IRELAND
Irish Independent
THE public will get a chance to see inside the infamous St Conleth's Reformatory, in Daingean, Co Offaly, during an open day there tomorrow.
The Junior Minister responsible for the Office of Public Works, Tom Parlon, is organising the event. The property is in his constituency and is one of the buildings for which the OPW is seeking a future.
Since it closed as a reformatory 30 years ago it has been used as a storehouse for items in public ownership that should be in museums, but for which there is no space.
They are housed in the rambling dormitories and refectory, rarely seen, cut off from the small town that has had the mixed blessing of this forbidding complex of buildings on its outskirts. ...
Daingean was different. It was one of two reformatories run by the Oblates of Mary Immaculate. The other reformatory, St Kevin's in Glencree, was closed in the 1960s and its inmates moved to Daingean.
IRELAND
Irish Independent
THE doors of Daingean Reformatory will open for the first time in 33 years tomorrow to give the public a glimpse of what went out behind the high walls of the Co Offaly institution.
The notorious industrial school generated new controversy yesterday amid claims that Junior Finance Minister Tom Parlon had invited newly declared PD candidate Colm O'Gorman to speak at the open day.
Members of Irish SOCA (Survivors of Child Abuse) were incensed that the Minister would ask Mr O'Gorman, the founder member of One in Four to speak at the open day and immediately fired off a series of protests to the PD minister's office.
John Kelly of SOCA who spent two years in Daingean said that he was upset that Mr O'Gorman would have been invited by the Minister to speak at the Open Day.
TOLEDO (OH)
Cleveland Plain Dealer
Sunday, April 30, 2006
James Ewinger
Plain Dealer Reporter
Toledo - The drama of a priest on trial for a nun's murder is spectacle enough, but it has a lot of help.
Local reporters say Toledo has seen nothing like it in 20 years, and they are talking about the media attention, not the anomaly of a priest on trial.
The Rev. Gerald Robinson's trial enters its second week of testimony Monday, and the tone inside the Lucas County courtroom is expected to be as restrained and dignified as it has been since jury selection began in mid-April.
Outside, though, the media presence is felt immediately.
IRELAND
Time Europe Magazine
Sunday, Apr. 30, 2006
It's not your father's Irish Catholicism. Attendance at mass is down, birth control is commonplace, and not one new priest was ordained last year in the Dublin archdiocese — which estimates that more than 100 of its priests since 1940, about 4% of the total, have abused children. Diarmuid Martin, a Vatican diplomat who speaks five languages, was made Dublin's Archbishop in 2004 and has sought to clean up and revitalize the church. He spoke with Time's J.F.O. McAllister. ...
How important have the abuse scandals been in driving people away?
People's confidence in the church has suffered greatly.
Do you think you have the problem under control?
You would be very foolish to say you know everything because pedophiles are extremely devious and deliberate in covering their tracks. All I can say is that we are working to establish structures that will reduce the possibility that any church employee can do that.
CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune
By Manya A. Brachear
Tribune staff reporter
Published April 30, 2006
On a recent Sunday, Rev. Michael Knotek asked parishioners in his Far South Side sanctuary to bow their heads and call to mind the greatest cross they had to bear.
As they obeyed, Knotek also hung his head and meditated on the burden he has carried for 31 years: the knowledge that his older brother was molested by a priest and his belief that his church tried to cover it up.
"If we're careful, by God's grace, that very cross becomes our salvation," said the pastor of St. John De La Salle Catholic Church, echoing the message of redemption that forms the foundation of the Christian faith.
For some priests in the Chicago archdiocese, the Roman collar has been a yoke in recent months as abuse allegations mount against their colleague, Rev. Daniel McCormack. But for Knotek, 49, the sorrow is amplified by anger over how the church, particularly the neighboring Diocese of Joliet, has treated his family.
UNITED STATES
MetroWest Daily News
By Frank Mazzaglia/ Local View
Sunday, April 30, 2006
Did you know that in 1998, there were 103,600 specific cases of sexual abuse against children reported to the Department of Justice? What made these incidents even more startling was they took place in the public schools!
That was the same year reporters were just beginning to piece together the story of clergy sex abuse in the Catholic Church. The difference between prosecuting the Catholic Church rather than the schools was money. To date, the Catholic Church has paid out an estimated $1 billion to settle abuse claims. Investigative reporters were spurred on by information provided by the trial lawyers taking on the church. On the other hand, there wasn’t much to be gained by suing schools. So much for really caring about the kids!
Carol Shakeshaft, the researcher who prepared a draft report commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education, said the actual number of abuse cases in public schools could be much higher. Comparing survey data collected by the American Association of University Women Educational Foundation in 2000, Shakeshaft estimated that roughly 290,000 students experience some kind of physical sexual abuse by school employees. The magnitude of those numbers led Shakeshaft to contend that "the physical sexual abuse of students in schools is likely more than 100 times the abuse by priests."
IRELAND
The Sunday Times
Colm O’Gorman
It was July 1984 and Colm O’Gorman wanted to tell his sister that he had been sexually abused by Fr Sean Fortune. But the words wouldn’t come. Instead, he told her he was gay and that he had been having an affair with the priest, a monstrous character who eventually committed suicide in 1999 while facing 66 charges of molesting young people.
A few years earlier, when he was 15, and the abuse was going on, O’Gorman tried to tell his mother what was happening. Fortune was waiting downstairs in their home in Wexford, about to take him away for a weekend. It was the third such trip and O’Gorman knew what would happen, but such was the fear that the words wouldn’t come on that occasion either.
Fortune had told his young victim that he was the one with the problem. At the time the tactic worked. O’Gorman believed that seeking help or telling someone what was really going on would be an admission that something wasn’t right with himself.
He compared his situation to hanging from the edge of a swimming pool. Because “the words didn’t exist” to tell, he just let go — and drowned.
VERMONT
Burlington Free Press
Published: Sunday, April 30, 2006
By Sam Hemingway
Free Press Staff Writer
The year was 1972 and the newly appointed bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington, the Most Rev. John A. Marshall, had a decision to make.
The Rev. Edward Paquette, employed in parishes near Fort Wayne, Ind., wanted to transfer to the Vermont diocese, ostensibly so he could be closer to his aging parents, who lived in eastern Massachusetts.
Marshall was inclined to approve the transfer, writing to Paquette at one point in response to Paquette's inquiry that "Naturally, I am very anxious to have the assistance of as many quality priests as may be possible."
Paquette had molested boys at parishes in Indiana and Massachusetts, and Marshall knew it, church records show. The bishop also knew Paquette had received several weeks of electric shock therapy to treat what was described at the time as "this sickness of homosexuality."
VERMONT
Burlington Free Press
Published: Sunday, April 30, 2006
What follows is a summary of how Bishop John Marshall confronted various claims of priest sexual misconduct during his 21-year tenure as leader of the state's Roman Catholic diocese, and what happened afterward. Information was collected from court documents and interviews conducted by the Free Press:
In 1974, after being informed by the Rutland parish priest that the Rev. Ed. Paquette had molested "two young men" at the Rutland hospital while performing a Communion ritual, Marshall transferred Paquette to a Montpelier parish, and later to a Burlington parochial school parish.
Paquette is now believed to have molested altar boys at all three locations. Nine of the 11 cases filed against the diocese by his alleged victims were filed by former altar boys in Burlington. The other two were filed by former altar boys at St. Augustine Church in Montpelier when Paquette was a priest there. One of the alleged victims, identified only as "John Doe," claims he was molested between 30 and 50 times by Paquette.
PENNSYLVANIA
The Morning Call
By Steve Esack
Of The Morning Call
The pastor, principal and business manager looked at Holy Infancy School's small enrollment figures earlier this year and decided to ignore them. For now, anyway.
What mattered more was the morals-based learning of students such as eighth-grade class president Louis Perez. What mattered more were Sister Bonnie Marie Kleinschuster's dedication to classroom technology and the school's new media center. And what mattered more was the history of parochial education at Bethlehem's first Roman Catholic parish. ...
While a small number of Catholic schools have opened in fast-developing suburbs and Sun Belt states, Convey said, the national pace of urban and rural closures has accelerated in major dioceses since 2000, the last time enrollments increased. An underlying cause could be the simmering priest scandals because ''Catholic schools may be considered as collateral in lawsuits brought by victims of sexual abuse,'' he reported.
FAIRBANKS (AK)
Juneau Empire
FAIRBANKS - A judge in Nome reversed himself and now will allow a civil case involving allegations of abuse by a priest to go forward.
Superior Court Judge Ben Esch in February dismissed the suit against the Fairbanks Catholic Diocese and the Society of Jesus brought by a woman identified in court documents as Jane Doe 2.
After going over motions filed by the attorneys in the case, Esch now is asking attorneys on both sides to set a date to hear arguments between May 30 and June 16.
FAIRBANKS (AK)
Anchorage Daily News
The Associated Press
Published: April 30, 2006
Last Modified: April 30, 2006 at 02:58 AM
FAIRBANKS -- A judge in Nome has decided he will hear arguments from attorneys in their effort to get the civil case involving allegations of abuse by a priest to go forward.
Superior Court Judge Ben Esch in February dismissed the suit against the Fairbanks Catholic Diocese and the Society of Jesus brought by a woman identified in court documents as Jane Doe 2.
After going over motions filed by the attorneys in the case, Esch now is asking attorneys on both sides to set a date to hear arguments between May 30 and June 16.
"We are all thrilled," said Anchorage attorney Ken Roosa, who with California attorney John Manly represents the plaintiff.
