ABUSE TRACKER

VATICAN CITY
The Nation

Vatican City – Pope Benedict XVI decided to resign after an internal probe informed him about the extent of sex and graft-scandals inside the Vatican, an Italian newspaper reported on Thursday, quoting unnamed sources.

Three cardinals, including the former chief of the Vatican’s secret services, were asked to verify the allegations of financial impropriety, cronyism and corruption brought up by the publication of confidential papal papers in the so-called VatiLeaks affair.

On December 17, 2012, they handed to the pontiff two red-leatherbound volumes, almost 300-pages long, containing “an exact map of the mischief and the bad fish” inside the Holy See, daily La Repubblica reported.

“It was on that day, with those papers on his desk, that Benedict XVI took the decision he had mulled over for so long,” the report suggested.

The Vatican’s press office declined to comment on the story.

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VATICAN CITY
Gulf News

AFP
Published: 15:58 February 21, 2013

Vatican City: With Pope Benedict XVI’s impending resignation creating shockwaves around the world, the Vatican’s official daily L’Osservatore Romano is now the most closely watched newspaper in Rome – with its blend of an official Vatican line and a modern outlook.

The paper flew off the shelves with a scoop within hours of the pope’s historic announcement last week – a report revealing the 85-year-old made his mind up during a tiring trip to Mexico and Cuba last year.

The article was signed simply “gmv” – the initials of Giovanni Maria Vian, a cheerful 60-year-old historian who has been editor at the paper since 2007 and is one of Benedict’s biggest admirers.

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VATICAN CITY
Irish Times

PADDY AGNEW, in Rome

Italian daily La Repubblica this morning sensationally claims that Pope Benedict’s resignation was at least partly prompted by an internal report prepared by three senior cardinals, alleging that various lobbies, including a gay lobby, exercise an “inappropriate influence” in internal Holy See affairs.

The newspaper suggests that such was Benedict’s dismay when presented with the details of the report on December 17th that it hardened his long-meditated decision to resign. The internal report prepared by Cardinals Julian Herranz, Josef Tomko and Salvatore De Giorgi had been commissioned by Benedict himself.

He had ordered it in response to the so-called Vatileaks scandal which culminated with the arrest and subsequent conviction last autumn of the Pope’s butler, Paolo Gabriele, found guilty of having stolen confidential documents from the papal apartment.

In this morning’s article, it is claimed that the cardinals reported that various lobbies within the Holy See were consistently breaking the sixth and seventh commandments, namely “thou shalt not steal” and “thou shalt not commit adultery”.

The “stealing” was in particular related to the Vatican Bank, IOR, whilst the sexual offences were related to the influence of an active gay lobby within the Vatican.

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GERMANY
Catholic Herald (United Kingdom)

The president of the German bishops’ conference has asked Pope Benedict XVI’s forgiveness for “errors committed against him” in his homeland, adding that most Germans respect him as a “spiritual and intellectual authority”.

Archbishop Robert Zollitsch of Freiburg im Breisgau said: “After eight years, we feel a deep, overriding respect and gratitude, but also a sadness – farewells always hurt, especially when they concern people familiar and revered. The Pope has asked forgiveness for his own shortcomings. I would also ask the Holy Father, in return, to pardon errors committed against him within the Church in Germany,” the archbishop said in his opening address to the German bishops’ spring plenary.

His remarks were an apparent reference to media criticisms of the Pope, especially during his September 2011 visit to Berlin. Archbishop Zollitsch said all Germans had “in some sense shared the honour” bestowed on the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger at his 2005 election as pope.

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OHIO
Toledo Blade

BY JENNIFER FEEHAN
BLADE STAFF WRITER

Nearly seven years after he went to prison for the 1980 murder of a nun, Gerald Robinson’s fight to have his conviction overturned continues to move through the courts.

In the latest ruling, the Ohio 6th District Court of Appeals rejected the Toledo priest’s claims that prosecutors withheld key documents from his defense attorneys and that his defense attorneys failed to focus on a known serial killer as the more likely suspect in the death of Sister Margaret Ann Pahl. The court affirmed the April, 2011, finding of Lucas County Common Pleas Judge Gene Zmuda, who denied Robinson’s petition for postconviction relief.

Richard Kerger, attorney for Robinson, said Wednesday that the fight for a new trial will not end with this decision.

“We will be appealing the decision to the Ohio Supreme Court and doing so in the next week or two,” he said.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By JOANNE McCARTHY
Feb. 20, 2013

HALF a century ago first a stranger then a trusted church volunteer sexually assaulted the son of a Methodist minister.

The stranger’s assault was reported to police but was so poorly handled the boy retreated into silence, a silence that continued to hide the three years of abuse by the church volunteer.

This week the son, Reverend Wes Hartley – the new leader of the Uniting Church in the Hunter and a former mayor in Western Australia – spoke of the abuse in public for the first time.

As Australia prepares for two inquiries into child sexual abuse, Reverend Hartley hopes it will encourage others to speak out.

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NEW ORLEANS (LA)
WWL

[with video]

WWLTV.com
Email: webteam@wwltv.com | Twitter: @WWLTV

NEW ORLEANS — No comment — that’s the Archdiocese of New Orleans’ response to a new lawsuit filed against it and the Archdiocese of Lake Charles, claiming both had knowledge of sexual abuse involving a priest.

Back in August Mark Anthony Broussard was indicted on several charges, including aggravated rape and molestation of a juvenile.

The suit claims both institutions knew of the abuse while he attended the New Orleans Seminary and while working as a part-time cleric in Lake Charles.

Officials are urging anyone else who was abused to come forward.

“We encourage anyone with information about where this person has been to step up and give an information you can,” said Felecia Peavy, the plaintiff’s attorney.

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UNITED STATES
Daily Mail (United Kingdom)

New York Archbishop questioned by lawyers over priest sex abuse as he is floated as top American candidate to become Pope

By Michael Zennie

Cardinal Timothy Dolan is mentioned most as the top American candidate to become the next Pope, but he cannot shake off his connection to the sex abuse scandal that has rocked the Roman Catholic church in the United States for the past decade.

He faced questions from lawyers in New York on Wednesday about his handling of allegations that priests in the Archdioceses of Milwaukee had abused children. Dolan led the archdioceses from 2002 until 2009.

The Archbishop of New York, who is also the head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, is the highest-profile leader of the church in America and is widely liked by Catholics across the country for his strong charisma and jovial personality.

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TEXAS
Permian Basin

[with video]

By: Dylan Brooks
Updated: February 20, 2013

BIG SPRING — A former Big Spring youth minister will spend the next 25 years in a Texas prison for sexually assaulting a young girl.

The Big Spring Herald reports that Samuel Lee Lyte was to 25 years in prison last week.

The sentence came after Lyte, 72, pleaded guilty to felony charges of continuous sexual abuse of a child, aggravated sexual abuse of a child, 2 counts of indecency with a child and tampering with physical evidence in the 118th Judicial District Court.

Lyte sexually abused a girl (who’s only identified as being under the of 14) multiple times.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
ABC News

Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony has made it clear he plans to attend the upcoming conclave to elect a new pope. A lot of people don’t like that one bit.

“It sends the wrong message,” said Ken Smolka, one of hundreds of people who were sexually abused by priests in America’s largest archdiocese. ”If Mahony helps choose the new pope, what it says is, ‘Nothing has changed.’”

Mahony is the latest Roman Catholic prelate to have his moral authority compromised because of his poor handling of the sexual abuse scandal during the 1980s and ’90s. But he is not the first.

The scandal in L.A. is similar to the scandal in Boston that eventually led Cardinal Bernard Law to resign as archbishop of Boston. One key difference is that, for years, Cardinal Mahony successfully fought the release of key personnel documents relating to his administration’s handling of abuse cases. Ultimately, a judge ordered their release.

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CANADA
Saaanich News

By Staff Writer – Saanich News
Published: February 20, 2013

A former Saanich priest facing sexual assault charges is expected to learn his fate on Monday (Feb. 25).

Phil Jacobs, 63, is charged with sexual assault, two counts of sexual interference of a person under 14 and touching a young person for a sexual purpose for alleged incidents that occurred between 1996 and 2001 involving three boys under the age of 14.

B.C. Supreme Court Justice J. Miriam Gropper will deliver her judgment at 9 a.m. in Victoria.

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NEW YORK
CBS New York

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — Timothy Cardinal Dolan was questioned Wednesday in a deposition about child sex abuse by priests.

The New York Times reported the New York archbishop was questioned for hours by attorneys representing hundreds of people who said they were sexually abused by priest in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. Dolan was the archbishop there for seven years until moving to New York in 2009.

The attorneys were trying to determine whether Dolan tried to stand in the way of lawsuits against the archdiocese and priests when he was Milwaukee archbishop, and whether he kept church assets from people who said they were sex abuse victims, the newspaper reported.

New York Archdiocese spokesman Joseph Zwilling released a statement to CBS 2′s Tony Aiello about the deposition.

“Today Cardinal Dolan had the long-awaited opportunity to talk about his decision nine years ago in Milwaukee to publicize the names of priests who had abused children and how he responded to the tragedy of past clergy sexual abuse of minors, during the time he was privileged to serve as Archbishop of Milwaukee,” the statement said.

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UNITED STATES
Post-Crescent

Written by
Eric Tucker
Associated Press

WASHINGTON — A small evangelical Christian denomination called Sovereign Grace Ministries was already grappling with fractured leadership, outside scrutiny of its policies and public criticism from former members when a new round of problems emerged.

A lawsuit last fall brought by former members accused church officials of covering up allegations of child sexual abuse committed by its members. Then a onetime member of the church’s former flagship congregation was indicted in December on charges that he molested multiple boys in the 1980s while involved in ministries.

The church hasn’t yet answered the specific accusations, but has signaled that it may lean on the First Amendment — a defense that religious institutions have used repeatedly and with some limited success in the last decade to inoculate themselves from sex abuse claims.

A statement issued in response to the lawsuit, filed in Maryland, says permitting courts to second-guess confidential advice given by church leaders to congregation members would “represent a blow to the First Amendment.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Jewish Daily Forward

London — Media outlets have identified Chaim Halpern as the man believed to be arrested in London on charges of sexual misconduct.

The London Metropolitan police arrested four men they would not name on Wednesday morning in connection with an investigation into sexual misconduct. Two media outlets reported that one of those arrested is believed to be Halpern, 54, of the Beis Hamedrash Divrei Chaim synagogue.

A Beis Hamedrash Divrei Chaim spokesman would not comment when asked by JTA about reports in The Times of Israel and Behadrei Haredim, an Israel-based haredi Orthodox news site, of the rabbi’s alleged arrest. The spokesman would not give his name.

According to The Jewish Chronicle, police arrested four men on Wednesday in the area in connection with investigations into sexual assault and perverting the course of justice, including one unnamed 54-year-old man. Police said they could not provide further details.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Jerusalem Post

By JONNY PAUL, JERUSALEM POST CORRESPONDENT

02/21/2013

LONDON – Metropolitan police arrested a London rabbi on Wednesday on suspicion of sexually assaulting women who came to him for marriage counseling and spiritual guidance.

