ABUSE TRACKER

SYRACUSE (NY)
Daily Reporter

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
First Posted: January 20, 2012

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — The attorney for a Maine man who accused fired Syracuse assistant basketball coach Bernie Fine of molesting him says he’s dropping a civil lawsuit filed in Pittsburgh.

Jeffrey R. Anderson, attorney for Zach Tomaselli, says in a statement that he “will be dismissing his case” against Fine.

The 23-year-old Tomaselli told The Post-Standard of Syracuse in an interview Friday that he altered emails from Syracuse police before forwarding them to the paper in an attempt to bolster his account. In a phone interview with The Associated Press Tomaselli insists he did not “fabricate the story” about Fine molesting him when he was 13. Two former ballboys also accused Fine of molesting them.

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MISSOURI
Catholic Culture

January 20, 2012

Leaders of an organization representing sex-abuse victims claim that their group is fighting for its life, in the face of a court order requiring disclosure of its internal documents.

SNAP—the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests—continues to fight against a subpoena calling for the documents, which was issued in connection with a lawsuit against a Kansas City priest. David Clohessy, the executive director of SNAP, says that the subpoena would require the group to identify victims of molestation: a step that SNAP refuses to take. Clohessy also admitted that if the subpoena is enforced in the Missouri case, SNAP is likely to face dozens of other demands for documents, and the expense could be devastating to the group.

The refusal of SNAP to disclose information carries some irony, since the group has persistently criticized Catholic bishops for their reluctance to open confidential diocesan files. Clohessy told the National Catholic Reporter that he sees “two standards of transparency.” The standards of candor that SNAP expects of Catholic dioceses, he explained, should not be applied to groups working with victims of abuse.

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ASIA
Catholic Culture

At a recent closed-door meeting, the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences addressed the problem of sexual abuse and the response of the Catholic hierarchy, acknowledging “a considerably serious problem in Asia.”

To date the Catholic Church in Asia has not been seriously hurt by the scandal that has battered the Church in Europe and North America.

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SYRACUSE (NY)
WSYR

Syracuse (WSYR-TV) – An attorney representing a man who has accused former Syracuse University men’s basketball coach Bernie Fine of sexually abusing him says that they will drop their civil lawsuit.

Attorney Jeffrey Anderson told NewsChannel 9’s Jeff Kulikowsky that he and his client, Zach Tomaselli, will drop their suit and will soon issue a statement.

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NEWTON (MA)
Newton Tab

By Ashley Studley
Wicked Local Newton

Posted Jan 19, 2012

Newton —

A spokesman for the Suffolk District Attorney’s office today confirmed a Newton second-grade teacher is part of a federal investigation of an online child pornography community.

Spokesman Jake Wark said David Ettlinger, 34, of Brighton, was part of “Dreamboard”, an online forum that operated out of Louisiana.

In August, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced they’d broken up an international network dedicated to the creation and sharing of child pornography. …

Ettlinger was a boy’s gymnastics coach at Newton South High in 2000, an adviser for a community service program at Underwood and previously worked as a camp counselor at the JCC Grossman Camp and instructor at the Leventhal-Sidman Jewish Community Center.

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IOWA
Des Moines Register

11:15 AM, Jan 20, 2012 | by Jeff Eckhoff |

A former Pella pastor accused of raping and sexually exploiting multiple women now faces a May 14 trial after a judge rejected his lawyer’s attempt to get much of the case thrown out.

Patrick Edouard, 42, was scheduled to face trial in Dallas County this week on Marion County charges that he raped three women and on four occasions violated an Iowa law that makes it a crime for counselors or therapists to sexually exploit clients in their care.

Defense Attorney Angela Campbell argued in court papers that the four sexual exploitation counts should be thrown out because prosecutors had failed to identify “any ‘emotional condition’ under which any of the accusers were laboring such that defendant knew, or had reason to know, they were ‘significantly impared in the ability to withhold consent to sexual conduct’ ” as defined in Iowa law. Campbell also attacked the constitutionality of the sexual exploitation law, arguing that the statute “unconstitutionally burden’s Edouard’s fundamental right to associate in intimate relationships, in violation of his due process rights” and that the law, “as applied to members of the clergy, violates the establishment clauses of the state and federal constitutions.”

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MINNESOTA
MinnPost

By David Brauer | Published Fri, Jan 20 2012

Would you accept an ad from a religious sect touting a divine revelation given to a convicted sex abuser of two girls under 16?

That’s what the Star Tribune did Friday morning, running two ads from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. One (on page A5 of my Minneapolis edition), simply says, “Jesus Christ, Son Ahman.” The second, on A6, proclaimes “Revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ Given to President Warren Jeffs,” and offers serveral writings for sale.

Jeffs, the president of the polygamist sect, was convicted in 2011 of molesting two “child brides” aged 12 and 15. He is serving life plus 20 years in a Texas prison.

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IRELAND
Vatican Insider

One-third of the members of the Irish parliament attend meeting in Dublin organized by a group that wants the Government to re-open its Embassy to the Holy See

Gerard O’Connell
Rome

The Irish Government is coming under pressure from a broadly based Catholic lay group, with support from members of different political parties, to re-open its Embassy to the Holy See.

On January 18, more than a hundred members of the Group, known as Ireland Stand Up, met for five hours with one-third of the members of the Irish parliament. 50 of the 166 members of parliament’s lower house (the Dail) and 25 of the 60 members of its upper house (the Seanad) were present.

Even more significant was the presence of the Junior Minister of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), Lucinda Creighton, together with representatives of the Taoiseach (Prime Minister) and several other ministers, as well as Ireland’s new ambassador to the Holy See, David Cooney, who is also Secretary General of the DFA.

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MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

[link to legal documents via SNAP]

Posted by Mark Serrano on January 18, 2012

Late yesterday, a judge “unsealed” the six hour deposition of SNAP Executive Director David Clohessy by five lawyers representing Kansas City Bishop Robert Finn and five Kansas City accused pedophile priests (Fr. Michael Tierney, Msgr. Thomas O’Brien, Fr. Mark Honhart, Fr. Francis McGlynn and Fr. Thomas Cronin). We will post it on our website as soon as we get a copy of the transcript. It ostensibly stems from a case called John Doe BP v. Fr. Michael Tierney and the Kansas City diocese and from one of three subpoenas that have been issued in recent weeks to victims who are SNAP leaders. This is the first time in SNAP’s 23 years that its staff has been subpoenaed.

Catholic officials are demanding thousands of pages of private records from child sex abuse victims and others. This has been called a “fishing expedition.” But it’s much worse than that. It’s a cynical, shrewd legal maneuver to deter victims, witnesses, whistleblowers, police, prosecutors, journalists and others from exposing predators, protecting kids and seeking help from SNAP.

And it threatens the long-standing privacy protections that almost all crime victims – not just child sex victims of predatory clerics’ victims – have enjoyed for years.

The demands – including documents from as long ago as 23 years- come from church officials in two dioceses – Kansas City and St. Louis. SNAP is not part of either suit.

Catholic officials want private, personal records and e mails involving hundreds of individuals who have never even heard of or met the accused or the accusers in the two suits. This is a misuse of judicial processes designed to crush a support and advocacy group that protects the vulnerable and heals the wounded. It’s cleverly orchestrated to keep clergy sex crimes and cover ups concealed.

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BELGIQUE
RTL

Dans le cadre de l’opération calice, le juge d’instruction Wim de Troy et plusieurs enquêteurs avaient effectué des perquisitions dans plusieurs diocèses en début de semaine. Selon nos confrères du journal “Le Soir”, le juge d’instruction ne vise peut-être pas seulement à identifier les protecteurs de prêtres pédophiles. L’enquête cherche également à incriminer l’Eglise catholique en tant que bande organisée.

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NEDERLAND
CCV

In reactie op het rapport van de Commissie Deetman, over seksueel misbruik van minderjarigen in de Rooms-katholieke Kerk, stellen minister Opstelten van Veiligheid en Justitie en staatssecretaris Veldhuijzen van Zanten van Volksgezondheid, Welzijn en Sport een Taskforce kindermishandeling en seksueel misbruik in.

Actieplan aanpak kindermishandeling

De Taskforce gaat er mede op toezien dat het Actieplan aanpak kindermishandeling wordt uitgevoerd. De bewindslieden kondigen multidisciplinair onderzoek aan naar seksueel geweld en hieraan gerelateerde verschijnselen, zoals kindermishandeling, huiselijk geweld en gedwongen prostitutie. Hiermee reageren zij op de oproep van de Commissie Deetman om diepgaand onderzoek te doen naar kindermishandeling en seksueel misbruik.

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NEDERLAND
RKnieuws

DEN HAAG (RKnieuws.net) – De kerk faalt op alle fronten met de hulpverlening aan slachtoffers van seksueel misbruik. Ook de afhandeling van meldingen over misbruik laat te wensen over.

