AUSTRALIA
The Australian
Kevin Meade
November 01, 2006
THE father of a teenage boy who was sexually molested by an Anglican priest complained to church authorities in 1976, but the pedophile was forgiven and later employed at Brisbane's prestigious "Churchie" school, where he taught until 2002.
Details of the church cover-up emerged in the Brisbane District Court yesterday after the priest, Robert Francis Sharwood, pleaded guilty to seven charges of indecently assaulting the boy, who was 13 when the two-year sexual molestation started.
The court heard that when the victim, now 46, complained to the police in 2003, he was influenced by the revelations of the Toowoomba sex abuse trial that led to the resignation of former Anglican archbishop of Brisbane Peter Hollingworth as governor-general.
Sharwood, 62, pleaded not guilty yesterday to five other charges including sodomy, gross indecency and indecent assault. His trial on those charges began yesterday. Prosecutor Ron Swanwick said Sharwood and his victim, now a university lecturer, had hundreds of sexual encounters between 1974 and 1976.
DAVENPORT (IA)
Gazette
By: Gregg Hennigan - The Gazette
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Davenport, which filed for bankruptcy earlier this month, will cut its budget by 7.6 percent and is seeking donations to help pay for the installation ceremony of its new bishop, according to the diocese newspaper.
The Catholic Messenger reported the diocese is looking for ways to cut $276,000 from its $3.64 million budget because of the bankruptcy filing.
The newspaper also reported that parishes will take up second collections during Masses on two weekends in November to help pay for the installation ceremony of the new bishop. All diocese priests are also being asked to contribute to the event.
IRELAND
Irish Independent
IT has taken Pope Benedict XVI a full calendar year to comment on the Ferns Report that published shocking details of child sex abuses or alleged abuses by 26 priests in the small Wexford diocese.
While the Pope's belated act of contrition and expression of personal hurt are to be welcomed, his statement of regret has not been accompanied by a firm purpose of amendment.
This is in part due to the indirect manner of the Pope's remarks to the Irish public - made through a press statement issued some hours after the new Bishop of Ferns, Denis Brennan, had met the Pontiff at a private audience in the Vatican.
While Bishop Brennan's well-meaning press release was designed to restore confidence in the local clergy and laity, its pious tone does not convey any real insight into the policies being pursued by the Pope to eradicate the scourge of priestly rape of children in Church care.
TOLEDO (OH)
Toledo Blade
By MARK REITER
BLADE STAFF WRITER
Lucas County Common Pleas Judge Thomas Osowik yesterday denied convicted murderer Gerald Robinson's request to be released from a state prison while the appeal of his conviction for killing a nun in 1980 works its way through the courts.
Judge Osowik flatly rejected the motion of Robinson's attorney, John Donahue, who asked that the 68-year-old priest be released on a $250,000 property bond. The ruling stems from a motion that Mr. Donahue filed two weeks ago questioning the circumstantial evidence and testimony that jurors considered to convict Robinson on May 11 for the murder of Sister Margaret Ann Pahl.
The request from the attorney included an affidavit by Robinson, who swore under oath that he didn't kill the 71-year-old nun April 5, 1980, the day before Easter, in the chapel at the former Mercy Hospital near downtown Toledo. She was preparing the chapel for the Holy Saturday vigil services that were scheduled to be celebrated later that day.
LOS ANGELES (CA)
Los Angeles Times
From Times staff and wire reports
October 31, 2006
A 61-year-old Catholic monk was sentenced Monday to five years in federal prison after admitting that he used the Internet to solicit sex from children.
Earl John Place was living in a Mexico City monastery when he tried to get what he thought was a 13-year-old boy from the U.S. to come to Mexico for sex. The "boy" was an undercover agent from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
VATICAN CITY
Zenit
VATICAN CITY, OCT. 30, 2006 (Zenit.org).- The primate of all Ireland thanked Benedict XVI for his continuing support in seeking to bring healing to those affected by the painful tragedy of child abuse.
"Holy Father," said Archbishop Sean Brady of Armagh, "no issue has received more time or attention from the Irish episcopal conference than the agonizing problem of responding to those who have had their trust betrayed, their lives devastated and often their faith destroyed by sexual abuse inflicted on them by some priests and religious."
He continued: "This abuse has been a source of great scandal and discouragement to the whole Catholic community, including a great majority of priests and religious who continue to strive to lives of holiness and selfless service in the name of the Lord."
MISSOURI
Neosho Daily News
By John Ford / Daily News Associate Editor
Published: Monday, October 30, 2006 4:58 PM CST
Trial for George Otis Johnson, the Granby pastor facing 17 felony sexual abuse counts in Newton County, could move as far away as Sikeston or St. Joseph.
During a pre-trial conference today before Circuit Court Judge Timothy Perigo, defense attorney Andy Wood asked for a change of venue with a 200-mile minimum distance from Newton County. The change of venue was automatically granted in accordance with the Missouri Supreme Court, said Perigo.
Wood requested the distance stipulation because of publicity in the case, which has garnered national and international attention.
“The court is aware of the case,” Wood said. “We would like to have a fair and impartial jury.”
WOODHULL (NY)
Star-Gazette
By Larry Wilson
lwilson@stargazette.com
Star-Gazette Corning Bureau
October 31, 2006
WOODHULL -- David J. Troup, pastor of the Borden Baptist Church, has been jailed on felony sexual abuse charges.
State police from Painted Post arrested the 39-year-old Troup, who lives in Painted Post, on Saturday evening following an investigation that lasted less than a week.
Investigator Curt Eaton said the investigation began last week after state police received a report from the New York Statewide Central Register of Child Abuse and Maltreatment in Albany.
Eaton declined to say whether the children reported the alleged incidents to their parents or to other adults.
WOODHULL (NY)
WCAX
WOODHULL, N.Y. A Baptist pastor has been accused of sexually abusing two boys under the age of eleven.
Thirty-nine-year-old David Troup leads the Borden Baptist Church in Woodhull, about 75 miles south of Rochester. He was arrested this weekend and charged with felony sexual abuse.
VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Service
By John Thavis
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI said priestly sexual abuse of minors was a "heart-rending" tragedy that requires an effort of purification by the church.
Addressing Ireland's bishops at the Vatican Oct. 28, the pope encouraged them to establish the truth of past sex abuse cases, take steps to prevent future crimes and bring healing to the victims.
"The wounds caused by such acts run deep, and it is an urgent task to rebuild confidence and trust where these have been damaged," the pope said.
AUSTRALIA
The Sydney Morning Herald
October 31, 2006 - 6:39PM
A passion for music evolved into a relationship involving hundreds of sexual encounters between an Anglican priest and a teenage boy more than 30 years ago, a court has heard.
Robert Francis Sharwood, 62, of Brisbane, faced the Brisbane District Court on 12 sexual assault charges alleged to have occurred between January, 1974, and March, 1976, while he was an assistant curate at a parish in Brisbane's south-west.
Sharwood has pleaded guilty to seven of the charges but a jury is set to determine whether he is guilty of the remaining five, including one count of carnal knowledge and two counts of indecent assault.
The court was told the complainant, now 46 and who cannot be named, was only 13 and a young parishioner who played the organ at the parish when the inappropriate relationship started.
BORDEN (NY)
Star-Gazette
Star-Gazette
October 30, 2006
State Police in Painted Post have arrested David J. Troup, 39, the pastor of Borden Baptist Church, on two counts of sexual abuse.
Police said an investigation revealed that Troup, of Painted Post, subjected two children less than 11 years old, to sexual contact.
Troup was arraigned in Erwin Town Court and remanded to Steuben County Jail on $10,000 cash or $20,000 property bond bail on each charge.
FLORIDA
Irish Independent
HE has been accused of spending millions of dollars of church funds on girlfriends, gambling and holidays.
But Fr Francis Guinan's love for the trappings of wealth shows no sign of abating.
The Offaly-born priest, one of two Irish clerics accused of stealing $8.6m from a church in Florida, returned to America from a month-long holiday cruise in Australia last week to finally face charges.
But the lawyer he has hired to defend him won't come cheap. David Roth is considered the best criminal defence lawyer in Florida, and the man whom the wealthy go to when there is trouble and bad publicity.
VATICAN
Independent Catholic News
On Saturday, Pope Benedict delivered the following address to the Irish Bishop at the start of their ad Limina visit to Rome..
Dear Brother Bishops,
In the words of a traditional Irish greeting, a hundred thousand welcomes to you, the Bishops of Ireland, on the occasion of your ad Limina visit. As you venerate the tombs of the Apostles Peter and Paul, may you draw inspiration from the courage and vision of these two great saints, who so faithfully led the way in the Church's mission of proclaiming Christ to the world. ...
In the exercise of your pastoral ministry, you have had to respond in recent years to many heart-rending cases of sexual abuse of minors. These are all the more tragic when the abuser is a cleric. The wounds caused by such acts run deep, and it is an urgent task to rebuild confidence and trust where these have been damaged. In your continuing efforts to deal effectively with this problem, it is important to establish the truth of what happened in the past, to take whatever steps are necessary to prevent it from occurring again, to ensure that the principles of justice are fully respected and, above all, to bring healing to the victims and to all those affected by these egregious crimes.
