ABUSE TRACKER

OHIO/WEST VIRGINIA
Fox 19

CINCINNATI, OH (FOX19)- A federal grand jury has charged Robert Frank Poandl, 71, of Fairfield with one count of transportation of a minor across state lines for illicit purposes.

Poandl, who is also known as “Father Bob,” was arrested by FBI agents at the Glenmary Missioners in Fairfield.

The indictment alleges that in August 1991, Poandl took a 10-year old boy from Cincinnati to West Virginia to engage in sexual activity with him.

After these allegations arose, Poandl was removed from his position in Atlanta.

He arrived in Cincinnati on Feb. 13.

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OHIO/WEST VIRGINIA
WKRC

A Fairfield priest is indicted by a federal grand jury on a child sex charge.

In February, Father Robert Frank Poandl denied any wrongdoing but was suspended from performing any priestly duties. The indictment alleges Father Poandl took a ten year old boy to West Virginia in 1991 with the intent to engage in sexual activity. Poandl is now 71 years old.

The FBI arrested the priest commonly called Father Bob today at the Glenmary Missioners.

Glenmary Missioners have posted a statement on their website. It says the alleged victim made the allegation against Father Poandl in 2009. “Father Poandl were dismissed by a West Virginia court in August 2010 and Father Poandl’s record was expunged. Following the Nov. 15 hearing Father Poandl has been temporarily detained at the Butler County Jail in Hamilton, Ohio, until his next hearing on Nov. 19.”

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CALIFORNIA
BishopAccountability.org – Assignment Record

Summary of Case: Ordained for the Los Angeles archdiocese in 1967, Ziemann spent much of his career at Our Lady Queen of the Angels high school seminary where he served as teacher, spiritual director, vice-rector, and dean of studies. He was elevated to Auxiliary Bishop in 1987, then to Bishop of Santa Rosa in 1992. In 1999 a younger priest of the diocese accused Ziemann of coercing him into sex over a two year period, ending in 1998. Ziemann abruptly resigned, admitting to a sexual relationship with the priest, but denying coercing him. In 2002 a man accused Ziemann of sexually abusing him beginning in 1968, when the man was a sixth-grade altar boy, and continuing for almost twenty years. This accuser claimed that Ziemann began to pay him for sex when he was 17 years-old. Ziemann denied the allegations. Another man surfaced in the early 2000s with claims that Ziemann sexually abused him as an altar boy in the 1960s, and a third man in 2004 accused Ziemann of sexually assaulting him as a boy in the 1970s, on the grounds of Our Lady’s high school seminary. After stepping down Ziemann spent some time in an east coast residential treatment program. In 2000 he settled into a ‘life of prayer and study’ at a Benedictine monastery in the Tucson diocese. Ziemann died in October 2009.

Ordained: April 29, 1967
Incardinated: Los Angeles
Appointed: Auxiliary Bishop Dec. 23, 1986
Appointed: Bishop of Santa Rosa July 14, 1992
Retired: July 1999
Died: Oct. 22, 2009

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OHIO/WEST VIRGINIA
Cincinnati Inquirer

Written by
Dan Horn

A Catholic priest in Fairfield was accused in federal court Thursday of transporting a boy across state lines so he could abuse him.

The Rev. Robert Poandl, a Glenmary Home Missioner, faces up to 10 years in prison if he is convicted.

Federal prosecutors say the abuse occurred in 1991 when Poandl traveled with the 10-year-old boy from Ohio to West Virginia. His accuser, now 30 and living in Cincinnati, told police in 2009 that Poandl molested him at the Holy Redeemer Catholic Church rectory in Spencer, W.Va.

Poandl, 71, was charged with sexual abuse in West Virginia, but a judge dismissed those state charges in 2010.

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MISSOURI
The Kansas City Star

By JUDY L. THOMAS
The Kansas City Star

A former Kansas City area Catholic priest who was the subject of sexual abuse lawsuits, the most recent filed earlier this year, has died.

John R. Tulipana, who left the ministry in the mid-1990s, died Nov. 5 at the age of 66, according to his obituary.

Tulipana’s name first surfaced in 1994 in connection with sexual abuse when the diocese confirmed it had settled two complaints against the priest, who denied the accusations.

In 2008, allegations against Tulipana were part of a $10 million settlement the diocese approved with 47 plaintiffs who alleged sexual abuse by 12 priests.

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OHIO/WEST VIRGINIA
WLWT

A federal grand jury has indicted a Fairfield priest with transportation of a minor across state lines for illicit purposes.

A grand jury in West Virginia indicts a Cincinnati priest on child sex charges.
More

The indictment says 71-year-old Robert Poandl, known as “Father Bob,” took a 10-year-old boy to West Virginia in 1991 and sexually assaulted him there.

Poandl was indicted Wednesday and taken into custody Thursday.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Eastbourne Herald

Published on Thursday 15 November 2012

Sussex Police have revealed that they have received a “substantial” amount of new information over historic allegations of sex offences against children and young men in East Sussex following the arrests this week of two members of the clergy.

The former Bishop of Lewes, the Right Reverend Peter Ball, and retired church of England priest, Vickery House, were both arrested this week by police. Both have been released but are expected to be questioned again by police shortly.

Eighty-year-old Peter Ball was arrested on Tuesday at his home near Langport in Somerset, on suspicion of eight sexual offences in East Sussex and in one case elsewhere, almost all during the late 1980s and early 1990s. He was released at his home that afternoon on medical advice and police intend to interview him at a later date. The offences were allegedly committed against eight boys and young men, all of whom were at time in their late teens or early twenties, except one who was 12 when the alleged offending occurred in the late 1970s.

Vickery House, 67, was arrested on the same morning at his home address near Haywards Heath on suspicion of two separate sexual offences against two boys aged 17 and 18 at the time, in East Sussex between 1981 and 1983. He was interviewed in Sussex and released on police bail this afternoon until Thursday, November 29 while enquiries continue.

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UNITED KINGDOM
ITV

Police investigating allegations of sexual offences against young men in Sussex have received a ‘substantial amount of new information’ from members of the public since two arrests were made on Tuesday 13th November. Another 10 people have come forward, making allegations.

An 80-year-old man arrested at his home address near Langport, Somerset, on suspicion of eight sexual offences in East Sussex and in one case elsewhere, almost all during the late 1980s and early 1990s, was released on medical advice. Police intend to interview him at a later date

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Robert Booth
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 15 November 2012

Police investigating allegations of sexual abuse, including child abuse, against the retired bishop Rt Rev Peter Ball have received complaints from a further seven men who claim they were victims, it emerged on Thursday.

A man who was 12 when he alleges he was abused by the former bishop of Lewes was among those who came forward, according to a spokesman for Sussex police’s Operation Dunhill. Ball was arrested on Tuesday on suspicion of sex offences.

Detectives said they had received “a substantial amount of new information from members of the public” in the 48 hours since his arrest at his home near Langport in Somerset.

He was due to be questioned on suspicion of a further eight sexual offences against boys and young men ranging in age from 12 to early 20s but was released at his home that afternoon on medical advice. Police now intend to interview him at a later date.

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MIAMI (FL)
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Miami

Thursday, November 15, 2012

Communications Department – Archdiocese of Miami

The Archdiocese of Miami was informed today by the media of a lawsuit alleging sexual abuse by Father Neil Doherty, a retired priest. At this time, Father Doherty is incarcerated in Broward County.

The Archdiocese of Miamis policy on sexual abuse allegations is very clear: a report is made to the State Attorneys office; our internal Archdiocesan Review Board reviews the allegation; and pastoral care and counseling are offered to any alleged victim. Our policy is available for review on the archdiocesan website www.miamiarch.org.

As always, the Catholic Churchs concerns are for the victims and a prevailing sense of justice and healing. Over these past ten years, the Archdiocese has been forthcoming and taken steps to keep children safe through training and background screenings of all its employees, volunteers, clergy and teachers.

If anyone has been a victim of sexual abuse by a member of the clergy or church personnel, they should contact the local law enforcement department and/or the Archdiocese of Miamis Victims Assistance Hotline, 1-866-802-2873.

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MIAMI (FL)
Riptide

By Michael MillerThu., Nov. 15 2012

This afternoon, local attorney Jeffrey Herman held a press conference to announce yet another lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Miami. According to the suit, Father Neil Doherty — now in prison — drugged, molested, and raped then 15-year-old Miami resident Dennis Montero.

Before the press conference, however, the Archdiocese sent reporters a list of “questions that you should keep in mind” for the attorney including “Is the Archdiocese of Miami the only organization/person Mr. Jeffrey Herman sues?”

“It seems to me like it’s deflecting from the issue,” says Herman, “which is why was Neil Doherty working there for decades when he was molesting children?”

In his lawsuit, Montero says he met the priest in 1984 at the Keystone Trailer Park in Miami:
Doherty took Dennis and his friend to a trailer, where another adult male lived. In this trailer, Doherty gave Dennis wine. The wine was drugged and caused Dennis to lose consciousness. When Dennis awoke, he was naked with Father Doherty also naked sleeping next to him. Dennis could feel the residue of semen on his leg. Dennis was confused and upset, and Doherty calmed him down. Father Doherty offered Dennis Money.

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UNITED STATES
Film Journal

Nov 15, 2012

-By Daniel Eagan

The details of the crime were appalling. For years, the students of St. John’s School for the Deaf outside Milwaukee, Wisconsin, were systematically abused by the very person put in charge to protect them, Father Lawrence Murphy. The students appealed to teachers and eventually to the police for help, only to be turned away. As Oscar-winning director Alex Gibney shows in Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God, this pattern of indifference and culpability leads from Milwaukee to the Vatican, the headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church.

Raised a Catholic, Gibney reacted strongly to the issue of sexual abuse within the Church. “But a lot of people had done films about isolated tales of clerical abuse,” he says during an interview from HBO offices in New York. “I wanted to make sure that if I was going to do it, I could make a new contribution.”

Articles by New York Times national religion correspondent Laurie Goodstein about how deaf survivors took their story to the public brought national attention to the St. John’s incident. Gibney was drawn to the story because it linked Church abuse for the first time to the Vatican, giving him a canvas that was both intimate and panoramic. “This was a story about everyday heroes,” he adds. “Deaf survivors who had no voices, but still managed to make themselves be heard.”