As part of their investigation into the sexual abuse and into three suspects for perverting the course of justice, four men were arrested in the north London borough of Barnet on Wednesday. Police have not named the men, but one of them is believed to be Rabbi Chaim Halpern, 54, of the Beis Hamedrash Divrei Chaim synagogue in Golders Green.

The rabbi has been at the center of an alleged sexual abuse scandal that has shocked London’s haredi community.

In November, Rabbi Ephraim Padaw, head of the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations, received a complaint about inappropriate behavior by Halpern toward about 30 women who had sought marriage guidance from him.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
CBS Los Angeles

[with video]

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) —There is worldwide outrage that former Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony will be part of next month’s papal conclave in Rome.

A poll by an influential Italian Catholic magazine found that an overwhelming majority of its readers don’t want Mahony to be part of the papal conclave to select the next pope after Pope Benedict XVI finalizes his retirement.

“It’s a total slap in the face to victims of sexual abuse — and to Catholics,” Joelle Casteix, a victim of sex abuse at the hands of a priest, said. Casteix is also the western regional director of SNAP, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

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CALIFORNIA
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on February 20, 2013

One admitted to molesting 13 and is part LA priest “document dump,”
Another served year in jail, abused at least 6 kids
Victims to community: Protect your children and grandchildren
Mahony must stay home from papal election, group begs

What: Victims of sex abuse and their supporters will have an outreach leafleting outside of the retirement community where two convicted predator priests have recently lived. They will urge residents to:
•Talk to their grandchildren, neighbors, and family members about child-molesting priests Michael Wempe and Denis Lyons,
•Read the sex abuse and cover-up files that were recently a part of the LA Archdiocese “document dump,” and
•Report any suspected abuse to law enforcement.

They will also urge Catholics to:

•Demand that Cardinal Roger Mahony stay home from the upcoming papal election, and
•Beg Archbishop Gomez to cooperate completely with law enforcement.

Where: Outside of the main gates of Leisure World, 1901 Golden Rain Road (at Seal Beach Blvd) in Seal Beach Map

When: Thursday, February 21 at 11 am

Who: Three-to-four victims of child sex abuse and their supporters who are members of a support group called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, including one Spanish-speaking victim.

Why: Victims of sexual abuse will pass out educational leaflets at the Seal Beach Leisure World retirement community where two convicted predator priests have recently lived. They fear that children visiting family members at the community may be at risk.

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NEW YORK
The New York Times

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
Published: February 20, 2013

A week before Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan is set to leave New York for Rome, where his name is being floated as a candidate for pope, he was questioned for three hours on Wednesday behind closed doors in a legal deposition concerning the sexual abuse of children by priests.

The lawyers deposing Cardinal Dolan represent hundreds of people who say they were sexually molested by priests in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, which he led for seven years before his appointment as archbishop of New York in 2009. The lawyers want to know when Cardinal Dolan, as archbishop of Milwaukee, learned of allegations against certain priests, and how quickly he made those allegations public.

Cardinal Dolan is one of two American cardinals who are being deposed in sexual abuse lawsuits this week, and who plan to travel to Rome next week in advance of the proceedings to elect the successor to Pope Benedict XVI, who announced last week that he was resigning Feb. 28.

The other American is Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, the retired archbishop of Los Angeles. He is expected to be deposed on Saturday in Los Angeles, and he has been under fire since the court-ordered release last month of 12,000 pages of internal church files revealing his role in shielding accused priests from the law.

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NEW YORK
Washington Post

NYC Cardinal Dolan deposed in connection to Archdiocese of Milwaukee abuse lawsuits

By Associated Press,

Updated: Wednesday, February 20

NEW YORK — Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York, was deposed Wednesday about abuse cases against Roman Catholic clergy in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, which he led from 2002 until 2009.

Frank LoCoco, an attorney for the Milwaukee Archdiocese, and Jeff Anderson, a plaintiffs’ attorney, confirmed the cardinal was deposed.

The Milwaukee Archdiocese faces allegations from nearly 500 people. Archbishop Jerome Listecki, the current Milwaukee church leader, sought bankruptcy protection in 2011, saying the process was needed to compensate victims fairly while ensuring the archdiocese could still function. Milwaukee is the eighth diocese in the U.S. to seek bankruptcy protection since the abuse scandal erupted in 2002 in Boston.

Dolan is one of two U.S. cardinals to be deposed this week. Cardinal Roger Mahony, the retired archbishop of Los Angeles, is scheduled to be questioned Saturday in a lawsuit over a visiting Mexican priest who police believe molested 26 children in 1987. The Rev. Nicolas Aguilar Rivera fled to Mexico in 1988 after parents complained. He has been ousted from the priesthood but remains a fugitive.

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NEW YORK
CNN

By Matt Smith, CNN
updated 8:19 PM EST, Wed February 20, 2013

(CNN) — New York’s Cardinal Timothy Dolan sat for questions from lawyers for victims of sexual abuse by priests in Milwaukee while he was that city’s Roman Catholic leader, his office disclosed Wednesday.

“Today Cardinal Dolan had the long-awaited opportunity to talk about his decision nine years ago in Milwaukee to publicize the names of priests who had abused children and how he responded to the tragedy of past clergy sexual abuse of minors, during the time he was privileged to serve as archbishop of Milwaukee,” Joseph Zwilling, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of New York, said in a written statement.

“He has indicated over the past two years that he was eager to cooperate in whatever way he could, and he was looking forward to talking about the good work and progress that took place to ensure the protection of children and pastoral outreach to victims.”

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By Annysa Johnson and Bruce Vielmetti of the Journal Sentinel

Feb. 20, 2013

New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the former archbishop of Milwaukee, was deposed about clergy sex abuse Wednesday in the Milwaukee archdiocese’s bankruptcy case, church officials and lawyers said.

The deposition, taken in New York and first reported by the New York Times reports, comes as Dolan prepares to leave next week for the Vatican, where a conclave of cardinals is set to choose a new pope to replace Pope Benedict XVI. The pope announced last week that he was stepping down, the first sitting pope to do so in more than 600 years.

Dolan, the most influential Catholic bishop in the United States, has been mentioned as a long shot to succeed Benedict, though many feel an American is unlikely to be picked.

Dolan headed the Milwaukee archdiocese from 2002 to 2009, before being named to the New York position. During his term here, archdiocesan officials sought to reach financial settlements with people who had been sexually abused by priests over the years, but those talks weren’t successful. In January 2011, Dolan’s Milwaukee successor, Archbishop Jerome Listecki, announced the archdiocese was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy because the financial claims against it “exceed our means.”

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CALIFORNIA
KGO

[with video]

Saturday, January 26, 2013

by Sergio Quintana

VALLEJO, Calif. (KGO) — A hazing scandal is surfacing at a Vallejo High School. Five students were expelled and a football coach was fired. On Friday night ABC7 News spoke to that coach in Petaluma.

This all started in December just before St. Patrick – St. Vincent High School in Vallejo went on Christmas vacation.

Former varsity coach Chris Cerbone says that he overheard some junior varsity students say that the junior varsity coach was allowing varsity students to haze them.

According Cerbone, the students described lewd acts done by a few upper classmen inflicted on some of the under classmen. They also said that when they reported the behavior to the junior varsity head coach, he told them it was not his problem.

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CALIFORNIA
Times-Herald

By Ted Vollmer and Thomas Gase/Times-Herald staff
writerstimesheraldonline.com
Posted: 01/26/2013

The head football coach of St. Patrick-St.Vincent High School was fired Friday, only weeks after he reported sexual hazing incidents involving several varsity and freshmen football players.

St. Patrick-St. Vincent Principal Mary Ellen Ryan said in a statement released by the Sacramento Diocese that Coach Chris Cerbone was fired, and that five varsity players were expelled after an investigation. The Diocese indicated there were six hazing victims. It was not immediately known if the expelled students now face criminal charges.

Ryan said in the statement that Cerbone was not involved in the hazing, but nevertheless “had ultimate responsibility for supervising the students during the time the inappropriate behavior took place.”

Meanwhile, four assistant coaches, who had been placed on paid leave earlier this month pending the outcome of the investigation, were reinstated.
Only Cerbone lost his job.

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CALIFORNIA
NBC Bay Area

[with video]

By Lisa Fernandez and Jodi Hernandez

Wednesday, Feb 20, 2013

The head football coach of a Catholic high school in Vallejo sued the Sacramento Diocese on Wednesday claiming he was unfairly fired after he reported sexual abuse in a hazing scandal.

Chris Cerbone, who had been the coach at St. Vincent-St. Patrick High School for six months, said he was told by freshmen players that varsity players were involved in serious hazing and sexual misconduct.

Specifics in the lawsuit refer to the varsity players “punking” the freshmen, which included assaulting them with their genitalia.

In December, Cerbone reported that abuse to Child Protective Services and filed a report with the school’s principal. He and some other coaches were put on leave, and then he was fired at the end of January. The school is part of the Sacramento Archdiocese, and the lawsuit was filed in Sacramento County.

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VATICAN CITY
USA Today

By Craig Wilson, USA TODAY
February 20, 2013

Timing is everything, as they say, and John Thavis’ timing could not be better.

By sheer coincidence, The Vatican Diaries: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Power, Personalities and Politics at the Heart of the Catholic Church arrives just over a week after Pope Benedict’s shocking resignation announcement.

Wonder what’s going on behind those huge doors at the Vatican? Wonder what those cardinals are up to as they scurry about getting ready to elect a new pope? Wonder what the man who rings the bells when that new pope is finally elected is thinking? (Actually he’s waiting for the phone call that says it’s OK for him to let loose.)

Thavis answers all in this fascinating book.

An award-winning journalist recently retired from the Catholic News Services, Thavis has covered the Vatican since 1983. He knows his way around its marble halls, and it shows in this amazingly informative, and at times humorous, tour given by a true insider. (Often Thavis knew more about what was going on than the pope did.)

In short, the place, despite its grandeur, is a mess. Thavis has described the Vatican as “more Keystone Kops than Machiavelli.”

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NEW YORK
WISN

Cardinal Timothy Dolan questioned by lawyers about sex abuse in Milwaukee archdiocese

NEW YORK —New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan has been deposed in connection to accusations of sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee.

New York archdiocese spokesman Joseph Zwilling said Dolan’s deposition started Wednesday afternoon in New York City. It is unclear how long it is expected to last.

“Today, Cardinal Dolan had the long-awaited opportunity to talk about his decision nine years ago in Milwaukee to publicize the names of priests who had abused children and how he responded to the tragedy of past clergy sexual abuse of minors, during the time he was privileged to serve as archbishop of Milwaukee,” Zwillling said in a statement obtained by WISN 12 News.

Dolan led the Archdiocese of Milwaukee before he was appointed to the New York position in 2009.

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MASSACHUSETTS
WPRI

By Jennifer Quinn
Field Reporting By Jennifer Mobilia

FREETOWN, MASS. (WPRI)- In the long history of the Catholic church, there has never been an American Pope.

But that could soon change.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York is considered a strong candidate for the papacy. However, he’s not the only American name being thrown around. Reporters in Rome are now mentioning Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley.

The 68-year-old’s handling of the church’s sex abuse scandal while serving as Bishop of the Diocese of Fall River has strengthened his chance of being elevated.

