ABUSE TRACKER

UNITED STATES
The New York Times

By JACOB BERNSTEIN

Published: October 5, 2012

Of course, this isn’t exactly how Thomas Roberts — a fairly down-to-earth guy and the 11 a.m. host of “MSNBC Live” — describes himself.

But it is what happened back in September 2000. Mr. Roberts was 27, living in Norfolk, Va., working at an NBC affiliate, and not even fully out of the closet. A friend invited him to Charlotte, N.C., for a party one weekend, where he met someone who gave him a total schoolboy crush.

“I was warned, ‘He has a face that will slay you,’ ” Mr. Roberts said in a phone interview. “And it did. I remember thinking, ‘I’ve never met or seen anybody like this.’ I was very nervous around him. I didn’t know how to compose myself.”

As it happened, the man in question, Patrick Abner, also 27, felt the same way. …

As bright as their relationship was, Mr. Roberts had dark clouds to vanquish. For a decade and a half, he had kept a big secret: he was abused by his parish priest in Baltimore, where he had grown up and attended high school. But once he became involved with Mr. Abner, Mr. Roberts did not want to keep secrets buried.

“Because I fell so hard for Patrick,” Mr. Roberts said, “I wanted him to know me, and know my scars and bruises, the good, the bad.”

With Mr. Abner’s help, Mr. Roberts sought counseling and in 2005 went to the police. The priest, Jerome F. Toohey, was charged with sexual abuse of a minor. He was convicted in February 2006 and served 18 months in prison.

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CHILE
Santiago Times

Tuesday, 09 October 2012
Written by Emily Green

On recommendations of Vatican representative, Órdenes sends official resignation.

Pope Benedict XVI accepted the resignation of Chilean Bishop Marco Antonio Órdenes Fernández Tuesday, according to the Apostolic Nunciature in Chile. Pablo Lizama Riquelme, Archbishop of Antofagasta, has been appointed Apostolic Administrator in the northern city of Iquique, where Órdenes served, and will take up all responsibilities until a new bishop is appointed.

“My decision to leave the bishopric of Iquique was not painless,” Órdenes told local press. “I have made the decision so it will affect me and not affect the rest of the community.”

The first Chilean bishop to ever be investigated by the Vatican, Órdenes’s resignation comes after being investigated for allegations of sexual abuse to a minor brought forth in 2008. Órdenes, 47, was also the youngest bishop to be ordained in Chile.

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VATICAN CITY
Irish Independent

Tuesday October 09 2012

WITH the Pope’s butler now convicted of theft and under Vatican house arrest awaiting a probable pardon from Pope Benedict XVI, the Vatican will be hoping that the Vatileaks scandal can be put behind it. Yet it is not clear that it can.

Even the most conservative of Catholics living here in Rome yearn for transparency and real reform, their initial scepticism of corruption in the Vatican beaten down by years of evidence to the contrary.

The Pope’s spokesman, Federico Lombardi, believes that the media goes too far and presents the normal human frailties in the Vatican’s government as fights, divisions and interest group struggles, which he says goes well beyond reality.

Yet it is precisely the efforts at transparency that seem to cause the Vatican to shoot itself in the foot on a regular basis. …

Transparency around the long-awaited clean-up of how the Vatican dealt with child abuse came in the form of Monsignor Charles Scicluna, who for over a decade took a tough line on abusive priests, many of whom were Irish. Msgnr Scicluna once criticised the “deadly culture of silence” or “omerta” in the church which, he said, “is in itself wrong and unjust”.

Yet now Msgnr Scicluna is being sent back to Malta and no successor has been named.

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PENNSYLVANIA
PA Homepage

Bellefonte, Centre County — A Centre County judge has sentenced former Penn State assistant coach Jerry Sandusky to 30-60 years in prison. That’s essentially a life sentence for the 68-year-old.

Yesterday Jerry Sandusky spoke out from behind prison walls, just hours before he would learn his fate. He recorded a statement and then it was given by his lawyer to Penn State student radio. You can read the complete statement below.

Sandusky, the one-time Penn State football defensive coordinator and national title winner is now a convicted child sex molester. A jury convicted him in June of molesting 10 young boys for more than a decade.

David Clohessy is a child sex abuse victim and now speaks out on behalf of all sex abuse victims, many who remain silent for years like he did. “He’s clearly the most high profile predator ever in history. The fact that justice has been done encourages many other victims to come forward and break their silence get help and call the police,” said Clohessy of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

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IRELAND
Herald

Tuesday October 09 2012

A FORMER priest who indecently assaulted five boys 30 years ago has been given an 18-month jail sentence.

The 76-year-old man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to five counts of indecent assault between 1979 and 1981. The court heard two 11-year-old boys were invited into the accused’s house on the premise of delivering leaflets and were abused.

A 13-year-old boy was indecently assaulted after being photographed for a parish magazine. One victim, aged about 12 years old, was abused at school.

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VATICAN CITY
Edmonton Journal

By The Associated Press October 9, 2012

VATICAN CITY – The pope has accepted the resignation of a Chilean bishop who is under investigation by the Vatican for allegedly sexually abusing a minor.

The resignation of Bishop Marco Antonio Ordenes Fernandez of Iquique, Chile, marks only the second known time that a bishop has resigned amid sex abuse allegations. In 2010, the then-Bishop of Bruges, Roger Vangheluwe, quit after admitting he had molested his nephew for years starting when he a young boy.

The Vatican said Tuesday that the pope has accepted Ordenes’ resignation under the code of canon law that says a bishop must resign if he is sick or because some other “grave” reason makes him unsuitable for his job.

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CHILE
IOL (South Africa)

October 9 2012
By SAPA

Santiago, Chile – A Chilean bishop accused of sexual abuse of a minor has resigned his position, saying he never meant to harm anyone.

Monsignor Marco Antonio Ordenes, the bishop of the city of Iquique, was the highest ranking Roman Catholic priest to be caught in a series of child sex abuse scandals that have so far implicated about 20 priests.

“God is my witness, I have always tried to serve without interest. Many times I erred, but I never sought to hurt, offend or manipulate anybody,” he said.

The Vatican issued a statement Tuesday saying Pope Benedict XVI had accepted his resignation.

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UNITED STATES
Richard Sipe

by A.W. Richard Sipe

September 13, 2012

Isn’t it time for the Catholic Church to have an intelligent and informed dialogue about homosexuality? Headlines about same-sex marriage, widespread sexual abuse of minor boys by clergy, hate crimes and continuing condemnations by the Vatican—even to the point of questioning the validity of ordinations of gay oriented men—make homosexuality and related issues more confused and urgent than ever.

In 1969 I was on a flight from Baltimore to Chicago to participate in an American Medical Association committee meeting to develop a handbook on Human Sexuality (eventually published in 1972). I had in hand the current issue of Time Magazine that featured a cover story on the Stonewall riot in Greenwich Village where the clients of the gay bar rose in protest against police harassment.

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CHILE
The New Age (South Africa)

Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday accepted the resignation of Chilean bishop Marco Antonio Ordenes Fernandez, who is suspected of sexually abusing children, the Vatican said in a statement.

Fernandez is suspected of abusing more than one adolescent when working as a rector in the Tarapaca region in northern Chile, according to the religious information agency I.Media, which said the Vatican was investigating the claims.

On Saturday, the 47-year-old bishop gave an interview with La Tercera daily in which he admitted having had an “imprudent” attitude in his relations with one adolescent, but insisted that he had not been a minor.

Fernandez was ordained by Benedict in 2006.

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UNITED STATES
The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life

[Download the Full Report (1.37MB, 80 pages)]

The number of Americans who do not identify with any religion continues to grow at a rapid pace. One-fifth of the U.S. public – and a third of adults under 30 – are religiously unaffiliated today, the highest percentages ever in Pew Research Center polling.

In the last five years alone, the unaffiliated have increased from just over 15% to just under 20% of all U.S. adults. Their ranks now include more than 13 million self-described atheists and agnostics (nearly 6% of the U.S. public), as well as nearly 33 million people who say they have no particular religious affiliation (14%).3

This large and growing group of Americans is less religious than the public at large on many conventional measures, including frequency of attendance at religious services and the degree of importance they attach to religion in their lives.

However, a new survey by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life, conducted jointly with the PBS television program Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, finds that many of the country’s 46 million unaffiliated adults are religious or spiritual in some way. Two-thirds of them say they believe in God (68%). More than half say they often feel a deep connection with nature and the earth (58%), while more than a third classify themselves as “spiritual” but not “religious” (37%), and one-in-five (21%) say they pray every day. In addition, most religiously unaffiliated Americans think that churches and other religious institutions benefit society by strengthening community bonds and aiding the poor.

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UNITED STATES
Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly

WASHINGTON DC (October 9, 2012) — Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, the national PBS television program produced by Thirteen/WNET, is launching a three-part mini-series, “None of the Above: The Rise of the Religiously Unaffiliated,” based largely on a new survey about the views of the 46 million Americans who say they are not affiliated with any particular religion.

According to the Pew Research Center, one in five American adults — nearly 20 percent of the US population — now describe themselves as religiously unaffiliated, the highest percentage ever in Pew’s polling. Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly partnered with the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life in a survey to delve more deeply into the theological, social and political views of these Americans, who are often called “the nones.”

“We’re getting a growing group, as much as one-fifth of the adult population, that do not identify with some kind of organized religion, and that has a lot of implications for religion, for politics, for society,” Prof. John Green, director of the Bliss Institute at the University of Akron, told Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly. “It represents a very significant change.”

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UNITED STATES
USA Today

9:30AM EST October 9. 2012 – Rebecca Cardone, 21, who grew up Methodist in Texas, is president of the student body at California Lutheran University.

But don’t call her Protestant or even Christian. Cardone is one of the new “Nones” — atheists, agnostics and folks like her who believe “nothing in particular.”

“I like the ambiguity” of going without a label,” she says. “I prefer to stress the importance of acting with compassion rather than choosing a predetermined system of beliefs.”

The big news about people with no religious identity, the Nones, isn’t that they’re No. 2 now in the USA, 19.6% and climbing.

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CIUDAD DEL VATICANO
EFE

Ciudad del Vaticano, 9 oct (EFE).- El papa Benedicto XVI ha cesado al obispo de Iquique (Chile), Marco Antonio Órdenes Fernández, investigado a raíz de una denuncia por abusos sexuales a un menor, informó hoy el Vaticano.

“El Santo Padre ha aceptado la renuncia al Gobierno pastoral de la diócesis de Iquique (Chile), presentada por monseñor Marco Antonio Órdenes Fernández, en base al artículo 401/2 del Código de Derecho Canónico”, señaló el Vaticano en un comunicado.

Esta es la fórmula que el Vaticano usa cuando exige a un prelado que presente su renuncia.

