ABUSE TRACKER

IRELAND
The Journal

EUROPE’S HUMAN RIGHTS chief has said Magdalene Laundry survivors deserve an apology from the State – and compensation.

The call by Nils Muiznieks, the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights, puts further pressure on Enda Kenny to issue a full apology, which has so far not been forthcoming.

“Women victims of forced labour in Magdalene laundries in #Ireland and their descendants deserve State apologies and restorative measures,” Muiznieks said in a tweet today.

Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore confirmed today that he and the Taoiseach will have a “direct discussion” with some of the survivors next week after the Magdalenes requested a meeting.

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AUSTRALIA
The Dallas Morning News

By Reese Dunklin/Reporter
rdunklin@dallasnews.com
12:49 pm on February 8, 2013

More legal trouble faces one of the most notorious priests whom we profiled in our landmark 2004-2005 series on the Catholic Church’s international transfers of sex abusers.

The Rev. Frank Klep appeared in a Melbourne, Australia, court this week after his arrest on six new criminal charges. Those date to the 1970s, when he worked at a boys boarding school operated by his religious order, the Salesians of Don Bosco.

Klep’s arrest is one of the first made by a police task force pursuing leads from a state parliamentary inquiry into child sex abuse. In the early stages of that inquiry last fall, police had cited Klep’s criminal past and many of the details I first reported in 2004.

The Salesians transferred Klep to the Pacific island of Samoa in 1998 while police were investigating him. Klep already had one molestation conviction, and more charges were filed subsequently in the ongoing probe.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
National Catholic Reporter

by Eugene Cullen Kennedy | Feb. 8, 2013 Bulletins from the Human Side

Archbishop Jose Gomez has earned and retired the Shocked, Shocked Award based on the response of Captain Louis Renault, played by Claude Rains in the movie “Casablanca,” who, when pressed for his reasons for closing down Rick’s Café, says indignantly as he is handed his winnings for the night, that he is “shocked, shocked,” to learn that gambling has been going on there.

Gomez uses Renault’s tones in a letter relieving his predecessor, Cardinal Roger Mahony, of his administrative and public duties, professing to be shocked, shocked, to learn from the court-ordered release of files on priests that sex abuse has been going on in the archdiocese of Los Angeles.

He finds these files, he claims, “to be brutal and painful reading. … The behavior described … is terribly sad and evil.” He writes further of Mahony’s “failure to fully protect young people.”

This is the same Mahony he praised when, on succeeding him in March 2011, said, “I am very grateful … to serve the Church with a mentor and leader like Cardinal Mahony.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Independent

The Catholic Church in film: When the men in black lost their role as the good guys

Geoffrey Macnab

Friday 08 February 2013

In old Hollywood films, you rarely come across a bad Catholic. Picture Bing Crosby as the kind-hearted Father O’Malley trying to have a school saved from closing down in The Bells of St Mary’s (1945) or Pat O’Brien as the priest striving to keep kids away from crime – and his old friend James Cagney’s bad example – in Angels With Dirty Faces (1938.)

European films likewise used to portray Catholic priests in a heroic light. In Roberto Rossellini’s Rome, Open City (1945), there is an immensely moving performance from Aldo Fabrizi as the priest who works with the Italian resistance against the Nazis and is prepared to face torture and death for his beliefs. When they weren’t genial, avuncular sorts or wartime heroes, priests were depicted as complex, intense, but still sympathetic. Witness Montogomery Clift as Father Michael, hearing a murderer’s guilt in Alfred Hitchcock’s I Confess (1953.) Even in horror films like The Exorcist (1973), the priests were there to ward off evil.

It’s hardly surprising that priests were given such a positive spin. During the studio era, the American Catholic Church had a strong influence over the kinds of films that were made. The Legion of Decency was an influential body set up by Catholic bishops in the 1930s to police the film industry. When the League took against a film, it could scupper its chances. …

It is striking, though, how recent depictions of Catholic priests in feature films and documentaries have become ever harsher and more skeptical. US director Alex Gibney’s new doc Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God offers a devastating picture of Catholic priests at their very worst. The film shows how, for over a quarter of a century, a Catholic priest at St John’s School for the Deaf in St Francis, Wisconsin, preyed on and sexually abused pupils. In spite of repeated warnings about his behaviour that reached the Vatican, no action was taken against Lawrence C Murphy, the priest.

Gibney’s film starts in Wisconsin and follows a trail that leads it via the notorious case of the Elvis-impersonating paedophile priest Father Murphy in Ireland all the way to the “highest corridors of the Vatican”. Mea Maxima Culpa makes it very clear that senior Catholic authorities knew about the abuse in Ireland and the US long before the media did but were very slow to act against it.

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NEW JERSEY
Catholic League

Bill Donohue comments on editorials in the Newark Star-Ledger and The Record (Bergen County) that appeared this week; both concern the appointment by Newark Archbishop John J. Myers of Rev. Michael Fugee as co-director of the Office of Continuing Education and Ongoing Formation of Priests (a post he assumed last October):

Just this week it was reported that an ex-priest who allegedly admitted having a sexual relationship with a minor was picked up by the Los Angeles Unified School District for more than a decade. The school district was told many times that Joseph Pina had a record of sexual abuse, but they did nothing about it. No one in journalism has said a thing about it, nor will they. But if a priest was once accused, even though later found not guilty, he should still be punished.

In 2001, Father Fugee was charged with groping a teenager while wrestling. He initially said he touched the boy’s crotch, but later recanted. He was initially found guilty, but later had the verdict thrown out by an appellate panel of judges. He was subsequently investigated by the archdiocesan review board and was also cleared of wrongdoing. Over the past 12 years, there have been no allegations against him.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
NPR

by Kirk Siegler

February 08, 2013

In Los Angeles, Roman Catholic parishioners are still coming to terms with the release of thousands of pages of church documents detailing clergy sex abuse. The newly public files also reveal how former Archbishop Roger Mahony and other leaders acted to shield accused priests, in some cases assigning them to other states to avoid police.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
The Tidings

Written by Archbishop José H. Gomez

Friday, 08 February 2013

There have been challenging days for our local Church here in Los Angeles.

I have been talking and reflecting with Cardinal Mahony and Bishop Curry, along with our other Auxiliary Bishops about the events of last week. We are committed to moving forward in our ministries with hope and confidence in God’s grace.

We need to keep praying for those who are hurting. We need to ask again for forgiveness for the sins of the past and for our own failings. And we need to match our prayers for grace with concrete actions of healing and renewal.

And recent events should inform our prayer, penance and charity in this season of Lent, which begins next week with Ash Wednesday.

All of us need the grace of a new conversion. This is what Lent is for.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
National Catholic Reporter

by Joshua J. McElwee | Feb. 8, 2013

Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez, who last week publicly criticized predecessor Cardinal Roger Mahony over his shielding of sexually abusive clergy members, has written that he and Mahony “are committed to moving forward in our ministries with hope and confidence in God’s grace.”

In a rare public spat between Catholic bishops, Gomez and Mahony released competing statements last week after the archdiocese released about 15,000 church files under court order.

Saying the files evinced a failure to protect young people from sexually abusive priests, Gomez announced Jan. 31 that the cardinal would “no longer have any administrative or public duties” in the archdiocese.

Mahony replied Feb. 1 in an open letter to Gomez that Gomez had “not once” before raised questions about his handling of abuse cases.

Referencing the spat in a column in the Los Angeles archdiocesan newspaper Friday, Gomez writes that he has been “talking and reflecting” with Mahony and the archdiocese’s auxiliary bishops over the issue.

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CANADA
The Jewish Daily Forward

By Renee Ghert-Zand

Published February 08, 2013.

Fissures are appearing in Calgary’s Jewish community following the conviction of one of its members, a prominent forensic psychiatrist, for sexually assaulting patients. Dr. Aubrey Levin was sentenced on January 31 to five years in prison for abusing people involved with the province of Alberta’s criminal justice system who were sent to him for assessment and treatment.

Tensions began to rise among the western Canadian city’s approximately 7,500 Jews when Levin’s defense attorney announced to the court during a sentencing hearing that his client’s sexual assaults were only “minor” offenses, and then proceeded to read aloud a letter from Levin’s rabbi, Rabbi Yisroel Miller of House of Jacob Mikveh Israel, Calgary’s Orthodox synagogue.

The rabbi wrote that the psychiatrist is still loved and respected in the Jewish community and that “his humble manner and complete lack of arrogance endeared him to everyone.” The rabbi also pleaded for leniency for Levin, writing, “The bad does not erase all the good. I know all the goodness within him still remains. A prison term would be a death sentence for him.”

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NEW MEXICO
Mercury News

The Associated Press
Posted: 02/08/2013

SANTA FE, N.M.—Letters released from a California settlement says a pedophile priest sent to Jemez Springs for treatment in 1984 was later assigned to parishes in Socorro and Belen by then-Santa Fe Archbishop Robert Sanchez.

The Santa Fe New Mexican reports (http://goo.gl/KkrdP) that letters say Peter E. Garcia was at the San Miguel Parish in Socorro from mid-1985 through 1986, and was later the parochial vicar of Our Lady of Belen Church.

Garcia is one of dozens of priests named in documents released in a Southern California case involving hundreds of sexual-abuse victims.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

Two events within the last few months confirmed conclusively that local law enforcement in the USA cannot prevent Catholic Church leaders from facilitating predatory priests who sexually abuse children. Documents just released in Los Angeles and others released in Philadelphia a few months earlier show this. Two Cardinals, Mahony and Bevilacqua, oversaw numerous predatory priests who were enabled to continue to abuse children repeatedly even after the Cardinals knew the priests were predators.

It is the same old story that played out with Cardinal Law in Boston a decade before and in many other U.S. dioceses since. Local prosecutors beholden to the political clout of local Cardinals and Bishops apparently looked the other way for decades. As a retired international lawyer and lifelong practicing Catholic, I am convinced these outrages will continue until the Federal government steps up. No one else has the clout to stand up to the power of the Vatican.

Many have already signed a petition calling on President Obama to step up. More signatures are needed and will help. Please take a minute and sign it at:

[Click here for the petition.]

President Obama should consider appointing First Lady Michelle Obama to chair the new Obama commission. She is well respected as a Harvard lawyer and devoted mother. He growing children now need less of her time and she would be an ideal choice with her established credibility.

Michelle could consult with another former practicing lawyer, Julia Gillard, Australia’s Prime Minister, who just established a national investigation commission that already has the Catholic hierarchy and the Vatican running for cover.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Ich Sag Mal

Es läuft eigentlich immer nach dem gleichen Muster ab: Eine kirchliche Institution weist ein Vergewaltigungsopfer ab und gibt sich nach der Aufdeckung dieses Skandals zerknirscht, spricht von Missverständnissen, Einzelfällen, gelobt Besserung und beruhigt die Öffentlichkeit mit Aufklärungsaktionismus. Man könnte auch von Camouflage sprechen. Was die zwei Cellitinnen-Krankenhäuser bei der Abweisung eines Notfallopfers praktiziert haben, beruhe angeblich auf einer falschen Interpretation von neuen Richtlinien, die ein klinisches “Ethikkomitee” in Abstimmung mit Kölns Erzbischof Joachim Meisner im November verabschiedet habe.