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NEW YORK
Staten Island Advance

By Maura Grunlund/Staten Island Advance
on February 20, 2013

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — An affable Cardinal Timothy Dolan laughed at the suggestion that he would be the next pope and expressed support for holding the conclave to choose the new pontiff as soon as possible in an appearance Wednesday at Carmel Richmond Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center in Dongan Hills.

“All the cardinals are really embarrassed to talk about that,” the archbishop of New York said when reporters asked him whether he would succeed Pope Benedict. The cardinal added that the “church needs somebody like Jesus” to serve as pope and after listing a few of the qualities he thought important in a pontiff, Cardinal Dolan quipped, “Are they trying to get me out of here?”

As for reports that the date may be moved up from Mid-March for the cardinals to choose the new pope, Cardinal Dolan said he was in favor of “anything we could do to make sure we prudently and patiently have a new Holy Father and I can get back for Holy Week here.”

The cardinal also defended the right of embattled Cardinal Roger Mahony, the archbishop emeritus of Los Angeles, who has been accused of hiding sexual abuse by priests, in selecting a new pope.

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NEW YORK
CBS New York

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – Does New York’s Cardinal Timothy Dolan have a serious chance at becoming pope? He usually makes a joke when asked, but a leading Italian newspaper is taking Dolan’s papal prospects seriously.

On Wednesday, the cardinal spoke about his trip to Rome for the historic resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, CBS 2’s Tony Aiello reported.

He sported a hard hat for a ribbon cutting at a Carmelite Sisters nursing home on Staten Island, but could Cardinal Dolan soon don the white “zucchetto” worn by the pope?

“I hate to lose him in New York, but I think, I think, he would be one of the best holy fathers. He would,” said Sister Mary Virginia.

Since Benedict XVI made Dolan a cardinal one year ago some have touted him as a potential papal successor.

Now, with Benedict leaving office next week, it’s becoming clear Dolan is a serious candidate.

The Italian paper La Repubblica reported the powerful cardinal Tarcisio Bertone is working behind the scenes to advance Dolan’s chances in the upcoming conclave.

Cardinal Dolan was in a good mood Wednesday, but didn’t really want to answer Aiello’s question about the La Repubblica report.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

By Daniel Beekman / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Cardinal Timothy Dolan was reportedly slated to be deposed Wednesday afternoon by lawyers for hundreds of people who claim they were abused by priests in Milwaukee, where Dolan was previously archbishop.

Dolan was set to face lawyers for 575 people who allege they were abused over several decades by clergy in the Milwaukee archdiocese, which Dolan led until 2009 when he became the pope’s man in New York.

“The deposition of Cardinal Dolan is necessary to show that there’s been a long-standing pattern and practice to keep secrets and keep the survivors from knowing that there had been a fraud committed,” Jeff Anderson, lawyer for 350 of the Milwaukee plaintiffs, told the New York Times, which first posted the story Wednesday.

It is unclear how the deposition will affect Dolan, who has been discussed as a candidate for the papacy in the wake of Pope Benedict’s resignation.

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AUSTRALIA
CathNews

A spokesperson for the Bishop of Wollongong, Peter Ingham, said the Diocese has categorically denied claims by a Catholic priest who he suspects the church paid his alleged victim in return for evidence against him, reports AAP in the Sydney Morning Herald.

John Gerard Nestor was laicised by the Vatican after a child abuse case. As a priest in the Wollongong Diocese in NSW he was charged with the indecent assault of a 15-year-old altar boy in 1991.

He was convicted and sentenced to 16 months in jail in Wollongong Local Court on February 18, 1997.

But in October of that year, he won an appeal against the conviction, serving no time behind bars.

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VATICAN CITY
Los Angeles Times

By Tom Kington
February 20, 2013

ROME — A senior Vatican official called Cardinal Roger Mahony’s participation in the selection of the next pope “troubling,” but said there was no formal procedure to stop the retired Los Angeles archbishop from attending the conclave next month.

The remarks by Cardinal Velasio De Paolis added to a growing murmur about the propriety of Mahony’s decision to attend the conclave. Mahony recently was rebuked by his successor, Archbishop Jose Gomez, for his handling of sexual abuse cases, although Gomez also has expressed support for Mahony’s role in the papal conclave. But several Vatican officials have appeared to raise questions about it, without actually saying that Mahony should not take part.

As a cardinal younger than 80, Mahony is entitled to vote for the man who will succeed Pope Benedict XVI, who recently announced his retirement.

In other realms, the comments by De Paolis might be considered innocuous, but the meaning of comments from the Vatican is often found between the lines.

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INDIA
Times of India

By Joseph John, TNN | Feb 21, 2013

RAIPUR: In a shocking incident, a Catholic priest was arrested on Wednesday from a remote village in Ambikapur district of Chhattisgarh for sexually assaulting four minor tribal girls. Medical examination of the minors aged between six and eight years confirmed rape.

Confirming the arrest Ambikapur district collector R Prasanna told TOI, “Father Vincent Toppo, a priest of Latin right, has been arrested. Parents of minor girls had complained on Tuesday that their children were sexually assaulted. We sent them for a medical examination that confirmed sexual assault.”

He said the girls have been shifted to a children’s home under the direct supervision of district administration. Sexual assault case came to light when parents of girls came forward to lodge a complaint with the administration that their children were sexually assaulted by the priest, who was in-charge of “Ashadeep Missionary School” at a village in Dahima development block in Ambikapur district.

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NEDERLAND
NRC

door Anouk Eigenraam

Het ministerie van Volksgezondheid doet te weinig om seksueel misbruik bij pleeggezinnen en instellingen aan te pakken. Dat zegt voorzitter Rieke Samson van de commissie die dit seksueel misbruik onderzocht vandaag in Trouw. Het is “oorverdovend stil” volgens Samson.

De commissie-Samson kwam in oktober met haar conclusies en aanbevelingen, maar daarna is er volgens de voorzitter weinig gebeurd. Volgens Samson worden de aanbevelingen van de commissie doorgeschoven.

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NEDERLAND
BN DeStem

DEN BOSCH – Katholieke congegraties en kloosterordes zetten de hakken in het zand bij het onderzoek naar het seksueel misbruik in de kerk. Die beschulding komt van de stichting Klokk, die opkomt voor de slachtoffers.

Mede door de weigerachtige opstelling van veel congregaties, leiden veel klachten uiteindelijk niet tot een schadevergoeding, aldus een woordvoerder van de stichting Klokk. De voorzitter van de klachtencommissie, voormalig rechter Wiel Stevens, stelde vorig week dat waarschijnlijk één op de drie klachten niet gegrond kan worden verklaard wegens een gebrek aan bewijs. In het Brabants Dagblad van zaterdag zegt Stevens ook dat veel oversten zich ‘weinig empathisch’ opstellen in de gesprekken met de slachtoffers. “Ze slaan niet de goede toon aan.”

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NEDERLAND
Reformatorisch Dagblad

Het is tijd voor een collecte in alle reformatorische kerken voor de bekostiging van de goede en hoogst noodzakelijke initiatieven die zich richten op de bestrijding van huiselijk en seksueel geweld in de gereformeerde gezindte, stelt José Baars-Blom.

Columnist Braaf memoreerde donderdag dat een jaar geleden het rapport ”De mantel der liefde” uitkwam (RD 7-2). Het rapport van Movisie gaf op basis van een quickscan een beeld van huiselijk en seksueel geweld in de biblebelt. De inhoud gaf alle aanleiding om te werken aan verandering. Braaf veronderstelt dat er weinig is veranderd („men drinkt een glas, doet een plas en alles blijft zoals het was”) en slaat alarm.

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UNITED STATES
Washington Post

[UN report]

By Caleb Bell
Religion News Service,

Updated: Wednesday, February 20

WASHINGTON — The U.S. is failing to pursue and prosecute clergy guilty of child sexual abuse, according to a recent United Nations committee report.

The U.N.’s Committee on the Rights of the Child, in a little-noticed Jan. 25 report, urged the U.S. to “take all necessary measures to investigate all cases of sexual abuse of children whether single or on a massive and long-term scale, committed by clerics.”

David Clohessy, the director of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, described national efforts to deal with child-molesting clergy as “woefully inadequate.”

“There has been and continues to be too cozy a relationship between religious and governmental figures,” Clohessy said. “Other than a handful of local prosecutors, there’s been almost no action at the state or federal level.”

The U.S. Department of Justice did not return requests for comment, and the National Association of Attorneys General declined to comment. Abuse cases are typically handled by local and state prosecutors, not the federal government.

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BELGIE
HLN

In totaal hebben 621 slachtoffers van seksueel misbruik binnen de Kerk een aanvraag tot verzoening en arbitrage ingediend bij het Centrum voor Arbitrage. Tot nu zijn 67 dossiers of ruim een tiende van de aanvragen afgehandeld. De dossiers zijn goed voor 303.000 euro aan schadevergoedingen. De totale schadevergoeding zou kunnen oplopen tot een bedrag tussen 2,5 en 3 miljoen euro.

In 2012 werden 30 zaken via bemiddeling afgehandeld, wat voor Stefaan Van Hecke (Groen) erop wijst dat de kerk echt akkoorden wil afsluiten.

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IRELAND
The Times (United Kingdom)

James Bone Rome

The Primate of All Ireland has been dragged into the growing uproar over cardinals who are accused of covering up sex abuse in the Roman Catholic Church and yet will be voting to choose the new pope next month. Victims of abuse have demanded that Cardinal Seán Brady, the Archbishop of Armagh and the head of the Catholic church in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, does not go to the conclave to elect Pope Benedict XVI’s successor.

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UNITED STATES
Nifty Christian

The African cardinal widely tipped to be the first black pope in modern history faced a firestorm of criticism last night after he laid the blame for clerical sex abuse crises at the feet of gay priests.

Cardinal Peter Turkson, who comes from Ghana, told an American journalist that similar sex scandals would never convulse churches in Africa because the culture was inimical to homosexuality.

‘African traditional systems kind of protect or have protected its population against this tendency,’ he told Christiane Amanpour of CCN. ‘Because in several communities, in several cultures in Africa homosexuality or for that matter any affair between two sexes of the same kind, are not countenanced in our society,’ he continued. ‘So that cultural taboo, that tradition has been there,’ said Cardinal Turkson, 64. ‘It has served to keep it out.’

As the head of a major Vatican department – the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace – Cardinal Turkson is ranked as the 5/2 second favourite to take the papal crown when a Conclave of Cardinals meets next month to elect a successor to Pope Benedict XVI, who announced his abdication last week on the grounds of ill health.

Catholics throughout the African continent and the developing world are praying that he will be chosen ahead of the Italian Cardinal Angelo Scola, the Archbishop of Milan, who Paddy Power has made its 9/4 favourite.

But his public comments blaming homosexual priests in for the sexual abuse of many hundreds of children in Europe, the United States and Australia mean his election would be severely criticised in the West.

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VATICAN CITY
Digital Journal

By Brett Wilkins
Feb 20, 2013

Rome – By remaining in the Vatican after resigning later this month, Pope Benedict XVI will enjoy immunity from prosecution in connection with the global epidemic of clergy sex abuse claims.

The Pope’s decision to live in the Vatican City, a sovereign state, after his retirement means that he will be protected by both Vatican security and diplomatic immunity.

“His continued presence in the Vatican is necessary, otherwise he might be defenseless,” a Vatican official told Reuters under the condition of anonymity. “He wouldn’t have his immunity, his prerogatives, his security if he is anywhere else.”

