pen pal who turned out to be an undercover detective. In instant messages and e-mails, Bender said he ''wanted to spank the 14-year-old male on various parts of his nude body,'' according to court documents.
Though Bender was never accused of improper behavior during his time at St. Anthony's, critics say the assignment exemplifies how dioceses often dealt with abusive priests before the explosion of the clergy abuse scandal in 1998 — by moving them into new parishes where they continued to have access to children.
JOLIET (IL)
Chicago Tribune
By Lolly Bowean
Tribune staff reporter
Published March 29, 2006
A Catholic priest who was placed on leave last month amid allegations that he sexually abused a boy more than 20 years ago while serving at a church in Mokena, has formally denied the allegations in a letter to former parishioners, officials said.
Rev. James Burnett, who had served at the Cathedral of St. Raymond in Joliet from 2002 until he was placed on administrative leave in February, wrote the letter last week that was copied and distributed as an insert to the Joliet church's Sunday bulletin, officials said.
In his letter, Burnett thanks parishioners for their support and prayers.
"I am innocent of all the accusations that have been made against me, and I know that that innocence will prevail," he wrote.
"The many days since my departure have been dark, some darker than others," he wrote. "I do believe deeply in the power of prayer, and I do believe that your prayers will bring this situation to a happy conclusion."
Last month a 34-year-old man who now lives in Phoenix came forward with allegations against Burnett.
CALIFORNIA
Contra Costa Times
By Sophia Kazmi
CONTRA COSTA TIMES
DUBLIN - Bishop Allen Vigneron on Tuesday night delivered the last of the apologies for those abused by priests of the Oakland Diocese.
After a two-year tour of the diocese, the service at St. Raymond Catholic Church was the 21st apology service presided over by the bishop -- and the last. It was intended for those who could not make one of the other services, or who were not ready to come forward when Vigneron was at their parish.
"I am here with you to acknowledge past failings," the bishop told the audience at the start of his homily.
Vigneron has traveled throughout the East Bay, with stops at churches in Antioch, Castro Valley, Richmond and other cities.
Before the bishop began his homily, members from the Survivors Network for People Abused by Priests, also known as SNAP, held a vigil and passed out fliers that said the diocese is not providing all the names of priests involved in alleged abuses.
COLUMBUS (OH)
The Columbus Dispatch
Catherine Candisky and Jim Siegel
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Victims of sex abuse by priests were livid yesterday after majority Republicans in the Ohio House closed a oneyear window that would have allowed the victims to sue for abuse that occurred up to 35 years ago.
Packing a Statehouse hearing of the House Judiciary Committee, the victims accused GOP leaders of caving to pressure from the Roman Catholic Church, which successfully lobbied for an Internet registry for sexually abusive priests.
"The influence of the Catholic Conference is so much greater than ours; that’s what it comes down to," said Barbara Blaine, president of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.
COLUMBUS (OH)
Dayton Daily News
Staff and Wire Reports
COLUMBUS | State lawmakers dropped a proposal Tuesday to allow victims of sexual abuse to file lawsuits in cases up to 35 years old.
Victims' advocates lambasted House Speaker Jon Husted, R-Kettering, for striking what they see as the bill's most important provision, which would have allowed a one-year window for abuse victims who missed the lawsuit deadline to sue.
Husted said leaders were unable to reach a compromise that satisfied church officials and a victims' support network.
The change was among revisions to a bill that the House Judiciary Committee approved Tuesday. The House is expected to pass the bill. Senate President Bill Harris, R-Ashland, said the Senate likely would agree with the changes.
COLUMBUS (OH)
Cincinnati Enquirer
BY JON CRAIG | ENQUIRER COLUMBUS BUREAU AND DAN HORN
COLUMBUS - State legislators dropped a proposal Tuesday that would have allowed victims of sexual abuse to sue their abusers up to 35 years after the offense.
The provision, strongly opposed by the Catholic Church, was the most controversial part of a proposed child protection law.
Church officials said the provision was unfair and probably unconstitutional, while victims' advocates viewed it as the best way to hold priests and the church accountable for decades-old abuse claims.
The proposed 35-year "look-back period" had survived nearly a year of political debate and lobbying, but it didn't survive Tuesday's vote of the House Judiciary Committee.
Committee members voted 7-3 to remove the provision before sending the child protection bill to the full House for a vote, possibly as early as today.
CHICAGO (IL)
National
By JOE FEUERHERD
Eighteen Chicago archdiocese “accused priest abusers” live at church-owned facilities under an “honor code” system where their activities and whereabouts are largely unsupervised. Some have regular access to children and other vulnerable people, such as nursing home residents.
Those are among the findings of a 58-page report commissioned by Cardinal Francis George following revelations that a prominent parish pastor was allowed to remain in ministry for more than four months following allegations of sexual abuse. The priest, Fr. Daniel McCormack, served as pastor of St. Agatha Parish on Chicago’s west side and as a coach and teacher at the parochial school it shares with two other parishes.
Following the August accusation against McCormack, George rejected a recommendation from an archdiocesan review board that the priest be removed as pastor of St. Agatha. Instead, another priest -- who lived at the rectory but whose ministerial duties were elsewhere -- was assigned to act as a “monitor” for the accused priest.
COLUMBUS (OH)
Dayton Daily News
By Shaheen Samavati
Dayton Daily News
COLUMBUS | Terry Staub of Kettering didn't tell anyone she was sexually abused by a priest when she was in first grade. More than four decades passed before she reported the abuse. Under Ohio law that was too late to take civil action.
But now she and other members of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests are afraid that the provision could be stripped from the bill before a committee vote scheduled for today.
The group's president, Barbara Blaine, was not optimistic after she met with House Speaker Jon Husted, R-Kettering, on Monday. Her group is concerned the committee might remove a one-year window for the filing of civil claims stemming from abuse occurring more than 35 years ago.
IRELAND
Catholic World News
Mar. 28 (CWNews.com) - The Irish government has established a commission to investigate sexual abuse of children in the Dublin archdiocese.
The commission, to be headed by Judge Yvonne Murphy, will look into the handling of sex-abuse complaints by Church leaders in Dublin. It will also be authorized to investigate any other Irish diocese where there are reports that Church leaders have not followed the guidelines established by the Irish bishops for handling such complaints.
The commission will examine sex-abuse complaints lodged against the clergy of Dublin between 1975 and 2004, and look for "any evidence of attempts on the part of those authorities to obstruct, prevent or interfere with the proper investigation of such complaints."
COLUMBUS (OH)
NBC4i
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Lawmakers are dropping a proposal to allow lawsuits by victims of clergy sexual abuse that happened up to 35 years ago, the Ohio House leader said Tuesday.
Victims of child sex abuse said they were disappointed Tuesday after a house committee changed Senate Bill 17 -- designed to protect children, NBC 4's Lauren Crowner reported.
The bill was approved by the Senate and would allow people abused by priests to have up to 20 years to report the abuse after it happened. But, the House Judiciary Committee changed the time limit to 12 years.
Victims said they were also looking for a provision which would have allowed a one-year window for victims who missed the lawsuit deadline to sue for alleged abuse
OHIO
Columbus Dispatch
Associated Press
Tuesday, March 28, 2006 7:25 PM
State lawmakers today dropped a proposal to allow victims of sexual abuse by clergy to file lawsuits in cases up to 35 years old.
Victims' advocates lambasted House Speaker Jon Husted for striking what they see as the bill's most important provision, which would have allowed a one-year window for victims who missed the lawsuit deadline to sue for alleged abuse.
Husted said leaders were unable to reach a compromise that suits church officials and an outspoken victims' support network, whose members descended on the Statehouse the past two days bearing laminated photos of themselves at the ages they were abused.
The change was among bill revisions approved today by the House Judiciary Committee and headed for expected passage in a vote of the full House on Wednesday. Senate President Bill Harris said the Senate likely would agree with the changes.
OHIO
WCPO
Reported by: Laure Quinlivan
Web produced by: Neil Relyea
Photographed by: 9News
First posted: 3/28/2006 7:19:52 PM
Last Updated: 3/28/2006 10:34:41 PM
9News Anchor:
Victims of child sexual abuse are scrambling Tuesday night to resurrect a key provision in a bill Ohio House members are expected to vote on Wednesday.
On Tuesday Republicans killed the bill's one-year window to allow victims to file civil suits against their abusers.
9News' I-Team reporter Laure Quinlivan was in Columbus and has the latest.
CANADA
Toronto Star
Mar. 28, 2006. 07:00 PM
CANADIAN PRESS
CORNWALL, Ont. — A public inquiry probing how public institutions responded to historical allegations of child sexual abuse does not have the authority to issue recommendations to the Catholic Church, a lawyer for the local diocese said Tuesday.
The Alexandria-Cornwall Roman Catholic Diocese doesn’t want to be considered a “public institution” as is spelled out in the terms of reference established for the inquiry last year by the Ontario government, said lawyer David Sherriff-Scott.
Considering the diocese a public institution just because it provides services to the poor and downtrodden would be unfair and would distract the inquiry from its true mandate, Sherriff-Scott told Commissioner Normand Glaude.
“If I interpreted every charitable organization that held itself out in the public domain as providing services on behalf of the public — Big Brothers, Big Sisters, athletic organizations, health charities — every one of them would be, on that argument, a public institution,” he argued.
WISCONSIN
GM Today
By AL DUNN - GM Today Staff
March 28, 2006
In a charged hearing, Russell Roelke, a 45-year-old former West Bend youth ministry director originally charged with four counts of child sex crimes, was sentenced Monday to a 14-year prison term by Washington County Circuit Judge Annette Ziegler.
Under sentencing guidelines, Roelke will serve three years in the state prison system and the remainder under extended supervision.
After the sentence was passed, with audible moans emanating from the large contingent of his supporters, Roelke’s mother collapsed inside the courtroom and was attended to by West Bend paramedics. She was able to walk out of the courtroom later with assistance.
Roelke had earlier entered guilty pleas to two counts, one of use of a computer to facilitate a sex crime and one of possession of child pornography. A former youth ministry director at Fifth Avenue Methodist Church in West Bend, Roelke had also been charged with child enticement and exposing a child to harmful material, but Washington County Assistant District Attorney Holly Bunch had agreed to dismiss those charges as part of a plea agreement.
CHICAGO (IL)
National
Chicago Cardinal Francis George acknowledges responsibility for the fiasco that evolved out of what is supposed to be that archdiocese’s child abuse prevention program.
He is right to do so. But we are left wondering what he means by that.
The details (see story) are damning: A high-profile priest known to some archdiocesan officials as a potential abuser since his seminary days was allowed to remain in parish service for four months after additional, and current, allegations of abuse were brought against him. Amazingly, in addition to his duties as parish pastor, Fr. Daniel McCormack continued to serve as a parochial school teacher and sports coach. Meanwhile, the priest appointed to “mind” McCormack was rarely present at the parish and had virtually no training regarding what such “minding” might entail.
MALAWI
IOL
March 28 2006 at 03:48PM
Blantyre - Police in the southern African country of Malawi have arrested a priest for ordering 15 women to strip while he conducted "special prayers" for them, a spokesperson said on Tuesday.
The priest from the Bible Believers, one of several Pentecostal churches that have mushroomed in the country, was arrested in the central Salima district after one of the women filed a complaint, Moyenda Chitimbe said.
Chitimbe said the priest asked the women to disrobe while he conducted "special prayers," adding that the "women obliged and remained naked while the pastor gazed at their nudity."
ILLINOIS
Daily Southtown
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
By Ted Slowik
A Joliet pastor is publicly declaring that he's innocent of a claim that he sexually abused a boy at a Mokena parish more than 25 years ago.
The Rev. James Burnett wrote to parishioners at the Cathedral of St. Raymond in a letter distributed in parish bulletins last weekend.
"I am innocent of all the accusations that have been made against me, and I know that innocence will prevail," Burnett wrote.
Joliet Bishop Joseph Imesch placed Burnett on administrative leave Feb. 7, the day that Dan Shanahan, 34, of Phoenix, Ariz., publicly accused Burnett of repeatedly molesting him, beginning when Shanahan was 8 in 1978. Shanahan claims that some of the abuse occurred in a confessional at St. Mary Church in Mokena.
LOS ANGELES (CA)
Los Angeles Times
By Lisa Richardson, Times Staff Writer
March 28, 2006
Los Angeles police are working with St. Louis authorities to investigate sexual abuse allegations against the Rev. Sylvester Laudermill Jr., pastor of Ward AME Church, officials said Monday.
Laudermill was pastor of the prominent St. Peter AME church in St. Louis from 1994 to 2004, when he came to Los Angeles and Ward, near the USC campus. He was placed on temporary administrative leave from Ward on March 3, pending the outcome of church investigations into allegations of sexual abuse of a minor in St. Louis as well as an undisclosed allegation in Los Angeles, according to authorities.
"We're in contact with St. Louis and we are looking into any matters they bring to our attention that could impact the situation here in Los Angeles," said Lt. Manny Hernandez of the Los Angeles Police Department's child protection section of the juvenile services division. "The investigation's continuing."
According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, a 25-year-old man told police there that Laudermill began a sexual relationship with him when he was 14.
CANADA
Ottawa Sun
Tue, March 28, 2006
CORNWALL -- An inquiry into the persistent allegations of child sexual abuse that have dogged this city for decades could collapse if it decides to exclude the local Catholic diocese from its purview, lawyers for alleged victims warned yesterday.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Alexandria-Cornwall wants be excluded on the grounds that it's not a public institution and therefore not part of the inquiry's mandate to examine how agencies like police and child-welfare authorities responded to the allegations.
Rob Talach, a lawyer for a group of alleged victims of abuse, said the diocese is a fundamental part of the whole story and needs to be represented at the inquiry.
"The Church was deeply involved in this from the beginning," Talach said.
WISCONSIN
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Sex offenders have gotten a lot of attention from state legislators this year. But there is seemingly a double standard in favor of clergy who have been sexual abusers.
The Legislature has been abuzz about a minimum 25-year term for those who target children and about bills that would limit the placement of violent sex offenders in Milwaukee County. But far less enthusiasm has accompanied a bill that would create a one-year window in which victims of clergy sexual abuse could bring civil lawsuits, regardless of when the abuse occurred and statutes of limitation.
That must change. Legislators need to read articles in the Journal Sentinel by Mary Zahn on Sunday and Monday about the pain and suffering endured by the victims of one priest at St. John's School for the Deaf in St. Francis. Now grown men, some are coming forward for compensation and closure, still suffering the lingering effects of abuse at the hands of Father Lawrence Murphy, a longtime and well-respected fixture at the school.
ARLINGTON (VA)
ABC 7
Monday March 27, 2006 7:39pm
Arlington, Va. (AP) - A 69-year-old volunteer at an Arlington assisted living center has pleaded guilty to sexually abusing patients.
Richard O'Brian of Annandale was arrested in January after a worker at the Cherrydale Health and Rehabilitation Center told police she had seen him having sexual contact with a resident.
The center said O'Brian claimed to be a priest with the Catholic Apostolic Church, but church officials say O'Brian hasn't been associated with the church for 10 years.
IRELAND
Scotsman
By Paul Hoskins
GALWAY (Reuters) - At the Franciscan abbey in Galway's city centre about 50 faithful gather for mid-afternoon mass -- not bad for a weekday in a country where the Catholic Church is often said to be in decline.
Falling Church attendance and an ageing clergy are often cited as proof that a series of sex-abuse scandals and Ireland's economic miracle of the 1990s have caused irreparable harm to the once-mighty status of Irish Roman Catholicism.
However, the generally warm welcome last month for a disgraced former bishop of Galway, after years in self-imposed exile, and new data suggesting church-going may be rising, show prosperity and scandal need not spell the end of spirituality.
"People don't take religion as seriously as they used to," said 39-year-old housewife Josephine Treacy, sheltering in the abbey's porch during a break from shopping. "But I think it's important it plays a role in people's lives. Definitely I would feel fairly near God in what I do."
DENVER (CO)
TheDenverChannel.com
DENVER -- People who were sexually abused as far back as 1982 would have unlimited time to sue their alleged molesters and the institutions they worked for under a bill backed by a Senate committee on Monday.
Currently victims have until age 24 -- six years after they turn 18 -- to sue an alleged molester and the institution they worked for.
The measure (House Bill 1090) backed by the committee would lift those limits for future cases and for anyone who's already been abused but hasn't reached that statute of limitations yet. Co-sponsor Sen. Ron Tupa, D-Boulder, said that means that someone born before 1982 would be barred from suing by the current time limit.
COLUMBUS (OH)
Toledo Blade
By JIM PROVANCE
BLADE COLUMBUS BUREAU
COLUMBUS - Saying he would sue today the postman neighbor who sexually assaulted him 38 years ago if he could, former NFL offensive lineman Roy Simmons yesterday urged state lawmakers not to gut a bill that would grant that right to Ohioans in similar situations.
"Why is there a statute of limitations that protects child molesters?" he asked. "All they have to do is bank on the silence of a child. But there is no statute of limitations on the pain and the suffering that a kid goes through who's been sexually assaulted."
From the high of several seasons playing for the New York Giants and Washington Redskins, culminating in a Super Bowl XVIII appearance in 1984, to the lows of crack addiction and HIV infection, the openly gay 49-year-old Savannah, Ga. native said he still struggles with what happened to him at age 11. ...
Supporters of the window have portrayed it as providing a way of using the lawsuit discovery process to force the Catholic Church to open its records, potentially revealing how much the church knew of abuse by its priests and perhaps identifying others who still have access to children.
COLUMBUS (OH)
Toledo Blade
By JIM PROVANCE
BLADE COLUMBUS BUREAU
COLUMBUS - Saying he would sue today the postman neighbor who sexually assaulted him 38 years ago if he could, former NFL offensive lineman Roy Simmons yesterday urged state lawmakers not to gut a bill that would grant that right to Ohioans in similar situations.
"Why is there a statute of limitations that protects child molesters?" he asked. "All they have to do is bank on the silence of a child. But there is no statute of limitations on the pain and the suffering that a kid goes through who's been sexually assaulted."
From the high of several seasons playing for the New York Giants and Washington Redskins, culminating in a Super Bowl XVIII appearance in 1984, to the lows of crack addiction and HIV infection, the openly gay 49-year-old Savannah, Ga. native said he still struggles with what happened to him at age 11. ...
Supporters of the window have portrayed it as providing a way of using the lawsuit discovery process to force the Catholic Church to open its records, potentially revealing how much the church knew of abuse by its priests and perhaps identifying others who still have access to children.
CANADA
Ottawa Citizen
Canadian Press
Published: Monday, March 27, 2006
CORNWALL, Ont. -- Alleged child abuse victims say motions to exclude their testimony and an eastern Ontario Catholic diocese from scrutiny threaten to render a public inquiry into their claims useless.
The independent inquiry into the handling of decades-old allegations of abuse in Cornwall resumed today after a month-long break.
Lawyers for the Alexandria-Cornwall Diocese, alleged abuse victims and other groups are to begin submissions on the motions.
Rob Talach, a lawyer for the alleged victims, says some feel the battle for closure would be lost if the motions succeed.
A police investigation in the 1990s resulted in 114 sex abuse charges against 15 Cornwall citizens.
But only one man pleaded guilty and four were acquitted.
CANADA
CBC News
Last updated Mar 27 2006 01:01 PM EST
CBC News
The Cornwall sex-abuse inquiry faces two motions to limit the scope of its probe that threaten to derail the entire investigation as it resumes Monday.
The inquiry, headed by Justice Normand Glaude, is an independent investigation into how the justice system responded to allegations that high-profile members of the community and clergy sexually abused children over the course of 50 years.
The motions drew criticism from Garry Guzzo, a former MP who fought for an inquiry during his time in office. He said Ontario Attorney General Michael Bryant promised the inquiry would be limitless in scope when it opened in mid-February.
"He said it was going to be open, it was going to be transparent and it was going to be complete," said Guzzo. "And I said, 'Do those words apply to the Diocese of Alexandria and the church?' and he said, 'Absolutely, Garry. Absolutely.'"
MASSACHUSETTS
The Patriot Ledger
By The Patriot Ledger
The hurdles confronting victims of sex abuse crimes who want to bring their perpetrators to justice are many: financial, emotional, psychological, legal.
One of the biggest barriers is the statute of limitations, the time limit on when a person can be charged with rape or other abuse crimes, including incest, using children for pornography, indecent assault on a retarded person. It’s a long list.
As was demonstrated repeatedly in recent sex abuse cases involving Catholic priests, it can take decades for a person to acknowledge what happened to them as a child or adolescent and then try to have the perpetrator answer for the crime.
A set of bills before the Legislature would eliminate the statute of limitations for bringing either a criminal or civil case against a person accused of rape or other, specific sex abuse crimes. The current statute of limitations is 15 years for rape, 10 years for incest, and six years for indecent assault and other sex abuse crimes.
MASSACHUSETTS
The Enterprise
There are no other crimes like sexual abuse of children. That is why they have to be treated differently when it comes to the law.
The Legislature has heard testimony on three bills that would remove the statute of limitations and charitable immunity caps for crimes against children. There are more than 70 co-sponsors and, during hearings before the Joint Committee on the Judiciary, just a single witness — a lawyer for the Springfield Diocese — spoke against the bills. So they should pass with no problem — shouldn't they?
If only it were that easy. Despite encouraging support in the Legislature, much of the top leadership has not signed on to the bills. There could be a vote as early as next Wednesday, or the bills could be sent to a study committee — which means they are essentially dead.
Sen. Robert Creedon, D-Brockton, co-chairman of the committee, should not let that happen. At worst, he should push a vote, up or down, so the public will know where all their legislators stand.
Steve Krueger of the Coalition to Reform Sexual Abuse Laws in Massachusetts said, "Determining the fate of these bills would be a first step to establishing a public policy of zero tolerance for the sexual abuse of children."
POMONA (CA)
Daily Bulletin
By Jannise Johnson, Staff Writer
POMONA - When a Pomona boy needed help 26 years ago dealing with emotional problems brought on by a physically abusive father, he did what many would do: seek the help of a priest.
That decision, he said, drastically altered his life for the worse.
Mark Gallegos, 34, passed out fliers and spoke to members of the media as well as parishioners Sunday morning at Sacred Heart Church, 1215 S. Hamilton Blvd. Gallegos said he hoped those attending Mass would get his message: The church does little to nothing to help survivors of priest abuse.
"I think these priests think they are above the law," Gallegos said.
Gallegos alleges he was raped when he was 8-years-old by the Rev. Manuel Sanchez.
AUSTRALIA
ABC
A Supreme Court judge has declined to put a retired Catholic priest convicted of sex offences on Tasmania's new sex offenders register.
Roger Michael Bellemore, 70, has been sentenced to five years in prison, with a non-parole period of three years.
Bellemore was found guilty of sexually abusing four young teenage boys when he was a teacher at Burnie's Marist college in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Supreme Court Judge Shan Tennant said Bellemore would be at risk in prison because of the nature of his crimes and that he was likely to be isolated.
MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press
BY STEVE SCOTT
Pioneer Press
A longtime critic of the Twin Cities Catholic archdiocese has enlisted the memory of a murdered Hudson, Wis., funeral home director in his fight against what he calls a "gay culture" in the church.
Dr. David Pence, who two years ago led a group of men in blocking gay-rights supporters from receiving Holy Communion at the Cathedral of St. Paul, recently formed the Dan O'Connell Society to make his case.
But family members of O'Connell, killed in 2002 likely by Wisconsin priest Ryan Erickson, have objected to the use of his name and threatened legal action unless Pence stops using it.
DENVER (CO)
Summit Daily News
BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
March 26, 2006
DENVER - In trying to allow childhood victims of sex abuse to sue the Roman Catholic Church, state lawmakers are now faced with whether to also open up public schools - and taxpayers - to lawsuits of their own.
Senate Bill 143 would open up a two-year window for adults to file lawsuits against private institutions like the church. A vote on that is being delayed until lawmakers review House Bill 1090, which would get rid of the time limits for filing lawsuits because of sexual abuse against children from now on.
That measure, scheduled for a hearing Monday in the Senate, would waive the government's immunity for such lawsuits and allow victims to collect up to $732,000 in damages. That's higher than the $300,000 cap that's in place for the handful of other areas where people can sue state government.
However, institutions, like schools, would only be liable if they knew an employee had a history of abusing children but didn't step in and remove him from working with children.
MARYLAND
Washington Post
By Caryle Murphy
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 27, 2006; Page B04
In a legislative victory for the Roman Catholic church, Maryland delegates rejected a bill that would have allowed older victims of child sexual abuse to sue the church and the priests who abused them.
Instead, the House Judiciary Committee on Friday, and the House on Saturday, approved a bill that would allow victims 25 and younger when the law takes effect to file lawsuits until they reach age 42.
Maryland law currently allows victims to bring lawsuits until their 25th birthday. There is no time limit for criminal prosecutions of those who sexually abuse a child in Maryland.
Under intense lobbying from the church, the bill was amended so the time extension does not apply to victims who are now 25 and older.
"Anybody who is under the age of 25 when this bill goes into effect will have the right to go to court extended to the age of 42," said Del. Luiz R.S. Simmons (D-Montgomery). "But if you're over the age of 25, that's the key, you're gone."
OHIO
WBNS
A group of victims of sexual abuse by priests are asking church parishioners for help.
The group is called S.N.A.P. It stands for Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests. They handed out fliers all over the state Sunday, asking church parishioners to support Senate Bill 17.
AUSTRALIA
Townsville Bulletin
27mar06
A FORMER chaplain of an exclusive Adelaide boys school has pleaded not guilty in the South Australian District Court to child sex charges.
John Mountford, 50, will be tried on five counts of indecent assault, two counts of unlawful sexual intercourse and one count of procuring an act of gross indecency.
The charges relate to the alleged abuse of a 14-year-old boy between 1991 and 1992, when Mr Mountford was a chaplain at Adelaide's St Peter's College, where the boy was a student.
The allegations were detailed in an independent report in 2004 into the handling of sex abuse claims in the Anglican Church.
The report forced the resignation of then Adelaide Anglican Archbishop Ian George because it revealed Dr George met Mr Mountford on the day he fled to Thailand in 1992.
WISCONSIN
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
By MARY ZAHN
mzahn@journalsentinel.com
Posted: March 26, 2006
Second of two parts
On a warm day in June 1997, two middle-aged deaf men drove to the lake cottage of a Catholic priest who molested them decades before, when they were in grade school.
Flooded with memories and anger, they drove around for more than an hour looking for the place Father Lawrence Murphy had been allowed to retire more than 20 years earlier.
Finally they saw the lake, and the house came into view.
Both men jumped out of the car. Arthur Budzinski held a video camera, and Robert Bolger ran up to the door of the cottage, knocked and rang the doorbell. They saw Murphy by the side of the house, wearing a white T-shirt and pants, hurrying to get inside.
"I told Father Murphy, 'You turn yourself in to the police,' " said Bolger, now 62. "We went to the cottage with the goal to confront him and force him to go to the police department and apologize for what he did to our lives."
CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune
Dennis Byrne, a Chicago-area writer and consultant
Published March 27, 2006
For many Roman Catholics, the latest round of disclosures about pedophile priests in the Chicago archdiocese is the end of their patience with an institution that is incapable of or unwilling to change.
For other Catholics, it is further confirmation of a sad reality that has frustrated their attempts to wake up a hierarchy that is too deaf, smug or self-serving.
For non-Catholics, the failure to move against men who still victimize children, years after allegations against the clergy became widely known, is as much of a mystery as an outrage.
For Catholics who have tried to deny these sins of their fathers, it's time for them to examine their own consciences.
Here we are, years after church leaders promised reforms, and a new report surfaces accusing the archdiocese of, as the Chicago Tribune put it, "botching" the job of protecting children from clerical pedophiles. The independent and expert report, commissioned by the church (at least give it credit for that, as well as hanging its dirty linen out in public), enumerated shocking failure after failure:
PRESCOTT (AZ)
KVOA
PRESCOTT, Ariz. A former rabbi was sentenced to more than a dozen years in prison for viewing sexually explicit images of young children on his computer.
Fifty-six-year-old former Rabbi David Lipman received a 13-and-a-half-year sentence for one charge of sexual exploitation of a minor and lifetime probation for three counts of attempted sexual exploitation of a minor. He also has to register as a sex offender.
The charges stem from images that the police downloaded from Lipman's computer while he worked at a temple in Prescott.
He also faces 16 counts of child molestation and sexual abuse charges in an investigation that involves two teenage girls.
MANCHESTER (NH)
Worcester Telegram & Gazette
MANCHESTER, N.H.— Recruiting men to embrace a way of life foreign to modern society isn’t a job for a smooth-talking salesman.
There’s no persuading someone to shun even the possibility of fancy cars, big houses, marriage, sex, children — and similar secular notions of happiness — if he doesn’t already have a calling.
But like a business when profits are down, the Catholic Church can’t help but rethink its strategy for recruiting future priests when there simply aren’t enough to go around.
Rather than resigning itself to the idea of a permanently smaller priesthood, the Diocese of Manchester has developed new strategies for recruiting men who have a calling to serve God. ...
The sexual abuse crisis also contributed to the decline in the priesthood, Frontiero said. Getting beyond it is difficult for many Catholics. To a lesser degree, modern trends toward materialism have likely been a factor in the decline, he said.
WORCESTER (MA)
Worcester Voice
The Rev. Gerard L. Branconnier, who was removed from ministry after allegations were made that he sexually abused minors, had a gay marriage ministry in operation 15 years before it was legal in this state. However, gay marriage is not “legal” in the Roman Catholic church, which has opposed gay marriage and opposes adoption of children to same-sex couples.
Paul A. Guries of Auburn, who settled a suit with the Catholic Worcester diocese, has released a copy of a video that shows Father Branconnier in 1989 marrying two men in a traditional Catholic marriage rite. The video is available here through the auspices of Mr. Guries.
MILWAUKEE (WI)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
By MARY ZAHN
mzahn@journalsentinel.com
Posted: March 25, 2006
How the Archdiocese of Milwaukee determines monetary settlements for deaf victims of a Catholic priest who molested them as boys is being questioned by some victims and others. The amounts have varied from $5,000 to $200,000.