Das Erzbistum Köln verkündete nun gegenüber Medien sein festes Vertrauen, dass der Träger der Krankenhäuser “die Gesamtsituation vollständig aufklären und gegebenenfalls Maßnahmen ergreifen wird, um eine Wiederholung eines solchen sehr bedauerlichen Einzelfalls auszuschließen.” Bei solchen bigotten Beschwichtigungs-Schwurbeleien bekomme ich mittlerweile einen Brechreiz.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Rosenheim 24

München/Ettal – Wegen der Missbrauchsskandale in katholischen Einrichtungen, schießt die Kritik an der Kirche teils über das Ziel hinaus: “Ihr gehört ja alle kastriert.” Doch wie reagiert die Kirche?

Beinahe jeden Tag taucht ein neuer Skandal um die katholische Kirche auf. Die Fälle reichen von sexuellem Missbrauch, über Prügelstrafen bis hin zu psychischer Misshandlung. Und wer bekanntlich den Schaden hat, der braucht für den Spott nicht zu sorgen. Aber was gerade auf einige Pfarrer und Kirchengemeinden einprasselt, ist schon mehr als Spott.

Stadtpfarrer Rainer Schießler der St. Maximilian Kirche in München sieht sich teilweise sehr derben Anfeindungen gegenüber. “Es kommt schon vor, dass mich Leute anrufen und meinen, ‘ihr gehört ja alle kastriert.’ Die trauen sich aber nie, ihren Namen zu sagen.”

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DEUTSCHLAND
taz

taz: Frau Raming, Kardinal Meisner hat darauf reagiert, dass eine vergewaltigte Frau in zwei katholischen Kliniken abgewiesen wurde. Die „Pille danach“ kann nun verschrieben werden. Wie finden Sie das?

Ida Raming: Aufgrund einer Beratung hat der Kardinal anscheinend seine Meinung in gewisser Hinsicht geändert. Aber eine Abtreibung nach einer Vergewaltigung ist immer noch verboten. Von den vergewaltigten Frauen im Bosnien-Krieg wurde von Papst Johannes Paul II. verlangt, dass sie die durch brutale Gewalt gezeugten Föten austrugen. Es kann nicht länger hingenommen werden, dass auf dem Gebiet der Sexuallehre – und nicht nur dort – leitende Männer der Kirche über den Körper und die Seele der Frau Macht ausüben. Die katholische Kirche ist noch immer eine Männerdiktatur. Aus meiner Sicht haben die leitenden kirchlichen Amtsträger die lange Geschichte der Frauendiskriminierung bis heute nicht wirklich aufgearbeitet.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

Rafael García de la Serrana Villalobos’ appointment as vice director of the Department of Technical Services for the Governorate of Vatican City State, is a step in this direction

Andrès Beltramo Alvarez
Vatican City

His appointment went practically unnoticed but is proof of the great trust Benedict XVI has in the Opus Dei as part of his strategy to silently clean up the Roman Curia in the aftermath of the Vatileaks scandal. The Vatican City State has a new inspector: Rafael García de la Serrana Villalobos.

Last 26 January, the priest was appointed vice director of the Department of Technical Services for the Governorate of the world’s smallest State. And he was not chosen by chance. Only yesterday he was head of logistics at the Opus Dei headquarters in Rome.

The not-quite-50-year-old priest was ordained presbyter on 23 May 2009. His is a classical “adult vocation” that was born within the body founded by San Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer. An engineer by training, he coupled the skills needed in his new task with a deep spirituality.

He came to the Vatican after what had been a truly “black year” as a result of the Vatileaks affair (the scandal which broke out after the publication of some confidential letters which the Pope’s former butler, Paolo Gabriele stole from Benedict XVI’s apartment). One of the reports leaked by the poison pen letter writer and then published in Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi’s book “Sua Santità” (“His Holiness”), mentions that Mgr. Carlo Maria Viganò addressed the Pope, denouncing the “corruption” that existed within the Technical Services’ management.

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IRELAND
Galway News

February 8, 2013

A group representing Magdalene laundry survivors has welcomed the news that the Taoiseach will meet with them.

The Magdalene Survivors Together group has confirmed that Enda Kenny will hear directly from representatives about their experiences of the laundries next week, but say they are still waiting to hear from the Tánaiste.

The Sisters of Mercy ran the Magdalene laundry at Forster street in the city until it closed in 1984.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Lurgan Mail

Published on Friday 8 February 2013

FORMER Lurgan priest Fr Terence Rafferty was driven from Craigavon Court via a side entrance last Thursday after he was handed a community service punishment for sex offence charges.

Fr Rafferty, who was a curate in St Peter’s Parish, was told by the judge that he had abused the position of trust he had enjoyed as a priest.

The 50-year-old priest, who had pleaded guilty, was sentenced to 100 hours community service and three years’ probation for indecent assault on an underage girl.

Victims’ groups branded the punishment as disgraceful.

Rafferty, who was 38 years old at the time, abused the girl while she was below the age of consent. The indecent assaults occurred over a six-month period in 2001.

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MISSISSIPPI
Clarion-Ledger

Written by
Ruth Ingram

Amy Smith wanted to know who knew what and when in Clinton about decades-old molestation accusations in Texas against John Langworthy, a music minister at Morrison Heights Baptist Church and choir teacher in the Clinton school district.

Langworthy had been a seminary student and youth music minister at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Dallas, where Smith, then 20, worked as a college intern. Although ministers at Prestonwood fired Langworthy in 1989 when at least one teen told church leaders Langworthy molested him, they never reported the allegation to police.

When Langworthy returned to Mississippi, he worked briefly in non-church positions. In 1990, he was working as a music minister at Morrison Heights. He later became a choir teacher, first at Clinton Junior High and then Clinton High.

The father of an alleged victim in Texas said he discovered not long after Langworthy left Prestonwood that he was teaching in Clinton. The father said he called the district and the Mississippi Baptist Convention to talk of Langworthy’s past.

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CALIFORNIA
Orange County Weekly

By Gustavo Arellano
Fri., Feb. 8 2013

The ink hadn’t even dried (or whatever the digital equivalent of that dead-tree era metaphor is) on author Daniel A. Olivas’ moving New York Times op-ed piece on OC’s worst-ever pedophile priest, Eleuterio Ramos, before Bill Donohue, the president of the long-irrelevant Catholic League, began complaining.

See, Donohue is the type of guy who believes anyone who brings up the Catholic Church sex-abuse scandal is anti-Catholic because those molesting priests were homosexual, they molested long ago, and everyone else does it, so why concentrate on priests? It’s a strategy he tried on me, leading to a smackdown that was as easy for me to do as dig up OC pioneers who were Klan members.

Yesterday, Donohue sent out a commentary to his donors railing against Olivas and the Times, charging them with being “malicious.” Laughably, it has as many holes in it as the arguments to make Junipero Serra a saint.

Donohue tries to gloss over Ramos’ career to his nonagenarian followers by saying he “was suspended from ministry in the 1990s,” implying that church officials briskly took away Ramos’ priestly faculties upon finding out his pederast ways. As usual, Donohue didn’t even bother with a quick Google search: Weekly readers know that Ramos never lost his priestly faculties, and was only removed from active parish life after a civil suit forced Diocese of Orange officials to fish him back up from the Tijuana parish where they had deposited him after molesting another boy–and this after 15 years of shuffling him from parish to parish after every molestation. But why bother Donohue with details?

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

by John L. Allen Jr. | Feb. 8, 2013 All Things Catholic

This column probably ought to carry a warning label: “The following piece of writing contains an apples-and-oranges comparison that may be hazardous to your intellectual health.” I’m going to compare two fights among senior churchmen, but the purpose is not to suggest they’re identical. Rather, it’s to understand what makes them different.

The first term of comparison is the tension between Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles and his predecessor, Cardinal Roger Mahony. On Jan. 31, Gomez announced that Mahony would “no longer have any administrative or public duties” because of failures to protect children from abuse, documented in files released by the archdiocese. That triggered an open letter to Gomez from Mahony acknowledging mistakes, but insisting he went on to make Los Angeles “second to none” in keeping children safe.

Mahony remains a priest and bishop in good standing, and he really hasn’t had any administrative role since stepping down in March 2011. The practical effect of the action thus is limited, but symbolically it amounts to what Jesuit Fr. Tom Reese has called a “public shaming.”

So far, the Vatican hasn’t said much other than it’s paying attention and clarifying that the action applies only to Los Angeles.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Barbara Dorris on February 07, 2013

To: Every current/former church employee/member who suspects child sex abuse

Fr: Barbara Dorris

Subj: Heroism

You’ve almost certainly either
— told no one about what you suspect, or
— told one or two or three people, and now feel like “Well, I tried. It’s out of my hands now.”

Really?

If you’re still a believer, you know that virtually every religion stresses the innocence and preciousness of children. So for the sake of children, please take five minutes to learn about what real heroism is, and about someone just like you – Amy Smith of Houston – did when she suspected that her minister had hurt children.

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MISSISSIPPI/TEXAS
Clarion-Ledger

Written by
Ruth Ingram

Reading a news report about a church camp counselor in Missouri convicted of molesting children, Amy Smith’s thoughts shot back more than 20 years.

To a time when she was a college intern at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Dallas.

To the day she learned John Langworthy, a seminary student and youth music minister who had befriended her family, and even stayed for a time in her home, was accused of molesting young boys at the church.

Although ministers at Prestonwood forced Langworthy to leave that church in 1989, they never reported the alleged molestation to police.

Langworthy would not be charged with a crime until 2011, a quarter century after returning home to Mississippi, when young boys he’d molested here in the early 1980s had grown into men and came forward at Smith’s urging with their stories.

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IRELAND
Limerick Leader

By Mike Dwane
Published on Friday 8 February 2013

A LIMERICK survivor of the Magdalene laundry has branded Taoiseach Enda Kenny a “disgrace” for his “half-hearted” apology to thousands of Irish women who toiled without pay in the institutions.

Margaret Joyce, a native of Ballina who now lives in Castleconnell, spent over five years in the laundry run by the Good Shepherd Sisters on Clare Street, an institution where 93 women remained until their deaths.

Margaret’s mother was only 17 when she was born and she remained in the care of her grandmother until she was admitted to the laundry at the age of 11.

“I was the youngest one in there and they put me to work from the very first day,” she recalled.

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IRELAND
RTE News

A Magdalene support group has said that most of the women who worked in the laundries will be unable to meet with the Taoiseach and Tánaiste as they cannot be publicly identified.

Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore this morning said both he and Taoiseach Enda Kenny would meet representatives of the Magdalene survivors next week.