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CHILE
Emol

SANTIAGO.- La Conferencia Episcopal de Chile informó este martes que el Papa Benedicto XVI aceptó la renuncia al gobierno pastoral de la diócesis de Iquique, presentada por el monseñor de esa ciudad Marco Antonio Órdenes Fernández, quien afronta una investigación eclesiástica en su contra por abusos sexuales.

La Nunciatura Apostólica comunicó además que, a partir de la misma fecha, monseñor Pablo Lizama Riquelme, arzobispo de Antofagasta, fue nombrado Administrador Apostólico “sede vacante” de la diócesis de Iquique, con facultades de Obispo diocesano.

Anoche, Órdenes ofreció una conferencia de prensa en la que explicó “no sin dolor”, su determinación de dimitir. “Tomé la decisión de renunciar al obispado de Iquique, de manera que esto, que me afecta de manera, no perjudique al resto de la comunidad”.

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CHILE
La Tercera

Papa Benedicto XVI acepta renuncia de obispo Ordenes y nombra administrador apostólico para Iquique

El Papa Benedicto XVI aceptó la renuncia del obispo Marco Antonio Órdenes y nombró a Monseñor Pablo Lizama Riquelme, arzobispo de Antofagasta, como Administrador Apostólico “sede vacante” de la diócesis de Iquique, con facultades de Obispo diocesano, según señaló la Nunciatura Apostólica en Chile.

La decisión del Santo Padre fue adoptada luego que Órdenes presentará su renuncia al gobierno pastoral de la diócesis de Iquique, en conformidad al canon 401 2 del Código de Derecho Canónico, luego de las denuncias en su contra por supuestos abusos sexuales.

El canon 401 2 del Código de Derecho Canónico establece que “se ruega encarecidamente al Obispo diocesano que presente la renuncia de su oficio si por enfermedad u otra causa grave quedase disminuida su capacidad para desempeñarlo”.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, (VIS) – The Holy Father accepted the resignation from the pastoral care of the diocese of Iquique, Chile, presented by Bishop Marco Antonio Ordenes Fernandez, in accordance with canon 401 para. 2 of the Code of Canon Law.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, (VIS) – A note released today by the Office of Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff provides details concerning the taking of possession of the following titles and diaconates:

– At 11.30 a.m. on Sunday 14 October Cardinal Timothy Michael Dolan, archbishop of New York, U.S.A., will take possession of the title of Nostra Signora di Guadalupe a Monte Mario, Piazza Nostra Signora di Guadalupe 12, Rome.

– At 6 p.m. on Tuesday 23 October Cardinal Thomas Christopher Collins, archbishop of Toronto, Canada, will take possession of the title of San Patrizio, Via Boncompagni 31, Rome.

– At 5 p.m. on Thursday 25 October Cardinal Edwin Frederick O’Brien, grand master of the Equestrian Order of the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, will take possession of the diaconate of San Sebastiano al Palatino, Via di San Bonaventura 1, Rome.

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IRELAND
BBC News

Former Irish President Mary McAleese has said she supports gay marriage.

In an interview with Irish state broadcaster RTE, Mrs McAleese said that she had “no problem with it at all”.

“I’m just thrilled anyone wants to get married,” she said, describing marriage as a “great grace”.

Mrs McAleese said many gay people had endured “interminable loneliness” and praised campaigners who had emphasised that gay people were as entitled as heterosexuals to live on their terms.

Mrs McAleese also described her reaction to the accusation by Cardinal Bernard Law, who was archbishop of Boston at the time, that she had been “a very poor Catholic president”.

She said that she had told the cardinal: “I am not a Catholic president, I’m president of Ireland” where “there were all sorts of people. I’m their president. I happen to be Catholic”.

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IRELAND
Irish Indeendent

By Paul Melia and Barry Duggan

Tuesday October 09 2012

A SENIOR bishop has rejected claims that a paedophile priest admitted to him in jail that he continued to abuse children after a parish transfer.

Bishop of Confert John Kirby insisted allegations that he knew the man known as ‘Priest A’ had abused eight more children after he was moved in 1990 amid allegations of abuse were “incorrect”.

The claims relate to a priest who was sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment in 1994.

It is understood the priest, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was charged with 57 counts of abuse. He served five years. But a newspaper has claimed the priest made a full admission to Bishop Kirby after he was convicted.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

Mon, 10/08/2012

by
Cindy Wooden,
Catholic News Service

Catholic efforts to reach out to lapsed members must show them the relevance of faith today, but “must do so without losing its rootedness in the great living faith tradition of the church,” Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl of Washington told Pope Benedict XVI and bishops from around the world gathered at the Vatican.

Wuerl, appointed by the pope as relator of the world Synod of Bishops on the new evangelization, introduced the synod’s work Oct. 8 with a global overview of the challenge of evangelization today, and laid out the values that he said must be the foundation of the church’s outreach.

Speaking in Latin, the cardinal addressed the pope, synod members, experts and observers for more than 45 minutes. …

At a news conference following his speech, Wuerl was asked if the synod would examine and acknowledge ways, such as the clerical sex abuse crisis, in which the church has alienated Catholics.

“The church is always called to reflect on herself,” the cardinal said. “Every member of the church is called to ask, ‘Am I living out the faith to the fullest?'”

The synod members must ask themselves: “How well are we proclaiming Christ?” he said. “It’s not a matter of words; it’s also a matter of actions, it’s a matter of how we respond to others, it’s also a matter of our prayer life.”

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VATICAN CITY
Chiesa

The spiritual director. Cardinal Sardi. Former manager Ingrid Stampa. All in support of the pope, in words. But Benedict XVI is the first victim of the disaster

by Sandro Magister

ROME, October 8, 2012 – Three years in prison, reduced with attenuating circumstances to a year and a half. This is the penalty to which the tribunal of Vatican City-State has sentenced the pope’s former butler, Paolo Gabriele:

> Sentenza del Tribunale…

But Gabriele’s sentence for the theft of documents from the pope’s apartment does not at all remedy the disorder into which the central government of the Catholic Church has been plunged.

On the contrary, his trial has brought into even greater focus how vulnerable the pope’s sphere of activity is, even when it should have the greatest protection.

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IRELAND
RTE News

Former president Mary McAleese has said she is not troubled by the idea of gay marriage.

She has also revealed that when Cardinal Bernard Law accused her of being “a very poor Catholic president” in front of dignitaries she told him it was none of his business to tell her whether she was or not.

Mrs McAleese made her comments in a pre-recorded television interview with Gay Byrne.

On The Meaning of Life programme, to be broadcast tonight, she reaffirmed her strong support for marriage and the family.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

RITE & REASON: It is right we celebrate the last Vatican council but there were significant failings also, writes GERARD MOLONEY

NEXT THURSDAY marks a momentous anniversary for the Roman Catholic Church as 50 years ago, October 11th, 1962, the opening session of the Second Vatican Council began.

Bishops gathered to consider the great issues affecting the church. Nothing would be quite the same again. It is still difficult to credit the impact and scale of the council’s achievements.

To have lived through that period of change and hope must have been extraordinarily exciting. It was a good time to be alive and to be Catholic. …

Fifty years on, it is right that we celebrate the many insights and achievements of Vatican II but it is clear that there were significant failings also. The council didn’t address adequately major issues around sexual morality, especially contraception, second unions and homosexuality, which have become a source of increasing division within the church.

It failed to address the problem of clericalism and clerical culture, now brought into sharp relief by the sex abuse scandals.

The church failed to put into practice the principle of subsidiarity – in other words, to devolve power to local churches and not centralise everything in Rome. And so there was a failure of collegiality and a failure to give any real voice or authority, not only to lay people and clergy, but also even to local conferences of bishops.

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IRELAND
Leitrim Observer

Published on Monday 8 October 2012

A bishop has rejected allegations that a paedophile priest confessed to him in jail to the continued abuse of children after a parish transfer.

Bishop of Clonfert John Kirby was forced to issue the denial following reports that he moved a known abuser from one parish to another in 1990 and that the convicted cleric went on to attack.

“I am not aware of an acknowledgement by ‘Priest A’ that he abused any child subsequent to October 1990, the date when I first learned of his sexual abuse of a child,” Bishop Kirby said.

The long-serving senior cleric, heavily criticised by the Catholic Church’s own watchdog for mishandling allegations in his diocese, insisted last month that he did not know if the priest went on to abuse after a parish transfer.

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IRELAND
The Sun (United Kingdom)

By CLAIRE GORMAN

Published: 10 hrs ago

SHAMED bishop John Kirby must be prosecuted, furious abuse survivors declared last night.

The call came after reports the bishop was aware a priest he had moved after allegations of child sex abuse went on to target children in a new parish.

Last month he had insisted the cleric did not assault children in the new parish he switched him to.

Abuse survivor Christine Buckley, below, said: “Bishop Kirby needs to be prosecuted by the gardai because he has broken the law.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Altoona Mirror

October 9, 2012

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

HOLLIDAYSBURG – David Clohessy stood alone Monday morning on the side of South Logan Boulevard with a handful of laminated portraits of smiling children clutched tightly in his hands.

At times pausing to wipe tears from his eyes, Clohessy, the director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), said the children in the pictures – his own childhood photo included – were all abused by members of the clergy.

Clohessy said he wants the Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown to share its own portraits: portraits of diocesan priests accused of sexual misconduct and abuse involving children.

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CHILE
Prensa Latina

Santiago de Chile, Oct 8 (Prensa Latina) The Bishop of Iquique, Marco Antonio Ordenes, the youngest of Chile, resigned after being investigated by the Vatican for sexual abuse of a minor.

Ordenes announced his decision in a letter to Pope Benedict XVI, through the apostolic nuncio Ivo Scapolo, representative of the Holy See in the southern country, reported the newspaper La Tercera.

Sources from the clergy confirmed that Scapolo advised the bishop to submit his resignation at a meeting they held in early October.

After the Vatican accepts the request, one of the bishops of the Great North could assume his duties temporarily, as apostolic administrator.

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PENNSYLVANIA
We Are Central PA

By: Kevin Flanigan

Updated: October 8, 2012

ALLEGHENY TOWNSHIP, BLAIR COUNTY – A demonstration to draw attention to child sexual abuse was set up outside the Altoona -Johnstown Catholic Diocese office near Hollidaysburg by a national group on Monday morning.

The national director of “Survivors network of those Abused by Priests” organized the event. David Clohessy says he was the victim of abuse at the hands of a Priest when he was a child. He stood outside the Church Offices holding a sign with photos of children he said were a few of the victims of child sexual abuse at the hands of priests.