Examples include:
• Pat Cave, 57, of Seattle received a $200,000 settlement last year through a mediation program for victims of clergy sexual abuse started by the archdiocese in 2004. Cave said he was molested once by Father Lawrence Murphy in his dormitory bed at St. John's School for the Deaf when he was 14.
• Steve Geier, 55, of Madison accepted a $100,000 settlement through the same program in January. Geier said he was molested four times by Murphy beginning at about age 13. He questioned why his settlement was less than Cave's.
• Gary Smith, 55, of Texas said he was told last year that because of a $5,000 settlement agreement he signed with the archdiocese in 1994, he could not participate in mediation. Smith said he was molested by Murphy 50 to 70 times beginning at age 13.
UNITED STATES
Renew America
Matt C. Abbott
March 25, 2006
A forthcoming book by investigative journalist Randy Engel is likely to be one of the most controversial books of its kind in quite some time.
The Rite of Sodomy — Homosexuality and the Roman Catholic Church is 1318 pages in length, and, according to the book's Web site, "tracks the rise of homosexuality in the Catholic hierarchy, diocesan priesthood and religious life in the United States over a span of 100 years and three generations of prelates. It examines all facets of this intergenerational phenomenon on the life of the Church — yesterday, today and tomorrow. The text is broken down into five mini-book sections, each examining a different aspect of homosexuality in the Roman Catholic Church.
"Section I looks at pederasty, homosexuality in its most pervasive and universal form, from Antiquity to the Middle Ages, to the Renaissance, to the rise of the Modern State in the mid-to-late 1800s. Section II exams the complex nature and causes of male homosexuality, describes homosexual acts and behaviors, and provides an in-depth look at the secular Homosexual Collective and the inordinate power it exerts over the individual homosexual. Sections III and IV document the growth of the vice within the American Church (AmChurch) with special attention to theAbuse Tracker Conference of Catholic Bishops/U.S. Catholic Conference and Catholic dioceses headed by homosexual cardinals and bishops.
WISCONSIN
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
By MARY ZAHN
mzahn@journalsentinel.com
Posted: March 25, 2006
First of two parts
Thirteen-year-old Arthur Budzinski hid under his bed crying. Born to hearing parents who did not speak sign language, he could not tell them of the terror he faced back at St. John's School for the Deaf in St. Francis.
It was 1962. When the truth was told decades later, they all would weep.
Arthur's story and those of dozens of other adolescent deaf boys who attended the Roman Catholic boarding school hides in the shadows of a snapshot of the school's basketball team:
Eleven boys are dressed in their uniforms, half kneel and half stand. Next to them in a long, black clerical gown holding a basketball is Father Lawrence Murphy, the long-revered, charismatic director of the school.
Of the 11, five of them would be molested by Murphy.
Sometimes it was during confession, and often it was in the dead of night.
MASSACHUSETTS
The Republican
Sunday, March 26, 2006
Hundreds of sexual predators live in Massachusetts, free from prosecution for their crimes because the law protects them.
Their names do not appear on a list of sexual offenders; they are not required to report to the local police department when they move from one community to another; they are not required to wear electronic devices so authorities can monitor their whereabouts.
Under Massachusetts law, the police can't touch them.
So change the law.
Advocates for victims of clergy sexual abuse urged state lawmakers at a hearing earlier this month to approve bills that would abolish the statute of limitations in criminal and civil cases involving sexual abuse of children. Under current law, sexual crimes against children that took place 15 or more years ago cannot be prosecuted.
Therapists, psychologists and victim advocates testified that it often can be decades before victims find the courage to report the abuse to authorities.
Former Springfield bishop Thomas L. Dupre is the highest Catholic prelate in the nation to be indicted on child rape assault charges, but Hampden County District Attorney William M. Bennett cannot prosecute him because the charges are too old.
UNITED STATES
The Tidings
By James D. Davidson
The Catechism of the Catholic Church makes it clear that there is a very close relationship between the Catholic faith and the Catholic Church. In paragraph #171, the Catechism says that the Church "guards" the faith, "hands on" the faith, "teaches" us "the language of faith," and "introduce[s]" us to "the understanding of the life of faith."
In other words, the faith and the Church are inseparable. Accepting the faith is to endorse the policies and practices of the Church. To belong to the Church is to embrace the Catholic faith.
But, in the wake of the sexual abuse scandal, some laypeople have suggested that the faith and the Church are quite different entities. For example, members of the Voice of the Faithful (VOTF) say Catholics can accept the faith but also question the policies and practices of the Church. This view is clearly expressed in VOTF's slogan "Keep the faith, change the Church."
COLORADO
Rocky Mountain News
By April M. Washington, Rocky Mountain News
March 24, 2006
A bill that eliminates the statue of limitations for prosecuting felony sex crimes against children some 10 to 20 years ago is on its way to the governor.
The Senate gave House Bill 1088 its final stamp approval Friday with only one Republican casting a no vote, contending the measure could lead to the conviction of innocent people based on childhood memories of alleged sexual abuse.
"With this bill we’re saying that if the burden of proof is there, then we’ll have a tool take the perpetrator off the streets no matter when they committed the crime," said the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Paula Sandoval, D-Denver. "They leave a trail of victims. This will allow those victims to come forward when they’re ready. Often it takes victims of sexual assault years to come to terms with what has happened to them."
Gov. Bill Owens said Friday that he will make a decision on whether to sign the bill into law once he has a chance to review it.
CALIFORNIA
The Tidings
Child abuse prevention includes empowering children by teaching them body safety rules and steps they can take to ensure their own safety.
Sadly, according to the American Humane Association, the average age of a sexually abused child is 9.3 years.
The Good Touch/Bad Touch® body-safety program for pre-school and Kindergarten through six grade students is designed to prevent abuse before it ever occurs. It also empowers young people to stop abuse that might be occurring, and minimizes the damage of abuse which may have happened in the past by emphasizing to children that it is never their fault.
Good Touch/Bad Touch® meets many State Departments of Education health/safety education requirements and is used in 44 states. In Catholic schools and parish religious education programs in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, it is being presented through the Office of Safeguard the Children by carefully trained and certified teachers, counselors and volunteer facilitators. The Office of Safeguard the Children was established by Cardinal Roger Mahony to coordinate numerous sex-abuse prevention programs for adults and minors at parishes and schools.
WACO (TX)
Tribune-Herald
By Tommy Witherspoon Tribune-Herald staff writer
Saturday, March 25, 2006
A convicted sex offender who directed the youth choir and taught a Bible study group at a Waco Baptist church was sentenced to 20 years in prison Friday.
Curtis Jene Smith, 38, music director and Bible teacher at Zion Hill Missionary Baptist Church, 2919 McKenzie Ave., pleaded guilty Friday to indecency with a child and was sentenced in a plea agreement by 54th State District Judge George Allen.
If Smith had gone to trial, he faced an automatic life prison term because of his convictions in 1991 for the sexual assault of two boys and in 2002 for failure to register as a sex offender, both in Burnet County.
According to court records, Smith was registered as a sex offender in Waco and told authorities he was working as a night auditor at a local hotel. His association with the church, which church officials say began in 2000, went unreported, in violation of sex offender registration restrictions.
HOUSTON (TX)
Houston Chronicle
By RICHARD VARA
A priest serving in a Midtown parish was removed from duty by his religious order after an allegation of decades-old sexual abuse surfaced in Tarrant County.
The Rev. Joseph Tu Ngoc Nguyen was removed from Holy Rosary Catholic Church in late February after then-Archbishop Joseph A. Fiorenza learned of the allegation, said Annette Gonzales Taylor, spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston.
Fiorenza, who retired March 1, contacted Tu's order, the Southern Dominican Friars based in Metairie, La., and that group took action, Taylor said Friday.
Holy Rosary parishioners were informed of Tu's suspension in a letter read at Mass, said Regina Wedig, spokeswoman and general counsel for the Dominican order.
CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Sun-Times
March 25, 2006
BY SUE ONTIVEROS SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
Imagine you are a renter and the landlord leases the place next door to a new tenant. He introduces you to the new guy, never mentioning he's a bit of a fire bug. But the landlord knows the guy has a penchant for setting little fires. Instead of not renting to the guy, or better yet, turning him over to the police, he has a third guy, Mr. Monitor, live with the fire bug, to keep an eye on that guy. Now, besides being a crime, setting intentional fires is a mental problem, and Mr. Monitor is no expert in the field. Actually, Mr. Monitor doesn't know exactly why he is watching the guy, but he does the best he can for someone who has his own full-time job and personal obligations.
If the fire bug sets a blaze that injures your child, how would you feel if you knew the landlord -- who says he is ''regretful and sorry'' -- was aware of the problem? Appalled? Mad as hell? Left to wonder why law enforcement wasn't filing charges against the landlord?
That pretty much sums up the sorry state of the handling of priests accused of sexually abusing children by Cardinal Francis George and the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago. Two reports released by the archdiocese Monday reveal repeated glaring mistakes. There is no requirement that accused priests get treatment by professionals. There is no trained personnel in charge of the accused priests. Even when they are supposedly segregated from society up on the grounds of the Mundelein Seminary, these priests still have the keys to all facilities there, even those where visitors often stay. No one restricts their use of the Internet, which is like giving an alcoholic the keys to the liquor cabinet.
KANSAS
Kansas City Star
Associated Press
NEWTON, Kan. - When he admitted five years ago that he had molested altar boys in the 1980s, a former Catholic priest did so under an agreement that the state would not seek to keep him confined after he did his time in prison.
But now that 76-year-old Robert Larson is nearing release, Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline is moving ahead with an effort to keep him in state custody as a sexual predator after all.
Kline filed a petition Thursday in Harvey County District Court, asking that Larson be designated a sexual predator, which would enable the state to send him to Larned State Hospital for continued treatment and keep him there indefinitely.
Matt Treaster, who was the Harvey County prosecutor at the time, signed the plea agreement stating that Kansas would not seek Larson's continued confinement under the Violent Predator Act. But Kline maintains the power to make such agreements rests only with his office.
IRELAND
Irish Independent
John Cooney
Religious Affairs Correspondent
PILGRIMS are regularly visiting a monastery to pray and lay flowers at the grave of notorious paedophile priest Fr Brendan Smyth.
The prayers are said by devout Catholics from the north west region even though the word 'Rev' was removed from the headstone, the Prior of Kilnacrott Abbey, Gerard Cusack, has revealed.
"There was a request that the word 'Rev' be removed from his headstone," Abbot Cusack said yesterday. "It was erased. It was a corporate decision of our community here at the request of a person."
The removal "brought relief to the person who requested this," the Prior added, saying that the dates of Fr Smyth's birth and his ordination remain on the tombstone.
Abbot Cusack's revelations were made in response to a massive reaction on the local radio station, Shannonside-Northernside, to the Irish Independent's exclusive report that Dana Rosemary Scallon will perform tonight at a fundraising charity in Crover House Hotel in Co Cavan in aid of Kilnacrott Abbey.
MARYLAND
Washington Post
By Caryle Murphy
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 24, 2006; Page B01
Roman Catholic Church officials are putting a full-court press on Maryland legislators to reject bills that would extend the time allowed for victims of childhood sex abuse to file lawsuits against abusers and their employers.
Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick of the Washington archdiocese and Cardinal William H. Keeler of the Baltimore archdiocese have gotten involved, expressing opposition to the bills to House Judiciary Committee members directly or through intermediaries. The archdioceses also have hired a prominent Annapolis lobbying firm, Schwartz & Metz, to supplement the efforts of the Maryland Catholic Conference, their regular lobbying arm.
"Almost everyone on the committee has acknowledged to me that the church has called them or called their ministers about the bill, and they are meeting with every member of the committee, including me," said Del. Pauline H. Menes (D-Prince George's), the bills' principal sponsor. ...
Del. Samuel I. Rosenberg (D-Baltimore), a co-sponsor of the bills, said he was contacted by a local rabbi who had received a call from Keeler about the legislation and was relaying the cardinal's concerns. Rosenberg said the rabbi, whom he declined to name, reported that the cardinal was upset that Jewish lawmakers were sponsoring the bills. Rosenberg and Menes are Jewish.
"To make a point of the religion of the sponsor of a bill . . . was beneath contempt," Rosenberg said he told the rabbi.
PENNSYLVANIA
The Tribune-Democrat
By SUSAN EVANS
The Tribune-Democrat
The Altoona-Johnstown Roman Catholic Diocese will decide in the next 30 days whether to pay $1 million in punitive damages in a sex-abuse case or appeal to the state Supreme Court.
State Superior Court this week upheld the damages, first awarded 12 years ago by a Blair County jury that found the diocese negligent in supervising its employee, Francis Luddy, who was accused of sexually abusing Michael Hutchison Jr., formerly of Altoona.
“While the diocese is disappointed with the ruling and disagrees with it on a legal basis, it acknowledges the suffering the Hutchison family has en-dured,” the diocese said in a statement released Thursday.
“Our prayers for their healing continue,” the statement said.
KANSAS
The Wichita Eagle
BY AMANDA O'TOOLE
The Wichita Eagle
Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline filed a petition Thursday in Harvey County to have Robert Larson designated a sexual predator.
If Kline's request is granted, Larson, an ex-priest who was convicted of child molestation in 2001, would go to a sexual predator treatment program at Larned State Hospital.
State law allows offenders who are designated sexual predators to be held in state mental hospitals to undergo treatment indefinitely, even after their prison sentences are up.
Larson, 76, was scheduled to be released from the Lansing Correctional Facility on March 29, but Kline made arrangements with Larson's lawyer, Dan Monnat, to keep Larson in state custody until the petition is accepted or rejected.
Kline said similar cases have taken about 60 days to resolve.
SEATTLE (WA)
The Seattle Times
Seattle
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been accused in a lawsuit of persuading a 12-year-old boy not to cooperate with authorities after he reported that a Mormon priest sexually abused him.
The suit claims the priest, who also was a Boy Scout Scoutmaster, victimized the boy around 1981 to 1983.
The suit further claims the boy, who also belonged to the church, told his mother about the abuse, which she reported to church and civil authorities around 1984. But, the suit alleges, church officials pressured the boy not to cooperate, telling him he would not be believed.
PITTSBURGH (PA)
Beaver County Times
By: Joe Mandak - Associated Press Writer
03/24/2006
PITTSBURGH - The Altoona-Johnstown Roman Catholic Diocese must pay $1.7 million in punitive damages to a man abused by a priest in the 1970s because the former bishop's oversight of pedophile priests was "outrageous," an appeals court ruled.
The Pennsylvania Superior Court ruling ends the appellate court's third review of a 1994 verdict that awarded Michael S. Hutchison Jr. $519,000 in compensatory damages and $1 million in punitive damages. With interest, the punitive damages now total about $1.7 million.
Hutchison's attorney, Richard Serbin, said documents detailing former Bishop James Hogan's mismanagement of other pedophile priests were the key to the decision.
In one instance, Hogan transferred a priest to a convent, but learned from the sisters there that the priest was still bringing children to his sleeping quarters.
HOLLIDAYSBURG (PA)
Altoona Mirror
By Phil Ray
HOLLIDAYSBURG - The state Superior Court has upheld a $1 million punitive damage award against the Altoona-Johnstown Catholic Diocese.
The award stems from sexual abuse of a former Altoona boy by a priest at St. Therese Parish and its elementary school in the 1970s.
A three-member panel of the state appeals court called "outrageous" the actions by the late Bishop James J. Hogan and the diocese, which ignored pleas of children and parents.
CHICAGO (IL)
Renew America
Matt C. Abbott
March 23, 2006
News outlets have reported that the Chicago archdiocese and a priest formerly under the archdiocese's jurisdiction, Father Chester Przybylo, have been named in a sex abuse lawsuit. Przybylo denies the allegations.
An interesting "footnote," if you will: In 1994, Przybylo reportedly resided for a time with the late Father Alfred Kunz of the Madison, Wis., diocese, whose 1998 murder remains unsolved. Kunz is said to have instructed Przybylo on celebrating the Traditional Latin Mass.
In 1996, Przybylo started at an independent Catholic shrine in Winfield, Ill., according to the Chicago Tribune.
The following is most of the text of the complaint:
COMPLAINT AT LAW
NOW COMES the Plaintiff, by and through his attorneys, KERNS, PITROF, FROST & PEARLMAN and JEFF ANDERSON & ASSOCIATES, and for his causes of action against Defendants, states as follows:
CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Sun-Times
March 24, 2006
BY ANDREW GREELEY
A careful reading of the two reports on sexual abuse that the archdiocese recently commissioned persuades me that the cardinal's problem is not that he attempted a personal coverup but that he was unable to control his bureaucracy -- a not uncommon problem in corporate organizations.
In fact the Defenbaugh report says quite explicitly in an opening paragraph the cardinal did not know all he needed to know about the priest in question because he was not advised of the information available to his staff. Since the buck stops on his desk, it was proper for him to assume responsibility for the failure and to apologize for it.
I must relate some personal history as a credential for this position. In 1986, in the paperback edition of my book Confessions of a Parish Priest, I warned the church that the sexual abuse of young people by priests was a ticking time bomb. Since then I've written at least 20 columns for this paper on the subject, in one of which I outlined a reform proposal which was quite similar to the one Cardinal Bernardin implemented in the early 1990s. Two of my books on the subject, one fiction, one sociology, are currently in the bookstores. I am and always have been on the side of the victims, though not of the victims groups. My fellow priests in Chicago have never forgiven me because I washed dirty linen in public.
NEW JERSEY
The Jersey Journal
Thursday, March 23, 2006
By MICHAELANGELO CONTE
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER
The defrocked Roman Catholic priest charged with trying to assault three people with an aluminum bat in a Secaucus hotel this month was to make his first appearance in court on the charges yesterday but didn't show up.
James T. Hanley, 69, was issued a summons by Secaucus police on a weapons offense and three counts of attempted aggravated assault on employees of Extended Stay America on March 10, officials said.
Although he was supposed to appear, it is the policy of Central Judicial Processing Court not to issue an arrest warrant unless there is evidence of "willful non-appearance," said Hudson County Prosecutor Edward DeFazio.
Judge Dennis L. McGill said he does not issue warrants for people who fail to appear for initial hearings.
NEW JERSEY
Daily Record
James T. Hanley, admitted child molester and former priest, answered the phone Wednesday at the voluntary psychiatric unit of St. Mary's Hospital in Passaic where he is a patient.
He had missed a morning hearing on aggravated assault charges in a Jersey City courtroom where TV cameras had been waiting for him. He said he could not get away. He said he expects to be in the hospital for the rest of the week.
Hanley, a former Mendham priest, has been in the news over the past couple months --confronting some of his victims on the Paterson street where he has been living, later getting charged with aggravated assault against three people at a Secaucus Hotel where he said he hoped to stay before moving. The Hudson County prosecutor decided not to downgrade those charges and a Superior Court judge said on Wednesday the case would now be sent to a grand jury.
IRELAND
One in Four
Solicitors dealing with the victims of institutional abuse will probably get some phone calls this morning following the award of €300,000 to a man abused in St Joseph's institution in Kilkenny.
This is believed to be considerably more than the likely award in the Redress Board. It is understood that David Connellan was offered less than half this figure by the board, which he rejected.
According to lawyers dealing with Redress Board cases, the average awards fall between €50,000 and €100,000.
The highest award to any client of one lawyer who spoke to The Irish Times was €170,000.
IRELAND
Irish Independent
John Cooney
THE final go-ahead for the state inquiry into clerical child sex abuse in the Dublin diocese has been delayed for a further week after the failure of yesterday's cabinet meeting to discuss the issue.
Political sources indicated that the matter was not taken as scheduled by the Minister for Justice on account of his row with Opposition leaders.
This means that it is more than four months since the Government first announced the appointment of a four-member Commission of Investigation under Circuit Court judge, Yvonne Murphy.
IRELAND
One in Four
The High Court has refused to order the extradition to Britain of a west of Ireland priest on charges of indecently assaulting young altar boys in the late 1960s.
The President of the High Court, Mr Justice Joseph Finnegan, yesterday said the surrender of the priest should not be ordered. Mr Justice Finnegan refused the extradition on grounds of excessive delay of some 30 years between the alleged offences and the making of the first complaint.
He also found inordinate and inexcusable the delay on the part of the British authorities - over two years - between taking the last complainant statement and applying for a European Arrest Warrant.
IRELAND
Irish Independent
John Cooney
Religious Affairs Correspondent
A DUBLIN priest has accused Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of causing "irreparable damage" by misrepresenting the views of his clergy in regard to child abuse allegations.
Fr Gregory O'Brien claimed yesterday that at a recent private meeting in Enniskerry, Co Wicklow, it was made "abundantly clear" to Dr Martin that priests had a difficulty with the publicity but not the standing-down when facing a complaint of child sexual abuse.
However, on television Dr Martin had insisted that priests had a difficulty with standing aside, and were creating the impression that they wanted special treatment because "they did not understand the nature of the measures".
"Such statements seriously undermine our confidence that dialogue entered into openly and honestly will be properly represented in the public arena," Fr O'Brien said.
The Ballinteer-based priest said the archbishop had added insult to injury by portraying priests as "at best out of touch and at worst a crowd of fools".
BOSTON (MA)
Transcript
By David L. Harris/ Staff Writer
Thursday, March 23, 2006
Among the eight priests Archbishop Sean P. O’Malley defrocked last Friday was Monsignor Frederick Ryan, who was accused of sexually abusing three students at Catholic Memorial in the 1970s and ’80s.
"I’m very happy about it," said David Carney, who alleges Ryan abused him while he was a 15-year-old student. "It’s been a long time coming."
At least three students at the school had alleged Ryan sexually abused them, including Garry Garland; Carney, who now lives in Scituate; and a third unnamed man. Carney said he wouldn’t have gone public with the allegations if Garland hadn’t done so first four years ago.
Carney, now 39, said he wouldn’t be surprised if the number of victims was "over 100."
Ryan, who resigned from the his position in 2002 after allegations surfaced that he sexually abused the boys at a church archives building in Brighton and in Rhode Island, was a former vice chancellor at the archdiocese, vicar and chaplain at the Catholic school.
LONG ISLAND (NY)
New York Daily News
BY TARA CONRY
DAILY NEWS WRITER
Equipped with gummy bears, lubricant and gay porn, a defrocked Pennsylvania priest was ready for sex with a boy but instead got busted by an undercover cop, police said.
Thomas Bender, 72, of Macungie, Pa., was arraigned yesterday in First District Court in Hempstead on five counts of first-degree disseminating indecent material to a minor and one count of attempting to commit a criminal sexual act.
Since September 2004, cops said, he engaged in online conversations with a detective who was posing as a teenager.
"During that year, he was grooming the boy - or who he thought was a 14-year-old boy," said Detective Sgt. Lucy Graziano of the Nassau County Police. "He was building a relationship through trust."
LONG ISLAND (NY)
Newsday
BY WIL CRUZ
Newsday Staff Writer
March 23, 2006
The former priest from Pennsylvania who was busted in Nassau on his way to a tryst with someone he thought was a 14-year-old boy was carrying beer, candy and gay pornography, police said yesterday.
After more than a year of on-line communication with a Nassau police detective posing as a teenager, Thomas J. Bender of Macungie, Pa., drove 2 1/2 hours to meet the perceived teenager at an undisclosed location on Long Island. The plan, police said, was to go to a hotel for sex.
When he was arrested Tuesday night, Bender, 72, was carrying an assortment of candies, two Beck's beers, two condoms and a gay pornographic DVD. Police also recovered a laptop computer and a personal computer at Bender's home, which will be examined to see whether Bender had inappropriate communication with children.
Bender was charged with five counts of disseminating indecent material to a minor, a felony, and a single count of attempted criminal sexual act, a misdemeanor, police said. Each count of the first charge carries a maximum sentence of 1 to 4 years in prison.
SPRINGFIELD (IL)
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
By Philip Ewing
POST-DISPATCH SPRINGFIELD BUREAU
03/23/2006
SPRINGFIELD, ILL.
Illinois privacy laws protect the mental health records of a former Belleville priest accused of child molestation, even though the records predated the laws, the ex-priest's attorneys told the Illinois Supreme Court on Wednesday.
Lawyers for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Belleville and the former priest, Raymond Kownacki, argued that laws enacted in 1979 and 1988 protect documents relating to Kownacki's psychological treatment and alcohol abuse.
But attorneys for one of his accusers, James Wisniewski, alleged that Kownacki and the diocese are misusing the law to cloak nonmedical records.
The records, if released, would likely be used to argue that the church knew that Kownacki was abusing children during the 1970s and did not act. The court is expected to rule in the next few months.
Kownacki was removed from the ministry in 1995 amid abuse allegations.
PENNSYLVANIA
The Morning Call
By Daniel Patrick Sheehan
and Kathleen Parrish Of The Morning Call
State police spent much of Wednesday afternoon searching the Lower Macungie Township trailer where convicted child molester and former priest Thomas Bender, arrested Tuesday in an Internet sex sting, has lived for seven years.
Bender's neighbors in the Big O mobile home park said they were shocked and angry to learn the quiet 72-year-old in unit 16 has a criminal history.
''I can handle people who have been charged with drugs or just about anything else, but not this,'' said Lori Reiss, 44, who raised two children in the 37-unit park at the foot of Bear Creek Mountain ski resort.
Bender was arraigned Wednesday on Long Island, N.Y., where he had allegedly gone for a sexual rendezvous with an online pen pal he believed to be a 14-year-old boy. The correspondent was actually an undercover detective who had spent more than a year communicating with Bender.
Bender was charged with five counts of disseminating indecent material to a minor and one count of an attempted criminal sexual act. He was arraigned in 1st District Court in Hempstead, N.Y., and held on $120,000 bail.
Results of the house search were unavailable Wednesday, but investigators in New York said they intend to search Bender's desktop and laptop computers for evidence he has been communicating with children.
CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune
By Manya A. Brachear, Tribune staff reporter. Freelance reporter Gary Gibula contributed to this report
Published March 23, 2006
The pastor of a west suburban church has been accused of molesting a 13-year-old Polish immigrant while serving at Five Holy Martyrs parish in Chicago in the late 1980s, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Cook County Circuit Court.
Rev. Chester Przybylo, who for the past decade has been pastor of the Shrine of Christ the King in west suburban Winfield, denied the allegations. The church is Catholic but is not recognized by the Roman Catholic hierarchy.
"It hurts," Przybylo said in an interview Wednesday. "I knew this boy for so many years, and as a man too. The allegations are not accurate. I've always prayed for him and now I'll pray for him even more."
The plaintiff, a 32-year-old construction worker in Chicago, said Przybylo first molested him in the communal showers of a health club in 1987. The abuse continued for more than a year, the suit said, at the apartment of a friend of the priest and in the rectory of Five Holy Martyrs, a historically Polish Roman Catholic parish at 4327 S. Richmond St.
HOFFMAN ESTATES (IL)
Hoffman Estates Review
BY MATT KIEFER
STAFF WRITER
A former chaplain at St. Alexius Medical Center was found with child pornography on his home computer shortly before he was transferred from his job at the Hoffman Estates hospital last year, according to details in a federal complaint filed Tuesday.
The Rev. Daniel Schulte, 53, formerly of Chicago, was charged with one count of possession of child pornography.
U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald and FBI Special Agent Robert Grant, who jointly filed the charges Tuesday, said in a statement that Schulte "possessed an unspecified number of images of child pornography on his computer on Feb. 28, 2005."
The statement adds, "There are no allegations that he engaged in any sexual misconduct with any children."
U.S. Attorney's spokesman Randall Samborn declined to provide any further details beyond the statement.
WINFIELD (IL)
The Herald News
By Ted Slowik
staff writer
WINFIELD — Abuse allegations about a rogue priest serving within the Diocese of Joliet are raising new questions about the Roman Catholic Church's ability to protect children.
A lawsuit filed Wednesday accuses the cleric, Chester Przybylo, of repeatedly abusing a Polish immigrant at various locations in Chicago beginning when the boy was 13 years old in 1987. The boy was molested at the rectory of Five Holy Martyrs Church, at a private residence and at a health club, the suit alleges.
The reported victim, now in his 30s, says he first reported the abuse to the Archdiocese of Chicago in 1989, said Barbara Blaine, president of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests. The boy told the late Rev. Alfred Leo Abramowicz, an auxiliary bishop, who scolded the boy and told him to go to confession for lying, said the man's attorney, Marc Pearlman.
Ten years later, Joliet Bishop Joseph Imesch met with Przybylo regarding his ministry saying traditional Masses in Latin at the Shrine of Christ the King in Winfield, Blaine said.
MARTHA'S VINEYARD (MA)
The Martha's Vineyard Time
Posted March 23, 2006
By Ezra Blair
Normally, Martha's Vineyard's natural beauty and renowned seasonal visitors generate publicity for the Island. But two high-profile inmates, including a member of Saudi Arabia's extended royal family and an off-Island priest convicted of child pornography, have put the Dukes County Jail and House of Correction in the media spotlight in the past few months.
Recent press reports and even some public officials have described the Dukes County Jail and House of Correction as a country club, an assessment that Dukes County Sheriff Michael McCormack strongly disputes. A special report on Fox News 25 on Monday was promoted for days by an invitation to "go inside the local jail that is being called a country club for convicts."
The attention began in November, when Bader al-Saud, a member of Saudi Arabia's extended royal family, pled guilty to motor vehicle homicide while operating under the influence of alcohol and driving without a license in connection with a fatal accident in Boston in 2002 and was sentenced to jail. Mr. al-Saud, 23, asked to serve his one-year sentence on Martha's Vineyard.
Two weeks later, Stephen Fernandes, a Catholic priest from New Bedford who pled guilty to charges of possession and distribution of child pornography and posing a child in a state of nudity, was allowed to serve his eight-month sentence on the Vineyard.
BOSTON (MA)
Boston Herald
By Boston Herald editorial staff
Thursday, March 23, 2006
A glass-half-full kind of person will take comfort in the news that the Archdiocese of Boston has complied with 16 of 17 child-protection standards set by U.S. bishops in the wake of the sexual abuse crisis.
Sadly, recent history with the archdiocese has made many of us glass-half-empty kind of people. We can’t help but worry when the church continues to lag on a critical component of those standards - the training of young Catholics to understand what constitutes proper and improper touching and what to do if abuse occurs.
We won’t go as far as attorney Mitchell Garabedian, who reflexively suggested that failure to comply on this one component of the standards is “further evidence that the archdiocese doesn’t care.”
