ABUSE TRACKER

PHILIPPINES
Sun.Star

By Bernadette A. Parco

Friday, September 28, 2012

A GOOD friend, generous and dedicated to the promotion of the faith—these were the words that some priests and church workers use to describe Msgr. Cristobal Garcia, who is facing an investigation by the Vatican in relation to a 20-year-old sexual abuse case.

“Cris provides a sense of continuity to deeply cherished religious traditions. His deep commitment to Sinulog, for instance, was a positive factor to the celebrations,” said Fr. Carmelo Diola, Dilaab Foundation Inc. overall steward.

Diola said it was Garcia who was behind the creation of a website for the Friends of Pedro Foundation Inc. in 2000, leading to the formation of Dilaab in 2007.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
A Ram in the Thicket

By Ryan A. MacDonald

Former New Hampshire Judge Arthur Brennan was arrested at a Washington, DC protest in October 2011. In 1994, he sentenced Fr. Gordon MacRae to die in prison.

I spent some time last month poking around inside These Stone Walls, an extraordinary website that by all odds should not exist. I once wrote of all the random factors that had to coalesce for this story of a Catholic priest falsely accused and wrongfully imprisoned to be told. “The Prisoner-Priest Behind These Stone Walls” tells that tale, and hopefully has drawn some fair minded souls to this remarkable site.

Spend just a minute or two at the “About” page at These Stone Walls, and consider its simple math. On September 23, 1994, in Cheshire County Superior Court in Keene, New Hampshire, Judge Arthur Brennan sentenced Catholic priest, Gordon MacRae to consecutive prison terms for a combined sentence of 67 years in prison. The sentence was imposed after a highly problematic jury trial in which MacRae was convicted of having sexually assaulted Thomas Grover during counseling sessions in 1983 when Grover was 15 years old.

The accused priest was between 25 and 30 years old when his “crimes” – now deemed by many to be fictitious – were claimed to have occurred. MacRae was 41 years old when the sentence was imposed. He is now 59 years old and still in prison. Barring the just outcome of a pending new appeal based on new evidence in the case, the priest will be 108 years old when his sentence is fully served and he is free to leave prison. There is no other possible conclusion. Judge Arthur Brennan sentenced Father Gordon MacRae to die in the New Hampshire State Prison.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

Opinion

Judy Courtin

The Catholic Church’s sincerity must be challenged when it says it is putting abuse victims first.

FACING the Truth is the title of the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne’s submission to State Parliament’s inquiry into the handling of child abuse by churches and others. The title also becomes the leitmotif of a church press release on the submission – that the church of today has been ”open about the horrific abuse that has occurred in Victoria and elsewhere” and ”we put the child first”.

What is designed to look like a confession and a genuine mea maxima culpa, is nothing but unholy PR spin.

First, consider the numbers. Archbishop Denis Hart claims about 620 cases of child abuse relating to crimes committed over the past 80 years have been upheld by the church in Victoria. This does not reflect the true number. According to the Victorian Law Reform Commission, a maximum of 10 per cent of people who were sexually assaulted as children will ever report those crimes to police. Whether more or fewer people will report to the police than the church, we don’t know. But broadly this figure means we have more than 6000 victims of Catholic clergy sex abuse in this state.

Second, the church claims that by ”facing the truth” it is being open about the horrific abuse. If this were so, the church would, today, hand to police all its secret archives holding thousands of documents relating to decades of clergy sex offences and their cover-ups. On this latter point the press release is silent. The church instead hides this evidence.

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OHIO
10TV

[with video]

COLUMBUS, Ohio – A Greek Orthodox priest accused of trying to solicit sex from young boys entered a guilty plea in court Thursday afternoon.

Patrick Nicholas Hughes was sentenced to six years in prison after being arrested last week on one count of attempted rape and one count of attempted unlawful conduct with a minor.

Authorities said Hughes, 56, tried to arrange a meeting to have sex with two boys, ages 9 and 14.

O’Brien said in his Thursday afternoon court appearance, Hughes waived his right to indictment and entered a guilty plea to the Bill of Information.

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CALIFORNIA
Loyolan

Posted on September 27, 2012

by Editorial Board

“Enough with evading the issue, LMU. Be transparent. Tell us the facts. Hopefully, even with this information, no one at LMU during [Brother William J.] Farrington [S.J.]’s time at the University will come forward. But, with the unfortunate chance that that is not the case, give them the opportunity to tell their story. Reporting abuse takes innumerable levels of strength. Show that you care. Extend your hand.”

Those words formed the conclusion of the Loyolan’s board editorial just 10 days ago (“Enough with evading the issue, LMU,” Sept. 17, 2012), urging the University to take action in the wake of the allegations of sexual abuse against former LMU employee Farrington at his previous schools, Bellarmine College Preparatory and Jesuit High School (as reported in the Sept. 17 Loyolan article “Jesuit accused of sexual molestation spent 15 years working at LMU”). On Tuesday, President David W. Burcham extended that hand in two separate letters: one to the current LMU community (reprinted below) and one to alumni who attended LMU from 1987-2002, when Farrington worked here.

Burcham informed recipients in both letters of Farrington’s time at LMU and of the allegations, which were deemed “credible” by the presidents of both Bellarmine Prep and Jesuit High. The letters also made clear that no claims of abuse at LMU have surfaced, and that he was reassigned to the Jesuit Retirement Community in Los Gatos, Calif. following a complaint from an alleged victim at one of Farrington’s previous schools. Additionally, in his letter to alumni, Burcham urged “anyone with credible information of wrongdoing on the part of Brother Farrington during his time at LMU to contact Rebecca Chandler, LMU Vice President of Human Resources.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

An ex-canon of Carlisle Cathedral has admitted a series of child sex offences dating back more than 20 years.

Ronald Johns pleaded guilty at Carlisle Crown Court to assaulting three teenage boys between 1983 and 1991.

The 75-year-old, of Kings Road, Coltishall, Norwich, was bailed to return to Carlisle Crown Court on 19 November for sentencing.

Outside court the Archdeacon of West Cumberland Richard Pratt apologised “unreservedly” to Johns’ victims.

“We’ve been deeply shocked and grieved by The Reverend Ron Johns’ admission of child sexual abuse,” he said.

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OHIO
The Columbus Dispatch

By John Futty
The Columbus Dispatch
Thursday September 27, 2012

The acting dean of the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Columbus pleaded guilty this afternoon to a bill of information accusing him of trying to meet two boys for sex.

Patrick N. Hughes, 56, was sentenced to six years in prison by Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Mark Serrott.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys recommended the sentence. The maximum for one count of attempted rape is eight years.

Hughes was arrested last week by deputy sheriffs. He was accused of posting an online ad “ looking for taboo sex with no age restrictions,” a prosecutor said during Hughes’ initial appearance in court.

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OHIO
NBC 4

Published: September 27, 2012

COLUMBUS, Ohio —
A Columbus Priest accused of soliciting sex from a minor online appeared in court Thursday afternoon and pleaded guilty to the charges against him.

Patrick Hughes, 56, was arrested and charged with attempted rape and attempted unlawful sexual conduct with a minor.

Hughes was sentenced to six years in prison. He cannot be rewarded time for good behavior and will have to register as a Tier 3 sex offender for life. Once he is released from prison, he will be placed on probation for five years.

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TEXAS
Watch Keep

This is my story of how I came to be an advocate for survivors of child sexual abuse and the personal price I would pay as a result. But I would do it again.

I loved my church, Prestonwood Baptist Church in Dallas. I spent my years in high school as a dedicated member of the youth ministry, and while attending Baylor University, I spent my summers as an intern on the youth staff at Prestonwood. It was there I met my then youth music minister, John Langworthy. John soon became a close friend of our family, even living in our home for a while in the mid 1980s while on staff at Prestonwood and attending seminary. I was in his wedding in Mississippi. He was a friend and mentor.

The person that I knew though was not reality. The reality was a wolf masquerading in sheep’s clothing, albeit a very talented, charming, magnetic, charismatic one. The entire time I knew him, he was sexually molesting boys at Prestonwood, some of them my friends. Some of the abuse took place in the church building, the former Prestonwood location on Hillcrest at Arapaho in Dallas. This came as a shock to all of us when he was suddenly fired in June of 1989 and packed up quickly and moved back to his home state of Mississippi. I heard the rumors like many in the youth group then. I was 20 and on staff as an intern. I did not know exactly who the victims were at the time. The Prestonwood executive staff, headed by Dr. Jack Graham, heard Langworthy confess to these child sex crimes, along with Neal Jeffrey, then youth pastor, but no one reported these crimes to the police as required by Texas state law. They even had a few of the victims that they knew sit down with church attorneys to give statements, but none of this information was reported to the police.

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CALIFORNIA
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on September 27, 2012

A new California law makes commercial computer technicians mandatory reporters in cases of child pornography. The bill, AB 1817, was signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown this week.

Here is the crux of the bill, according to a press release from the CA K.I.D.S. Coalition:

Commercial computer techicians will now be required to report child sexual abuse images if they discover them during their normal course of work.

The last time this law was updated, it applied to employees in photo and video processing labs. With the dawn of digital media, not only was the old law outdated, but barely scratched the surface of a now-booming digital trade in sexual exploitation images of children.

Had a law like this been in effect in Kansas City, numerous children victimized by Fr. Shawn Ratigan could have been saved from abuse.

Now, if computer techs run across child abuse images (child porn) on a computer, they won’t grapple with the questions of “should I? or shouldn’t I?”

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PHILIPPINES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on September 26, 2012

We are glad that the Vatican has finally taken action to remove Msgr. Cristobal Garcia. However, this belated move does not change the fact that their actions in the past have done more to harm children than removing Garcia today does to protect them.

In 2005, after Garcia admitted abusing altar boys, church officials did nothing as the predator priest fled to the Philippines. More recently, they allowed his Filipino diocese to propagate the myth that he was removed “due to health reasons.” These lies and inaction could only have endangered kids.

We hope that there is a serious shakeup due to this mishandling, but we doubt that such a thing will occur. The men who covered for Fr. Garcia in the Philippines should be severely punished. Sadly, we doubt they will even receive a slap on the wrist.

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OHIO
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on September 27, 2012

It is disturbing how easily predators are able to find potential victims by using the internet. For that reason, we are grateful to Columbus police for apprehending Fr. Patrick Hughes before he had the chance to potentially victimize more children.

Parents must remain vigilant and be sure to monitor the internet activity of young, unsuspecting children who may be pursued by predators such as Rev. Hughes. Child predators are often charismatic and deceptive, and what seems safe and innocent from behind a computer screen can turn out to be nefarious.

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NEW YORK
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on September 27, 2012

We are disturbed that Rabbi Shlaman has been able to escape his sordid past and once again be in active ministry. At the same time, we are proud of the response from community members, most notably Rabbi Keith Karnofsky, who have openly spoken out against Shalman returning to the pulpit and done his part to warn church goers of Shalman’s crimes.