ALASKA
Fairbanks News Miner
By MARY BETH SMETZER, Staff Writer
Lawyers will again argue a civil case that was dismissed in February against the Fairbanks Catholic Diocese and the Society of Jesus.
Nome Superior Court Judge Ben Esch, responding to motions filed by the attorneys of Jane Doe 2 after the dis missal, is asking attorneys on both sides to meet and set a date to hear ar guments between May 30 and June 16.
"We are all thrilled," said Anchorage attorney Ken Roosa, who with California attorney John Manly represent the plaintiff.
"We lost our case and he (Esch) is giving us a chance to put life back into it."
TOLEDO (OH)
Toledo Blade
By DAVID YONKE
BLADE RELIGION EDITOR
A retired Mercy Hospital housekeeper testified today that Sister Margaret Ann Pahl was so upset over the way the Rev. Gerald Robinson celebrated Good Friday Mass on April 4, 1980, that the nun clutched her hand and said, "Why do they cheat God from what belongs to him?"
Father Robinson, 68, is on trial in Lucas County Common Pleas Court, charged in the murder of Sister Margaret Ann on Holy Saturday, 1980.
Shirley Ann Lucas, who cleaned the Sisters of Mercy convent on the seventh floor of the hospital, testified in Judge Thomas Osowik's court today that Sister Margaret Ann was a "very strict" nun who wanted things done a certain way.
Asked by Larry Kiroff, assistant Lucas County prosecutor, for an example, Ms. Lucas said the nun criticized her for throwing away small pieces of soap and toilet paper rolls with just a few pieces of paper left. Sister Margaret Ann showed her how she could wet the small soap bars and press them together to make a larger bar, Ms. Lucas said.
DENVER (CO)
CBS 4
(AP) DENVER The Colorado House delayed a final vote Friday on a proposal allowing people to file lawsuits based on old allegations of sexual abuse, unsure if there is enough support for approval after the bill was overhauled in the Senate.
Rep. Gwen Green, D-Golden, asked House members to go to a conference committee to talk about differences in the two measures. Green said a lot of members felt like they hadn't had enough time to review amendments made by the Senate, which passed the bill Thursday.
"This gives them sufficient time to look at the changes," she said.
The proposal (House Bill 1090) would allow people to file lawsuits based on alleged sex abuse until their 53rd birthday. Currently, accusers can't file lawsuits after they turn 24.
FREEHOLD (NJ)
The Star-Ledger
Saturday, April 29, 2006
BY MARYANN SPOTO
Star-Ledger Staff
In one of the few cases of its kind to make it to criminal court, a Roman Catholic priest was sen tenced to a probationary term yesterday for sexually abusing one of his parishioners.
Superior Court Judge Bette Uhrmacher in Freehold sentenced the Rev. Joseph McHugh to the maximum five years' probation and ordered that he have no unsuper vised contact with children or adolescents for the rest of his life for a crime she said destroyed the "entire belief system" of the victim and his family.
"Despite your compromised health, I'm still concerned about protecting the public -- in this case, particularly children and adolescents," Uhrmacher told the 60-year-old former pastor of St. Thomas More Church in Manala pan.
She often referred to a letter she received from the victim's mother that she said was "most moving and descriptive of what happens when a child's involved. It never goes away."
FREEHOLD (NJ)
Philadelphia Inquirer
By Wayne Parry
Associated Press
FREEHOLD - A Catholic priest accused of molesting a 9-year-old boy a decade ago after taking him to basketball games was sentenced to five years of probation yesterday in a deal that dropped a sexual-assault charge to spare the victim from having to testify.
The Rev. Joseph McHugh, who was removed from active ministry about 10 years ago, pleaded guilty in October to a single count of endangering the welfare of a child.
The victim, who is now 21, declined to speak in court, but said through his attorney that he was glad McHugh had to face justice. However, other victims of clergy sexual abuse, including the priest who replaced McHugh at St. Thomas More Parish in Manalapan, blasted the deal.
"Joseph McHugh, though he made many good choices in his life, chose the worst kind of evil," said the Rev. John Bambrick, who said he was molested by priests while studying to become one. Bambrick, who served at Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Maple Shade in the early 1990s, said he had tried to warn Trenton Diocese officials about McHugh.
ROCKFORD (IL)
Rockford Register Star
ROCKFORD REGISTER STAR
ROCKFORD — The Rockford chapter of a national survivors group will hold a news conference about “new events” in the clergy sexual-abuse scandal.
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests plans the media event for 11 a.m. Monday at St. Peter Cathedral, 1243 N. Church St., Rockford, the group announced in a statement released Friday.
Survivors and supporters of alleged abuse will be present. Donald Bondick, coordinator of the Rockford chapter, will make a statement about the Catholic Diocese of Rockford.
Bondick would not say whether the news conference was about new victims or allegations in the 11-county diocese.
FREEHOLD (NJ)
The Jersey Journal
Saturday, April 29, 2006
A Catholic priest accused of molesting a 9-year-old boy a decade ago may be moving to Bayonne.
The Rev. Joseph McHugh, who is accused of molesting the boy after taking him to basketball games, was sentenced to five years of probation yesterday in Freehold in a deal that dropped a sexual assault charge to spare the victim from having to testify.
McHugh, who was removed from active ministry about 10 years ago, had pleaded guilty in October to a single count of endangering the welfare of a child. He has indicated he plans to live with a relative in Bayonne.
State Superior Court Judge Bette Uhrmacher sentenced McHugh to probation, fined him $1,000 and required him to register with the state as a sex offender.
FREEHOLD (NJ)
The Jersey Journal
Saturday, April 29, 2006
A Catholic priest accused of molesting a 9-year-old boy a decade ago may be moving to Bayonne.
The Rev. Joseph McHugh, who is accused of molesting the boy after taking him to basketball games, was sentenced to five years of probation yesterday in Freehold in a deal that dropped a sexual assault charge to spare the victim from having to testify.
McHugh, who was removed from active ministry about 10 years ago, had pleaded guilty in October to a single count of endangering the welfare of a child. He has indicated he plans to live with a relative in Bayonne.
State Superior Court Judge Bette Uhrmacher sentenced McHugh to probation, fined him $1,000 and required him to register with the state as a sex offender.
FREEHOLD (NJ)
The Jersey Journal
Saturday, April 29, 2006
A Catholic priest accused of molesting a 9-year-old boy a decade ago may be moving to Bayonne.
The Rev. Joseph McHugh, who is accused of molesting the boy after taking him to basketball games, was sentenced to five years of probation yesterday in Freehold in a deal that dropped a sexual assault charge to spare the victim from having to testify.
McHugh, who was removed from active ministry about 10 years ago, had pleaded guilty in October to a single count of endangering the welfare of a child. He has indicated he plans to live with a relative in Bayonne.
State Superior Court Judge Bette Uhrmacher sentenced McHugh to probation, fined him $1,000 and required him to register with the state as a sex offender.
FREEHOLD (NJ)
Ashbury Park Press
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 04/29/06
BY BOB JORDAN
FREEHOLD BUREAU
FREEHOLD — A Roman Catholic priest accused of molesting a 9-year-old boy who was a parishioner of St. Thomas More Church in Manalapan more than a decade ago has dodged prison but was given a five-year probation term.
Child welfare advocates said Friday's sentencing of the Rev. Joseph McHugh, 60, in Superior Court marks one of the few clergy abuse cases to go through the criminal courts in New Jersey.
"Usually, the statute of limitations is exceeded because attacks happen when the victim is very young, and it can take years to find the courage to come forward," said Mendham resident Ben "Buddy" Cotton, a state director of SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests). Cotton attended the sentencing.
McHugh was accused of a series of abuses from 1994, when the victim was 9, to 1996. The attacks occurred when McHugh would drive the boy to church-affiliated youth basketball games, according to Gregory G. Gianforcaro, attorney for the victim and his family.
SPRINGFIELD (IL)
Springfield State Journal-Register
By DAVE BAKKE
STAFF WRITER
Published Saturday, April 29, 2006
Joseph Havey, a former Springfield priest accused of sexual abuse of minors in the 1970s and early '80s, has been removed from the clergy by Pope Benedict XVI.
According to the papal decree, Havey, who has not been an active priest for more than 20 years, cannot present himself as a priest or perform any clerical duties.
Diocese spokeswoman Kathie Sass said Friday that, while such a decree is rare, it has happened in the Springfield diocese previously.
"Maybe the person had left the ministry," Sass said. "There can be a number of reasons. This one is unusual in that, at the request of Bishop (George) Lucas, it comes directly from the pope."
UNITED KINGDOM
News & Star
Published on 29/04/2006
By Anna Richardson
A FORMER Workington priest serving time for sex crimes against children has admitted sexually abusing an altar boy at the town’s main Catholic church.
But Gregory Carroll, who was jailed in September for abusing 10 boys under the age of 15 while teaching in Yorkshire, will not be prosecuted for the offence.
The disgraced priest was thought to have kept his hands off children during his time in west Cumbria, but he was reinterviewed by police following a new complaint.
The Crown Prosecution Service has decided it is not in the public interest to prosecute Carroll further, as the 66-year-old is already serving four years for other sexual offences.
He will also remain on the sex offenders’ register for the rest of his life.
But victim support groups have criticised the CPS for not allowing the 27-year-old victim, who was aged nine or 10 when he was attacked, his day in court. Carol Tindall, of West Cumbria Rape Crisis, said: “Each victim has a right to have their case heard. They deserve to know that they have been heard and people recognise what has happened to them.
“It is devastating to just be dismissed.”
Carroll was jailed after he admitted abusing boys while working at Ampleforth College in North Yorkshire between 1973 and 1983.