Dat meldden de slachtofferorganisaties Klokk en Mea Culpa gisteren in Den Haag tijdens de hoorzitting van de Kamercommissie Veiligheid en Justitie over het rapport-Deetman.

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NEDERLAND
Friesch Dagblad

Aartsbisschop Wim Eijk liet gisteren tijdens een hoorzitting in de Tweede Kamer weten dat er geen twijfel over bestaat: met wortel en tak moet misbruik worden uitgeroeid in de Katholieke Kerk.

Den Haag | Voor de slachtoffers van seksueel misbruik is de belofte van Eijk iets wat ze vooral pas gelóven als ze de komende jaren ook echte veranderingen zien in het beleid. Dat leidde er gisteren toe dat er wederom twee kampen lijnrecht tegenover elkaar stonden: de kerk en de slachtoffers.

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NEDERLAND
Movisie

[video]

Een omvangrijke misbruikzaak op het internaat in ‘s Heerenberg was aanleiding voor het instellen van de commissie Deetman die het seksueel misbruik in de katholieke kerk onderzocht. In de documentaire Jongens van Don Rua van Coen Verbraak en Bernd Wouthuysen vertellen vijf mannen over de gevolgen van het seksueel misbruik in hun volwassen leven.

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NEDERLAND
Prachtig Pekela

VEENDAM/PEKELA – Het rapport ‘Seksueel misbruik van minderjarigen in de Rooms Katholieke Kerk’ dat een commissie onder leiding van Wim Deetman onlangs publiceerde, laat een groep zondige geestelijken en onverantwoordelijke leiders zien. De commissie maakt melding van klachten over het gedrag van wijlen Mgr. Niënhaus, die geruime tijd hulpbisschop is geweest en namens de Bisschoppenconferentie onderwijsreferent. >>

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NEDERLAND
Kerknieuws

Tijdens een hoorzitting met de Tweede Kamer liet aartsbisschop Wim Eijk weten dat medewerkers van de Rooms-Katholieke Kerk in de toekomst een Verklaring Omtrent het Gedrag (VOG) moeten hebben. Ook andere kerken beraden zich op deze verklaring.

Dat meldt het Nederlands Dagblad. Eijks toezegging is één van de actiepunten van de kerk om seksueel misbruik in de kerk te voorkomen. Bij verschillende beroepsgroepen in de samenleving – met name beroepsgroepen die werken met kinderen – is een VOG al vereist.

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Republic

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
First Posted: January 20, 2012

SMETHPORT, Pa. — A bishop says a suspended Catholic priest convicted of a felony for his inappropriate relationship with a 15-year-old boy will not return to active ministry.

Erie Bishop Donald Trautman tells the Bradford Era (http://bit.ly/A7ATW3 ) that the Rev. Samuel Slocum’s conviction on Wednesday in McKean County is a “tragedy for everyone concerned.”

Jurors convicted the 60-year-old priest of concealment of the whereabouts of a child. Prosecutors say Slocum continued to contact the boy and urge him to lie about their relationship to his mother even after she told the priest to stop contacting her son. Slocum was not charged with sex crimes, though prosecutors contend some of the priest’s messages to the boy were flirtatious.

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CANADA
Cape Breton Post

Chris Shannon
SYDNEY — The Polish community is fighting back against the Diocese of Antigonish’s decision to close down their church in Whitney Pier within six months.

The diocese’s pastoral planning committee for the Sydney deanery proposed the closure of St. Mary’s Polish Church, along with nearby St. Nicholas Church, and St. Augustine’s Parish on Grand Lake Road in July.

In a report released Sunday, the committee cited the declining number of priests, church attendance and financial support, as well as increases in the cost of operating and upgrading aging structures.

“If that’s the criteria they’re using, then why are they closing us?” asked Wayne Joseph, parish council secretary at St. Mary’s Polish Church.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Spiegel

Von Julia Jüttner, Braunschweig

Er verging sich an drei Jungen, tagsüber, abends, sogar morgens vor der Messe: Pfarrer Andreas L. steht wegen teils schweren Kindesmissbrauchs vor dem Landgericht Braunschweig. Die Befragung der Mütter dokumentiert das Versagen der Kirche – und das unerschütterliche Vertrauen ihrer Mitglieder.

Als Polizeibeamte im Juli vergangenen Jahres das Pfarrhaus in Salzgitter-Lebenstedt durchsuchen, stürmt eine Frau herein und wirft sich Priester Andreas L. an den Hals. “Wir stehen zu dir”, sagt sie und umarmt ihn. So hat es der Leiter der damals ermittelnden Sonderkommission beschrieben.

Am Donnerstag sitzt die Frau im Saal 141 des Landgerichts Braunschweig, sechs Schritte von Andreas L. entfernt. Sie als Zeugin, er als Angeklagter. Der Pfarrer hat ihre beiden Söhne missbraucht, jahrelang. Sie weint. Das Vertrauen ist erschüttert, zerstört ist es nicht.

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BUFFALO (NY)
The Buffalo News

By Jay Tokasz
News Staff Reporter

Authorities didn’t charge a Catholic priest accused of groping a former parishioner because they had no corroborating evidence, and the alleged victim did not cooperate in the investigation, according to Erie County District Attorney Frank A. Sedita III.

The priest, the Rev. Secondo Casarotto, 70, was abruptly removed as pastor of St. Anthony of Padua Church last weekend and placed on administrative leave, after Catholic Diocese of Buffalo officials learned of a criminal complaint in which a former female parishioner accused him of sexual misconduct.

The woman, who is in her 30s, filed a complaint with Buffalo police last June in which she reported that Casarotto allegedly groped her two years earlier — in the summer of 2009 — while the two were in the priest’s residence at the church on Court Street.

“The police made a decision not to arrest him, and we agreed with that determination,” Sedita said.

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NEDERLAND
Groningen Vandaag

VEENDAM/PEKELA – Het rapport ‘Seksueel misbruik van minderjarigen in de Rooms Katholieke Kerk’ dat een commissie onder leiding van Wim Deetman onlangs publiceerde, laat een groep zondige geestelijken en onverantwoordelijke leiders zien. De commissie maakt melding van klachten over het gedrag van wijlen Mgr. Niënhaus, die geruime tijd hulpbisschop is geweest en namens de Bisschoppenconferentie onderwijsreferent. >>

Uiteraard absoluut onwetend over het voornoemde heeft op 5 juni 2007 de Stichting Katholiek Onderwijs Provincie Groningen (SKOPG) haar naam gewijzigd in de Mgr. Niënhausstichting.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Justice4PAKids

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 19, 2012

SENATOR ANDREW E. DINNIMAN
CONTACT: MARTIN INDARS
PHONE: 610-692-2112
www.senatordinniman.com mindars@pasenate.com

Dinniman Introduces Bill for Victims of Childhood Sexual Abuse Legislation Opens 2-Year ‘Window’ for Civil Actions against Abusers

WEST CHESTER (January 19) – State Sen. Andy Dinniman has introduced legislation that would give victims of childhood sexual abuse another chance to file a civil action against their alleged perpetrator if their deadline for filing such a suit has expired.

Dinniman said he is introducing the bill because the current statute of limitations expires upon the victim’s 30th birthday, despite the fact that it often takes many years and even decades for victims of childhood sexual abuse to confront and fully process what happened to them as children.

“The horrific headlines of late focus attention on the reality that there are adults in Chester County and throughout Pennsylvania who were victimized as children and have sometimes only now, often through support and therapy, come to grips with what happened to them,” Dinniman said. “Even though these adults are past 30, I believe they still deserve their day in court and the ability to confront and seek retribution from those who sexually assaulted them.”

Modeled after Delaware’s Child Victims Act of 2007, Dinniman said his bill would specify a one-time, two-year period for when such civil suits could be filed.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Catholics4Change

January 20, 2012 by Susan Matthews

Important bill relating to child sex abuse was introduced to Pennsylvania Senate. Click here to read press release.

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HAWAII
KITV

Jill Kuramoto KITV 4 News Reporter

HONOLULU — Governor Neil Abercrombie and state lawmakers gathered for Mass Thursday as part of a tradition in Hawaii for more than half a century.

But this year, the annual Red Mass was met by protesters angry over the church’s teachings and actions.

“Shame on the politicians for attending the Red Mass and listening to the moral teachings of a morally bankrupt organization like the Catholic church,” said protester Holly Huber.

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IRELAND
Catholic World Report

96,000 postcards have been sent to Ireland’s prime minister protesting the closing of country’s Embassy to the Holy See.

By Michael Kelly

Ireland’s Prime Minister Enda Kenny at a news conference following a meeting of European leaders in Brussels in June 2011. (CNS photo/Reuters)

The Irish Government is coming under increased pressure to reverse a controversial decision to close the country’s Embassy to the Holy See.

Dozens of parliamentarians – including many from the Fine Gael and Labour coalition parties – attended a meeting in Dublin January 18 called to highlight opposition to the closure and some 96,000 postcards have been sent to Prime Minister Enda Kenny by members of several different lay initiatives and individual Catholics protesting the move.