In order for real change to happen, efforts like those of Rabbi Karnofsky must become commonplace, not rare. We are glad to see that he has taken the lead in this situation, and hope that the rest of the members of the Buffalo Board of Rabbis will follow his example.

At the same time, we are dismayed that people – such as Hillel Board Chairman Dan Lenard – are excusing Shalman’s sexual impropriety due to his knowledge of the Torah. Rather, we think that those who practice the morals taught in Torah rather than know its contents are better fit to lead temple services.

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NEW YORK
Buffalo News

BY: Jay Tokasz

Rabbi A. Charles Shalman, expelled in 2008 from the worldwide Rabbinical Assembly amid allegations of an inappropriate relationship with a member of his congregation, has resurfaced as a featured participant in High Holy Day services at Hillel of Buffalo.

Shalman assisted last week during Rosh Hashana services at Hillel, the primary Jewish student organization on the University at Buffalo campus, and he is slated to do the same again tonight and Wednesday for Yom Kippur, Judaism’s most solemn holiday.

Shalman’s return to the pulpit as Torah reader has caused considerable consternation in some circles of the Jewish community, including a letter from a local rabbi to the Hillel board chairman strongly objecting to the move.

“We all know that Rabbi Shalman is a gifted, knowledgeable and charismatic teacher. However, given his refusal to own up or change, it is not appropriate for him to work with the young, vulnerable student population at Hillel,” Rabbi Keith M. Karnofsky wrote in a letter obtained by The Buffalo News.

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MARYLAND
The Gazette

by Jeremy Arias Staff writer

A Clarksburg man who is appealing his second-degree murder conviction for stabbing a priest to death in 2000 must prove that his defense attorneys did not properly represent him at trial.

Robert Paul Lucas’ current attorneys are arguing that his former attorneys should have objected to comments made by prosecutors during closing arguments at his August 2001 trial.

At a hearing Sept. 20, Judge Sharon V. Burrell gave Lucas until Oct. 10 to submit an updated transcript detailing the objectionable statements.

Lucas, 37, was found guilty of the second-degree murder of Monsignor Thomas Wells, 56, a pastor at the Mother Seton Parish in Germantown. Lucas was also found guilty of robbery with a dangerous weapon and first-degree burglary and was ultimately sentenced to 42 and a half years.

Wells was found dead from multiple stab wounds in his bedroom at the Germantown rectory after he was missed during morning mass on June 8, 2000. The wife of Lucas’ employer began to suspect his involvement in the murder about a week later and police arrested him after discovering Lucas wearing boots that matched bloody prints left at the scene, court documents state.

Upon his arrest, Lucas confessed to the murder. During the trial, Lucas said Wells sexually assaulted him after Lucas drunkenly broke into the rectory looking for a place to clean up, Montgomery County Assistant State’s Attorney Ann Bosse said.

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MARYLAND
Patch

By Tiffany Arnold

A Clarksburg man convicted of killing a Germantown priest has asked for a new trial, claiming his former attorneys should have objected to prosecutors’ comments during closing arguments at his 2001 trial, The Gazette reported Thursday.

Robert Paul Lucas, 37, is appealing his second-degree murder conviction for stabbing to death Monsignor Thomas Wells, a 56-year-old pastor at Mother Seton Parish, whom Lucas claimed had sexually assaulted him, according to The Gazette.

According to court records accessed by Patch, Wells was in court Sept. 20. A judge gave him 20 days to submit a transcript detailing the objectionable statements.

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PHILIPPINES
Catholic News Agency

By Kevin J. Jones

Cebu, Philippines, Sep 27, 2012 / 10:50 am (CNA).- A National Geographic story on ivory smuggling has renewed focus on a prominent Philippines priest accused of sexual abuse in Los Angeles in the 1980s.

Monsignor Cristobal Garcia, an ivory collector, told a National Geographic correspondent he could smuggle ivory into the U.S. by wrapping it in “old, stinky underwear” and pouring ketchup on it.

The smuggling remarks, published in the October 2012 issue of National Geographic, caused a controversy which revealed that Archbishop Jose Palma of Cebu suspended the priest in June because of the Vatican’s ongoing investigation of the child abuse case against him.

In a Sept. 26 statement from the Cebu archdiocese, Archbishop Palma explained that the abuse investigation began “long before the (ivory trade) controversy erupted.”

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PHILIPPINES
National Catholic Reporter

Sep. 27, 2012
By Mark Pattison, Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON — A National Geographic magazine cover story identifies a Philippine Catholic priest accused of sexual abuse in the United States as fueling his country’s illegal trade in ivory.

In the course of his research for the October issue, Bryan Christy learned that Msgr. Cristobal Garcia, director of worship for the Archdiocese of Cebu, Philippines, had been accused of child sex abuse more than two decades ago but was still serving in priestly ministry. Christy said he was “surprised. Yes, I was surprised.”

The article highlights Garcia’s extensive ivory religious icon collection and quotes him giving tips on how to smuggle ivory into the Philippines. It also included details of the sexual abuse complaint against him from the 1980s, when he served as a Dominican priest in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. He was expelled from the Dominicans and returned to the Philippines.

In a statement Wednesday, the Cebu Archdiocese said the Vatican had been looking into the sexual abuse complaints against Garcia “long before the (ivory trade) controversy erupted.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

French authorities are helping search for an East Sussex teenager thought to be with a teacher from her school.

Megan Stammers, 15, from Eastbourne, is believed to have crossed the Channel with Jeremy Forrest, 30, a maths teacher at Bishop Bell C of E School.

Police said Mr Forrest, of Ringmer, East Sussex, who got married last year, was travelling with Megan in his black Ford Fiesta.

Megan’s mother and stepfather are to make a new appeal for her to come home.

Several appeals have been posted on Twitter and Facebook, including one by her sister Brooke who tweeted: “Keeping hope that we’ll have good news soon. Need our meg home safe and sound #keepfaith #findmeganstammers.”

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SOMERVILLE (MA)
Wicked Local Somerville

By Auditi Guha
Wicked Local Somerville

Posted Sep 27, 2012

Somerville —

A former Somerville priest who was recently accused of sex abuse reportedly committed suicide this week.

“With sorrow I received news this evening that the Rev. Paul LaCharite has died, an apparent suicide,” said Bishop M. Thomas Shaw of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts in a statement on Sept. 26. “This is a shocking tragedy, and I’ve asked our diocesan community to pray for everyone concerned.”

Formerly of St. James Episcopal Church in Somerville, LaCharite, 65, was affiliated with the Old North Church in Boston and was arrested Sept.10 on on one count of assault to rape a child under 14 and three counts of indecent assault and battery on a child.

“Father LaCharite is innocent of these charges,” said his defense attorney David Meier to reporters outside the courthouse after his arraignment Sept. 10 where he denied the charges and was issued a $10,000 bail.

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PHILIPPINES
Malaya Business Insight

Published on Friday, 28 September 2012

Written by ROMEO Y. LIM

‘The double scandal case of Msgr. Cristobal Garcia not only disgusts but repels me. This man has not only sinned against but betrayed the trust of his spiritual flock.’

AS I have often stated in many columns, I am not a religious man. I am, however, spiritual.

I have faced the barrel of a gun many times in my past and pulled the trigger on enemies of the state many times. In fact, I shot dead a thief when I was only 13 years old.

But whether spiritual or religious, it has always been ingrained in my head ever since I could understand right and wrong that priests and nuns were the epitome of virtue and sanctity.

In my youth, I was often awed by priests and nuns because every one from my parents to my older siblings turned meek and very respectful no matter what mood they were in when they were met by the parish priest.

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TEXAS
Houston Press

By Craig Malisow
Thu., Sep. 27 2012

Two more men have joined a lawsuit accusing a deceased Beaumont priest of molestation.

Identified as John Does, the two men join another anonymous plaintiff who sued the Roman Catholic Diocese of Beaumont and Bishop Curtis Guillory in April over abuse that allegedly occurred in 1976 and 1977. The accused priest, Father Ronald W. Bollich, died in 1996 at age 59.

The new plaintiffs’ allegations include a night of near-naked “wrestling,” in which Bollich plied boys with alcohol while spending the night in Bollich’s quarters in the rectory. After telling two of the plaintiffs and at least one other boy to strip down to their underwear, Bollich wrestled with the boys, pinned them to his bed, and “began pawing and groping the boys’ genitals,” according to the suit.

In another alleged incident involving a new plaintiff, Bollich “pushed the boy’s head and mouth down towards his erect penis.”

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TEXAS
Beaumont Enterprise

This seemed inevitable.

Five months ago, a Dallas County man — known in the complaint as “John Doe 104″ — filed a sexual abuse claim against the Catholic Diocese of Beaumont, alleging he was sexually abused by a priest in the late 1970s. The priest, Ronald Bollich, passed away in 1996 at the age of 59.

We wondered at the time if there might be any others.

Yep.

It turns out Bollich might have terrorized many more.

According to the Houston Press, two more “John Doe” accusers just joined suit. And the picture they paint is a disturbing one.

The new plaintiffs’ allegations include a night of near-naked “wrestling,” in which Bollich plied boys with alcohol while spending the night in Bollich’s quarters in the rectory. After telling two of the plaintiffs and at least one other boy to strip down to their underwear, Bollich wrestled with the boys, pinned them to his bed, and “began pawing and groping the boys’ genitals,” according to the suit.

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CONNECTICUT
The Day

Karen Florin
Former Haitian church leader Luckner Sylvain pleaded guilty in Superior Court Wednesday to molesting a 12-year-old girl multiple times while she lived with his family in 2006 in Norwich.

Sylvain, 49, will be sentenced in December to 2½ years in prison followed by 10 years of probation for risk of injury to a minor and will be required to register as a sex offender.

Sylvain pleaded guilty under the Alford Doctrine, which indicates he does not agree with the state’s allegations but does not want to risk the possibility of a harsher sentence if convicted at trial.

Sylvain is co-founder of the Bethany Foundation, a group dedicated to raising funds to help Haitian children affected by the earthquake in January 2010. He was formerly affiliated with the First Haitian Baptist Church in Norwich.

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PHILIPPINES
International Business Times

BY Amrutha Gayathri | September 27 2012

A Roman Catholic priest in the Philippines inadvertently prompted an investigation against himself after he offered advice for an article on the ivory trade in the National Geographic magazine on how to smuggle ivory statues.

The article with a section titled “How to Smuggle Ivory” has Monsignor Cristobal Garcia instructing readers on the best way to smuggle an ivory statue to the U.S. It is to “wrap it in old, stinky underwear and pour ketchup on it. So it looks sh**ty with blood. This is how it is done.”

Garcia also gave the reporter, phone numbers, location and names of his favorite ivory carvers, all in Manila, along with advice on whom to go to for high volume, whose wife overcharges and who doesn’t meet the deadlines.

The article says Garcia is one of the best-known ivory collectors in the Philippines and was dismissed from service at St. Dominic’s of Los Angeles in the mid-1980s for sexually abusing an altar boy in his early teens.

