ABUSE TRACKER

DEUTSCHLAND
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Das Gespräch führte Jörg Degenhardt

In der Diskussion über Missbrauchsfälle in der Kirche fordert der Psychotherapeut und Theologe Wunibald Müller, einen offenen und selbstverständlichen Umgang mit der Sexualität. Zudem plädiert er dafür, die Homosexualität von Priestern offen anzuerkennen und den Zölibat aufzuheben.

Jörg Degenhardt: Der Missbrauchsskandal hat die katholische Kirche vor zwei Jahren in eine tiefe Krise gestürzt. Vor allem in Irland, den USA, Belgien und Deutschland wurden seinerzeit zahlreiche Fälle bekannt. Der Papst hat den Kampf gegen diese – wie er sagt – Sünde in der Kirche zur Priorität erklärt. In Rom hat es an der Päpstlichen Universität eine internationale Konferenz dazu gegeben, vornehmlich zu der Frage, wie Missbrauchsfälle weiter aufgearbeitet und künftig verhindert werden können. Gestern ging sie zu Ende – bevor wir darüber reden, fasst Tilmann Kleinjung die Ergebnisse zusammen.

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OSTERREICH
Kleine Zeitung

Ein ehemaliger Kärntner Heimzögling bricht nach 50 Jahren sein Schweigen. Er erzählt, dass er im Landesjugendheim Görtschach mehrmals am Hals angekettet und dann sexuell missbraucht worden ist. Kein Einzelfall.

Nachdem bekannt wurde, dass Heimkinder in Wien in den 1960er-Jahren absichtlich mit Malaria infiziert worden sind (wir berichteten), erschüttert jetzt ein Fall aus Kärnten: Im Landesjugendheim in Görtschach bei Ferlach kam es in den 1950er- und 60er-Jahren offenbar mehrfach vor, dass Kinder im Stall wie Tiere am Hals angekettet und dann sexuell missbraucht worden sind. Erstmals hat ein Ex-Heimbewohner (Zögling Nr. 44) sein Schweigen gebrochen. Der heute 62-jährige Künstler sagt: “Ich bin mindestens 20 Mal vom Stallknecht angekettet worden. Mehrmals musste ich auch zusehen, wie er die Tiere sexuell missbraucht. Wenn ich brav war, durfte ich das Futter von den Schweinen essen.”

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ROME
Digital Life (South Africa)

By Reuters
Rome, 10 Feb 2012

Roman Catholic Church leaders unveiled an Internet teaching project on Thursday to help clergy around the world root out paedophiles in their ranks and protect children from potential abusers.

Ending a four-day conference on child abuse in Rome, Father Francois-Xavier Dumortier said the €1.2 million ($1.60 million) project would provide multilingual advice and access to research on paedophilia and how to respond to the problem.

“It will help to develop a culture of listening…a different face to the culture of silence,” said Dumortier, who is rector at the Pontifical Gregorian University where the conference was held.

An association for victims of abuse, while not commenting directly on the Internet project, has dismissed the conference as “window dressing” and said the Vatican should publish its documentation on abuse and hand it over to the International Criminal Court in the Hague.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By John P. Martin, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

Montgomery County authorities asked the county coroner to examine the body of Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua last week to ensure the 88-year-old prelate died of natural causes, not foul play.

Coroner Walter I. Hofman said county prosecutors made the request because Bevilacqua died barely a day after a judge said the former leader of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia might have to testify at next month’s child sex-abuse and endangerment trial for three current and former priests.

“They wanted to make sure there were no intervening events that could have speeded up that demise,” Hofman said.

For now, the cause of death is pending. Hofman said the exam was not an autopsy, but he declined to elaborate or say if he saw signs of foul play. He also said he would not issue the cause of the cardinal’s death until he sees the results of toxicology tests in a few weeks.

Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman and her first assistant, Kevin Steele, did not respond to requests for comment late Thursday.

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ROME
The Windsor Star (Canada)

Agence France-presse
February 10, 2012

Catholic leaders voiced hope on Thursday that the Vatican’s first summit on clerical child abuse will mark a radical turnaround for the church after decades of cover-ups.

The four-day meeting opened with a message from Pope Benedict XVI, who has faced thousands of abuse scandals in Europe and the United States since becoming pontiff, calling for “profound renewal of the church at every level.”

Bishops, cardinals and heads of religious orders gathered for frank discussions which stressed the importance of applying the church’s experience in western countries to other parts of the world.

Vatican prosecutor Charles Scicluna said he had received over 4,000 reports of abuse over the past decade including 1,000 in the past two years, and warned bishops would be held to account if they ignored new anti-abuse rules. He said no-one will be able to hide behind “omerta,” or a code of silence, any longer.

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DALLAS (TX)
Dallas Voice

DAVID WEBB | Contributing Writer
davidwaynewebb@hotmail.com

A lawsuit filed against St. Luke Community United Methodist Church in Dallas and its former senior pastor, the Rev. Tyrone D. Gordon, portrays the pastoral office of the predominantly African-American church in Southeast Dallas as a hotbed of homosexual harassment.

St. Luke, with 5,000 members, is one of the largest African-American churches in the North Texas Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church, which is also named as a defendant in the lawsuit. St. Luke isn’t one of the six gay-affirming Methodist churches in the Dallas area, but its congregation includes some LGBT members.

The Rev. Zan Holmes, who preceded Gordon’s appointment in 2002 as senior pastor at St. Luke, is a respected civil rights leader. The church is known as a center for community activism, and it has attracted prominent members such as Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price and former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk, a U.S. trade representative appointed by President Barack Obama.

Thus far, church leaders at St. Luke and the North Texas Conference have remained silent about the lawsuit, as has Gordon, who announced his resignation as senior pastor from St. Luke in January to take effect on Wednesday, Feb. 15. On that date Holmes, who has also kept silent, will return as interim minister.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By Annysa Johnson of the Journal Sentinel

Feb. 9, 2012

Sealed documents filed in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee bankruptcy identify at least 8,000 instances of child sexual abuse and 100 alleged offenders – 75 of them priests – who have not previously been named by the archdiocese, a victims’ attorney said Thursday.

Archdiocese spokeswoman Julie Wolf said she did not have enough information to respond to the assertion, made by attorney Jeffrey Anderson during a pivotal hearing before U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Susan V. Kelley. Anderson represents about 350 of the 570 victim-survivors who have filed claims in the case.

But Peter Isely of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests speculated that some are likely members of religious orders, such as Capuchins or Franciscans. Order officials do not typically make public the names of their accused members, and the archdiocese claims it is not responsible for them, though they have historically helped to staff its parishes and schools.

“This is a public safety crisis, a child safety crisis that needs to be investigated,” Isely said at a news conference on the federal courthouse steps, surrounded by fellow survivors and reporters.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Reuters

By Geoff Davidian

MILWAUKEE | Thu Feb 9, 2012

(Reuters) – A judge on Thursday denied a bid by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese in Milwaukee to dismiss two fraud claims by sexual abuse victims, ruling it remains to be determined whether the claims were filed too late and the statute of limitations has run out.

But U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Susan Kelley threw out a third case because the claimant had already entered into a settlement with the Church and promised to not seek further compensation, and failed to prove he was fraudulently induced into settling.

The archdiocese’s lawyers had asked Kelley to decide summarily to throw out three test claims, reasoning that her ruling would apply to hundreds of other claims.

“I deny summary judgment on the statute of limitations,” Kelley told a courtroom crowded with alleged victims, none of whom testified at the hearing.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Reuters

By Dave Warner

PHILADELPHIA | Thu Feb 9, 2012

(Reuters) – A Philadelphia judge presiding over a Catholic church sex abuse trial should step down because her comment that there is widespread sexual abuse in the church shows a bias against a Monsignor accused in the case, a lawyer said in a court filing.

Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina said in court last week: “Anybody that doesn’t think there is widespread sexual abuse within the Catholic Church is living on another planet.”

Monsignor William Lynn, the highest ranking Philadelphia Archdiocese cleric accused in the case, is charged with child endangerment and conspiracy over allegations he allowed predator priests to continue involvement with children.

“This statement by the court raises concerns that it harbors a firm predisposed opinion against the Catholic Church and its representatives,” Lynn attorneys Thomas Bergstrom and Jeffrey Lindy wrote in a petition filed on Wednesday requesting the judge recuse herself from the case.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Globe

By Jay Lindsay
| Associated Press
February 10, 2012

A proposal by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston to cut costs by organizing its 290 parishes into 125 groups that share resources could crush its pastors, who now face a bleak future after sustaining the church through the clergy sexual abuse scandal, a veteran priest wrote in a letter to Cardinal Sean O’Malley obtained by Associated Press.

“I can well imagine that the very process of implementing such a proposal would result in serious psychological and even physical sickness,’’ wrote Monsignor William M. Helmick, pastor of Saint Theresa of Avila in West Roxbury.

The priests “would feel as if they and what they have done and continue to do is of no value and is not appreciated,’’ wrote Helmick, who recently celebrated the 50th anniversary of his ordination.

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VATICAN CITY
Scottish Catholic Observer

The Holy Father called for healing for abuse victims and a major renewal within the Church as a historic summit on protecting children and vulnerable adults began at the Vatican.

“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 in a statement released to mark the start of the summit on Monday.

Bishops from more than 100 countries and the 32 heads of religious orders gathered at the Vatican this week for the Towards Healing and Renewal symposium at the Pontifical Gregorian University. They heard testimony from an abuse victim as the Church attempts to produce guidelines on tackling abusive priests and help police to prosecute the crime.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

by Eugene Cullen Kennedy on Feb. 09, 2012 Bulletins from the Human Side

“It’s not easy being green,” they sing on the soothing fantasy byway of Sesame Street. It is even harder being violet or crimson for church officials struggling to extricate themselves from the pile-up car wreck of the sex abuse crisis on the all-too-real road to Rome.

This gathering of hierarchs to discuss the still-unsettled problem comes a decade after The Boston Globe exposed the depth, extent and ecclesiastical chessboard, move-them-here-and-move- them-there handling of priests accused of sexually abusing those in their charge.

It has been 10 years since Pope John Paul II, acting as shocked as Casablanca’s Capt. Louis Renault on discovering gambling at Rick’s Place, summoned American cardinals to Rome to express his dismay at the revelation of what high-powered churchmen, including then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, blamed alternately on America or the media or a combination of both.

Now leaders of the church have gathered at a meeting at Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University to hear, as if for the first time, that child abuse is a crime that should be reported to and handled by the police. This is hardly a startling piece of news for anybody with at least an eighth-grade education and is the principle American bishops rallied around at their June 2002 meeting in Dallas to discuss and be instructed on the subject.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
SNAP Wisconsin

Milwaukee bankruptcy judge’s ruling will allow vast majority of the 570 victim claims to go forward against archdiocese

SNAPwisconsin.com
February 9, 2012
Statement by John Pilmaier, SNAP Wisconsin Director
CONTACT: 414.336.8575

A survey of 350 of the claims reveal at least 100 newly identified sex offenders who committed over 8,000 acts of child sex assault

70 of the newly identified are priests not listed on the archdiocesan so-called “official list” of child molesting clerics

In a stunning moment today in Milwaukee federal bankruptcy court, attorneys speaking on behalf of at least 350 victim/survivors stated that at least 100 never before publically identified child sex offenders working or volunteering in the archdiocese over the past several decades have committed over 8,000 criminal sex acts against children or minors. The sheer magnitude of these numbers and the extent of these crimes constitute a public and child safety crisis.

The numbers were revealed today as Judge Susan V. Kelley ruled against a motion by the archdiocese that would have thrown out the vast majority of the 570 victims claims that have filed into the bankruptcy court. In other words, nearly all of the 570 victim claims will be moving forward through the bankruptcy process.

