ABUSE TRACKER

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Sun News

By JOANN LOVIGLIO – Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA — A second day of cross-examination of a key witness in a landmark priest abuse trial was marked by more hostile exchanges Thursday between a man who claims he was molested as a teen and the attorney representing the man’s accuser.

The accuser, who is now 30, testified that he was 14 years old when the Rev. James Brennan sexually abused him at the priest’s apartment in West Chester, outside Philadelphia. An attorney for Brennan continued grilling the man on inconsistencies from his earlier accounts of the 1996 incident and ticked off a list of reasons why he would lie about being abused, from financial gain to jealousy of the priest for spending too much time with the man’s mother.

“You’re going to sit here and tell me that … I put myself through this to get this man out of my life?” the man responded. “You are reaching, my man, you are way off.”

When the defense attorney stated that the accuser’s parents remained friends with the priest for years after the alleged abuse, then suggested that was because the accuser never told his parents because the abuse never happened, the former Marine exploded on the witness stand.

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CLEVELAND (OH)
WKYC

[with video]

Written by
Dave Summers

CLEVELAND — The parishioners of the 13 closed Cleveland churches hold out hope they will reopen by Easter Sunday.

Since Saint Patrick’s of West Park closed, parishioner Pat Singleton decorates the doors for Holy week every year.

“The longer it goes, the more painful it is,” Singleton said.

From the beginning, Singleton has been on the front lines fighting for her church and 12 others.

Last month, the Vatican sent Bishop Richard Lennon a decree, by most accounts, it is reversing the church closure decision.

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IRELAND
The Irish Catholic

Michael Kelly

Founder of the Association of Catholic Priests (ACP) Fr Tony Flannery is under Vatican investigation for some of his liberal views The Irish Catholic newspaper has learned.

Fr Flannery, who is a well-known author and retreat-giver, has ceased writing his regularly monthly column in the Redemptorist Reality magazine. The Irish Catholic understands that this is as a direct consequence of the Vatican’s intervention. It is the first time in 14 years that Fr Flannery’s regular column has not appeared.

It comes just two weeks after the report of the Apostolic Visitation noted what it described as “fairly widespread” dissent among priests, religious and laypeople from the teaching of the Church.

The move against Fr Flannery is likely to signal a more hardline approach from the Vatican when it comes to dissent from the Church’s teaching.

It is understood that while Fr Flannery has the support of his superiors in the Redemptorist Order, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) in Rome has expressed disquiet about some of his articles and publications.

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OSTERREICH
Nachrichten

STEYR. Das Ermittlungsverfahren gegen den Benediktiner und früheren Lehrer am Stiftsgymnasium Kremsmünster, Pater A. (77) wegen des Verdachts des sexuellen Missbrauchs unmündiger Zöglinge geht nun in eine heiße Schlussphase, die Erhebung einer Anklage wird immer wahrscheinlicher.

Der Grund ist ein nun vorliegendes Gutachten der Gerichtspsychiaterin Heidi Kastner zur Frage der Schwere der psychischen Dauerfolgen der mutmaßlichen Opfer. Kastner untersuchte im Auftrag der Staatsanwaltschaft Steyr bei 14 mutmaßlichen Opfern, inwieweit deren dauerhafte psychische Schäden durch sexuellen Missbrauch in der Kindheit verursacht worden sind. Die Klärung dieser Frage ist strafrechtlich sehr bedeutend. Denn an sich wäre der Großteil der Missbrauchsvorwürfe bereits verjährt. Doch bei schweren Dauerfolgen beträgt die Verjährungsfrist nicht fünf, sondern 20 Jahre.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Saarbrucker Zeitung

Trier/Köllerbach. Der Trierer Bischof und Missbrauchsbeauftragte der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz, Stephan Ackermann, hält nach der Kritik am Umgang des Bistums mit pädophilen Priestern ein Umdenken für notwendig. Ackermann sagte gestern in der so genannten Chrisam-Messe im Trierer Dom, die Kirche müsse die Frage der Glaubwürdigkeit derjenigen, die sich des sexuellen Missbrauchs schuldig gemacht hätten, neu bedenken.

Ackermann unterstrich, dass es “kein Abrücken von der Null-Toleranz-Linie gegenüber dem Verbrechen des sexuellen Missbrauchs” gebe. Der Mensch dürfe nie einfach Mittel zum Zweck sein, da sonst doch seine Würde verletzt werde. “Deshalb ist auch sexueller Missbrauch etwas so Schändliches”, sagte der Bischof.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Zartbitter

Das Bistum Trier ist bezüglich der Weiterbeschäftigung von pädosexuellen Priestern in der Seelsorge ins Kreuzfeuer der Kritik geraten. Obgleich man bemüht war, sicher zu stellen, dass die Sexualstraftäter im Rahmen ihrer seelsorgerischen Tätigkeit nicht mehr mit Kindern und Jugendlichen in Kontakt kommen, war bekannt geworden, dass ein pädosexueller Priester im Rahmen eines Vertretungsgottesdienstes Kommunionkinder in einer Gemeinde vorgestellt hatte.

Das Bistum Trier bedauerte den Vorfall und versuchte sich zugleich damit zu rechtfertigen, es habe die pädosexuellen Priester entsprechend der Leitlinien der Bischofskonferenz weiterbeschäftigt. Im Interview mit dem domradio erklärte Herr Koronenburg, Pressesprecher von Bischof Ackermann und des Bistums Trier, diese Leitlinien seinen unter der breiten Beteiligung einer größeren Öffentlichkeit von Experten am Runden Tisch im Gespräch mit Opferschutzverbänden entstanden. Es habe eine relative Einigkeit darüber gegeben, dass man insbesondere unter Gesichtspunkten der Prävention und Kontrolle pädosexuelle Seelsorger nicht aus dem Priesterstand entlassen solle. Mit dieser Vernebelungstaktik versucht der Pressesprecher des Bistums die Verantwortung des Trierer Bischofs Ackermann und der Bischofskonferenz für die Weiterbeschäftigung von Tätern im Priesteramt zu leugnen.

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NEW YORK
Minnesota SNAP

By Vinnie Nauheimer

April 5, 2012

The subtleties of Cardinal Dolan’s mind are unmatched. New York’s newest comedic cardinal has outdone himself in devising a strategy to bring the house down at Last Supper services on Holy Thursday. Cardinal Dolan, never accused of being shy, has come up with an incredibly unique way to imprint the message of the Last Supper on the minds of New York’s Catholic elite who attend services on Thursday at St. Patrick’s. All we can do is marvel at Dolan’s sharp and rapier like wit. After asking God to allow Judas to speak on the subject of betraying Christ and being turned down, Dolan came up with the perfect living substitute. He invited Cardinal Justin Rigali in his stead!

Let’s hear it for the newly minted cardinal for having the audacity to pull off a stunt like this! Who better to speak about the betrayal of Jesus Christ than the disgraced former head of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia? Who knows more about turning his back on the teachings of Jesus Christ than Cardinal Rigali whose former diocese is now steeped in disgrace and scandal? Disgusting graphic reports hit the papers on a daily basis as testimony is given describing the seamy underbelly of the church and sexually disturbed priests having lurid sex with minors. Excellent qualifications for someone to speak to the betrayal of Jesus. What will this pitiful, contemptuous former Vatican secretary to the pope have to say about his equivalent of thirty pieces of silver?

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AUSTRALIA
The Courier

BY TOM MCILROY

05 Apr, 2012

BALLARAT’S Catholic parishioners attending Easter mass will not receive a controversial letter calling for an independent inquiry into clergy sexual abuse in Victoria.

Bishop Peter Connors said yesterday he had not received the letter from a group calling itself Commission of Inquiry Now, or COIN, and priests in the Diocese of Ballarat would not discuss the issue during homilies at masses this weekend.

COIN chairman Bryan Keon-Cohen QC and victims of sexual abuse by clergy wrote to parish priests in Melbourne and Ballarat this week, asking them to read the letter during Holy Week masses.

The group is calling for a state-established independent inquiry into the handling of abuse, and adopted the tactics of church leaders who sent more than 80,000 letters expressing opposition to same-sex marriage from Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart to parishioners last week.

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NEDERLAND
ED

Auteur: door Pascale Thewissen | donderdag 05 april 2012

Een politie-inval in het aartsbisschoppelijk paleis in Mechelen, compleet met koevoet en breekijzer om de crypte in de Sint-Romboutskathedraal open te breken.

Zelfs het kantoor en de privé-woning van kardinaal Godfried Danneels worden doorzocht op die bewuste 24 juni 2010. Maar zo voortvarend als het onderzoek naar seksueel misbruik en een mogelijke doofpotoperatie binnen de rooms-katholieke kerk in België begint; zo geruisloos dreigt het nu dood te bloeden. Tot grote frustratie van de slachtoffers.

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VATICAN CITY
Perth Now

From correspondents in Vatican City
From: AP
April 05, 2012

POPE Benedict XVI has issued a rare and explicit denunciation of priests who have questioned church teaching on celibacy and ordaining women.

Saying they were being selfish in disobeying his authority, the Pope made the criticism from the altar of St Peter’s Basilica in his homily on Holy Thursday, when priests recall the promises they made when ordained.

In 2006, a group of Austrian priests launched the Pfaffer Initiative, a call to disobedience aimed at abolishing priestly celibacy and opening up the clergy to women to relieve the shortages of priests.

Last June, the group essentially threatened a schism, saying the Vatican’s refusal to hear their complaints left them no choice but to “follow our conscience and act independently”.

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NEDERLAND
Bert Smeets

Na eerst een gepensioneerde psycholoog uit Maastricht een brief te hebben laten schrijven aan drie slachtoffers, die een klacht tegen hem hebben ingediend bij het Meldpunt Seksueel Misbruik RKK, heeft Jan S. een (charme) offensief ingezet.