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SOMERVILLE (MA)
Patch

By Chris Orchard

Paul LaCharite, an Episcopal priest who was recently charged with sexually assaulting a child while he served at Saint James Episcopal Church in Teele Square, was found dead in a car Wednesday night, according to the Boston Herald.

Police said he died of an apparent drug overdose, the Herald reports.

According to the newspaper, police found the body of LaCharite at about 7:40 p.m. inside a gray 2006 Saturn that was parked in the sixth floor of a Government Center parking garage.

LaCharite served at Saint James Church in the 1990s and early 2000s, and it was alleged that during this time he sexually assaulted a child whose family had long ties to the church.

The priest pleaded not guilty to charges against him on Sept. 10.

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OHIO
NBC 4

Published: September 27, 2012

COLUMBUS, Ohio —
A Columbus Priest accused of soliciting sex from a minor online is expected to appear in court Thursday afternoon and plead guilty.

Patrick Hughes, 56, was arrested and charged with attempted rape and attempted unlawful sexual conduct with a minor.

The hearing is scheduled to begin at 1:30 p.m., and according to a release from the Franklin County prosecutor, Hughes is expected to waive his right to indictment followed by the filing of a bill of information, and subsequent guilty to plea to the bill of information.

Detectives said Hughes allegedly posted an ad on an adult social networking site, looking for sexual relations with children. A detective responded to the ad and began communicating with Hughes.

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CALIFORNIA
Los Feliz Ledger

By Norma Zager, Ledger Contributing Writer

FINLEY AVENUE—Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael P. Linfield requested Sept. 19th attorneys involved in the closure of St. Mary’s of the Angels church to file what’s known as a “summary judgment” in order to proceed with the eviction of Father Christopher Kelley—who was fired from the church in June.

Since Kelley’s firing, he and some followers have ensconced themselves in the church’s basement and rectory, ignoring the dismissal.

A barrage of court dates and charges have kept the church’s main rectory closed to parishioners as Kelley continued to hold services in the basement.

According to Diocese of the West Canon Tony Morello—who has taken charge of the church since Kelley’s firing—the Judge’s request gives Kelley’s firing validity.

According to Morello, additionally an Ecclesiastical inquiry is scheduled for October 11th. At that time Kelley will be called upon to answer the charges brought against him including violations of the church and his vows. One potential outcome may be to deny Kelley his priesthood.

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OHIO
10TV

Thursday September 27, 2012

Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O’Brien said Thursday that a Greek Orthodox priest is expected to enter a guilty plea in court Thursday afternoon.

Patrick Nicholas Hughes, 56, was arrested last week on one count of attempted rape and one count of attempted unlawful conduct with a minor. Authorities said Hughes tried to arrange a meeting to have sex with two boys, ages 9 and 14.

O’Brien said in his Thursday afternoon court appearance, Hughes will waive his right to indictment and enter a guilty plea to the Bill of Information.

Last week, Sheriff Zach Scott said that Hughes used a website to try and arrange the meeting, but he was actually exchanging messages with detectives.

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National Geographic

By Bryan Christy

Photographs by Brent Stirton, Reportage by Getty Images

IN JANUARY 2012 A HUNDRED RAIDERS ON HORSEBACK CHARGED OUT OF CHAD INTO CAMEROON’S BOUBA NDJIDAH NATIONAL PARK, SLAUGHTERING HUNDREDS OF ELEPHANTS—entire families—in one of the worst concentrated killings since a global ivory trade ban was adopted in 1989. Carrying AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades, they dispatched the elephants with a military precision reminiscent of a 2006 butchering outside Chad’s Zakouma National Park. And then some stopped to pray to Allah. Seen from the ground, each of the bloated elephant carcasses is a monument to human greed. Elephant poaching levels are currently at their worst in a decade, and seizures of illegal ivory are at their highest level in years. From the air too the scattered bodies present a senseless crime scene—you can see which animals fled, which mothers tried to protect their young, how one terrified herd of 50 went down together, the latest of the tens of thousands of elephants killed across Africa each year. Seen from higher still, from the vantage of history, this killing field is not new at all. It is timeless, and it is now.

THE PHILIPPINES CONNECTION
In an overfilled church Monsignor Cristobal Garcia, one of the best known ivory collectors in the Philippines, leads an unusual rite honoring the nation’s most important religious icon, the Santo Niño de Cebu (Holy Child of Cebu). The ceremony, which he conducts annually on Cebu, is called the Hubo, from a Cebuano word meaning “to undress.” Several altar boys work together to disrobe a small wooden statue of Christ dressed as a king, a replica of an icon devotees believe Ferdinand Magellan brought to the island in 1521. They remove its small crown, red cape, and tiny boots, and strip off its surprisingly layered underwear. Then the monsignor takes the icon, while altar boys conceal it with a little white towel, and dunks it in several barrels of water, creating his church’s holy water for the year, to be sold outside.

Garcia is a fleshy man with a lazy left eye and bad knees. In the mid-1980s, according to a 2005 report in the Dallas Morning News and a related lawsuit, Garcia, while serving as a priest at St. Dominic’s of Los Angeles, California, sexually abused an altar boy in his early teens and was dismissed. Back in the Philippines, he was promoted to monsignor and made chairman of Cebu’s Archdiocesan Commission on Worship. That made him head of protocol for the country’s largest Roman Catholic archdiocese, a flock of nearly four million people in a country of 75 million Roman Catholics, the world’s third largest Catholic population. Garcia is known beyond Cebu. Pope John Paul II blessed his Santo Niño during Garcia’s visit to the pope’s summer residence, Castel Gandolfo, in 1990. Recently Garcia helped direct the installation of Cebu’s newest archbishop in a cathedral filled with Catholic leaders, including 400 priests and 70 bishops, among them the Vatican’s ambassador. Garcia is so well known that to find his church, the Society of the Angels of Peace, I need only roll down my window and ask, “Monsignor Cris?” to be pointed toward his walled compound.

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PHILIPPINES
National Geographic

Posted by Bryan Christy in A Voice for Elephants on September 26, 2012

“Blood Ivory: Ivory Worship” is generating keen interest in the Philippines. The country’s ivory trade has been the cover story of the Philippine newspapers this week and is receiving similar attention across the country, especially on the island of Cebu.

Earlier today Jose S. Palma, Archbishop of Cebu, held a press conference, “Ivory Worship and Msgr. Cris Garcia” (see below), in which he reportedly announced that ivory collector Monsignor Garcia had been suspended and stripped of his position in the archdiocese of Cebu on orders of the Vatican. Palma emphasized that this move was not the result of my investigation, which features Garcia, but rather is the result of Garcia’s sexual abuse of minor boys while serving in Los Angeles, California in the 1980s. The case was exposed by Brooks Egerton of the Dallas Morning News as part of that newspaper’s 2005 series, “Runaway Priests: Hiding in Plain Sight.” My story cited the Dallas Morning News story and reiterated Garcia’s past.

“Let it be made clear that the Church supports the ban on ivory,” Palma says in his written statement for the press today. He then opened the door to an important possibility for elephants and the Africans who risk their lives to protect them: “…in the past ivory was one of the materials used in the adornment of liturgical worship…in no way does [the Church] encourage the use of ivory for new implements.”

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PHILIPPINES
Philippine Daily Inquirer

By Tina G. Santos
Philippine Daily Inquirer
8:18 pm | Thursday, September 27th, 2012

MANILA, Philippines—Some Catholic prelates believe that the issues involving Msgr. Cristobal Garcia were being used by their enemies to discredit the Church and may also have something to do with its stand on the controversial reproductive health (RH) bill.

“The enemies are using that particular case [of Garcia] in Cebu to discredit the Church, I think,” said Sorsogon Bishop Arturo Bastes, member of the Permanent Council of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines.

“The great majority of Catholic priests are good,” he said, adding that the “smear campaign” may have something to do with their continued opposition to RH bill.

Garcia was linked by National Geographic to the illegal ivory trade. He has also been suspended and stripped of all his positions in the Archdiocese of Cebu on orders of the Vatican while the Holy See investigates the child abuse case that stemmed from accusations that he molested altar boys more than 20 years ago in the United States.

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VATICAN CITY
Yahoo! News

By Philip Pullella | Reuters

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – The Vatican has certainly seen more sensational trials in its long history. The Inquisition ordered Galileo to recant his theory that the earth revolves around the sun, and philosopher Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake for heresy.

But even those cases, both in the 17th century, did not involve a breach of trust by a papal aide – the issue at the core of this Saturday’s trial of papal butler Paolo Gabriele for stealing and leaking the pontiff’s personal papers.

One of the worst crises in Pope Benedict’s papacy will play out in a small Vatican tribunal, where a three-judge panel will decide the fate of the 46-year-old Gabriele, whom the pope used to call “Paoletto” (little Paul) and who is now described in Vatican documents as “the defendant”.

The case will put the inner workings of the tiny Vatican, the world’s smallest state, in the type of media spotlight it usually strives to avoid.

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UNITED STATES
Yellow Advertiser

Special report: Child abuse and the churches

EXCLUSIVE by Charles Thomson

CAMPAIGNERS have claimed the case of Barry Snow highlights the need for new laws on how religious groups handle child abuse allegations.

Snow, 51, of St Lawrence Gardens, in Leigh, was reported to the Jehovah’s Witness church in the late 1970s and admitted to repeatedly molesting a girl under the age of 10.
Mr Snow committed the offences in his late teens.

But instead of notifying police, the church imposed its own sanctions, allowing him to escape justice in the courts. He then went on to abuse a second girl in the early 1980s.

Judge Jonathan Black criticised the church’s handling of the allegations, but campaigners pointed out that there are currently no UK laws requiring churches to report child abuse to police.
The Jehovah’s Witness church has a Child Safeguarding Policy in place, but the campaigners say it is not strong enough.

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UNITED STATES
Youth Today

September 26, 2012 by Patrick Boyle

After more than 20 years of rejecting accusations that it mishandled the problem of sex abuse in its ranks, the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) yesterday admitted that its response was sometimes “wrong” and apologized to victims.

“There have been instances where people misused their positions in Scouting to abuse children, and in certain cases, our response to these incidents and our efforts to protect youth were plainly insufficient, inappropriate, or wrong,” the BSA said in a “Open Letter to the Scouting Community.”

“For any episode of abuse, and in any instance where those involved in Scouting failed to protect, or worse, inflicted harm on children, we extend our deepest apologies and sympathies to victims and their families.”

It’s unclear whether victims will feel moved by the organization’s statement. “The apology is not accepted,” said Matt Stewart, a California man who settled an abuse lawsuit against the BSA in 2007. Saying that the organization apologized only after lawsuits and media reports exposed its failure to prevent and confront abuse, Stewart said, “The Boy Scouts covered up these cases. How can you put an ‘I’m sorry’ behind that?” …

It is unclear if the BSA’s new approach will dilute some of the fury that victims and the public might feel as the stories continue. In the Catholic Church scandal, the reluctance of Church leaders to publicly apologize (they eventually did) is often cited as fueling the onslaught of lawsuits and media coverage.