UNITED STATES
The Universe
Posted on October 30, 2006
By The Universe: US bishops will vote next month on a proposal to release one-third of the money earmarked to study the causes of clergy sexual abuse of minors in this country.
Bishops accepted a proposal from by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice to conduct the study last November. If the proposal is accepted, $335,000 will be used to underwrite the first three segments of the research.
The first part of the study will look at the historical context and influences on the problem, while the second component will focus on Church response to cases of sexual abuse.
LONG ISLAND (NY)
Newsday
BY BRANDON BAIN
Newsday Staff Writer
October 30, 2006
Many Long Island Catholics were pleased with Pope Benedict XVI's remarks in which he called clerical sex abuse cases in the Catholic Church "egregious crimes" that had damaged the church.
"I'm glad he decided to come out to address this," said Al Basile, who with his wife, Mary Ann, was on their way to celebrate Mass at St. Agnes Cathedral in Rockville Centre yesterday.
Others said it was long overdue.
"It's about time," said Jeffrey Grant, who had just attended Mass.
In an attempt to "rebuild confidence and trust," Benedict, who has rarely spoken openly about sex abuse cases, on Saturday addressed a group of bishops from Ireland.
VATICAN
Dominican Today
THE VATICAN.- Pope Benedict XVI requested yesterday that the principles of justice are respected and help for the victims in a case involving a pederast priest.
He made the request at the meeting he held with a group of Irish Bishops who are visiting the Vatican.
Benedict XVI explained that the cases of abuse "are still more tragic when the culprit is a man of the church" and insisted that "the principles of justice be totally respected and, most importantly, that support be provided to the victims and all those that have been affected by these enormous crimes".
MALTA
di-ve news
by Andrew Galea, di-ve news (drew_g@di-ve.com)
GOZO, Malta (di-ve news)-- October 29, 2006 -- 1630CET--The Gozitan priest accused of sexually abusing underage boys will be called to Miami to give testimony in court once the case goes to trial.
The legal team representing an unnamed 41-year-old man who has filed a $10 million civil lawsuit against the Miami Archdiocese has confirmed its intentions to call Fr. Mercieca to the witness stand.
The lawsuit charges the Miami Archdiocese with negligence in allowing Fr. Mercieca to have had "unfettered" contact with young boys despite having a "history of sexual perversity and inappropriate contact with children".
The plaintiff claims Fr. Mercieca lured him to the top of the church's bell tower as a 12- to 13-year-old altar boy, and performed oral sex on him despite protestations from the boy.
AUSTRALIA
Adelaide Now
COLIN JAMES
October 29, 2006 11:15pm
ANGLICAN priests "silenced, bullied or threatened" when they tried to report child sex abuse have received a public apology.
The annual Synod of the Diocese of Adelaide has endorsed a report urging it to "acknowledge and apologise for the distress experienced by some clergy who attempted to report abuse in the past and were silenced, bullied or threatened".
The apology was among measures approved by Synod at the weekend to overhaul the church's handling of child sex abuse allegations, including the adoption of a new code of conduct for priests, church officials and church workers.
The strategy - developed over 12 months by a special working party - included the introduction of mandatory reporting of child abuse to church and welfare authorities.
Archbishop Jeffrey Driver yesterday described the measures as "one of the best models for best practice in professional conduct of any diocese in Australia".
VATICAN CITY
The Australian
Natasha Bita, Florence
October 30, 2006
POPE Benedict XVI has told Catholic leaders to stamp out clerical pedophilia and uncover the truth behind claims of past sexual abuse in the church.
In his first public criticism of clerical abuse since his election as Pope last year, the German-born Pontiff said the "egregious crimes" caused deep wounds.
Bishops must find out the truth, seek justice and do whatever was necessary to prevent abuse happening again, he said.
"In the exercise of your pastoral ministry, you have had to respond in recent years to many heart-rending cases of sexual abuse of minors," the Pope told a group of Irish bishops visiting the Vatican at the weekend.
IRELAND
One in Four
Daily Mirror
Fury as pontiff refuses to say sorry over the Ferns child abuse scandal
Top child protection activist Colm O’Gorman has slammed Pope Benedict XVI for filing to apologise for the Ferns sex abuse scandal
The Pontiff expressed his regret and horror at the systematic abuse of children in the Ferns Diocese of Co Wexford.
But he refused to say sorry to the children who were tortured and also failed to implement measures to prevent similar things from happening again.
IRELAND
One in Four
The Irish Times
The following is the full text of the statement issued yesterday by Fr John Carroll, Diocese of Ferns communications office director.
Today, Thursday October 26th, 2006, as part of the procedure of the visit of the Irish Episcopal Conference Ad limina apostolorum, the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, received in audience the Most Reverend Denis Brennan, Bishop of Ferns.
The Holy Father expressed to Bishop Brennan his deep sorrow and distress at the suffering endured by the victims of child sexual abuse involving some priests of the Diocese of Ferns.
TOLEDO (OH)
Toledo Blade
By DAVID YONKE
BLADE RELIGION EDITOR
Retired Catholic priest Gerald Robinson’s recent sworn statement that he did not kill Sister Margaret Ann Pahl did not impress two of the jurors who convicted him of her murder.
If Robinson were innocent, why didn’t the priest — in a videotaped interrogation shown in court — or any of his four attorneys say so during the trial, asked two jurors in an interview with The Blade.
Beth Como, 53, of Holland, the jury foreman, and Cathy Shrader, 59, of Toledo, were among the 12 jurors who found the 68-year-old Roman Catholic priest guilty of murder in the 1980 slaying of Sister Margaret Ann.
The 71-year-old Sister of Mercy nun was strangled, then stabbed 31 times in the sacristy of Mercy Hospital on April 5, 1980.
The Lucas County Common Pleas Court jury announced its verdict on May 11, just over six hours after deliberations began. After the trial ended, the jury decided as a group not to talk about the case with the media, which included national publications, television, and cable networks.
MALTA
The Malta Independent
by Charles Flores
I doubt whether there would have been such neighbourly solidarity, even within the minuscule community of Gozo, with the Rev. Anthony Mercieca had he not been a priest. As a normal individual admitting to abusing a minor as far back as the 1960s would have meant instant condemnation, swift legal proceedings and the inevitable stigma on the rest of his family and loved ones.
In fact, the Mercieca case came to the fore very much at the same time that our Law Courts were trying a no less delicate case involving two brothers and minors entrusted to their care. Not only have the brothers received lengthy prison sentences, but there was a general feeling of repugnance, and rightly so. An individual’s sexuality is strictly his private business, but when involves children and/or adolescents, there hardly remains any place for compassion.
Over the past 10 years, a large number of paedophile cases involving priests, monks, nuns and members of strict religious organisations have surfaced all over the world, from Ireland to Australia, Central Europe to the United States, putting the Vatican in such a quandary as to provoke it into committing several glaring mistakes of both omission and shocking nonchalance. It is an accepted fact that even the present Pope is on record as having swept certain notorious cases under the convenient carpet in the not so distant past.
MALTA
The Malta Independent
by Daphne Caruana Galizia
Fr Anthony Mercieca, the priest at the centre of the Mark Foley storm, told American reporters that he had been naked in a sauna with 13-year-old Foley, massaged him, gone skinny-dipping with him, slept naked in the same room with him on overnight trips, “taught him some wrong things about sex”, fondled him, and even, on one night, might have gone further, but he doesn’t remember because he was on tranquillisers and alcohol at the time because he had a nervous breakdown, and the whole thing is a blur. Then he said that the relationship wasn’t sexual, because there wasn’t any penetration. “It was just fondling,” he told WPTV of West Palm Beach, Florida. The last person to make that kind of distinction to the US media was Bill Clinton, who infamously said of his relationship with Monica Lewinsky: “I did not have sex with that woman.”
UNITED KINGDOM
Sunday Mirror
By Sarah Arnold And Amy Nelmes
IN his starched dog collar and formal cassock, the Reverend Alastair Kendall was the very picture of propriety.
Over tea and biscuits, he mingled with his parishioners after preaching on how to be a good Christian.
But there was one of the Ten Commandments he couldn't keep himself: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife.
For while married Rev Kendall, 51, appeared pious to the congregation, one member of his close-knit flock has a very different story to tell.
Worshipper Marie Perrett claims the vicar seduced her and would whisper at church meetings: "Can't wait to get back to yours later."
PENNSYLVANIA
The Virginian-Pilot
By MICHELLE WASHINGTON, The Virginian-Pilot
October 29, 2006
A former minister whose child sexual abuse convictions were overturned on appeal will stand trial again in Pennsylvania beginning Monday.
His neighbors in Norfolk are angry that the retrial took so long.
Lane C. Hurley, the former minister of First Christian Church in Ghent, faces charges of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, aggravated indecent assault, indecent assault and corruption of the morals of a minor. The trial will take place in Carlisle, Pa., where he is accused of molesting his niece during the summer of 1997, when she was 10.
Hurley was convicted of the crimes in 2003, but a Pennsylvania court granted him a new trial on grounds that his lawyer did not effectively represent him. Hurley has maintained his innocence.
AUSTRALIA
Adelaide Now
October 28, 2006 11:15pm
ADELAIDE'S Anglican Archbishop says a levy to cover $5 million in sex-abuse claims will hurt small parishes.