When the abuse was discovered, he was quietly removed from teaching and sent to Workington to work as a priest at Our Lady and St Michael’s church among the unsuspecting community.
Carroll has successfully appealed to get his sentence reduced by one year.
Other stories from this category that may interest you:
My fight to beat breast cancer
£600 boost for Allerdale charity
West Cumbrian schools are top of the rocks at the Sands
Windfarm is planned for Solway coast site
Do pets or people make better companions?
Hospitals praised for cleanliness of wards
MP Reed wants Capita to foot bill for N-plant wages mix-up
An English icon
Drugs war success claimed as police pick up dealers
Government is slammed over delays in cockle picking laws
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UNITED KINGDOM
News & Star
Published on 29/04/2006
By Anna Richardson
A FORMER Workington priest serving time for sex crimes against children has admitted sexually abusing an altar boy at the town’s main Catholic church.
But Gregory Carroll, who was jailed in September for abusing 10 boys under the age of 15 while teaching in Yorkshire, will not be prosecuted for the offence.
The disgraced priest was thought to have kept his hands off children during his time in west Cumbria, but he was reinterviewed by police following a new complaint.
The Crown Prosecution Service has decided it is not in the public interest to prosecute Carroll further, as the 66-year-old is already serving four years for other sexual offences.
He will also remain on the sex offenders’ register for the rest of his life.
But victim support groups have criticised the CPS for not allowing the 27-year-old victim, who was aged nine or 10 when he was attacked, his day in court. Carol Tindall, of West Cumbria Rape Crisis, said: “Each victim has a right to have their case heard. They deserve to know that they have been heard and people recognise what has happened to them.
“It is devastating to just be dismissed.”
Carroll was jailed after he admitted abusing boys while working at Ampleforth College in North Yorkshire between 1973 and 1983.
When the abuse was discovered, he was quietly removed from teaching and sent to Workington to work as a priest at Our Lady and St Michael’s church among the unsuspecting community.
Carroll has successfully appealed to get his sentence reduced by one year.
Other stories from this category that may interest you:
My fight to beat breast cancer
£600 boost for Allerdale charity
West Cumbrian schools are top of the rocks at the Sands
Windfarm is planned for Solway coast site
Do pets or people make better companions?
Hospitals praised for cleanliness of wards
MP Reed wants Capita to foot bill for N-plant wages mix-up
An English icon
Drugs war success claimed as police pick up dealers
Government is slammed over delays in cockle picking laws
Back
HOME
NEWS
BUSINESS
NEWS FOCUS
ROAD SAFETY
SCHOOLS
SPORT
the LIST
STUDENT
LIFESTYLE
KIDS
OPINION
WEATHER
FORUMS
PHOTO GALLERY
e SHOPPING
MOTORING
JOBS
CLASSIFIEDS
PROPERTY
GOLD ONLINE
WEDDINGS
READERS TRAVEL
DATING
READERS OFFER
BUY THE PAPER
ABOUT US
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FREEHOLD (NJ)
NBC 10
FREEHOLD, N.J. -- A Catholic priest accused of molesting a 9-year-old boy a decade ago after taking him to basketball games was sentenced to five years of probation Friday in a deal that dropped a sexual assault charge to spare the victim from having to testify.
The Rev. Joseph McHugh, who was removed from active ministry about 10 years ago, had pleaded guilty in October to a single count of endangering the welfare of a child.
The victim, who is now 21, declined to speak in court, but said through his lawyer he is glad McHugh had to face justice. However, other victims of clergy sexual abuse, including the priest who replaced McHugh at St. Thomas More parish in Manalapan, blasted the deal.
"Joseph McHugh, though he made many good choices in his life, chose the worst kind of evil," said the Rev. John Bambrick, who said he was molested by priests while studying to become one.
State Superior Court Judge Bette Uhrmacher sentenced McHugh to probation, fined him $1,000 and required he register with the state as a sex offender. For a person with no prior criminal record, like McHugh, the charge does not carry a presumption of jail time.
UNITED STATES
Columbus Dispatch
Friday, April 28, 2006
HEATHER ROUSSEAU RELIGION NEWS SERVICE
The Rev. Allen Kannapell, pastor of the Anglican Church of Livonia, Mich., prepares for services at a YMCA, the temporary home of his breakaway flock.
When the Rev. Allen Kannapell and most of St. Andrew’s parish in Livonia, Mich., decided earlier this year that they could no longer remain Episcopalians, the conservative pastor knew he had a choice.
Kannapell could either launch an expensive legal fight to claim ownership of St. Andrew’s that he would likely lose, or simply walk away. He and his flock weighed the options and decided to turn over their keys. ...
Facing big-dollar sex-abuse lawsuits, the Catholic bishops of Portland, Ore., and Spokane, Wash., declared bankruptcy. In determining which assets would be available to pay creditors, the bishops said parishes were off-limits because they were not controlled by the diocese.
Under civil law, the bishops said, they were merely trustees for the property, holding them in benefit of parishioners. Under church law, they said, they have authority over parishes but cannot close them at will.
But lawyers representing the creditors in Portland argue that it’s clear that the 124 parishes are owned by a corporation that is based in the bishop’s office.
TEXAS
The Dallas Morning News
12:00 AM CDT on Friday, April 28, 2006
Earlier this month, the U.S. Supreme Court rebuffed Cardinal Roger Mahony's attempt to keep secret the files about Los Angeles priests accused of sexually abusing kids. Thank God the court had more good sense than the church. How could anyone possibly believe that the right course of action was to keep such information secret?
Perhaps leaders at the Baptist General Convention of Texas could explain such bizarre thinking. They, too, keep a confidential list of individuals who are reported by a church for sexual misconduct, including ministers who are accused of sexually abusing kids.
By written policy, the Baptist Convention places a minister's name in that file only if the report is made by a church and only if there is a confession, a conviction or "substantial evidence that the abuse took place." A Baptist brochure refers to it as the file of "known offenders."
IRELAND
Limerick Post
THE brother of deceased former alter-boy, Peter McCloskey, has said Bishop Donal Murray’s admission that Peter was telling the truth and that the Diocese of Limerick failed to protect him is "a step in the right direction”.
Joseph McCloskey and his mother Mary met with Bishop Donal Murray last Sunday in an effort "to resolve and understand what led to Peter’s death”.
And Mr McCloskey said that he hopes that his brother’s tragic death and the subsequent media coverage "will assist in the better handling of any future cases”.
CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Sun-Times
April 28, 2006
BY RUMMANA HUSSAIN Staff Reporter
A former altar boy and student at Lombard's St. Pius X parish Thursday accused two priests who worked at the Roman Catholic church of molesting him in the mid-1970s, and blamed Joliet Bishop Joseph Imesch for dimissing the actions of one of the alleged abusers.
Tim Greco said he only got the courage to speak out against the Rev. Phillip Dedera and the Rev. Richard Bennett because he has been sober for several years after a nearly three-decade battle with alcohol, and because his son recently turned 11 -- the same age that Greco says the sexual abuse began.
"It just destroys me to know that there's men out there that could do this to children," the married, Arizona-based owner of a home-theater business said through tears. "I can't let it happen to my son or anybody else's children."
CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune
By Manya A. Brachear
Tribune staff reporter
Published April 28, 2006
An Arizona man has accused two priests of sexually abusing him more than 30 years ago at St. Pius X Parish in Lombard, according to a $350,000 civil lawsuit filed Thursday in DuPage County Circuit Court.
Tim Greco, 43, of Gilbert, Ariz., alleges that Rev. Phillip Dedera sexually molested him more than 100 times, starting in 1974 when the plaintiff was an 11-year-old altar boy. He also recounted how Rev. Richard Bennett, now pastor of Holy Spirit Catholic Community Church in Naperville, caught Dedera in the act, but instead of reporting it to church or civil authorities, allegedly fondled the boy after a mass.
Contacted by telephone Thursday, Bennett tearfully denied the allegation, adding that Greco's complaint had been investigated by the Joliet Diocesan Review Committee and was deemed "not credible."
Dedera could not be reached for comment Thursday.
TOLEDO (OH)
Toledo Blade
By DAVID YONKE
BLADE STAFF WRITER
Famed forensic investigator Dr. Henry Lee today showed jurors in the murder trial of the Rev. Gerald Robinson how he used chemicals to enhance bloodstains on the altar cloth found at the scene of a nun’s slaying 26 years ago.
Father Robinson is charged with murder in the strangulation and stabbing death of Sister Margaret Ann Pahl on Holy Saturday, 1980.
Dr. Lee, the Taiwan-born forensic expert best known for his testimony for the defense in the O.J. Simpson trial, testified for some 40 minutes. He pointed out similarities between bloody imprints on the altar cloth and the shape of a letter opener found in Father Robinson’s apartment.
As a previous forensic expert testified yesterday, Dr. Lee said he could detect certain elements of an image in a bloodstain that seemed to match a medallion on the letter opener.
TOLEDO (OH)
Houston Chronicle
By JOHN SEEWER Associated Press Writer
TOLEDO, Ohio — A letter opener found in a priest's room was a "perfect fit" when inserted into a jaw wound suffered by a nun slain in 1980, an assistant coroner testified Tuesday at the priest's murder trial.
Also, the letter opener appeared to match punctures in an altar cloth that had been placed over the nun's body, another investigator told the jury.
The testimony came at the trial of the Rev. Gerald Robinson, 68, in the slaying of Sister Margaret Ann Pahl. She was stabbed to death and choked in a hospital chapel. Investigators have not disclosed a motive for the killing.