Not exactly. The archdiocese was given the choice to self-audit for compliance, but wisely chose to bring in a consultant instead. And in releasing the results publicly, Cardinal-designate Sean O’Malley acknowledged the deficiency and pronounced that “anything short of full compliance is unacceptable.”
LEXINGTON (KY)
Herald-Leader
By Frank E. Lockwood
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER
Lexington Catholic Bishop Ronald Gainer received "incontrovertible evidence" in 2003 that one of his priests had been credibly accused of sexually and psychologically abusing a 13-year-old girl.
But the diocese waited until yesterday to acknowledge publicly that it believed the allegations and had punished the priest.
Diocesan officials say that they permanently barred the Rev. Stephen F. Gallenstein from public ministry shortly after the allegations came to light. Gainer is also asking the Vatican to evict Gallenstein from the priesthood, a process known as laicization.
For more than two years, diocesan spokesman Tom Shaughnessy had insisted that no decisions had been made in Gallenstein's case.
UNITED KINGDOM
Independent
By Robert Verkaik, Legal Affairs Correspondent
Published: 22 March 2006
Thousands of Muslim schoolchildren are being physically and sexually abused by their religious teachers every year, according to a report into the Islamic education system in this country.
The potential scale of the abuse has led to fears among Muslim leaders that Britain's Mosque-based schools will face the kind of child abuse claims that has recently scandalised the Roman Catholic Church.
Up to 100,000 children are taught at 700 Islamic schools, or madrassas, of which almost a half use unlawful corporal punishment to discipline pupils, says the report into child protection published today by the Muslim Parliament of Great Britain. The authors also warn that each year at least a dozen children are sexually abused by their teachers and Imans with very few cases ever being made public.
Years of unregulated education means that tens of thousands of Muslim pupils now face a significant risk of harm by attending school, says the report.
"Because of the fear of child abuse some parents prefer home tuition instead, a practice said to be flourishing," it adds.
AUSTRALIA
ABC
A Catholic priest convicted of sex offences in Tasmania has lodged an appeal against his conviction.
Roger Michael Bellemore, 70, was recently found guilty of maintaining a sexual relationship with four north-west Tasmanian school boys in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
At the time of the sexual abuse, Bellemore was a priest and teacher at Burnie's Marist College.
CHICAGO (IL)
Catholic Online
21/2006
Catholic News Agency (www.catholicnewsagency.com)
CHICAGO (CNA) – Cardinal Francis George of Chicago said he was “deeply troubled” by the findings of two reports the archdiocese released March 20 highly critical of its handling of clerical sex abuse.
“This is a tragedy for the children, for their families and all who are involved. But it also represents failures within the archdiocese to react promptly and appropriately to what happened in these cases,” the cardinal said in a March 20 statement.
One report focuses on the handling of the cases of two archdiocesan priests – Father Daniel McCormack and Father Joseph Bennett – who were monitored but not immediately removed from ministry after abuse allegations arose against them. The second report examined the system of monitoring of priests who have substantiated allegations of sexual abuse against them.
“Sexual abuse or molestation of a child by any adult is disordered,” he said. “It is a sin and a crime.”
AUSTRALIA
The Australian
A former altar boy plans to sue the Catholic Church for at least $1 million over alleged sexual abuse, reports religious affairs writer Jill Rowbotham
March 23, 2006
JOHN Ellis is a rarity in the sordid annals of sexual abuse perpetrated by Catholic priests - according to his lawyer, it is unusual for the church to fight civil law suits.
After a series of hearings in July, August and October, the NSW Supreme Court recently ruled the former altar boy from Sydney's Bass Hill parish could sue the trustees of the Roman Catholic Church for the archdiocese of Sydney over five years of abuse by a priest, Aidan Duggan (deceased), starting when Ellis was 14.
Ellis's lawyer, David Begg, who has managed numerous civil claims against the church in NSW, says it is usual in his experience for the church to settle such cases out of court.
Because the church, represented by its solicitors Corrs Chambers Westgarth, decided to contest the action, Ellis, 45, had to satisfy the court that although in legal terms the traumatic events with Duggan were ancient history, and the time to seek formal justice over them had expired, his case was worthwhile. His side effectively argued that because it was only recently that Ellis realised the catastrophic effect on him of the regular sex sessions in the 1970s, he should be allowed to seek redress.
It also named the Archbishop of Sydney, George Pell, as one of the defendants, but the court ruled Pell could not be sued personally.
UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News
Christian churches in the UK have had to tackle child abuse
The Muslim Parliament lobby group is calling for Islamic madrasa schools in Britain to adopt comprehensive policies to stop child abuse.
The madrasas, typically attached to mosques, operate in much the same way as church Sunday schools, offering children instruction in the Koran during evening and weekend classes.
Muslim Parliament head Dr Ghayasuddin Siddiqui believes Britain's Muslim community could fall victim to the torrent of abuse allegations that have dogged the Catholic Church and other Christian churches in recent years.
The Catholic church in England and Wales tackled the paedophile scandals by commissioning a report from Lord Nolan, a law lord.
CHICAGO (IL)
CBS 2
(STNG) A new sexual abuse lawsuit is being filed today in civil court, alleging that a former Chicago priest repeatedly sexually molested an Illinois man in the 1980s when he was a teenager and altar boy at Five Holy Martyrs Church on the Southwest Side.
The man filing the "John Doe" lawsuit is seeking monetary damages of an undisclosed amount, “the truth from this archdiocese, and to put an end to this problem (alleged priest molestation) that is so prevalent,’’ said one of the plaintiff's attorneys, Marc Pearlman.
The suit alleges Chester Przybylo molested the man when he was 13 through 15 years old in the rectory of Five Holy Martyrs, 4327 S. Richmond St., in a private residence that Przybylo allegedly shared with another person, and at a health club, Pearlman said.
When the man was 14, he allegedly told Bishop Leo Abramowicz “that Przybylo was hurting young children,’’ Pearlman said.
KALAMAZOO (MI)
Kalamazoo Gazette
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
By Chris Meehan
cmeehan@kalamazoogazette.com 388-8412
Officials of the Diocese of Kalamazoo said Tuesday they were aware that a substantiated claim of sexual abuse had been lodged against a former priest of the diocese.
Diocesan officials said the Rev. Leonard Bogdan, who served in the diocese from July 1988 until June 2000, is among those priests whose names were released this week by the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago.
Following an outside audit of how it has mishandled many of the claims of clergy sex abuse, the Chicago diocese released the names of all of its living priests who have been the subject of substantiated accusations of sexual abuse.
In all, the Chicago diocese released 55 names. Bogdan was among 17 priests who had not been named before. Bogdan reportedly now lives in Arizona.
Brent King, communications director for the local diocese, said the claim of sexual abuse was made against Bogdan in Chicago before he moved to this diocese.
LONG ISLAND (NY)
Newsday
BY WIL CRUZ
Newsday Staff Writer
March 22, 2006, 1:10 PM EST
A former priest who traveled from his Pennsylvania home with hopes of meeting a 14-year-old boy for sex at a local hotel spent the better part of a year "grooming" his alleged victim for the rendezvous, police said.
Nassau County Crimes Against Property Squad detectives reported that Thomas J. Bender, 72, of Macungie, Pa., had been communicating over the Internet since September 2004 with someone he thought was a 14-year-old boy. He was arrested yesterday after he came to Nassau to meet the boy for sex.
During a press conference on Wednesday, Det. Sgt. Lucy Graziano said that during the first few months of Bender's instant messages and e-mails with the boy, the former priest engaged in "grooming," nurturing him and building a relationship, before the messages turned sexual.
"We believe all of these conversations were for the defendant to meet with ... the 14-year-old boy," Graziano said.
Graziano said the "grooming" process is usually standard practice for pedophiles, with the general philosophy being "if he comes on strong right away, the child may get scared."
WORCESTER (MA)
Telegram & Gazette
By Kathleen A. Shaw TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
kshaw@telegram.com
WORCESTER— Paul A. Guries has formally asked Bishop Robert J. McManus to begin proceedings to remove the Rev. Gerard L. Branconnier from Catholic priesthood.
The Diocese of Worcester settled a lawsuit with Mr. Guries in 1993 in which he alleged sexual abuse by Rev. Branconnier, and he received an out-of-court settlement of about $35,000. The alleged incidents happened when Mr. Guries was 16 and a member of North American Martyrs Parish, Auburn.
Although Rev. Branconnier was removed from ministry and placed on leave in 1993 by then-Bishop Timothy J. Harrington, Mr. Guries told Bishop McManus that Rev. Branconnier continues to function as a Catholic priest.
He said he had a recent “awkward” situation when he attended a wake at an Auburn funeral home. He found Rev. Branconnier there dressed in clerical garb and signing the guest book as a priest. Mr. Guries listed other reasons he believes Rev. Branconnier may still be functioning as a priest.
He sent a copy of his letter outlining his allegations to Archbishop Pietro Sambi, the Vatican’s apostolic nuncio of the United States, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re at the Vatican Congregation for Bishops and Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos at the Vatican Congregation for Clergy.
Mr. Guries mailed and then hand-delivered a letter to Bishop McManus on Friday in which he stated his reasons Rev. Branconnier should be laicized — returned to the lay state; essentially the same as defrocking.
“If he is defying the mandate of his administrative leave from ministry, those actions are in violation and will warrant more serious penalties,” said Raymond L. Delisle, diocese spokesman.
Mr. Delisle said several priests were referred to the Vatican for laicization but he does not know if Rev. Branconnier was among them.
“The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith treats each one individually, and it is impossible to say how long each one will take,” Mr. Delisle said.
Mr. Delisle said Bishop McManus left Monday for Rome but he expects the bishop to answer Mr. Guries on his return. Archbishop Sean P. O’Malley and several other archbishops will be elevated to cardinals by Pope Benedict XVI.
“Father Branconnier does not have faculties,” Mr. Delisle said. “He may not celebrate Mass or celebrate any public ministry. He may not present himself as a cleric (dressed as a priest). This has not changed since he was removed from his parish in 1993 by Bishop Harrington.” The term “faculties” means the permission priests have from their local bishop to function as priests and administer sacraments.
CHICAGO (IL)
Houston Chronicle
From Staff And Wire Reports
CHICAGO - A Roman Catholic priest who once worked at the University of St. Thomas in Houston was charged by federal prosecutors Tuesday with possession of child pornography.
The Rev. Daniel Schulte, 53, was accused in a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court with having an unspecified number of sexual images of children on the hard drive of his computer.
Prosecutors said there were no allegations that the Vincentian priest had engaged in sexual activity with children. They said he would be arraigned at an unspecified later time.
The Rev. Raymond Van Dorpe, assistant provincial of Schulte's Vincentian order, issued a statement saying that "child pornography in whatever form it takes is intrinsically evil."
Van Dorpe said in a telephone interview that the Internet service provider for Schulte's computer had contacted the order with the suspicion that child pornography had been accessed. That occurred in March 2005 while Schulte was a chaplain at St.
HEMPSTEAD (NY)
WNBC
POSTED: 7:46 am EST March 22, 2006
UPDATED: 7:51 am EST March 22, 2006
HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. -- A former priest with a checkered past is scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday morning on child sex charges.
Thomas Bender is accused of traveling from Pennsylvania to Nassau County, thinking he was going to take a 14-year-old boy to a hotel, police said.
Instead, he was met by detectives.
LONG ISLAND (NY)
New York Post
By KIERAN CROWLEY and ED ROBINSON
March 22, 2006 -- A former priest tried to solicit sex from an undercover Long Island cop posing on the Internet as a 14-year-old boy, Nassau police said yesterday.
Thomas Bender, 72, of Macungie, Pa., had held several online conversations with the undercover officer dating back to September 2004.
He traveled to Long Island yesterday to meet with the supposed teen with the intention of taking him to a hotel room, cops said.
Instead he was arrested and charged with an attempted criminal sex act and attempting to disseminate indecent material to a minor.
He is expected to be arraigned today.
A priest with the same name plead guilty in 1988 to molesting a teenage altar boy over a six year period in Bally, Pa.
IRELAND
Kilkenny Today
A Kilkenny City man who suffered sexual, physical and racial abuse in St Joseph's Orphanage, Waterford Road, Kilkenny was awarded E300,000 damages by the high court yesterday (Tuesday) after he won a case against the Sisters of Charity, the South Eastern Health Board and the state.
David Connellan said yesterday that he has never received an apology from the nuns and is extremely disappointed that it took 16 years to bring the case to court even though the person who abused him was jailed seven years ago.
His solicitors, Michael Lanigan and Company, 1 High Street, Kilkenny, confirmed that he received record aggravated damages of E50,000 because of the way he had been treated by those who were supposed to be protecting him.
The 46-year-old was abandoned by his mother when he was a few weeks old and never knew any family.
NEWARK (NJ)
NorthJersey.com
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
By JOHN CHADWICK
STAFF WRITER
The Newark Archdiocese said Monday that a former Ridgefield priest accused of sexual misconduct has agreed to retire and will no longer represent himself as a priest to the public.
The Rev. Peter Cheplic's decision to step down came after three men -- all of whom had attended St. Matthew Roman Catholic Church -- came forward last year and accused him of molesting them as teenagers and young adults.
Another man surfaced in 2002 with similar allegations -- which were found "credible" by a church review board.
The board had launched an inquiry into the three most recent cases and was preparing to take the next step -- sending the accusations to Rome for further evaluation -- when Cheplic and the archdiocese agreed to the retirement.
NEWARK (NJ)
The Jersey Journal
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
NEWHOUSE NEWS SERVICE
The Newark Archdiocese has implemented a new policy to alert parishioners whenever a priest is permanently barred from the ministry because of a sex abuse allegation, a spokesman said, a policy used to alert some Hudson County parishioners last weekend of the retirement of Monsignor Peter Cheplic.
The archdiocese was previously the state's only Roman Catholic diocese that did not routinely alert parishioners when their priest, or former priest, was prohibited from wearing a collar because of sex allegations.
Now the archdiocese has begun making it known at every church where those priests served - generally through church bulletin notes - that they were removed because of an accusation, said James Goodness, a spokesman for Newark Archbishop John J. Myers.
Goodness would not say exactly when archdiocese officials changed the policy.
UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian
Alexandra Smith
Wednesday March 22, 2006
Britain's 700 unregulated madrasas need to be monitored nationally to stop children being exposed to significant physical and sexual abuse, a Muslim body has warned.
The Muslim parliament of Great Britain will today urge the government to set up a national register for the mosque schools, coordinated and monitored by local authorities, to meet their legal obligations under the Children Act 1989.
Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, the leader of the Muslim parliament, will launch a report highlighting the risks faced by 100,000 Muslim children studying in madrasas.
The report will warn of the widespread existence of physical and sexual child abuse in madrasas and follows revelations that as many as 40% of teachers in the schools hit or scold children and between 15 and 20 cases of sexual abuse occur each year.
PHOENIXVILLE (PA)
The Phoenix
By KARIN WILLIAMS, kwilliams@phoenixvillenews.com 03/22/2006
PHOENIXVILLE - A concerned group of Catholics who began a local Voice of the Faithful chapter, a group which works to bring about change in the church, will host the first-ever Victims' Advocate in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Mary Achilles, who was appointed by Cardinal Justin Rigali, Archbishop of Philadelphia, will be the guest speaker at the St. Ann's Church Hall on Thursday evening. The victims' advocate, selected by former Governor Tom Ridge to "elevate" the voices of crime victims in the state, will speak about strengthening services to victims of clergy sexual abuse.
Voice of the Faithful (VOTF) is a national organization dedicated to affecting change within the church by providing a voice for the people.
Pat Sattolo, who started the Phoenixville branch of VOTF, said the goal of the group is to support victims of sexual abuse by priests and honoring priests of integrity.
CHICAGO (IL)
ABC 7
By Theresa Gutierrez
March 21, 2006 - Roman Catholics reacted Tuesday to a list of priests accused of sexual misconduct. The list was released Monday by the Archdiocese of Chicago. It includes 17 names of priests who had not been associated with the church sex abuse scandal, until now.
That list was released with a report that showed many priests accused of sexual misconduct have been allowed to remain anonymous. The report also says there were a number of occasions when church officials could have removed accused priests from ministry but did not.
A recent independent auditing report criticizes Chicago Roman Catholic officials for their handling of sex abuse allegations against Rev. Daniel McCormack, as well as the archdiocese, procedures for monitoring priests accused of abusing minors.
"I give the archdiocese credit for putting those reports out in full, not pulling any punches," said Catholic Theological Union president Father Donald Senior in a telephone interview.
"I guess my first response is terrible sadness. Most especially for the young people involved, the victims, the children, for their families, for its effects on them, and on the church as a whole. As a priest, I find this whole thing to be embarrassing," said Rev. Robin Ryan, Catholic Theological Union.
Father Ryan said he was disappointed with the monitoring system for accused pedophile priests.
LONG ISLAND (NY)
Newsday
BY ZACHARY R. DOWDY
Newsday Staff Writer
March 22, 2006
Nassau County police said yesterday they had arrested a former priest who traveled from his Pennsylvania home with hopes of meeting a 14-year-old boy for sex at a local hotel.
Thomas J. Bender, 72, of Macungie, Pa., was charged with five counts of disseminating indecent material to a minor and one count of an attempted criminal sexual act. He will be arraigned today in First District Court in Hempstead on the charges, Nassau detectives said last night.
Crimes Against Property Squad detectives reported that Bender had been communicating over the Internet with someone he thought was a 14-year-old boy since September 2004, and that he came to Nassau yesterday to meet the boy to take him to a local hotel for sex.
That's when Det. John McGee arrested Bender. He has been in custody since about 4:15 p.m. yesterday and was being held overnight without bail.
NEW JERSEY
The Star-Ledger
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
BY JEFF DIAMANT
Star-Ledger Staff
Paul Steidler always worried that James Hanley would strike again.
Steidler was one of at least a dozen boys in the 1970s and 1980s molested by Hanley, the defrocked Catholic priest from the Paterson Diocese at the center of the state's most notorious clergy sex abuse case.
Yet even after Hanley admitted to the abuse in court papers in late 2003, Steidler's anxiety didn't ease. Because of the statute of limitations, Hanley was never charged with a crime -- and therefore was never registered as a sex offender and subjected to monitoring by police.
So Steidler, Mark Serrano and some of their fellow victims have taken to doing it themselves. They view themselves as self-appointed watchdogs, regularly running Hanley's name through Internet searches and even paying for private detectives.
Now, after months of erratic behavior by Hanley, and after the former priest's move last fall from a senior citizens housing complex to a residential neighborhood with children, Steidler and other victims say their concerns have grown.
SEATTLE (WA)
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
By ANGELO BRUSCAS
P-I REPORTER
A standing-room crowd of more than 700 parishioners at Holy Rosary Catholic Church in West Seattle met for two hours Tuesday night with members of the Archdiocese of Seattle but got few answers about the abrupt resignation earlier this month of the church's longtime pastor, the Rev. Jeffrey Sarkies.
Many members of the congregation heard confirmation for the first time that Sarkies' alleged ethics violations did involve an allegation of sexual misconduct, but few details were provided.
Archbishop Alex Brunett was out of town and not in attendance, but the archdiocese informed church members Sunday in a statement included in the Sunday bulletin that the alleged violations were "in the areas of sexual misconduct and harassment."
Representatives of the archdiocese said the allegation came to light shortly after Christmas, and Sarkies, 67, who has been pastor of Holy Rosary since 1992 and attended Holy Rosary School as a child, was then informed an investigation would be conducted.
BOSTON (MA)
Milford Daily News
By Denise Lavoie/ Associated Press
Wednesday, March 22, 2006 - Updated: 02:12 AM EST
BOSTON (AP) -- An independent audit of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston shows it is in compliance on 16 out of 17 provisions of a national charter for protecting children, the archdiocese announced Tuesday.
The archdiocese said that a 2005 audit shows it is complying with requirements to do thorough criminal background checks on all priests and other church personnel, to guarantee effective reporting and responses to allegations of sexual abuse, and to promote healing for survivors and others hurt by clergy sexual abuse.
But the audit conducted by the Boston-based Gavin Group found the archdiocese has not complied with a requirement to complete "safe environment" training, a curriculum which teaches children and adults to recognize and report signs of sexual abuse. The archdiocese said that it has completed the training for adults and for approximately 119,000 children, but it has not yet given training to approximately 90,000 children in religious education classes and parochial schools.
The Gavin Group was hired by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to audit dioceses across the county on compliance with the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, the policy adopted by the bishops in 2002. A summary of the national audit is expected to be released later this month by the bishops’ conference.
BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe
By Eileen McNamara, Globe Columnist | March 22, 2006
News that the Vatican has defrocked seven alleged child molesters who once worked as priests in the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston came on the heels of a hearing last week about legislation that could cost such sexual predators their freedom, as well as their clerical collars.
Curiously, Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley was not on Beacon Hill to support the bills that would eliminate the statute of limitations on sexual crimes against children, bills drafted in response to the sexual abuse scandal in the very institution he heads.
It could not have been an aversion to politics that kept the archbishop away. O'Malley has had a busy political time of it lately. One week he is defending an exemption from state financial disclosure laws that apply to other charities because opening his books would be an assault on religious independence.
Another week he is seeking an exemption from state antidiscrimination laws because acknowledging the civil rights of same-sex parents would be an affront to Catholic religious teachings.
FORT LAUDERDALE (FL)
Miami Herald
BY WANDA J. DeMARZO
wdemarzo@MiamiHerald.com
A retired Margate priest accused of drugging and raping a young boy over a five-year period is expected to be released from jail on bond today, his attorney said.
A Broward Circuit Court judge in Fort Lauderdale agreed Monday to set bond at $70,000 for Neil Doherty, a former priest at St. Vincent's Catholic Church in Margate.
Doherty, 63, who was arrested Jan. 26 and charged with eight counts of sexual battery, lewd and lascivious acts and molestation, must surrender his passport, Judge Susan Lewbow ordered. Doherty must also stay out of Margate -- where police say the rape occurred -- away from the victim and from any children under the age of 18. Doherty is also required to wear an electronic monitoring device.
Prosecutors asked that Doherty not be released, saying the ``defendant poses a threat to the community, has no financial ties to the community and there are a number of allegations against him.''
CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Sun-Times
March 22, 2006
BY NATASHA KORECKI Federal Courts Reporter
A priest who recently served as hospital chaplain at St. Alexius Medical Center in Hoffman Estates downloaded child pornography onto his personal computer, federal authorities said Tuesday.
Daniel Schulte, 53, formerly of Chicago, was charged with one count of possession of child pornography after the feds allegedly found an "unspecified" number of pornographic images of children on his computer. He's not accused of misconduct against children.
Schulte is a Catholic priest of the Vincentian order who was removed from his hospital chaplain position last year. His personal computer was flagged after an Internet provider noticed inappropriate material may have been downloaded, authorities said. Schulte at the time was living in a Vincentian residence in Lincoln Park.
BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe
By Charles A. Radin, Globe Staff | March 22, 2006
The Catholic Archdiocese of Boston has failed to provide safety training to about 40 percent of the children in its religious education classes and schools, despite a commitment made to provide such training in response to the clergy sexual-abuse scandal, archdiocesan officials said yesterday.
The officials said that an independent audit found the archdiocese in compliance with all other requirements of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People adopted by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2002.
About 119,000 children, many of them parochial school students, have received instruction in understanding what is safe and unsafe touching, and what to do if unsafe touching occurs, said Deacon Anthony Rizzuto, director of the archdiocesan office of child advocacy. But about 90,000 children, almost all of them religious-education students in the parishes, have not.
In telephone interviews yesterday, Rizzuto and the Rev. John Connolly, who is Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley's special assistant for dealing with the sexual-abuse crisis in the church, said the deficiencies in training resulted from reluctance among the 17,000 volunteers who teach religious education to discuss the subject of touching with children. He also blamed resistance among some priests and directors of education to embark on new programs while a massive consolidation of churches was underway.
PENNSYLVANIA
The Morning Call
By Dalondo Moultrie
Of The Morning Call
A former Allentown Catholic Diocese priest who has a record of sexual abuse and lives in Lower Macungie Township was charged Tuesday with trying to lure a 14-year-old boy to a Long Island hotel for sex.
Thomas J. Bender, 72, of 4015 Schoeneck Road, was caught in an Internet sting involving an undercover Nassau County, N.Y., detective, police said.
Since September 2004, Bender corresponded via the Internet with someone he thought was a 14-year-old boy but was really an undercover detective, Nassau County police said.
Bender set up a meeting with the boy for 4:15 p.m. Tuesday, and Detective John McGee arrested him, police said. They did not say where.
Police said Bender planned to take the boy to a hotel in Nassau County for sexual contact.
SOUTH PORTLAND (ME)
Portland Press Herald
By JOHN RICHARDSON, Portland Press Herald Writer
SOUTH PORTLAND — Maine's Catholic Church is falling short on two fronts in its battle to rid the institution of sexual abuse problems, according to an annual audit of the diocese. The examination found the diocese needs to step up background checks on volunteers and employees and increase efforts to teach children how to protect themselves against sexual predators.
In announcing the findings Tuesday, Bishop Richard Malone called the failures "disheartening" and pledged to address the problems within the next two months.
"There is no higher priority for me than the protection of our children, and I consider this situation entirely unacceptable," Malone said. "It weakens our effort to prevent future abuse, our commitment to victims of past sexual abuse and our credibility in the community."
SOUTH PORTLAND (ME)
WMTW
POSTED: 2:15 pm EST March 21, 2006
UPDATED: 2:37 pm EST March 21, 2006
SOUTH PORTLAND, Maine -- Catholic church officials said Tuesday that the Maine diocese is falling short in requiring background checks of volunteers and employees and providing sexual abuse prevention training for all minors in the church's care.
Bishop Richard Malone announced the findings of an outside audit that assesses compliance with the Catholic church's Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, commonly known as the Dallas Charter.
Malone said the audit, which was conducted in December, found that the diocese has completed background checks on 87 percent of the volunteers and employees in its database. It also found that 33 percent of minors had undergone sexual abuse prevention training at the church's schools and religious education programs.
SOUTH PORTLAND (ME)
Boston.com
By Clarke Canfield, Associated Press Writer | March 21, 2006
SOUTH PORTLAND, Maine --Maine's Roman Catholic diocese is falling short in conducting background checks on all volunteers and employees and providing sexual abuse prevention training for minors in the church's care, according to an audit released Tuesday.
Bishop Richard Malone announced the findings of an outside audit that assessed compliance with the Catholic church's Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, commonly known as the Dallas Charter.
The audit, conducted in December, found that the diocese has completed background checks on 87 percent of the 4,570 volunteers and employees in its database, Malone announced at a news conference at the Holy Cross School. It also found that 33 percent of the children at its schools or in its religious education programs had undergone sexual abuse prevention training.
As a result of the findings, Malone has ordered that all background checks be completed by April 18. If the paperwork isn't done by then, employees without background checks will be put on unpaid leaves of absence and volunteers will be prohibited from volunteering in any capacity.
NEW LONDON (CT)
Norwich Bulletin
By GREG SMITH
Norwich Bulletin
NEW LONDON -- A former Norwich pastor pleaded not guilty Monday to charges he molested a young girl during a church function at his Norwich home.
Charles Johnson Jr., 52, of 35 Fourteenth St., stood rigidly beside attorney Peter Bartinik Jr. during a brief appearance in New London Superior Court.
The former head of the Norwich Assembly of God faces charges of first-degree sexual assault and two counts of risk of injury to a minor for two alleged incidents involving the daughter of church member who also claims she was inappropriately groped.
His arrest in February was the result of a three-month investigation involving the Norwich Police and Department of Children and Families.
The investigation was prompted by the admission of a 14-year-old girl who became uncomfortable reading a book in which a girl was raped. She told a teacher at her school she was abused, court documents show.
NEWARK (NJ)
The Star-Ledger
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
BY JEFF DIAMANT
Star-Ledger Staff
The Newark Archdiocese has recently implemented a new policy to alert parishioners whenever a priest is permanently barred from the ministry because of a sex abuse allegation, a spokesman said.
The archdiocese was previously the state's only Roman Catholic diocese that did not routinely alert parishioners when their priest, or former priest, was prohibited from wearing a collar because of sex allegations.
Now the archdiocese has begun making it known at every church where those priests served -- generally through church bulletin notes -- that they were removed because of an accusation, said James Goodness, a spokesman for Newark Archbishop John J. Myers.
Goodness would not say exactly when archdiocese officials changed the policy.
However, on Sunday, there was an announcement in church bulletins in five parishes where Monsignor Peter Cheplic worked from 1972 to 2005, saying that because of a recent archdiocesan review board decision to hold a church trial against him over sex-abuse allegations, Cheplic decided to permanently retire and no longer serve as a priest.
FLORIDA
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
By Tonya Alanez
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Posted March 21 2006
A Broward judge agreed Monday to release on bond a retired priest accused of molesting, drugging and raping a boy from the time he was 7 until he was 14.
Neil Doherty, a former priest at St. Vincent's Catholic Church in Margate, was arrested in January and faces eight counts of sexual battery, lewd and lascivious acts and molestation. He was denied bail Jan. 27, a day after he was arrested at a Fort Lauderdale hotel.
Broward Circuit Judge Susan Lebow granted the $70,000 bond on the condition that Doherty, 63, surrenders his passport.
The priest's sisters, Mary Baylor and Joanne Veclotch of Palm Beach, said they would put up their property to secure the bond. Baylor agreed to let Doherty live with her.
SEATTLE (WA)
The Seattle Times
By Janet I. Tu
Seattle Times staff reporter
The Seattle Archdiocese said it has found that the Rev. Jeffrey Sarkies, a popular pastor at West Seattle's Holy Rosary Church, violated professional ethics policy in the area of sexual misconduct and harassment.
A statement from the archdiocese delivered to parishioners over the weekend clarified slightly the mystery surrounding Sarkies' sudden resignation earlier this month. At the time, the archdiocese said only that Sarkies had engaged in "improper professional behavior."
The statement emphasized that the violation did not involve minors, financial concerns or questions or challenges to church teaching.
Representatives of the archdiocese are to meet with parishioners at 7 tonight regarding Sarkies' departure.