Mr Gilmore said they intended to have a “direct discussion” with the women about what their needs are and about how the Government should respond to the report into State involvement in the Magdalene Laundries.

However, Dr Katherine O’Donnell of Justice for Magdalenes said many of the woman still operated under a “level of stigma, silence and shame”, especially in the absence of a Government apology.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

[Taoiseach Enda Kenny: Cloyne Report – YouTube]

JOHN WATERS

Few can have missed the dramatic contrast between the Taoiseach’s weak response to the McAleese report in the Dáil last Tuesday and his momentous attack on the Vatican in July 2011.

On that previous occasion, he colourfully accused the Vatican of “elitism, dysfunction, disconnection and narcissism” and alleged that the rape and torture of children had been “downplayed or managed” by the Catholic Church, to uphold “the primacy of the institution, its power, standing and reputation”.

He also, interestingly, said that the historic relationship between church and State in Ireland could never be the same again, the revelations in the Cloyne report having brought the government, Irish Catholics and the Vatican to “an unprecedented juncture”.

It is tempting to reprise that speech in its entirety today, with ironies highlighted to draw attention to certain evasions and anomalies in the Taoiseach’s rather less confident performance last Tuesday. But there is a more glaring aspect.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

The Taoiseach and Tánaiste will meet the survivors of the Magdalene laundries next week, Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore has said.

Mr Gilmore was responding to criticism of the Government’s response to the report by Dr Martin McAleese into the laundries, which was published earlier this week.

One of the survivors of the laundries, Maureen Sullivan, had said no Government politician had come to her or the other women with an apology.

Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland today, Mr Gilmore said he and the Taoiseach intended to meet the survivors next week. “We intend to have a direct discussion with them about what their needs are, about how government should respond to this report,” he said. “These women have suffered. What they endured was wrong. What happened in this country over those decades was appalling and this Government has heard these women and we have taken what they have to say seriously.”

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CANADA
Sun News

SUE YANAGISAWA | QMI AGENCY

KINGSTON, Ont. – A Roman Catholic priest, charged last year with sex crimes allegedly committed in 2004 against a teenage boy, has been committed to stand trial in Kingston’s Superior Court of Justice.

The case of Rene Paul Emile Labelle, 63, of Seeleys Bay was sent to trial Wednesday by Justice J. Peter Coulson following a preliminary hearing. Those proceedings are subject to a publication ban.

Labelle was arrested in February 2012 after voluntarily resigning from St. Barnaby Catholic Church, south of Seeleys Bay at Brewers Mills.

He’s charged with sexual assault, sexual exploitation and invitation to sexual exploitation.

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NEW MEXICO
The New Mexican

[Peter Garcia – Los Angeles archdiocese]

Tom Sharpe | The New Mexican
Posted: Thursday, February 07, 2013 – 2/7/13

A pedophile priest sent to Jemez Springs for treatment in 1984 was later assigned to parishes in Socorro and Belen by then-Santa Fe Archbishop Robert Sanchez, according to letters released as part of a settlement in a California lawsuit.

The Archdiocese of Santa Fe says it has no record of Peter E. Garcia serving in any parish in New Mexico.

But according to letters from Sanchez, Roger Mahony, who was then the archbishop of Los Angeles, and other church officials, Garcia was at the San Miguel Parish in Socorro from mid-1985 through 1986, and was the parochial vicar of Our Lady of Belen Church in early 1987.

At least one New Mexico priest remembers Garcia, and said he wasn’t pleased about Garcia’s assignment. The Rev. Bill Sanchez, no kin to the late archbishop, now serves at St. Edwin Church in Albuquerque. He said that while he was working at a church in La Joya, N.M., near Belen, and as a prison chaplain in Los Lunas, Garcia briefly served as an assistant to the priest in Belen, the Rev. Dan Farris.

“They didn’t tell us why he was here, where he was coming from,” Bill Sanchez said. “He kind of volunteered some of the information. When he volunteered it to us, we just said, ‘Well, you know, he doesn’t belong here. We have a school. This is not a place for this man.’ And it didn’t seem to both of us that he was very remorseful for what he was accused of in California.”

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AUSTRALIA
Financial Review

Tony Abbott first met John Nestor at the St Patrick’s seminary in Manly in 1984, when they were training for the Catholic priesthood.

They became friends and kept in touch several times a year even after their life journeys went in different directions.

Abbott went into politics. Nestor completed his training and became a priest in the Wollongong diocese of NSW.

When Nestor found himself before a Wollongong magistrate in 1997 charged over the alleged indecent assault of a teenage altar boy, Abbott came to his defence with a character reference.

Asked to describe his friend, the then parliamentary secretary to the Employment Minister said: “An extremely upright and virtuous man. I guess one of the things that I like very much about John when I first met him was his maturity – intellectual, social, emotional. And he was, to that extent I guess, a beacon of humanity at the seminary.”

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By court reporter Sarah Farnsworth

Former Catholic priest Frank Klep has faced the Melbourne Magistrates court on charges of child sex abuse dating back to the 1970s.

The former college principal of Salesian College Rupertswood, in Sunbury, is accused of six indecent assaults in 1974.

Police allege some of the alleged abuse also took place at Chadstone.

He was arrested yesterday as part of ongoing investigations by Taskforce Sano into allegations emanating from the Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into child sex abuse.

A second former priest, Wilfred Baker, 76, of Greenvale, has also appeared in court accused of a serious of indecent assaults dating back to 1966.

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AUSTRALIA
Ilawarra Mercury

By PAUL OSBORNE
Feb. 8, 2013

A prominent lawyer says the case of a Catholic priest cleared of a child abuse charge but later defrocked by the Vatican should be referred to the upcoming royal commission into institutional child sexual abuse.

Prominent Sydney lawyer Chris Murphy said the case of Father John Gerard Nestor, who attended Sydney’s St Patrick’s Seminary with now Opposition Leader Tony Abbott in the 1980s, was an ideal subject for the royal commission which is yet to start taking its first evidence.

“It’s absolutely what the Royal Commission was meant for,” Mr Murphy said yesterday.

Mr Nestor was a priest in the Wollongong diocese in 1991 when he was charged with the indecent assault of a 15-year-old altar boy.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on February 7, 2013

Video presentation.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
PBS Newshour

SUMMARY

Twelve thousand pages of records are being released by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, documenting decades of child molestation and cover-ups. The documents revealed retired Cardinal Roger Mahony and his top aide’s efforts to conceal the molestations from authorities and shield priests accused of abuse.

Cardinal Jose Gomez, in a rare public rebuke of a top church official, stripped his predecessor Mahony of all public and administrative duties.

In 2007 the Los Angeles archdiocese reached a $660 million settlement in a civil suit brought by more than 500 victims of sexual abuse. Ray Boucher, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs in that case, joined Ray Suarez to discuss these developments.

Boucher said that without a doubt these documents and files confirm that top church officials provided cover for accused priests in order to protect them from being criminally prosecuted. Because many of the crimes coming to light occurred over a decade ago, the victims may not be able to file a civil law suit, explained Boucher.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

By Oren Yaniv / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Thursday, February 7, 2013

The prison sentence of convicted child molester Nechemya Weberman was slashed by more than half when he was shipped upstate last week, records show.

While a Brooklyn judge gave the unlicensed Hasidic counselor 103 years in prison for sexually abusing a girl for three years, the Corrections Department applied a 50-year limit the law has set for the felony he was convicted of.

Unless he commits major offenses behind bars, Weberman, 54, will have seven years cut from his term and be released in 2055 when he’s 97, records show.

Court insiders said that sentencing adjustments like the one in this case are not uncommon. Judges sometimes go over the statutory ceiling to make a statement or to limit reductions by the appellate court.

“The judge sentenced the defendant as he saw fit and in accordance with the law,” said David Bookstaver, a spokesman for the court system.

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CANADA
CBC News

The Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission is poised to hear from hundreds of Quebec survivors of the ten schools in Quebec where First Nations and Inuit children were sent.

Regional hearings began in Sept-Îles in January and will continue in other communities until the end of April.

Commissioner Marie Wilson said she expects to hear stories of families torn apart and children who were stripped of their culture and, in some cases, physically and sexually abused.

“It isn’t just about survivors. It is about the children raised by survivors who had no parenting skills and who say over and over again, there was no love in that place. My number was 66. My number was 111. My number was 43. No names,” Wilson said.

Formally established on June 1, 2008, the commission aims to collect and curate a comprehensive historical record of the history and legacy of aboriginal residential schools across Canada.

Scheduled events:

Regional hearings:
La Tuque, March 5-6, 2013
Chisasibi, March 19-10, 2013
Quebec national event:
Montreal, April 24-27

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CANADA
Montreal Gazette

By Michelle Lalonde, The Gazette February 7, 2013

MONTREAL — Canadians have a blind spot when it comes to facing, and responding to, the extensive damage done to this country’s native people through the residential school system, a commissioner with Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission said Thursday.

“Canadians have good hearts,” commissioner Marie Wilson told The Gazette in an interview. “We are the first to jump up to help in places like Haiti and other places around the world where there are tragedies. But we have been taught to be comfortably blind to need when it is in our midst.”

Wilson was in Montreal to announce and invite the public to a “national event” to be held April 24-27 at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel. This will be the fifth of seven such national events the commission has held across Canada since it was created in 2008 as a result of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, the largest class-action settlement in Canadian history.

Wilson, a former journalist and director with CBC North, was appointed to the commission in 2009 after its original three commissioners resigned. She said she has been dismayed by the lack of attention paid to the commission’s work thus far.

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CANADA
Catholic Culture

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada is holding hearings in Quebec on the abuse that took place in the Indian residential school system.

From 1884 to 1948, Canadian law compelled Native Americans to send their children away from home to residential schools, most of which were Catholic or Anglican institutions. The last residential school closed in 1996.

Catholic and Anglican bishops attended a recent hearing in Val d’Or, near the site of a residential school operated by the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate. Attorneys allege that one priest abused up to 1,000 students there.

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MINNESOTA
Patch

By Zac Farber

February 7, 2013

A Franciscan brother who committed suicide on Jan. 26 in the midst of wide-ranging sexual abuse allegations also abused a Minnesotan boy while he was teaching catechism in the 1970s at St. Patrick’s Church in Inver Grove Heights.

Brother Stephen Baker, 62, was found dead in a Hollidaysburg, Penn., monastery as a result of a self-inflicted knife wound to the heart, the Associated Press reported.

Douglas Larson, 49, of St. Cloud, Minn., told a Youngstown, Ohio, television station that he felt closure when he heard about the suicide and that he felt his name should be public because he had done nothing wrong.

“This is a chapter in my book that is closed,” Larson told WKBN-TV. “He can’t do anything to me or anybody else.”

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INDIANA
Indianapolis Star

Written by
Vic Ryckaert

State officials are shutting down a Greenwood church’s day care after a church official accused of sexual abuse was allowed near the children.

