ABUSE TRACKER

A digest of links to media coverage of clergy abuse. For recent coverage listed in this blog, read the full article in the newspaper or other media source by clicking “Read original article.” For earlier coverage, click the title to read the original article.

October 27, 2012

Investigation of BBC Host Examines Dropped Cases

UNITED KINGDOM
The New York Times

By ALAN COWELL

Published: October 26, 2012

LONDON — As sexual abuse accusations multiplied against Jimmy Savile, one of Britain’s best-known television hosts before his death last year, attention turned on Friday to clues of any misconduct that had been ignored, overlooked or brushed aside while he was alive.

One of the most recent episodes to come to light, the police said, involved a retired officer who revealed that he investigated an accusation that Mr. Savile had attacked a woman in his trailer at the British Broadcasting Corporation studios in the 1980s.

The case could not be pursued for lack of evidence, the officer is reported to have said, and the police said they were looking for the case file. But it joined others in a tally of seven complaints against Mr. Savile that the police had investigated and then dropped.

The complaints are bound to deepen questions about why senior managers at the BBC, Mr. Savile’s employer for decades, failed to take such indications into account when, last December, they prepared Christmas season tributes to him two months after he died at 84.

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Jimmy Savile: a strange and sordid life unravels after death

UNITED KINGDOM
The Telegraph

Jimmy Savile’s depraved sexual activities went unchallenged for decades – but the clues were there for all to see in his long-forgotten autobiography

By Neil Tweedie, and Tom Rowley
8:30PM BST 26 Oct 2012

It was the nearest the pop world gets to a royal funeral: the vast cortege processing through crowded streets, the Royal Marine pallbearer party, white-gloved in ceremonial uniform, and, fittingly for a national treasure, a golden coffin. James Wilson Vincent Savile, Knight Bachelor, Papal Knight Commander of the Order of St Gregory the Great, was as loud in death as life.

“His story was an epic of giving. Giving of time, giving of talent, giving of treasure,” Monsignor Kieran Heskin informed the congregation. “Sir Jimmy Savile can face eternal life with confidence.”

God would undoubtedly “Fix it”.

Last week, the Archbishop of Westminster, the Most Reverend Vincent Nichols, wrote to the Holy See asking for the posthumous removal of Savile’s papal knighthood. Like other organisations, the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales is attempting to rid itself of the stain of association with its son, the late disc jockey and television presenter. The two charities set up in his name are to be closed down and their funds dispersed anonymously.

The number of people alleging sexual abuse at the hands of Jimmy Savile from the 1960s to the 1980s now stands at some 300. The vast majority were children at the time, young teenagers, girls and boys, groped, fondled and raped. History is being hastily rewritten. A year on, and the pop pomp of that funeral in Savile’s native Leeds appears worse than a bad joke, a travesty. The DJ who flaunted his friendship with the Royal family, who gave marital advice to Charles and Diana, who spent Christmas at Chequers with Margaret Thatcher, who posed for a photograph with Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, was, in all probability, one of Britain’s most prolific paedophiles. He was a man who could barely contain his perverse sexual appetites, even to the extent of assaulting a young woman on the terrace of the House of Commons in full view of MPs. He proudly related such exploits in his 1974 autobiography, yet managed to escape retribution until his death in October last year at the age of 84.

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Vatican says it cannot posthumously remove Jimmy Savile’s papal honor; condemns sexual abuses

VATICAN CITY
Fox News

Published October 27, 2012

Associated Press

LONDON – The Vatican says it cannot rescind the papal knighthood awarded to television star Jimmy Savile, who emerged as an alleged child sex predator after his death.

The Catholic Church of England said it has contacted the Holy See to ask it to posthumously revoke Savile’s honor in recognition of the “deep distress” of the victims allegedly abused by Savile, a well-known BBC children’s television host who died last year at the age of 84.

But the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, told The Associated Press on Saturday that the names of people who receive the knighthood don’t appear in its yearbook and that the honor dies with the individual.

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Editorial: Evangelization requires bishops’ self-examination

UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

by NCR Editorial Staff | Oct. 27, 2012

Editorial

On Oct. 6, 262 bishops gathered in Rome for the 13th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops to discuss “The New Evangelization for the Transmission of the Christian Faith.” One of the gathering’s primary concerns, particularly for those leaders of churches in the prosperous North, is how to reach out to disaffected Catholics.

That same day, half a world away in Bethesda, Md., researchers for the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life were telling a gathering of religion writers that two new markers had been reached in the religion landscape in the United States: For the first time since the organization had begun surveying about such matters, the country was no longer majority Protestant, and one in five American adults now claimed no religious affiliation.

Though Catholicism showed no significant drop in overall membership — thanks in large part to the influx of immigrants — we also know that Catholics in the United States have been exiting the church in recent years by the millions, the younger ones before they reach age 18. …

There were hints around the synod that some realize what needs to be done. Tagle said that for the church to be a place where people meet God, it needs to learn three things from the example of Jesus: humility, respect for others, and “the power of silence.” Tagle said, “Confronted with the sorrows, doubts and uncertainties of people, she cannot pretend to give easy solutions. In Jesus, silence becomes the way of attentive listening, compassion and prayer. It is the way to truth.”

Bishop Brian J. Dunn of Antigonish, Nova Scotia, whose diocese was shattered by the sexual abuse crisis, spoke of the resulting “great disorientation that leads to forms of distrust of teachings and values that are essential for the followers of Christ.” Regaining trust requires more than steps forced by an outraged public. Dunn acknowledged the call for a change in church structures and advocated, in addition, the need for “a profound change of mentality, attitude and heart in our ways of working with laypeople.”

Archbishop Socrates Villegas of Lingayen-Dagupan, the Philippines, made an equally strong plea for change. “Evangelization has been hurt and continues to be impeded by the arrogance of its messengers,” Villegas said, adding, “When pride seeps into the heart of the church, the Gospel proclamation is harmed.”

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Catholic Church in England wants Savile’s papal honor removed

UNITED KINGDOM
Reuters

By Alessandra Rizzo

LONDON | Sat Oct 27, 2012

(Reuters) – The head of the Roman Catholic Church in England has written to the Vatican to ask whether it is possible to strip the late BBC presenter Jimmy Savile of a papal knighthood because of his role in a sex abuse scandal, a spokesman said on Saturday.

Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols wrote to the Holy See in the light of “deeply shocking” allegations and in recognition of the “deep distress” suffered by any abuse victims, a spokesman for the archbishop said.

Allegations that Savile, a cigar-chomping former DJ who was one of the BBC’s top presenters, sexually abused young girls for decades has thrown the publicly-funded BBC into disarray. On Thursday, police said some 300 victims had come forward and that they were preparing to make arrests.

Savile, a Catholic active in charitable works, died last year aged 84.

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Pope to rule on cleric dismissal

CANADA
Sudbury Star

By Carol Mulligan, Sudbury Star

Saturday, October 27, 2012

The Basilian Fathers of Toronto are awaiting a reply from Pope Benedict about whether the Holy Father will grant a former Sudbury cleric his request to be dismissed from the priesthood and from his religious order.

Rev. William Hodgson (Hod) Marshall was released from Kingston Penitentiary in early October after serving part of a two-year sentence. Marshall was convicted in June 2011 in Windsor of 17 counts of sexual assault against 16 children and one woman in Toronto, Windsor, Cambridge and Sudbury. Six of the victims are from Sudbury.

Marshall, 89, ser ved as a priest and educator for 21 years in Sudbury and Sault Ste. Marie. He taught at St. Charles College from 1961-70 during which time at least two parents complained to school and Basilian officials that their sons were sexually abused by Marshall.

At the time, St. Charles was an all-boys school, although it is co-ed today.

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Catholic Diocese to seek $125 million to fund ‘the intangibles’

PITTSBURGH (PA)
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

By Ann Rodgers / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh will launch a $125 million fundraising campaign in January, with 40 percent of donations going directly back to the parishes that raise them.

Through quiet conversations with major donors, Bishop David Zubik said, initial pledges have already reached more than $25 million. Planning has been under way for 18 months, with a feasibility study that interviewed most priests and about 350 laity in the 635,000-member diocese.

The response was enthusiastic, the bishop said.

“The overwhelming focus of what they said was that the campaign should focus on the intangibles, all of the things that the church does and needs to be able to do, as opposed to a campaign for buildings,” he said.

Some of the many planned expenditures include creating a $1 million endowment to permanently fund dental care at the Catholic Charities Free Health Care Center, Downtown, $1.5 million for evangelization of fallen-away Catholics, $7 million in grants to isolated needy parishes, $1 million to campus ministry and $2 million to support education of autistic students in parish schools. The single largest allocation is $12 million in needs-based tuition grants for parish children to attend Catholic schools.

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‘Marriage would have made me a better priest’

IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By Sarah Mac Donald

Friday, October 26, 2012

One of Ireland’s best-known priests has revealed the anguish the Church’s requirement of mandatory clerical celibacy has caused him.

Fr Brian D’Arcy admitted: “I would have been a much better priest had I married.”

Marriage would have provided “a companion, a closeness, a friend, someone to call home” as well as requiring “making sacrifices for somebody else,” he told BBC NI. “At the end of my life, I don’t have a home. Ideally religious life is supposed to be a type of home. It isn’t, not now anyway.”

In a BBC documentary, he says he contemplated leaving the priesthood in the wake of his disciplining by the Vatican.

Last April, it emerged he had been told by the Vatican watchdog, the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, that he must submit his writings and broadcasts to an approved Church censor before publication.

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Disgraced priest asks to be dismissed from order

CANADA
Sun News

CAROL MULLIGAN | QMI AGENCY

SUDBURY, ON — A former cleric has written Pope Benedict, asking to be dismissed from the priesthood and from his religious order, the Basilian Fathers.
Rev. William Hodgson (Hod) Marshall was released from jail in early October after serving part of a two-year sentence. Marshall was convicted in June 2011 of 17 counts of sexual assault against 16 children and one woman in Toronto, Windsor, Cambridge and Sudbury, ON.

Marshall, 89, served as a priest and educator in this area for 21 years. He taught at St. Charles College from 1961-1970, during which time at least two parents complained to school and Basilian officials that their sons were sexually abused by Marshall.
At the time, St. Charles was an all-boys school, although it is co-ed today.

Marshall was transferred from St. Charles in 1970, returning three years later as principal and serving another five years at the school.

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Fr Brian D’Arcy: ‘Why I’d have been a better priest if I’d marrie

IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

In a fascinating documentary to be shown next week, Fr Brian D’Arcy opens his heart as never before. Stephanie Bell reports

A lonely man whose heart ached for a wife and a home of his own while remaining true to his calling is the tragic portrait which Fr Brian D’Arcy reveals of himself in a powerful new documentary.

The controversial Catholic cleric has laid bare his soul in what is a deeply personal and at times highly emotive film charting the extent of his torment in the wake of the Vatican’s move to censor him.

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Al 403 slachtoffers seksueel misbruik in Kerk vroegen vergoeding

BELGIE
Gazet van Antwerpen

Al 403 slachtoffers van seksueel misbruik in de Kerk dienden een verzoek tot schadevergoeding in bij de Koning Boudewijnstichting. Slachtoffers hebben daarvoor nog tot 31 oktober de tijd. Dat deelde Kamerlid Renaat Landuyt (sp.a) zopas mee. Landuyt is niet alleen lid van de parlementaire opvolgingscommissie over seksueel misbruik, maar ook advocaat van één van de slachtoffers van Operatie Kelk.

Twee op de drie verzoekers is Nederlandstalig en 80% zijn mannen, aldus Landuyt. Het Kamerlid zegde dat de opvolgingscommissie in het parlement zich ook gebogen heeft over de tekst die slachtoffers voorgelegd krijgen in geval van verzoening (bij akkoord over de schadevergoeding). Volgens Landuyt wil de Kamercommissie dat slachtoffers nog altijd mogen blijven praten over de feiten waarvan zij het slachtoffer waren, ook als ze een schadevergoeding hebben gekregen. En zo’n schadevergoeding sluit rechtszaken over andere feiten dan die waarvoor er een schadevergoeding was, niet uit.

