ABUSE TRACKER

ROME
Montreal Gazette

ROME – A wave of clerical sex abuse scandals have cost the Catholic Church over two billion dollars (1.5 billion euros) but the real price is the blow to its reputation, two U.S. experts said on Wednesday.

“It is probably reasonable to estimate that the actual ‘out of pocket’ cost of the crisis to the Church internationally is well in excess of two billion dollars,” Michael Bemi and Patricia Neal said at a Vatican summit on the issue.

The cost could be much higher though as at least some dioceses in the Church “made many confidential settlements over the years, the total value of which may never be known,” said the two consultants for the U.S. Catholic Church.

Bemi and Neal asked Catholic leaders from around the world: “How many hospitals, seminaries, schools, churches, shelters for abused women and children and soup kitchens could we have built with this amount of money?

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ROME
Catholic News Service

By Francis X. Rocca
Catholic News Service

ROME (CNS) — The Vatican’s top sex abuse investigator called for greater accountability under church law of bishops who shield or fail to discipline pedophile priests.

Msgr. Charles Scicluna, promoter of justice for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, made his remarks to reporters in Rome Feb. 8, after addressing an international symposium on clerical sex abuse.

“It is a crime in canon law to show malicious or fraudulent negligence in the exercise of one’s duty,” Msgr. Scicluna said, regarding the responsibility of bishops to protect children and punish abusers.

With respect to bishops who fail to apply the church’s anti-abuse norms, Msgr. Scicluna said that “it is not acceptable that when there are set standards, people do not follow the set standards.”

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UNITED STATES
Business Insider

Michael Brendan Dougherty

St. John Chrysostom, once said “The road to hell is paved with the skulls of bishops.”

Here’s proof that he was right.

In an interview this week with Connecticut Magazine, Cardinal Edward Egan, withdrew his 2002 apology for the Church’s handling of the sex-abuse scandal, which was once read in all New York parishes.

A decade after that letter, the former archbishop of New York, and former bishop of Bridgeport, now describes the handling of the priest-abuse crisis under his watch as “incredibly good.” He said of the letter, “I never should have said that,” and added, “I don’t think we did anything wrong.”

“I never had one of these sex abuse cases.” he said, before adding pompously, “If you have another bishop in the United States who has the record I have, I’d be happy to know who he is.” He also claimed that the Church had no obligation to report abuse to the civil authorities.

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MONTANA
KRTV

Posted: Feb 8, 2012 9:36 AM by David Sherman (Great Falls)

A civil lawsuit on behalf of 10 alleged child sex abuse victims has been filed against the Catholic Diocese of Great Falls-Billings.

One man says that a priest who currently advises diocese Bishop Michael Warfel on handling sex abuse cases is himself a sex predator.

The locations of the alleged abuse include Great Falls, Absarokee, Hays, and Hardin; the lawsuit claims that the abuse occurred in the 1970s and 1980s.

Tim Kosnoff, attorney for the plaintiffs, said that the victims are seeking “non-monetary reform and healing measures,” including asking the court to order the bishop to personally visit schools and churches where the alleged abuse occurred, posting the names of the alleged abusers on the diocese web site for 10 years, and the creation of a toll-free phone and website where anonymous complaints can be made.

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ROME
Rome Reports

February 8, 2012. (Romereports.com) At the Gregorian University in Rome, Bishops from all over the world, as well as heads of religious orders and Vatican officials are discussing how to prevent cases of sexual abuse, including ways to protect children.

Inside the conference room, Church leaders heard from Marie Collins. An Irish woman who, as a patient in a hospital, was sexually abused by a priest at the age of 13.

Sexual Abuse Victim
“I was quite sick, anxious and away from friends and family for the first time, but I felt more secure when the Catholic chaplain in the hospital befriended me.”

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MINNESOTA
WDAY

By: Stacie Van Dyke, WDAZ

EAST GRAND FORKS, MN (WDAZ-TV) – An East Grand Forks priest is being accused of theft of personal property and misappropriation of donations for Africa.

The Crookston diocese has placed an associate pastor at Sacred Heart Catholic Church, Father Carlos Velez, on administrative leave.

The East Grand Forks Police Department has confirmed that an investigation centering on Velez is underway.

According to an email sent by the diocese of Crookston, the 39-year-old is facing allegations for initiating a special collection without permission and failing to follow internal controls regarding the proper treatment of donations to the parish.

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MICHIGAN
WZZM

Written by
Bob Brenzing

(DETROIT FREE PRESS) – Michigan Court of Appeals judges will hear arguments Thursday on a case that could have serious repercussions for church members: Can what you confess to your pastor be used against you in a court of law?

A three-judge panel of the court is being asked to decide whether a Baptist pastor in Belleville violated Michigan’s priest-penitent privilege by testifying against a church member in a rape case.

“This is a very dangerous case because it could have very serious repercussions for religion,” the rape suspect’s lawyer, Raymond Cassar of Farmington Hills, said Tuesday. “If a pastor is allowed to testify against a member of his church about privileged communications, no one will want to confess their sins to their pastors anymore.”

Assistant Wayne County Prosecutor Toni Odette argued in court documents that the privilege doesn’t apply in this case.

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POLAND
National Catholic Reporter

Feb. 08, 2012
By Jonathan Luxmoore

This is the second of two-part series looking at clergy sex abuse in Poland. Read part one here.

WARSAW, POLAND — When Ewa Orlowska, a mother of nine, decided to confront her local priest for sexually abusing her as a child, she had little idea what was to follow. The priest, Msgr. Michal Moskwa, had been the parish pastor for three decades in the southern town of Tylawa, and Ewa had been just one of his victims. But when she’d told her mother about the abuse, her mother beat her and ordered her to apologize.

When the case came to light in 2001, Orlowska reluctantly agreed to give a statement to prosecutors. “I thought: When I stand before God and he asks me what I did for those other defenseless children, still threatened by the priest’s pedophile tendencies, what would I say?” she remembers. “Would I say I lacked courage, hadn’t the strength, was afraid of my own shadow?”

Moskwa was convicted in 2004 and given a two-year suspended jail sentence and an eight-year ban from teaching children. He ignored the teaching ban, suffered no canonical sanctions, and his ordinary, Archbishop Jozef Michalik of Przemysl, returned him to his parish.

The judge reprimanded Michalik, who is president of Poland’s bishops’ conference, for ignoring repeated requests to deal with Moskwa “in the way required by Christian morality.” On the contrary, Michalik assured the convicted pedophile of his “sympathy” in an open letter, protesting the affront “to the good name of our priests.”

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CHICAGO (IL)
WBBM

[with audio]

CHICAGO (CBS) — The worldwide priest sex abuse scandal is the focus of a gathering of hundreds of Catholic bishops and priests in Rome this week.

As WBBM Newsradio’s Bernie Tafoya reports, more proposed guidelines to deal with priest predators, and to protect children, are to be submitted to Pope Benedict XVI in May. This week in Rome, those who will write those guidelines are hearing from experts and victims.

But Barbara Blaine, the Chicago-based president of the Survivors’ Network of Those Abused by Priests, is skeptical that there will be any real change. She calls this week’s symposium at the Vatican a PR maneuver.

“Unless and until they are willing to take concrete action that changes the way they do things, I suspect that children will continue to be raped and sexually violated by priests, and bishops will continue to cover up these crimes,” she said.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Philadelphia Weekly

By Tara Murtha

As 78-year-old state Rep. Louise Williams Bishop (D-Philadelphia) began to speak to a crowd gathered in the rotunda of the capitol in Harrisburg at a public meeting in November, her voice wavered and shook, belying her decades of experience in public speaking as a polished politician, Baptist minister and radio DJ.

Shaky, Bishop revealed a secret she had held inside for six decades. “I discovered someone in the bed with me. [He was] doing a little more than feeling and touching,” she told the hushed audience, recalling the night when her stepfather first raped her.

Bishop, who was 12 at the time, says that when she awoke to find her stepfather in her bed, she “didn’t know how to react. I was afraid. There was fear. Fear in what my sisters, if they awakened, would think. Fear if I told my mother what she would say. Fear if my grandfather found out, he would have taken a shotgun and killed somebody and went to jail.”

“So I lived with that fear,” and the secret, “all these years.” Even as a minister listening to survivors, who at 35, 40 years old were revealing their own childhood sex abuse, Bishop remained silent about her own. She never even told her husband.

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ROME
HLN (Belgie)

De Canadese kardinaal Marc Ouellet, prefect van de congregatie voor de bisschoppen, één van de belangrijkste functies binnen de Romeinse curie, heeft gisterenavond tijdens een boeteviering in een bewust half duistere Sint-Ignatiuskerk in Rome in naam van de Kerk vergiffenis gevraagd’voor hen die kinderen en zwakken seksueel hebben misbruikt.