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TEXAS
San Antonio Express-News

By Craig Kapitan

A registered sex offender who has already served a seven-year sentence for molesting a young girl from his church congregation was sentenced again Thursday — this time for targeting a new victim.

David Fino, 57, asked the judge for the death penalty. He got eight life sentences, two of them stacked and without the possibility of parole.

A jury found him guilty Friday of super aggravated sexual assault of a child younger than 6, continuous sexual abuse of a child and six other first-degree felony molestation charges involving the same girl.

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ALABASTER (AL)
The Birmingham News

By Veronica Kennedy — The Birmingham News

ALABASTER, Alabama — The church where Daniel M. Acker Jr., suspected of multiple counts of child sex abuse, served as youth minister is holding a child safety forum this weekend.

The forum at Westwood Baptist Church will be held from 4 to 5 p.m. Sunday, in the worship center in Alabaster, 1155 Alabaster Blvd. The event is free and is open to the public.

Jenny Funderburke, minister to children at Westwood, said the church had decided to address the issue after Acker was arrested earlier this month. He is in the Shelby County Jail on a $745,000 bond, charged with six counts of child sexual abuse. Four alleged victims have come forward; none were associated with Acker at the church, according to Alabaster police.

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CANADA
Cape Breton Post

SYDNEY RIVER — A former university professor with deep ties to the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy at the Vatican will give a lecture on the challenging times the church finds itself in.

Charles MacDonald of North West Arm is a well-known community leader who taught for many years in the religious studies department at Cape Breton University.

The Sydney Deanery Pastoral Council and the Council of Priests are sponsoring MacDonald’s lecture at Our Lady of Fatima Church hall on Sunday from 2-4 p.m.

The presentation entitled, The Catholic Church: Which Way Forward, will sketch important local historical developments in the recent history of the church and Catholic community.

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ILLINOIS
The Courier-News

By Denise Crosby dcrosby@stmedianetwork.com
January 19, 2012

TJ Johnson is not looking for understanding from you or me. He’s not looking for sympathy either. And he’s certainly not seeking forgiveness, even from his victims, whose hurt he caused “is irreparable.”

What the Oswego man wants more than anything is a chance at redemption, in this life and the next.

And he wants to help other sinners come to terms with their offenses — just as he has: With the help of intense prison therapy; along with people on the outside who have embraced both his frailties and strengths.

Johnson is a convicted felon, found guilty in 2000 of performing sexual acts on young men at his Aurora church, who were doing community service contracted with the DuPage County Probation Department. At the time, his arrest was plenty screamy. Not only had he violated the justice system through what he describes as “a bogus ministry,” he’d also performed thousands of wedding services there. Adding to the outrage of this case was the fact he was a bus driver with the Oswego School District.

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MAINE
Boston Herald

By Nok-Noi Ricker / Bangor Daily News, Maine
Thursday, January 19, 2012

BANGOR, Maine — The day before his suicide, the Rev. Robert Carlson was told by Penobscot County Sheriff Glenn Ross, a longtime friend, that Carlson was the subject of a state police investigation of child sex abuse allegations, according to a Waldo County Sheriff’s Department report.

Ross said Wednesday that he felt compelled to tell Carlson that he was the focus of the Maine State Police probe because Carlson was on the Penobscot County Jail’s board of visitors and Ross wanted to limit his access to the jail.

Ross, who was Carlson’s co-worker for 33 years, said he spoke with Carlson around noon on Nov. 12. Carlson jumped to his death from the Penobscot Narrows Bridge early the next morning.

“I didn’t feel it was a conflict. I felt it was my responsibility as a sheriff,” Ross said when asked why he informed Carlson of the investigation.

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BUFFALO (NY)
WKBW

[with video]

By WKBW News

January 19, 2012Updated Jan 19, 2012

BUFFALO, NY ( WKBW ) Rev. Secondo Casarotto was placed on administrative leave from his position as pastor for St. Anthony of Padua Church in downtown Buffalo, after allegations surfaced that the priest sexually assaulted a woman parishioner in 2009.

According the Florida based attorney for the victim, the woman went to St. Anthony’s in the summer of 2009 to meet with Father Casarotto about a sick relative.

According to attorney Adam Horowitz, the priest began to show the woman around the rectory, and allegedly took her to his bedroom, where he asked her to sit on the bed.

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CANADA
Toronto Sun

By Tony Blais, Edmonton Sun

First posted: Thursday, January 19, 2012

EDMONTON – A former altar boy who alleges he was sexual abused by a priest and a church organist has filed two $3.4-million lawsuits against the Catholic Archdiocese of Edmonton.

The alleged victim, a 51-year-old man now living in Vancouver, claims the sexual abuse happened in the early and mid-’70s, when he was a member of the congregation at St. Joseph’s Basilica in Edmonton.

According to one of two statements of claim filed Jan. 6, the man said he was initially sexually assaulted by a person employed at St. Joseph’s as an organist and music director.

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CANADA
The Windsor Star

Winnipeg Free Press
January 20, 2012

A high-ranking former orthodox archbishop has been ordered to stand trial on Manitoba sexual abuse charges dating back decades.

Seraphim Storheim appeared in a Winnipeg courtroom Wednesday for the conclusion of a preliminary hearing to determine whether there is sufficient evidence for the case to proceed. A court-ordered ban prevents specific details from being published.

Provincial court Judge Rocky Pollack ruled the Crown had met the standard of proof required to move the case along. The case will return to court in March for the setting of a trial date.

Storheim has pleaded not guilty to sexually abusing two teenage boys while he was a priest in Winnipeg 30 years ago. He remains free on bail with several conditions, including having no contact with children.

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CANADA
Edmonton Journal

By Ryan Cormier, Edmonton Journal January 20, 2012

A former altar boy who claims he was sexually abused by a Grande Cache priest and an Edmonton church employee in the 1970s is suing the Catholic Archdiocese of Edmonton for $6.8 million.

The man, who now lives in British Columbia, was an altar boy at St. Joseph’s Basilica in downtown Edmonton from 1973 to 1975. For three years before that, he was part of the congregation. He was a teen-ager at the time.

The lawsuit alleges he was “sexually abused, assaulted and battered” by Patrick O’Neill while at the Grande Cache parish on an altar boy ex-change program. O’Neill was a priest in the parish at the time.

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BUFFALO (NY)
WGRZ

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Father Secondo Casarotto, a priest at St Anthony of Padua in Downtown Buffalo, was recently removed from the parish. Earlier this week, the Diocese of Buffalo would only say the removal was due to a personnel matter.

Now, the attorney for a woman who accused the priest of sexual assaulting her – is speaking out.

Channel 2 News obtained a copy of the police report filed in June. In it the alleged victim, who’s in her 30s, says the sexual assault took place in the bedroom of the St. Anthony of Padua parish rectory back in August of 2009.

The diocese says the first they heard about all this was when the alleged victim’s attorney sent them a letter at the end of last year. That was several months after Father Secondo was investigated by police.

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CANADA
CBC News

A former Orthodox archbishop has been ordered to stand trial in Winnipeg on sexual assault charges dating back more than 25 years.

Following a preliminary inquiry, the Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench on Wednesday ordered Kenneth William Storheim, 65, to stand trial.

Details of the preliminary inquiry cannot be published due to a court-ordered ban. A trial date will be set on March 14.

Storheim is charged with two counts of sexual assault based on allegations that he molested two pre-teen boys in 1985. He pleaded not guilty to the charges on Nov. 18.

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BELGIE
De Standaard

De Operatie Kelk in drie vragen.

Wat is Operatie Kelk?

Onder die codenaam voerden de Brusselse onderzoeksrechter Wim De Troy en de federale politie op 24 juni 2011 een reeks huiszoekingen uit in een onderzoek naar seksueel misbruik in de Kerk en mogelijk schuldig verzuim van de hoogste kerkelijke autoriteiten.

De speurders vielen binnen bij de commissie-Adriaenssens, die op vraag van de bisschoppenconferentie op dat moment het seksueel misbruik in de Kerk onderzocht.

De federale politie nam daar 475 dossiers in beslag.

Daarnaast viel het gerecht ook binnen in het aartsbisschoppelijk paleis, bij kardinaal Danneels thuis en in de Sint-Romboutskathedraal in Mechelen.

Ze deden dat op basis van een tip van eremagistrate Godelieve Halsberghe, de voorgangster van Peter Adriaenssens.

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BELGIE
De Standaard

dinsdag 17 januari 2012

Auteur: Yves Delepeleire

BRUSSEL – Iedereen dacht dat Operatie Kelk dood en begraven was. Tot het gerecht gisteren nieuwe huiszoekingen verrichtte. Voor onderzoeksrechter De Troy wordt het stilaan D-Day.