Kelley also threw out one claim, narrowly, of a victim that had a prior settlement with the archdiocese. The victim, whose name was kept confidential, submitted an affidavit showing that while in mediation the archdiocese lied to him about their prior knowledge of the priest that assaulted him as a 7 year old. Kelley ruled that the victim needed to have indicated that he would not have signed a legal release if he knew he was lied to, a point not made clear in his court document. It’s unknown how many victims in the current bankruptcy court had prior settlements, likely less than 100, but the ruling today means that many of them as well—if they would not have entered settlements with knowledge that the offending cleric had a prior history of abuse–will also have their claims move forward.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
WISN

MILWAUKEE — Victims who say they have been abused by members of the Catholic Church said they won in federal court Thursday.

A federal bankruptcy judge has ruled more than 500 cases of fraud will be allowed to go to trial.

These new cases expose 100 additional alleged abusers, 70 of them priests, who have never been named before.

The claims come from representatives of abuse survivors who are trying to sue the Milwaukee archdiocese in federal bankruptcy court.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By Annysa Johnson of the Journal Sentinel

Feb. 9, 2012

The federal judge in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee bankruptcy case offered a split decision in a pivotal hearing Thursday, allowing two child sex abuse claims to stand. A third, filed by a man who had previously received a $100,000 settlement, was disalowed.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Susan V. Kelley made it clear her decision to allow the two claims to stand doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll be paid. At issue is when the clock should have started ticking on the fraud allegations, and that is a question for trial, she said.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
WXOW

MILWAUKEE (AP) – A federal judge is allowing two claims to go forward against the Archdiocese of Milwaukee for alleged sexual abuse by clergy.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Susan Kelley on Thursday dismissed a third claim because that person already had entered into a settlement.

The archdiocese argued the two claims were filed beyond the statute of limitations. The archdiocese filed for bankruptcy protection last year, saying pending sex-abuse lawsuits could leave it in debt. About 570 people filed restitution claims by the Feb. 1 deadline.

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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.

It is unclear, however if Msgr Scicluna was suggesting that the non-observance of the 1996 Irish church guidelines on child protection, as was claimed in the Cloyne report, could have been a breach of canon law.

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OSTERREICH
Die Presse

Bei der Missbrauchskonferenz im Vatikan übt der Münchner Erzbischof Marx Kritik an der Ignoranz gegenüber den Opfern. Die Missbrauchsskandale haben der Kirche Schäden in Milliardenhöhe verursacht.

Im Vatikan geht die Konferenz gegen Missbrauch zu Ende. Der Vertreter der österreichischen Bischofskonferenz, Bischof Klaus Küng, sieht ein klares Signal für den entschlossenen Willen der katholischen Kirche, aus Fehlern im Umgang mit Missbrauch zu lernen und neue Missbrauchsfälle im kirchlichen Bereich zu verhindern. Der deutsche Kardinal Reinhard Marx sieht hingegen kein Ende der Krise und der Missbrauchsskandale, die die Kirche Milliarden Euro gekostet haben.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Osnabrucker Zeitung

Osnabrück. Mahnende Worte aus Deutschland begleiten die Konferenz im Vatikan zu den Missbrauchsfällen in Einrichtungen der katholischen Kirche.

In einem Gespräch mit unserer Zeitung forderte der Missbrauchsbeauftragte der Bundesregierung, Johannes-Wilhelm Rörig: „Auf dem Weg zur Heilung und Erneuerung, so der Titel des Symposiums, darf der Blick auf die Vergangenheit nicht verloren gehen. Die Strukturen, die den jahrzehntelangen sexuellen Missbrauch erst möglich gemacht haben, müssen umfassend aufgedeckt und aufgearbeitet werden.“

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DEUTSCHLAND
Mittelbayerische

Regensburg. Der Regensburger Bischof Gerhard Ludwig Müller hat davor gewarnt, wegen des Missbrauchsskandals in der katholischen Kirche alle Priester vorzuverurteilen. „Wir haben keinen umfassenden Missbrauchskomplex, sondern wir haben verteilt über Jahrzehnte Einzelfälle – die schauen jetzt aus wie ein einziger monolithischer Block“, sagte er in Regensburg. Verantwortlich für die Straftaten und die Diskreditierung des eigenen Berufsstandes sei der Täter. „Wenn ein Lehrer an einer Schule einem Kind etwas antut, ist ja nicht die Schule oder das Kultusministerium verantwortlich.“

In den Diözesen und Orden sei alles Notwendige getan worden. „Was soll man eigentlich tun?“, fragte Müller. Der Tatbestand als solcher sei schließlich nicht mehr rückgängig zu machen. „Von den Personalverantwortlichen zu der jeweiligen Zeit sind die Einzelfälle bearbeitet worden, mehr oder weniger gut.“ In allen Feldern der Pädagogik, in denen Erwachsene mit Kindern oder Jugendlichen zu tun hätten, gebe es ein gewisses Gefahrenpotenzial. „Ich warne aber davor, den Umkehrschluss zu ziehen, dass man jetzt von vornherein alle Eltern, Priester, Lehrer oder Sporttrainer unter einen Vorverdacht stellt“, sagte Müller.

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VERMONT
Philosopher’s Haze

There is one thing we all know, whether we happen to be religious or non-religious in nature: if I break the law and in a court it can be shown that I broke the law, I am found guilty and must pay the prescribed penalty. Though this should come as no surprise to anyone, there are some who do not think that this is fair. In the case of organizations, there are some who believe that in the event they are found to have systemically violated a particular law that they should only be penalized for some of the wrongdoing. This is the case of the roman catholic diocese of Vermont: they have already paid out millions of dollars in law suits because they employed pedophilic clergy, but do not think it is fair that further suits will place the future of the diocese in jeopardy. That’s right folks! The roman catholic diocese of Vermont wants to actually evade their responsibility to suffer penalties for committing crimes. Sure…it might be bad that children were raped and scarred for life, but for a diocese to go bankrupt for these crimes is unacceptable!

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FLORIDA
CBS Miami

FT. LAUDERDALE (CBSMiami) – A third person has come forward to say he was sexually abused by a South Florida youth pastor already charged with the sexual molestation of two boys, according to the Broward Sheriff’s Office.

BSO investigators say the most recent victim is 26-years-old but was 8-years-old at the time of the alleged abuse. The boy had been in the care of Jeffery London, 48, after his mother passed away.

London was first charged in January with the sexual molestation of a boy who is now 18 but was 10 at the time of the alleged abuse.

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ARKANSAS
Arkansas Catholic

The complete Diocese of Little Rock Auditor’s Report and Financial Statements for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2011, were published in the Feb. 11, 2012 issue of Arkansas Catholic. You may download a PDF file of the report, below.

Dear Friends in Christ:

I am pleased to present to you the annual financial report of the Diocese of Little Rock that is published in Arkansas Catholic.

Those who manage the finances of the diocese are always aware for the need to exhibit great stewardship and responsibility. These men and women work quietly behind the scenes and rarely get recognition for their work watching over the financial resources of the Catholic Church in Arkansas. The finance office has been led by Greg Wolfe for more than 10 years. He is assisted by Kelley Renard, Allan Berry, Roseanne Sampson, Jim Driedric, Mimi Bibb, Laura Lock, Sue Mullins and Cheryl Smith. They recognize that the material and financial gifts entrusted to the diocese come from God. They exhibit high levels of faith, skill and ethics every day.

I also want to thank you, the Catholic families and individuals in the state who have been so generous to the diocese and your parishes and schools. You have made it possible to maintain and grow our diocesan programs and ministries. You are in my daily prayers.

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ARKANSAS
Arkansas Catholic

Published: February 11, 2012

By Bishop Anthony B. Taylor

Bishop Anthony B. Taylor issued a letter Jan. 31 to update Catholics in Arkansas on the removal of Father Laurent Demets, FSSP. The Diocese of Little Rock announced Nov. 14 that Father Demets was removed as the founding chaplain of the St. Pio de Pietrelcina Latin Mass Community in Cherokee Village after credible allegation of suspected child abuse — slapping a child — was made. The priest of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter first served at St. John the Baptist Latin Mass Community in North Little Rock in 2007.

As bishop of the Diocese of Little Rock, I take seriously my responsibility to shepherd and protect the flock entrusted to my care. One of my obligations upon receiving credible allegations of misconduct on the part of Church employees and volunteers is to comply with the requirements of Church law and the laws of the state of Arkansas regarding how these cases should be handled.

The reporting mandate of Arkansas law for suspected mistreatment of minors requires us to report not only cases of sexual abuse, but also cases of physical mistreatment –such as incidents in which a child is believed to have been hit or slapped by an adult. The civil investigation to substantiate such cases depends in part on the willingness of the alleged victim and any witnesses to cooperate.

Church law requires that the diocese conduct its own investigation of credibly alleged incidents, following the procedures specified in our policy for handling such cases, including:

1. Automatic temporary suspension of the subject of an allegation from Church ministry pending the outcome of the civil and ecclesiastical investigations,

2. Public announcement that an allegation has been received, naming the subject of the allegation and the nature of the incident, asking any who have information to come forward — including other possible victims, if there are any.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Irwin Mitchell

Sentencing In Case Adjourned

09/02/2012

A former Roman Catholic priest has been convicted of 21 counts of child abuse following a 10-day trial at Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court.

Alexander Bede Walsh, 58, was found guilty of two serious sexual offences and 19 counts of indecent assault in relation to time when he was working at children’s homes and churches across Warwickshire, Staffordshire and Coventry in both the 1970s and 1990s.

He was arrested in 2006 after two men came forward to police with claims about abuse when they were children. Sentencing in the case has been adjourned.

Law firm Irwin Mitchell, which acts for those who have suffered serious physical and psychological trauma as a result of child abuse, has been approached by people who were abused by Mr Walsh.

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CONNECTICUT
The Hartford Courant

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

3:06 p.m. EST, February 9, 2012
WATERBURY —
The lawyer representing a former altar boy suing the Catholic Archdiocese of Hartford for sexual abuse by a priest three decades ago told jurors Thursday that the victim probably can never be compensated for the “amputation of his spirit.”

“You can’t put a price on that,” attorney Thomas McNamara told a Superior Court jury in his closing argument. “It’s worth more than $1 million. It’s worth more than $2 million. Not even $3 million will compensate him.”

The now-adult victim, identified in his suit as Jacob Doe, has accused the church of negligence and recklessness. The victim presented evidence during a week-long trial that senior church officials put Father Ivan Ferguson in a position where he could abuse Doe in spite of Ferguson’s admission two years earlier that he had sexually abused other boys.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

BY JOANNE MCCARTHY

10 Feb, 2012

A JURY has found a retired Catholic priest not guilty of allegations he molested a 12-year-old boy while serving at the St Pius X parish at Windale more than two decades ago.

Dennis John Corrigan, 69, walked free from Sydney District Court yesterday after the jury took two hours to reach its verdict.

Mr Corrigan, of Thomas Street, Mayfield, had pleaded not guilty to two counts of indecent assault that were alleged to have occurred between late 1987 and early 1988, including one incident at the Windale presbytery when he invited the boy to stay overnight.

Mr Corrigan, dressed in a suit, displayed little emotion as the verdicts were read out.

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VATICAN CITY
AFP

VATICAN CITY — The Catholic Church launched an international Internet centre against paedophilia on Thursday at the close of a four-day Vatican summit aimed at ending decades of abuses and cover-ups.

The new e-learning Centre for Child Protection will be based in Germany, with partners in Argentina, Ecuador, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Italy and Kenya, seeking to bring together research and ways to prevent clerical abuse.