In the film, Gibney builds the case against the Vatican gradually, first working backwards to explain the conditions at St. John’s. “We didn’t want to make a dogmatic film,” he explains. “We wanted to fan out from this case to something much bigger. Much as these survivors, who were just local kids from Milwaukee, suddenly got religion, so to speak, and started to try to raise their voices until they took their story all the way to the top. But honestly, the movie comes out of silence, and you have to learn to inhabit that world first, let it open up to you.”

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

by Tom Roberts | Nov. 15, 2012

I arrived in Kansas City, Mo., today and wasn’t here more than three hours when someone handed me a recent letter headlined “Bishop’s Annual Appeal.” The bishop who is doing the appealing, of course, is Robert Finn, recently convicted in county court for failing to report suspected child abuse and spared a fine and jail time under an agreement worked out with prosecutors.

It was somewhat amusing, then, to see the line just under that heading:

“Honoring Bishop Emeritus, Raymond J. Boland – 25 Years As A Bishop.”

Boland was hardly a hero when it came to policing sex abuse crimes. He demonstrated the same lapses as was the case with many members of the hierarchical culture of his generation. But on other matters he was, in temperament, management style and pastoral approach, quite a different bishop from Finn, who within days of taking over undid by fiat virtually everything that had been put in place by Boland and several of his immediate predecessors. Generally speaking, Boland was respected; in the same degree, it might safely be said, Finn sets teeth on edge.

Whether or not Boland gave permission for his name to be used this way, it seems clear that Finn — having violated not only civil law but also church law in the form of the charter fashioned by the U.S. bishops themselves, and having made the diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph a source of embarrassment and derision nationwide — had to find some sympathetic figure on which to hang his fund raising ambitions.

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MIAMI (FL)
NBC 6

A retired Miami priest who’s already behind bars awaiting criminal trial on sexual battery charges is the subject of a new lawsuit filed Thursday that claims he drugged and sexually abused a teen boy in the 1980s.

The lawsuit, filed against the Archdiocese of Miami, claims Father Neil Doherty, 69, began the abuse when the victim, Dennis Montero, was 15-years-old.

A spokeswoman for Montero’s attorney, Jeffrey Herman, said Montero wants his name disclosed and will be speaking about the alleged abuse at a Thursday afternoon news conference.

Officials with the Archdiocese said they were aware of the lawsuit and would issue a statement sometime Thursday.

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AUSTRALIA
Fraser Coast Chronicle

MARYBOROUGH priest Paul Kelly says he would break the sacred “seal of silence” and report child sex abusers who confessed to him, despite the threat of excommunication from the Catholic Church for doing so.

Father Kelly’s comments come after the Federal Government announced a royal commission into child sex abuse cases, a move which has unearthed concerns about the church directive that priests keep secret all information given in confession.

For a priest to break this code is considered a mortal sin and would see them excommunicated from the Catholic Church.

But Father Kelly, who has also campaigned against the gay panic defence, said he agreed with suggestions the “seal of silence” privilege could be seen to protect child sex offenders.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

BARRY ROCHE, Southern Correspondent

A Dominican priest was today remanded on bail after he was charged with 39 counts of sexually assaulting a boy at various locations in Munster around 20 years ago.

Fr Vincent Mercer (66), who is out of ministry but remains a member of the Dominican Order, appeared at Cork District Court today in relation to the offences.

He was charged with 39 counts of sexually assaulting the boy, who was aged between 11 and 17 at the time, on various dates between January 1st 1986 and February 22nd 1994.

The offences are alleged to have happened at a house in Cork city, a location in Co Limerick, a location in Co Cork and a number of unknown locations.

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MINNESOTA
Stamford Advocate

BARNESVILLE, Minn. (AP) — A teenager who posted his support for same-sex marriage online has been denied a Catholic rite of passage at his northwestern Minnesota church, his family said.

Shana Cihak said her 17-year-old son, Lennon, wasn’t allowed to be confirmed at Assumption Church in Barnesville last month after posting a Facebook picture of himself with a political sign he altered to oppose the marriage amendment on Minnesota’s ballot. Voters on Nov. 6 rejected the constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.

Assumption Rev. Gary LaMoine told The Associated Press Thursday that the teen was not denied confirmation but declined to explain, calling it an “internal and pastoral” matter.

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MISSOURI
St. Louis Review

Joseph Kenny | jkenny@archstl.org

Archbishop Robert J. Carlson will preside at healing prayer services to mark the 10th anniversary of the U.S. bishops’ Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People and to pray for healing and reconciliation and for the prevention of abuse. Bishop Edward M. Rice will attend the Dec. 20 service.

The charter is a set of procedures established by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in June 2002 for addressing allegations of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy.

All who are victims/survivors of physical, sexual, emotional or verbal abuse by anyone — clergy, family, friends, co-workers or strangers — are invited to attend the prayer service. In addition, family members and friends of survivors are encouraged to participate, as well as those who are involved in helping abused people and those who work to prevent abuse.

The services will be held at 7 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 20, at St. Luke the Evangelist Church, 7230 Dale Ave. in Richmond Heights, and 7 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 23, at Queen of All Saints Church, 6603 Christopher Drive in Oakville.

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AUSTRALIA
The Courier Mail

Terry Sweetman
From:The Courier-Mail
November 16, 2012

CHRIS Masters, of The Moonlight State fame, wrote that when Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen was trying to scuttle the Fitzgerald inquiry he warned colleagues that if you lifted an old piece of tin you were likely to find a dead cat or an angry snake.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard is doubtlessly aware plenty of stinking cats and venomous snakes will be exposed when her Royal Commission lifts the rusty iron of institutional responses to child abuse.

The difference is Gillard will not be overly surprised by what the inquiry turns up.

After a litany of complaints, exposes, court cases and plain old humbug stretching back decades, the only surprise for any sentient human might be the breadth of institutional inaction and the depth of the cover-ups. Rarely can Australia, or any of its states, have embarked on an inquiry where so many of the answers have been so evident for so long.

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ILLINOIS
Madison-St. Clair Record

November 15, 2012

By Christina Stueve Hodges

St. Clair County Associate Judge Vincent Lopinot was assigned Nov. 5 to an Illinois man’s lawsuit against the Catholic Diocese of Belleville involving allegations of sexual abuse.

Plaintiff John Doe S. claims former priest Raymond Kownacki sexually abused him in 1985 while Doe was a parishioner at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Valmeyer.

A status conference is set Nov. 19 to determine if the case would go before a jury and if there are amendments or challenges to the pleadings.

According to the complaint filed July 26, Kownacki served at area churches before being appointed to the diocesan board.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian Jewish News

CONVICTED paedophile David Kramer’s efforts to avoid extradition have failed, with a US court ordering the former Yeshivah College (Melbourne) teacher back to Australia to face charges, including indecent assault and indecent acts with a child under the age of 16.

Kramer was arrested in St Louis, Missouri, moments after being released from prison, where he had served four years of a seven-year sentence for molesting a 12-year-old boy.

Kramer is alleged to have sexually abused four boys at Yeshivah College between 1989 and 1992, before being spirited away to Israel by the school.

A spokesperson from the Attorney-General’s Department would not confirm when Kramer was due back in Australia, saying only that he is “wanted by Victorian authorities to face prosecution for the offences of indecent assault and indecent acts with a child under the age of 16”.

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UNITED STATES/AUSTRALIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on November 15, 2012

A support group for victims of clergy abuse is applauding the upcoming extradition of an alleged predator who molested in St. Louis and was freed from prison earlier this year.

Last Thursday, a U.S. District Court sustained a motion to extradite David Kramer to Australia where he will stand trial for abuse between 1989 and 1993 that reportedly took place at Yeshivah College in Melbourne. Parents of kids at the school allege that school officials assisted in helping Kramer, who is a dual Israeli and American citizen, flee to the United States after allegations had been reported to school officials.

While in the St. Louis area, Kramer was a volunteer youth leader at Nusach Hari B’nai Zion, an Orthodox synagogue (their phone number is 314-991-2100).

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CALIFORNIA
Millstone

This past Monday, I was honored to be invited to be on KFI 640 AM’s John and Ken Show to talk about MILLSTONE. Both John and Ken have been ardent supporters of victims of clergy sex abuse since they stood outside of the Los Angeles Cathedral almost 10 years ago and began reading leaked emails from Cardinal Mahony. The emails were explosive:

“In one, dated March 27, 2002, Mahony notes that the church has not reported three of the eight most abusive priests, one of whom was Baker. Mahony worries that if the district attorney finds this out, ‘I can guarantee you that I will get hauled into a grand jury proceeding and I will be forced to give all the names.’”And in another message dated April 1, 2002, Mahony suggests that the archdiocese issue a statement saying it cannot release the names or numbers of accused priests while the government is investigating. ‘Since that is weeks and months down the road, I hope interest would have waned by then,’ Mahony writes.”

John and Ken have remained steadfast in their fight to get Mahony and his successor to come clean about abuse. We had a great talk about the book, my own story, and the importance of the upcoming November 26 awareness event.

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BALTIMORE (MD)
National Catholic Reporter

by Catholic News Service | Nov. 14, 2012

Baltimore —
During their annual fall general assembly Nov. 12-15 in Baltimore, the U.S. bishops voted down a document on the troubled U.S. economy, passed documents on penance and better preaching, approved a reorganization of their Communications Department and endorsed the sainthood cause of Dorothy Day.

Although the bishops discussed the economy, their document “The Hope of the Gospel in Difficult Times: A Pastoral Message on Work, Poverty and the Economy” did not gain the two-thirds vote required for passage Tuesday.

Some bishops criticized the document after it was introduced Monday for being too long to be practical and for failing to include a variety of points and historical references. …

The bishops approved a reorganization of their Communications Department that would include hiring a director of public affairs who would work to unify messages on the activities and stances of the USCCB — not individual dioceses or bishops — and better carry out church campaigns related to new evangelization, according to New York Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York, USCCB president. …

The bishops also approved a 2013 budget of $220.4 million and agreed to add a national collection for the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services. The budget for 2013 represents a 1.3 percent increase from 2012.

The new collection for the military archdiocese would begin in 2013. Under the plan, it would be taken voluntarily in parishes every three years. Bishop Michael J. Bransfield of Wheeling-Charleston, W.Va., USCCB treasurer, said the 2013 budget includes a surplus totaling more than $749,000. He also told the bishops that there was a projected surplus of $250,000 for 2014, meaning there was no need to seek an increase in the annual diocesan assessment for USCCB operations.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
The Kansas City Star

By MARY SANCHEZ
The Kansas City Star

Certainly there are more dangerous places for a young person to get lost.