Van onze redacteur

Het leek gisteren of het hele circus weer van voren af aan zou beginnen, zoals goed anderhalf jaar geleden: huiszoekingen bij het aartsbisdom Mechelen-Brussel, en dat voor het oog van de camera’s. Maar in tegenstelling tot het machtsvertoon in juni 2010, waarbij de Brusselse onderzoeksrechter Wim De Troy 140 lopende meter aan kartonnen dozen uit het raam en in bestelwagens liet gooien, bleef het showgehalte gisteren beperkt. De speurders zochten maar tien dossiers.

Ook in de bisdommen Antwerpen en Hasselt werden enkele dossiers in beslag genomen.

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OSTERREICH
Der Standard

Wolfgang Bergmann, 16. Jänner 2012

Im Wiener Stephansdom fehlt derzeit am Beichtstuhl ein wichtiges Hinweisschild: “Jugendverbot – for adults only!”

Dies wäre jedenfalls die Konsequenz, würde die Erzdiözese ihren eigenen Richtlinien für „Maßnahmen, Regelungen und Orientierungshilfe gegen Missbrauch und Gewalt” ernst nehmen. Die von allen österreichischen Bischöfen in Kraft gesetzte Rahmenordnung sieht vor: „Pädophile Missbrauchstäter werden keinesfalls weiter Pastoral eingesetzt, wo der Kontakt zu Kindern und Jugendlichen gegeben ist.”

Man ist sogar so vorsichtig, einen weiteren Einsatz für Missbrauchstäter selbst nach einer Therapie auszuschließen, weil “eine relativ hohe Rückfallquote gegeben ist.” In Verdachtsfällen wird bis zur Klärung mit einer Dienstfreistellung gearbeitet.

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NEW YORK
Reuters

By Aman Ali

NEW YORK | Thu Jan 19, 2012

(Reuters) – A newly installed Roman Catholic priest has been removed from his suburban New York parish after church officials on Thursday said he secretly fathered a child while attending seminary.

The removal of Reverend Casmir Mung’aho, 34, from his post at St. Stephen the First Martyr Church in the Orange County town of Warwick, New York, comes two weeks after the resignation of a Los Angeles assistant bishop who admitted he had two children.

Mung’aho was asked to step down after officials learned he fathered a child in a consensual relationship with an adult woman during his first year of seminary school, Bishop Dominick Lagonegro said in a statement.

While Mung’aho was removed from the congregation in Warwick, it was not yet clear whether he will remain a priest or be defrocked by the New York Archdiocese, said archdiocese spokesman Joseph Zwilling. He said officials had yet to discuss with Mung’aho what action will be taken.

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VIRGINIA
The Virginian-Pilot

By Louis Hansen
The Virginian-Pilot
January 19, 2012

NORFOLK

A former priest of two Vietnamese Catholic Churches pleaded guilty today to embezzling $84,450 from the diocese.

Joseph Quoc Hai-Nguyen admitted to taking the money from the Catholic Diocese of Richmond between 2003 and 2008. Hai-Nguyen, 66, led Our Lady of La Vang in Norfolk and Our Lady of Vietnam in Hampton, court records state.

During a court appearance today, Hai-Nguyen gave the diocese a cashier’s check for the full amount of the loss. He was convicted of four counts of felony embezzlement and received a suspended sentence. He will not serve time in prison as long as meets the terms of his probation.

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WISCONSIN
Fox 11

Updated: Thursday, 19 Jan 2012

APPLETON – The Catholic Diocese of Green Bay wants a civil suit against it heard outside of Outagamie County.

Todd and Troy Merryfield sued the diocese, claiming it committed fraud by repeatedly transferring a priest without telling parishioners of the priest’s history of abuse. The diocese says it had no knowledge of abuse committed by former priest John Feeney.

In 2004, Feeney was convicted of sexually assaulting the Merryfields 26 years earlier when he was assigned to a church in Freedom. Feeney, who was defrocked, was recently released from prison.

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CANADA
Toronto Star

Amy Dempsey
Staff Reporter

Pastor Jae-Kap Song was indeed alone in a room with a naked female church member on Valentine’s Day two years ago, an Orangeville court heard in his testimony Wednesday. But, he testified, it was not the woman he stands accused of sexually assaulting, and he did not invite the “shocking” incident.

Song, 57, a grocer and spiritual leader with the Toronto-based Jesus First Church, fervently denied that he is guilty of any kind of sexual assault.

The pastor said he did not tell his 30-year-old accuser she was being pursued by “evil spirits” that would turn her into a hunchback, as she had testified. Nor did he prescribe treatment for a skin condition or ask her to take off her clothes for an examination.

At no time were they alone together in his bedroom as she alleged, the pastor said. And he did not — on Feb. 14, 2010 or any other day — touch the woman sexually, with or without her consent.

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CANADA
Toronto Sun

Tracy McLaughlin, Special to the Sun

First posted: Thursday, January 19, 2012

ORANGEVILLE – A woman accusing a former Toronto pastor of a bizarre sex assault concocted the story out of revenge, a defence lawyer charged yesterday.

Jae-Kap Song, an Orangeville grocer and once-pastor of the now-closed Canada Jesus First Church, near Steeles and Islington Aves., is on trial for the alleged sexual assault of a member of his congregation — a university student from Korea here on a student visa.

“It’s all a crock,” defence lawyer Christophe Preobrazenski said in closing arguments in Orangeville Superior court Thursday.

Earlier in the trial the woman, who can not be identified, wept as she testified how Song told her she was possessed by evil spirits and that he needed to examine her naked body to see if her skin was turning green.

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CANADA
Winnipeg Free Press

By: Mike McIntyre

A high-ranking former orthodox archbishop has been ordered to stand trial on historical Manitoba sex-abuse charges.

Seraphim Storheim appeared in a Winnipeg courtroom Wednesday for the conclusion of a preliminary hearing to determine whether there is sufficient evidence for the case to proceed. A court-ordered ban prevents specific details from being published.

Provincial court Judge Rocky Pollack ruled the Crown had met the standard of proof required to move the case along. The case will return to court in March for the setting of a trial date.

Storheim has pleaded not guilty to sexually abusing two teenaged boys while he was a priest in Winnipeg 30 years ago. He remains free on bail with several conditions, including having no contact with children.

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UNITED KINGDOM
National Secular Society

A personal testimony of child abuse in the Catholic Church from Sue Cox of Survivors Voice Europe

A fate worse than death. When I was younger, this is the phrase people used when they referred to being raped. Adults would give each other knowing looks when talking about someone “if she is not careful she’ll end up murdered – or worse” I couldn’t imagine anything worse than being murdered, but it seemed there was something even worse.

It wasn’t terribly long before I found out what they meant, and indeed they were right. My abuses at the hands of a priest are well documented, and I have talked about how my life started to go downhill from the moment I was raped. What was hard to understand was: why, if I had suffered “a fate worse than death” no one did anything about it! Had I been murdered perhaps they would have cared.

I was brought up with all the horrific fear stories of hell fire and damnation. In that Catholic world everything, apart from breathing, was sinful. Aged five I was told to pray for a cousin to die because he was about to marry a divorcee; his mother’s priest told her that he would be better off dead than living in sin, so we should all pray for him to have a “happy death”.

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NEW YORK
NBC New York

A newly ordained Roman Catholic priest in upstate New York was kicked out of his parish after church officials learned he fathered a child while he was a student at St. Joseph’s Seminary in Yonkers.

Regional Bishop Dominick Lagonegro told parishioners he and Cardinal-Designate Timothy Dolan had believed 34-year-old Father Casmir Manyonyo Mung’aho fathered the child prior to entering the seminary when they installed him at St. Stephen in Orange County.

Then church officials learned he had fathered the child as a first-year seminary student and removed him. Roman Catholic priests pledge a vow of celibacy and seminary students are expected to abide by the same principles.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

VATICAN CITY, 19 JAN 2012 (VIS) – The Holy Father:

– Appointed Bishop William C. Skurla of Passaic, U.S.A., as metropolitan archbishop of Pittsburgh of the Byzantines (Catholics 58,763, priests 64, permanent deacons 17, religious 88), U.S.A.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

VATICAN CITY, 19 JAN 2012 (VIS) – The Holy Father today received in audience:

– Seven prelates of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, on their “ad limina” visit:

– Archbishop Edwin Frederick O’Brien, apostolic administrator of Baltimore and pro-grand master of the Equestrian Order of the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, accompanied by Auxiliary Bishops Mitchell Thomas Rozanski and Denis James Madden.

– Bishop Paul Stephen Loverde of Arlington.

– Bishop Francis Xavier DiLorenzo of Richmond.

– Bishop Michael J. Bransfield of Wheeling-Charleston.

– Bishop William Francis Malooly of Wilmington.

– Bishop Gregor Maria Hanke O.S.B. of Eichstatt, Germany.

