ABUSE TRACKER

LOUISIANA
The Times-Picayune

By Stephen Babcock, NOLA Media Group | The Times-Picayune
on March 11, 2013

The FBI has arrested a former Missouri pastor wanted on child sexual abuse charges in New Orleans. George Spencer, 48, was arrested Friday on several charges of forcible sodomy of a child and child molestation by the FBI New Orleans Violent Task Force.

The arrest was made at a home in the 4600 block of Viola Street in eastern New Orleans, according to a FBI news release.

Spencer, a resident of Jackson County, Mo., worked as an associate pastor at Greater Works CME Church in Kansas City. He allegedly assaulted a girl at the church in February, 2012, according to the news release.

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UNITED STATES
The New York Times

As 115 cardinals prepare to elect the next leader of the Roman Catholic Church, Times reporters covering the papal transition answered readers’ questions on the conclave process, the future of the church and the retirement of Pope Benedict XVI. …

Q: How likely is the Catholic Church to report priests accused of molestation to secular authorities?

LAURIE GOODSTEIN: It depends on whether the new pope is someone who understands that child sexual abuse is a crime that can damage a victim for life — and not, as some cardinals have said they believe, an accusation motivated by animus against the Catholic Church.

New policies on sexual abuse posted by the Vatican under Pope Benedict XVI in 2010 say that in countries where the law requires it, church officials should report priests who have been credibly accused of abuse to law enforcement authorities. But these policies are not binding, and the Vatican leaves it up to the bishops in each diocese to decide. While there is increasing awareness and improvement in how the church in the United States and some other countries has dealt with child sexual abuse, there are cases that have gone unreported to law enforcement.

One recent example is that of a pedophile priest in Kansas City, Mo., whose pornographic photographs of young girls were turned over to the diocese. Bishop Robert W. Finn did not alert the police about the enormity of the photographic evidence (another diocesan official eventually did), and the bishop has been convicted of a misdemeanor. The priest is now in prison, and victims advocacy groups have called for Bishop Finn to be removed from his position by the next pope. But while many abusive priests have indeed been defrocked after a legal proceeding within the church, it is the rare bishop who has been disciplined by the church for mismanaging abuse cases.

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VATICAN CITY
CBS SF Bay Area

VATICAN CITY (CBS / AP) — The Washington Post has called Cardinal William Levada of San Francisco one of the most influential people involved in the selection of the next pope. And for his part, Levada has not minced words in the days leading up to Tuesday’s conclave to replace Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.

He said the church needs to choose a younger cardinal to counter the years of a stiff Benedict who lacked the charm of predecessor Pope John Paul.

Levada is among several cardinals who have spoken candidly with the media while in Rome preparing for the conclave, to the point that the Vatican issued a news blackout late last week.

Levada retired in 2012 after spending six years as the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican’s orthodoxy watchdog, which also defrocked pedophile priests. He was archbishop in San Francisco prior to accepting the Vatican post.

He also played a key role in several church sex-abuse reforms while serving as an archbishop – and has drawn a sharp divide between gay men and pedophile priests.

“By nature homosexuality is a not a predatory activity, it is a sexual activity that the Catholic church does not condone,” he said. By contrast, he explained, pedophile priests are violating the sanctity and purity of young people.

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VATICAN CITY
NorthJersey.com

BY DAVID GIBSON
Associated Press

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Amid all of the prognosticating about who the cardinals could choose as the next pope in the conclave that starts here on Tuesday (March 12), one reliable thread has emerged: the desire to elect a pontiff who can be a pastor to the world as well as a taskmaster to the Roman Curia.

Finding such a combination in a single man, of course, may prove difficult if not impossible, which adds to the almost unprecedented level of uncertainty surrounding this papal election.

So if anything is possible, some say it might be better to reverse the prevailing wisdom — look for a pope who will talk tough to Catholics (and the world) while shepherding the Curia with a firm hand in order to better police the wayward.

The prospect might appall progressives and others who were happy to see the end of Pope Benedict XVI’s papacy, but it has enough appeal to conservatives that they are trying to make the case.

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SOUTH CAROLINA
Myrtle Beach Online

By Amanda Kelley — akelley@thesunnews.com

The Diocese of Charleston released a statement Monday following an allegation of sexual misconduct by a Charleston area priest.

Hayden Vaverek, a priest who previously served in parishes in Myrtle Beach and Garden City, is on administrative leave, said diocese spokeswoman Maria Aselage.

Authorities said someone told police Vaverek assaulted the person about 15 years ago when Vaverek was pastor at Our Lady of Lourdes in Greenwood. Aselage said no parishioners of Our Lady of Lourdes are involved in the reported sexual assault.

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ROME
CNN

[with video]

By Jonathan Wald, CNN

updated 3:14 PM EDT, Mon March 11, 2013

Rome (CNN) — A plain clothes policeman watches Francesco Zanardi. As he waits for his moment just outside the Vatican in St Peter’s Square, Zanardi’s intention is clear. So is the policeman’s.

The 42-year-old from Savona has traveled 550 kilometers [342 miles] to Rome, determined to make a delivery at the Vatican.

The policeman, however, is just as determined to stop him. Zanardi clutches a red case, emblazoned with a picture of Domenico Calcagno — one of the cardinals who will elect a new pope in the conclave this week — across it are the words, “Fuori Dal Conclave” or “Out of the Conclave.”

It’s stuffed with thousands of signed letters all claiming that Calcagno covered up the serial sex abuse of a priest in northern Italy. They want the cardinal to be disqualified from voting in the conclave. But no one is more insistent than Francesco Zanardi.

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NEDERLAND
Omroep Brabant

Auteur: Willem Jan Joachems

BREDA – In het Rapport Deetman worden diverse Brabantse nonnenkloosters genoemd. Het rapport schetst een ontluisterend beeld van sadistische nonnen die er soms niet voor terugdeinsden jonge meisjes te misbruiken.

Hoeveel ellende er was binnen de ziekenhuizen en kindertehuizen van de nonnen, dat is gissen volgens de commissie. Cijfers ontbreken. Vergeleken met de mannenkloosters lijkt er minder sprake van zwaar seksueel misbruik in zusterkloosters.

De nonnen maakten zich eerder schuldig aan psychische en lichamelijke mishandeling. Het gebeurde lang niet overal dat vrouwelijke religieuzen zich misdroegen, maar het gebeurde. Ook na al die jaren is dat schokkend om te lezen.

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NEDERLAND
Den Bosch Dichtbij

DEN BOSCH – Vandaag heeft de commissie Deetman het rapport gepresenteerd over seksueel misbruik van en geweld tegen meisjes en vrouwen in de Rooms-Katholieke Kerk. Er zijn klachten binnengekomen van seksueel misbruik in zusterkloosters in Den Bosch en Schijndel.