"We took the letter opener and inserted it. It was a perfect fit," Diane Scala-Barnett, an assistant Lucas County coroner, testified about a second autopsy done after the body was exhumed in 2004.
CALIFORNIA
Orange County Weekly
By GUSTAVO ARELLANO
Thursday, April 27, 2006 - 1:00 am
Editor’s note: The names of the alleged victims and students in this story have been changed.
In the spring of 1996, an English teacher at Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana snatched the following note as students tried to pass it across her classroom:
Linda,
Charles told me, did you hear about Coach Andrade & I said no, what? He goes coach fucked a girl that comes here & I play it off, like Naah. I go who? He goes I don’t know. Some junior. I guess he doesn’t know or maybe he knows that I know. But I swear to God I didn’t tell anyone.
The coach in question was Jeff Andrade, a popular teacher who moonlighted as an assistant coach on Mater Dei’s powerful boys’ basketball program and sold hot dogs from a cart during lunch. The teacher immediately turned over the note to Mater Dei administrators, who summoned Linda for questioning. Linda alleged that Andrade was having an affair with her best friend Nancy—had been since the beginning of the school year. School officials then confronted 15-year-old Nancy and 34-year-old Andrade; both denied any relationship other than teacher and student: Andrade was once Nancy’s driver’s education instructor, and they occasionally talked to each other in the school’s weight room. Mater Dei closed the investigation without taking further action. They never told Nancy’s parents about the note or contacted Orange County Child Protective Services, as they are obligated by law to do.
CHICAGO (IL)
The Herald News
By Ted Slowik
staff writer
CHICAGO — An Arizona man says in a lawsuit filed Thursday that two priests of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Joliet sexually abused him beginning when he was 11 years old in 1975.
Once, 43-year-old Tim Greco says, he was in a shower with the Rev. Philip Dedera in the rectory at St. Pius X Church in Lombard when the Rev. Richard Bennett walked in and discovered the priest and boy naked together. Greco says Dedera repeatedly abused him for more than a year, and that Bennett molested him once.
Bennett is pastor of Holy Spirit Church at 111th Street and Book Road in Naperville. Dedera was removed from ministry by Joliet Bishop Joseph Imesch in 2002 amid reports that he sexually abused other boys.
Greco says he reported the incidents to the diocese in 2004, and recalls a phone conversation he had with Imesch two years ago.
WHEATON (IL)
NBC 5
WHEATON, Ill. -- A 43-year-old Arizona man has filed a child sexual abuse lawsuit claiming he was molested at age 11 or 12 by two Archdiocese of Joliet priests, one of whom still serves at a parish in Naperville, according to a release from the plaintiff’s attorney.
The suit also charges that Joliet Diocese officials have dragged their feet in responding to the allegations.
Tim Greco filed suit in DuPage County Circuit Court on Thursday charging that from 1975 to 1976, while serving as an altar boy at St. Pius X parish in Lombard, he was sexually abused by two priests, the Rev. Phillip J. Dedera and the Rev. Richard L. Bennett, according to attorney Marc Pearlman of Chicago.
The suit claims Greco, now married with two children, was repeatedly molested by Dedera, and then abused once by Bennett after Bennett became aware that Dedera was molesting the boy.
Morris pastor, Joliet bishop testify before grand jury
By Jo Ann Hustis
Herald Writer
JOLIET (IL)
Morris Daily Herald
JOLIET – The Rev. Richard Smith of Immaculate Conception Church in Morris is not a target of a Will County Grand Jury investigation.
Will County State’s Attorney Jim Glasgow confirmed today Smith is not a target, although he did testify during a secret grand jury session conducted Wednesday afternoon in a courtroom on the third floor of the county courthouse in Joliet.
“It’s just wrong for people to think that he is a target when he’s not,” Glasgow noted of Rev. Smith.
NEW JERSEY
Gay City News
A three-judge panel of the New Jersey Appellate Division has reversed an aggravated criminal sexual contact conviction of a Catholic priest, referred to in court papers as Michael F., on the ground that the jury was improperly exposed to testimony about his sexual orientation. Michael was arrested in 2001, on charges that he had sexually abused the teenage son of a parishioner, in social situations in which the boy claimed sexual physical contact, but which the priest said were innocuous.
The jury convicted Michael, who claimed several trial errors on appeal, among them that the trial judge should have excluded from evidence a statement he made to the police upon his arrest that he is homosexual and struggling with his identity.
WASHINGTON (DC)
Washington Post
By Michelle Boorstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 28, 2006; Page B02
A Jesuit priest who was a popular teacher for 14 years at Georgetown Preparatory School inappropriately touched a student at the prestigious Jesuit-run boys' school in North Bethesda, an investigation by Jesuit authorities found.
The Rev. Gary Orr, 52, left Georgetown Prep in June 2003 -- at the end of the school year when the alleged incident took place -- and is on a leave of absence from the order "to consider his future," said an April 7 letter from the Rev. Timothy B. Brown, the provincial, or head, of the Maryland Province of the Society of Jesus.
The letter was sent to parents and alumni, along with an April 10 letter from the Rev. William L. George, the school's president.
"I recognize that this news will be difficult for many members of our community," George wrote. "There are inevitable feelings of sadness, disbelief and anger, which are the same emotions I have been struggling with since first learning of the accusation."
WISCONSIN
WKOW
Thu 04/27/2006 -
Thousands of Catholic priests stand accused of sexual abuse. And a Cross Plains couple believes if the church were more open about them, a family member would still be alive. They believe their case may be the most heinous in the history of the sex abuse scandal. And now the family is hoping their story will serve as a wake up call to the Catholic Church.
It all began four years ago, when Tom O'Connell was told that his brother Dan had been shot and killed at the family funeral home in Hudson, Wisconsin along with intern James Ellison. For years, the murder remained a mystery, until police discovered the killer was the family's parish priest...Father Ryan Erickson. The O'Connells say the church had known for some time about Erickson's dark past.
“They didn't do anything to stop him, and I am convinvinced that if they had taken action, both Dan and James would be alive today," Tom says.
VERMONT
Rutland Herald
April 28, 2006
An extraordinary series of letters has come to light in the sexual abuse case against a former priest, revealing the failure of the Catholic clergy in Vermont to face squarely the crimes committed and the damage inflicted by one of their number.
The Rev. Edward Paquette served as a priest in Rutland, Montpelier, and Burlington after serving in Massachusetts and Indiana during the 1960s and 1970s. In each place he was found to have sexually abused boys, and the church responded by sending him to treatment programs and providing him with the pastoral counseling it believed would help him keep his abusive behavior under control. In the end Bishop John Marshall of the diocese of Burlington was forced to dismiss him.
The Paquette story mirrors many of the abuse cases that have come to light in recent years, most famously in the Boston area. It involves a priest given to criminal exploitation of children and a church shifting him from church to church in the hope of averting scandal.
Church leaders were far from oblivious to the damage that Paquette was doing. In a letter to Christ the King Church in Burlington, written in 1978, Marshall wrote: "As I am sure that you understand the tension that can sometimes develop between the concern that we should have for one of God's chosen priests and the equally great concern that we should have for the spiritual welfare of His people can be great indeed and not easily resolved."
UNITED KINGDOM
Times & Star
Published on 28/04/2006
A FORMER Workington priest has admitted from his prison cell that he sexually abused a former altar boy at the town’s main Catholic Church, Our Lady and St Michael’s.
This is the first time that the authorities have been able to confirm that the disgraced ex-Benedictine monk Gregory Carroll committed offences while in Workington.
But the distraught victim, now 27, will never have his day in court because the Crown Prosecution Service has decided not to take out a further prosecution against the 66-year-old, who is serving four years for other sexual offences.
David Hansford, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said the decision not to prosecute was not made for any lack of evidence but because it was not “in the public interest”.
CANADA
The New York Times
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS
Published: April 27, 2006
TORONTO, April 26 — In a long delayed conclusion to a dark chapter of Canadian history, negotiators have reached an agreement to compensate 80,000 Native Canadians who attended a government-financed school system where many suffered physical and sexual abuse.
The widespread incidence of alcoholism, family violence and incest in many Native Canadian communities has long been linked to the experiences of generations who attended the so-called residential schools, which were dedicated to forced assimilation and operated for more than a century, until the 1980's.
Typically, government agents forced Inuit, Cree and other children to leave their parents and attend the schools, where they were harshly punished for speaking their own languages or practicing their religions.
Negotiators representing the government, native peoples and several churches that administered the schools agreed that nearly $2 billion would be paid out in damages. Payments are set to begin next year, but will possibly be accelerated for the elderly and the sick.
IRELAND
One in Four
Irish Examiner
McCloskeys say diocese has ‘a lot to learn’
The diocese of Limerick has agreed to carry out an investigation into its handling of the Peter McCloskey sexual abuse allegations.
Following a meeting with family of Mr McCloskey, a former altar boy, who died tragically after complaining he had been abused by a priest, the diocese announced the decision.
The diocese admitted it failed to properly inform itself as to Fr Denis Daly’s suitability for ministry.
Fr Daly was accused by Peter McCloskey of abusing him when Fr Daly worked in Caherdavin parish.
IRELAND
One in Four
The Irish Times
There is something distasteful about the Diocese of Limerick at the moment, writes Mary Raftery. Following the tragic suicide of clerical sexual abuse victim Peter McCloskey and the public exposure of his suffering, what we have witnessed so far is a frantic damage-limitation exercise.
There was some hope that after the immense child abuse scandals in Ferns and Dublin, the bishops might realise the harm that they themselves were causing by the way they treated people who had revealed the abuse they suffered as children.