The Little Angels Daycare and Preschool in White River Baptist Church must close by Wednesday. Sherri Backemeyer, a consultant who inspected the facility for the state, found the church official on the premises on Jan. 30, said Marni Lemons, a spokeswoman for the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration.

“This person was not charged or convicted of a crime, but the Department of Child Services substantiated a claim of sexual abuse,” Lemons said. The church had been warned to keep the official away from the building, she said.

The Indianapolis Star left messages for the Rev. Steve Finke, senior pastor at the church, and day care director Amy Chilton.

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AUSTRALIA
The Telegraph

Lauren Farrow
AAP
February 08, 2013

WHEN a teenager confided to her pastor that she had been having sex with a church youth worker and that she’d also seen the man kissing another girl, she was told the story couldn’t be believed.

That wasn’t the view of a court, which years later jailed the worker, Wayne Paul Mason, for more than seven years for indecently and sexually assaulting four underage girls, including the whistleblowing teen.

As Australia steels itself for a national inquiry into institutional responses to child sex abuse, the case highlighted just how hard it can be to bring perpetrators to justice when those around them remain silent.

This month Mason, a former cop now aged 42, was jailed for more than seven years for almost 30 counts of indecently and sexually assaulting the girls between 1996 and 2005.

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BELLEVILLE (IL)
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

BELLEVILLE • Raymond Kownacki, the subject of court settlements over sexual abuse inflicted while he was a Catholic priest, has been laicized, the Diocese of Belleville confirmed.

Often called defrocking, the action means Kownacki no longer is a priest. The action was effective Jan. 11, the diocese says.

The diocese removed him from public ministry in 1995 after reviewing allegations of abuse by former altar boys and a woman who said he had raped her when she was a teen. Only the Vatican can laicize a priest.

Kownacki, 78, was ordained in 1960 and served at parishes in Washington Park, Valmeyer, Salem and St. Francisville, Ill. In 2011, the diocese paid $6.3 million in damages from a civil-court trial verdict in 2008 for his abuse of an altar boy in the 1970s. The diocese settled two other cases against him in 2012.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Patch

By Pete Kennedy

February 7, 2013

East Whiteland resident Maureen Martinez is the president of Justice 4 PA Kids, an organization dedicated to eliminating the Pennsylvania statutes of limitations for childhood sexual abuse. A bill to do just that never made it to a floor vote in 2012 in Harrisburg, but she’s hoping 2013 will prove more fruitful.

She was a member of St. Patrick Church in Malvern Borough until 2011, when she learned that a priest there was among 21 facing allegations of sexual abuse.

She answered via email our questions about the legislative process, her goals for Justice 4 PA Kids, and what people should know about childhood sexual abuse.

Malvern Patch: If you could snap your fingers and enact one law tomorrow, what would it be?

Maureen Martinez: Abolishing the statute of limitations for any victim of child sex abuse in our Commonwealth. There are no statute of limitations for murder so why should child sex abuse be treated any differently? Also equally important is a civil two year window implemented to help identify current predators. In California, the window was opened for just one year and 1,000 new suits were filed which identified some 300 more perpetrators. Identifying more perpetrators helps protect children from being harmed in the future. Statute of limitation reform is for the benefit of every child no matter who they were abused by- an uncle, a coach, a priest.

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UNITED STATES
The Nation

Jon Wiener on February 8, 2013

The Catholic Church cover-up of sexual abuse of children by priests: the reports continue to develop. Now a powerful documentary is telling the whole story on TV: “Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God”–it’s playing on HBO for the month of February. The filmmaker is Alex Gibney–he won the Academy Award for best documentary for Taxi to the Dark Side, on torture in Afghanstan. His other films include Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room and Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer. I spoke with him recently for KPFK-FM in Los Angeles.

JON WIENER: You start your film at a Catholic school for the deaf in Milwaukee in 1972. The heroes of your film are a small group of deaf guys who went public as adults with the truth about what a priest had done to them when they were students at the school. You interview the deaf men, but they can’t talk – they speak in sign language. And yet they are wonderfully articulate. It’s amazing to watch them – as you translate in voice-over.

ALEX GIBNEY: The four guys had all been students at St. John’s School for the Deaf in Milwaukee. They had all been abused, and as young men, just post-college, they had banded together to see if they could stop this abuse from continuing. They were the first people in America to make a public protest about sex abuse of children by priests. They spent many years trying to have their voices “heard.” Yes they can’t speak, but they are so expressive – you can see on their faces and in their hands their testimony, which is at once horrible but also gripping. They maintain a sense of humanity and humor and idealism despite all of this.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

Former catholic priest Frank Klep has faced the Melbourne Magistrates court on charges of child sex abuse dating back to the 1970s.

The former college principal of Salesian College Rupertswood, in Sunbury, is accused of six indecent assaults between the 1974 and 1984.

Police allege some of the alleged abuse also took place at Chadstone.

He was arrested yesterday as part of ongoing investigations by Taskforce Sano into allegations emanating from the Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into child sex abuse.

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FLORIDA
NBC Miami

A former South Florida priest sentenced last month to 15 years in prison for sexually abusing a child decades ago is the subject of a newly filed lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Miami.

The lawsuit, filed in Broward Circuit Court on Thursday, alleges that Neil Doherty, now 69, drugged and sexually abused a 12-year-old boy around 1990 in Miami, according to a press release from attorney Jeff Herman’s law firm.

Herman is representing the alleged victim, listed in the lawsuit as John Doe No. 100.

“Doherty sexually abused other boys before, during, and after the time he abused John Doe, which was known to the Archdiocese and actively concealed,” the press release provided by Herman’s office alleges.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

WELCOME to the age of washing whites whiter. When stains show up on laundry day, we know just how to neutralise them – identify the perpetrators and start baying for heads on a platter.

Culprits are always other people, because Irish society never shares the blame for blots on the national reputation. Failures always happened without our knowledge or approval. And so, true to form, the default position is to round up the usual suspects following the Magdalene Laundries report.

You know the drill: the blame for the brutality of those workhouses can be laid entirely at the door of the Catholic Church, which moulded Ireland into a repressive place. The laundries are another example of the crushing hand of authoritarianism on the shoulders of women deemed dangerous, deviant or just plain inconvenient.

The Magdalene Laundries did, indeed, operate amid a narrow, self-reinforcing society: their harsh regime was indefensible during previous eras and remains indefensible today.

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TENNESSEE
News Sentinel

By News Sentinel staff

Posted February 7, 2013

A former Kingsport priest, relieved of duties after being convicted of sexual misconduct and aggravated rape, has been dismissed to layman status by the Catholic church.

Rev. Richard F. Stika, Bishop of Knoxville, released a statement Thursday confirming that William “Bill” Casey of Greeneville has been “laicized” by Pop Benedict XVI.

“Through this laicization, Mr. Casey returns to the lay state,” Stika said. “I request that you continue to pray for Warren Tucker and for all victims of abuse throughout the world. I also ask you to pray for Mr. Casey and his family.”

Casey was sentenced in November 2011 to 35 to 40 years in prison and is incarcerated. He was sentenced in Sullvan Cunty Criminal Court to 15 to 20 years on a first-degree criminal sexual conduct charge and two concurrent 20-year terms for two counts of aggravated rape.

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IRELAND
UTV

Tony Flannery, 66, is a high-profile and well known priest who has previously spoken out of line with the Church’s stance on hot topics such as contraception and homosexuality.

The Galway Redemptorist priest revealed last month that he was ordered to sign a pledge by the church that he supports their teachings.

He can now no longer minister as a priest and is being threatened with excommunication by the Vatican.

“They wanted me to sign and publish a document on these issues stating that I accepted fully the Vatican’s position on them which I wouldn’t have been able to do without turning my back on things I’ve been saying for 30 years,” he explained.

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TENNESSEE
WATE

KNOXVILLE (WATE) – A former Knoxville priest convicted of child rape has been formally removed from the priesthood.

William Casey was sentenced in 2011 to a 35-year prison term for aggravated rape and sexual misconduct in a case dating back to the 1970s.

The Vatican notified Knoxville Bishop Richard Stika that Pope Benedict XVI has dismissed Casey.

Stika made the announcement on Jan. 10 and asked for continued prayers for victim Warren Tucker, a former altar boy at Casey’s church, and also for Casey and his family.

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VATICAAN
Kerknet (Belgie)

ROME (KerkNet/RadVat) – De Amerikaanse priester en kerkjurist Robert W. Oliver, die eind vorig jaar door paus Benedictus XVI werd belast met de strijd tegen seksueel misbruik, zegt dat het Vaticaan vastbesloten is om het zerotolerantiebeleid voor de bestrijding van seksueel misbruik voort te zetten. “Daarbij moet de zorg voor de slachtoffers centraal staan.”

Robert W. Oliver, sinds kort promotor van Justitie bij de Congregatie voor de Geloofsleer, zegt dat er in het Vaticaan jaarlijks ongeveer zeshonderd klachten over seksueel misbruik worden behandeld. “De meeste daarvan hebben betrekking op seksueel misbruik tijdens de jaren 1960 tot 1980. In 2004 was er het hoogste aantal meldingen, toen 600 klachten werden genoteerd.” Oliver benadrukt het belang van de conferentie over seksueel misbruik met bisschoppen en specialisten uit de hele wereld van vorig jaar aan de Gregoriaanse Universiteit in Rome. “Daar werden de krijtlijnen uitgezet voor de strijd tegen seksueel misbruik en werden ook de kerkelijke verantwoordelijken uit landen met slechts weinig misbruikklachten voor de bestrijding van seksueel misbruik gesensibiliseerd.”

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IRELAND
Association of Catholic Priests

Richard Gaillardetz, a lay theologian from the U.S., puts the current exercise of authority within the Catholic Church into a historical perspective. The magisterial activism that we are witnessing today is not traditional, he maintains: it is quite novel and its merits will need to be assessed in that light. (First published in the 1-14 Feb issue of the NCR under the headline: The church’s shifts in spheres of authority.)

The proper role and function of the magisterium continue to be a source of controversy in many corners of the Catholic church today. Any fruitful reflection on the magisterium requires that we place the topic in its proper historical context.

Today the term magisterium generally refers to the doctrinal teaching office and authority of the bishops in communion with the bishop of Rome. That more narrow meaning is a fairly recent one. The word magisterium simply means, “the authority of the master or teacher” (magister, magistra) and it was used in a wide range of ecclesial contexts in the early church. Although the term magisterium did not then have the specialized meaning that it carries today, that does not mean that there was no sense of doctrinal authority in the early church.

In the pastoral letters of the New Testament we find officeholders (using the term somewhat loosely) who were recognized for a distinctive teaching responsibility, though the specific character and scope of that authority was not yet established. By the end of the second century, the office of bishop had emerged as an authoritative church office and there was a general conviction that they had in some sense succeeded to the authority of the apostles as guardians of the apostolic faith.