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Church considers removing Jimmy Savile knighthood

UNITED KINGDOM
Christian Today

The head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales has reportedly asked the Vatican if Jimmy Savile can be stripped of his papal knighthood posthumously.

The Archbishop of Westminster, the Most Reverend Vincent Nichols has made the request to Vatican officials after hundreds of people came forward to say they had been abused by the late TV star.

Savile was made a Knight Commander of St Gregory the Great by Pope John Paul II. He received the honour in 1990 in recognition of his charity work.

According to the BBC, the Archbishop has asked officials in Rome to investigate the possibility of removing the honour from Savile.

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Jimmy Savile could be stripped of papal knighthood

UNITED KINGDOM
Channel 4

Jimmy Savile could become the first person to be stripped of a papal knighthood posthumously after the head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales asked the Vatican to investigate its removal.

The Archbishop of Westminster, the Most Reverend Vincent Nichols, has now written to Rome asking whether Savile’s papal knighthood can be annulled in recognition of his victims’ “deep distress”.

Church sources said there was no established process to remove a papal honour posthumously because the award dies with the recipient.

However, senior Roman Catholic clergy in Britain feel that the Vatican should look at whether it can do something to recognise its disgust at the “deeply shocking” series of allegations of child sexual abuse made against the former Jim’ll Fix It presenter.

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Catholic Church bid to strip Savile’s papal honor

UNITED KINGDOM
Seattle Times

The Associated Press

LONDON —
The Catholic Church of England says it has contacted the Holy See to ask if the papal knighthood awarded to late television star Jimmy Savile could be removed following sexual abuse allegations.

Police say some 300 potential victims have come forward with abuse allegations against Savile, a well-known BBC children’s television host who died last year. Most of them say they were abused by Savile, but some say they were abused by other people, police said Friday.

The church said Saturday that Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichol wrote to Vatican officials last week, asking the Holy See to investigate the possibility of posthumously removing Savile’s honor in recognition of the “deep distress” of the alleged victims.

He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II and the Vatican for his charitable work.

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Dismantling stereotypes about child sex abuse: A Q&A

UNITED STATES
The Star-Ledger

By Star-Ledger Editorial Board
on October 26, 2012

The Boy Scouts of America called it the “Perversion Files” — documentation of sex abuse allegations in the Scouts, culled from police and newspaper reports over 25 years, including statements from boys who were victimized. Police were rarely notified, and some of the abusers simply moved on to other troops, to prey on other youths.

The 1,200 files were released by court order after news organizations requested access to the files. Similarities to the Catholic Church’s sex abuse scandal that unspooled over the past 10 years are unmistakable.

What are we learning about these crimes against children and the adults who commit them? The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops commissioned two reports over the past decade, the latest one delivered last year by a research team at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. Their findings demolish many closely held stereotypes, especially the one that equates homosexuality with child abuse.

Editorial writer Linda Ocasio spoke with Margaret Smith, a member of the research team, about its findings.

Q. The Boy Scouts and Catholic Church both ban gays from membership. Yet they are the two organizations hardest hit by sex abuse scandals involving gay men and boys. Why is that?

A. It’s really a mistake to perceive this as a problem of homosexual men and adolescents. First of all, there is no reason to think that homosexuals are any more likely to abuse a child than heterosexuals.

In general, the typical man who abuses a boy is a married heterosexual. This finding is common to many social science studies and is endorsed by those who treat abusers. We found in our research that 80 percent of the priests who abused boys also had sexual relationships with adults.

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A new phase of child protection

UNITED STATES
Washington Post

By Stephen J. Rossetti

The steps taken in the last 30 years to prevent the devastating trauma of child sexual abuse are making a difference. From 1990 to 2010, substantiated cases of child sexual abuse throughout the United States dropped 62 percent, according to experts David Finkelhor and Lisa Jones using a variety of sources including national surveys, FBI and NDACAN (National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect) data. Similarly, since the late 1970s, abuse by Catholic clergy has plummeted from 4 percent to less than 1 percent.

Mandatory reporting laws, prosecution of offenders, increased public awareness, and child-safe education programs have certainly contributed to this trend. Mirroring these aggressive efforts has been the remarkable turnaround in the Catholic Church with it currently having one of the most extensive, comprehensive child protection programs in the country.

The temptation now is to think society has done its job. It has “gotten rid” of the offenders by sending them to prison. Likewise, the church is dismissing clergy-offenders from priesthood. But such thinking is short-sighted. The process of making both society and church safe for children is not over. Rather, dealing with this terrible scourge, affecting all corners of our society, is entering a new phase.

I recall being at the bishops’ meeting in Dallas 2002 when the clergy sexual abuse crisis was at its zenith. In this intense environment, American public sentiment sent a clear message to the bishops, “Get rid of them.” And they did. A few hundred were immediately dismissed and more followed. Child advocates then queried the bishops, “So now, you are supervising these men?” The response came, “Once they are dismissed from priesthood, they are beyond our reach.”

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Scoutmaster who admitted abusing kids worked in Charlotte church daycare

NORTH CAROLINA
The State

Steve Lyttle – Charlotte Observer

Monroe — A former Scoutmaster who admitted this week to molesting numerous Boy Scouts in the Fayetteville area nearly four decades ago worked for years in the preschool center at Charlotte’s Selwyn Avenue Presbyterian Church, the senior minister there said Friday.

The Rev. Rush Otey said Joseph Menghi Jr., 69, who now lives in Monroe, was employed for more than eight years at Selwyn Avenue Presbyterian’s Child Development Center.

Menghi worked mostly as an office worker, Otey said, but occasionally substituted for teachers who were out.

Otey said there were never any reports of problems with Menghi, who told the Associated Press this week that he molested Scouts in the 1970s while leading Troop 786 in the Fayetteville area.

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Catholic Church to strip Savile of papal knighthood

UNITED KINGDOM
British Weekly

October 26, 2012

Jimmy Savile could become the first person to be stripped of a Papal knighthood posthumously after the head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales asked the Vatican to investigate removing the honour.

There is growing disquiet among senior members of the church, which has itself been rocked by child abuse scandals, that the disgraced late TV presenter’s name remains on the list of recipients of one of the highest awards the Pope can bestow.

The Archbishop of Westminster, the Most Reverend Vincent Nichols, has now written to Rome asking whether Savile’s Papal knighthood can be annulled in recognition of his victims’ “deep distress”.

Church sources said there was no established process to remove a Papal honour posthumously because the award dies with the recipient.

However, senior Roman Catholic clergy in Britain feel that the Vatican should look at whether it can do something to recognise its disgust at the “deeply shocking” series of allegations of child sexual abuse made against the former Jim’ll Fix It presenter.

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Some advocacy groups demand action against former scout leader

CHARLOTTE (NC)
WSOC

CHARLOTTE, N.C. —

Some children’s advocacy groups are demanding action after learning a former scoutmaster admitted to molesting young boys decades ago and went on to work at a church day care center in Charlotte.

The pastor of Selwyn Avenue Presbyterian Church, Rush Otey, said Thomas Menghi Jr. worked there from 2002 to 2011 and left because his position was eliminated, not because of any allegations.

“I just feel anger and disgust,” said David Fortwengler, a survivor of child abuse and a spokesperson for the child advocacy and anti-abuse group SNAP.

SNAP stands for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, but advocates for people who were targeted in Boy Scouts, camps, schools and athletic programs as well as those victimized by clergy members.

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Former NC scoutmaster admits he molested boys

NORTH CAROLINA
Associated Press

By By MICHAEL BIESECKER and MITCH WEISS, Associated Press

MONROE, N.C. (AP) — Former scoutmaster Thomas J. Menghi Jr. says he was usually drunk when he molested numerous Boy Scouts during the early 1970s.

He was in his late 20s, living in a Fayetteville motel and working as Tupperware deliveryman. He invited boys from Troop 786 as young as 11 years old to ride with him along his route, requesting that they spend the night in his room so they could get an early start.

“Yes, I abused kids,” Menghi, now 69, said in an interview Wednesday with The Associated Press. “But just how many and other details I can’t remember. It was a long time ago and I was in a fog.”

Menghi’s file is just one among 14,500 pages of “perversion files” compiled by the Boy Scouts of America between 1959 to 1985 and made public last week by court order.

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Admitted scout molester worked at day care in Charlotte

CHARLOTTE (NC)
Winston-Salem Journal

By: The Associated Press | Winston-Salem Journal

A former North Carolina scoutmaster who was not reported to police after molesting as many as 10 boys in the early 1970s went on to work for years at a church-run day care in Charlotte.

The Rev. Rush Otey confirmed Friday that Thomas Menghi Jr. worked as the office manager at Selwyn Presbyterian Child Development Center from 2002 to 2011 and was routinely alone with young children. Parents at the daycare were shocked to learn of Menghi’s past after reading an Associated Press story in which Menghi admitted he abused scouts when he led Troop 786 in Fayetteville.

Otey said there were no such complaints at the day care.

“At no time during Mr. Menghi’s employment were there hints, suspicions, observations, or allegations of any inappropriate conduct related to sexual abuse, molestation, or neglect duties,” he said. “Had there been such accusations from any child, parent, supervisor, volunteer or co-worker, this would have been reported immediately to the proper authorities.”

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Jimmy Savile family’s ‘turmoil’ over sex abuse claims

UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

The nephew of Jimmy Savile has spoken of his family’s “turmoil” over allegations of sexual abuse surrounding the late TV presenter and DJ.

Police have said Savile could have sexually abused as many as 300 people.

Roger Foster said the claims had “overwhelmed” Savile’s family and left them questioning their feelings towards him and his charitable work.

But their own “despair and sadness” could not compare to that felt by the victims, said Mr Foster. …

The Catholic Church in England and Wales has confirmed it has written to the Vatican to ask if Savile’s papal knighthood can be posthumously removed.

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Charlotte pastor: Admitted Boy Scout molester worked at church daycare

CHARLOTTE (NC)
WBTV

By Chris Dyches

CHARLOTTE, NC (WBTV) –
The pastor of a Charlotte church says that a man who admitted to molesting Boy Scouts in the 1970s worked at a church daycare for the past decade.

According to Pastor Rush Otey of Selywn Avenue Presbyterian Church, Thomas Menghi Junior worked at the church’s daycare starting in 2002.

During an interview with the Associated Press released on Thursday, Menghi admitted that he molested as many as 10 boys from Troop 786 in Fayetteville in the early 1970s.

Menghi was just one of thousands of former scout leaders named in secret files on suspected abusers kept by the Boy Scouts of America and released under a recent court order.

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October 26, 2012

How did Jimmy Savile fool everyone for so long?

UNITED KINGDOM
Cstholic Herald

By Francis Phillips on Friday, 26 October 2012

I have just been watching a replay of the BBC Panorama programme about Jimmy Savile. There were many clips of his very successful TV programmes dominated by Savile himself, with his trademark cigar, platinum hair and wearing his tracksuit. With the advantage of hindsight we all now know that he was far from the public-spirited eccentric that he presented in the media. Watching his antics during the Panorama programme, the question in my mind was: how did he get away with not just fooling some of the people some of the time, but seemingly all the people all the time – for decades?

Some of the answer to this lies in the institutional blindness of the BBC to the reality behind Savile’s smiling, zany mask. Mary Riddell, in an article about Savile in the Telegraph, rehearsed the well-known quote of Edmund Burke that evil flourishes when good men do nothing. But in this case it seems that the BBC did nothing because they saw nothing; they lived in a complacent cocoon in which high ratings and celebrity status were all-important.

This inability to see what is obvious can be true of any institution – including the Church. I am not talking here about cover-ups in the case of child abuse (though that has parallels with the Savile case) but more generally: when the self-belief of an institution takes over and becomes an end in itself, so that no one says “Wait a minute. What’s going on here?” Self-preservation has become more important than truth.

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The BBC’s real crime over Jimmy Savile was to act like the Catholic church

UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Jonathan Freedland
The Guardian, Friday 26 October 2012

There is a tide in the affairs of men and this one has gone in and out and back in again. The first wave brought horror at the alleged crimes of Jimmy Savile, revulsion at a deception that had been perpetrated on the British public over four decades: hoodwinked by visible good deeds, so that we wouldn’t see the darkness beneath.