“Apologies are usually easy and vague,” said David Clohessy, director of Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP). “They can often seem like public relations moves, rather than sincere gestures.”

That’s how Stewart sees it. “That’s the mantra of other organizations that allowed this to happen for decades,” he said. “Once they get caught, they issue an apology.

“The lives of the victims are ruined. How can you tell me sorry after I was abused for 13 years?”

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CENTERVILLE (MA)
Cape Cod Times

By Sean Teehan
steehan@capecodonline.com

September 27, 2012

CENTERVILLE — A contract distributed to members of a local church that drew public scrutiny was written with the best of intentions, the church’s pastor said.

“All the sudden, we’re thrust in this public relations disaster,” the Rev. Mark Hession, pastor at Our Lady of Victory Parish, said.

A report by a Boston television station this week said parents bringing their children to Our Lady of Victory for religious education were asked to sign a form agreeing that, “Should we choose to allow another adult to provide supervision to a child, the ultimate supervision and safety of that child is still our responsibility and ours alone.”

The document further stipulates parents “specifically agree not to hold the diocese or any of its employees or contractors liable for any accident, illness or harm that may result from the trip or activity,” the report said.

But the program to which the form refers is the GIFT program, a multigenerational gathering in which parish families gather for a meal before breaking up into religious study and prayer groups separated by age. About 180 people attend each of these events.

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HAMMOND (IL)
Southtown Star

By Teresa Auch SChultz Sun-Times Media September 26, 2012

Jack Alan Schaap, the former pastor of a Hammond megachurch, said Wednesday he didn’t know he was committing a crime when he transported a teen girl across state lines for sexual activity.

“I was not aware of the law,” he said during a hearing in federal court in Hammond.

He did say, though, he was aware it was unprofessional conduct and a sin.

Schaap, 54, of Dyer, Ind., was charged last week with taking someone under the age of 18 across state lines for sexual activity and ordered held without bond. Wednesday, he described the three trips he and the teen took, starting on June 20.

Schaap, wearing orange prison garb, said someone else actually transported the girl, who was then 16, into Crete but that he made that happen. They took another trip to Illinois a week later, after she had turned 17, and then a third trip on July 10 to Michigan, near the city of Cadillac.

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UNITED STATES
What They Knew

[with video]

Robert Wild SJ Takes Over As Advancement Director for the Newly Combined Chicago-Detroit-Wisconsin Province of the Society of Jesus.

As the video report above shows, Robert Wild SJ knew when to leave a party before the cops showed up. Wild, “The Pied Piper of Marquette” knew how to run the funding circuit back in the good days when child sex abuse was kept quite in the Chicago Province. He could tell a joke or wipe a tear away with one hand and pick your pockets with the other.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

Thursday, 27 September 2012

A woman who claims she was sexually abused by a priest when she was a child has said she “felt sorry” for him at one stage.

The 40-year-old told Belfast Crown Court that before she reported her alleged abuser to police in September 2010 “I felt sorry for Father Donnelly”.

Catholic priest Peter Donnelly (69) denies six counts of indecent assault and one of gross indecency alleged to have occurred between July 31, 1983, and August 1, 1987, when his alleged victim was aged between 10 and 14 years old.

Donnelly, from Drumaroad Hill in Castlewellan, was curate at St Matthew’s Church in Belfast’s Bryson Street at the time.

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IRELAND
Cork Independent

Sinn Féin Cork North Central TD Jonathan O’Brien has called for the Government to apologise to the survivors of Magdalene laundries as soon as possible. “Every day counts for these women, many who are elderly,” he told the Cork Independent.

The final report of the committee investigating the treatment of women in Magdalene laundries will be published before the end of the year at the latest, according to Minister of State for Justice Kathleen Lynch. Only after the publication of the report will a Government apology be possible, according to Ms Lynch.

The Labour TD said, “it would be improper to conclude (the report) without examining additional information” that committee chairman Senator Martin McAleese was still identifying.

Last night a Sinn Féin private members’ motion calling for an apology, pensions and a helpline for survivors of the Magdalene laundries, that was endorsed by victim’s advocacy group Justice for Magdalenes (JFM), was subject of a vote in Dáil Éireann.

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BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe

By Travis Andersen, Globe Staff

An Episcopal priest who was arraigned earlier this month in a Somerville courtroom on charges that he repeatedly sexually assaulted a child who was a former parishioner has died, his lawyer and the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts said on Wednesday night.

“With sorrow I received news this evening that the Rev. Paul LaCharite has died, an apparent suicide,” Bishop M. Thomas Shaw of the Episcopal Diocese said in a statement. “This is a shocking tragedy, and I’ve asked our diocesan community to pray for everyone concerned.”

LaCharite, 65, had pleaded not guilty on Sept. 10 to charges that he sexually assaulted the former parishioner, who is now 26, over a ten-year period at the St. James Episcopal Church in Somerville, where the priest had been assigned from 1989 to 2005.

“This is an unspeakable tragedy,” said David Meier, a lawyer for LaCharite, who was found dead on Wednesday night in Boston. “Father Paul LaCharite was truly an innocent man who was driven to the depths of despair by a false accusation.”

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SCHWEIZ
Kipa-Apic

Luzern. 27.9.12 (Kipa) Dass es zu Übergriffen kam, war bekannt, das Ausmass jedoch schmerzt, kommentierte Bischofsvikar Ruedi Heim die kirchliche Untersuchung “Hinter Mauern” zu Gewalt in Luzerner Kinder- und Jugendheimen im Zeitraum 1930 bis 1970. Zwei Studien wurden am Mittwoch in Luzern vorgestellt. Die zweite Studie “Bericht Kinderheime im Kanton Luzern” schreibt von Praktiken, die heute als “Foltermethoden” bezeichnet werden und sexueller Gewalt in den Heimen.

Die Zuständigkeiten in den Heimen sind heute zum Teil schwer eruierbar. Es bestand eine Verflechtung von staatlichen Gremien und Kirche. Zum Teil bestimmte der Bischof die Leitung eines Heimes, der Staat segnete als Aufsicht die Wahl ab. Im Heim selber arbeiteten dann Ordensfrauen. Solche Bedingungen hätten den Missbräuchen zum Teil Vorschub geleistet, erklärte Markus Furrer, Professor für Geschichte an der Pädagogischen Hochschule Luzern, gegenüber der Presseagentur Kipa.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Kolner Stadt-Unzeiger

Die Kirchensteuer in Deutschland beträgt in der Regel neun Prozent der Lohn- und Einkommensteuer und wird über das staatliche Finanzamt eingezogen. Die katholische Kirche strich 2011 fast fünf Milliarden Euro Steuern ein.

In Deutschland ist die Kirchensteuer eine gesetzlich festgelegte Abgabe der Kirchenmitglieder. Rechtliche Grundlage bilden die in das Grundgesetz übernommenen staatskirchenrechtlichen Artikel der Weimarer Verfassung.

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DEUTSCHLAND
kath.net

Offener Brief an die DBK: „Die Handhabung der Kirchensteuer ist unwahrhaftig, weil es Sie „für viele Menschen als Vertreter eines florierenden Großunternehmens mit angehängtem defizitärem Religionsbetrieb erscheinen lässt“. Von Michael Schäfer

Fulda (kath.net) Dr. phil. Michael Schäfer (Foto) wendet sich in einem offenen Brief an die Mitglieder der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz:

Hochwürdigster Herr Bischof,
noch nie hat mich die Kenntnisnahme einer kirchlichen Verlautbarung so empört wie die Lektüre des „Allgemeinen Dekretes der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz zum Kirchenaustritt“. Faktisch wohl ein Schachzug im Kontext anstehender gerichtlicher Auseinandersetzungen, setzt das Dokument das zivilrechtliche Verlassen der „Kirchensteuer-Gemeinschaft“ auf eine Stufe mit dem öffentlichen Abfall von der Kirche als Glaubensgemeinschaft und belegt diesen Akt mit höchsten kirchlichen Strafen.

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VATICAN CITY
Bloomberg Businessweek

By Nicole Winfield on September 27, 2012

VATICAN CITY (AP) — There was a time when a Vatican trial could end with a heretic being burned at the stake. Paolo Gabriele doesn’t risk nearly as a dire fate, but he and the Holy See face a very public airing over the gravest security breach in the Vatican’s recent history following the theft and leaking of the pope’s personal papers.

Gabriele, the pope’s once-trusted butler, goes on trial Saturday, accused of stealing the pope’s documents and passing them off to a journalist — a sensational, Hollywood-like scandal that exposed power struggles, intrigue and allegations of corruption in the highest levels of the Catholic Church.

Gabriele is charged with aggravated theft and faces six years in prison if convicted by the three-judge Vatican tribunal. He has already confessed and asked to be pardoned — something most Vatican watchers say is a given if he is convicted — making the trial almost a formality.

To be sure, trials are nothing new at the Vatican: In 2011 alone, 640 civil cases and 226 penal cases were processed by the Vatican’s judiciary, 99 percent of which involved some of the 18 million tourists who pass through the Vatican Museums and St. Peter’s Basilica each year. And that’s not counting the marriage annulments, clerical sex abuse cases and other church law matters that come before the Vatican’s ecclesial courts.

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BOSTON (MA)
Boston Herald

[click here to read the story]

By O’Ryan Johnson
Thursday, September 27, 2012

An Episcopal priest who was accused of sex crimes against a young parishioner died of an apparent drug overdose last night on the sixth floor of the Government Center parking garage, police and his lawyer said.

Police said they were called to the garage about 7:40 p.m. and found a man inside a gray 2006 Saturn. Police attempted to perform CPR on the man, but were unsuccessful. Boston EMS declared the patient dead at 8:05 p.m., and the call was referred to the Medical Examiner, police said.

Attorney David Meier confirmed the man was his client, the Rev. Paul A. LaCharite, 65, formerly of St. James Episcopal Church in Somerville. LaCharite was charged with one count of assault to rape a child, and three counts of indecent assault and battery on a child under the age of 14, according to the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office.

Meier, who last spoke to LaCharite on Tuesday, defended him last night.

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BOSTON (MA)
San Francisco Chronicle

BOSTON (AP) — A Boston Episcopal priest charged with sexually abusing a young parishioner has been found dead of an apparent drug overdose.

His lawyer confirmed to the Boston Herald (bit.ly/QyeSlj) that the Rev. Paul LaCharite was found dead Wednesday night in a parking garage.

LaCharite pleaded not guilty this month to a charge of assault with intent to rape a child and three counts of indecent assault and battery on a child. He formerly worked at St. James Episcopal Church in Somerville. Authorities say the abuse began in the 1990s.

His lawyer, David Meier, called LaCharite’s death “an unspeakable tragedy.” He tells the newspaper that LaCharite was “truly an innocent man who was driven to the depths of despair by a false accusation.”