The church will hit its parishes with a 1 per cent levy each year for 10 years to meet claims against priests, church officials and church workers.
In a majority vote at its annual conference yesterday, the church's synod endorsed the levy as part of a 10-year strategy to rebuild its finances.
Archbishop Jeffrey Driver said there had been almost unanimous support for the levy, even from those parishes struggling to survive.
"It was a strong indication of the synod's strong goodwill towards its responsibilities to survivors (of sexual abuse)," he said.
TERRE HAUTE (IN)
The Tribune-Star
By Stephanie Salter
The Tribune-Star
TERRE HAUTE — “He seemed to like it, you know? So it was sort of more like a spontaneous thing … See, abuse, it’s a bad word, you know, because abuse, you abuse someone against his will. But it involved just spontaneousness, you know?”
— The Rev. Anthony Mercieca on nude massages and “fondling” former Rep. Mark Foley when Foley was an altar boy
Before the bullet-train blur that is today’s news cycle passes, can we take just a few minutes to study the Rev. Anthony Mercieca and his role in the life of a now-disgraced United States congressman from Florida?
This isn’t about Republican and Democratic party politics. It’s about betrayal, denial, the insidiousness of the sex abuse of minors and one of the darkest chapters in the 2,000-year existence of the Catholic Church.
Mercieca may now be retired to a remote island off Malta in the Mediterranean Sea, but — until last week when he spoke openly with the news media about what he did with and to the adolescent Foley — he was a functioning priest, saying Mass and hearing confessions.
To read his admissions and his insistence that he did nothing wrong, is to question one’s ability to comprehend English.
VATICAN CITY
Ottawa Sun
Sun, October 29, 2006
By AP
VATICAN CITY -- Pope Benedict XVI said yesterday that the church must urgently rebuild confidence and trust damaged by clerical sex abuse scandals, which have created deep wounds.
The pope made the remarks to a group of visiting bishops from Ireland, an overwhelmingly Roman Catholic nation where the church has been damaged by sex abuse scandals over the past decade.
"You have had to respond in recent years to many heart-rending cases of sexual abuse of minors," the pontiff told the bishops. "These are all the more tragic when the abuser is a cleric."
VATICAN CITY
EuroNews
The Pope - in a meeting with Irish bishops in the Vatican - has said the wounds from sexual abuse in the Irish Church "run deep". He told the bishops that they should prevent repeat offences and rebuild trust. Revelations in Ireland in the 1990s of systematic sexual abuse by priests over decades shattered faith in the Church.
"In the exercise of your pastoral ministry, you have had to respond in recent years to many heart-rending cases of sexual abuse of minors. These are all the more tragic when the abuser is a cleric. The wounds caused by such acts run deep," said the Pope.
PENNSYLVANIA
Philadelphia Inquirer
By David O'Reilly
Inquirer Staff Writer
Episcopal Bishop Charles E. Bennison Jr. is used to church conservatives' denouncing him as a "false teacher" and a "heretic" because of his liberal views on gay clergy, gay marriage and Scripture.
Now moderates and fellow liberals in his five-county, 55,000-member Diocese of Pennsylvania are taking the gloves off, too.
Saying they are frustrated with his financial practices and "imperious" management style, some clergy and lay leaders are seeking to oust the 62-year-old bishop with evidence that he concealed his brother's sexual abuse of a 14-year-old girl more than 30 years ago.
The abuse occurred under Bennison's watch; his brother, John, served as youth director of the California parish where Charles Bennison was rector.
MALTA
The Malta Independent
The Gozitan priest embroiled in accusations of sexual abuse involving underage boys will be called to Miami to give testimony in court, once the case goes to trial.
Speaking to The Malta Independent on Sunday, the legal team representing an unnamed 41-year-old man who has filed a
$10 million civil lawsuit against the Miami Archdiocese has confirmed its intentions to call Fr Mercieca to the witness stand.
The lawsuit charges the Miami Archdiocese with negligence in allowing Fr Mercieca to have had “unfettered” contact with young boys despite having a “history of sexual perversity and inappropriate contact with children”.
VATICAN CITY
The Mercury News
By Alessandra Rizzo
Associated Press
VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI said Saturday that clerical sex abuses were ``egregious crimes'' that had damaged the standing of the Catholic Church and its clergy, in his first explicit remarks on the subject since becoming pontiff.
Speaking to a group of bishops from Ireland -- an overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country where all but one seminary has closed after repeated scandals -- Benedict said it was urgent ``to rebuild confidence and trust.''
``In the exercise of your pastoral ministry, you have had to respond in recent years to many heart-rending cases of sexual abuse of minors,'' the pontiff told the bishops. ``These are all the more tragic when the abuser is a cleric.''
``The wounds caused by such acts run deep,'' Benedict said.
NEW JERSEY
NorthJersey.com
Sunday, October 29, 2006
By DAVID A. MICHAELS
STAFF WRITER
Its name means universal, and yet critics charge the Catholic Church is losing followers in the United States because it isn't inclusive enough.
Outraged by the sexual-abuse scandals and chafed by the church's unwillingness to amend some traditional positions, many Catholics have given up on their church. But some still feel tied to the rituals and practices they grew up with, and have responded by forming their own churches that operate outside the bounds of Rome.
"We are church with a small 'c,' " said Mary Anne Nugent, a retired librarian from Suffern N.Y. whose group, Spirit Rising, celebrating its Mass in different locations around Bergen County. "We are past wanting to reform the church, but we love the faith. So the motivation is just to gather together and pray in a way that fits our mind-set."
Spirit Rising grew out of a women's book club focused on spirituality, Nugent said, and does not publicize its meetings. But other organizations, some started by former priests, have become sizable organizations frequented by people who feel alienated by Catholic doctrine, such as gays, lesbians and divorced people.
Some of these underground churches, as some experts call them, aired their ideas Saturday at a conference in Whippany called "Imagining New Ways of Being Catholic." It was sponsored by Voice of the Faithful, a reform-minded group that has attracted the ire of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark.
MALTA
Malta Independent
The Gozitan priest, claimed by two people to have sexually molested them, described the “aggressive and unfavourable” exposure he is getting as “unfair and unjustified” yesterday.
The priest, Fr Anthony Mercieca, said this on Thursday night in a two-
paragraph statement signed by his Gozitan lawyer, Dr Alfred Grech.
The statement read: “In the wake of the onslaught of accusations levelled against him, Rev. Fr Anthony Mercieca believes that nothing that had happened between him and Mark Foley, some 40 years ago, could provide solid grounds for legal action against him. He therefore considers the aggressive and unfavourable exposure as being unfair and unjustified.”
ALBANY (NY)
Albany Times Union
By CAROL DeMARE, Staff writer
First published: Saturday, October 28, 2006
ALBANY -- A California priest is suing the Albany Diocese's mediation panel, alleging the agency set up to help victims of clergy sex abuse fraudulently claimed it was independent of the diocese.
The Rev. Mark Jaufman is seeking $2 million in his federal court action filed this week on his behalf and that of other unnamed victims. The suit targets the Independent Mediation Assistance Program, or IMAP.
In his court papers, Jaufman, who had previously announced that as a boy he was abused by a parish priest, said he discussed his situation with IMAP representatives. The panel's investigation of his case has been going on for about a year, he has not been compensated, and he is "disappointed and frustrated," his attorney, John Aretakis, said Friday.
IMAP is headed by retired Court of Appeals Judge Howard Levine and administered by the Albany law firm of Whiteman, Osterman and Hanna, of which Levine is a senior counsel.
DAVENPORT (IA)
Des Moines Register
By SHIRLEY RAGSDALE
REGISTER RELIGION EDITOR
October 28, 2006
An unintended consequence of the Diocese of Davenport's bankruptcy is that the Catholic sisters who live next door to the chancery may have to pay more to lease the land on which their convent was built.
The Congregation of the Humility of Mary has filed papers in federal bankruptcy court stating that it has an interest in the outcome of the diocese's bankruptcy.
The congregation's Davenport convent at 820 W. Central Park Ave. was built in 1982 "on land leased from the Davenport Diocese," according to Lisa Bellomy, communications director for the community.
The sisters have a 99-year lease on the lot for their Humility of Mary Center, according to Richard Davidson, attorney for the diocese.
VATICAN
RTE News
28 October 2006 12:48
The Catholic Primate, Archbishop Sean Brady, has invited Pope Benedict to visit Ireland.
He issued his invitation during a meeting this morning between the Irish Hierarchy and the Pontiff.
In his response, Pope Benedict did not refer directly to the invitation but expressed his appreciation for Archbishop Brady's gracious words.
The Pope told the Irish bishops they face an urgent task to rebuild confidence and trust in the wake of the clerical sexual abuse scandals.
VATICAN CITY
WTOP
VATICAN CITY (AP) - Pope Benedict XVI said Saturday that the church must urgently rebuild confidence and trust damaged by clerical sex abuse scandals, which have created deep wounds.
The pope made the remarks to a group of visiting bishops from Ireland, an overwhelmingly Roman Catholic nation where the church has been damaged by sex abuse scandals over the past decade.