Precieze cijfers zijn er (nog) niet te vinden, maar er is wel een aardig beeld geschetst van de aard en vorm van het seksueel misbruik. Er kwamen klachten binnen van misbruik in het klooster Zusters van Liefde, Dochters van Maria en Joseph in Den Bosch, Zusters van de Sociëteit van Jezus, Maria, Jozef met kloosters in Den Bosch, Boxtel en Heeswijk en Moeder van Goede Bijstand in Schijndel. Daar heeft de commissie Deetman onderzoek gedaan.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Catholics4Change

BY KATHY KANE

The story of a patient from the St John Vianney Center being found on a school campus, has been making the news recently. I was the parent who discovered the patient on Bishop Shanahan’s campus back in December. I was in the parking lot and saw the man coming from around the side of the building, walk right past the front entrance and continue along the sidewalk of the school. His presence on the campus was very odd, so I followed him in my car and watched as he crossed the street and returned to St. John Vianney Center, a hospital that treats the behavioral and psychological needs of the clergy.

I am not going to get into all that has transpired with that particular incident; instead I want to focus on the broader issue of the Vianney Center allowing patients unsupervised off campus privileges. For now, I will just say that the parents of the school were only alerted after I requested that be done, and the police were alerted when I found that the school did not file a report of a patient from the facility being on the school campus. The Archdiocese has released a few statements about this situation, and although what they have said is not untrue, the statements certainly do not reflect my efforts to make sure the parents and police were alerted to the security breach.

The Vianney Center treats a variety of issues including addiction, mental health and sexual disorders. There are very few religious treatment centers left in the U.S. Odds are if a clergy member is making the news for some type of transgression they may be heading to Vianney for treatment. Such was the case of Msgr. Kevin Wallin, the priest dubbed “Msgr. Meth” who was federally indicted for operating a meth ring. He was in court last month trying to be released to Vianney. Luckily, the judge kept him in federal custody. Not so lucky for us however, are the priests who have been released on bail and then come to Vianney – facing charges for crimes such as possession of child pornography, indecent exposure and obscene conduct, to just name a few recent cases.

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NEDERLAND
BNR

Door Pieter van den Akker

11 March 2013

Bij ruim 40 procent van de seksueel misbruikte meisjes binnen de rooms-katholieke Kerk is sprake van ernstig seksueel misbruik. Dat blijkt uit onderzoek van 150 meldingen door de commissie Deetman.

De CDA-prominent deed op verzoek van de Tweede Kamer extra onderzoek naar seksueel misbruik van en geweld tegen meisjes binnen de Katholieke Kerk.

Thuis en in de parochie
Op basis van de onderzochte meldingen blijkt dat misbruik van minderjarige vrouwen meestal thuis en in de parochie gebeurde. Seksueel misbruik van jongens kwam veel vaker in instellingen voor, zo bleek uit eerder onderzoek van Deetman. Geweld tegen meisjes lijkt vooral gepleegd te zijn in instellingen zoals kindertehuizen en ziekenhuizen, schrijft Deetman.

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UNITED STATES
Washington Post

In a conclave week feature, Catholic clergy and laymen answer what they would do if they were pope. Read below for views from the Rev. James Martin, SJ , Lisa M. Hendey , Sister Julie Vieira IHM, the Rev. Dwight Longenecker and Timothy Shriver. Tell us your ideas in the comments below or tweet #ifIwerepope.

James Martin, SJ, is editor at large of America magazine and author, most recently, of “Together on Retreat,” an e-book taking readers through an interactive retreat.

Banish from your mind the idea that I have any chance to ascend to the highest office in the Catholic Church. Nor am I even supposed to want it. The founder of the Jesuit Order, St. Ignatius Loyola, asked Jesuits at the end of their training to make a formal promise not to “strive or ambition” for any high office in the church. (Ignatius didn’t like the clerical climbing he saw in the 1500s.)

But that doesn’t mean that I don’t have a few ideas about what I hope a new pope might do. So I suppose that the first thing I would do after choosing a name (I’d go with my baptismal name, since it’s the one God used to call me into the church) is to stand on the balcony overlooking St. Peter’s Square, and tell everyone that they are beloved children of God—rich and poor, young and old, man and woman, gay and straight, married and divorced, believing and agnostic and even atheist. God loves you because God created you. And the ones who feel most marginalized, I would tell the crowd in my poor Italian, are the ones to whom the church must love the most, as Jesus did.

To that end, I’d begin my pontificate by listening to those who have felt that their voices may not be heard. The poor, first of all. The church does an astonishing job in caring for the poor across the globe—it’s one of the finest things we do. But because the poor don’t have access to power, the church always needs to be particularly attentive to their needs. Who else? Sex abuse victims next. We can never stop listening to the stories of victims, and the more the pope hears from them directly—and from their families—the more the church will be to stop clerical abuse and make amends. (By the way, as a starting gesture, and a sign of penance, I would sell off some of the Vatican’s art collection to contribute to a Vatican fund for sexual abuse victims.)

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UNITED KINGDOM
Bognor Regis Observer

Published on Monday 11 March 2013

A PROBE has been launched into a convicted priest who carried on practising – without proper permission.

The Diocese of Chichester has initiated investigations into acts of worship which were led without proper permission by former priest Robert Coles, who was imprisoned last month.

A spokeswoman said it would conduct an ‘exhaustive investigation’ into how much Coles had continued his work as a priest at St Luke’s, in Stone Cross, East Sussex, after his retirement in December 1997.

“The Diocese has been made aware by several sources Coles assumed the role of priest on well over 100 occasions between 1997 and early 2003 without the legally required ‘Permission to Officiate’ status,” she said.

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SEATTLE (WA)
MyNorthwest.com

BY Chris Sullivan on March 11, 2013

A Catholic priest who taught at O’Dea High School in the 1970’s has been named again in sex abuse lawsuit.

Christian Brother Edward Courtney has once again been named in a lawsuit filed in King County Superior Court. A 52-year-old Seattle man claims he was abused by the priest while he was a student at O’Dea. The lawsuit claims the abuse at the school and at Brother Courtney’s mother’s house in 1975 and 1977.

Seattle attorney James Rogers represents the plaintiff identified as “T.H.” I asked him why his client didn’t come forward when Brother Courtney was being sued by several other people over the last decade.

“It takes a lot of time for a lot of people to realize their problems are caused by the abuse and to deal with it,” Rogers said. “His issues are happening now. He has a right to bring a cause of action, and that’s what he’s doing.”

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UNITED STATES
The Daily Beast

by The Daily Beast
Mar 11, 2013

Survivors of clergy sex abuse share their stories in ‘Crosses,’ by Carmine Galasso

As the Vatican’s cardinals descend upon Rome to elect a new pope, the Catholic Church is coming under heavy fire for including several “princes of the church” embroiled in child-abuse scandals, such as Roger Mahony, the former cardinal-archbishop of Los Angeles, who was ousted from office (but not from the conclave) for mishandling numerous allegations of sexual abuse at his diocese. While Mahony and others have been busy fraternizing and tweeting from the Vatican, groups such as SNAP (the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) are demanding that the Church confront its sordid history of coverups and denials.