It seemed that from Diarmuid Martin in Dublin and Eamon Walsh in Ferns at least there had been an acknowledgment of shortcomings, of denial and of the reliance on legal advice instead of a moral and Christian response.
Peter McCloskey's mother Mary and brother Joseph are in no doubt that had Peter been treated with dignity and compassion by the Diocese of Limerick from the time he revealed his abuse in 2002, he would still be alive today.
TOLEDO (OH)
Court TV
By Seamus McGraw
April 27, 2006
TOLEDO, Ohio (Crime Libarary)
Her real name has never been publicly released, but the now 42-year-old woman identified in court papers and in the press as Jane Doe may well have done as much as anyone to set in motion the chain of events that led to the arrest of Father Gerald Robinson and his now ongoing trial for the murder of an elderly nun nearly two and a half decades ago.
And while those who know her say it was never her intention, there are some who believe that if the woman, described as accommodating and cooperative almost to the point of being self-effacing, had not come forward in 2003, then the case against Robinson might never have been made.
Ironically, says Claudia Vercellotti, an activist with the local advocacy group SNAP (Survivors Network of Those Abused By Priests and other church leaders) who has worked closely with Jane Doe, the woman had far different intentions when she first emerged in June of 2003 to recount what she described as an ordeal of ritualized sexual abuse, Satanic in its overtones, committed, she alleged, by priests years earlier. Among them, she alleged, was Robinson.
IRELAND
Irish Independent
THE PDS beat Labour to the punch for Colm O'Gorman as a general election candidate.
Mr O'Gorman admitted at the PD press conference yesterday he had been approached by other parties, and Labour last night confirmed it had been in talks with the high-profile leader of One in Four, the organisation for victims of sexual abuse.
Mr O'Gorman was present at some recent Labour events and spoke publicly at more than one of these.
In 2003, Mr O'Gorman was presented with the James Larkin justice award at the Labour party's annual conference in Tralee - Pat Rabbitte's first as leader.
BOSTON (MA)
Salem News
BOSTON — The former chaplain at Peabody's Bishop Fenwick High School will be "permanently removed" from the priesthood, according to a strongly worded statement released yesterday by the Archdiocese of Boston.
The Rev. James W. Nyhan, 60, pleaded guilty this week in a Charleston, S.C., court to three counts of committing a lewd act on a minor. He entered his plea on Monday, the day his trial was scheduled to start. Though he was sentenced to 10 years on each count, the judge suspended the sentence and placed Nyhan on probation for five years. The archidiocese, however, doesn't plan to spare its typical punishment for such transgressions.
MISSOURI
News Tribune
By ALAN SCHER ZAGIER
Associated Press Writer
Two small-town Roman Catholic priests have been removed from active service by the Diocese of Jefferson City following allegations of sexual misconduct.
The diocese is investigating claims against the Rev. Louis E. Dorn of St. Joseph Catholic Church in the northeast Missouri town of Louisiana and the Rev. John Joseph Schutty of St. Cecilia Catholic Church in the Osage County town of Meta, church officials said Wednesday.
“We're following policy,” said Sister Ethel-Marie Biri, chancellor for the diocese. “It does not presume guilt.”
The allegations do not stem from either priest's current parish, she said.
“They're from years ago,” said Biri, who referred to the action as “administrative leaves.”
JOLIET (IL)
The Herald News
By Joe Hosey
staff writer
JOLIET — Bishop Joseph Imesch appeared before a grand jury Wednesday, taking a back stairway up to the secret session in a third-floor courtroom, a law enforcement source said.
Imesch, the top man for the Diocese of Joliet, also took an alternate route into the courthouse, sources said.
The bishop entered through a basement sally port instead of using the public entrance.
Asked why the bishop was afforded special treatment on his trip to the courthouse, Pat Barry, spokesman for the sheriff's department, said late Wednesday that he had not been notified of Imesch's afternoon appearance.
Imesch followed a local Catholic priest, the Rev. Richard Smith, into the grand jury. Two other priests waited in the hallway outside the grand jury room.
ARIZONA
The Arizona Republic
Jim Walsh
The Arizona Republic
Apr. 27, 2006 12:00 AM
Defense attorneys are seeking details of the sex life of an openly gay man who is listed as a witness in the case against a suspended Mesa priest charged with sex crimes involving teenage boys.
Brian Jones, a former employee of St. Timothy's Catholic Church once pastored by Monsignor Dale Fushek, is a prosecution witness in the case.
During a March 29 deposition, Jones refused to answer when asked to list the number of his homosexual relationships. He also would not answer questions about his upbringing and past employment.
TOLEDO (OH)
USA Today
TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) — Blood on an altar cloth covering a nun's body and DNA traces on her underwear did not come from the priest charged with her killing 26 years ago, a DNA expert testified Wednesday.
The DNA found on Sister Margaret Ann Pahl was likely from a man, but tests did not link the sample to the Rev. Gerald Robinson, said Cassandra Agosti, a forensic analyst with the state's crime lab.
Prosecutors said the trace of DNA was so small that tests showing it came from a man might have been wrong, or the sample could have been left by investigators on the scene or in the coroner's office.
Robinson, 68, was the hospital chaplain when Sister Pahl was found stabbed to death on the day before Easter, 1980. She was found in the chapel where both worked, but authorities have not disclosed a motive in her killing.
TOLEDO (OH)
The Mercury News
JOHN SEEWER
Associated Press
TOLEDO, Ohio - Bloodstains on an altar cloth and the forehead of a nun slain in 1980 could have come from a sword-shaped letter opener belonging to the priest accused of stabbing her, a medical examiner testified.
The stains were a key reason why prosecutors two years ago charged the Rev. Gerald Robinson with killing Sister Margaret Ann Pahl. Paulette Sutton, a medical examiner, told jurors Wednesday during Robinson's trial that of 18 bloodstains she examined on the cloth, most could have come from the letter opener.
Robinson, 68, was a suspect early on because he was near the chapel at the time Sister Pahl was killed. The two worked together closely and Robinson presided over her funeral. He could get life in prison if convicted of murder.
Testimony in the case was set to continue Thursday.
VIRGINIA
Times Dispatch
A girls softball coach in Chesterfield County has been charged with sexually abusing two girls.
County police said the alleged victims were not members of his team.
Scott T. Manz, 39, of the 4500 block of Cochise Trail was charged April 15 -- the same day the alleged offenses occurred with aggravated sexual battery, object sexual penetration and two counts of taking indecent liberties with a minor.
Manz has been suspended as coach of the Salem Church Association girls softball team, which is part of the Chesterfield Youth Softball Association.
DENVER (CO)
Denver Post
By Mark P. Couch
Denver Post Staff Writer
Victims of childhood sex abuse would get more time to file lawsuits against institutions that hid their alleged abusers under a bill narrowly approved Wednesday by the Colorado Senate.
The measure, which has been the target of a vehement opposition campaign led by the Catholic Church, faces a final vote as soon as today.
Four Republicans joined 14 Democrats on the initial vote. Four Democrats joined the remaining 13 Republicans opposing the bill. Gov. Bill Owens has not said what he will do if the bill reaches his desk.
House Bill 1090 would relax time limits for lawsuits against public and private institutions that shield alleged pedophiles.
The bill was amended Wednesday to open a one-year window for cases in which the time limit expired, on crimes dating back to 1971. Also, private institutions could no longer insist on confidentiality clauses in legal settlements with victims.
CANADA
Toronto Sun
Thu, April 27, 2006
By CP
VANCOUVER -- A used car dealer in Prince George, B.C., is facing criticism for an ad that encourages victims of residential school abuse to use settlements to buy cars.
The Action Motors ad in the Stuart Nechako Advertiser last week said: "To recipients of Lejac Settlements ... Buy with no money now ... Pay later!"
Lejac Residential School was one of over 100 residential schools across Canada with a history of sexual, emotional and physical abuse. The mandatory school for natives was run by the Catholic Church up to the 1970s.
A compensation deal was reached this week with Ottawa and is expected to be cleared by cabinet in a matter of days.
April 27, 2006 07:24 AM EST
By Matt C. Abbott
The following is most of the text of a complaint filed April 6, 2006 in Chicago. Defendants in the lawsuit are the Chicago archdiocese and former priest Robert Craig.
(Interestingly, one of the parishes to which Craig was assigned was All Saints-St. Anthony, the same parish at which choir director Francis Pellegrini had worked prior to his murder in May 1984.
(Pellegrini, also a professor and acquaintance of Father Andrew Greeley, was found stabbed multiple times in his South side apartment. Pellegrini reportedly was going to inform the archdiocese about the activities of a clergy pedophile ring known as the Boys' Club, which had been targeting minority children in addition to engaging in sexual "escapades" with other adults.
(Catholic attorney Sheila Parkhill has been working to expose the ring. See: www.theconservativevoice.com/article/12643.html)
COMPLAINT AT LAW
NOW COMES the Plaintiff, by and through his attorneys, KERNS, PITROF, FROST & PEARLMAN, L.L.C. and JEFF ANDERSON & ASSOCIATES, and for his causes of action against Defendants, states as follows:
PARTIES
SACRAMENTO (CA)
Ventura County Star
By Timm Herdt, therdt@VenturaCountyStar.com
April 27, 2006
SACRAMENTO — Oxnard Police detective Manuel Vega, who as a boy was a victim of sexual abuse by a priest, has both a personal and professional interest in tracking down sex offenders and uncovering their dark secrets.
"It's always difficult to get the truth out," he said. "These perpetrators thrive on secrecy."