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NEW YORK
Rockland County Times

Posted September 27th, 2012

Rockland County District Attorney Thomas P. Zugibe announced last Thursday that Baudilio Ramos, 59, of Spring Valley has been convicted of sexually abusing a three-year-old boy.

The jury in the trial found Ramos guilty of one county of sexual abuse in the first degree, a felony, and one count of endangering the welfare of a child, a misdemeanor.

The incident occurred on September 26, 2011 when the victim’s mother left the young boy in Ramos’ care for a moment. The boy’s family attended Iglesia La Mision Asamleas de Dios Church in the Village of South Nyack and met Ramos through the church several years earlier.

On the day of the crime, Ramos was driving the church van to help the boy’s mother with a church related errand. The mother left the child with the Ramos while she handled some administrative matters.

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TULSA (OK)
Daily Mail (United Kingdom)

By Daily Mail Reporter

PUBLISHED:01:03 EST, 27 September 2012

Five suspended Victory Christian Center employees pleaded not guilty to charges of failing to report child abuse in an initial arraignment Wednesday morning related to a sexual abuse case at the church.

Paul Howard Willemstein, 32, associate youth pastor; Anna Alisa George, 24, high school outreach program director; Harold Frank Sullivan, 73, human resources director; Charica Dene Daugherty, 27, assistant senior high youth pastor; and John Samuel Daugherty, 28, senior high youth pastor, are scheduled to appear at a preliminary hearing Oct. 31.

The Victory Christian staff members, including Senior Pastor Sharon Daugherty’s son and daughter-in-law, were suspended from their employment pending disciplinary action.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Yellow Advertiser

EXCLUSIVE by Charles Thomson

A JUDGE has criticised a Christian church for its handling of a child abuse allegation during the 1970s.

A hearing at Basildon Crown Court last week revealed that ‘elders’ of the Jehovah’s Witnesses knew a teenage member had molested a child.

Although the church imposed sanctions, it did not notify police and the man went on to molest another young girl during his mid 20s.

Barry Snow, 51, of St Lawrence Gardens, in Leigh-on-Sea, was convicted of nine counts of sexual abuse alleged to have taken place between the late 1970s and early 1980s.

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TULSA (OK)
News On 6

Lori Fullbright, News On 6

Five Tulsa church employees accused of waiting more than two weeks to report the alleged rape of a 13-year-old girl at their church have been ordered back to court Oct. 31.

Prosecutors filed misdemeanor charges last week against Victory Christian Center employees John Daugherty, Charica Daugherty, Paul Willemstein, Anna George and Harold “Frank” Sullivan, saying they didn’t report allegations in a timely manner.

A judge entered not guilty pleas for the five Wednesday. The workers have been suspended by the church pending an investigation.

Prosecutors say the girl told employees Aug. 15 she had been raped but police weren’t told until Aug. 30.

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TULSA (OK)
Tulsa World

By JARREL WADE World Staff Writer
Published: 9/27/2012

Charges are still possible and under consideration against Victory Christian Center Senior Pastor Sharon Daugherty related to a sexual abuse investigation that has already led to charges of failure to report child abuse against five other church staff members, Tulsa County District Attorney Tim Harris said Wednesday.

Harris said he could not detail any of his office’s discussions about any possible charge against Daugherty while the investigation is ongoing.

“That would be unethical,” Harris said.

On Aug. 30, Victory Christian staff reported having received allegations that a teenager was raped at the church on Aug. 13, according to court records. Reports from Victory Christian and from court records differ on the date Victory Christian employees were first told – either on Aug. 15 or 16.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

Lawyers for NSW Attorney-General Greg Smith have begun defamation proceedings against broadcaster Ray Hadley in the Supreme Court today.

Hadley is being sued for comments he made about Mr Smith on air earlier this year.

Mr Smith is a former parishioner of Catholic priest Father Finian Egan, who is facing 20 charges of child sexual abuse dating from the 1960s.

It is understood the defamation case relates to allegations aired by Hadley that Mr Smith told another priest that an alleged victim of Father Egan wanted $1 million from the church.

Mr Smith has previously said he cannot remember making the comments.

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PHILIPPINES
GMA News

September 27, 2012

A Catholic priest linked to ivory smuggling was suspended on orders of the Vatican earlier this year over charges that he sexually abused an altar boy while he was serving as a priest in Los Angeles over 20 years ago.

The charges of abuse against Monsignor Cristobal Garcia are currently being investigated by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, CatholicCulture.org reported.

“Msgr. Garcia was suspended from ministry in the Archdiocese of Cebu because of separate accusations of sexual abuse,” it added.

A separate report on dzBB radio early Thursday quoted Cebu Archdiocese spokesman Msgr. Achilles Dakay as saying Garcia was suspended and stripped of his positions as early as June.

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SPRINGFIELD (MA)
The Republican

Greenfield lawyer John Stobierski, citing Jerry Sandusky case, says other priest should have reported Richard Lavigne’s child sexual abuse

By Buffy Spencer, The Republican

SPRINGFIELD –When details of Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky’s child sexual abuse hit the news, local lawyer John J. Stobierski said he saw a parallel with a case he is prosecuting.

Stobierski was in front of Hampden Superior Court Judge Constance M. Sweeney Wednesday seeking to add the Rev. Robert Thrasher to a case pending against two former bishops of the Springfield Roman Catholic Diocese..

Sweeney promised a decision on the matter soon.

The suit by Peter J. Caffrey – filed in 2010 – accuses the Most Rev. Bishop Emeritus Joseph M. Maguire and the Most Rev. Thomas L. Dupre of negligence. It says they allowed Caffrey to be molested by now-defrocked priest Richard R. Lavigne in North Adams in 1976 and 1977.

Stobierski told Sweeney Thrasher had walked in on Lavigne abusing two other children in different instances about five years prior to Caffrey’s abuse, and had a legal duty to report the abuse to superiors.

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AUSTRALIA
Radioinfo

NSW Attorney-General Greg Smith began defamation action against Ray Hadley today in the Supreme Court. Neither Hadley or Smith attended the hearing. Hadley is in hospital having tests for suspected pneumonia.

The defamation case relates to allegations aired on 2GB that link Smith with his former Catholic parish priest Father Finian Egan, who is facing 20 charges of child sexual abuse dating from the 1960s.

The court action concerns Hadley’s allegation that Smith told another priest that an alleged victim of Father Egan wanted $1 million from the church. Smith is on record saying he cannot remember making the comments.

The case was adjourned until December.

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BOSTON (MA)
NECN

(NECN) – A Somerville, Mass. priest accused of sexually abusing a young parishioner has been found dead after an apparent drug overdose.

Police tell The Boston Herald that the body of Rev. Paul Lacharite was found on the sixth floor of the Government Center parking garage.

Lacharite was recently charged with one count of assault to rape a child and three counts of indecent assault and battery on a child under the age of 14.

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PHILIPPINES
Inquirer

By Ador Vincent Mayol
Cebu Daily News
8:15 am | Thursday, September 27th, 2012

The Cebu-based priest at the center of an ivory smuggling scandal was ordered suspended by the Vatican but it was for another reason – a 20-year-old child abuse case in California involving altar boys.

Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma yesterday said the past case against Msgr. Cristobal Garcia was brought to the Vatican’s attention even before the priest’s name appeared in the October issue of National Geographic magazine’s cover story “Ivory worship”.

“The Church is also aware of the gravity of the crime of pederasty. In recent pronouncements, the Church has stated her regret for the failure to address the problem in a more decisive and effective way,” said Palma who read a prepared statement before taking questions.

“Cultural practices have contributed to the misunderstanding of the problem.”

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IRELAND
RTE News

A Government minister has said a Dáil motion calling for an apology and redress for victims of the Magdalene Laundries was “premature”.

Labour TD Kathleen Lynch told the House that an inter-departmental committee, chaired by Senator Martin McAleese, will report by the end of the year, allowing for a proper debate and a Government response.

Proposing the motion, Sinn Féin’s Mary Lou McDonald said time is not on the side of the Magdalene women.

She said it was not in doubt that there was cruelty against them, and State collusion with religous orders who “enslaved them for commercial gain

She said the McAleese committee was quantifying the extent of the collusion, but the existence of collusion and cruelty was established.

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IRELAND
RTE News

Sinn Féin motion calling on the Government to provide redress for survivors of the Magdalene laundries has been defeated in the Dáil by 75 votes to 43.

Mary Lou McDonald said the motion did not require the Government to pre-empt the findings of the report.

Fine Gael’s Dinny McGinley said the motion was premature as it came ahead of a report by Senator Martin McAleese on the issue, which is due to be completed before the end of the year.

Sinn Féin’s Mary Lou McDonald said that the women involved in the Magdelene laundries were due a full apology, compensation, and pension rights.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
RTE News

An investigation into institutional child abuse is to begin next Monday in Northern Ireland.

The inquiry will investigate allegations of child abuse in both state and church run institutions.

The Stormont Executive established the inquiry after intense lobbying by survivors and victims of child abuse.

The move comes in the wake of the Ryan Report which uncovered decades of endemic abuse in some religious institutions in the south.

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UNITED STATES
City of Angels

By Kay Ebeling

It was his Catholic conscience that caused Sargent Shriver* to create the Peace Corps, Job Corps, and Head Start in the 1960s. In 2011 it was his Catholic conscience that moved Paul Ryan** to oppose Social Security and claim a passion for Ayn Rand’s Objectivist theories. Republican Newt Gingrich converted to Catholicism so he could marry his third wife and run for president as someone who is prayerful.

When it comes to pedophile priests, on the right the Catholic League defends the “high number of falsely accused priests,” along with David Pierre whose website and books criticize SNAP for its “left wing” politics, as if it’s a given that left-wing means something bad.

What happened to the socially conscious Catholics, the politically compassionate such as the Kennedys? This century Catholics are part of the most extreme elements of the Republican Party in the USA, and somehow siding with the priests in the pedophile crisis got tagged onto this right wing Catholic phenomenon.

A Self-Perpetuated Authority

The pedophile priest apologists end up running each other’s talking points on each other’s websites. They self-publish books, and review each other’s self-published books, and give the appearance that Catholics are Republicans who think pedophile priests have gotten a bad rap. A kind of legitimacy results from the redundancy.

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CONNECTICUT
The Hartford Courant

By DAVID OWENS, dowens@courant.com
The Hartford Courant

7:02 p.m. EDT, September 26, 2012
ENFIELD — —
The former pastor of a Simsbury church has been found guilty of misdemeanor sexual assault for touching an 18-year-old man’s pubic area while administering confession.

The Rev. Edward Warnakulasuriya, 54, was pastor at St. Bernard’s Roman Catholic Church in the Tariffville section of Simsbury until his removal in July 2011, when the Archdiocese of Hartford learned that Warnakulasuriya was under investigation. The priest was arrested by Simsbury police on Aug. 11, 2011.

Warnakulasuriya was initially charged with three counts of fourth-degree sexual assault, but pleaded no contest Sept. 19 to a single count of fourth-degree sexual assault as part of a plea bargain.