De viering werd onder meer bijgewoond door de zowat honderd bisschoppen die in Rome deelnemen aan het vierdaagse colloquium dat de strijd tegen het seksueel misbruik in de Kerk wil opvoeren. De bisschoppen hadden hun mijters en bisschopskruis thuis gelaten.

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BELGIE
Het Nieuwsblad

Slachtoffers van pedofilie in de Kerk kunnen sinds gisteren een schadevergoeding eisen via een nieuwe ‘rechtbank voor seksueel misbruik’. Ze maken aanspraak op een bedrag tot 25.000euro.

Gisteren lanceerde het Centrum voor Arbitrage inzake Seksueel Misbruik een website, waarop een ‘aanvraagformulier voor billijke herstelmaatregelen’ staat. De slachtoffers –of bij zelfdoding de nabestaanden– moeten de feiten beschrijven, ook al zijn die verjaard, en ze moeten aangeven of ze al naar het gerecht zijn gestapt.

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ROME
Reformatorisch Dagblad

VATICAANSTAD (ANP) – Leiders binnen de Rooms-Katholieke Kerk komen deze week in Rome bijeen voor een conferentie over de middelen om seksueel misbruik van minderjarigen te voorkomen en te bestrijden.

Zij zullen onder meer een gebedsdienst bijwonen, waar vertegenwoordigers van zeven religieuze ordes en congregaties in het openbaar om vergeving zullen vragen voor wat leden van hun organisatie kinderen hebben aangedaan.

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BELGIE
Het Nieuwsblad

De Belgische bisschoppen van Antwerpen en Doornik, Johan Bonny en Guy Harpigny, wonen deze week een internationaal congres bij in Rome over het misbruik van minderjarigen binnen de kerk. Het congres vindt plaats van maandag tot en met donderdag in de pauselijke universiteit ‘Gregoriana’.

Het doel van die bijeenkomst is om ervaringen te delen ten aanzien van preventie. Tijdens het congres zal kardinaal William Levada, prefect van de Congregatie voor de Geloofsleer, een reeks preventieve maatregelen presenteren. Er zou onder meer een portaalsite opgericht worden. Die zou bestemd zijn voor de hele wereldkerk met daarop alle maatregelen en procedures die in geval van misbruik toegepast moeten worden.

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ROME
NZG (Nederland)

VATICAANSTAD (ANP) – Leiders binnen de Rooms-Katholieke Kerk komen deze week in Rome bijeen voor een conferentie over de middelen om seksueel misbruik van minderjarigen te voorkomen en te bestrijden.

Zij zullen onder meer een gebedsdienst bijwonen, waar vertegenwoordigers van zeven religieuze ordes en congregaties in het openbaar om vergeving zullen vragen voor wat leden van hun organisatie kinderen hebben aangedaan.

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LUXEMBURG
Kerknieuws

De Rooms-Katholieke Kerk van Luxemburg gaat slachtoffers van seksueel misbruik door priesters financieel compenseren, ook als het misbruik is verjaard. Alle meldingen die in Luxemburg over misbruik zijn binnengekomen, gaan namelijk over zaken die zijn verjaard.

De kerk richt een onafhankelijke commissie op die de aanvragen voor vergoedingen zal behandelen. Slachtoffers van misbruik dat is verjaard, kunnen een bedrag ontvangen van maximaal 5.000 euro.

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ROME
De Telegraaf (Nederland)

VATICAANSTAD – Bisschoppen uit 100 landen en oversten van 33 religieuze orden en congregaties komen maandagmiddag in Rome bijeen om te praten over maatregelen om seksueel misbruik van minderjarigen door geestelijken te voorkomen en te bestrijden. Ook Charles Scicluna, de aanklager in misbruikzaken van het Vaticaan, en de Ierse Marie Collins, die als meisje door een priester is verkracht, praten mee.

Namens Nederland is hulpbisschop Ted Hoogenboom van het bisdom Utrecht bij de bijeenkomst. „Hij heeft veel kennis vanuit allerlei invalshoeken, onder meer omdat hij jurist is. We verwachten dat er wat juridische aspecten aan bod komen. Bovendien zat hij in de commissie die het meldpunt voor slachtoffers vorig jaar opnieuw heeft ingericht, de commissie-Bandell”, aldus een woordvoerder van de Nederlandse Bisschoppenconferentie.

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ROME
de Volkskrant (Nederland)

Paus Benedictus XVI heeft vandaag gepleit voor een ‘diepgaande vernieuwing’ van de Rooms-Katholieke Kerk. Alleen zo kan naar zijn mening het seksueel misbruik van minderjarigen door geestelijken worden bestreden.

In de Gregoriana Universiteit in Rome is vandaag een kerkelijke conferentie over het misbruik geopend. In een boodschap aan de deelnemers schrijft de paus dat het de grootste prioriteit voor de christelijke gemeenschap moet zijn dat de slachtoffers weer geheel mens worden in plaats van louter misbruikslachtoffer. Op elk niveau van de kerk is volgens hem een grondige vernieuwing nodig.

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ROME
RTL (Nederland)

Alleen met een stevige aanpak kan volgens de paus het seksueel misbruik van minderjarigen door geestelijken worden bestreden. Op elk niveau is een grondige vernieuwing nodig.

In de Gregoriana Universiteit in Rome is een kerkelijke conferentie over het misbruik geopend. In een boodschap aan de deelnemers schrijft de paus dat het de grootste prioriteit voor de christelijke gemeenschap moet zijn dat de slachtoffers weer geheel mens worden in plaats van louter misbruikslachtoffer.

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BELGIE
HLN

Slachtoffers van pedofiele geestelijken kunnen vanaf heden een vraag tot schadevergoeding indienen bij de arbitragecommissie in de schoot van de Koning Boudewijnstichting. Dat signaleert La Dernière Heure. Het formulier is beschikbaar op www.centrum-arbitrage-misbruik.be.

Tot 25.000 euro
De arbitragecommissie zag het levenslicht als gevolg van een akkoord tussen de Kerk en de bijzondere commissie over seksueel misbruik van de Kamer. Het onderzoek van de dossiers gaat vanaf 1 maart van start. Schadevergoedingen kunnen oplopen tot 25.000 euro.

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ROME
Het Nieuwsblad (Belgie)

“De genezing van de slachtoffers van seksueel misbruik moet een fundamentele bezorgdheid zijn van de christelijke gemeenschap en moet gepaard gaan met een grondige vernieuwing van de Kerk op alle niveaus”. Dat zei paus Benedictus XVI in een boodschap aan de deelnemers van het vierdaagse colloquium over seksueel misbruik in de Kerk dat maandagavond in Rome van start ging.

De Amerikaanse kardinaal William Levada, prefect van de Congregatie voor de geloofsleer die het het colloquium opende, zei dat “een kleine groep misbruikplegers groot kwaad veroorzaakt heeft aan de slachtoffers en aan de Kerk”.

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NEDERLAND
Trouw

Bisschoppen hebben het onderzoek naar seksueel misbruik in de rooms-katholieke kerk niet tegengewerkt. Dat stelt aartsbisschop Eijk vandaag in een ingezonden brief in het AD. Eerdere berichtgeving van die krant stoelt volgens Eijk op verkeerde informatie.

In het AD meldden slachtoffergroepen vorige week dat bisschoppen de onderzoeken stelselmatig frustreren.

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ROME
HLN (Belgie)

Het vierdaagse symposium in Rome met het oog om de strijd tegen seksueel misbruik in de Kerk op te voeren, is vandaag van start gegaan met de getuigenis van een Iers slachtoffer. Ook verklaarde een psychologisch expert van de Kerk dat er zes fouten gemaakt zijn in de aanpak van de dossiers.

Marie Colins getuigde voor een honderdtal vertegenwoordigers van het wereldepiscopaat, de belangrijkste verantwoordelijken van de Romeinse Curie en een dertigtal verantwoordelijken van de belangrijkste ordes en congregaties. Zij werd vijftig jaar geleden op 13-jarige leeftijd verkracht door de aalmoezenier van het Iers ziekenhuis waar zij verpleegd werd.

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ROME
RKnieuws (Nederland)

ROME (RKnieuws.net) – Het vierdaagse symposium aan de Gregoriaanse universiteit in Rome met het oog om de strijd tegen seksueel misbruik in de Kerk op te voeren ging dinsdag van start met de getuigenis van een Iers slachtoffer.

Marie Colins getuigde voor een honderdtal vertegenwoordigers van het wereldepiscopaat, de belangrijkste verantwoordelijken van de Romeinse Curie en een dertigtal verantwoordelijken van de belangrijkste ordes en congregaties. Zij werd vijftig jaar geleden op 13-jarige leeftijd verkracht door de aalmoezenier van het Iers ziekenhuis waar zij verpleegd werd.