Clohessy, as representative of “SNAP” is calling on Bishop Mark Bartchak to seek out victims of abuse and publicize the names of other priests suspected of abuse. The demand comes after an investigation into allegations that another local priest, Father George Koharchik, is responsible for molesting a number of young victims. That case is now in the hands of the Cambria County District Attorney. No criminal charges have been filed.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

PATSY McGARRY

BACKGROUND: IT IS over six weeks since this reporter was first contacted by a known and trusted source with information indicating that the Bishop of Clonfert, John Kirby, had been aware since the mid-1990s that a priest he had moved following a report of child abuse, continued to abuse children in the new parish.

In subsequent discussion with this and other sources it also emerged that the priest, who was sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment for the sexual abuse of one child, told Bishop Kirby in the mid-1990s that he had abused 17 children in the diocese. Five of those children, it was indicated, had been abused in Creagh parish, to which the priest had been moved by Bishop Kirby in 1990.

This was contrary to statements issued by the bishop on September 5th and at weekend Masses in Clonfert diocese on September 15th and 16th last. In each he suggested that the priest did not abuse in the parish to which he moved him. The Irish Times remains confident of the credibility of its sources in preparing this story.

But there is another matter. Three weeks ago, on September 17th last, Bishop Kirby was facilitated with all the details published in The Irish Times yesterday by way of a number of specific questions. On receipt of those details, through the Catholic Communications Office in Maynooth, he asked to meet this reporter to discuss same. That was agreed. He was also informed that the meeting would be on the record. It was suggested it take place coincident with the Irish Episcopal Conference’s autumn meeting at Maynooth, on September 25th and 26th last.

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VATICAN CITY
Irish Times

PADDY AGNEW

In a surprising development, Pope Benedict has appointed Msgr Charles Scicluna of the Congregation For The Doctrine Of The Faith (CDF) to the post of auxiliary bishop of his native Malta.

In his role as Chief Prosecutor at the CDF, Msgr Scicluna (53) for much of the last decade has been the Holy See’s senior man with regard to priests and allegations of sexual abuse.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

PATSY McGARRY, Religious Affairs Correspondent

THE BISHOP of Clonfert, John Kirby, has denied reports in this newspaper yesterday that he “had knowledge or suspicion” that a priest known as “Priest A” continued to abuse children subsequent to him learning of the cleric’s conduct in October 1990.

He also stated that contrary to what was reported, he had not been “aware of an acknowledgement by Priest A that he abused any child subsequent to October 1990”.

Bishop Kirby said this was the date when he first learned of the priest’s sexual abuse of a child.

He denied also that he (Bishop Kirby) was in receipt of any complaint and said: “I have neither knowledge nor suspicion that Priest A abused a child in either of the parishes of Kiltormer or Creagh subsequent to October 1990.”

Yesterday’s report in The Irish Times said Bishop Kirby “has been aware since the mid-1990s that a priest he moved following allegations of child sex abuse continued to abuse children in his new parish, contrary to statements by the bishop last month.”

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IRELAND
Irish Times

A FORMER priest who indecently assaulted five schoolboys 30 years ago has been given an 18-month sentence.

The 76-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to five counts of indecent assault on the boys on dates between 1979 and 1981.

The boys were aged between 11 and 13 years at the time of the offences, which took place in the then priest’s home and at a nearby school. The man has no previous convictions. The court heard two 11-year-old boys were invited into the accused’s house on the premise of delivering leaflets, and were abused there. Another boy, also 11, was told by the accused he had been selected for a trip abroad, and was abused when he went to meet the man to find out about the trip.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on October 08, 2012

Below is a letter sent today by fax and email to Bishop Matt Bartchak of the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown:

Survivors Network of those Abused By Priests
Chicago, Illinois 60622-5474
312-455-1499

10/8/12

Dear Bishop Bartchak:

We and belong to a support group called SNAP (the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests). Our mission is to heal the wounded and protect the vulnerable.

We are calling on you to take a simple, inexpensive, common sense and long overdue step toward these goals: post the names of all credibly accused priests within his diocese on your website, in you diocesan newspaper, and in parish bulletins.

This is a minimal step that helps parents, parishioners and the public know who and where these predators are, so that kids can be kept away from them.

Roughly 30 US bishops have done this (almost always after considerable public pressure.) None, as best we can tell, has regretted it. You’ve had ample time to do so without external prodding. Please use your considerable resources and ‘bully pulpit,’ Bishop, to at least let parents, public and parishioners know who and were these child molesting clerics are and were, so that the vulnerable may be safeguarded and the suffering may be validated.

In addition, we also beg you to

— seek out others who may have seen or suspected child sex crimes by a recently arrested priest, Fr. George Koharchik,

— personally visit each parish there Fr. Koharchik worked, begging other victims to come forward, get help, and call police.

Last month, law enforcement officials announced they’re investigating this priest. You, your staff and your flock have both a moral and civic duty to help them. Your actions – or inaction – could lead to a potentially dangerous sex offender walking free on a technicality or getting a short sentence and later hurting others. Please take clear public steps to help police and prosecutors do their jobs effectively in this case.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Voice from the Desert

What: A media conference on behalf of a Penn State University/Jerry Sandusky sexual abuse victim from Massachusetts.

Where: Outside the Centre County, PA Courthouse, North Allegheny and High Streets, Bellefonte, PA, 16823

When: Tuesday, October 9, 2012 immediately following the Jerry Sandusky sentencing hearing.

Who: The co-founder and President of Road to Recovery, Inc., the agency that currently is helping a Jerry Sandusky victim heal from the ravages of horrific sexual abuse on the campus of Penn State University. Road to Recovery has been assisting with the daily needs of the victim since his release from a Massachusetts prison.

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NIEDERLANDE
Der Standard (Osterreich)

Regierungskommission legte Bericht vor

Den Haag – Hunderte Kinder sind in niederländischen Heimen und Pflegefamilien oft jahrelang sexuell missbraucht worden. Das hat eine Regierungskommission in einem am Montag vorgelegten Bericht über Missbrauch in staatlichen Heimen seit 1945 festgestellt. “Ministerien, Heime und Jugendämter haben beim Schutz der Kinder versagt”, sagte die Vorsitzende der Kommission, Rieke Samson, in Den Haag. Der Bericht schockierte die Niederlande.

800 Fälle von sexueller Gewalt waren bei der Kommission gemeldet worden. 42 Fälle wurden der Staatsanwaltschaft übergeben. Opferverbände wollen von den Behörden Schadenersatz fordern.

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AUSTRIA
National Catholic Reporter

Mon, 10/08/2012

by
Christa Pongratz-Lippitt

Vienna, Austria
The Vienna archdiocese, which is one of the largest in Europe and extends from the Czech frontier down to the southern Alps, will undergo radical parish reforms, reducing its 660 parishes to 150 in the next 10 years.

“This is the most comprehensive reorganization of the Vienna archdiocese since that of Austrian Emperor Joseph II [1765-1790] 200 years ago,” Cardinal Christoph Schönborn told journalists at a Sept. 19 media reception in the archbishop’s palace in Vienna.

The main reasons for these measures were the increasing shortage of priests and the steady decline in the number of Catholics, especially of those who regularly attended Mass and were involved in their local parishes, the cardinal explained.

“I am fully aware that these reforms denote a far-reaching change of perspective,” Schönborn said. “We must take leave of the traditional concept that the church is only present where there is a priest. That is a restricted view that has developed over time but which must now be corrected. Church is community, and leading offices in the church should in principle be carried out collaboratively, even if the parish priest has the final responsibility according to canon law.”

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VATIKAN
Nachrichten (Osterreich)

ROM. Papst Benedikt XVI. hat die deutsche Mystikerin, Äbtissin und Autorin Hildegard von Bingen am Sonntag zur Kirchenlehrerin ernannt. Sie habe als “bedeutende weibliche Gestalt des 12. Jahrhunderts” einen wertvollen Beitrag zur Entwicklung der Kirche ihrer Zeit geleistet.

Das sagte der Papst bei einem Gottesdienst auf dem Petersplatz in Rom. Hildegard habe sich als eine Frau von “lebhafter Intelligenz, tiefer Sensibilität und anerkannter geistlicher Autorität” erwiesen.Die Benediktinerin und Medizinerin (um 1098 bis 1179) wirkte als Visionärin, Mystikerin und Heilkundlerin. Sie wurde bald als Heilige verehrt, aber erst im Mai in den Heiligenkalender der katholischen Kirche aufgenommen. Zum Kirchenlehrer erhob der Papst auch den heiligen Johannes von Avila.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Der Tagesspiegel

Vor 50 Jahren begann in Rom das Zweite Vatikanische Konzil. Zum Feiern besteht aber kein Anlass, sagt der Theologe Hans Küng. Im Interview spricht er über den Zustand der katholischen Kirche, Papst Benedikt – und den Islam.

Am 11. Oktober feiert die katholische Kirche den Beginn des Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzils vor 50 Jahren. Feiern Sie mit?

Zum Feiern besteht meiner Ansicht nach kein Anlass, eher zu einem Bußgottesdienst oder einer Trauerandacht. Überall auf der Welt empfinden viele Katholiken eine tiefe Trauer über die Entwicklung unserer Kirche und nicht wenige haben deshalb der Kirche den Rücken gekehrt. Die Restaurationspäpste Johannes Paul II. und Benedikt XVI. haben das Konzil rückwärts interpretiert.

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SCHWEIZ
Kipa

Luzern, 7.10.12 (Kipa) Nach Luzern wollen auch die Kantone Uri und Nidwalden die Missbrauchsfälle in ihren Kinderheimen aufarbeiten lassen. Das schreibt die Neue Luzerner Zeitung (6. Oktober). Konkrete Missbrauchsfälle sind aber gemäss der Zeitung aus diesen Kantonen bisher nicht bekannt.

In Nidwalden gab es um 1930 sechs Kinderheime. Was dort geschah, soll im Rahmen der Erarbeitung einer Nidwaldner Kantonsgeschichte beleuchtet werden.

In Uri führten Ingenbohler Schwestern seit 1887 ein Kinderheim. Zunächst sollen mehr Informationen gesammelt werden dazu, ob es zu Missbrauch gekommen ist, bevor man allenfalls überlegt, ob eine ähnliche Studie wie in Luzern angebracht ist.

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BELGIEN
BRF

Bei der Aufarbeitung der Missbrauchsfälle kommt die katholische Kirche ihren Verpflichtungen nicht nach. Das schreibt heute die Zeitung De Standaard unter Berufung auf den sozialistischen Abgeordneten Renaat Landuyt, der Mitglied des zuständigen Parlamentsausschusses ist .

Die Kirche mache die Opfer sexuellen Missbrauchs mundtot, so der Vorwurf. Sie versuche alles, um Prozesse wegen Vertuschung und Amtsmissbrauch zu verhindern. Zwei Klauseln in der Vereinbarung zwischen den Missbrauchsopfern und der Kirche haben Renaat Landuyt aufhorchen lassen.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Ed Carty

Monday October 08 2012

A BISHOP has rejected allegations that a paedophile priest confessed to him in jail to the continued abuse of children after a parish transfer.