FORT LAUDERDALE (FL)
The News-Press
By The Associated Press
Originally posted on March 21, 2006
FORT LAUDERDALE — A Broward judge has granted bond to a retired Roman Catholic priest charged with sexually abusing a young boy.
Neil Doherty can be released on $70,000 bond, Broward Circuit Judge Susan Lebow ruled Monday. Doherty must surrender his passport, cannot have contact with the alleged victim or with children younger than 18 and must wear an electronic monitoring device.
The former priest at St. Vincent’s Catholic Church in Margate was arrested in January on eight counts of sexual battery, lewd and lascivious acts and molestation. He was denied bail a day after he was arrested at a Fort Lauderdale hotel.
Lebow said there was not adequate evidence to keep Doherty in jail.
“The defendant is a major threat to the community, especially to young people,” said prosecutor Dennis Siegel. “He has a lengthy history.”
BOSTON (MA)
CBS 4
Lisa Hughes
Reporting
(CBS4) Archbishop Sean O'Malley is in Rome getting ready to take on a bigger role within the Catholic Church. On Friday he will become a cardinal.
CBS4's Lisa Hughes is in Italy for the ceremony, and has reaction from local Catholics who are still struggling with their faith.
39 year-old David Carney says he was abused repeatedly by a priest as a child. He is one of 550 victims who took part in the $85 million settlement in 2003.
"I just think O'Malley with the sex abuse case, came out, settled it, then he moved on with whatever he has to do in the archdiocese," Carney said.
MINNESOTA
KARE
A law dating back to World War II has been successfully use to sue the Catholic church for clergy abuse.
"It was the Soldiers and Sailors Relief Act, enacted during World War II," said attorney Jeff Anderson.
Anderson, a Saint Paul attorney who handles charges of sexual abuse at the hands of Catholic Priests, was announcing how he had helped a man sue the Catholic Church Religious Order, The Dominicans, for sexual abuse suffered by his client nearly 30 years ago.
"That case survived and was able to be brought to resolution largely," said attorney Anderson, "because that survivor has been in the military long enough where the statute of limitations did not prevent him from gaining a measure of justice."
The case, scheduled to go to trial March 20, was settled late the prior week when the Dominicans, who operate Saint Albert's The Great Catholic Church at in south Minneapolis, agreed to pay Jeff Anderson's client $450,000 plus past therapy costs.
The settlement came, according to attorney Anderson, because he had records that then priest Edmund Frost, minister at Saint Albert's in 1978, had given the then 13-year old alcohol and marijuana and forced him into oral sex and abused him several times.
CANADA
Renew America
Matt C. Abbott
March 20, 2006
In Cornwall, Ont....
PUBLIC INQUIRY OPENS
ON 'PEDOPHILE CLAN' CLAIMS
by Paul Likoudis
CORNWALL, Ont. — Fifteen years after allegations that a "pedophile clan" consisting of prominent local officials in government, the Church, police, child welfare and probation departments abused dozens of young boys in the St. Lawrence River community of Cornwall on the eastern edge of Ontario, an official public inquiry led by Justice Normand Gloade opened here last week under a national spotlight.
CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Sun-Times
March 21, 2006
BY CATHLEEN FALSANI Religion Reporter
Two damning reports released by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago Monday show how missteps by Cardinal Francis George and a host of other church officials allowed an accused pedophile priest to remain in ministry for years with unfettered access to scores of children.
The reports were commissioned by the archdiocese after the Rev. Daniel McCormack was charged with molesting three boys at Chicago's St. Agatha parish between September 2001 and December 2005.
As Jimmy Lago, the archdiocesan chancellor, read an overview of the findings, George sat in a chair off to the side, head bowed, arms folded tightly.
NEW JERSEY
The Jersey Journal
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
By JASON DEL REY
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER
A priest accused of sexual misconduct who served at four Hudson County parishes has retired and the Archdiocese of Newark has ended its investigation into the allegations, a spokesman said yesterday.
Monsignor Peter Cheplic, 60, who most recently worked at St. Henry's Church in Bayonne, retired "with no faculties," meaning he can never again work as a priest, said Archdiocese spokesman Jim Goodness.
An exception could be made if there is an emergency in which someone is dying and Cheplic is the only one who could hear confession or perform a baptism, Goodness said.
An announcement of the retirement was printed this past weekend in churches where Cheplic worked. He had been on temporary leave since August.
According to the announcement, Cheplic "still maintains his innocence" and "felt that by removing himself from the ministry, he could encourage everyone to begin to heal from this ordeal."
CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune
By Manya A. Brachear and Margaret Ramirez
Tribune staff reporters
Published March 21, 2006
Outside auditors delivered a stinging critique of local Roman Catholic officials' handling of sex abuse allegations against Rev. Daniel McCormack, laying out multiple failures ranging from shoddy record-keeping and a profound lack of communication to inadequate monitoring policies that put children in danger.
One of the two reports released Monday evaluated the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago's procedures for monitoring priests accused of abusing minors and found they amount to little more than an "honor system." Accused priests report on their own activities, monitors are not well-trained or informed, and there are no consequences for clergy who do not cooperate, it found.
McCormack was able to take three minors on a trip to Minnesota last Labor Day weekend while the priest assigned to watch him was away from the rectory, according to the other report, which dealt specifically with his case. Prosecutors charged McCormack this year with sexually abusing three boys while serving as a pastor at St. Agatha parish and as a teacher and coach at Our Lady of the Westside Catholic School.
FORT LAUDERDALE (FL)
Local 6
POSTED: 7:01 am EST March 21, 2006
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- A Broward judge has granted bond to a retired Roman Catholic priest charged with sexually abusing a young boy.
Neil Doherty can be released on $70,000 bond, Broward Circuit Judge Susan Lebow ruled Monday. Doherty must surrender his passport, cannot have contact with the alleged victim or with children younger than 18 and must wear an electronic monitoring device.
The former priest at St. Vincent's Catholic Church in Margate was arrested in January on eight counts of sexual battery, lewd and lascivious acts and molestation. He was denied bail a day after he was arrested at a Fort Lauderdale hotel.
Lebow said there was not adequate evidence to keep Doherty in jail.
"The defendant is a major threat to the community, especially to young people," said prosecutor Dennis Siegel. "He has a lengthy history."
SCRANTON (PA)
Times Leader
By MARK GUYDISH
mguydish@leader.net
SCRANTON – A federal judge laid out a comprehensive confidentiality agreement virtually barring the public release of information that the Diocese of Scranton is turning over in a lawsuit alleging sexual misconduct with a minor by a priest.
The order, issued Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, covers minutes of meetings held by the Diocesan Review Board responsible for looking into abuse cases, complaints of abuse since 1985, and a private investigation into the Rev. Albert Liberatore.
The suit was filed after Liberatore admitted to criminal charges that he had given a man identified only as John Doe, then a minor, alcohol and molested him during overnight stays at the Sacred Heart of Jesus Church rectory in Duryea from 1999 to 2004. Doe’s lawyer had won a fight to get the documents, but the diocese won its push to keep them confidential.
The new court order allows any “qualified person,” including experts, consultants and advisors retained in the case, to see the documents only after signing a confidentiality agreement. If any of the documents are included in court filings or court actions, they must be sealed from public access.
KENTUCKY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
BY JIM HANNAH | ENQUIRER STAFF WRITER
A retired federal judge known for pioneering ways to settle disputes outside of court has taken a central role in the class-action lawsuit alleging the Covington Diocese covered up sexual abuse by its priests for decades.
Thomas Lambros, 76, of Ashtabula in northern Ohio, was appointed last week to help oversee the disbursement of an $85 million settlement to about 300 people who claim to have been abused. Lambros will report to the presiding judge in the case, John Potter of Louisville.
"Even though we are going to address the individual claims, it is also important the public is aware the judge, lawyers, Burleigh and I recognize the enormity of our responsibility," Lambros said.
Lambros will work with E.W. Scripps Co. Chairman William Burleigh to determine the amounts to be awarded each claimant, awards that could be as high as $1 million.
Burleigh was an original member of theAbuse Tracker Review Board, a 13-member panel of lay Catholics formed by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2002 to implement their new policy on handling priest sexual abuse.
CHICAGO (IL)
Belleville News-Democrat
NATHANIEL HERNANDEZ
Associated Press
CHICAGO - Members of the Archdiocese of Chicago likely will be reprimanded for failing to respond promptly to allegations of sexual abuse against a priest who is now facing charges, Cardinal Francis George said Monday.
The archdiocese on Monday released the findings of investigations into its response to allegations made against the Rev. Daniel McCormack. He pleaded not guilty earlier this month to aggravated criminal sexual abuse charges.
The report found that various archdiocese departments responsible for dealing with such allegations failed to communicate. It also found that the archdiocese didn't follow its own procedures and it determined that a policy of monitoring priests accused of sex crimes is inadequate.
The findings were based investigations conducted by two outside consultants and an internal review.
SHOHOLA (PA)
The River Reporter
By TOM KANE
SHOHOLA, PA — A suppressed society of Roman Catholic priests has moved out of Shohola Township in the Diocese of Scranton to the Diocese of Ciudad del Este in Paraguay. According to its current website, the suppressed Society of Saint John (SSJ) has reestablished itself in the Paraguay diocese with the apparent permission of the local bishop, Rogelio Ricardo Livieres Plano, who presides over the diocese of more than 500,000 Catholics.
The act of suppression, which dissolved the society’s status in the structure of the Catholic Church, came in 2004 by action of the Bishop of Scranton, the Most Rev. Joseph Martino. Also in 2004, the society defaulted on a mortgage loan held by the diocese and was the subject of a civil lawsuit by the parents of a youth who was allegedly molested. The society’s property on Route 424 in Shohola had to be sold, costing the diocese several million dollars.
The society claims it has a mission to maintain traditional Catholic values and express its liturgy in the Latin language. For this reason, it had attracted financial support from conservative Catholics, but lost much of that support when two of its priests were accused of the sexual molestation of several young seminarians under their charge.
The two priests, Rev. Carlos Urrutigoity and Rev. Eric Ensey, who were forbidden from exercising their priestly duties, are now with the society in Paraguay.
COLORADO
The Coloradoan
Jerry Stremel
A few years ago, people would respond to a course of action by saying, "Sounds like a plan."
Some Colorado legislators have a plan of hostile discrimination against the Catholic community in Colorado. I am referring to House Bill 1088, House Bill 1090 and Senate Bill 143.These bills will remove the statute of limitations for allowing lawsuits in cases about sexual abuse of minors. They will apply to Catholic schools and other private institutions but not to public institutions, e.g. public schools. Every one of these bills unfairly burdens religious institutions and private institutions and unfairly ignores sexual abuse in public schools and public institutions. This is bad public policy and bad public law.
The legislators in question have accused the archbishop of Denver, Charles J. Chaput, of being "irrational" in his protest to the above-mentioned bills. What is actually irrational is to ignore the research about sexual abuse of minors.
BOSTON (MA)
Berkshire Eagle
By Rebecca Deusser, Eagle Boston Bureau
Monday, March 20
BOSTON — State Sen. Marian Walsh, D-Boston, says she is a Catholic in pain.
She is still dealing with disappointment roughly four years after the Catholic clergy sex-abuse scandal rocked Greater Boston.
"There has been an awareness and awakening in the public since we learned ... the Catholic Church was systematically sexually abusing children, covering it up and paying people off," she said. "That trust the public had was a blind trust, and I had it."
Walsh, a Boston Democrat, experienced another disappointment in late January, when House lawmakers killed a bill she filed requiring all tax-exempt religious groups to make their financial records public, after an outcry from some faith groups.
Some local church leaders say that the defeat marked a victory for them, preventing state government from crossing the constitutional line separating church and state.
WASHINGTON (DC)
Washington Post
By Caryle Murphy
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 20, 2006; Page B01
On a balmy, hint-of-spring day last week, Michael Donovan drove his rented car slowly past Holy Name School in Northeast Washington, where a billboard read, "He who angers you, controls you."
The 63-year-old Vietnam veteran and retired businessman from California was on a mission into his past, a mission to banish his own anger and regain control. A mission of healing.
Almost 50 years ago, during Donovan's eighth-grade spring break, he was sexually abused at Holy Name by Thomas S. Schaefer, then a 30-year-old, newly minted Roman Catholic priest.
Schaefer went on to molest at least 20 more boys in the Washington Archdiocese, according to church officials, before pleading guilty in 1995 in five of those cases. Only one other priest in the archdiocese, Robert J. Petrella, had more known victims, officials said. About 25 people have reported being molested by Petrella. The two priests were responsible for more than a third of the 123 reports of sexual abuse by clergy in the archdiocese's 59-year history.
IRELAND
Austin American-Statesman
By Don Melvin
INTERNATIONAL STAFF
Sunday, March 19, 2006
GOREY, IRELAND — Colm O'Gorman was born 39 years ago into an Ireland in which the Roman Catholic Church was central to almost everyone's life.
At 3 1/2, he began attending a state school owned and run by the church. When he was 8 or 9, he became an altar boy. Social life revolved around the church.
The local priest was a revered and powerful figure. The church wielded a strong influence on Irish politics.
"There wasn't an arena or an area it wasn't involved in," O'Gorman said.
So, he said, when he was sexually abused by a priest for three years, beginning at age 14, he blamed himself.
SAN FRANCISCO
San Francisco Chronicle
AS SECOND in command at the Vatican, you would think that San Francisco's former archbishop, William Levada, has enough on has hands -- namely, a backlog of some 700 priest-abuse cases.
But in response to a recent inquiry by a Boston Globe reporter regarding his role in the placement of three children with gay parents during his time as archbishop, Levada sent an e-mail to the San Francisco archdiocese making his opposition to the practice clear.
NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph
Alf McCreary
18 March 2006
The Catholic Church has taken a deserved battering over its handling of child abuse cases in recent years, but now it has shown a welcome initiative in handing over to the DHSSPS and the PSNI a dossier of allegations against priests This is a part of its drive to follow the best practice on child protection.
It will receive little enough credit for doing so, from victims and those who have been appalled by the previous ghastly practice of shuffling abusing clergy to other parishes where they continued to prey on vulnerable children. The latest measures announced by the Primate Archbishop Sean Brady will help to ensure that the sins of the Fathers (and Sisters) are much less likely to occur again.
Paedophiles are as ingenious as they are persistent in trying to satisfy their perverted appetites, and individuals may still evade all child protection measures which are put in their way. Nevertheless, there can be no doubting the determination of the Catholic Church to try to get it right, at last.
As Archbishop Brady said: "We want everyone in the Church to know what actions to take if they have concerns about the safety of a child. We want these actions to be effective, and we want to work in full co-operation with the DHSSPS, the PSNI and other agencies."
BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe
By Michael Paulson, Globe Staff | March 19, 2006
Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley, preparing to accept the red hat that completes his transformation from humble friar to prince of the church, says the Archdiocese of Boston is at an important ''moment of transition," facing extraordinary challenges posed to its most basic missions by a searing crisis and a secular culture.
In a rare, wide-ranging interview, O'Malley said the Catholic Church can no longer rely on its position of authority to transmit its teachings on moral values, but instead must turn increasingly to persuasion in an effort to convince a skeptical society of the merits of Christian faith.
''One of the greatest tragedies of the sexual abuse crisis is that it undermines our capacity to teach the hard points of the Gospel," he said.
O'Malley, who on Friday in Rome will be elevated to cardinal by Pope Benedict XVI, insisted that he sees ''signs of hope" amid all the bad news -- young men considering entering the priesthood, thousands of adults attending conferences on faith, civic power brokers stepping up to help. And he pledged to implement a series of changes in coming weeks, including the replacement of some of the key officials who oversee the archdiocese; full disclosure of the archdiocese's financial situation; a reorganization of the parochial school system; and improved assistance to parishes.
MALTA
The Malta Independent
by Louise Vella
During the course of an interview aired recently on Xarabank, Judge Caruana Colombo stated that from 1999 to date, no less than 85 cases of sexual abuse were investigated by the Curia’s Response Team he heads. He also said that he passes on the results of his inquiries to the archbishop who then decides what to do next.
Even though, strictly speaking, this does not fall within his brief, has the learned judge ever wondered whether our archbishop followed up those cases where the evidence indicated that the alleged abuse had in fact taken place? Has he never asked himself whether the archbishop might be more concerned about safeguarding the reputation of the local Church, rather than protecting his flock’s most vulnerable members? Is it possible that he never heard how Catholic churches all over the globe sought to stem the tide by adopting a policy of transferring child-molesting priests from one parish to another thereby exposing a greater number of children to the risk of being abused? Has he never suspected that the local Church authorities were following the same practice as well? Did it never occur to him that his services were perhaps being abused and exploited by the church authorities to support their avowed conspiracy of silence? When all is said and done, how can it be that his doubtlessly fine-tuned conscience ever really let him be?
The fact is that the outcome of the numerous inquiries conducted by Judge Caruana Colombo is known only to him, and the archbishop. These results are then suppressed and buried forever in the hallowed Secret Archives of the Curia. Nobody knows who these dangerous paedophile priests are, how many children they have harmed, or what other incriminating evidence the Church might be keeping under wraps.
NEW HAMPSHIRE
The Union Leader
WHEN IT COMES to getting tough on child molesters, who would have thought that legislators would get cold feet?
Last week, members of the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee gutted the Child Protection Act by removing the bill’s cornerstone punishment for child sex offenders.
Currently, the maximum sentence for first offense aggravated felonious sexual assault against a child is 10 to 20 years. Offenders, however, can be let off with no prison time. Child abusers seldom serve the sorts of long sentences most people would consider just punishment for molesting children.
The Child Protection Act originally mandated that judges impose a minimum 25-year sentence if prosecutors sought it. The bill’s authors refrained from setting a mandatory 25-year minimum across the board because prosecutors said that would harm their ability to win convictions in some cases.
BOSTON (MA)
WFSB
BOSTON -- Massachusetts, one of the most Catholic states in the country, is witnessing an ever-widening rift between church and state on a raft of social issues, from gay marriage and abortion "buffer zones" to stem cell research and emergency contraception.
The schisms reveal the once mighty political clout of the Catholic Church in Massachusetts is in a state of flux. Large numbers of state lawmakers still identify themselves as Catholic but are picking and choosing when to side with the church, and when to break with it.
The recent decision of Catholic Charities, the Boston Archdiocese's social service agency, to end its century-old adoption program rather than comply with state law barring discrimination against gays is just the latest fissure. ...
Former Boston Mayor Ray Flynn, a conservative Catholic and former U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, also blamed the church's political anemia on the clergy sex abuse scandal. He said Catholic politicians feel free to split with the church on key social and moral issues without fearing any backlash from voters or church leaders.
"At one time it was common that Cardinal Cushing would have a letter read in the churches on Sunday and Catholic politicians would be inclined to go along or take seriously what the church had to say," Flynn said.
AUSTRALIA
The Mercury
By GAVIN LOWER
Law Reporter
18mar06
ROGER Michael Bellemore is the latest priest set to be jailed in Tasmania on child sex charges in recent years.
He will join former Anglican priests Garth Hawkins and Louis Daniels, who have been sentenced to lengthy jail terms for sexually abusing boys, and failed Catholic priest Paul Goldsmith.
Bellemore, 70, was in the Supreme Court in Hobart yesterday for a sentencing hearing after being found guilty last month of sexually abusing four boys between 1967 and 1971 at Marist College in Burnie.
His lawyer, Greg Walsh, told Justice Shan Tennent Bellemore's case was not the worst of its kind.
WALNUT CREEK (CA)
Contra Costa Times
By Bruce Gerstman
CONTRA COSTA TIMES
The Oakland Diocese is investigating a Walnut Creek priest accused of sexually abusing a minor in a lawsuit against the Los Angeles Archdiocese and the Franciscan Friars of California that was tentatively settled this week.
According to court documents, Christopher Berbena, a hospital chaplain based at St. John Vianney Catholic Church on Ygnacio Valley Road, molested a boy in 1980 at a Santa Barbara Catholic school. The complaint also names more than 40 other clergymen and others who worked for the religious organizations.
"I haven't heard much about (the lawsuit)," Berbena said by phone Friday, declining to comment further.
The alleged victim, identified in the lawsuit as "Robert O.," is among 25 plaintiffs who are finalizing a settlement with the Los Angeles Archdiocese and the Franciscan Friars in Los Angeles County Superior Court.
ROCKFORD (IL)
Rcokford Register Star
ROCKFORD — A former church youth leader was found guilty of aggravated criminal sexual abuse Friday morning.
Emos Parham, 53, now faces either probation or up to seven years in prison and will have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.
He was found not guilty of a second count of the same crime.
A longtime administrative assistant and youth leader at Saint Paul Church of God in Christ, 1001 Wigton Ave., Parham was arrested in July 2004 after the then-13-year-old victim told police he had been sexually abused by Parham.
BOSTON (MA)
Melbourne Herald Sun
18mar06
THE Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston said today it had defrocked seven priests accused of molesting children, as it cleans house following a 2002 scandal over paedophile priests.
The seven included Rev Monsignor Frederick Ryan, a former vice-chancellor of the archdiocese accused of abusing two teenage boys and photographing them naked about 25 years ago in his quarters at the archdiocese's chancery.
Ryan was placed on administrative leave in March 2002.
BOSTON (MA)
Boston Herald
By O’Ryan Johnson
Saturday, March 18, 2006
Eight men whose tarnished careers in the Boston clergy date as far back as 1957 have been defrocked over allegations of child sexual abuse in a vast house-cleaning by the Vatican, the Archdiocese of Boston said yesterday.
“The violations of childhood innocence, under the guise of priestly care, are a source of profound shame,” said Boston Archbishop Sean P. O’Malley. “I pray and hope that the emotional, physical and spiritual wounds carried by survivors will be healed and their trust renewed.”
The highest-ranking priest to lose his collar yesterday, Msgr. Frederick Ryan, was suspended four years ago from his job as vice chancellor, third from the archbiship in control of the archdiocese, when two former Catholic Memorial High School athletes alleged he plied them with alcohol then performed sexual acts on them more than two decades ago.
“It’s a great feeling. It’s a fight, but it’s worth the fight,” said Dave Carney, one of Ryan’s alleged victims. “He’ll die as a regular joe, like the rest of us. Not that he was anything above us as a priest, but that’s how society saw him. Now he’s just a sex offender.”
BOSTON (MA)
Metro West Daily News
By Nicole Simmons/ Daily News Staff
Saturday, March 18, 2006 - Updated: 02:46 AM EST
BOSTON -- Seven priests -- including one who served in Franklin and another who served in Bellingham -- accused of molesting children have been defrocked, church officials announced yesterday.
In a statement, Boston Archbishop Sean O’Malley expressed his "deepest sorrow for the grievous harm" done by the priests, including Anthony Buchette, a former St. Mary’s priest in Franklin, and Robert Morrisette, a former priest at the now-closed Our Lady of the Assumption Parish in Bellingham.
Also defrocked was Ernest Tourigney, who served in St. Mary’s in Holliston.
"The violations of childhood innocence, under the guise of priestly care, are a source of profound shame," O’Malley said.
The removal of the seven men from the priesthood means they are no longer allowed to perform any public ministry in the church. They also will no longer receive any financial support from the archdiocese. The Vatican also stripped a deacon of his duties.
SCOTLAND
Glasgow Daily Recod
By Ben Spencer
A MONK who repeatedly sexually abused a woman and punched her genitals was spared jail yesterday.
Mark Paterson, 47, was convicted of carrying out the attacks at Aberdeen University Chaplaincy, where he worked.
And a sheriff told him he had seriously considered locking him up for the abuse of the woman, described as "vulnerable" and "immature".
Aberdeen Sheriff Court had heard the woman, who cannot be named and whose age was not given, did housekeeping work at the chaplaincy.
BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe
By Michael Levenson and Charles A. Radin, Globe Staff | March 18, 2006
The Vatican has dismissed eight Boston-area clerics accused of sexually abusing children, including a monsignor who for two decades was the third-most-powerful official in the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston in addition to six other priests and a deacon, church officials said yesterday.
Dismissal from the ministry, which takes effect immediately, means that the men will no longer receive financial support from the archdiocese or be allowed to perform most of the public functions of a Catholic priest.
The eight had served for decades across Greater Boston, in schools, jails, hospitals, and churches. Among them was the former vice chancellor of the archdiocese, Monsignor Frederick J. Ryan, who was accused in 2002 of having repeatedly taken two students in the early 1980s from Catholic Memorial High School in West Roxbury to the chancery and molesting them. He is the highest-ranking priest to be dismissed since the clergy sexual abuse scandal erupted in 2002.
Ordained in 1964, Ryan had a long career, serving in churches in Holliston and Hyde Park and at the chancery from 1974 to 1995, where he served under Cardinal Bernard F. Law. In 2002, allegations surfaced from two victims who said that Ryan had abused them while they were students at Catholic Memorial. He resigned in April of that year from St. Joseph Parish in Kingston, where he was serving as pastor.
SALEM (MA)
The Salem News
Tom Dalton
Staff Writer
SALEM — A former Salem priest who admitted making sexual advances on a teenage boy at St. Joseph's Parish two decades ago is one of eight Boston area Catholic clergymen defrocked yesterday by the Vatican.
The Rev. Robert Morrisette, who served here from 1976 to '84, is "no longer in the clerical state," the Archdiocese of Boston announced yesterday.
The group of priests and one lay deacon removed yesterday includes Monsignor Frederick Ryan, vice chancellor of the archdiocese from 1974 to 1995 and one of the highest-ranking clergymen charged since the priest sexual abuse scandal erupted in 2002.
The banned priests will no longer receive financial support from the archdiocese and cannot perform public ministry, except to the dying, the archdiocese said.
BOSTON (MA)
Archdiocese of Boston
(Boston, Massachusetts) March 17, 2006... The Archdiocese of Boston today announced that the Holy See has decided that Anthony Buchette, Joseph Crowley, Paul Finegan, Thomas Forry, Robert Morrisette, Frederick Ryan, Ernest Tourigney and Patrick Tague are no longer in the clerical state. These men cease to receive any financial support from the Archdiocese of Boston and may no longer perform any public ministry in the Church, with the exception that those who are priests may offer absolution to the dying.
BOSTON (MA)
Catholic Online
3/17/2006 - 5:00 PM PST
By Fr. Robert J. Carr
Catholic Online
Boston--The Archdiocese of Boston announced on Friday that the Holy See has defrocked eight men from the clerical state. The defrocking means that they are no longer able to celebrate any form of public ministry. They will also no longer receive any financial compensation from the Archdiocese. They may only celebrate the necessary sacraments of Reconciliation and Anointing of the Sick in the case of someone who is in imminent danger of death.
This defrocking comes in the aftermath of the sex abuse crisis in that Archdiocese. These men have been on administrative leave and are now permanently removed from clergy rolls. The highest ranking member, the former Monsignor Frederick Ryan, was the vice chancellor of the Archdiocese. He was accused in 2002 of allegations of sexual abuse during his tenure as chaplain at a Boston area Catholic high school.
Such defrocking is defined in the Code of Canon Law Canon 290. The ordained man, specifically bishop, priest or deacon, who loses the state, also loses all rights and responsibilities pursuant to the clerical state. He does not however, become unordained, as that is a permanent condition of the soul imparted by the sacrament of Holy Orders. Similarly no one can become unbaptized, but one may choose to no longer be a Catholic.
In a statement released through Bishop Richard Lennon, vicar general for the Archdiocese of Boston, Archbishop Cardinal-Designate Sean O’Malley described the actions of priest abusers as "a source of profound shame" and has expressed "deepest sorrow for the grievous harm done to the survivors of priestly abuse."
BOSTON (MA)
The Pilot
By Christine Williams
BOSTON — The Archdiocese of Boston confirmed that 88 people with outstanding claims of abuse have accepted the archdiocese’s offer of a settlement and have signed settlement agreements, according to a statement dated March 9.
These 88 claimants represent all of the survivors pursuing claims who were eligible to participate in the first phase of the arbitration process. That includes those who were able to show with a “sufficient basis” that they were abused as a minor by a priest of the archdiocese.
“We feel it is an important first step in resolving pending claims of sexual abuse of children by priests of the Archdiocese of Boston,” said Kelly Lynch, a spokesperson for the archdiocese. “We are very pleased with the response the settlement offers generated and are looking forward to proceeding with this first phase of arbitration.”
Arbitration hearings to determine the amount awarded to each claimant will begin in March and continue into April. The hearings will be held under the auspices of Paul A. Finn of Commonwealth Mediation and Conciliation. Claimants will have the opportunity to choose who will attend the hearing with them, and no accused priests will be present, she said.
BOSTON (MA)
Boston.com
By Denise Lavoie, AP Legal Affairs Writer | March 17, 2006
BOSTON --A former vice chancellor of the Boston Archdiocese and six other priests accused of molesting children have been defrocked, church officials announced Friday.
In a statement, Boston Archbishop Sean O'Malley expressed his "deepest sorrow for the grievous harm" done by Monsignor Frederick Ryan and the other Boston priests.
"The violations of childhood innocence, under the guise of priestly care, are a source of profound shame," O'Malley said.
Ryan was one of the highest-ranking church officials to be accused of child molestation since the clergy sex abuse scandal broke in 2002. He was placed on administrative leave that year after being accused of abusing two boys in the 1970s and '80s at a Catholic high school.
The removal of Ryan and the six others from the priesthood means they are no longer allowed to perform any public ministry in the church. They also will no longer receive any financial support from the archdiocese. The Vatican also stripped a deacon of his duties.
NORTHERN IRELAND
One in Four
A sexual abuse victim support group last night described voluntary vetting offered by Northern Catholic bishops as “a rather ridiculous gimmick”.
One in Four spokesman Colm O’Gorman was responding to a statement made by Archbishop Sean Brady, Primate of All Ireland, at the bishops’ March meeting in Maynooth.
Archbishop Brady announced the nine Northern bishops were voluntarily submitting themselves for vetting by the North’s child protection services. Archbishop Brady said he hoped the new measures would show the Church was willing to learn from the past.
“We cannot undo the hurt caused in the past,” he said, “but we can put in place measures which will enhance the scope of protection afforded to those placed in our care. This remains our priority.” Reacting to Dr Brady’s announcement, Mr O’Gorman said: “I think it’s meaningless; I think it’s purposeless; I also think it’s irresponsible.