The source added that the pontiff should lead a “dignified existence” for the rest of his life.
Under the Lateran Pacts, the 1929 treaty between Italy and the Holy See that established the Vatican City as a sovereign state, those with Vatican citizenship enjoy immunity even if they travel into Italy. The Pope also enjoys diplomatic immunity as an official head of state. Efforts by renowned British evolutionary biologist and atheist Richard Dawkins and the late British-American author Christopher Hitchens to have Benedict arrested and prosecuted during a 2010 visit to Britain came to naught because of the Pontiff’s diplomatic immunity.

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UNITED STATES
National Secular Society (UK)

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) has expressed deep concern to the US Government about its failure to properly deal with “sexual abuse committed by clerics and leading members of certain faith-based organizations and religious institutions on a massive and long-term scale amounting to sexual slavery or servitude of children”.

Concerned that the failure of the US authorities to prosecute the sexual abuse, the UNCRC has urged them to investigate all cases of “sexual abuse of children whether single or on a massive and long-term scale, committed by clerics”.

The condemnation (shown in full below) was made as part of a cyclical five yearly review of states by the committee, and followed evidence given by the National Secular Society focussing on the Catholic Church.

NSS executive director, Keith Porteous Wood, commented: “$2 billion has been paid out to abuse victims in compensation by the Catholic Church in the US indicating a massive scale of abuse. Yet very few clerical perpetrators have been convicted and only one official has been convicted for facilitating the abuse. Hundreds, if not thousands, of clerics have wrongly escaped justice due to the continuing secrecy of the Church and the issue being almost ignored by law enforcers.

“That so many perpetrators have escaped scot-free is yet a further abuse of the victims whose whole lives have often been ruined as a result.

“Pope Benedict has been responsible since 1981 for the policing of the Church, and with it, child abuse, and many think, as I do, that no one is more culpable than he is. He has hushed up abuse accusations to protect clerics, the Church’s reputation and funds. He has obstructed secular justice rather than encouraged it. We can only hope that his successor opens the secret files and treats victims with the respect they deserve.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on February 20, 2013

The New York Times reports this afternoon that two high ranking US Catholic Cardinals – Timothy Dolan of New York and Roger Mahony of Los Angeles – must answer questions this week under oath about clergy sex crimes and cover ups. We are grateful and encouraged by this. This happens all too rarely.

Dolan has been particularly adept at evading responsibility for his wrongdoing in clergy sex cases, having moved twice since the scandal started gaining international attention more than a decade ago, and having worked, three times, in states with especially archaic child abuse laws that favor defendants.

Civil justice can expose predators and their enablers, but only criminal justice can imprison and deter them. So while these depositions represent progress, it’s crucial to remember that the best way to prevent and discourage future crimes and cover ups is for secular authorities to investigate, charge and convict Catholic officials who hide and enable heinous crimes against kids.

Just this week, a United Nations committee criticized US authorities for not doing enough to pursue criminal charges against Catholic officials. We share that criticism.

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IRELAND
TheMediaReport

For the past several decades, the media has told a story of how the Catholic Church in Ireland operated homes for troubled youth – the Magdalene Laundries – that were rife with unspeakable barbarity and unrivaled cruelty from the nuns who operated them. However, a new report thoroughly examining the famed laundries now reveals that the media’s characterization of the laundries has been complete fiction.

Just a couple weeks ago, the Irish government released the independent McAleese Report, which sought to examine the country’s role in the laundries, which operated for over two centuries until 1996. The findings are indeed eye-opening, and one of the only journalists to candidly reveal the report’s discoveries is the UK Telegraph’s Brendan O’Neill. Kudos to Mr. O’Neill for his honesty and good journalism.

The simple facts

Of the many scores of women who were interviewed for the report, exactly zero reported being sexually abused by a nun. None. Nada. Zilch. In a recent must-read blog post at the Telegraph, writer O’Neill explains:

“In the Irish mind, and in the minds of everyone else who has seen or read one of the many films, plays and books about the Magdalene laundries, these were horrific institutions brimming with violence and overseen by sadistic, pervy nuns. Yet the McAleese Report found not a single incident of sexual abuse by a nun in a Magdalene laundry. Not one. Also, the vast majority of its interviewees said they were never physically punished in the laundries.”

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
The New York Times

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN

Published: February 20, 2013

Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, the Roman Catholic archbishop of New York, will be deposed on Wednesday afternoon by lawyers representing hundreds of people who say they were sexually abused by priests in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, where Cardinal Dolan served before his appointment to New York in 2009.

Cardinal Dolan is one of two American cardinals who are being deposed in sexual abuse lawsuits this week, and who plan to travel to Rome next week in advance of the proceedings to elect the successor to Pope Benedict XVI, who stunned the world last week with the announcement that he was resigning effective Feb. 28.

The other American is Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, the retired archbishop of Los Angeles. He is expected to be deposed on Saturday in Los Angeles, and has been under fire since the court-ordered release last month of 12,000 pages of internal church files revealing his role in shielding accused priests from the law.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
National Catholic Reporter

by Joshua J. McElwee | Feb. 20, 2013

For the third time in the past week, Cardinal Roger Mahony has written of the humiliation he has experienced since being publicly disgraced for his handling of priests accused of sex abuse in the 1980s.

Reflecting on the matter on his personal blog Wednesday, Mahony obliquely refers to his experience as a “painful and public humiliation, which is spiritually a grace-opportunity.”

Mahony writes that he has “tried to live out — poorly and inadequately far too often” two “implications of humiliation:”

1. “The acceptance of being scapegoated, pointing out the necessary connection between humiliation and redemption;”
2. That the Catholic church’s continuing sexual abuse scandals are “putting us, the clergy and the church, where we belong — with the excluded ones.”

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NEW YORK
Catholic League

Bill Donohue addresses accused priests and rabbis:

Today, the New York Times has a story on a Bridgeport priest who was arrested, Msgr. Kevin Wallin; it is the second story on him. So far this year, two New York rabbis have been arrested, each meriting one story in the Times: Rabbi Yoel Malik was arrested on January 31, and Rabbi Nathan David Rabinowich was arrested on February 14. (Only the print editions are being counted.)

◦Msgr. Wallin was arrested for drugs.
◦Rabbi Malik was arrested for sexually abusing three teenage boys. He was charged with 12 counts of sexual abuse, 4 counts of criminal sexual contact, 11 counts of endangering the welfare of a child, and a single charge of forcible touching.
◦Rabbi Rabinowich was charged with four sexual offenses, including the attempted rape of a 14-year-old girl.

The total number of words in the Times story on the priest is 3496 (today’s front-page story merited 2745 words). The total number of words on the two rabbis combined is 828 (the stories appeared on pages 22 and 25, respectively). It’s not just the Times that gives rabbis a pass: the New York Daily News had two stories on Malik (only mentioning him by name in one!); the New York Post ran one story on him; the Daily News ran one story on Rabinowich; and the Post had none.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Yahoo! News

By Sylvia Cochran | Yahoo! Contributor Network

With the surprising resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, California Cardinal Roger Mahony has been preparing to attend the Vatican conclave to elect a new pope. In light of documents made public that detail Mahony’s role in the Los Angeles archdiocese sexual abuse scandal, the Religion News Service now reports that there are renewed demands that Mahony should stay home.

What is the status of Mahony’s role in the church?

Although still an American cardinal, the Archbishop of Los Angeles, Jose Gomez, has relieved Mahony of all “administrative or public duties” in the wake of the court-ordered release of previously confidential church records. Nevertheless, the cardinal is still entitled to travel to Rome and vote in the conclave.

Does Archbishop Gomez support Mahony’s travel to the Vatican conclave?

While Gomez does not discuss his personal preference, the Los Angeles Times reports that he reminds the faithful that Mahony is still considered to be in “good standing” — recent revelations in the sexual abuse scandal notwithstanding. “Cardinal Mahony’s accomplishments and experience in the areas of immigration, social justice, sacred liturgy, and the role of the laity in the church will serve the College of Cardinals well as it works to discern the will of the Holy Spirit in these deliberations that will lead to the election of our new pope,” Gomez wrote in a press release.

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FLORIDA
Palm Beach Post

By Lona O’Connor
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

In the constant stream of speculation on who will be the next pope, it was inevitable: Cardinal Sean O’Malley’s name is now being mentioned as a credible candidate to succeed Pope Benedict XVI, who will step down on Feb. 28 for health reasons.

O’Malley was bishop of the Diocese of Palm Beach for eight months in 2002. The 125-member College of Cardinals is expected to meet no later than March 15 to name a successor in an election that is by tradition shrouded in secrecy.

John Allen, a commentator for the National Catholic Register, started the speculation in his Tuesday post:

“Another name has generated a surprising degree of buzz in the Italian press: Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, partly on the strength of his profile as a reformer on the church’s sexual abuse scandals, and partly because of his Capuchin simplicity as a perceived antidote to the Vatican’s reputation for intrigue and power games.”

On Tuesday the betting site Paddy Power gave 33 to 1 odds against O’Malley. That made O’Malley’s chances better than those of New York’s Cardinal Timothy Dolan at 66 to 1, but not as good as the two front-runners, Archbishop Angelo Scola of Rome at 2 to 1 and Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana at 5 to 2 odds. Paddy Power betters correctly identified German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as the successor of Pope John Paul II in 2005. Sure enough, Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Berliner Zeitung

Den Opfern sexueller Gewalt wurde ein Hilfsfonds versprochen, der Beratungen, Hilfen und Therapien ermöglichen sollte. Doch seit 14 Monaten ist nichts passiert. Der Missbrauchsbeauftragte der Bundesregierung Johannes-Wilhelm Rörig ist verärgert.

Johannes-Wilhelm Rörig ist ein besonnener Mann. Verärgerung ist ihm deshalb umso besser anzumerken. Dass der Missbrauchsbeauftragte der Bundesregierung fordert, den von Bund und Ländern seit über 14 Monaten versprochenen Hilfefonds für die Opfer sexuellen Missbrauchs jetzt ohne weitere Verzögerung aufzulegen, ist ein deutliches Zeichen von Verärgerung. Über ein Jahr liegt der Abschlussbericht des Runden Tisches nun vor. Ebenso lange warten die Betroffenen darauf, dass die Empfehlungen des Gremiums umgesetzt werden.

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VATIKANSTADT
Volksblatt

VATIKANSTADT – Der dunkle Schatten der Missbrauchsskandale belastet den Vatikan vor dem Konklave für die Wahl des Nachfolgers von Papst Benedikt XVI. Nach US-Kardinal Roger Mahony geraten vier Kardinäle wegen ihres umstrittenen Umgangs mit den Skandalen unter Druck.

Zu ihnen zählt der belgische Kardinal Godfried Danneels. Vor drei Jahren hatte die Polizei seine Wohnung durchsucht und seinen Computer beschlagnahmt, um festzustellen, ob er über Missbrauchsfälle in der belgischen Kirche zwischen den Sechziger- und Achtzigerjahren informiert war.

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VATIKANSTADT
Blick

Vatikanstadt – Der dunkle Schatten der Missbrauchsskandale belastet den Vatikan vor dem Konklave für die Wahl des Nachfolgers von Papst Benedikt XVI. Nach US-Kardinal Roger Mahony geraten vier Kardinäle wegen ihres umstrittenen Umgangs mit den Skandalen unter Druck.