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NEDERLAND
Trouw

De rooms-katholieke kerk is werkelijk vastbesloten om seksueel misbruik ‘met wortel en tak uit te roeien’. Regelingen daartoe kunnen kil overkomen, gaf aartsbisschop Eijk woensdag toe tijdens een zitting van een speciale Kamercommissie. ‘Vergoedingen zijn maar een onderdeel. Leed kun je niet afkopen.’

Eijk beantwoordde woensdag, net als misbruikslachtoffers, vragen van Kamerleden over het onderzoek van de commissie-Deetman. Daaruit bleek vorige maand dat rooms-katholieke geestelijken van 1955 tot 1983 tussen de 10 duizend en 20 duizend misbruikslachtoffers maakten. Ordes en bisdommen waren daar jarenlang van op de hoogte.

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NEDERLAND
L1

Het meldpunt seksueel misbruik Rooms Katholieke gaat aan de slag met de kritiek die ze woensdag kreeg tijdens een hoorzitting over het rapport van commissie Deetman.

Die deed onderzoek naar misbruik binnen de kerk. Verschillende slachtoffergroepen verweten het meldpunt dat slachtoffers er weinig gehoor vinden. Ook zou er sprake zijn van weinig samenwerking met vertegenwoordiging van slachtoffers, en wordt de onafhankelijkheid van het meldpunt in twijfel getrokken.

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NEDERLAND
Trouw

De rooms-katholieke kerk is werkelijk vastbesloten om seksueel misbruik ‘met wortel en tak uit te roeien’. Regelingen daartoe kunnen kil overkomen, gaf aartsbisschop Eijk woensdag toe tijdens een zitting van een speciale Kamercommissie. ‘Vergoedingen zijn maar een onderdeel. Leed kun je niet afkopen.’

Eijk beantwoordde woensdag, net als misbruikslachtoffers, vragen van Kamerleden over het onderzoek van de commissie-Deetman. Daaruit bleek vorige maand dat rooms-katholieke geestelijken van 1955 tot 1983 tussen de 10 duizend en 20 duizend misbruikslachtoffers maakten. Ordes en bisdommen waren daar jarenlang van op de hoogte.

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NEDERLAND
Tubantia

DEN HAAG – Aartsbisschop Wim Eijk wil dat er een verklaring van goed gedrag komt voor medewerkers binnen de katholieke kerk. Dat zei hij woensdag tijdens een hoorzitting in de Tweede Kamer over het rapport-Deetman over seksueel misbruik in katholieke instellingen.

Zo’n verklaring is er nog niet bij de Rooms Katholieke Kerk. “Nu worden er wel inlichtingen ingewonnen, bij een bisschop bijvoorbeeld, maar een soort van VOG hebben we nog niet.”

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VATICAANSTAD
RKnieuws (Nederland)

VATICAANSTAD (RKnieuws.net) – De rooms-katholieke Kerk versterkt de strijd tegen seksueel misbruik en zij wil de inspanningen in de verschillende bisdommen wereldwijd sterker op elkaar afstemmen, meldt Kerknet. De bisdommen kregen in 2011 al een schrijven van de Congregatie voor de Geloofsleer met de opdracht om nog dit jaar een preventiebeleid op punt te stellen en dit aan het Vaticaan voor te leggen.

In februari vindt in Rome een symposium plaats met afgevaardigden van 110 bisschoppenconferenties wereldwijd en verantwoordelijken van meer dan 30 religieuze orden en congregaties. De bijeenkomst van 6 tot 9 februari aan de Gregoriaanse Universiteit in Rome, met de steun van het Staatssecretariaat en verschillende congregaties, is de eerste internationale bijeenkomst van kerkelijke verantwoordelijken op dit niveau.

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NEDERLAND
Trouw

HOORZITTING SEKSUEEL MISBRUIK – De Tweede Kamer hoort woensdagmiddag en -avond vertegenwoordigingen van slachtoffers van seksueel misbruik in de Rooms-Katholieke Kerk. Ook aartsbisschop Wim Eijk kwam naar de Kamer om de commissie voor Veiligheid en Justitie van informatie te voorzien.

Aanleiding voor de hoorzitting zijn de bevindingen in het rapport van de onderzoekscommissie-Deetman. De hoorzitting begon met een toelichting van Deetman zelf.

16.00 Aartsbisschop Wim Eijk als vertegenwoordiger van de Bisschoppenconfertentie
De aartsbisschop zegt veel pijn en verdriet te hebben van het leed dat de kerk heeft berokkend bij zoveel mensen. ‘Het is pijnlijk te moeten te concluderen dat we niet leefden volgens onze eigen normen. Dat vervult mij met schaamte’.

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NEDERLAND
Reformatorisch Dagblad

DEN HAAG – Oud-CDA-minister Deetman, voorzitter van de commissie die onderzoek deed naar het misbruikschandaal in de Rooms-Katholieke Kerk, voelt er niets voor het toezicht op religieuze organisaties te verscherpen.

Een suggestie daartoe werd woensdag gedaan door GroenLinks Tweede Kamerlid Dibi, tijdens een door de Kamer belegde hoorzitting. Daarin komen naast Deetman ook slachtoffers aan het woord.

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NEDERLAND
RTV Drenthe

[met audio]

ASSEN – De Monseigneur Niënhausstichting, met vier katholieke basisscholen in Drenthe, wil een nieuwe naam. De naam van Monseigneur Niënhaus, een hulpbisschop, komt voor op de lijst van de commissie Deetman, die onderzoek deed naar seksueel misbruik van minderjarigen in de Rooms Katholieke Kerk.

Volgens John van Meekeren, voorzitter College van Bestuur van de stichting, is iedereen diep geschokt. “Als we dit van tevoren hadden geweten hadden we nooit deze naam aangenomen. We hebben nog geen negatieve reacties gekregen op onze huidige naam. Maar we willen op geen enkele manier geassocieerd worden met seksueel misbruik binnen onze scholen.”

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NEDERLAND
De Telegraaf

DEN HAAG – Slachtoffers van seksueel misbruik in katholieke instellingen willen dat de overheid de kerk beter in de gaten houdt. Ze hielden hiervoor woensdag een vurig pleidooi tijdens een hoorzitting van de Tweede Kamer. Ook het rapport van Wim Deetman over seksueel misbruik binnen katholieke instellingen kwam aan bod.

Slachtoffers vinden dat de overheid druk moet uitoefenen op de kerkleiding om verantwoordelijken te bestraffen. Verder zou de overheid moeten toezien op een onafhankelijk meldpunt. Iets dat er volgens slachtoffers nu nog niet is.

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

A former priest is to stand trial on 55 counts of indecent assault of 18 children at various locations in the State from the late 1960s until the early 1980s.

The defendant, in his seventies, was brought before Dublin District Court yesterday. He was arrested yesterday afternoon at Dublin Airport, the court heard. He was cautioned and said “No” in reply, when he was held on 55 warrants.

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NEDERLAND
Nieuws

(Novum) – Premier Mark Rutte (VVD) heeft valse hoop gewekt door te zeggen dat hij priesters die zich schuldig hebben gemaakt aan seksueel misbruik alsnog wil laten vervolgen. “Dit is opnieuw een tik in het gezicht van de slachtoffers”, zei CDA-Kamerlid Madeleine van Toorenburg woensdag op Radio 1.

Rutte deed de toezegging eind vorig jaar in het televisieprogramma College Tour. Dinsdag schreef minister van Veiligheid en Justitie Ivo Opstelten in een Kamerbrief echter dat het lastig is om de daders aan te pakken, omdat bijna alle zaken al zijn verjaard. Uit jurisprudentie van het Europese Hof voor de Rechten van de Mens blijkt volgens Opstelten dat er geen ruimte is om deze daders alsnog te vervolgen.

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PENNSYLVANIA
San Antonio Express-News

SMETHPORT, Pa. (AP) — Jurors in northwestern Pennsylvania have reached a split verdict in the trial of a priest accused of having an inappropriate relationship with a 15-year-old boy.

The McKean County jury deliberated for more than seven hours Wednesday before convicting the Rev. Samuel Slocum of a felony count of concealment of the whereabouts of a child as well as corruption of minors, The Bradford Era (http://bit.ly/A1zcY5) said. But the panel acquitted Slocum of another felony count of interference with the custody of a child and a misdemeanor count of loitering and prowling at night.

Police earlier testified that Slocum, 60, told officers that he bought the boy’s attention with expensive gifts because he felt “old and alone” but contended that he acted more like the boy’s “Dad” despite flirtatious-sounding messages prosecutors said he sent the boy without his mother’s knowledge.

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PENNSYLVANIAN/NEW YORK
Buffalo News

By Matt Gryta
News Staff Reporter

A suspended northwestern Pennsylvania priest who studied in East Aurora was convicted Wednesday evening of having an inappropriate relationship with a 15-year-old boy.

A McKean County Court jury of 10 women and two men handed up their verdict about 6:30 p.m. in Smethport, Pa., following a three-day trial and eight hours of deliberations.