Bishop of Clonfert John Kirby was forced to issue the denial following reports that he moved a known abuser from one parish to another in 1990 and that the convicted cleric went on to attack.

“I am not aware of an acknowledgement by ‘Priest A’ that he abused any child subsequent to October 1990, the date when I first learned of his sexual abuse of a child,” Bishop Kirby said.

The long-serving senior cleric, heavily criticised by the Catholic Church’s own watchdog for mishandling allegations in his diocese, insisted last month that he did not know if the priest went on to abuse after a parish transfer.

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SAN FRANCISCO (CA)
Virtue Online

By David W. Virtue & Mary Ann Mueller
www.virtueonline.org
October 8, 2012

Episcopal California Bishop Marc Andrus is livid. A few days ago, he gave the new San Francisco Roman Catholic archbishop a backhanded welcome to the neighborhood stressing the wonders of The Episcopal Church’s Millennium Development Goals. and Then he turned on the high level cleric for not showing appropriate pain for gays and his church’s alleged “oppression” of gays.

At the installation of the new Archbishop, Andrus showed up late and missed the procession of interfaith clergy who were to be seated up front. The enthronement was held at the Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Assumption, a sweeping paraboloid geometric type structure with a saddle roof. It seats more than two thousand. Representatives from the Jewish community, the Buddhists, and the Mormons in addition to Orthodox and Protestant Christians were seated. Church staff said they were looking for an opportunity to bring the bishop in without disrupting the service, according to diocesan spokesperson George Wesolek. When they went to retrieve him, he had already left.

Andrus got into a snit and plastered the Internet with his own interpretation of events.

He issued multiple press releases about his poor treatment. The Episcopal press took to fainting in their couches. The archdiocesan communications director said, “He wants a fight.”

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IRELAND
Herald

Monday October 08 2012

A bishop has rejected allegations that a paedophile priest confessed to him in jail to the continued abuse of children after a parish transfer.

Bishop of Clonfert John Kirby was forced to issue the denial following reports that he moved a known abuser from one parish to another in 1990 and that the convicted cleric went on to attack.

“I am not aware of an acknowledgement by ‘Priest A’ that he abused any child subsequent to October 1990, the date when I first learned of his sexual abuse of a child,” Bishop Kirby said.

The long-serving senior cleric, heavily criticised by the Catholic Church’s own watchdog for mishandling allegations in his diocese, insisted last month that he did not know if the priest went on to abuse after a parish transfer.

Amid reports that the priest confessed in jail, the bishop said he had not received the information. “Again, contrary to what is claimed, I am not in receipt of any complaint and I have neither knowledge nor suspicion that ‘Priest A’ abused a child in either of the parishes of Kiltormer or Creagh subsequent to October 1990,” Bishop Kirby said.

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IRELAND
RTE news

Bishop of Clonfert John Kirby has denied an Irish Times report that he knew or suspected that a priest he moved following allegations of child abuse continued to abuse children.

Bishop Kirby said: “Contrary to what is stated in today’s Irish Times, I am not aware of an acknowledgement by ‘Priest A’ that he abused any child subsequent to October 1990, the date when I first learned of his sexual abuse of a child.”

The bishop said he had not received any complaints that ‘Priest A’ has abused a child in either of the parishes he was transferred to.

He said: “I have neither knowledge nor suspicion that ‘Priest A’ abused a child in either of the parishes of Kiltormer or Creagh subsequent to October 1990.”

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IRELAND
Galway News

October 8, 2012

The Bishop of Clonfert says a newspaper claim that he was aware a priest had abused children after he moved him to another parish is “incorrect”.

The Irish Times reported that John Kirby has been aware since the mid-1990s that a priest he moved following allegations of child sex abuse continued to abuse children in his new parish.

In a statement issued this afternoon Bishop Kirby says the claim that he had knowledge or suspicion that ‘Priest A’ continued to abuse children subsequent to his learning of his conduct in October 1990, is incorrect.

He adds that he was not aware of an acknowledgement by ‘Priest A’ that he abused any child subsequent to October 1990, the date when he first learned of his sexual abuse of a child.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

IRISH TIMES REPORTERS

Bishop of Clonfert John Kirby has denied being aware since the mid-1990s that a priest he moved following allegations of child sex abuse continued to abuse children in his new parish.

The Irish Times reported today that a priest, sentenced in 1994 to 10 years imprisonment for the sexual abuse of a boy, told Bishop Kirby in the mid-1990s that he had abused 17 children in the diocese.

Twice last month Bishop Kirby asserted that the priest in question did not abuse children in the parish to which he moved him.

In 1990, when the priest, known as Priest A, admitted to Bishop Kirby he had abused the boy concerned, he was moved to another parish where he abused more children.

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IRELAND
Enniscorthy Guardian

Monday October 08 2012

A bishop has rejected allegations that a paedophile priest confessed to him in jail to the continued abuse of children after a parish transfer.

Bishop of Clonfert John Kirby was forced to issue the denial following reports that he moved a known abuser from one parish to another in 1990 and that the convicted cleric went on to attack.

“I am not aware of an acknowledgement by ‘Priest A’ that he abused any child subsequent to October 1990, the date when I first learned of his sexual abuse of a child,” Bishop Kirby said.

The long-serving senior cleric, heavily criticised by the Catholic Church’s own watchdog for mishandling allegations in his diocese, insisted last month that he did not know if the priest went on to abuse after a parish transfer.

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IRELAND
Laois Nationalist

The Bishop of Clonfert has said a newspaper claim that he was aware a priest had abused children after he moved him to another parish is “incorrect”.

The Irish Times reported that John Kirby was told by the man known as “Priest A” of the further abuses when he visited him at Arbour Hill Prison where he was serving a jail term for sexual abuse.

In a statement this afternoon Bishop Kirby said the report is “incorrect” and regrets that it could serve to “exacerbate the hurt” which his earlier widely publicised remarks had caused to the victims of child sexual abuse and their families.

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IRELAND
The Association of Catholic Priests

The Association of Catholic Priests held a meeting entitled ‘Towards and Assembly for the West’ in the Clayton Hotel Galway on Saturday 6th Oct.

Four hundred people attended. The energy and enthusiasm of the gathering was equal to what we experienced at the Regency Hotel last May.

The speakers, both from the platform and the floor, spoke about their commitment to their faith and to the Church, but stressed over and over again that it is our Church; they want to belong, to be involved, and to be regarded as equals in the Church, as was envisioned by the Second Vatican Council.

Considerable disappointment was expressed at the absence of any bishop, even though all the bishops of the west had been invited. It was the strong feeling of the meeting that the bishops be asked to engage actively with the energy and enthusiasm that is being unleashed in the Church as a result of the regional gatherings being organised by the ACP, and the emergence of the Association of Catholics of Ireland (ACI)

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Vatican City, (VIS) – The Holy Father: …

– Appointed Msgr. Charles J. Scicluna of the clergy of Malta, Malta, promoter of justice at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, as auxiliary of the archdiocese of Malta (area 246, population 412,970, Catholics 388,970, priests 671, religious 1,291). The bishop-elect was born in Toronto, Canada in 1959 and ordained a priest in 1986. Having studied in Malta and in Rome, he worked as defender of the bond and promoter of justice at the metropolitan tribunal of Malta. He was also active in education and in the pastoral care of various parishes.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, (VIS) – The Tribunal of Vatican City State today delivered the following sentence in the trial of Paolo Gabriele, who is accused of aggravated theft.

The accused Paolo Gabriele is declared “guilty of the offence under article 404 paragraph 1/1 of the Criminal Code, for abusing the trust inherent in relationships deriving from his professional responsibilities, and stealing items which – by virtue of those relationships and on the basis of the trust placed in him – were left unattended and in full view.

“For this reason the Tribunal sentences him to prison for a period of three years.

“Pursuant to article 26 of the Law of 21 June 1969, in view of the accused’s lack of a criminal record, his record of service in the period prior to the facts in question, the subjective (though mistaken) belief identified by the accused as the motive for his conduct, as well as his own statement of his awareness of having betrayed the trust of the Holy Father, the Tribunal reduces the sentence to imprisonment for one (1) year and six (6) months, and orders the guilty party to defray the costs of the trial.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, (VIS) – Given below is the text of a communique released today by the Holy See Press Office in response to an article which appeared in the Italian daily “Il Messaggero”, concerning alleged irregularities in the Fabric of St. Peter’s, which administers the Vatican Basilica.

“Regarding an article which appeared in ‘Il Messaggero’ on 8 October 2012, entitled ‘The Fabric of St. Peter’s: combing through the accounts’, the Holy See Press Office having duly acquired the relevant information, states:

“(1) There is no pending dossier lying on the desk of the Secretary of State concerning the accounts of the Fabric of St. Peter’s.

“(2) All the accounts of the Fabric of St. Peter’s have been submitted for examination by the Prefecture for the Economic Affairs of the Holy See, and have always been approved by the Secretariat of State.

“(3) The article in question is entirely misinformed”.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Statement by David Clohessy, SNAP Director
(314-566-9790 , SNAPclohessy@aol.com)

(NOTE: Clohessy will attend Sandusky’s sentencing Tuesday morning and will hold a news conference on the Centre County Courthouse steps on Monday at 2 p.m.)

Now is no time to be complacent. Yes, one child predator, Jerry Sandusky, is behind bars and will likely stay there for the rest of his life. But many more child predators still walk free. And there are still plenty of schools and institutions that still seem to value their own reputations over the safety of their students or members. There’s still a climate of denial in which adults often rally around accused child predators and disbelieve their victims.

Sandusky is imprisoned because of two factors: the courage of survivors, who broke their silence and reported their abuse, and the dedication of law enforcement officials, who pursued him. Both deserve our praise and our gratitude.

However, the full truth of exactly who ignored and concealed Sandusky’s crimes isn’t yet known. Other secrets must be uncovered. The Freeh report was just a start. Taxpayers, parents, alums, students, staff and – above all – Sandusky’s victims need and deserve to know as much as possible about those complicit individuals who chose to protect themselves, and their employer instead of protecting the kids and their families.

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SAN FRANCISCO (CA)
U.S. Catholic

Saturday, October 6, 2012

By Bryan Cones

Episcopal bishop of San Francisco, Marc Andrus, is reporting on his blog that he was disinvited from the installation of new Roman Catholic Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone last Thursday right as the service was beginning. According to archdiocesan spokesman George Wesolek, it was all a big misunderstanding caused by Andrus’ tardiness. From the Religion News Service story: “We had no intention of excluding [Andrus] at all,” Wesolek told The Associated Press. “If he felt like because of the wait that was insulting to him, we certainly will apologize.”