Zu ihnen zählt der belgische Kardinal Godfried Danneels. Vor drei Jahren hatte die Polizei seine Wohnung durchsucht und seinen Computer beschlagnahmt, um festzustellen, ob er über Missbrauchsfälle in der belgischen Kirche zwischen den Sechziger- und Achtzigerjahren informiert war.

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OSTERREICH
religion@ORF

Nach dem Ex-Erzbischof von Los Angeles, Kardinal Roger Mahony, geraten nun auch weitere Kardinäle wegen ihrer Rolle im Missbrauchsskandal in die Kritik. Verschiedene Initiativen fordern sie auf, dem Konklave fernzubleiben.

Der dunkle Schatten der Missbrauchsskandale belastet den Vatikan vor dem Konklave für die Wahl des Nachfolgers von Papst Benedikt XVI. Nachdem eine Vereinigung von US-Katholiken und italienische Anti-Pädophilie-Verbände erklärt haben, die Teilnahme des früheren Erzbischofs von Los Angeles, Roger Mahony, am Konklave verhindern zu wollen, weil dieser Vorwürfe des Missbrauchs gegen Priester seiner Diözese vertuscht haben soll – mehr dazu in: USA: Petition für Konklave ohne Kardinal Mahony – geraten weitere vier Kardinäle wegen ihres umstrittenen Umgangs mit Missbrauchsskandalen unter Druck.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Cardinal Roger Mahony Blogs LA

One very insightful and powerful Address has sustained me over these past difficult years as all of us in the Church had to face the fact that Catholic clergy sexually abused children and young people.

Entitled On Carrying A Scandal Biblically it was first delivered in late 2002 by Father Ronald Rolheiser, O.M.I., in Canada. The Address was edited into an article, and is readily available on his website. (1)

There is nothing else in print which has so captivated my heart and soul, and served as the basis for countless meditations and reflections. I recommend it to anyone who is searching for a truly counter-cultural approach at dealing with this terrible sinfulness which has overwhelmed all of us in the Church.

You will never find the Rolheiser approach even mentioned in any news media, since it is not about condemning others, but about how disciples of Jesus are called to carry and live out a terrible scandal day by day.

He calls our suffering what it really is: painful and public humiliation, which is spiritually a grace-opportunity. I have tried to live out–poorly and inadequately far too often–his two implications of humiliation:

1. the acceptance of being scapegoated, pointing out the necessary connection between humiliation and redemption;

2. this scandal is putting us, the clergy and the church, where we belong–with the excluded ones; Jesus was painted with the same brush as the two thieves crucified with him.

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VATICAN CITY
Irish Independent

Philip Pullella– 20 February 2013

POPE BENEDICT may change rules governing the conclave that will secretly elect his successor.

It’s a move that could move up the global meeting of cardinals who are already in touch about who could best lead Catholics through a period of crisis.

The Vatican appears to be aiming to have a new pope elected and then formally installed before Palm Sunday on March 24 so he can preside at Holy Week services leading to Easter.

The rule changes could mean that the conclave in the Sistine Chapel, where cardinals will choose the next leader of the 1.2 billion member Roman Catholic Church, might be able to start before March 15, which is currently the earliest it can begin.

Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, said today that Benedict, who will lose all power when he abdicates on Feb 28, was considering issuing a “Motu Proprio,” a personal document which has the force of Church law and addresses a specific need.

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UNITED STATES
National Survivor Advocates Coalition

February 20, 2013

NSAC takes note of Cardinal elector Velasio De Paolis for publicly taking the position that while Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles can be part of the conclave he should not be.

This kind of sharp elbowing by a Cardinal is rarely seen in the media and is in his princely class edging up to the category of a glove slap duel challenge.

Here’s the link to USA Today’s story: [Click here]

Cardinal De Paolis was part of the Vatican commission that reviewed the Legionnaires of Christ religious order in the wake of public revelations about its disgraced founder, Marcial Maciel.

His strong dropping of a conscience hint conclave embargo against Mahony, let us hope, is built on the insight he may have gain from that commission.

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UNITED STATES
Huffington Post

Matthew Fox

The pope has chosen to step down, the first pope in seven centuries to do so. As a Christian, I witness his legacy, and that of his predecessor, with profoundly mixed feelings: outrage over the crimes committed against the people of God, and relief that the masks covering the corruption of the papacy have at last been removed.

I see that the 42-year reign of the past two popes has so destroyed the church we once knew that now the Holy Spirit can give birth to a community far more attuned to the revolutionary Gospel of Jesus than the current and dying structures ever could be. More than ever, we recognize the warning of historian Lord Acton after Vatican Council I defined papal infallibility: “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

We have witnessed how Cardinal Martini on his deathbed, issued a damning call to action to a church “200 years behind the times.” We have witnessed the retaliation of the past two popes against theologians and pastoral ministers who have dared to dissent for the sake of social justice, eco-justice, gender and gender preference justice: 105 and more have been and continue to be hounded, silenced and expelled.

So as one of these dissidents, speaking now from outside the Vatican’s punitive reach, I offer a short list of some of the issues for which history will hold Ratzinger accountable, both as cardinal and as pope (I offer page numbers of my study on his life and papacy in my book, “The Pope’s War: How Ratzinger’s Crusade Imperiled the Church and How It Can Be Saved,” to see the backup evidence).

1.His silence for years about the notorious pedophile priest Father Maciel, who was so close to Pope John Paul II that he was often invited on the papal plane — and who sexually abused dozens of his seminarians, had two wives on the side and sexually abused his own children. Fr. Maciel was not fully investigated until 2005 even though a New York bishop reported his actions to Ratzinger’s office in 1995 (125-130).

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UNITED STATES
Non-Profit Quarterly

Written by Rick Cohen Created on Wednesday, 20 February 2013

Sometimes, the best-motivated bequests don’t go as intended, as evidenced by documents recently released about the fundraising of a Catholic organization called the Legion of Christ. A Rhode Island widow named Gabrielle Mee gave millions of dollars and bequeathed 90 percent of her estate to the Legion of Christ. She was so taken with the Legion and its founder, Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado, that she became a “consecrated woman” in the Legion’s lay wing.

When she made her donations, Mee probably never anticipated that Pope Benedict XVI would order an investigation of the Legion to reveal that Fr. Maciel sexually molested numerous seminarians and fathered children by two different women. Pope John Paul II had been a prominent supporter of Maciel, calling him “an efficacious guide to youth.” Even when he was known as Cardinal Ratzinger, Pope Benedict has initiated investigations of Maciel’s behavior and operations, though it took until 2006 before he retired Maciel to a life of penitence and prayer. It wasn’t until 2009 that the Legion acknowledged Maciel’s paternity in regards to at least one child.

Although Pope Benedict finally took action against the Legion, the Vatican had heard reports of Maciel’s sexual abuse for many years. Like U.S. dioceses dealing with abusive parish priests, the Vatican spent years protecting the religious institution of the Legion rather than calling Maciel and the Legion to account.

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MALTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on February 20, 2013

Shame on Bishop Charles Scicluna. He is either deceptive or woefully ignorant about Cardinal Roger Mahony’s deliberate, decades-long work to conceal child sex crimes.

It’s just wrong for Scicluna to claim that Mahony “did what he could” but “made mistakes.” This implies that he attempted to do the right thing and failed. Yet what has been revealed from the recently released LA documents shows that Mahony repeatedly and purposefully acted in the best interests of predators, not kids.

Any reasonable person reading even a few of the thousands of pages of long-secret LA church abuse records would conclude that Mahony wasn’t “ignorant” or “ill-informed.”

Kids are safer when adults judge wrongdoers by real life standards, not by preposterous standards. It’s preposterous to claim that Scicluna is some kind of serious “reformer” just because most Catholic officials have even more horrific track records on abuse.

These comments illustrate that Scicluna is out of touch with reality but perfectly in line with the stance taken by other Vatican officials on child sex abuse. They claim to not have understood the problem and not known how to deal with it, despite their best efforts. This is ludicrous.

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CALIFORNIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Barbara Blaine on February 20, 2013

Two high ranking Catholic officials say Cardinal Roger Mahony must decide whether to avoid the papal conclave, and one of them admits that higher church authorities could ask him to stay home.

Yesterday, Cardinal Velasio De Paolis of Italy told Italian newspaper La Repubblica that Mahony “could be advised not to take part only through a private intervention by someone with great authority.”

And the Vatican’s former point man on abuse, Maltese Bishop Charles Scicluna, voiced similar opinions in an interview with the National Catholic Reporter, saying Mahony “will decide in conscience what to do.”

Yet, given Mahony’s actions in Los Angeles and the multitudes of crimes he abetted – and in some cases may have committed – we hardly think that’s a good outcome. His church superiors should insist that Mahony stay home, and his church colleagues should publicly prod Mahony to stay home.

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UNITED STATES
Queerty

Over the President’s Day holiday, your Facebook wall may have blown up with links to various “articles” insisting that Pope Benedict had announced his retirement because he was about to face criminal charges connected to his involvement in covering up child molestation committed by priests.

These reports claim that an unnamed European government is preparing to issue an arrest warrant for Benedict for crimes against humanity, but that His Eminence worked out a deal with Italian President Giorgio Napolitano that granted him immunity from prosecution or extradition.

Addicting Info is just one site with the story:

The Pope, whose given name is Joseph Ratzinger, has a meeting with the Italian President, Giorgio Napolitano on February 23 to beg for immunity against prosecution for allegations of child sex crimes. Apparently, this hastily arranged meeting, and likely the resignation as well, are the result of a supposed note received by the Vatican from an undisclosed European government that stated that there are plans to issue a warrant for the Pope’s arrest.

This letter was allegedly received on February 4, and Ratzinger resigned a week later.

There’s even a serious-sounding quasi-governmental group, the International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State, calling for the Pope’s head and demanding that Napolitano “not collude in criminality” by protecting Benedict.

The only problem is that this story is completely made up.

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UNITED STATES
OpEd News

By Rob Kall

I interviewed Matthew Fox on February 13th. This is part one of a two part interview. Here’s a link to the audio podcast.

Thanks to Don Caldarazzo for doing the transcript.

I met Matthew Fox about nine years ago when we were both speakers at the first Mythic Journeys conference an amazing event bringing together writers, mythologists, psychologists, poets. At the time, I was running the Storycon Conference on the art science and application of story, which I’d founded two years earlier, and which ran for six years.

Matthew Fox was first stopped from teaching Liberation Theology by Cardinal Ratzinger, then defrocked. He has since lived an extraordinary life. But he also brings a unique point of view on Pope Benedict, the next pope the college of cardinals will choose and today’s Catholic Church.

Rob Kall: And welcome to the Rob Kall Bottom Up Radio Show, WNJC 1360 AM out of Washington Township, New Jersey, reaching metro Philly and South Jersey. My guest tonight is Matthew Fox. Now, Matthew Fox has an interesting story, and I’m going to ask him to tell us a little bit about it. I invited you on, Matthew, and welcome to the show.

Matthew Fox: Thank you. Good to be here.

Rob Kall: I invited you on because you know a lot about the Pope, Ratzinger, from a different perspective than many. Can you explain that?