Deze week ontvingen een aantal oud leerlingen van het jongenspensionaat Maria ter Engelen in Bleijerheide na meer dan 40 jaar via een oud leerling, daarbij ingesloten de smeekbede van broeder Eymard. Foto’s met zijn beeltenis duidelijk zichtbaar (voor hun die hem niet herkennen).

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NEW YORK
Playbill

By Andrew Gans
05 Apr 2012

A benefit reading of Frank J. Avella’s Vatican Falls, which is set against the backdrop of the Catholic sex abuse scandal, will be presented May 15 at 6:45 PM at the National Comedy Theatre.

Directed by Laura Caparrotti, the performance will benefit SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests).

The cast will feature Francesco Andolfi, Carlotta Brentan, Drew Bruck, Matthew Crooks, Carlos Dengler, Joshua Dixon, Kalen J. Hall, Liza Harris, Carmit Levite, Devon Talbott and Rob Ventre.

Stage directions will be read by Cali Gilman. The evening’s musical director and arranger is Brad Gardner. Songs were written by Claudio Procopio and playwright Avella.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

Apr. 05, 2012
By Joshua J. McElwee

Updated 1:36 p.m. KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The first criminal case against a sitting U.S. bishop in the decades-long clergy sex abuse crisis will go forward after a county judge’s decision Thursday that Bishop Robert Finn, head of the Kansas City-St. Joseph diocese, must stand trial on charges of failing to report suspected child abuse.

The decision, rendered Thursday morning by Jackson County, Mo., Circuit Court Judge John Torrence, denies several motions Finn’s lawyers had brought in the case, arguing that charges against the bishop should be thrown out over questions of constitutionality and whether Finn can be considered a “mandated reporter” according to Missouri law.

“The Court finds that the evidence in this case is sufficient to allow a jury to conclude that Bishop Finn was a designated reporter as defined by Missouri law,” Torrence wrote in his decision.

The charge against Finn centers on the case of Fr. Shawn Ratigan, a diocesan priest who was arrested last May on charges of possession of child pornography. While the bishop said he was aware of questionable images on the priest’s laptop as early as December 2010, Ratigan was not reported to police by the diocese until May 2011.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
KCTV

By Laura McCallister, Multimedia Producer

KANSAS CITY, MO (KCTV) –
A Jackson County judge will not dismiss charges against Bishop Robert Finn and the Kansas City Catholic Diocese.

Finn is the bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph.

Charges allege that he failed to report suspected child abuse in the church for nearly half a year. Rev. Shawn Ratigan is now facing federal child porn charges.

Prosecutors have said Finn and the Catholic Diocese should have reported possible sexual abuse by Ratigan in 24 hours as required by state law. Prosecutors said the diocese knew about the abuse in December 2010 but did not report in until May 2011.

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MISSOURI
The Kansas City Star

A Jackson County judge today refused to dismiss misdemeanor charges against the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph and Bishop Robert Finn.

Circuit Judge John Torrence ruled that the case should be heard by a jury to determine if Finn and the diocese violated the law by failing to report suspected child abuse by the Rev. Shawn Ratigan.

Torrence also denied a joint defense request to have separate trials for the bishop and the diocese.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
Fox 4

April 5, 2012, by Michelle Pekarsky

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — On Thursday, the Jackson County Circuit Court denied the request of Bishop Robert Finn’s attorney to dismiss the charges against Finn that he failed to report suspected child abuse.

Finn appeared in court last Tuesday with his attorney, who argued the phrases “immediately report” and “reasonable cause to suspect” were vague and that Finn was not the “designated reporter” for the diocese to report offenses to law enforcement.

Prosecutors say Finn and the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St Joseph failed to report that they suspected Rev. Shawn Ratigan, 46, of child abuse. Prosecutors say the diocese discovered child pornography on Ratigan’s computer in December but didn’t turn them over to police until May. Ratigan faces federal and state charges of child pornography possession and has pleaded not guilty.

The judge decided, citing past cases, that “persons of ordinary intelligence have no difficulty understanding the meaning of ‘immediately report.’”

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IRELAND
Herald

By Kevin Doyle

Thursday April 05 2012

DETAILS of the probe into how RTE came to falsely accuse a priest of fathering a child may be censored, the Herald can reveal.

The Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) has finalised its report into the scandal and was today giving the national broadcaster its findings.

However, sources revealed that the public may not be told the full background of how the Prime Time Investigates programme came to defame Fr Kevin Reynolds.

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IRELAND
RTE News

A founder of the Association of Catholic Priests, Fr Tony Flannery, has confirmed that he is being investigated by the Vatican for his liberal views.

The Vatican intervened directly to stop Fr Tony Flannery contributing his monthly column to Reality magazine, according to reports

Today’s Irish Catholic newspaper reports that the Vatican intervened directly to stop the Redemptorist author contributing his monthly column in his order’s Reality magazine.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By John P. Martin
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

The lawyer for an Archdiocese of Philadelphia priest charged with trying to rape a 14-year boy battled again Tuesday with the priest’s accuser, hammering him over discrepancies in his account and suggesting the teen concocted the allegation because his mother had been spending so much time with the cleric.

“What better way to get the subject of her attention out of your life than to come up with a story?” attorney William Brennan asked.

As he did when he first took the stand Wednesday, the 30-year-old Bucks County man pushed back.

He called the lawyer’s cross-examination “pathetic” and accused him of quibbling over insignificant details, such as whether the priest, the Rev. James J. Brennan, used a laptop or desktop computer to show him pornography before allegedly assaulting him one night in 1996.

On the details that matter, the accuser said, he has never wavered.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Fox 6

by Ben Handelman, updated on: 12:45pm, April 5, 2012

MILWAUKEE — A judge in Federal Bankruptcy Court ruled Thursday to keep all depositions in priest abuse cases against the Milwaukee Archdiocese sealed.

Judge Susan Kelley heard arguments from church lawyers who asked the Court to keep sealed new court depositions of top church officials, including bishops Rembert Weakland and Richard Sklba.

Lawyers for the victims in these cases wanted the depositions unsealed. They say doing so would allow the public to see what the church knew or didn’t know — and what was done or not done.

However, lawyers for the Milwaukee Archdiocese said there is no guarantee if the documents were unsealed, names that were not supposed to be made public would be accidentally leaked. They also maintained this case is about getting claimants paid, not embarrassing victims.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
Bellingham Herald

By BILL DRAPER – Associated Press

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – A Missouri judge refused Thursday to dismiss misdemeanor charges against a Kansas City diocese and its bishop, who is the highest-ranking U.S. Roman Catholic official criminally charged with shielding an abusive priest.

Bishop Robert Finn and the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph are charged with failing to report suspected child abuse. Prosecutors say each is a “mandatory reporter” under the state law. Defense attorneys argued the law is unconstitutionally vague, and that Finn wasn’t the diocese’s designated reporter.

“This Court finds and concludes that persons of ordinary intelligence have no difficulty understanding the meaning of ‘immediately report,'” Circuit Judge John Torrence wrote in his ruling.

Torrence also denied a request by attorneys for Finn and the diocese to have the cases tried separately if they advanced, saying there is no reason to have two separate trials in a case involving most of the same facts.

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VATICAN CITY
Star News

By NICOLE WINFIELD
Associated Press

Published: Thursday, April 5, 2012

VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI issued a blistering denunciation Thursday of priests who have questioned church teaching on celibacy and ordaining women, saying they were being selfish in disobeying his authority.

Benedict made the rare and explicit criticism from the altar of St. Peter’s Basilica in his homily on Holy Thursday, when priests recall the promises they made when ordained.

In 2006, a group of Austrian priests launched the Pfarrer Initiative, a call to disobedience aimed at abolishing priestly celibacy and opening up the clergy to women to relieve the shortages of priests.

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VERENIGDE STATEN
RKnieuws (Nederland)

WASHINGTON (RKnieuws.net) – De Amerikaanse katholieken verlaten de katholieke Kerk omdat zij niet akkoord zijn met sommige standpunten – onder meer over het homohuwelijk, de wijding van vrouwen, het huwelijk van priesters en contraceptie – of wegens het slechte imago van de Kerk, bijvoorbeeld door het pedofilieschandaal. Dat blijkt uit een studie die de jezuïet William Byron presenteerde aan de katholieke universiteit van Amerika in Washington.

Uit het onderzoek blijkt onder meer ook dat de kerkverlaters excuses van de bisschoppen eisen voor het seksueel misbruik in de Kerk, dat er meer aandacht is voor de armsten en dat er minder oproepen worden gedaan voor giften aan de Kerk.

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NEDERLAND
GeenStijl

De katholieke beerput borrelt weer. Eerder berichtten we over pastoor Jan Schafraad, alias Broeder Eymard alias Dino. Schafraad werkte vroeger in pensionaat St. Maria ter Engelen te Bleijerheide, één van de vuigste misbruikhaarden van katholiek Nederland. Daarna werd hij overgeplaatst en was tot februari van dit jaar gewoon niksaandehand in functie als pastoor van de Koepelkerk te Maastricht. Ondanks tegenwerking door het door de kerk opgerichte en beheerde Meldpunt Seksueel Misbruik hebben drie slachtoffers van Eymard hun aanklacht gebundeld en ze hopen de pedopaap alsnog voor het hekje te krijgen. En wat doet Schafraad? Stilzitten als hij geschoren wordt? Zich diep schamen voor het kapotmaken van kinderen die aan zijn zorg werden toevertrouwd? Nee.