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IRELAND
Association of Catholic Priests

Seamus Ahearne OSA reflects on the aftermath of the meeting between the ACP and Dublin priests’ council and Archbishop Martin. As a Church, we need to talk, bishops, priests (Nuncio) and people together!

The Independent (Monday 4th February) had a column on the Meeting of the Priests’ Council (Dublin) and the leadership of the ACP. It was a sloppy piece of journalism and a distortion.

We met. We talked. There is nothing extraordinary about that. We shouldn’t be surprised or excited or euphoric. It is what adults do! This is Communion. The Church doesn’t belong to the Bishops or to Rome or to anyone. We are the Church.

It is good that the ACP and the Council of priests meet. It also is a problem: It creates something the ACP never wanted: It spawns administration; More meetings; more travelling; more is dumped on the Leadership. They get sucked into this Bureaucracy of life. It can mean the kiss of death.

People need to talk. The Bishops and the ACP need to talk. Bishops need to talk to each other. Priests need to talk. There needs to be talk all across the Church. There isn’t an Us and Them. The ACP isn’t about dissident priests. They are by definition priests who love the Church; who find their Inspiration in Vatican 2 and who want the Church to face today’s world and not hide away in the past. The catch word of the Council was: Aggiornamento. This bringing-up-to-date is an evolutionary process and never ends. The Incarnation means that the Word has to become Flesh in everyday life but there is a problem.

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IRELAND
Association of Catholic Priests

Invitation to Meeting

Dear Fellow Members
As we approach the third anniversary of the first Portlaoise meeting which effectively founded the ACP, it may be a good time for us to take stock of where we are, what we have achieved to date and the goals we need to set for ourselves into the future.

Some new issues are emerging, like the ‘clustering’ proposal to deal with the ongoing decline in priest-numbers, and we need to agree a policy approach to it; some old issues remain like procedures for dealing with allegations against priests, and we need to maintain our focus on them; and the spectre of a Church without sufficient priests to sustain our parishes is fast approaching as we sleep walk towards an advancing precipice.

There is also the question of unfair and unjust procedures in dealing with the independence of the ACP and the actions of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith against Tony Flannery.

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IRELAND
Association of Catholic Priests

Priests from Cork & Ross and from Cloyne Diocese gathered at Ovens Parish Centre for their ACP meeting on 29 January – including some who had not come to a such a meeting before.

Fr Oliver Brennan from Armagh diocese was our guest speaker – he spoke movingly of his horrendous experience in being removed from his parish (with just five hours notice) on foot of an allegation, with the PSNI clearance coming relatively quickly within a year, and the archdiocesan permission to return to ministry following painstakingly slowly. The coldness of his treatment by church authorities made an impression.

Attendees asked questions, shared experiences and commented on his story.

Members suggested that the ACP prepare a manual for priests, a useful reference in case of such an allegation. They also felt we need to be mindful of each other, and particularly sensitive to anyone who finds himself out of ministry on foot of an allegation.

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IRELAND
Association of Catholic Priests

Brendan Hoban challenges a Catholic newspaper to apologise for inaccurate reporting (Written for the Western People)

For years I’ve watched the career of Judge Paul Carney of the High Court. For some reason, he seems to have been there forever. Probably because he’s allocated many of the more complex, high-profile cases. I often wondered how he could sleep at night, his mind forever mulling over the raw details of broken lives and trying to balance the multiplicities of rights and entitlements into a fair judgement. I wouldn’t want to have his responsibility.

Most of the time Carney seems to get it exactly right but recently he got it very wrong. It was the case of Fiona Doyle who had been sexually abused by her father, Patrick O’Brien, for years. Carney sentenced him to 12 years in prison but then suspended 9 years of the sentence and granted bail for the remaining 3 years. This meant that O’Brien walked free from court.

The predictable outrage of the next few days was brought to an end when Carney apologised for getting it wrong, expressed profound regret for the distress he had caused Fiona Doyle, accepted that his judgement was inappropriate and withdrew the bail. O’Brien is now in jail.

What was refreshing about Carney’s apology was that there was no self-serving element to it. He got it wrong. He held up his hands. He apologised. And in doing so he enhanced his reputation. …

A recent case of this was a Catholic newspaper that quoted ‘senior Vatican sources’ to the effect that there was no question of Fr Tony Flannery facing excommunication, that he couldn’t be excommunicated because the law of the Church didn’t allow for it and that the case hinged on whether or not Flannery accepted the Church’s teaching on the nature of the priesthood.

The story was an effort to torpedo publicity from a Dublin press conference where Flannery said he was ‘threatened with excommunication from the Catholic Church for suggesting that, in the future, women might become priests and calling for this and other matters to be open for discussion’. However, in an effort to undo the effectiveness of Flannery’s position, the paper had lost the run of itself because it got things spectacularly wrong:

(i) an extract from the letter from the Congregation of the Doctrine indicating that the ‘threat’ was there in black and white was published on the website of the Association of Catholic Priests (ACP);
(ii) experts in church law made it clear that the Church can and does excommunicate; and
(iii) evidence was produced that indicated that Flannery’s faith in the origins of priesthood and the Church, far from being a problem, had been resolved to the satisfaction of Cardinal Levada of the CDF last June!

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INDONESIA
UCANews

Ryan Dagur, Jakarta
Indonesia
2013-02-06

A man claiming to be responsible for the death of three people, whose remains were recently unearthed in the compound of a seminary in East Nusa Tenggara, has turned himself in to police.

A Sikka district police official and head of the criminal investigation unit said Tuesday that Herman Jumat Masan was in their custody and had confessed to being involved in the death of Yosefin Keredok Payong and her two children. Both children were fathered by him.

“He is now being held in the district’s police station for further legal action. We have strong evidence linking him to the loss of three lives,” the official said.

Yosefin, whose identity was confirmed through DNA testing, was reported missing in 2002. She was a nun with the Congregation of the Missionary Sisters Servants of the Holy Spirit at the time of her disappearance.

Her remains and those of her two children were discovered last week in the compound of a school operated by the St Peter Major Seminary in Sikka district. They have since been turned over to family members.

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IRELAND
The Telegraph (United Kingdom)

How did the Irish go from being the pluckiest and funniest people in Europe to the most boring and self-pitying?

By Brendan O’Neill Politics
Last updated: February 7th, 2013

Whatever happened to the Fighting Irish? Once upon a time, the inhabitants of the wild, rocky patch of land next to Britain were considered among the hardiest in Europe, liable to laugh in the face of misfortune or possibly punch it square between the eyes. Now – as the publication of yet another official report into yet another “shameful episode” in Irish history confirms – the Irish have become Europe’s great moaners, the nation-state equivalent of teenagers who never stop banging on about how hard they have it. From craic-loving fist-throwers to couch-hogging therapy seekers in the space of one generation… has any people on Earth ever transmogrified as speedily and wholly as the Irish?

Ireland’s latest report into its own horrible history focuses on the Magdalene laundries: harsh, punishing institutions through which an estimated 10,000 so-called “wayward” women passed between 1922 and 1996. Written by Senator Martin McAleese following a long inquiry, the 1,000-page report describes the nasty things some of these women experienced.

Now, there is no doubt the Magdalene laundries were unpleasant places, as was every youth correctional facility in Christendom in the 1940s and 50s (the period when the laundries were at their harshest). But even so, the shock-horror headlines that have greeted the new report don’t tally with the report’s own findings. Irish commentators tell us the inhabitants of the laundries were “slaves” or “prisoners”, subjected to “lifelong pain”. But actually, the report found that 35 per cent of the women stayed in the laundries for just three months or less; 60 per cent stayed less than a year; and many of the women chose to enter the laundries – they “volunteered through impoverishment”. What’s more, the report found no evidence whatsoever of sexual abuse in the laundries, which calls into question at least one scene in the much-lauded 2002 film The Magdalene Sisters, which showed fat nuns perving over naked, crying girls in a laundry shower.

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IRELAND
The Journal

THE HEAD OF the Magdalene Survivors Together group remains hopeful of a meeting with An Taoiseach Enda Kenny, in spite of the events of the last 24 hours.

“Just because something like this happens, doesn’t mean that those who suffered in the laundries should be forgotten about,” Stephen O’Riordan told TheJournal.ie.

With less than than two weeks before the Dáil debates the report, O’Riordan hopes that the Taoiseach “will appreciate the importance” of the stories that need to be told and meet with the survivors.

As the days pass and as O’Riordan reads more of the report, the number of questions he has is mounting.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Norwich Evening News

Peter Walsh, Crime correspondent Thursday, February 7, 2013

A Norfolk priest who was arrested by detectives probing allegations of child sex abuse centring on a guesthouse and a children’s home has been released on bail pending further inquiries.

The priest, Father Tony McSweeney, 66, from St George’s Church in the north of Norwich, and another man, aged 70, from East Sussex were arrested on Wednesday morning on suspicion of sexual offences.

Fr McSweeney, who has been a priest for 29 years, was appointed a director at Notre Dame High School in Norwich in April last year but resigned today.

He also took a service for Norwich City FC in 2004 after they were promoted to the Premiership.

Today the club said: “In 2004, Father McSweeney wrote to joint majority shareholder Delia Smith suggesting he would like to become a Norwich City Chaplain.

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UNITED STATES
Wisconsin Gazette

Written by Diane Root
Feb 7, 2013

Something akin to a plague is affecting the once most highly-regarded institutions: universities, national associations, the Catholic Church and now the ultra-conservative Orthodox community in New York City. Lust involving the molestation of children, it seems, is a many-splintered thing.

William K., now 45, is Roman Catholic and a child rape victim. He is gay, and he is angry. He appeared briefly in the documentary, “Mea Maxima Culpa,” which debuted Feb. 4 on HBO. The film addresses the issue of rape and molestation of children by members of the Catholic clergy. William K. is passionate about justice, not only for those who victimized the young, but for those who covered it up.

The accessories to pedophilia are almost invariably unpunished. Child victims are raped – mentally, physically, even morally. Few victims overcome their experience. Confessing to their past is just this side of mental and emotional crucifixion.

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TENNESSEE
Albany Times Union

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The Vatican has removed William Casey from the Roman Catholic priesthood after Casey’s conviction in the sexual abuse of a teenage altar boy.

The Rev. David Boettner, a vicar general for the diocese, on Thursday confirmed the papal action in 2012, returning Casey to laity status.

Reaction from a spokeswoman for the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests was sharp. Nancy Vance of the Knoxville chapter of SNAP asked why it took so long, noting that the Vatican was informed on April 4, 2010, of charges against Casey.

He was convicted in 2011 of abusing a boy, then 13 and 14, while serving at St. Dominic’sCatholic Church in Kingsport, Tenn.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
PBS Newshour

By: Ray Suarez

Promising further documents, and promising to reveal hidden information in previously released documents, the Catholic Church in America’s second largest metropolitan area is struggling to contain the continuing storm over decades of priestly abuse of young people.

