ABUSE TRACKER

UNITED STATES
National Catholic Register

by Mark Shea Sunday, August 26, 2012

A reader writes:

Read some of your blog. I know their are some good people that are Catholics. Just don’t understand why organized religion becomes perverted and the leadership condones the behavior. Wait, I do understand, it’s all about “power over.” The culture of the church is corrupt and sanctions this aberrant behavior. Puts all the good people in such a bad place, don’t you think? The church has had a “power over” relationship with the people for centuries. Watched this in action during Semana Santa in Sevilla about 30 years back. It was a disgusting display of “power over” and yet apologists for the church condone and encourage this behavior.

First, thank you for the acknowledgement that “some” good people are Catholics. I would even go so far as to say most Catholics are good people. That is, we are average schlubs trying to get by in life. As you may recall, “Be kind, for everyone you meet is engaged in a great struggle.” It turns out Catholics are remarkably like human beings and are not more prone to evil than the general population, nor do their IQ levels deviate from the norm for the general population.

Why then, do they remain Catholic when members of their communion do great evil?

Answer: Because Catholic faith does not stand or fall with the moral quality of our bishops. It stands on Jesus Christ. I’m a Catholic because I believe Jesus is the Son of God and that he established a Church as the sacrament of salvation–a Church composed entirely of sinful people–especially me. I don’t place my faith in the personal sanctity of any bishop (though some are very good people and others are, in my view, scoundrels). I place it in Jesus to guide his Church because he is gracious to dunderheads and sinners. There is no option of escaping grave sin in this world. You meet it everywhere, including the mirror. The only option is to stick with Jesus–or not. Some people imagine you can stick with Jesus but ditch the Church. Not possible. Christ is the head and the Church is his body.

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VATICAN CITY
Chiesa

VATICAN CITY, August 27, 2012 – “The activity of the Holy See” is the title of a weighty volume that year after year offers the account of the actions undertaken by the pope, the Roman curia, and other Vatican offices. It is an “unofficial publication,” as specified on the frontispiece, but – compiled by the secretariat of state – contains a substantial amount of information and not a few curiosities, often unpublished elsewhere.

The latest edition, concerning the activities of 2011, was published at the end of July by Libreria Editrice Vaticana. It is 1,366 pages long, and costs 80 euro.

In it we learn, for example:

– that among the activities of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith must also be included the republication in the November 30, 2011 issue of “L’Osservatore Romano” of the text by then cardinal Joseph Ratzinger published in 1998 in a volume “On the pastoral care of the divorced and remarried.” This republication – it is explained – was intended to “draw the attention of pastors” to that volume, “unfortunately little known,” which reiterates the traditional Catholic position on the argument and in which, among other things, it is confirmed that the practice of the Orthodox Churches of admitting under certain conditions a second and third marriage after the failure of the first remains “unacceptable for doctrinal reasons.”

– that last year, the disciplinary office of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith opened 599 new procedures, 440 of them concerning “delicta graviora,” and that the most numerous of these, 404 to be exact, are cases of abuse perpetrated by clergy against minors. With regard to this, the volume points out that “in the year 2011, with respect to the year 2010, the disciplinary office received fewer notifications,” but that nonetheless “with respect to previous years (for example, the period of 2005–2009) the number of cases has risen considerably.” Also in this area, moreover, the congregation for the doctrine of the faith submitted to the pope a request for the removal “ex officio” from the clerical state of 125 subjects, and for another 135 a request for dispensation from priestly obligations.

– that during the same period, the congregation for the clergy – for reasons other than “delicta graviora” – issued 540 certifications of dispensation from priestly obligations for 49 diocesan deacons, 26 religious deacons, 280 secular priests, and 185 religious.

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PHILIPPINES
Manila Standard Today

By Ferdinand Fabella | Posted on August 27, 2012

A laity group in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Parañaque criticized Bishop Jesse Mercado for snubbing a public forum on Monday where he was invited to explain the disposition of more than P3 million in diocesan funds that were meant to be given to disaster victims, but purportedly did not reach the beneficiaries.

Dr. Erwin Carabeo, a leader of the Lay Initiative for Transparency and Accountability, expressed disappointment at the bishop’s apparent refusal to face the public and clarify the allegations hurled against him.

“We want to hear it directly from the bishop. These people, the ordinary parishioners and the faithful, have questions that we church workers also could not answer,” said Carabeo, a former president of the pastoral council of St. Andrew’s Cathedral, the seat of the Parañaque diocese.

Carabeo told Manila Standard Today at the forum held at the Elorde Sports Complex on Sucat Road in Parañaque that he resigned as council president when the alleged irregularity broke out because the bishop has done nothing to explain the matter but issue “blanket denials.”

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UNITED STATES
History News Network – George Mason University

By Bruce Chadwick
8-27-12

Bruce Chadwick lectures on history and film at Rutgers University in New Jersey. He also teaches writing at New Jersey City University. He holds his PhD from Rutgers and was a former editor for the New York Daily News. Mr. Chadwick can be reached at bchadwick@njcu.edu.

Magdalen

New York International Fringe Festival
Gene Frankel Theater
24 Bond Street
New York, N.Y.

From 1765 through 1996, the Catholic Church in Ireland ran a chain of large laundries supervised by nuns called the Magdalene laundries. The workers, over 30,000 of them over the centuries, were all prostitutes, rape victims, sexually abused girls, troubled girls and, in later years, the mentally challenged. They were sent to the laundries by their families and the courts in the belief that hard work cleanses the soul and that the good sisters would rehabilitate the women.

They did not. Revelations in the 1990s finally illustrated that the women worked like dogs and lived like prisoners in workhouses attached to the laundries. Many spent years there and some their entire lives. The nuns were overly harsh in their treatment of the girls and many of the girls were physically, sexually and psychologically abused. The centuries of abuse came to light in 1993 when contractors who dug up a convent courtyard discovered 155 skeletons belonging to the girls at the laundries. Following that discovery, many of the girls finally went public and told their sordid stories. A national scandal followed. Several years later, another church sex scandal ensued when it was revealed that many young Irish boys were molested by priests.

The story of the girls, and the nuns, is told in a scorching new play, Magdalen, at the New York International Film Festival, that opened last week. The star of the one-woman play is Erin Layton, who delivers a heartwrenching and thunderous performance that both shocks brings tears. The theme of her electric show is how on earth could the nuns and priests get away with this for over two centuries. Minute after minute, like a slowly lit fuse, the play heats up, hotter and hotter, until it explodes like a criminal and sexual volcano at the end.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

A Cambria County priest has been placed on leave amid allegations of sexual abuse involving children several decades ago.

The Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown said Friday that the Rev. George Koharchik, pastor of Saint Catherine of Siena Parish in Mount Union, will not be permitted to function as a priest and won’t have contact with children while he is on leave.

Diocese spokesman Tony DeGol said the alleged sexual misconduct allegedly took place in the late 1970s. The alleged victims brought it to the attention of the church recently.

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OREGON
The Register-Guard

By Bob Keefer
The Register-Guard

[with copy of a letter from Bishop John G. Vlasny]

Published: August 27, 2012

REEDSPORT — What Carolee Horning wanted most was for her former church to say it was sorry. On Sunday, when she came to Mass, she got not only an extraordinary apology but also found, amid her taut nerves and copious tears, a sense of homecoming and liberation.

Horning, 41, has lived in Eugene for a decade. She was even born here. But a quarter-century ago, when she was a girl growing up in Reedsport, she was molested by a Catholic priest at St. John the Apostle Parish, where her family was and still is part of the congregation.

Father Edward Altstock became a trusted family friend when he headed the parish from 1984 to 1986. Horning, then a young teenager who had been an altar girl, came under his sway, flattered by gifts and attention from such a figure of authority. He pursued her sexually for years, even visiting her in Corvallis when she was a student at Oregon State University.

Decades after the abuse started, she says, her romantic life remains wrecked by what happened with Altstock, who is retired and living near Portland. Because of the statute of limitations, he never was charged with a crime.

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IOWA
Quad-City Times

Brian Wellner

An Iowa woman contemplating a return to the Roman Catholic Church last year agreed to meet with a priest on one condition — he remove his collar.

“Roman collars still frighten me,” Kathleen Bowman, 47, told the priest.

She then emerged from four decades of silence, having only ever shared with a therapist her story of alleged abuse as a child by three priests because the memories were making her suicidal.

“I didn’t know I could report,” Bowman told the Quad-City Times, her first time speaking publicly about the alleged abuse. “It was taking everything just to maintain life.”

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MASSACHUSETTS
Western Massachusetts Catholics

a. What Is The Petition?
b. Why Is This Petition Important?
c. How Can I Help?
a. What Is The Petition?

The owners of the Western Mass Catholics blog (Robert Kelly and Brody Hale) started a petition on Change.Org.

You can sign the petition here.

The petition asks Massachusetts Secretary of State William Francis Galvin to reinstitute a requirement that the Corporation of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield, Massachusetts provide annual financial statements to state officials.

It is critical to understand two things:

1. this petition is NOT directed at religious organizations in general; it is directed at the Corporation of the Springfield Diocese.

2. this corporation is NOT a religious entity.

Corporate sole gives the diocese civil standing. Through corporate sole, diocesan officials buy and sell property, file lawsuits (see links below for five recent lawsuits), lobby the state legislature, and donate to political parties and special interest groups. Deed restrictions on real property are especially important in the Springfield Diocese because they are by far the most restrictive in the state. If the requirement for “annual returns” were reintroduced, citizens would learn about:

– source and list of diocesan money and assets.
– what the money and assets are used for.
– how much money is used for civil suits and political donations.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

John Ferguson, Victorian political editor
From:The Australian
August 25, 2012

THE nation’s most powerful Catholic, Sydney archbishop George Pell, is embroiled in a damaging controversy over the handling of church-related child sex assaults in Victoria, with demands that he appear before a new inquiry to explain what he knew and when about some of the worst abuses committed anywhere in the world.

Under the powers afforded the state parliamentary inquiry, Cardinal Pell and other senior members of the church can be compelled to appear before the committee as it is set to investigate the systematic abuse of probably hundreds of children in the Catholic diocese of Ballarat, where Cardinal Pell began his career.

The Weekend Australian can reveal that the inquiry is poised to undertake regional sittings, with victims from Ballarat preparing submissions and inquiry members describing as inevitable that the committee will sit in the regional city, 110km west of Melbourne.

A senior state Labor MP, Ann Barker, who has studied the church’s Irish response, told The Weekend Australian that Cardinal Pell should appear before the inquiry in his role overseeing the church’s initial response to Catholic abuse in Melbourne but that incumbent Archbishop of Melbourne Denis Hart also should give evidence.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Change.org

by Robert M. Kelly

The people of Massachusetts deserve to know how corporations licensed and regulated by the state spend money, especially when they influence elections, advocate social change, and conduct civil lawsuits. It is past time to broaden this right-to-know to the spending habits of religious corporations.

Petition Letter
Dear Secretary of State Galvin,

I just signed a petition asking you to require the Corporation of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield, Massachusetts to file annual financial reports with the state. Here’s why:

– the civil corporation started in 1898 and was required to file annual reports, but the requirement lapsed under the assumption that religious groups did not need oversight. Today, most citizens agree that corporations have too much influence on politics and social change; that the laws governing religious corporations are outmoded; and that self-policing simply does not work.

– the diocese has made contributions to PAC’s, special-interest, and other advocacy groups for political (not religious) reasons; yet there are no laws requiring public disclosure of these funds.