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ROME
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 8 February 2012 (VIS) – Cardinal William Joseph Levada, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, delivered a lecture before the international symposium “Towards Healing and Renewal” being held in Rome’s Gregorian University from 6 to 9 February. The event brings together bishops and religious superiors from all over the world and aims to relaunch the Church’s commitment to protecting minors and vulnerable people from abuse.

Speaking English, Cardinal Levada affirmed that for Church leaders the question under examination “is both delicate and urgent”. It is “important not to lose sight of the gravity of these crimes” as we seek “to form the priests of today and tomorrow to be aware of this scourge and to eliminate it from the priesthood”.

Cardinal Levada recalled how Blessed John Paul II’s Motu Proprio “Sacramentorum sanctitatis tutela” clarified and updated the list of canonical crimes, explicitly including the sexual abuse of minors by clerics as one of the most serious crimes, or “graviora delicta”. Benedict XVI, then prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, “was instrumental in implementing these new norms” and supported “approving the Essential Norms for the United States”. In 2010 Pope Benedict also approved and ordered the promulgation of stricter revised norms.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Channel 3000

MILWAUKEE — A group representing victims of clergy abuse is asking the Milwaukee Catholic archdiocese to withdraw motions to dismiss some of the nearly 570 restitution claims in its bankruptcy case.

The archdiocese has filed motions in three cases asking they be dismissed because they were either filed beyond the statute of limitations, involved someone who was not an archdiocese employee or involved a victim who already received a settlement. A hearing is set for Thursday.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests estimated the archdiocese’s arguments could ultimately get 95 percent of the cases dismissed. They claim the archdiocese misled victims because it never mentioned eligibility restrictions.

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ROME
Reuters

By Philip Pullella

ROME (Reuters) – Hiding behind a culture of “omerta” — the Italian word for the Mafia’s code of silence — would be deadly for the Catholic Church, the Vatican’s top official for dealing with sexual abuse of minors by clergy said Wednesday.

Monsignor Charles Scicluna made the unusually forthright comment in his speech to a landmark symposium in Rome on the sexual abuse crisis that has rocked the Church in the past decade.

“The teaching … that truth is at the basis of justice explains why a deadly culture of silence, or ‘omerta,’ is in itself wrong and unjust,” Scicluna said in his address to the four-day symposium which brings together some 200 people including bishops, leaders of religious orders, victims of abuse and psychologists.

Rarely, if ever, has a Vatican official used the word “omerta” – a serious accusation in Italian — to compare the reluctance of some in the Church to come clean on the abuse scandal with the Mafia’s code of silence.

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ROME
Boston Globe

By Nicole Winfield
Associated Press / February 8, 2012

ROME—Bishops must follow the Catholic church’s laws and standards when dealing with priests who sexually abuse children or face possible church sanctions for negligence, the Vatican’s sex crimes prosecutor said Wednesday.

Monsignor Charles Scicluna spoke to reporters on the sidelines of a Vatican-backed symposium on clerical sex abuse that is designed to help bishops around the world craft guidelines to protect children and keep pedophiles out of the priesthood. Priests and bishops from 110 dioceses and 30 religious orders are attending the four-day workshop ahead of a May deadline to submit their guidelines for review by the Holy See.

Survivors of clerical abuse, government investigations and clerics themselves have long blamed bishops for failing to report abusive priests to police and failing to apply church law to sanction them internally. Victims’ groups have denounced the lack of accountability of bishops who were never punished for having moved priests from parish to parish where they could abuse again.

Scicluna, the promoter of justice in the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said it was “unacceptable” for bishops to ignore church law and standards to deal with abusers and said canon law provides for sanctioning bishops who do — including being removed as bishop.

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

MARY CAROLAN

A Supreme Court majority decision today halting the trial of a priest on a charge of alleged buggery of a teenage boy in 1970 has important implications for other persons charged with buggery offences prior to 1993.

The decision does not affect the trial of the priest on two other charges of indecent assault of the 13-year-old boy and another 14-year-old boy which can proceed.

By a three/two majority, the Supreme Court ruled the priest cannot be tried on the buggery charge because, when repealing the offence of buggery “between persons” in 1993, the Oireachtas failed to enact the necessary saving measures to allow prosecutions for such common law offences committed prior to 1993.

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ROME
RTE News

The Vatican’s chief prosecutor has said it is unacceptable for bishops or clergy not to abide by “set standards” on child protection within the church.

Monsignor Charles Scicluna said it was possible that clergy or bishops could face sanction under canon law if the non-application of set standards was a result of “malice or fraudulent negligence”.

He added that disciplining bishops was a matter for Pope Benedict on a case-by-case basis.

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ROME
BlueRidgeNow

The Associated Press

The Vatican’s sex crimes prosecutor has warned bishops that they must follow the church’s laws and standards on dealing with priests who sexually abuse children or face possible church sanctions for negligence.

Monsignor Charles Scicluna spoke Wednesday on the sidelines of a Vatican-backed symposium on clerical sex abuse that is designed to help bishops craft guidelines to protect children and keep pedophiles out of the priesthood.

Abuse victims have long denounced the lack of accountability of bishops who routinely moved abusive priests from parish to parish rather than report them to police or punish them internally.

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WORCESTER (MA)
Telegram & Gazette

By Gary V. Murray TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
gmurray@telegram.com

WORCESTER — A May 1 trial date has been set in Central District Court for a former church pastor accused of indecently assaulting and beating a woman.

The Very Rev. Charles M. Abdelahad, the former longtime pastor of St. George Antiochian Orthodox Cathedral on Anna Street, has pleaded not guilty to charges of indecent assault and battery, five counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and four counts of assault and battery. The indecent assault and battery charge was reduced from a charge of rape last year at the request of prosecutors.

Rev. Abdelahad, of 14 Bryant Ave., Shrewsbury, is accused of biting and kicking the alleged victim, pulling her hair, shoving her head against a floor, hitting her in the face and head with his fists, striking her with a religious icon and wooden replica bat and scratching her with a set of keys.

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VATICAN CITY
Sunday Times (Sri Lanka)

VATICAN CITY, Feb 8, 2012 (AFP) – The Vatican’s top prosecutor on Wednesday called for stricter accountability for bishops who cover up child abuse crimes and said 1,000 cases had been reported to him in the past two years alone.

“Ecclesial accountability has to be further developed. How do you sanction a bishop? That is something that Canon law reserves for the pope personally,” Charles Scicluna said on the sidelines of a Vatican summit on the issue.

“Once you set standards you have to respect them. It would certainly be the responsibility of the pope and the Holy See,” he said. He added that he believed a “culture of silence” on the issue of abuse persisted in the Church.

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MICHIGAN
Green Bay Press-Gazette

DETROIT (WTW) — The Michigan Court of Appeals will hear arguments about whether a pastor’s testimony related to a possible confession in a child sexual assault case may be used in court.

The Detroit Free Press reports (http://on.freep.com/wpBJxq) a three-judge panel hears the case Thursday.

Court documents say Samuel Bragg confessed in 2009 to the Rev. John Vaprezsan at Metro Baptist Church in Belleville about the 2007 assault of a 9-year-old girl. Vaprezsan testified in March in the case against Bragg, who is charged with first-degree criminal sexual conduct.

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CONNECTICUT/NEW YORK
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on February 07, 2012

In a new, rare and stunning interview, former NYC Archbishop Edward Egan made shocking statements about the church’s on-going clergy sex abuse and cover up crisis.

We urge US Catholic officials – especially in New York and Connecticut – to publicly rebuke Egan for these shockingly callous comments that will no doubt heap more pain onto millions of victims and Catholics who are still suffering because they have been assaulted by child molesting clerics or betrayed by corrupt church officials. We especially urge Egan’s successors, Archbishop Tim Dolan of New York and Bishop William Lori of Bridgeport, to clearly denounce Egan. Ignoring callousness or mouthing vague platitudes aren’t enough. At an absolute bare minimum, Catholics need and deserve explicit, public and repeated condemnations of Egan by his brother bishops.

Among other things, Egan said:
■I don’t think we did anything wrong.
■I’m very proud of how this thing was handled.
■I believe the sex abuse thing was incredibly good.
■There really wasn’t much . . . hidden.
■I do think it’s time to get off this subject.
■I don’t think I should be upset about that, or you should be, or anybody else.
■I never had one of these sex abuse cases, either in Bridgeport or here (New York). And I believe that the cases I had were each handled just exactly as they should have been.
■I did exactly what we were told to do. And as a result, not one of them (the accused priests) did a thing out of line.
■I’m not the slightest bit surprised that, of course, the scandal was going to be fun in the news.
■If you have another bishop in the United States who has the record I have, I’d be happy to know who he is.