Senior Assistant State’s Attorney Debra Collins sought a 120-day prison sentence and three years of probation, but Superior Court Judge Howard Scheinblum opted for no jail, according to a transcript of the sentencing hearing in Enfield. Warnakulasuriya will be on probation for three years.

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TEXAS
Associated Baptist Press

By Bob Allen

A Baptist preacher arrested in May will not stand trial for sexual assault of a child after a Texas grand jury found insufficient evidence to prosecute.

The Ennis Daily News reported Sept. 26 that an Ellis County grand jury returned a “no bill,” or refusal to indict, in favor of Mark Allen Green, 41, a cowboy church preacher arrested May 31 after the Ellis County Sheriff’s Office received reports he was in an improper relationship with a minor.

A prosecutor in the county’s district attorney’s office said that because grand jury proceedings are secret, he could not comment except to say that no indictment has been handed down in the case.

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TULSA (OK)
Tulsa World

By JARREL WADE – Tulsa World | Published: September 26, 2012

Five suspended Victory Christian Center employees pleaded not guilty to charges of failing to report child abuse in an initial arraignment Wednesday morning related to a sexual abuse case at the church.

Paul Howard Willemstein, 32, associate youth pastor; Anna Alisa George, 24, high school outreach program director; Harold Frank Sullivan, 73, human resources director; Charica Dene Daugherty, 27, assistant senior high youth pastor; and John Samuel Daugherty, 28, senior high youth pastor, are scheduled to appear at a preliminary hearing Oct. 31.

The Victory Christian staff members, including Senior Pastor Sharon Daugherty’s son and daughter-in-law, were suspended from their employment pending disciplinary action.

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MINNESOTA
Behind the Pine Curtain

According to an upcoming report, Saint John’s University football coach John Gagliardi recently admitted that he has been aware of sexual misconduct at Saint John’s since the 1950′s.

In fact, it was Gagliardi’s report to Father Dunstan Tucker which led to a perpetrating faculty member’s swift exit from Saint John’s after a high school recruit (and potentially a minor) from Florida confided in Gagliardi that he had been molested by the faculty member following a tour of the campus.

According to Gagliardi, the perpetrating faculty member later took a job at high school in Saint Paul, Minnesota. It is unclear what steps, if any, Gagliardi took to protect the students at that high school.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Press Association

Confusion reigns over how intensely the search for runaway schoolgirl Megan Stammers and her teacher was being conducted on the Continent.

Sussex police has said it was working with Interpol and the French authorities over the disappearance of the 15-year-old and 30-year-old maths teacher Jeremy Forrest.

But BBC News reported Interpol was unable to confirm it was working on the case of the missing schoolgirl from Eastbourne in East Sussex.

Neither she nor Mr Forrest has a profile on the crime agency’s website, www.interpol.int, under its “yellow notices” section which “help locate missing persons, often minors, or to help identify persons who are unable to identify themselves”.

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WHEELING (WV)
The Intelligencer/Wheeling News-Register

September 26, 2012

By TYLER REYNARD Staff Writer , The Intelligencer / Wheeling News-Register

WHEELING – City police have launched an investigation into a 20-year-old Wheeling Jesuit University student’s allegation she was sexually assaulted by five male students in a campus dorm Saturday night.

According to Deputy Police Chief Martin Kimball, the woman said she and a male student were together Saturday night at the Rathskeller. Commonly referred to as the “Ratt,” the Rathskeller is an on-campus pub that serves beer and non-alcoholic drinks.

The pair then went back to Thomas More Hall, the woman said, near the Currie Drive entrance to the campus.

According to the university’s website, Thomas More Hall houses male and female students.

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UNITED STATES
Huffington Post

Steve Siebold

According to confidential Boy Scouts of America files, hundreds of cases of alleged sex abuse by Scout leaders went unreported to police between 1970 and 1991. What makes the matter even worse is the position that the organization is taking now.

Boy Scouts Chief Executive Wayne Brock wrote in an open letter to parents that all scouting activities now require at least two adults present, and that all scout leaders and volunteers must submit to a criminal background check and take a mandatory training course on protecting youths from abuse.

That’s all fine and great, but what about the victims? What about all those innocent children who were abused during that 21 year period? Where is the justice for them? Not only was the abuse quietly swept under the table and never reported, but the Scouts have shown no remorse, no regret and don’t seem sorry for what happened.

Just like the Catholic Church that failed to report thousands of allegations of sex abuse against children and transferred church leaders accused of such crimes to new locations, the Boy Scouts promised these individuals who were caught up in an abuse scandal that the information would not be leaked to the public to protect their standing in the community.

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HAMMOND (IL)
NWI Times

Marc Chase marc.chase@nwi.com, (219) 662-5330

HAMMOND | With an orange jail jumpsuit and leg shackles replacing the suit and tie he wore to a previous hearing, disgraced Pastor Jack Schaap admitted Wednesday to having three sexual encounters with a parish girl beginning when she was 16.

Schaap, 54, formally pleaded guilty in Hammond federal court before U.S. District Court Judge Rudy Lozano, admitting to a charge that could bring 10 or more years in prison.

Schaap, former pastor of Hammond’s First Baptist Church, entered the courtroom Wednesday in an orange Porter County Jail jumpsuit and leg irons. Throughout the proceedings, he periodically winked and gave a thumbs up to family members and others gathered in the visitors gallery.

One man seated in the gallery and holding a Bible whispered a quiet prayer to Jesus when Schaap took his seat in the defendant’s chair.

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PHILIPPINES
Inquirer

By Connie E. Fernandez, Jhunnex Napallacan
Inquirer Visayas
4:07 am | Thursday, September 27th, 2012

CEBU CITY—Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma has ordered an inventory of all ivory pieces owned by Msgr. Cristobal Garcia, whom National Geographic linked to the illegal ivory trade, to determine if these were acquired before 1981, the year the Philippines became a signatory to an international ban on ivory trade.

Palma on Wednesday said the Archdiocese of Cebu would cooperate in the investigation being conducted by the government and would not condone the illegal trade of ivory.

But Palma also took exception to the article’s alleged bias against Filipinos’ religious practices.

Msgr. Achilles Dakay, media liaison officer of the archdiocese, said the NatGeo article was biased and created the impression that Garcia had benefited from the killing of elephants so he could make ivory pieces.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on September 26, 2012

According to today’s NY Times, Boy Scout officials are ramping up their public relations efforts on child sexual abuse before the release of more damning documents about child sex crimes and cover-ups in the weeks ahead. (Story here).

At best, it’s reckless to assume that recently-enacted abuse policies in scouting are making any impact. At worst, such claims are disingenuous.

It is important to remember that in the early 1990s virtually every US Catholic diocese similarly tried to reassure the public about predators by touting similar policies, programs and procedures. But of course, there is vast difference between printed words and actual behavior.

The new youth protection policies the Scouts are talking up look good. But remember how new many of these new policies actually are:

– Their mandatory reporting policy became effective in 2010.
– Youth Protection Training only became required in 2010.
– Background checks for volunteers only became policy in 2008.

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UNITED STATES
CNN

By Alan Duke, CNN
updated 2:23 PM EDT, Wed September 26, 2012

Los Angeles (CNN) — The Boy Scouts of America released a study Wednesday that claims children were safer from sex abuse in the Scouts than when at home or school.

The report was prepared by a psychiatric expert hired by the Scouts to review so-called “perversion files” kept by the organization from 1970 to 1991.

A newspaper review of the files published last week said they showed scouting officials “failed to report hundreds of alleged child molesters to police and often hid the allegations from parents and the public.”

In response, the Boy Scouts released what it said is an “independent review” by a University of Virginia psychiatry professor Wednesday, ahead of the “increased media attention” it expects with the release of more files.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Jeff Anderson & Associates

Jared Shepherd

In yet another stunning example that child protection continues to take a backseat to protecting Catholic institutions and the religious, it is reported that the Diocese of Fall River, Massachusetts requires parents to sign a liability waiver when sending their children for religious education. The Parental Contract for Diocesan Activities rests the ultimate responsibility for supervising a child on the parent even if the child is entrusted to the church for activities and programming. Most importantly, parents must “specifically agree not to hold the Diocese or any of its employees or contractors liable for any accident, illness, or harm that may result from the trip or activity.” This preemptive focus on eliminating liability indicates that protecting youth from a broad range of harms, including child sexual abuse by clergy, is not the Diocese’s first priority. Given the track record of the Roman Catholic Church on the issue of childhood sexual abuse, including the recent tragic failures in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and Diocese of Kansas City – St. Joseph, this approach should come as no surprise.

On the one hand, it is a shameful practice for an institution to absolve itself of any and all legal responsibility in the realm of child protection. On the other hand, maybe it is a good thing. Finally, a Diocese is recognizing the inherent danger in parents sending their children to their church under the supervision and care of clergy. By signing these waivers, parents are on notice that attendance at a church in the Diocese of Fall River is equally dangerous to their children, if not more so, as bungee jumping, white water rafting, and skydiving. The danger in allowing their children to be supervised by clergy can, therefore, be first in a parent’s mind, even if it’s an afterthought for the Diocese of Fall River.

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota SNAP

Statement by Bob Schwiderski, Minnesota SNAP Director, Contact: 952-471-3422

We are glad that Fr. Curtis Carl Wehmeyer has been removed from ministry following allegations of molesting one boy and exposing himself to another. However, the Archdiocese of St. Paul & Minneapolis, can and should do a lot more in this case.

According to reports, Wehmeyer’s actions and the abuses with three counts of criminal sexual conduct, are alleged to have taken place in 2009 and 2010. The fact they happened so recently means it is likely that there could be more criminal charges in this matter. If the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis wants to prove to its flock that it truly cares about protecting kids and preventing further abuse, church officials should work diligently to help law enforcement uncover the facts of this matter.

Archbishop John C. Nienstedt should use all of the resources available to him to reach out to others who may have information on Fr. Wehmeyer’s alleged crimes. Nienstedt should visit each parish where Wehmeyer worked and actively seek out victims or witnesses at each location.
He should also request the Bishops of the Diocese of Duluth and the Diocese of Winona actively seek out victims or witnesses at each State Park camping trip location and other suggested ‘Abuse Camper – Will Travel’ camping locations.

With reported Wehmeyer statements as: “Wehmeyer stated he cannot get in trouble because he is a Catholic priest and way too many people depend on him” and the report he “ told one of his victims not to tell anyone or the “parish would fall apart,” The three diocesan leaders should also recognize many, many people are also depending on them and they also do not want their parishes to fall apart.

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UNITED STATES
CatholicCitizens.org

9/24/2012
By Phil Lawler -CatholicCulture.org

So now an American bishop is a convicted criminal. Do you suppose there’s any chance the other bishops will finally get the message?

Bishop Robert Finn has been convicted in a court of law for doing what scores of other American bishops have done in the recent past. It’s true that Bishop Finn will not serve actual jail time, and his criminal record will be erased after he completes a term of probation; but the judge had the authority to put him behind bars for a year.