– the diocese regularly files lawsuits which seek to enforce its worldview in civil courts, yet the lawsuits are not religious in nature, and are often not supported by parishioners. Instead, diocesan lawsuits are aimed at corporate property rights, corporate damage and settlement awards for third-party insurance claims, or corporate privacy rights.

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NEDERLAND
RKnieuws

MAASTRICHT (RKnieuws.net) – Stichting Mea Culpa sleept drie voormalige broeders van het voormalige jongenspensionaat in Bleijerheide voor de rechter.

De vereniging van slachtoffers van seksueel misbruik binnen de katholieke kerk zegt dat de drie geestelijken die nog in leven zijn snel door de politie gehoord moeten worden. Volgens de stichting houden ze informatie achter over seksueel misbruik op het jongenspensionaat in de jaren zestig.
Mea Culpa heeft ook aangifte gedaan tegen de congregatie die de scepter zwaaide in het pensionaat. De stichting wil inzage in de archieven om informatie te krijgen over andere broeders die in Bleijerheide werkten.

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DARIEN (CT)
Patch

By Patrick Barnard

A small group of protestors reportedly gathered on Saturday at St. Thomas More church in Darien to call for the removal the church’s parochial vicar, the Rev. Robert Post, on allegations of past clergy abuse.

According to a report in the Stamford Advocate, Robert M. Hoatson, a former priest who now heads Road to Recovery, a group that assists victims of clergy abuse, along with Kevin Waldrip, who claims to be a victim of past clergy abuse by another priest while in New Jersey, handed out flyers and wore placards calling for the Rev. Post’s removal.

Hoatson is a former priest with the Irish Christian Brothers and Waldrip is a former student at one of the Christian Brothers’ high schools, according to the report. They are reportedly calling for the Rev. Post’s removal in light of a federal bankruptcy suit pending in White Plains, N.Y., that contains some 462 allegations of abuse allegedly committed by members of the Irish Christian Brothers. According to the report, three of those allegations are against the Rev. Post, with those incidents allegedly occurring some 30 years ago.

In an earlier report in The Darien Times, Brian Wallace, spokesman for The Diocese of Bridgeport, said Hoatson’s accusations are “baseless and misleading.”

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HAWAII
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on August 26, 2012

Fr. J. Michael Henry has a hall in his honor. And the number of his alleged victims just keeps growing.

Fr. Joseph Michael Henry (also known as J. Michael Henry and Mike Henry), was a longtime priest in the Diocese of Honolulu. Most of his time was spent at St. Anthony’s Parish in Kailua on Oahu’s Windward Coast—a small-town parish with a school, preschool and active charity league.

Fr. Henry was first exposed as a predator in 1991 lawsuit by a Kailua boy named David Figueroa. In addition, Figueroa charged that after Henry abused him, another priest at the parish, Joseph Ferrario, took advantage of the vulnerable boy and began to abuse him as well. Fr. Joseph Ferrario became Bishop of Honolulu in 1978. Henry died in 1974. Ferrario died in 2003.

Soon after Figueroa came forward, another Kailua boy stepped forward to say that he, too, had been molested by both priests. The initial reason Mark Pinkosh came forward was to support David. Later, he realized that it was vital for his own healing and keeping other kids safe. David’s case was thrown out on the statute of limitations, NOT the merits of the case.

Fortunately for Mark and other victims of child sexual abuse in Hawaii, a new civil law, sponsored by Senator Maile Shimabukuro, gives Mark a chance to use the courts to seek justice, truth and accountability. While both Ferrario and Henry are dead, the people who covered up for them are not. Neither is the legacy of pain they caused.

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OSTERREICH
Der Standard

23. August 2012

Die Opferschutzstellen der Bundesländer arbeiten unterschiedlich – Generelle Richtlinien fehlen, da es sich um freiwillige Einrichtungen der Länder handelt

Bregenz/Innsbruck/Linz/Wien – Opfer von Gewalt in staatlichen und kirchlichen Einrichtungen können sich seit 2010 in allen Bundesländern an Opferschutzkommissionen wenden. Eingerichtet wurden die mit Experten besetzten Kommissionen von den Ländern, einheitliche Richtlinien für die Arbeit der Kommissionen gibt es nicht.

Zur Festlegung der Entschädigungen habe man sich zwar die Richtlinien der Unabhängigen Opferschutzanwaltschaft, besser bekannt als “Klasnic-Kommission”, zum Vorbild genommen, sagt Herwig Hösele, Sprecher der Anwaltschaft, “ansonsten arbeiten sie aber autonom”. Da die Kommissionen freiwillige Einrichtungen der Länder seien, gebe es auch keinen Instanzenzug.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Kreiszeitung

Verden · Ein Jugendwart der Freiwilligen Feuerwehr Verden soll mehrere Jungen missbraucht und ein Kreisjugenddiakon der evangelischen Kirche in Verden kinderpornografische Bilder besessen haben. In beiden Verfahren haben die Staatsanwaltschaften Verden und Hannover lange ermittelt.

Nun sind die Ermittlungen abgeschlossen. Im Fall des Jugendwartes wurde bereits Anklage erhoben. Es sind zwei völlig getrennt voneinander laufende Verfahren, die aber beide im März 2011 publik geworden sind. Der Kreisjugenddiakon war durch ein Ermittlungsverfahren in einem anderen Bundesland ins Visier der Ermittler geraten. Durch Gesprächsinhalte in einem Internet-Chat hatten sich konkrete Verdachtsmomente gegen den Diakon ergeben. Am 10. März 2011 waren dann die Privaträume des Verdeners und seine Diensträume in der St. Nikolai-Gemeinde durchsucht und Beweismaterial sichergestellt worden.

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NEW YORK
The New York Times

[Reforming the Statute of Limitations for Child Sex Abuse: New York’s Child Victims Act Shouldn’t Be Political, But It Is Findlaw – Marcia A. Hamilton

Excerpt from this 2010 story: In the Codes Committee, three Democrats joined the Republicans in voting against letting the bill go to the floor, though none appeared at the Committee meeting, voting only in absentia. Sen. Shirley Huntley, whose website claims she has been a strong advocate for children, was a particular disappointment.]

By THOMAS KAPLAN and RANDY LEONARD

Published: August 25, 2012

Adding to the long list of Albany lawmakers accused of misusing their offices, a Democratic state senator from Queens said on Saturday that she expected to be arrested as part of an ongoing corruption investigation.

The senator, Shirley L. Huntley, said she would surrender to the authorities on Monday. She said she did not know the charges, but her announcement came months after one of her aides and three others were charged with stealing taxpayer money that had been directed to a nonprofit group that Ms. Huntley founded.

Ms. Huntley spoke to reporters on the street in front of her home in Jamaica, Queens, surrounded by several dozen supporters, some of them holding campaign signs. The senator’s spokeswoman had e-mailed reporters late Friday, urging them to attend “an emergency news conference.”

“I want my day in court,” Ms. Huntley said. “I don’t know the charges. I have no idea what this is about.”

Ms. Huntley’s announcement, which comes after the censure of Assemblyman Vito J. Lopez on Friday because of allegations of sexual harassment, suggests that Albany’s string of corruption and ethics scandals has not ended.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

There are few crimes more revolting than the abuse of a child.

Naturally, an allegation of child abuse provokes public outrage and anger. So it’s hard to imagine just how devastating it must be to be wrongly accused of abuse.

A priest who hits the headlines when he is accused of abuse can justifiably feel aggrieved when little or no attention is paid if he is declared innocent or found to have no case to answer.

As has been demonstrated in numerous reports, the Catholic Church, when confronted with allegations of abuse against clerics over many decades, failed to act.

The devastated lives are a constant reminder of this cowardly reaction.

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OREGON
The Garden of Roses: Stories of Abuse and Healing

Virginia Jones

I was in Eastern and Southern Oregon walking through small, rural towns and on scenic trails to raise awareness about abuse when the news came about an abusive priest, Fr. Angel Armando Perez, in Woodburn, Oregon. The abuse was very recent and the child reported it, and his family supported him, and the police supported him, and the priest was arrested.

The family support and the arrest frequently did not happen in the past.

We’ve made progress, real progress. The abuse happened, but at least most of the response to the abuse was appropriate.

I could not comment on what had happened when I was walking through towns and on trails in the distant parts of Oregon. My internet access was intermittent, and I had my two teenagers to care for and a schedule to keep, and the two teenagers didn’t want to share the computer with me.

When I returned home to Portland, I read Abuse Tracker and saw Randy Ellison’s blog on the case. Randy is the Board President of the child sex abuse survivor advocacy group, Oregon Abuse Advocates and Survivors in Service (OAASIS). Randy reported in his blog that a group of parishioners showed up to support the priest in court

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DARIEN (CT)
CT Post

By Michael P. Mayko

DARIEN — Handing out fliers and wearing placards, a former Catholic priest and an abuse victim stood at the entrance of St. Thomas More church Saturday, demanding the Diocese of Bridgeport remove an elderly priest for allegedly abusing three high school students some 30 years ago.

The demonstration was directed at the Rev. Robert Post, who is assigned St. Thomas More as the parochial vicar and serves as the chaplain of the Stamford Fire and Rescue Department. Demanding his removal were Robert M. Hoatson, who served with the Rev. Post in the Irish Christian Brothers, but now heads Road to Recovery, which assists victims of clergy abuse. Handing out leaflets with Hoatson was Kevin Waldrip, who said he was abused on his 13th birthday by the late Rev. Richard Galdon, who was convicted and sentenced to prison for abusing children in New Jersey. Waldrip’s abuse is not linked to Rev. Post.

The three complaints against the Rev. Post are part of a federal bankruptcy suit pending in White Plains, N.Y., against the Irish Christian Brothers. That suit contains some 462 allegations of abuse allegedly committed by numerous members of the Irish Christian Brothers across North America.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Worcester Telegram & Gazette

Dianne Williamson
dwilliamson@telegram.com

Andrew J. Myers, 34, sat passively at the defense table during a brief hearing at U.S. District Court. Short, bespectacled and unassuming, he glanced behind him just once, apparently searching for his parents. As he left the courtroom, he mouthed “I love you,” to his mom, who covered her face and broke down in tears.

The scene was heart-wrenching. Within days, Myers’ mother has witnessed the public transformation of her son from likable local lawyer and Boy Scout leader to one of the most despised members of society — a suspected pedophile.

The Northbridge man is just the latest suspect to catch everyone by surprise, even though we’ve grown somewhat accustomed to revelations that otherwise “normal” adults are harboring a dark, secret sex life. In Meyers’ case, the U.S. Department of Justice alleges he communicated with minors by email and offered to perform sex acts. He also received emails containing pictures of prepubescent boys exposing their genitals.

“I don’t know what to think,” his mother said softly, before her son was led into court.

Neither do the experts. Recently, though, some fascinating studies are debunking some long-held views about pedophilia.

For years, we’ve been told that pedophilia is an addiction or a horrible illness or a manifestation of an abusive adult seeking power and control. It’s a failure of character, an evil predilection. Of course, we’ve learned long ago that pedophiles tend not to be monsters lurking in bushes but more often our fathers, our priests, our police, our teachers. Frequently, they’re upstanding members of the community, well-regarded and respected.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Greg Harkin

Saturday August 25 2012

A brisk wind batters Fr Eugene Boland’s face as he walks along the shoreline on Co Donegal’s remote Inishowen peninsula. But the breeze doesn’t bother him.