Rev. Samuel Slocum, 60, a Smethport native who studied for the priesthood at Christ the King Seminary in East Aurora, was acquitted of a felony count of interference with the custody of a child and a misdemeanor count of loitering and prowling at night.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Tom Tuite

Thursday January 19 2012

A FORMER priest is to stand trial on 55 counts of indecent assault of 18 children at various locations in the State from the late 1960s until the early 1980s.

The defendant, who is in his seventies, was brought before Dublin District Court yesterday evening. The judge ordered the media not to name him or report the location of the alleged offences in case that would identify the complainants.

The man was arrested yesterday afternoon at Dublin Airport, the court heard. He was cautioned and said “No” when arrested on 55 warrants.

There was no application for bail. Judge Miriam Malone remanded him in custody to appear again at Cloverhill District Court on January 25.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Press Association

The leader of Catholics in England and Wales is “grief stricken” over incidents of child sexual abuse in Catholic schools, Education Secretary Michael Gove has said.

Mr Gove said he had “absolute confidence” that decisions taken by Archbishop Vincent Nichols would be the “right ones” following calls from a group of lawyers for a public inquiry into abuse within church organisations in England and Wales.

“I know from the conversations that I have had with Vincent Nichols that he takes the pastoral care of children in Catholic schools extremely seriously and he is grief stricken by what has happened to children who were entrusted to Catholic schools,” Mr Gove said. “I think it is right in the first instance for Archbishop Nichols and his team to consider and reflect on how to respond.

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ALABAMA
Alabama’s 13

By: Kalisha Whitman | Alabama’s13.com

SHELBY COUNTY, Ala. —
There are several new developments in the case against Daniel Acker, Jr., a former Shelby County teacher, who is accused of sexual assault.

More victims have come forward accusing him of sexually assaulting them. Wednesday, we learned a judge from outside Shelby County may have to hear the case.

The closer we get to Acker, Jr.’s preliminary hearing there is more potential for new and relevant information to surface. Currently, there are six different sexual abuse charges against – five of them involve a child less than 12 years old. At this point, no judge has stepped to the bench to hear the case. ,,,

The community wants to bring awareness to sexual child abuse to prevent anyone from becoming another victim of sexual child abuse. Westwood Baptist Church in Alabaster – the same church that members of the Acker family attend – is hosting a forum on child safety.

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BUFFALO (NY)
Buffalo News

By Jay Tokasz
News Staff Reporter

A Catholic priest abruptly removed from a downtown Buffalo church this past weekend was accused of groping a woman inside the church rectory in 2009, a lawyer for the woman said on Wednesday.

The woman filed a complaint with Buffalo police last June in which she reported she was sexually attacked two years earlier — in the summer of 2009 — by the Rev. Secondo Casarotto in the priest’s residence at St. Anthony of Padua Church on Court Street.

Casarotto, 70, was removed on Saturday from St. Anthony, where he had served as a priest for more than 25 years, and placed on administrative leave.

At the time, diocesan officials provided no further information about the removal.

Casarotto has not been charged with a crime. The woman, a former parishioner in her 30s, hired the Florida-based law firm of Herman, Mermelstein, & Horowitz to investigate the case. She has not filed a lawsuit at this point.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
KMOX

ST. LOUIS–(KMOX)–The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests is preparing for a legal fight that could determine its own survival.

SNAP’s Executive Director — David Clohessy — continues to defy a subpoena in a Kansas City abuse case, refusing to hand over internal SNAP documents on abuse victims. He says the showdown amounts to a test case that could have ripple effects nationwide.

“Ultimately, our fear is that we’ll face ten, or twelve or fifteen of these subpoenas in states all across the country,” Clohessy said, “The bottom line is we will either go broke, or victims and witnesses and whistle blowers and journalists will stop contacting us.”

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WARWICK (NY)
Times Herald-Record

By Doyle Murphy
Times Herald-Record

WARWICK — A Catholic priest has lost his spot in a Warwick church after archdiocesan officials learned he had fathered a child.

Bishop Dominick Lagonegro told parishioners at St. Stephen The First Martyr that Father Casmir Mung’aho never told the archdiocese about the child even as he completed his training in seminary and became a priest. Lagonegro delivered the message to church members in person.

He originally said Mung’aho’s child was born before he entered the seminary following a “consensual relationship with an adult woman.” Lagonegro later issued a follow-up statement saying he’d learned the child was actually born during Mung’aho’s first year at St. Joseph’s Seminary in Yonkers.

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DELAWARE
WDEL

[with audio]

By Frank Gerace

A law professor and a local pastor react to the Governor’s decision to grant clemency to Robert Gattis.

Widener University professor Jules Epstein tells WDEL News jurors at Gattis’ trial didn’t hear about the physical and sexual abuse he suffered as a child.

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PELLA (IA)
The Chronicle

Pella — A motion filed by the defense team of accused sex offender Patrick Edouard has been sealed by the court at the request of the prosecution.

Edouard is the former Pella pastor charged with three counts of third-degree sexual abuse and four counts of sexual exploitation by a counselor or therapist. The defense’s motion sought to have the sexual exploitation charges dismissed.

The motion was filed Dec. 15, and remained accessible by the public until the afternoon of Jan. 17. Judge Paul Huscher, specially assigned to the case, made the decision following a hearing in Dallas County that morning.

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CALIFORNIA
Orange County Weekly

By Gustavo Arellano
Wed., Jan. 18 2012

​If there were justice in this world, Monsignor John Urell would’ve been in San Quentin long ago, in prison in a culture where child molesters and their protectors aren’t welcomed with open arms like they are at the Diocese of Orange. But there is no justice, and so not only does John Urell remain a monsignor, not only does he remain a pastor at St. Timothy’s in Laguna Niguel, but he also continues to sits on the board of a private Catholic elementary school in the county.

Does Urell have no shame? The answer, of course, is no.

Urell sits on the board of directors of St. Anne’s Catholic School in Laguna Niguel, a private school not directly affiliated with the Orange diocese whose directors have a long association with pedo-priests. No less a pendejo than Urell helped get a pedo-priest to the school, and St. Anne’s is the main feeder school to JSerra High, currently involved in its own pedo-scandal and an academy helped in its early years by notorious priest-rapist John Lenihan.

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BELGIE
De Standaard

Bij de huiszoekingen in Namen ‘waren de speurders op zoek naar elementen over vier priesters. Het zijn oude of zelfs erg oude dossiers’, zo heeft Christine Bolinne, woordvoerster van het bisdom Namen, gezegd over de huiszoekingen onder leiding van onderzoeksrechter De Troy. Op het bisdom Luik werd één document gekopieerd en niks meegenomen.

‘De documenten werden gefotokopieerd en de speurders hebben de originelen meegenomen. Ik weet niet hoeveel het er waren, maar zeker geen honderden pagina’s’, preciseerde Bolinne. De woordvoerster wist niet of de feiten ten laste van de vier priesters bewezen waren. ‘Het onderzoek zal het uitwijzen.’

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CANADA
The Province

By Staff Reporter, The Province
January 18, 2012

The B.C. attorney general’s office has named Peter Wilson as special prosecutor to pick up its explosive investigation into the polygamist community of Bountiful.

The Vancouver lawyer was appointed this week to replace Richard Peck, who stepped down from the probe early this month.

B.C.’s legal branch is trying to determine whether charges of sexual exploitation or other offences are warranted against members of the commune.

The breakaway Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints sect, in B.C. since the early 1980s, has been accused of forcing underage women into arranged marriages and motherhood with much older men. There have also been accusations of trafficking young women between Bountiful and a like-minded community in the U.S. led by Warren Jeffs. Jeffs is serving a 20-year sentence in a Houston jail for sexual assaults on two girls whom he “married” when they were 12 and 14.

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EUROPE
Voice of America

Lisa Bryant | Paris

Sunday evening youth mass in Saint-Germain-des-Pres is overflowing with parishioners. People stand in aisles or sit cross-legged in corners of the cavernous, sixth century Paris church.

Father Benoist de Sinety, parish priest at Saint Germain for the past three years, says he has always had the good fortune of seeing crowds of young people seeking their bearings or rediscovering faith. But he knows it is not the same everywhere.

Churches in France and elsewhere in Europe have been battling falling numbers, a trend evident not only in the empty pews, but in the sharp fall in baptisms. But “de-baptisms”, a church’s deletion of one’s name from the official baptismal registry at a parishioner’s request, are a recent phenomenon, and they are taking place in both Protestant and Catholic communities.

There are no official statistics, but experts and activists count the numbers of those seeking de-baptism in the tens of thousands, and websites offering informal “de-baptism” certificates have mushroomed.

Anne Morelli, who heads a center for religion and secularity studies at the Free University of Brussels, says de-baptisms, both official and unofficial, increased in 2011, particularly in the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and Austria. The numbers, she said, reflect public anger at the church pedophilia scandals.