The next wave saw that fury turned on Savile’s longtime employer, the BBC, for failing to reveal the truth about him when it had a clear chance, by binning a Newsnight investigation a year ago – a decision the programme’s editor made, we now discover, a day after the corporation had published its Christmas schedule, a lineup that included not one but two fawning tributes to the presenter. That BBC-focused rage reached a peak at the start of the week, when Panorama tore into its sister programme as George Entwistle prepared to take a pasting from a House of Commons select committee.

Since then the tide has headed in the reverse direction, with both commentators and politicians insisting it is wrong to obsess over BBC management practices when the real issue is the sexual abuse of children. “The voices of the victims seem to have been completely ignored,” the Tory MP Claire Perry told Question Time, because “the BBC is doing too much navel-gazing”.

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Jimmy Savile: Catholic Church seeks to strip star of Papal knighthood

UNITED KINGDOM
The Telegraph

Jimmy Savile could become the first person to be stripped of a Papal knighthood posthumously after the head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales asked the Vatican to investigate removing the honour.

By Tom Rowley, and Sam Marsden
10:07PM BST 26 Oct 2012

There is growing disquiet among senior members of the church, which has itself been rocked by child abuse scandals, that the disgraced late TV presenter’s name remains on the list of recipients of one of the highest awards the Pope can bestow.

The Archbishop of Westminster, the Most Reverend Vincent Nichols, has now written to Rome asking whether Savile’s Papal knighthood can be annulled in recognition of his victims’ “deep distress”.

Church sources said there was no established process to remove a Papal honour posthumously because the award dies with the recipient.

However, senior Roman Catholic clergy in Britain feel that the Vatican should look at whether it can do something to recognise its disgust at the “deeply shocking” series of allegations of child sexual abuse made against the former Jim’ll Fix It presenter.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

Man Arrested on Child Porn Charges in Huntington

WEST VIRGINIA
WSAZ

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. (WSAZ) — A man has been arrested on charges of possession of child pornography.

Huntington Police tell WSAZ.com members of the West Virginia Cybercrimes Task Force executed a search warrant just before 9 a.m. Friday at a home in the 200-block of Guyan Avenue.

Inside the home, police say they found child pornography on a laptop computer. …

Police say Jordan Jr. told them he works as a volunteer at a local church and several youth camps.

WSAZ.com has calls into the church for comment.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

Fr. Emmett Coyne, The Theology of Fear: When Religion Takes Leave of Spirituality

UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

Usually, when I discuss or recommend a book on this blog, I’ve already read it. In fact, I can’t think of an instance in which a book I’ve recommended here hasn’t been one I’ve yet read.

Today, I want, however, to tell readers about a book I haven’t yet read, but am planning to read. And I want, as well, to explain why I think this book will be very useful to me–asking, as I do so, whether any readers of this blog may already have read the book in question and if we might talk together about it as a dialogic community on this blog.

The book I’m intending to read is Fr. Emmett Coyne’s Theology of Fear. As this Amazon link to the book indicates, Fr. Coyne published the book this past May in conjunction with Amazon’s CreateSpace self-publishing program. As Fr. Coyne’s website also notes, profits from the sale of Theology of Fear are going to Partners in Health, to provide healthcare to those on the margins of society.

The website’s summary of the book notes that Fr. Coyne wrote it to foster “a dialogue of change in our understanding of doctrine, morality, and how the Roman Church ought to ‘seek first the Kingdom of God’ by reading the signs of the times.” It is, in other words, a direct reflection on the theology of Vatican II, which accentuated the concept derived from the theology of Cardinal Newman that doctrine develops, and that in the process of doctrinal development, the voice of the laity, our sensus fidelium, is critically important.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

David Quinn: The Savile scandal has echoes of our own child abuse nightmares

IRELAND/UNITED KINGDOM
Irish Independent

Friday October 26 2012

The BBC’s response to the Jimmy Savile revelations has been eerily reminiscent of both the Catholic Church’s response to its child abuse scandals, and to our own national broadcaster’s handling of the Fr Kevin Reynolds case.

Writing about the BBC in the London ‘Times’ on Wednesday, David Epstein had this to say: “It turns out that the BBC is no different from any other large organisation when it comes to handling a crisis. First there has been denial, then reluctant acknowledgement … then the internal inquiry rapidly overtaken by external inquiries, then the abject apologies and finally the admission that the system failed.”

When news of the Fr Kevin Reynolds libel action first emerged, RTE’s initial response was a fierce defence. Later we had a station executive announcing that “rolled heads learn nothing”. Then we had several inquiries and appearances before Oireachtas Committees plus several resignations. In the meantime, Fr Reynolds received a huge out-of-court settlement.

How the Catholic Church responded to revelations of abuses is well recorded, which is what makes the BBC’s response to the Savile revelations all the more bewildering.

BBC Director General, George Entwistle, showed a singular lack of awareness when he tried to explain to a House of Commons committee on Tuesday why the station did not put a stop to Savile’s reign of terror.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

How Jimmy Savile did it: Thomas Duggan got there first

UNITED KINGDOM
AOAdvocates

Posted by: A.Dean on Oct 26 2012

The number of victims of Jimmy Savile’s abuse continues to rise. As of yesterday, Scotland Yard had identified 300 of his victims—an increase of 100 over last week. The police have already spoken with 130 victims thus far, and are exploring 400 lines of inquiry.

These figures boggle the mind. That a man who never left the limelight for five straight decades could have gotten away with child abuse on this scale begs many questions; inquiries have now been launched to answer these, and examine the roles and failures of the BBC, NHS, and police in overlooking the evidence of his activities. While it is too little too late for survivors to face Savile down in court, civil redress remains a possibility for survivors of his abuse.

The Savile story begs the question of whether he was an anomaly, or whether what he did tells us more about serial child abusers generally. Savile was distinctive in many ways, both as an entertainer and perpetrator. He empowered himself by becoming a household name, a beloved figure, ultimately a “knight”. He abused young children around the country, using his fame, wealth, flamboyant demeanour and style of dress to double bluff his countrymen into thinking him a harmless, gold-hearted eccentric. Any suspicions about his keen interest in children, especially vulnerable children, and even the occasional rumours of his sexual improprieties were quashed by his celebrity. He was a living legend – which bought him a strange kind of insulation from scrutiny, and allowed him to leave a trail of hundreds of damaged, disturbed or broken lives that stretches back to the late 1950s. …

One of the most striking stories of child abuse dating back to this time involves St Bede’s College in Whalley Range, Manchester, an esteemed Catholic grammar school for boys at the time. St Bede’s College was closely tied with the Catholic Diocese of Salford. Between 1950 and 1966, the Rector of St Bede’s College was Father Thomas Duggan, who was elevated to the status of Monsignor in 1958. As reported in the Manchester Evening News last year, more than 50 former pupils of St Bede’s have recently come forward to the Diocese of Salford to highlight the sexual and psychological abuse they experienced while at the school, specifically at the hands of Monsignor Duggan, who molested, fondled, and raped these boys in his care. The Diocese of Salford has apologised for what happened, though in less than robust terms. Civil redress is being explored by many of Duggan’s victims, 15 of whom our firm is representing.

It remains possible, maybe even likely, that far more boys were harmed by Monsignor Duggan than just those who have already come forward. Thousands of boys were educated at St. Bede’s when Duggan ran it, and he had a definite system for grooming and abusing his charges, repeated with chilling efficiency. Like Savile, Duggan established himself at the top of the pyramid of power in his community; in life he was beyond reproach, a Monsignor of the Catholic Church, and a force to be reckoned with. It appears he was given almost free reign over St Bede’s College and his young students there—and certainly little scrutiny. Only in the years since his death has the scope of his abuses come to light, and only in the last year have some of his victims found it within themselves to speak out about what they endured as pupils at St Bede’s.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

A symposium has never stopped sex abuse and cover-up

UNITED STATES
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on October 26, 2012

What if Pablo Escobar had hosted a symposium on Drug Trade Gangland Violence Prevention?

No matter what well-respected, hard-working experts he invited, the symposium wouldn’t have stopped the continued promulgation of violence in the Columbian Drug Cartel.

Later this month, Penn State will be hosting a symposium on child sexual abuse and prevention. Their list of partners is very impressive.

The Boy Scouts of America will also be hosting a symposium in November in Atlanta.

Sounds similar, don’t you think?

At least they are doing something, I hear many of you say. But that’s the problem: Right now, that ALL they are doing.

The Boy Scouts and Penn State did not voluntarily go to the cops and say, “We have a problem.” The Scouts were sued by hundreds of victims who were aching after decades of abuse and cover-up. Penn State was exposed because of the bravery of Jerry Sandusky’s victims, who bucked the Happy Valley “code of silence” and came forward to protect other kids.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

Bradford priest sent for trial on sex charge

UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph & Argus

A Roman Catholic priest in Bradford is to stand trial accused of sexually assaulting a 17-year-old girl.

Father William Finnegan, parish priest at St Clare’s RC Church in Fagley, has pleaded not guilty to the charge.

He appeared before Bradford and Keighley Magistrates’ Court yesterday and was told he will face trial before a jury at the city’s crown court on December 7.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

Gerald T. Slevin…

UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

Gerald T. Slevin: After Elections, Who Will Prosecute More Predatory Priests? Constitutional Lawyer Obama Or The Three R’s—Romney, Ryan & Ratzinger? And Why Does It Matter?

Another hard-hitting and exhaustively researched essay by the Harvard-trained former Wall Street lawyer Jerry Slevin today. Jerry looks at the two U.S. presidential candidates in light of their records in dealing with issues of child abuse and of church and state, and challenges Catholics to inform our consciences as we select a candidate by thinking carefully about why the Vatican and U.S. bishops appear to be playing very overt partisan politics in this election cycle–to assure that the candidate (Romney) more likely to be lenient to Catholic officials prosecuted for criminal activity with child abuse cases is elected. What follows is Jerry’s essay:

Is Anyone Above American Law For Misdeeds Committed In U.S.?

The U. S. Founders in the American Revolution risked their fortunes and even their lives to establish a basic legal principle, namely, that sovereigns, whether kings, clerics or presidents, must be subject, as all other citizens are, to the rule of law, in particular, under laws that are democratically enacted, transparently applied and impartially enforced. In 1776, European absolute monarchs and clerics were in practice very often “above” the law. This had been a major grievance of many of the Founders, who were wisely and understandably appalled at the unaccountable monarchs and clerics of the Old World. Consequently, the Founders made sure in the U.S. Constitution that no one was to be above the law.

President Nixon with Watergate, and President Clinton with “Monicagate,” learned painfully that the Founders really meant what they said about the supremacy of the rule of law, as these two powerful U.S. Presidents were humiliated in public Constitutional proceedings for their misdeeds. My Harvard Law mentor, Constitutional scholar and Watergate prosecutor, Archibald Cox, made this very clear to Nixon.

Will This Essential Legal Principle Still Apply After the Elections?

Ominously, it now appears that this fundamental legal principle, that all persons, including politically powerful ones, are subject to American law for their U.S. misdeeds, may be seriously at risk following the current U.S. elections, at least as it may relate to the U.S. misdeeds of the pope and his U.S. bishops. Religious liberty for all, under the rule of law, appears to be in danger of becoming clerical privilege for some, depending possibly on whether Mitt Romney or Barack Obama is elected.

All American voters, but especially Catholics, have to include this serious consideration conscientiously in their voting calculus. Catholics cannot let themselves by manipulated by a cynical Catholic hierarchy that appears to be attempting to exploit election-year wedge issues like contraception and gay marriage to further the Catholic hierarchy’s narrow self-interest and possibly even to protect themselves from possible criminal prosecution.

Barack Obama’s U.S. Justice Department prosecutors recently took very aggressive legal action in a criminal case of a priest child pornographer directly related to the subsequent conviction of the first U.S. Catholic bishop, Bishop Finn of Kansas City, for a child endangerment related crime. Obama also, following the Penn State Sandusky revelations, condemned strongly child sexual abuse, and his Federal prosecutors are actively presently pursuing Penn State cover-up investigations. Obama could have pursued a less aggressive approach to child sexual abuse to accommodate the Catholic hierarchy’s anxieties, but he did the right thing for defenseless children instead.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

A global crop of cardinals; Syria; Vatileaks; and possible popes

ROME
National Catholic Reporter

by John L. Allen Jr. | Oct. 26, 2012 All Things Catholic

One could argue that in its strong focus on Western secularism, the papacy of Benedict XVI has been somewhat Eurocentric. When that case is made, however, the consistory of Nov. 24 will have to be recorded as a counter-example.