Vega was at the state Capitol this week to testify on behalf of a proposed law that would eliminate secret settlements of civil lawsuits brought by victims against sexual predators. When such lawsuits are settled out of court, typically plaintiffs must agree not to discuss the case, as part of the terms of the settlement, and evidence they have gathered is destroyed.
Assemblywoman Fran Pavley, D-Agoura Hills, proposes to ban such secret settlements. The bill would require that records be filed with the court — and opened to the public — when lawsuits alleging sexual molestation are settled.
WINONA (MN)
La Crosse Tribune
By Chris Hubbuch | Lee Newspapers
WINONA, Minn. — A 38-year-old man has sued the Diocese of Winona, claiming he was molested as a teen by a former priest who served in the area from 1958 to 1975.
Thomas Adamson, now 72, was transferred to the Archdiocese of the Twin Cities in 1975 to receive psychological counseling. He later was relieved of his duties after multiple lawsuits accusing him of a history of abuse.
While in the Winona diocese, he was assistant principal at Winona Cotter High School and assistant pastor at St. Casimir’s church, as well as at St. John’s parish in Caledonia, Minn., and Lourdes High School in Rochester, Minn.
Although this latest case claims Adamson molested the unnamed man, then an altar boy, between 1980 and 1982 while associate pastor at an Apple Valley, Minn., church, it accuses both the Winona diocese and the Archdiocese of fraud and negligence.
NEW ZEALAND
Radio New Zealand
Posted at 8:06pm on 27 Apr 2006
A former Catholic brother, from the St John of God order, has been sentenced to five years' imprisonment for sexually abusing boys at a Christchurch school in the 1970s.
A High Court jury last month found Bernard Kevin McGrath, 58, guilty of 21 charges and not guilty of a further 23.
The charges related to nine victims, who were aged between seven and 15 years.
Justice Chisholm said Thursday he was sceptical that McGrath felt remorse; saying the aggravating features of McGrath's offending included breach of trust, the duration of the offending, and the deep harm suffered by his victims.
HULL (MA)
Boston Globe
By Ralph Ranalli, Globe Staff | April 27, 2006
A suspended priest awaiting trial in connection with an alleged rape of an 8-year-old boy was charged yesterday with four counts of sexually molesting a 30-year-old mentally retarded man who lives near him in Hull, prosecutors said.
Anthony Laurano, 81, the former pastor of St. Mary's Church in Plymouth, was arrested at his Hull home Tuesday, said Bridget Norton Middleton, a spokeswoman for Plymouth District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz. Laurano pleaded not guilty yesterday in Hingham District Court to four counts of indecent assault and battery on a mentally retarded person, she said.
Prosecutors then asked Judge Ronald F. Moynahan to revoke Laurano's release on personal recognizance in his prior case, in which he had been charged with raping an 8-year-old boy twice on the same day in 1991, a week before the boy's First Holy Communion, Norton Middleton said.
Prosecutors did not say whether the acts that led to the latest charges allegedly occcurred before or after Laurano was charged with raping the boy.
PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Review
By Chris Foreman
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
A former Greensburg man who has accused a priest of raping him in the 1970s is featured in a DVD that encourages state legislators to give a one-year window for past child victims of sexual abuse to file lawsuits.
The Pennsylvania chapters of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, known as SNAP, shared the 15-minute production Monday at a legislative forum on child abuse legislation in Harrisburg.
"To this day, I still shudder inside," Brian G. Guarino, formerly of Greensburg, says in the DVD about the alleged abuse by the Rev. Roger J. Trott.
Guarino is one of six alleged abuse survivors who appears in the video, said Tammy Lerner, the state government affairs liaison for SNAP.
WASHINGTON (DC)
Washington Post
By Michelle Boorstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 27, 2006; Page A01
The Rev. James Moran was asking his usual questions during his chaplain rounds one day last summer at Washington Hospital Center: How are you? Would you like to pray together? Maybe take Communion? But one of the patients on his "Catholic" list bristled at the sight of a clerical collar.
The Catholic Church hierarchy's treatment of clergy sex abuse victims was disgusting, the patient told him.
"Believe me, I'm not trying to force Jesus down your throat," answered Moran, a beefy 60-year-old with an agonizing secret he had only recently started to let out: "I'm a victim of a priest myself."
The patient stared at him from the bed. A question came, point-blank: "Then how can you be a priest?"
WASHINGTON (DC)
Catholic News Service
By Jerry Filteau
Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The morale of U.S. priests is high despite the hurt and anger they feel over the crisis of clergy sexual abuse of minors, a prominent priest-psychotherapist said at a seminar at The Catholic University of America.
Father Stephen J. Rossetti, president of St. Luke Institute in Silver Spring, Md., and author of the recent book "The Joy of Priesthood," led the April 24 seminar at the university's Life Cycle Institute.
He reported on a survey of nearly 1,300 priests in 16 dioceses that he conducted between September 2003 and April 2005 to assess the effects of the abuse crisis on priestly morale.
St. Luke Institute treats priests and religious with behavioral problems and addictions, including alcoholism and sexual issues.
TOLEDO (OH)
Toledo Blade
By DAVID YONKE
BLADE RELIGION EDITOR
Prosecutors in the Rev. Gerald Robinson's murder trial yesterday called a deputy coroner, a detective, and a forensic pathologist to the witness stand to build their case that a sword-shaped letter opener found in the priest's apartment was used to kill Sister Margaret Ann Pahl 26 years ago.
The tip of the letter opener's blade "was a perfect fit" in a wound found in the jawbone of the nun's exhumed body, Dr. Diane Barnett, a Lucas County deputy coroner, told jurors in Lucas County Common Pleas Court.
Sister Margaret Ann was found slain on the sacristy floor in Toledo's Mercy Hospital, now a college, on April 5, 1980.
She had been choked nearly to death, stabbed 31 times, and her undergarments were pulled down to her ankles and her jumper was pulled up over her chest.
TOLEDO (OH)
13 ABC
Day by day account of the trial in progress.
April 21--TOLEDO, Ohio -- A letter opener with a diamond-shaped blade found in the room of priest accused of killing a nun in a hospital chapel was an exact match with the wounds found on the nun's chest, a prosecutor said Friday. And the tip fits exactly with a small hole in the jaw of Sister Margaret Ann Pahl who was strangled and stabbed a day before Easter in 1980, Lucas County Assistant Prosecutor Dean Mandros said in opening statements of the priest's trial. "Fits like a key in a lock," he said.
The Rev. Gerald Robinson, 68, is accused of strangling and stabbing Pahl, 71, in the chapel at the hospital where they worked together. The priest presided at her funeral Mass four days after her death. Investigators who reopened the murder case after two decades say they found bloodstains on an altar cloth that matched those from the sword-shaped letter opener. They said the stains were created when the letter opener was laid down on the cloth that covered part of the nun's body.
TOLEDO (OH)
San Francisco Chronicle
By JOHN SEEWER, Associated Press Writer
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
(04-26) 09:23 PDT Toledo, Ohio (AP) --
Blood on an altar cloth covering a nun's body and DNA traces on her underwear did not come from the priest charged with her killing 26 years ago, a DNA expert testified Wednesday.
The DNA found on Sister Margaret Ann Pahl was likely from a man, but tests did not link the sample to the Rev. Gerald Robinson, said Cassandra Agosti, a forensic analyst with the state's crime lab.
Prosecutors said the trace of DNA was so small that tests showing it came from a man might have been wrong, or the sample could have been left by investigators on the scene or in the coroner's office.
CHICAGO (IL)
NBC 5
POSTED: 11:10 am CDT April 26, 2006
UPDATED: 11:57 am CDT April 26, 2006
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CHICAGO -- A Catholic group on Wednesday called for the resignation of seven bishops as the church's clergy sex abuse scandal continues.
The call came at a news conference held by the Coalition of Concerned Catholics at Old St. Patrick's Church in Chicago's West Loop to release a report on how the church handled the sex abuse allegations.
In a news release, the coalition said the report documents "the administrative malfeasance of seven U.S. Catholic bishops regarding the sex abuse scandal and other improprieties."
The coalition called for the forced resignations of cardinals Roger Mahoney, of Los Angeles, and Edward Egan, of New York. It also wants the resignations of bishops John McCormack, of Manchester, N.H.; William F. Murphy, of Rockville Centre, N.Y.; Michael Driscoll, of Boise, Idaho; Fabian Bruskewitz, of Lincoln, Neb.; and Charles Grahmann, of Dallas, Texas.
MINNESOTA
Winona Daily News
By Chris Hubbuch Winona Daily News
A 38-year-old man has sued the Diocese of Winona claiming he was molested as a teenager by Thomas Adamson, a former priest who was transferred from the Winona Diocese to the Twin Cities in 1975 and later relieved of his duties after multiple lawsuits alleged a history of abuse.
Adamson, 72, was a priest in the Winona diocese from 1958 until 1975, when he was transferred to the Archdiocese of the Twin Cities where he was to receive psychological counseling.
According to the suit filed Monday in Ramsey County District Court, Adamson molested the unidentified man between 1980 and 1982 at a church in Apple Valley, Minn., when the plaintiff was a teenage altar boy.
Adamson was appointed an associate pastor at the church in 1981 with the stipulation that he have no contact with children, according to documents released by the plaintiff’s attorney, Jeffrey Anderson of St. Paul.
TOLEDO (OH)
Court TV
By Seamus McGraw
April 26, 2006
TOLEDO, Ohio (Crime Libarary) — It was cold that morning in April, 1980, but it always is on Holy Saturday, that twilight in the Roman Catholic calendar between the most solemn of days, Good Friday, and Easter, the most joyous, the time when Catholics, according to their creed, believe to Jesus descended into Hell before rising. As was her practice, Sister Madelyn Mary Gordon, the organist for the chapel at Mercy Hospital arrived early at the sacristy to prepare for Mass.