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NIEDERLAND
Neue Zurcher Zeitung

(dpa) Tausende von Mädchen in den Niederlanden sind seit 1945 nach dem Bericht einer Untersuchungskommission von katholischen Geistlichen sexuell missbraucht und körperlich misshandelt worden. 40 Prozent dieser Mädchen wurden von Priestern oft über Jahre vergewaltigt, stellte die Kommission in ihrem am Montag in Den Haag veröffentlichten Bericht fest. Sie waren sechs bis 14 Jahre alt, als der Missbrauch und die Gewalt begann.

Die Kommission war von der katholischen Kirche eingesetzt worden und untersuchte den Missbrauch und Gewalt gegen Mädchen von 1945 bis 2010. Rund 150 Fälle hatte die Kommission untersucht. Die tatsächliche Zahl der Opfer sei nicht festzustellen, heisst es in dem Bericht. «Möglicherweise sind es Zehntausende.» Bereits 2011 hatte die Kommission eine Studie zum Missbrauch von Jungen in katholischen Einrichtungen vorgelegt. Danach waren 10 000 bis 20 000 Jungen Opfer von sexueller Gewalt gewesen.

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NIEDERLAND
news@orf

Tausende Mädchen in den Niederlanden sind seit 1945 nach dem Bericht einer Untersuchungskommission von katholischen Geistlichen sexuell missbraucht und körperlich misshandelt worden. 40 Prozent dieser Mädchen wurden von Priestern oft über Jahre vergewaltigt, stellte die Kommission in ihrem heute in Den Haag veröffentlichten Bericht fest. Sie waren sechs bis 14 Jahre alt, als der Missbrauch und die Gewalt begann.

Die Kommission war von der katholischen Kirche eingesetzt worden und untersuchte den Missbrauch und Gewalt gegen Mädchen von 1945 bis 2010. Rund 150 Fälle hatte die Kommission untersucht. Die tatsächliche Zahl der Opfer sei nicht festzustellen, heißt es in dem Bericht. „Möglicherweise sind es Zehntausende.“

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ROME
The Revealer

Who’s going to be the next pope? We know, more or less, who the cardinals are most likely to pick once the conclave gets rolling tomorrow. But there’s another question that should be asked as we watch the Vatican for white smoke: who do lay Catholics and victims of sexual abuse by the church want for pope?

There’s more than one way to dissect a papal election process of course, but as the sex abuse scandal still rightly casts a deep shadow over the church, there are two ways the new pope might try to “fix” the church: with a revised papal media presence, and with systematic reform in church leadership. According to at least some advocates, the cardinals are paying way too much attention to the former, and sweeping reform under the rug.

An advocacy group for survivors of sexual abuse named their “Dirty Dozen” of leading contenders last week. The list of papabiles names cardinals deemed unfit for the job because of their ties to the sex abuse scandal and has a fair amount of overlap with others in circulation, including one I compiled this week for Slate.

SNAP (the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests)’s executive director, David Clohessy, told me via email that some of the cardinals on the list might surprise Catholics, as they’re widely promoted as “reformers” in the church. Take, for example, Cardinal O’Malley of the United States, who has listed addressing the abuse scandal among his priorities for the next pope. But O’Malley, who is considered a “reformer” on the issue by some (including some survivors) for his “zero tolerance” stance towards child abuse in the Catholic church, has also shown “stunning” leniency toward some abusers under his watch. Many extant examples of church “reform” don’t actually address the problem, SNAP says. Clohessy says that the abuse within the church has gone on for centuries, adding, “It’s going on now. And it won’t be reversed in a few years. Because of this, SNAP advocates for victims to report abuse to “secular” authorities, indicating their lack of faith in the church’s current ability to address abuse cases internally.

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UNITED STATES
Washington Post

By Mathew N. Schmalz,
Updated: Monday, March 11

The Dolan buzz is building.

At first I thought it was part of the typical hype before a conclave. After all, if you’re in a big media market it makes sense to ask whether the local bishop is going to be pope.

Early-on editorials did emerge making a serious case for the cardinal archbishop of New York as someone who could be an effective bishop of Rome and head of the universal church. So, while it wasn’t really a buzz, there has been a consistent low frequency hum surrounding Dolan, punctuated by media-induced exclamatory pauses like “Wow!” and “Just maybe!”

Cardinal Dolan has repeatedly pushed back against speculation–sincerely, not with a false humility. But now the Italian press has really begun to push his candidacy. As the conclave approaches, he’s being seen as the anti-establishment candidate, the one who could bring the curia into line and also bring his common touch and plainspoken ways to the highly academic teachings of Benedict XVI and the mysticism of John Paul II.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Karen Polesir on March 11, 2013

Kids were hurt and crimes were concealed on Cardinal Rigali’s watch in Philadelphia. For that reason, we urge him to recuse himself from voting on the next pope.

Nothing can undo the harm that was done to hundreds of wounded Philly victims and tens of thousands of betrayed Philly Catholic families. But this simple gesture – Rigali staying away from the conclave – would at least be an overdue and welcome sign of contrition on his part. His participation will only deepen the suffering of many who have suffered enough.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

Tomorrow cardinal electors will meet in the Sistine Chapel. Milan’s archbishop is the favourite to “win”, but the race is still open

Andrea Tornielli
Vatican City

“Last time there was a figure who carried real weight; it was a man who was three or four times more influential than the rest of the cardinals. He was none other than Joseph Ratzinger. This is not the case this time. Therefore, the choice has to be made from one, two, three, four … a dozen candidates. Right now we don’t know anything, we have to wait for the results of the first ballot.” These words, spoken yesterday by the Archbishop of Lyon, Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, givean important snapshot of the situation on the eve of the Conclave, the assembly that is about to elect the 266th successor of Peter.

Obviously the cardinal would not have spoken in those terms had a strong candidate already been found; someone who is able to obtain the 77 votes necessary for becoming Pope. But his words echo those of the Archbishop of Paris, Cardinal André Vingt-Trois, who a few days ago mentioned “roughly half dozen candidates”. They also echo those of other cardinals from all over the world, who, during the informal discussions held over the last couple of days, have shown they are still open to considering alternative candidates.

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SOUTH CAROLINA
Patch

By Jonathan Allen

Update: In the wake of accusations that have surfaced alleging that Father Hayden Vaverek, a priest and administrator at St. Mary Magdalene Catholic Church in Simpsonville, engaged in alleged sexual misconduct many years ago while at another church, the Diocese of Charleston released the following statement on Sunday.

The full statement, which implies the alleged misconduct took place outside the church, reads:

“An allegation of sexual misconduct of a minor dating back more than 15 years has been made against Father Hayden Vaverek. Per diocesan policy, Father Vaverek must be placed on administrative leave and his priestly faculties withdrawn. Diocesan officials have notified law enforcement authorities about this allegation and are fully cooperating with them.