"In the exercise of your pastoral ministry, you have had to respond in recent years to many heart-rending cases of sexual abuse of minors," the pontiff told the bishops. "These are all the more tragic when the abuser is a cleric."
"The wounds caused by such acts run deep, and it is an urgent task to rebuild confidence and trust where these have been damaged," Benedict said.
VATICAN
Kath.net
„I am pleased to learn that many of your dioceses have adopted the practice of silent prayer for vocations before the Blessed Sacrament.“ Pope Benedict XVI. to Irish Bishops.
Dear Brother Bishops,
In the words of a traditional Irish greeting, a hundred thousand welcomes to you, the Bishops of Ireland, on the occasion of your ad Limina visit. As you venerate the tombs of the Apostles Peter and Paul, may you draw inspiration from the courage and vision of these two great saints, who so faithfully led the way in the Church’s mission of proclaiming Christ to the world. ...
In the exercise of your pastoral ministry, you have had to respond in recent years to many heart-rending cases of sexual abuse of minors. These are all the more tragic when the abuser is a cleric. The wounds caused by such acts run deep, and it is an urgent task to rebuild confidence and trust where these have been damaged. In your continuing efforts to deal effectively with this problem, it is important to establish the truth of what happened in the past, to take whatever steps are necessary to prevent it from occurring again, to ensure that the principles of justice are fully respected and, above all, to bring healing to the victims and to all those affected by these egregious crimes. In this way, the Church in Ireland will grow stronger and be ever more capable of giving witness to the redemptive power of the Cross of Christ. I pray that by the grace of the Holy Spirit, this time of purification will enable all God’s people in Ireland to "maintain and perfect in their lives that holiness which they have received from God" (Lumen Gentium, 40).
DECATUR (AL)
WAFF
Oct 27, 2006 11:40 PM EDT
A self-proclaimed pastor is out on bond after being charged with first degree sexual abuse of a child under 12.
32-year-old Victor Young Pickett of Decatur is a man many know as "Pastor P."
Pickett is accused of committing the crime six months ago.
"Back in April, we had a child report to his elementary school teacher that a person he knew as Pastor P. had touched him in an inappropriate manner," says Decatur Police Lieutenant Chris Mathews.
The crime allegedly happened in Pickett's apartment, on 8th Street South West in Decatur.
AUSTRALIA
Adelaide Now
COLIN JAMES, LEGAL AFFAIRS EDITOR
October 28, 2006 12:15am
THE Anglican Church in Adelaide faces financial collapse if it cannot raise more money to cover child sex abuse compensation claims, its annual conference has been told.
The Diocese of Adelaide Synod last night heard the church had been forced to borrow $7.5 million to settle claims from victims of abuse committed by priests, church officials and church workers.
A briefing paper prepared for the Synod says the church already had used the loan to settle claims totalling $4.5 million, with more expected to be privately negotiated over the next 18 months.
The yearly cost of servicing the loan would average more than $1.25 million for the next eight years, leaving the church facing annual budget deficits until at least 2015.
CANADA
The B.C. Catholic Newspaper
By DEBORAH GYAPONG
CORNWALL, Ont. (CCN) – At its Oct. 16-20 annual plenary meeting in Cornwall, Ont., the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops came to a decision about its 2007 budget but referred the question of making voluntary sexual abuse guidelines mandatory to the November meeting of its Permanent Council.
“We are in good shape,” said CCCB president Archbishop Andre Gaumond of Sherbrooke in a telephone interview Oct. 23 after the conference had approved a balanced budget for 2007. “It’s really promising. We were very strict on the expenses. We have the results. Let’s hope we can keep on this way.”
The forecast surplus for 2006 is $368,000, while the actual surplus for 2005 is $824,694.
Going on to discuss the abuse guidelines, Archbishop Gaumond said, “It’s not an easy question, it’s very complex.”
DAVENPORT (IA)
Sioux City Journal
Pending lawsuits filed against the Diocese of Davenport by victims of sexual abuse by priests will be put on hold while the diocese goes through Chapter 11 bankruptcy, a judge and attorneys say.
District Judge Charles H. Pelton and attorneys representing the victims and former Bishop Lawrence Soens of the Sioux City Diocese agreed at a hearing last Friday that it would be pointless to proceed to trial. The case victim Michael Gould filed against the diocese and Soens was set for trial last Monday.
"It doesn't make sense to us to present this case twice," said Patrick Noaker, one of Gould's attorneys, referring to the possibility of one trial involving Soens and a later trial for the diocese.
KENTUCKY
the Courier-Journal
By Peter Smith
psmith@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal
Prosecutors should get the names of living persons accused in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Covington sexual abuse case -- but not the names of victims or deceased abusers, the Kentucky Court of Appeals ruled yesterday.
In its unanimous vote, the court overturned part of an order issued by the judge overseeing the case in Boone Circuit Court.
The dispute centered on an order in June by Senior Judge John W. Potter, who oversaw the class-action lawsuit that was settled for $85 million earlier this year by the diocese and about 350 anonymous plaintiffs.
Potter ordered the special master overseeing the settlement fund in June to turn over all of the names involved -- of victims as well as abusers, dead or alive -- and details of the abuse to prosecutors.
WASHINGTON (DC)
Catholic Online
10/27/2006
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)
WASHINGTON (Catholic Online) – The U.S. bishops will consider a proposal to release about one-third of the $1 million they set aside for research to examine the causes and context of sexual abuse of children and young people by clergy.
The vote on the proposal, set for the bishops’ conference Nov. 13-16 meeting in Baltimore, Md., would release $335,000 to be used to underwrite the first stages of the research by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.
Last November, the U.S. bishops approved a proposal from the college for the study, estimated to cost $2-3 million. The study is set to be completed in 2009.
WASHINGTON (DC)
The Pilot
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- A Catholic who "knowingly and obstinately" rejects "the defined doctrines of the church" or its "definitive teaching on moral issues" should refrain from receiving Communion, according to a document that will come before the U.S. bishops at their Nov. 13-16 fall general meeting in Baltimore.
The document, "'Happy Are Those Who Are Called to His Supper': On Preparing to Receive Christ Worthily in the Eucharist," requires the approval of two-thirds of the members of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for passage. ...
"In order to receive holy Communion we must be in communion with God and with the church," the document says. "If we are no longer in a state of grace because of mortal sin, we are seriously obliged to refrain from receiving holy Communion."
Among examples of such sin, the document cites "committing deliberate hatred of others, sexual abuse of a minor or vulnerable adult, or physical or verbal abuse toward one's family members or fellow workers, causing grave physical or psychological harm; murder, abortion or euthanasia."
DAVENPORT (IA)
Gazette
By: Associated Press
DAVENPORT, IA - A federal bankruptcy judge has approved the Davenport diocese's request to keep secret the names of abuse victims during bankruptcy proceedings.
An order filed this week by Judge Lee Jackwig creates a Master Anonymous Claimants List that will include the names of people who say they were abused by priests. Each claimant will be assign a "Doe number" that will be used in future court proceedings.
The list will be filed with the court clerk and sealed. Future claimants will have their names and addresses added to the list and kept confidential.
WASHINGTON (DC)
Zenit
WASHINGTON, D.C., OCT. 27, 2006 (Zenit.org).- The U.S. bishops will vote next month on a proposal to release one-third of the money earmarked to study the causes of clergy sexual abuse of minors in this country.
If the proposal is accepted, $335,000 will be used to underwrite the first three segments of the research, which is being undertaken by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, part of City University of New York.
Last November the bishops accepted a proposal from John Jay for the study, called for by the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, which was passed by the U.S. bishops in 2002.
The study, to be completed in 2009, is expected to cost $3 million. The U.S. bishops have committed $1 million toward it. Further funding is being sought from Catholic and other philanthropic groups.
AUSTRALIA
ABC
Saturday, 28 October 2006.
The Anglican church has endorsed a plan to sell off some of its South Australian assets to help pay compensation to the victims of child sex abuse within the church.
The 2006 session of the church's synod has endorsed a plan to subdivide a portion of the church's Bishop's Court grounds at North Adelaide.
It also voted to sell a Barossa Valley camp site previously used by the Church of England Boys Society.
CALIFORNIA
The New York Times
By NEELA BANERJEE
Published: October 28, 2006
WASHINGTON, Oct. 27 — The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles and a Catholic religious order have agreed to pay $10 million to settle claims made by seven victims of sexual abuse by clergy members, lawyers for the parties involved said Friday.
While the amount per victim is large relative to payments made to settle sexual abuse cases in other parts of the country, it is typical of the sums paid in California, which has a taken a strong stance toward the Catholic Church in abuse cases. In 2003, for example, the state extended its statute of limitations for child sexual abuse cases, and the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office has been conducting a criminal investigation into the archdiocese since 2002.
More than 95 percent of the $10 million settlement will be paid by the religious order, the Carmelites, Province of the Most Pure Heart of Mary, which is based in Darien, Ill. The archdiocese will pay less than 5 percent, lawyers for the plaintiffs and the order said.
LOS ANGELES (CA)
The Press-Telegram
By Solvej Schou, Associated Press
Article Launched:10/27/2006 10:27:26 PM PDT
LOS ANGELES - The Archdiocese of Los Angeles and a Roman Catholic religious order will pay $10 million to several people to settle allegations of clergy sexual abuse, attorneys for those involved in the cases said Friday.