In Pennsylvania, meanwhile, Msgr. William Lynn is already behind bars, for doing what his cardinal-archbishop apparently told him to do.

Some intelligent observers argue that Bishop Finn (and Msgr. Lynn, for that matter) should not have been convicted. But I am inclined to accept the judgment of the courts-as Bishop Finn, at least, has apparently done. Any loyal Catholic should also be troubled by the prospect of a secular court passing judgment on a bishop’s exercise of episcopal ministry. But in this case there is no doubt in my mind that civil officials are emboldened to police the bishops because the bishops have so calamitously failed to police themselves.

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PHILIPPINES
Sun.Star

By Bernadette A. Parco and Kevin A. Lagunda

Thursday, September 27, 2012

DIFFERENT church and state groups will investigate the trade and collection of religious items made from ivory, following a magazine article that quoted a Cebu priest on the trade.

The Cebu-based and National Commission on Cultural Heritage of the Church, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) 7 and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) will conduct separate inquiries.

Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma will tap the Archdiocesan Commission on the Cultural Heritage of the Church to investigate religious items made from new ivory, including the collection of Msgr. Cristobal Garcia.

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PHILIPPINES
Sun.Star

Thursday, September 27, 2012

CEBU CITY — A high-ranking official of the Archdiocese of Cebu has been suspended from his duties while the Vatican City investigates a child abuse case filed against him in the United States more than two decades ago.

Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma said the US case against former Archdiocesan Commission on Worship chairman Msgr. Cristobal Garcia has been elevated to the Holy See or the office of Pope Benedict XVI, which initiated the investigation.

Check our new look and tell us what you think.

“The case started before the present controversy (on the ivory trade) erupted,” said the archbishop during a press conference Wednesday morning.

Palma is also president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), which apologized in 2002 for the abuses committed by priests but emphasized that errant priests were a minority.

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TEXAS/PHILIPPIES
Dallas Morning News

By Brooks Egerton/Reporter
begerton@dallasnews.com
11:01 am on September 26, 2012

Roman Catholic Church leaders have changed their story about why an internationally prominent priest dropped out of sight this summer. Now they say that the Vatican ordered Monsignor Cristobal Garcia’s suspension from ministry because of sexual abuse allegations, according to the Philippines’ leading newspaper.

Earlier this week, Filipino church officials portrayed Garcia’s absence as simply the result of health problems.

The new announcement coincides with a National Geographic story about the black market in elephant tusks. It quotes Garcia as giving advice on smuggling ivory icons and refers to my 2005 article on him — in which the priest admitted having sex with U.S. altar boys, providing them drugs and fleeing to the Philippines.

It isn’t clear why Garcia stayed in ministry after the admission. He continued to lead a large group of boys at a rural religious compound and oversaw worship practices for the massive Cebu Archdiocese. Among his international credentials: He led his cardinal’s advance team in Rome when Pope John Paul II declared a Filipino sainthood candidate to be blessed.

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PHILIPPINES
Manila Standard Today

By Jenny Ortuoste | Posted on September 27, 2012

It took a foreigner to open the Filipino public’s eyes to the tragedy of illegal ivory trading in the Philippines.

Bryan Christy’s article on the topic for National Geographic’s October 2012 issue was posted online as early as last week, and broke on Twitter when the link to the story was posted by activist Carlos Celdran, who urged authorities to investigate the matter. The story was picked up this week by local newspapers.

According to Christy, he came to the country five times to “get a lead on who was behind 5.4 tons of illegal ivory seized by customs agents in Manila in 2009, 7.7 tons seized there in 2005, and 6.1 tons bound for the Philippines seized by Taiwan in 2006. Assuming an average of 22 pounds of ivory per elephant, these seizures represent about 1,745 elephants.”

His search led him to interview Monsignor Cristobal Garcia of Cebu Archdiocese, member of a wealthy family and a collector of religious art, whose extensive collection includes ivory pieces.

Christy says Garcia gave him tips on how to purchase ivory and smuggle it into the United States, among them this: “Wrap it in old, stinky underwear and pour ketchup on it,” [Garcia] said. “So it looks shitty with blood. This is how it is done.”

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PHILIPPINES
The New York Times

By FLOYD WHALEY

Published: September 26, 2012

MANILA — Philippine law enforcement officials said on Wednesday that they were investigating whether a senior priest in the Roman Catholic Church was involved in the smuggling of elephant ivory to feed the country’s passion for religious icons.

The investigation was prompted by an article in the October issue of National Geographic magazine that quotes Msgr. Cristóbal Garcia, a senior church official on the central Philippine island of Cebu, as telling an American reporter how to smuggle illegal elephant ivory figurines into the United States. “Wrap it in old, stinky underwear and pour ketchup on it,” he is quoted as saying, to deter inspection.

The Philippine National Bureau of Investigation and the country’s wildlife protection agency are investigating the claims made in the article, government officials said.

The Philippines is a signatory to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, a treaty that regulates international trade in plants and animals. The trading of ivory has been banned under the treaty since 1990.

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PHILIPPINES
Inquirer

By Connie E. Fernandez
Inquirer Visayas
12:04 am | Thursday, September 27th, 2012

CEBU CITY—Msgr. Cristobal Garcia has been suspended and stripped of all his positions in the Archdiocese of Cebu on orders of the Vatican while the Holy See investigates the child abuse case that stemmed from accusations that he molested altar boys more than 20 years ago in the United States.

Msgr. Achilles Dakay, Cebu archdiocese media liaison officer, said Garcia’s suspension happened months before the monsignor was implicated by a National Geographic article on the illegal trade of ivory in the Philippines.

Dakay’s announcement came after the Department of Environment and Natural Resources said that Garcia could face up to four years in prison unless he could show proof that he legally acquired his huge collection of religious icons made of ivory.

The National Bureau of Investigation said it was gathering evidence against those involved in the illegal sale of ivory, which an environmentalist lawyer calls the “new blood diamond” in the international trade.

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GERMANY
National Catholic Reporter

Sep. 25, 2012
By Jonathan Luxmoore, Catholic News Service

WARSAW, Poland — The German bishops’ conference defended a controversial decree that said Catholics who stop paying a church membership tax cannot receive sacraments.

“There must be consequences for people who distance themselves from the church by a public act,” said Archbishop Robert Zollitsch of Freiburg, conference president, in defending the Sept. 20 decree.

“Clearly, someone withdrawing from the church can no longer take advantage of the system like someone who remains a member,” he said at a news conference Monday as the bishops began a four-day meeting in Fulda. “We are grateful Rome has given completely clear approval to our stance.”

The archbishop said each departure was “painful for the church,” adding that bishops feared many Catholics were unaware of the consequences and would be “open to other solutions.”

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CALIFORNIA
Patch

By Joshua Staab

In the wake of new sexual molestation accusations lodged against a former Jesuit High School teacher, a member of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests says he has letters from at least four more Carmichael locals alleging abuse by Brother William Farrington.

Joey Piscitelli, Northern California Director of SNAP, said Farrington’s purported Carmichael victims contacted him directly within the past 13 days, after a former student at San Jose’s Bellarmine College Preparatory School went public with accusations that Farrington molested him there in the 1960s. The Carmichael letter-writers claim they were abused by Farrington while he worked at Jesuit High School, Piscitelli said, though he did not give details of the allegations.

SNAP is a victim’s rights group focused on bringing awareness to past and present cases of sexual misconduct by clergy members.

“Most of these clergy predators have escaped justice or punishment, as the antiquated statute of limitations has passed for conviction, and the abusers have slid by the radar, and are not posted on Megan’s Law database,” Piscitelli said in an e-mail.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Telegrah

By Telegraph reporters
12:36PM BST 25 Sep 2012

In February 2009 Bishop Bell Secondary School teacher Robert Healy, then aged 27, was jailed for seven years after he admitted grooming and sleeping with two girls aged 15 and 16.

After the court case another female pupil’s mother said she would remove her daughter, 12, from the school because she felt the school’s leadership team had failed to protect students from the paedophile teacher. The court heard the relationship was known around the school.

Healy had groomed both girls on the social networking website Bebo which was popular with teenagers. Other pupils at the school knew what was going on before he was caught.

It was reported today that pupils at Bishop Bell were aware of the closeness of Mr Forrest and Miss Stammers, and had told a teacher seven months ago that they had been seen the pair holding hands on an aeroplane following a school trip. The pair are believed to be in France.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Eastbourne Herald

Published on Tuesday 25 September 2012

SCHOOLGIRL Megan Stammers running away with her maths teacher is not the first time Bishop Bell School has faced a relationship scandal.

The 15-year-old fled the Channel on Thursday evening (September 24) with Jeremy Forrest and police are now working with French authorities to try and trace them.

This week it emerged Bishop Bell School was investigating a relationship between the pair before they ran away.

Terry Boatwright, executive headteacher at Bishop Bell, said, “Because the investigations are on-going we’re not going to comment in detail. However, the school and the county council had been addressing and investigating concerns that had been raised, in line with procedure, when this happened. That investigation will continue and we will decide what action to take.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Telegraph

By Victoria Ward
1:11PM BST 26 Sep 2012

A child protection campaigner contacted Michael Gove’s office to raise “serious concerns” about the school of teenager Megan Stammers several months ago, it has emerged.

Lucy Duckworth said she wrote to the education secretary, warning that she feared the Bishop Bell School’s child protection policies were “inadequate”.

The former consultant for the National Association for People Abused in Childhood, said the Eastbourne school was “extremely hostile” when she wrote several times asking to see its child protection policy and claimed that staff refused to send her a copy.

She told the BBC: “I’ve written to (the school) and several other officials including Michael Gove, and Stephen Lloyd MP, several times since February this year and stated their child protection policies have been inadequate throughout this time.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
ITV

A child abuse campaigner claims she wrote to Education Secretary Michael Gove about her concerns over the school of missing 15-year-old Megan Stammers.

Lucy Duckworth said she has had requests for meetings with Mr Gove turned down. She also wrote to Bishop Bell school asking to see their safeguarding policies and claims staff were hostile to her request.

When the policy was put online this year, Ms Duckworth alleges it contained a number of inadequacies.

She said: “What we found was there was a whole section on safe recruiting but very little on how to effectively protect children. I’m convinced that, had that policy been in place, the parents would have been able to make a decision on their prolonged contact and Megan would be with us.

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UNITED STATES/INDIA
Indian Express

An 83-year-old wheel-chair bound Indian spiritual guru, a fugitive after being convicted of groping two young girls, may have sneaked clandestinely into India, a US court has been told.

US Marshals, still looking for him, suspect that Prakashanand Saraswati, known to his devotees as Swamiji, may have fled America in connivance with his close associates.

Just days after a Hays County jury in Texas convicted him in March 2011 on 20 counts of indecency for molesting two teenagers, the self-styled guru has been missing.