Father Vaverek served at several parishes and schools in South Carolina including those in: Greenville, Simpsonville, Anderson, Greenwood, McCormick, Myrtle Beach, Garden City, Moncks Corner, Bonneau, and Hilton Head Island. The reported allegation indicates the alleged misconduct occurred while Father Vaverek was pastor at Our Lady of Lourdes in Greenwood; however, no parishioners of that parish were involved in the reported allegation.

The Diocese of Charleston encourages all victims and those who have knowledge of any sexual misconduct to contact civil authorities in their area. To receive help and guidance from the diocese, please contact Sister Sandra Makowski at the Chancery in Charleston at (843) 853-2130 x209.

The Most Reverend Robert E. Guglielmone, Bishop of Charleston, asks everyone to pray for all victims of abuse and for their families.”

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NEDERLAND
Reformatorisch Dagblad

DEN HAAG (ANP) – Wim Deetman presenteert maandag een rapport over seksueel misbruik van en geweld tegen meisjes en vrouwen in de Rooms-Katholieke Kerk. Het onderzoek richtte zich op seksueel misbruik en fysiek en psychisch geweld van 1945 tot nu.

Een commissie onder leiding van oud-minister en voormalig burgemeester van Den Haag Deetman deed het onderzoek op verzoek van de Tweede Kamer. Eerder al onderzocht de commissie-Deetman seksueel misbruik van minderjarige mannen binnen de Rooms-Katholieke Kerk.

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UNITED STATES
Philadelphia Inquirer

Chris Freind

Posted: Monday, March 11, 2013

Thank God for small miracles. Or, in this case, huge ones.

The decision by Pope Benedict XVI to resign has given the Catholic Church an unprecedented opportunity to save itself. Whether the conclave of cardinals in Rome takes advantage of this blessing remains to be seen.

As one of the Catholic faithful, I desperately want to believe the conclave will choose wisely, and that it will:

Do whatever is necessary to rebuild the greatest, most benevolent institution the world has ever known;

Admit that its hard times – the sex-abuse scandal, corruption in the Vatican, and genuflecting at the wrong altar (that of political correctness) – are sins of its own making;

Finally learn to replace arrogance with humility, and value both forgiveness, and asking to be forgiven;

Understand the most powerful tool in the 21st century: public relations;

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CANADA
CBC

[with audio]

Hans Küng in conversation with Michael Enright.

A hundred and fifteen men have descended on Rome to choose a new pope. For the Catholic Church’s adversaries, as well as its anxious or disgruntled followers, there is hope for reform and renewal in the Church. Or maybe at the end of this month’s conclave, there will just be a new pope.

Dr. Hans Küng has long argued that profound reform is essential to the Church’s survival, and his critiques of the Church and the papacy carry more weight than most.

Dr. Küng is the last surviving theological advisor to the Second Vatican Council of 50 years ago. He is still officially “a Catholic priest in good standing,” but the Vatican stripped him of his authority to teach Catholic theology, following his critique of the doctrine of Papal Infallibility in the 1970s.

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ROME
Christian Science Monitor

Until recently, American candidates faced unease about US hegemony. With the end of the cold war and decline in American power, a couple of US cardinals are getting serious attention.

By Nick Squires | Christian Science Monitor

What are the prospects of an American being elected pope when 115 cardinals from around the world solemnly enter the frescoed splendor of the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel on Tuesday to begin the voting process known as the conclave?

Until recently, the received wisdom was that the Roman Catholic Church would never accept a pontiff from the world’s only superpower on the grounds that the United States already had quite enough temporal power.

There has also been concern that having an American pope could give the impression that the Vatican had embraced a pro-Washington bias, hindering the Catholic Church’s efforts to engage in tangled international issues such as the Israel-Palestinian conflict, the spread of militant Islam and poverty alleviation.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 11 March 2013 (VIS) – Following is a brief chronology of Conclaves in recent centuries along with interesting facts that occurred during each.

In the entire history of the Church, the longest papal election—taking place in Viterbo, Italy in 1268 and ending with the election of Gregory X—lasted for two years. It was as a result of this instance that the modern incarnation of the papal Conclave was instituted.

In modern history, the longest Conclave was that of 1740, which ended with the election of Benedict XVI. It lasted from 18 February until 17 August, 181 days. Fifty-one cardinals participated in the final ballot, four cardinals having died during the proceedings.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 11 March 2013 (VIS) – The “logistics” of the procedures carried out in a Conclave are not established on the basis of personal opinion nor are they subject to passing fads or improvisation. The liturgical tradition—established after the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council—notes with great precision the norms and rites that are to be followed. These are found in the Book of Rites of the Conclave.

The first aspect that the book highlights is the importance of the Conclave, as it involves the election of the Roman Pontiff. Then, focusing on the Mass that precedes the Cardinal electors’ entrance into Conclave, it dedicates an entire chapter to explaining the rites and rubrics of this Eucharistic celebration.

The Second Chapter describes the most significant moments of the ceremony of entry into Conclave, with the specific oath that the cardinals swear. The process of voting and the scrutiny of the votes is also subject to a precise order to be followed exactly as are the preceding and following rituals and the moment of the chosen cardinal’s acceptance as Roman Pontiff and his proclamation.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 11 March 2013 (VIS) – Today, the Office of Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff announced that this afternoon at 5:30pm in the Pauline Chapel of the Apostolic Palace, the officers and assistants of the Conclave process will take the oath of secrecy.

All those involved in the care of the coming Conclave, both ecclesiastic and secular persons, have received prior approval from the Cardinal Camerlengo and the three Cardinal Assistants as established in No. 46 of the Apostolic Constitution “Universi Dominici Gregis”. The following will take the oath prescribed in No. 48 of that document:

– The Secretary of the College of Cardinals
– The master of the Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff
– The masters of pontifical ceremonies

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 11 March 2013 (VIS) – In this morning’s 10th and final General Congregation 152 Cardinals were in attendance. Three new members for the Particular Congregation were picked by lot to assist the Cardinal Camerlengo for the next three days in the lesser affairs of the proceedings. The Cardinal assistants chosen were: from the Order of Bishops, Cardinal Antonios Naguib, patriarch emeritus of Alexandria, Egypt; from the Order of Priests, Cardinal Marc Ouellet, P.S.S., prefect of the Congregation for Bishops; and from the Order of Deacons, Cardinal Francesco Monterisi, archpriest emeritus of the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside-the-Walls.

“Twenty-eight cardinals spoke today,” Fr. Federico Lombardi, S.J., director of the Holy See Press Office reported, “bringing the total number of interventions given during the course of the 10 General Congregations to 161. There was a wide participation, even if some other cardinals would have liked to participate or to speak again. It was, however, decided not to have another Congregation this afternoon in light of the move to the Domus Sanctae Marthae and the preparations for the Conclave.”

This morning, among other topics, the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR) was discussed. “Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, as president of the Commission of Cardinals for oversight of the IOR, presented the current operations of that commission to those present along with the process for adopting the norms of transparency that it has established. Naturally, much was also said about the expectations and hopes for the future Holy Father.”