He is just glad to be breathing the sea air and enjoying the stunning views offered by Ballyliffin beach after enduring his own very personal storm over the past two years.

For most of that time, the Catholic priest has been forced to live under a cloud after being accused of sexually assaulting a teenager.

It was a devastating period for him — one that ended only when a jury found him innocent following an eight-day trial in June.

He was forced to step aside from his parish work while police investigated claims made by a now 37-year-old woman that he had indecently assaulted her over two decades earlier when she was just 14.

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UNITED STATES
Philadelphia Inquirer

Render Unto Rome
The Secret Life of Money
in the Catholic Church

By Jason Berry
Broadway Paperback. 420 pp. $16

Reviewed by Kenneth A. Briggs

While some Catholic bishops and lay people have been waging a campaign to convince the public that their religious freedom is being threatened, Jason Berry’s book stands as a formidable reminder of how much the church needs to learn from the “secular” realm that it often scorns.

Like common-law justice for sex abusers.

And certified public accounting of obscure church finances.

Combining superior investigative skills and adroit analysis, Berry links clergy sexual abuse of children – a subject he helped push onto a national stage in an earlier book – with the tactics designed to cover legal and psychiatric damages resulting from it in a crisis that has cost the church more than $3 billion in settlements, according to the advocacy group BishopAccountability. The chief cause he identifies is appalling moral failure by top church officials, including Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI.

Abuse and its cover-up, widespread and hidden, became a nightmare when Berry in Louisiana and a blockbuster series later in the Boston Globe exposed the scope and horror of the scandal. Expenditures on legal fees and suits quickly became astronomical. Strapped for funds, bishops resorted to various schemes.

The reflexive response in settings like Boston, Cleveland, and Los Angeles, was to sell off church property. That often meant killing a parish that was the cherished spiritual home to neighborhood Catholics. Asking them, in effect, to pay for clergy abuse sparked protest.

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OREGON/CALIFORNIA
The Oregonian

By Kimberly A.C. Wilson, The Oregonian

For most of their lives, the paths of Angel Perez and Uriel Ojeda ran along parallel lines, from devout boyhoods in Western Mexico, through years of prayer and education at Oregon’s Mount Angel Seminary and, finally, onto the pulpits of their own Catholic churches outside Portland and Sacramento.

They became the best of friends.

Now both priests are accused of crimes 500 miles apart that could ultimately send them to prison and jeopardize the collars that once told the world they were brothers.

The tales of Father Angel and Father Uriel, as their parishioners know them, offer windows into how two neighboring dioceses are addressing a relatively new phenomenon for the Roman Catholic Church: a real-time criminal investigation into alleged child sexual abuse by a priest.

Charges against Perez, 46, and Ojeda, 33 — acclaimed in both the Archdiocese of Portland and Diocese of Sacramento as dynamic, committed, Spanish-speaking pastors beloved by their immigrant congregations — have added fresh woes to a church made hyper-vigilant after settling hundreds of priest sex abuse lawsuits.

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HAWAII
The Worthy Adversary

Honolulu Star-Adveriser

Damien Memorial School and St. Anthony are hit with accusations of molestation

By Rob Perez
POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Aug 24, 2012

Twelve former students at Damien high school on Oahu have filed claims in a New York bankruptcy court alleging that they were sexually abused by clergy who were working at the private Catholic school in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s.

The allegations were disclosed Thursday by a California attorney who is representing the alleged victims in their claims against the North American branch of the Congregation of Christian Brothers, which runs Catholic schools around the country and supplies some staff to what is now called Damien Memorial School.

Michael Reck of the law firm Jeff Anderson & Associates said officials overseeing the school during that period were aware of the abuse problem but covered it up for years.”It’s really a conspiracy of silence and abuse that’s most troubling,” Reck said.

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HAWAII
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on August 25, 2012

Last spring, I met a man named Mark Pinkosh. Yesterday, he became a hero.

Mark charges that he was sexually abused by Hawaii priest J. Michael Henry (Also known as Joseph Henry) when Mark was just a boy attending Kailua’s St. Anthony’s church. When Mark reached out to other adults, trying to get someone to help him, another priest befriended the boy. That priest, Joseph Ferrario, then began to abuse the boy himself. Joseph Ferrario later became the Bishop of Honolulu.

Mark’s accusations were not the first against both men. Another boy, David Figueroa, came forward in 1991 and filed a lawsuit against both priests. The suit was dismissed because of an archaic statute of limitations, NOT the merits of the case. Mark came forward then to help David, but in the end, both boys were shunned in their communities for coming forward and speaking out about what had happened to them. Mark was eventually chased out of Hawaii, his home. David passed away, never able to get justice for the boy who was abused.

Earlier this year, the law changed. Victims of child sexual abuse now have the next two years to come forward and use the civil courts to expose their abusers, punish those who covered up abuse, and get justice and accountability. Thanks to Senator Maile Shimabukuro, victims can get justice and children are safer from abuse. Mark filed a lawsuit to get to the truth of what the Diocese of Honolulu knew about abusers, when they knew it, how they covered it up.

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CALIFORNIA
Inside Bay Area

San Rafael priest jailed in lewdness case after sting at China Camp

By Gary Klien, Marin Independent Journal
contracostatimes.com
Posted: 08/24/2012

A San Rafael priest was arrested on allegations he exposed himself to an undercover investigator during a crackdown on lewd behavior at China Camp State Park, a state parks ranger said Friday.

The Rev. Feliciano Torres Mofan, 58, was booked into Marin County Jail on suspicion of indecent exposure, soliciting a lewd act and nudity in a state park. He remained in custody Friday night in lieu of $2,500 bail.

The arrest occurred during a sting operation targeting lewd conduct in the park, said Supervising Ranger Ryen Goering. He said rangers have recently received a spike of reports about sexual activity in public, found Internet postings seeking sexual meetups in the park and cleaned up condoms, clothes and waste left on the grounds.

On Thursday evening, a plainclothes ranger was walking at Chicken Coop Hill, in the shoreline area off North San Pedro Road, when a man approached and propositioned him for sex, Goering said. Then the man allegedly exposed himself to the ranger.

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CALIFORNIA
Modesto Bee

The Associated Press

CHINA CAMP STATE PARK, Calif. — A priest has been arrested after authorities say he exposed himself to an undercover agent at China Camp State Park.

The Marin Independent Journal reports (http://bit.ly/QAUbk9) that 58-year-old Rev. Feliciano Mofan was being held in jail on Friday in lieu of $2,500 bail.

Supervising Ranger Ryen Goering said Mofan’s arrest happened during a sting caused by an increase in reports of sexual activity.

Goering said Mofan propositioned the undercover ranger and exposed himself.

Mofan is a “priest in residence” at the Church of St. Isabella, part of the Archdiocese of San Francisco.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Los Angeles Times

By Stuart Pfeifer, Los Angeles Times

August 25, 2012
The Archdiocese of Los Angeles suspended a priest Friday amid allegations that he stole nearly $300,000 from an elderly widow who was a member of his parish.

Michalena Jones, 79, filed a lawsuit this week that accused Father Peter Valdez of befriending her after her husband’s death and using his influence to steal $284,000 over a seven-year period.

The archdiocese placed Valdez on administrative leave, “pending the resolution of this matter,” said Tod Tamberg, an archdiocese spokesman.

Jones said she met Valdez at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Palmdale after her husband died in 2003. The priest persuaded Jones to give him $150,000 to buy a home in Downey and added his name to her checking account, which he used to make mortgage payments, the lawsuit said.

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WEST JAVA
Jakarta Globe

Bogor, West Java. Police have arrested a Koran recitation teacher in the Wanaherang village in Gunung Putri, Bogor, after he admitted to having sexually molested 13 of his students over the course of two years.

The case was revealed after the parents of one of the kids, nine-year-old Bunga (who has chosen to go by an alias), reported the teacher, Nana Suryana, 47, to police. Bunga’s mother, Suwarti (also going by an alias) said she had learned about the alleged molestation from Bunga’s younger sister.

“Suwarti first heard about it from [Bunga’s sister], and then she asked Bunga for confirmation, after which she reported Nana to the police,” the head of Bogor Police’s child protection unit, First Insp. F. X. Suyadi, said in Bogor on Saturday.

“[Nana] admitted to molesting 13 children during the past two years, with the ages of the victims ranging from five to nine years old,” he added.

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CALIFORNIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Barbara Dorris on August 24, 2012

For the devastation he’s caused, a year in jail is a paltry sentence for Fr. Lyons. Still, we’re grateful he’ll be locked up and for years afterwards will be on probation.

We hope that Fr. Denis Lyons is given the maximum sentence. Harshly sentencing Lyons sends a powerful message. It warns other would be predators that if you harm children, you will be punished. It offers victims and their loved ones a sense of justice. And it keeps a dangerous predator from harming more kids.

Kids are safest when pedophiles are behind bars. And kids are even safer when every single person who saw, suspected or suffered a predator’s crimes comes forward. We are grateful to the brave victims of Fr. Lyons who came forward.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CBS Philly

[with video]

By Pat Ciarrocchi
PHILADELPHIA (CBS)

– With the second clergy sex abuse trial in Philadelphia set to begin in early September, lawyers for the abuse victim in that case are preparing civil litigation.

This week the attorneys told the court they intend to amend their lawsuit and also go after two bishops with Philadelphia ties.

“This won’t be the last of it. This is groundbreaking,” said Philadelphia Attorney Slade McLaughlin.
McLaughlin, of McLaughlin & Lauricella, P.C., intends to name Bishop Joseph Cistone, the current Bishop of Saginaw, Michigan and Bishop Edward Cullen, the former Bishop of Allentown, as he proceeds in a civil case, on behalf of a former altar boy who was sexually abused in 1992.

“My best description of them is that they were the kingpins,” said McLaughlin in an exclusive interview with Eyewitness News.

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UNITED STATES
John Paul II Millstone

Updated August 24, 2012

Paris Arrow

New sex abuse allegations are coming out against retired Bishop Roger Vangheluwe who bragged on television (read related articles below) to sexually abusing his own young nephews and who was the longest reigning Bishop of Belgium for over 25 years. Another clone of John Paul II (who was the longest reigning pope for over 25 years) Bishop Roger Vangheluwe is one of the highest ranking pedophile in the JP2 Army-John Paul II Pedophile Priests Army . This capacity to be priests no matter how heinous the crimes one has commited prove that the Eucharist makes amoral the consciences of men claiming to represent and re-incarnating Christ’s flesh. That is why the Vatican proved itself amoral for over half a century as it covered-up thousands of pedophile priests.

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COLORADO
San Francisco Chronicle

DENVER (AP) — A former interim pastor at a church in Greeley is scheduled for a status conference in September on child pornography charges.

A federal grand jury indicted 68-year-old Richard Howard Craft, of Thornton, this week on charges alleging he distributed, received and possessed child pornography during a period between July 2007 and December 2009.

Craft is a former interim pastor of Family of Christ Presbyterian Church of Greeley.

An affidavit for a search warrant says an undercover FBI special agent saw numerous child pornography files via a publicly available online file-sharing program that were tracked to Craft’s home computer.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Catholics4Change

August 25, 2012 by Susan Matthews

I’ve often wondered why the Grand Jury Reports didn’t result in massive archdiocesan employee resignations. However, it never dawned on me that the cover up of clergy child sex abuse might lead to embezzlement. With Guzzardi’s line of reasoning, Catholics should be mugging Bishops and raiding the collection baskets. What a load of …. Quit the institution. Give your money elsewhere. Don’t become what you purport to hate – a liar and a thief.