IHOP, south Kansas City’s evangelical missionary movement, was created 13 years ago by a man who grew up in the Center School District. It’s one man’s version of religion made big.

The suspicious have long leveled the charge of “cult” against IHOP (International House of Prayer). That will likely increase in light of recent news coverage.

A young woman with ties to IHOP was found murdered at Longview Lake. A young man with ties to IHOP is charged with suffocating her.

IHOP, it should be emphasized, isn’t accused of anything criminal in the murder. Only those eventually charged will bear that burden.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

November 16, 2012

Mark Russell

A WITNESS has told a court how he was playing computer games in former Catholic priest David Rapson’s office at Salesian College Rupertswood in Sunbury when he was given a glass of lemonade and passed out.

He claimed he woke up to find Rapson raping him.

He was 12 years old.

And as he ran from Rapson’s office, the priest allegedly called out for him to come back ”in a voice like the devil”.

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AUSTRALIA
Brisbane Times

November 16, 2012

Paul Bibby
Court Reporter

THE Catholic Church has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on legal fees to defend priests and brothers who have already been tried and convicted of serious sexual assaults against children in their care.

A Fairfax Media investigation has revealed that at least two Catholic orders have continued to fund the legal defences of some of their religious members as they went to trial for the second, third and even fourth time for the sexual abuse of children.

This includes the funding of multiple appeals, hiring top barristers who charge thousands of dollars a day, and hiring private investigators.

In some cases the result has been that criminal prosecutions and the victims of abuse are dragged through the courts for many years.

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MISSOURI
Fulton Sun

By Don Norfleet

Thursday, November 15, 2012

A priest on trial in Boonville on charges of molesting children may have worked as a counselor in Fulton during the 1980s, a representative of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) said Wednesday in Fulton.

Judy Jones, SNAP midwest associate director, appeared in front of the Callaway County Sheriff’s Office Wednesday morning to ask anyone in Callaway County who might have known of any sexual abuse by Gerald James Howard, the accused priest and counselor, to notify the Callaway County Sheriff’s Office or Fulton Police.

Jones said she has not personally notified the Callaway County Sheriff’s Office about the situation but she wanted to have the press conference in front of the Sheriff’s Office to make sure that all of the department’s officers and the public were aware of the potential earlier sexual abuse in Callaway County.

Jones produced a notarized statement by one of the parents of the boy who testified against Howard at his recent forcible sodomy and kidnapping trial in Boonville.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

November 16, 2012

Michelle Grattan

The royal commission’s wide remit is fair but a nightmare in practice.

A DECADE ago Father Frank Brennan, a high-profile Jesuit priest who is now professor of law at the Australian Catholic University, had a woman confess to him that she was a murderess.

Brennan, with a deep belief in the sanctity of the confessional, would not have dreamed of going to the police, even if the law required it, which it does not. Anyway, Brennan asks, what good would it have done? He didn’t know the names of the woman or her alleged victim, nor the time or place of the alleged crime.

Brennan has never had anyone confess to child sex abuse. He believes the intense debate about whether priests should have to report what they’ve heard from confessions is beside the point. The perpetrators don’t share those secrets in the confessional box (although it is perhaps more likely priests might pick up information about perpetrators from victims).

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

Jill Rowbotham
From:The Australian
November 16, 2012

WHETHER priests respect the sanctity of the confessional is likely to be irrelevant to the royal commission into child sexual abuse because few people attend and those who do don’t reveal such matters.

If push came to shove, legal evidence expert Ian Freckelton SC said, there was not much room to refuse to testify, for priests or anyone else. However, while royal commissions did not afford the protections of a court, Dr Freckelton added: “I can’t imagine a royal commission attempting to coerce a priest to disclose what was said in the confines of the confessional.”

While politicians including Tony Abbott and NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell, who are both Catholic, have distanced themselves from Cardinal George Pell’s defence of the confessional, senior churchmen queried whether it would ever become relevant.

Catholic historian Paul Collins, a former priest, said: “The vast majority of Catholics don’t go to confession now. Priests could sit in confessionals for hours on end and wouldn’t meet a soul.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

Rocco Mimmo
From:The Australian
November 16, 201212:00AM

THE announcement by Julia Gillard that we are to have a royal commission into child sex abuse is universally welcomed.

However, in some quarters of the media it has unleashed a hysteria of salivating opportunism for vengeful attacks on religion, in particular the Catholic Church.

How unfortunate, as it moves the focus from the primary aim of healing the victims and bringing to trial those accused of abuse.

It is a fair bet that whatever acknowledgement is made and apologies offered to victims of clergy abuse this will never satisfy the anti-religious group as they zero in on the confessional.

The important point in all of this is to keep in mind what was said by Broken Rites, the organisation campaigning for the victims of the clergy’s sex abuse: “. . . confession was a non-issue. The real issue is when victims or their families complain about abuse, the church authorities fail to arrange an interview between the victim and police.”

Wednesday’s editorial in this newspaper put it nicely: ” . . . those conducting the commission and those reporting on it will need to guard against turning this into an inverted Spanish Inquisition — a chance to desecrate the Catholic Church.”

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

November 16, 2012

Waleed Aly

Who says politicians can’t sing in unison? This week we’ve seen the full array of politicians – Green, Labor, Liberal and independent – lining up to dismantle the Catholic Church’s institution of sealed confession. The idea that a priest could hear another priest’s confession of child sex abuse, and fail to report it to the authorities is, says the Attorney-General, Nicola Roxon, “really abhorrent”. The NSW Premier, Barry O’Farrell, “just can’t fathom” it. The independent MP Nick Xenophon just slams it as “a medieval law that needs to change in the 21st century”.

No freedom of religion argument can succeed against this. The secular liberalism that defines our public culture simply won’t accept it for one simple reason: religious freedom ends where harm to other people begins. And it’s a rare kind of harm that is more horrific than children being raped. The church can argue all it likes that the confessional seal is “inviolable”. But what obligation does the secular state have to canon law? What interest does the state have in ensuring people can receive absolution? The church simply has no answer to this. Hence the spectacle of practising Catholics like Tony Abbott and Christopher Pyne jumping on the anti-confessional bandwagon. There’s just no politically viable alternative.

But here’s the problem: the whole issue of the confessional seal is a monstrous red herring. This becomes clear once you pay attention to the way politicians are talking about it. Xenophon recounts the story of a 10-year-old boy who told his story of being abused to a priest at a confessional, only to be told that he’s the sinner and he needs to repent. If that’s the full story, then Xenophon’s right to call it “sickening”, but it simply has nothing to do with the confessional seal. There’s no confession from the abuser to reveal. The child is perfectly entitled to take his story to the police and the priest is perfectly entitled to help him do it. This case isn’t about confidentiality. It’s about a priest with a septic morality. I’d want that priest fired. I’d want the church to apologise, help prosecute the abuser, compensate the victim and make sure it never happens again. And breaking the seal of confession doesn’t help any of that.

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PROVIDENCE (RI)
Courthouse News Service

By IULIA FILIP

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (CN) – The Legionaries of Christ used undue influence to persuade a dying man to leave it $1 million in his will, the late man’s son claims in Federal Court.

Paul Chu, of Connecticut, sued the Legion of Christ aka The Legionaries of Christ, several affiliated entities, and Grupo Integer, a Mexican holding company that manages the order’s donations. Chu sued individually and as executor of the Estate of James Boa-Teh Chu.

Chu claims that while the Legionaries were soliciting his late father for donations, “the Order was being investigated by the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy in Rome for grave improprieties within the Order.”

According to the order’s website, “the Legionaries of Christ are a religious Congregation of priests, of pontifical rite, founded in 1941 in Mexico.” The congregation includes three bishops, 920 priests and more than 2,000 novices, candidates and seminarians in 22 countries.

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IRELAND
Kilkenny People

Published on Thursday 15 November 2012

An ex-priest who was based in Thomastown and Kilkenny city in the early 1970s has been jailed for indecently assaulting boys at various locations in Co Meath. Raymond Brady (77), Baltrasna, Oldcastle admitted ten offences of indecent assault and one of attempted indecent assault at Trim Circuit Court last week. Harrowed witnesses heard the crimes had been committed at parochial houses in Drumcondrath and Kilbeg as well as in the victims homes and at a caravan in Bettystown. Brady had assaulted his victims on dates between April 1st. 1968 and June 30th. 1976 when the boys were aged between 11 and 16 years old.

In most cases the assaults began when the victims were altar boys and continued in their homes after Brady had befriended and won the trust of their families. On some occasions Brady would be in the sitting room with the boy on his knee fondling him while the victim’s mother was in the kitchen making tea for the priest. On other occasions Brady brought the boys on trips and allowed them drive his car while he abused them. The victims in statements read to the court said that the priest’s actions had ruined their childhood and caused many problems for them in later life. Some said they were still haunted by what had happened. A number said they had turned against the Church and no longer attended Mass because of what he had done. One said that while he still attended Mass he became angry when asked every Sunday to pray for the Church but not for the abused

Two brothers said they had been shocked to learn after 40 years that each had been abused by Brady.

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AUSTRALIA
NEWS.com.au

OPPOSITION Leader Tony Abbott says the sanctity of the confessional should not exempt priests from reporting child abuse – but his local bishop does not agree.

Mr Abbott, a devout Catholic who once studied to be a priest, said on Wednesday that everyone should be obliged to obey the law and report knowledge of child abuse. This applied to priests as well.

“If they become aware of sexual offences against children, those legal requirements must be adhered to,” he said.

“Everyone has to obey the law, regardless of what position they hold.” Asked if that applied to priests, Mr Abbott said: “Indeed.”

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UNITED STATES
The Take Away

In recent years, the Catholic Church has faced countless accusations of child abuse, cover ups and institutional secrets. The cases number in the thousands. And all of them are horrific. But one of the most shocking took place in Milwaulkee. It involved a priest named Father Murphy and 200 deaf children in his care.

Alex Gibney delves into Father Murphy’s history of abuse, and the church’s decision to cover it up, in his new documentary, “Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God.”

Gibney, when asked to describe what kind of person could commit these kinds of crimes says, “Father Murphy is an interesting but also appalling character. I mean many of the worst clerical sex abuses turn out not to be the kind of people that are Gollum-like in the corner muttering about precious. These people are very charismatic, they’re charming and that’s their cover.”

Recently, the church in Milwaukee criticized the film for causing more pain to the victims by re-opening old wounds.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic World Report

November 14, 2012

By David F. Pierre, Jr.