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VATICAN CITY
Washington Post

Who’s up, who’s down: Cardinals hold final talks amid debate over manager or pastoral pope

By Associated Press

Updated: Monday, March 11

VATICAN CITY — On the eve of their conclave to select a new pope, cardinals held their final debate Monday over whether the Catholic Church needs a manager to clean up the Vatican or a pastor to inspire the faithful at a time of crisis.

The countdown underway, speculation has gone into overdrive about who’s ahead in the papal campaign.

Will cardinals choose Cardinal Angelo Scola, the archbishop of Milan, an Italian with serious intellectual and managerial chops who hasn’t been tainted by the scandals of the Vatican bureaucracy?

Or has Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the Capuchin monk from Boston who has charmed the Italian media worked the same magic on fellow cardinals?

Most cardinals already knew Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet since he heads a powerful Vatican office. But maybe over the past week they’ve gotten a chance to hear him sing — he has a fabulous voice and is known for belting out French folk songs.

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AFRICA
San Francisco Chronicle

March 11 (Bloomberg) — Ugandan property broker Joseph Nsubuga has a message for those who think choosing an African pope would lead the Catholic church to become more flexible on such divisive social issues as abortion or homosexuality: Think again.

“An African pope would fight the homosexuality vice which has infiltrated our society,” the father of six said as he exited Sunday mass in the Kampala suburb of Kiwatule on Feb. 17. “The Pope would fight abortions and contraceptives since they are condemned by the faith.”

Africa is the fastest-growing region for a church with 1.2 billion members worldwide. The number of baptized Catholics on the continent more than tripled between 1980 and 2010 to 185.6 million, offsetting a decline in the flock in Europe and slower growth in the U.S. The shifting Catholic demographics and the African faithful’s conservative social values have helped make Ghana’s Cardinal Peter Turkson one of the favorite’s to succeed Benedict XVI at oddsmakers William Hill Plc and Paddy Power Plc.

“The church is doing well here because Africans are notoriously religious,” Emmanuel Abbey-Quaye, assistant secretary general of the Ghana Catholic Bishops’ Conference, said in a Feb. 11 interview in the capital, Accra. “Africans have strong cultural values which, in consonance with the church, frown on many issues including homosexuality.”

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UNITED STATES
Huffington Post

Michael D’Antonio

Like the victims of authoritarian states who remain devoted to their countrymen, many Catholics who were sexually abused as children by priests remain fiercely loyal to their faith and their fellow believers, who actually constitute the church. For them, Pope Benedict’s resignation and the conclave that will convene to name his successor, spark hope for a Catholic Spring that might bring the Vatican into the modern world.

To understand this hope, it helps to consider the recent report on American Catholics by the New York Times, which showed a steep increase in dissatisfaction with the way the church has handled the sweeping sexual abuse scandal that began 30 years ago. Three-quarters approved of Benedict’s resignation and a solid majority prays for the next pope to be more liberal on issues like birth control, the ordination of women, and marriage for priests. Sixty-two percent favored gay marriage, which is truly anathema for institutional Catholicism.

Beyond the opinions of lay people, the hope for a Catholic Spring is inspired by the same powerful forces — social media and the spread of democratic ideals — that have supported various Arab Spring movements and continually fuel the transformation of Chinese society. Here the media, both the conventional press and new web-based social tools, are speeding the pace of change by distributing information worldwide in real time and enabling the mobilization of great masses of people who never before possessed the means to organize in this way.

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CALIFORNIA
National Catholic Reporter

by Emeritus Archbishop John R. Quinn | Mar. 11, 2013

The eyes of the world are focused on Rome. The big question is who will be the next Pope. As they approach the election, reports indicate that the Cardinals are deeply concerned about scandals in the Church. But they are also concerned about two other things: about papal government and about reform.

Media reports, dealing with reform, tend to focus on clerical celibacy and on the ordination of women and on the reform of the Curia understood as putting it back in order. These are important topics but it would be a mistake to stop there. We know that there were reform movements during the period before the Reformation. Most of them failed, not so much for lack of holiness or the lack of worthy objectives, but because they failed to ask the deeper questions. They did not go far enough.

Today, if we want to deal seriously with the legacy of Vatican II and issues of reform we must have the courage to consider the deeper questions. This is not possible unless the paramount issue of the exercise of the papal office is addressed.

The papacy and the reform of the Roman Curia were taken off the agenda of the sixteenth century Council of Trent. Rome feared that discussion of the papacy or of reforming the Curia could reignite the controversy about whether a council was superior to the Pope. Vatican Council II balanced and corrected the teaching of the 19th century Vatican Council I and clearly located the papal office within the College of Bishops.

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CALIFORNIA
National Catholic Reporter

Full text of Emeritus Archbishop John Quinn’s Stanford address

by Thomas C. Fox | Mar. 10, 2013

Stanford, Calif. —
With the world’s cardinals set to choose a new pope, Emeritus Archbishop of San Francisco John Quinn on Saturday called for major church governance reforms, including changes in the papacy itself.

“Media reports dealing with reform tend to focus on clerical celibacy and on the ordination of women and on the reform of the [Roman] Curia. … These are important topics, but it would be a mistake to stop there,” Quinn said.

“Today, if we want to deal seriously with the legacy of Vatican II and issues of reform we must have the courage to consider the deeper questions. This is not possible unless the paramount issue of the exercise of the papal office is addressed.”

Quinn, who spoke as part of a daylong symposium, “The Legacy of Vatican II: Personal Reflections,” at Stanford University, called for major decentralization of Vatican and papal authority. He said this could be achieved through the creation of regional bishops’ conferences and synods of bishops with decision-making authority.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

The Holy See Press Office on Monday held its last briefing before the Conclave. The briefing happened after the 10th and final General Congregation of the Cardinals, in which 152 Cardinals participated. The head of the Holy See Press Office Father Federico Lombardi, SJ, confirmed the Cardinals heard a report on the Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR), more commonly known as the Vatican Bank. The Cardinals also spoke about their expectations and hopes for the new Pope.

They also chose the three assistants, from each class of Cardinals, who will help during the first days of the Conclave: Cardinal Antonios Naguib for the Cardinal-Bishops, Cardinal Marc Ouellet for the Cardinal-Priests, and Cardinal Francesco Monterisi for the Cardinal-Deacons.

The press officer said, judging by previous conclaves, if a ballot is held on Tuesday, the first smoke would probably not be seen until around 8pm.

Reporters were also reminded of a small change after a Pope is elected: Before appearing on the Central Loggia, he will pray, by himself, in the Pauline Chapel.

It was confirmed that Archbishop Georg Gänswein, the personal secretary of Pope-emeritus Benedict XVI, will proceed with the Cardinals before the Conclave, in his role as Prefect of the Pontifical Household.