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CONNECTICUT
WSLS

WATERBURY, Conn. (AP) A psychiatrist hired by the Catholic Archdiocese of Hartford has testified he disputes that the mental health problems of an alleged clergy sex abuse victim were caused by the abuse, and that the victim had a generally “positive” relationship with the priest.

Dr. J. Alexander Bodkin testified Tuesday in Waterbury Superior Court. The alleged victim, known only as Jacob Doe, is suing the archdiocese for negligence, claiming he was repeatedly abused by Father Ivan Ferguson as a teenager in the early 1980s when Ferguson was principal of his grammar school in Derby.

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CANADA
The Sault Star

SUDBURY — A former principal at St. Charles College in Sudbury is facing more sex charges.

William Hodgson Marshall, who is now 89, has been charged with two counts of indecent assault after two Saskatoon women complained about being assaulted in 1959 and 1960.

Marshall was a priest and teacher at the Saskatoon high school the two women attended, police said Tuesday.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Newsworks

February 7, 2012
By Kevin McCorry

The funeral Mass for Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua was celebrated Tuesday at the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul in Center City Philadelphia.

Bevilacqua’s close friend and former aide, Monsignor Louis D’Addezio, delivered the memorial sermon. He cited the cardinal’s commitment to the most vulnerable in society — especially the young, the old and the sick.

He also mentioned the emotional toll that recent sex-abuse allegations had on Bevilacqua — noting the cardinal’s depression late in his life.

“These years have been years of suffering for so many — for all of us in the archdiocese,” he said. “Cardinal Bevilacqua did not escape that suffering.”

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ROME
La Croix

Le cardinal Marc Ouellet a demandé pardon, mardi soir 7 février, au nom de l’Eglise, « pour ceux qui ont abusé des petits et des faibles »

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ROME
La Croix

Le colloque international réuni à l’Université grégorienne de Rome, en vue d’améliorer la lutte contre les abus sexuels dans l’Église, s’est ouvert mardi 17 février avec l’audition d’une victime irlandaise.

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ROME
La Croix

Invitée à s’exprimer mardi 7 février au symposium sur les abus sexuels organisé à Rome par l’Université Grégorienne, Marie Collins, qui fut violée par un prêtre dans un hôpital de Dublin à l’age de 13 ans, a livré un témoignage très personnel.

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FRANCE
La Croix

Bousculé depuis une dizaine d’années par des affaires pédophiles, le Vatican a mis concrètement l’accent sur la parole des victimes à l’occasion d’un colloque organisé début février 2012 à Rome, où une célébration pénitentielle inédite a été organisée en présence de certaines d’entre elles.

Des Etats-Unis à l’ Irlande, en passant par la Belgique où l’Allemagne, ces affaires d’abus sexuels n’ont épargné ni le clergé diocésain ni les congrégations religieuses, notamment les Légionnaires du Christ, ou la communauté des Béatitudes, dont l’un des membres a été condamné à cinq ans de prison en décembre 2011 par le tribunal correctionnel de Rodez.

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FRANCE
La Croix

[avec audio]

Alors que le Vatican a consacré, début février, un colloque pour faire droit à la parole des victimes de prêtres pédophiles, le P. Joulain, qui a beaucoup travaillé sur cette question, estime que ce processus de guérison doit comporter une dimension non seulement humaine, psychique, mais aussi spirituelle.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Catholic Insider

When the Boston Archdiocese recently released the 2011 Annual Report and announced financial results for the year, it seems that few people actually looked closely at the report. So in the next few posts, BCI will analyze and report on a number of concerns. A close look at the annual report reveals several significant issues which Cardinal O’Malley and Vicar General Msgr. Deeley may want to pay closer attention to for the future of the archdiocese. Today we focus just on the budget balancing act, specifically i) whether the budget was in fact balanced or not, and ii) the mix of spending. We will share more issues in the next few posts.

Here is the gist of the questions over the “balanced budget.” As we said in this April 2011 post when the annual report budget balancing games were last played, in a balanced budget, revenues equal expenditures. Simple. But, for the Archdiocese of Boston, the report shows that revenues did NOT equal expenditures in 2011, or in 2010 for that matter. So, if revenues did not equal expenses, how can the budget be “balanced”? It all depends on how you define “balanced.” We cannot find anyone who defines a “balanced budget” the same way the Boston Archdiocese does, but if we are missing something, please let us know and we will correct ourselves.

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ROME
The Sun (United Kingdom)

FROM Nick Pisa in Rome

MORE than 4,000 cases of Catholic priests sexually abusing children have been investigated in ten years.

A top churchman admitted it is a “dramatic increase” on the 3,000 in 50 years previously suspected.

Cardinal Joseph William Levada revealed at a Vatican conference the shocking extent of the worldwide scandal.

He told 100 international clergy that the Catholic church has an obligation to report paedophile priests to the authorities.

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ROME
National Catholic Reporter

By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Rome

Throughout the arc of the sexual abuse crisis, Vatican officials have often complained about media sensationalism and bias. In 2002, Colombian Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos famously took a series of questions in English during a press conference, and then snarled that fact alone “already says something about the problem and gives it an outline.” As recently as 2010, Italian Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the former Secretary of State, appeared to compare media criticism to “petty gossip.”

The tone out of this week’s abuse summit has been strikingly different. If not quite fulsome gratitude, speakers have at least offered an acknowledgment that whatever progress the church has made, has often come as a result of media pressure.

To be sure, those concessions have usually been coupled with insistence that church leaders should now get ahead of the curve, rather than waiting for yet another media firestorm. Moreover, trace elements of resentment over perceived media hostility haven’t been entirely absent.

Still, in comparison to Vatican attitudes on other occasions, one might almost say that the media’s role in the crisis is undergoing a rehabilitation.

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MICHIGAN
The Holland Sentinel

By Staff reports
The Holland Sentinel

Allegan —

The teens who testified Tuesday that they were sexually abused by a Holland man are three of several victims from at least two counties, a lawyer from the state attorney general’s office told an Allegan County judge during a pretrial hearing.

“There are another number of kids included in this case,” said attorney Paul Cusik. “There aren’t only three witnesses.”

Jonathan King Meyer, 32, will face trial in Allegan County Circuit Court for three counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct for the alleged sex assaults in 2006 and 2007. He was bound over to the circuit court after about 90 minutes of testimony Tuesday in district court.

The charges carry a penalty of life in prison for Meyer, a former lunchroom supervisor at Holland’s West Middle School and youth leader at Christ Memorial Church in Holland.

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ROME
National Catholic Reporter

By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Rome

The Vatican’s top prosecutor on sex abuse cases today bluntly decried “a deadly culture of silence” on clerical abuse, calling such denial “in itself wrong and unjust.”

Maltese Monsignor Charles Scicluna told participants in a Vatican summit on sex abuse that while the church now has clear laws to punish abusers, just having such laws on the books isn’t enough.

“Our people need to know that the law is being applied,” he said. “No strategy for the prevention of child abuse will ever work without commitment and accountability.”

Scicluna likewise reaffirmed the obligation of church leaders to cooperate with civil authorities, including reporting abuse allegations to police and prosecutors.

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ROME
National Catholic Reporter

By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Rome

To all those critics who have clamored for greater accountability for bishops who drop the ball on sex abuse cases, the Vatican’s top prosecutor this morning had a simple message: You’re absolutely right.

“We need to be vigilant in choosing candidates for the important role of bishop, and we also need to use the tools that canonical law and tradition give us for the accountability of bishops,” said Maltese Monsignor Charles Scicluna.

As a case in point, Scicluna bluntly said it is simply “not acceptable” for bishops to ignore anti-abuse protocols established by the Vatican or by their bishops’ conference. He said the church in Ireland, to take one example, “has paid a very high price for the mistakes of some of its shepherds.”

Sciculuna was apparently referring to a damning government report in 2011 which found that in the Irish diocese of Clone, which founded that both civil laws and church procedures on handling sex abuse complaints were flouted as recently as 2009.

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NEVADA
8 News Now

By KEN RITTER
Associated Press
HENDERSON, Nev. (AP) – A judge in Henderson set a March evidence hearing for a former fugitive Las Vegas-area pastor who was returned in custody from Mexico to face multiple child sex assault charges.

Otis Holland said little during a brief hearing Tuesday at which Henderson Justice of the Peace David Gibson Sr. scheduled a March 21 preliminary hearing.

The 55-year-old former pastor of the United Faith Church was arrested Jan. 25 in Tijuana, Mexico.