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NEDERLAND
Politiek

Wim Deetman verwerpt de kritiek op zijn commissie die seksueel misbruik in de katholieke kerk onderzocht. Tot groot verdriet van Deetman werd vorige maand de suggestie gewekt dat een castratiezaak bewust uit het rapport zou zijn gehouden.

Ondertussen buigt de Tweede Kamer zich over de vraag of er een eventueel vervolgonderzoek moet komen naar de geschiedenis van seksueel misbruik in Nederland.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC Illawarra

The New South Wales Premier has jumped to the defence of his Attorney-General, Greg Smith, who has come under fire over comments he allegedly made about a woman who claims she was sexually abused by a priest when she was a child.

Yesterday the ABC’S 7.30 program aired allegations that Mr Smith told a different Catholic priest that the woman was only complaining to try to get $1 million from the church.

No charges have been laid and in a statement the Premier, Barry O’Farrell, says he has been assured the Attorney-General did not influence legal authorities regarding the matter.

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TEXAS
El Paso Times

By Diana Washington Valdez \ El Paso Timeselpasotimes.com
Posted: 04/05/2012

Three men recently filed separate lawsuits alleging sexual abuse by a former Cathedral High School principal and a priest in Las Cruces, according to court records.

Two of the lawsuits named as defendants Brother Samuel Martinez, the El Paso Catholic Diocese and the NOSF Inc. (New Orleans-Santa Fe District), formerly Brothers of the Christian Schools of Lafayette, La.

One of two lawsuits involving Martinez alleges religious leaders used the Sangre de Cristo Retreat Center in Santa Fe to hide priests who were accused of assaulting or molesting minors, instead of reporting them to the authorities.

The other lawsuit, which is against the El Paso Catholic Diocese, the Las Cruces Catholic Diocese and Our Lady of Health Parish in Las Cruces, involves a former priest identified in the court records only as “Santiago.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Washington Post

Priest’s accuser to return to the stand in clergy abuse trial under way in Philadelphia

By Associated Press, Updated: Thursday, April 5

PHILADELPHIA — More emotional testimony is expected at a clergy abuse trial under way in Philadelphia.

A 30-year-old former Marine who says he was molested as a 14-year-old by the Rev. James Brennan in 1996 is expected back on the stand.

After hours of blistering cross-examination by Brennan’s attorney, the man was getting upset and said he was exhausted. The judge decided to have him continue on Thursday.

Brennan is on trial with Monsignor William Lynn, the first Roman Catholic official in the U.S. charged with endangering children for allegedly keeping predator priests in parish work. Both have pleaded not guilty.

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VATICAN CITY
Oklahoman

[The Pfarrer Initiative]

NICOLE WINFIELD | Published: April 5, 2012

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Austrian priest who founded a group of clergy who question church teaching on celibacy and women’s ordination has downplayed Pope Benedict XVI’s denunciation.

The Rev. Hellmut Schueller said Benedict was merely asking for reflection on whether their disobedience can help reform the church. In a telephone interview with The Associated Press, Schueller noted that Benedict didn’t forbid what the dissident priests were doing or advocating.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
WHBL

UNDATED (WSAU) A bankruptcy judge will hold a hearing today on a request to disclose evidence that would expose the scope of previous sex abuse by Catholic priests in the Milwaukee archdiocese.

Judge Susan Kelley is being asked to unseal a court deposition made several years ago by former Archbishop Rembert Weakland. It apparently identifies the offending priests and the children they molested over the last few decades. And attorney Jeff Anderson says it would demonstrate the church’s liability as the judge considers damage claims by about 570 victims of priest sex abuse. The claims were filed as part of the Milwaukee Archdiocese Chapter-11 bankruptcy case.

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NEDERLAND
NRC Handelsblad

door Annemarie Coevert

De Tweede Kamer koerst aan op vervolgonderzoek naar de geschiedenis van seksueel misbruik in Nederland. Dat bleek vanochtend uit een hoorzitting met de commissie-Deetman.

Aanleiding voor de hoorzitting vormde een artikel in NRC Handelsblad van enkele weken terug waarin de castratie werd onthuld van een slachtoffer van seksueel misbruik. De commissie-Deetman had daar in haar rapport geen melding van gemaakt, hoewel zich wel iemand bij de commissie had gemeld met gedetailleerde informatie hierover. Journalist en auteur van dit artikel Joep Dohmen is vanochtend gehoord over dit artikel.

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NEDERLAND
de Gelderlander

DEN HAAG – “Ik word er bijna emotioneel van.” Wim Deetman kan de suggestie in de media niet verkroppen dat hij met zijn onderzoekscommissie naar het seksueel misbruik in de kerk, zaken uit zijn rapport zou hebben gehouden. Dat bleek woensdag bij een hoorzitting erover in de Tweede Kamer.

,,Het is nergens op gebaseerd en ik daag iedereen uit om anders te bewijzen”, zei Deetman. ,,Wat vermeld moest worden is vermeld, zonder aanzien des persoons.” Vorige maand onthulde de NRC de castratie, ruim een halve eeuw geleden, van een jongeman die eerder het slachtoffer was geworden van seksueel misbruik in het Sint Vincentiusgesticht in Harreveld. Die zaak komt in het rapport van Deetman niet voor.

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NEDERLAND
Omroep Gelderlander

[met video]

DEN HAAG/HARREVELD – De commissie-Deetman heeft geen verband kunnen vaststellen tussen seksueel misbruik in een katholiek internaat in Harreveld en het castreren van een misbruikte jongen in een psychische instelling in Noord-Brabant.

Voorzitter Wim Deetman reageerde woensdag op berichtgeving in NRC Handelsblad. Volgens het NRC zijn in de jaren 50 jongens die in Harreveld zijn misbruikt later gecastreerd. Er zou zeker één geval zijn gemeld.

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NEDERLAND
Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal

Direct naar sprekers

Termijn – Regering
1.Minister Opstelten
2.Staatssecretaris Veldhuijzen van Zanten-Hyllner

Termijn – Kamer
1.De heer El Fassed (GroenLinks)

Termijn – Regering
1.Staatssecretaris Veldhuijzen van Zanten-Hyllner

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NEDERLAND
NOS

Voorzitter Deetman wijst met kracht van de hand dat zijn onderzoekscommissie opzettelijk informatie heeft achtergehouden uit het rapport over seksueel misbruik in de Rooms-Katholieke Kerk.

In een hoorzitting in de Tweede Kamer zei hij dat hij “bijna emotioneel” wordt van de suggestie dat er geschrapt is. “Dat zijn fantasieverhalen”, zei hij.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service – Bolletino

[with translations in Italian, French, Spanish, Portugese, Polish and German]

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

At this Holy Mass our thoughts go back to that moment when, through prayer and the laying on of hands, the bishop made us sharers in the priesthood of Jesus Christ, so that we might be “consecrated in truth” (Jn 17:19), as Jesus besought the Father for us in his high-priestly prayer. He himself is the truth. He has consecrated us, that is to say, handed us over to God for ever, so that we can offer men and women a service that comes from God and leads to him. But does our consecration extend to the daily reality of our lives – do we operate as men of God in fellowship with Jesus Christ? This question places the Lord before us and us before him. “Are you resolved to be more united with the Lord Jesus and more closely conformed to him, denying yourselves and confirming those promises about sacred duties towards Christ’s Church which, prompted by love of him, you willingly and joyfully pledged on the day of your priestly ordination?” After this homily, I shall be addressing that question to each of you here and to myself as well. Two things, above all, are asked of us: there is a need for an interior bond, a configuration to Christ, and at the same time there has to be a transcending of ourselves, a renunciation of what is simply our own, of the much-vaunted self-fulfilment. We need, I need, not to claim my life as my own, but to place it at the disposal of another – of Christ. I should be asking not what I stand to gain, but what I can give for him and so for others. Or to put it more specifically, this configuration to Christ, who came not to be served but to serve, who does not take, but rather gives – what form does it take in the often dramatic situation of the Church today? Recently a group of priests from a European country issued a summons to disobedience, and at the same time gave concrete examples of the forms this disobedience might take, even to the point of disregarding definitive decisions of the Church’s Magisterium, such as the question of women’s ordination, for which Blessed Pope John Paul II stated irrevocably that the Church has received no authority from the Lord. Is disobedience a path of renewal for the Church? We would like to believe that the authors of this summons are motivated by concern for the Church, that they are convinced that the slow pace of institutions has to be overcome by drastic measures, in order to open up new paths and to bring the Church up to date. But is disobedience really a way to do this? Do we sense here anything of that configuration to Christ which is the precondition for all true renewal, or do we merely sense a desperate push to do something to change the Church in accordance with one’s own preferences and ideas?

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STOCKTON (CA)
Lodi News-Sentinel

Closing arguments by attorneys in the sexual abuse case against Lockeford priest Michael Kelly will begin at 10 a.m. today in San Joaquin County Superior Court. Closing arguments are expected to last all day and possibly continue Friday morning.

Kelly, 62, pastor of St. Joachim’s Catholic Church the past eight years, was sued by a 37-year-old Fairfax man who alleges that Kelly sexually assaulted him in the mid-1980s, when Kelly was a priest at Cathedral of the Annunciation in Stockton and the plaintiff was an altar boy there. Criminal charges have not been filed against Kelly.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Edel Kennedy

Thursday April 05 2012

THE Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) report into the Fr Kevin Reynolds controversy will be delivered to RTE bosses today.

Sources have confirmed that the report was submitted to the BAI’s lawyers for checking and is now ready to be given to RTE. The broadcaster has 14 days to examine it and respond.

The investigation was launched after ‘Prime Time Investigates’ falsely accused Galway priest Fr Kevin Reynolds of fathering a child in Africa.

The inquiry, ordered by Communications Minister Pat Rabbitte, was set up to consider whether segments had breached the Broadcasting Act.