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EUROPE
Washington Post

By Elizabeth Bryant| Religion News Service, Updated: Wednesday, January 18

PARIS — A decade ago, Rene Lebouvier requested that his local Catholic church erase his name from the baptismal register. The church noted his demands on the margins of its records and the chapter was closed.

But the clergy abuse scandals rocking Europe, coupled with Pope Benedict XVI’s conservative stances on contraception, hardened Lebouvier’s views. Last October, a court in Normandy ruled in favor of his lawsuit to have his name permanently deleted from church records — making the 71-year-old retiree the first Frenchman to be officially “de-baptized.”

“I took the judicial route to get myself de-baptized because of the church’s excesses,” said Lebouvier, speaking by telephone from his village of Fleury, near the D-Day beaches.

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BELGIQUE
7sur7

7S7 mise à jour Des enquêteurs de la police judiciaire fédérale chargés de l’enquête dans le cadre de l’opération Calice sont arrivés au siège de l’Evêché de Liège mercredi vers 16H10.

Huit enquêteurs, qui circulent à bord de deux voitures, se sont tout d’abord arrêtés au palais de Justice de Liège avant de rejoindre l’Evêché. L’Evêque de Liège, Aloys Jousten, est présent sur les lieux.

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BELGIE
Le Vif

(Belga) Les enquêteurs de la police judiciaire fédérale chargés de l’enquête dans le cadre de l’opération Calice, arrivés au siège de l’Evêché de Liège mercredi vers 16H10, ont quitté les lieux vers 17H50, a indiqué la porte-parole du parquet fédéral à BELGA, soulignant l’excellente collaboration du personnel de l’Evêché.

Un seul document a été photocopié par les enquêteurs et rien n’a été emporté, a expliqué à l’issue de la perquisition l’évêque liégeois, Aloys Jousten. Les enquêteurs ont présenté une liste de noms de prêtres et ont demandé des données sur ces personnes.

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BELGIQUE
7sur7

7S7 mise à jour “Les enquêteurs étaient à la recherche d’éléments à propos de quatre prêtres. Ce sont des dossiers anciens voire très anciens”, a expliqué Christine Bolinne, chargée de communication au diocèse de Namur, à la suite des perquisitions menées mercredi par le juge d’instruction Wim De Troy.

“Ces éléments se trouvaient dans différents endroits de l’évêché, c’est pour cela que cela a pris du temps”, a-t-elle ajouté. “Ces documents ont été photocopiés et les enquêteurs ont emporté les originaux. Je ne saurais pas dire combien il y en avait, mais ce ne sont certainement pas des centaines de pages qui ont été photocopiées”, a précisé Mme Bolinne.

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BELGIQUE
Le Vif

Des perquisitions ont été menées mercredi aux évêchés de Tournai, Namur et Liège, par le juge d’instruction Wim De Troy, dans le cadre de l’opération Calice, qui concerne des faits présumés d’abus sexuels commis au sein de l’Eglise, a indiqué la porte-parole du parquet fédéral.

A Tournai, les enquêteurs sont repartis avec des dossiers ayant trait à des abus commis par des prêtres pédophiles présumés. “La collaboration a été totale”, a-t-on indiqué à l’évêché, à l’issue de la perquisition qui a duré une heure environ.

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RACINE (WI)
SNAP Wisconsin

Statement by John Pilmaier, SNAP Wisconsin Director

CONTACT 414.336.8575

The Racine Journal Times reports today that a teacher from the archdiocese of Milwaukee has officially resigned following reports of sexual assault. The teacher, Gary Craanen, taught at St. Catherine’s High School in Racine for thirty years. In a letter to the school community dated January 13th, St. Catherine’s President Christopher Olley explained the reasons for Craanen’s departure.

School officials at St. Catherine’s had been notified that reports of sexual assault had been made against Craanen when he was vice-principal and disciplinarian at Divine Word Seminary High School in Bordentown, New Jersey. The reports concerning Craanen’s sexual assault of students is due to be published in an upcoming book about clergy sexual abuse in the diocese of Trenton, New Jersey.

Archbishop Listecki should immediately reach out to the parents and students of St. Catherine’s and encourage them to come forward and report to law enforcement any information they have pertaining to Craanen’s possible victimization of children in the Racine community.

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IRELAND
RTE News

A former priest has appeared before Dublin District Court charged with 55 counts of indecent assault against minors, dating back to the 1960s, 70s and 80s.

The man is to appear again before Cloverhill District Court

The man, aged 72, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was remanded in custody to appear again before Cloverhill District Court on 25 January next.

Judge Miriam Malone heard evidence of arrest, charge and caution from Inspector Martin Mooney, who said the accused replied “no” as each count was put to him at the Bridewell Garda Station in Dublin today.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

A former priest in his 70s has appeared in court today charged with indecently assaulting children between the late 1960s and early 1980s.

Dublin District Court heard that he was arrested today at Dublin Airport. He replied “No” when the 55 charges were put to him.

The DPP has directed that he be tried on indictment and he has been remanded in custody to appear at Cloverhill District Court next Wednesday.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Centre Daily Times

The Associated Press

SMETHPORT, Pa. — A suspended northwestern Pennsylvania priest on trial for an allegedly inappropriate relationship with a 15-year-old boy told police he bought the boy’s attention with expensive gifts because he felt “old and alone” but contends he acted more like the boy’s “Dad” despite flirtatious-sounding messages prosecutors said he sent the boy without his mother’s knowledge.

A McKean County jury began deliberating charges including corruption of minors, interfering with the mother’s custody of the boy, and concealing the whereabouts of a child against the Rev. Samuel Slocum, 60.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Erie suspended Slocum from duties at two rural churches after the charges were filed in April, prompting Bishop Donald Trautman to issue a statement saying the charges, which do not include allegations of sexual misconduct, were nonetheless “devastating, if true.”

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

by Phyllis Zagano on Jan. 18, 2012 Just Catholic

About a year ago, I published an open letter to Pope Benedict XVI asking him to make a decision on restoring women to the diaconate. I didn’t hear back.

Priest-pederasts, -philanderers and -embezzlers continue to make the news. Parishes and schools are closing all over. Ordinations — at least in the United States — are beyond way down. The public relations profile of U.S. bishops seems fixed on same-sex marriage, abortion and the “new evangelization.”

Are U.S. bishops carrying the brief for women deacons to their ad limina meetings in Rome?

They may be. The issue is picking up speed.

The Cleveland-based activist group FutureChurch has organized its members nationwide to pay pre-ad limina calls on bishops. The FutureChurch brief includes restoring women to their traditional place in the diaconate. In addition, a national Books-to-Bishops campaign has sent copies of the newly published Women Deacons: Past, Present, Future (by Santa Clara Professor Gary Macy, Monterey Deacon William T. Ditewig and me) to 135 U.S. diocesan bishops to date.

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BELGIUM
Expatica

Belgian magistrates have re-launched a high-profile probe into child sex abuse in the Roman Catholic Church, this time seeking to show the Church hierarchy engaged in a cover-up.

Federal police pounced Wednesday on “personal files” held by senior Church figures in the dioceses of Liege, Namur and Tournai after hitting Antwerp, Bruges, Ghent, Hasselt and Mechelen since Monday.

The seizures are based on testimony from some 200 alleged victims and in 87 judicial complaints.

Federal magistrate and spokeswoman for national prosecutors Lieve Pellens said the purpose of this new “key phase” in a Belgian investigation is different from that of dramatic June 2010 raids on Church headquarters that angered Pope Benedict XVI.

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BELGIE
Knack

(Belga) De speurders van de federale gerechtelijke politie die onderzoek voeren in het kader van Operatie Kelk, hebben rond 14.15 uur de zetel van het bisdom van Namen verlaten. De huiszoeking nam zowat drie uur in beslag.

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BELGIE
Knack

(Belga) Speurders van de federale gerechtelijke politie zijn woensdag rond 16.10 uur op de zetel van het bisdom Luik aangekomen, zo is ter plaatse vastgesteld. Acht speurders in twee auto’s hielden eerst halt aan het justitiepaleis van Luik voor ze zich naar de zetel van het bisdom begaven. De bisschop van Luik, Aloys Jousten, is ter plaatse.

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NEDERLAND
Noordholland Dagblad

DEN HAAG – De Tweede Kamer hoort woensdagmiddag en -avond vertegenwoordigingen van slachtoffers van seksueel misbruik in de Rooms-Katholieke Kerk. Ook aartsbisschop Wim Eijk komt naar de Kamer om de commissie voor Veiligheid en Justitie van informatie te voorzien. De hoorzitting wordt gehouden naar aanleiding van de bevindingen van de onderzoekscommissie-Deetman. Ook Deetman komt aan het woord.

Slachtoffers van misbruik drongen aan op vervolging van de daders, ook als het misbruik al lang is verjaard. Minister Ivo Opstelten (Veiligheid) zou dat mogelijk moeten maken, maar hij heeft de Tweede Kamer maandag laten weten dat dat niet kan. Bij de Kamer ligt wel een wetsvoorstel dat de verjaring voor de ernstigste zedenmisdrijven opheft.