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IOWA
Courier

By TINA HINZ, tina.hinz@wcfcourier.com | Posted: Tuesday, February 7, 2012

WAVERLY, Iowa — Defense attorney Kevin Engels says authorities lied to his client and obtained a search warrant without probable cause.

During a hearing Monday at the Bremer County Courthouse, Engels argued to suppress evidence that could be used against his client, Dennis Brown, 67, of Eldora.

Brown, a pastor at Ivester Church of the Brethren in Grundy County, is charged with third-degree sexual abuse, a Class C felony. He allegedly performed a sex act in May with a 15-year-old boy in Waverly. The pair met online.

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MARYLAND
Herald-Mail

FREDERICK, Md. —
The former pastor of a Montgomery County church has pleaded guilty in Frederick to second-degree sex offense with a 10-year-old girl.

Joe Ivey, 74, of Walkersville entered into the plea deal Tuesday. Frederick County prosecutors dropped charges of second-degree assault and sexual abuse of a minor.

Prosecutors said they’ll recommend at Ivey’s March 28 sentencing that he serve four years in prison, with another 16 years suspended.

Defense attorney Richard Bricken said he’ll ask for no prison time. He cites the lack of a prior criminal record.

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MARYLAND
News-Post

By Brian Englar
News-Post Staff

The former pastor of a Montgomery County church charged with abusing a girl from his congregation entered a guilty plea Tuesday in Frederick County Circuit Court.

Joe Nix Ivey, 74, former pastor of Barnesville Baptist Church, pleaded guilty to a second-degree sex offense. Prosecutors dropped charges of second-degree assault and sex abuse of a minor.

Assistant State’s Attorney Tammy Leach asked Judge G. Edward Dwyer to sentence Ivey to 20 years in prison but suspend all but four years. She also asked for five years of supervised probation upon Ivey’s release.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Cape Cod Times

By SEAN TEEHAN
steehan@capecodonline.com

February 08, 2012

BARNSTABLE — A Cape Cod music teacher pleaded not guilty Tuesday to more than a dozen counts of sexual abuse involving two of his students.

Stephen B. Lindberg, 55, of Marstons Mills, who is also a former music director at a Hyannis church, casually grinned at times during his brief arraignment in Barnstable Superior Court. He is charged with four counts of rape of a child, six counts of indecent assault and battery on a person under the age of 14, three counts of indecent assault and battery on a person over the age of 14 and one count of violating a restraining order.

Lindberg, who has been held at the Barnstable County Correctional Facility since his arrest in August, remained in custody after Judge Gary Nickerson ordered that the total bail of $20,000 from two separate district court cases out of Barnstable and Falmouth be applied at the Superior Court level.

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MANCHESTER (NH)
New Hampshire Union Leader

By KATHRYN MARCHOCKI
New Hampshire Union Leader

Published Feb 8, 2012

MANCHESTER — Four victims of alleged clergy sexual abuse and their advocates appealed to the state’s new Roman Catholic bishop to change the diocese’s child sexual abuse policies during a brief sidewalk vigil Tuesday.

The six held signs and asked Bishop Peter A. Libasci to make a “clean break from the past” by replacing the lawyers and others involved with the diocese’s victim assistance ministries, publicly post the names and addresses of all credibly accused clergy and support any legislative reform that better protects children from molesters.

Libasci succeeded Bishop John B. McCormack as 10th bishop of Manchester last Dec. 8.

“With this new beginning, we’re just hoping there is going to be a new era and it will make it easier for victims to come forward and help make New Hampshire schools, parishes and hospitals safer for the children and the vulnerable,” said Barbara Blaine, president of the Chicago-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, also known as SNAP.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Oxford Mail

BANBURY: A Roman Catholic priest who served in Oxfordshire, has been convicted of sexually abusing eight boys.

Alexander Bede Walsh, a former priest at St John The Evangelist Church, in Banbury, was found guilty of 21 sex offences by jurors at Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court yesterday.

The 58-year-old, who was found not guilty of six other sex offences, abused the boys, aged eight to 16, in the 1970s, 80s and 90s.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Coventry Telegraph

Roman Catholic Archbishop of Birmingham the Most Rev Bernard Longley has thanked the sex abuse victims of a former Coventry priest for their courage in bringing him to justice.

Alexander Bede Walsh was yesterday convicted of 21 sexual offences against eight boys and warned that he faces a lengthy prison sentence.

The archbishop said: “These are horrendous crimes, and I first want to express my deep sense of shame at what has taken place.

“It is the most serious betrayal of trust. I also want to express my profound sorrow, and deep regret to each of the victims, then children, now adults, for the abuse perpetrated by Father Bede Walsh, whom they and their families trusted as a priest.”

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ROME
Vatican Radio

From darkness to light. From pain and hurt, to healing and hope. That was the symbolic sense of the penitential liturgy led by Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet, head of the Vatican’s Congregation for Bishops, as a central part of the four day symposium. Appropriately since it is the Jesuit run Gregorian University that has been a driving force behind this conference, the liturgy was held in the great baroque church of St Ignatius, dedicated to the founder of the Society of Jesus. Beneath the masterly ceiling fresco by Andrea del Pozzo, a small procession of bishops, priests, and lay people entered the dark and silent church as images were projected onto a screen beside a simple wooden crucifix. They showed the beauty of God’s creation, images of nature and new life, children of different countries and cultures. But then a dramatic change of tone as the slides showed man’s destruction of the environment, our greed and violence, racism and conflicts that remind us all of our need for forgiveness.

In his homily Cardinal Ouellet spoke of the scandal and shame of sexual abuse, a crime he said which causes a sense of death for the innocent victims. He spoke too of the sins of church leaders who often knew what their priests were doing but failed to stop the abuse. He said, “Sometimes the violence was committed by deeply disturbed persons, or by those who had themselves been abused. It was necessary to take action concerning them and to prevent them from continuing any form of ministry for which they were obviously not suitable. This was not always done properly, and once again we apologise to the victims.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Sentinel

THE head of the Roman Catholic church in the West Midlands has spoken out about the “horrendous” sexual abuse committed by a former priest.

Bede Walsh has been found guilty of carrying out 21 sexual offences against eight boys when he served as a priest in churches across the Archdiocese of Birmingham, including in Cheadle.

After finding Walsh guilty of 18 charges of indecent assault and one serious sexual offence at Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court on Monday, the jury yesterday finished its deliberations to convict him of a further two counts.

Walsh, aged 58, will be sentenced on March 9 and has been warned a lengthy sentence is “inevitable”.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Catherine Hornby in Rome

Wednesday February 08 2012

Church guidelines on how to root out paedophile priests and protect children need to be backed up by penalties for bishops who fail to implement them, Irish abuse survivor Marie Collins told a Vatican symposium on clerical abuse yesterday.

She said rules without sanctions were too easily ignored and cases were often swept under the carpet, allowing paedophiles to carry on molesting children.

The symposium is aimed at compelling bishops to create tough policies to protect children and root out paedophiles from the priesthood.

“I would hope that internally there could be some ecclesiastical penalty for a bishop who may not follow the guidelines,” the 65-year-old campaigner said at the gathering in Rome. “You obviously have civil law as well, but I am talking more on the church side.”

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ROME
Zenit

By Ann Schneible

ROME, FEB. 7, 2012 (Zenit.org).- Today’s session of the international symposium Toward Healing and Renewal focused largely on the psychological and pastoral aspects of the sex abuse crisis in the Church.

The opening presentation, which was delivered by Marie Collins, a victim of child sex abuse, and Sheila Hollins, a professor of psychiatry, was largely directed toward understanding the sex abuse crisis from the victim’s perspective. In a press conference following the speech, both speakers answered questions regarding some of the issues discussed.

“It was difficult for me,” admitted Collins, when asked about her decision to share her story, “but I felt that it was very important that the leadership of the Church — we have so many bishops from around the world here — that they hear a victim’s experience, and I felt for that reason that I should do it, and I’m very glad I did and I think the response was very good. There was actually one African bishop who spoke after the presentation and he felt that — beforehand he had not really given the issue a great deal of importance, but having heard us both speak, he had changed his mind and felt that this was something he really had to give a lot more attention to. So, I think it was important that what we both said was heard.”

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ROME
Catholic News Agency

By David Kerr

Rome, Italy, Feb 7, 2012 / 06:20 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- One of the Catholic Church’s leading experts on clerical abuse says he welcomes a significant drop in the number of cases being reported in the United States – but won’t rest until that figure reaches zero.

“The instance of new allegations have dropped precipitously, it’s a marked drop, which is great news, although we’re not going to stop till we’ve stopped it completely,” Monsignor Steve Rossetti, associate professor at the Catholic University of America, told CNA Feb 7.