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ROME
Gazzetta del Sud

Rome, March 11 – Activists are persisting in their call for the removal of an Italian cardinal from the conclave to elect a pope this week over allegations of covering up priest sex abuse. Francesco Zanardi, the head of victims group L’Abuso, appeared alongside the leaders of the US-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) at a hotel in Rome this weekend, accusing Cardinal Domenico Calcagno of systematically covering up cases of pedophilia at the diocese of Savona in northern Italy where he previously served as bishop. “Don’t attend the conclave,” said Zanardi.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic Free Press

As we wait for the election of a new pope we will hear from people on the ground in Rome and here at home to give us a sense of the anticipation. Today, Donato Infante III, a diocesan seminarian in Rome, explores the legacy of the various popes. The conclave to elect a new pope begins Tuesday.

Submissions for blog should be sent to editor@catholicfreepress.org

The Legacy of Pope Benedict, Part I
Monday, March 11

By Donato Infante

There are certain events, moments, or decisions that go down in history as defining a pontificate. For example, when people think of Pope Leo XIII, what comes to mind is the publication of Rerum Novarum, an encyclical that established Catholic social doctrine as a branch of theology in many ways moved the papacy away from the old model that had existed during the time of the Papal States to what we are familiar with now, the papacy as the world’s conscience. He is also known for inaugurating the great renaissance in the philosophy and theology of Saint Thomas Aquinas. Blessed John XXIII is remembered for having called the Second Vatican Council. Venerable Pope Paul VI is known for the publication of the controversial encyclical Humanae Vitae, upholding the Church’st2,000-year-old teaching on the sinfulness of using artificial contraception and the immortality of abortion.

A picture of the late pope Blessed John Paul II is seen on a rosary case at a souvenir stall near St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican March 10. A group of 115 cardinals is expected to enter the Sistine Chapel March 12 for the conclave to elect the next pope. (CNS photo/Eric Gaillard, Reuters)

The pontificate of Blessed John Paul II is still very close in memory, and so many such happenings come to mind. As time goes on, some of these will probably seem less significant than others, but now, eight years after his death, people associate with him the fall of communism, the reform of seminary life with the publication of Pastores Dabo Vobis, many world travels, the creation of World Youth Day, and his final witness that life, even amidst great suffering, is worth living.

What will the legacy of Pope Benedict XVI be? Over the next few days, while we wait for the start of the conclave and the election of the new pope, I will be writing about the four things that come to mind which seem to me the main contributions that Pope Benedict made during his pontificate and for which he will be remembered in history. The first of these is that Pope Benedict became a leader in handling the sexual abuse crisis. The leader of the Catholic Church acknowledge the horrendous acts that had been committed by priests and personally met with victims on his international trips in the United States, Malta, Australia, Germany, and the United Kingdom.

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UNITED STATES
Huffington Post

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

Whoever the new Pope will be, he will have the chance to address the 900 pound gorilla staring down the Catholic Church, namely the constant sexual abuse scandals. I am a Jew who wishes to see the Catholic Church flourish. I count myself fortunate to have met Pope Benedict prior to his resignation and remember his humility, graciousness, and warmth. As I travel the world I am awed by the global network of schools, orphanages, and hospitals run by the Catholic Church. No other world body even comes close.

But much of that is being eclipsed, be it fairly or otherwise, by the seemingly never-ending sexual scandals that bedevil the Church. Even in the brief interregnum between the announcement of Benedict’s resignation and its taking effect, we witnessed the sudden resignation of the leader of all Britain’s Catholics who confessed to a thirty-year history of abuse.

The Jewish community is likewise not averse to sexual scandal and in the New York area we recently witnessed the tragic story of a Rabbi found guilty of abusing a girl and being sentenced to 130 years in prison. This followed several other stories of Rabbis or religious Jewish teachers being found guilty of abuse of both boys and/or girls.
of

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DEUTSCHLAND
Sudwest Presse

In einer fundamentalistischen Freikirche sollen Kinder jahrelang sexuell missbraucht worden sein. Alle Fälle aus der Spätregen-Mission in Beilstein, die erst jetzt bekannt wurden, sind offenbar verjährt.

Autor: HANS GEORG FRANK | 11.03.2013

Martin Illig (61) ist als Vorsitzender der Spätregen-Mission in Beilstein bei Heilbronn erst im November 2012 angetreten. Schon bald wurde er mit schlimmen Vorwürfen konfrontiert. Als Chef der zuvor stark abgeschotteten Sekte hatte er Transparenz versprochen. Nun muss er beweisen, wie ernst es ihm mit der Offenheit ist. In der Glaubensgemeinschaft soll es mehrere Fälle des sexuellen Missbrauchs von Kindern, hauptsächlich Buben, gegeben haben. Erst jetzt, rund 40 Jahre nach den angeblichen Verbrechen, melden sich traumatisierte Opfer zu Wort.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Kleine Zeitung

“Die Beichte”, Felix Mitterers Theaterstück über sexuellen Missbrauch in der Kirche, darf nicht in einer niederbayerischen Kapelle aufgeführt werden. Vor einem Jahr habe der Pfarrer der Gemeinde Eggenfelden noch die Zusage für die Kapelle St. Anna gegeben, sagte am Montag der Betriebsdirektor des Theaters an der Rott, Uwe Lohr. Knapp vier Wochen vor der Premiere kam jetzt der Rückzieher.

“Die zuständigen Kirchengremien haben nun einstimmig erklärt, dass ein geweihter Raum nicht der richtige Ort für dieses Stück ist.” Die “Passauer Neue Presse” hatte am Samstag über den Fall berichtet.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Die Tagespost

Von Regina Einig

Gäbe es ein Ranking für kirchliche Institutionen, die das Übel von sexuellem Missbrauch und Gewalt gegenüber Minderjährigen glaubwürdig aufarbeiten, so käme Kloster Ettal einer der vorderen Plätze zu. Seit drei Jahren stellt sich der Konvent ohne Selbstschonung einem dunklen Kapitel seiner Geschichte. Die Einsicht, dass Entschädigungszahlungen und Therapien das Geschehene nicht ungeschehen machen, hatte in Ettal sichtbare Konsequenzen. Deutlich wurde das an der Art und Weise, wie sich der Konvent beispielsweise in der Fastenzeit mit den Fehlern der Vergangenheit auseinandersetzte und an der internen Kommunikation im Kloster arbeitete.

Die Benediktinermönche in Ettal sind heute weit davon entfernt, einen Schlussstrich unter die Vergangenheit zu ziehen. Kloster, Schule und Internat sind nach dem Jahr 2010 nicht mehr wie vorher. Auch die in dieser Woche vorgestellte Studie (Seite 5) wurde vom Kloster in Auftrag gegeben und bezahlt. Die guten Früchte der Aufarbeitung sind nicht zu übersehen. Der Ettaler Opferverein hat das nicht verschwiegen und billigt dem Kloster zu, was katholischen Institutionen öffentlich in der Regel bewusst oder unbewusst verweigert wird: Anerkennung für ihre Aufklärungsarbeit in puncto sexueller Missbrauch.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Eckiger Tisch

Für einen glaubwürdigen Neuanfang und eine wirksame Prävention von sexuellem Missbrauch sind eine breite Diskussion der Ursachen und eine Erneuerung der Hierarchie der Katholischen Kirche notwendig, die an der Verheimlichung und Vertuschung mitgewirkt hat. Dazu gehört unbedingt eine Öffnung der Akten des Vatikans zu sexuellem Missbrauch für unabhängige Untersuchungen.