This will be Benedict’s fifth crop of new cardinals, and for the first time, there’s not a single European in the bunch. Granted, there are only six total, but most observers still expected a couple of guys from the old continent — for instance, German Archbishop Gerhard Müller, the new prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, or Rino Fisichella, an Italian and president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization.

Instead, Benedict announced he would hold a consistory one month hence that includes only one Westerner: Archbishop James Harvey, a Milwaukee native, following 14 years as prefect of the Papal Household. The pope said he plans to name Harvey as archpriest of the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls.

The other five come from the developing world: one each from the Middle East, Latin America and Africa, and two from Asia. In that sense, November’s consistory reflects the rise of a “world church” in which leadership will increasingly come from the southern hemisphere.

Immediately, the consistory would seem to elevate two figures into the ranks of the papabili, meaning candidates to be pope:
• Luis Antonio Tagle, 55, of Manila in the Philippines
• John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan, 68, of Abuja in Nigeria

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

AL – Case against youth minister settled, SNAP responds

ALABAMA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Barbara Dorris on October 26, 2012

We are grateful to the police and prosecutors who worked for justice on behalf of the young victim of William David Webb, and to the judge for handing down this large settlement. We believe that this stiff punishment will send a message to other would-be wrongdoers that their crimes will be caught and they will be punished severely, and will also help bring closure to the victim.

We hope that others who may have seen or suspected crimes by Webb will be motivated by this settlement to come forward and make a report to police.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

Rolando Garcia, St. Agatha Priest, Placed On Leave Following New Claims of Sexual Abuse

FLORIDA
Huffington Post

After weeks of repeated calls for his dismissal, the Archdiocese of Miami indefinitely removed Father Rolando Garcia from pastoring his congregation as new claims of underaged sexual abuse were brought to light.

Tony Simmons, 34, stood before media at St. Agatha Catholic Church Wednesday to publicly reveal himself as the “John Doe No. 95” who filed the latest lawsuit against Fr. Garcia and South Florida’s embattled archdiocese.

Since August, Garcia has been named by several men who were purported victims of abuse as boys, and the priest has a history of similar sordid accusations dating back several years.

In the latest suit, Simmons charges the Catholic clergyman molested him for several years as a teenaged runaway, abuse which started in 1994. He says the priest began performing sex acts on him soon after Simmons sought his counsel at age 16, and that the abuse continued for several years.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

Punishment, penance should come via a royal commission

AUSTRALIA
The Age

Michael Short
Journalist

ONE of the most fundamental responsibilities of government is to protect the community’s most vulnerable citizens. Children are achingly vulnerable. They have a right to be able to trust adults who exercise direct institutional power over them. Schools and the church are two of the most powerful institutions. Children are at their mercy.

There is abundant, tragic evidence that many thousands of children have suffered sex crimes by Catholic priests in schools and dioceses. These perverted men of God have shown the children no mercy. Their putrid crimes have destroyed lives and caused untold misery, not only for their direct victims, but for the people who love them. There is no greater love than that felt by a parent for their child. Think how you would feel to discover a priest had raped your child.

These crimes have caused many to commit suicide. They have caused crippling anguish and mental health problems. They have caused drug and alcohol problems. They have caused relationship problems.

The Catholic Church has spent millions protecting paedophile priests. It has withheld evidence from police that would be likely to lead to the prosecution and jailing of an unknown number of perpetrators. These are criminals who, to add hypocrisy to horror, claim to speak for Jesus Christ, a figure revered by many for his love and compassion and who, one would think, would condemn child abuse above all else.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

Austrian bishops call for church unity to bust stalemate

AUSTRIA
National Catholic Reporter

[link to Austrian Bishops’ Conference and to the pastoral letter]

by Christa Pongratz-Lippitt | Oct. 26, 2012

Vienna Austria —
In a 15-page pastoral letter, which Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna admitted was the “outcome of intensive dialogue with Rome,” the Austrian bishops insist that renewal of faith in full communion with the pope and the church’s magisterium, and with special emphasis on church unity, is the only way out of the stalemate between the bishops and the Austrian Priests’ Initiative, which demands far-reaching structural church reforms.

The pastoral letter, titled Jahr des Glaubens or “Year of Faith,” has a special chapter on the ongoing deadlock in the Austrian church since the Austrian Priests’ Initiative, which has more than 400 members, published its “Appeal to Disobedience” in June 2011. The initiative, which has the support of a large number of Austrian lay Catholics, calls for radical church reforms, including the ordination of married men and women.

Schönborn, president of the Austrian bishops’ conference, presented the pastoral letter at a news conference in Vienna in the first week of October, before he headed to Rome for the 2012 Synod of Bishops, which has the theme “the new evangelization” or reviving Christian faith in increasingly secular societies. The synod coincides with the opening of a special “Year of Faith,” which runs from Oct. 11, 2012, to Nov. 24, 2013, which also has focus on “the new evangelization.”

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

Playboy Croatian priest’s ‘accomplice’ arrested

CROATIA
The Telegraph (United Kingdom)

A female banker believed to be the accomplice of a Croatian Catholic priest who went on the run with around a £1 million pocketed from an illegal property deal has been arrested.

By Matthew Day, Warsaw
2:59PM BST 26 Oct 2012

Jasmina Bilonic, 41, faces charges of aiding Father Sime Nimac abuse his office and authority when he allegedly sold a piece of Church land without permission earlier in the year. The director of private banking for a Split bank was remanded in custody.

Arrested in Zagreb last week, Father Nimac hit the news in both his native Croatia and around the world when he disappeared from his parish with millions of Croatian kuna in cash, and leaving behind a mountain of rumours of an extravagant lifestyle festooned with cars, fine clothes, boats and a relationship with a married woman.

But despite the scandal and Father Nimac’s Franciscan order issuing an apology for his behaviour some of his parishioners have rallied to his defence, claiming that the 36-year-old priest was led astray by a mysterious femme fatale character.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

Priest gets one-year jail for sex with estranged wife

INDIA
Press Trust of India

Ambala, Oct 26 (PTI) A priest was today sentenced to a year in jail by a court here for having sex with his estranged wife, who was living separately, without her consent.

Additional Sessions Judge Poonam Suneja also imposed a fine of Rs 2,500 on the mahant (priest) of an Ambala dera.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

Priest’s name finally cleared after two-year ordeal

IRELAND
Dundalk Democrat

Published on Friday 26 October 2012

THERE was joy, applause and even cheers at the vigil Mass on Saturday evening at St Oliver Plunkett Church Blackrock when Cardinal Sean Brady announced to the congregation that former Parish Priest Fr Oliver Brennan has been fully cleared by the Catholic Church investigation into allegations of child abuse which were made against him.

Fr Brennan had already been cleared last November in an investigation by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI).

Fr Brennan spoke to the Democrat about his two-year ordeal, the long wait for his name to be fully cleared.

“It has been two years since I have been without a ministry, and a year since I was told my the PSNI that the allegations against me were false.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

Priest is in rehab; hearing delayed

MICHIGAN
Record-Eagle

DEARBORN — A judge on Thursday postponed a hearing for a priest accused of driving naked and drunk in Dearborn this summer because the priest is at a Pennsylvania rehabilitation center receiving treatment.

The pretrial hearing for the Rev. Peter Petroske of Sacred Heart Parish in Dearborn was adjourned until Dec. 27. Dearborn District Judge Richard Wygonik approved the postponement sought by defense lawyer Edward Zelenak and over the objections of a city attorney.

“He’s in a lock-down facility,” Zelenak said of Petroske, a longtime Detroit area priest. “It’s not as if he’s thumbing his nose at the system.”

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

Prestonwood Baptist: A Heroic Stand Amidst Parental and Church Betrayal

UNITED STATES
The Wartbuurg Watch

Approximately 1 year ago, TWW post a story on a noteworthy pedophile, John Langworthy called Does the SBC Fear Women Pastors More Than Their Kids Getting Molested? Link

I heartily suggest that you read that post first for some background. In it, you will be introduced to Amy Smith, the heroine of this story. In this post, we congratulated her for her dogged determination to uncover the truth.

John Langworthy, now awaiting trial for pedophilia, was serving on staff at Prestonwood Baptist Church, Dallas,in 1989 when he was abruptly, and quietly dismissed, due to an allegation of impropriety. Langworthy would go on to allegedly molest other children in subsequent ministries in Mississippi.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

Synod of Bishops & New Evangelization…or New Marketing of Old Vatican Deceits. Why Vatican must end as a “country”

UNITED STATES
Pope Crimes & Vatican Evils…

Paris Arrow

Updated October 25, 2012

1) VCC Vatican Catholic Church … not RCC Roman Catholic Church

2) Cardinal Dolan’s Vatican Deceit strategy: Entertainment Hollywood Hype

3) Australian Jesuit blames “Original Sin” for phenomenal JP2 Army – John Paul II Pedophile Priests Army in Australia slammed by Police and Government Inquiry

4) Benedict XVI canonizes centuries old dead saints while condoning current alive criminals Bishop Finn and Monsignor Lynn

5) Pope appoints new Cardinals while keeping old criminals Cardinal Bernard Law and Cardinal Roger Mahony

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Bill to expand statute of limitations on sex abuse lawuits stalls in N.J. Senate

NEW JERSEY
NJ.com

By Matt Friedman/Statehouse Bureau
on October 25, 2012

TRENTON — A bill to greatly expand the statute of limitations for sex abuse lawsuits remained in legislative limbo today after it stalled for a second time on the Senate floor.

The bill’s sponsor, state Sen. Joseph Vitale (D-Middlesex), pressed his colleagues until the last minute, but to no avail, in an effort to get the 21 votes needed for passage.

The measure (S1651) would have sharply expanded the statute of limitations from two years to 30 years for suing alleged perpetrators, institutions and their officials ruled culpable for the abuse.

A previous version of the bill, which sought to remove the statute of limitations altogether, began moving through the Legislature in December 2010 but never made it to the floor of the Senate or Assembly after facing stiff opposition from Catholic clergy.

The bill almost made it through in August, but stalled at the last minute.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

Jefferson County jury awards $1 million judgment against former youth minister who had sex with 15-year-old girl

ALABAMA
AL.com

By Greg Garrison | ggarrison@al.com
on October 25, 2012

BIRMINGHAM — A Jefferson County jury today awarded a $1 million judgment against a former youth minister at Word of Life Christian Center who was accused of sexual misconduct with a 15-year-old girl in the congregation.

William David Webb pleaded guilty in 2009 of transporting a minor girl across state lines for sex. Webb, 39, is serving a five-year sentence at a federal prison in Forrest City, Ark.

The victim in that case, Barbara Elizabeth Echols, now 24 and married, filed a lawsuit in 2009, alleging seduction of a minor, assault and battery. The jury today returned a verdict in Jefferson County Circuit Court for $500,000 in compensatory and $500,000 in punitive damages, said Echols’ attorney, Johnny Brunson.

“They found that she was 15 when he initiated contact,” Brunson said. “She testified that he sexually assaulted and sexually abused her beginning when she was 15.”

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

News outlets seek unsealing of Legion of Christ docs in lawsuit

PROVIDENCE (RI)
Catholic News Agency

By Kevin J. Jones

Providence, R.I., Oct 24, 2012 / 06:22 pm (CNA).- Four news organizations are seeking the release of sealed court documents from a lawsuit contesting the will of a Rhode Island woman who gave $60 million to the Legion of Christ.

Jim Fair, Communications Director with the Legion of Christ, said the donor was “a beloved member of our spiritual family” and the religious congregation was “respectful and diligent in carrying out her wishes.”

He told CNA Oct. 24 that it is “appropriate” for the documents to stay sealed “to ensure that potential jurors are not influenced and that the Legion’s constitutional right to a fair and impartial jury is protected.”