Andrus had written an open letter to his diocese about Cordileone’s appointment, noting that those who support gay marriage and the full inclusion of LGBT people in the life of the church should be welcomed in the Episcopal Church, leading some to suggest that the snub from the Roman Catholic archdiocese was deliberate. “Some Catholics may find themselves less at home with Salvatore Cordileone’s installation and they may come to The Episcopal Church,” Andrus wrote to San Fran Episcopalians. “We should welcome them as our sisters and brothers.”

Whatever the motivation for the diplomatic snafu, this is a pretty embarrassing situation; every episcopal installation I have ever been to included representatives from other local churches; indeed, their inclusion is a hallmark of the ecumenical movement. I hardly think one could even accuse Andrus of sheep-stealing, since his letter was addressed to Episcopalians, encouraging them to welcome newcomers. It hardly rises to Pope Benedict’s open invitation to Anglicans to swim the Tiber.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

By John Fallon and Declan Rooney

Monday October 08 2012

CATHOLIC bishops have snubbed an offer to meet with a group of priests and lay people who want to reform the church.

Around 400 people attended an assembly in Galway at the weekend which was organised by the Association of Catholic Priests (ACP).

Organisers had extended an invitation to around half a dozen bishops in the west of Ireland to attend the gathering, however none showed up.

Fr Tony Flannery, one of the founders of the ACP and the chair of the assembly, said the laity and priests want to be able to meet bishops to discuss the future of the church in Ireland.

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VATICAN CITY
ABC News

By NICOLE WINFIELD Associated Press

VATICAN CITY October 8, 2012 (AP)

The author of the book of Vatican secrets that earned the pope’s former butler an 18-month sentence for stealing private papal correspondence has set out to explain his source’s motives and appeal for clemency.

Several European newspapers published an op-ed piece by Gianluigi Nuzzi on Monday in which the Italian journalist defended the actions of Paolo Gabriele and sought to put them in a context he said hadn’t been fully explained during Gabriele’s trial. Nuzzi provided an advance copy to The Associated Press.

A Vatican tribunal on Saturday convicted Gabriele of aggravated theft for stealing the pope’s private correspondence and passing it onto Nuzzi in the gravest Vatican security breach in recent times. Gabriele was sentenced to an 18-month term, which he is serving under house arrest in his Vatican City apartment awaiting an expected papal pardon.

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NETHERLANDS
Dutch News

Monday 08 October 2012

The Samson committee, which investigates cases of abuse of children placed in council care, is sending 42 files on sexual abuse to the public prosecution department.

The Samson committee, led by former procurator general Rieke Samson, has spent two years investigating cases of sexual abuse among children in care since1945. So far, it has received 800 claims.

Presenting its report on Monday, the committee said the government, care homes and the foster care service did not do enough to protect children, originally because they did not know of the abuse. However, when they did know, they lacked the professionalism and courage to deal with abuse cases, the report said. …

The Samson committee was set up in the wake of another major investigation into child abuse by members of the Catholic church.

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EVERGREEN PARK (IL)
Chicago Sun-Times

BY HANNAH KOHUT Correspondent October 8, 2012

Before a packed St. Bernadette Catholic Church in Evergreen Park on Sunday, Cardinal Francis George celebrated mass — and a new beginning for the parish.

The cardinal was there to announce the church’s new pastor, who will take over for the former pastor, the Rev. Gary Miller. Miller resigned in June amid allegations of sexual abuse about 30 years ago, according to the Archdiocese of Chicago.

Cardinal George stressed to the estimated 500 people in attendance that the diocese does not take the allegations lightly.

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MICHIGAN
MyFoxDetroit

(myFOXDetroit.com) –
A senior priest from Farmington Hills has been placed on administrative leave while authorities investigate allegations he had sex with minors.

Father Loren O’Dea, 83, a senior (retired) priest of the Archdiocese of Detroit, was placed on an administrative leave of absence and restricted from any public ministry Friday.

The Detroit archdiocese consulted with the Archdiocesan Review Board after two allegations of sexual misconduct with minors. Both allegations involve O’Dea, and date back just prior to his ordination.

Information about the allegations, which was received in recent weeks, has been turned over to Oakland County Sheriffs.

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DELAWARE
The News Journal

Written by
Harry F. Themal

Pedophilia – the crime and illness of adults who prey on children – remains one of the most disturbing problems in our society. And it seems as if it has become an all-too-frequent story:

• Wilmington attorney Tom Neuberger has just released a jarring book about the more than 100 sexual abuse cases involving the priests of the Diocese of Delaware and Catholic orders.

• Last week the attorneys for the most sickening of Delaware’s pedophiles, pediatrician Earl Bradley, finally gave up their hopeless fight to overturn his 14-plus life sentences for raping his young patients. …

Delawareans might well think an epidemic has swept our state, considering what trials have revealed about the crimes of some Catholic priests and the Sussex County sexual ogre who dared call himself a doctor.

Many readers probably will cringe when they read Neuberger’s “When Priests Become Predators: Profiles of Childhood Sexual Abuse Survivors.” The actual testimony of 10 victims is so much more graphic, and therefore alarming, than the news accounts of trials that necessarily had to be toned down.

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MICHIGAN
Deadline Detroit

Here comes another black eye for the Catholic church.

The Archdiocese of Detroit announced in a press release that it had placed senior Priest Loren O’Dea on administrative leave Friday and restricted him from public ministry while authorities investigate allegations of sexual abuse involving minors.

O’Dea, 83, retired in 1997 from Our Lady of Sorrows Church in Farmington and has been an associate pastor there since 1993, the year of his ordination. Fox2 reported that the allegations had been turned over to the Oakland County Sheriff’s Department.

“The Detroit archdiocese, after consultation with the Archdiocesan Review Board, deemed substantive two allegations of sexual misconduct with minors involving Fr. O’Dea which date back just prior to his ordination,” the archdiocese said in a press release. “Information about the allegations, which was received in recent weeks, was turned over to civil authorities.”

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MICHIGAN
The Detroit News

By Mike Martindale
The Detroit News

A retired priest has been put on administrative leave following allegations of sexual misconduct with minors dating back 19 years, the Archdiocese of Detroit confirmed Sunday.

The Rev. Loren O’Dea, 83, retired in 1997 from Our Lady of Sorrows Church in Farmington, where he had been an associate pastor since 1993 — the same year he was ordained, according to archdiocesan records.

The administrative action, which took place Friday, restricts O’Dea from performing any public ministry or presenting himself as a priest.

“It is always sad when anything like this happens,” said archdiocesan spokesman Ned McGrath. “We will keep everyone in our prayers.”

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MICHIGAN
CBS Detroit

DETROIT (WWJ) – The Archdiocese of Detroit has placed a retired priest on administrative leave, following accusations of sexual misconduct with minors.

A press release issued by the Archdiocese says the decision was made “after consultation with the Archdiocesan Review Board, deemed substantive two allegations of sexual misconduct with minors involving Fr. O’Dea which date back just prior to his ordination. Information about the allegations, which was received in recent weeks, was turned over to civil authorities.”

83-year-old Father Loren O’Dea was ordained in 1993 and previously served at Our Lady of Sorrows in Farmington. He was given senior — or retired — status as a priest in 1997.

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IRELAND
Irish Central

By
PATRICK COUNIHAN,
IrishCentral Staff Writer

Published Monday, October 8, 2012

A Catholic bishop has been accused of lying by the Irish Times over the case of a priest guilty of child sex abuse.

In a strongly worded story, the paper alleges that Bishop of Clonfert John Kirby was aware as far back as the mid-90s that a priest whom he moved following allegations of child sex abuse continued to abuse children in his parish.

This information, confirmed by the paper, is contrary to public statements from Bishop Kirby made just last month when he twice asserted that the priest in question did not abuse children in the parish to which he moved him.

The Irish Times reports that the priest, who was sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment in 1994 for the sexual abuse of one child in Co Galway, told Bishop Kirby in the mid-1990s that he had abused 17 children in the diocese.

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MICHIGAN
The Oakland Press

Father Loren O’Dea, an 83-year-old retired priest, has been placed on administrative leave of absence by the Archdiocese of Detroit after allegations of sexual misconduct with minors.

O’Dea served as associate pastor at Our Lady of Sorrows in Farmington before retiring in 1997.

The archdiocese said O’Dea has been restricted from any public ministry. Its website notes the claims stem back prior to his ordination in 1993.

The archdiocese says it initiated an investigation which substantiated two claims against O’Dea. Information obtained in recent weeks has been turned over to the authorities, the archdiocese says.

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MICHIGAN
ClickOnDetroit

DETROIT –
Retired priest Loren O’Dea of the Archdiocese of Detroit has been put on an administrative leave of absence after allegations of sexual misconduct with minors surfaced.

The Detroit archdiocese deemed two allegations of sexual misconduct with minors substantial. The allegations involving the 83-year-old date back just before his ordination.

The allegations have been turned over to police.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

PATSY McGARRY, Religious Affairs Correspondent

BACKGROUND: More victims than the two reported by the cleric got compensation from his diocese

AFTER THE review of child protection practices in Clonfert diocese was published on September 5th, The Irish Times was informed by a well-placed source that the review was wrong in one of its main findings.

It had found there had been nine child abuse allegations made in the diocese. A more accurate figure would be 22, the source indicated.

The review was conducted by the Catholic Church’s child protection watchdog, its National Board for Safeguarding Children (NBSC). It found that nine child abuse allegations had been made against three priests in the diocese and another who provided holiday cover there. One of the four, referred to as Priest A, who was later laicised, was convicted in the courts.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

JOHN FALLON and DECLAN ROONEY

CATHOLIC BISHOPS declined to attend a conference at the weekend organised by priests who want reform of the church.

About 400 people attended the assembly in Galway on Saturday which was organised by the Association of Catholic Priests (ACP).

Fr Tony Flannery, one of the founding members of the ACP two years ago, which represents 800 priests in Ireland, was silenced earlier this year by the Vatican because of his liberal views.

Fr Flannery, a Redemptorist priest based at Esker in Co Galway, incurred the wrath of the church hierarchy when he publicly backed criticism of the Vatican by Taoiseach Enda Kenny.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

PATSY McGARRY, Religious Affairs Correspondent

BISHOP OF Clonfert John Kirby has been aware since the mid-1990s that a priest he moved following allegations of child sex abuse continued to abuse children in his new parish, contrary to statements by the bishop last month.

Twice last month Bishop Kirby asserted that the priest in question did not abuse children in the parish to which he moved him.

However, the priest, sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment in 1994 for the sexual abuse of one child in Co Galway, told Bishop Kirby in the mid-1990s he had abused 17 children in the diocese.

This emerged when Bishop Kirby visited the priest while he was serving his jail sentence at Arbour Hill between 1994 and 1998.