IRELAND
One in Four
The High Court has reserved judgment on a bid by the State to stop a legal action for damages by a man who was seriously sexually abused at a residential school in Co Cork operated by the Brothers of Charity and who also claims he was deprived of even a basic education there.
John Barrett (52) claims the health authorities and the State failed to properly inspect or inquire into what was going on at Our Lady of Good Counsel school at Lota, Glanmire, and that his experiences there blighted his life, leading to problems with drink, depression and sexual relationships.
He says he was admitted to Lota aged nine after he was mitching from school where he was beaten for not writing with his right hand and that he was subjected to serious and frequent sexual abuse until he left Lota aged 16.
BOSTON (MA)
Boston Herald
The stories of childhood sexual abuse are heart-wrenching - tales of innocence shattered, childhoods stolen. And the only thing worse than hearing the stories, especially from the lips of the victims themselves, now grown to adulthood, is to hear their anguish when the sexual predator escapes punishment - not because he has vanished, but because for too many years the victim either couldn’t remember or couldn’t speak of the horror endured.
State law gives the victims of childhood sexual abuse a window of opportunity to come forward - 15 years after turning age 16. Only if the accused leaves the state - as did several of the priests later charged with sexually abusing young parishioners - does the clock stop ticking on the statute of limitations.
It shouldn’t have to come to that. There is, of course, no statute of limitations on murder. Lifting the statute of limitations on the sexual abuse of a child acknowledges the special circumstances of such cases. But it would also send a message - a message that we live in a society that so abhors the abuse of children that it is willing to waive that arbitrary window for devulging and prosecuting this most heinous of crimes.
AUSTRALIA
ABC
The lawyer for a Catholic priest convicted of sex offences has asked a judge in the Hobart Criminal Court not to impose a crushing sentence on his elderly client.
Roger Michael Bellemore, 70, was found guilty of maintaining a sexual relationship with four young boys.
Bellemore abused the boys while working as a priest and teacher at Burnie's Marist College in the late 1960s and early 1970s .
Bellemore's lawyer Greg Walsh said while his client's actions were a serious breach of trust, it was not the worst case of its kind to come before the court.
SPRINGFIELD (MA)
The Republican
Friday, March 17, 2006
By MARY ELLEN LOWNEY
mlowney@repub.com
SPRINGFIELD - For the Croteau family, it's still not over.
But more than three decades after the murder of their young son Daniel, at least they are able to see and hold the voluminous record of the subsequent investigation that remains open to this day.
And to Carl Croteau, the father of the boy who was just 13 when he was beaten to death in 1972, that's something to be thankful for.
"There's never closure, as long as they're still investigating," said Croteau, a Springfield resident who is now 75 and a retired Hampden County Housing Court mediator.
"But to see what they had been compiling all those years, the things they told us were too important to the investigation to make public, that's something. We waited so long," he added.
The Croteau family had to wait for a 2004 Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruling that followed a challenge brought by The Republican and a Greenfield lawyer who represents clergy abuse plaintiffs. The case for disclosure, argued by a lawyer for The Republican before the high court, was opposed by both a lawyer for the prime suspect in the murder - a defrocked Roman Catholic priest - and Hampden County District Attorney William M. Bennett.
DAYTON (OH)
Dayton Daily News
By Tom Beyerlein
Dayton Daily News
DAYTON | The reform group Voice of the Faithful is urging area Catholics to boycott a fund associated with Cincinnati Archbishop Daniel E. Pilarczyk because of his handling of the priest child sex abuse scandal.
In a paid advertisement in Thursday's Dayton Daily News, the group called on Catholics to make direct contributions to Catholic charities instead of supporting the Archdiocesan Annual Fund, formerly the Archbishop's Fund, which is one of the archdiocese's main fundraising campaigns.
The ad includes a note for Catholics to leave in the collection basket reading: "I will not give directly to the 2006 Archdiocesan Fund because I have not seen adequate accountability by Archbishop Pilarczyk and the hierarchy of the Catholic Church regarding the clergy sex abuse crisis."
GERMANTOWN (PA)
Gazette
Thursday, March 16, 2006
by Melissa A. Chadwick
Staff Writer
A Germantown man was sentenced to two and a half years in prison after pleading guilty to sexually abusing young girls he met through his role as a church deacon.
Gerald Hinson White, 63, pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual abuse of a minor and one count of child abuse in connection with incidents involving three victims.
Circuit Court Judge Paul H. Weinstein sentenced White Feb. 24 to the two and a half year term with credit for 257 days served, according to court records.
He was also sentenced to five year’s supervised probation upon his release from prison, court records state.
White served for more than seven years as a deacon at Central Baptist Church located at 7271 Muncaster Mill Road in Derwood. He also worked as a professional freelance photographer for an Olney-based studio, according to Montgomery County police.
HOMESTEAD (PA)
KDKA
(KDKA) HOMESTEAD A local pastor is being held in the Allegheny County Jail tonight on charges that he sexually abused a teenage boy during counseling sessions over a three-year span.
Duane Youngblood of the Higher Call World Outreach Church in Homestead turned himself in to police headquarters this morning.
According to the police report, the victim's mother sent the teenager to Youngblood for counseling after reading in her son's journal that he had been sexually assaulted by an older cousin.
"We're alleging that in the fall of 2002, the victim -- who was a 15-year-old male at the time – had gone to Mr. Youngblood for some counseling sessions," explains Allegheny County Police Lt. Bob Downey.
PENNSYLVANIA
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Friday, March 17, 2006
By Jonathan D. Silver, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Duane E. Youngblood, a married pastor from Wilmerding and the father of five, was arrested yesterday for molesting a 15-year-old boy whom he was counseling for being sexually abused.
Bishop Youngblood, of the Higher Call World Outreach Church on Mifflin Street in Homestead, surrendered yesterday morning at Allegheny County Police headquarters in Point Breeze. He was accompanied by his attorney, Richard Joyce.
Mr. Youngblood, 39, was charged with involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, indecent assault, corruption of minors and sexual assault. Police accused him of a single incident of molesting a 15-year-old boy in his church office in the fall of 2002.
GUAM
KUAM
by Mindy Fothergill, KUAM News
Friday, March 17, 2006
39-year-old Pastor Andrew was arrested by Juvenile Investigation Division agents today accused of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old female known to him. JIS agents arrested Andrew on charges of criminal sexual conduct, child abuse, jurisdiction over an adult, and terrorizing. According to police Andrew is accused of sexually assaulting the female minor then forcing her to have sexual relations with a neighbor.
JACKSON (MS)
Houston Chronicle
Associated Press
JACKSON, MISS. - The Roman Catholic Diocese of Jackson agreed Thursday to pay $5.1 million to 19 people who claimed they were molested by priests over three decades.
"I sincerely hope that this settlement will bring a sense of peace to all those who have suffered as a result of the acts of a few," Bishop Joseph Latino said.
The settlement includes three brothers who filed a $48 million lawsuit against the diocese in 2002, and 16 "John Does" who filed similar complaints.
BOSTON (MA)
The Republican
Friday, March 17, 2006
By DAN RING
dring@repub.com
BOSTON - Advocates from Western Massachusetts are pushing for approval of bills that would abolish the statute of limitations in criminal and civil cases involving the sexual abuse of minors.
Supporters packed Beacon Hill on Wednesday for a hearing on the bills by the Judiciary Committee. Backers said they are optimistic that the bills can pass if the full Legislature votes before formal sessions end on July 31.
Approval of the bills would help a lot of people, said Peter C. Pollard, 54, of Hatfield, coordinator in Western Massachusetts for the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests.
JACKSON (MS)
The Clarion-Ledger
By Jimmie E. Gates
jgates@clarionledger.com
The Catholic Diocese of Jackson will pay more than $5.1 million to settle six lawsuits involving 19 individuals who were sexually abused as children by priests or had loved ones who were abused.
Thursday's settlement announcement came after years of litigation and more than a year of mediation. It is the first such settlement of a diocese case in the state.
All the lawsuits involved alleged sexual abuse by priests occurring from the early 1960s to the early 1980s.
The church will pay $731,250 of its own money and the remainder of the $5,162,500 will be paid by church insurers.
MISSISSIPPI
The Clarion-Ledger
Special to The Clarion-Ledger
"A settlement has been reached between 19 individuals who were sexually abused as children by priests or who had loved ones who were abused and the Catholic Diocese of Jackson, attorneys for the parties announced today. The announcement came following years of litigation and over a year of mediation efforts to try to resolve the cases which were filed beginning in 2002.
"The Catholic diocese and its insurers have agreed to pay the total sum of $5,162,500 to the group of 19 individuals whose claims are being settled.
The settlement also includes certain non-monetary terms, such as the Catholic diocese's agreement to issue a public apology, the diocese's agreement to remove any person against whom there has been a credible allegation of abuse from any position of influence over policy and decision making regarding sexual abuse claims; and, the diocese's obligation to publicly disclose any policy changes which have been implemented by the church to 1) deter abuse of this nature; 2) promote reporting of such actions; and, 3) ensure prompt investigation upon receipt of allegations of abuse and prompt remedial action if necessary. According to the Diocese, The non-monetary terms in this settlement agreement reflect the Catholic diocese's long-standing commitment to protect children of the Church."
MISSISSIPPI
The Clarion-Ledger
A settlement has been reached between the Catholic Diocese of Jackson and 19 individuals suing the diocese over allegations of sexual abuse by priests. attorneys for the parties announced today.
The diocese and its insurers have agreed to pay $5,162,500 to the group, according to a statement released this afternoon.
Among the suits being settled is one brought by Kenneth, Thomas and Francis Morrison. The brothers filed a $48 million lawsuit in Hinds County Circuit Court in 2002. They claimed they were abused by a priest more than 30 years ago. The trial had been on hold while the Supreme Court considered the diocese's motion for dismissal.
JACKSON (MS)
Sun Herald
Associated Press
JACKSON, Miss. - The Roman Catholic Diocese of Jackson agreed Thursday to pay $5.1 million to 19 people who claimed they were molested by priests over three decades.
"I sincerely hope that this settlement will bring a sense of peace to all those who have suffered as a result of the acts of a few," Bishop Joseph Latino said in a statement.
The settlement includes three brothers who filed a $48 million lawsuit against the diocese in 2002, and 16 "John Does" who filed similar complaints.
UTAH
The Salt Lake Tribune
By Nate Carlisle
The Salt Lake Tribune
A Washington County pastor and child care worker admitted to police he fondled, kissed and was sexually attracted to an 11-year-old girl, according to charges filed Wednesday in 5th District Court.
Gabriel E. Carlin, 32, was charged with four counts of aggravated child sex abuse, a first-degree felony punishable by up to life in prison. St. George police say the abuse occurred when Carlin, a teacher and pastor at East Harbor Christian Academy in the town of Washington, earlier this year gave an 11-year-old student a ride to her home in St. George.
At the girl's home, Carlin asked to see her bedroom, said St. George Police Department spokesman Craig Harding. In the bedroom, Carlin touched the 11-year-old in inappropriate places outside her clothing, Harding said.
The girl then made excuses about needing to do work and Carlin left, Harding said. The child later told her parents what occurred and the parents went to police.
HOMESTEAD (PA)
KDKA
(KDKA) HOMESTEAD A local pastor is now facing charges that he sexually abused a 15-year-old boy whom he had been counseling nearly four years ago.
Duane Youngblood of the World Outreach Church in Homestead turned himself in to police headquarters this morning.
The abuse allegedly happened in the fall of 2002. The victim, 15 years-old at the time, sought counseling from Youngblood.
“During the course of these counseling sessions, we’re alleging that Mr. Youngblood sexually abused the victim,” said Lt. Bob Downey, of Allegheny County Police.
He says the victim didn’t tell police about the alleged abuse until the fall of 2005.
IRELAND
Irish Examiner
The appointment of an independent watchdog to ensure the Church is implementing its child protection policy will be announced within days, it emerged today.
The watchdog will assess whether the Our Children, Our Church guidelines - published in response to the Ferns Report – are being exercised in every diocese in the state.
Minister Brian Lenihan told the Joint Committee on Health and Children that the Church’s guidelines were a step in the right direction, but that he could now validate or confirm that they were totally satisfactory.
He added an amendment to the Criminal Justice Act 2004, currently being prepared, will create an offence of reckless endangerment of children.
BOSTON (MA)
Bay Windows
Sue Hyde
Officer, arrest that man in the sackcloth gown!
I refer, of course, to the Most Rev. Seán Patrick O’Malley, Archbishop of Boston. The very same Archbishop O’Malley who has decreed that Catholic Charities will cease and desist all work on adoptions in the state in order that the Archbishop shall not soil his hands by having contact with homosexuality.
I call for the arrest and detention of Archbishop O’Malley on three charges:
• Conspiring to endanger children by failing to put in place key reforms to detect and prevent sexual abuse of children by persons in his employ.
• Conspiring to avoid and circumvent Massachusetts non-discrimination laws and policies by precipitously withdrawing social services to hundreds of difficult-to-place children awaiting adoption in foster care and other out-of-home living situations.
• Repeated failure to pay local and state property taxes on extensive holdings in the Boston area and throughout the state.
On the first matter, the office of the Attorney General of Massachusetts has written a letter to Archbishop Seán pointing out that there is not yet a method of overseeing or tracking the whereabouts of allegedly abusive priests and that the Archdiocese has not completed sexual-abuse prevention programs for all children. Now let’s get this straight: four years ago, the tawdry and shameful priest sexual abuse scandal exploded in Boston at Ground Zero, the Archbishop’s office. The Archdiocese ended up admitting that seven percent of its priests had been accused of sexually abusing 815 children between 1950 and 2003. Surely, an institution that cares about children would have moved heaven and earth to protect children from rampaging abusive priests (No!) and to ensure that effective sexual abuse prevention programs had been established (No!). The AG’s office describes the failure to monitor abusive priests, former priests and church workers as a “critical safety issue.” Archbishop O’Malley jeopardizes the safety of children all over the Commonwealth and yet freely wanders the streets of our city.
KENTUCKY
The Cincinnati Post
Post staff report
A 20-year-old Boone County, Ky., church youth group volunteer was arrested Tuesday on sexual abuse charges after investigators said he fondled a 14-year-old girl at the Burlington church a year and a half ago.
Anthony R. Cummings is charged with two counts of third-degree sexual abuse.
Leaders at the First Church of Christ in Burlington reported the allegations to the Boone County Sheriff's Department immediately after the girl's parents contacted church officials, said sheriff's department spokesman Deputy Tom Scheben. Investigators found evidence Cummings fondled the girl while he volunteered in student ministries on the church campus.
"The parents of the girl found e-mails that the two of them had sent back and forth and contacted the church," Scheben said.
SPOKANE (WA)
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
SPOKANE, Wash. -- Donations from parishioners are up in the Catholic Diocese of Spokane, despite a priest sex abuse controversy that prompted the diocese to seek bankruptcy protection.
Donations have gone up this year to the Annual Catholic Appeal, which raises money for ministry and is the major source of money for the diocese's programs in Eastern Washington.
The number of donors and the total pledge amount are higher compared with the same time period last year, figures show. So far, about 6,800 Catholic households have pledged $1.56 million, nearly 92 percent of the diocese's goal of $1.7 million.
OHIO
Springfield News-Sun
A former Springfield and Urbana Catholic priest was put on administrative leave Wednesday because he allegedly engaged in inappropriate sexual behavior with a minor in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Donald Shelander, a retired priest of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, denied accusations reported by an adult male in his 40s that Shelander, 69, allegedly inappropriately touched him while he was 14 to 18 years old, according to officials from the Archdiocese of Cincinnati.
Shelander was associate pastor of St. Mary Church in Urbana during the time of the alleged incidents.
CINCINNATI (OH)
Dayton Daily News
By the Dayton Daily News
CINCINNATI | A retired priest and former pastor in Urbana is on administrative leave stemming from a report that he inappropriately touched and engaged in other inappropriate sexual behavior with a minor in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Archdiocese of Cincinnati said Wednesday.
The leave for Donald E. Shelander, 69, announced by Cincinnati Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk, "does not represent a presumption of guilt on the part of the archdiocese.
"In accordance with church law, it is a response to an allegation deemed to have the 'semblance of truth' while further steps are taken," a statement issued by archdiocese spokesman Dan Andriacco's office said.
The leave — the strongest step a diocesan bishop can take on his own — prohibits Shelander from celebrating sacraments or presenting himself as a priest.
The archdiocese said a man reported that Shelander engaged "in a series of inappropriate activities with him while the complainant was 14 to 18 and Shelander was pastor of St. Mary Parish in Urbana."
SOUTH DAKOTA
Yankton Press & Dakotan
Thursday, March 16, 2006
Story last updated at 12:25 AM on Mar. 16, 2006
Sister Mary Carole Curran, Victim Assistance Coordinator for the Catholic Diocese of Sioux Falls, will be available in Yankton on Thursday, March 23, at the Avera Sacred Heart Hospital Benedictine Center. If any individuals are having concerns about the actions of any priest or other representative of the Catholic church over the years towards themselves or others should plan to visit with her.
Call (800) 700-7867 to set up a time. Appointments will be spaced sufficiently to ensure confidentiality.
MARBLE FALLS (TX)
The Highlander News
By Angela Timmons, Highland Lakes Newspapers
The Burnet County grand jury indictment of a Roman Catholic priest, arrested in mid-December for allegedly groping a 16-year-old Burnet boy in a Marble Falls theater, was released Monday.
The indictment charges Father Paul Maurice Clogan with indecency with a child by contact. The indictment states Clogan “did then and there, with the intent to arouse or gratify the sexual desire of said defendant, intentionally or knowingly engage in sexual contact with MFPD #208, a child younger than 17 years and not the spouse of the defendant.”
Marble Falls Police Sgt. Glenn Hanson, who has led the investigation against Clogan since the Dec. 16, 2005, incident at Marble Falls’ Driftwood Theater, said the priest had been the priest at Horseshoe Bay’s St. Paul the Apostle Parish since August 2004.
Hanson said his investigation has involved documents from the Diocese of Austin, through which Clogan already was being investigated because of complaints from parishioners. A letter to Clogan from diocese Bishop Gregory Aymond informs the priest that he was to be transferred to lesser role in Austin effective Feb. 27, 2006.
CINCINNATI (OH)
Cincinnati Enquirer
BY DAN HORN | ENQUIRER STAFF WRITER
The Archdiocese of Cincinnati suspended a retired priest Wednesday because of accusations he sexually abused a teenaged boy in the 1970s and early 1980s.
The Rev. Donald E. Shelander, a former teacher at Catholic Central High School in Springfield, now is barred from presiding at Mass or performing any other priestly duties.
Church officials said the alleged victim, now an adult, made the accusation late last year. They said a church investigator looked into the claim and found the allegations had a "semblance of truth," the standard needed to suspend a priest.
The case now will be investigated further to determine whether the Vatican should consider permanently removing Shelander from the priesthood.
Church spokesman Dan Andriacco said the accuser told church officials the abuse occurred when he was between 14 and 18 years old, while Shelander was pastor at St. Mary Parish in Urbana.
He said Shelander has denied the allegations.
LOS ANGELES (CA)
Los Angeles Times
By Jean Guccione, Times Staff Writer
March 14, 2006
The Roman Catholic Church has tentatively agreed to pay more than $28 million to 25 people who say they were molested by Franciscan friars, attorneys involved in the negotiations said Monday.
The deal marks the first settlement involving the Los Angeles Archdiocese since the sex-abuse scandal began four years ago. It comes as lawyers were preparing to try the first cases against the Franciscan Friars of California and the Los Angeles Archdiocese for failing to protect children from predatory priests.
"We are delighted to see the successful resolution of these cases involving the Franciscans and would hope it would stimulate comparable participation with other orders as well," said attorney J. Michael Hennigan, who represents Cardinal Roger M. Mahony in the clergy sex-abuse litigation. The archdiocese, slated to contribute less than $2 million, is still working with insurers to come up with its share of the settlement, he said.
Though named in most of the lawsuits, the archdiocese played a minor role in the proposed deal, according to lawyers, because Franciscan priests and brothers allegedly molested most of their victims at the now-defunct St. Anthony's Seminary in Santa Barbara. A few cases involved Franciscans at church parishes within the archdiocese.
ST. GEORGE (UT)
KSL
March 15th, 2006 @ 9:13pm
ST. GEORGE, Utah (AP) -- A St. George man described by police as a pastor and teacher at a private school, has been arrested and accused of sexually abusing an 11-year-old girl, who was a student at the school.
Gabriel E. Carlin, 32, a teacher at East Harbor Christian Academy in Washington, was booked into Purgatory Correctional Facility on four counts of first-degree felony sexual abuse of a minor.
He was being held on $100,000 bail.
St. George police Sgt. Craig Harding said Carlin allegedly gave the girl a ride to her home from school and there allegedly was "some inappropriate touching involved. All touching was over the clothes, no clothes were removed."
ST. GEORGE (UT)
Deseret Morning News
By Ben Winslow
Deseret Morning News
A pastor was jailed after St. George police said he molested an 11-year-old student at a Christian school where he was a teacher.
Gabriel E. Carlin, 32, St. George, was booked into the Purgatory Correctional Facility Tuesday night for investigation of four counts of sexual abuse of a minor, a first-degree felony.
Police said they asked prosecutors to enhance the charges because Carlin was in a position of trust over the victim.
Carlin taught at the East Harbor Christian Academy in Washington, Washington County, where the victim attended school, St. George Police Sgt. Craig Harding said. The reported abuse began nearly a month ago, investigators said.
CINCINNATI (OH)
WHIO
The Archdiocese of Cincinnati has put a retired priest on administrative leave because of child sexual abuse allegations. They stem from his time as a pastor in Urbana nearly three decades ago.
As a result of today's action, Donald Shelander cannot celebrate
the sacraments or present himself as a priest in any way. Shelander
was pastor of St. Mary Parish in Urbana in 1977-83. He retired in
2002.
SPOKANE (WA)
The News Tribune
NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS; The Associated Press
Published: March 16th, 2006 01:00 AM
SPOKANE – The parishes of the Catholic Diocese of Spokane do not want to help pay for a $45.7 million settlement offer made by Bishop William Skylstad to 75 victims of sexual abuse by priests, an attorney said Wednesday.
The 82 parishes were expected to shoulder a hefty portion of the settlement costs, but instead will ask U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Patricia Williams to reject the settlement offer, said Bob Hailey, an attorney and spokesman for the parishes.
“This settlement doesn’t provide a mechanism for parishes to protect their churches and schools,” Hailey said.
Skylstad, who is president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic bishops, was not available for comment.
CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune
By Jeff Coen, Tribune staff reporter. Tribune staff reporter Manya A. Brachear contributed to this report
Published March 16, 2006
The Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago complied this week with a request by Cook County prosecutors for records related to a priest charged with sexual abuse of minors, a lawyer for the archdiocese said.
The state's attorney's office had subpoenaed any material related to knowledge the archdiocese may have had about Rev. Daniel McCormack's alleged conduct, including any complaints against him, sources close to the investigation said.
Church attorney James Geoly said the archdiocese had complied fully with the prosecutors' request. Records turned over included personnel records, incident reports and documents "dating back to McCormack's seminary days," he said.
McCormack has pleaded not guilty to charges of aggravated criminal sexual abuse. He is accused of molesting three boys at St. Agatha Church on the West Side.
Geoly said that on Monday he delivered approximately 900 pages of records to the state's attorney's office and another file containing about 25 pages to Criminal Court Judge Thomas Sumner for his inspection in chambers.
LOUISVILLE (KY)
Kentucky.com
BRETT BARROUQUERE
Associated Press
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Even though nearly a third of what he'll receive in a sex abuse settlement from the Catholic Church will go to his attorneys, Dr. Robert Loheide sees it as a bargain.
"It's worth all of it, every penny," Loheide said.
Loheide is one of 389 people taking part in an $85 million class-action settlement with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Covington. The attorneys in the case have asked for 30 percent of the settlement - about $25.5 million - as their contingency fee for ending one of the larger sex abuse cases in the country.
Two law professors say the attorneys' fees in that settlement and many other class-action suits are above the national average.
New York University law professor Geoffrey Miller and Cornell University law professor Theodore Eisenberg researched 370 class-action settlements over a 10-year period.
They published a report stating that the 30 to 40 percent fees often cited as normal by attorneys isn't backed up by evidence. Instead, they concluded that attorneys fees on average are 21.9 percent of the settlement or jury award.
"Taken as a whole, the evidence suggests that one-third is the benchmark for privately negotiated contingent fees, but that significant variation up and occasional variation down exist as well," Eisenberg and Miller wrote.
SPOKANE (WA)
KGW
03/15/2006
By NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS / Associated Press
The individual parishes of the Catholic Diocese of Spokane do not want to help pay for a $45.7 million settlement offer made by Bishop William Skylstad to 75 victims of sexual abuse by priests, an attorney said Wednesday.
The 82 parishes were expected to shoulder a hefty portion of the settlement costs, but instead will ask U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Patricia Williams to reject the settlement offer, said Bob Hailey, an attorney and spokesman for the parishes.
"This settlement doesn't provide a mechanism for parishes to protect their churches and schools," Hailey said.
Skylstad, who is president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic bishops, was not available for comment immediately.
CINCINNATI (OH)
The Beacon Journal
Associated Press
CINCINNATI - The Archdiocese of Cincinnati put a retired Roman Catholic priest on administrative leave Wednesday because of child sexual abuse allegations stemming from his time as a pastor in Urbana nearly three decades ago.
As a result of the action, Donald E. Shelander cannot celebrate the sacraments or present himself as a priest in any way. Shelander, pastor of St. Mary Parish in Urbana in 1977-83, retired in 2002, the archdiocese said.
"So far as we can determine from our records, these are the first allegations of sexual abuse against him," said archdiocese spokesman Dan Andriacco.
An adult male recently reported to the archdiocese that Shelander engaged in inappropriate sexual behavior with him when the man was 14 to 18 years old. A private investigator for the archdiocese looked into the allegations, and the archdiocese found that they had "the semblance of truth." However, Wednesday's action by Archbishop Daniel E. Pilarczyk doesn't mean a presumption of guilt, the archdiocese said.
Shelander could not be reached for comment Wednesday. There was no answer to telephone calls to his home.
BOSTON (MA)
The Daily Free Press
By Alex Taylor
Published: Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Adult victims who suffered sex abuse as children joined with support organizations to rally outside the Statehouse steps Tuesday morning, hours before the Joint Committee on the Judiciary held a hearing on bills that would eliminate the statute of limitations on sex crimes commit against minors.
The Coalition to Reform Sex Abuse Laws in Massachusetts urged the Joint Judiciary Committee to send three bills to the legislature that would end the statute of limitations on childhood sex abuse crimes, which states victims of sexual abuse cannot raise charges against their attackers six to 15 years -- depending on the nature of the crime -- after the victim's 16th birthday.
"Sexual predators are able to hide their crimes for years with guilt and intimidation," Lt Gov. Kerry Healey said before the committee. "Sexual offenders remain active for many years and most are never caught."
BOSTON (MA)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests
By Gintautus Dumcius
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE
STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, MARCH 14, 2006
Flanked by abuse victims holding pictures of sons and daughters and of themselves, legislators and activists seeking to reform state sexual abuse laws today urged lawmakers to pass bills extending the civil and criminal statutes of limitations and lifting immunity protections afforded to charitable organizations.
Members of The Coalition to Reform Sexual Abuse Laws Tuesday decried the
"justice gap" created by the current system that they say aids pedophiles
and their enablers. They held a press conference outside the gates of the
State House, before packing the Joint Judiciary Committee to testify.
By the time some survivors are ready to come out and admit they were
sexually abused, "the clock has stopped ticking," said Jetta Bernier,
executive director of the Massachusetts Citizens for Children. "The vast
majority of survivors will never be able to bring their abusers to justice."
BOSTON (MA)
Lowell Sun
By ERIK ARVIDSON, Sun Statehouse Bureau
BOSTON -- Describing child sexual abuse as "the perfect crime," advocates for victims made another push yesterday for legislation that would lift the statute of limitations for many sexual offenses.
"Child sexual abuse is a uniquely insidious and damaging crime," Jetta Bernier, executive director of Massachusetts Citizens for Children, said at a Statehouse press conference. "It's the only crime wherein the victim is manipulated into believing that they themselves are responsible for their own victimization."
John Mackey, the retired police chief from Tewksbury, whose daughter was allegedly sexually abused by a Catholic priest, said that sexual abuse by clergy is only "the tip of the iceberg."
"The vast majority of sexual abuse is not clergy related. This devastating epidemic of deviant behavior takes on many faces including, but not limited to, family members, friends, teachers, coaches, police officers and strangers," Mackey said.
KENTUCKY
The Cincinnati Post
By Paul A. Long
Post staff reporter
A senior judge in Boone County has backed away from his appointment of a Cincinnati attorney to oversee the settlement of a class-action sexual-abuse lawsuit against the Diocese of Covington.
After meeting privately with attorneys on both sides of the case Tuesday, Judge John Potter agreed to rescind his appointment of Matthew Garretson, who has overseen settlements in similar cases in Louisville and Cincinnati. The attorneys had objected to Garretson's appointment, saying it was unnecessary and that he was unqualified.
Instead, Potter said he would appoint Thomas Lambros, a retired federal judge who already is one of two special masters in charge of evaluating claims and awarding settlement funds to victims. That met with the approval of both diocese attorney Carrie Huff and class attorney Stan Chesley.
"We're very pleased," said Chesley, noting that Lambros was the chief judge in the Northern District of Ohio for many years.
As overseer, Lambros will keep Potter up to date on the settlement process and apprise him of any problems that need his attention.
BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe
March 15, 2006
THE SEXUAL ABUSE scandal has faded from the headlines, but the arrest of a Maynard teacher is a reminder that abuse is hard to eradicate, and difficult for victims to acknowledge. The Massachusetts Legislature needs to make these cases easier to prosecute by lifting the statute of limitations for the crime of sexually abusing children.
Under current law, suspects cannot be prosecuted 15 years after the accuser reaches age 16. Using that standard, the Rev. John Geoghan was not prosecuted for any abuse in the 1970s and 1980s. He was finally put in prison for fondling a boy in the early 1990s. The Rev. Paul Shanley would not have been liable for his crimes at St. Jean's parish in Newton in the 1980s. He was prosecuted only because he had left the state in 1992. The statute of limitations is suspended in such cases.