I want to thank Alex Gibney for taking the time to reply to my analysis of his new documentary film, Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God. Any good and honest writer appreciates constructive feedback, as it certainly can be applied to the never-ending desire to grow in one’s craft.

Unfortunately, I found Gibney’s reply to my article neither helpful nor forthcoming, as the director trots out yet another parade of red herrings and half-truths.

In responding to Mr. Gibney, I would also like to add that my article for CWR barely scratches the surface of the volumes that can be said about his new film.

Mea Maxima Culpa is an anti-Catholic broadside masquerading as a documentary. Not including the victims who are profiled, Gibney has assembled one of the largest collections of reckless malcontents and Church bashers ever gathered in one film. Gibney’s project is mean-spirited in tone and approach, and the director’s agitated reply to my article only reinforces this.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

November 15, 2012

Mark Russell

A magistrate has rejected an application by a former Catholic priest to stop child sex abuse claims against him being aired in public.

Magistrate Greg McNamara said the case involving David Rapson was a matter of public interest.

Rapson’s defence lawyer Brad Newton had asked for any further details about the case against him to be suppressed, claiming the publicity was prejudicial to his chances of a fair trial.

But Mr McNamara disagreed, saying that if the case did go to trial, a jury would not be selected for many months.

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AUSTRALIA
The Manly Daily

15 Nov 12 @ 04:47pm by Charis Chang

OPPOSITION Leader Tony Abbott says the sanctity of the confessional should not exempt priests from reporting child abuse but his local bishop does not agree.

Mr Abbott, a devout Catholic who once studied to be a priest, said on Wednesday that everyone should be obliged to obey the law and report knowledge of child abuse. This applied to priests as well.

“If they become aware of sexual offences against children, those legal requirements must be adhered to,” he told reporters in Brisbane.

“The law is no respecter of persons, everyone has to obey the law, regardless of what job they are doing, what position they hold.”

Asked if that applied to priests, Mr Abbott replied: “Indeed.”

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

By court reporter Sarah Farnsworth, ABC
November 15, 2012

A Melbourne Court has heard a former Catholic priest accused of abuse enticed a 12 year old boy into his room at the Salesian College Rupertswood in Sunbury with the promise of computer games.

Former teacher and vice principal, David Rapson, 59, is charged with abusing seven boys between the 1970s and 1990s.

At a committal hearing, one alleged victim told the Melbourne Magistrates Court, Rapson invited him to play the computer game Pac-Man in his office.

“I felt like I was the golden child and special because he asked me to play his computer,” he told police in a statement.

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BELGIE
HLN

Bewerkt door: Hanne Adriaen
14/11/12

Een 41-jarige aalmoezenier, verbonden aan de Gentse gevangenis, heeft ontslag genomen na klachten van seksueel grensoverschrijdend gedrag. Dat meldt de VRT-nieuwsredactie en wordt bevestigd door het parket van Gent en de woordvoerder van het gevangeniswezen.

Bij het parket van Gent kwamen de afgelopen dagen drie klachten binnen van vrouwen die opgesloten zaten in de Gentse gevangenis. Twee van de vrouwen waren geïnterneerd. Het parket startte daarop een onderzoek wegens mogelijk seksueel grensoverschrijdend gedrag. De aalmoezenier zou de vrouwen ongepast hebben betast.

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BELGIE
Het Nieuwsblad

donderdag 15 november 2012,

Auteur: Sander Luyten en Cedric Lagast

GENT – De Gentse gevangenis heeft een van zijn aalmoezeniers aan de deur gezet omdat hij drie vrouwen betastte. Minstens twee van hen waren geïnterneerd. Opmerkelijk: aalmoezenier Ives D.M. (41) nam het net openlijk op voor het lot van deze groep psychiatrische gevangenen.

Twee weken geleden vertelde een vrouw in de Gentse gevangenis aan directeur Luc Stas dat ze betast was door de aalmoezenier. De vrouw is geïnterneerd: ze zit in een speciale afdeling van de gevangenis voor psychiatrische patiënten. Ze vertelde dat aalmoezenier Ives haar tijdens een gebedsessie plots begon te betasten.

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AUSTRALIA
The Global Mail

By Stephen Crittenden
November 15, 2012

A royal commission into child sexual abuse could go a long way to acknowledging the pain of victims, and allowing Christians to once more have faith in their institutions. But how should the terms of inquiry be framed, and how long might the cleansing take?

Australia’s Cardinal George Pell gave the worst media performance of his career at his press conference in Sydney on Tuesday. It was lazy, half-hearted and a complete waste of everyone’s time. He looked more than ever like yesterday’s man.

No wonder Pell’s former auxiliary in Sydney, retired bishop Geoffrey Robinson, said on ABC Radio’s The World Today program on Wednesday that George Pell was “an embarrassment”. Bishop Robinson also disagreed with the cardinal about the inviolability of the seal of confessional in cases where a paedophile priest makes a confession to another priest.

Tony Abbott, Australia’s most high-profile lay Catholic, also came out on Wednesday disagreeing with the cardinal on the same issue. “If they become aware of sexual offences against children, those legal requirements must be adhered to,” he told reporters. “The law is no respecter of persons, everyone has to obey the law, regardless of what job they are doing, what position they hold.”

That’s a measure of how isolated Pell now is within the Catholic Church in Australia. It was an extraordinary day for Australian Catholics. But then so was Tuesday, and the day before, when Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced there would be a national royal commission into the sexual abuse of children.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

by Maureen Fiedler | Nov. 14, 2012

When I read stories about the current meeting of Catholic bishops in Baltimore, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

The bishops gathered after suffering electoral defeats across the board. Despite their thinly veiled electioneering, Obama was re-elected. More specifically, the majority of the Catholic vote went for Obama. And voters approved all four referenda on marriage equality for gay and lesbian couples, despite the bishops’ opposition. Even Heidi Heidkamp – a Democrat in “red state” North Dakota – won her senate race despite specific electioneering against her by the Bishop of Bismarck.

You would think it would be time for soul-searching and a new approach to the world of public policy. But no!

There was no sign that they planned to re-visit their positions on birth control and religious freedom (in relation to the Affordable Care Act) or marriage equality.

They could not even come to grips with current economic realities and put them in the light of Catholic social teaching. What was supposed to be a major statement on the economy failed to pass… and it sounds like deserved to fail. It did not even mention the rising income inequality in the United States. It contained only one sentence on the right of workers to organize. It failed to reference the bishops’ 1986 Pastoral, Economic Justice for All. And in spite of an explicit recommendation from the bishops themselves, the committee that wrote this failed document did not consult an economist.

Then… Cardinal Dolan of New York told the assembled bishops to repent and confess their sins. But neither Dolan nor the assembled bishops chose to discipline Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas City, MO who sat as part of the group, although he is a convicted felon because he covered up sex abuse crimes in his diocese. So much for repentance.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Daily Beast

by Tom Sykes Nov 15, 2012

The UK’s spiraling child-abuse scandal has already reached Prince Charles once – he was a good friend of the children’s TV presenter Jimmy Savile who was hailed as an eccentric saint in his lifetime but has been unmasked as a predatory paedophile in death – and now the prince’s judgment is being called into question again, after it emerged that a retired Church of England bishop arrested yesterday by police investigating historic allegations of child sex abuse was given a free house to live in by Charles after the bishop resinged in disgrace having received a police caution for committing acts of gross indecency against a 17-year old trainee monk.

Sussex police arrested the 80 year-old Rt Rev Peter Ball, former bishop Gloucester, on Tuesday morning on suspicion of eight sex offences against eight boys and young men in the late Eighties and Nineties, after carrying out a “comprehensive and painstaking” analysis of internal church files “relating to certain child safeguarding issues within the Chichester diocese from between 20 and 25 years ago”, the Guardian reported.

Ball was created bishop of Gloucester in 1991 at a ceremony attended by Prince Charles. But in 1993, Ball resigned in disgrace after receiving a police caution for committing an act of ‘gross indecency’ against a teenage trainee monk. The young man involved, Neil Todd, spoke out about Ball’s ‘mental, sexual and physical’ abuse on the BBC in May.

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AUSTRALIA
CathNews

The Prime Minister took the only course open to her in agreeing to a Royal Commission into child sexual abuse in our country. There has been more than enough media coverage to convince any fair-minded person of the terrible damage done through the abuse of children, writes Bishop Pat Power in Eureka Street.

Over the past 20 years I have listened to people who have suffered such abuse, sometimes many years ago, and every time I hear a heartrending story I see another facet of the horror of this criminal behaviour.

The loss of childhood innocence, the secrecy which means little ones carry a burden they can share with no one, the misguided sense of guilt they often carry for many years, blaming themselves for what someone else has done to them, their shame before God; all of which may be compounded at times when they do try to unburden their troubled souls and find they are not believed or understood.

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AUSTRALIA
Canberra Times

November 15, 2012

The cardinal’s lack of empathy reflects a leadership deficit.

THE Catholic cardinal, George Pell, is wrong on so many levels. In his response to the Gillard government’s decision to hold a royal commission, which will examine how allegations of sexual abuse were handled by Australian institutions, Dr Pell suggests the church has been unfairly targeted by the media. He claims it has been maligned by ”smears”, and that the extent of ”misdoing” inside the Catholic Church has been ”exaggerated”. He calls for statistics to demonstrate the media’s focus on the Catholic Church is out of proportion to the incidence of sexual abuse inside the church.

Statistics are one thing, but this is not a game of numbers. The church has attracted appropriate scrutiny for the appalling way that its leaders have handled allegations and evidence of sexual abuse in past years and more recently. It has, rightly, been strongly criticised for failing to do the proper, decent thing that any Australian would do, which is to report instances of criminal wrongdoing to the police.

Dr Pell bemoans how the church has been ”unable to convince public opinion” of its changed ways since 1996, when it put in place protocols for dealing with allegations of sexual abuse. On that much at least, Dr Pell is correct. It has failed to convince the public because there is plenty of evidence that all is not fixed. Victims of sexual abuse say as much, and so does Victoria Police, which told the state parliamentary inquiry how the Catholic Church hindered police investigations and dissuaded victims from reporting abuse. Police noted that not one of the hundreds of abuse allegations handled by the Catholic Church in Victoria has been referred by it to police. Serving NSW police officers also complain, saying the church has thwarted official investigations at every turn.

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AUSTRALIA
Lawyers Weekly

15 November, 2012 Stephanie Quine

A Royal Commission into child sexual abuse in religious institutions will help to give victims some peace, according to a senior counsel.