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MICHIGAN
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Detroit

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Oct 6, 2012 For more information contact:
Joe Kohn, Director of Public Relations
Kohn.Joseph@aod.org
313-237-5802

Effective Friday, October 5, 2012, Fr. Loren O’Dea, 83, a senior (retired) priest of the Archdiocese of Detroit, has been placed on an administrative leave of absence and restricted from any public ministry.

The Detroit archdiocese, after consultation with the Archdiocesan Review Board, deemed substantive two allegations of sexual misconduct with minors involving Fr. O’Dea which date back just prior to his ordination. Information about the allegations, which was received in recent weeks, was turned over to civil authorities.

The Archdiocese of Detroit commissioned an investigation that found the complaints to be of sufficient substance to require the placement of restrictions on Fr. O’Dea prohibiting him from performing any public ministry or presenting himself as a priest.

Information on archdiocesan policies and procedures regarding these matters is available on the Protecting Children page.To inform the archdiocese of complaints involving sexual abuse of minors by clergy or church personnel and/or to speak to the Victim Assistance Coordinator contact: 866-343-8055 .

Biographical information

Education:
Sacred Heart Seminary, Detroit
St. John Provincial Seminary, Plymouth
Wayne State University, Detroit
Sacred Heart Major Seminary, Detroit

1993 Ordained
1993 Associate Pastor, Our Lady of Sorrows, Farmington
1997 Senior (retired) status
2012 Administrative Leave of Absence

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MICHIGAN
WXYZ

FARMINGTON, Mich. (WXYZ) – The Archdiocese of Detroit has announced that it has placed senior priest Fr. Loren O’Dea on an administrative leave of absence.

The Archdioceses say the action comes because of two substantive allegations of sexual misconduct with minors. The Archdiocese says the incidents related to the allegation date from just prior to Fr. O’Dea’s ordination.

The 83-year-old Fr. O’Dea was ordained in 1993. He served as Associate Pastor at Our Lady of Sorrows in Farmington. He was awarded senior status in 1997. That is the equivalent of a retirement position.

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SPRINGFIELD (MA)
BishopAccountability.org – Assignment Record

Summary of Case: In February 2004 Dupre was accused by two men of sexually abusing them when they were children, in the mid- to late 1970s. One of the alleged victims, a refugee, was reportedly abused from ages 12 to 16, and the other from ages 15 to 20. Trips were taken out of state and to Canada, and abuse allegedly occurred on these trips. Dupre was also said to have plied the boys with alcohol, involved them in the purchase and use of pornography, and sometimes abused them together. During the time of the alleged abuse, Dupre became chancellor of the diocese. Before he was named auxiliary bishop in 1990, he reportedly called the victims to a meeting and said he would not accept the appointment unless they promised to be silent about the abuse. Dupre resigned in Feb. 2011, after he was confronted with the allegations. He went directly to a treatment facility, St. Luke’s Institute in Maryland, where he stayed for a number of years. He was last known to be living in a Washington D.C. retirement home.

Born: Nov. 10, 1933
Ordained: May 23, 1959
Resigned: Feb. 11, 2004

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VATICAN CITY
The Telegraph (United Kingdom)

Pope Benedict XVI opened a crucial meeting of bishops from around the world on Sunday, just 24 hours after his butler was given an 18 month prison sentence for stealing confidential papers from the Vatican.

By Nick Squires, Rome
6:55PM BST 07 Oct 2012

Many Vatican observers said it was no coincidence that the trial of Paolo Gabriele, one of the biggest scandals to hit the Holy See for years, was brought to a neat conclusion the day before the start of the three week long synod.

Senior Vatican figures were anxious that the trial, which consisted of just four hearings lasting less than 10 hours, be dealt with quickly so that the Pope can concentrate on the synod and the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council, which reformed key aspects of the Roman Catholic Church.

But the many lingering questions over the murky affair could yet tarnish the conference, in which Catholic leaders will discuss how to “re-evangelise” the West in the face of secularism and a sharp decline in church attendance.

One Italian newspaper, Corriere della Sera, published a list of 10 unanswered questions regarding the butler’s theft and leaking of compromising documents, including whether the butler had done a deal with the Vatican not to speak freely about the scandal in return for a lenient sentence.

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VATICAN CITY
Atlanta Journal-Constitution

By NICOLE WINFIELD
The Associated Press

VATICAN CITY —

Pope Benedict XVI urged the world’s bishops on Sunday to try to bring back Catholics who have left the church as he opened a three-week meeting to reinvigorate the church’s evangelization mission.

Some 262 cardinals, bishops and priests from around the world are in Rome for the meeting, or synod, called to give impetus to the pope’s efforts to re-evangelize parts of the world where Catholicism has fallen by the wayside. …

Benedict has long lamented that in Europe and the Americas, Catholics no longer practice their faith or pass it onto their children. That concern is reflected in the synod’s working document that will form the basis of discussion over the next three weeks.

“There is a clear link between the crisis in faith and the crisis in marriage,” the pope said.

The so-called “new evangelization” is a top priority for Benedict, who routinely laments how cultures in Europe and the West that were once profoundly Christian have become increasingly secular.

The church has been beset by competition from rival Protestant churches in Latin America, dissent from Catholics who oppose church teaching on homosexuality and desertions in the U.S. and Europe from Catholics fed up by years of sex abuse scandals.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

Sun, 10/07/2012

by
John L. Allen Jr.

After a Vatican court on Saturday sentenced former papal butler Paolo Gabriele to 18 months of detention for being the mole at the heart of the Vatican leaks scandal, my friend and colleague Marco Ansaldo of La Repubblica asked me for some brief reactions which appeared in the Sunday edition of the paper.

The following is the English version of the four points I gave Andsaldo, which ran under the headline “The Battle for Transparency Stands Halfway.”

* * *
First, the Gabriele trial and the whole Vatileaks scandal is not comparable to the sexual abuse crisis or the Holocaust-denying bishop case in terms of public opinion, at least outside Italy. Frankly, most Americans have no idea what the scandal is about, they haven’t read Nuzzi’s book or followed the leaks closely, and they find the idea of the pope’s butler being under arrest more comical than alarming.

This is a unique scandal in that the damage is greater internally. Inside the Vatican itself, it created a crisis of trust that has not really been resolved by the trial or the verdict. Personnel are now more reluctant to share confidences, and bishops around the world are hesitant to put anything on paper or to discuss their problems with Vatican officials for fear that it might be leaked or misused. In other words, this is a scandal that strikes more at the inner workings of the Church than its public image.

Second, it seems clear that the trial has not answered all the questions surrounding the case. Those questions include not only whether others were involved in the leaks, but what exactly Gabriele meant by saying there is a climate of “widespread unease” inside the Vatican – what are people uneasy about, which people share those feelings, is the pope aware, and what does he plan to do about it? The core issue of whether the current regime around Benedict XVI is truly up to the challenge of administering a universal church in the 21st century have not been, and really could not be, resolved by the trial.

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NEW YORK
Staten Island Advance

By Frank Donnelly/Staten Island Advance

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — A 64-year-old Willowbrook man turned a haven into a horror, molesting an 8-year-old boy 10 times over 20 months inside a Jewish center in Meiers Corners, prosecutors allege.

Claude Neufeld, a French native, abused the boy between Jan. 14, 2011, and Sept. 21 of this year inside the Chabad Lubavitch of Staten Island center, according to court papers.

Those documents said Neufeld touched the victim’s genitals over his clothes on 10 occasions.

A law enforcement source said the incidents occurred in an upstairs room in the two-story building at 289 Harold St.

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CHILE
La Segunda

Rodrigo Pino, quien acusa al obispo de Iquique Marco Antonio Ordenes de abuso sexual, entregó su testimonio, señalando que se enamoró del sacerdote.

El joven dijo que conoció al padre en 1997 cuando tenía 15 años y era acólito de la Catedral de Iquique.

“Empezó primero con tocaciones, con besos, caricias, más allá de una amistad. Él siempre me decía: ‘Yo soy como tu padre, yo te veo como un hijo, como un hermano, como un amante, como un amigo’. En un principio los abusos fueron obligados, pero después no lo fueron, porque me enamoré de él. Con él conocí el amor”, dijo a ADN Radio.

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CHILE
La Segunda

A partir de este miércoles la Brigada de Delitos Sexuales de la PDI realiza una serie de diligencias para establecer si existen “antecedentes relevantes” para perseguir penalmente al obispo de Iquique, Marco Antonio Ordenes.

Ello, luego de que se hiciera público que el Vaticano realiza una investigación en contra del purpurado, por supuestos abusos sexuales en contra de un ex acólito.

El fiscal jefe de Tarapacá, Manuel Guerra, confirmó a “La Segunda” que se identificarán a todas las personas que trabajan con el obispo “y especialmente si hay menores” en su entorno.

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CHILE
La Segunda

SANTIAGO.- “Yo no pido dinero en esto: pido justicia y sanidad mental para mí”, afirmó esta tarde Rodrigo Pino, quien dio a conocer las denuncias de presuntos abusos contra el obispo de Iquique, Marco Antonio Órdenes.

“Sólo quiero que lo saquen del sacerdocio, y a él le pido que reconozca, que asuma sus errores”, afirmó, en una entrevista al canal CNN Chile.

También aseguró que hoy miércoles había recibido “una respuesta muy positiva del Vaticano que nos alegró”, aunque no quiso detallar el detalle de dicha comunicación, relacionada con la denuncia interpuesta ante la Iglesia Católica.

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CHILE
La Segunda

Impacto ha generado el audio revelado entre Rodrigo Pino y el obispo de Iquique, monseñor Marco Ordenes, luego de dar su testimonio anoche en el programa “Mentiras Verdaderas” de Red Televisión.

El joven, visiblemente impactado por lo sucedido con el religioso hace unos años, mostró su grabación en el programa, donde se muestra al obispo Ordenes conversando con Pino, a quien le confiesa que experimentó el cariño y el querer con él, además de mencionar a otro joven involucrado en el affaire.

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CHILE
UPI

SANTIAGO, Chile, oct. 6 (UPI) — La Iglesia Católica chilena calificó de “dolorosos” los dichos del obispo de la norteña ciudad chilena de Iquique, Marco Antonio Ordenes Fernández, quien admitió haber cometido un “acto imprudente” con un joven.

“Para la Iglesia siempre es tremendamente doloroso que un ministro consagrado al servicio de Jesucristo y de la Iglesia reconozca su participación en conductas impropias, mucho más aún si se trata de un obispo”, afirmó el portavoz de la Conferencia Episcopal, Jaime Coiro.

El vocero se refirió al tema luego de que el obispo de Iquique, Marco Antonio Ordenes, reconociera en una entrevista publicada por el diario La Tercera, el “haber tenido un acto imprudente” con el joven iquiqueño que lo acusa de abuso sexual.