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IRELAND
Irish Central

By
PADDY CLANCY,
Irish Voice Reporter

Published Thursday, April 5, 2012

Major changes are being introduced at RTE over its libel of a Catholic priest and, separately, there are to be redundancies and cutbacks in a bid to save €25million.

On Tuesday afternoon RTE’s head of current affairs Ed Mulhall announced his retirement and the editor of Prime Time Investigates — which libeled the priest — Ken O’Shea has resigned from the program over the libel.

Father Kevin Reynolds is understood to have received a settlement of €1 million for the libel.

The program, which was broadcast last May, falsely accused Reynolds of raping a minor while working as a missionary in Africa and fathering a child by her. Mulhall had had been director of news and managing director of news and current affairs for a total of 14 years.


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VATICAN CITY
Monsters and Critics

Apr 5, 2012

Vatican City – Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday marked the first of a series of traditional Easter rituals with a mass during which he criticized a group of Austrian clerics championing the ordination of women as priests in the Catholic church.

Benedict did not directly name the so-called Pfarrer-Intiative (Priest’s Initiative), which in recent years have also been pushing for the admittance of married men into the priesthood.

But in his homily – which dealt with the renewing by priests of their vows, including celibacy and obedience to Catholic teaching – Benedict noted how a ‘a group of priests from a European country’ have ‘issued a summons to disobedience.’

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IRELAND
Journalism (United Kingdom)

Posted: 5 April 2012 By: Paul McNally

Journalists at Irish public broadcaster RTE are to undergo further training and be issued with new editorial guidelines, after a major legal error that has led to two resignations and a significant out-of-court libel settlement.

RTE said the range of measures aimed to “rebuild trust”, including “improved editorial controls”, the setting up a new editorial standards board and a revised complaints procedure.

It comes after the broadcaster settled a libel claim brought by a priest who was falsely accused of raping a minor and fathering a child in Kenya 30 years ago.

Father Kevin Reynolds accepted a significant out-of-court settlement over the defamatory claims, made last May in RTE’s flagship Prime Time Investigates programme. In a statement issued this week, the broadcaster announced that the programme strand would not be returning.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Fox 6

[with video]

by Angelica Duria

MILWAUKEE — Local activists want the names of alleged child abusers made public after 100 new sex offenders were identified in court documents. The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, known as SNAP, will be asking federal judge Susan Kelley Thrusday to release testimony made by former Archbishop Rembert Weakland and his Chief Deputy Bishop Richard Sklaba.

Last month, lawyers for victims of sexual abuse said there were 100 new sex offenders identified in more than 8,000 accounts of sexual abuse (in their claims). This number was well publicized.

Members of SNAP (The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) along with members of BishopAccountability.com, called those numbers a “personal safety crisis.” The group wants an investigation by the attorney general into who these people are in case there are current members of the Archdiocese identified in court documents. “The people who need to be held responsible have not been held responsible. What you have in these documents are the truth. The gospel tells us the truth shall set us free,” SNAP Midwest President Peter Isely said.

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VATICAN CITY
Times of Malta

Pope Benedict XVI issued a rare condemnation of disobedient priests today, saying those who questioned the Church over celibacy and the ordination of women were being self-serving.

“Recently, a group of priests in a European country published an appeal for disobedience, giving concrete examples of how to be disobedient,” the pope told 1,600 cardinals, priests and bishops during his homily on Holy Thursday.

The appeal was for women to be allowed to join the clergy, which was rebuffed by Benedict, who said: “As Jean Paul II irrevocably said, the Catholic Church did not receive authorisation (to ordain women) from the Lord.”

His comments were a response to an “appeal to religious disobedience” launched by a group of Austrian priests in 2011.

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VATICAN CITY
The Australian

AFP

POPE Benedict XVI has issued a rare condemnation of disobedient priests, saying those who questioned the Catholic Church over celibacy and the ordination of women were self-serving.

“Recently, a group of priests in a European country published an appeal for disobedience, giving concrete examples of how to be disobedient,” Pope Benedict told 1600 cardinals, priests and bishops during his homily on Holy Thursday.

The appeal was for women to be allowed to join the clergy, which was rebuffed by Benedict, who said: “As Jean Paul II irrevocably said, the Catholic Church did not receive authorisation (to ordain women) from the Lord.”

Benedict’s comments were a response to an “appeal to religious disobedience” launched by a group of Austrian priests in 2011.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
SNAP Wisconsin

Victims and creditors in archdiocesan bankruptcy want new abuse testimony unsealed

Evidence includes depositions of former Archbishop Weakland and Bishop Sklba on decades of cover-up

Archbishop Listecki wants evidence to remain in archdiocesan “secret archive”

Regardless of ruling, victims say Archdiocese can still turn over all records to Attorney General

WHO
Victim/survivors of clergy sexual assault, including members of SNAP, their families, and supporters will attend a court hearing in Milwaukee Federal Bankruptcy Court which could determine whether new clergy abuse testimony by top church officials, along with tens of thousands of pages of internal church files related to the cover up of decades of sex crimes against children will be made public. Victims/survivors will be available after the hearing for comment.

WHEN
Thursday April 5th, the court hearing is scheduled to begin at 10:00 a.m. SNAP leaders and victim/survivors will be available for comment following the conclusion of court proceedings.

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

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MAINE
WMTW

PORTLAND, Maine –
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland has announced temporary assignments for priests to serve in the place of a Fort Kent priest on leave while allegations against him are investigated.

Rev. James L. Nadeau, 51, of St. John Vianney Parish in Fort Kent, went on voluntary leave on Tuesday, said Sue Bernard, communications director for the diocese. She did not say what the allegations were.

Retired members of the clergy in Aroostook County will serve the parish during Holy Week and Easter. Rev. Robert Vaillancourt, 58, will serve as temporary administrator for the parish at the end of next week, Bernard said.

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MAINE
The Portland Press Herald

By Dennis Hoey dhoey@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer

FORT KENT — Father Robert Vaillancourt will serve as the temporary administrator at St. John Vianney Parish in Fort Kent while the state investigates allegations against the parish’s former priest.

Bishop Richard Malone assigned Vaillancourt to the Aroostook County position on Wednesday, one day after he announced that Father James L. Nadeau had agreed to take a temporary leave of absence.

The Bishop said that Nadeau is being investigated by the Maine Attorney General’s Office. His leave of absence will allow their investigation to proceed unimpeded, Malone said. Authorities are not being specific as to what type of allegations have been made.

“The diocese is cooperating fully with the Attorney General’s office and at their request, I can not discuss the allegations or anything about the investigation. I am hopeful that this process will go smoothly in order to lead an expeditious and just conclusion,” Malone said, in a prepared statement.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

Monica Yant Kinney, Inquirer Columnist

For a lying, scheming criminal and junkie, he cleaned up well, and, under bruising cross-examination, more than held his own.

If I had to score Round One of the most important testimony to date in the trial concerning sex abuse and conspiracy in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, I’d give it to the beleaguered – yet believable – 30-year-old victim staring at his alleged abuser in court.

“Mark,” as he was labeled in the 2011 grand jury report, is the Bucks County man charging a criminal breach of trust by the Rev. James J. Brennan, a priest and family friend he thought of as an uncle.

Brennan stands accused of the 1996 attempted rape of Mark in a West Chester apartment. But for nearly three hours Wednesday, it was Mark – who has spent the last decade in jail, on suicide watch or undergoing psychiatric treatment – who found himself on trial.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The New York Times

By JON HURDLE

Published: April 4, 2012

PHILADELPHIA — A 30-year-old man said Wednesday that a priest’s actions took the man down a path that included more than a decade of drug and alcohol abuse, multiple criminal convictions and three suicide attempts.

The accuser, a former Marine, took the witness stand during the second week of a landmark trial of two Roman Catholic priests. One of them, the Rev. James J. Brennan, is charged with trying to rape the accuser in 1996, when he was 14.

In sometimes tearful testimony, the man said the assault took place at Father Brennan’s apartment in West Chester, Pa., during an overnight stay.

The alleged attack, and an occasion three years later when the accuser said Father Brennan exposed himself, combined to traumatize the man, he said, and led to a pattern of behavior that also included getting discharged from the Marine Corps and using drugs in an attempt to be rid of the pain of what he endured.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

BY JOHN P. MARTIN
Inquirer Staff Writer

DURING THREE hours of emotional and sometimes contentious testimony, a former Bucks County altar boy on Wednesday described how a priest in the landmark child-sex-abuse and conspiracy trial molested him during an overnight visit when he was 14.

The man, now 30, broke down several times recounting a 1996 assault by the Rev. James J. Brennan that he said plunged him into a spiral of drugs and crime and still haunts him.

He said Brennan, his onetime parish priest and a longtime family friend, showed him online sex-chat rooms, proposed that they masturbate and ordered him into a bed where, clad in plaid boxer shorts, the cleric pulled him close and pressed his private parts against the boy.

“He kept pulling me forward, forward, forward,” the witness said, fighting tears. “I couldn’t get off the bed. I still feel the sensation today. It’s horrible.”

The testimony didn’t stand unchallenged.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
WTAQ

By Dave Warner

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) – A tearful former Marine testifying in a sex abuse case rocking the Philadelphia Roman Catholic Archdiocese recalled on Wednesday the day he became deathly afraid of a priest he said had been a family friend but molested him as a teenager.

The former Marine said Reverend James Brennan, 50, molested him at the priest’s apartment in suburban West Chester, Pennsylvania, in 1996 when he was 14. Brennan is charged with attempted rape.

Also on trial is Monsignor William Lynn, former secretary of the clergy, who is charged with child endangerment and conspiracy over accusations he covered up abuse allegations against priests, many of whom were simply transferred to unsuspecting parishes.