Barrister and spokesperson for the Australian Lawyers Alliance (ALA), Dr Andrew Morrison SC (pictured), said victims of sexual abuse could never get back to where they were, but might get some satisfaction if they are listened to and feel that justice will ultimately be done.

Morrison said Barry O’Farrell’s proposed “very limited” inquiry into police and Church handling of abuse by Catholic Church clergy in the Hunter Valley would leave 99 per cent of the victims in NSW feeling that their needs were being ignored.

“The Murphy Inquiry in Ireland was cathartic, it needed to be because there was a huge cultural change required,” said Morrison.

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NEW ZEALAND
The Farming Show

By: Newstalk ZB staff | New Zealand News | Thursday November 15 2012

As the Australian government sets up a Royal Commission to investigate how institutions like schools and churches have dealt with accusations of abuse – there are calls for the same to happen here.

The Catholic Church is coming in for the most attention.

Australian Police have indicated they want to speak to members of St John of God in New Zealand in relation to incidents at Marylands school in Christchurch where three Catholic brothers were convicted of historical abuse.

National manager of the Male Survivors of Sexual Abuse Trust, Ken Clearwater, says many other victims came forward after those cases went to court – highlighting the scope of the issue in New Zealand.

“It’s widespread throughout New Zealand and the Catholic Church in New Zealand have tried to downplay it and I think now they may have to open it up.”

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AUSTRALIA
Northern Rivers Echo

Andy Parks
15th Nov 2012

They say a week is a long time in politics.

It was only last Friday that I met up with Robbie Gambley to talk about the Blue Knot Day event he was organising to support victims of childhood sexual abuse.

That very morning on the radio I’d heard a senior NSW police detective break ranks and claim investigations into child sexual abuse were being blocked by the Catholic Church in what he called a systematic cover-up. That same day The Age newspaper in Melbourne ran a story about a ring of 15 religious brothers and an ‘alpha paedophile’ suspected of the unreported murder of two boys and the abuse of 40 more in the 1960s.

Calls for a Royal Commission have been made loudly and repeatedly over many years, and on that Friday morning as I heard the latest news reports and also listened to Robbie bravely tell The Echo his story, I never thought we’d have a Royal Commission announced within the week.

But now it’s happened and victims’ support groups all over the country are starting to feel that finally, a light may be shone into some very dark places.

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AUSTRALIA
Green Left Weekly

Thursday, November 15, 2012

By Karl Hand

“The time has come for judgment to begin in the house of the Lord,” said the Apostle Peter to the early Christian Church (1 Peter 4:17). Very different issues were being faced then, but not too different. The church was facing intense public scrutiny, and Peter said that the suffering would be a cleansing experience. Those who were guilty (murderers, thieves and criminals, v. 15) would be exposed for what they are, and the innocent (v. 16) would be vindicated.

But ever since the alliance of church and state power, beginning in the fourth century, and coming to its climax when Pope Innocent IV appointed the Holy Roman Emperor in the 13th century, the Christian Church has managed to avoid the spiritual purification that comes from being held accountable for your actions by a secular state.

Sleaze

The sexual abuse of children by priests, and the systematic cover-ups by the church hierarchy, are the manifestation of a deeper rot – a lack of insight into the appropriate use of pastoral power.

Michel Foucault has described pastoral power as control over the destiny of a group of people, and individuals within that group, rationalised on the basis of the ancient oriental metaphor of a shepherd caring for sheep. According to Foucault, the acquisition of this kind of power by the medieval church laid the foundation for the governments of modern nation-states.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC Religion and Ethics

By Patrick Parkinson
ABC Religion and Ethics
15 Nov 2012

As is now well known, the prevalence of child sexual abuse is a major issue for the Catholic Church. There have been many priests and members of religious orders jailed, and many more identified offenders who died without ever being brought to justice. We have witnessed a stream of allegations for well over a decade now.

There are comparatively few allegations of child sexual abuse by ministers of religion in other churches. There are some, as there are in all other organizations involved in work with children and young people. With colleagues I have done a study of the prevalence of abuse in the Anglican Church across Australia. I have some knowledge also of what has happened in other churches. Reliable statistics are not available, but in my opinion, and based on the available data, there has been around six times as much child sexual abuse by clergy and religious in the Catholic Church as there is by ministers of religion in all the other churches in Australia combined – and I would regard that as a conservative figure.

Admittedly, the Catholic Church is the largest denomination in Australia, and it is also one in which priests and religious have been involved in schools and orphanages, unlike ministers of other churches. Even still, the reality is that the levels of abuse in the Catholic Church are strikingly out of proportion with any other church – and, from what I have seen, this is an international pattern. That makes it inevitable that a great deal of the focus of the national royal commission, so far as it concerns churches and faith-based organisations, is bound to be on the Catholic Church. This is also so because of the very serious allegations raised first by the Victorian Police and then echoed from the experience of a long-serving senior detective in NSW.

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UNITED STATES
A.V. Club

by Alison Willmore November 15, 2012

Director: Alex Gibney
Cast: Documentary
Rated: Not Rated
Running time: 106 minutes

Whether or not audiences are already familiar with the Catholic Church’s mishandling of sexual-abuse cases, Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence In The House Of God is primed to deliver a heady dose of outrage via a broad overview of systemic cover-ups tracing to the Vatican, as well as a specific and heartbreaking case in Wisconsin. The latest film from prolific Oscar-winning documentarian Alex Gibney (Taxi To The Dark Side), Mea Maxima Culpa is not gentle about placing blame on a structure that elevates priests above the rest of mankind and prioritizes maintaining an appearance of pious perfection over addressing some grievous wrongs committed. Victims of abuse face not only an organization unwilling or unable to dispense justice, but also fellow members of the faith who are encouraged not to believe their accusations or to urge them to keep silent.

That metaphorical silence is also a literal one in the film’s central story, about a group of men who were abused as boys attending the St. John’s School for the Deaf in Milwaukee. Attending the school in the ’60s, they were molested by Father Lawrence Murphy, and faced added challenges of communication that kept them isolated from anyone who could help them. As college students, they took up the fight to reveal the truth about Murphy, going to the police, the church, and the district attorney, and putting up flyers when no one would take their side. The men tell their story in sign, with the likes of Ethan Hawke, John Slattery, and other actors voicing their words, a clever choice that allows the viewer to focus on the anguished emotion on their faces rather than on subtitles.

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LOUISIANA
Acadia Parish Today

MARKSVILLE – A former pastor pleaded guilty on one count of indecent behavior of a juvenile and has been sentenced to eight years in prison with no benefit of probation, parole or suspension of sentence.

12th Judicial District Court. District Court Judge Billy Bennett sentenced Allen Chris Gintz who restricted the offender to house arrest until he reports to prison.

He can not leave his home unless it is to places approved by the court. Judge Bennett ruled Gintz could not even go to church.

Bennett gave Gintz two weeks to get his affairs in order before reporting to prison on Nov. 26.

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UNITED STATES
Orange County Weekly

By MARSHA MCCREADIE Thursday, Nov 15 2012

It’s a good thing documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney is an ex-Catholic; it takes the rage of the disillusioned to so zealously rip the veil as he does in Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence In the House of God. Yet even non-believers will get angry deciding which is worse: the sexual abuse of deaf children (mostly, though not exclusively, boys) at St. John’s School for the Deaf in Milwaukee from the 1950s through the early ’70s, or that the Church worked so hard to hide it.

Putting a face on misery, as he did in his Oscar-winning Taxi to the Dark Side, Gibney begins with four of the 200 boys abused by Father Lawrence Murphy—Terry Kohut, Gary Smith, Pat Kuehn and Arthur Budzinski—all as brave today for being filmed as they were when they first tried to out Murphy in 1973, handing out fliers proclaiming, “Serial Child Abuser Is Loose in Milwaukee” and turning him in to the police to no avail. (The men’s stories are given voice by actors including Chris Cooper, Ethan Hawke and John Slattery.) Terry describes Murphy as wolf-like; in one of the movie’s re-enactments, we watch his nightly visitations stalking the dorm, looking especially for boys whose parents didn’t sign and couldn’t be told.

Though Murphy admitted to some wrongdoing in a Church-supervised internal investigation, defending himself by saying he was taking the sexual sins of adolescents upon himself, he was, as with so many abusive priests, simply moved to another diocese. The film also exposes secret million-dollar settlement funds, even an attempt to buy an island in the Caribbean for pederastic priests. Cute, but instead, they were also recycled, not expelled. A ratatat spray of documents and expert testimony from sex counselors, priests with and without collars, and journalists including religion reporter Laurie Goldstein demonstrates who knew what and when they knew it. Vatican chronicler Marco Politi asserts that Church archives date child abuse to the 4th century.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

The Catholic diocese of Ballarat will provide all its documentation on sexual abuse to the national royal commission.

The Federal Government has begun consulting with victims, support groups and state governments about the terms of reference for the national inquiry.

Ballarat has been at the centre of many cases of clergy abuse in Victoria, with four former clergymen convicted with hundreds of child sex offences.

Bishop Paul Bird says the local diocese will provide all of its records.

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AUSTRALIA
Green Left Weekly

Thursday, November 15, 2012

By Barry Healy

Late on November 12, Julia Gillard announced a federal Royal Commission into child abuse in Australian institutions. The announcement came after growing scandals about paedophilia within the Catholic Church had reached the point where it was politically untenable for the government to continue with inaction.

With a Victorian parliamentary inquiry and a NSW Special Inquiry already underway, independent members of parliament, the Greens leadership and ALP MPs were demanding action. The leadership of the Catholic Church has been anxious for an investigation that is broader than the Church so that it can hide behind the fig leaf that other institutions may have also failed to act.

At the peak of society, a clash is beginning between modern, opportunist politics and arcane religious thought patterns.

But, most importantly, this clash is being driven from below by a demand for justice that is so deeply felt and widely spread that it could explode not just the Australian Catholic Church hierarchy but destabilise the Labor/Liberal mainstream political duopoly as well – that is, if the Royal Commission probes into major party political collusion with the Church.

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AUSTRALIA
3AW

Posted by: Derryn Hinch | 15 November, 2012

I was off-air yesterday obviously, attending the funeral of dear friend and AW colleague Paul Barber. And I expressed some of my thoughts on the AW website. It was a lovely funeral.

As my grandma would say: ‘They done him proud’. It was a Catholic service at the Immaculate Conception church in Hawthorn. Before the service I had a private chat with the celebrant, Father Kevin Dillon of Geelong. A fine man of the cloth.