Matthew Fox: Yes. First of all, I wrote a major book on him a year ago, and I’ve been translating the German and Italian, called The Popes War: Why Ratzinger’s Secret Crusade Has Imperiled the Church, and How It Can Be Saved. I was involved for twelve years in a battle with Ratzinger, and you have to understand: he has pursued and hounded Theologians for the last thirty-some years. I was just one of a hundred and five [105] that he silenced and expelled or hounded in some way. In fact, I list the 105 (they’re from all over the world) in my book, at the end.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

MARIE O’HALLORAN and MICHAEL O’REGAN

Survivors of the Magdalene laundries want a compensation system that is simple, effective, non-adversarial, non litigious and compassionate, Taoiseach Enda Kenny has told the Dáil.

He said the women were very strong about not wanting a repetition of the adversarial redress board system that operated for victims of child clerical sex abuse.

And he said the Government could consider the issue of the Summer Hill home in Wexford in due course.

Mr Kenny also told Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams the Minister for Justice was looking at the question of the Bethany Homes. They were not laundries but dealt with health and welfare in respect of young women and their children.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

The Taoiseach has said the Government will consider including the women who worked at Summerhill in Co Wexford under a new redress scheme for the women of the Magdalene laundries.

Summerhill was designated as a training centre and was not included in the report into the Magdalene laundries carried out by former Senator Martin McAleese.

Enda Kenny said the Government wanted to ensure that the compensation scheme was administered in the simplest, and most effective way possible.

And he said the Cabinet would consider including Summerhill in Wexford under the scheme.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

IRISH TIMES REPORTERS

The Government is to consider extending the scope of the Magdalene redress scheme to include former residents of Bethany House.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny told the Dáil today that Minister for Justice Alan Shatter was “looking at the question” of payments for survivors of the Protestant-run home for unmarried mothers.

“Not being adversarial, not being a gravy train for those who might assume so from a legalistic point of view — that’s a very strong wish and a very strong desire expressed by the women who were in the Magdalene laundries, and that’s what we want to try to achieve here,” Mr Kenny said.

Survivors can register with the Department of Justice from today to ensure they are included in the compensation scheme. People can contact the department at 01- 476 8649 . They can also write to:

Magdalen Laundry Fund
c/o Department of Justice and Equality
Montague Court
Montague Street
Dublin 2
info@idcmagdalen.ie

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

20 February 2013

It is good that Enda Kenny has made a full apology to the victims of the Magdalene Laundries, as well as financial compensation, and it is good that he took his time to do so and wasn’t rushed into it by angry pundits. The reality is that such an apology can have legal implications for the Government and we would not be happy as citizens, and taxpayers, if the Taoiseach had given some blind apology last week that left the State wide open to all sorts of compensation and liability.

Let us have some perspective here. These were mainly religious, not state, institutions, and yet it is our broke State that has to pick up the tab – yet again. Only a quarter of the laundry survivors were in state care. Most of the laundry survivors were there for less than a year, and the McAleese report found no evidence of sexual or physical abuse. Financial compensation has yet to be decided, but some have been calling for payments of up to €100,000, at which rate the bill could run into hundreds of millions.

Of course there was hardship, but this was the atmosphere of the time, as the Taoiseach himself said. And it is simply ahistorical to condemn the standards of another time by the much improved standards of the present. We may as well condemn the families who put these people into these institutions. Or indeed the families who didn’t – and whose children suffered more so as a consequence.

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Christian Post

By Michael Gryboski , Christian Post Reporter

February 20, 2013

A rumor swirling around online claims that Pope Benedict XVI is stepping down because of legal action being taken against him over his alleged involvement in the Roman Catholic Church’s priest sex abuse scandal.

Addicting Info, a left-wing website devoted to debunking right-wing ideas, posted a story last Thursday claiming that there was an arrest warrant from an unknown European country.

“…the Pope, whose given name is Joseph Ratzinger, has a meeting with the Italian President, Giorgio Napolitano on February 23 to beg for immunity against prosecution for allegations of child sex crimes,” wrote Shannon Barber of Addicting Info.

“Apparently, this hastily arranged meeting, and likely the resignation as well, are the result of a supposed note received by the Vatican from an undisclosed European government that stated that there are plans to issue a warrant for the Pope’s arrest.” …

According to a Reuters story posted Sunday on The Huffington Post, the Pope is presently not named in any court case pertaining to the international sex abuse scandal. Further, in the past the Pope was named as a defendant in cases.

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VATICAN CITY
Huffington Post

By Jessica Elgot Posted: 20/02/2013

The Cardinal heralded as the man who could be the first black Pope has said sex abuse could not happen in Africa, on the same scale as Europe, because of tough anti-homosexuality laws.

Ghana’s Cardinal Peter Turkson caused outrage among former victims of sexual abuse by priests for linking progressive attitudes to homosexuality and child abuse.

Survivors of abuse by priests say they “fear for the safety of kids in Turkson’s diocese if he denies there are predatory priests there”.

Cardinal Turkson is currently the second favourite to be the next pontiff, and had been championed by progressives who have urged the Vatican to elect the first African pope.

Cardinal Angelo Scola of Milan is currently favourite to succeed Benedict XVI.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

by John L. Allen Jr. | Feb. 20, 2013

Rome —
John Allen is offering a profile each day of one of the most frequently touted papabili, or men who could be pope. The old saying in Rome is that he who enters a conclave as pope exits as a cardinal, meaning there’s no guarantee one of these men actually will be chosen. They are, however, the leading names drawing buzz in Rome these days, ensuring they will be in the spotlight as the conclave draws near. The profiles of these men also suggest the issues and the qualities other cardinals see as desirable heading into the election.

As veteran Vatican writer Andrea Tornielli reminds readers today in La Stampa, one way to judge how serious a papal candidate may be is by how much whispering, rumor and character assassination that person generates. By that standard alone, one probably ought to take Cardinal Marc Ouellet seriously indeed.

The 68-year-old Ouellet, a native of Quebec who currently heads the Vatican’s all-important Congregation for Bishops, has long been considered a formidable contender to take over the church’s top job. He’s got the brains, the languages and the life experience to satisfy the conventional wisdom about what it takes to be pope.

As recent days have shown, he’s also got the baggage any public figure accumulates over a long and controversial career.

Profiles in the Canadian press have been mixed — Toronto’s Globe and Mail on Saturday was typical, asking, “Can the Cardinal who couldn’t save his Quebec church save the Vatican?”

The gist was that Ouellet’s tenure as archbishop of Quebec from 2002 to 2010 was rocky, and there’s little indication he turned around the steep decline in faith and practice in Francophone Canada. (One profile pointed out that even some of his siblings are no longer practicing.)

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UNITED STATES
Digital Journal

[UN report]

By Greta McClain
Feb 20, 2013

The United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) issued a scathing report, accusing the United States of failing to properly deal with “sexual abuse committed by clerics and leading members of certain faith-based organizations.”

Although the report was issued by UNCRC on January 25th of this year, it has received very little attention.

The report is based on a five year review of protocols used by various United States federal, state and local government agencies. It looks at a variety of issues, including investigations into reports of sexual assault by members of the clergy, particularly those involving the Roman Catholic Church. The UN report also looked at evidence provided by the British National Secular Society (NSS), a non-profit organization that promotes a separation of religion and state and believes in religious freedom and human rights for people of all faiths.

The UNCRC report notes there has been a “lack of progress” by U.S. law enforcement agencies to centralize data involving the sale of children, child prostitution and pornography, as well as a lack of research and evidence-based policy and program analysis about the root cause of such crimes. It also praises the U.S. for new initiatives and laws such as the PROTECT Our Children Act of 2008, which is aimed at increasing resources for regional computer forensic labs and increasing the ability of law enforcement agencies to investigate and prosecute child predators.

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MINNESOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on February 20, 2013

A former Catholic youth minister has made some startling admissions in a long investigative television news report. He’s Matthew Feeney who worked at the Church of St. Joseph’s in St. Cloud before running a talent agency and being charged with child sex crimes.

It is hard to take the word of a child predator at face value when he claims that he suddenly stopped abusing kids. We don’t believe that Feeney magically stopped violating boys in the early 90’s, and we think it’s dangerous for police and prosecutors to believe him as well.

We are grateful to the advocate who recorded Feeney admitting that his actions since he was convicted of abusing kids in 1992. It is clear that Feeney is a danger to children, and for the sake of kids, we hope that this admission will push law enforcement officials to aggressively reach out to potential victims and witnesses in every area where Feeney has been.

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NEW ORLEANS (LA)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

WHAT:
Holding signs and childhood photos at a sidewalk news conference, clergy sex abuse victims and their supporters will:
–Disclose a new lawsuit being filed against an accused predator priest, the Vatican, two Louisiana dioceses and two bishops,
–Urge victims, witnesses, and whistleblowers to call police, and
–Beg Louisiana Catholic officials to “aggressively seek out” other victims.

WHEN:
Wednesday, February 20 at 2:00 pm

WHERE:
Outside the chancery (aka archdiocesan headquarters) 7887 Walmsley Ave (corner of Fern) in New Orleans

WHO:
The victim’s attorney and a clergy sex abuse who is the outreach director for the international support group SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAPnetwork.org)

WHY:
A clergy sex abuse lawsuit is being filed against a Catholic priest who attended a New Orleans seminary and mostly worked in the Lake Charles diocese. The alleged victim was abused between 1985-88 at Our Lady Queen of Heaven parish in Lake Charles and in 1992 at St. Eugene’s parish in Grand Chenier.

The New Orleans archdiocese and the Lake Charles diocese (along with the prelates who head each of them), and the Vatican are named as defendants in the 40 page civil suit filed in US district court for the Eastern District of Louisiana.

The priest, Fr. Mark A. Broussard, was arrested last April by the Calcasieu Parish sheriff’s office. He was indicted on two counts of aggravated sexual battery, two counts of oral sexual battery, two counts of aggravated rape, and one count of sexual battery. He is charged and indicted in both Calcacieu and Cameron parishes. (St. Eugene is in Cameron Parish.)

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UNITED KINGDOM
Ekklesia

Cardinal Peter Turkson may have badly damaged his prospects of becoming pope by suggesting that child sexual abuse is not a major problem in churches in Africa because homosexuality is looked on negatively. The remark is not only offensive but also reveals a dangerous ignorance that may undermine attempts to protect children.

Since Pope Benedict XVI, now frail and in poor health, announced his resignation, there has been much media speculation about who would become the next pope. Peter Turkson, who comes from Ghana, has been widely named as a possible candidate. But his remarks during an interview with Christiane Amanpour of CNN may have lessened his chances.

When she asked about the possibility of the Roman Catholic Church’s sexual abuse scandal spreading to Africa, he said it would unlikely to be in the same proportion as it has in Europe. “African traditional systems kind of protect or have protected its population against this tendency,” he claimed. “Because in several communities, in several cultures in Africa homosexuality or for that matter any affair between two sexes of the same kind are not countenanced in our society.”

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VATICAN CITY
Worldcrunch

Vatican Reporter Reveals Exclusive Details On Benedict XVI’s Failing Health

Signs of decline began to appear two years ago, leading the Pope’s doctor to insist on limited air travel. Portrait of an old and weak man, who may have had little choice but resignation.