Instead, she was met by an image that was so horrifying and macabre that at first as she would later say, she believed it had to have been some sick prank played with one of the mannequins the hospital used to help train its workers. It was no prank.
There on the marble floor, laid out with almost ritualistic precision was the body of another nun, Sister Margaret Ann Pahl. Authorities would later determine that she had been strangled, her killer exerting enough pressure to break tiny bones in her neck. Her panties were dragged down to her ankles, but her killer had apparently taken great care to pose her body. Her arms and legs were laid straight; her head was in perfect alignment, and near her body was a blood-stained altar cloth. Through that makeshift shroud, authorities would later conclude, her killer had stabbed her 31 times. But most chilling of all was the fact that nine of those wounds, surrounding her heart, had formed a kind of cross.
TOLEDO (OH)
Court TV
By Harriet Ryan
Court TV
TOLEDO, Ohio — A bloody imprint of the U.S. Capitol connects a Catholic priest to the scene of a nun's murder, a prosecution witness testified Wednesday.
An expert in bloodstain analysis told jurors that a faint, dime-sized stain on an altar cloth covering the victim's body matches an outline of the domed building on a medallion affixed to the priest's letter opener.
Prosecutors contend the Rev. Gerald Robinson used the dagger-shaped opener to stab Sr. Margaret Ann Pahl in a hospital chapel in 1980.
Paulette Sutton, the director of investigations at the University of Tennessee at Memphis, said it was highly unlikely the mark came from anything other than the letter opener, a souvenir from a wax museum in Washington, D.C., that Robinson kept in his desk drawer.
CHICAGO (IL)
Belleville News-Democrat
Associated Press
CHICAGO - Chicago police have presented prosecutors with three additional "possible victims" of a priest already accused of molesting three boys.
The Rev. Daniel McCormack, 37, pleaded not guilty last month to charges that he molested the three boys between September 2001 and January 2005. The boys were 8, 9 and 11 years old at the time.
Now, Chicago police say there could be more victims.
"We have presented three (more) possible victims to the state's attorney's office," said Monique Bond, Chicago police spokeswoman. "They are around the same ages as the other ones."
No new charges had been filed against McCormack as of late Tuesday.
CHARLOTTE (SC)
Charlotte Observer
KYTJA WEIR
kweir@charlotteobserver.com
A Charlotte Catholic High School teacher was suspended this week after a 12th-grader there accused him of sexual misconduct.
The student told school principal Gerald Healy on Monday about an incident that he said occurred at the teacher's home two years ago, according to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Charlotte.
Healy confronted the teacher that day, the diocese stated in a news release Tuesday.
The teacher denied the allegation. He was suspended with pay while the case is investigated, said acting diocese spokesman Kevin Murray.
The diocese said it turned the case over to the Department of Social Services and its own internal review board, which investigates sexual misconduct within the diocese's 46 counties.
SARATOGA (CA)
The Mercury News
Associated Press
SARATOGA, Calif. - Prosecutors said Tuesday there is not enough evidence to file charges against a Sacred Heart Parish priest accused of raping a 29-year-old woman in a motel room.
The Rev. Randy Benas, 45, was arrested last month after a 29-year-old woman he had been counseling over the phone accused him of raping her.
"We did not file criminal charges because we did not believe that there was sufficient evidence to prove the crime beyond a reasonable doubt," said Victoria Brown, head of the Santa Clara County district attorney's sexual assault division.
Benas still faces an investigation by the Roman Catholic church that will determine his clerical future.
TOLEDO (OH)
Cleveland Plain Dealer
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
James Ewinger
Plain Dealer Reporter
Toledo- Without ever uttering the word "ritual," a Toledo detective testified that a crucifix may have been used as a template for nine stab wounds that killed a nun in 1980 - leaving the perfectly defined shape of an inverted cross on her chest.
The stab wounds are just some of the more lurid details in the state's case against the Rev. Gerald Robinson, a 68-year-old Roman Catholic priest on trial for the murder.
He is accused of stabbing and choking Sister Margaret Ann Pahl in the chapel of a local hospital, on the eve of Easter Sunday, 1980.
IRELAND
Irish Independent
THE founder of the One-In-Four organisation Colm O'Gorman is poised to become an election candidate for the PDs in Wexford.
There was intense speculation last night that Mr O'Gorman's candidacy could be unveiled within a matter of days.
His late father Sean was a former Fianna Fail county councillor and contested general elections in the sixties and seventies.
PDs sources were tight lipped last night.
MISSOURI
The Kansas City Star
By JUDY L. THOMAS
The Kansas City Star
The Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph isn’t doing enough to teach sexual-abuse prevention to all Catholic children, an independent audit has found.
An annual report on how well the Roman Catholic Church is doing in protecting children from sexual abuse found that 88.5 percent of the participating dioceses recently audited were in full compliance with the church’s Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.
Only 11.5 percent of the dioceses — including Kansas City-St. Joseph — were not in full compliance. Diocesan officials said they were working to correct the problem.
“Our diocese has made a sincere commitment to take every step and every precaution to ensure that children are safe in church programs,” Vicar General Robert Murphy said in a statement.
MINNESOTA
WCCO
(AP) St. Paul A Twins Cities man alleged in a lawsuit against two diocese of the Roman Catholic Church that he was abused by a priest at Risen Savior parish in Apple Valley, Minn., during the 1980s, when he was an altar boy.
The alleged victim, 38, was not identified in a lawsuit filed in Ramsey County District Court on Monday by attorney Jeff Anderson of St. Paul.
The plaintiff claimed he didn't remember the sexual abuse by former priest Thomas Adamson until 2002, when there were widespread media reports of clergy abuse.
Adamson, 72, was removed from the priesthood in 1984 after several lawsuits revealed a long history of abuse during his 25 years as a priest.
DENVER (CO)
TheDenverChannel.com
DENVER -- State senators began debate Tuesday on whether to get rid of limits on filing lawsuits over the sexual abuse of children, legislation that has been opposed by the Roman Catholic Church in Colorado.
Senators gave initial backing to giving alleged victims until they turn 53 to file lawsuits from now on. That's because dozens of victims have told lawmakers they didn't have the courage to come public until they were in their 40s and 50s.
But lawmakers still haven't decided what to do about the most controversial part of the legislation -- whether to change the law and allow people to go back and sue over old cases.
The Senate was set to discuss that later in the afternoon but because the vote is expected to be close, debate was delayed because one bill supporter was excused for part of the afternoon and another wouldn't have been able to stay late. None of the changes they backed will be official until they conclude debate.
LODI (CA)
Amherst Times
Written by Ross Farrow
Tuesday, 25 April 2006
A former priest at St. Anne's Catholic Church in Lodi has been accused of sexual misconduct concerning a St. Anne's School student in the mid-1990s, according to the Stockton Diocese.
Diocese Bishop Stephen Blaire said in a prepared statement that Father Murty Fahy, who died in 2001, allegedly abused a child. Blaire's statement was read at the end of each Mass on Sunday and e-mailed shortly before noon on Sunday to the News-Sentinel and other newspapers as far south as Turlock.
Fahy was an associate pastor at St. Anne's from 1985 until his death. He taught at St. Mary's High School in Stockton the previous 15 years.
Fahy is the second former priest at St. Anne's to be accused of sexual misconduct. Oliver O'Grady, an associate pastor at St. Anne's from 1971 to 1978, served seven years at Mule Creek State Prison in Ione after pleading guilty in 1993 to four counts of sexual abuse with children under the age of 14 in Calaveras County. O'Grady was paroled in late 2000 and deported to his native Ireland a short time later.
Blaire didn't indicate the child's gender or age in the Fahy allegation, but an official from the support group, Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, also known as SNAP, says the victim was a girl.
MASSACHUSETTS
The Salem News
By Tom Dalton
Staff writer
A former North Shore priest facing the possibility of a lengthy prison sentence admitted this week that he sexually abused three boys more than 25 years ago.
The Rev. James W. Nyhan, 60, former chaplain at Bishop Fenwick High School in Peabody, pleaded guilty in a Charleston, S.C., court to three counts of committing a lewd act on a minor. He entered the plea on Monday, the day his trial was scheduled to start.
He was sentenced to 10 years on each count, but the judge then suspended the sentence and placed Nyhan on probation for five years.
In brief remarks in court, Nyhan said he was sorry for his actions during 1979 and 1980, when he was stationed at the Church of the Nativity in South Carolina.
"I feel badly this colored my otherwise fruitful stay in Charleston," Nyhan said.
SARATOGA (CA)
CBS 5
04/25/06 2:20 PDT
SAN JOSE (BCN)
A Saratoga priest who was arrested last month on suspicion of raping an Oregon woman he counseled for more than a year will not face criminal charges, the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office announced today.
The Rev. Randy Benas, 45, of the Sacred Heart Parish in Saratoga, was taken into custody March 30 after a 29-year-old woman accused him of raping her at a Motel 6 on Mathilda Avenue in Sunnyvale March 28.
"All I can really say is that there was not sufficient evidence to prove it without a reasonable doubt," Victoria Brown, the head of the sexual assault division at the district attorney's office, said today.
CHARLESTON (SC)
The Post and Courier
BY SCHUYLER KROPF
The Post and Courier
A priest about to go on trial for sexually abusing two Charleston boys nearly 30 years ago will escape prison time under a plea deal reached Monday.