The centre “is only one part of a renewal of the Church,” Cardinal Reinhard Marx, the archbishop of Munich, said at a press conference.

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ROME/GERMANY
Pontifical Gregorian University Centre for Child Protection

A consortium has been formed between the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome (Prof. Dr. Pater Hans Zollner SJ), the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising (Monsignore Klaus Peter Franzl) and the Department for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy of the University Clinic of Ulm (Medical Director: Prof. Dr. med. Jörg Fegert). The Centre for Child Protection is to be established for three years (January 1st, 2012 through December 31st, 2014) by the Institute of Psychology at the Pontifical Gregorian University (Rome) under the sponsorship of the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising and in cooperation with the Department for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at the University Clinic of Ulm based in Munich. The goal is to develop and implement an E-Learning programme totalling 30 hours in four languages (English, German, Italian and Spanish). This programme will draw on a related public-sponsored programme for educational and health care professionals in Germany (Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF)), but will incorporate an emphasis on the cultural and theological diversity of the Catholic Church. The project is directed by a Steering Committee while the content development is supported by a Scientific Advisory Board.

The Pontifical Gregorian University will supervise this project and appoints as director of the Centre Prof. inv. Dr. Hubert Liebhardt – educational scientist, deacon and research-group leader at the University Clinic of Ulm. His scientific working group comprises various professions (educational sciences, psychology, psychotherapy, theology).

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ROME
National Catholic Reporter

by John L Allen Jr on Feb. 09, 2012 NCR Today

ROME — As the final act of a four-day Vatican summit on the sexual abuse crisis, a new internet-based “Center for Child Protection” was unveiled this afternoon in Rome, designed to educate priests, deacons, and other church personnel in fighting child abuse.

According to German Deacon Hubert Liebhardt, an educational scientist who serves as director of the new center, its aim is “to promote a culture of vigilance in Catholic environments.”

With a budget of $1.6 million over its first three years, the center will provide on-line training and certification programs in German, English, Italian and Spanish. It’s a joint project of the Jesuit-run Gregorian University in Rome, the Munich archdiocese, and the University of Ulm in Germany.

Information on the center can be found here: www.elearning-childprotection.com

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MISSOURI
KSDK

[with video]

By Courtney Gousman

Creve Coeur, MO (KSDK) – Decades after alleged sex abuse, a former student at Chaminade College Preparatory student is speaking out for the first time.

This is a story that’s both shocking and heart wrenching, and really changed the life of an innocent young man. NewsChannel 5 has this exclusive story.

This is such an emotional issue for the man we talked to, that he couldn’t bring himself to meet face-to-face. He says he’s been so rattled for the lasted few days when this news went public. So Wednesday night, he shared his story by phone.

Louis J. Meinhardt was a teacher at Chaminade for more than three decades from 1941 to 1948, and then again from 1958 through 1982. He also coached young men on the school’s basketball and football teams.

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Bangkok Post

The Catholic Church launched an international Internet centre against paedophilia on Thursday at the close of a four-day Vatican summit aimed at ending decades of abuses and cover-ups.

The new e-learning Centre for Child Protection will be based in Germany, with partners in Argentina, Ecuador, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Italy and Kenya, seeking to bring together research and ways to prevent clerical abuse.

The centre “is only one part of a renewal of the Church,” Cardinal Reinhard Marx, the archbishop of Munich, said at a press conference.

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ROME
National Catholic Reporter

by John L Allen Jr on Feb. 09, 2012 NCR Today

ROME — A four-day Vatican summit on the sexual abuse crisis signals “a new baseline”, meaning a new “agreed standard of the Roman Catholic Church” in dealing with the issue, according to one of the participants.

Fr. Brendan Geary, a Scottish member of the Marist order who works in the United States, defined that baseline in the following terms:

•“We start by listening to victims, and we honor their experience.”
•“We’re trying to become leaders in the world in the protection of children, not following behind others.”
•“In the words of Pope John Paul II, there is no place in the Catholic church for those who would abuse children.”

Commitment to those three principles, Geary said, “came across clearly from every part of the world” during the Feb. 6-9 event.

Geary spoke in a session with reporters on the final day of the four-day symposium, titled “Towards Healing and Renewal.” It has been held at Rome’s Jesuit-run Gregorian University, in cooperation with several Vatican departments.

Claretian Fr. Paul Smyth stressed that this new baseline did not begin at this summit, but is instead “the fruit of several decades of work” – which doesn’t mean, he stressed, that the job is finished.

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SOUTH DAKOTA
Indian Country Today Media Network

By Stephanie Woodard
February 9, 2012

“It was a sad day,” said Mary Jane Wanna, Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate, of the South Dakota House Judiciary Committee killing a bill to remove the statute of limitations for lawsuits alleging childhood sexual abuse. The measure was presented on February 6, by Representative Steve Hickey, Republican from Minnehaha County, and co-sponsored by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

Proponents, opponents and spectators packing the committee room heard emotional testimony from victims, who recounted sex trafficking as well as brutal serial sexual assaults. Afterward, abuse survivors wept openly in the hallway.

Hickey’s new bill had proposed eliminating the statute of limitations for childhood-sexual-abuse complaints in the state. It was intended to remedy a 2010 measure that added restrictions to such suits, banning victims over age 40 from suing institutions (such as churches and schools). The 2010 law was written as a “constituent bill” by Steve Smith, an attorney representing an institution—Congregation of Priests of the Sacred Heart, which runs St. Joseph’s Indian School, in Chamberlain—and defending about a dozen such cases.

During Smith’s 2010 testimony to the legislature, the transcript shows he told the group that the perpetrators in such cases were typically “long dead” and “can’t defend themselves,” but neglected to say that his cases in fact included living alleged perpetrators, including Brother Matthew Miles (who had already told a South Dakota court he had pled guilty to sodomizing young boys in another jurisdiction), John Donadio, Father Thomas Lind and Father William Pitcavage. About 10 other living persons have been accused in current South Dakota-related childhood-sexual-abuse cases.

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CONNECTICUT
Darien Times

Written by Susan Shultz
Thursday, February 09, 2012

The Diocese of Bridgeport, which includes Darien’s two Roman Catholic parishes, is distancing itself from comments made by its former leader, Cardinal Edward Egan, to Connecticut Magazine.

In the magazine’s February edition, Cardinal Egan, who left the Diocese of Bridgeport in 2002 to become Archbishop of New York, said he retracted his apology for sexual abuse that reportedly occurred in the diocese.

“I never should have said that. I did say if we did anything wrong, I’m sorry, but I don’t think we did anything wrong,” Egan said.

Brian Wallace, spokesman for the Diocese of Bridgeport and its current leader, Bishop William E. Lori, told The Darien Times that “our apology stands. There’s no denial it happened, and it was a tragedy.”

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CITTA DEL VATICANO
Bolletino

In fine mattinata la Sala Stampa della Santa Sede ha rilasciato la seguente dichiarazione:

Nella trasmissione “Gli Intoccabili” di La 7 di ieri, mercoledì 8 febbraio, sono state fatte affermazioni infondate e diffuse informazioni false sull’Istituto per le Opere di Religione e l’Autorità di Informazione Finanziaria.

Al riguardo, facendo seguito a quanto già specificato nella Dichiarazione della Sala Stampa della Santa Sede di ieri, 8 febbraio, si precisa quanto segue:

1. L’affermazione che lo I.O.R. è una banca non corrisponde a verità; lo I.O.R. è una Fondazione di diritto sia civile che canonico regolata da un proprio statuto; non mantiene riserve e non concede prestiti come una banca. Tanto meno è una “banca off-shore”. Di fatto, nella citata trasmissione viene usato tale termine non per illustrare il vero carattere e la funzione dello I.O.R., ma per creare un’impressione di illegalità. Lo I.O.R. si trova all’interno di una giurisdizione sovrana e opera in un quadro normativo e regolamentare, che comprende anche la legge antiriciclaggio vaticana. Quest’ultima, la Legge CXXVII, è stata adottata proprio per essere in linea con gli standard internazionali.

[English translation via Vatican Information Service]

COMMUNIQUE ON CLAIMS IN AN ITALIAN TELEVISION PROGRAMME ABOUT THE IOR AND THE AIF

Vatican City, (VIS) – Given below is the text of a communique issued early this afternoon by the Holy See Press Office.

“The television programme, ‘Gli intoccabili’, transmitted yesterday evening by Italy’s ‘La7’ television network, included unfounded claims and false information about the Institute for the Works of Religion and(IOR) and the Vatican Financial Information Authority.

“On this subject, and with reference to the declaration issued by the Holy See Press Office yesterday 8 February, the following points must be made:

“(1) The affirmation that the IOR is a bank is incorrect. The IOR is a foundation in both civil and canon law, regulated by its own statutes. It does not hold reserves or grant loans as a bank does. Even less so is it an ‘offshore bank’, and the aforementioned television programme used that term not to illustrate the true nature and function of the IOR but to create an impression of illegality. The IOR lies within a sovereign jurisdiction and operates on the basis of a framework of norms and rules which include the Vatican’s anti-money laundering legislation: Law No. 127, adopted precisely in order to conform to international standards.

“(2) The insinuation that Vatican norms do not allow for investigations or criminal procedures regarding the period prior to the coming into force of Law No. 127 on 1 April 2011, is untrue.

“The discussion during the aforesaid programme referred to words contained in a ‘private memo’. That document has no official value and merely reflects the opinions of the individual who wrote it. Moreover, it does not state that investigations or criminal procedures regarding the period prior to 1 April 2011 are impossible, or suggest that the IOR is unwilling to collaborate in investigations or criminal procedures on events prior to 1 April 2011. As regards cooperation between the IOR and the AIF, the IOR has cooperated in providing information on transactions that took place before that date.

“Therefore, the claims made during the programme are untrue. According to Vatican anti-money laundering norms, the Vatican judicial authorities have the power to investigate suspect transactions that took place during the period prior to 1 April 2011, also in the framework of international cooperation with judges in other States, including Italy.

“(3) Relations between the IOR and non-Italian banks have always been active and, contrary to the claims made, activity with Italian banks has been reduced only to a limited extent. The IOR, like Italian financial institutions, uses the services of foreign banks (Italian and non-Italian) when they are more efficient or cost less. Moreover, all movements in cash are certified with customs documents. As standard practice, all movements of money are regularly traced and archived.

“(4) As regards the norm regulating the movement of money in cash, it must be made clear that the IOR monitors, and has monitored, step transactions for a total of euro 15,000 in ten consecutive days. Furthermore, article 28 paragraph 1(b) of the new text of Law No. 127, modified by Decree of the President of the Governorate on 26 January 2012, states that the parties subject to that Law (including the IOR) must honour ‘their obligation of adequate monitoring … when they carry out occasional transactions the value of which is equal to or more than euro 15,000, irrespective of whether they are carried out in a single transaction or with a number of interconnected transactions’.

“(5) The affirmation made by the magistrate, Luca Tescaroli, according to which the Vatican failed to respond to rogatory letters concerning the case of the Banco Ambrosiano and Roberto Calvi, is untrue. On this subject, it must be made clear that there is no record of the rogatory letter of 2002 having reached the Vatican. Nor, following a preliminary search in the archives, is there any record of the international rogatory letter presented by the Tribunal of Rome in 2002 ever having reached the Italian embassy to the Holy See. The other two rogatory letters received a regular reply, addressed to the Italian embassy to the Holy See. As yesterday’s declaration said, the Holy See and the Vatican authorities have duly cooperated with magistrates and other Italian authorities, and this is evident from documentation in the possession of officials both of the Holy See and of the Republic of Italy.