By Marco Tosatti
LA STAMPA/Worldcrunch

VATICAN CITY- There’s a lot of talk of intrigue and scandals since Pope Benedict XVI announced his resignation. Anything is possible, of course. But in the last few days I’ve looked back on the information I’d collected over the last few months and years on the state of the Pope’s health, gathered from those who are close to him. I had vowed to keep all the details confidential, to not reveal anything while Benedict still held his position.

His resignation announcement has freed me of these promises, and in examining my notes, a portrait appears of a man with a progressive deterioration of health and energy; a state that fully justifies the difficult decision that Benedict has taken.

A note from two years ago reads:

“The pope isn’t able to sleep at night and he refuses to take any sedatives. Because of this, he often appears tired. And those who love him insist that in the afternoons, no appointments or meetings can be organized before 5 pm, so that he is able to rest a little, especially during trips.

But, his appointments pile up quickly after lunch, at 3:30 and so on. His personal physician, Dr. Patrizio Polisca says that he can go on, if he keeps calm and manages it well, especially if he keeps his blood pressure under control. The blood pressure, at the moment, is the main problem because it was having strong fluctuations. Dr. Polisca said most of all be careful of the airplanes. He insists that he spends as little time as possible on planes, because that’s where the risks come from.”

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VATICAN CITY
Gazzetta del Sud

Vatican City, February 20 – A senior Vatican figure said on Wednesday that Pope Benedict XVI has the power to change rules followed for the selection of his successor, and explained why the conclave of cardinals is likely to commence mid-March, but could begin days earlier. ”The Holy Father is the only one who can intervene in the legislation regarding the conclave,” said Ambrogio Piazzoni, deputy prefect of the Vatican Apostolic Library, in a briefing at the Vatican press room on the history of Vatican conclaves. ”If Pope Benedict (XVI) were to decide on new rules at 19:59 on February 28, those would be the ones to be followed for the new conclave,” Piazzoni explained.

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VATICAN CITY
BBC News

Pope Benedict is considering changes to Catholic Church rules which may speed up the process to select his successor, the Vatican says.

A spokesman said the Pope may issue a decree in the next few days regarding the conclave, the gathering of cardinals to choose the next pontiff.

Pope Benedict announced last week that he would resign on 28 February.

Under current rules the conclave should not start before 15 March, but there has been pressure to bring it forward.

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UNITED STATES
Tuscaloosa News

The Associated Press

Published: Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Popular pressure is mounting in the U.S. and Italy to keep California Cardinal Roger Mahony away from the conclave to elect the next pope because of his role shielding sexually abusive priests.

Amid the movement, a Vatican historian says there is no precedent for a cardinal staying home from a conclave because of personal scandal. Conclaves always bring out the worst in cardinals’ dirty laundry and this time is no different – except that the revelations of Mahony’s sins are so fresh and ordinary Catholics seem to want to have a greater say in who is fit to choose the next pope.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

Benedict XVI is to issue a document motu proprio allowing cardinals to start the election process before the fifteen day waiting period stipulated by Vatican law, if they wish to

ANDREA TORNIELLI
Vatican City

Benedict XVI’s final act as Pope will be to publish a brief motu proprio allowing cardinals to bring the date of the Conclave forward. This will be the second modification Ratzinger will be making to his predecessor’s Constitution Universi Dominici gregis.

In recent days, some of the cardinals said they wished to bring the date of the Conclave forward. The Constitution states the Conclave should take place between fifteen to twenty days after the papacy become vacant due to the death or resignation of a Pope: “I furthermore decree that, from the moment when the Apostolic See is lawfully vacant, the Cardinal electors who are present must wait fifteen full days for those who are absent; the College of Cardinals is also granted the faculty to defer, for serious reasons, the beginning of the election for a few days more. But when a maximum of twenty days have elapsed from the beginning of the vacancy of the See, all the Cardinal electors present are obliged to proceed to the election,” Wojtyla’s Universi Dominici gregis reads.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

[UN report]

Posted by Barbara Blaine on February 20, 2013

The U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child is chiding the U.S. for “failing to fully pursue cases of child sex abuse in religious groups,” according to news accounts.

The committee is right. In a number of western democracies (such as Ireland and Australia), courageous political leaders have launched governmental investigation into heinous clergy sex crimes and cover-ups on a regional or national scale. But little if anything of comparable significance has happened in the US.

There hasn’t been a single legislative hearing – at the state or national level – into this horrific and on-going scandal, much less any real meaningful legislative reform. (The exceptions are California, Delaware and Hawaii where civil “windows” have been adopted, giving more victims a chance to expose more child molesting clerics and complicit church officials in court).

Simply put, there has been – and still is – a far too cozy relationship in the U.S. between some governmental and law enforcement officials and some church figures.

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UNITED STATES
Minnesota SNAP

By Vinnie Nauheimer

Suppose you had a guaranteed lifetime job, long flowing red robes, more bling than you could wear, servants, secretaries (handsome ones at that), hundreds of millions of people believing that you are the spiritual descendants of the apostles and were an intermediary between them and God! Would you give that up to become more Christ like? Not a chance! Therein lies the cardinal lack of motivation to elect anyone other than a clone to fill Benedict’s Prada shoes.

Baptized in the River of Denial, delusional, self-absorbed, uttering snippets to the press about the pressing issues of the poor and third world countries, the cardinals gather, feast sumptuously and strategize about who will be the next Vicar of Christ on Earth and what they will wear for the new pope’s, if not their own, inauguration. It’s the Vatican’s version of America’s Red Carpet Club. Yet, these same men, the cardinals, are the first to condemn the evils of materialism while totally oblivious to the fact that they are the polar opposites of their founder.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 20 February 2013 (VIS) – The director of the Holy See Press Office, Fr. Federico Lombardi, S.J., responding to journalists’ questions, commented that the Holy Father is considering the publication of a Motu Proprio in the coming days, obviously before the beginning of the Sede Vacante, to clarify a few particular points regarding the Apostolic Constitution on the conclave that have arisen over the last years.

“I don’t know if he will deem it necessary or appropriate,” he added, “to elucidate the question of the opening date of the conclave. We will have to see if and when a document is published. It seems to me, for example, the clarification of some details in order to be in complete agreement with another document regarding the conclave, that is, the Ordo Rituum Conclavis. In any case, the question depends on the Pope’s judgement and if this document comes about it will be made known through the proper channels.”

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NEDERLAND
KLOKK

De controverse rond kardinaal Roger Mahony en zijn deelname aan het conclaaf in maart 2013 in Rome, waar een nieuwe paus moet verkozen worden, bereikte eindelijk het Vaticaan. Minstens één kardinaal heeft al het standpunt ingenomen dat Mahony beter zou thuisblijven.

Mahony, die van 1985 tot 2011 aan het hoofd stond van het grootste aartsbisdom in de US, werd ervan beschuldigd seksueel misbruik gepleegd door priesters systematisch te verhullen, en werd recent opzij gezet door de huidige Aartsbisschop Jose Gomez.

Gomez kondigde aan dat Mahony niet langer “administratieve of publieke taken” mocht vervullen, nadat een rechtbank besloten had om 14.000 pagina’s interne kerkdocumenten vrij te geven waaruit duidelijk was af te leiden dat Mahony en anderen actief geprobeerd hebben priesters voor vervolging te beschutten.

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ROME
National Catholic Reporter

by John L. Allen Jr. | Feb. 20, 2013

ROME – Bishop Charles Scicluna of Malta served for ten years as the Vatican’s top prosecutor on child sex abuse cases, and is today seen as a global leader for a “zero tolerance” stance. In an interview today in the Italian paper La Repubblica, Scicluna commented on the furor surrounding Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles and his looming participation in the papal election, saying that Mahony made mistakes and will have to “decide in conscience” whether to take part.

Scicluna also commented on the case of the late Mexican Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado, founder of the Legionaries of Christ, asserting that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was the lone official of the Roman Curia who kept his distance from Maciel as the facts of his misconduct became known in 2004.

An NCR translation of the interview appears below. It was conducted by Paolo Rodari, the Vatican writer for La Repubblica.

Monsignor Scicluna, who is Mahony?

A very humble cardinal who wasn’t successful in stemming the cases of pedophilia in his diocese in a way that would have been correct.

Did you ever meet him?

Several times, in private meetings in my office, both in the years when Joseph Ratzinger was prefect and with William Joseph Levada. He came to ask help and advice about how he should act.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

A Catholic priest laicised by the Vatican after a child abuse case says he suspects the church paid the alleged victim in return for evidence against him.

John Gerard Nestor was a priest in the Wollongong Diocese in NSW when he was charged with the indecent assault of a 15-year-old altar boy in 1991.

He was convicted and sentenced to 16 months in jail in Wollongong Local Court on February 18, 1997.

But in October of that year, he won an appeal against the conviction, serving no time behind bars.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

by Jamie Manson | Feb. 19, 2013

With all due to respect to John Allen’s “papabile profile” of Ghanian Cardinal Peter Turkson, those who have commented on his piece are right to raise the concern that Allen does not highlight Turkson’s disturbing beliefs about homosexuality.

Last year, the National Catholic Register reported on Turkson’s response to a speech that U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s offered to 54 African nations at the African Union Summit. Ki-moon asked government leaders to honor the U.N.’s Universal Declaration by protecting women and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people from discrimination and by decriminalizing gays and lesbians.

According to the National Catholic Register:

Ghanaian Cardinal Peter Turkson, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, said some of the sanctions imposed on homosexuals in Africa are an “exaggeration,” but argued that the “intensity of the reaction is probably commensurate with tradition.”

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

Leaders can show real empathy, especially in front of cameras. Ireland’s Prime Minister seemed genuinely sad today about the young women and children abused in prison laundries run mainly by nuns. Pope Benedict seemed similarly sad in his brief meetings with a few survivors of priest child sexual abuse. President Obama also seemed sad for the children raped at Penn State. But sad sighs are not enough for leaders. They must be linked to effective and adequate efforts (1) to obtain justice for innocent victims, (2) to assure the accountability of wrongdoers, including aiders and abettors, and (3) to minimize recurrences. Australia’s Prime Minister Julia Gillard skipped the sighs and just went straight to an exemplary fully funded and staffed national royal commission.

On that score, PM Gillard gets an A+, PM Kenny passes so far, the Pope fails and, at best, the jury may still be out on the President. As noted today by SNAP Wisconsin’s usually well informed Peter Isely, the much respected UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in Geneva, the leading voice internationally for protecting children, has indicated that President Obama’s Justice Department (DOJ) and the U.S. Congress recently got poor grades on protecting children from sexual abuse in religious settings, especially in the U.S. Catholic Church. SNAP also reported that its efforts to get the DOJ to act goes back a decade. Very disappointing and disturbing, to say the least.

If no one is held to account, the violation of children will just continue. Tens of thousands of innocent children have been raped in religious organizations in the USA alone. Vatican conference experts last year estimated that over 100,000 children so far have been abused by Catholic priests in the USA alone. Where have our political and religious leaders been? Where are they now? No U.S. Cardinal or Bishop has been locked up to date for child endangerment. Will that ever change, Mr. President?