He has appeared several times on this program as long ago as when Pope John Paul II visited Melbourne. Father Dillon is actually a listener and he applauded my on the marathon campaign I have waged against child abusers. Especially in his church.

And it got me thinking. How hard it must be right now… how hard it must have been for years.. for decent, honourable clergymen having to (by association) wear the revulsion and opprobrium we have for paedophile priests.

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AUSTRALIA
Courier Mail

Shannon Deery
Herald Sun
November 15, 2012

A MAN who was allegedly drugged then raped by a former priest at a Catholic boys’ school has described his attacker as “like the devil”.

The man, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, told the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court today he was 12 years old when he was raped by former Salesian priest David Rapson.

The man said the abuse had led to a life-time problem with drug and alcohol abuse and depression.

Rapson, 59, is charged with abusing seven boys between 1973 and 1990 at various schools including Salesian College Rupertswood, in Sunbury.

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AUSTRALIA
My Daily News

A CATHOLIC bishop says priests who hear the confessions of paedophiles have the option of urging the “criminals to turn themselves in” or refusing them forgiveness, but should not break the “sacred” Seal of Confession.

The Most Reverend Anthony Fisher, who is the Bishop of Parramatta, wrote to members of the diocese this week after Prime Minister Julia Gillard called for a royal commission into child abuse.

Child abuse across a range of institutions will be the subject of the royal commission, not just the Catholic Church.

There have been calls for priests who hear the confessions of paedophiles to appear before the royal commission.

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AUSTRALIA
The West Australian

Luke Eliot, The West Australian
November 15, 2012,

A leaked document shows Emeritus Archbishop Barry Hickey rejected recommendations when he was Archbishop of Perth to move a priest accused of child sex abuse to a ministry without a school.

The West Australian has obtained a confidential document written by Archbishop Hickey, who retired this year. It referred to Father Richard Joseph Doyle, who is now retired.

The report was signed in June 2000 and was a response to an internal assessment regarding Father Doyle, who, it stated, was the subject of child sex abuse allegations.

The assessment found there was no evidence to support a claim that a “small boy” was abused in Bruce Rock but that “on the balance of probabilities there are grounds to the complaint in respect of the girls”, relating to women who said Father Doyle dealt with them inappropriately when they were children.

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MISSOURI
ABC 17

A priest already convicted of sex crimes and accused of molesting Mid-Missouri children is at the center of another investigation.

Boone County prosecutors confirmed today there is an ongoing investigation into allegations Fr. Gerald Howard sexually abused a boy in Columbia in the 1980s. Howard is currently in jail in Cooper County on similar charges.

Authorities say the abuse happened while Howard was serving as a priest in Boonville in the 1980s, after a conviction on sex crimes against a child.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, also known as SNAP, says after leaving Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Boonville, Howard worked as a counselor in Columbia and then Fulton. The Callaway County Prosecutor says he has been made aware of the potential for victims there.

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AUSTRALIA
National Survivor Advocates Coalition

A star is rising in the East.

That would be Australia where Prime Minister Julie Gillard announced this week a royal commission would investigate sexual abuse and the institutional response to it.

She said the royal commission, the highest level of investigation in Australia, was not targeting any one church but you’d have to be deaf, dumb, blind and dead not to realize the trigger for this monumental action was the series of revelations regarding pedophile priests in the Catholic Church.

In making the announcement, the prime minister, Ms Gillard said: “There have been too many revelations of adults who have averted their eyes from this evil. I believe in these circumstances that it is appropriate for there to be a national response through a royal commission.”

Senior Police Office Peter Fox said in a letter to the New South Wales state Premier Barry O’Farrell, “I can testify from my own experience that the church covers up, silences victims, hinders police investigations, alerts offenders, destroys evidence and moves priests to protect the good name of the Church.”

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AUSTRALIA
Eureka Street

Michael McVeigh November 14, 2012

The Royal Commission into child sexual abuse can only be a good thing for the Catholic Church. It is a chance to account for the betrayal and crimes of priests and other church representatives who committed acts of abuse against the vulnerable, and for the careless, even callous way in which many church officials responded to complaints against their own. This will be a long overdue first step in moving forward.

However, while victims have been calling for a Royal Commission for a long time, and while the bishops have welcomed it, the fact that it has taken government intervention for a proper account of the crisis to take place represents in part a failure of the Church’s response.

The Church’s defenders point to the policies and procedures put in place to protect children, the establishment of the National Committee for Professional Standards, and the Towards Healing processes for providing compensation and support for victims unwilling to make complaints against abusers through the legal system.

Most abuse cases today are from more than 20 years ago, indicating a change in Church practice and in cultural attitudes, providing better protection for young people. The Church’s current procedures are part of a laudable move towards a response centred on the needs of victims, and a greater awareness of the problem in general.

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FRANCE
Sud Ouest

Ce frère mexicain de 42 ans, déjà condamné à Angoulême en février, était poursuivi pour une nouvelle agression sexuelle.

La justice des hommes avant celle de Dieu… Hier, le tribunal correctionnel de Mâcon a condamné Roberto San Augustin Gomez – de son nom d’église frère Luigi Gonzaga – à vingt-cinq mois de prison ferme pour l’agression sexuelle d’un lycéen de 17 ans, le 25 mai 2001 à Cluny, en Saône-et-Loire. Les faits s’étaient déroulés dans une chambre d’hôtel, où le religieux avait convié sa victime, avec qui il avait partagé quelques bières.

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AUSTRALIA
The Morning Bulletin

Kerri-Anne Mesner |
15th Nov 2012

THE royal commission into child sex abuse, announced by Prime Minister Julia Gillard on Monday, should look at two points – the abuse and how much has been done to support victims.

This is what Catholic Bishop of the Diocese of Rockhampton Brian Heenan said yesterday.

“There is so much pain and confusion around the practice of sexual abuse across all society in Australia,” he said.

“It (the commission) should bring clarity to this confused situation.”

Bishop Heenan, who supports the commission and has experience supporting child abuse victims of a former Rockhampton Catholic priest (here in the 1960s), said the Catholic Church felt terribly ashamed about what had happened.

“There’s no point in denying it,” he said.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Vatican Insider

Retired bishop, Peter Ball, allegedly abused eight children between the 80’s and 90’s. A former pastor has also been arrested

Vatican Insider staff
Rome

A former Anglican bishop and a priest who are now retired were arrested today on charges of sexual abuse against minors as well, British media have reported.

The arrests were made following an inquiry into reports of cases of sex abuse in the Church of England. Charges were principally lodged against eighty year old former bishop, Peter Ball, and are to do with acts of abuse against young people aged between 12 and 20 in the 80’s and 90’s.

Ball was arrested at his home in Somerset. He apparently had acquaintances in the Royal family, referring to Prince Charles as his “loyal friend”.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Barbara Dorris on November 13, 2012

We are grateful to police for arresting Bishop Peter Ball. Simply because he is elderly and has retired does not mean that he is safe around children. In fact, his age and “grandfatherly” image may actually make him more dangerous.

Especially in cases of abuse involving prominent men like Bishop Ball, it is rare for victims to come forward while these men are still in positions of respect. We hope that with his arrest today, those who may have seen or suspected crimes by Bishop Ball will come forward and make a report to police. Only by breaking this silence will kids truly be kept safe.

Officials within the Church of England should immediately use all of their resources to try to find others who may have been hurt by Bishop Ball or the other unnamed priest who was detained. Church leaders should make announcements in bulletins, at the pulpit, and personally to churchgoers at each parish where either of these men worked.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Barbara Blaine on November 13, 2012

Globe editor Martin Baron is moving on to the Washington Post. Every parent in the US should be grateful to him.

In an unprecedented and brave move, he gave the Globe’s superb investigative team the green light to thoroughly investigate widespread clergy sex crimes and heinous cover ups, first in Boston, then across America. As a result of his courage and their incredible skill and determination, thousands of child molesting clerics and hundreds of corrupt Catholic officials have been publicly exposed. Some of the criminals have been prosecuted and many of them have been ousted from schools and parishes. Literally tens of thousands of girls and boys are safer because of Baron’s bold and compassionate decision and the Globe’s tenacious and solid reporting.

We wish Mr. Baron well at the Washington Post and will always be deeply grateful for his historic role in the on-going global movement to safeguard children from predator priests and complicit bishops.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By Phillip Coorey
Nov. 15, 2012

POLITICIANS of all persuasions, from Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott down, say Catholic priests must not be exempt from having to report child abuse to police should they hear it in the confession of a colleague.

MPs said the royal commission into sexual abuse should examine the issue and recommend that, where necessary, state criminal codes be harmonised to mandate that priests go to the police in child sexual abuse matters.

The federal Attorney-General, Nicola Roxon, who is charged with setting up the commission, agreed the seal of Confession should be looked at, but she cautioned against too much focus on the issue.

Ms Roxon said the commission’s remit would be much broader than just the Catholic Church.

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CANADA
Windsor Star

A pedophile priest who fled southern Ontario two decades ago, only to be convicted of abusing boys at an orphanage in Malta, will spend five years in prison there after a failed bid to overturn his sentence.

Defrocked priest Godwin Scerri — still wanted in Essex County for alleged sex abuse in Emeryville and on Pelee Island — was convicted in 2011 of abusing boys in Malta. His lawyer immediately launched plans to appeal the five-year conviction.

The Malta Today news agency is reporting that Scerri was handcuffed and taken to jail this week after a judge dismissed the appeal.

Scerri abused an undisclosed number of boys at an orphanage in Malta. But he was cleared of a rape charge on a technicality, because the crime allegedly took place in a different location than the one listed on the charge sheet.

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AUSTRALIA/NEW ZEALAND
Stuff

ALISTAIR BONE

A Waikato-based enquiry has been launched to find victims of a serial-paedophile priest who previously worked in the region.

Father Denis McAlinden is thought to have abused hundreds of girls aged between four and twelve in Australia and has at least one known victim in New Zealand.

But a researcher into sexual abuse by Catholic priests is certain the prolific Australian paedophile abused more than just one girl while he was working in the Hamilton Diocese in the 1980s.

Father McAlinden spent six months in the region in 1984, but only a single victim from his time here has so far come forward.

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MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on November 14, 2012

Clergy sex abuse victims are blasting Kansas City’s controversial Bishop Robert Finn for “staying silent” about the recent death of an alleged predator priest who has been sued several times for molesting kids.

Leaders of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, says Finn should have “honored his pledge to be ‘open’ about clergy sex crimes” by notifying the public and his parishioners about Fr. John R. Tulipana, who apparently died last week.