“The facts described above show that the presentation given in the aforementioned programme was biased and does not contribute to forming an objective picture of events”.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

New reply from the Vatican Press Office to the TV show ‘Gli Intoccabili’ (The Untouchables). According to the Holy See the show shows only partial reconstructions of events

Vatican Insider Staff
Rome

It’s one denial after another. Only a few hours after the note written by the Vatican to disclaim some information published in the last few days, in particular an article by the Italian daily newspaper L’Unità entitled “Money laundering. Four priests under investigation. The Vatican keeps quiet.” Father Lombardi talked once more about the IOR (the ‘Pope’s bank’) which was the main topic of the talk show “Gli Intoccabili” (The Untouchables) aired yesterday 8 February on the La7 television channel. The spokesman of the Vatican defined the show as ‘partial’ and said that in his opinion the show does not give an ‘objective picture of the realities it describes.’

“The IOR,” stated the Vatican Press office, “is not a bank. It is a foundation founded on civil and canonical law with its own regulations. It does not have reserve funds and does not lend money like a bank”. “It’s also not an off-shore bank –“ continued the statement released by the Vatican. In truth the television show used that expression not to illustrate the true character and function of the IOR, but to give a sense of unlawfulness. The IOR is under the jurisdiction of a sovereign state, the Vatican, and it operates within laws and regulations that include the new Vatican law against money laundering.” This rule, Law CXXVII was introduced by the Vatican to comply with international standards.

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WISCONSIN
Fox 11

OSHKOSH – A trial to determine if a former priest should be committed as a sexual predator has been taken off the calendar, as a deal may be in the works.

Norbert Maday was convicted in Winnebago County in 1994 of sexually assaulting teenage boys. His criminal sentence has been completed for several years, but the state is trying to have him committed civilly as a sexual predator.

A trial on the issue was scheduled for Feb. 14, but the trial has been removed from Judge Daniel Bissett’s calendar.

According to online court records, “parties agree that jury trial shall be taken off court calendar and a pretrial conference shall be scheduled to ascertain whether there is a mutually agreed upon settlement or if a jury trial will need to be rescheduled.”

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NEW JERSEY
The Record

BY KIBRET MARKOS
STAFF WRITER
The Record

A 64-year-old Teaneck rabbi was indicted on Wednesday on charges that he molested two 13-year-old boys at his home.

The indictment charges that Rabbi Uzi Rivlin made sexual contact with the two boys on several occasions in 2009 and 2010.

Authorities have said the boys were visiting from Israel and stayed at the rabbi’s home during two summers as part of a scholarship program Rivlin had helped set up. Rivlin also was a teacher at the Temple Beth Abraham in Tarrytown, N.Y., they said.

Bergen County prosecutors said that after the boys returned to Israel, they complained separately to Israeli authorities that Rivlin had molested them.

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TEANECK (NJ)
Patch

By Patch Staff

A Teaneck rabbi was indicted Wednesday on charges he sexually abused two boys who were visiting from Israel as part of a scholarship program, northjersey.com reported.

Rabbi Uzi Rivlin, 64, was arrested in August after the FBI alerted Teaneck and Bergen County investigators to the sexual abuse allegations, authorities said at the time. The two boys first made separate complaints to Israeli police, prosecutors said.

Rivlin, who is married, met the boys through the Scholarship Fund for the Advancement of Children in Israel, which he partly sponsored, the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office said. The program brings children from Israel to stay in the United States over the summer.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Barbara Dorris on February 09, 2012

Two US experts told Vatican officials yesterday that roughly 100,000 boys and girls in America have been sexually violated by Catholic priests. We believe that this is a very low estimate, especially since there are an estimated 6,000 predator priests in the US. (see: BishopAccountability.org )

This is almost ten times the estimate that has been offered by US bishops for the past six or seven years. It’s a dreadfully sobering figure. Our hearts ache for these wounded men, women, teens and children.

We hope that this staggering estimate prods secular authorities to step up their efforts to expose child molesting clerics and the corrupt church officials who continue to move and hide and protect and enable them.

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ROM
Die Presse

Mehr als 100 Bischöfe nehmen bis Donnerstag an der Konferenz “Heilung und Erneuerung” in der Gregoriana-Universität in Rom teil. Benedikt XVI. fordert den effektiven Schutz und Hilfe für die Opfer.

Zum Auftakt einer Konferenz der katholischen Kirche zum Thema Kindesmissbrauch hat Papst Benedikt XVI. eine “tiefgehende Erneuerung” der Kirche gefordert. Die “Heilung” der Opfer müsse für die christliche Gemeinschaft von größter Bedeutung sein und Hand in Hand mit einer Erneuerung der Kirche “auf allen Ebenen” gehen, hieß es in einem Grußwort des Papstes an die Teilnehmer der am Montag in Rom begonnenen Konferenz. Benedikt XVI. mahnte in der vom Vatikan veröffentlichten Botschaft zudem eine “rigorose Kultur des effektiven Schutzes und der Hilfe für Opfer” an.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Wolfaburger Allgemeine

Der wegen sexuellen Missbrauchs vor dem Landgericht Braunschweig angeklagte katholische Priester ist am Donnerstag zu sechs Jahren Haft verurteilt worden. Der 46-Jährige hatte zugegeben, sich zwischen 2004 und 2011 in 280 Fällen an drei Jungen zwischen neun und 15 Jahren vergangen zu haben. Bedeutsam für das Urteil sind 250 Taten. Der Pfarrer war früher auch in Wolfsburg tätig gewesen.

In 214 Fällen liegt laut Gericht ein schwerer sexueller Missbrauch von Kindern vor. Allein 229 Taten richteten sich gegen ein einziges Opfer. Nach Angaben des Vorsitzenden Richters, Manfred Teiwes, gründet sich das Urteil vor allem auf das Geständnis des Angeklagten, das durch Zeugenaussagen untermauert wurde. „Der Angeklagte hat bei allen Opfern und ihren Eltern einen besonderen Vertrauensvorschuss missbraucht, der auch in seinem Priesteramt begründet lag“, sagte Teiwes.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Nord Bayern

Würzburg – Ein 56 Jahre alter Priester hat den Druck seines schlechten Gewissens nicht länger ausgehalten und gestanden: Jahrelang habe er den kleinen Sohn seiner Haushälterin sexuell missbraucht. Nun hat die Würzburger Staatsanwaltschaft Anklage erhoben.

Weil er den kleinen Sohn seiner Haushälterin jahrelang missbraucht haben soll, soll ein 56 Jahre alter katholischer Priester vor Gericht gestellt werden. Die Staatsanwaltschaft Würzburg erhob Anklage wegen sexuellen Kindesmissbrauchs, wie der Leitende Oberstaatsanwalt Dietrich Geuder mitteilte. Der Priester hatte sich im März 2011 dem Missbrauchsbeauftragten des Deutschen Ordens in Mainz offenbart und sich selbst angezeigt.

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ROM
Spiegel (Deutschland)

Von Hans-Jürgen Schlamp

Zu Tausenden sind Kinder und Jugendliche von katholischen Priestern missbraucht worden. Auf einem Kongress in Rom wollen ranghohe Kirchenleute aus aller Welt zusammen mit Wissenschaftlern nun die über Jahrzehnte begangenen Verbrechen aufarbeiten. Das Ergebnis dürfte enttäuschend sein.

Die Kirchenoberen sind, trotz allen göttlichen Beistands in sonstigen Fragen, bei diesem Thema ratlos. Seit Jahren brechen immer neue Enthüllungen über den sexuellen Missbrauch Jugendlicher und Kinder in der Sakristei, im katholischen Internat oder auch im Ferienheim über sie herein. Und sie wissen nicht, was sie tun sollen.

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ROM
Zeit (Deutchland)

Erstmals befasst sich der Vatikan öffentlich mit Missbrauchsvorwürfen gegen Amtsträger. Doch die italienischen Bischöfe vertuschen immer noch viele Fälle.

Im öffentlichen Leben Italiens genießen katholische Würdenträger immer noch hohes Ansehen. Entsprechend schwer tut sich die Kirche mit der Aufarbeitung sexuellen Missbrauchs innerhalb der Glaubensgemeinschaft. Doch so langsam tut sich was: In den Gemeinden würden Missbrauchsfälle immer weniger verschwiegen, sagte neulich auch Charles J. Scicluna, Chefankläger der vatikanischen Glaubenskongregation, der italienischen Presseagentur AGI.

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UNITED STATES
Irish Central

By
ANTOINETTE KELLY,
IrishCentral Staff Writer

Published Thursday, February 9, 2012

A former New York Cardinal has come under fire after admitting he regrets apologizing over the sex abuse scandal in his diocese.

Former Cardinal Edward Egan, who was at the center of the priest abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport, told Connecticut Magazine that he believes there is no legal requirement for reporting abuse cases in Connecticut.

Referring to his original apology, the former bishop of Bridgepoint said, “first of all, I should have never said that”.

“I did say if we did anything wrong, I’m sorry, but I don’t think we did anything wrong.”

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UNITED STATES
Spiritual Politics

Mark Silk|Feb 9, 2012

In the year 355, as Christianity was in the process of becoming the official religion of the Roman Empire, the imperial brothers Constans and Constantius II issued an edict prohibiting bishops from being haled into civil court (“lest there should be an unrestrained opportunity for fanatical spirits to accuse them”). This privilege, which was extended to all clergy in 412, placed responsibility for handling complaints against church hierarchs with the hierarchs themselves, and not surprisingly the hierarchs have cherished it devoutly ever since. With some notable exceptions (viz. Henry II of England), civil authorities over the centuries have also tended to respect it.

Until the past year, that is. For the first time, prosecutors in the U.S. (Philadelphia, Kansas City) have begun to file criminal complaints against high church officials for failing to report allegations of sexual abuse by clergy to the civil authorities. This has led their stalwart condottiero Bill Donohue to take up arms against such fanatical spirits as the Kansas City Star and the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (“anti-Catholic”) and Assistant District Attorney Mark Cipolletti of Philadelphia (“malicious”). For its part, the Vatican seems to have come to the realization that the Constantinian dispensation is finally at an end.

At least that’s how I read the public remarks of the Holy See’s own chief prosecutor, Msgr. Charles Scicluna, at the conference on the sexual abuse crisis in Rome yesterday. Decrying the bishops’ Mafia-like code of silence (yes, omertà was the word he used), Scicluna announced that they should not consider themselves beyond the reach of discipline for failing to abide by official protocols for the handling of abuse cases. As NCR’s John Allen reported:

Scicluna said there are actually already provisions in church law to sanction bishops for “negligence and malice in exercising one’s duties,” suggesting this provision should be more strenuously applied. (He appeared to be referring to canon 128 of the Code of Canon Law, which reads: “Whoever illegitimately inflicts damage upon someone by a juridic act or by any other act placed with malice or negligence is obliged to repair the damage inflicted.”)

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CANADA
National Post

Father Tim Moyle Feb 9, 2012

I noted with sadness the other day obituaries published in the wake of the death of Angelo Dundee, the man who trained Muhammad Ali to become heavyweight boxing champion of the world more than once. From the ‘float like a butterfly’ days of his early victories over Sonny Liston and Joe Frasier, to the ‘rope-a-dope’ tactics that felled the Goliath George Foreman, all the way to the spanking of Leon Spinks, Dundee guided Ali to victory after victory. Those epic contests of brawn and will captured the attention and admiration of the world like no other sporting event, lifting Ali to a status unmatched as a global icon. And he couldn’t have done it without Dundee.

Given the body shots that the Roman Catholic Church has been absorbing through the ‘Long Lent’ of the sex abuse scandals, Angelo would be a welcome voice at the current Vatican conference designed to share best practices and protocols throughout the Church. Seeming to reel after being pummeled by the multiple revelations of clergy malfeasance, the faithful in Canada can ill afford to receive any below the belt shots as she has suffered at the hands of some who are trying to knock them out of the fight altogether.