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VATICAN CITY
Chicago Tribune

Naomi O’Leary
Reuters

October 7, 2012

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Pope Benedict launched a campaign to bring lapsed believers back to the Roman Catholic fold on Sunday, opening a major convention of bishops on what the Vatican has termed the “new evangelization” of the developed world.

The Church is battling losses to its practicing flock in former strongholds in Europe, North America and Latin America in the face of sex abuse scandals, increasing secularism, rival faiths and open dissent against Church teachings on homosexuality and its ban on a female priesthood.

The synod – a Church conference where hundreds of bishops meet to work out a common global strategy, iron out divisions and advise the pope – has the theme “the new evangelization”, the Vatican’s buzzword for its drive to woo back believers,

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NEW JERSEY
The Star-Ledger

Published: Sunday, September 30, 2012

By Tom Moran/ The Star-Ledger

I was born into a devout Catholic family, the fifth of nine children. And one of my earliest memories is learning the catechism from my father, a sales executive who was in the habit of going to church every day before work.

He read me stories about the adventures of a boy who was nicknamed “Raggie” because his family was too poor to buy new clothes. Each story had the same basic lesson — good Catholics look after those in need, just as Jesus did. And there is no shame in being poor.

Sign me up. I memorized the prayers, received the sacraments and felt ecstatically cleansed after monthly confessions. I was all in.

In the decades since, I have fled a million miles from the church, and have never found a new religious home. I am a spiritual refugee.

One in three American adults was raised in a Catholic family, but fewer than one in four identify as Catholic today. No other church has shed so many followers, according to surveys by the Pew Charitable Trusts. …

But my mother had no hesitation. Nor did she feel she was sinning by using birth control when she was knocked low by migraine headaches after bearing the nine of us. When she saw same-sex couples raising AIDS babies, she saw no threat to the moral order; she saw Christ’s love at work. She supported same-sex marriage before the New York Times did.

Her obedience to the church hierarchy was not blind, especially after it was exposed as complicit in the sexual abuse of so many children. She trusted her own compass, and in that way, she was a typical Catholic.

Most Catholics, like her, will never leave the church. They will sidestep the land mines and hope for change. They see the altar girls today and hope for female priests tomorrow.

In the meantime, though, men like Myers will drive millions more onto the refugee highway. He had his own small share of complicity in the sex abuse scandal, transferring a priest who had confessed to abuse to St. Michael’s Hospital in Newark without telling the staff. He refuses to release the names of priests who have been credibly accused, as some New Jersey dioceses do.

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NEW JERSEY
The Star-Ledger

By Tom Moran/ The Star-Ledger

Last Sunday, Star-Ledger editorial page editor Tom Moran wrote about his struggles with Catholicism, describing himself as a “refugee from the Catholic Church” as he began to disagree with Catholic leadership over issues such as gay marriage, reproductive rights and divorce.

That column prompted a surprisingly introspective outpouring from Star-Ledger readers, a great number of them with stories of similar personal struggles. …

Here is a selection of some of the stories submitted to us.

A painful time, over and over

I am a disillusioned Catholic. My mother died when I was 4 and my father was unable to care for us; as a result, we came under state care. My grandmother was a devout Irish Catholic and requested my siblings and me be sent to a Catholic convent rather than put into the New York child care system.

I spent close to five years at a Catholic convent. The physical and emotional abuse by nuns and priests left us physically and emotionally scarred. One would think this was enough to make a person turn away from the church.

However, my grandmother’s devotion to the Catholic church was absolute and I could not bring myself to turn away from my Catholicism. I felt this would be a repudiation of my grandmother, as well.

I went on to marry in the church and have two children, whom I even sent to Catholic school. My brother moved as far away as possible and my sister eventually committed suicide. When the priest abuse scandal started to become public, I was not surprised and my ambivalence with the church grew.

My final break came when I was diagnosed with colon cancer. One son was in public school, the other in Catholic school. During treatment and surgeries, I received many “get wells” and real assistance from the public schools. From the Catholic school, I received a bill for $500 assessment for not contributing “time” to the school. …

Three strikes, she’s out

My father, who recently passed away, studied to become a priest but never finished. We were always told that the reason was he “loved the ladies too much.” But as we discussed it at dinner one Christmas Eve, when he was in his late 70s, he began to cry, something we had never seen.

Through his years studying, he told us, he was raped by more than four priests. You can’t imagine the silence and tears throughout the rest of the meal.

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NEW JERSEY
The Star-Ledger

By Tom Moran/ The Star-Ledger

Last Sunday, Star-Ledger editorial page editor Tom Moran wrote about his struggles with Catholicism, describing himself as a “refugee from the Catholic Church.”

This week, the Star-Ledger is publishing letters from our readers about their own struggles. This is Part 2 of 3.

Letter was divisive, hurtful

Being a Catholic has always been part of my heritage and the center of my religious identity. Whenever I attend Mass I feel a spiritual connection with God and a sense of community with the congregation. I believed the rules of the Church should be followed and my conscience should be my moral compass.

And yet I find the views expressed in Archbishop Myers’ letter, and shared by much of the hierarchy to be divisive and hurtful. If I do not agree with all the proclamations in his letter does this negate my faith of the last eighty years and mean I should refrain from receiving Communion? I resent being told I should choose a presidential candidate based solely on his views on gay marriage and abortion , ignoring the social issues that affect everyday lives. There should be room in the Church for both liberals and conservatives. It is when the separation of church and state is ignored that religious freedom is threatened. …

Left church after daughter slighted

My wife and I were born into Catholic families, educated in Catholic and Jesuit schools, attended Mass with our three children weekly and assisted in our parish’s Youth Group during their high school years. Our youngest daughter was the first female altar server in the parish, an invitation she accepted from a sensitive, thoughtful Franciscan priest, ahead of his time.

On the day of her sister’s Confirmation, she was assigned altar server, a spiritual moment to be shared between them. Shortly after dropping our younger daughter off with her neatly pressed white robe, she run to her mother and me with tears in her eyes, explaining that “a priest said I could not be on the altar with the bishop.” Quite upset, we approached this man, the secretary to the bishop, who stated that only boys could be altar servers. I explained our history and involvement with the church and with youth. I let him know his position proved to my daughters, indeed all women, they were second class citizens in the church. I was told this was not the personal position of the bishop, but “he could not risk being photographed on the altar with a female,” and “he would certainly continue to represent the rights of females in the church.”

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NEW JERSEY
The Star-Ledger

By Tom Moran/ The Star-Ledger

Last Sunday, Star-Ledger editorial page editor Tom Moran wrote about his struggles with Catholicism, describing himself as a “refugee from the Catholic Church.”

This week, the Star-Ledger is publishing letters from our readers about their own struggles. This is Part 3 of 3.

It’s right to defer to church leaders on faith

I am a Catholic. Have been since birth. I have spent nine years as a Franciscan seminarian before deciding that neither religious life nor priesthood and I were suited for each other. I have often disagreed with church leaders on their interpretation or implementation of the Christian message. Yet Jesus knowingly placed the fate of the church into the hands of mere humans whom He promised to guide via the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. It is a testament to this guidance that, despite the errors of frail human leaders, the church and its fundamental message continues to exist—and I continue to believe in them.

I believe that people who equate the actions of human representatives of this, or any other institution, with the efficacy of its principles are either unaware of the distinction or else actively seeking rationale to excuse themselves from whichever of those principles seem a burden to them. I am aware of many who profess to be followers of a particular creed who are ignorant of the beliefs that are required in order to be a legitimate member of that community. …

Church has become too polarizing

I am a 60-year-old man who has stopped attending a Catholic church earlier this year.

The reasons for my departure include a church that has become more polarizing and exclusionary, more openly political on pro-life and personal choice issues, it’s shameful squandering of money on insignificant changes in its liturgy, the Vatican rebuke of the U.S. religious women for their social stances, its on-going failure to transparently deal with and accept its outrageous failure to deal in an appropriate manner with its abuse of children, its audacity to terminate the employment of an Indiana parochial school teacher for pursuing in-vitro fertilization and the Vatican bribery scandal.

I am curious how the Bishop of Newark, the Bishop of Trenton and the NYC Cardinal and others can be so openly vocal about current political and life choice issues yet have been so silent on the Church’s child abuse scandal and issues of global tragedy like genocide in Africa. I see the Catholic Church as concerned only with its image even at the expense of many of its most vulnerable members, children. There was a time that the message in church was, do unto others as you would have others do unto you, I sadly miss those days.

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MALTA
The Sunday Times

Sunday, October 7, 2012 by
Herman Grech

Mgr Charles Scicluna pledged he would be a good listener, as the Vatican yesterday formally nominated him as Malta’s new Auxiliary Bishop.

“I want to bring this great hope to my home country I love so much. We have so much good which is worth preserving and promoting,” the 53-year-old Rome-based monsignor told The Sunday Times shortly after Pope Benedict XVI made his nomination official.

Mgr Scicluna’s Episcopal ordination will be held on November 24 and as Auxiliary Bishop, Mgr Scicluna will be called to be the closest collaborator and adviser of Archbishop Paul Cremona with “leadership responsibilities in the Curia and in diocesan pastoral ministry,” a Malta Curia statement said.

He will assume the position vacated by the late Bishop Annetto Depasquale who passed away last November.

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MALTA
The Sunday Times

Noon church bells peal daily to announce the Angelus, summoning devotees to say a little prayer, but in Lija yesterday the bells pealed for almost an hour at midday, in joyous celebration.

Right after the Angelus yesterday, Pope Benedict XVI officially announced the appointment of Mgr Charles Scicluna as Malta’s new Auxiliary Bishop.

As the bells kept ringing, a crowd of Mgr Scicluna’s friends gathered on the church parvis, excited and eager to share their pride that a fellow Lija resident will hold such a position in the Maltese Church.

Mgr Scicluna’s long-time neighbour and friend, Mark Sciberras, 37, described Mgr Scicluna as a man “of great responsibility”, “outgoing” and having a “sense of humour”.

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MALTA
The Malta Independent

Pope Benedict XVI has officially appointed Mgr Charles J. Scicluna, the Vatican’s sex crimes prosecutor, as Auxiliary Bishop of Malta, the Archbishops Curia confirmed yesterday morning.

On his Episcopal ordination, scheduled for 24 November, Mgr Scicluna will become a member of the Maltese Episcopal Conference alongside the Archbishop and the Bishop of Gozo, Mgr Mario Grech. The appointment has led to speculation that Mgr Scicluna is poised to become Malta’s next archbishop, but the weight such speculation holds will remain to be seen.

The Pope has also nominated Mgr Scicluna as Titular Bishop of San Leone.

As Auxiliary Bishop, 53-year-old Mgr Scicluna will be called to be the closest collaborator and advisor of Archbishop Paul Cremona, with leadership responsibilities in the Curia and in diocesan pastoral ministry, the Curia said.