As a condition of its 2007 legal settlement with past victims of sexual misconduct, the Los Angeles Archdiocese promised to release documents in church archives that detail the church’s attempts to handle steady reports of priestly misconduct. Letters between church members and administrators, priests and bishops, therapists and bishops, expose a multi-decade attempt to address the accusations without publicity, and without handling law enforcement.

The story that emerges in the thousands of documents is not one that flatters the Catholic Church. Anguished families are urged to be quiet, clerics suspected of criminal activity are shipped off to other states with a full understanding of the statute of limitations on some of the suspected crimes. In the face of mounting evidence, a surplus of care, concern and sympathy is lavished on priests, while victims and families become potential problems that need to be handled. Again and again, the documents show, every last alternative is tried first, before priests are removed from their church responsibilities or returned to a lay state.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Argus

A Sussex pensioner has been arrested as part of a major police investigation into an alleged VIP paedophile ring with political links.

The man, named locally as 70-year-old John Stingemore, was in custody last night.

Operation Fernbridge officers from the Metropolitan Police swooped on Stingemore’s home in St Leonards on Monday morning and arrested him.

Stingemore, who is understood to have lived in Bexhill and then St Leonards since 2002, is believed to be a former deputy head of Grafton Close children’s home in Barnes, south London, which is at the centre of the abuse allegations.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on February 7, 2013

A video presentation.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

by Maureen Fiedler | Feb. 7, 2013

Catholic News Service reports on an interview on the possibility of women priests with Dominican Fr. Wojciech Giertych, the “theologian” of the papal household. (Yes, the quotes around “theologian” are intentional.)

After repeating some of the same tired old arguments that have long since been dismissed by competent theologians (e.g., Jesus was male, so a priest has to be male to “image” Jesus ), he came up with a whole new angle: Priests love the church in a characteristically “male way” when they show concern “about structures, about the buildings of the church, about the roof of the church which is leaking, about the bishops’ conference, about the concordat between the church and the state.”

Huh? There is so much wrong with this, it’s hard to know where to start. In what century is this man living? The very thought that women don’t deal with buildings or structures or conferences or international concordats is straight out of the 19th century, maybe earlier.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic League

Bill Donohue comments on an op-ed piece in today’s New York Times:

The decision to publish the op-ed by Daniel A. Olivas was malicious. Here’s why.

Olivas says he once knew a Latino priest in southern California who was a molester (the priest, who is dead, was suspended from ministry in the 1990s). Okay, I got it: Olivas is angry. Every time I read about another homosexual priest who molested someone (less than 5 percent of abusive priests were pedophiles), I get angry, too. But what was the purpose of publishing this article? And why the obscene drawing of a priest whose head resembles a creature from Hell? [To see it click here.]

There is almost no sexual abuse being committed by priests in the U.S. today. When reports surface, in almost every instance we are hearing about old cases. But now, given the latest round of documents gathered by the authorities involving the Archdiocese of Los Angeles under Cardinal Roger Mahony, we are being treated to more stories.

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IRLAND
Neue Zurcher Zeitung

Martin Alioth, Dublin

Die erste offizielle Reaktion auf den am Dienstag veröffentlichten Bericht über die sogenannten Magdalenen-Wäschereien zwischen 1922 und 1996 hat Befremden ausgelöst. Der von einer Beamtengruppe unter dem Vorsitz eines Parlamentariers vorgelegte, 1000 Seiten umfassende Bericht hatte zweifelsfrei festgestellt, dass der irische Staat für die unentgeltliche Zwangsarbeit von mindestens 10 000 Frauen mitverantwortlich gewesen war. Die bisher gültige Behauptung, es habe sich um private, von Nonnen betriebene Unternehmungen gehandelt, in denen die Frauen freiwillig arbeiteten, ist unhaltbar geworden.

«Vollkommen ungenügend»

Einstige «Magdalenerinnen» dringen seit langem auf eine formelle Entschuldigung im Namen des irischen Staates. Premierminister Kenny hatte vorab Kenntnis von den Schlussfolgerungen der Arbeitsgruppe. Dennoch begnügte er sich am Dienstag im Parlament damit, die Lebensumstände dieser Frauen zu bedauern. Ähnlich äusserte er sich am Mittwoch. Ferner drückte er sein Bedauern darüber aus, dass es so lange gedauert habe, bis die Stigmatisierung dieser Frauen als sittenlose Wesen korrigiert worden sei. Übereinstimmend bewerteten die Opfergruppen, die Opposition und die Medien diese Wendungen als vollkommen ungenügend. Die Sinn-Fein-Politikerin Mary-Lou McDonald bezeichnete die Vorgänge in den Wäschereien als «sehr irische Variante der Sklaverei».

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DEUTSCHLAND
Spiegel

Hamburg – Der Erzbischof von Köln Joachim Meisner beklagt in einem Brief an Priester und Kirchenmitarbeiter “die Häme und Aggression”, die der Kirche entgegengebracht würden. Die Kirche von Köln habe in den vergangenen Wochen “in der öffentlichen Wahrnehmung einen Sturm erlebt, wie ich ihn in meinen Jahren als Bischof selten erlebt habe”.

Der “Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger” veröffentlichte den Brief auf seiner Internetseite (hier als pdf), das Erzbistum bestätigte gegenüber SPIEGEL ONLINE, dass der Brief authentisch sei.

Meisner hadert in seinem auf Dienstag datierten Schreiben mit der öffentlichen Kritik, die in jüngster Zeit laut geworden war. Die Positionen der Kirche und ihre Repräsentanz “durch Personen wie den Papst und die Bischöfe” würden in der Gesellschaft immer stärker polarisieren. “Französische Wissenschaftler betrachten dieses Phänomen inzwischen als ‘Katholikenphonie’ und weisen darauf hin, dass keine Religion oder Konfession derart so gezielt öffentlich angegriffen wird wie die katholische Kirche.”

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UNITED STATES
Pope Crimes & Vatican Evils…

Paris Arrow

Updated February 6, 2013

Vatican Terror on Women and Children

– The Magdalene Laundries in Ireland, run by the nuns of the Vatican Catholic Church treated women under slave conditions and then sold their babies for profit, from the 1920s to the mid-1990s, over 74 years

– 2,000 Irish babies were sold illegally to New York wealthy families; these babies were born out of women who were slaves in the Magdalene Laundries

– The women washed society’s dirty laundry and received no pay. When they refused to work the nuns cut their hair as punishment…

– An estimated 30,000 single mothers and other women were put to work in detention, over a period of more than seven decades, in the laundries operated by nuns, in four religious orders.

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ISRAEL
YNet News

Noam (Dabul) Dvir Published: 02.07.13

Another cover-up? The Jerusalem District Police arrested a 50-year-old haredi man Wednesday for alleged sexual assault against several boys and girls whose families he befriended.

The police claim that the suspect, a divorcee and father of three, admitted to his involvement in the acts and is cooperating with the investigation. He said he assaulted several boys and girls, ages 10-14.

The investigation has shown that these instances were known to several sources within the haredi community, and the suspect said that over the course of the year, he was privately treated with medication that was supposed to lessen his sexual urges. Police believe the treatments were funded by haredi sources in order to prevent the filing of a complaint with the police. The doctor and the source that funded the treatment will be interrogated.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Network Norwich

A Norwich priest was one of two men arrested on February 6 by detectives probing allegations of child sex abuse centring on a guesthouse and a children’s home in London.

The priest, Father Tony McSweeney, 66, from St George’s Church in Norwich, and another man aged 70 from East Sussex were arrested on suspicion of sexual offences.

The allegations, dating from the early 1980s, are linked to the former Elm Guest House and the now closed Grafton Close children’s home in Barnes, south west London.

Fr David Bagstaff, diocesan administrator of the diocese of East Anglia, said: “The safeguarding of children and vulnerable people is of paramount importance to the Catholic Church and the diocese is co-operating fully with the police in this investigation.”

Fr McSweeney was appointed a director at Notre Dame High School in Norwich in April last year but has now voluntarily resigned and has no connection with the school. He has been a priest for almost 28 years, celebrating his silver anniversary in February 2009 with a service in Norwich.

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IRELAND
Galway Advertiser

Editorial

February 07, 2013

In an Ireland in which the only colours were black and white, when even the sunshine seemed a distant grey, hope was a rare commodity. And for those who were robbed of their innocence by circumstance and robbed of their freedom by a lack of compassion, days like this week must have seemed a million years away. When life seems on the verge of beating you down, you fall back on family, friends, beliefs, and authority figures.

To be rejected and betrayed by all four is a nightmare from which ten thousand young Irish women must have felt they would never awaken. When these young women found themselves within the walls of the Magdalene Laundries, not many of them knew exactly why they were there. It was not a prison, but it had four walls through which it was impossible to pass. It was not paid employment, because there was no pay and no pension. And so they were led to believe that it was some form of moral punishment for a perceived wrong they had done. And lest they got any notions about the rights of this wrong, they were subjected to emotional abuse to strip them of their pride, their dignity, and of their right to call themselves decent Irish women.

The story of the Magdalene Laundry is not something that is looked upon with pride by any community, even here in Galway where it is only in the last decade that there has been any semi-official acceptance that what went on was callous, conceived, co-ordinated, and concealed.

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IRELAND
Canberra Times

February 8

John Walsh

It takes an age to squeeze much remorse out of the Irish government, it appears.

In 1999, after decades of child abuse in Catholic-run organisations, the government finally issued “a sincere and long-overdue apology” to the victims and set up a Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, which took nine years to present its findings.

Now the government has been told – by a report prompted two years ago by the United Nations Committee Against Torture – that the Irish state colluded in sending 30,000 women to the infamous Magdalene Laundries between 1922 and 1996.

The Prime Minister, Enda Kenny, did not apologise to the families of the women who had been incarcerated in these hellish institutions despite committing no crime.

He said: “The stigma [of] the branding together of all the residents … in the Magdalene Laundries needs to be removed.” No, it doesn’t.

The stigma of the Magdalene Laundries will survive as a reminder of how inhumanly innocent people can be treated by supposedly charitable institutions.

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UNITED KINGDOM
EDP 24

Peter Walsh, Crime correspondent Thursday, February 7, 2013

A Norfolk priest who was arrested by detectives probing allegations of child sex abuse centring on a guesthouse and a children’s home has been released on bail pending further inquiries.

The priest, Father Tony McSweeney, 66, from St George’s Church in Norwich, and another man, aged 70, from East Sussex were arrested yesterday morning on suspicion of sexual offences.

The allegations, dating from the early 1980s, are linked to the former Elm Guest House and the now closed Grafton Close children’s home in Barnes, south west London.

A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said both men have been bailed until April pending further inquiries.