Such is the case recently on a Canadian blog dedicated to exposing these scandals and the indolent manner in which they have been handled by bishops in times past. Springing out of the Cornwall Abuses allegations and Inquiry in the 1990’s, its author Sylvia MacEachern has successfully held Canadian bishops feet to the fire to ensure they put into practice the justice they promise to bring to wounded victims. She’s been an effective ‘cut-man’ in the Church’s corner. However, she may have crossed a line recently with recent allegations she has published involving a Maritime bishop and a local accused priest.

Bishop Robert Harris of St. John, New Brunswick is accused on the blog of placing the city’s children at risk by not directly taking to the priest’s parish to indicate that he was being removed due to allegations of child abuse. Instead, he fulfilled both the letter and spirit of Church protocol for removing any accused cleric from office and public ministry. Bishop Harris chose to do so without inflicting a body blow to the priest’s reputation that comes with the taint of scandal until a complete police investigation was conducted. He permitted the priest to step aside on leave for ‘personal reasons’ which preserved the priest’s reputation and the safety of the congregation’s children. Any priest in such a situation is denied the right to publicly minister or celebrate the sacraments effectively removing his from coming into contact with children throughout the Diocese.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

Father Lombardi answers those who cast doubts over the Vatican’s will to be transparent.”We are working together with Italian authorities”. The Public Prosecutor office in Rome says “ several millions euro have been transferred abroad”

Andrea Tornielli
Vatican City

On the 8th of February, a few minutes before the La7 TV-channel aired an episode of the talk-show “The untouchables” (Gli Intoccabili) the first half of which was dedicated to the IOR (Institute for Works of Religion) commonly called the “Pope’s bank”, The Vatican intervened to disclaim some information published in last few days, in particular an article of the newspaper L’Unità (The Unity). Father Federico Lombardi in a note that included the name of the journalist responsible declared that “The article entitled ‘Money laundering. Four priests under investigation. The Vatican keeps quiet about the checks’ shows a serious lack of diligence in the research done by the author”.

L’Unità, discussing the cases of priests investigated by the Italian judiciary system for mobilizing large sums of money which were held in Italian bank accounts linked to the Ior, claimed (just like the La7 talk show did in the evening of the 8th) that the AIF, the Vatican internal information authority for the inspection of financial activities, created by the Vatican itself to comply with the new European laws against money laundering and headed by Cardinal Attilio Nicora, did not give any answers to the Bank of Italy, except in one case.

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ROME
The Associated Press

By NICOLE WINFIELD, Associated Press

ROME (AP) — A top Asian church official told a Vatican-backed conference on fighting priestly sex abuse Thursday that a culture of silence prevalent on the continent has kept many victims from coming forward, as concerns rise that Asia may be the next ground zero in the abuse scandal.

Monsignor Luis Antonio Tagle, archbishop of Manila, Philippines, said deference to church authorities in places like the overwhelmingly Roman Catholic Philippines may also have contributed to keeping a lid on reports. He said more and more victims have come forward in the past five years in the Philippines, but that incidents of priests keeping mistresses still far outpace reports of priests preying on children.

Tagle addressed the conference, which is aimed at helping bishops and religious superiors around the world craft guidelines on how to care for victims and keep abusers out of the priesthood. The Vatican has set a May deadline for the policies to be submitted for review.

Tagle’s presentation made clear that the sex abuse scandal — which first erupted in Ireland in the 1990s, the United States in 2002, and Europe at large in 2010 — hadn’t yet reached Asia. But the concern is very real that it might: In November, the federation of Asian bishops’ conferences said the church has to take “drastic and immediate measures” to contain the problem before it gets out of hand.

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ROME
Inquirer (Philippines)

VATICAN CITY—The Catholic Church in Asia has a “pressing need” for rules against child abuse by priests as the issue has been hidden by “a culture of shame,” the archbishop of Manila said on Thursday.

“There is a pressing need to formulate national pastoral guidelines for handling such cases,” Archbishop Luis Antonio Tagle said on the final day of a summit on the clergy abuse scandals at the Vatican’s Gregorian University.

“The relative silence with which the victims and Asian Catholics face the scandal is partly due to the culture of shame that holds dearly one’s humanity, honor and dignity,” Tagle told bishops and cardinals from around the world.

Tagle said Asian Catholics had initially looked on the scandals as a problem “mainly tied to Western cultures.”

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ITALIA
la Repubblica

MILANO – Lo Ior, Istituto per le opere di religione non è più cliente di banche italiane ed ha trasferito gran parte delle proprie attività finanziarie in Germania, da circa un anno, ossia da quando Bankitalia ha imposto agli istituti di credito di considerarlo alla stregua di una banca extracomunitaria. Il progressivo azzeramento dell’operatività (nove gli istituti di credito italiani con i quali lo Ior era in rapporti, tra i quali Unicredit e Intesa), è emerso dall’esame dei rapporti finanziari acquisiti dalla procura di Roma nell’ambito dell’inchiesta su presunte attività di riciclaggio legate ad operazioni avviate dalla banca vaticana. Inchiesta scaturita dal maxisequestro di 23 milioni di euro (settembre 2010) dello Ior ritenuti dalla procura oggetto di una movimentazione caratterizzata da omissioni punite dalle norme antiriciclaggio.

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ITALIA
L’Expresso

“Gli intoccabili” hanno colpito ancora. La trasmissione di Gianluigi Nuzzi su “la 7″ che ha già fatto tremare le autorità vaticane rendendo pubbliche le lettere d’accusa dell’attuale nunzio a Washington Carlo Maria Viganò, è tornata la sera di mercoledì 8 febbraio a chiamare in causa l’Istituto per le Opere di Religione.

L’ha fatto sulla scia di un articolo di Angela Camuso uscito la mattina stessa su “L’Unità”:

> Riciclaggio, quattro preti indagati. I silenzi del Vaticano sui controlli

Nella tarda serata dello stesso 8 febbraio, la sala stampa vaticana ha replicato con la dichiarazione riportata qui di seguito.

Là dove vi si legge che lo IOR “ha fornito informazioni anche al di fuori dei canali formali” ai magistrati italiani l’allusione è all’interrogatorio spontaneo al quale si è sottoposto il 30 settembre 2011 il presidente della banca vaticana, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi. La sua rinuncia alle procedure di rogatoria internazionale tra Stati esteri fu molto criticata dalle autorità vaticane.

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ROME
Guardian Media (Trinidad)

A call has come from within the Catholic Church for trained secular authorities to be the ones to make a determination on whether or not allegations of sexual abuse against priests are sufficiently founded in reality to warrant investigation and possible prosecution. Monsignor Stephen Rossetti, a psychologist who ran a centre for ten years in the United States attempting to cure priests of their abusive patterns of sexual behaviour, told a conference on the subject in the Vatican Tuesday that priests, like alcoholics, lie, con, manipulate when confronted with allegations of sexual abuse.

“There are false allegations to be sure and it is critical to restore a priest’s good name when he has been cleared, but decades of experience tell us that the vast majority of allegations—over 95 per cent—are founded,” Monsignor Rossetti told reporters at a news conference in Rome. To better ensure that the allegations against the priests are exposed to people who are not disposed to protecting the church and fellow priests, Monsignor Rossetti says trained civil authorities, not bishops, should make decisions having heard the allegations. The Vatican is decidedly against going civil, preferring to leave it to the discernment of bishops to decide on whether or not to go forward with the allegations. Surely, while the Vatican has responsibility over the priests within the church, sexual abuse of young boys by men (whatever their vocation) falls squarely with civil authorities. Therefore, the monsignor, based on his understanding of abusive priests and his knowledge of psychology, prefers professionals to make the determination.

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ROME
Huffington Post

February 9, 2012

ROME — A top Asian church official has told a Vatican-backed conference on priestly sex abuse that a culture of silence prevalent on the continent has kept many victims from coming forward, as concerns rise that Asia may be the next ground zero in the abuse scandal.

The archbishop of Manila, Philippines, Luis Antonio Tagle, said a widespread deference to the church in places like the Philippines may also have kept a lid on reports. He said more and more people have come forward in the past five years, but that reports of priests keeping mistresses still far outpace reports of pedophiles.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Thursday February 09 2012

Those Fine Gael TDs who have been loud in their protestations on the decision last year to close the Irish embassy in the Vatican need to get some backbone.

They are worried that they may lose their seats in the next General Election, with traditional Catholic votes in rural Ireland going elsewhere. They have not that many options of political parties to move to.

There are Irish Catholics who were not happy with the closure, but I don’t think it is permanent. It may be re-opened in the next few years, after some rapprochement between the country and the Vatican — and it is the Vatican, not the Government, that has the making-up to do.

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ROME
Catholic News Agency

By David Kerr

Rome, Italy, Feb 9, 2012 / 03:05 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Vatican’s sex crimes prosecutor says the Church should fight against a culture of silence as it combats the “sad phenomenon” of sexual abuse in society.

“The teaching of Blessed John Paul II that truth is at the basis of justice explains why a deadly culture of silence or ‘omertà’ is in itself wrong and unjust,” said Monsignor Charles J. Scicluna, Promoter of Justice at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, on Feb 8.

“Omertà” is a term that describes the code of silence practiced by members of the Mafia.

The 52-year-old Maltese cleric was addressing the “Towards Healing and Renewal” symposium being hosted the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome from Feb 6-9. The gathering has brought together over 140 representatives from bishops’ conferences and 30 religious orders worldwide.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Nick Bramhill

Thursday February 09 2012

HOPES that the Pope will travel to Ireland this year have been raised after Cardinal Sean Brady said the timing is right.

The Primate of All Ireland said he is hopeful that the first papal visit for more than 30 years would take place in 2012.

Last weekend, the Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, downplayed the prospect of a visit by Pope Benedict.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 9 February 2012 (VIS) – The Holy See Press Office has issued a communique rejecting claims made in an article entitled “Money Laundering: Four Priests under Investigation. The Silence of the Vatican” which appeared yesterday in the Italian newspaper “L’Unita”. Extracts from the communique are given below.

“The article … unfortunately reveals a considerable lack of serious research by the author.

“We must begin by making two introductory observations. The title of the article refers to silence on the part of the Vatican. … This is completely groundless because the Holy See and the authorities of the Vatican have duly cooperated with magistrates and other Italian authorities. The claims made in the article are merely a reworking of past criticisms. … They are, in fact, ‘recycled’ accusations which the same journalist has already published on a number of occasions in the past. Repeating them once again does not make them true; rather, we must ask ourselves whether the article was not intended as a kind of advertisement for an evening television show.

“As to the contents of the article, we must clarify the following”.

“The principal accusation is that the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR) has been involved in illegal activity and that is has failed to assist the Italian authorities who were pursuing these individuals” (the alleged money launderers).

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ROME/IRELAND
Independent Catholic News (United Kingdom)

Addressing an International Conference on the Sexual Abuse of Children within the Catholic Church at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome yesterday, Baroness Sheila Hollins stated that very few victims had counselling or therapy, saying: “In Ireland it is said that very few victims have had any counselling or therapy. It is believed that very few had received an apology and hardly any had received compensation. But in my experience the lack of an admission of guilt and of an apology is usually the biggest barrier to healing and recovery”.

The Church media office responded by saying: This statement grossly misrepresents the reality and extent of the ongoing outreach to survivors by Irish bishops and religious congregations which exists through the Church’s all-island Towards Healing counselling service.

The Towards Healing service (formerly known as Faoiseamh), now jointly funded by bishops and religious congregations, provides confidential counselling and other support services to survivors of clerical, religious and institutional abuse with independent and fully accredited therapists. Counselling is offered to survivors within seven days after their initial contact with Towards Healing.