Martha Coakley, the Middlesex district attorney, originally favored keeping the statute. She has changed her mind in light of her experience in prosecuting these and other cases since the abuse scandal involving the Archdiocese of Boston broke open four years ago. ''It takes a long time for the victims to come forward," Coakley said in a telephone interview, ''sometimes 30 or 40 years."
COLORADO
CBS 4
A federal magistrate on Tuesday called a former Episcopalian priest a danger to the community.
The judge denied bond for Donald Shissler, 72, Tuesday morning.
In 2002, Shissler pled guilty to assault charges involving an underage boy, but he was recently awarded a new trial.
Shissler now faces 8 counts of sexual assault on a child by a person in trust.
According to the Denver District Attorney’s office, Shissler lured young boys to his Denver home with promises of candy bars, games, a hot tub, a computer and television.
CHICAGO (IL)
CBS 2
(STNG) CHICAGO "If the parents aren't pushing it, let it go." That's what a nun who reported instances of sexual abuse by the Rev. Daniel McCormack was told by an Archdiocese of Chicago official, a lawsuit filed Tuesday alleges.
The suit was filed in Cook County Circuit Court on behalf of a minor who was reportedly abused by McCormack at St. Agatha's Parish. The suit names the Archdiocese of Chicago and Francis Cardinal George as defendants.
The suit claims the archdiocese was told repeatedly by a nun who was principal of the elementary school at Holy Family Parish that McCormack was sexually abusing children, but the archdiocese ignored her warnings.
CALIFORNIA
Whittier Daily News
Associated Press
LOS ANGELES - Franciscan friars have reached a preliminary settlement of more than $28 million with about two dozen people who claimed they were sexually abused at a now-defunct Santa Barbara seminary and mission, officials said Monday.
Attorney Raymond Boucher, who represents eight of the plaintiffs, said the average payment would be about $1.27 million. The figure was confirmed by the friars. "Under the circumstances, I think this was a very fair settlement," Boucher said. "Some will get significantly more, some will get significantly less, depending on their facts and circumstances." Attorney Tim Hale, who represents 13 of the plaintiffs, said the tentative pact is similar to a 2004 agreement in which the Diocese of Orange settled 90 abuse claims for $100 million and released documents involving the predatory priests. "In making this settlement, we friars are trying to do the right thing and help bring about healing," the Rev. Melvin A. Jurisich, provincial minister for the Franciscan Friars, Province of Saint Barbara, said in a statement.
WASHINGTON
The Seattle Times
By Janet I. Tu
One is the product of a Catholic home, parochial schools and a Jesuit college. He's cool-headed and analytical, speaking in measured tones.
The other is the grandson of Jewish immigrants from Russia. He's demonstrative, advocating for clients in passionate torrents.
Together, Seattle-area attorneys Michael Pfau and Timothy Kosnoff represent the vast majority of sex-abuse victims who've sued the Roman Catholic Church in Seattle and in Spokane, where the diocese has filed for bankruptcy.
Their work as a team began just three years ago but already has been highly successful, including a recent settlement proposal from the Spokane Diocese that goes beyond a sizable dollar amount.
BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe
By Raja Mishra, Globe Staff | March 15, 2006
Backed by high-profile political allies, advocates for victims of clergy sexual abuse urged lawmakers yesterday to eliminate the statute of limitations on sexual crimes against children, a proposal that quietly died in past years but appears to have more momentum this time around.
First at a fiery press conference on the steps of Beacon Hill, then at a lengthy and emotional hearing inside the State House, the advocates argued that sexual abuse victims often take years or decades to come to grips with their abuse and report it to authorities. The advocates say they want to give prosecutors the tools to bring accused abusers to justice no matter how old the crime. Currently, sexual crimes against children that took place 15 or more years ago cannot be prosecuted.
Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey, a candidate for governor who was speaking for the Romney administration, called the state's current limits on prosecution outdated, saying, ''The Commonwealth is effectively allowing hundreds of sexual predators to remain free."
The bill has won the backing of Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly, a Democrat also running for governor, as well as 73 members of the Legislature.
BOSTON (MA)
The Eagle Tribune
Ed Mason
Staff Writer
BOSTON — Sexual abuse victims say the scars left by their attackers never go away. But their chance to pursue their attackers in court does.
State lawmakers are considering legislation to end the 15-year limit on bringing criminal charges against attackers. Another bill they are considering would lift the 3-year limit for victims to sue their attackers.
At a Statehouse rally and later before a four-hour Judiciary Committee hearing yesterday, advocates and victims called on lawmakers to approve the changes.
Jetta Bernier, a Boxford native and executive director of Massachusetts Citizens for Children, said eliminating the statutes of limitations is critical to making the legal system work for victims of sexual abuse.
SWAZILAND
The Swazi Observer
By Njabulo Dlamini
A pastor of a well-known and established church is alleged to have sodomised a pupil from one of the prominent schools outside the city.
The pupil is said to have narrated his plight to one of the teachers at the school, after having endured the trauma for some time.
This newspaper has it on authority that this is not the first time the pastor committed such an offence but he might have stirred the hornet’s nest now as relatives and the administration at the school are pursuing the issue to its end.
The head teacher confirmed the incident, adding that he was awaiting feedback from the boy’s parents and teachers on their investigations.
“I was away when the matter was first reported to the administration and the deputy was acting on my behalf. When I returned, he informed me about it and the course of action they had undertaken.
CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Sun-Times
March 14, 2006
FROM STAFF REPORTS
"If the parents aren't pushing it, let it go." That's what a nun who reported instances of sexual abuse by the Rev. Daniel McCormack was told by an Archdiocese of Chicago official, a lawsuit filed Tuesday alleges.
The suit was filed in Cook County Circuit Court on behalf of a minor who was reportedly abused by McCormack at St. Agatha's Parish. The suit names the Archdiocese of Chicago and Francis Cardinal George as defendants.
The suit claims the archdiocese was told repeatedly by a nun who was principal of the elementary school at Holy Family Parish that McCormack was sexually abusing children, but the archdiocese ignored her warnings.
In one instance in the winter of 2000, the suit claims the nun reported to the archdiocese that McCormack had asked a fourth-grade boy to pull down his pants in the sacristy of Holy Family Church.
BURLINGTON (KY)
WKYT
BURLINGTON, Ky. -- A retired federal judge will oversee payments to victims of sexual abuse in the Diocese of Covington as part of an $85 million class-action settlement.
Thomas Lambros, the former chief judge of the northern district of Ohio, also will serve as one of two special masters reviewing claims and deciding how much each victim will receive.
Special Judge John Potter of Louisville appointed Lambros as monitor on Tuesday after attorneys in the case objected to his original choice to have lawyer Matt Garretson of Blue Ash, Ohio, oversee payments.
The settlement covers 361 victims who claim they were abused over a period of 50 years by priests in a diocese that once included 57 counties across a large swath of Kentucky.
KENTUCKY
The Cincinnati Post
By Paul A. Long
Post staff reporter
5The judge presiding over the sexual-abuse lawsuit against the Diocese of Covington has no authority to appoint a monitor to oversee the distribution of payments, both sides said in a rare joint filing in Boone Circuit Court.
Attorneys Stan Chesley and Carrie Huff are asking Senior Judge John Potter to rescind the appointment of Cincinnati attorney Matthew Garretson. Both argue that Garretson is not only unqualified for the position, he is unnecessary and unwanted.
Potter made the appointment last week, saying he wanted someone to act as his "eyes and ears." He previously said he planned to make the appointment, and even then, both sides objected, saying the job was an unnecessary expense, with tasks that far more qualified people were already doing. A hearing on the dispute is set for today.
LOUISIANA
The Times-Picayune
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
By Bruce Nolan
Staff writer
Eight more men who lived as children at Madonna Manor in the 1950s and 1960s have filed a new wave of lawsuits charging they were beaten and occasionally sexually molested at the Catholic institution.
The charges raise the total to 14 men who have filed public accusations of brutality or sexual molestation at the hands of nuns, priests, brothers and civilian staff at the Marrero facility. The home sheltered children from troubled or impoverished families as part of the charitable arm of the Catholic church.
The latest lawsuits were filed in four weeks in January and February. Six lawsuits were filed shortly before Hurricane Katrina.
The concentration of complaints against Madonna Manor is far higher than anything the Archdiocese of New Orleans has seen with regard to any other single institution or person in its experience with allegations of child sexual abuse.
Archdiocesan spokesman the Rev. William Maestri said the archdiocese is looking into the latest allegations.
MARYLAND
Insurance Journal
March 14, 2006
Witnesses who had been sexually abused as children offered what Maryland House Speaker Michael Busch described as "gut wrenching'' testimony in Annapolis on behalf of legislation that would extend the cutoff time for filing civil lawsuits against abusers.
Two men, including CNN news anchor Thomas Roberts, testified before the House Judiciary Committee last week about the abuse they said they suffered at the hands of a Roman Catholic priest who was chaplain at a Baltimore high school.
"I'm a sexual abuse survivor,'' Roberts, 33, said at a hearing where he was one of almost 40 witnesses who were victims of child sexual abuse who signed up for the committee.
Roberts said he stayed silent for almost 20 years about his abuse. But at the hearing, he sat beside Michael Goles, a former Maryland resident, who filed an unsuccessful civil suit against Jerome F. Toohey Jr., who was at one time chaplain of Calvert Hall College High School in Baltimore County.
SPOKANE (WA)
The Oregonian
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
SPOKANE -- The number of claims of sexual abuse by priests in the Catholic Diocese of Spokane has jumped to at least 176, more than double since the diocese filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection a year ago.
The bankruptcy court imposed a deadline for people to file claims by last Friday, and at least 176 had been received, church lawyers said. They probably will cost many millions of dollars to settle.
Church attorney Greg Arpin of Spokane declined Monday to give the exact number of claims, saying they were being tabulated.
WATERVILLE (ME)
Morning Sentinel
By COLIN HICKEY
Staff Writer
WATERVILLE -- A long-time organist for the Parish of the Holy Spirit has been accused of sexually abusing a minor about 35 years ago.
In response to that allegation, authorities from Maine's Roman Catholic Church have suspended Toni Breton, a Waterville resident, from her volunteer duties while the church conducts an investigation, according to Sue Bernard, a spokeswoman for the Diocese of Portland.
Bernard said the diocese determined the accusation was credible and therefore took the next step of suspending the accused from her church duties and informing parishioners and the general public of the allegations.
The Diocese also informed civil authorities of the sexual abuse charge, she said.
FORT COLLINS (CO)
Rocky Mountain News
By Deborah Frazier, Rocky Mountain News
March 14, 2006
FORT COLLINS - A Catholic priest removed from his large parish three years ago assaulted two boys and one young man over a period of several years, according to an arrest affidavit released Monday.
The Rev. Timothy Evans, 43, first assaulted a parishioner's son at Spirit of Christ Church in Arvada in 1996, according to the affidavit.
Evans then moved to the St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish in Fort Collins in 1998 where, the affidavit says, he assaulted another boy in 1999 and a young man in 2000.
None of the assaults was reported to the archdiocese or police until 2002. Evans was removed from his duties at the Fort Collins parish that year.
LOS ANGELES (CA)
Los Angeles Times
By Jean Guccione, Times Staff Writer
March 14, 2006
The Roman Catholic Church has tentatively agreed to pay more than $28 million to 25 people who say they were molested by Franciscan friars, attorneys involved in the negotiations said Monday.
The deal marks the first settlement involving the Los Angeles Archdiocese since the sex-abuse scandal began four years ago. It comes as lawyers were preparing to try the first cases against the Franciscan Friars of California and the Los Angeles Archdiocese for failing to protect children from predatory priests.
"We are delighted to see the successful resolution of these cases involving the Franciscans and would hope it would stimulate comparable participation with other orders as well," said attorney J. Michael Hennigan, who represents Cardinal Roger M. Mahony in the clergy sex-abuse litigation. The archdiocese, slated to contribute less than $2 million, is still working with insurers to come up with its share of the settlement, he said.
Though named in most of the lawsuits, the archdiocese played a minor role in the proposed deal, according to lawyers, because Franciscan priests and brothers allegedly molested most of their victims at the now-defunct St. Anthony's Seminary in Santa Barbara. A few cases involved Franciscans at church parishes within the archdiocese.
FORT COLLINS (CO)
Denver Post
By Mike McPhee and Eric Gorski
Denver Post Staff Writers
A Catholic priest with the Denver archdiocese allegedly tried to buy the silence of a youth who accused him of child sexual abuse and also has been implicated in two other instances of sexual misconduct: one involving a minor, the other, an adult man.
Those allegations are spelled out in an arrest affidavit made public Monday in the case against Timothy Joseph Evans, 43.
Church officials denied a claim in the affidavit - levied by a man who was over 18 when he said Evans touched him sexually - that they moved Evans to St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish in Fort Collins after learning of allegations against him at his previous assignment in Arvada.
Evans was removed from parish ministry in 2002, church officials said.
ST. LOUIS (MO)
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
By Robert Patrick
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
03/13/2006
A widow from the St. Louis area filed a wrongful death suit Monday against a jailed priest and the Roman Catholic Church, claiming the priest's sexual abuse of her husband caused him to commit suicide last year.
The husband, identified in court papers as "John Doe GS," filed his own suit just two months before his death. The suit says the Rev. Romano Ferraro abused him at St. Joan of Arc parish in south St. Louis multiple times in the early 1980s, when the plaintiff was 10 to 11. The suit also says the St. Louis Archdiocese knew or should have known that Ferraro was a danger.
John Doe GS, a computer industry worker, suppressed his memory of the abuse until the latter half of 2004, the lawsuits say. He struggled with episodic depression throughout his life. When he finally realized the root cause, he began to suffer more severe bouts of depression and attempted suicide on multiple occasions, even though he aggressively sought therapy, according to the lawsuits and a statement released Monday by the widow. He died July 14 of a gunshot wound.
COLORADO
The Coloradoan
By SARA REED
SaraReed@coloradoan.com
Allegations of sexual assault on a child by a former Catholic priest first came to light in March 2004 after the Archdiocese of Denver contacted Fort Collins police, according to an arrest affidavit released Monday.
Monsignor Thomas Fryar of the Archdiocese of Denver called Fort Collins police on March 30, 2004, to report the allegations of abuse against Timothy Evans, a priest at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, according to the affidavit.
Evans, 43, faces two counts of sexual assault on a child by a person in a position of trust, one count of sexual assault on a child - pattern of abuse and one count of contributing to the delinquency of a minor stemming from incidents alleged to have occurred from Sept. 1, 1998, to May 18, 1999, while Evans was serving at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton.
The alleged victim, who was 17 at the time, said Evans fondled him on two occasions at the Rectory where Evans lived.
WORCESTER (MA)
Telegram & Gazette
By Kathleen A. Shaw TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
kshaw@telegram.com
WORCESTER— Retired Tewksbury Police Chief John Mackey, whose daughter was instrumental in getting further prosecution of the Rev. Robert E. Kelley, will be among speakers at today’s Statehouse hearing in Boston on changes in the state’s laws dealing with sexual abuse of children.
Mr. Mackey first called for reform of the state laws regarding child sexual abuse at the 2003 sentencing of Rev. Kelley in Worcester Superior Court. He said at the time that chances of getting those changes were “slim to none” because of the strong lobby the Catholic Church has in the Legislature.However, three years later the Coalition to Reform Sex Abuse Laws in Massachusetts has mounted a heavy lobbying effort to push for reform and said the bills need to get out of committee.
Mr. Mackey will be joined today at an 11:30 a.m. press conference in front of the Statehouse by David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, also called SNAP; Ann Hagen Webb, a psychologist and survivor of clergy sexual abuse; Roy Simmons, a sexual abuse survivor, who formerly played with the New York Giants and Super Bowl XIII Washington Redskins; Jetta Bernier, executive director of Massachusetts Citizens for Children; and Carmen L. Durso, a Boston-based lawyer who has handled clergy sexual abuse suits, including several pending in the Worcester diocese.
Several of these advocates will then testify before the Massachusetts Joint Judiciary Committee on the need to change the statute of limitations for child sexual abuse cases and to remove or alter the $20,000 cap on what the Catholic Church has had to pay to those who were sexually abused by clergy. Other dioceses in the state waived the cap to give larger awards to victims, but the Worcester diocese has stuck to the cap and has given survivors settlements of much lower amounts.
Rev. Kelley, who was placed on leave by the Diocese of Worcester in 1986 after allegations were made that he abused girls, is serving a 5- to 7-year term in the Massachusetts Treatment Center, Bridgewater, in connection with the rape of Heather Mackey of Tewksbury. He has not been laicized, the church’s term for defrocked.
This is his second prison term. He served 6-1/2 years of a 7-year term in the state prisons after pleading guilty to the sexual abuse of Jennifer Kraskouskas of Gardner when he was assigned to Sacred Heart parish in Gardner.
Ms. Mackey said the abuse happened when she visited her grandmother in Leominster when Rev. Kelley was assigned to St. Cecilia’s parish.
ST. LOUIS (MO)
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
By Robert Patrick
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
03/13/2006
A St. Louis area widow filed a wrongful death suit against a jailed priest and the Catholic Church Monday, claiming the priest’s sexual abuse of her late husband caused him to commit suicide last year.
The man, known in court papers as "John Doe GS," filed his own lawsuit just two months before his death. The suit says Romano Ferraro abused him at St. Joan of Arc parish in south St. Louis multiple times between 1980 and 1983, when the man was between 10 and 11 years old, and says the St. Louis Archdiocese knew or should have known that Ferraro was a danger.
His wife, also filing anonymously as Mary Doe GS, is amending the lawsuit on behalf of her self and her husband’s estate and changing the wording to reflect his death.
COLORADO
Coloradoan
By Coloradoan staff
Former Catholic priest Timothy Evans, 43, accused of sexual assault on a child while a priest at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish in Fort Collins, offered money and gifts to one alleged victim to make the allegations go away, according to a police affidavit released today.
The affidavit indicates there may have been three victims — two at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton and one at Spirit of the Christ Church in Arvada.
Monsignor Thomas Fryar of the Archdiocese of Denver called Fort Collins police on March 30, 2004, to report the allegations of abuse against Evans, according to the affidavit.
It may not have been the first time allegations against Evans had been reported, according to the report.
One alleged victim told police the diocese moved Evans from Spirit of the Christ Church to St. Elizabeth Ann Seton “due to an incident where Father Timothy Evans inappropriately touched a juvenile male.”
NEW JERSEY
NorthJersey.com
Sunday, March 12, 2006
By LESLIE BRODY
STAFF WRITER
A former priest at the center of North Jersey's most notorious clergy sex-abuse case was arrested at a Secaucus hotel following a dispute Friday night.
James T. Hanley, 69, was charged with aggravated assault and possession of a weapon -- a baseball bat -- for an unlawful purpose.
Secaucus police said they arrested Hanley after responding to a call of a violent patron at the Extended StayAmerica Secaucus-Meadowlands at 8:44 p.m. Friday.
He was released pending his court appearance because he needed medical treatment for a leg injury, said police Sgt. Dominick De Gennaro. The sergeant wouldn't elaborate on the cause of the injury, however.
Hanley, who was accused of molesting nearly two dozen men when they were children, said Saturday that he was injured when the responding officers assaulted him.
SECAUCUS (NJ)
The Star-Ledger
Monday, March 13, 2006
BY MOLLY BLOOM AND KASI ADDISON
Star-Ledger Staff
James T. Hanley, the defrocked priest at the center of a notorious New Jersey sex abuse case, faces assault charges following an alleged dispute with a clerk at a hotel in Secaucus.
Hanley was released yesterday from Meadowlands Hospital in Secaucus, where he was taken after claiming he was injured by police during his arrest Friday. Hanley was charged by Secaucus police with aggravated assault and possession of a weapon, according to the Associated Press.
The former Roman Catholic priest was staying at the Extended Stay America while arranging a move from his Paterson apartment when he got into an argument with a clerk who then called police.
Hanley said the hotel manager refused to give him a room key until his bill was paid and out of frustration he smacked the desk with an aluminum bat, which he was using as a cane. When police arrived, one of the officers allegedly knocked him down with a karate kick to the left leg, which Hanley said was already injured from an earlier fall. Police said he was released because he needed medical treatment.
WASHINGTON
The Seattle Times
By Janet I. Tu
Seattle Times staff reporter
Three years after their son's death, Ralph and Sue Alfieri of Redmond still go to big gatherings of his friends.
Sometimes the gatherings are in Reno, Nev., in the casinos Jeff liked to visit now and then. There, they remember the strapping guy who loved to fish, work as a business agent for a local Teamsters union, and play chess with his many nephews and nieces.
Jeff Alfieri was 43 when he killed himself in the parking lot of Kirkland's Holy Family Church. In a lawsuit he had filed, he said that a Seattle priest, Gerald Moffat, had molested him in the early 1970s while assigned to Holy Family.
These days, Ralph and Sue Alfieri hope to keep their son's memory alive another way: They've asked to serve on the Seattle Archdiocese's new review board, in part because they want to remain involved in the issue.
SUCAUCUS (NJ)
Daily Record
ASSOCIATED PRESS
SECAUCUS -- James T. Hanley, a former pastor at St. Joseph's in Mendham at the center of a highly publicized sexual abuse case, faces criminal charges for allegedly slamming a baseball bat on a hotel manager's front desk.
Hanley, 69, was charged with aggravated assault and possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose over accusations that he was violent toward a desk manager at the Extended Stay America Secaucus-Meadowlands hotel on Friday.
Hanley, who was removed from the priesthood in 2002, was arrested by officers, but claimed he suffered a leg injury during the apprehension. Although he is to appear back in court, Hanley was released because he needed medical treatment for the leg injury, said police Sgt. Dominick De Gennaro.
Hanley said he was using the baseball bat as a cane, and that he hit the desk after a manager refused to give him his room key until he paid his bill.
SECAUCUS (NJ)
Asbury Park Press
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 03/13/06
SECAUCUS: James T. Hanley, a former Roman Catholic priest at the center of a sexual abuse case, faces criminal charges for allegedly slamming a baseball bat on a hotel manager's front desk.
Hanley, 69, was charged with aggravated assault over accusations that he was violent toward a desk manager at the Extended StayAmerica Secaucus-Meadowlands hotel on Friday, police said.
NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News
The Catholic Church's move to share all information on the possible abuse of children with the PSNI has been welcomed by the government.
A director of child protection is to be appointed for the church in NI.
Catholic Primate Sean Brady has announced a series of measures in response to the Protection of Children and Vulnerable Adults Order.
NIO minister Shaun Woodward said he applauded the moves by the Archbishop and his fellow bishops.
IELAND
Belfast Telegraph
By Alf McCreary
13 March 2006
A dossier containing sexual abuse allegations against 47 priests has been handed over to the PSNI by the Catholic Church, it emerged today.
The move was made as the Church unveiled a series of new measures to protect young people from the threat posed by paedophile priests.
The dossier of allegations made against 47 priests over the past 40 years was given to both the PSNI and Department of Health.
The Catholic Primate, Archbishop Sean Brady, and his fellow bishops in Northern Ireland have also offered to undergo a vetting process to show the Church's commitment to new child protection measures.
They are willing to co-operate with the Child Care Unit of the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety and also the PSNI.
WORCESTER (MA)
Worcester Voice
Worcester Magazine this week identified a recent 2003 civil suit filed against the City of Worcester by an employee in reference to discrimination.
Clergy abuse victim Edward Gagne of Spencer in 2003 filed suit against the City of Worcester and was awarded a $135,000 settlement after he says he faced discrimination in the work place due to his filing of a clergy sexual abuse civil suit naming Fr Brendan O’Donhue and Fr Peter Inzerillo. The clergy sexual abuse suit was settled in 1999 confidentially for $300,000 dollars.
Fr. Peter Inzerillo was reassigned to St. Leo Parish in Leominster in December 2000 in direct contradiction to the verbal agreement that Mr. Gagne had with then diocesan attorneys over the future of Fr Inzerillo. Mr. Gagne in March 2001 released his confidentially agreement which identified Fr. Inzerillo as a named party in a sexual abuse suit. The release of this confidentially agreement was responsible for increased media scrutiny against the Worcester Diocese and then Bishop Daniel P. Reilly.
IRELAND
Irish Examiner
Catholic bishops are to put themselves forward for vetting to demonstrate the Church’s commitment to child protection policies, it emerged today.
The nine Northern bishops, led by Archbishop Sean Brady, are also going to appoint a new director of Child Protection for the Catholic Church in Northern Ireland.
“The welfare and protection of children and vulnerable adults is a priority for the Catholic Church in Ireland. We want the Church to be at the forefront of best practice in this area,” said Archbishop Brady.
Last year, stringent vetting procedures for people working with children in Northern Ireland were introduced under the Protection of Children and Vulnerable Adults Order.
NEW MEXICO
New Mexican
By ERIKA DÁVILA | The New Mexican
March 12, 2006
A former Santa Fe priest serving a 10-year sentence in California for child molestation will never be allowed to return to the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, church officials said.
José Superiaso was a priest at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi until June 2003, when he was arrested in Northern California on child-molestation charges. He has admitted to having a sexual relationship with a girl he baby-sat in 1994 and 1995 while he was a priest at St. Andrews Catholic Church in Daly City, Calif.
Superiaso pleaded guilty last June to six counts of lewd and lascivious conduct with a child under the age of 14, said Sharon Henry, the district attorney for San Mateo County who prosecuted the case. Superiaso was sentenced to 10 years in prison and is serving his time in the Salinas Valley State Prison in Salinas, Calif. He will be eligible for parole at the end of 2013.
ALASKA
Fairbanks News-Miner
By MARY BETH SMETZER, Staff Writer
A Nome judge has agreed with Jane Doe 2's request to take another look at a civil lawsuit that was dismissed in February on a ruling that the statute of limitations in the case was not met.
The lawsuit alleged that the Catholic Bishop of Northern Alaska and the Society of Jesus were negligent in supervising the Rev. James Poole, who allegedly molested Jane Doe 2.
Superior Court Judge Ben Esch is reconsidering the dismissal and requesting that the defendants in the case, the bishop and the Jesuits, respond within 15 calendar days.
The judge's orders came in response to a motion made by Ken Roosa, Jane Doe 2's attorney, last week.
On Feb. 22, Esch dismissed the suit, saying the statute of limitations had passed, a ruling that could affect more than 100 claims of sexual abuse against minors in Alaska.
The original civil suit included Poole, a Jesuit priest, but Esch dismissed him from the suit in December for the same reason.
SECAUCUS (NJ)
Newsday
March 12, 2006, 6:29 PM EST
SECAUCUS, N.J. (AP) _ James T. Hanley, a former Roman Catholic priest at the center of a highly publicized sexual abuse case, faces criminal charges for allegedly slamming a baseball bat on a hotel manager's front desk.
Hanley, 69, was charged with aggravated assault and possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose over accusations that he was violent toward a desk manager at the Extended StayAmerica Secaucus-Meadowlands hotel on Friday.
Hanley was arrested by officers, but claimed he suffered a leg injury during the apprehension. Although he is to appear back in court, Hanley was released because he needed medical treatment for the leg injury, said police Sgt. Dominick De Gennaro.
Hanley said he was using the baseball bat as a cane, and that he hit the desk after a manager refused to give him his room key until he paid his bill.
But the desk clerk had a different version of events.
Osei Karikari, 23, said that Hanley told him he was handsome, offered him gifts, hugged him and kissed his cheek.
DOWNERS GROVE (IL)
Chicago Tribune
March 12, 2006
FROM STAFF REPORTS Advertisement
A third former official of an area church is facing trial on sexual abuse charges, this one involving an alleged 2004 attack on an elderly woman in Alabama.
The son and brother-in-law of the accused man, Howard L. Blattel, confirmed he was a parishioner of Marquette Manor Baptist Church in Downers Grove for more than 20 years and served there as a deacon during the late 1990s and earlier this decade.
Blattel, 65, a former Bolingbrook resident, is charged with first-degree sexual abuse in Gadsden, Ala., where he has lived since 2003. He is accused of molesting a now 89-year-old woman there in August 2004, according to records in the Etowah County, Ala., clerk's office and an Oct. 5, 2004 report in the Gadsden Times newspaper.
Two other former officials of Marquette Manor and its academy, located on the 300 block of 75th St., were indicted earlier this month by a DuPage County grand jury on sex-related charges.
ST. LOUIS (MO)
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
By Tim Townsend
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
03/12/2006
A pastor and former St. Louis community leader is being investigated by the St. Louis circuit attorney's office and the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Missouri and California over allegations of sexual abuse of minors.
The Rev. Sylvester Laudermill Jr., who had been a pastor in St. Louis from 1994 to 2004, stepped down last week from his position at Ward A.M.E. church in Los Angeles.
A pastor of an A.M.E. church in Los Angeles said the church has launched an internal investigation against Laudermill in that city.
Several attempts to reach Laudermill at his home were unsuccessful, and calls to Laudermill's attorney in St. Louis were not returned. A.M.E. church officials refused to talk about their investigations. In December, a 25-year-old male went to St. Louis police and A.M.E. church officials regarding Laudermill. In an interview last week, he said he told them that Laudermill began a sexual relationship with him when he was 14.
HUDSON (WI)
Appleton Post-Crescent
The Associated Press
HUDSON — A late priest who a judge ruled likely had killed two funeral home workers was "very agitated and acted strange" when he celebrated mass the day the two men died.
The comments by Laura Becker, a member of St. Patrick's Catholic Church, concerning the Rev. Ryan Erickson were in the latest batch of transcripts of interviews released by the Hudson city attorney in the case and reviewed by the St. Paul Pioneer Press.
Erickson was a priest at St. Patrick's when Dan O'Connell, 39, and James Ellison, 22, were fatally shot on Feb. 5, 2002, at the O'Connell Family Funeral Home.
St. Croix County Circuit Judge Eric Lundell ruled last October there was probable cause that Erickson shot the two men. O'Connell was a member of the church, and Dist. Atty. Eric Johnson said evidence suggested he found out the priest was sexually abusing someone, was providing alcohol to minors, or both.
Erickson later hanged himself outside St. Mary's Church in Hurley.