Wednesday’s witness, who said he was released from a mental health facility only days ago and has abused drugs and alcohol for years, said Brennan had been a family friend.

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CALIFORNIA
KABC

[with video]

John Gregory and Rob McMillan

CORONA, Calif. (KABC) — A church pastor and two other men are accused of kidnapping and abusing a 13-year-old boy left in their care. The pastor runs a group home in Corona. The three men were arraigned in Riverside Wednesday.

Police say the three men were asked by a mother to give her 13-year-old son “guidance.” The pastor and two of his followers could face years behind bars for their alleged actions.

Police say the boy’s mother, 30, brought the 13-year-old to a men’s home in Corona run by Heart of Worship Community Church on March 18, asking the people there to discipline her son. Police said she had hoped the people running the home would help discipline her son, who had been misbehaving.

Police say that’s when Pastor Lonnie Remmers, 54, ordered two church members, Nick Craig, 22, and Darryll Jeter, 28, to drive the boy more than 100 miles north to Barstow.

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CALIFORNIA
Inland News Today

CORONA – (INT) – The director and two residents of the Heart of Worship group home are accused of torturing and abusing a 13-year-old boy.

Police say the boy’s mother took him to the home for guidance. Pastor Lonnie Remmers allegedly ordered the two men to drive him to the desert to ‘scare’ him. After arriving in the Barstow area, the pair threatened to kill the boy and forced him to dig a grave.

They returned to Remmers’ Corona home for Bible study. Instead, the youth was physically assaulted.

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CALIFORNOA
NBC Southern California

By Irene Moore

Three men, including a pastor, pleaded not guilty for allegedly torturing and kidnapping a 13-year-old child after his mother sent him to a men’s group home and bible study for guidance.

Shackled and clad in orange jump suits, Lonnie Remmers, 54; Darryl Jeter, 28 and Nicholas Craig, 22, entered their plea in front of Judge Becky Dugan at a Riverside County Superior Courthouse.

The three belonged to the Heart of Worship church in Corona which operated a men’s group home where some of the alleged crimes are said to have occurred.

The young boy was allegedly driven by Jeter and Craig to an unknown area in Barstow under the direction of Remmers, the pastor of the church.

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CALIFORNIA
Los Angeles Times

The pastor of a small church in Corona and two other men have been arrested on suspicion of kidnapping and torturing a boy.

Pastor Lonnie Remmers, 54, along with Nick Craig, 22, and Darryll Jeter, 28, face several charges.

The teen’s mother took him to a men’s group home in Corona on March 18 for help with discipline, according to authorities.

The home was operated by Heart of Worship Ministry under Remmers’ direction. Police say Craig and Jeter took the boy to Barstow, where they allegedly beat him with a shovel and forced him to dig a grave, KTLA-TV reported.

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CALIFORNIA
Fox News

Associated Press

CORONA, Calif. – The pastor of a Riverside County storefront church and two of his followers have pleaded not guilty to kidnapping and assaulting a 13-year-old boy.

Lonny Remmers, Nick Craig and Darryll Jeter Jr. entered their pleas Wednesday afternoon in Riverside County Superior Court.

Prosecutors say the men pinched the boy with pliers, beat him with a shovel, forced him to dig a grave and threatened him with death as a harsh form of discipline.

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Patriot-News

By CHARLES THOMPSON, The Patriot-News

Eliminating a statute of limitations in child sexual assault cases was among the changes victim advocates called for during a rally Wednesday at the Capitol.

The Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape also called for legislative action on bills to make a specific state crime out of human trafficking for “commercial sexual activity” and to permit prosecutors to present expert testimony explaining variances in victims’ reactions in criminal sexual assault cases.

Advocates are seizing the moment amid the case against former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, plus a criminal trial against a top Roman Catholic Church official in Philadelphia accused of enabling abusive priests to continue having access to children.

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GEORGIA
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

By Ty Tagami
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

If you suspect child abuse but fail to report it, you could wind up in jail.

A recently passed revision of the Georgia law that requires teachers, doctors and other professionals to report suspected child abuse is so broad that just about anyone who comes into contact with kids could fall under its mandate.

Volunteers at churches, colleges, clubs, summer camps or soccer fields or parents who chaperone a field trip could go to jail if they fail to report suspected abuse under the new provision approved by lawmakers last week.

Child abuse can range from neglect and beatings to sexual abuse.

“If you volunteer with the Boys and Girls Club or volunteer with your church doing a children’s service, that would make you a mandatory reporter,” said Melissa Carter, director of the Barton Child Law and Policy Center at Emory University.

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CALIFORNIA
The Press-Enterprise

BY DAVID DANELSKI, BRIAN ROKOS The Press Enterprise AND RICHARD K. DeATLEYSTAFF WRITERS
ddanelski@pe.com | brokos@pe.com | rdeatley@pe.com
Published: 04 April 2012

A Corona pastor accused of assaulting a 13-year-old boy with pliers and directing two church members to discipline the youth has served time in federal prison for an investment fraud scheme.

The two church members drove the boy to the desert March 18, forced him to dig a grave, threw dirt on him and then beat him with a belt, according to authorities.

On Wednesday, the pastor, Lonny Lee Remmers, 54, was charged with felony assault and inflicting injury on a child. The other men — Nicholas Craig, 22, and Darryl Duane Jeter Jr., 28 — were charged with kidnapping, assault and other felonies.

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CALIFORNIA
The Orange County Register

BY FRANK SHYONG / THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO A report from a committee investigating JSerra Catholic High School’s handling of sexual-misconduct claims against a teacher says the school “did all that could be reasonably expected” to vet the teacher and that the accusations against him before his arrest were insufficient cause for the school to contact authorities.

Ricardo Aldana, 39, a Spanish teacher and volleyball coach from Dana Point, was arrested Dec. 14 and later charged with seven counts of lewd acts with a 14-year-old female student.

JSerra fired Aldana the day after his arrest. He pleaded not guilty in January. He could face up to seven years in state prison if convicted.

The mother told the Register in December that she had approached the school with concerns about sexual misconduct months before she went to law enforcement about it.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News – AM

[with audio]

Updated April 05, 2012

A group representing victims of church sexual abuse is asking Catholic priests to read a letter from the pulpit over Easter calling for an independent inquiry into abuse allegations. COIN’s (Commission of Inquiry Now) letter mimicks the Melbourne Archdiocese’ move last weekend to send anti gay-marriage letters to 80,000 parishioners.

TONY EASTLEY: It’s a cheeky move but serious all the same. A group representing victims of church sexual abuse is asking Catholic priests to read a letter from the pulpit over Easter calling for an independent inquiry into abuse allegations.

Mimicking the Melbourne Archdiocese move to send anti gay-marriage letters to 80,000 parishioners last week, the group known as COIN has sent its own message.

Alison Caldwell reports.

ALISON CALDWELL: Written by a group representing victims of church sex abuse the letter asks parishioners to lobby the Catholic Church to support an independent inquiry into the handling of their complaints.

BRYAN KEON-COHEN: Some people consider my initiative a little cheeky. Well, so be it if it enables Catholic priests or their congregations to consider the facts and attempt to reform the Church from outside since it seems incapable of reforming itself adequately from inside.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
My Fox Philly

An accuser in the Philadelphia priest-abuse trial took the stand today. The former Marine gave an emotional testimony that Rev. James Brennan made sexual advances on him when he was 14-years-old.

The victim, now 30-years-old, outlined the events that led up to the alleged sexual assault in 1996, and went into great detail about his struggles with drug abuse, mental illness and multiple suicide attempts that he says are partially a result of his sexual abuse from Brennan.

The man said Brennan was close to his family, and would come over to the home every weekend. He described him as a “drinking buddy” of his mother, and an uncle figure. He said, “When the collar came down, he was Jim. He was one of the guys.”

In the summer of 1999, the victim said that Brennan took him to his apartment in West Chester to watch movies and then golf the next day. He testified that at the apartment, Brennan showed him pornography on his laptop, tried to masturbate with the victim, and got into bed with him.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Local 10

Author: By Sarah Hoye CNN

PHILADELPHIA (CNN) –
A tearful former altar boy testified Wednesday that one of two Philadelphia priests on trial in a clergy abuse case molested him during an overnight visit at the priest’s apartment.

The witness, now in his 30s, cried on the stand as he described the incident with the Rev. James Brennan, who is accused of raping the witness in 1996, when he was 14. The man is a former Marine, who was discharged because of mental health issues.

“I was a little boy. I didn’t know what to do,” the man testified through sobs.

The witness testified before Common Pleas Judge Teresa Sarmina that Brennan, who he described as a close family friend he considered to be like an uncle, viewed online sex chat rooms with him and suggested they masturbate together before insisting the witness sleep with the priest in the same bed.

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FARGO (ND)
WDAY

By: WDAY Staff Reports, WDAY

A former Fargo-area priest is being extradited to the US from the Philippines to face child sex abuse charges.

Fernando Sayasaya was charged in 2002 with gross sexual imposition, accused of fondling 2 boys in the mid-90s. He served parishes in Fargo and West Fargo.

Authorities believe he fled to the Philippines to avoid the charges.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By Annysa Johnson of the Journal Sentinel

The judge in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee bankruptcy will hear arguments Thursday on whether to unseal evidence expected to shed light on the scope of the church sex abuse scandal in southeastern Wisconsin and how the archdiocese handled allegations involving children over decades.

Attorneys for hundreds of victims who have filed claims in the bankruptcy are asking Judge Susan V. Kelley to make public the depositions of retired Archbishop Rembert Weakland, who led the archdiocese for 25 years, and others, along with related documents, all redacted to remove the names of victims and some alleged offenders.