Since 1997, Towards Healing has provided counselling and other support services to over 5,000 survivors of clerical, religious and institutional abuse, involving 250,000 separate sessions. In 2011 alone there were 29,000 counselling sessions delivered to survivors and the figure annually is over 20,000. In addition, the Towards Healing service offers group therapy, and a bridging service designed to facilitate survivors accessing other statutory and/or non-statutory services appropriate to their needs, such as psychiatry, services for the homeless, medical, dental, welfare and educational services.

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NEDERLAND
Friesch Dagblad

Hengelo | De Klachtencommissie van het Meldpunt Seksueel Misbruik RKK heeft de klachten van negen voormalige misdienaars van de parochie Albergen gegrond verklaard. Verder vindt de klachtencommissie dat de Aartsbisschop van Utrecht, het kerkbestuur van de parochie Albergen en kardinaal Simons het leed van de slachtoffers moeten erkennen, verontschuldigingen moeten aanbieden en spijt moeten betuigen.

Dat is bekendgemaakt door letselschadespecialist Yme Drost uit Hengelo, die de negen slachtoffers bijstaat.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic Herald (United Kingdom)

By Paolo Gambi on Thursday, 9 February 2012

You could be forgiven for thinking that the Borgias have returned to the Vatican. Consider what has happened in the past few weeks: a fierce internal battle in the Roman Curia has spilled into the public square.

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican Secretary of State, is desperately trying to defend his position while being besieged by many who want him to resign. His enemies appear to be led by the “old guard” who were ousted after the departure of Cardinal Bertone’s predecessor, Cardinal Angelo Sodano.

The “Viganò affair” – in which letters alleging internal corruption written by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, then a Vatican official, were leaked – is just the tip of the iceberg. But the affair shows the preferred weapons in this fight: smear campaigns in the Italian media, confidential letters sent to anti-clerical journalists and damaging behind-the-scenes gossip. Those who were hindered by Archbishop Viganò’s tight financial controls and by his campaign against corruption used the media to seek his removal. When Archbishop Viganò was removed his confidential letters were leaked, creating an international scandal.

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IRELAND
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin

Statement from the Catholic Communications Office February 8th

Addressing an International Conference on the Sexual Abuse of children within the Catholic Church at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome yesterday, Baroness Sheila Hollins stated that very few victims had counselling or therapy, saying, “In Ireland it is said that very few victims have had any counselling or therapy. It is believed that very few had received an apology and hardly any had received compensation. But in my experience the lack of an admission of guilt and of an apology is usually the biggest barrier to healing and recovery”.

This statement grossly misrepresents the reality and extent of the ongoing outreach to survivors by Irish bishops and religious congregations which exists through the Church’s all-island Towards Healing counselling service.

The Towards Healing service (formerly known as Faoiseamh), now jointly funded by bishops and religious congregations, provides confidential counselling and other support services to survivors of clerical, religious and institutional abuse with independent and fully accredited therapists. Counselling is offered to survivors within seven days after their initial contact with Towards Healing.

Since 1997, Towards Healing has provided counselling and other support services to over 5,000 survivors of clerical, religious and institutional abuse, involving 250,000 separate sessions. In 2011 alone there were 29,000 counselling sessions delivered to survivors and the figure annually is over 20,000. In addition, the Towards Healing service offers group therapy, and a bridging service designed to facilitate survivors accessing other statutory and/or non-statutory services appropriate to their needs, such as psychiatry, services for the homeless, medical, dental, welfare and educational services.

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IRELAND
RTE News

Irish Catholic bishops have accused a member of the Vatican’s investigation team here of grossly misrepresenting the Irish Church’s ongoing outreach to clerical child sexual abuse survivors.

A statement from the hierarchy last night rejected comments by Baroness Sheila Hollins at an international conference in Rome on the sexual abuse of children within the Catholic Church.

Psychiatrist Baroness Hollins had remarked that “in Ireland it is said that very few victims have had any counselling or therapy”.

Ms Hollins is one of four people appointed by Pope Benedict to investigate abuse in the Archdiocese of Armagh, where she has met dozens of survivors.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
The Daily Beast

Christine Pelisek

The school district faces a legal crisis as more students come forward with horrifying allegations against an elementary teacher, Christine Pelisek reports.

As more schoolchildren come forward with allegations of sexual abuse, and lawsuits begin to mount, the question on everyone’s mind is why 61-year-old Miramonte Elementary School teacher Mark Berndt wasn’t arrested earlier. What is more clear, however, is that the Los Angeles Unified School District faces a day of reckoning not unlike what happened with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese in Los Angeles. …

Assuming the horrific allegations are true, “they face massive litigation and there will be a settlement for many victims, and that is a foregone conclusion,” said John E.B. Myers, a professor at Pacific McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento, who studies abuse cases. “It is similar to the Catholic Church.”

The church sexual-abuse scandal destroyed the reputation of Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahoney and led to the largest civil settlement by any archdiocese—an astounding $660 million in 2007. Myers estimates that the second-largest school district in the nation could also wind up paying out millions to Berndt’s alleged victims.

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ROME
Malta Today

Matthew Vella

The Promoter of Justice at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Mgr Charles Scicluna, has called on the Catholic Church to set a good example on the sad phenomenon of sexual abuse of minors by clerics.

The Maltese prelate, 52, was addressing a three-day symposium at the Pontifical Gregorian University on the Church’s approach to child abuse by clerics. For ten years, Scicluna has worked with Joseph Ratzinger to fight the phenomenon of child abuse.

Scicluna called for greater collaboration with civil authorities, a bone of contention in Malta where sex abuse allegations heard by the Maltese church’s response team are not forwarded to the police by the archdiocese.

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ROME
National Catholic Reporter

By JOHN L ALLEN JR.
Rome

Archbishop Luis Antonio Tagle of Manila in the Philippines spoke today at the “Towards Healing and Renewal” symposium, a four-day summit at the sexual abuse crisis held at Rome’s Jesuit-run Gregorian University and cosponsored by a variety of Vatican departments. Tagle traced some features of Asian culture that make both the understanding of sexual abuse, and the church’s response to it, different from Western trajectories.

Tagle said that silence often surrounds the issue of sexual abuse in Asia, related to cultural notions of honor and shame, not just for oneself but also one’s family. He also suggested that some features of Asian Catholicity may facilitate abuse, such as an exalted understanding of a priest’s authority and spiritual status.

Without denying that abuse of minors is a problem in Asia too, Tagle said that to date, there are relatively few reported cases – less, he said, than clergy caught in illicit affairs with adult women. He also said that many victims of clerical abuse in Asia still prefer to handle the situation quietly, inside the church, as opposed to making a formal legal complaint with civil authorities.

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MONTANA
Great Falls Tribune

Sex abuse suit filed against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Great Falls-Billings

Written by
KIMBALL BENNION

A third lawsuit alleging abuse by Catholic clergy in Montana was filed Wednesday morning in Great Falls — this time from 10 plaintiffs alleging sexual assault by priests from within the Roman Catholic Diocese of Great Falls-Billings.

The only named plaintiff in the case, Timothy Becker, alleged that the Rev. Ted Szudera, who until last month was in active ministry in Stanford, abused him in 1978 and 1979 while Szudera was a priest in Livingston. Becker said in an interview Wednesday that he attended St. Mary’s Catholic School and the St. Mary parish in Livingston growing up, and that the alleged abuse occurred both in the church and in the school.

The Great Falls-Billings Diocese denied the allegations against Szudera, saying that an earlier accusation against Szudera brought to the church by Becker in 2006 was deemed unfounded after the diocese hired a private investigator to look into the allegation.

The Rev. Jay Peterson, vicar general for the Great Falls-Billings Diocese, said the other allegations set forth in the lawsuit were never brought to the church’s attention.

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UNITED STATES
Forbes

John McQuaid, Contributor

Cardinal Edward Egan says he didn’t really mean it when he apologized a decade ago, as Bishop of Bridgeport, Conn., for sexual abuse committed by priests in his diocese, and the media is taking note.

But actually, that’s not really true. Egan, the retired Archbishop of New York, sitting so high in the saddle of his high horse that he must be feeling a bit light-headed, was not retracting an earlier apology. He was clarifying that it was never an apology at all. Rather, it was a non-apology apology: a bit of rhetorical legerdemain designed to appease critics while conceding nothing.

“CT Magazine: In 2002, you wrote a letter to parishioners in which you said, “If in hindsight we discover that mistakes may have been made as regards prompt removal of priests and assistance to victims, I am deeply sorry.”

EGAN: First of all, I should never have said that. I did say if we did anything wrong, I’m sorry, but I don’t think we did anything wrong. But I hate to go back over this. I think there’s more to life than that one issue, especially when I had no cases.

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MONTANA
KFBB

[with video]

By Rachel Ousley

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Great Falls-Billings has not been officially served today, but they are aware that ten plaintiffs have filed suit accusing members of the Catholic Church all over eastern Montana of sexual and physical abuse.

Lead attorney, Tim Kosnoff has been handling sex abuse cases against the Catholic Church for the last 16 years. After cases he handled in Washington and Oregon, more and more people are stepping forward to share their stories. Kosnoff describes the sexual abuse in Montana as the worst he has seen so far. He believes the plaintiffs in this lawsuit are just the tip of the iceberg. He explains, “we’re talking about the rape and sodomy of 8, 9, 10, 11 year old boys and girls by Roman Catholic clergy, often accompanied by acts of physical abuse”.

Timothy Becker is one of the plaintiffs in this case. He was born in Billings, Montana, but spent most of his childhood living in Livingston, MT. It was here that he attended St. Mary’s Catholic School and trained as an alter boy at the parish. In the lawsuit, Becker accuses Father Ted Szudera of sexually abusing him when he was just fifteen years old.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By John P. Martin
Inquirer Staff Writer

Lawyers for the Philadelphia cleric accused of enabling priests to sexually abuse boys have asked the trial judge to step down, saying she compromised her impartiality when she said anyone who doubted there was “widespread” child abuse in the Catholic Church “is living on another planet.”

Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina’s remark during a hearing last week suggested she “harbors a firm predisposed opinion against the Catholic Church and its representatives,” the attorneys for Msgr. William J. Lynn argued in a motion filed Wednesday.

“Perhaps the court actually bears no biases. But that does not matter,” lawyers Thomas Bergstrom and Jeffrey Lindy wrote. “What does matter is that the public’s confidence in the court’s impartiality is demonstrably undermined.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

BY SISTER MAUREEN PAUL TURLISH

FOR THE first time in this country, a high-ranking clergyman – Msgr. William Lynn, the former vicar of clergy for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia – will be tried on criminal charges for putting children in danger because of his “alleged” mishandling of priests known or credibly accused of the sexual exploitation of children.

No bishop or high-ranking church official in the United States has ever been held criminally responsible for facilitating or enabling the sexual exploitation of a child, but that is about to change with the March opening of Lynn’s criminal trial.

It remains to be seen, however, what effect Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua’s death will have on the admissibility of information contained in testimony videotaped in preparation for the trial.

Testimony from Bevilacqua’s 10 grand jury appearances relating to the sexual abuse of children and the subsequent cover-up continue to be under seal.

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CANADA
CJME

[The Inquiry]

Reported by Bre McAdam

A devout Catholic is using the web to warn others about molestation and corruption within her religion.

Sylvia MacEachern chronicles the lives of Canadian priests accused or convicted of sexual abuse and one of the men on her website is former Saskatoon priest Father Hodgson Marshall.

Marshall is already serving time in a Kingston Ontario jail for 17 convictions of sexual abuse against young boys. Now the 89-year-old is facing two more charges of abusing boys at Saint Paul’s Catholic High School in Saskatoon over 50 years ago.