On Oct. 24 the Associated Press, The New York Times, The Providence Journal and the National Catholic Reporter submitted a legal filing that argued the public has a right to access the documents concerning a legal challenge to the will of Gabrielle Mee.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

Jury awards $1M in sexual abuse trial

ALABAMA
Trussville Tribune

By Scott Buttram

A Jefferson County jury awarded a $1 million civil verdict against the former youth minister of Word of Life Christian Center, David Webb on Thursday. Webb’s father, Scott Webb serves as senior pastor at the church. The victim had previously settled her claim against the church.

The jury found in favor of the plaintiff, Elizabeth Echols, 24, on all four counts. Echols, who was 15 at the time of the incident, was represented by Rick Stotser and Johnny Brunson of Massey, Stotser and Nichols. The verdict was for compensatory and punitive damages.

The plaintiff alleged assault and battery of a sexual nature, trespass on her body, wantonness, and seduction of an underage and unmarried woman.

When contacted by The Tribune, Stotser said he was pleased with the verdict.

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Fr Brian D’Arcy: ‘I felt like giving it all up when the Church tried to gag me’

IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Sarah MacDonald

Friday October 26 2012

THE well-known broadcaster and priest Fr Brian D’Arcy contemplated leaving the priesthood following his censure by a Catholic Church watchdog, a new BBC documentary reveals.

The documentary, titled ‘The Turbulent Priest’, which is due to be screened by BBC NI on Monday evening, provides an insight into the high-profile cleric’s dilemma as he confronts his censure by the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith and grapples with some of its thorny issues such as its teachings on clerical celibacy.

He also openly discusses his personal experience of clerical abuse as a young seminarian.

Last April it emerged that the Passionist priest had been censured by the the Catholic Church’s doctrinal watchdog, the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith in Rome, which was angered by his criticism of the church’s mishandling of clerical sexual abuse and his views on celibacy for priests, its teachings on contraception and homosexuality.

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Hope for victims in church abuse inquiry

AUSTRALIA
The Australian

[Submissions to the Victoria inquiry]

Paul Mulvey
From: AAP
October 26, 2012

AS Victoria’s assistant police commissioner gave condemning evidence against the Catholic Church, sexual abuse victims and their families were brought to tears.

But for once in this shameful saga, they weren’t sad tears.

“It was because a senior member of the community was finally sticking up for us. Telling it like it is,” one survivor told AAP.

Telling it “like it is” paints a shocking picture.

Victoria’s parliamentary inquiry into church sexual abuse has heard one in 20 Catholic priests are child abusers (and the figure could be higher among Christian Brothers), the church has never referred any allegation to police, it’s more worried about its reputation than the victims’ welfare, is secretive and intimidating, ill equipped to deal with the scourge of sexual abuse and needs a dramatic change in culture.

Assistant commissioner Graham Ashton told the inquiry police had investigated 2110 offences committed by clergy and church workers against 519 victims since 1956, of which 370 were committed by Catholic priests or brothers.

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October 25, 2012

Interview with Cardinal Christoph Schönborn

AUSTRIA
National Catholic Reporter

by John L. Allen Jr. | Oct. 25, 2012

Rome —
Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna, Austria, is among the most interesting figures in the global church — an intellectual and theological protégé of Pope Benedict XVI, but also known for his willingness to make surprising pastoral judgments, whether it’s allowing an openly gay man to serve on a parish council, approving a sweeping plan to cluster or close almost two-thirds of his parishes, or pursuing dialogue with a priests’ insurrection in Austria. Schönborn, 67, has been among the most-cited figures at the Synod of Bishops on New Evangelization, and on Oct. 23 he spoke to NCR on the margins of the synod.

The following is a transcript of the interview.

Interview with Cardinal Christoph Schönborn

Oct. 23, 2012

I’ve spoken to several people in the synod who were impressed with what you said about these gatherings being a chance for bishops to talk to each other about their pastoral challenges.

At the very beginning of the synod, I suggested that we share, not so much challenges, but our experiences. As successors of the apostles, we are called to be the first evangelizers. We all have experiences of all kinds of joys, fears, successes, failures, and so on, in evangelizing. We all asked ourselves, ‘Do I really evangelize?’ I preach a lot, I’m in the parishes, I write pastoral letters, and so on, but what’s meant by the ‘New Evangelization’ is not only the daily pastoral work, which obviously we have to do and we do it with joy, but what Pope Benedict repeatedly says to us, encourages us to do, is to reach out to those who no longer have, or never have had, any direct contact with the gospel. This is the real challenge of the New Evangelization. I was very moved by some examples in the synod of real shared experiences of our work of evangelization. Of course, we also have to talk about all the questions of secular society, of globalization, of the social dimension, and all these subjects, and I think we’ve had a very rich menu about what’s going on throughout the world. The situations are all different, but nonetheless also more and more similar. Some of us, however, also gave really personal testimonies, and that was very moving.

In that spirit, let me ask about a couple of your recent pastoral experiences in Austria. One is the priests’ movement, what some call the ‘priests’ rebellion.’ Where do things stand now in terms of your relationship with that group?

I think all the Austrian bishops have normal and regular contact with the priests who are in that movement. In my diocese, some of the leading priests of that movement are in the diocesan priests’ council. Just at the beginning of this month, we talked very intensely about the questions and the challenges of this group. We all share many of these. The problems and questions they raise are real questions from the field. The issue is how to respond, how to take up these challenges, and I dare to say that the majority of the priests, as well as we bishops, as we have shown in our recent pastoral letter, think that some of the proposed solutions [from this movement] fall short. We have to dig deeper, to see these questions in a vaster context. We have to see it as a common challenge for all the faithful, priests, bishops, and laity, to deal with a situation in which in many respects we have become a minority, even if by numbers we may still be the majority. We have to learn to deal with this situation in a creative way.

Your view is that tinkering with church structures won’t cut it?

Exactly. We need to take up this challenge [of church structures], because it’s one part of the reality. Like many other European dioceses have done in the last two decades, for example, we’re on our way to restructure our pastoral work.

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Hearing adjourned for Dearborn priest accused of driving drunk, naked

MICHIGAN
Press & Guide

By Julie Walker Altesleben
and Joe Slezak
Press & Guide Newspapers
Twitter: @joeslezak1

DEARBORN — A pretrial hearing for the Rev. Peter Petroske, accused of driving drunk and naked Aug. 2, was adjourned Thursday afternoon.

Nineteenth District Richard Wygonik approved the adjournment at the request of Petroske’s attorney, Edward Zelenak.

Petroske is accused of indecent exposure and operating under the influence of alcohol, both misdemeanors. He had been the head priest at Sacred Heart Catholic Church, but was placed on administrative leave by the Archdiocese of Detroit after he was arrested.

Zelenak said that Petroske has been at an in-patient alcohol rehabilitation center in Downingtown, Pa., since Aug. 10. Petroske voluntarily entered the program at the St. John Vianney Center, which is geared toward the clergy and religious community, and is expected to be there for about 60 more days.

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Miami priest placed on leave in sex abuse case

FLORIDA
Ocala.com

The Associated Press

MIAMI – A Roman Catholic priest in Miami has been placed on administrative leave due to a pending sex abuse lawsuit.

The Archdiocese of Miami made the announcement Wednesday. A statement says the Archdiocese had no prior notice of the allegation against Roland Garcia, pastor of St. Agatha Catholic Church. The lawsuit also names the Archdiocese.

The statement also says the Archdiocese will offer counseling to the alleged victim and conduct an investigation.

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Priest accused of drunk, naked drive in treatment

MICHIGAN
Lansing State Journal

DEARBORN — A court hearing for a priest accused of driving naked in a Detroit suburb while drunk has been delayed while he’s treated at a Pennsylvania rehabilitation center.

A pretrial hearing Thursday for the Rev. Peter Petroske of Sacred Heart Parish in Dearborn was adjourned until Dec. 27. Dearborn District Judge Richard Wygonik approved the postponement sought by defense lawyer Edward Zelenak.

Petroske was arrested Aug. 2 near the church on charges of drunken driving and disorderly or obscene conduct. He was placed on administrative leave by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Detroit.

Zelenak says Petroske is being treated for the alcohol offense at St. John Vianney Center in Downingtown, Pa.

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Missbrauch: Pfarrer-Initiative will Umgang mit Mitgliedern beraten

OSTERREICH
Der Standard

Plattform Betroffener kirchlicher Gewalt kritisiert Zugehörigkeit zweier mutmaßlicher Täter – Schüller verweist auf nächste Vorstandssitzung

Wien – Die Pfarrer-Initiative ist mit Vorwürfen der Plattform “Betroffener kirchlicher Gewalt” konfrontiert. Laut dieser sind auch “bekannte Missbrauchstäter” Mitglied der Reformgruppe, hieß es am Donnerstag gegenüber der APA. Sprecher Helmut Schüller bestätigte dies gegenüber der APA, man werde im Vorstand beraten, wie man in den beiden Fällen vorgehen werde.

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Vorwürfe gegen Pfarrer-Initiative zu Missbrauch

OSTERREICH
Kleine Zeitung

Die Pfarrer-Initiative ist mit Vorwürfen der Plattform “Betroffener kirchlicher Gewalt” konfrontiert. Laut dieser sind auch “bekannte Missbrauchstäter” Mitglied der Reformgruppe, hieß es gegenüber der APA. Sprecher Helmut Schüller bestätigte dies gegenüber der APA, man werde im Vorstand beraten, wie man in den beiden Fällen vorgehen werde.

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Belgien: 403 Entschädigungsanträge wegen sexuellen Missbrauchs

BELGIEN
kathweb

25.10.2012

Brüssel, 25.10.2012 (KAP) In Belgien sind bislang 403 Entschädigungsanträge wegen sexuellen Missbrauchs im kirchlichen Bereich gestellt worden. Rund 80 Prozent der Antragsteller seien Männer, meldet die Tageszeitung “Le Soir” (Donnerstag) unter Berufung auf einen Bericht der neutralen Schiedskommission, die Ende 2011 auf Vorschlag eines Sonderausschusses des belgischen Abgeordnetenhauses eingesetzt wurde. Der Großteil der Opfer sei zwischen 1940 und 1970 geboren; etwa 5 Prozent sind den Angaben zufolge über 80 Jahre alt. Etwa zwei Drittel der Antragsteller seien Flamen, ein Drittel Wallonen.

Das Schiedsgericht, das seit Monatsbeginn tagt, habe bisher sieben Einigungen erzielen können, berichtet die Zeitung. “Den Opfern ist es in erster Linie wichtig, gehört und anerkannt zu werden”, betonte die Vorsitzende des parlamentarischen Sonderausschusses, Karine Lalieux, dem Bericht zufolge. Anträge könnten noch bis Ende Oktober eingereicht werden. Das Verfahren soll insbesondere jenen Opfern Entschädigung gewähren, deren Fälle strafrechtlich verjährt sind.

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FL – Archbishop owes flock an explanation for sudden reversal

FLORIDA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Barbara Dorris on October 25, 2012

We are grateful that Fr. Garcia has been suspended. We are appalled that it has taken years. Wenski owes his flock and explanation and St. Agatha parishioners an apology.

Among many other questions, the most troubling is this: why does it take four lawsuits and two settlements to get Fr. Rolando Garcia ousted from his job?

This is the latest – and most egregious – example of how many bishops are violating their pledges of reform.

Archdiocesan officials settled two cases against Garcia years ago. Now, Wenski claims that no case against him is ‘credible?’ We hope Wenski’s flock will demand to know why their church officials are apparently paying money to victims who they deem “not credible.”

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No papal pardon soon for ex butler

VATICAN CITY
IOL

October 25 2012
By Philip Pullella

Vatican City – The Vatican on Thursday moved Pope Benedict’s former butler, who admitted leaking sensitive documents, from house arrest to a cell in the city-state’s police station and indicated he would not be getting a papal pardon anytime soon.

In a detailed statement that attacked Paolo Gabriele for violating papal trust, the Vatican insisted he acted alone in what it called a personal “criminal plan” that resulted in the biggest breach of Vatican security in recent history.

Gabriele, who was sentenced to 18 months by a court on Oct. 6 for stealing and leaking the documents, was moved to the cell to serve the remainder of his term after the prosecution decided not to appeal, making the ruling definitive. The prosecution had asked for three years.