Monsignor Rossetti was in Rome to address an international symposium on the issue of clerical abuse at the Jesuit-run Gregorian University. The Feb. 6 – 9 gathering has brought together representatives from over 140 bishops’ conferences and 30 religious orders worldwide.

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ROME
Washington Post

By Alessandro Speciale| Religion News Service, Updated: Tuesday, February 7

VATICAN CITY — Bishops and religious leaders on Tuesday (Feb. 7) held an unprecedented service of repentance in Rome, seeking atonement for lapses in church management that led to the abuse of thousands of children by predatory priests.

“We implore forgiveness for those who have abused in various ways,” Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet, head of the Vatican’s Congregation for Bishops, said during the rite at the Church of St. Ignatius.

“This evil is within us and severely tarnishes our testimony,” he admitted, and said church leaders have at times “become an instrument of evil” toward those they were charged to protect.

The ceremony was organized as part of a Vatican-sponsored conference at Rome’s Gregorian University to help bishops meet a May deadline to craft voluntary “guidelines” to improve the church’s handling of abuse cases.

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CANADA
CBC News

A retired Ontario priest and convicted sex offender has been charged with indecently assaulting two Saskatoon boys more than 50 years ago.

William Hodgson Marshall, 89, is currently in custody in Kingston, Ont., after being sentenced last June to two years in prison for sexual assaults against boys dating back to the 1950s.

Marshall was a priest, basketball coach and mathematics teacher at St. Paul’s High School in Saskatoon between 1958 and 1961. The all-boys school, which was on the 400 block of 22nd St. E. downtown, closed in 1967.

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ROME
Catholic News Agency

By David Kerr

Rome, Italy, Feb 7, 2012 / 05:59 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- An Irish woman who was abused by a priest in her youth told an international symposium on clerical abuse that Pope Benedict is a model of how to listen to victims.

“Listening to victims is one of the most important things, and it was something that was maybe not done enough, and the Pope is giving an example as to how it should be done,” Marie Collins said Feb. 7.

Collins, 65, was abused while a patient in a Dublin children’s hospital. She told journalists at the “Towards Healing and Renewal” symposium at the Pontifical Gregorian University that she was particularly impressed by the Pope’s numerous meetings with victims during his apostolic visits abroad.

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NEW YORK
The New York Times

By ANDY NEWMAN

In 2002, at the height of the outcry over the sexual abuse of minors by Roman Catholic priests, the Archbishop of New York, Edward M. Egan, issued a letter to be read at Mass. In it, he offered an apology about the church’s handling of sex-abuse cases in New York and in Bridgeport, Conn., where he was previously posted.

“It is clear that today we have a much better understanding of this problem,” he wrote. “If in hindsight we also discover that mistakes may have been made as regards prompt removal of priests and assistance to victims, I am deeply sorry.”

Now, 10 years later and in retirement, Cardinal Egan has taken back his apology.

In an interview in the February issue of Connecticut magazine, a surprisingly frank Cardinal Egan said of the apology, “I never should have said that,” and added, “I don’t think we did anything wrong.”

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ROME
The Irish Times

PADDY AGNEW in Rome

THE HOLY See’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has had to deal with more than 4,000 cases of sexual abuse of minors in the past decade, according to its prefect, US Cardinal William Levada.

He was speaking at a symposium in Rome, “Towards Healing and Renewal”, which opened yesterday and was addressed by Irish clerical abuse survivor Marie Collins.

Cardinal Levada told the symposium, being held over three days in the Pontifical Gregorian University, that the number of cases of sexual abuse of minors reported to the CDF in the past decade had revealed, on the one hand, the inadequacy of “an exclusively canonical response to this tragedy and, on the other, the necessity of a truly multifaceted response …”

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MISSOURI
KMOX

ST. LOUIS–(KMOX)–The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests is accusing Chaminade of taking too long to get the word out about two brothers recently accused of sexual misconduct in the 1970s.

The Marianist Order, which runs Chaminade, has sent out a letter to some 1600 alumni about allegations of abuse involving Brother John Woulfe and Louis Meinhardt — both of whom are now dead.

SNAP’s David Clohessy claims these allegations were well known for some time.

“We’ve talked to at least half a dozen men who told us that Father Meinhardt molested them,” Clohessy said, “And most of them told us that they reported it to Chaminade officials.”

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MISSOURI
KSDK

Written by
Brandie Piper

By Mike Rush

St. Louis (KSDK) – We have new information tonight involving allegations of sex abuse dating back to the 1970s at Chaminade College Preparatory.

The head of the Marianists says the same graduate who came to him a few months ago, had reached out in years past, and he says there were other accusations of abuse by others against the two former teachers in question.

Father Martin Solma says the complaints came in about these men at least eight or nine years ago. While he says they may not have been handled correctly then, the father, who’s been at the helm for less than two years, says he’ll do the right thing now.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
WISN

MILWAUKEE — A support group for victims of priest abuse is speaking out against plans to ask for the dismissal of several claims against local clergymen.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, held a news conference Tuesday.

The group said more than 550 victims came forward to file claims of sex abuse over the last nine months.

Now, there are reports that the attorneys for the archdiocese plan to ask a judge to dismiss 95 percent of those claims during a hearing Thursday.

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ROME
National Catholic Reporter

by John L Allen Jr on Feb. 07, 2012 NCR Today

ROME — In a first of its kind for Rome, the Vatican’s top official for bishops tonight led a liturgy of penance to ask forgiveness for the sexual abuse of children by priests, and for church leaders who covered up that abuse.

The service included an Irish victim of clerical abuse, who, in an apparent reference both to abusers and their protectors, asked God to “forgive them.”

Held tonight at Rome’s Church of St. Igantius, the liturgy was presided over by Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet, who serves as Prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for Bishops. His participation was seen as significant, because it implicitly acknowledged that the church’s shortcomings are not limited to priests who committed abuse, but also include bishops who failed to act.

The service was part of a four-day Vatican summit on the sexual abuse crisis titled “Towards Healing and Renewal.” The event brings together roughly 100 bishops and religious superiors from around the world, ahead of a May deadline for bishops’ conferences to submit their policies on fighting abuse for Vatican review.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
SNAP Wisconsin

The following statement was read by Fr. Jim Connell, Vice Chancellor of the Milwaukee Archdiocese and victim advocate in front of the U.S. Federal Courthouse at SNAP’s press conference discussing the recent court filing by the archdiocese of Milwaukee which seeks to dismiss 95% of the claims filed by victim/survivors of clergy sexual abuse.

The Archdiocese of Milwaukee has gone to great efforts to invite into the bankruptcy process the victims / survivors of sexual abuse “by any clergy member, teacher, deacon, employee, volunteer, or other person connected with the Archdiocese of Milwaukee”, as was stated on the public postings about filing a claim before the February 1, 2012 “bar date”. But neither the public postings nor the Abuse Survivor Proof of Claim form stated any eligibility restrictions, such as statute of limitations, prior settlement agreements, or factors of archdiocesan employment. Rather, both the public postings and the proof of claim form invited participation in a way that acknowledged financial awareness, while also providing a gesture that pursues truth, justice and healing. For many people, hope was found in the midst of a financial maneuver.

It could be, therefore, that survivors of sexual abuse interpreted the process as one in which the Catholic Church was wanting do what is right and good, even if not required by law. The gesture by the Archdiocese could have been seen to mean that the Church was willing to remedy abuse cases even if beyond the statue of limitations (truly, it’s difficult for some survivors to speak up promptly), or even if there was a prior settlement (maybe it wasn’t really fair), or even if the abuse was by a religious order priest (after all, they can’t serve in the Archdiocese without the permission – faculty – of the Archbishop). Indeed, the bankruptcy claims process seemed inviting, not restrictive.

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MISSOURI
Patch

By Gregg Palermo

Outspoken advocates for victims of child sex abuse continued to pressure the religious order in charge of Chaminade College Preparatory School in Creve Coeur, one day after the order released a statement announing that it found allegations of sexual abuse by two now-deceased teachers there as credible.

Representatives with SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, held a Tuesday morning press conference in front of the Central West End Provincial Headquarters for the Marianist order.

“It’s a belated and begrudging, and very, very partial bare-minimum outreach effort that Marianists did obviously because they were prodded into doing so,” said SNAP’s David Clohessy. Clohessy has suggested that a letter which went out to Chaminade students who attended the school at the time the two men who were identified by the Marianist order should have gone out to all Marianist schools and all Catholic schools in the St. Louis area. He also said victims should have been encouraged to contact law enforcement.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Canadian Business

MILWAUKEE (AP) — A group representing victims of clergy abuse is asking the Milwaukee Catholic archdiocese to withdraw motions to dismiss some of the nearly 570 restitution claims in its bankruptcy case.