The two alleged victims are in their sixties now but they were only 14 when they say they were sexually abused by Marshall.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Post

Local authority, church and legal expenses insurers have a role to play in sexual abuse litigation. However, government reform and 
a recent legal ruling may see this change.

By Francis Higney

Few crimes tug at the heart strings more than child sex abuse, with harrowing cases being aired in the media almost every day.

Last month, Nigel Leat, 51, was jailed indefinitely for abusing children at Hillside First School in Weston-super-Mare. Leat, of Bloomfield Road in Bristol, admitted 36 sexual offences at Bristol Crown Court in May 2011.

A serious case review was commissioned after Leat’s 2010 arrest at the instigation of the North Somerset Safeguarding Children Board. The review identified 20 pupils who were witnesses or victims of abuse by Leat, describing the failure of the school management as “lamentable”. The report revealed that 30 incidents were witnessed by staff but only 11 reported to the headteacher, Chris Hood, who failed to pass the concerns to the local education authority.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

Alleged victims of Bernie Fine to urge lawmakers to open litigation window for sexual abuse cases

By Michael O’keeffe / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Two men who say they were molested by Syracuse basketball coach Jim Boeheim’s longtime assistant will appear at a press conference in Albany later this month to urge lawmakers to pass a bill that would open a one-year window for sexual abuse victims to file civil litigation.

Former Orange ball boys Bobby Davis and Michael Lang will appear in Albany on Feb. 28 to support Assemblywoman Margaret Markey’s Child Victims Act.

The Feb. 28 event, which kicks off a three-day campaign by Markey to raise support for her bill, will focus on sexual abuse in youth sports. Kevin Mulhearn, the attorney who represents nine men who have filed a lawsuit that claims Poly Prep Country Day school officials covered up sexual abuse by the private school’s football coach, Phil Foglietta, has also been invited to the Albany event.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By Annysa Johnson of the Journal Sentinel

Feb. 8, 2012

The Archdiocese of Milwaukee will argue Thursday in court that victims of clergy sexual abuse had enough information on the church’s handling of cases to have filed fraud claims years earlier, according to newly unsealed documents in the archdiocese’s bankruptcy.

The archdiocese, which has consistently denied wrongdoing in its handling of abuse cases, will argue the statute of limitations expired before those victims stepped forward.

The argument is among several raised by lawyers for the archdiocese in motions seeking to bar claims by three victim-survivors who allege they were abused by parish priests and a choir director in the 1970s and ’80s.

The attorney for the creditors committee has characterized the church’s strategy as a test case that, if successful, could be used to throw out the vast majority of the 550-plus claims filed in the bankruptcy.

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MISSOURI
News-Press

Kim Norvell
St. Joseph News-Press
On Twitter: @KimNorvell

A civil suit has been filed against a former St. Joseph priest who was removed from public ministry last June.

The Rev. James Urbanic has been accused of molesting a boy in the mid-1970s at St. Francis Xavier, where he was the associate pastor, and at Bishop LeBlond High School, where he was a religion teacher. The victim was a student.

The priest was removed from active ministry by the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph and the Missionaries of the Precious Blood after two victims, including the one who filed suit Wednesday, came forward with allegations that were found to be credible. In June, Rev. Urbanic acknowledged the abuse in a statement, stating “early in my priesthood I acted inappropriately.”

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ROME
The Kansas City Star

By MARK MORRIS
The Kansas City Star

A Vatican prosecutor bluntly warned Catholic bishops Wednesday that they could be disciplined if they do not follow church law and standards when managing priests who have abused children.

Monsignor Charles Scicluna, who handles sex crime prosecutions for the Vatican, told reporters that bishops would be held accountable under church law for how they deal with abusive clerics.

“It is a crime in canon law to show malicious or fraudulent negligence in the exercise of one’s duty,” Scicluna told journalists, according to an Associated Press report. “I’m not saying that we should start punishing everybody for any negligence in his duties. But … it is not acceptable that when there are set standards, people do not follow the set standards.”

It’s a familiar topic for Catholics in Kansas City, where Bishop Robert W. Finn and the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph are facing misdemeanor charges in Jackson County for purportedly not reporting suspicions of child abuse by the Rev. Shawn Ratigan.

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NEW YORK
The Citizen

Justin Murphy / The Citizen | Posted: Thursday, February 9, 2012

A review board within the Roman Catholic Church’s Diocese of Rochester has upheld child sexual abuse charges against Dennis Shaw, the former Holy Family priest who was removed from his position at the Auburn church in late 2010.

The review board, composed of laymen and clergy members was tasked with reviewing an earlier investigation into alleged abuse dating to the late 1970s and early 1980s when Shaw was pastor at the now-closed St. Francis of Assisi Church in Rochester.

It unanimously found the allegations to be “credible and true,” according to a release from the diocese that was read Sunday at Holy Family. The release also disclosed some new details about the alleged abuse. It specifies that Shaw allegedly abused two boys under 16 years old.

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ROME
The Irish Times

PADDY AGNEW in Rome

IRISH CLERICAL sex abuse survivor Marie Collins yesterday suggested that her attendance of this week’s “Towards Healing And Renewal” conference at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome has represented a “huge changing point” for her.

Speaking on a day when the Holy See’s promoter of justice, Maltese Monsignor Charles Scicluna, made reference to the “deadly culture of silence or omertà” that has pervaded the Catholic Church’s reaction to the sex abuse crisis, Ms Collins said: “It has been a huge changing point for me personally for how I feel about the church. I came here quite suspicious, quite cynical, wondering if there was sincerity about this.

“I listened to Monsignor Scicluna this morning and I felt everything he said was very clear, very direct.

“Any bishop listening to him could not have been under any misapprehension about what he was saying about reporting, about putting in place guidelines, about secrecy, about everything that we survivors have been asking for.”

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
SNAP Wisconsin

Justice for half century of clergy child sex crimes and cover up may well be determined in Milwaukee bankruptcy court Thursday

Archbishop Listecki, waging the most aggressive legal campaign against victims in US, seeking to bar 540 victims from federal court

Victim claims to Judge Kelley likely detail thousands of individual felony sex crimes and dozens of previously unidentified clerical abusers

WHAT
In Federal Bankruptcy Court on Thursday, February 9, Judge Susan V. Kelley will hear arguments from church lawyers who, at the instruction of Archbishop Jerome Listecki, will seek to dismiss the claims of nearly 540 victims of clergy sexual assault. These record number of claims for a single US court action concerning abusive clergy, likely detail thousands of individual acts of rape and sexual assault by dozens of clergy working or living in the Milwaukee Archdiocese and span several decades. Many of these offenders were routinely concealed or transferred by church officials, and were known to be a danger to children by several Milwaukee archbishops.

More detail on Thursday’s hearing and the motions, can be found in SNAP Milwaukee’s February 7th media advisory.

WHEN
Thursday February 9th, the court hearing is scheduled to begin at 1:00 p.m. SNAP leaders and victim/survivors will be available for comment following the conclusion of the court proceedings.

WHERE
The U.S. Federal Courthouse, 517 East Wisconsin Avenue, Milwaukee

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
The Kansas City Star

By GLENN E. RICE
The Kansas City Star

A man who alleges that a Catholic priest sexually abused him decades ago filed a civil lawsuit Wednesday against the priest, his religious order and the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph.

The plaintiff, who is a now a police officer living in another state, alleges that the Rev. James Urbanic sexually abused him in the mid-1970s while he was a student at Bishop LeBlond High School in St. Joseph. Urbanic was pastor of St. Francis Xavier Parish in St. Joseph and taught religion at the school.

Last summer, the Missionaries of the Precious Blood removed Urbanic from his duties after it received what it said were credible allegations of sexual improprieties against two minors in the mid-1970s.

Diocesan spokeswoman Rebecca Summers said the diocese had not received the lawsuit, which was filed in Buchanan County, and could not comment about specific allegations. Summers said after Urbanic was removed from his duties, priests from the Precious Blood order visited each parish where he had served. Those included St. Francis Xavier, St. James in Liberty and Sacred Heart in Warrensburg.

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UTAH
Deseret News

Geoff Liesik, Deseret News

Published: Wednesday, Feb. 8 2012

DUCHESNE — A judge has ordered an LDS Church bishop to stand trial on charges of witness tampering and failure to report abuse.

But the defense attorney for Bishop Gordon Moon called the judge’s order “a far cry from a ringing endorsement of the prosecution’s case.”

“I think anyone who reads the bindover order can see that,” attorney David Leavitt said Wednesday. “From our perspective, the bindover was something we expected because the burden of proof is so low.”

Moon, 43, is accused of failing to notify police about a 17-year-old girl’s disclosure that she had been sexually abused by a teenage relative. The bishop also told the girl not to seek a protective order against the teenage boy and the boy’s mother when the girl came to him for counsel, according to Duchesne County prosecutors.

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GEORGIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on February 08, 2012

■Defrocked minister to lead retreat in Georgia
■In 1999 he admitted abusing boy at a retreat in Texas
■Now, he’s set to lead a retreat in Augusta this weekend
■And church officials are refusing to warn retreat-goers
■Self help group is urging Episcopal bishop to ‘take action’

A convicted and defrocked child molesting cleric will lead a religious retreat this weekend in Augusta and a support group is begging Georgia’s Episcopalian bishop to stop him.

Starting Friday, a registered sex offender, Lynn C. Bauman will lead a three-day event at the Episcopal Convent of St. Helena. Bauman is a defrocked Episcopalian priest who, in 1999, admitted molesting an eight-year-old boy on a retreat in Texas in 1996. Bauman was sentenced to ten years probation.

A Chicago based support group called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, is writing Georgia’s Episcopal Bishop J. Neil Alexander, asking him to step in and remove Bauman himself.

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GEORGIA
Virtue Online

By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
February 8, 2012

A defrocked Episcopal priest, who admitted abusing a boy at a retreat in 1999 and was convicted for his behavior, has resurfaced to lead a spiritual retreat at The Order of Saint Helena in Augusta, GA. A number of clergy sex abuse victims are urging that it be cancelled.

The Order of Saint Helena (OSH) in Augusta is letting the Rev. Dr. Lynn Bauman, 57, lead their upcoming spiritual retreat which has met with resistance from survivors of priestly abuse.

“We are well aware of Lynn’s story. A number of us have known him for many years and know the situation in considerable depth,” The Rev Sr Carol Andrew of OSH has told officials of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP).

“Despite these crimes and accusations, the Order of Saint Helena in Augusta is letting Bauman lead their upcoming spiritual retreat. They are doing so without apparently making any mention of the fact that Bauman has been convicted of abusing a child, and has committed this crime while leading retreats such as this one. The event flyer they have put out online has no information about Bauman’s criminal history (available here: http://www.osh.org/_flyers/bauman-flyer-feb-2012.pdf),” said David Clohessy, SNAP Executive Director.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By John P. Martin
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

Lawyers for the Philadelphia monsignor accused of enabling priests to molest children have asked the trial judge to step down, saying she compromised her impartiality when she said anyone who doubted there is “widespread” child abuse within the Catholic Church “is living on another planet.”

The attorneys said the remark by Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina during a hearing in open court last week suggests she “harbors a firm predisposed opinion against the Catholic Church and its representatives,” including their client, Msgr. William J. Lynn.

“Perhaps the court actually bears no biases. But that does not matter,” Lynn’s lawyers, Thomas Bergstrom and Jeffrey Lindy wrote in a motion filed Wednesday. “What does matter is that the public’s confidence in the Court’s impartiality is demonstrably undermined.”