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CALIFORNIA
Orange County Weekly

By Gustavo Arellano
Thu., Feb. 7 2013

In 2003, Daniel A. Olivas released Assumption and Other Stories, a well-received collection of pieces based on his life growing up and living in Southern California. The titular tale details a Latino priest, popular with his working-class barrio parish, who ends up molesting boys.

Today, in a dramatic op/ed piece for the New York Times, Olivas reveals who the inspiration for the pedo-priest was: none other than Eleuterio Ramos, the most prolific pedophile priest in the history of the Diocese of Orange, and Olivas’ childhood priest in East Los Angeles at St. Thomas the Apostle.

“My parish knew him as Father Al, the hip young priest who spoke out for immigrant and Chicano rights, railed against the Vietnam War, could drink with the best of them and dedicated his spare time to mentoring the most troubled boys at St. Thomas,” Olivas writes.

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UNITED STATES
The Open Tabernacle: Here Comes Everybody

Posted on February 3, 2013 by Betty Clermont

(As posted on DailyKos)

I am not defending Cardinal Mahony’s record of aiding and abetting the sexual torture of Los Angeles children. I am explaining why, for the first time in the history of the American Catholic Church, one hierarch was publicly censured and other notorious US prelates (Law – Boston MA, Rigali and Bevilacqua – Philadelphia PA, Brom – San Diego CA, Franklin – Davenport IA, Grahmann – Dallas TX, Coleman – Fall River MA, McCormack – Manchester NH, Egan – Bridgeport CT, Cote – Norwich CT, Murphy – Rockville Centre NY, McDonnell – Springfield MA, et al) who did pretty much the same thing were not and what this tells us about who is really in charge of the Catholic Church.

Mahony used to be a well-regarded champion of Latino rights and undocumented immigrants. His successor, Opus Dei Archbishop Jose Gomez, was supposed to take up Mahony’s mantel as chief Catholic defender of Latinos (today‘s post “Archbishop Gomez hails Senate immigration reform plan”) so that Gomez can persuade them to vote Republican. Yet California Latinos weren’t listening to Gomez and voted Democrat.

Since Gomez’s announcement on Thursday that he was relieving Mahony of “any administrative or public duties” (which is bogus as I will explain below) over his mishandling of clergy sex abuse, Gomez has been widely lauded as “brave” and “courageous,” the grand protector of children.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Back2Stonewall

Posted by John Becker on February 6, 2013

Okay, so that’s probably not exactly how they’ll phrase it, but it is essentially what the Los Angeles Catholic Archdiocese is thinking about asking as it struggles to pay off the debt it incurred in the wake of the clergy sex abuse scandal. The Los Angeles Times reports:

In the midst of renewed public outrage over its handling of clergy sex abuse, the Los Angeles Archdiocese is considering a $200-million fundraising campaign that could erase debts brought on by the scandal.

The archdiocese has hired a New York company, Guidance In Giving Inc., to study the feasibility of a large-scale fundraiser that would shore up a bottom line hit hard by costly abuse litigation. It would be the archdiocese’s first capital campaign in 60 years.

The archdiocese’s $660-million settlement in 2007 with more than 500 victims was the largest in U.S. history. According to a December financial report, the archdiocese is still paying down loans it used to cover the settlement, and its liabilities now outstrip its assets by $80 million.

This news comes at a particularly awkward time for the Los Angeles Archdiocese, just one week after Archbishop Jose Gomez took the unprecedented step of stripping his predecessor — Cardinal Roger Mahony (left), a previously popular prelate who led the archdiocese from 1985 to 2011 — of all his adminstrative and public duties. The move came in the wake of the release last month of thousands of pages of internal Catholic church records that show that Mahony and other top-level archdiocesan officials worked together to prevent police from discovering that children were being sexually abused by priests.

But never mind all that, the Church needs your money. Pay up please! (Seriously, could these people be any more tone-deaf?)

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IRELAND
Irish Central

By
PATRICK COUNIHAN,
IrishCentral Staff Writer

Published Thursday, February 7, 2013

Singer Sinead O’Connor has revealed she was a victim of the Magdalene Laundries scandal – and it affected her for life.

The ‘Nothing Compares 2U’ hit-maker has made the revelation in an interview with the Irish Sun newspaper.

She spoke out just 24 hours after the publication of a damning report on the Laundries which has highlighted state collusion with the Nuns who ran them.

O’Connor, now 46, has told the Irish Sun how she was just 14 when she was sent to the Sisters of

Our Lady of Charity laundry in Dublin after she was labelled a ‘problem child.’

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IRELAND
Galway News

February 7, 2013

The Labour Party Chief Whip has expressed his disappointment at the lack of a comprehensive apology from Enda Kenny to the Magdalene survivors.

The Sisters of Mercy ran the Magdalene laundry at Forster street in the city until it closed in 1984.

The Taoiseach has said he needs “space” to reflect on how to respond to the 1,000 page McAleese Report.

Yesterday, Labour TDs and Senators said the treatment inflicted on the women was an historical wrong that had to be put right.

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IRELAND
Washington Times

DALLAS, February 7, 2013 ― Sinead O’Connor reveals to the Irish Times, Patrick Counihan, her imprisonment in the Our Lady of Charity Laundry in Dublin. As previously reported here at the age of fifteen, the Irish singer was arrested for shoplifting.

She was trapped in intolerable conditions for eighteen months until her father secured her freedom.

O’Connor tells the Irish Times:

“We were girls in there, not women, just children really. Moreover, the girls in there cried every day.It was a prison. We didn’t see our families, we were locked in, cut off from life, deprived of a normal childhood.

“We were told we were there because we were bad people. Some of the girls had been raped at home and not believed.One girl was in because she had a bad hip and her family didn’t know what to do with her.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic Culture

By Phil Lawler | February 06, 2013 8:28 PM

Last Friday I was rejoicing over the news that one American archbishop, at least, finally seemed to “get it” regarding the sex-abuse scandal. Now I’m afraid I was celebrating too soon. Within hours the smile had been wiped off my face, by two separate incidents that showed how thoroughly many bishops have missed the point.

Cardinal Mahony’s sad apologia

First Cardinal Roger Mahony, clearly stung by the news that Archbishop José Gomez had stripped him of his public functions in the Los Angeles archdiocese, released a defense of his own record, in the form of an open letter to his successor. Petulant and self-serving, the cardinal’s statement regurgitated the tired old arguments that American prelates have been making for over a decade to justify their failures.

Back in 2002, Cardinal Mahony was wondering aloud how Cardinal Bernard Law could live with himself after covering up evidence of abuse; now the disgraced former Archbishop of Los Angeles was making the same feeble attempts at self-justification that the disgraced former Archbishop of Boston had made before his resignation. He was only doing what the “experts” had recommended, the cardinal said; he had not yet come to appreciate the severity of the problem; he was doing what other American bishops had done. Ah, isn’t that the truth!

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MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Judy Jones on February 07, 2013

We are grateful to Springfield police and prosecutors for pursuing the case against Scott Blair with such vigor. These are heinous crimes, and children in Springfield are much safer with Blair off the streets.

Our hearts ache for the now-teenage victims, but we applaud them for their remarkable courage in coming forward at such a young age.

Church officials at Southeast Bible Chapel have a duty to reach out to their congregation and beg anyone who saw, suspected, or suffered crimes by Blair to come forward and make a report to police. Now, more than ever, breaking the silence about Blair’s crimes can ensure both justice for the victims and the prevention of future abuse.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Metropolitan Police

06 February 2013

Officers from Operation Fernbridge have this morning, Wednesday 6th February, arrested two men on suspicion of sexual offences.

The men are (a) aged 66 from Norfolk, and (b) aged 70 from East Sussex. Both are in police custody at this time.

Commander Peter Spindler, head of the MPS Specialist Crime Investigations, said today ;
‘This is a complex multi agency investigation supported by the NSPCC, CEOP and Richmond Social Services involving non recent allegations of sexual assault against children.

‘It is vital that anyone who has been affected by or has information about activity in the early 1980s at the Elm Guest House, or the Grafton Close care home, in Barnes speaks to the NSPCC on their Helpline on 0808 800 5000, or their local police.’

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UNITED KINGDOM
Politics UK

A Catholic priest is one of two men arrested by detectives investigating allegations of historic child abuse centring around a guest house and a care home.

Reverend Tony McSweeney, 66, from Norfolk, was held along with another man aged 70 from East Sussex on suspicion of sexual offences. …

Speaking in Parliament in October last year, he said that a file of evidence used to convict Peter Righton of importing child pornography in 1992 contained “clear intelligence” of a sex abuse gang. Mr Watson alleged that a member of the group had bragged about links with a senior aide to a former prime minister.

A spokesman for Richmond Council, which ran the care home, said: “Richmond Council considers the safeguarding of all children and young people as an utmost priority and we take any allegations of abuse very seriously. As such we are offering our full support and co-operation to the police during their investigation.”

Director of the NSPCC helpline Peter Watt said: “We are assisting the police on Operation Fernbridge and are asking anyone with information to come forward. We will assist the police in gathering evidence and supporting those who come forward.”

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CALIFORNIA
The New York Times

[Eleutario Ramos – Los Angeles archdiocese]

By DANIEL A. OLIVAS

Published: February 6, 2013

IT is the autumn of 2003, and I am sitting with my wife and teenage son at a large table that is groaning with plates of Mexican food and soft drinks and wine. We’re celebrating my sister’s anniversary, and like most Mexican parties in Los Angeles, a member of a religious order is in attendance to share in the family’s joy.

This time, it’s a nun whom I’ve known since I was a student at St. Thomas the Apostle grammar school. I am no longer Catholic, but I admire this tough, compassionate woman who dedicated herself to educating the children of my predominantly working-class Latino neighborhood. She leans over and says, almost in a whisper, “I read your new book.” And then she says, “I recognized him.”

Immediately, I know whom she’s talking about, and I begin to perspire.

The title story of the book, called “Assumption,” describes a fictionalized priest, Father González, who served a parish in a neighborhood not unlike the one I grew up in. The priest in the story is known for being “cool” and spending time with some of the more troubled boys at the nearby grammar school. The boys talk about how he has invited them to visit his room, drink wine, listen to Sly Stone and look at dirty magazines. These visits, of course, lead to the boys’ molesting. In the story, the priest gets caught and, in disgrace, hangs himself.

In real life, shame did not bring an end to the abuse. The priest I based the story on, the priest the sister recognized, was the Rev. Eleuterio Ramos. My parish knew him as Father Al, the hip young priest who spoke out for immigrant and Chicano rights, railed against the Vietnam War, could drink with the best of them and dedicated his spare time to mentoring the most troubled boys at St. Thomas.

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UNITED KINGDOM
ITV

A Catholic Priest arrested in connection with alleged child abuse, has resigned as Director of the Notre Dame High School in Norwich.

Father Tony McSweeney who is 66, of St George’s Catholic Church, has been linked to the abuse alleged to have taken place at the Elm Guest House in Barnes in London in the early 1980s. The Diocese of East Anglia say he’s helping police with their inquiries.