A judge sentenced him in absentia to 14 years in prison on each count and the guru also forfeited USD 1.2 million in bond and promissory notes.

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PHILIPPINES
National Geographic

A Cebu priest known for his collection of religious icons carved from ivory may have incriminated himself with his revelations on the illegal trade in an investigative report appearing in National Geographic and reported by the Philippine Daily Inquirer, the Philippine newspaper reported on its front page today.

Monsignor Cristobal Garcia could face up to four years in prison unless he could show proof that his ivory collection was acquired legally, the Inquirer reported the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) said on Tuesday.

Bryan Christy reported in the October 2012 issue of National Geographic that he traveled to the Philippines to understand the country’s ivory trade. In the town of Cebu he met Garcia, a senior Catholic cleric and one of the best known ivory collectors in the Philippines, who told Christy how to smuggle religious carvings from illegally obtained elephant ivory into the U.S. Trade in ivory is banned by an international treaty signed and verified by both the Philippines and the U.S.

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PHILIPPINES
Inquirer

By Connie E. Fernandez
Inquirer Visayas Chief of Bureau
8:15 pm | Wednesday, September 26th, 2012

CEBU CITY, Philippines— Msgr. Cristobal Garcia has been suspended and stripped of his positions in the archdiocese of Cebu on orders of the Vatican while the Holy See investigates accusations he molested altar boys more than 20 years ago in the United States.

Msgr. Achilles Dakay, the archdiocese’s media liaison officer, said Garcia’s suspension came months before the priest was implicated by a National Geographic article in illegal trade of ivory in the Philippines.

Dakay said Garcia was suspended by Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma in June on instructions of the Vatican because of the ongoing investigation of the child abuse case filed against him.

As part of the penalties, Garcia is not allowed to say Mass in public and hear confessions and has been stripped of his positions in the archdiocese, including his chairmanship of the committee on worship.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News

A woman who claims she was sexually abused by a priest when she was a child has said she “felt sorry” for her alleged abuser at one stage.

The woman, 40, told the trial of Catholic priest Peter Donnelly, 69, that before she reported her allegations to police in September 2010, “I felt sorry for Fr Donnelly”.

She said she did not go to the police sooner was because she was “afraid”.

“The simple reason being I blamed myself,” she added.

“I thought the blame would come back on me.”

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PHILIPPINES
Manila Bulletin

By PHOEBE JEN INDINO

September 26, 2012, 6:33pm

ARCHBISHOP PALACE, Cebu City – The Catholic Church Wednesday expressed full support for the ban on ivory but sought a fair and just hearing for a bishop linked to alleged smuggling of ivory.

Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma, in a press conference yesterday, stressed that the Catholic Church supports the ban on ivory as it is consistent with the doctrine on stewardship of creation, and the Church respects the laws of the land.

Ivory is considered a by-product or derivative from elephant tusk but its collection is one of the illegal acts identified in Republic Act 9147 or Wildlife Resources Conservation and Protection Act.

“The Church does not condone ivory smuggling or other illegal activities, although in the past, ivory was one of the materials used in the adornment of liturgical worship,” he said. …

“He gave me phone numbers and locations. If I wanted to smuggle an icon that was too large to hide in my suitcase, I might get a certificate from the National Museum of the Philippines declaring my image to be antique, or I could get a carver to issue a paper declaring it to be imitation or alter the carving date to before the ivory ban,” Christy narrated in his article, referring to his conversations with Garcia.

In the same article Christy described Garcia as a fleshy man with a lazy left eye and bad knees where in the mid-1980s, according to a 2005 report in the Dallas Morning News and a related lawsuit, Garcia, while serving as a priest at St. Dominic’s of Los Angeles, California, sexually abused an altar boy in his early teens and was dismissed.

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SCHWEIZ
Neue Zurcher Zeitung

(sda) Heimkinder hatten es nicht leicht. Stigmatisierung, behördliche Willkür, Geldmangel, ein repressives Strafwesen und die tabuisierte Sexualität begünstigten in Luzerner Kinder- und Jugendheimen zwischen 1930 und 1970 Misshandlungen und Missbrauch.

Zwei Studien

Das geht aus zwei Berichten zur Vergangenheit der Kinder- und Jugendheime im Kanton Luzern hervor, die am Dienstag in Luzern vorgestellt wurden: Die vom Regierungsrat in Auftrag gegebene Studie von Professor Markus Furrer von der Pädagogischen Hochschule Zentralschweiz (PHZ) und die von der Katholischen Kirche des Kantons Luzern initiierte Studie «Hinter Mauern» von Professor Markus Ries.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Merkur

„Die Kirche ist doch kein Turnverein“; Leserbriefe 24. September, „Wer austritt, ist kein Katholik mehr“; Politik 21. September, „Scheinheiligkeit schreit zum Himmel“; Leserbrief 24. September

Es gibt also doch den „deutschen Weg“ in der globalen Kirche: Wenn wir in Deutschland in der Katholischen Kirche sind und bleiben wollen, müssen wir wegen des Konkordates Kirchensteuer zahlen. Wer keine Kirchensteuer zahlen will, wird aus der Kirche ausgeschlossen. Wenn aber zahlreiche deutsche Katholiken dringend notwendige Reformen erbeten bzw. fordern, werden sie mit den Worten, die Katholische Kirche muss die gesamte Welt im Blick haben und kann auf Deutschland keine Rücksicht nehmen, abgewimmelt. Wo bleibt hier die Gleichheit der Argumente? Bei dem einen geht es ums Geld, bei dem anderen um Lösung von Problemen. Aber anscheinend ist wieder einmal das Geld wichtiger als der gläubige Mensch. Es ist ja auch praktisch, ohne eigene Anstrengung Einnahmen zu erzielen. Es wird Zeit, dass dieses Konkordat endlich der Neuzeit angepasst wird. Theodor Kreis
Germering

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DEUTSCHLAND
Sueddeutsche

Ein Austritt aus der Kirchensteuer, aber nicht aus der katholischen Kirche als Glaubensgemeinschaft ist in Deutschland nicht möglich. Der Freiburger Kirchenrechtler Hartmut Zapp scheiterte mit seiner Klage vor dem Bundesverwaltungsgericht – obwohl er sich auf die Gesetze des Vatikans beruft.

Im Streit darüber, ob jedes ihrer Mitglieder Kirchensteuer zahlen muss, hat die katholische Kirche vor Gericht einen Erfolg errungen: Ein reiner Austritt aus der Kirchensteuer, aber nicht aus der katholischen Kirche als Glaubensgemeinschaft ist in Deutschland nicht möglich. Das entschied das Bundesverwaltungsgericht in Leipzig.

Verhandelt wurde der Fall des Freiburger Kirchenrechtlers Hartmut Zapp. Der emeritierte Professor für Kirchenrecht hatte 2007 erklärt, aus der Kirche als “Körperschaft des öffentlichen Rechts” auszutreten – und seither keine Steuern mehr bezahlt.

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DEUTSCHLAND
WAZ

Essen. Die Zahl der Missbrauchsfälle steigt weiter: Im Jahr 2011 gab es bundesweit 12.444 Anzeigen wegen Missbrauchs von Kindern – 4,9 Prozent mehr als im Vorjahr. Seit Jahren streiten Experten über eine gesetzliche Pflicht für Ärzte und Geistliche, solche Straftaten bei der Polizei anzuzeigen.

Die Zahl der Missbrauchsfälle steigt weiter: Im Jahr 2011 gab es bundesweit 12.444 Anzeigen wegen Missbrauchs von Kindern – 4,9 Prozent mehr als im Vorjahr. Seit Jahren streiten Experten über eine gesetzliche Pflicht für Ärzte und Geistliche, solche Straftaten bei der Polizei anzuzeigen. „Wir lassen die Kinder erbarmungslos im Stich“, kritisiert ein bekannter Fahnder, der frühere Ulmer Inspektionsleiter Manfred Paulus. „Wir müssen darüber reden, ob aus der Schweigepflicht im Strafgesetzbuch nicht eine Anzeigepflicht wird“, sagte er der WAZ.

Das Gesetz untersage etwa Kinderärzten, Verdachtsfälle ohne Zustimmung der Eltern der Polizei zu melden. Dabei kämen Täter oft aus dem familiären Umfeld. Selbst Jugendämter würden unter Berufung auf den Strafrechts-Paragrafen 203 (Verletzung von Privatgeheimnissen) auf Anzeigen verzichten. Nur die Polizei müsse Verdachtsfälle verfolgen. Doch da kommen die Fälle eben oft erst gar nicht an.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Schwabische

Ulm / sz Rund 50 Wissenschaftler aus ganz Deutschland haben an der Universität Ulm jetzt bei einem zweitägigen Treffen ein Forschungsnetz über Ursachen und Folgen sexuellen Missbrauchs bei Kindern und Jugendlichen gegründet. Das Netzwerk wird vom Bundesforschungsministerium mit insgesamt 20 Millionen Euro gefördert.

Gut jeder siebte Erwachsene berichtet nach einer aktuellen Studie über schweren emotionalen, körperlichen oder sexuellen Missbrauch oder eine schwere Vernachlässigung in Kindheit und Jugend. „Unsere Gesellschaft hat hier Defizite, denen wir uns auch wissenschaftlich stellen müssen“, erläutert Prof. Lutz Goldbeck, Leiter der Sektion Psychotherapieforschung und Verhaltensmedizin an der Ulmer Uni-Klinik für Kinder- und Jugendpsychiatrie/Psychotherapie.

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CENTERVILLE (MA)
CBS Boston

[with video]

By Joe Shortsleeve, WBZ-TV Chief Correspondent

September 25, 2012

CENTERVILLE (CBS) – In the wake of an I-Team report, the Catholic Church’s Fall River diocese has reversed its policy on a controversial letter distributed to parents that says the church is not responsible for the safety of their children.

When parents brought their children to Our Lady of Victory Catholic church in Centerville for religious education, they were asked to sign a document absolving the church of any liability for the safety and welfare of their children.

In that Parental Contract for Diocesan Activities, parents had been asked to state, “We specifically agree not to hold the Diocese or any of its employees or contractors liable for any accident, illness or harm that may result from the trip or activity.”

Lawyer Mitchell Garabedian, who has represented hundreds of people, who in the past were molested by priests and other Catholic church employees, was critical of the parental contract.

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CENTERVILLE (MA)
WHDH

[with video]

CENTERVILLE, Mass. (WHDH) — Our Lady of Victory in Centerville is at the center of a controversial parent contract that the parish pulled Tuesday.

The contract had parents agree that when another adult supervises their child the “…ultimate supervision and safety of that child is still our responsibility and ours alone.”

Parents also had to agree not to hold the “…Diocese or any of its employees or contractors liable for any accidents, illness or harm…”

“That’s extremely troublesome. I wouldn’t sign this or send my kids,” said Chris Picariello.

“It’s the responsibility of the parent to investigate and check out who they’re sending their child to be in the care of, so I would sign it,” said Bonnie Scott.

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