“This is presumptively public information generated in a public case,” said attorney Jeffrey Anderson, who represents about 350 of the 570 men and women who have filed sex abuse claims against the archdiocese.

“And we will argue strenuously that the public’s right to know outweighs any privacy interest the archdiocese is asserting,” he said.

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FARGO (ND)
The Bismark Tribune

Associated Press | Posted: Thursday, April 5, 2012

FARGO, N.D. — A former Fargo-area priest is being extradited to the United States from the Philippines to face child sex abuse charges.

Fernando Sayasaya (Say-ah-say-ah) is accused of fondling two boys in the mid-1990s, when he served parishes in Fargo and West Fargo. He was charged in 2002 with gross sexual imposition.

A court in the Philippines has ordered Sayasaya to return to the United States. Authorities believe he fled to the Philippines to avoid the charges.

Former Assistant Cass County State’s Attorney Wade Webb says he is pleased with the development.

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AUSTRALIA
The West Australian

AAP
Updated April 5, 2012

NSW Attorney-General Greg Smith has shown a lack of judgment by making derogatory comments about a woman who accused his friend and former parish priest of sexual abusing her when she was a child, the state opposition says.

Mr Smith said one of the alleged victims of Father Finian Egan was “just trying to get $1 million from the church”, an email from an unnamed Catholic priest who met the attorney-general last July claims.

The email to alleged victim Nikki Wells, broadcast on ABC Television on Wednesday night, has raised questions about the long delay in prosecuting the case against Father Egan.

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SWITZERLAND
swissinfo

by Morven McLean, swissinfo.ch

A light-filled chapel forms the heart of the seminary in Villars-sur-Glâne near Fribourg. Built 30 years ago to hold 40 young men, it currently houses five.

It’s the same story at most of the country’s centres for training Roman Catholic priests. Researchers predict that in 2029 there will be one third fewer priests than there were in 2009.

They and progressive voices in the Church are calling for an open and honest discussion of its future.

In Basel, Catholics have even urged the dropping of the celibacy requirement* and demanded that women be admitted as priests.

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

PAUL CULLEN, Political Staff

THE BROADCASTING Authority of Ireland has defended the involvement of its chairman, former RTÉ director general Bob Collins, in assessing the penalty to be imposed on the State broadcaster over the Fr Kevin Reynolds libel affair.

The authority also defended itself yesterday against criticism by Fr Reynolds’s solicitor, Robert Dore, who said the priest should have been contacted during the investigation ordered by the BAI into his libelling in a Prime Time Investigates programme.

A spokeswoman said Mr Collins was appointed as an independent chair of the regulator and would in his daily work have “all kinds of responsibilities” affecting RTÉ.

Mr Collins, who worked in RTÉ for 28 years and was director general for six years, wasn’t asked and did not offer to absent himself from the board discussion this week on the investigation ordered by the compliance committee of the authority into the Mission to Prey programme broadcast last May, she said.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Priest Abuse Trial Blog

Ralph Cipriano

The prosecution witness testified that he had just checked out of a recovery facility ten days earlier. On the witness stand, he admitted to a criminal past, and told a story about being sexually abused by a defendant priest, a story drastically different from the original charges in last year’s grand jury report. Then on cross-examination, the witness began crying, and told the judge he was “messing up” his testimony.

Judge M. Teresa Sarmina called for a recess shortly after 3 p.m. Wednesday, about 90 minutes earlier than usual. For members of the prosecution team, it was time to regroup as the witness attempted to compose himself in the bathroom.

Day Six of the archdiocese sex abuse trial began shortly after 10 a.m. when Mark Bukowski, 30, from Newtown, Bucks County, took the witness stand to testify against Father James J. Brennan, on trial for charges of attempted rape and conspiracy. Bukowski, according to Brennan’s defense lawyer, is the priest’s sole accuser, so the case against Father Brennan could rise or fall with Bukowski. If so, the prosecution may be in trouble.

Bukowski testified that he was a former altar boy whose family had befriended Father Brennan. “He was over our house every weekend,” Bukowski testified.

“He was almost like an uncle figure, Bukowski said. The witness described Father Brennan as a close friend and drinking buddy of his mother’s. “They really hit it off,” he said. “They would drink alcohol heavily together.” And then the priest would hop on his motorcycle and drive home drunk, the witness testified.

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ROME
Lez Get Real

Posted by: Bridgette P. LaVictoire on April 4, 2012.

In June of 1983, Emanuela Orlandi disappeared. She was the fifteen year old daughter of a Vatican employee, and now prosecutors in Rome are saying that someone in that vast edifice knows what happened to her. Almost three decades ago, she was kidnapped by unidentified men, and her disappearance may be connected to the alleged financial misdeeds of the Vatican bank.

According to the Telegraph:

One theory is that the girl’s father, a Vatican employee, had stumbled on documents that connected the Vatican’s bank with organised crime in Rome and that she was seized in an attempt to silence him. The alleged mastermind of the kidnapping was Enrico “Renatino” De Pedis, the leader of the Magliana gang, Rome’s most ruthless criminal band.

He was shot dead by rival gangsters in a street in central Rome in 1990 and his body interred in a crypt in the Basilica of Sant’ Apollinare.

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NEDERLAND
TV Blik

De Nationale Assemblee van Suriname stemt vanavond over de amnestiewet. Het laatste nieuws.

Gerd Leers in zwaar weer
Gerd Leers was een gevierd burgemeester. Niet onomstreden, maar populair bij de Maastrichtenaren. Als minister voor Immigratie, Integratie en Asiel rolt Leers van de ene affaire in de andere. De Volkskrant meldt vandaag dat Geert Wilders wil dat het kabinet Leers vervangt als minister. Wilders ontkent. Een portret: van burgervader tot omstreden minister.

Kamer hoort Deetman over castratie
Tenminste één seksueel misbruikte jongen is gecastreerd in opdracht van de katholieke kerk. Dit feit was bekend bij de Commissie-Deetman, maar werd niet opgenomen in het eindrapport. Ook zwijgt het rapport over een vermeend gratieverzoek van een pater dat KVP-premier Marijnen zou willen inwilligen. Vandaag legt commissie-voorzitter Deetman verantwoording af in de Tweede Kamer. Nieuwsuur doet verslag van de hoorzitting en volgt tijdens het debat Cornelius Rogge, de man die het castratieverhaal van zijn vriend Henk Heithuis meldde aan de commissie.

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BELGIE
Deredactie

De kamer van inbeschuldigingstelling (KI) zal zich voor de vierde keer moeten uitspreken over de geldigheid van Operatie Kelk, het onderzoek naar misbruik binnen de kerk. Dat besliste het Hof van Cassatie.

Vorig jaar oordeelde de KI dat de huiszoekingen van Operatie Kelk nietig zijn, en dat de inbeslaggenomen stukken uit het dossier moesten verdwijnen.

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NEDERLAND
Limburgs Dagblad

De van seksueel misbruik beschuldigde pastoor Jan S. uit Maastricht heeft de namen gepubliceerd van de drie mensen die hem hebben aangeklaagd.

De door het bisdom Roermond op non-actief gezette pastoor deed dat in een brief aan oud-leerlingen van jongensinternaat Bleijerheide in Kerkrade, waar hij vroeger als broeder werkte.

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NEDERLAND
KLOKK

UPDATE De van seksueel misbruik beschuldigde pastoor Jan S. uit Maastricht heeft de namen gepubliceerd van de drie mensen die hem hebben aangeklaagd.

De door het bisdom Roermond op non-actief gezette pastoor deed dat in een brief aan oud-leerlingen van jongenspensionaat Bleijerheide in Kerkrade, waar hij vroeger als broeder werkte.

Drie oud-leerlingen van Bleijerheide deden bij een kerkelijke onderzoekscommissie aangifte van seksueel misbruik door de vroegere broeder op Bleijerheide. S. ontkent de beschuldigingen.

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INDIA
Conference of Religious India Bulletin

NEW DELHI: Noting that ” sexual violence, apart from being a dehumanizing act, is an unlawful intrusion on the right of privacy and sanctity of a female”, the Delhi high court has granted seven years’ rigorous imprisonment to a priest for repeatedly raping a 16-year-old girl in a temple in the capital.

The High Court slammed the priest saying he disregarded morality and consequence of his act and committed a barbaric offence upon a minor.

According to the prosecution, in July 23, 2007, the girl, then 16, had lodged a complaint with police that she was first raped by the priest inside the temple in May 2004 after she fell ill there, and he ravished her several times after blackmailing her.

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FORT KENT (ME)
Bangor Daily News

By Julia Bayly, Special to the BDN

Posted April 04, 2012, at 5:57 p.m.

FORT KENT, Maine — Parish and community members rallied Wednesday behind the Rev. James L. Nadeau whose sudden leave of absence from his post as pastor of St. John Vianney Parish took his flock by surprise.

The voluntary leave was announced late Tuesday by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland and the Maine attorney general’s office, which is conducting an investigation of unspecified allegations against the 51-year-old priest.

“I am very saddened by this whole thing,” Norma Landry, past chairwoman of the St. John Vianney Parish Council, said Wednesday morning. “Nobody really knows what is going on [and] in times like this I always turn to prayer.”

The allegations and subsequent leave taking by Nadeau could not have come at a worse time for the parish’s practicing Catholics.

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MINNESOTA
Park Rapids Enterprises

In part two of a series about former pastor Darwin Schauer, who is jailed in Hubbard County on 15 charges of criminal sexual conduct, the Enterprise outlines how he returned to serving at a church after previously being sentenced for sex crimes. The first part of the series appeared in the March 31 Enterprise.