The Carmelite order will pay most of the settlement to seven people, including two who said they were sexually molested at an Encino high school, an attorney for that province of the Carmelite order said Friday. The archdiocese will contribute about 5 percent.
"We were glad to be able to work out a settlement, and we hope this brings peace to the people who are involved," said attorney Jim Geoly, representing the province of Carmelites involved in the lawsuit.
"We're satisfied with the archdiocese's participation. These particular claims involved accusations against Carmelites serving in Carmelite institutions," he said.
IRELAND
Irish Independent
Thirty-two Irish Bishops are meeting the Pontiff in the Vatican this morning for what's being described as the state of the church address.
Pope Benedict will focus on what he believes are the major issues and challenges that the church in Ireland is facing, in particular the issues of child protection and clerical sexual abuse.
The Irish church has over the last number of decades been greatly troubled and scandalised by the level of such abuse.
Irish Catholic reporter in Rome, Michael Kelly, said that one clear message had emerged: "He's very strong on this issue that Church authorities must report abuse to the civil authorities, that child abuse is a crime that should be dealt with by the health authorities and the police and that is something that the Bishops must be aware of.
MALTA
The Times of Malta
Herman Grech
The elderly Gozitan priest at the centre of a sex scandal involving a former US congressman has categorically denied accusations of sexual abuse made by a second American man.
"Regarding the allegations made by Attorney Jeffrey Herman, speaking on behalf of an unidentified person by the name of John Doe (a pen name) No. 26, Fr (Anthony) Mercieca emphatically denies the accusation made against him and describes it at best as a figment of the imagination and at worst as a malicious fabrication," lawyer Alfred Grech said when asked by The Times.
The retired priest, who is in the spotlight after being accused of molesting ex-congressman Mark Foley four decades ago, is facing new allegations of sexual abuse by another former South Florida altar boy.
In the first comments to the press since the accusations surfaced against the 72-year old priest, Dr Grech said:
"In the wake of the onslaught of accusations levelled against him, Fr Anthony Mercieca believes that nothing that had happened between him and Mark Foley, some 40 years ago, could provide solid grounds for legal action against him. He therefore considers the aggressive and unfavourable exposure as being unfair and unjustified."
AUSTRALIA
Adelaide Now
October 28, 2006 06:05pm
ADELAIDE'S Anglican parishes will have to pay a one-per-cent levy each year for 10 years to fund outstanding sexual abuse claims.
The levy is expected to raise $55,000 each year from July 2007 and will be imposed on the assessable income in each parish.
It is part of a 10 year financial strategy endorsed by the Diocese of the Adelaide Synod's annual conference at St Peters College on Friday night.
MASSACHUSETTS
Reading Eagle
Cardinal Sean Patrick O'Malley gets mixed reviews from Peter Manseau.
The archbishop of Boston earns several mentions in Manseau's fascinating nonfiction work, “Vows: The Story of a Priest, a Nun, and Their Son,” about which Manseau talked in Reading earlier this month.
Writing about O'Malley's appointment in 2003 to clean up the clergy sexual-abuse mess, Manseau says that “he was all but sainted by the Boston Globe,” and asserts, “That so venerable a watchdog as the Globe was all too ready to take the O'Malley bait suggests the Catholic Church pulled off its most impressive public relations coup since the Gospels turned a murdered rabbi into a king. ...
“Though the new bishop meant a change of rhetoric and a change of fashion were at hand, for real change, deep change, Catholics in Boston would have to wait.”
DAVENPORT (IA)
Des Moines Register
SHIRLEY RAGSDALE
REGISTER STAFF WRITER
October 27, 2006
A federal bankruptcy judge has approved the Diocese of Davenport’s request to keep secret the names of abuse victims during
bankruptcy proceedings.
Judge Lee M. Jackwig this week ordered that the names of claimants be kept under seal. And as new claims come forward, new names may be added to the list the diocese is compiling.
“We have a list and we are giving each name a number,” said Richard A. Davidson, attorney for the diocese. “The claimants will be referred to by the number rather than their name in bankruptcy court.”
Some of the men who have alleged they were abused by Davenport diocesan priests have sued the diocese using a pseudonym. Those identified as John Doe I through VII were among the 37 claimants who in October 2004 settled with the diocese for $9 million. Since then, more men have come forward and in a lawsuit naming the diocese and retired Sioux City Bishop Lawrence Soens. Among those are 11 identified as John Doe 8 through 18.
DECATUR (AL)
Ledger-Enquirer
Associated Press
DECATUR, Ala. - Authorities arrested a Decatur man, who claimed to be an ordained minister, on charges he molested an elementary school student he was tutoring.
Victor Young Pickett, 32, was booked into the Morgan County Jail and released on $25,000 bond Tuesday. A grand jury indicted Pickett on a charge of first-degree sexual abuse of a child under 12 years old.
"In April a child in elementary school reported to his teacher that he had been inappropriately touched by a man he knew as 'Pastor P.,'" Decatur police Sgt. Terry White said.
Pickett was indicted on sodomy and sexual abuse charges in January 2000, but that case was later dismissed, The Decatur Daily reported Friday.
ITALY
AGI
(AGI) - Rome, Oct.26 - The Re-examination Court must reconsider the release of Father Fedele Bisceglia, the 69 year-old priest investigated for having allegedly raped a nun. The Court of Cassation decided so, thus annulling the release ordered by the Court of Catanzaro. THe Cassation also accepted the request of a Cosenza DA prosecutor, Claudio Currelli, regarding the release of the priest's secretary, Antonio Gaudio, also accused of rape.
Toronto Sun
Fri, October 27, 2006
By LIZ BRAUN, TORONTO SUN
His Eminence, Roger Cardinal Mahony of California, has a large Roman Catholic flock to oversee.
Over the years, that flock has included some 550 priests who molested children -- just one of the jaw-dropping items you learn from journalist Amy Berg, the filmmaker behind the documentary, Deliver Us From Evil.
Berg's devastating film centres on interviews with defrocked priest Oliver O'Grady, a man who abused children in California for 20 years while the Catholic Church moved him from diocese to diocese. The film is about the abuse, the victims, and the cover-up by the church.
DAVENPORT (IA)
WOI
DAVENPORT, Iowa The Roman Catholic Diocese of Davenport is preparing a list of anonymous claimants that will be kept under seal while the diocese goes through bankruptcy proceedings.
The diocese filed for Chapter 11 earlier this month -- the fourth diocese in the nation to seek financial protection to deal with priest sex abuse cases.
An order filed this week in U-S Bankruptcy Court creates a Master Anonymous Claimants List that will include the individual's name and assign them a "Doe number" -- as in John Doe.
BATON ROUGE (LA)
The Advocate
By ADRIAN ANGELETTE
Advocate staff writer
Published: Oct 27, 2006
Three former altar boys sued the Diocese of Baton Rouge on Thursday, claiming they were molested by a priest in the 1970s.
All three men, along with 11 others who have previously filed suit against the diocese, claim they were molested by former priest Christopher Springer. The diocese has settled lawsuits with six of the former altar boys.
“It’s the same pattern over and over and over again,” said Felecia Peavy, the Houston-based attorney handling the cases for the 14 altar boys. “The number of allegations continues to grow, and I don’t know if we will ever know how many victims are out there.”
In the latest lawsuit against the diocese and Springer, two of the three plaintiffs claim they were molested at the church rectory in New Roads.
MALTA
WHAM
VALLETTA (Reuters) - The Catholic priest accused by former congressman Mark Foley of molesting him as a boy said on Friday the allegations did not constitute a basis for him to be prosecuted.
Anthony Mercieca, who is retired and lives on the Maltese island of Gozo, has admitted in U.S. media interviews that he had encounters with Foley that could be perceived as sexually inappropriate but denied having sex with him.
In a statement issued by his lawyer, Mercieca, 72, said an accusation of molestation by a second man was "at best a figment of the imagination and at worst as a malicious fabrication."
"In the wake of the onslaught of accusations leveled against him, Reverend Father Anthony Mercieca believes that nothing that had happened between him and Mark Foley some 40 years ago could provide solid grounds for legal action against him," lawyer Alfred Grech said.
DECATUR (AL)
The Decatur Daily
By Seth Burkett
DAILY Staff Writer
sburkett@decaturdaily.com · 340-2355
Authorities arrested a man, who claimed to be an ordained minister, this week on charges he molested a child he was tutoring.
“In April a child in elementary school reported to his teacher that he had been inappropriately touched by a man he knew as ‘Pastor P.,’ ” said Decatur police Sgt. Terry White.
White said ‘Pastor P.’ turned out to be Victor Young Pickett, 32, of 217 Eighth St. S.W.
A Morgan County grand jury indicted Pickett this month on a charge of first-degree sexual abuse of a child under 12 years old. ...
Police told THE DAILY in 2000 that detectives performed a six-month investigation into Pickett’s activities that revealed he was running a church out of his apartment, picking up young males to take them to his church and molesting them.
VATICAN
The Irish Times
Patsy McGarry, Religious Affairs Correspondent, in Rome, Martin Wall
Pope Benedict, in the strongest language he has ever used in relation to clerical child sex abuse, has expressed his own "personal anguish and horror" at what happened in the Ferns diocese over a 40-year period from the early 1960s onwards.