FORT WORTH (TX)
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
By DARREN BARBEE
STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER
FORT WORTH - State District Judge Len Wade ruled Friday that records concerning a former Arlington priest accused of sexual misconduct with seven women and girls will be opened to the public after details including accusers' identities are removed.
Wade ruled last month that he would release the files of six other priests in the Fort Worth Roman Catholic Diocese who have been accused of sexual misconduct since the diocese was founded in 1969. But he postponed a decision on how to handle the records of the Rev. Joseph Tu Ngoc Nguyen, who now serves in Houston.
At a hearing last month, Tu's attorney, H. Allen Pennington Jr., told the judge that two of the priest's accusers included in the files did not want to be involved in the case. Within a week, the two women involved filed court documents saying that they wanted the records opened and that they had not talked to Tu's attorney.
FLORIDA
Sun-Sentinel
By Peter Franceschina
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Posted March 12 2006
The former Summit Christian School teacher arrested last weekend after admitting having sex with a teen boy was enrolled in a controversial "ex-gay" ministry whose adherents believe people can change their sexual preference through the power of Christ.
Love in Action International in Memphis, Tenn., is the oldest and best known of the ministries that try to counsel people away from homosexuality through spirituality. With a mission at the heart of one of the nation's culture wars, it has been praised by Christian conservatives and criticized by gay-rights advocates since its 1973 inception in California.
The ministry drew scrutiny last summer when a 16-year-old boy complained on his Web site about his parents forcing him into the center. Now, Love in Action is back in the spotlight after the March 3 arrest of former Summit Christian School teacher Chad Stoffel of Palm Springs.
The "ex-gay" movement is led by Exodus International in Orlando and its some 120 North American affiliates. The ministries promote a hotly disputed concept: that people aren't born homosexual, they're made that way, often by poor parenting or sexual abuse. Since being gay is not innate, proponents say, people can change and have healthy heterosexual relationships.
MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Globe
By Jetta Bernier and John Mackey | March 12, 2006
THE SEXUAL ABUSE of children has been aptly labeled ''a silent, violent epidemic" by the American Medical Association. While the clergy sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church has shattered the silence, the truth is that those revelations reflect only part of a broader societal problem.
One in four girls and one in six boys have experienced some form of sexual abuse before age 18, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 80 percent of incidents are never reported to authorities. Massachusetts already recognizes that the nature of these crimes is so egregious and its impact so devastating that sexual offenders are the only class of criminals the state identifies on its website.
Effectively addressing this epidemic will require the active involvement of many sectors of society, including public health, law enforcement, and private citizens alike.
A survey conducted for the Massachusetts Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Partnership makes it clear that Massachusetts citizens are willing to take on these challenges. Ninety percent of those polled believe child sexual abuse is a serious problem, and 85 percent believe it can be prevented. Nearly half want to become more involved in ways to protect children. Two bills that would repeal the criminal and civil statutes of limitations for child sexual abuse crimes are a step toward these ends.
WORCESTER (MA)
Worcester Magazine
By Noah Schaffer
The city of Worcester has paid $135,000 to settle a sexual harassment claim and lawsuit filed by a city employee. Among the claims in the case were that Stephen Willand, the Catholic head of the city’s Office of Employment and Training, wrongfully denied a promotion to an employee, Edward Gagne, who had sued the Catholic Church for alleged sexual abuse by priests. The case also claimed that Willand had sexually harassed Gagne.
A deposition in the case by another former employee casts Willand, who is paid $107,000 a year to manage the region-wide Workforce Central operation, as a vindictive manager. The deposition suggests that Willand was angry with Gagne over the demise of a Ponzi scheme cooked up by a one-time Workforce Central official that embarrassed several prominent Worcester families. ...
The second issue between Willand and Gagne involved Gagne’s suit against the Catholic Church for abuse Gagne allegedly suffered at the hands of two priests, Baltas testified. “Mr. Willand was visibly upset about that, that day that it hit the newspapers ... he had a very difficult time understanding why anyone could sue the church. Because ... Mr. Willand considered himself a very prominent member of St. George’s parish in Worcester, and the suit would affect him, it would affect his relationship with the parish’s men’s club, and was a very bad image for both him and the city manager and the City of Worcester.”
When Baltas suggested that Gagne should get a promotion and raise like his colleagues were receiving, “Willand indicated to me that that was not going to happen, most certainly, because he was suing the church, and he wasn’t going to reward that.”
FORT WORTH (TX)
The Dallas Morning News
12:00 AM CST on Saturday, March 11, 2006
By BROOKS EGERTON / The Dallas Morning News
Fort Worth's new Catholic bishop, under pressure to release records about clergy-abuse allegations, is replacing two top officials who have long handled such matters.
Bishop Kevin Vann is also taking the rare step of promoting into upper management a married priest, the Rev. E. James Hart.
Father Hart – one of about 90 former Episcopal priests working as Catholic clerics in the United States – will assume the Rev. Robert Wilson's job as Fort Worth Diocese chancellor.
And the Rev. Michael Olson will become vicar general, replacing the Rev. Joseph Schumacher.
All of those involved were unavailable for comment Friday or did not respond to messages. But Bishop Vann, in a memo obtained by The Dallas Morning News, praised Monsignor Schumacher and Father Wilson.
"They have given too much to all of us, especially in recent years, not only by their service, but by their example of being faithful servants of Jesus Christ," Bishop Vann wrote to his priests and to fellow bishops around Texas.
Monsignor Schumacher and Father Wilson, while retiring from diocesan management, are expected to continue parish duties. The retirements take effect July 1.
FORT WORTH (TX)
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
By DARREN BARBEE
STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER
FORT WORTH — State District Judge Len Wade ruled Friday that records concerning a former Arlington priest accused of sexual misconduct with seven women and girls will be opened to the public after details, including accusers’ identities, are removed.
Wade ruled last month that he would release the files of six other priests in the Fort Worth Roman Catholic Diocese who have been accused of sexual misconduct since the diocese was founded in 1969. But he postponed a decision on how to handle the records of the Rev. Joseph Tu Ngoc Nguyen, who now serves in Houston.
At a hearing last month, Tu’s attorney, H. Allen Pennington Jr., told the judge that two of the priest’s accusers included in the files did not want to be involved in the case. Within a week, the two women involved filed court documents saying that they wanted the records opened and that they had not talked to Tu’s attorney.
“After reviewing the files relating to Joseph Tu Ngoc Nguyen, the court has decided that the files are court records and the record is insufficient to rebut the presumption of openness,” Wade wrote Friday in a letter to attorneys.
HUDSON (WI)
Pioneer Press
BY KEVIN HARTER
Pioneer Press
Several priests who knew the Rev. Ryan Erickson told investigators they found him to be rigid, divisive and troubled.
Transcripts of interviews with the priest were the latest information released by the Hudson, Wis., city attorney, who is slowly making public most of the documents from the investigation of Erickson.
That investigation led a St. Croix County judge to find probable cause that Erickson had killed two men in February 2002 at a Hudson funeral home and earlier had sexually abused at least one boy. Erickson, 31, later hanged himself.
In 233 pages of documents released Thursday, the Rev. Phillip Rask, St. Paul Seminary rector, told investigators Erickson was a "below average" student. He said church officials were concerned about Erickson's inability to curb his impulses, including drinking and "promiscuity."
UNITED STATES
Chicago Tribune
By Manya A. Brachear
Tribune staff reporter
Published March 11, 2006
A lay reform group has asked the leaders of America's Roman Catholic bishops to step aside temporarily amid accusations that they violated national guidelines for handling clergy sex-abuse allegations.
Bishop William Skylstad, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and Cardinal Francis George, vice president, said they will stay in their posts.
This week, Skylstad's diocese in Spokane, Wash., disclosed an allegation by a woman who said the bishop sexually abused her more than 40 years ago when she was a minor.
Meanwhile, George faces criticism for mishandling abuse allegations against Rev. Daniel McCormack, the former pastor of St. Agatha parish on Chicago's West Side.
"He's acknowledged inadequacy of a response early in the McCormack case," said Chicago archdiocese spokesman Jim Dwyer. But George plans to continue to serve as the bishops' vice president, Dwyer said.
SPOKANE (WA)
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
By JOHN K. WILEY
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
SPOKANE -- The Catholic Diocese of Spokane will know soon how much money it could be asked to pay by victims of clergy sex abuse.
The deadline for victims to file claims in U.S. Bankruptcy Court here was midnight Friday, and lawyers for the diocese expected to know as soon as Monday how many people allege they were abused, and how much the diocese might be asked to pay.
Bishop William Skylstad offered $45.75 million last month to settle claims by 75 people, who are expected to accept or reject the settlement within two months. But diocesan attorneys have said there could be a like number of people not covered under that settlement who demand compensation.
All of those who claim to have been abused, including the original 75, had until Friday to file claims with U.S. Bankruptcy Court, to protect their right to seek compensation.
INDIANA
Courier & Press
By REV. JOSEPH ZILIAK, Religion
March 11, 2006
The impact and extent of child sexual abuse are staggering. The financial impact in the United States has been estimated by Prevent Child Abuse America at more than $24 billion in direct costs and more than $94 billion in indirect costs.
Statistics indicate that there may be as many as 60 million survivors of childhood sexual abuse. The typical child sex offender molests an average of 117 children, most of whom do not report the offense.
The Albion Fellows Bacon Center, the Catholic Diocese of Evansville and St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, Newburgh, are working together to bring the presentation "Illuminations: A Source of Light, Hope & Healing" to the area on March 20 and 21. The sessions will be 6 to 9 p.m. March 20 and 9 a.m. to noon on March 21. It is open to professionals, clergy, teachers and parents at no cost.
UNITED KINGDOM
This is Local London
By Rachel Sharp
A MAN who was abused by a priest more than 40 years ago has said that victims of child abuse should not have to take their torment to the grave.
Luke Holland, 54, has waived his legal right to remain anonymous as a victim of sexual abuse, in the hope that he may be able to help other people who have suffered the same.
He told the Times it's never too late for victims to come forward.
Luke was abused by Father John Coghlan from Sacred Heart Church in Ruislip Manor more than 40 years ago. Coghlan is now serving 18 months in prison after being found guilty of the abuse which started on Luke when he was just ten years old.
Luke said: "I had never told anyone about what happened to me until almost two years ago.
MARYLAND
WVEC
03/08/2006
Associated Press
One of Prince George's County's largest churches has suspended one of its ministers after he was charged with raping and beating a women in a hotel parking lot.
The Rev. Eugene A. Marriott Jr., 41, of Clinton, was the "minister of men" at the Ebenezer African Methodist Episcopal Church in Fort Washington. With an estimated 10,000 members, it is one of the largest AME churches in the country, The Washington Post reported.
The alleged assault occurred Jan. 14 in Fairfax City, Va. A 34-year-old woman told police that Marriott attacked her after the two left a Fairfax City restaurant together just before midnight. She suffered numerous cuts, scrapes, bruises and "marks that appear to have been caused by a belt," said Fairfax City Detective Edward Vaughn, and "was stunned by the attack and emotionally distraught."
IOWA
Telegraph Herald
by MARY RAE BRAGG
As a parish leader, father of three young daughters and the nephew of a priest, Eric Foy's Catholic world was shaken to the core by revelations of sexual abuse by priests.
"It has tested me a bit with my faith," said Foy, whose testing included learning of accusations against one of the parish priests from his childhood, a man now dead.
Like many Catholics in the Archdiocese of Dubuque, Foy has pondered each new turn of events, and in the process, come to a new place.
"I've resolved it as good people do bad things sometimes," he said, "but covering up that activity was wrong."
IOWA
Telegraph Herald
by MARY RAE BRAGG
Some priests might fear confrontations over the church's past cover-up of sex abuse by the clergy, but Monsignor Francis Friedl is not one of them.
At least not any more.
The lively octogenarian recalled the time when, before leaving Dubuque for a trip, he pondered removing his priest's collar.
He rejected the idea, and to his joy found himself being greeted by friendly strangers as he strolled through airport terminals.
SPOKANE (WA)
KXLY
News4 Staff
Last updated: Friday, March 10th, 2006 05:18:11 PM
SPOKANE -- The deadline has passed for people wanting to file claims of priest sexual abuse against the Spokane Catholic Diocese.
As part of the bankruptcy reorganization the court imposed Friday’s deadline so that the diocese can settle with legitimate victims and eventually emerge from Chapter 11.
To date, Diocese attorneys say they've received 176 claims. An offer of $46 Million has been made to the 75 victims who had previously filed lawsuits. Of the remaining 101, Diocese attorneys say only 39 appear legitimate and only one rises in their words to a "serious level."
BOSTON (MA)
TheBostonChannel.com
BOSTON -- Lawyers for 88 people who agreed to settle clergy sex abuse lawsuits against the Boston Archdiocese for an average of $75,000 each complained that they weren't treated as well as 554 people who received more than twice that amount in 2003.
But for another 100 people who are still waiting to settle their lawsuits with the Roman Catholic archdiocese, the road to settlement is bound to be much more difficult, lawyers involved in the cases said Friday.
The archdiocese has split those claims into two groups.
About 30 of those alleged victims will be offered arbitration to settle their claims for the same monetary terms as the first group of 88, with a low of $5,000, a high of $200,000 and an average of $75,000. But claimants in this group must first prove to an arbitrator that their claims of abuse are credible. For the group of 88, the archdiocese agreed to accept their claims and left only the amounts to be decided by the arbitrator.
UNITED STATES
KGW
03/10/2006
By RACHEL ZOLL / Associated Press
Whatever trust the nation's Roman Catholic bishops had restored with their response to clergy sex abuse has been badly eroded in recent weeks by a combination of missteps and outside criticism.
Any of the latest developments would be disturbing, but taken together, critics see the church as floundering with the same problems that engulfed it four years ago.
The troubling signs include:
_The Massachusetts attorney general now says the Archdiocese of Boston, where the abuse crisis erupted, has failed to implement key reforms it had promised, including tracking guilty priests and teaching adolescents and teens to protect themselves from predators.
_In a 2005 deposition unsealed last month, Bishop Joseph Imesch of Joliet, Ill., said he felt no obligation to go to police in the 1970s when a priest on trial for molestation told Imesch he was, indeed, guilty. The bishop said he has reported abuse claims to civil authorities in the last few years, but when pressed by a plaintiff's lawyer to cite examples, he could not.
MOBILE (AL)
NBC 13
POSTED: 11:40 am CST March 10, 2006
UPDATED: 11:52 am CST March 10, 2006
MOBILE, Ala. -- A 52-year-old Irvington preacher was given a 23 year prison term for a sexual abuse conviction that involved a father and son.
Rev. Dennis Lamar Fields, pastor at Bethel Holiness Church in south Mobile County, was sentenced Thursday by Mobile County Circuit Judge Charles Graddick.
In trial testimony, Fields' victim, now an adult, told jurors Fields took lewd photos of him as a nine-year-old child and later burned them in a back yard trash can, promising never to molest him again.
He called police 20 years later, he said, when his own nine-year-old son revealed that Fields had begun molesting him as well.
SIOUX CITY (IA)
WOI
SIOUX CITY, Iowa Another sexual abuse lawsuit has been filed against the Sioux City Roman Catholic Diocese and a former priest.
In the lawsuit, a woman accuses the Reverend George McFadden of sexually abusing her in the 1950's while he was an associate pastor at a Sioux City parish and head of the parish elementary school.
More than two dozen people have filed sexual abuse lawsuits against the Sioux City diocese and McFadden. The latest lawsuit, filed this week in Woodbury County, claims the diocese was negligent.
FLORIDA
Miami Herald
BY CHRISTINA DeNARDO
Palm Beach Post
Chad Stoffel stood out to the students at Summit Christian School.
Unlike his older colleagues who dressed in dress shirts and ties, Stoffel dressed in khakis and polo shirts. The girls liked him for his good looks. The guys liked him because he was ``cool.''
Students got to know Stoffel, 29, pretty well. He often invited his students and the basketball players he coached to his West Palm Beach home to hang out. They surfed. They played tennis. They talked about politics and religion.
At a small school like Summit Christian, a nondenominational K-12 school in suburban West Palm Beach, it's common for students to see teachers outside the classroom. Stoffel oversaw the school's music ministry, which has won awards over the years and made him a popular among budding musicians.
The jocks liked him, too, for his prowess on the basketball court. ...
Over the weekend, Stoffel was arrested after confessing he had sex with a 16-year-old Wellington Christian School student and a 16-year-old Summit Christian School student and had molested two children in Broward County years ago.
Despite the confession, for now Stoffel is facing only four counts of unlawful sexual activity and four counts of battery of a child for his encounters with the Wellington Christian student.
KENTUCKY
Cincinnati Post
By Paul A. Long
Post staff reporter
The Blue Ash attorney who administered the Archdiocese of Cincinnati's sexual abuse payments has been appointed to monitor the $85 million settlement with the Diocese of Covington, although lawyers on both sides said the designation is unwanted and counter-productive.
Matthew Garretson is unqualified for the appointment, diocese attorney Carrie Huff said in an affidavit filed in Boone Circuit Court.
Her counterpart for those who sued the diocese agreed with that assessment. In a separate affidavit, Robert Steinberg added that Garretson's involvement with the $3 million Cincinnati settlement is a red flag to his clients.
"The circumstances of the Cincinnati settlement, which many class members ... view as a further victimization of victims by requiring victims to release all their legal rights in return for payments that do not approximate the true value of their injuries ... raise further concerns," Steinberg said.
LOS ANGELES (CA)
PR Newswire
Members of Voice of the Faithful, Survivors of Silence and Stones of Silence
Have Come Together to Create an Opportunity for Dialogue Regarding the Sexual
Abuse Crisis in the Catholic Church Here in Los Angeles.
'How Did We Get Here?' 'How Bad Is It?' 'Where Shall We Go?'
WHO: Jeffrey Anderson
Jeffrey Anderson Attorney-at-Law will be speaking on his
experiences representing victims of clergy sexual abuse around
the country. Below is Mr. Anderson's biography as listed on his
Firm, Jeff Anderson and Associates, P.A., website.
(http://www.andersonadvocates.com/JeffAnderson/index.html)
DUBUQUE (IA)
Telegraph Herald
by MARY NEVANS-PEDERSON
On Feb. 21, the Archdiocese of Dubuque announced it will pay $5 million to 20 victims of archdiocesan priests' sexual abuse.
It was the largest single settlement the archdiocese has paid. But it is not the only settlement.
Including the recent settlement, since 1950 the archdiocese has paid nearly $6.7 million to settle lawsuits and claims, for legal fees and for counseling and therapy for victims.
Most of the settlement payments come from reserves in the Dubuque Archdiocesan Protection Program, a self-insurance plan. The 187 parishes of the archdiocese pay into the plan and are protected under it.
Archdiocesan officials said the collective insurance plan has saved parishes thousands of dollars since the era when each parish purchased its own insurance coverage. Officials also say they cannot predict whether insurance premiums will increase because of the settlement.
IRELAND
One in Four
The Archbishop of Dublin Dr Diarmuid Martin said last night that the child protection norms being applied by the Church, when priests were asked to step aside from ministry following allegations of child sex abuse, were precisely the same as those which would apply were the person involved a teacher or social worker.
He insisted the firm application of such norms by the Church was necessary if it were to have any credibility in child protection matters and that this was also in the interests of the protection of the good name of priests.
Speaking on RTÉ's Prime Time programme, he said he was aware of the anxiety of an increasing number of priests at how the Church's child protection policies were being applied currently, where accused priests were concerned.
ST. PAUL (MN)
Chicago Tribune
Published March 10, 2006
ST. PAUL -- The archbishop of Minneapolis and St. Paul ordered a prominent conservative priest to stop posting his sermons on the Web and broadcasting them on Roman Catholic radio.
Rev. Robert Altier of St. Agnes Church has spoken against a sex-abuse prevention program taught in the archdiocese, including to schoolchildren.
Such programs were required by U.S. bishops in response to cases of sex abuse by clergy, but some critics say they are too explicit and infringe on parents' role in teaching their children about sex, the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported.
JAPAN
Brocktown News
Staff and agencies
10 March, 2006
TOKYO - A Japanese Buddhist priest who was arrested on suspicion of having paid sex with a teenage girl said he was under stress and had given in to lust.
Itsushi Ehara, 73, chief priest at a temple in the western Japanese prefecture of Hiroshima and also head of a nursery school, paid the 15-year-old girl 80,000 yen (390 pounds) to have sex in a hotel in downtown Tokyo, a police spokesman said on Friday.
"I could not resist my lust. A lot of stress built up from running the school," Ehara was quoted by Kyodo news agency as telling police.
SPOKANE (WA)
KXLY
Associated Press
Last updated: Thursday, March 09th, 2006 04:43:31 PM
SPOKANE -- Spokane Catholic diocese officials were waiting for tomorrow's deadline to get some idea how many people are seeking compensation for clergy sex abuse.
People who alleged they were abused have until close of business tomorrow to submit "proof of claims" to the US Bankruptcy Court handling the Spokane Diocese bankruptcy reorganization.
The diocese already has offered nearly $46 Million to 75 victims. An equal number could file claims and would negotiate settlements, or take the diocese to court, after Friday's deadline.
Among those who have already filed is a woman who says she was sexually abused 40 years ago by Spokane Bishop William Skylstad, president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.
JAPAN
Mainichi
An elderly Buddhist priest, who also headed a nursery school attached to his temple in Hiroshima, has been arrested for child prostitution, police said Friday.
Itsushi Ehara, 73, chief priest of Komyoji Temple in Aki-ku, Hiroshima, and director of an affiliated nursery school, is accused of violating the Anti-Child Prostitution and Pornography Law.
He admitted to the allegations during questioning. "I did it to alleviate my work stress," he was quoted as telling investigators. He has also confessed to having been a member of a child prostitution club and paid several high school girls to have sex with him on more than 20 occasions.
VIRGINIA
Culpeper Star Exponent
Liz Mitchell - Staff Writer
Culpeper Star Exponent
Friday, March 10, 2006
There’s a new twist in the ongoing case of Charles Shifflett that worries Chad Robison - the first person to come forward identifying himself as a victim.
Shifflett, 54, is pastor of First Baptist Church of Culpeper and faces eight charges related to child abuse and endangerment for incidents that occurred nearly 20 years ago at Calvary Baptist Church and its private school.
In Wednesday’s Free Lance-Star, a statement by Culpeper County Sheriff H. Lee Hart suggested the possibility of the victims’ parents being charged for allowing their children to attend Calvary Baptist Academy, if Shifflett is found guilty.
However, Hart said Thursday that not all of his statements were included in the paper.
“The bottom line is it depends on the circumstances,” Hart said regarding future charges in the case. “The parents would have to had been a witness or withholding the information.
BOSTON (MA)
The New York Times
By PAM BELLUCK
Published: March 10, 2006
BOSTON, March 9 — A second group of plaintiffs who say they were abused by priests in Boston has reached a settlement with the archdiocese here, agreeing to allow an arbitrator to determine the monetary award they will receive.
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston and lawyers for the plaintiffs said all 88 plaintiffs who were offered the settlement in December had signed the agreement and would be awarded $5,000 to $200,000 in arbitration hearings to begin this month. The average award will be $75,000, the lawyers and the archdiocese said.
"This is an important first step in resolving pending claims of sexual abuse of children by priests of the Archdiocese of Boston," said Kelly Lynch, a spokeswoman for the archdiocese. "We're very pleased at the response the settlement offers generated."
SPOKANE (WA)
KXLY
Travis Mayfield
Last updated: Thursday, March 09th, 2006 10:46:50 PM
SPOKANE -- One day after the Spokane Catholic Diocese revealed Bishop William Skylstad has been accused of sexual abuse of a minor, questions mount about his effectiveness as a leader.
News4 has learned that only the Vatican can remove a Bishop from his ministry. Diocese attorneys say a national policy adopted in the U-S dealing with abuse claims says the priest should not be removed from office without sufficient evidence.
In this case, the claim is being kept secret by the court but attorneys for the accuser confirmed to News4 it is a woman living in Europe now who claims to have been abused by Skylstad in the early 1960's while at St. Patricks and Gonzaga.
MARYLAND
Washington Post
By Caryle Murphy
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 10, 2006; Page B05
Michael Goles said he had been living a "paralyzed" and "frozen" life in the mountains of New Mexico for a decade when a stranger called in December 2004 to say that he understood -- as no one else did -- the pain that the former Maryland resident felt.
The caller was Thomas Roberts, a news anchor for CNN's "Headline News" in Atlanta. He told Goles that he had been sexually abused by the same Roman Catholic priest who had molested Goles.
Yesterday, at a hushed, standing-room-only hearing in Annapolis, Roberts and Goles urged a panel of Maryland legislators to extend the time allowed for victims of child sexual abuse to file civil lawsuits against their abusers and those who employ them.
BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe
By Michael Levenson, Globe Correspondent | March 10, 2006
The Catholic Archdiocese of Boston said yesterday that all 88 people who were offered arbitration to settle claims of sexual abuse by priests had agreed to let an arbitrator decide their compensation. The archdiocese said the awards are expected to average $75,000, about half the average amount that it paid to 554 plaintiffs in a landmark settlement in 2003.
Lawyers for the victims had harshly criticized the archdiocese when the deal was offered in December and said yesterday their clients were still unhappy. But the lawyers said their clients had decided they would rather accept the offer than go through the legal and emotional ordeal of fighting the archdiocese in court.
''They're all just tired," said Carmen L. Durso, who represents 14 of the victims. ''They all just want it to stop."
The deal is an important step for Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley, who has made resolving abuse claims a priority.
BOSTON (MA)
Los Angeles Times
From Reuters
March, 10 2006
BOSTON — The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston said Thursday that 88 people would settle claims they were sexually abused by priests, agreeing to a smaller payout than a first group of abuse victims received.
Kelly Lynch, a spokeswoman for the archdiocese, said the 88 agreed to participate in a first round of arbitration scheduled to take place in March and April.
The archdiocese has offered average payments of $75,000 per person.
This settlement would come three years after the Boston Archdiocese, which was at the heart of a national pedophile priest scandal, reached a global settlement with about 540 victims for $85 million, paying each person roughly $153,000.
SPRINGFIELD (MA)
The Republican
Friday, March 10, 2006
By BILL ZAJAC
wzajac@repub.com
SPRINGFIELD - A priest who once served as the chaplain of the city's Fire Department was permanently removed from ministry in 2002 because of a credible allegation that he molested at least one minor, according to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield.
The Rev. David M. Farland was removed from ministry after U.S. bishops approved a zero tolerance policy regarding clergy sexual abuse of minors, according to the diocese.
The diocese provided the information on Wednesday after an inquiry by The Republican earlier this week.
At the time the diocese implemented the zero tolerance policy, then-Bishop Thomas L. Dupre announced that at least five priests were permanently removed from public ministry.
Four of them had been previously identified publicly. Dupre said at least one other priest was removed from ministry, but he refused to identify the priest or priests saying he wanted to maintain a balance between a person's right to privacy and the public's right to know.
SPRINGFIELD (MA)
WPRI
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. A Catholic priest who once was chaplain of the Springfield Fire Department was permanently removed from ministry four years ago because of a sexual abuse allegation.
The Springfield Diocese says the Reverend David Farland was removed from the ministry in 2002 after U-S bishops approved a zero tolerance policy regarding clergy sexual abuse of minors. The Diocese said Farland was accused of sexual abuse of a minor in the early 1990s, and the matter was handled internally by his superiors.
The diocese provided the information yesterday after an inquiry by The Republican earlier this week.
WORCESTER (MA)
Telegram & Gazette
By Kathleen A. Shaw TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
kshaw@telegram.com
WORCESTER— The Vatican has decided against defrocking Monsignor Leo J. Battista, who surrendered his clinical social worker’s license in 1991 after admitting that he had sexual relations with a client when he was her therapist.
The Vatican recently told Bishop Robert J. McManus that Monsignor Battista is permanently barred from ministry and cannot present himself as a priest, Raymond L. Delisle, diocesan spokesman, said yesterday. Monsignor Battista, 83, is retired and listed in the official diocesan directory as living at Southgate in Shrewsbury. His last parish assignment was pastor of St. Anna parish, Leominster.
“The Holy See, through the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has reviewed the case of Rev. Monsignor Leo J. Battista, and has recently informed Most Rev. Robert J. McManus, Bishop of Worcester, that Monsignor Battista is to be permanently prohibited from any type of priestly ministry and may not present himself as a priest. He is to spend his remaining days in prayer and penance,” Mr. Delisle said after speaking with the bishop.
Mr. Delisle said the Vatican action did not result in defrocking Monsignor Battista.
Retired Bishop Daniel P. Reilly testified in an April 2004 deposition, when he was still bishop in Worcester, that the diocese was seeking laicization — defrocking — of Monsignor Battista and that he started the process at the request of one of the monsignor’s alleged victims.
Monsignor Battista, who was a licensed social worker and former head of Catholic Charities for the diocese, signed a three-page consent agreement with the state Board of Registration of Social Workers in 1991 and admitted that he had an improper sexual relationship with a client.
A former Sister of St. Joseph, Nancy Norbert, filed a civil suit against the diocese stating she had been sexually assaulted by the monsignor during the 1970s and 1980s when she entered a counseling arrangement with him. Donna M. Spencer, a former Sister of Mercy, said in a 1993 interview with the Telegram & Gazette that she also had an improper sexual relationship with Monsignor Battista. She said he had been acting as spiritual adviser and counselor when she was a young nun in the order.
Mr. Delisle said Bishop McManus told him that other laicization cases involving diocesan priests are pending, but he declined to state who they were.
“Cases have been sent to Rome for their review. We cannot speculate on what Rome’s determinations will be or their recommendations on each priest’s clerical state. We are waiting for further direction or notice on each case,” Mr. Delisle said.
A bishop has authority to remove a priest from service but only the Vatican, with approval of the pope, can laicize a priest. Some priests voluntarily seek laicization for various reasons, including a desire to marry. Others are removed involuntarily because of misconduct.
George “Skip” Shea of Uxbridge said this week that he had formally applied to Bishop McManus to begin laicization proceedings against the Rev. Thomas H. Teczar and the Rev. Robert Shauris, whom he said sexually abused him as a teenager. Mr. Shea received $10,000 from the diocese about two years ago to settle his lawsuit alleging sexual abuse by the two men.