In Rom trifft sich dieser Tage ein Kreis von 115 Männern, um den neuen Bischof von Rom zu bestimmen, der für die katholische Weltkirche mit ihren über 1,2 Milliarden Mitgliedern, 400.000 Priestern und fast 5000 Bischöfen den Petrusdienst erfüllen soll und der dabei den Anspruch erhebt, in der Weltgemeinschaft ein Brückenbauer zu sein.

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NETHERLANDS
Onderzoekrk.nl

Deetman recommends special mediation for victims of violence against women in the Roman Catholic Church

THE HAGUE, 11 March 2013 – Special mediation by professional mediators should be provided for female victims of (excessive) violence within the Roman Catholic Church to offer them healing, acknowledgement and reparation, in combination with financial compensation. Drs. W.J. (Wim) Deetman recommends that the Catholic Church should facilitate this mediation to show its concern about the violence that has been reported by victims. Deetman makes the recommendation in the final report of the follow-up inquiry conducted under his chairmanship into the abuse of and violence against girls within the Catholic Church.

The findings of this independent inquiry, which was carried out between August 2012 and the beginning of 2013, do not provide sufficient basis for a sharply defined, clearcut definition of (excessive) violence that can be used widely and with retrospective effect. In the absence of a clear definition of (excessive) violence, the existing complaints procedure cannot be applied. Deetman recommends that complaints of violence should therefore be handled through this programme of special mediation.

This inquiry was a follow-up to the Commission’s earlier inquiry, also under Deetman’s chairmanship, into sexual abuse of minors (boys and girls) in the Catholic Church. The original Commission of Inquiry’s final report was published at the end of 2011. The research organisation that carried out this follow-up study focused not only on sexual abuse, but also on (excessive) physical and psychological violence against female minors within the Catholic Church in the Netherlands since 1945. Both inquiries were commissioned by the Conference of Bishops and the Conference of Religious in the Netherlands (KNR).

Research questions and sources

The main objectives of the follow-up to the earlier enquiry were:
 to provide more insight into the nature, seriousness, circumstances and impact of sexual abuse and (excessive) physical and psychological violence against underage women within the Roman Catholic Church, as well as accountability for it;

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Peter Isely on March 11, 2013

Dozens of deaf men were abused as kids by a priest. As adults, they were betrayed by Cardinal Angelo Sodano and other Catholic officials who ignored their pleas for help. We grieve for these once-helpless children and struggling adults as Sodano prepares to lead a special liturgy tomorrow as the conclave begins.

Sodano is a dramatic symbol of almost everything that is wrong with the Catholic hierarchy, especially when it comes to addressing and stopping the sexual assault of children by clergy and the cover up these crimes. We hope he’ll have the decency to let someone else lead the conclave’s opening mass tomorrow. If he doesn’t, we hope his colleagues will persuade him to step down.

Sodano has the distinction of occupying during the past 23 years the two senior most positions of power after the Pope, at one time simultaneously, of Vatican Secretary of State and Dean of the College of Cardinals, where he either enabled or ignored clergy child sex crime worldwide.

It was Sodano, according to knowledgeable sources, who blocked the investigation of the notorious Austrian pedophile Cardinal Hermann Groer.

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ROME
John Thavis

As we approach the start of Conclave 2013, it’s instructive to take a look back on Conclave 2005 – especially given the possibility that a protagonist of that election could return as a papabile this time around.

The vote tallies in the 2005 conclave were leaked five months later in an anonymous cardinal’s diary, which formed the basis of an article published by the Italian journal Limes. The author, Lucio Brunelli, is a respected journalist who has covered the Vatican for decades, so his account – which has since been supported by others – deserves attention.

According to the diary, Cardinal Ratzinger led off the first ballot by obtaining 47 votes. Behind him were Argentine Cardinal Jorge Maria Bergoglio with 10 votes, Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini of Milan with 9 votes and a handful of other candidates with lower numbers.

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ROME
National Catholic Reporter

by John L. Allen Jr. | Mar. 11, 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.

Read all of John Allen’s papabile of the day stories here.

Attentive readers will notice a subtle shift in the headline today, from papabile, singular, to papabili, plural. That’s because I’m treating three papal candidates in this piece, not just one. We’re going to examine the prospects of the three Americans generally considered the most plausible contenders: Cardinals Timothy Dolan of New York, Sean O’Malley of Boston and Donald Wuerl of Washington.

I’m assuming my readers don’t need a whole lot of biographical background on these three figures. What’s critical is to understand why each might become pope, and why they might not. In this last installment of the “Papabile of the Day” series, that’s precisely what we’ll explore.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Tony Flannery

Mon, Mar 11, 2013

When Pope Benedict spoke of the face of the Catholic Church being “disfigured”, and when he used the word “filth” about aspects of church life, maybe he was partly referring to the Vatican itself. The next pope will have a major task ahead of him, not just with the universal church, but with reforming the Roman curia.

The Vatileaks gave us insight into a dysfunctional system. We got a glimpse of a structure that was riddled with power struggles, infighting and jealousies. Even if only part of what was revealed is true, it still amounts to a major clean-up task for the new pope.

My concern is an older scandal, which continues to reveal new and more astonishing features. I am referring to the story of the founder of the Legionaries of Christ, Marcial Maciel Degollado. For those who don’t know, this man founded a large and conservative religious order, and also a lay institute, Regnum Christi. He was a great friend of John Paul II, and of one of the most powerful people in the Vatican, Cardinal Angelo Sodano.

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FRANCE
IOL

March 11 2013

AFP

Paris – Putting the blame for paedophilia on the Roman Catholic Church is a way of avoiding the issue, a top French cardinal says.

“There is a kind of opinion that is an easy way of ridding (society) of the issue of paedophilia by putting it on the Church,” Andre Vingt-Trois, the archbishop of Paris, told AFP in an interview.

“We shouldn’t be duped. It’s easy because that prevents asking the question within society itself,” said Vingt-Trois, 70, one of the 115 cardinals set to elect the next pope in a conclave starting on Tuesday.

“Paedophilia is not solely a Church problem. Eighty percent of victims of paedophilia are in families, and we don’t talk about that,” he said, rejecting what he called a “fascination” over the issue in connection with the Church.

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UNITED STATES
Mother Jones

By Kiera Butler

Mon Mar. 11, 2013

“Even on a good day, I get discouraged thinking about the election of a new pope,” laments Maureen Fiedler, a nun and blogger at the progressive Catholic newspaper National Catholic Reporter. “They all look like a Vatican version of the tea party movement.”