I am, however, struck by the fact her sentence is more harsh than many child abusers face. Our society values money more than children.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

August 24, 2012|By Joseph A. Slobodzian, Inquirer Staff Writer

Amid the cries and sobs of relatives who packed the courtroom, the former chief financial officer for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia was sentenced this morning to 2 to 7 years in prison for her admitted embezzlement of more than $906,000 from the church treasury.

Anita Guzzardi turned and looked at her husband Angelo and mouthed the words “I’m sorry” as Common Pleas Court Judge Ellen Ceisler imposed the sentence.

Guzzardi, 42, of Barrington in Camden County, pleaded guilty in July to stealing more than $906,000 during a seven-year period from 2004 until she was caught last year.

Guzzardi’s attorney, Louis R. Busico, had urged Ceisler to impose probation so Guzzardi could continue working to pay back the Archdiocese. He said she has paid $260,000 since her arrest in March.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

There is no place in the New York State Legislature for a man who committed the gross sexual misconduct ascribed to Brooklyn Assemblyman and Democratic boss Vito Lopez by his colleagues.

Lopez must resign — or immediately prove that he’s innocent of preying on young female aides with the sort of physical contact that demands criminal investigation.

Most grotesquely, as recounted in a letter to Lopez from Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, “ You put your hand on her leg, she removed your hand and you put your hand on her upper thighs, putting your hand as far up between her legs as you could go.”

Silver also writes that a staffer who was forced to join Lopez on a trip to Atlantic City reported “that you attempted to kiss her, that she struggled to fend you off before you stopped and that on the drive back . . . you again put your hand between her legs.”

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NEW YORK
Staten Island Advance

By Tom Wrobleski/Staten Island Advance

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Officials on Staten Island and elsewhere called for Assemblyman Vito Lopez to resign as Brooklyn Democratic Party chairman after the Assembly Committee on Ethics and Guidance found Friday that he violated the chamber’s sexual harassment policy, and stripped him of his committee chairmanship and seniority.

“For the good of the party, he should step aside as party chairman,” said state Sen. Diane Savino (D-North Shore/Brooklyn), whose district crosses into Kings County.

The bipartisan eight-member committee unanimously found that Lopez, 71, created a hostile workplace, including verbal and physical sexual abuse, and that his response to the allegations was “not credible.”

Complaints by two staff members included repeated unwelcome comments about their bodies and attire, as well as attempts to kiss and put his hands between the legs of one of them when he required that she travel with him to Atlantic City, N.J., in July.

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NEW YORK
Failed Messiah

NY State Assemblyman Vito Lopez, Brooklyn’s Democratic Party boss and power broker, has lost his committee chairmanship, enjoined from employing people under 21-years-old or from having interns, and has been censured after the Assembly’s Ethics Committeefound that Lopez had repeatedly sexually harassed two younf female employees in June and July. Lopez blocked passage of the Markey Bill (Child Victims Act) meant to make pedophiles accountable for their crimes, working closely with the Catholic Church and Satmar to ensure the bill’s failure.

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NEW YORK
The New York Times

By DANNY HAKIM

Published: August 24, 2012

ALBANY — Assemblyman Vito J. Lopez, one of the last powerful Democratic Party bosses in New York City, was abruptly stripped of his committee chairmanship and censured Friday after he was accused of sexually harassing two women who worked in his district office this summer.

Mr. Lopez, 71, is a longtime fixture of Brooklyn politics, and an irascible kingmaker: he has served in the Assembly since 1984, and has headed the Brooklyn Democratic Party since 2005.

But on Friday, he faced what had once been unimaginable: widespread calls for his resignation, after charges that he verbally harassed, groped and kissed the women without their consent.

Sheldon Silver, the Assembly speaker, who has in the past been criticized for mishandling sexual misconduct claims against lawmakers, surprised the local political world Friday with a sharply worded rebuke of Mr. Lopez, who had been an ally. Mr. Silver not only removed Mr. Lopez as chairman of the Assembly’s Housing Committee, but reduced the size of his staff, barred him from employing interns or anyone under the age of 21 and denied him any perquisites he had accrued based on his seniority.

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UNITED STATES
Baptist Standard

By Ken Camp, Managing Editor

Published: August 24, 2012

Memories so strong they produce heart-stopping nightmares simultaneously remain so repressed and clouded she cannot pinpoint the time when abuse began. But Janice—who prefers to withhold her last name—knows three male relatives conspired to abuse her sexually over an extended time when she was a small child.

“My mother knew and did not protect me. … An aunt told me not to be a tattletale. … It was as if everybody in my little world either molested me or knew I was being molested,” she said.

At an early age, Janice became convinced she was unloved. “I knew I had no value,” she said.

But a Sunday school teacher told her otherwise.

“She said, ‘God loves you.’ She didn’t know how powerful that message was to me. She didn’t know I was being molested,” Janice recalled.

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IOWA
KCCI

ADEL, Iowa —
A jury announced its verdict Friday in the trial of former Pella pastor Patrick Edouard.

The jury found Edouard not guilty of three counts of third-degree sexual abuse.

The jury found him guilty of all four counts of sexual exploitation by a counselor, therapist, school employee or clergy. They also found him guilty of having a pattern, practice or scheme to sexually exploit.

Four women in Edouard’s former congregation at Covenant Reform Church in Pella said he used his influence as a pastor and counselor to draw them into having sexual relations. Three of the women said the first sexual encounter with Edouard was rape.

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IOWA
San Antonio Express-News

ADEL, Iowa (AP) — A former Pella pastor has been convicted by a jury of sexually exploiting women in his congregation.

The Des Moines Register reports (http://dmreg.co/PHrl3k) 42-year-old Patrick Edouard will be sentenced in October on four counts of sexual exploitation and of having a pattern, practice, or scheme to sexually exploit.

The maximum penalty is nine years in prison.

The jury, which returned its verdict on Friday, acquitted Edouard on three counts of third-degree sexual abuse.

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IOWA
Journal Express

By Clint Brown
CNHI

Adel — After deliberating for almost another 6 hours on Friday, the jury in the State of Iowa v. Patrick Edouard presented their verdict.

Edouard had been charged with three counts of third-degree sexual abuse and four counts of sexual exploitation by a counselor or therapist. He allegedly had forced sexual contact on at least three women while serving as a minister from 2003-10.

The jury found Edouard not guilty on all three charges of sexual abuse, but found the former pastor guilty on all four of the sexual exploitation charges – including an additional charge of entering into a pattern/scheme/practice to engage in sexual exploitation as a counselor or therapist, a Class D felony. The last charge came as a result of being found guilty of two or more of the original sexual exploitation by a counselor or therapist charges in which he violated law banning sex between people who provide “mental health services” and those who come to seek guidance from them.

“We (the State) are very pleased with the outcome,” Assistant Iowa Attorney General Scott Brown said following the announcement of the verdict. “In my mind the sexual exploitation charges were the most critical with the pattern he (Edouard) engaged in during that time. It was a successful case, even with the not guilty verdict on the sexual assault charges. We knew those charges would be an uphill battle with the circumstances. It’s been difficult for everyone (the case), but we couldn’t be more pleased.”

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IOWA
Des Moines Register

Written by
Jeff Eckhoff

ADEL, IA. — Former Pella pastor Patrick Edouard illegally exploited his female parishioners for sex, but he never forced sex upon them, a Dallas County jury ruled Friday afternoon.

Edouard, pastor at Pella’s Covenant Reformed Church until his multiple extramarital affairs came to light in December 2010, was convicted Friday of four charges that he violated a law banning sex between people who provide “mental health services” and those who come to seek guidance from them. He was also found guilty of having a pattern or practice of exploitation.

Edouard was acquitted, however, of three more-serious rape charges — apparently because jurors agreed with defense arguments that the women were never physically forced to start the affairs.

Edouard now faces between five and nine years in prison when he’s formally sentenced on Oct. 19. He remains free on $45,000 bond. Neither Edouard nor his victims agreed to comment Friday.

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CANADA
CBC News

The Catholic Diocese of Bathurst has taken out a half-page newspaper ad, defending itself against criticism over a conciliation process offered to 80 sexual abuse victims.

An Ontario lawyer and some of the victims, abused by clerics between the 1950s and 1980s, have argued there wasn’t enough transparency in the process, but in the newspaper statement, the diocese maintains it did everything right.

It hired retired Supreme Court of Canada justice Michel Bastarache a couple of years ago to oversee the process, which included compensation and apologies.

“Eighty out of 86 victims of sexual abuse by Levi Noel, and other clerics of the Bathurst Diocese, participated in the process and accepted awards made, representing a 93 per cent success rate, one of the highest ever achieved in such a process,” the statement, signed by Most Rev. Valery Vienneau, the bishop-administrator of Bathurst states.

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CALIFORNIA
Contra Costa Times

By City News Service
dailybreeze.com
Posted: 08/24/2012

SANTA ANA – A former Roman Catholic priest who pleaded guilty to molesting an altar boy in the 1990s at St. John the Baptist Church in Costa Mesa, was sentenced today to a year in jail.

Seventy-eight-year-old Denis Lyons — who left the priesthood in April 2004 — also was put on five years of formal probation. Orange County Superior Court Judge Francisco Briseno, who accepted the plea agreement the defendant reached with prosecutors, also ordered Lyons to complete 400 hours of community service and register for the rest of life as a sex offender.

As a registered sex offender, there is only one nonprofit organization Lyons can do his community service with, so if that falls through then he would pay a fine instead.

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CALIFORNIA
Patch

By John Crandall

August 24, 2012

Before a judge could sentence him to a year in jail for molesting a second-grader almost 20 years ago, retired priest Denis Lyons of Leisure World had to listen to the anguished words of those he hurt.

“Today is the day I finally have closure. I have spent the last 16 years living in pain, living in shame. He took away my innocence as a child. This man has ruined my life and many others besides me,” his now grownup victim said Friday in a victim’s impact statement. “He has changed my perception of religion, life, and right and wrong. Him pleading guilty not only gives me closure but gives other victims closure as well. He is a bad person, a bad man.”

Those words hung in the air as a judge sentenced Lyons, formerly employed by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange County to one year in jail, five years of formal probation, 400 hours of community service and lifetime sex offender registration.

The victim’s mother also shared her pain and the depth of betrayal she felt when a man of the cloth abused her son.

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UNITED STATES
Josh Zepps

[with video]

Where does accountability begin and end? I hosted a heated HuffPost Live discussion about that question with Marci Hamilton, a lawyer trying to hold the Vatican accountable for pedophile priests.

This week, the Church won a victory over Hamilton when an Oregon federal court ruled that the Holy See is not the “employer” of molester priests. The case could shield the Church from possible monetary damages, although Hamilton says she’ll appeal.

The Vatican’s responsibility for the actions of priests on the other side the world is not just a legal question. It’s a moral one. Defending the Vatican on HuffPost Live was writer-reporter James Marshall Crotty, who asked: “Is the Pope responsible for every action of anybody who works in a church? … Is the Pope responsible for the part-time guy who helps in a church with the liturgy and does something wrong? Is the Pope responsible for the person who volunteers at a shelter that’s overseen by the Church?”