An artist, Mr. Shea has a one-man show called “Catholic (Surviving Abuse and Other Dead End Roads)” which he recently presented in New York City and in the Boston area. Mr. Shea, who has said he is generally pleased with the response he has gotten from Bishop McManus when he met with him regarding his alleged abuse, said he contacted the chancery about starting laicization proceedings against the priests, and he was told he needed to make a formal request. He sent the formal request this week to the bishop.
Records of the Telegram & Gazette and records assembled by Waltham-based Bishop Accountability, an organization of Catholics who are archiving the sexual abuse scandal throughout the United States, and a count by Worcester Voice, which tracks clergy sexual abuse in the Worcester Diocese, shows a total of 23 living diocesan priests who are retired or on administrative leave after being publicly accused of sexual misconduct. That count does not include accused priests who are members of religious orders.
Two of the 23 priests, the Rev. David A. Holley and the Rev. Robert E. Kelley, are in prison after being convicted of sexual abuse of minors.
The Rev. Joseph A. Coonan has not resigned his position as pastor of St. John Church, Worcester, but is on administrative leave from the diocese after several men alleged misconduct when he was teaching and counseling in Oxford. Last week, he was charged with assaulting his elderly mother and his sister at their home in Oxford, and he was arraigned in Dudley District Court.
Diocesan priests are eligible to receive financial help from the diocese as required under the church’s canon law. The diocese does not have to support or subsidize priests who are laicized and are no longer priests.
The diocese said in a 2003 report to the American bishops’Abuse Tracker Review Board that it knew of 45 priests who were the subject of credible allegations of sexual misconduct from 1950 to 2003.
Mr. Delisle said the diocese has declined to say how much money the accused priests are receiving, but he said the amount is “in part” recorded as a lump sum in the diocesan financial report under the priests financial assistance fund.
Under that fund, the diocese paid $340,562 in fiscal 2005; $349,457 in fiscal 2004; and $270,000 in fiscal 2003. Mr. Delisle said some of this money also would go to priests on leave for reasons other than misconduct. Priests placed on leave can receive medical insurance through the diocese. In the 2004 deposition, Bishop Reilly testified that Rev. Teczar was receiving $554 a month from the diocese, along with medical insurance.
“The situation for each priest on leave is evaluated in light of our canonical responsibility to not abandon them. Each case is dependent upon its needs and in keeping with those canonical responsibilities,” Mr. Delisle said.
No priests in the Worcester Diocese accused of sexual misconduct have been laicized. While laicization is the term used in the Catholic church, it means the same as defrocking.
Bishop Michael J. Cote of the Norwich, Conn., Diocese confirmed this week that he received word that Pope Benedict XVI had laicized Bernard W. Bissonette, who allegedly abused the late Thomas Deary when he was assigned to St. Mary parish in Putnam. The defrocking of Mr. Bissonette, who was last known to be living in New Mexico, was done by request of Gene Michael Deary, brother of Mr. Deary, and his family. Bishop Cote made the presentation personally to the Vatican on why Mr. Bissonette should be laicized.
INDIANA
The Journal Gazette
By Rebecca S. Green
The Journal Gazette
A 33-year-old Huntington youth pastor was arrested Monday on charges he fondled a 10-year-old girl in his apartment at the Good Shepherd Church last summer.
On Friday, Kevin Whitacre was charged with two Class C felony counts of child molesting. He surrendered to authorities at the Huntington County Jail on Monday morning and was released on a $20,000 property bond.
Whitacre is the third youth pastor at Good Shepherd to be charged with such a crime in the past 10 years. Two other youth pastors were found guilty of their crimes.
Whitacre did not come into contact with the alleged victim through his work at the church.
AUSTIN (TX)
KHOU
Detectives have charged an Austin preacher with indecency with a child for a third time.
Rodolfo Sosa, who is pastor at the Ciudad del Refugio church in South Austin, was initially arrested last month on charges of groping a 13-year-old and 12-year-old who went to his church.
The church rented space from another church in South Austin.
According to investigators, Sosa fondled another 12-year-old boy at an Austin apartment complex in March 2005. Sosa worked at the complex as a maintenance worker.
BOSTON (MA)
CNN
Thursday, March 9, 2006 Posted: 2048 GMT (0448 HKT)
BOSTON, Massachusetts (AP) -- Eighty-eight people who say they were molested by Roman Catholic priests will get $5,000 to $200,000 each, with the exact amounts to be determined by an arbitrator, under an agreement announced Thursday by the Boston Archdiocese.
The arbitration hearings are scheduled to begin next week.
Before the plaintiffs agreed to arbitration, the archdiocese had offered to settle with them for an average of $75,000 each. That figure is less than half the average amount paid to 554 plaintiffs in an 2003 settlement.
"They are extremely disappointed by the low settlement offer made by the archdiocese, but they realize they should try to obtain some type of closure and move on with their lives," said attorney Mitchell Garabedian, who represents 28 of the 88 claimants.
IRELAND
Jurist
Angela A. Onikepe at 2:01 AM ET
[JURIST Europe] Results of a new study released by the Dublin Roman Catholic archdiocese [diocesan website] in Ireland show that while 102 Dublin priests are suspected of abusing children since 1940 and 32 of them are facing lawsuits, only eight have actually been convicted of criminal offenses. Even so, the legal bill for the archdiocese has already has paid $7 million in settlements and fees. The study, initiated by Vatican diplomat Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, examined records of more than 2800 priests that have worked in Dublin in the last 66 years and stands as the most frank and serious admission of sex abuse by any Irish Roman Catholic Church official. Archbishop Martin has also established a $3 million Child Protection Service [diocesan website].
SPOKANE (WA)
Catholic Explorer
By Catholic News Service
SPOKANE, Wash. (CNS) -- Bishop William S. Skylstad of Spokane, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, has denied a woman's claim that he sexually abused her more than 40 years ago when she was a minor.
Diocesan attorney Greg Arpin said in a March 8 statement, "Bishop Skylstad categorically denies the accusation."
"I have kept the promise of celibacy that I made when I was ordained a deacon 47 years ago," Bishop Skylstad said in the statement. "I hope that the Spokane community will join me in praying for all those who have come forward to report sexual abuse. Please pray for me as well."
The statement said that the diocesan sexual abuse review board and Archbishop Pietro Sambi, papal nuncio to the United States, have been advised of the accusation.
News of the claim was reported by media outlets March 8, but the news stories said it was filed last December as part of the diocese's bankruptcy process.
OHIO
Dayton Daily News
By Tom Beyerlein
Dayton Daily News
Lawrence Strittmatter, who lost his post as associate pastor of St. Albert the Great Catholic Church in Kettering amid allegations he sexually abused boys years earlier in Cincinnati, has been permanently removed from the priesthood by Pope Benedict XVI, the Archdiocese of Cincinnati said Wednesday.
Strittmatter was one of 15 archdiocesan priests who have been placed on leave after having been found by the archdiocese to have sexually abused minors. The pope granted his laicization, or defrocking, Jan. 20, according to archdiocese spokesman Dan Andriacco.
Ten area priests are on leave awaiting possible defrocking for child sexual abuse, while five have been defrocked or otherwise stripped of ministry.
A priest since 1957, Strittmatter allegedly abused dozens of youths while serving as principal of Elder High School and Cincinnati parishes in the 1970s and 1980s.
YAKIMA (WA)
Yakima Herald-Republic
By JANE GARGAS
YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC
Catholics in Yakima reacted with dismay Wednesday to a Spokane woman's sex-abuse allegations against Bishop William Skylstad, former bishop of the Yakima Diocese.
Skylstad, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and leader of the Spokane Diocese, is widely respected here, said Monsignor John Ecker of St. Paul Cathedral.
"I've always held him in the highest esteem," said Ecker. "He's the last person you would ever imagine doing this. But I wasn't there."
Skylstad categorically denied the allegations, filed with the Spokane Diocese. The woman claims that he sexually abused her from 1961 to 1964.
During Skylstad's tenure as bishop here, from 1977 to 1990, he was known as a strong leader who made hard decisions when he had to, Ecker recalled.
One of those decisions was closing down Carroll High School, a Catholic school, in the mid-1980s. The decision was unpopular, but Skylstad weathered the storm, said Ecker.
YAKIMA (WA)
Yakima Herald-Republic
By JANE GARGAS
YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC
Catholics in Yakima reacted with dismay Wednesday to a Spokane woman's sex-abuse allegations against Bishop William Skylstad, former bishop of the Yakima Diocese.
Skylstad, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and leader of the Spokane Diocese, is widely respected here, said Monsignor John Ecker of St. Paul Cathedral.
"I've always held him in the highest esteem," said Ecker. "He's the last person you would ever imagine doing this. But I wasn't there."
Skylstad categorically denied the allegations, filed with the Spokane Diocese. The woman claims that he sexually abused her from 1961 to 1964.
During Skylstad's tenure as bishop here, from 1977 to 1990, he was known as a strong leader who made hard decisions when he had to, Ecker recalled.
One of those decisions was closing down Carroll High School, a Catholic school, in the mid-1980s. The decision was unpopular, but Skylstad weathered the storm, said Ecker.
TEMPE (AZ)
Gallup Independent
By Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola
Staff Writer
TEMPE, Ariz. — Two outspoken advocates for victims of clergy sex abuse were in Arizona this weekend, leveling heated criticism against leaders of the Roman Catholic Church.
David Clohessy and the Rev. Thomas Doyle spoke about sex abuse in the church in a presentation sponsored by Call To Action, a liberal Catholic organization. The event, which was Sunday afternoon at Tempe's Episcopal Church of the Epiphany, drew an audience of about 100 people. The mostly older audience included a number of individuals who said they were victims of clergy abuse.
Clohessy is the national director for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. Doyle is the Dominican priest and canon lawyer who authored a 1985 report on sexual abuse for the Catholic Church. In the 1980s, he predicted that legal settlements for abuse cases would eventually exceed $1 billion dollars, a prediction that has since come true. Since the sex abuse scandal broke nationally in 2002, Doyle has emerged as one of the most vocal critics of the church's handling of the scandal.
In his presentation on Sunday, Doyle had blistering criticism of the church hierarchy and of "clericalism," a reference to Catholic clergy at the expense of faithful lay Catholics. Clohessy criticized what he sees as the Catholic bishops' continuing failure to root out sexual abuse in their dioceses and their failure to reach out to abuse victims in a just and compassionate manner.
LOS ANGELES (CA)
Los Angeles Times
From Times Staff and Wire Reports
March, 9 2006
Lawyers worked into the early hours Wednesday but failed to settle 23 molestation cases out of the now-defunct St. Anthony's Seminary in Santa Barbara.
"The bottom line is, we're close," said attorney John Manly, who represents one of the people suing the Los Angeles Archdiocese and the Franciscan Friars of California, which ran the seminary, alleging a failure to protect them from predatory priests.
CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune
Published March 9, 2006
A Roman Catholic high school in Mundelein has been ordered to redraw the 6-mile route of its annual walkathon in April because it traditionally takes place on a seminary campus that is home to at least a dozen priests accused of sexual misconduct with minors.
For the first time in 15 years, the Archdiocese of Chicago will not allow students from Carmel Catholic High School to hold its fundraiser at the University of St. Mary of the Lake, located across the street. Church officials said they did not want the school to be the target of "unwelcome attention."
"There's always a safety concern," said archdiocesan spokesman Jim Dwyer. "Realistically we feel we've answered that question by having the monitoring program we have up there."
Sister Mary Frances McLaughlin, president of the school, said the seminary campus is generally off-limits to students and they are never on the grounds for school-sanctioned events without supervision.
CINCINNATI (OH)
Cincinnati Enquirer
BY DAN HORN | ENQUIRER STAFF WRITER
The Vatican dismissed Lawrence Strittmatter from the priesthood Wednesday, ending the career of a man accused of sexually abusing more than two dozen teenage boys in Greater Cincinnati.
Strittmatter's removal, or laicization, means he is stripped of all clerical functions and can no longer present himself as a priest.
The former principal of Elder High School is the first Cincinnati priest to be laicized since the clergy abuse scandal erupted four years ago. Two others, George Cooley and Keith Albrecht, were dismissed before 2002.
"Our fervent hope is it brings some peace, comfort or satisfaction to the victims," said Dan Andriacco, an Archdiocese of Cincinnati spokesman.
Church officials requested the laicization in 2002 after suspending Strittmatter because of at least two abuse accusations. They were aware of at least one accusation since 1988 but allowed him to continue to work as a priest.
CANADA
The Hamilton Spectator
Catholic News Service (Mar 9, 2006)
A Canadian bishops' task force has recommended banning priests and pastoral staffers convicted of sexual abuse from any public church ministry for the rest of their lives.
The long-anticipated report on how Canada's bishops are dealing with clergy sexual abuse called on all bishops to publicly and individually commit themselves to a strict method of dealing with the problem.
It also called for public reporting on how the church is doing in its battle to eradicate abuse.
The bishops have been asked to forward their comments on the report to the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops headquarters in Ottawa.
SPOKANE (WA)
Irish Examiner
A woman has claimed she was sexually abused more than 40 years ago by the president of the US Conference of Catholic bishops.
Bishop William Skylstad issued a statement yesterday categorically denying the accusation, saying he has not violated the vow of celibacy he took 47 years ago.
The claim was filed against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Spokane, in Washington state, in the United States, by a woman who said she was under the age of 18 when Skylstad sexually abused her at St Patrick’s Parish and at Gonzaga University from December 1961 to December 1964.
Skylstad, 70, was a student at Gonzaga University from 1962 to 1966 and taught mathematics to students at Mater Cleri Seminary at Colbert, north of Spokane.
SPOKANE (WA)
Chicago Tribune
Items compiled from Tribune news services
Published March 9, 2006
SPOKANE, WASHINGTON -- A woman has filed a claim that she was sexually abused more than 40 years ago by Bishop William Skylstad, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and leader of the Spokane diocese.
Skylstad issued a statement Wednesday categorically denying the accusation, saying he has not violated the vow of celibacy he took 47 years ago.
The claim was filed against the diocese Dec. 27 by a woman who said she was under 18 when Skylstad sexually abused her at St. Patrick's Parish and at Gonzaga University from December 1961 to December 1964.
SPOKANE (WA)
CBS News
SPOKANE, Wash., Mar. 9, 2006
(AP) A woman has accused the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops of sexually abusing her more than four decades ago when she was a child.
Bishop William Skylstad issued a statement Wednesday categorically denying the accusation, saying he has not violated the vow of celibacy he took 47 years ago.
The claim was filed against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Spokane on Dec. 27 by a woman who said she was under the age of 18 when Skylstad sexually abused her at St. Patrick's Parish and at Gonzaga University from December 1961 to December 1964.
The woman's claim was first reported Wednesday by the Spokesman-Review newspaper of Spokane.
Skylstad, 70, was a student at Gonzaga University from 1962-1966 and taught mathematics to students at Mater Cleri Seminary at Colbert, north of Spokane.
SPOKANE (WA)
The Plain Dealer
Thursday, March 09, 2006
Associated Press
Spokane, Wash.- A woman has filed a claim that she was sexually abused more than 40 years ago by Bishop William Skylstad, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic bishops and leader of the Spokane Diocese.
Skylstad issued a statement Wednesday categorically denying the accusation, saying he has not violated the vow of celibacy he took 47 years ago.
The claim was filed against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Spokane on Dec. 27 by a woman who said she was under the age of 18 when Skylstad sexually abused her at St. Patrick's Parish and at Gonzaga University from December 1961 to December 1964.
Skylstad was a student at Gonzaga University from 1962-1966 and taught mathematics to students at Mater Cleri Seminary at Colbert, north of Spokane.
ST. PAUL (MN)
The Forum
By Don Davis, The Forum
Published Thursday, March 09, 2006
ST. PAUL – The mother of a 2002 murder victim in Hudson, Wis., encouraged Minnesota legislators on Wednesday to extend the time sex abuse victims have to sue their abusers.
Eventually, Janet O’Connell and her husband, Tom, want to talk to the pope because a judge ruled a Catholic priest likely killed their son to hide past sex abuse.
“My son’s dead because he was going to do something right,” O’Connell said in an interview, fighting back tears. “Danny did not die in vain.”
Dan O’Connell and employee James Ellison were shot to death more than four years ago at O’Connell’s Hudson funeral home. A judge ruled last October that the Rev. Ryan Erickson, a former priest at the local Catholic Church, probably killed the two after O’Connell learned Erickson had sexually abused children.
Erickson killed himself after he became a suspect.
CINCINNATI (OH)
The Beacon Journal
Associated Press
CINCINNATI - A man accused of sexually abusing several boys in the Cincinnati area has been removed from the priesthood by the Vatican.
Lawrence Strittmatter's dismissal from the clergy was announced by the Archdiocese of Cincinnati on Wednesday. Strittmatter had requested the removal - referred to as laicization by the Roman Catholic church - and Pope Benedict XVI approved it January. Because Strittmatter made the request, the removal falls short of defrocking, which is imposed.
The archdiocese hopes the move brings "peace, comfort or satisfaction" to the men who have accused Strittmatter, spokesman Dan Andriacco said.
Church officials requested in 2002 that Strittmatter be banned from the priesthood.
He retired that year after being removed from his position as associate pastor of St. Albert the Great Parish in Kettering.
IRELAND
Toronto Star
Mar. 9, 2006. 01:00 AM
SHAWN POGATCHNIK
ASSOCIATED PRESS
DUBLIN, Ireland—The Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, rocked for a decade by sex scandals, yesterday made its biggest admission yet: 102 of its Dublin priests past and present, or 3.6 per cent of the total, are suspected of abusing children.
The disclosure comes a week before the government convenes a probe into how church and state authorities conspired, by negligence and design, to cover up decades of child abuse within the Dublin priesthood.
"It's very frightening for me to see that in some of these cases, so many children were abused. It's very hard to weigh that up against anything," said Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, a Vatican diplomat assigned to Dublin in 2003 to address the problem in Ireland's largest Catholic congregation.
Since his appointment, the archdiocese — home to more than 1 million Catholics — has been going over the personnel records of more than 2,800 priests who have worked in Dublin since 1940.
DAVENPORT (IA)
Press-Citizen
By The Associated Press
DAVENPORT -- Two men who have accused a former bishop of sex abuse asked a judge Wednesday to force the Roman Catholic Diocese of Davenport to turn over names of all priests accused of sexual misconduct and other related documents.
Both victims have filed lawsuits accusing former Sioux City Bishop Lawrence Soens of sexual abuse during the 1960s when Soens was principal at Regina High School in Iowa City. Soens retired as bishop in 1998.
The legal tussle for the diocese's list of 25 credibly accused priests, the victims who made the allegations, investigative reports and other related documents stems from more than a dozen lawsuits filed against the diocese and several of its priests in 2002.
At the time, District Judge C.H. Pelton ordered the diocese to turn over the documents. The transfer never happened because the church agreed to settle 37 sex abuse claims for $9 million in November 2004.
DAVENPORT (IA)
Press-Citizen
By The Associated Press
DAVENPORT -- Two men who have accused a former bishop of sex abuse asked a judge Wednesday to force the Roman Catholic Diocese of Davenport to turn over names of all priests accused of sexual misconduct and other related documents.
Both victims have filed lawsuits accusing former Sioux City Bishop Lawrence Soens of sexual abuse during the 1960s when Soens was principal at Regina High School in Iowa City. Soens retired as bishop in 1998.
The legal tussle for the diocese's list of 25 credibly accused priests, the victims who made the allegations, investigative reports and other related documents stems from more than a dozen lawsuits filed against the diocese and several of its priests in 2002.
At the time, District Judge C.H. Pelton ordered the diocese to turn over the documents. The transfer never happened because the church agreed to settle 37 sex abuse claims for $9 million in November 2004.
ST. PAUL (MN)
West Central Tribune
AP Associated Press
Published Thursday, March 09, 2006
ST. PAUL — Janet O’Connell stopped at the Minnesota Legislature, but Rome is her goal.
The mother of a 2002 murder victim in Hudson, Wis., encouraged Minnesota legislators on Wednesday to extend the time sex abuse victims have to sue their abusers. Eventually, she and her husband, Tom, want to talk to the pope because a judge ruled a Catholic priest likely killed their son to hide past sexual abuse.
“My son’s dead because he was going to do something right,” O’Connell said in an interview, fighting back tears. “Danny did not die in vain.”
Dan O’Connell and employee James Ellison were shot to death more than four years ago at O’Connell’s Hudson funeral home. A judge ruled last October that the Rev. Ryan Erickson, a former priest at the local Catholic Church, probably killed the two after Dan O’Connell learned Erickson had sexually abused children.
Erickson killed himself after he became a suspect.
IRELAND
Irish Independent
Thursday March 9th 2006
As the Irish government prepares to launch an inquiry into child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, new figures from the Dublin area show that more than 100 priests have been accused of sex abuse.
The report, from the Archdiocese of Dublin, records 350 accusations of abuse against 102 priests since 1940. The number of accusations is likely to grow in the course of the 18-month government inquiry, since the Church has encouraged victims who have never registered complaints to come forward.
The Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, said the archdiocese was publishing its findings before a commission is formed later this month to investigate the handling of abuse.
The Church has been criticised in recent years for under-reacting and has faced allegations it is more concerned with protecting itself than full disclosure and tackling the problem head-on. The bishops are now adamant that every possible effort will be made to assist the authorities and to deal properly with any fresh cases. Since almost 3,000 priests worked in Dublin over the last 66 years, the Church's figures suggest that roughly one in 30 of these has been the subject of allegations.
CONNECTICUT
Norwich Bulletin
The abuse of a child is repugnant, and it is exponentially more so when it comes at the hands of a most-trusted person -- a teacher, a coach, a parent, a priest.
That the Catholic church for decades covered up the sexual crimes of its priests added greatly to not only the numbers of victims, but the pain and humiliation suffered by them and their families.
The church finally appears to have seen the light, and is making amends to the thousands of victims sexually and physically abused by priests.
One of the latest victories, which we wholeheartedly cheer, involves a local family.
A former local priest was defrocked in May by Pope Benedict XVI. Bernard Bissonnette allegedly abused children while serving locally at parishes in Putnam, Moosup and Pawcatuck. Gene Michael Deary of Brooklyn said his brother, Thomas, was raped and molested by Bissonnette in the 1960s. Thomas Deary committed suicide in 1991.
DAVENPORT (IA)
KCCI
DAVENPORT, Iowa -- Two men who have accused a former bishop of sex abuse have asked a judge to force the Davenport diocese to release names of all priests accused of sexual misconduct.
Both victims have filed lawsuits accusing former Sioux City Bishop Lawrence Soens of sexual abuse during in the 1960s, when Soens was principal at Regina High School in Iowa City.
The legal tussle for the diocese's list of 25 accused priests stems from more than a dozen lawsuits filed against the diocese and several of its priests in 2002. The two men are also asking the diocese to release the investigative reports and other documents.
District Judge C.H. Pelton had ordered that the documents be released after the lawsuit was filed. But the transfer never happened because the church agreed to settle 37 sex abuse claims for $9 million in November 2004.
SPOKANE (WA)
The Spokesman-Review
From staff reports
March 8, 2006
• March 2, 1934: born in Omak, Wash.; He was delivered on table at home by his father, an apple farmer originally from Norway. During birth, his twin brother died. Oldest of six children who grew up on an orchard along the Methow River.
• 1948-1960: At age 14, he left home for Pontifical College Josephinum in Worthington, Ohio
• May 21, 1960: Ordained into priesthood
• 1960-1961: attended Washington State University; served as an assistant pastor in Pullman
• 1962-1966: Gonzaga University, Spokane
SPOKANE (WA)
The Spokesman-Review
John Stucke and Virginia de Leon
© The Spokesman-Review
March 8, 2006
Listen to the statement from the diocese, read by diocesan attorney Greg Arpin.
A woman has filed a sexual abuse claim against Roman Catholic Bishop William Skylstad.
Skylstad, the bishop of the Spokane Diocese and the sitting president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, denies the accusation. In a statement to be issued today, Skylstad said he has not violated a vow of celibacy he took 47 years ago.
The claim was filed Dec. 27 by a woman who said she was under the age of 18 in the early 1960s – the time period she alleges that Skylstad sexually abused her. The claim remains hidden from public scrutiny by a court secrecy order. Skylstad, however, acknowledged the claim during a north side regional meeting of parishes last week.
Alleged victims of Catholic clergy sex abuse in Eastern Washington have until Friday to file claims. The number of people alleging abuse had surpassed 135 as of Wednesday morning, according to diocese attorney Greg Arpin.
SPOKANE (WA)
Houston Chronicle
By JOHN K. WILEY Associated Press Writer
The Associated Press
SPOKANE, Wash. — A woman has filed a claim that she was sexually abused more than 40 years ago by Bishop William Skylstad, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic bishops and leader of the Spokane Diocese.
Skylstad issued a statement Wednesday categorically denying the accusation, saying he has not violated the vow of celibacy he took 47 years ago.
The claim was filed against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Spokane on Dec. 27 by a woman who said she was under the age of 18 when Skylstad sexually abused her at St. Patrick's Parish and at Gonzaga University from December 1961 to December 1964.
Skylstad, 70, was a student at Gonzaga University from 1962-1966 and taught mathematics to students at Mater Cleri Seminary at Colbert, north of Spokane.
SPOKANE (WA)
USA Today
SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — A woman has filed a claim that she was sexually abused more than 40 years ago by Bishop William Skylstad, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic bishops and leader of the Spokane Diocese.
Skylstad issued a statement Wednesday categorically denying the accusation, saying he has not violated the vow of celibacy he took 47 years ago.
The claim was filed against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Spokane on Dec. 27 by a woman who said she was under the age of 18 when Skylstad sexually abused her at St. Patrick's Parish and at Gonzaga University from December 1961 to December 1964.
Skylstad was a student at Gonzaga University from 1962-1966 and taught mathematics to students at Mater Cleri Seminary at Colbert, north of Spokane.
The diocese is one of three in the nation that filed for bankruptcy protection to deal with claims of sexual abuse by clergy. Skylstad last month offered to settle with 75 victims for $45.7 million.
HOUSTON (TX)
Houston Press
By Craig Malisow
Article Published Mar 9, 2006
Thirteen years after he was accused of molesting two little girls, Houston priest Joseph Tu Ngoc Nguyen has been suspended by the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston. The suspension comes seven months after then-archbishop Joseph Fiorenza told parishioners at Holy Rosary Church that the Dominican Order had investigated and cleared Father Tu. The priest was in no way attracted to little girls, Fiorenza wrote in a letter read to the families filling the pews. They had no reason to worry. He left out the part about Tu's treatment at a rehab center in New Mexico, where he was diagnosed with a "very underdeveloped psycho-sexual personality."
According to a spokeswoman, Fiorenza got the information about the investigation from the Diocese of Fort Worth, where the alleged abuse occurred. That diocese claimed to get its information on Tu's good standing straight from the Dominican Order of New Orleans. The order's attorney even indicated that an investigation was successfully completed.
The only problem was, no one told the two little girls there was an investigation.
After years of silence, a Dallas attorney last week filed affidavits from the original accusers, who claim Tu molested them in 1975, when they were seven and eight. They claim that no one from the Dominican Order contacted them about an investigation. They also say they were shocked to learn that Tu was still in the ministry as of 2006.
They aren't the only ones: Four other women have signed affidavits in the case, accusing Tu of molesting them in the 1970s and 1980s, when he was at St. Matthews Parish in Arlington. Meanwhile, everyone affiliated with the dioceses and the Dominican Order is referring to an investigation that, 31 years after the accusations surfaced, doesn't seem to have happened.
IOWA
Telegraph Herald
by ERIK HOGSTROM
Sex abusers among the clergy differ from sex offenders in the general population, a researcher has noted.
"Most of the research on sex offenders emerges out of incarcerated clientele," said Thomas G. Plante, professor and chairman of the psychology department at Santa Clara University in California.
He edited the book, "Bless Me Father For I have Sinned: Perspectives on Sexual Abuse Committed by Roman Catholic Priests."
Research suggests lower education levels are prevalent among most sex offenders, unlike the clergy, who are highly educated.
Studies show the average IQ of priests at about 125.
"They are much smarter than the average person on the street," Plante said.
Determining the average IQ of the general public sex offender is difficult. However, a study of 255 incarcerated rapists in Massachusetts from 1980 to 1990 revealed an average IQ of 100 for the offenders - the same as that of the average American.
IOWA
Telegraph Herald
by ERIK HOGSTROM
Church officials rely on a battery of screenings to filter out potentially abusive priests.
"I'm not sure you could find a screening process that is more extensive than this one," said the Rev. Scott Bullock, director of seminarians for the Archdiocese of Dubuque.
Prospective priests face several tests, psychological analyses and questions about their sexual history - all before gaining admittance to the seminary.
"That is not to say the process is perfect," Bullock said, "but it has improved dramatically."
In past generations, a parish priest's recommendation ushered in a relatively uncomplicated acceptance process into the seminary.
Bullock described the current process as a four- to eight-year period of "very intense evaluation."
IRELAND
The Washington Times
Mar. 8, 2006 at 12:15PM
More than 90 Roman Catholic priests in Ireland have been accused of sexual misconduct by more than 350 victims, the Archdiocese of Dublin said.
In a review of 2,800 priests dating to 1940, the archdiocese said eight priests had been convicted on criminal charges and 32 priests were accused in 105 civil lawsuits.
In addition to the 91 priests already identified, suspicions have been raised against 11 more. Aside from the 350 known victims, 40 more may have been abused but have not yet been identified, the Dublin Archdiocese said in its report.
FAIRFAX CITY (VA)
Washington Post
By Tom Jackman and Hamil R. Harris
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, March 8, 2006; Page B03
A ministry leader at one of Prince George's County's largest churches has been charged in Fairfax City with raping and beating a woman in a hotel parking lot in January, and this week he was suspended from his church duties.
The Rev. Eugene A. Marriott Jr., 41, of Clinton was the "minister of men" at the 10,000-member Ebenezer African Methodist Episcopal Church in Fort Washington, one of the largest AME churches in the country. Marriott was arrested Jan. 14 and spent four days in the Fairfax County jail before a $20,000 bond was set. The church placed him on administrative leave with pay.
But aft