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BELGIE
De Redactie

In de bisdommen van Luik, Doornik en Namen hebben speurders van de federale politie vandaag huiszoekingen uitgevoerd. Operatie Kelk heeft zo ook de Waalse bisdommen bereikt, nadat speurders de vorige twee dagen al dossiers hadden opgevraagd in Vlaamse bisdommen.

De huiszoekingen kaderen in Operatie Kelk, het onderzoek naar kindermisbruik in de kerk door geestelijken. Het gerechtelijk onderzoek spitst zich toe op mogelijk schuldig verzuim door de kerk. De speurders zoeken daarom persoonlijke dossiers van geestelijken die in de verklaringen van slachtoffers van seksueel misbruik genoemd zijn.

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BELGIE
Reformatorisch Dagblad

BRUSSEL (ANP/BELGA) – Voor de derde dag op rij zijn de politie en het Openbaar Ministerie (OM) de bureaus van bisdommen in België binnengevallen. Woensdagochtend was het de beurt aan het bisdom Doornik in Wallonië. Later op de dag volgden huiszoekingen in Namen en Luik, eveneens in Wallonië.

De huiszoekingen hebben te maken met Operatie Kelk, het onderzoek naar seksueel misbruik binnen de Rooms-Katholieke Kerk in België. Het OM is op zoek naar aanwijzingen dat bisschoppen of andere geestelijken priesters die kinderen misbruikten, de hand boven het hoofd hielden. Het gaat niet om het misbruik zelf. Veel van deze zaken zijn al verjaard.

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BELGIE
Gazet van Antwerpen

11:58 Update Onderzoeksrechter Wim De Troy heeft woensdagochtend een huiszoeking uitgevoerd op de zetel van het bisdom van Doornik, in het kader van Operatie Kelk. De speurders namen dossiers mee over pedofiliemisdrijven gepleegd door priesters. “We hebben volledig meegewerkt”, luidt het bij het bisdom van Doornik.

Een twaalftal speurders van de federale politie, die met vijf voertuigen bij het bisdom arriveerden, voerden woensdagochtend gedurende twee uur een huiszoeking uit op de zetel van het bisdom in Doornik. De bisschop van Doornik, Mgr. Guy Harpigny (foto), was aanwezig toen de agenten aankwamen.

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UNITED KINGDOM
National Secular Society

A priest in the Diocese of Westminster has begun a campaign for London to host the Vatican’s World Youth Day in 2016. Fr Stephen Wang set up a Facebook group, “World Youth Day London 2016”, to test whether there is popular interest in the idea.

He said that the English Church could “put forward a fantastic proposal” and that, after the event had been staged in Spain, France, Italy and Germany in recent years, “the United Kingdom is the next obvious one”.

He added: “It wouldn’t just be a London event but a national event, we could even include Ireland, all the different dioceses and cities doing all these amazing things. But there is nowhere like London, in terms of the space, the infrastructure, the transport, food outlets, the venues, the parks and commons, and we have this unusual situation of three dioceses converging on one city. It is the biggest youth event in the world and London would be the ideal city.”

Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, said: “The last time the Pope came to this country, the resentment he sparked about the amount of public money wasted on the trip was immense. Despite the Church’s attempts to talk up the ‘success’ of the visit, its own research showed that it was actually a dismal failure.

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BELGIE
Knack

(Belga) Onderzoeksrechter Wim De Troy heeft woensdagochtend een huiszoeking uitgevoerd op de zetel van het bisdom van Doornik, in het kader van Operatie Kelk. De speurders namen dossiers mee over pedofiliemisdrijven gepleegd door priesters. “We hebben volledig meegewerkt”, luidt het bij het bisdom van Doornik.

Een twaalftal speurders van de federale politie, die met vijf voertuigen bij het bisdom arriveerden, voerden woensdagochtend gedurende twee uur een huiszoeking uit op de zetel van het bisdom in Doornik. De bisschop van Doornik, Mgr. Guy Harpigny, was aanwezig toen de agenten aankwamen. “Het personeel werd afgezonderd in een andere ruimte dan de onze en mocht de telefoon niet beantwoorden.

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NEDERLAND
Nu

DEN HAAG – Wim Deetman, voorzitter van de commissie voor het onderzoek naar seksueel misbruik binnen de kerk, denkt dat er nog wel zaken naar boven kunnen komen, maar dat ‘het beeld’ er wel is.

Dat zei hij woensdag aan het begin van een hoorzitting in de Tweede Kamer over zijn bevindingen.

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NEDERLAND
Omroep Brabant

Auteur: Sandra Kagie

DEN HAAG – Wim Deetman denkt dat er nog misbruikzaken binnen de katholieke kerk naar boven kunnen komen. Volgens de voorzitter van de commissie die het misbruik in de kerk onderzocht, is het beeld echter duidelijk.

Dat zei hij woensdag aan het begin van een hoorzitting in de Tweede Kamer over de bevindingen van zijn onderzoekscommissie.

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UNITED STATES
Watch Keep

Pennsylvania state representative Thomas P. Murt serves the 152nd Legislative District. He is the secretary of the Child and Youth Committee and chairs the Health and Human Services Subcommittee on Mental Health. As a proud Penn State alumnus who still teaches at the PSU Abington campus, he writes a powerful article on the dire need to shine the light of truth on child sexual abuse. Here are some notable excerpts:

I serve on the Child and Youth Committee and have listened to and read many hours of excruciatingly painful testimony from victims and their families describing the most heinous sexual abuse imaginable. The institutional cover-ups and subsequent ill-treatment of victims have made these terrible situations even worse.

It’s a sad day, indeed, when concern for institutional risk management trumps uncovering the truth.

Rather than allow myself to become protective of the alleged and convicted criminals in these institutions that I hold most dear, I am compelled by my conscience and by my office to act on behalf of the victims until the perpetrators have been punished and justice has been served. …

Will leaders in prominent Baptist mega-churches like Jack Graham and others at Prestonwood Baptist Church also be compelled by their conscience, at the very least, to act on behalf of the victims until the perpetrators have been punished and justice has been served?

There has still be no admission to the congregation by Prestonwood staff, no outreach to the victims to encourage them to come forward to the police, get help and start healing, nor any remorse for failing to obey TX mandatory reporting laws in 1989 when Prestonwood fired John Langworthy for the sexual abuse of several boys, minors under the age of 17.

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Republic

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
First Posted: January 18, 2012

SMETHPORT, Pa. — A suspended Catholic priest on trial for charges of having an inappropriate relationship with a 15-year-old boy last year told police he felt “old and alone” so he bought the boy’s friendship with expensive gifts.

The Bradford Era (http://bit.ly/xUNpMW ) reports a McKean County jury is expected to begin deliberating Wednesday whether the Rev. Samuel Slocum corrupted the boy and interfered with his mother’s custody of him by contacting the boy after his mother told the priest to stop. Jurors heard the 60-year-old priest’s statement to police on Tuesday. The priest denies sexual feelings for the boy, saying he felt more like the boy’s “Dad.”

The Erie diocese removed Slocum from duty at two churches in McKean County after the charges were filed in April.

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RACINE (WI)
The Journal Times

LINDSAY FIORI lindsay.fiori@journaltimes.com | Posted: Wednesday, January 18, 2012

RACINE — A St. Catherine’s High School teacher retired this month after abuse allegations were raised regarding a previous school, according to St. Catherine’s officials.

Gary Craanen, a religion teacher at St. Catherine’s for more than 30 years, retired in January after the author of an upcoming book about sexual abuse in the Catholic Diocese of Trenton, N.J., notified St. Catherine’s officials of allegations involving Craanen, according to a Jan. 13 letter to the school community from St. Catherine’s President Christopher Olley.

The book alleges Craanen solicited two teenage boys for sexual services and performed a sexual act in front of one of them during the late 1970s while he was vice principal and disciplinarian at the Divine Word Seminary high school in Bordentown, N.J, according to Bruce Novozinsky, author of the book, which is scheduled for self-publication through Amazon in May.

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SLOVENIA
STA

Ljubljana, 18 January (STA) – The Ptuj District Court ruled that former parish priest of Ormož, who is serving a prison sentence for sexual assault of a minor, and his Order of the Holy Cross should pay EUR 41,500 in compensation to one of the priest’s victims, media report on Wednesday.

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BUFFALO (NY)
WIVB

[with video]

Shannon Ross

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) – A veteran priest who was abruptly removed from a Buffalo Church over the weekend, is said to have admitted to accusations.

Father Secondo Casarotto, of Saint Anthony of Padua Church, has been placed on Administrative Leave over claims he assaulted a female parishioner last year.

The alleged victim’s lawyer contacted News 4 Tuesday night, and says Father Secundo admitted he committed the assault to police.

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