Both victims approved terms of the plea for the Rev. James Nyhan.
But both said they had second thoughts when Nyhan's apology came off sounding short of full remorse.
In brief remarks, Nyhan, 60, said he was sorry for his actions during 1979 and 1980, when he was stationed at the Church of the Nativity on Folly Road.
"I feel badly this colored my otherwise fruitful stay in Charleston," Nyhan added.
"It was pathetic," said one of the victims after sentencing was imposed by Circuit Judge Markley Dennis.
TOLEDO (OH)
13 ABC
Day by day account of the trial in progress.
April 21--TOLEDO, Ohio -- A letter opener with a diamond-shaped blade found in the room of priest accused of killing a nun in a hospital chapel was an exact match with the wounds found on the nun's chest, a prosecutor said Friday. And the tip fits exactly with a small hole in the jaw of Sister Margaret Ann Pahl who was strangled and stabbed a day before Easter in 1980, Lucas County Assistant Prosecutor Dean Mandros said in opening statements of the priest's trial. "Fits like a key in a lock," he said.
The Rev. Gerald Robinson, 68, is accused of strangling and stabbing Pahl, 71, in the chapel at the hospital where they worked together. The priest presided at her funeral Mass four days after her death. Investigators who reopened the murder case after two decades say they found bloodstains on an altar cloth that matched those from the sword-shaped letter opener. They said the stains were created when the letter opener was laid down on the cloth that covered part of the nun's body.
Prosecutors said they will not try to prove a motive in the killing during the trial. Defense attorney Alan Konop said inconsistencies in statements made by witnesses over the last two decades will leave doubt in the minds of the jurors about who committed the crime. "Pieces of the prosecutor's puzzle do not fit," he said.
UNITED STATES
National
The Catholic priest sex abuse scandal, much as it involved the individual acts of errant priests, was also a product of a culture, the hierarchical clergy culture, heavily shrouded in secrecy and wrapped in layers of protection from accountability of any sort.
From the first news of this crisis in 1983, through the years of grudging admission by bishops that something was amiss, through the explosion of news in 2002 when the courts forced the release of secret documents in the Boston archdiocese, through the anguish of the meeting in Dallas in June of that same year, the formation of aAbuse Tracker Review Board and ongoing court cases, the tenacity of the clergy culture’s grip on Catholic leadership has been the most evident characteristic of that group’s response.
That’s why this week’s story on the sex abuse cover-up in the Philadelphia archdiocese is significant. It provides a glimpse, brief as it is, into the world of that hierarchical culture and the way it approached the sex abuse crisis. It is a significant piece of history because we have maintained, in more than 20 years of reporting on this crisis in all of its phases, that the church would not get beyond the scandal until its leaders deal with the culture that allowed abusers to float among the community, preying on its youngest and most vulnerable.
CHARLESTON (SC)
Guardian
Tuesday April 25, 2006 4:46 PM
CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) - A Roman Catholic priest pleaded guilty to three counts of assault and battery, avoiding a trial that was about to start on charges alleging he sexually abused two boys more than 25 years ago.
The Rev. James Nyhan was sentenced to 30 years in prison after the plea Monday, but Circuit Judge Markley Dennis suspended the sentence to five years probation.
The plea included a charge involving a third victim in a case to be heard later.
Nyhan, 60, served in the Diocese of Charleston in 1979 and 1980 and later was a priest in the Archdiocese of Boston. He was removed from active ministry three years ago and now lives in California.
LINCOLN (NE)
Nebraska State Paper
April 25, 2006
Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz of Lincoln is regarded by many as the most conservative of his Roman Catholic colleagues in the United States. That distinction stems from a variety of policy decisions that have brought praise and condemnation, including one involving searching for child abuse in the church.
The latest publicity surrounding Bruskewitz involves his refusal last year to have his diocese participate in a survey called for by the U.S. Conference of Bishops in a Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.
The Bishops appointed aAbuse Tracker Review Board to conduct the “audit.” Bruskewitz said the board has no authority over individual bishops.
LINCOLN (NE)
Lincoln Journal Star
BY BOB REEVES / Lincoln Journal Star
Lincoln Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz is getting a lot of national attention again because his is the only Roman Catholic diocese in the country that declined to participate in last year’s audit of compliance with the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.
The Diocese of Lincoln and the Melkite Eparchy of Newton, Mass., were the only Catholic jurisdictions in the United States that didn’t participate in the annual audit of compliance with guidelines on sex-abuse programs.
In issuing the audit report March 30 for more than 170 dioceses and several eastern rite eparchies, Patricia O’Donnell Ewers, chairwoman of theAbuse Tracker Review Board appointed by the bishops, called for “strong fraternal correction” of Bruskewitz and Melkite Archbishop Cyrille Bustros for their refusal to participate.
Bruskewitz issued a statement pointing out that the review board has no authority over bishops.
VERMONT
The Republican
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
By BILL ZAJAC
wzajac@repub.com
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington, Vt., settled the first of 12 suits alleging abuse by a Westfield resident, the Rev. Edward O. Paquette Jr., for $965,000 - the largest single clergy abuse settlement in Vermont, according to the plaintiff's lawyer.
"This is not the strongest case. We are presenting the cases in the chronological order in which the suits were filed," said the plaintiff's lawyer, Jerome O'Neill of O'Neill Kellner and Green of Burlington.
Michael Gay of South Burlington was awarded the settlement for the abuse he alleges occurred at Christ the King Church in Burlington in the 1970s when Gay was an altar boy, according to court records and O'Neill. Diocesan lawyer David Cleary could not be reached for comment yesterday, but confirmed to The Burlington Free Press and other Vermont media last week that the settlement was reached Wednesday.
DENVER (CO)
Rocky Mountain News
By Rocky Mountain News
April 25, 2006
A Denver minister charged with having a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl who was in the church choir waived his right to a preliminary hearing Tuesday and was bound over for trial.
The Rev. Michael Peters, 36, was charged in February with sexual assault on a child by a person in a position of trust and as a pattern of abuse.
He will be arraigned July 6 in Denver District Court.
The victim told police that the relationship began in 2003 after Peters, a pastor at the 2nd Baptist Church in Boulder, began counseling her in connection with an earlier sexual assault.
LODI (CA)
The Record
Keith Reid
Record Staff Writer
Published Tuesday, Apr 25, 2006
LODI - A deceased Lodi priest who taught at St. Mary's High School in Stockton for 15 years has been accused of sexually abusing a former student at St. Anne's Elementary School, the Stockton Diocese announced.
The Rev. Murty Fahy is named in connection with abuse of the St. Anne's student while he served as associate pastor of St. Anne's Catholic Church in the mid-1990s. Fahy worked at the church from 1985 until he died in 2001 at age 70. He taught at St. Mary's from 1970 to 1985, according to a statement from Bishop Stephen Blaire.
Church officials did not release age or gender information about the victim, but Nancy Sloan of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests said the allegations come from a young woman who reported being abused by Fahy for three years, beginning when she was 8 and ending when she was 11. Sloan said she knows details of the allegations because the victim has confided in her and the network but wants to remain anonymous.
Sloan claimed Fahy abused the girl during school hours, usually by calling the girl's classroom teacher and requesting the student's assistance at another location at the school or at the church, across the street. She cited his office and the church basement as two places the girl and the priest were alone.
By Michael Newall
National
A priest and a prosecutor detail how sex abuse flourished in the Philadelphia archdiocese.
LODI (CA)
News-Sentinel
Last updated: Monday, Apr 24, 2006 - 06:16:15 pm PDT
Father Thomas Hayes of St. Anne's Catholic Church in Lodi discussed allegations of sexual abuse of a child by the late Associate Pastor Murty Fahy today with News-Sentinel staff writer Ross Farrow.
Fahy, who died in 2001, has been accused of sexually abusing a St. Anne's School student in the mid-1990s.
Stockton Diocese Bishop Stephen Blaire issued a statement that was read at all St. Anne's Masses on Sunday and released to the media the same day.
Q: When did you learn that someone had accused Father Fahy of sexual abuse with a child?
A: All I got was the thing from the bishop (that was released Sunday).
WISCONSIN
Duluth News Tribune
Associated Press
A defrocked priest has been denied his request for the Wisconsin Supreme Court to review his conviction two years ago on charges of sexually assaulting two altar boys in the 1970s.
John Patrick Feeney, 79, was sentenced to 15 years in prison after a jury in Outagamie County Circuit Court convicted him in February 2004 on three counts of sexual assault of a child and one of attempted sexual assault of a child.
The sentence was upheld in December by the 3rd District Court of Appeals. The Supreme Court denied the request for review earlier this year, court records show.
Two adolescent brothers said they were molested by Feeney when he served as a priest at St. Nicholas Catholic Church in Freedom.
HARRISBURG (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer
By Martha Raffaele
Associated Press
HARRISBURG - Brian Guarino's eyes welled up as he told of his priest driving him to a dark, wooded parking lot behind a seminary and raping him when he was an altar boy at a Catholic church in Greensburg, Pa.
"To this day, I still shudder inside," Guarino, 42, said in a 15-minute DVD recording that was shown yesterday during a forum organized by a coalition of advocates for victims of alleged sexual abuse by Catholic priests, along with other advocacy groups.
The DVD, which includes accounts from alleged victims and their family members, will be sent to state lawmakers to encourage them to adopt reforms recommended last fall by a grand jury that investigated alleged abuse by Philadelphia priests.
"To get people's attention and help them really understand the issue, it's really important to hear from survivors," said John Salveson, a spokesman for the Philadelphia chapter of the Survival Network of Those Abused by Priests and Other Clergy.