“(This) puts an end to a sad situation that has had many painful consequences,” the Vatican statement said.

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US – Scouts abuse scandal-where’s the action?

UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Barbara Dorris on October 25, 2012

It’s been a week since BSA abuse and cover up files were released. It’s been more than a week since BSA officials pledged to “notify law enforcement of any allegations that have not already been disclosed.”

So is this happening? If so, where’s the proof?

And if not, why not?

Every day that information about known and suspected child sex crimes stays hidden, kids are needlessly and recklessly and callously put at risk. Every day this information stays hidden enables child molesters to destroy evidence, intimidate victims, threaten witnesses, discredit whistleblowers, fabricate alibis, and flee elsewhere. Every day this information stays hidden, the chances increase that statute of limitations.

And where are the names of Scout officials who have been ousted for ignoring or concealing known and suspected child sex crimes?

Months ago, three Penn State officials were ousted in the Jerry Sandusky debacle. This week, a BBC official stepped down in the Jimmy Savile controversy.

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Credibly Accused Priest Returned to Ministry

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Voice from the Desert

Sister Maureen Paul Turlish

On Monday, October 15th, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia announced its decision to restore Rev. Joseph DiGregorio to ministry, a priest credibly accused of the sexual exploitation of a minor.

[Read the story here.]

It did so while releasing as little information as possible.

The archdiocese’s poor record of accountability and transparency began to become known as early as 2002 when on April 26th then Cardinal Anthony Bevilaequa was quoted on a CNN News night report saying, “We all are agreed that no priest guilty of even one act of sexual abuse of a minor will function in any ecclesial ministry or any capacity in our diocese.”

That was 2002.

Later the 2005 and 2011 grand jury reports highlighted in graphic detail the lack of accountability and transparency shown by three Philadelphia archbishops — Cardinals Krol, Bevilaequa and Rigali.

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Former minister fights molestation charge

MISSISSIPPI
Associated Baptist Press

By Bob Allen

A former Southern Baptist music minister is asking a Mississippi judge to dismiss an eight-count indictment charging him with sex crimes in the 1980s, claiming the allegations are too old to be prosecuted.

Lawyers for John Langworthy, associate pastor of music and ministries at Morrison Heights Baptist Church in Clinton, Miss., before his September 2011 arrest, filed a motion recently contending the statute of limitations has expired that would allow authorities to file the charges.

John LangworthyLangworthy, 50, resigned from his church job before confessing to the congregation Aug. 7, 2011, to “sexual indiscretions with younger males” that he said occurred before he moved to Clinton 22 years ago. A month later he was arrested for alleged molestation of five boys, ages 10-13, that he contacted through volunteer work at two Baptist churches while a student at Baptist-affiliated Mississippi College between 1980 and 1984.

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Time may jeopardize sex charges

MISSISSIPPI
Clarion Ledger

[with video]

Written by
Ruth Ingram

A Hinds County judge will rule on whether too much time has passed for former Clinton High choir director and music minister John Langworthy to face felony gratification of lust charges.

Langworthy was music minister at Morrison Heights Baptist Church before his arrest in September 2011. An eight-count indictment charges him with sexually molesting five boys ages 10-13 between April 1980 and December 1984, with the alleged sexual abuse occurring at the boys’ Jackson homes, Langworthy’s sister’s home in Jackson, or in Langworthy’s dorm room at Mississippi College.

Clinton police charged him with two counts of gratification of lust; Jackson police charged him with six. Langworthy pleaded innocent before Hinds County Circuit Court Judge Bill Gowan, who will rule on a motion filed Sept. 21 by Langworthy’s attorney, Jeffrey Rimes.

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Priest put on leave amid sex allegations

FLORIDA
Sun Sentinel

October 24, 2012|By James D. Davis Staff writer

The Rev. Rolando Garcia was placed on administrative leave Wednesday, a day after a 34-year-old man filed suit against the Archdiocese of Miami, saying the priest molested him when he was a teenager living in Hollywood.

“The Archdiocese will offer counseling to the alleged victim and conduct an investigation following procedures outlined in ‘Protecting God’s Children’ [policy],” according to a release from the archdiocesan communications office.

In the lawsuit, Tony Simmons alleges that Garcia initiated a sexual relationship with him around 1994, when Garcia was at Little Flower Church in Hollywood and, Simmons was a 16-year-old runaway.

“I’ve got a daughter and a boy that’s coming,” said Simmons, who lives in Charlottesville, Va. “I don’t want this to happen to anyone else.”

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Ex-papal butler starts jail term in Vatican

VATICAN CITY
WAND

VATICAN CITY (AP) – Pope Benedict XVI’s former butler is starting his 18-month prison sentence in a Vatican City cell for the theft of papal correspondence.

But the Vatican’s secretary of state’s office in a statement left open the possibility of a papal pardon if Paolo Gabriele repents and asks the pope for forgiveness.

The Thursday statement said the deadline to appeal the Oct. 6 conviction by a Vatican tribunal had elapsed. It described as “mild and fair” the punishment given to Gabriele, who used to serve Benedict his meals and helped him get ready for ceremonies. It noted that Benedict, as sovereign head, has the power to pardon.

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Pope ex-butler to be moved to jail cell in Vatican

VATICAN CITY
Chicago Tribune

Reuters

7:52 a.m. CDT, October 25, 2012

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Paolo Gabriele, Pope Benedict’s former butler who was convicted this month for stealing papal documents and leaking them to the media, will be moved from house arrest to a Vatican jail cell, the Vatican said on Thursday.

A statement said Gabriele would moved later on Thursday to the Vatican’s police station to carry out the rest of his 18-month sentence.

The Vatican said the decision to end house arrest for Gabriele, who has been living with his family in their apartment in the Vatican, was taken after both the defense and the prosecution decided not to appeal the sentence.

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DECLARATION BY HOLY SEE PRESS OFFICE DIRECTOR CONCERNING THE SENTENCE AGAINST PAOLO GABRIELE

VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, (VIS) – “Since no appeals have been filed against the sentence passed on Paolo Gabriele on 6 October, that sentence has become final. Therefore, by mandate of the president of the Tribunal, the promoter of justice this morning ordered the guilty party be imprisoned, in enactment of the sentence. The order will be carried out during the course of the day”, reads a declaration made today by Holy See Press Office Director Fr. Federico Lombardi S.J.

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COMMUNIQUE OF THE SECRETARIAT OF STATE

VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, (VIS) – Given below is the text of a communique released today by the Secretariat of State.

“The sentence in the trial of Paolo Gabriele, which has now become final, puts a full stop to the end of a sad affair which has had very painful consequences.

“A personal offence was done to the Holy Father; the right to privacy of the many people who, by virtue of their office, addressed themselves to him was violated; the Holy See and a number of her institutions suffered prejudice; communications between the bishops of the world and the Holy See were hindered, and scandal was caused among the community of the faithful. Finally, for a period of many months the serenity of the working community which daily serves the Successor of Peter was disturbed.

“The accused admitted his guilt at the end of a judicial process which took place transparently and justly, and with full respect for the rights of the defence. The trial was able to ascertain the facts, showing that Mr Gabriele had carried our his criminal plans not at the instigation or incitement of third parties, but on the basis of his own personal convictions, which can in no way be shared. Various conjectures about the existence of plots or the involvement of other people have, in the light of the sentence, been shown to be false.

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Kritik an Pfarrerinitiative (01:36)

OSTERREICH
ORF

[Video]

Heftige Kritik an der Pfarrerinitiative kommt von der Plattform “Betroffene kirchlicher Gewalt”. Denn bei der Wahl der Mitglieder zeigt sich: Auch Priester, die in ihrer Funktion Kinder missbraucht haben, sind darunter.

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MD – Victims wants Catholic officials’ help

SILVER SPRING (MD)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on October 25, 2012

■Victims wants Catholic officials’ help
■Suburban DC priest is under investigation
■He allegedly abused four teens/young adults
■Group wants Catholic prelate to “warn his flock” about the accused cleric
■They also want Silver Spring church organization to oust him as their director
■And SNAP urges Cardinal Wuerl: Post names of all predator priests on your website

What
Holding signs and childhood photos at a sidewalk news conference, clergy sex abuse victims and their supporters will urge the District of Columbia’s top Catholic official to:
–warn his flock about a local priest who is facing at least four sex abuse allegations, and
–post on his diocesan website the names, photos and whereabouts of every predator priest who lived or worked in the archdiocese.
They will also prod
–a Silver Spring Catholic group headed by the accused priest to oust him, and
–anyone who may have seen, suspected, or suffered clergy crimes in the DC area to come forward, call police, expose wrongdoing, protect kids and start healing.

WHEN
Thursday, October 25 at 12:30 PM

WHERE
Outside the headquarters of a Catholic group headed by the accused predator, the Resource Center for Religious Institutes (RCRI), 8824 Cameron St. in Silver Spring, MD 20910

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‘My worst nightmare’

IRELAND
The Irish Catholic

Michael Kelly

A priest has said he feels “a great sense of relief” after being cleared of an abuse allegation, an experience he describes as “any priest’s worst nightmare”.

Co. Louth-based Fr Oliver Brennan (67) also said he feels let down by Church authorities who he said failed to show him compassion and respect.

Fr Brennan, who stepped down following an allegation in August 2010, also expressed dismay that he was only cleared by Cardinal Seán Brady at the weekend despite the civil authorities saying he had no case to answer almost a year ago.

During the more-than-two-years that Fr Brennan has been out of ministry he has been unable to say Mass publicly or celebrate the sacraments.

“It has been my worst nightmare,” he admitted to The Irish Catholic this week after 40 years service in the priesthood. He was immediately forced to step aside and leave his parish under guidelines that have been criticised by priests’ representatives as too draconian.

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Church shamed by sex abuse: Archbishop

AUSTRALIA
The West Australian

Kate Emery, The West Australian
Updated October 25, 2012

Perth’s new Catholic Archbishop says the Church’s “shameful” history of sexual abuse is to blame for it no longer being “heard or respected” in public debate.

Timothy Costelloe said there was a growing gap between Catholic values and those accepted in society, with the Church “sidelined, attacked and ridiculed” for expressing its views on everything from abortion and marriage to the treatment of asylum seekers.

In an unusual move, Archbishop Costelloe, writing in Catholic newspaper The Record, suggested the Church must shoulder some blame for its loss of community standing.

His comments come amid renewed criticism of the Church’s methods for dealing with abuse allegations, which have been aired at Victoria’s parliamentary inquiry into child sexual abuse.

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Top Pick for Illinois US Attorney Represented Jesuits in Sex Abuse Cases

ILLINOIS
What They Knew

In another chapter of the best defense money can buy, we look at one of the top picks to replace Patrick Fitzgerald as the US Attorney (chief federal prosecutor) in the State of Illinois. The Chicago Tribune named the top picks to replace the outgoing Jesuit friendly US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, and surprise of all surprises one of the top names up for consideration is one (of many) of the Chicago Province of the Society of Jesus’ criminal defense attorneys, Patrick Collins.

Mr. Collins has a very impressive resume both as a prosecutor and in the realm of criminal and civil defense. However, he leaves out one of his most surprising and major accomplishments, keeping the Jesuit hierarchy in Chicago out of jail and away from the police and juries.

From the documents below we can see how Mr. Collins deftly maneuvered through the murky facts that his client, the Chicago Province:
■failed to report the sexual abuse of minors to the police for decades
■failed to turn over documents to Wisconsin Prosecutors and the Police
■Collins limited the scope of the investigation by his former employer, the US Department of Justice, into the federal criminal activity of the Chicago Jesuit Province
■Lastly, advised the Chicago Jesuits on PR and the handling of multiple state criminal complaints, especially in Arizona

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Lawsuit against local diocese, priest settled

LOUISIANA
Daily Comet

By Katie Urbaszewski
Staff Writer

A lawsuit that accuses a former Houma priest of molesting a child and the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux of protecting him has been settled, the accuser’s attorney said.

The now-retired Rev. Etienne LeBlanc was interviewed by attorneys last month, and both sides began to work toward a settlement after the interviews were completed, said the accuser’s attorney Roger Stetter.