The archdiocese has filed motions in three cases asking they be dismissed because they were either filed beyond the statute of limitations, involved someone who was not an archdiocese employee or involved a victim who already received a settlement. A hearing is set for Thursday.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests estimates the archdiocese’s arguments could ultimately get 95 percent of the cases dismissed. They claim the archdiocese misled victims because it never mentioned eligibility restrictions.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Fox 6

4:29 pm, February 7, 2012, by Chip Brewster

MILWAUKEE — More than 550 reports of child sex crimes have been filed against the Milwaukee Archdiocese since early 2011. But now, the Archdiocese wants roughly 520 of those claims thrown out.

“While we were bound under the bankruptcy rules to cast a wide net for potential claimants, it is the court that determines which individual claims are eligible for financial compensation,” said Julie Wolf, Archdiocese spokesperson.

The Archdiocese is not arguing against the validity of the reports themselves. They church contends claims beyond the statute of limitations or which have already received settlements should not be considered.

Officials also believe alleged abuse at the hands of priests or church officials not actually employed by the diocese itself should be dismissed.

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ROME
Vatican Insider

The testimony of Marie Collins, from Ireland, who was abused for 50 years by a hospital chaplain. Psychiatrists say “If no one believes her, she will never heal”

Vatican Insider staff
Rome

The second day of the international Symposium on the prevention of sexual abuse by the Catholic clergy entitled “Towards Healing and Renewal” and organised by the Pontifical Gregorian University, concluded with a penitential vigil in the church of Saint Ignatius.

The one hundred plus bishops and 30 superiors representing religious orders who took part in the conference, will participate in the “penitential vigil” , during which seven representatives of different church groups will ask God and victims for forgiveness, for the sins committed and their failure to punish and prevent these offences.

During the liturgy, a “meaningful, clear and explicit” text will be read out, said Fr. Hans Zollner, President of the Symposium’s organizing committee. A victim will then ask God for the strength to forgive.

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ROME
The New York Times

By ELISABETTA POVOLEDO

Published: February 7, 2012

ROME — At an international conference backed by the Vatican to discuss the prevention of sexual abuse of minors by the clergy, a psychologist said Tuesday that the church should listen to victims rather than focus their attention on priests accused of wrongdoing.

The psychologist, Msgr. Stephen J. Rossetti, an advocate for the prevention of child abuse, said about 95 percent of allegations were well founded.

“Child molesters must know that they have no safe sanctuary in our church,” he said in prepared remarks.

Monsignor Rossetti said he believed that church leaders — usually called on to deal with their own priests — should not handle such cases by themselves, but should consult legal and criminal experts to conduct investigations and advise bishops. All too often, offending priests have manipulated and lied to their superiors, he said. …

Terence McKiernan, president of BishopAccountability.org , said the conference was intended to “change the subject and look like progress.”

“The Vatican is afraid, and it has reason to be,” he said, in light of recent charges against the church, including a complaint filed against the Vatican with the International Criminal Court.

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CONNECTICUT
The Hartford Courant

By EDMUND H. MAHONY, emahony@courant.com
The Hartford Courant

2:31 p.m. EST, February 7, 2012
WATERBURY—
A psychiatric expert called to testify Tuesday in Superior Court by the Catholic Archdiocese of Hartford disputed an earlier diagnosis that an adolescent victim of sexual abuse by a priest would likely suffer from mental health problems for the rest of his life.

Dr. J. Alexander Bodkin testified that the most significant mental disorder suffered by the victim — depression — was not the result of the sexual abuse he experienced in the early 1980s, but is the result of stress caused 26 years later by litigation associated with the abuse.

The victim, a former altar boy identified in legal papers as Jacob Doe, claims in a lawsuit against the church that he was sexually abused by a priest from 1981 to 1983 and that the church allowed the abuse to take place because it knew the priest had molested other boys two years earlier.

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ROME
Press TV (Iran)

The Roman Catholic Church is holding its first summit in Rome aimed at discussing ways to confront a rise in the sexual abuse of children by priests.

The Vatican’s previous stance towards the issue had been one in support of the priests involved in the abuse cases.

Mounting pressure on the Roman Church has led it to focus on protecting the victims.

”Healing for victims must be of paramount concern in the Christian community, and it must go hand in hand with a profound renewal of the church at every level,” Pope Benedict XVI said.

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ROME
Voice of America

Roman Catholic leaders are being told the time has come to eliminate church sanctioned safe-havens for clergy accused of sexually abusing children.

Psychologists and a victim of a pedophile priest spoke Tuesday at a closed-door, church sponsored symposium calling on the Catholic Church to listen to victims instead of its own priests.

Monsignor Stephen Rossetti told the conference the church could prevent many of concerns related to child sexual abuse cases if it would adopt a victim-first approach. He said that one change would tell pedophile priests, “they have no safe refuge in your society.”

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MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Barbara Dorris on February 07, 2012

We are clergy sex abuse victims who belong to a support group called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. Our mission is to protect the vulnerable and heal the wounded.

We are here today about two child predators – Brother Louis Meinhardt and Brother John Woulfe. Woulfe has been publicly exposed before. Meinhardt has not. Both are Marianists.

The Marianists run three St. Louis area Catholic schools: Chaminade College Prep, St. John Vianney High School, and St. Mary’s High School. Some Marianists also worked at McBride High School years ago.

Brother Meinhardt is the seventh local Marianists who has been publicly accused of sexual abuse. The others are: Fr. William Christensen, Fr. Robert R. Osborne, Brother William Mueller, Fr. Daniel A. Triulzi, Brother Tony Pistone and Brother Woulfe.

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VATICAN CITY
GMA News

DARIO THUBURN, Agence France Presse February 8, 2012

VATICAN CITY – Catholic leaders asked God for forgiveness for the crimes of paedophile priests at a church service on Tuesday after an Irish victim said the Vatican should be held accountable for destroying lives.

The heads of seven religious orders intoned penitential prayers in a church in Rome on the sidelines of a first-ever Vatican summit to look at ways of rooting out child abuse from the Church after thousands of scandals.

“We have sinned. We did not know how to listen to the pain of so many innocent ones,” one of the bishops taking part in the service said.

“We are aware that our acts of reparation can never erase the unjust things we have done or soothe the searing wound of our consciousness,” he said.

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ROME
Local 10

(CNN) –
An Irish woman who detailed her own harrowing experience of child sexual abuse at the hands of a priest spoke out during a Vatican symposium on Tuesday, telling church officials that an apology was not enough.

“Those fingers that would abuse my body the night before were the next morning holding and offering me the sacred host,” Marie Collins told an audience at Gregorian University in Rome. “The hands that held the camera to photograph my exposed body, in the light of day were holding a prayer book when he came to hear my confession.”

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MISSOURI
St. Joseph Post

The chairman of a Kansas City-St. Joseph Catholic Diocese review board dealing with sex abuse allegations will resign.

Jim Caccamo’s resignation date was announced as February 22nd, however, he has stated he will remain on the board until a replacement is found.

He heads the Independent Review Board that has seen a priest charged with child pornography charges and Bishop Robert Finn’s indictment for allegedly failing to report suspected child abuse.

The board assesses child sexual abuse allegations and makes recommendations to the bishop on how they should be handled.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Network for Church Monitoring

The first time Declan had any dealings with Companies House – the government body charged with registering all companies in the UK, including non-profits – he was told that Network of those Abused by Church was an “offensive company name” (see blog of 17 January 2011 Companies House refuses to register NAC: “Offensive company name”). We have since assumed that the high profile US organisation Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) would be told by Companies House to change their name if they want the company incorporated in the UK.

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MARYLAND
Washington Examiner

The former pastor of a Montgomery County church pleaded to charges that he sexually abused a young girl, prosecutors said.

Seventy-four-year-old Joe Ivey pleaded Tuesday to second-degree sex offense with a 10-year-old girl.

Frederick County prosecutors said Ivey, who resigned as senior pastor of the Barnesville Baptist Church after he arrest in September, had sexual contact with the girl from 2009 to December 2010. She was 10 and 11 years old at the time.

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CANADA
Global Saskatoon

David Giles, Global Saskatoon : Tuesday, February 07, 2012

A former Saskatoon priest and teacher has been charged after two separate incidents decades ago.

William Hodgson Marshall, 89, is facing two counts of indecent assault that are alleged to have occurred between January 1, 1959 and December 31, 1960.

The two victims, now 66, were 14-years-old at the time of the alleged assaults.

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CANADA
Winnipeg Free Press

By: The Canadian Press

Posted: 02/7/2012

SASKATOON – An 89-year-old Catholic priest and former teacher is facing sex-related charges dating back more than 50 years.