In the midst of a close Italian election campaign ending this weekend, the Pope suddenly announced his resignation that apparently had been in the works for several months at least. The Pope also plans to meet after the election, but before his resignation is finalized, with a senior Italian governmental official. Italian media have recently focused more on the Pope’s resignation than on the Italian elections. Knowledgable observers have indicated this has already given the Pope’s favored candidate, Prime Minister Monti, a needed boost. Just a coincidence? We should know better within ten days whether a carefully timed papal immunity deal is under consideration. …

We all have a moral obligation to protect children and signing a petition is a simple, yet potentially effective, way towards meeting that obligation. Please take a minute and sign it at:

[Click here for the petition.]

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CONNECTICUT
The New York Times

By N. R. KLEINFIELD

Published: February 19, 2013

From the time he joined the priesthood three decades ago, he seemed destined to become a star. As a confidant to two bishops and then as the erudite and clubbable pastor of two churches, Msgr. Kevin Wallin was a towering figure in the Roman Catholic Church in southwestern Connecticut.

Parishioners felt buoyed by his homilies. They hungrily signed up for his far-flung spiritual pilgrimages, flocked to church fund-raisers to catch his melodious voice interpreting show tunes. He attended opera with a man who would become a cardinal and he himself appeared bound for a bishop’s miter.

But then about two years ago troubling questions began to be whispered. He acted odd. He was thinner. He walked stooped over. He was absent. Was he sick? Or dying? And then the spicy talk about suspicious men trooping in and out of the rectory.

Finally, last month’s revelation. The priest was locked up, charged with dealing crystal methamphetamine.

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FALL RIVER (MA)
Herald News

By Brian Fraga
Herald News Staff Reporter

The speculation in Rome this week has Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the current archbishop of Boston and former bishop of the Diocese of Fall River, as a possible leading candidate to be the next pope.

O’Malley’s profile as a reformer on clergy sex abuse and his reputation as a humble Franciscan Friar uninterested in the Vatican’s political intrigues appear to be generating conversations that he could be an ideal replacement for Pope Benedict XVI, who will retire Feb. 28, veteran Vatican journalist John L. Allen Jr. wrote Tuesday in the National Catholic Reporter.

At least six Italian newspapers have recently mentioned O’Malley’s name in handicapping the field of potential new popes. The Italian Journalistic Agency credited O’Malley with “restoring credibility to the church” after the “escape” to Rome by his disgraced predecessor in Boston, Cardinal Bernard Law.

O’Malley, 68, who headed the Fall River Diocese from 1992 to 2002, has brushed off speculation that he could be a “papabile” — Italian for men who could be pope — and added that he was not interested in the papacy during a press conference last week in Boston.

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BOSTON (MA)
Boston Herald

By
Matt Stout / Boston Herald

Vatican watchers buzzing over next month’s expected papal conclave say Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley’s name could emerge after the church’s famed white smoke clears, a long-considered pontiff impossibility experts now believe could be reality as concerns over an American pope subside and the Hub archbishop’s star rises.

The chatter about O’Malley kicked into widespread debate yesterday after John L. Allen Jr., a highly respected Vatican correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter, wrote in a blog post that the cardinal’s name has been making the rounds in the Italian press, both in praise of his handling of the clergy sex-abuse scandal and his growing profile as a “prominent” non-European papal contender.

It’s made the notion of an American pope — long considered implausible given the country’s superpower status — now “thinkable,” said Allen, who pointed to Pope Benedict XVI’s Feb. 28 send-off as the real test of traction when gathering cardinals begin hashing out their favorites.

“For every major crisis that seems to pop up as a front-burner issue, Cardinal Sean brings some real gifts,” said Ernest Collamati, chairman of philosophy and religious studies at Regis College. …

O’Malley’s work amid the clergy sex abuse scandal is perhaps his biggest draw, after he addressed crises in Fall River, Palm Beach, Fla., and Boston, where many lauded him in the wake of Cardinal Bernard Law’s mishandling of abuse claims. O’Malley then gained further renown on the international stage when he was tabbed to address the scandal’s explosion in Ireland.

“If one wanted to make a statement in regards to sexual abuse, he would be the ideal candidate,” said Francis Fiorenza, chairman of Catholic theological studies at Harvard University.

But O’Malley’s work also hasn’t come without criticism, including from victims advocate, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, which chastised the Hub prelate for what they called the slow and “incomplete” release of names of accused priests.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

The following is an edited version of Enda Kenny’s speech in the Dáil last night.

The Magdalene laundries have cast a long shadow over Irish life . . . over our sense of who we are.

It’s just two weeks since we received this report, the first-ever detailed report into the State’s involvement in the Magdalene laundries.

It shines a bright and necessary light . . . on a dark chapter of Ireland’s history.

The Government was adamant that these ageing and elderly women would get the compassion and the recognition that, until now, has been so abjectly denied.

I was determined the Dáil would take the necessary time to reflect on its findings. I believe that was the best way to formulate a strategy…. that would help us make amends for the State’s role in the hurt of these extraordinary women.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

PATSY McGARRY

The president of the Law Reform Commission, Mr Justice John Quirke, will make recommendations within three months on supports the State can offer women who were in the Magdalene laundries and in the training centre on Dublin’s Stanhope Street, the Taoiseach has announced.

Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore said last night that when it came to funding such assistance for the women, there was a role “for the religious orders which ran these laundries, to make a fair contribution, along with the taxpayer”.

He said: “These laundries were private businesses, run by those orders, which benefited from the unpaid labour of the women committed to them. The past does not belong to the State alone.”

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Harry McGee

Analysis Enda Kenny’s Dáil speech on the Magdalene laundries report lasted over 15 minutes last night but much of the focus was on a passage that lasted a little over 40 seconds and the extraordinary final moments when the Taoiseach, choked with emotion, found it difficult to complete the sentence.

After failing so abysmally a fortnight ago with an apology that was received as mealy-mouthed and qualified, there was a political imperative for Kenny to deliver a much fuller apology to the women who spent time in those bleak, loveless institutions while at the same time ensuring he was not paving the way for another so-called lawyerfest.

And that he did with a speech so different in tone and sentiment from two weeks ago it was hard to fathom it had come from the same person.

It included that 40-second passage where a full State and Government apology was issued.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

‘I, as Taoiseach, on behalf of the State, the Government and our citizens, deeply regret and apologise unreservedly to all those women for the hurt that was done to them’

Miriam Lord

The Dáil was charged with strong emotion as Kenny made his apology

It was dark when the Magdalene women left Leinster House. They joined hands and formed a line across the width of the granite plinth.

“Come into the light!” shouted the photographers.

And these elderly women began to walk, and as they walked towards that light they quickened their pace and some began to cheer. All smiling – but through tears, for some.

“See ya, ladies. Night, night. Safe home now,” shouted a friendly young policeman.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

MARIE O’HALLORAN and MICHAEL O’REGAN

Women who spent time in the residential laundry in Stanhope Street in Dublin will now be included in the fund established by the Government to assist the Magdalene women.

All survivors in the included laundries can contact the Department of Justice from today to register their interest in being considered for benefits or supports from the fund, Minister for Justice Alan Shatter said.

“We are determined that the money in question will be solely for the benefit of the women, not for the legal profession or others.”

An initial €250,000 from the fund will be given to the Step by Step Centre for Irish Survivors of Industrial Schools and Laundries to be established in Britain. During the Dáil debate in which Taoiseach Enda Kenny, in an emotional address, apologised to the women who spent time in the laundries, the Minister outlined how the fund would operate.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

The emotional apology offered by Taoiseach Enda Kenny to women who experienced a “rigid and uncompromising regime of physically demanding work and prayer” within Magdalene laundries went far beyond what was expected. The decision to include all women in a compensation scheme was generous and compassionate. But it was an acknowledgment that so-called penitents were not to blame for their situation and that the core moral failing lay with the State that represented the most important advance.

Two weeks ago Mr Kenny was sharply criticised – even by those who had specifically excluded Magdalenes from access to previous redress schemes – for not offering a State apology. Yesterday, he made amends. So did Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin who apologised, in turn, for not acting on their behalf while in government.

In his meetings with groups of Magdalene women, the Taoiseach gained personal knowledge of just how dreadful their experiences had been. That was reflected in an impressive Dáil speech. He made no attempt to justify the “terrible and inflexible times” that existed in the “cruel and pitiless Ireland of moral subservience” that existed during the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. But he promised that surviving women would be treated in a compassionate and non-adversarial way. Recommendations on a redress scheme will be made by Judge John Quirke within three months.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

[with audio]

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

The Magdalene survivors had shed these tears many times before, but this time they were not alone — a nation, and a Taoiseach, was weeping with them.

By Shaun Connolly, Political Correspondent

One elderly survivor, shaking with emotion in the Dáil’s public gallery, gripped the hand of the woman next to her as the State’s apology finally came, and the pair sobbed openly with many others as a pulse of relief surged through the chamber.

Once isolated in fear, the survivors were now united in vindication.

The applause that began on the floor for Enda Kenny’s speech soon spiralled out into something far more profound, as the Dáil stood in ovation and acknowledged the hardship and pain inflicted upon generations of women.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Grainne Cunningham– 20 February 2013

JANE and Ellen, 45 years each. Margaret G, 46 years. Mary K, 51 years. Agnes, 66 years.

The list read aloud outside the Dail sounded like a record of prison sentences.

In many ways it was, as Justice for the Magdalenes remembered the women who never left the laundries.

While inside Government buildings, some of the group awaited Taoiseach Enda Kenny’s words, outside among the candles, eyes filled with tears as the names of those who died in the laundries were read aloud.

Except there was not enough time to call out the names of all 1,150 women who entered those high-walled places of hard work and never left, so a few of those who toiled there the longest were called out.

Some, like Margaret G are still there, buried within the confines of Sunday’s Well. Others like Agnes were moved from Hyde Park to Glasnevin Cemetery “to make way for a property development”.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

20 February 2013

A compensation scheme is to be set up to make payments to them based on their unpaid work in the Magdalene Laundries.

The size of the payments will be determined by the recommendations made by Judge John Quirke, the president of the Law Reform Commission.

He will have to examine what to do in the cases of women who have already got compensation being transferred from an industrial school to a Magdalene Laundry.

He will have to give advice on other state supports required by the Magdalene women, such as medical cards, mental health services and counselling services.

And he will also have to come up with a method of ensuring the compensation payments to British and Irish-based Magdalene survivors do not affect their social welfare payments.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

[with audio]

It follows the historic and emotional apologydelivered by the Taoiseach Enda Kenny in the Dáil last night.

Mr Kenny announced the redress scheme last night as part of the State apology to the Magdalene women.

Mr Justice John Quirke has been appointed by the Government to structure the scheme. He has been given three months to submit a report on how to proceed

Justice Minister Alan Shatter said the Government was determined to ensure the fund would not be used to pay lawyers’ fees, with monies going solely to benefit the women.

He also acknowledged that there were many women who would never hear the apology, nor have access to payments.

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IRELAND
Herald

Claire Murphy– 20 February 2013

THE Department of Justice opens its doors today to the survivors of the Magdalene Laundries to apply for State compensation.

The 800 to 1,000 women are invited to register their details for the so-called ‘ex-gracia’ payment for their enforced time in the workhouses.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny has admitted that the State had wronged the residents and payments will be made for their years of unpaid work up until as late as the 1990s.

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