BY Sarah Smith
ssmith@parkrapidsenterprise.com

Darwin Schauer reached out to the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod’s South District. He told a sympathetic minister he wanted to continue to serve the church.

The reverend helped get him accepted at Concordia in Mequon, Wis., after advising him that becoming an ordained minister was not possible with his history. Why not the lay ministry program?

Concordia Mequon’s registrar said Schauer was admitted in the winter of 1989 and by summer, was able to be certified as a lay minister. Because of his previous four-year degree, Schauer had completed the two-year program in less than six months.

“A lay minister program is a separate program,” explained Rev. Don Fondow, current president of the Synod’s North District. “If a person enters and already may have a degree, or if they have college credits, that is applied to how many courses they have to take because it’s a set certification so when you’re done you don’t necessarily receive a degree but you work towards certification and that’s what the situation was. He would have been certified, completed the program that would allow him to be certified as a lay minister. The (Concordia) faculty basically certified and then he’s available for placement in a position.”

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NEW YORK
The Daily Pleasantville

by Robert Michelin

THORNWOOD, N.Y. – After being in Thornwood for over 15 years, the Legion of Christ location off Columbus Avenue will soon be closing its doors.

Luis Garza, territorial director for the North American Legion of Christ, said in a statement that there are multiple circumstances in the current Roman Catholic congregation that are forcing the Thornwood branch to close.

“I do not want to dwell excessively on our recent history. But our present challenges, especially our pressing financial difficulties, require us to recognize that there are several factors that have led us to be where we are now,” Garza said in the statement.

The Thornwood Legion of Christ first opened in 1996. The location is adjacent to the Mount Pleasant Community Center and the Westlake High School and Middle School campus. Jim Fair, a spokesperson with the Legion of Christ, said the building will remain open until the location is sold and that the area of the land spans approximately 262 acres.

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NEW YORK
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on April 04, 2012

A support group for clergy sex abuse victims is asking New York’s Cardinal Tim Dolan to disinvite one of his controversial colleagues who is set to preach tomorrow at St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

Leaders of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, are writing Dolan about Cardinal Justin Rigali, the now-retired head of the Philadelphia archdiocese. Rigali has been blasted by prosecutors for keeping dozens of accused clerics on the job as recently as last year despite child sex abuse allegations against him.http://ncronline.org/news/vatican/pope-taps-chaput-philadelphia

In a letter to Dolan, sent today by fax and email, SNAP says “For the sake of thousands of wounded victims and hundreds of thousands of betrayed Catholics – many of whom are still suffering – we hope you will rescind that invitation. It sends a depressing and chilling message – that wrongdoers in the church hierarchy will continue being rewarded, no matter how many children they put at risk.”

A copy of SNAP’s letter is below:

*****

April 4, 2012

Dear Cardinal Dolan;

Twice in just a few days, you have rubbed salt into already deep and still fresh wounds of hundreds of victims of clergy sex abuse and thousands of Catholics who rightfully feel betrayed by the church hierarchy’s continuing recklessness, callousness and deceit in this on-going crisis.

On your blog on Monday, April 2, you repeatedly sang the praises of your predecessor, Cardinal Edward Egan. You made no mention of his work – in both Connecticut and New York – concealing child sex crimes. You ignored his recent interview in Connecticut Magazine, in which he retracted perhaps the worst so-called “apology” we’ve ever seen during this decades-long scandal.

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ANNAPOLIS (MD)
Maryland Gazette

By Heather Rawlyk

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

During an emotional hearing that left many in an Annapolis courtroom in tears on Tuesday, a former Archbishop Spalding High School girls track coach was ordered to register as a sex offender for 25 years for sexting with one of his athletes during a months-long relationship.

Brian T. Funk, 40, a married father of two young children, entered an Alford plea to soliciting child pornography.

The plea allowed him to maintain his innocence while admitting prosecutors have enough evidence to convict. It carries the same consequences as a guilty plea.

Assistant State’s Attorney Pamela Alban said the state worked hard to nail down that charge, as it carries a mandatory 25 years on the Maryland Sex Offender Registry. This ensures that Funk cannot coach children for more than two decades.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Sudwest Presse

Die Ruhe war trügerisch. Nachdem es zuletzt relativ still geworden war um die katholische Kirche, steht nach neuen Vorwürfen ausgerechnet der Missbrauchsbeauftragte der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz in der Kritik. Hat Bischof Stephan Ackermann solche Verbrechen in seinem Sprengel unter den Teppich gekehrt und unangebrachte Milde gegenüber Tätern walten lassen?

So einfach liegen die Dinge nicht. Die katholische Kirche hat seit dem Öffentlichwerden der vielen Fälle sexueller Gewalt an Kindern durch Priester und kirchliche Mitarbeiter viel unternommen, um das ganze Ausmaß der Verbrechen offenzulegen, auf die Opfer zuzugehen und Hilfen anzubieten. Auch innerkirchlich wurden Regeln für den Umgang mit solchen Verbrechen aufgestellt. Sie waren überfällig, keine Frage, stand doch viel zu lange der Schutz der Institution im Vordergrund. Der ernsthafte Wille, aus den ungeheuerlichen Verbrechen auch Konsequenzen zu ziehen, ist deshalb der katholischen Kirche nicht abzusprechen. Durch ihr Voranschreiten setzte sie Maßstäbe für andere gesellschaftliche Bereiche, in denen Kinder der sexuellen Gier Erwachsener schutzlos ausgesetzt sind.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Saarbrucker Zeitung

Von SZ-Redakteur Harald Knitter

Sanfte Stimme, weiche Figur: Anschmiegsam, vertrauensvoll wirkt der 42-Jährige, für seine drei Kinder ganz der Familienvater zum Toben und Knuddeln. „Meine Kinder habe ich wissen lassen, dass die Welt friedlich und schön sei, aber ich stelle eine Welt dar, die für mich nicht existiert“, sagt der Saarlouiser. „Nähe ertrage ich nur, wenn ich sie kontrollieren kann. Wenn meine Frau mich von hinten umarmt, fahre ich zusammen.“

Sieben Jahre hatte er das Geheimnis in seiner Seele verschlossen. Nach seiner Hochzeit mit 21 Jahren platzte es aus ihm heraus. „Wir lagen im Bett, als mir im Streit mit meiner Frau entfuhr: Du bist wie der Pater.“ Sie hakte nach und erfuhr, was Andreas K. (Name geändert) bis heute nur Familie und Therapeuten erzählt hat, bis er sich gestern der Saarbrücker Zeitung aus zwei Gründen offenbarte: „Bis jetzt war der Missbrauch, den ich erlitten habe, ein Phantom. Jeder hätte sagen können: Du baust Mist und lässt dir zur Entschuldigung so eine Geschichte einfallen.“

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DEUTSCHLAND
Hildesheimer Allgemeine Zeitung

Noch heute hat Rudolf Kastelik die Schreie der geprügelten Jungen im Kopf. Die einstige Erziehungsanstalt Bernwardshof dient den Vinzentinerinnen heute als Tagungshaus. Foto: Schlemeyer

Hildesheim – Die Hölle dauerte 20 Jahre: Als Säugling, als Kind, als Jugendlicher wurde Rudolf Kastelik in Häusern der Kirche missbraucht und gequält, unter anderem im Hildesheimer Bernwardshof. Heute will er die Mauer des Schweigens durchbrechen und endlich Frieden finden – auch mit Hilfe der Kirche.

Kindheit und Jugend verbrachte Kastelik von 1948 bis 1969 vor allem in kirchlichen Heimen – immer wieder getrennt von seinem Zwillingsbruder. Elf waren es insgesamt, hat er inzwischen recherchiert. „Jeder Ortswechsel war für mich eine Deportation. Ich wusste nie: Wird es noch schlimmer?“ Ein Heim, das er als besonders brutal erfahren hat: die „Erziehungsanstalt Bernwardshof“ der Vinzentinerinnen in Hildesheim. „Wir Kinder wurden systematisch und extrem gequält und missbraucht.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Idea

Ahrensburg (idea) – Um Vergebung haben die leitenden Geistlichen der Nordelbischen Kirche die Opfer sexuellen Missbrauchs in der Kirchengemeinde von Ahrensburg bei Hamburg gebeten.

Dort hatten sich in den siebziger und achtziger Jahren die schwersten bisher bekannt gewordenen Übergriffe evangelischer Pastoren zugetragen. Sie kamen aber erst vor zwei Jahren ans Licht. In einem Gottesdienst am 1. April sagte der Vorsitzende der Kirchenleitung, Bischof Gerhard Ulrich (Schleswig), ihm graue vor dem angerichteten Leid. Das Ausmaß von Unrecht und menschlicher Schuld könne er kaum in Worte fassen. Die Bischöfin des Sprengels Hamburg-Lübeck, Kirsten Fehrs (Hamburg), sprach vor rund 300 Gottesdienstbesuchern von einer schwerfälligen Aufklärungsarbeit. Sie stehe für eine Kirche, die Täter ungewollt geschützt habe. 13 Opfer seien der Kirche bekannt.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By John P. Martin
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

A former Bucks County altar boy testified today that one of the two Philadelphia priests on trial for conspiracy and child endangerment molested him when he stayed at the cleric’s apartment in 1996.

The witness, now 30, broke down several times as he told a Common Pleas Court jury about the assault by the Rev. James J. Brennan that he said plunged him into a spiral of drugs, crime and suicide attempts and still haunts him.

He said Brennan, a family friend he once loved like an uncle, showed him Internet sex-chat rooms, proposed they masturbate together then ordered him into a bed where the priest, clad in boxer shorts, wrapped his arms around him and pressed his private parts against the boy.