No. He has a point. The Church can only be held responsible for what it should reasonably have known. The problem for Crotty and the Church’s other defenders is… it knew a lot. The Vatican is not an impartial head office, detached from the daily workings of its dioceses. Nor does it lack moral influence over its global franchise. It is a deeply engaged institution — and it has systematically enabled child rapists to escape justice and freely rape again. When Pope Benedict ran the diocese of Munich and Freising in 1980 as Archbishop Ratzinger, it came to his attention that one of his priests had taken an 11-year-old boy into the mountains, fed him alcohol, locked him up, stripped him naked, and forced the boy to give him a blow job. Ratzinger’s response was to send the priest off for “therapy.”

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PENNSYLVANIA
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

August 24, 2012

The Associated Press

A Cambria County priest has been placed on leave amid allegations of sexual abuse involving children several decades ago.

The Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown said today that the Rev. George Koharchik, pastor of Saint Catherine of Siena Parish in Mount Union, will not be permitted to function as a priest and won’t have contact with children while he is on leave.

Diocese spokesman Tony DeGol said the alleged sexual misconduct took place in the late 1970s. The alleged victims brought it to the attention of the church recently.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WJAC

By Rich Wisniewski

MOUNT UNION, Pa —

Shock and disgust surrounded the neighborhood of Mount Union, near the Saint Catherine of Sienna Parish. When residents in this small town heard that the priest at the church was accused of allegedely molesting kids three decades ago.Donald Kullen: “As far as I’m concerned he was an outstanding priest,” said David Kullen, a part time janitor at the school.

“I think it’s disgusting,” said Curry Dashbach, a resident of the town.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Altoona Mirror

August 25, 2012

By Zach Geiger (zgeiger@altoonamirror.com) , The Altoona Mirror

A Huntingdon County priest has been removed from active ministry after allegations of sexual misconduct involving minors were reported to church officials, the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown said.

The Rev. George D. Koharchik, 63, was placed on leave from his position as pastor of St. Catherine of Siena Parish in Mount Union, Tony DeGol, diocese secretary for communications, said on Friday.

Multiple individuals approached the diocese to report alleged sexual misconduct by Koharchik, DeGol said.

The alleged incidents occurred as far back as 30 years ago during Koharchik’s time as a priest at various Cambria County parishes, DeGol said.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Press TV (Iran)

An American priest allegedly involved in sexual abuse of minors several decades ago, has been placed on leave.

The offending priest Rev. George Koharchik, who is from western Pennsylvania, went on leave on Friday.

This is while according to the Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, Koharchik, pastor of Saint Catherine of Siena Parish in Mount Union, a borough in Pennsylvania, is prevented from making contact with children while he is on leave.

He is also not allowed to function as a priest due to the sexual misconduct which allegedly occurred in the late 1970s.

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CALIFORNIA
Los Angeles Times

A retired Roman Catholic priest in Orange County was sentenced to a year in jail, probation and community service and will be forced to register as a sex offender for molesting a grade-school student in the parish rectory and inside the church more than a decade ago, Orange County prosecutors said.

Denis Lyons, 78, pleaded guilty in March to four felony counts of lewd acts with a child under 14 on four occasions in which, prosecutors said, Lyons sexually assaulted the student at St. John the Baptist Catholic School in Costa Mesa. The boy was in second and third grade when the assaults occurred.

Prosecutors said the molestations occurred between Jan. 1, 1992 and Dec. 31, 1995, when the boy was between 7 and 9 years old. Prosecutors said Lyons, a priest in the Diocese of Orange, molested the boy twice in Lyons’ room in the church rectory and twice in the sacristy, a room within the church where religious garments and sacred vessels are stored.

In addition to the year in jail, Lyons was sentenced to five years of formal probation, 400 hours of community service and will register as a lifetime sex offender, according to a statement from the Orange County district attorney’s office.

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CALIFORNIA
Daily Breeze

The following information was released by the Orange County District Attorney.

A retired priest with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange County was sentenced today for molesting a young boy almost two decades ago in the rectory and sacristy at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Costa Mesa. Denis Lyons, 78, Seal Beach, pleaded guilty March 23, 2012, to four felony counts of lewd acts on a child under 14. He was sentenced to one year in jail, five years of formal probation, 400 hours of community service, and lifetime sex offender registration.

Sexual Assault of John Doe

Between Jan. 1, 1992, and Dec. 31, 1995, Lyons molested a young male student, John Doe, while the victim was a second and third grade student at St. John the Baptist Catholic School. The school was part of St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Costa Mesa, where Lyons served as a priest.

On four occasions, Lyons sexually assaulted the 7 to 9-year-old John Doe by engaging in masturbation with the victim twice in his room in the parish rectory and twice in the church sacristy. A rectory is the residence and administrative office for the parish priests of a church. A sacristy is a room inside the church used to store religious garments, church documents, and sacred vessels.

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VIRGINIA
Associated Baptist Press

By Bob Allen

A former British Baptist pastor convicted last year of sexual abuse has been transferred to custody of the Virginia Department of Corrections.

Robert DandoRobert Dando, former senior minister at Worcester Park Baptist Church in suburban London, is now in custody at Powhatan Reception and Classification Center in State Farm, Va. The facility’s role is to intake offenders from the local jails and process them into the state prison system.

Dando served the first year of his eight-year prison sentence in the adult detention center of Fairfax County, where he pleaded guilty in November of 2010 to four counts of aggravated sexual battery against two male victims who were under the age of 13 when the crimes were committed.

He was arrested the previous July in Oakton, Va., after the alleged victims, then ages 21 and 17, claimed that Dando sexually abused them over a five-year period during visits to a family friend in the United States.

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Tribune-Democrat

HOLLIDAYSBURG, Pa. — A Mount Union pastor has been placed on leave after 30-year-old allegations of sexual misconduct with minors in Cambria County surfaced on Friday.

Rev. George Koharchik, 63, Pastor of the Saint Catherine of Siena Parish in Mount Union has been removed from the active ministry, according to a press release from the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese. According to the Most Rev. Mark Bartchak, Bishop of the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese, Koharchik will not be permitted to function as a priest and “will reside at a place where he has no contact with children.”

Bartchak said these actions are pursuant to the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, put in place in 2002 to address allegations of sexual abuse within the clergy. Bartchak has reportedly informed the office of Cambria County District Attorney Kelly Callihan but there has been no word yet on official charges.

Daily Mass at Koharchik’s parish will not take place next week and Bartchak said he will appoint a temporary administrator to handle the daily affairs of the parish.

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CALIFORNIA
The Orange County Register

By PETER LARSON / THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

SANTA ANA – A mother cried Friday morning as an Orange County judge sentenced the retired priest who pleaded guilty to molesting her son and another boy almost 20 years ago.

Denis Lyons, 78, of Seal Beach previously admitted to charges of molesting a 7- to 9-year-old boy at St. John the Baptist Catholic School in Costa Mesa between 1992 and 1995, for four felony counts of lewd conduct with a child younger than 14.

Lyons pleaded guilty in an agreement with prosecutors that allowed him to avoid a potential 14-year prison sentence if convicted at trial.

Superior Court Judge Francisco Briseno ordered Lyons on Friday to serve one year in county jail beginning Oct. 12, followed by five years probation. He must also complete lifetime sex offender registration and serve 400 hours of community service.

Deputy District Attorney Heather Brown said in March when Lyons pleaded guilty that her office considered the victims’ wishes to resolve the case without going through the ordeal of a publicized trial.

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CALIFORNIA
Daily Pilot

By Lauren Williams

August 24, 2012 | 1:03 p.m.
A former Costa Mesa priest was sentenced Friday to one year in jail and five years formal probation for committing lewd acts on a child younger than 14 while he served at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, according to prosecutors.

Denis Lyons, 78, previously pleaded guilty in March to four felony counts of lewd acts on a child younger than 14 between 1992 and 1995 while he served as a priest at the Costa Mesa church, the Orange County district attorney’s office said.

Lyons molested the boy for three years when the child, a student at the church’s school, was between 7 and 9 years old, prosecutors said. The victim reported the abuse to Costa Mesa police in 2008, and Lyons was arrested while playing cards at a community center near his Seal Beach Leisure World home, according to the D.A.’s office.

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BRIDGEPORT (CT)
Darien Times

By Susan Shultz on August 24, 2012

A protest against the Diocese of Bridgeport is being organized by Road to Recovery founder Robert Hoatson and others who allege past abuse by St. Thomas More’s parochial vicar.

According to a press release, the Saturday afternoon protest has been organized to call on the Diocese of Bridgeport to remove Father Robert Post “and keep him away from kids.”

The further purpose of the demonstration is to “alert parishioners and the public to the accusations of sexual abuse” against Father Post. …

Brian Wallace, spokesman for the Diocese of Bridgeport, said the diocese was not aware of the the planned protest but said that information on Hoatson’s website, the Road to Recovery, has been challenged in terms of accuracy and the motivations behind it have been questioned. Calls to the office and the pastor at St. Thomas More were not immediately returned.

Wallace said Hoatson’s website was investigated and it was “full of inaccuracies and misrepresentations” and said a 2005 lawsuit filed by Hoatson was thrown out of court and and his attorney was sanctioned.

“Father Post is a priest in very good standing in our diocese and has served there for 20 years without a blemish or any impropriety,” Wallace said, adding Hoatson’s alleged accusations are “baseless and misleading.” Wallace added that Father Post had stepped down from his advisory position this summer because he had other responsibilities to attend to and clarified it had nothing to do with any of the allegations.

According to the press release, Hoatson said it took “three years of whistleblowing” to get Father Post transferred “because of Post’s behavior around teenage boys.” Hoatson claims he was then retaliated against for his whistleblowing and was transferred himself.

Hoatson reports that the abuse allegations come from three adult men, at least one is a former student at Blessed Sacrament. Hoatson outlined his experiences with Father Post, his observations and the retaliation he experienced in another lawsuit filed in 2007 that named the Archdiocese of New York, the Diocese of Newark and the Diocese of Albany among its defendants.

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CALIFORNIA
Patch

A 78-year-old former Catholic priest from Leisure World who pleaded guilty to molesting an altar boy in the 1990s at St. John the Baptist Church in Costa Mesa, beginning when the victim was 9 years old, is scheduled to be sentenced today.

Denis Lyons, who left the priesthood in April 2004, is expected to be sentenced to a year in jail and five years probation. Orange County Superior Court Judge Francisco Briseno, who accepted the plea agreement the defendant reached with prosecutors, is also expected to order Lyons to complete 400 hours of community service or pay a fine.

Lyons could have faced up to 14 years in prison had he gone to trial.

The trial has been delayed multiple times.

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OREGON
The Oregonian

By Nancy Haught, The Oregonian

Portland’s Catholic archbishop, the Most Rev. John G. Vlazny, defended his decision Thursday to loan the Rev. Angel Armando Perez money pay for an attorney in his criminal case. Perez is being held without bail in Marion County, facing charges that include first-degree sexual abuse and abuse of a child in the display of sexually explicit conduct.

In a statement published online in the Catholic Sentinel, the archdiocesan newspaper, Vlazny said he was “deeply saddened and troubled” by accusations against Perez.

“The behavior Father is accused of is sinful, wrong and can never be tolerated,” Vlazny said. “Criminal charges in this case, as in all similar cases, require both prosecution and defense in court before judgment is rendered.”

The archbishop said Perez, a priest of the archdiocese, “requested assistance for his defense.”

“Father has committed his life to priestly service and is respected and well-liked by his parishioners,” Vlazny said. “Who of us would not do what we could to help a beloved brother, sister or child in tragic circumstances?” Noting that priests are paid “modestly” and “rely on us for financial assistance in extraordinary circumstances,” Vlazny said he offered to assist Perez.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Centre Daily Times

By Anne Danahy adanahy@centredaily.com — State College – Centre Daily Times

The Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown has placed a Mount Union priest on leave after allegations of sexual abuse involving children came to light.