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CALIFORNIA
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on February 6, 2013

An AP photo went out today saying that I am a victim of Fr. Michael Baker. I am not. Other stories have gone out this week saying that I am the victim of abuse by a priest.

Both statements are incorrect. I have alerted all media outlets to the mistake.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Rochdale Online

Reporter: Pete Hinchliffe
Date online: 06 February 2013

Disgraced former MP, Cyril Smith was a regular visitor to a guest house in Barnes, London which is now at the centre of Operation Fernbridge; set up in the wake of the Jimmy Savile Inquiry.

It is not known if there are any specific allegations relating to Smith’s sexual behaviour during visits to the guest house but activities at both establishments are now currently being investigated by the Metropolitan Police and have led to two arrests today.

Two former residents of the Grafton Close Care Home in Richmond, south-west London claim that they were taken to Amsterdam and sexually abused including being ‘spanked’ in brothels during the 1970s and 1980s as well as being taken to Elm Guest House in Barnes where they were rented out to paying customers.

Lists of visitors to the home, which is now closed, are believed to include a number of senior MPs, a high-ranking policeman, a leading tycoon, figures from the National Front and Sinn Fein, an official of the Royal Household, an MI5 officer, two pop stars and the traitorous Soviet spy Anthony Blunt.

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UNITED KINGDOM
LocalGov

Jonathan Werran

Police have made two arrests in connection with historic allegations of a paedophile ring operating from a former care home run by Richmond-upon-Thames LBC.

Detectives working on Operation Fernbridge – an inquiry centring on events at the Elm Guest House in Barnes, South West London dating from the 1970s and 1980s – made the arrests yesterday.

One of those arrested is believed to be John Stingemore, a 70-year old from St Leonards-on-sea who used to help manage Grafton Close, another Richmond care home. The other arrest was that of 66-year-old priest, Father Tony McSweeney, from Norfolk.

The Metropolitan Police is investigating allegations, first raised by Tom Watson MP and corroborated by investigative website Exaro, that young boys were abused at parties involving establishment figures – including senior politicians, policemen and celebrities.

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CYPRUS
Cyprus Mail

Published on February 7, 2013

THE Holy Synod yesterday defrocked a priest who was found guilty of drug trafficking last year.

The decision to defrock Panayiotis Triantafyllou, 37, was unanimous, an announcement said.

The former priest is currently doing a five-year stint in prison after he was caught in possession of some three kilos of cannabis.

The drugs were found in his suitcase upon his return from Athens in April 2012. Triantafyllou, a Greek national, had told the police that he had accepted €1,000 and a return plane ticket in return for carrying the suitcase because his wife was ill. He later said his actions had been a mistake.

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CALIFORNIA
Santa Barbara Independent

Thursday, February 7, 2013

By Nick Welsh

READ IT AND WEEP: The moral of the child-abuse saga roiling the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles is that those who refuse to fall on their swords can expect to be chucked under the bus. Last week, Santa Barbara’s auxiliary bishop for the past 19 years, Thomas J. Curry, had the good sense to silently announce his resignation amid fresh allegations that he actively conspired to cover up for predator priests back in the 1980s when he was the archdiocesan point person for pedophile priests. These charges surfaced with the recent, court-ordered release of internal church files, which spelled out the lengths taken by church officials like Curry and his boss — then-archbishop Roger Mahony — to shield priestly pederasts from the prying eyes of law enforcement. No doubt Curry’s wisdom was inspired by the gun pointed to his head by L.A.’s new archbishop, José Gomez. That’s the same Gomez who famously rebuked Mahony, a rock star even in retirement, for his failure to address the problem of clerical sex abuse.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Harlow Star

A FORMER Harlow Catholic priest has been arrested in connection with child abuse allegations dating back to the early 1980s.

Father Tony McSweeney, who now lives in Norfolk, was priest of the Holy Cross & St Luke’s parish between 1993 and 1997.

Officers from Metropolitan Police arrested the 66-year-old yesterday morning (Wednesday, February 6) on suspicion of committing sexual offences at a London guest house almost 30 years ago.

Commander Peter Spindler, head of the Met’s Specialist Crime Investigations, said: “This is a complex multi-agency investigation supported by the NSPCC, CEOP and Richmond Social Services involving non-recent allegations of sexual assault against children.

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ARIZONA
Pokrov

Date Published: 2/6/2013

Publication: Pokrov.org

Pokrov.org has been told that KVOA TV (Channel 5) in Tucson, Arizona, will air a news report on Saint Anthony’s Greek Orthodox Monastery in Florence this weekend (February 10). The reporter is Kristi Tedesco, who did two pieces on the monastery in 2006. Those earlier reports can be found here and here.

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UNITED STATES
Pokrov

Date Published: 2/6/2013

Publication: Pokrov.org

The parents of Scott Nevins, Ashley and Diane, have retained Stephen M. Murphy, a San Francisco attorney, to represent them in a wrongful death lawsuit against the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America (GOA), the Metropolis of San Francisco, and Saint Anthony’s Greek Orthodox Monastery. Scott spent more than six years at the Florence facility before leaving in the middle of the night in February of 2011. He returned to Saint Anthony’s in June of 2012 and took his own life.

In a demand letter sent to Archbishop Demetrios Trakatellis, Metropolitan Gerasimos Michaleas, and Archimandrites Ephraim and Paisios by Federal Express on February 5, 2013, Murphy lays out the Nevins’ allegations.

“The death of the Nevins’ only son can be directly attributed to the more than six years of horrific physical and psychological abuse he endured at St. Anthony’s. The methodology used by the monastery’s leadership, Archimandrites Ephraim and Paisios, fits every criterion used by the mental health community to identify a group which engages in the destructive practice of thought reform. … Scott sustained severe emotional trauma as a direct result of the Archimandrites Ephraim and Piasios’s (sic) coercive tactics and practices, and the harm continued to affect Scott Nevins after he fled from St. Anthony’s Monastery in February of 2011. Scott Nevins’ death could have been prevented had either Metropolitan Gerasimos or Archbishop Demetrios responded to the Nevins’ pleas to remove Scott from the monastery and provide him with the help necessary to recover from the destructive practices he encountered at St. Anthony’s.”

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UNITED STATES
Pokrov

Date Published: 2/6/2013

Publication: Pokrov.org

Related Document: 2013 Chicago Deanery Sunday Evening Lenten Vespers

According to the Diocese of the Midwest’s website, Bishop Matthias Moriak is tentatively scheduled to preach at one of a series of Lenten services. Moriak is currently assigned to speak on Palm Sunday, April 28th, at Holy Trinity Cathedral in Chicago, Illinois. A flyer for the series is linked above.

In 2012 the Orthodox Church in America (OCA) bishop was placed on a leave of absence while allegations that he had sent inappropriate text messages and emails to a young woman were investigated. Despite finding that Moriak had engaged in sexual misconduct, the OCA announced that it would consider returning the hierarch to active ministry after treatment and a period of “mentoring” by another bishop.

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VATICAN CITY
Huffington Post

ROME, Feb 5 (Reuters) – The Vatican on Tuesday denied an Italian newspaper report linking its IOR bank to Monte dei Paschi di Siena’s 2007 acquisition of smaller rival Antonveneta, a deal which is now the centre of a widening corruption investigation.

The Corriere della Sera reported on Monday that the chief executive of the Vatican’s Institute for Works of Religion (IOR) had “delicate and important meetings” with Monte Paschi’s adviser for the 9-billion euro purchase of Antonveneta.

It also listed several sets of numbers it said identified IOR bank accounts used to transmit funds to Monte Paschi for the acquisition. Prosecutors are looking into allegations that bribes were paid to secure the deal.

The secretive Vatican bank has faced heavy criticism in the past for its lack of transparency and last year Moneyval, a committee backed by the Council of Europe, urged it to take more action against money laundering.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Mirror

Police investigating a historic paedophile ring at a children’s home in south west London have arrested two men.

The allegations are believed to be connected to the Elm Guest House scandal, an alleged paedophile brothel used by MPs and other VIPs.

It is alleged that young boys were taken from the Grafton Close children’s home, in Barnes, to be abused at the guest house, which was known to be a safe haven for gay men. …

The arrests were made as part of Operation Fernbridge, which was launched after concerns were raised by MP Tom Watson.

Speaking in Parliament in October last year, he said that a file of evidence used to convict Peter Righton of importing child pornography in 1992 contained “clear intelligence” of a sex abuse gang.

Mr Watson alleged that a member of the group had bragged about links with a senior aide to a former prime minister.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Telegraph

Detectives investigating allegations of a paedophile ring operating at a children’s home in London in the 1970s and 1980s have arrested two men on suspicion of sexual offences.

By Martin Evans, Crime Correspondent
11:26AM GMT 06 Feb 2013

The men, aged 66 and 70, were arrested in raids at their homes in Norfolk and East Sussex this morning.

They are understood to be former staff connected to the Grafton Close children’s home which was run by Richmond Council in South West London more than 30-years ago.

The arrests were made by officers from Operation Fernbridge, an investigation that was set up by the Metropolitan Police to look into claims that a paedophile ring involving a number of high profile individuals was operating in the Richmond area in the early 1980s. …

It has been alleged that among those who frequented the guesthouse were a number of high profile figures including senior politicians and personalities from the entertainment industry.

Cyril Smith, the late Liberal MP for Rochdale, who was recently exposed as a serial child abuser, has already been named as a regular guest at the property.

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UNITED KINGDOM
AFP

LONDON — Detectives investigating allegations of child abuse at a London guest house and care home in the 1980s arrested two men on Wednesday.

A 66-year-old man from Norfolk and a 70-year-old from East Sussex were held as part of Operation Fernbridge.

The investigation was launched after MP Tom Watson raised concerns in the House of Commons last year.

The arrests are linked to the Elm Guest House and the now-closed Grafton Close care home in Barnes, south west London.

Commander Peter Spindler from the Metropolitan Police said: “This is a complex multi-agency investigation supported by the NSPCC, Ceop and Richmond Social Services involving non-recent allegations of sexual assault against children.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Sun

By KAREN MORRISON

Published: 06th February 2013

TWO suspected paedophiles have been arrested as cops investigate historic child abuse at a London guesthouse and care home.

The men, aged 66 and 70, were arrested in raids at their homes in Norfolk and East Sussex this morning.

The allegations are linked to Elm Guest House and the Grafton Close care home in Barnes, south west London.

The Elm Guest House was allegedly run as a male brothel in the early 1980s and boys from the care home are alleged to have been taken there to be used by adult men.

A child protection campaigner claims the house was raided in the 1980s by cops but the evidence no longer exists. …

Commander Peter Spindler from the Met Police said: “It is vital that anyone who has been affected by or has information about activity in the early 1980s at the Elm Guest House, or the Grafton Close care home, in Barnes, speaks to the NSPCC on their helpline on 0808 800 5000, or their local police.”

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