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MALTA
The Sunday Times

News of Mgr Charles Scicluna’s nomination as Malta’s new Auxiliary Bishop came as a bolt out of the blue for many outside and even inside Church circles. However, it is a strike that can only be highly commended.

Mgr Scicluna is not an ordinary priest, if indeed there is such a thing as an ordinary priest. He is one who knows the corridors of Rome probably better than he knows them in Floriana. He is an achiever, a doer and a highly accomplished speaker.

Very much as his soon-to-be-vacated role at the Vatican implies, he is also a promoter. In many senses.

Mgr Scicluna cannot be pigeonholed as conservative or liberal, because he is neither. He is simply staunchly committed to the Church. He promoted the cause of San Ġorġ Preca. Yet he has never been afraid to be critical of the institution if he believes it has not served its people.

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UNITED STATES
IrishCentral

By
PATRICK COUNIHAN,
IrishCentral Staff Writer

Published Sunday, October 7, 2012

Former Irish President Mary McAleese has opened up on a major diplomatic row with an American cardinal who was later disgraced for covering up child sex abuse.

Cardinal Bernard Francis Law was Archbishop of Boston when he clashed with President McAleese on a state visit to the US in 1998.

The Irish leader was publicly berated by Cardinal Law for her open support for the ordination of women priests.

The Catholic Bishop told McAleese that he was: “Sorry for Catholic Ireland to have you as President.”

The former President, now studying theology in Rome where she has published a book on canon law, told the Irish Independent that the Cardinal also attacked a junior minister who had accompanied her on the trip.

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VATICAN CITY
Herald Sun (Australia)

Dario Thuburn
From: AAP
October 07, 20122:00PM

STARTING with the victim – Pope Benedict XVI – there was nothing normal about the trial of Paolo Gabriele, the Vatican butler convicted of stealing secret papers from the papal palace.

The defendant said he was inspired by the Holy Spirit to rid the Vatican of “evil and corruption” and the main judge was from an aristocratic family that has served the papacy for generations who has been knighted by the Vatican.

Gabriele on Saturday was found guilty of aggravated theft and sentenced to 18 months in prison, although Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said a pardon from the Pope was “very likely” to come soon, before the sentence was actually implemented.

Adding to the unique nature of a trial in the world’s smallest state where the Pope has supreme powers, the sentence began: “In the name of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, who reigns in glory, and invoking the Holy Trinity.”

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UNITED STATES
The Daily News

By Dr. Joseph Langen

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Soon after I started work at a mental health center in the 1970s, probation referred a sexual abuse case to me. Not having experience with such cases, I asked in our staff meeting how I should go about treating such a person. No one knew. There had never been such a referral before.

With all that has since been written about the matter, it is hard to imagine our blissful ignorance back then. Now it is a rare day in which at least one person is not identified in the newspaper as a perpetrator of sexual abuse. Courts have been tough on them. Treatment programs have arisen in our communities as well as in prison. An ongoing scandal arose over priests and other clergy abusing children and adults and church officials hiding rather than addressing the problem.

So what accounts for such behavior? In my practice as a psychologist and through research for my novel, “The Pastor’s Inferno,” I discovered a number of motivations. One is anger about something in the abuser’s life driving abusers’ actions when not able to deal with his or her (usually his) anger directly. Another is power or control over the victim in abusers who tend to feel powerless and seek a victim to dominate. A third is sadism or sexual arousal from causing pain to others. These motivate abusers of adults, adolescents and children. About a third of convicted sex offenders were themselves abused as children, but two thirds were not.

At one time it was thought that all sex offenders were hopelessly addicted to a life of abusing more victims every chance they got. Research has suggested that treatment can lead to good results with child molesters and exhibitionists. However there do not seem to be any clear positive results from treatment of rapists.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
TMJ4

[with video]

MILWAUKEE- The controversy over the Catholic priest sex abuse scandal hits the big screen.

Not only that, but Friday night is the US premiere of the film. It’s called Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence In The House Of God — a documentary focused on the sexual assaults within the church right here in Milwaukee.

With bright lights, ticket lines, even a red carpet, the event had all the trimmings of a blockbuster premiere.

The film brought a message to the big screen. Telling the story of hundreds of young men abused by Father Lawrence Murphy, the headmaster at St. John’s School for the Deaf in St. Francis.

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NEW YORK
Times Herald-Record

By Steve Israel
Times Herald-Record

10/07/12

More than 25 years after the boys and their families were victims of sexual abuse by two local priests, an eternal flame of anger burns within them. It flares when they see another adult – such as former Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky – allowed to put himself in a position of authority and trust so he can feed his appetite for young boys.

“It brings back everything,” says Catherine Westfall of Port Jervis. Her son Patrick was sexually abused by Francis Stinner, a now defrocked priest who served at St. Mary’s Church in Port Jervis and taught at John S. Burke High School in Goshen in the 1980s and ’90s, where he also coached soccer.

Just days before Sandusky is scheduled to be sentenced for sexually abusing at least 10 boys, some local victims of sexual abuse by Stinner and Edward Pipala, another defrocked priest who served in Goshen and Monroe, say there isn’t a prison sentence severe enough to extinguish their rage.

“He (Pipala) got seven years. We got life,” says one victim of Pipala, who served his time in federal prison after he abused some 50 boys while serving at Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church in Monroe and St. John the Evangelist in Goshen in the ’80s and early ’90s. The victim first said that after Pipala was released from prison in 2000. He repeated it last week.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

Sat, 10/06/2012

by
Cindy Wooden,
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY — A three-judge panel of Vatican jurists found Paolo Gabriele, the papal butler, guilty of aggravated theft and sentenced him to 18 months in jail for his role in leaking private papal correspondence and other confidential documents.

The verdict was read Oct. 6 by Giuseppe Dalla Torre, president of the three-judge panel, just two hours after the fourth and final session of the trial.

Dalla Torre began reading the sentence with the formula, “In the name of His Holiness Benedict XVI, gloriously reigning, the tribunal, having invoked the Most Holy Trinity, pronounced the following sentence. …” …

Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman, told reporters Pope Benedict was informed of the results of the trial immediately and was studying the matter. Father Lombardi said he believed it was likely the pope would pardon Gabriele, although he had no idea when that would occur.

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VATICAN CITY
BBC News

By David Willey
BBC News, Vatican City

The 18-month prison sentence handed down by the Vatican City criminal court on Pope Benedict’s former butler, Paolo Gabriele, may mark not the end but the beginning of a complex story of betrayal and discontent at the very heart of the Catholic Church.

Some of the hundreds of sensitive documents stolen from the Pope’s desk over an extended period found their way into the Italian mainstream media and into a bestselling book earlier this year.

Pope Benedict wanted closure on the Gabriele case and he got it, only hours before the start of the most important Vatican event of the year, which begins on Sunday.

He has called a three-week long Synod of Bishops from around the world to advise him on how to spearhead what the Vatican is optimistically calling “The New Evangelisation”.

This is code for a high-octane effort by the Catholic Church to counter the insidious spread of secularism within countries – particularly in Europe – that once confidently proclaimed themselves Catholic, but where Sunday mass attendance is now falling yearly to ever-lower levels.

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VATICAN CITY
AFP

By by Dario Thuburn (AFP)

VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI’s former butler Paolo Gabriele, sentenced on Saturday to 18 months in jail for leaking secret memos, said he was a loyal servant disgusted by “evil and corruption” in the Vatican.

A married father-of-three who lives inside the Vatican as one of the tiny state’s 594 citizens, Gabriele was born in Rome and started out as a cleaner in the Secretariat of State — the main administration of the Catholic Church.

Gabriele then worked as part of the domestic staff of late pope John Paul II before being promoted in 2006 to the prestigious post of butler to the pope — a position that gave him unique access for a layman to the pontiff himself. …

The butler expressed frustration with a culture of secrecy in the Vatican — from the mysterious disappearance of the daughter of a Vatican employee in 1983 to a quickly hushed-up double murder and suicide by a Swiss guard in 1998.

“There is a kind of omerta against the truth, not so much because of a power struggle but because of fear, because of caution,” Gabriele said in the interview, using the term for the code of silence of the Sicilian Mafia.

He told Nuzzi he was acting with “around 20 other people” in the Vatican, though he later denied others had been actively involved in helping him.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By Annysa Johnson of the Journal Sentinel

Oct. 6, 2012

Dozens of clergy sex abuse survivors and their supporters turned out for Friday’s sold-out U.S. premiere of “Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God” at the Milwaukee Film Festival. But the leading victims advocacy group, the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, takes issue with how the film, which recounts the abuse of as many as 200 deaf boys by the Milwaukee Archdiocese’s late Father Lawrence Murphy, treats retired Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland.

Weakland, who is interviewed in the film, appears as a tragically flawed figure who fought the Vatican in an effort to defrock Murphy late in his life.

SNAP issued a statement on Weakland, saying, in part:

“The Pope might have been in Rome but it was Weakland who was in Milwaukee. During his entire tenure as archbishop, Weakland concealed and transferred child molesting clerics from one parish and school to another without alerting police or notifying the public. In fact, Weakland knew there were so many priests assaulting children under his supervision that, according to his 2008 deposition, he never informed parishes with offender priests assigned, or once assigned to them, because, as he put it, that would entail notifying ‘nearly all’ of the 300 parishes of the archdiocese and presumably, that’s the only job he would be doing. Exactly.”

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

Paolo Gabriele, who stated: “I don’t feel like a thief”, has been sentenced to 18 months in prison. The Pope will pardon him but now investigations are aiming to reconstruct the poison pen letter writer’s network of accomplices

VATICAN INSIDER STAFF
Vatican City

The “poison pen letter writer” has been given a mild sentence – he will only serve a jail term of one year and six months and will be pardoned – but investigations into potential accomplices continue. So Vatileaks is not over today: there are too many grey areas in an affair that has exposed a deep governance crisis in a Curia weakened by conflicts between opposing parties who are fighting to for power. Influential figures in the Curia still oppose the Pope, who is trying to enforce a strict line of purification, to the detriment of a deeply ingrained conspiracy of silence among sections of the Church hierarchy who are mixed up in the Vatican’s financial scandals.

Meanwhile, the former butler’s confidants, Curia representatives such as papal vicar Angelo Comastri, are ending up in the Vatileaks meat grinder when they actually have nothing to do with the whole affair. “I was dragged into the affair big time, even though I had nothing to do it,” Cardinal Comastri complained at the end of the Gendarmerie’s celebrations for the feast day of St. Francis on Friday. During the celebrations, Salvatore DeGiorgi, one of the cardinals who prepared the report on the Vatican document leak for the Pope, expressed regret about the sensationalist climate surrounding the search for the truth.

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