Obituary.

“As best we can tell, there’s nothing on diocesan or church websites about Fr. Tulipana’s passing,” said Barbara Dorris, SNAP’s outreach director. “Yet just weeks ago, Finn again promised he would be more forthcoming about child sex cases in his diocese. He continues to ‘talk the walk’ while refusing to ‘walk the walk.’”

According to the KC Star, Tulipana worked at eight area churches (six affiliated with schools) from 1976 to 1994, when he resigned after The Star reported that the diocese had paid $150,000 in 1989 to a man who had accused Tulipana of sexually abusing him as a teen.

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MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Tthose Abused by Priests

Posted by Barbara Dorris on November 14, 2012

What will Archbishop Robert Carlson do about one of his priests – accused of fondling a girl earlier this year – whose criminal trial has just been scheduled for March.

Will Carlson do what Catholic bishops almost always do – nothing? Or will he display real leadership and courage and compassion by using his vast resources help police and prosecutors build a strong case and successfully keep a child molester away from other kids?

This isn’t rocket science. It’s common sense and common decency. Through church bulletins and parish websites and archdiocesan publications, Carlson can – and should – send a simple but crucial message: “If you have any information that might help law enforcement convict Fr. Xiu “Joseph’ Jiang, please step forward right away.”

Why is this crucial?

Because child molesters rarely strike only once.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

November 15, 2012

Josh Gordon
State political editor for The Age.

It was the Victorian decision that finally got the ball rolling.

THE announcement of a sweeping royal commission on the sexual abuse of children must have come as a much-needed political gift for Ted Baillieu as he approaches the two-year anniversary of his election win.

After a bruising year, the Premier can now justifiably claim some credit for the historic decision: finally Australia will fling open the curtains and shine some light on decades of allegations of institutional sexual abuse and church cover-ups.

It was, after all, his government that got things rolling by setting up a parliamentary inquiry after the Cummins inquiry into child welfare.

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MALTA
Times of Malta

Victims of two former priests whose prison sentences for child abuse were confirmed by an Appeals Court yesterday have called on the Government to investigate the files of similar cases that were being “hidden” by the Church.

Speaking on the steps of the court shortly after a judge confirmed the imprisonment of their abusers, Lawrence Grech said he wanted to appeal to the Government to investigate other claims.

He said he also wanted to appeal to victims of sex abuse to come forward and make their claims known to the police.

The files of abuse cases were being hidden by the Church in the Curia, he claimed.

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MISSOURI
KSDK

Written by
Dave Keiser

Bowling Green, MO (KSDK) – The associate pastor of the Cathedral Basilica in the Central West End of St. Louis is set to stand trial March 7th and 8th, 2013.

29 year old Reverend Xiu “Joseph’ Jiang was charged last summer with first degree child endangerment after reportedly trying to fondle a 16 year old girl several times in early 2012. The Catholic priest, who was a friend of the victims family, is also charged with felony witness tampering.

In court Tuesday, motions to dismiss the child endangerment charge was denied. He’s now scheduled to stand trial next year in Pike County where the case was moved from Lincoln County on a change of venue.

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AUSTRALIA
WA Today

November 15, 2012

Joseph Wakim

The royal commission into ”institutional responses to child abuse” will not have the authority to review one vexed issue: the mandatory vow of clergy celibacy.

While we should be careful not to confuse correlation with causation, one compelling question cannot be avoided – why do Eastern Catholics and other churches with married clergy rarely encounter claims of child sex abuse?

As a Maronite Catholic, with an uncle who was a married priest with four children, this choice of celibacy or marriage has been functional since the church’s foundation.

Catholic churches in the East, the birthplace of Christianity, have always had married clergy.

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AUSTRALIA
NEWS.com.au

Gemma Jones
The Daily Telegraph
November 15, 2012

THE Catholic church honoured a paedophile priest – who died in jail – with a marble headstone which listed his achievements.

One of James Patrick Fletcher’s victims yesterday said the burial in the priests’ section of Sandgate Cemetery near Newcastle was the “final insult”.

A brass plaque records the deviant’s career as a priest. In death he kept his title of Reverend Father.

A court found the 65-year-old had committed “a gross and inexcusable breach of trust” when he raped an altar boy, a crime for which he was sentenced to almost eight years prison, where he died in 2006.

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IRELAND
NEWS.com.au

IRELAND’S landmark inquiry into Catholic Church child sex abuse uncovered more than 100 cases of rape and assault involving at least 21 priests in only one small county diocese.

The 2005 Ferns Report found the church, police and government failed in their duties to protect children.

It said the church hierarchy considered rape and sexual assault a moral issue rather than a criminal matter.

Only two priests were convicted over the scandal in County Wexford. A third priest charged committed suicide in the late 1990s before his case went to court.

Almost half the accused priests had died by the completion of the report, one of four major child abuse inquiries in Ireland over the past decade including the Cloyne Report, the Murphy Report and the Ryan Report.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

FOR Catholics who wish to remain in a state of grace, the church offers the service of the confessional, whereby the priest conducts an audit of the soul on behalf of the Almighty. Since the penitent is considered to be confessing to God alone, in the presence of his servant, the information is protected under the seal of the confessional.

A priest who tried to withhold information gained in this way from a royal commission could be jailed for contempt. In practice, a wise royal commissioner would first explore every other avenue to establish the truth, knowing that the fabric of society is best preserved by avoiding pushing the theoretical conflict between church and state to the ultimate test. For its part, the church takes a pragmatic approach, in so far as its divine obligations will allow. Priests are adept at guiding penitents in the direction of the local police station when needed, quietly and without fanfare. George Pell has gone further, advising priests not to hear a confession when they suspect that criminal behaviour might be revealed.

Those who simply want to put a stop to child abuse will see this debate as entirely confected. It is unlikely to come to a head at the forthcoming royal commission, assuming goodwill on behalf of the commission and the church. Those who see an opportunity to discredit the Catholic Church, however, will milk it for all it is worth.

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CALIFORNIA
TheMediaReport

Southern California contingency lawyer John Manly, who has pocketed millions of dollars by suing the Catholic Church, has now admitted that his office has obtained clients for abuse lawsuits by making unsolicited phone calls to Catholic Church parishioners.

This startling new revelation in the Catholic Church abuse narrative was exclusively reported by Sue Nowicki at The Modesto Bee newspaper.

According to Nowicki’s piece, numerous individuals in the Diocese of Stockton (Calif.) have said that they received unsolicited phone calls to their homes from a woman hired by Manly. These calls, they claim, left them to conclude that Manly was “fishing” for victims in the case of an accused Catholic priest, Fr. Michael E. Kelly.

Manly has admitted that he hired the woman, but only to “investigate” Kelly.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Catholics4Change

November 14, 2012 by Susan Matthews

Recent institutional sex abuse coverups within the Philadelphia Catholic Church and Penn State University mobilized a group of professionals, parents and advocates to form CSA: Let’s Face It. Through its Web site and events, the new nonprofit offers support to adult survivors and hopes to raise awareness of the public health crisis created by child sex abuse.

The statistics are staggering. One in four girls and one in six boys are sexually abused before the age of 18. One in five has received a sexual approach or solicitation from an adult via the Internet in the past year. Medical expenses related to rape and sexual abuse of children tops $1.5 billion and indirect costs exceed an estimated $69 billion (CDC 2001). There is so much more to know.

“This is information we have to get into the community,” said president Maureen Martinez. “We think one of the most effective ways to do that is by offering an online resource hub.” Their Web site, www.csaletsfaceit.org, extends beyond well beyond numbers and facts. The home page shares a public service announcement featuring a former Philadelphia Eagle and other survivors from all walks of life. Others can share their own stories by submitting video blogs. A resource page provides links to other non-profits that focus on specific needs related to child sex abuse.

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UNITED STATES
Democracy Now

[with video]

“Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God,” a new documentary by Oscar-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney, investigates how a charismatic priest in Milwaukee abused more than 200 deaf children in a Catholic boarding school under his control. The young students were molested again and again by Father Lawrence Murphy, who stalked them in their dorm rooms at night, on trips to his rural cabin, and even in the confessional booth. Gibney, whose past films include “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room” and the Academy Award-winning “Taxi to the Dark Side,” joins us to discuss his new exposé, which opens this Friday in theaters in New York City and Los Angeles, and will debut on HBO in February 2013. [includes rush transcript]

Guest:
Alex Gibney, Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker. His latest film is called Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God. His past films include Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room and the Academy Award-winning Taxi to the Dark Side, which focuses on an innocent taxi driver in Afghanistan who was tortured and killed at Bagram Air Force Base in 2002. Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God opens this Friday in theaters in New York City and Los Angeles, and will debut on HBO in February 2013.

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AUSTRALIA
Stock & Land

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Catholic

Archdiocese of Perth Gerard William Dick was sentenced in 1995 to 3½ years jail for 10 incidents of indecently dealing with boys aged between eight and 10 at a Christian Brothers’ orphanage in Western Australia.

Diocese of Bunbury Adrian Richard Van Klooster pleaded guilty to four counts of indecently dealing with children under the age of 13 and was found with child pornography on his computer.

St Andrew’s Hostel A former hostel warden at St Andrew’s Hostel in Katanning from the 1970s to early 1990s, DJK, is serving his second jail term for abusing 11 boys.

WA government

Children’s homes The WA government confirmed 22 government-run institutions were named by child victims of abuse lodged under the Redress WA scheme.

Fairbridge farm More than 200 child migrants who were among those sent to Pinjarra’s Fairbridge farm school for child migrants, between 1930 and 1981, have been awarded more than $1.1 million.

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AUSTRALIA
J-Wire

November 14, 2012

The Rabbinical Council of Victoria has welcomed the Royal Commission into sexual abuse perpetrated against children.

Rabbi Yacov Glasman told J-Wire: “Given the surfacing of child sexual abuse allegations in Jewish communities around the world ranging from secular to religious, the Rabbinical Council of Victoria welcomes a nationwide Royal Commission and commends the Federal Government on its decision. The RCV reaffirms its utmost condemnation of those who perpetrate such evils against children or turn a blind eye to them and reminds the community that alleged ‘Halachic’ reasons to refrain from reporting abuse to the police or other relevant authorities are completely without foundation.”

Rabbi Chaim Ingram of the Rabbinical Council of New South Wales added: “Judaism teaches that all forms of abuse – physical, emotional and sexual – of one human being by another is heinous and wrong. This is particularly true of the abuse of a child by an adult.