According to the diocese, the allegations involve minors and date back more than 30 years. George Koharchik, pastor of Saint Catherine of Siena Parish in Mount Union, will not work as a priest and will not have contact with children.

Bishop Mark L. Bartchak has notified the Cambria County district Attorney of the accusations. According to a statement from the diocese, Koharchik’s status “will be determined at the appropriate time after consulting with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at the Vatican.”

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PENNSYLVANIA
WJAC

By WJAC Web Staff

HOLLIDAYSBURG, Pa. —

The Bishop of the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown has placed Rev. George D. Koharchik, pastor of Saint Catherine of Siena Parish in Mount Union, on leave from active ministry in the priesthood after allegations of sexual misconduct involving minors in Cambria County dating back more than 30 years.

While on leave, Koharchik, 63, will not be permitted to function as a priest and he will reside at a place where he has no contact with children, according to a news release from the diocese.

The decision is in compliance with the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People established by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2002 for addressing allegations of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy.

“Children are a precious gift from God, and we must always take the necessary steps to ensure their protection in the Catholic Church,” said the Most Rev. Mark L. Bartchak, Bishop of the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, in the release. “I pray for the alleged victims in this case and for all children who have suffered sexual abuse in our society. May the Lord grant them healing, comfort, and peace. Let us also remember the parish family of Saint Catherine of Siena in Mount Union during these difficult days. As Diocesan Bishop, I pledge my continued prayers and support to that faith community and the entire Church of Altoona-Johnstown.”

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PENNSYLVANIA
WJAC

HOLLIDAYSBURG, Pa. —

August 24, 2012

Diocesan Priest Placed on Leave Following Allegations of Sexual Misconduct

The Most Rev. Mark L. Bartchak, Bishop of the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, has placed Rev. George D. Koharchik, Pastor of Saint Catherine of SienaParish in Mount Union, on leave from active ministry in the Priesthood. The action comes after allegations of sexual misconduct involving minors in Cambria County dating back more than 30 years. While on leave, Father Koharchik, 63, will not be permitted to function as a priest, and he will reside at a place where he has no contact with children.

In compliance with the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People (established by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2002 for addressing allegations of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy), Bishop Bartchak has notified the Cambria County District Attorney of the accusations against Father Koharchik. Father Koharchik’s future status will be determined at the appropriate time after consulting with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at the Vatican. The Bishop’s report to the Vatican will not interfere with the jurisdiction of the District Attorney’s office in this matter.

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NETHERLANDS
Dutch News

Friday 24 August 2012

A foundation representing victims of sexual abuse by Catholic church officials has made a police complaint against three monks who worked in the former Bleijerheide residential school in Kerkrade.

A spokesman for the Mea Culpa foundation told the Telegraaf the three men ‘deliberately and knowingly’ kept secret about crucial information about the abuse of their pupils.

‘All three monks should be questioned by the police as quickly as possible,’ Bert Smeets said.

Youth worker

One of the three is Maastricht minister Jan S who is already the subject of an investigation into sexual abuse. He has been suspended by the bishop of Roermond.

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COLORADO
TheDenverChannel

[with video]

Deb Stanley, New Media Producer

DENVER — Prosecutors said a former pastor has been indicted on child pornography charges.
Richard Howard Craft, 68, of Thornton, was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of distribution, receipt and possession of child pornography, prosecutors said.

Craft previously served as interim pastor of Family of Christ Presbyterian Church of Greeley.

The indictment alleges that Craft knowingly distributed and attempted to distribute child pornography between July 2007 and January 2008 as well as in December 2009.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Sacramento Bee

By MARYCLAIRE DALE
Associated Press

Published: Friday, Aug. 24, 2012

PHILADELPHIA — The former top finance officer of the Philadelphia archdiocese is going to prison for two to seven years for embezzling $900,000.

A lawyer for 42-year-old Anita Guzzardi says she succumbed to gambling and shopping addictions after feeling betrayed by the church over the priest sex-abuse scandal.

Guzzardi had worked at the Roman Catholic archdiocese since she was 20, and was making $124,000 a year as chief financial officer when she was fired last year.

Prosecutors say she took relatives on trips to Hawaii, the Caribbean and San Francisco, and spent lavishly on herself and others.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

Dan Box
From:The Australian
August 25, 2012

A PEDOPHILE priest who abused boys as young as eight in northern NSW told one of his victims that the treatment suffered at his hands “was what God wanted”, a court has heard.

The priest, identified as DO for legal reasons, smiled and waved to his supporters in the public gallery of a Sydney court during his sentencing hearing yesterday, before two victims’ impact statements were read out.

“I don’t sleep very well at all. I wake up from nightmares of memories of the abuse,” one of these read.

“(DO) stated that what he was doing – touching my body and penis with his hands and mouth – was what God wanted.

“I was bought up in a very religious family. I had a very strong, committed faith . . . I feel I have lost all my faith in God, the priests and the church.”

DO is one of eight people, including six priests, charged in NSW’s Hunter Valley.

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UNITED STATES
Washington Post

By David Gibson| Religion News Service, Published: August 23

The news that New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the nation’s most prominent Catholic prelate, will deliver the closing blessing to the Republican National Convention in Florida next week was seen as a huge coup for Mitt Romney, the party’s presumptive nominee. But the move has also prompted a sharp debate within the church over the increasingly close ties between leading bishops and the GOP.

“The cozy relationship between a sizable portion of U.S. bishops and the Republican Party should be cause for concern, and not just among progressive Catholics,” Michael O’Loughlin wrote in a post on the website of America magazine, a leading Catholic weekly published by the Jesuits.

“Cardinal Dolan’s appearance in Tampa will damage the church’s ability to be a moral and legitimate voice for voiceless, as those who view the Catholic Church as being a shill for the GOP have just a bit more evidence to prove their case,” O’Loughlin concluded.

Similarly, David Cruz-Uribe, a member of the Secular Franciscan Order and a professor of mathematics at Trinity College, wrote on the Vox Nova blog that Dolan’s decision “will only drag the Church further into a partisan divide and fuel the perception (true or not) that the Catholic Church wants to replace the Episcopalians as the Republican party on its knees.”

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UNITED STATES
Los Angeles Times

By Michael McGough

August 23, 2012

He didn’t ask my opinion, but I think Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, should have declined an invitation to deliver the closing prayer at next week’s Republican National Convention. I say that knowing that Dolan also was willing, if asked, to pray at the Democratic convention and that (to some considerable flak from conservative Roman Catholics) the cardinal has invited the president as well as Mitt Romney to address the famous Al Smith Dinner in October. That’s the charity event at which, in 1960, John F. Kennedy famously bested Richard M. Nixon

Here’s the problem: Dolan is not just any bishop; he’s the leader of the national conference, which has been feuding with the Obama administration over whether its mandate for contraceptive coverage is a war on religious liberty. The bishops’ campaign has led to understandable complaints that it is taking sides in the presidential election, not to mention placing the church’s opposition to contraception above its advocacy of compassion for the poor (a cause at least some bishops see as incompatible with Paul Ryan’s budget).

Dolan’s motives may be pure, but I’m not so sure about Mitt Romney’s. A featured role for America’s No. 1 Catholic prelate at the GOP convention is a not very subtle way for the party to appeal to Catholic voters, especially conservative Catholics. (Romney announced the Dolan gig in an interview on EWTN, the right-wing Catholic TV network.)

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UNITED STATES
New York Post

By CARL CAMPANILE

WASHINGTON — President Obama turned down a chance to have Timothy Cardinal Dolan deliver a prayer at the Democratic National Convention after Dolan told Democrats he would be “grateful” to deliver a blessing in Charlotte.

Dolan — considered the top Catholic official in the nation, as head of the Archdiocese of New York and president of the Conference of Catholic Bishops — tipped off Democrats a few weeks ago that he had agreed to deliver the prime-time benediction at the Republican convention in Tampa next week, Dolan’s spokesman Joseph Zwilling told The Post.

“He wanted to make sure that they knew that this was not a partisan act on his part and that he would be just as happy and grateful to accept an invitation from the Democrats as he would to have received one from the Republicans,” said Zwilling.

“He has not been contacted by them” since, he added.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Aug. 24, 2012
By Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON — The announcement that New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan would deliver a benediction at the Republican National Convention made him the latest in a long string of prelates to offer prayers at the major party conventions.

Joseph Zwilling, spokesman for the New York Archdiocese, said Thursday that Dolan accepted an invitation to offer the closing prayer at the Aug. 27-30 convention in Tampa, Fla. On the program for the evening, the benediction immediately follows the major address by former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, accepting the nomination for president. The convention is to be gaveled to a close after the prayer.

Greek Orthodox Archbishop Demetrios is scheduled to offer a benediction Aug. 29, and the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, an Assembly of God minister who heads the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, is scheduled to do the same Aug. 27.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Mary Caplan on August 24, 2012

We are troubled that Cardinal Dolan, who has acted recklessly and deceitfully in recent clergy sex abuse and cover up cases, is being given such a prominent role at a political convention. In four recent instances, Dolan has acted recklessly, callously or deceptively.

1) Several months ago, Mount St. Michael Academy in the Bronx, the public learned that there was child porn on an assistant principal Lawrence Gordon’s school computer.

But Catholic officials – including Dolan – kept silent for nine months about the child porn, giving the criminal and his supervisors ample time to destroy evidence, fabricate alibis, intimidate witnesses, threaten whistleblowers and thwart law enforcement.

For a solid decade, Dolan and his peers have promised to be “open” about child sex crimes. But for most of last year, he was keeping such crimes secret. There’s just no excuse for Catholic officials keeping parents in the dark about child porn at their kids’ school month after month.

2) Last August, Dolan similarly made no moves to help resolve child sex accusations against Fr. Jaime Duenas.

In a short statement on the archdiocesan website, Dolan didn’t ask Catholics or citizens to do a thing when Duenas was arrested. It is crucial that victims, witnesses and whistleblowers be urged to call police and prosecutors. Dolan is not dumb. He knows appeals like this are often effective. But instead of begging anyone with information or suspicions to call the cops, he said nothing.

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UNITED STATES
AO Advocates

Posted by: A.Dean on Aug 24 2012

This week, The Economist published an extensive exposé on the financial organisation and mechanisms that underlie the activities of the American Catholic Church. The writers and researchers at The Economist have outdone themselves in the depth of their investigation, and the piece is certainly worth reading in its entirety (link here).

The article details of some of the shadier financial practices of the Catholic Church—obfuscation, diversion and commingling of funds, hiding behind the Church’s tax-exempt status—much of which is hardly surprising. Snippets of such information on this matter have found their way into the press in recent years, usually following major cases of clergy sexual abuse. But it is reading about the pervasiveness of these activities, and in greater detail, that truly shocks the conscience.

It is also worth highlighting that a great deal of this knowledge of Church finances has only come to be accessible as a result of litigation, and in many cases, bankruptcies, arising from sexual abuse civil suits against dioceses.

But on to some of the more striking figures—which help give a sense of just how big a presence the Catholic Church is in America. The Economist estimates that annual spending by the Church and entities owned by the Church was around $170 billion (£107.57 billion) in 2010, and that these entities together employed 1 million people. Almost 100 million Americans have been baptised into the Catholic faith, and 74 million self-identify as Catholic.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

by John L Allen Jr on Aug. 24, 2012 All Things Catholic

“Be careful what you wish for,” as the saying goes, “because you will surely get it.” In light of a couple of recent Vatican stories, the corollary also seems to apply: Be careful what you try to avoid, because it might actually be good for you.