He said the "incomprehensible behaviour" of some clergy in Ferns had "devastated human lives and profoundly betrayed the trust of children, young people, their families, parish communities and the entire diocesan family".
Pope Benedict's comments were made public last night by the director of the diocese of Ferns communications office, Fr John Carroll. The pope was speaking during a private audience at the Vatican for the new Bishop of Ferns, Most Rev Denis Brennan, who is accompanying the other Irish Catholic bishops on an ad limina visit to Rome.
The 271-page report of the Ferns inquiry, chaired by retired Supreme Court judge Frank Murphy, was published a year ago. It identified more than 100 allegations of child sexual abuse made between 1962 and 2002 against 26 priests operating under the aegis of the diocese.
AUSTRALIA
The Australian
October 27, 2006
SOME Anglican priests have stopped wearing their collars in public after being abused over revelations about child sex abuse.
Adelaide Archbishop Jeffrey Driver yesterday said he had been "deeply saddened" when he was told priests had been ostracised since details of the abuse emerged three years ago.
"In a sense, they have become the secondary victims of the abuse," he said. "The toll of individuals (within the church) has been high."
The issue of priests not wearing their collars in public surfaced in a report commissioned by the church following the highly-publicised resignation of former Adelaide Archbishop Ian George.
ABC 6
By Tamala Edwards
October 26, 2006 - An unusual documentary film opens on Friday presenting frank confessions of sexual abuse by a former Catholic priest.
Some are already asking is this film healing or hurting to victims of similar abuse?
What Oliver O'Grady confesses in the stunning new film, "Deliver Us From Evil," is that he is a pedophile priest. Over the twenty years the priest spent in Northern California parishes, he raped dozens of children, including a 9-month old infant. Usually these culprits are two-dimensional, made real only in stories of their victims or in court documents.
The Epoch Times
By Ester Molayeme
Special to The Epoch Times Oct 26, 2006
LOS ANGELES Deliver Us From Evil is a remarkable documentary about Father Oliver O'Grady, reportedly the most notorious pedophile in the history of the Catholic Church.
Father O'Grady provided over 20 years of service to the Church in Northern California, time in which he allegedly molested hundreds of children, including a 9 months old infant. In some cases he seduced parents in order to get to their children.
As accusations of molestation arose, the Archdiocese moved Father Oliver O'Grady from parish to parish.
Toronto Star
Oct. 27, 2006. 01:00 AM
PETER HOWELL
MOVIE CRITIC
Amy Berg is a reporter's reporter.
At CBS News, ABC News and CNN, she investigated social ills of every stripe: poverty, pollution, drug abuse, sexual assault, illegal doctors and more. Her dogged quest for truth, often dealing with difficult sources and subjects, has earned her two Emmy Awards.
"I really like doing these investigative pieces," says the Los Angeles filmmaker and former TV producer.
But nothing can top the six years of diligence that led to Deliver Us From Evil, Berg's shocking documentary inquiry into pedophile priests in the Roman Catholic Church. The film opens in Toronto today.
Rocky Mountain News
By Robert Denerstein, Rocky Mountain News
October 27, 2006
Oliver O'Grady wears gray sweaters and seldom seems to raise his voice. Aside from the lilt of his Irish accent, he might as well be a Mr. Rogers stand-in, a kindly-looking soul with an apparently gentle demeanor. But O'Grady, a former priest we meet in the shattering new documentary Deliver Us From Evil, could hardly be less benign.
A pedophile priest, O'Grady betrayed the trust his parishioners placed in him and preyed on their young.
Perhaps it was narcissism that drove O'Grady - now living in Ireland after 20 years in the priesthood and seven in prison - to appear in director Amy Berg's film. Berg, who had covered sexual abuse within the church for CNN and CBS, makes this bit of cinematic dynamite the centerpiece of a heartbreaking film.
CALIFORNIA
Los Angeles Times
By John Spano, Times Staff Writer
October 27, 2006
The Los Angeles Archdiocese and a Roman Catholic religious order have agreed to pay $10 million to seven people, including two who said they were sexually molested by clergy at an Encino school.
The case involved Dominic Savino, 67, a Carmelite priest who spent many years as a teacher and administrator at Crespi Carmelite High School.
Also named as a defendant was former Crespi Principal John Knoernschild and two other members of the order not associated with the school.
Most of the settlement will be paid by the Carmelite order; the archdiocese will contribute about 5%, a church spokesman said.
FLORIDA
Naples Daily News
Daily News staff
Friday, October 27, 2006
Though there is a common thread of perverted sex and molestation, this is about trust — and violating it.
Former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley says he was molested as a boy by a priest.
Whether that is to distract inquisitors of his e-mail propositions to teen pages or to build sympathy, the explanation from that now-retired clergyman speaks to the insidious nature of child molestation: It becomes habitual, rationalized behavior.
While describing an intimate and fawning friendship with Foley that included nudity and even fondling, the priest says there was nothing sexual or inappropriate.
That is doubly dangerous coming from someone in authority — someone who purports to act on behalf of God.
That priest violated trust placed in him by the Foley family and the church.
Foley in turn violated trust placed in him by voters and the parents of congressional pages.
Philadelphia Inquirer
By Carrie Rickey
Inquirer Movie Critic
With his smiling eyes and silver nimbus of hair, the Rev. Oliver O'Grady looked like a parish priest straight out of central casting. The music of his Irish brogue inspired trust and faith.
"He was the perfect example of what you thought a priest should be," recalls Maria Jyono, a pious Catholic from Lodi, Calif.
Jyono speaks in the past tense because, between the ages of 5 and 12, her daughter, Ann, was raped regularly by "Father Ollie." Ann, now 40, wasn't the only child violated by this sexual and spiritual predator.
VATICAN
Irish Independent
THE Pope last night spoke emotionally for the first time of his personal "anguish and horror" at the horrendous clerical child sex abuse scandals in Wexford.
The Pontiff broke his silence exactly a year after a Government inquiry found the scale of abuse in the diocese of Ferns made it one of the worst places in the world for systematic rape of young children by abusing priests.
The Pope's expression of his "deep sorrow and distress" for the devastation caused to the victims was conveyed earlier yesterday to the Bishop of Ferns, Denis Brennan, during a private audience at the Vatican.
Bishop Brennan, who took over the Ferns diocese last April, is on the five-yearly statutory visit to the Pope. For the past two weeks he and 33 other bishops have been meeting the senior heads of the various congregations which make up the Curia, the papal civil service.
VATICAN
U.TV
Pope Benedict XVI has revealed his horror at the behaviour of more than 20 priests who sexually abused children in the Diocese of Ferns in south-east Ireland.
The Pontiff told the Bishop of Ferns, the Rev Denis Brennan, he was praying for the healing and peace of all those who had suffered.
In his first comments on the abuse as Pontiff, he spoke of his deep sorrow and distress at the suffering endured by the victims.
He expressed his own personal anguish and horror at the incomprehensible behaviour of those clergy.
And he told Bishop Brennan the priests` actions had devastated human lives and profoundly betrayed the trust of children, young people, their families and parish communities.
The Pope received Bishop Brennan as part of the visit of the Irish Episcopal Conference.
Jam! Showbiz
By LIZ BRAUN - Toronto Sun
PLOT: Documentary centres on convicted pedophile Father Oliver O'Grady, formerly of California, and also investigates the devastating, lasting effects of clergy abuse upon victims -- and the heinous cover-up orchestrated by the Catholic Church.
After the Boston clergy scandals of 2002, you'd think there was nothing else to know about pedophile priests and corruption in the Catholic Church.
Think again.
FLORIDA
Washington Blade
By PHIL LAPADULA
Friday, October 27, 2006
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — The Catholic Archdiocese of Miami has launched an investigation of a priest who has admitted to fondling Mark Foley when the former congressman was a young teen.
In a statement posted on its website, the archdiocese barred the Rev. Anthony Mercieca from performing any priestly duties. The archdiocese also issued an apology to Foley.
Mercieca has denied having sex with the young Foley but has said he skinny-dipped and sat in saunas naked with the teen during overnight trips in the 1960s. In an interview with the CNN affiliate WPTV from his home on the Maltese island of Gozo, Mercieca admitted to fondling Foley.
WILMINGTON (DC)
WGMD
Fri, 27 Oct 2006 05:29:24 +0000
The Catholic Diocese of Wilmington has asked the Vatican to defrock a former Delaware priest who is charged with sexually abusing a Syracuse boy. The Diocese made the request a week ago - just one day after 77 year old Francis DeLuca was charged with endangering the welfare of a child and several counts of sexual abuse.
MALTA
The Ledger
By MARIA SANMINIATELLI
Associated Press Writer
ROME
The lawyer for a Catholic priest who acknowledged fondling former Rep. Mark Foley when Foley was a teenager said Friday there were no grounds for legal action against the clergyman, and denied allegations by a second man who said the priest molested him.
"Father Anthony Mercieca believes that nothing that happened between him and Mark Foley, some 40 years ago, could provide solid grounds for legal action against him," lawyer Alfred Grech said in an e-mail from his office in Malta to The Associated Press in Rome.