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Catholic priest gets placed on leave

FLORIDA
WSVN

SOUTHWEST MIAMI-DADE, Fla. (WSVN) — A Catholic priest has been placed on leave after allege sexual allegations.

The Archdiocese of Miami has placed Father Rolando Garcia on administrative leave on Wednesday.

Garcia is the pastor at Saint Agatha Catholic Church’ in Southwest Miami-Dade.

The Archdiocese made the move just a day after a man came forward, filing suit claiming he was sexually abused by Father Garcia as a child.

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Sex offender accused of giving fake medical exams at AZ church

PHOENIX (AZ)
KPHO

By Breann Bierman

PHOENIX (CBS5) –
A convicted sex offender has been arrested for allegedly performing fake medical examinations on a boy at a Phoenix church.

Phoenix police said on Oct. 6, the 15-year-old victim told his mother that Eduardo De Los Reyes had been touching him inappropriately in the medical room at the construction site for their church on West Grand Avenue.

When the mother approached Reyes, he told her not to call police and “to think of his family,” according to the police report.

The woman called police and Reyes was arrested. He told police he volunteered at the church and had been attending nursing school but didn’t finish school because he was arrested for exposing himself to a juvenile in 2010. At the time of the arrest, Reyes was also in violation of his sex offender registration because he wasn’t living in the home where he was registered, police said.

Reyes also has an indecent exposure conviction from 1998 in Bakersfield, CA.

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Abuse sidelines Church in public debate, says archbishop

AUSTRALIA
CathNews

The Archbishop of Perth says the Church’s “shameful” history of sexual abuse has resulted in it no longer being “heard or respected” in public debate, reports The West Australian.

Archbishop Timothy Costelloe, writing in The Record, said there was a growing gap between Catholic values and those accepted in society, with the Church “sidelined, attacked and ridiculed” for expressing its views on everything from abortion and marriage to the treatment of asylum seekers.

Archbishop Costelloe suggested the Church must shoulder some blame for its loss of community standing.

His comments come amid renewed criticism of the Church’s methods for dealing with abuse allegations, which have been aired at Victoria’s parliamentary inquiry into child sexual abuse.

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Man accused of sexually abusing teen at Phoenix church

PHOENIX (AZ)
azfamily.com

by Jennifer Thomas
azfamily.com

Posted on October 24, 2012

PHOENIX — A registered sex offender was arrested Monday for allegedly sexually abusing a 15-year-old boy in Phoenix.

Eduardo De Los Reyes, 46, was booked into jail for sexual conduct with a minor, sexual abuse and sexually motivated kidnapping.

The victim recently told his mother that he was inappropriately touched by a member of the church they attend, according to Phoenix police spokesman Sgt. Steve Martos.

The boy’s mother arranged to meet De Los Reyes and also called police. During initial questioning of the suspect, he denied having any involvement in this crime.

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Archdiocese seeks settlement following abuse scandal

MILWAUKEE (WI)
Marquette Tribune

October 25, 2012

By Seamus Doyle

The Archdiocese of Milwaukee, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on January 4, 2011, failed last week to reach an out-of-court settlement with those to whom it owed money, namely victims of sexual abuse.

With mediation over, the archdiocese must now return to costly bankruptcy court proceedings to come to an agreement with those filing suit against it.

“The archdiocese had spent about $7.2 million as of Aug. 1 for attorneys and consultants on both sides, and more than $300,000 in fees has been added since then, according to court records,” the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported on Oct. 15.

Unlike many other court proceedings, in bankruptcy court, the debtor (in this case the archdiocese) has to pay legal and court fees for both sides.

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Miami archdiocese suspends priest accused of sexual abuse

FLORIDA
Miami Herald

The archdiocese changed course Wednesday and suspended the Rev. Rolando Garcia, pastor of St. Agatha Church, after an Iraq veteran accused him of abuse in the 1990s in Hollywood.

BY JAY WEAVER
jweaver@MiamiHerald.com

When an Iraqi war veteran publicly accused the pastor of St. Agatha Catholic Church of sexually abusing him in the 1990s, the Archdiocese of Miami issued a statement admonishing the news media for not asking tougher questions of his lawyer about the molestation claims.

The archdiocese immediately countered Tuesday that the attorney had filed “several lawsuits” in the past against the archdiocese in which he accused St. Agatha’s Rolando Garcia of abusing boys. “And yet to date, none have been proven credible,” the archdiocese declared.

But late Wednesday, the archdiocese dramatically changed course, saying Garcia “was placed on administrative leave” because of the lawsuit brought by the war veteran, Tony Simmons.

The previous day, Simmons stood with his lawyer in front of St. Agatha in West Miami-Dade to announce he was a 16-year-old runaway when he met Garcia at the Church of the Little Flower in Hollywood in 1994.

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St. Agatha’s Priest On Administrative Leave Amid Sex Abuse Lawsuit

FLORIDA
CBS Miami

[with video]

MIAMI (CBS4) – The Archdiocese of Miami has placed Father Rolando Garcia on administrative leave for the second time this year after a new lawsuit alleging sexual improprieties is filed against him and the church.

In August, an Archdiocese investigation into allegations the father abused a young man years ago resulted in the church closing its case and ruling the allegations were not credible. Still, that young man and his attorney proceeded to file suit.

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October 24, 2012

Response to new lawsuit against archdiocese

FLORIDA
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Miami

Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Communications Department – Archdiocese of Miami
Archdiocese of Miami statement regarding new allegation against Fr. Rolando Garcia
Tuesday, October 23, 2012

MIAMI| The Archdiocese of Miami has learned of a lawsuit filed by attorney Jeffrey Herman alleging sexual abuse by Father Rolando Garcia, pastor of St. Agatha Catholic Church.

Mr. Herman has filed several lawsuits against the Archdiocese of Miami involving Fr. Garcia, and yet to date, none have been proven credible.

This is how the Archdiocese of Miami handles any allegation of sexual abuse: Our policy “Protecting God’s Children” is very clear; once an allegation is received:

It is reported to the county-appropriate State Attorney’s office.

Counseling is offered to the alleged victim and accused.

An internal investigation is conducted by canon and civil lawyers to determine credibility.
The findings of the internal investigation are brought to the Archdiocesan Review Board which consists of an attorney, two doctors, including a psychiatrist, a community leader, and a member of the clergy.

Upon the conclusion of this meeting, the findings are reported to Archbishop Thomas Wenski.

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Statement of the Archdiocese of Miami regarding Fr. Rolando Garcia

FLORIDA
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Miami

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Communications Department – Archdiocese of Miami
Statement of Archdiocese of Miami
Regarding Fr. Rolando Garcia
Wednesday, October 24, 2012

The Archdiocese of Miami has announced that Fr. Roland Garcia, pastor of St. Agatha Catholic Church, was placed on administrative leave today due to an allegation brought forth against him by Mr. Tony Simmons yesterday, October 22, 2012.

The Archdiocese had no prior notice of this allegation before yesterday’s press conference announcing this latest lawsuit against Fr. Rolando Garcia and the Archdiocese of Miami.

Upon learning of this allegation, the Archdiocese, in addition to having placed Father Garcia on administrative leave, the Archdiocese will offer counseling to the alleged victim and conduct an investigation following procedures outlined in Protecting God’s Children.

This past August, when an allegation was made against Fr. Garcia, the Archdiocese contacted him while Father was on vacation in Cuba. At that time, Archbishop Wenski placed Father Garcia on administrative leave and instructed that he not return to St. Agatha’s until an investigation had been complete. Fr. Garcia was extremely cooperative and voluntarily took a lie detector test that supported his denial of having abused anyone at any time. At that time, the Archdiocese also interviewed the alleged victim.

With the investigation completed and upon the recommendation of the Archdiocesan Review Board, it was determined that the allegation was not credible. Archbishop Wenski returned Fr. Garcia to his parish following his ten-day leave. Upon his return, Fr. Garcia read his statement at every Mass on the August 24-25, 2012, providing full disclosure of the allegation and the outcome of the investigation. Subsequent to these events, lawsuit was filed against Fr. Garcia and the Archdiocese of Miami.

In that case and in the present one, the Archdiocese of Miami has followed its policy Protecting God’s Children on the procedures to follow when any allegation of sexual abuse is made.

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Victim interviews nearly done in church abuse case

MONTANA
San Francisco Chronicle

MATT VOLZ, Associated Press

Updated 3:16 p.m., Wednesday, October 24, 2012

HELENA, Mont. (AP) — The Roman Catholic Diocese of Helena and 319 people who say priests and nuns sexually abused them as children are making progress toward a mediated settlement, attorneys representing the sides said Wednesday.

The two combined lawsuits allege decades of clergy sexual abuse in missions, schools and homes in western Montana going back to the 1940s. The plaintiffs, many of them Native Americans, say the diocese knew or should have known about the abuse, but covered it up instead of stopping it.

Earlier this year, the diocese pledged to cooperate with the plaintiffs’ attorneys in identifying victims and working toward a mediated settlement. Diocese attorney Mike Patterson called this approach a different template from past sex abuse lawsuits across the nation in which a diocese would declare bankruptcy and let those involved deal with the aftermath.

On Wednesday, the sides appeared before District Judge Jeffrey Sherlock in Helena to update the case.

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St. Agatha Catholic Church Pastor …

FLORIDA
NBC 6

St. Agatha Catholic Church Pastor Placed on Administrative Leave After Latest Sexual Abuse Allegations: Archdiocese

By Edward B. Colby

Wednesday, Oct 24, 2012

The Archdiocese of Miami announced Wednesday that it has placed Father Rolando Garcia on administrative leave because of the newest sexual abuse allegations brought against him.

The Archdiocese said in a statement that it did not know about the allegations from Tony Simmons before he made them public in a news conference Tuesday.

After learning about them, the Archdiocese put Garcia, who is the pastor of St. Agatha Catholic Church, on administrative leave on Wednesday. The Archdiocese also said it will offer counseling to Simmons and investigate the matter following procedures in its “Protecting God’s Children” policy.

Simmons said he was a 16-year-old runaway when he met Garcia at Church of the Little Flower in Hollywood in 1994. A lawsuit filed Tuesday says that Garcia initially gave him assistance and counseling, but began sexually abusing Simmons after they went to a movie one night.

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Radio host: evangelicals ignoring abuse

UNITED STATES
Associated Baptist Press

By Bob Allen

A Christian radio host says it’s time for evangelical churches to wake up to an “epidemic” of sexual abuse of children going on in their midst.

Janet Mefferd“I don’t know how long evangelicalism can ignore this problem,” host Janet Mefferd said Oct. 18 on her syndicated radio show from Dallas, heard daily on over 100 stations across the nation. “I really don’t.”

The segment included an interview with Susan Burke, the attorney representing three anonymous women in a lawsuit alleging a cover-up of sexual abuse by Sovereign Grace Ministries, a Calvinist church-planting network with close ties to Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky.

Mefferd said she wasn’t talking just about the Sovereign Grace lawsuit, because those allegations are unproven, but about the “appalling” number of hits that can be generated any day by typing terms like “sexual abuse” or “sexual assault” along with “pastor,” “minister” or “church.”

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Is the Catholic Church behind the BBC’s Child Sexual Abuse Scandal?

UNITED KINGDOM
The Catholic World Reort

October 24, 2012

By Mark Brumley

You might expect such a headline, given the seemingly disportionate attention the Catholic Church has received for clergy sexual abuse. Mind you, CWR covered clergy sexual abuse from the outset and criticized folks high and low. It’s not exactly as if we simply wanted to change the subject. At the same time, it seems that other institutions involved with cover ups of child sexual abuse have often gotten, if not a pass, at least disproportionately less attention.

That situation is starting to change. A recent case in point: the BBC. Yes, you read correctly. The BBC is being accused of sexual abuse and cover up. According to an AP story:

“A sexual abuse scandal shaking the BBC broadened Tuesday, with the broadcaster saying that it is investigating claims of sexual abuse and harassment against nine staff members and contributors, in addition to the late disgraced children’s TV host Jimmy Savile.

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Former priest to stand trial on sex charges

CANADA
The Observer

Former Catholic priest, Gabriele DelBianco, who is charged with sexual offences involving teenage girls, will face a Superior Court trial on all charges.