A stringent European money laundering exam in July and a federal court ruling in Oregon this week both make the point.

Earlier this year, the Vatican faced secular scrutiny of its financial operations for the first time with a review by Moneyval, Europe’s anti-money-laundering agency. The Vatican submitted voluntarily, a somewhat surprising choice given its long history of fighting off such perceived incursions on its autonomy tooth and nail. The truth, however, is it didn’t have much choice. If the Vatican is perceived as a suspect financial player, it risks higher transaction costs and being shut out of important markets.

July’s verdict was a mixed bag, raising questions such as whether regulation of the Vatican Bank is sufficiently strong. Yet on the whole, Moneyval concluded the Vatican “has come a long way in a very short period of time” toward transparency, and “there is no empirical evidence of corruption.”

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Courthouse News Service

By KEVIN KOENINGER

LOS ANGELES (CN) – An elderly widow claims in court that a Catholic priest defrauded her of $284,000 after her husband died.

Michalena Jones, 79, sued The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Los Angeles and Father Peter Valdez, in Superior Court.

Jones claims that Valdez befriended her after her husband died in 2003, then “enticed her” to give him $160,000 to buy himself a house.

That done, she says, “Valdez wrongfully placed his name [on] various checking accounts in which Jones had funds” and paid his mortgage out of those joint accounts until 2010.

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POLAND
The News

A priest accused of sexually molesting a 15 year-old boy has been found dead after he hung himself at his rectory in Nowy Staw, Pomeranian province, northern Poland.

“After examining the evidence […] and carrying out an autopsy, all indications are that this was suicide, without connection to any third party,” Piotr Wojciechowski, deputy district attorney in nearby Malbork, told the TVN24 news channel.

According to local media, charges of sexually molesting a 15 year-old altar boy were made against a priest from Nowy Staw in May this year, after an alleged crime was notified to the police by the boy’s mother.

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BELGIE
RKnieuws

BRUSSEL (RKnieuws.net) – Joris Van Cauter, de advocaat van de vroegere bisschop van Brugge Roger Vangheluwe (foto), vreest een voortijdige veroordeling van zijn cliënt door de publieke opinie.

Van Cauter reageert op de ophef die afgelopen week ontstond nadat bekend werd dat er opnieuw een beschuldiging van seksueel misbruik tegen Vangheluwe is ingebracht. Media en publieke opinie houden volgens zijn advocaat geen rekening met de mogelijkheid dat de nieuwe beschuldiging vals zou kunnen zijn.

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BELGIE
RKnieuws

BRUGGE (RKnieuws.net) – Roger Vangheluwe, oud bisschop van Brugge, duikt op in het nieuwe stripalbum van “Kiekeboe”. Dat mldt de VRT. In “Schijnheilig bloed” heet hij monseigneur Hoegeiligman en leeft hij ondergedoken in de Heilig Bloedkapel in Brugge.

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NEDERLAND
Dagblad de Limburger

De van seksueel misbruik betichte pastoor Jan Schafraad uit Maastricht mag in zijn verweer bij de klachtencommissie Seksueeel Misbruik RKK in Utrecht wel degelijk gebruik maken van een deskundigenrapport van rechtspsycholoog Peter van Koppen.

Maastricht
Van onze verslaggeefster

Dat oordeelt de voorzieningenrechter in Maastricht. Het bewuste rapport was onderdeel van een kort geding dat twee oud-leerlingen van j0ngensinternaat Blijerheide in Kerkrade tegen de pastoor van de Maastrichtse Koepelkerk hadden aangespannen. Zij betichten Schafraad van seskueel misbruik en vinden dat hij hun privacy heeft geschonden. Deskundige Van Koppen stelde in opdracht van de pastoor een rapport op over de betrouwbaarheid van de klachten die de twee hadden ingediend en verwerkte daar een aantal persoonlijke achtergrondgegevens van de beide mannen in.

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VERENIGDE STATEN
Kerknet

BRUSSEL (KerkNet) – Een rechter in het Amerikaanse Portland (Oregon, VS) oordeelt dat het Vaticaan niet financieel moet opdraaien voor de gevolgen van seksueel misbruik van minderjarigen door priesters. De rechter Michael Osman vonniste in een rechtszaak die was aangespannen door een man die in 1965 verschillende keren werd misbruikt door een intussen overleden Ier, die een jaar later zijn priestertaak moest neerleggen. De dader, Andrew Ronan van de Servieten van Maria, werd meermaals verplaatst en maakte in totaal 14 slachtoffers in Chicago, Benburg (Ierland) en uiteindelijk ook in Portland. De rechter oordeelde bovendien dat het Vaticaan niet op de hoogte was van het misbruik door de priester en al evenmin betrokken was bij zijn overplaatsingen. Het aartsbisdom Portland, dat in 1966 op de hoogte werd gebracht van het misbruik, zette de priester binnen de vijf weken uit het ambt.

De advocaat van het slachtoffer, Jeff Anderson, argumenteerde dat priesters werknemers zijn van het Vaticaan omdat zij een gelofte van trouw afleggen en omdat het Vaticaan priesters kan bevorderen, kan bepalen welke opleiding zij krijgen en hen uit hun ambt kan zetten. De rechter volgde die redenering niet en oordeelde dat het Vaticaan daarom ook niet financieel moet opdraaien voor het misbruik door priesters.

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OREGON
RKnieuws

PORTLAND (RKnieuws.net) – Het Vaticaan heeft in de VS een rechtszaak gewonnen over het vraagstuk van aansprakelijkheid voor priesters die kinderen hebben misbruikt. Dat meldt het Katholiek Nieuwsblad onder aanhaling van KNA.

Een rechter in Portland oordeelde dat de Heilige Stoel niet kan worden gezien als werkgever van alle katholieke geestelijken. Daarom kan deze in het geval van seksueel misbruik door clerici niet financieel aansprakelijk worden gesteld, aldus het vonnis van maandag. De advocaat van de klagende partij kondigde aan in beroep te gaan.

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BELGIEN
Spiegel

Von Fabienne Hurst

Michelle Martin, Ex-Frau und Komplizin des belgischen Sexualmörders Marc Dutroux, wird vorzeitig aus dem Gefängnis entlassen. Nonnen wollen sie in ihrem Kloster in einer wallonischen Kleinstadt aufnehmen. Belgische Bürger sind empört, Kirche und Staat eher weniger.

Hamburg – Das Klarissenkloster liegt in einer engen Gasse inmitten der wallonischen Kleinstadt Malonne bei Namur, berühmt für ihre idyllische Lage am Tor der südbelgischen Ardennen. Nur eine Straße entfernt liegen eine Grundschule und ein Kindergarten.

Dort soll Michelle Martin einziehen, Ex-Frau und Komplizin des Sexualstraftäters Marc Dutroux. Vor 16 Jahren wurde das Paar verurteilt. Ihm wurden Entführung, Gefangennahme und Vergewaltigung von sechs Mädchen und jungen Frauen sowie der Tod von vier Opfern zur Last gelegt. Während Dutroux lebenslänglich hinter Gittern bleiben wird, hatte ein Gericht im belgischen Mons Ende Juli die vorzeitige Freilassung seiner Ex-Frau verfügt. Sie kommt womöglich Ende August frei, rund 14 Jahre vor dem ursprünglichen Termin.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Sueddeutsche

Heimleiter beantragt Entlassung, damit endet auch die Untersuchung gegen ihn – die Vorwürfe hatte der 75-Jährige stets zurückgewiesen

Nürnberg – Das bisher umfangreichste Disziplinarverfahren in der Geschichte der bayerischen evangelischen Landeskirche hat ein unerwartetes Ende genommen: Der des Kindesmissbrauchs angeklagte ehemalige Leiter des Martin-Luther-Hauses der Nürnberger Stadtmission hat selbst seine Entlassung aus dem Kirchenbeamtenverhältnis beantragt, wie der Sprecher der Landeskirche, Johannes Minkus, am Mittwoch sagte. Er bestätigte damit einen Bericht der Nürnberger Nachrichten.

Der Landeskirchenrat als kirchenleitendes Organ hatte den Fall Ende Februar dieses Jahres nach einer fast zweijährigen Voruntersuchung an die Disziplinarkammer der Landeskirche weitergeleitet. Dem heute über 75-jährigen Rummelsberger Diakon werden körperliche Misshandlungen und Missbrauch von Kindern zur Last gelegt. Die Taten sollen sich zwischen Anfang der 1970er und Ende der 1990er Jahre ereignet haben.

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HAWAII
Hawaii News Now

By Tim Sakahara

KAILUA (HawaiiNewsNow) –
In elementary school Mark Pinkosh was an altar boy and spent a lot of time at St. Anthony Church in Kailua. He and his family were devout Catholics but says he was abused by his own priest.

“When I was about 8 or 9 years old Father Henry raped me and it was very violent and very intense and of course as an elementary school fourth grader it’s very difficult to process that kind of stuff,” said Mark Pinkosh, who filed a civil suit against the Roman Catholic Church of Hawaii.

Pinkosh was told to keep it to himself and initially didn’t tell his family but did go to others in the church.

“Simultaneously I told another priest. Nothing happened. I told a nun. I told another nun, so now four adults at my church know about this. Two nuns and two priests and nothing stopped the abuse,” said Pinkosh.

Another priest then came to the church. His name was Father Joseph Ferrario.

“I told him about the abuse that took place. He counseled me that it was a secret, I shouldn’t tell anybody and then he proceeded to rape me as well,” said Pinkosh.

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GERMANY
Spiegel

By Martin U. Müller and Peter Wensierski

He extols the virtues of poverty and humility, but the German bishop of Limburg enjoys first-class flights and a luxurious new living complex. As the truth comes out about their secretive shepherd, local Catholics are threatening to abandon the fold en masse.

The Catholic bishop of Limburg, a small city in western Germany, apparently had noble motives when he boarded a plane to India with his vicar general in mid-January. “We were there to support social projects in and around Bangalore,” Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst reported after his return. They wanted to help children “who worked breaking stones,” he added.

But this man of God didn’t just want to do something good for the poor. He also wanted to do something nice for himself. On the upper deck of a jumbo jet, he and Vicar General Franz Kaspar had made themselves comfortable in the plane’s first-class section, which offers such amenities as champagne, caviar and a bed. “Traveling first class means you should always be able to expect the extraordinary,” Germany’s Lufthansa airline, which Kaspar flew with, promises.

SPIEGEL inquiries about this luxury trip to the slums triggered a flurry of contradictory reports. Questions directed to the diocese press office were answered by a law firm in nearby Frankfurt. The 10-page document contained a cease and desist declaration with a penalty clause forbidding the publication of the claim that the bishop had flown first-class to India — as well as a €1,890.91 ($2,400) bill for the legal warning. The bishop’s lawyer said that the claim “is untrue” and that his client had “flown business class.”

But after a follow-up written inquiry, the whole story changed a few days later. Suddenly, the truth was out. Now it was admitted that the bishop and his vicar general had, in fact, sat in first class on both the outbound and return flights. But this was qualified with a claim that this was only made possible because the vicar general — who enjoys “Senator” status with Lufthansa, which requires at least 100,000 annual status miles — had used reward points to purchase upgrades from business class in what the lawyer described as a “purely private” action. …

Meanwhile, funds are tight or insufficient across the diocese. There isn’t enough money for the upkeep of churches, parishes are being consolidated and funding for Catholic day care centers is being slashed. All of this is part of the bishop’s tough cost-cutting measures.