"He therefore considers the aggressive and unfavorable exposure as being unfair and unjustified."
MALTA
MaltaMedia News
By MaltaMedia News
Oct 27, 2006, 13:01 CET
Through his lawyer, Gozitan Priest Fr. Anthony Mercieca has denied fresh molestation allegations set forward by a former altar boy identified as John Doe No. 26. The man alleged that that abuse took place in the 1970s when he was 12 years old.
The Gozitan priest admitted last week to have had an "intimate relationship" with former United States Republican Congressman Mark Foley in the 1960s. However, the priest, speaking through his lawyer in a statement, denied the allegation made by John Doe No. 26, describing it "at best as a figment of the imagination and at worst a malicious fabrication."
According to the Associated Press, the statement further read that "Father Anthony Mercieca believes that nothing that happened between him and Mark Foley, some 40 years ago, could provide solid grounds for legal action against him," adding that "He therefore considers the aggressive and unfavorable exposure as being unfair and unjustified."
WILMINGTON (DE)
The News Journal
By BETH MILLER, The News Journal
Posted Friday, October 27, 2006
Officials of the Catholic Diocese of Wilmington confirmed Thursday that they have asked the Vatican to remove from the priesthood the former Delaware priest arrested last week on charges of sexually abusing a Syracuse, N.Y., boy.
Diocese spokesman Robert G. Krebs said the diocese made the request to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith last Friday, the day after the Rev. Francis G. DeLuca, 77, was arrested and charged with several counts of sexual abuse and one count of endangering the welfare of a child.
Syracuse police say DeLuca confessed to molesting the boy, now 18, over a five-year period. He was arraigned Wednesday, according to Assistant District Attorney Kari Armstrong. He is scheduled to appear in Syracuse City Court on Nov. 13, Armstrong said.
DeLuca was removed from public ministry and forced to retire in 1993, when allegations of sexual abuse arose while he was a priest in Delaware.
LOS ANGELES (CA)
CBS 2
(AP) LOS ANGELES The Los Angeles Archdiocese and a Roman Catholic religious order will pay $10 million to several people to settle allegations of clergy sex abuse.
Lawyers say the Carmelite order will pay most of the settlement to seven people, including two who said they were sexually molested at Crespi Carmelite High School in Encino.
A church spokesman says the archdiocese will contribute about five percent.
The defendants in the case include Dominic Savino, a 67-year-old Carmelite priest, who spent several years as a teacher and administrator at the high school.
Former school principal John Knoernschild was also named, along with two other members of the order not associated with the school.
BOSTON (MA)
National
By CHUCK COLBERT
Boston
A new documentary film on the scandal of clerical sex abuse in the Catholic church opened to the public in Boston, Los Angeles and New York Oct. 13.
“Deliver Us from Evil,” was prescreened twice in this area, once at the Boston Film Festival, and again at a screening hosted by the national office of Voice of the Faithful, a church reform organization that sprang up at the height of the sex abuse crisis in the Boston archdiocese.
In both instances, the film’s director and producer, Amy Berg, a former journalist for CBS News and CNN, fielded questions from the audience. Joining her were sex abuse survivors and a lawyer for victims of clerical sex abuse.
WASHINGTON (DC)
U.S. Newswire
WASHINGTON, Oct. 26 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The U.S. bishops will vote during their fall meeting in Baltimore, Nov. 13-16, on a proposal to release $335,000 of the $1 million they earmarked last year for research on the causes and context of sexual abuse by clergy.
The money would be used to underwrite the first three segments of the research, which is being undertaken by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY.
Last November, the bishops accepted a proposal from John Jay for the study of the Causes and Context of Sexual Abuse of Children and Young People by Catholic Clergy in the United States, as called for by the bishops' Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.
As part of the proposal, John Jay is to raise funds for the study which is estimated to cost $2-3 million.
The entire study is slated for completion in 2009.
VATICAN
Irish Examiner
Pope Benedict XVI today revealed his horror at the behaviour of more than 20 priests who sexually abused children in the Diocese of Ferns.
The pontiff told the Bishop of Ferns, the Revered Denis Brennan, he was praying for the healing and peace of all those who had suffered.
In his first comments on the abuse as pontiff, he spoke of his deep sorrow and distress at the suffering endured by the victims.
He expressed his own personal anguish and horror at the incomprehensible behaviour of those clergy. He told Bishop Brennan the priests’ actions had devastated human lives and profoundly betrayed the trust of children, young people, their families and parish communities.
AUSTRALIA
news.com.au
COLIN JAMES, LEGAL AFFAIRS EDITOR
October 27, 2006 12:15am
ANGLICAN priests need more support to help them recover from revelations about child sex abuse by some of their colleagues, says Adelaide Archbishop Jeffrey Driver.
In his opening address to the annual Synod of the Diocese of Adelaide, Archbishop Driver last night said priests also needed to regain confidence in a church leadership widely criticised over its handling of child abuse allegations over several decades.
Outlining a strategy to recover from the revelations, he said the diocese not only had to help its priests, but also needed to confront significant budget cuts to pay for child abuse compensation claims totalling millions of dollars.
"We are part of a diocese in which, sadly, there has been low morale among the clergy and many good and faithful clergy members are struggling to know how to exercise their ministry in the changed church to which they now belong," he said.
VATICAN
RTE News
26 October 2006 17:13
Pope Benedict XVI has told the Bishop of Ferns of his sorrow and distress at the suffering endured by the victims of child sexual abuse carried out by some priests in the diocese.
The Pope received Reverend Denis Brennan today and expressed his own personal anguish and horror at what he called the incomprehensible behaviour of those clergy.
ALTON (MO)
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
10/26/2006
A former Catholic priest who briefly served in Alton was sentenced this week to five to 10 years in prison after pleading no contest in a sexual abuse case in Bay City, Mich., authorities said.
John Steven Rabideau, 45, was accused of engaging in sexual conduct with children between the ages of 6 and 14 in the mid-1980s when he was a seminarian in Boston and visiting relatives in Michigan. The alleged offenses did not involve his duties as a priest, authorities have said.
He was sentenced Monday in Bay County Court and will get credit for 261 days served behind bars.
LOS ANGELES (CA)
CBS 2
(CBS) LOS ANGELES A coalition representing victims of clergy abuse asked Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa Wednesday to distance himself from Roman Catholic Cardinal Roger Mahony and watch a documentary about sexual abuse within the church.
The mayor's cordial relationship with Mahony sends the wrong message to children abused by priests, members of the group said outside City Hall.
"The mayor gives the cardinal more credibility, credibility the cardinal does not deserve," James Robertson with Survivors of Silence said.
"We ask that Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who is the mayor of all citizens in Los Angeles, to please end his relationship with this renegade cardinal."
Inside City Hall, members gave a mayoral aide a copy of the documentary "Deliver Us From Evil," which is the story of former priest Oliver O'Grady, who allegedly abused hundreds of children in California over 20 years, including a period of time when Mahony was his superior in Stockton.
"We're going to ask (the mayor) to stop appearing with the cardinal because when he appears with the cardinal he grants him a level of municipal credibility," abuse victim Tim Healey said.
The Mayor's Office had no immediate comment. Tod Tamberg, spokesman for the archdiocese, said Mahony has no intention of changing his relationship with Villaraigosa.
NORTHERN IRELAND
One in Four
The Irish Times
A group of Derry Catholics has written to Pope Benedict expressing serious concern about the conduct of affairs in their diocese by Bishop Seamus Hegarty. Dr Hegarty is currently in Rome, where Ireland's Catholic bishops are on a two-week ad limina visit.
Every Catholic bishops' conference makes such a visit to Rome at five-year intervals to report to the Pope and senior Vatican figures on what has been going on in their church locally.
Derry's lay Catholic group, Voice of the Faithful, has written to the Pope and the Vatican's Congregation of Bishops to say they are "deeply concerned" about Bishop Hegarty's "failure to act on the recommendation made by Pope John Paul II to all Irish bishops in 1999 to set up structures which would give Ireland's lay Catholics a greater sense of belonging to their own church".
They criticise "his failure to advance in the diocese proposals for support for victims of sexual abuse announced by all the Irish bishops in February 2005 in the document Towards Healing".
IRELAND
Irish Independent
A PRIEST has fled his parish amidst allegations of child sexual abuse.
Locals say they have not seen the priest in the small, rural parish for almost two-weeks now.
According to senior church officials, Fr Peter Cribbins, who is serving as a priest in the parish of Rhode, Co Offaly, has taken administrative leave while an investigation into allegations against him takes place.
"We have not seen Fr Cribbins around the town for almost two weeks now and it is very upsetting to hear of this investigation," said one local yesterday.
NEW YORK
The Journal News
By GARY STERN
THE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original publication: October 26, 2006)
Many New York priests say they are baffled that Cardinal Edward Egan is blaming recent criticism of him on untruths spread by unnamed pedophile priests.
Some are particularly concerned that Egan, in a letter to priests, twice singled out Monsignor Howard Calkins of Mount Vernon for criticizing him in the press, despite Calkins' apology to Egan.
"There is amazement on the part of priests that he mentioned Monsignor Calkins twice," one New York priest said yesterday. "It seems totally uncalled for. Howard tried to show some sensitivity and apologized, but you're not given a chance to talk. The whole letter is unfortunate."