Judaism also teaches that dina de-malchuta dina, that in civil matters “the law of the land is law”.

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AUSTRALIA
NEWS.com.au

•Tory Maguire
•From: News Limited Network
•November 14, 2012

I’ve only ever been to confession twice, both times when I was a young child. The first time I couldn’t think of anything to confess to so I made up some sins and was rewarded with penance of two Hail Marys.

In hindsight the Hail Marys were probably for lying to God. Our parish priest was a good man who would have known when an 8-year-old was talking it up.

But even then it felt very weird to me that children would be expected to enter a dark little box on their own and open up the conversation with: “Forgive me Father for I have sinned”.

Even stranger was that if you’d done something wrong that was the end of it, the priest wouldn’t even tell your Mum.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

[with video]

By Josie Taylor

Cardinal George Pell has made a court application to find out sensitive information about a sex abuse victim, before Australia’s most senior Catholic gives evidence at Victoria’s parliamentary inquiry into church abuse.

The ABC was the only media present in the hearing before Judge Roy Punshon in the Victorian County Court this morning.

Barrister Marcus Hoyne, acting for Cardinal Pell, said the matter was somewhat urgent, as his client might have to give evidence at the inquiry before the end of this month.

Mr Hoyne told the court Cardinal Pell was seeking evidence from the trial of convicted paedophile and former Christian brother Robert Best.

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AUSTRALIA
NEWS.com.au

CHILD sex abuse is not a secret priests should keep, prominent Catholics say.

Sydney priest Father Chris Riley, founder of Youth Off The Streets, says he refuses to take confessions because he could not listen to a child sex abuser without reporting them to police.

Melbourne priest and radio host Father Bob Maguire says if a pedophile confessed his sins he’d tell him he would report him. And controversial NSW married priest Father Kevin Lee says he would convince an offender to seek outside help.

Australia’s most powerful Catholic, Cardinal George Pell, is looking increasingly at odds with the Catholic community with his strident defence of the seal of Confession, which means that child sex abusers can confess their sins to a priest and not be reported to police.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

The idea that the confessional stays confidential even when people use it to admit to crimes is ‘medieval’, an independent senator says, as senior Liberals call for the practice to be overturned.

Australia’s most senior Catholic, Cardinal George Pell, has insisted ‘the seal of confession is inviolable’ even if a priest confesses to child sex abuse.

Cardinal Pell said on Tuesday priests should avoid hearing confession from colleagues suspected of committing child sex abuse to avoid being bound by the seal of confession.

Independent senator Nick Xenophon says that’s an anachronism.

‘This is a medieval law that needs to change in the 21st century,’ he told reporters in Canberra on Wednesday.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

Prime Minister Julia Gillard says using the seal of the Catholic confessional to cover up child abuse is a ‘sin of omission’ because all adults have a duty of care towards children.

Ms Gillard says the terms of reference for the federal royal commission announced on Monday haven’t been set, and nor has the way evidence will be gathered and witnesses questioned.

‘That is going to be a matter for the royal commissioners we appoint,’ she told reporters in Brisbane.

She said all parties including institutions and victims would be consulted carefully on the terms of reference.

When asked if the commission should examine the Catholic Church’s seal of the confessional, the prime minister agreed that it wasn’t good enough that some adults had been ‘averting their eyes’ from the problem of child abuse.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

November 15, 2012 15

Michelle Grattan

THE royal commission on child sex abuse might become a joint federal-state inquiry, Attorney-General Nicola Roxon has flagged.

Ms Roxon said the government was keen to discuss with the states ”whether there are advantages to doing it jointly and whether there’s an interest in doing so”.

It was common in the 1970s and 1980s to have the Commonwealth and a number of states jointly establish commissions that were looking at issues that crossed jurisdictional boarders, she said.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

November 15, 2012

Steve Butcher

LAWYERS acting for Cardinal George Pell have applied to a Melbourne judge to inspect a court file from a trial of convicted paedophile and Catholic brother Robert Charles Best.

It is believed the material sought includes a transcript of evidence by one of Best’s victims who has recently alleged Cardinal Pell was present when the boy complained of being raped by Best.

Cardinal Pell has described the victim’s claim as ”irresponsible, untrue” and said that they were ”absolutely denied”.

The Archbishop of Sydney has said he was not in Ballarat in 1969 when the boy was raped and was not appointed to the diocese until 1973.

It is believed that the victim, during his trial evidence, did not raise the allegation about Cardinal Pell and that he was unsure who had been there.

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AUSTRALIA
Brisbane Times

November 15, 2012

Josephine Tovey, Phillip Coorey

MEMBERS of the clergy would face jail for failing to report knowledge of sexual abuse gained during confession, with pressure growing to lift the confidentiality laws that protect them.

Exemptions exist for members of the clergy, medical workers and social workers among a small number of professions in NSW if they conceal a crime from authorities if it was gained in their professional duties.

Yesterday Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott added their voices to calls that Catholic priests not be exempt from having to report child abuse to police if they hear it in the confessional.

MPs said the forthcoming royal commission on sexual abuse should recommend that state criminal codes be harmonised to mandate priests to go to the police in child sexual abuse matters.

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AUSTRALIA
Brisbane Times

November 15, 2012

Phillip Coorey
Sydney Morning Herald chief political correspondent

POLITICIANS of all persuasions, from Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott down, say Catholic priests must not be exempt from having to report child abuse to police should they hear it in the confession of a colleague.

MPs said the royal commission into sexual abuse should examine the issue and recommend that, where necessary, state criminal codes be harmonised to mandate that priests go to the police in child sexual abuse matters.

The federal Attorney-General, Nicola Roxon, who is charged with setting up the commission, agreed the seal of Confession should be looked at, but she cautioned against too much focus on the issue.

Ms Roxon said the commission’s remit would be much broader than just the Catholic Church.

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AUSTRALIA
JTA

November 14, 2012

SYDNEY (JTA) – The announcement by Australia’s Prime Minister of a royal commission into the “vile and evil” scourge of child sex abuse has reignited the controversial issue inside the Jewish community.

Julia Gillard announced Monday that the inquiry would include children under the care of all religious organizations and that it would focus on the response of the institutions to the alleged sex abuse cases.

Yeshivah College, an Orthodox school run by Chabad in Melbourne, has recently been at the center of controversy since allegations broke last year that students had been victims of sexual abuse.

Its principal, Rabbi Yehoshua Smukler, issued a statement Wednesday saying: “Child abuse is abhorrent and has a traumatic consequences for victims and their families. Victims of abuse deserve support and closure and a royal commission is a very positive and welcome step.”

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MALTA
Times of Malta

Everyone can breathe a sigh of relief that this court case is finally over.

Two former priests who have used every legal tool at their disposal to drag out a very sad episode will finally go to prison for abusing children in their care after an Appeals Court confirmed their convictions yesterday.

Godwin Scerri and Charles Pulis, formerly members of the Missionary Society of St Paul, were sentenced in August 2011 to five and six years’ imprisonment respectively for sexually abusing boys in their care at St Joseph Home in Santa Venera. However, rather than show contrition for what they had done, they chose to prolong the pain for their victims.

Their approach, though legally permissible, was not morally commendable – even if at the conclusion of the appeal yesterday the presiding judge found that the charges filed in relation to one of the victims against Mr Pulis was time-barred and that Mr Scerri was not guilty of abusing one of the boys from several who made allegations. Ultimately, this was of little consequence because Mr Justice David Scicluna felt it made no difference to the prison sentences they were handed by a magistrate last year.

The primary relief comes for the victims themselves. The incidents took place many years ago and all of them now are grown men, some with families of their own. But their psychological scars have been clearly visible throughout. These are the indelible marks that the former priests have left on these human beings.

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AUSTRALIA
The Economist

Nov 14th 2012, 6:52 by R.M. | SYDNEY

AFTER mounting public pressure Julia Gillard, Australia’s prime minister, announced on November 12th a sweeping public inquiry into what she called the “evil” of child sexual abuse. The inquiry will take the form of a royal commission, with wide investigative powers. Like its brief, its duration is open-ended. The hearings may take years, and promise to confront Australians with harrowing evidence.

Earlier this year, the state parliament in Victoria set up an inquiry into child abuse “by religious and other organisations”. The spark for Ms Gillard’s national inquiry was struck on November 8th by Peter Fox, a police detective chief-inspector in the neighbouring state of New South Wales. Mr Fox wrote an open letter to Barry O’Farrell, his state’s premier, and then gave an explosive television interview to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. He accused the Catholic Church of covering up child sexual abuse, particularly in the Hunter Valley region north of Sydney, where he works. Mr Fox wrote:

“I can testify from my own experience that the church covers up, silences victims, hinders police investigations, alerts offenders, destroys evidence and moves priests to protect the good name of the church. None of that stops at the Victorian border.”

The culture of cover-up may not be confined to churches. Mr Fox says some in the police force have tried to smear him as mentally unstable since he came out as a whistleblower: “I knew when I decided to speak out that it was a one-way door, and there’s no going back.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Examiner

By CALLA WAHLQUIST
Nov. 14, 2012

FOUR per cent of the victims who accessed a Northern sexual assault support service last year said they were abused by an authority figure outside their family.

Laurel House manager Marg Dean said child sexual abuse that took place in an institution, such as a church or a school, was the third most common story counsellors at the Launceston-based service heard.

According to the service’s latest annual report, 31 per cent of clients said they were abused by a family member, and 29 per cent named a friend or acquaintance.

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AUSTRALIA
Canberra Times

November 15, 2012

Barnaby Joyce

Paedophilia and the associated sexual abuse and exploitation of children inspire the intense and immediate disgust of all civilised people. If there was an inverted hierarchy, then the perpetrators would dwell in the cesspit of the human condition.

It is quite obviously a no-brainer that when addressing an issue such as paedophilia we must seek whatever is within our power to stop those who seek pleasure from destroying children, and seek justice for those who have suffered because of this perversion.

The pursuit of the criminal perpetrators must not be limited to one church or institution. There cannot be the differentiation that means one person’s crime is somehow less or greater than another’s when it is the same action of an adult sexually exploiting a child.

If paedophilia and sexual abuse occurred in a Catholic school it must be investigated and brought to justice. If it occurred in a juvenile detention centre or in a youth group, our law must be diligently upheld. If it is condoned or overlooked in a community or if there is implicitly a blind eye turned by reason of political correctness or cultural hesitation, then we are not fulfilling the task that we state is imperative.

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