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ROME
National Catholic Reporter

by John L Allen Jr on Feb. 08, 2012 NCR Today

ROME — Yet another financial scandal threatened to engulf the Vatican today, in the form of charges that four Italian priests, none of them Vatican officials, are under investigation by Italian prosecutors on charges of money laundering related to accounts they allegedly held at the Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR), better known as the “Vatican Bank”.

An article outlining the charges against the four priests ran today in the left-wing Italian newspaper l’Unità, and a report focusing, among other things, on the same charges aired tonight on the widely watched Italian TV program, “The Untouchables.”

The newspaper article ran under the headline, “Money-laundering, Four Priests Investigated: The Silence of the Vatican on Controls.” The suggestion was that the Vatican has refused to cooperate with investigation of the charges.

“The Untouchables” is the same program which, in late January, revealed confidential letters from Italian Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, today the pope’s nuncio, or ambassador, to the United States, complaining of “corruption and dishonesty” in Vatican finances.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Sentinel

COMMUNITY leaders and parishioners in Cheadle and Alton, where Bede Walsh served as parish priest were stunned by the verdicts.

Many members of his former congregations have continued to support and pray for him.

Alton parishioner Stella Heritage, of Castle Hill Road, said: “People are completely shocked and there are a lot of people who support him and do not believe what has come out at his trial. In my dealings with him as parish priest I could not fault him.”

Ray James, pictured right, who was mayor of Cheadle in 1996, said Walsh had won acclaim after organising discos in the town, which got bored youngsters off the streets.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Centre Daily Times

By MARYCLAIRE DALE — The Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA — A Roman Catholic church official wants a judge to step down before his child-endangerment trial because of her recent remarks about the child sex-abuse scandal.

Philadelphia Common Pleas Judge Teresa Sarmina suggested in court that the priest-abuse scandal is “widespread.” At a pretrial hearing, she said those who think otherwise are “living on another planet.”

Sarmina is presiding over the groundbreaking conspiracy and child-endangerment case of Monsignor William Lynn.

The 61-year-old Lynn is the first U.S. church official charged for allegedly keeping predator-priests in ministry. He faces up to 28 years if convicted on all charges.

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ROME
Vatican Radio

[with audio]

Cardinal-designate Fernando Filoni, head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples presides on Wednesday evening at Mass in the Church of the Holy Apostles for participants in the four day symposium on dealing with the sex abuse crisis. The meeting, organised by the Pontifical Gregorian University, concludes on Thursday with the launch of a child protection centre to provide valuable resources for bishops’ conferences around the world. Philippa Hitchen has been following the symposium for us….

The moral and legal duties of church leaders to respond to all cases of sexual abuse by the clergy was the focus of the opening session of the symposium on Wednesday. In a hard hitting speech by the Vatican’s top expert on child protection, Msgr Charles Scicluna, Promoter of Justice at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, participants from countries around the world heard how it is essential for them to combat “the deadly culture of silence” which in some places still exists….

“We need to move on and denounce it for what it is…an enemy of truth and an enemy of justice”

On the question of compensation and justice for victims, Msgr Sciclina said it’s important for local Churches to cooperate fully with the civil law of their countries. But he said Church guidelines on dealing with abuse cases should also look closely at these very practical questions…

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MONTANA
Market Watch

Ten New Clergy Sex-abuse Victims File Suit Against Roman Catholic Diocese of Great Falls-Billings, Montana – from Kosnoff Fasy PLLC

GREAT FALLS, Mont., Feb. 8, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ — Attorneys on Wednesday filed a new civil lawsuit on behalf of 10 child sex-abuse victims against the Catholic Diocese of Great Falls-Billings, Montana. One man says that a priest who currently advises the bishop on handling sex-abuse cases is himself a sex predator.

Father Ted Szudera is among five named individuals and numerous unnamed clerics accused of child molestation in court papers just filed in Montana Eighth Judicial District Court in Cascade County. Fr. Szudera allegedly sexually abused a teenager in 1978-1979 while assigned to St. Mary’s Catholic church in Livingston, Montana. The victim says that while he was an altar boy, Fr. Szudera abused him for two years, in the church, at school and at the priest’s home.

In 2006, Fr. Szudera’s alleged victim told church officials about the crimes and said that Fr. Szudera had threatened him that “bad things would happen to him” if he told anyone. Following the 2006 disclosure, the diocese paid for the victim’s counseling, allegedly conducted its own “investigation” but apparently took no action against Szudera. He remains in active ministry.

Great Falls Bishop Michael Warfel appointed Fr. Szudera to be on his Review Board, which advises the bishop on child sex-abuse cases. Fr. Szudera apparently maintains an active appointment on the panel. And according to church websites, Fr. Szudera now works at four Montana Catholic parishes: St. Mark’s in Belt, Holy Trinity in Centerville, St. Clement’s in Monarch and St. Mary’s in Raynesford. However, a priest at Szudera’s church said Szudera was removed from St. Mark’s about a month ago and is reportedly living in Great Falls.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Reuters

By Geoff Davidian

MILWAUKEE, Feb 8 (Reuters) – Milwaukee’s Roman Catholic archdiocese will ask a judge on Thursday to throw out hundreds of sexual abuse claims that have thrust it into bankruptcy, triggering a court battle and rekindling anger at the church’s mishandling of abusive clergy.

The aggressive stance taken by the archdiocese reminds victims’ advocates how leaders of the U.S. church long resisted pleas to deal harshly with offenders and fairly with victims during the decade-long scandal.

It also contrasts with earlier church bankruptcies where most victims’ claims of abuse were acknowledged and compensated, lawyers and experts said.

In court papers, the Milwaukee archdiocese is arguing in three test cases that the claims should be tossed out either because the abuse or church cover-up occurred too long ago, involved perpetrators such as a choir director who were not direct employees of the church, or involve victims who had already obtained settlements.

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ROME
Vatican Insider

According to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Asian Catholic Church is finding it hard to fight paedophilia “because of the cultural differences” that exist and the “varied interpretations of what child abuse constitutes”

Giacomo Galeazzi
Vatican City

The problem is particularly accentuated in Asia Mgr. Charles Scicluna, Promoter of Justice at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith commented during the international symposium on sex abuse of minors by the clergy, organised by Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University. In response to the “Asian emergency”, Mgr. Scicluna recently gathered all leaders of Asian Episcopal Conferences for an unprecedented closed-door meeting in Bangkok.

“Asian Churches are gradually becoming aware that abuse is going on and that something must be done about it.” But except from the Philippines, all other Asian Episcopates are late in adopting the Holy See’s guidelines against paedophilia. “In some cultures is especially difficult for victims to come out into the open and report abuse. We are debating with Asian bishops on how to change a culture that encourages silence,” Scicluna emphasised. This is why there are still only very few cases being reported in Asia compared to the thousands of reports filed in Europe and the United States. Victims need to be listed to in order to be able to understand the problem properly and act prudently and with determination. Churches throughout the world need to be helped to formulate new efficient pastoral care programmes. Prevention and education. Speaking to Vatican Radio, Scicluna also made reference to his and Cardinal Levada’s missions to various parts of the world, including Latin America and Asia, in order to support the work done by local churches to counter these crimes. Mgr. Scicluna explained to Vatican Radio that the symposium entitled “Towards Healing and Renewal” aims to allow the Church to come up with a global solution to the scandal of sexual abuse of minors by the clergy, and to ensure victims better protection. Delegates from 110 Episcopal Conferences and general superiors from over 30 religious orders will participate in the symposium.

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MONTANA
Great Falls Tribune

Ten people have filed a lawsuit against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Great Falls-Billings, claiming they were sexually abused by priests when they were children.

The sex-abuse lawsuit is the third filed against the Catholic church in Montana since last year and the first against the diocese that covers the central and eastern parts of the state.

The lawyers who filed the lawsuit Wednesday on behalf of the unnamed plaintiffs also represent about 200 others in one of the claims against the Catholic Diocese of Helena, which covers the western part of the state.

Attorneys representing the plaintiffs held a press conference this morning to announce the filing of a lawsuit against the Diocese in Cascade County District Court.

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MISSOURI
KSDK

[with video]

By Courtney Gousman

Creve Coeur, MO (KSDK) – It’s a sexual abuse scandal that’s sending shockwaves through a school community. Former students of Chaminade College Preparatory are now coming forward to acknowledge they were abused by two former teachers.

NewsChannel 5 found out what things were like for students attending the school during this ominous time. An attorney representing one of these victims recounted some of the horror stories his client experienced at the hands of two of his teachers at Chaminade. Though the both of these teachers are both deceased, this attorney says the abuse was well-known among students and staff.

“He’s heard of people denying that this kind of abuse occurred at Chaminade, and he wants people to believe it,” said Ken Chackes.

Chackes represents the man now being credited with bringing sexual abuse allegations to light at Chaminade College Prep. Allegations dating back to the 60s and 70s, and we’re told were repeatedly ignored by the school.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic Culture

by Phil Lawler, February 8, 2012

For well over a decade, the poisonous influence of the sex-abuse scandal has been spreading through the universal Church, shaking the faith and undermining the hierarchy in one country after another. Now the toxic influence of the scandal has seeped into yet another aspect of Catholic life, tarnishing the memory of potential saints.

In a story published January 11, carrying the suitably sensational title “Tainted Saint,” the San Francisco Weekly suggested that the scandal might damage the reputation of the beloved Mother Teresa, who was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 2003.

In making that argument, the Weekly stretches the available evidence well beyond the breaking point. At worst, Blessed Mother Teresa was guilty of misjudging a priest: a mistake that many others made, regarding the same abusive cleric. Unfortunately the same chain of evidence raises more serious questions about another beloved Catholic figure who is now a candidate for beatification: the late Father John Hardon, SJ.

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ROME
ADN

Vatican City, 8 Feb. :(AKI) – The Vatican’s top watchdog said the the Catholic Church must cooperate with police to crackdown on priests suspected of sexually molesting children.

Speaking in Rome on Wednesday during a four-day closed meeting on sex abuse in the Church, Cardinal William Joseph Levada, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said, “The Church has an obligation to cooperate with the requirements of civil law regarding the reporting of such crimes to the appropriate authorities.”

The “Towards Healing and Renewal” international symposium – meant to help bishops design rules to protect children from abuse priests – has been criticized by pedophile victims organisations as being mere public relations. It was attended by around 200 mostly bishops and reportedly some abuse victims.

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ROME
National Catholic Reporter

by John L Allen Jr on Feb. 08, 2012 NCR Today

Experts reject homosexuality as risk factor

ROME — Two American experts told a Vatican summit today that the full costs of the sexual abuse crisis – including financial payouts, emotional distress, alienation among both clergy and laity, and damage to the church’s moral authority – is essentially incalculable, but massive beyond any doubt.

Focusing on the United States, the two speakers provided estimates suggesting that the American church has spent at least $2.2 billion settling litigation related to the crisis, and that there may have been as many as 100,000 total victims of clerical sexual abuse.

Before surveying the damage, Michael Bemi and Pat Neal rejected what they described as four “myths” about the crisis, which were:
•The crisis is an American problem.
•The crisis has been exaggerated by a Godless media that is antagonistic to people or institutions of faith.
•The crisis has been instigated by avaricious attorneys whose only objective is to enrich themselves financially.
•Homosexual orientation causes men to be sex offenders. (“Neither homosexual nor heterosexual orientation is a risk factor,” they said, “but rather, disordered or confused sexual orientation is a risk factor.”)

While each of those claims may have “elements of truth,” the two speakers said, “none on its own, nor all of them combined, can even begin to explain and fully describe the misconduct crisis.”

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ROME
The West Australian

VATICAN CITY (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.

Archbishop Scicluna said his office at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Catholic Church’s top enforcement body, had received more than 4,000 reports of child abuse since 2001 including 1,000 since 2009.

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