Police in Saskatoon say two separate encounters allegedly occurred in 1959 and 1960 and involved two 14-year-old teenagers.

The accused was a priest and teacher at the high school the teens attended.

William Hodgson Marshall is charged with two counts of indecent assault.

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CANADA
The Star-Phoenix

William Hodgson Marshall, a former priest and teacher at an all-boys Catholic institution in downtown Saskatoon more than five decades ago, is facing multiple charges in connection with incidents involving teen boys in 1959 and 1960.

Marshall, 89, has been charged with two counts of indecent assault. He is curently in custody in Kingston, Ont., serving a sentence after being convicted last year of sexually assaulting 16 boys and one girl over a span of three decades while working in Ontario. The Ontario Crown is arranging for Marshall to make a court appearance in Ontario to face the charges.

In July 2011, Saskatoon police received two separate reports alleging assaults took place between Jan. 1-Dec. 31, 1959 and Jan. 1-Dec. 31, 1960. The alleged victims, now 66 years old, were 14 at the time. Marshall was a priest and teacher at St. Paul’s High School, located then in the 400 block of 22nd Street East.

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CANADA
Walkerton Herald-Times

February 7, 2012
Lindsey Kuglin

A former Walkerton clergyman is facing a number of sex-related charges.

A priest at St. Thomas Anglican Church from 1976-1981, Rev. George Ferris’ is facing charges of sexual assault, gross indecency, and sexual exploitation for offences that allegedly took place between 1981-1989.

The alleged offences took place in Brant County, which is south of Kitchener.

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ROME
Rome Reports

[with video]

February 6, 2012. (Romereports.com) The pope has written to conference participants on how to deal with cases of sexual abuse and asked them to put first the needs of abuse victims.

It’s the key point of the conference “Towards Healing and Renewal”, organized by the Gregorian University in Rome, and actively supported by the Vatican.

The audience will include bishops from 110 episcopal conferences and more than 30 superiors of religious orders. The goal is to teach them how to help victims of abuse and explain what to do with priests and religious who commit these crimes.

Hans Zollner
President, Congress “Towards Healing and Renewal”
“You have all come to give a clear signal of the will and the duty of the Church to firmly change the way to behave when faced against evil, sin and the crime of sexual abuse within the Church and in society.”

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DALLAS (TX)
Watch Keep

Sgt. Byron Fassett in the Dallas police department child exploitation unit is ready to take your call if you were abused by John Langworthy during his time in Dallas while on staff at Prestonwood Baptist Church in the mid to late 1980s or if you have information about these crimes. Langworthy was fired in the summer of 1989 by Prestonwood for the known sexual abuse of several boys. The staff heard directly from victims but failed to report the abuse to the police as required by mandatory reporting laws enacted in TX in 1971. Please call Byron at 214-671-4200. I have spoken with Byron. If you need to leave him a message, please do. He will call you back.

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DALLAS (TX)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on February 07, 2012

We applaud Cameron Greer for courageously reporting the abuse he says he suffered at the hands of his pastor. We are grateful he’s taking legal action to protect others and we are impressed by the courage he’s showing by discussing his experiences publicly. Abuse and cover up happen over and over again because many church members can’t summon the strength to speak out and because many church officials can’t summon the courage to disclosed crimes. Greer should be commended for acting responsibly to expose wrongdoing and safeguard others.

We hope Methodist officials – in Dallas and in Wichita (where Pastor Gordon also worked) will use their resources to seek out others who may have seen, suspected or suffered this clergyman’s’ crimes. We hope anyone with information or suspicions of misdeeds will contact law enforcement immediately. When victims, witnesses and whistleblowers speak up, there’s at least a chance for healing, justice and prevention. When they stay silent, however, nothing changes and kids remain at risk.

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SOUTH DAKOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on February 07, 2012

Yesterday, SD lawmakers refused to support a bill that would have made kids safer from child sexual predators. Shame on them.

South Dakota remains the only state in the union to have gone backwards in terms of child safety in the last decade.

Besides jail, two things keep kids safe from child predators – publicly exposing predators and deterring others from concealing their crimes. There’s no better way to do this than by reforming archaic, arbitrary, predator-friendly laws like the statute of limitations.

Victims of these horrific crimes need time to understand, cope with and report these horrific crimes. They are often trapped in cycles of guilt, depression, substance abuse and other destructive behaviors. When they finally muster the courage to step forward, they find that the statute has run and the predator is free to prey

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Agency

By David Kerr

Rome, Italy, Feb 7, 2012 / 11:40 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Benedict XVI called upon bishops to respond in a “Christ-like” manner to clerical abuse as part of a “profound renewal” of the Church.

His Feb. 6 comments marked the opening of an international symposium in Rome to discuss the issue. The Pope’s wishes were expressed in a communiqué from Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican’s Secretary of State.

“He (the Pope) asks the Lord that, through your deliberations, many bishops and religious superiors throughout the world may be helped to respond in a truly Christ-like manner to the tragedy of child abuse,” the statement said.

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NEVADA
Reno Gazette-Journal

LAS VEGAS — A former Las Vegas-area pastor who was nabbed in Mexico after he disappeared with child sex assault charges pending in Nevada is due to face a judge in Henderson.

Court records show that 55-year-old Otis Holland was scheduled for a felony appearance today in Henderson Justice Court.

The former United Faith Church pastor was arrested Jan. 25, in Tijuana, Mexico.

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ROME
Reuters

By Catherine Hornby

ROME | Tue Feb 7, 2012

(Reuters) – An Irish victim of clerical abuse said Tuesday that Catholic Church guidelines on how to root out pedophile priests and protect children needed to be backed up by penalties for bishops who fail to implement them.

Speaking at a major conference in Rome on the sex abuse crisis, Marie Collins said rules without sanctions were too easily ignored and cases were often swept under the carpet, allowing pedophiles to carry on molesting children.

“I would hope that internally there could be some ecclesiastical penalty for a bishop who may not follow the guidelines,” the 65-year-old campaigner for abuse survivors told reporters during the conference.

“You obviously have civil law as well, but I am talking more on the church side.”

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ROME
National Catholic Reporter

By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Rome

One of America’s leading experts on the Catholic abuse crisis effectively told church leaders from different parts of the world today that if they think sexual abuse is not a problem in their neighborhood, they’re kidding themselves.

“Church leaders around the world began by saying, ‘This is only an American problem’,” Monsignor Stephen Rossetti told a Vatican symposium this morning. “Then, as more cases surfaced in other countries, they said, ‘This is an English speaking problem.’ Then, as the circle of abuse cases widened, they expanded it to: ‘This is a Western problem.’ The boundaries were pushed back farther and farther.”

“Each time, church leaders said, in effect, ‘It doesn’t happen here’,” Rossetti said.

Rossetti, former director of the St. Luke’s Institute in Silver Spring, Maryland, which treats abuser priests, has written widely on the crisis. He said that in reality, all the available data, based on studies by secular experts, concur that child abuse occurs at the same high rates across the various continents.

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ROME
Vatican Radio

[with audio]

The urgent need to change the culture within the Church to ensure zero tolerance of all sexual abuse: that was the starkly clear message that emerged from the Tuesday morning session of the conference on ‘Healing and Renewal’, going on behind closed doors at Rome’s Gregorian University. Bishops or their representatives from over a hundred countries are attending the four day meeting which also includes a penitential liturgy and the launch of a German based centre for child protection to provide resources for church leaders across the globe. Philippa Hitchen reports…

Sometimes shock tactics are needed to shake people out of denial, complacency or the refusal to confront a particularly painful problem. That’s what participants at this conference got on Tuesday as they heard a middle aged Irish victim of abuse describe in detail how her experience led to decades of despair, depression and deep loss of trust in the Church. As a 13 year old girl, Marie Collins was abused by a hospital chaplain, who was then protected by his archbishop and went on to abuse and rape other children over a period of 30 years. Though she was sickened by his actions, Marie says she herself felt guilty and was unable to tell anyone about what he was doing. The fact that he was a priest simply added to the confusion in her young mind: “those fingers that would abuse my body the night before were the next morning offering me the sacred host” she told the conference, adding that “my abusers’ assertion that he was and priest and could do no wrong rang true with me”.

Speaking alongside Marie at that morning session was psychiatry professor Sheila Hollins, who recently accompanied British cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor on his visitation to hear victims of sexual abuse in the Irish diocese of Armagh. She spoke of the devastating psychological damage suffered by victims who feel dirty, ashamed, unable to enjoy normal relationships and often go on to either abuse others or seek refuge in alcohol or drug abuse. Those mental health problems are simply made worse if their story is then not believed or played down, as many bishops in the past have done. Both women stressed the vital importance of listening to survivors stories and providing them with ongoing psychiatric and spiritual support

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