Interviews and e-mail exchanges with 14 archdiocesan priests, all of whom have spoken with other priests, revealed widespread confusion over the thrust of Egan's letter and dismay over the open conflict that has gripped the Archdiocese of New York for the past two weeks. No priest was willing to be named because of what each said is Egan's clear dislike of public criticism and concerns about retribution.
NEW YORK
Whispers in the Loggia
Spot-on or not, when the New York Daily News picks up Letter #2 with the screaming headline "Egan labels revs sickos: Sez critics molesters," you know it's shaping up to be quite the Wednesday.
Gotham is simmering. Again. Well, more than just simmering.
Just as the fracas over the original, anonymous missive calling for a "no confidence" vote in him was dying down, Cardinal Edward Egan's Monday retort to his priests has thrown the church in the Big Apple into a renewed tumult. Not pretty at all, Romans puzzled at what on earth is going on -- and, intriguingly enough, both the Post and religion writer Gary Stern at the Westchester Journal-News are floating the name of Msgr Charles Kavanagh as the possible target of Egan's wrath.
WILMINGTON (DE)
Newsday
October 25, 2006, 7:10 PM EDT
WILMINGTON, Del. -- Catholic Church officials in New York were warned several years ago that a former Delaware priest arrested on child sexual abuse charges last week was a suspected pedophile, but only after the man allegedly began molesting a New York boy.
Francis G. DeLuca, 77, was arrested Oct. 19 and charged with repeated sexual abuse of a Syracuse, N.Y. boy.
DeLuca was removed from the ministry in Delaware in 1993 after officials with the Catholic Diocese of Wilmington learned of credible sexual abuse allegations against him dating to the 1960s.
A former Wilmington bishop accepted DeLuca's early retirement in December 2003 "for reasons of health" and forbade him from engaging in active public ministry without permission, according to documents obtained by The (Wilmington) News Journal.
NEW YORK
The New York Times
By ANDY NEWMAN
Published: October 26, 2006
Just when it seemed to be dying down, the dispute over an anonymous letter criticizing the management style of Cardinal Edward M. Egan has been revived by the cardinal himself in an angry letter he sent to all the priests in the New York Archdiocese.
In his letter, sent Friday, Cardinal Egan said his critics were merely doing the bidding of sexually abusive priests who felt the archdiocese had treated them unfairly.
In the interest of preventing further attacks on the church leadership, the cardinal decreed in the letter that sexually abusive priests would no longer be allowed to hide behind anonymity. Any priest who is found guilty by a church panel of sexually abusing a minor and is then “reported to be speaking untruthfully” about the church’s justice process will be ordered to write a public apology or be tried again before another panel, which will make a public report about the statements.
Because he is “confident that all cases of the sexual abuse of minors by priests that have been treated during my tenure have been handled properly,” the cardinal wrote, “I have no doubt what the conclusion of the panel will be.”
FLORIDA
Palm Beach Post
By Andrew Marra
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Another South Florida man says he was sexually abused as a young boy by the Rev. Anthony Mercieca, the priest who former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley accused last week of molesting him in the 1960s.
In a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Miami-Dade County, the man alleged that Mercieca molested him once in the late 1970s after altar boy practice at St. James Catholic Church in North Miami.
The man, who was not identified in the lawsuit, did not report his claims of sexual abuse until he saw a picture of Mercieca circulated on news reports last week.
"This time I could not be quiet," he said in a statement.
The lawsuit comes almost a week after Mercieca's name was first linked to Foley's allegation that he had been molested by a priest as a teenager.
LOS ANGELES (CA)
Press-Telegram
From P-T wire reports
Article Launched:10/25/2006 09:40:16 PM PDT
LOS ANGELES - A coalition representing victims of clergy abuse asked Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Wednesday to distance himself from Cardinal Roger Mahony and watch a documentary about sexual abuse within the church.
The mayor's cordial relationship with Mahony sends the wrong message to children abused by priests, members of the group said outside City Hall.
"The mayor gives the cardinal more credibility - credibility the cardinal does not deserve," said James Robertson with Survivors of Silence.
"We ask that Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who is the mayor of all citizens in Los Angeles, to please end his relationship with this renegade cardinal."
Inside, members gave a mayoral aide a copy of the documentary "Deliver Us From Evil," the story of former priest Oliver O'Grady, who allegedly abused hundreds of children in California over 20 years, including a period of time when Mahony was his superior in Stockton.
FLORIDA
Miami Herald
By JAY WEAVER
jweaver@MiamiHerald.com
A retired Roman Catholic priest who admitted fondling ex-Congressman Mark Foley four decades ago is facing new allegations of sexual abuse from another former South Florida altar boy.
The latest accuser, identified as ''John Doe No. 26'' in a lawsuit filed Wednesday, claims the Rev. Anthony Mercieca allegedly performed oral sex on him in the late 1970s at St. James Church in North Miami. At the time, the accuser said he was 12 or 13 years old.
Now 40, he says he tried to push away the priest. He alleges the incident occurred in the bell tower of the parish on a Saturday after he had altar-boy practice and had gone on a bike ride with Mercieca.
MALTA
The Malta Independent
by David Lindsay
A 51-year-old man yesterday filed a civil lawsuit against the Miami Archdiocese after he claimed he had been sexually abused by Gozitan priest Fr Anthony Mercieca in 1978.
At the time of the alleged abuse, the boy, who has been named only as John Doe No. 26 since he was a minor at the time of the incident, was 12 to 13 years old.
The allegations follow similar ones made against Fr Mercieca by disgraced American congressman Mark Foley.
In a complaint filed in the Circuit Court of the 11th Judicial Circuit for Miami-Dade County, Florida yesterday, the plaintiff, an altar boy at the time of the alleged incident, claims he was invited to the top of Miami’s St James Church bell tower by Fr Mercieca, who proceeded to perform indecent acts on him.
SYRACUSE (NY)
The News Journal
By BETH MILLER, The News Journal
Posted Thursday, October 26, 2006
Former Delaware priest Francis G. DeLuca has confessed to molesting a boy during a five-year period, according to a report released by Syracuse, N.Y., police.
DeLuca, 77, served in the Catholic Diocese of Wilmington for 35 years before he was forced into retirement and stripped of his priestly duties in 1993, when similar allegations arose against him here. Diocese officials said he was allowed to retire to keep his benefits.
After retirement, he returned to Syracuse, his hometown. Syracuse police picked up DeLuca at his apartment Oct. 19 and questioned him about a local mother's complaint that he molested her son, now 18.
In a 90-minute interview, DeLuca told police the boy periodically spent the night at his apartment, usually on weekends. He told police he started to fondle the boy when the boy was 12 or 13 years old. After the boy reached 16 or 17, DeLuca said he added pornographic movies to the meetings, police said. The meetings continued until earlier this year, he told police. DeLuca also provided a three-page affidavit, which was not released, police said.
MALTA
The Times of Malta
Ariadne Massa
A second former altar boy has surfaced in Miami alleging he was sexually abused in the 1970s by the same retired Gozitan priest who has been accused of molesting disgraced American Congressman Mark Foley.
The Archdiocese of Miami last night confirmed it had been informed by the media of a lawsuit and a second allegation of misconduct against Fr Anthony Mercieca.
The fresh allegations against Fr Mercieca were made by a man who lived in North Miami and was an altar boy at St James Catholic Church, where the 72-year-old priest worked, the man's attorney Jeffrey Herman told the American media yesterday.
LOS ANGELES (CA)
North County Times
By: North County Times wire services
LOS ANGELES - A coalition of representing victims of clergy abuse asked Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa Wednesday to distance himself from Roman Catholic Cardinal Roger Mahony and watch a documentary about sexual abuse within the church.
The mayor's cordial relationship with Mahony sends the wrong message to children abused by priests, members of the group said outside City Hall.
"The mayor gives the cardinal more credibility -- credibility the cardinal does not deserve," said James Robertson with Survivors of Silence.
"We ask that Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who is the mayor of all citizens in Los Angeles, to please end his relationship with this renegade cardinal."
NEW YORK
NY1
In a letter obtained by local papers, Edward Cardinal Egan says a recent call for a vote of no confidence is motivated by anger over his treatment of priests accused of sexual misbehavior.
The cardinal wrote to Archdiocese priests: "We cannot be left open to all manner of lies, leading to all manner of scandal and damage to the archdiocese and the archbishop from people who refuse to take responsibility for their actions."
His comments follow the circulation of an anonymous letter among priests, calling for the no confidence vote. However that letter does not even mention Egan's treatment of alleged pedophile priests.
Egan recently convened his top aides for a meeting about the controversy, where they pledged their support.
AVENTURA (FL)
The News-Press
By The Associated Press
Originally posted on October 25, 2006
AVENTURA — A former altar boy tried to forget his alleged sexual abuse by a Catholic priest in the 1970s, but could not ignore it any longer when the clergyman said last week he fondled a teenage Mark Foley, the man’s attorney said today.
The man, now 40, said in a lawsuit that the Rev. Anthony Mercieca abused him when he was about 12 or 13 years old. He was an altar boy at St. James Catholic Church and still lives in South Florida, attorney Jeffrey Herman said.
The man