DelBianco was the subject of three-day preliminary hearing that ended Wednesday in Sarnia court.

He was charged in 2011 with offences involving four girls that allegedly occurred between 1981 and 1987.

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Open meeting of the ACI to coincide with ACP annual meeting

IRELAND
Association of Catholic Priests

A joint event, involving the AGM of the ACP and an open meeting of the new lay group, the Association of Catholics of Ireland, will take place at the Regency Hotel, Dublin on Friday 9th and Saturday 10th November.

Programme:
◦Friday evening, Nov. 9th: Open session: Talk by Peter McVerry on “Justice in the Church and in Society”, followed by open discussion.
◦Saturday Morning: 9.15 to 10.30am: Business meeting of ACP (Clergy only). This meeting will look at a proposed new constitution for the association: there will be a financial report, and time for any other business.
◦Saturday morning: 11.00 to 1.00: Open meeting of the ACI to approve of their aims and objectives, and chart the way forward. Everyone welcome to that, including clergy members of the ACP

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Americans United Says Taxpayers Have Right To Challenge Church Control Of Federal Program

UNITED STATES
Americans United for Separation of Church and State

[Click here to read the story]

Oct 24, 2012

When the federal government lets a church group impose religious doctrine on a publicly funded program, taxpayers have the right to take the matter to court.

That’s the viewpoint put forward by Americans United for Separation of Church and State in a friend-of-the-court brief filed with the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals today.

The appeals court is considering a case in which the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in 2006 gave the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops control over a program that helps sex-trafficking victims. The bishops’ conference then denied funding to other social service agencies unless they promised not to use the public dollars for abortion or contraceptive services.

The American Civil Liberties Union challenged the arrangement, saying it violated church-state separation and denied essential services to trafficking victims.

A federal district court ruled in the ACLU’s favor, but now the bishops’ conference and HHS are claiming that the case should be thrown out because taxpayers have no “standing” to bring matters like this into court.

Said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United executive director, “It is an outrage that the federal government allowed a church group to deny essential public services to hurting people on religious grounds. It would compound that outrage if concerned citizens were not allowed to bring this violation into court.”

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Original sin and clergy sex abuse

AUSTRALIA
Eureka Street

ANDREW HAMILTON October 24, 2012

Being a Catholic priest during public enquiries into sexual abuse within the Church is a bracing experience. Infinitely less hurtful than being the victim of abuse, of course. But it prompts musing about the ways in which evil actions work out in a group and affect the individual members of the group and its perception by others.

In many cultures these questions run so deep they can be caught only through symbol. In Greek myths and tragedies they are explored through what happens in a family, or house, in which monstrous deeds are fated. They taint the house and work their way destructively through later generations. In the stories connected with Oedipus, for example, the consequences are fated and individuals are passive before them. Their best efforts to escape only create the circumstances of the doom that awaits them and those associated with them.

The proper response to such events when embodied in drama is one of terror and pity. This is how we would respond to a natural disaster when allowed to enter the human experience of those caught in it.

The Christian teaching about original sin can helpfully be seen through the lens of this myth. It understands the whole of humanity to be affected by a taint which goes back to Adam’s sin. Its consequences are death. The curse that in the Greek tragedies affected particular families or groups is now universal.

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Former Lincoln priest, a convicted sex offender…

ILLINOIS
Pantagraph

Former Lincoln priest, a convicted sex offender, ordered to stop practicing psychology

By Kurt Erickson | kurt.erickson@lee.net

SPRINGFIELD -State regulators have ordered a former Catholic priest and convicted sex offender in Lincoln to stop the unlicensed practice of clinical psychology.

The Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation found Francis A. Benham had been claiming he was a doctor who provides psychotherapy services when he had neither a doctorate degree nor a state license to practice as a clinical psychologist.

Records show Benham had business cards identifying him as a doctor and advertised himself in a local phone directory as a “psychotherapist.”

The new citation, signed by agency director Jay Stewart, is the latest in a series of legal problems the 74-year-old has faced. Benham was arrested in Lincoln in July 2004 on sex charges and was extradited to Maryland where he was convicted of having sex with minors between 1977 and 1979 while serving as a priest in Prince Georges County.

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Former pastor of St. Leo in Bonita Springs removed from priesthood

FLORIDA
News-Press

Written by
Christina Cepero

The former pastor of St. Leo Catholic Church in Bonita Springs is no longer a priest, according to a decision from a three-judge panel of priests from outside the Diocese of Venice.

Bishop Frank Dewane issued a letter to parishioners explaining the outcome of the canonical trial.

“By collegial decision, the judges discerned a pattern which demonstrated that Stanislaw Strycharz violated his fiduciary responsibilities to the Parish, his priestly promise to celibacy, and his promise of obedience to his Ordinary,” Dewane wrote. “They declared that Mr. Strycharz no longer has the ‘power, office, function, right, privilege, faculty, favor, title or insignia’ of the ministerial priesthood. This means that he is unable to function anywhere as a priest.”

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Vatican newsflash: Pope to name six new cardinals

VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

by John L. Allen Jr. | Oct. 24, 2012 NCR Today

Rome —
During a Synod of Bishops that has been somewhat short of banner headlines, Pope Benedict XVI made some news today, announcing a consistory for the creation of six new cardinals Nov. 24.

One veteran American made the cut, as did a couple of prelates from the developing world considered possible papal contenders in some circles.

The new cardinals are:
• James Harvey, American, the longtime head of the Papal Household under John Paul II and Benedict XVI. The pope said he intends to nominate as Archpriest of the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls.
• His Beatitude Bechara Boutros Raï, patriarch of the Maronite Church in Lebanon.
• His Beatitude Baselios Cleemis Thottunkal, head of the Syro-Mankar Church in India.
• Archbishop John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan of Abuja, Nigeria, long considered one of the leading voices of Catholicism in Africa.
• Archbishop Rubén Salazar Gómez of Bogota, Colombia.
• Archbishop Luis Antonio Tagle of Manila in the Philippines, considered one of the brightest theological minds among the Asia bishops and also one of their best communicators.

Tagle, 55, and Onayiekan, 68, both could draw consideration as possible successors to Benedict XVI if the mood at the time of the next conclave is to look for leadership to the booming church in the global south.

Tagle has turned heads during the current Synod of Bishops on new evangelization for his emphasis on a humbler, simpler church with a greater capacity for silence while Onayiekan has won praise for his balanced view on Islam — insisting that despite the violence of the “Boko Haram” movement, “Christians in Nigeria do not see themselves as being under any massive persecution by Muslims.”

Harvey, 63, a Milwaukee native, has served as prefect of the Papal Household since 1988. There was some speculation that when his Vatican service ended he might return to the States to head an American diocese, though today’s announcement suggests he’ll be staying in Rome, at least for the time being.

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CONSISTORY FOR THE CREATION OF SIX NEW CARDINALS

VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, (VIS) – At the end of his general audience today, the Pope announced that he has called a consistory to take place on 24 November, during which he will appoint six new cardinals.

“It is with great joy”, he said, “that I announce my intention to hold a consistory on 24 November, in which I will appoint six new members of the College of Cardinals. Cardinals have the task of helping Peter’s Successor carry out his mission to confirm people in the faith and to be the source and foundation of the Church’s unity and communion”.

The Holy Father then read out the names of the new cardinals. They are:

– Archbishop James Michael Harvey, prefect of the Pontifical Household who, Benedict XVI said, “I intend to appoint as archpriest of the papal basilica of St. Paul’s Outside-the-Walls”.

– His Beatitude Bechara Boutros Rai, patriarch of Antioch of the Maronites, Lebanon.

– His Beatitude Baselios Cleemis Thottunkal, major archbishop of Trivandrum of the Syro-Malankars, India.

– Archbishop John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan of Abuja, Nigeria.

– Archbishop Ruben Salazar Gomez of Bogota, Colombia.

– Archbishop Luis Antonio G. Tagle of Manila, Philippines.

“As you have heard”, the Pope concluded, “the new cardinals carry out their ministry at the service of the Holy See or as fathers and pastors of particular Churches in various parts of the world. I invite everyone to pray for them, asking for the maternal intercession of the Blessed Virgin May that they may always love Christ and His Church with courage and commitment”.

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OK – Embattled church hires big PR firm

TULSA (OK)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Barbara Dorris on October 24, 2012

Embattled officials with Victory Christ Church in Tulsa, OK have hired one of Oklahoma’s largest public relations firm to help it manage allegations that it covered up the rape of a 13-year-old girl on its campus.

Five church officials are facing charges for delaying as long as two weeks to report the girl’s suspected rape.

[Read the story here.]

The firm is the Tulsa-based Schnake Turnbo Franke PR. The account executive who is handling the Victory case is Jarrod Kopp. On the firm’s website, Kopp’s biography says “there’s no telling what he’ll pull from his bag of tricks.” Kopp can be reached at 918-277-1189 or 918-430-3011.

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Legion of Christ controls $28 million estate in Rhode Island

RHODE ISLAND
National Catholic Reporter

by Jason Berry | Oct. 23, 2012

The Legion of Christ drew $2.19 million last year from a $28 million charitable trust that it controls, thanks to Gabrielle Mee, a wealthy widow who spent her final years as a consecrated woman in Regnum Christi, the order’s lay wing. An orthodox Catholic, she was unaware that Marcial Maciel Degollado, the founder of the Legion, had out-of-wedlock children or that the Vatican had banished him from ministry.

The Timothy J. Mee Charitable Trust — established by the late husband of Gabrielle Mee, who died in 2008 — paid the scandal-battered Legion $2.19 million in contributions, gifts and grants last year, according to the trust’s 990 form, a public record that private foundations file with the IRS.

The Timothy Mee trust’s $28.27 million net value is slightly less than half of the $60 million at issue in a lawsuit filed by Gabrielle Mee’s niece against the Legion, Fr. Anthony Bannon and Bank of America, which manages the Timothy Mee trust with the Legion.

The niece, Mary Lou Dauray, sought to revoke the will and retrieve the assets, on grounds that her late aunt was deceived.

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Attack of the Church Apologists

UNITED STATES
Legal Examiner

Posted by Mike Bryant October 24, 2012

Writing the here at the Legal Examiner often comes with anonymous comments that come from people with their own agenda. The hide behind initials and rant about this or that. Funny, when they attack they gloss over the fact that each of us put our name and contact information on everything that we do. So even if it is an incorrect opinion, each of us are standing behind it.

There is the usual stalking that takes place on each malpractice piece. That is always good to drive up the comment numbers.

However, one I got recently was with contact information and a link to a piece that especially raised my interest..

Are the Catholic Church Leaders’ Reactions Really About the Big Money?, Mike Bryant | October 01, 2012 9:13 AM

Now to be fair, the posted comment originally came as a email, so maybe the writer didn’t want to be out in the open, but I figure if you take the time to send some feedback, let’s talk about it.

The link took me to this page:

http://www.themediareport.com/fast-facts/

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Boy Scouts and Catholic Church were inclined to silence on abuse: James Gill

LOUISIANA
The Times-Picayune

By James Gill, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
on October 24, 2012

After Catholic priest Gilbert Gauthe was found to be a child molester in 1974, then-Lafayette Bishop Gerard Frey decided a change was in order. So the next year, Gauthe was assigned extra duties. He became chaplain of the diocesan Boy Scouts. Any pedophile would have whooped, and Gauthe took full advantage.

The Scouts, as their just-released “perversion files” prove, shared the Catholic Church’s determination to shield criminals, sacrificing the innocence of young charges in a doomed attempt to maintain a wholesome public image.

Louisiana always figured prominently in the scandals that engulfed both institutions nationwide. Gauthe was the first to be unmasked in the endless succession of predatory priests who enjoyed years of episcopal protection. After Gauthe pleaded guilty in 1985, and was sentenced to 20 years in the state pen, Rev. Kenneth Doyle, spokesman for the U.S. Catholic Conference in Washington, said: “We don’t want to give the impression that it’s a rampant problem for the church, because it’s not.”

Then, New Orleans journalist Jason Berry, who covered the case, wrote a book predicting years of turmoil and multimillion-dollar court judgments against the church. You know who got that one right. The buggers were rampant for sure.

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