Ever since construction on the bishop’s complex began and the extent of his ambitions became known, the atmosphere among Limburg’s Catholics has been poisoned. Indeed, the contradictions between the bishop’s words and his lifestyle have enraged many believers. One member of the cathedral’s choir loudly voiced her anger immediately after a mass. “Many church communities don’t know where they are going to get the money to pay to heat their churches next winter or to make urgently needed repairs to their church roofs,” she said.

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MISSOURI
Pitch

Church, meet State. A law prohibiting the disruption of worship services in Missouri is set to go into effect next Tuesday. But first it must face a court challenge from the American Civil Liberties Union. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Political Fix reports that the ACLU branch covering eastern Missouri filed a lawsuit yesterday in federal court on behalf of the Survivors Network of Those Abused By Priests and Voice of the Faithful-Kansas City.

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OREGON
The Oregonian

By Lynne Terry, The Oregonian

At 54, he told her she was special and showered her with gifts. He became her best friend and then lured her into a sexual relationship. Carolee Horning was only 15.

The Rev. Edward Altstock groomed her, abused her, then moved on from St. John The Apostle Parish in Reedsport, continuing his career while she stumbled toward adulthood, shattered by guilt and shame. She kept the sex abuse secret, just as he had asked, for more than two decades. She never had a boyfriend and never married.

Now 41, she finally recognizes that Altstock was not a soul mate, as she had imagined, but a predator who used her for pleasure. In May, she settled her lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Portland, which oversees the Reedsport church. The deal includes a rare public apology by a high-ranking archdiocese official during Mass this Sunday at St. John.

The apology coincides with a new allegation of priest sex abuse in Woodburn last week.

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HAWAII
KHON

[with video]

Reported by: Gina Mangieri
Email: gmangieri@khon2.com

A man who anonymously sued a former Honolulu bishop and priest for sex abuse has come forward.

The alleged victim says he’s putting a name and face to the case so other survivors can seek justice during a legal window that expires in 2014.

Mark Pinkosh and his family were devout Catholics who attended st. Anthony church in Kailua, and not just on Sundays — every holy day, weekend and summer classes – even weekday mass where Mark was an altar boy. But he alleges his trust in the church turned to terror.

“When I was about 8 or 9 years old, Father Henry raped me, and it was very violent, it was very intense, and of course as an elementary school 4th grader it’s very difficult to process that kind of stuff,” said Mark Pinkosh, alleged victim.

He says he kept it quiet as he alleges he was instructed to do by Father Joseph Henry, now deceased. He didn’t tell family but says he but did tell two nuns and two priests.

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IOWA
Des Moines Register

Aug 23, 2012 | by Jeff Eckhoff

It’s now up to 12 Dallas County jurors to decide whether former Pella pastor Patrick Edouard is a cold-blooded, manipulative rapist or the victim of rewritten memories recounted by four God-fearing women who later regretted their affairs with him.

Closing arguments ended this afternoon in Edouard’s trial on three counts of sexual abuse, four counts of sexual exploiting women who allegedly sought him out for counseling and one charge that involves engaging in a pattern of those sexually exploitative relationships.

Iowa prosecutors say Edouard, the former pastor of Pella’s Covenant Reformed Church, pursued religious and vulnerable women in his congregation for at least a four-year period that ended in December 2010, when a husband came home early and found the pastor’s van in the driveway.

Authorities say Edouard used a combination of flattery and shows of concern with the women’s personal problems to force himself on them and lure them into consensual affairs.

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OREGON
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on August 23, 2012

Shame on Portland Archbishop John Vlazny for his extraordinarily deceitful and hurtful remarks today about a pedophile priest and his victim.

A parent whose child has died is “in tragic circumstances.” A woman who lost a pregnancy is “in tragic circumstances.” A spouse whose partner has committed suicide is “in tragic circumstances.”A breadwinner who has lost his or her job is “in tragic circumstances.”

But a sexually troubled priest who claims to be holy, promised to be celibate and chooses to assault a youngster – instead of going to his bishop and seeking professional help – is not “in tragic circumstances.”

It’s also hurtful and gratuitous for Vlazny to mention that Fr. Perez is supposedly “respected and well-liked.” That’s just rubbing even more salt into the already deep and still fresh wounds of child sex abuse victims – to have a powerful figure publicly praise an arrested, imprisoned and credibly accused child molester. And it’s hurtful and deceptive for Vlazny to call this boy a “young man.” Such deceit is just one of the many ways Catholic officials callously try to minimize the severity of their clerics’ crimes – by misstating the age of their victims.

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COLORADO
The Denver Post

Greeley Tribune staff

A former interim pastor at a Greeley church was charged Wednesday in federal court with four counts of distributing, receiving and possessing child pornography.

According to court documents, Richard Craft, 68, of Thornton, distributed child pornography between July 2007-January 2008 and in December 2009. Court records also state Craft had child pornography on a computer disk.

He faces a maximum of 20 years in prison for the first three counts. He is in custody in Denver.

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MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Barbara Dorris on August 23, 2012

Every churchgoer deserves to be able to worship in peace. We in SNAP deplore anyone who disrupts a worship service of any type for any reason. At the same time, however, it’s crucial that everyone’s freedom of speech is protected.

One in four girls and one in eight boys will be sexually assaulted. Lawmakers need to better protect children, not buildings. They should focus on real harm that’s happening now, not on possible inconvenience that might happen sometime.

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TEXAS/CALIFORNIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on August 23, 2012

A support group for clergy sex abuse victims is urging Catholic bishops in California and Texas to warn their flocks about a priest who is accused of attempted rape.

In June, Lt. Cmdr. Fr. Steven Hicks was suspended from his post at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentypine, CA after allegations of sexual abuse were made by a sailor in the United States Navy.

Fr. Hicks has worked as an armed forces chaplain for almost twenty years, beginning with the Air Force in 1993 and then transferring to the Navy two years later. He was ordained in the San Angelo Diocese but has worked for many years within the San Diego Diocese too.

Leaders of SNAP, the Surivors Network of those Abused by Priests, are urging San Angelo Bishop Michael Pfeifer and San Diego Bishop Robert Brom to “do everything in their power” to see if there are other victims of Fr. Hicks within their dioceses.

“Sex crimes are very rarely a one-time occurrence,” said SNAP director David Clohessy of St. Louis. “It is possible that there are others who are suffering in silence, and we want them to know that they don’t have to suffer alone anymore.”

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OREGON
Catholic Sentinel

Most Rev. John Vlazny
Archbishop of Portland

Many letters, messages and phone calls have come to my attention from Catholics in this archdiocese. Like all of you, I am deeply saddened and troubled by the accusations of the abuse of a minor by Fr. Angel Perez. The behavior Father is accused of is sinful, wrong and can never be tolerated. Criminal charges in this case, as in all similar cases, require both prosecution and defense in court before judgment is rendered.

Fr. Perez, as a priest of the archdiocese, requested assistance for his defense. Father has committed his life to priestly service and is respected and well-liked by his parishioners. Who of us would not do what we could to help a beloved brother, sister or child in tragic circumstances? Our church compensates priests modestly and priests rely on us for financial assistance in extraordinary circumstances. As Father’s archbishop, I offered a loan to him for attorney expenses after his own financial resources have been exhausted. I saw this as my obligation, certainly in charity, if not in justice. Monies loaned will not come from the Archbishop’s Appeal or any other designated fund.

This was a difficult decision on which I sought counsel from legal and other advisors. Such decisions are controversial but I am surprised by the strong opposition it has raised and I am sorry that so many find it offensive and inexcusable.

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CANADA/UNITED STATES
CBC News

The final number for claims against the Christian Brothers in North America is in, surprising even some of the lawyers handling them.

Christian Brothers entities in North America declared bankruptcy last year. The deadline for filing suit against the order expired Aug. 1.

The total number of claims approved is 422.

About 160 are from Newfoundland and Labrador. The rest originate from the United States.

Mount Pearl lawyer Geoff Budden and his firm filed 90 of the claims from this province.

‘I think the lawyers involved certainly were all expecting more to come forward, but we would not have necessarily expected 422 claims.’—Geoff Budden

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IOWA
WHBF

Posted: Aug 23, 2012

(AP) A bankruptcy judge has told the Davenport Diocese to add the names of three deceased priests to its online list of people credibly accused of child sexual abuse. The decision by U.S. District Judge Lee Jackwig came after she reviewed allegations made by a 47-year-old Clear Lake woman.

The diocese is emerging from bankruptcy protections that it sought during the sex abuse scandal that rocked the Catholic church. The diocese filed for bankruptcy in 2006, saying it did not have enough money to cover all the legal claims it faced.

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MISSOURI
Courthouse News Service

By JOE HARRIS

ST. LOUIS (CN) – The Survivor Network of Those Abused by Priests claims in court that a Missouri law banning protests in front of places of worship is unconstitutional.

The Missouri “House of Worship Act” makes it a crime to “intentionally and unreasonably disturb[ ], interrupt[ ], or disquiet[ ] any house of worship by using profane discourse, rude or indecent behavior, or making noise either within the house of worship or so near it as to disturb the order and solemnity of the worship services,” the complaint states, citing the law passed this year that is scheduled to take effect on Aug. 28. (Empty brackets as in complaint.)

Joined as a plaintiff by Voice of the Faithful, in Federal Court, SNAP claims the law violates the First Amendment, and is unconstitutionally vague.

The groups seek declaratory judgment and an injunction. Named as defendants are City of St. Louis Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce, St. Louis City Police Chief Daniel Isom, Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster and Missouri Highway Patrol Superintendent Ronald Replogle.

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HAWAII
West Hawaii Today

By JOHN BURNETT
Stephens Media

The child sex abuse scandal surrounding the Catholic Church has hit close to home, with fingers of accusation pointing at a priest revered in the local community.

Father George DeCosta, who for almost three decades was the parish priest at Malia Puka O Kalani Catholic Church in Keaukaha, has been accused of abuse by two Hawaii men. The two were students at Damien Memorial High School in the 1960s when DeCosta was the chaplain there.

The school is operated by Christian Brothers of Ireland, and the allegations have been made in claims filed against The Christian Brothers Institute and The Christian Brothers of Ireland Inc. in federal bankruptcy court in the Southern District Court of New York.

One of the alleged victims has made his claim public, with his name and the names of other alleged victims deleted from the document. The other has not, said California attorney Michael Reck, who represents both men.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

[Sexual Abuse: The Response of the Archdiocese of Sydney]

Jared Owens
From:The Australian
August 24, 2012

AUSTRALIA’S most senior Catholic, Sydney Archbishop George Pell, has authorised an extraordinary 4000-word statement publicly distancing himself from responsibility for the church’s mishandling of sexual abuse investigations around the country.

The 15-page document, titled Sexual Abuse: The Response of the Archdiocese of Sydney, also claims the archdiocese does not “cap” its assistance to abuse victims or shield alleged perpetrators and church bodies from civil lawsuits.

Barrister Bryan Keon-Cohen QC last night accused the church statement of employing “very careful language that only tells half the story”.

The statement acknowledges “deep concern” about church sexual abuse, and admits that “officials have sometimes failed to deal appropriately with those who have been abused, and with priests and church workers accused of abuse”.

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