“He kept pulling me forward, forward, forward,” the man testified, fighting back tears. “I couldn’t get off the bed. I still feel the sensation today. It’s horrible.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Newsworks

April 4, 2012
By Elizabeth Fiedler

A 30-year-old accuser took the stand today in the sexual abuse trial of Philadelphia priest Reverend James Brennan, who is charged with assaulting the man when he was a 14-year-old boy in 1996.

The accuser broke into tears a numbers of times while describing the molestation he alleges he suffered at the hands of Father James Brennan. He said when he was a boy his family had a close relationship with Brennan — often inviting him into their home for dinner and parties. He said in the years after the encounter with Brennan, his grades fell and he used drugs and alcohol.

Brennan’s lawyer attempted to question the accuser’s credibility, mentioning his struggle with mental health issues and substance abuse. The lawyer also thoroughly grilled the witness on why he remembered what Brennan was wearing during an encounter — but not the date it happened.

The accuser also talked about his interaction with a victim assistance representative sent by the Archdiocese. He said that representative seems more interested in protecting Brennan.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CBS Philly

By Steve Tawa

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — One of the main figures in the Philadelphia clergy child abuse trial has taken the witness stand to point a finger of blame at Father James Brennan, who is charged with attempted rape.

The accuser, now 30 years old, took the stand confidently, but by the time he recounted his overnight visit to Father Brennan’s apartment in West Chester in 1996, when he was just 14, he was trembling and sobbing.

He says Brennan showed him pornographic chat rooms on the computer and talked explicitly about male body parts. Then, Brennan insisted they both sleep in one bed. That’s when, the accuser says, the priest sexually assaulted him.

The man said he went from a being straight ‘A’ student to a downward spiral of drugs, alcohol, and crime. He attempted suicide three times.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Huffington Post

JOANN LOVIGLIO | April 4, 2012

PHILADELPHIA — A 30-year-old man says he was a good student with a bright future until he was molested by a priest he calls a “sexual predator.”

The man’s emotional testimony is under way Wednesday in a Philadelphia courtroom.

The Rev. James Brennan is charged with assaulting the man when he was a 14-year-old boy in 1996.

Brennan is on trial with Monsignor William Lynn, who is the first Roman Catholic official in the U.S. charged with endangering children for allegedly keeping predator priests in parish work. Both have pleaded not guilty.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

Barney Zwartz
April 5, 2012

VICTIMS of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy want a call for an independent inquiry into the handling of their complaints to be read from every Catholic pulpit in Victoria over Easter.

Bryan Keon-Cohen QC, chairman of Commission of Inquiry Now (COIN), has written to every parish priest in the state asking them to read the letter during Easter services.

It is a slightly mischievous mimicking of 80,000 letters opposing same-sex marriage sent by Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart and five other bishops to Victorian Catholics last weekend. Mr Keon-Cohen’s letter asks priests to distribute a COIN donation form to parishioners.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

THE NSW Attorney-General, Greg Smith, has been accused of denigrating a woman who made sexual abuse allegations against a Sydney priest who is a friend of his as ”just trying to get $1 million from the church”.

Mr Smith is alleged to have made the comment when he was asked last July why Father Finian Egan had not been arrested or charged despite a police investigation into this and other claims that began two years ago, according to the ABC’s 7.30 program last night.

A spokesman for Mr Smith said: ”The Attorney-General recalls no such conversation. He says he would never suggest any victim of sexual abuse was simply motivated by a desire to claim a financial payout.”

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IRELAND
Drogheda Independent

Wednesday April 04 2012

A FORMER Termonfeckin and Drogheda based priest has been caught up in a storm over lewd pictures appearing in a First Communion presentation.

Fr. Martin Mcveigh was beginning a talk at a school in Pomeroy, Co. Tyrone, when the images were accidently shown on the screen. The presentation was abandoned. Fr Mcveigh, who is from Dungannon, was ordained in 1976 and served as curate in Termonfeckin parish from September 1976 to 1981.

He moved to Drogheda in 1981 and spent five years there.

He later went to Westminster in London and back to Pomeroy where he is presently based.

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NEW JERSEY
The Star-Ledger

By Star-Ledger Guest Columnist

By Bob McHugh

I wore the Latin motto “Succisa Virescit” — meaning roughly, “Cut it down and it will grow back” — on the breast pocket of my green blazer for the five years I attended Delbarton School. A classmate used to go around on the last day of the school year ripping off the pocket patches. I thought it was just a dumb high school prank. But now, I wonder if he wasn’t right.

Mired in an ugly and expanding child-abuse scandal, my alma mater has certainly succeeded in cutting down its previously stellar reputation as an all-boys prep school. But, as school officials continue to bungle the handling of the scandal, who knows what will grow back?

These days, it can’t be considered a surprise that the cancer of Catholic priests abusing young men has metastasized into the “hills of Morris,” as our school song — borrowed from Cornell’s — called the place. What is surprising and sad is that the men who run Delbarton, where annual tuition nears $30,000 and boys are routinely sent to Harvard and Yale, can be so dumb.

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NEDERLAND
Nieuws

(Novum) – Een meerderheid van de Tweede Kamer twijfelt niet aan de integriteit van de commissie-Deetman, die het seksueel misbruik in de katholieke kerk heeft onderzocht. Dat bleek woensdag tijdens een hoorzitting in de Tweede Kamer. Wel wil de Kamer nader onderzoek naar de castraties van minderjarigen binnen katholieke instellingen.

Deetman zei dat hij niet in staat is tot nader onderzoek als er aan hem wordt getwijfeld. Dat onderzoek moet onder meer gaan over misbruik van meisjes en de afhandeling van de schadevergoeding van het misbruik door de kerk. “Dat kan niet als mijn integriteit ter discussie wordt gesteld.”

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Collegian

By Maria Bryant
For the Collegian

A special screening of “Boys and Men Healing,” a documentary about the impact of child sexual abuse, will be presented at 7 tonight in the HUB-Robeson Center Auditorium.

After the film, there will be a question and answer session with the film’s producer, Simon Wienberg, along with clinicians who work with male survivors and two male survivors from MaleSurvivor.org.

The event, open to the public, is sponsored by MaleSurvivor.org and co-sponsored by Counseling and Psychological Services and Student Affairs.

With April being Child Abuse Prevention Month, CAPS and the filmmakers mutually wanted to screen “Boys and Men Healing” at Penn State, CAPS Outreach and Consultation Coordinator Mary Anne Knapp said.

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MISSOURI/MASSACHUSETTS
The Turner Report

It probably wasn’t the best of timing.

The Cape Cod Times reported Sunday that Rick Braschler, director of risk management for Kanakuk, will speak at a seminar April 12 to help a camp that has also been rocked by scandal.

Braschler, of course, was hired before the latest sex scandal to hit Kanakuk, the filing of felony sex charges involving underage children against former staffer Lee Bradberry, 22, Auburn.

Next month, he will also offer a workshop to teach camp leaders and others in the community willing to pay $100 how to protect children from predators. But the training goes beyond criminal background checks and establishing protocols to report abuse.

“We need insight into how does a person with bad intent infiltrate an organization and then gain trust so they can follow through on their bad intent,” Braschler said

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AUSTRALIA/UNITED STATES
J-Wire

April 4, 2012

David Kramer will be released from a Missouri prison later this month…but efforts are underway to have him extradited to Melbourne. Kramer is yet to be charged with offences relating to alleged sexual abuse at Melbourne’s Yeshivah College.

J-Wire spoke to one of Kramer’s legal representatives who questioned the passing of time between the alleged offences and Kramer’s release. He said: “He is due for release in a couple of weeks. I have handled some civil matters for him. I believe the statute of limitations in Missouri is 20 years so I don’t know if they will be able to extradite him from this State. If there is an extradition order it will have to litigated.” The lawyer questioned if the there were still witnesses. Last year, Victorian Police mounted a campaign requesting people with information to step forward. It was very successful.

In the meantime, former Yeshiva student Manny Waks who was not abused by Kramer but states he was the victim of other perpetrators at the Yeshiva, told J-Wire: ““Yeshivah’s complicity in these sexual crimes against so many children by numerous perpetrators is becoming increasingly clear. Many of the former victims are looking forward to fully exposing this immoral behavior by an apparently religious institution and bringing them to full account.

Yeshivah has been given sufficient opportunities to at least partially redeem themselves but they have neglected to take any appropriate action whatsoever. Worse, their immoral approach has in fact increased the pain of many of the victims. We will therefore be holding them to full account.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Catholics4Change

[We Need Your Support at Cathedral this Good Friday from 11 a.m. to noon.]

April 4, 2012 by Susan Matthews

Many have asked about bringing children to the prayer service as it is a day off from school for many. They are certainly welcome and this a peaceful vigil versus a protest. Many children attended vigils in Boston. Prayers read aloud will be appropriate for all ages.

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NEDERLAND
Trouw

‘Ik word er bijna emotioneel van.’ Wim Deetman kan de suggestie in de media niet verkroppen dat hij met zijn onderzoekscommissie naar het seksueel misbruik in de kerk, zaken uit zijn rapport zou hebben gehouden. Dat bleek vandaag bij een hoorzitting erover in de Tweede Kamer

‘Het is nergens op gebaseerd en ik daag iedereen uit om anders te bewijzen’, zei Deetman. ‘Wat moest worden vermeld, dat is vermeld, zonder aanziens des persoons.’

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NEDERLAND
Reformatorisch Dagblad

DEN HAAG – De commissie-Deetman, die onderzoek deed naar het misbruikschandaal in de Rooms-Katholieke Kerk, heeft op geen enkele manier geprobeerd de reputatie van Rooms-Katholieke bestuurders te beschermen.

Dat verklaarde Deetman vanmorgen in de Tweede Kamer in reactie op recente publicaties in NRC Handelsblad.

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