On Tuesday, three weeks after Pope Benedict XVI announced his resignation on February 28, the world’s cardinals will begin their conclave to choose a new pope. The past few decades have been rough ones for a church struggling with the widespread sex abuse scandal and an ever-worsening shortage of clergy. But with 1.16 billion members worldwide, the Church is still massive—and it’s actually in a perfect position to help save the planet, should it choose to do so.

The flock is increasingly centered in the developing world, where people are most likely to bear the brunt of environmental destruction and climate change. The church has a strong tradition of social justice work, including the United States’ Catholic Worker movement and Latin America’s liberation theology. Indeed, National Catholic Reporter notes that even the notoriously socially conservative Benedict XVI famously delivered a World Day of Peace speech called “If You Want to Cultivate Peace, Protect Creation,” and named pollution among the world’s “social sins.”

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ROME
National Catholic Reporter

by John L. Allen Jr. | Mar. 11, 2013

Rome —
Eight years ago, when the cardinals of the world gathered to elect a successor to Pope John Paul II, their watchword was “continuity.” Buoyed by the massive outpouring of grief and affection for the late pope that washed through the streets of Rome, they felt they had just witnessed the end of a massively successful pontificate, and they wanted to keep the momentum going.

The man who was the intellectual architect of John Paul’s papacy, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, therefore seemed an obvious choice.

This time around, there’s another voting issue that seems equally front and center, although it may not lead quite as directly to a specific candidate. In a word, the driving issue this time appears to be “governance.”

Time and again, both publicly and privately, cardinals have said that whatever other qualities the next pope may possess, he has to be someone who can remedy the perceived breakdowns in business management in the Vatican over the last eight years.

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ROME
National Catholic Reporter

by Joshua J. McElwee,Dennis Coday | Mar. 11, 2013

Rome —
As a few night owls strolled through the crisp Roman evening Feb. 28, they were illuminated by one less reflection of lights. Behind the northern side of the square’s iconic colonnades, the apostolic palace was dark.

In a small but tell-tale sign of the transition facing the church, the lights of the pope’s apartment had been turned off.

Hours before, as Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation took effect at exactly 8 p.m. local time, the doors to the apartment had been ceremonially sealed with ribbon and wax, not to be broken before the election of a new pontiff by the church’s cardinals.

It was a dramatic change in scenery. And in the days before and after, change has been the watchword of the former pope, the cardinals who have taken up the role of shepherding the church, and analysts speculating on what happens next for the central command of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics.

Following a series of scandals — reports that gay Roman priests are overly influenced by their lovers, the resignation of a cardinal accused of sexual impropriety, and the continuing effects of last year’s trial of the papal valet for leaking Vatican documents — each has said the church needs to go through some sort of spiritual change or transformation.

“This is a time of thirst” for the church, Vienna Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, considered a long-shot possibility to be pope, told NCR in a brief interview March 4.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

by NCR Editorial Staff | Mar. 11, 2013

Editorial

In the opening days of the general congregations, the series of meetings the College of Cardinals convene in the lead-up to the conclave that will choose the next pope, an idea was floated in the Italian press about a way to clean up the governance issues that have plagued the Vatican under Pope Benedict XVI’s reign. The idea was to elect one of the over-80-year-old cardinals as pope. Such a pope, a curial old hand, would have a clear understanding of how the Curia actual works and could rein it in. The candidate would have to be somebody tough enough to crack down on uncooperative dicasteries and end rivalries. Somebody with clear thinking and a firm hand — that’s what’s needed. The idea — like many floated in the Italian media these days — didn’t get much traction.

We have also heard people longing for a return of someone like Archbishop Giovanni Benelli, a legendary substitute (assistant) secretary of state under Pope Paul VI. This guy knew how to run a tight ship. With Benelli in charge, everyone knew his job and his place and the work of the Vatican got done. A TIME magazine profile of him from 1969 describes how he prepared and organized newspaper clippings and reports and arranged them on the breakfast table every morning for Paul VI. He arranged papal audiences and appointments with similar efficiency. Though only an archbishop and only the No. 2 man in his office, he could make cardinals tremble in fear if they tried to circumvent or cross him. A new Benelli would turn this place around, they say.

A third idea has emerged in the last day or so. The new pope needs to be a modern CEO who would update church systems with modern management practices, understand finances and have a command of modern communication technologies. The idea is to shuffle a few MBAs among the theology degrees.

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ITALY
Huffington Post

Paul Schwarzman

There is strong circumstantial evidence that Niccolò Machiavelli – history’s most cunning writer about power – may have plotted to obliterate the Roman Catholic Church and its governing Cardinals to purge it of the corruption of that epoch. The repercussions of those events definitively changed the mission of the Church to what it is today.

Machiavelli may have precipitated the Sack Of Rome in 1527, in which tens of thousands of Romans were butchered. Ironically — in a brilliant strategic PR shift by the Church government — the horrors of the Sack allowed the Church to survive and thrive. Now, with Pope Benedict XVI’s possible repudiation of his election by the Cardinals, he may have seeded doubt to their claim to be the infallible voice of God, and with it, shaken their pillar in the Church. In his actions, the Pope may have achieved the very goal of Machiavelli 500 years later.

Let’s consider the background history of how we arrived here.

Machiavelli was a Florentine diplomat and author of The Prince that became the handbook for despots from Napoleon through Hitler to Mao. It specifies how to apply acts of cruelty to achieve and maintain power at any cost. It is a page-turner, with Machiavelli serving as eye witness to Cesare Borgia — the son of Pope Alexander VI and role model for The Prince — who galloped with death squads and proudly garroted a general in the diplomat’s presence.

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CANADA
Digital Journal

By Arthur Weinreb
Mar 11, 2013

Montreal – A Quebec victims group would like to see Marc Cardinal Ouellet succeed Pope Benedict as the next head of the Catholic Church. But the reasons for their support are not exactly complimentary to the 68-year-old cleric.

A small rally was held yesterday outside a Montreal church. Some protesters wore white paper hats similar to mitres worn by Bishops saying, “Vote for Ouellet.” At the rally, the Quebec Association of Victims announced their support for the Quebec cardinal to become the next pontiff. The group was, and is, critical of Ouellet for not doing enough to help those who were victimized by the church.

Since Pope Benedict announced his resignation last month, Ouellet’s name has been included in a list of serious contenders to succeed Benedict. In supporting the cardinal, the group does not believe he is necessarily the best candidate for the job.

The group believes if Ouellet becomes the next pope, international attention will be focused on Quebec and this will put the abuse suffered by their 3,500 members in the international spotlight.

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TEXAS
Houston Press

By Casey Michel
Mon., Mar. 11 2013

Martin Villanueva didn’t mind the first time his tires were punctured. He knew how to repair the drill-holes — take a nail, take a bit of adhesive, and call it good. He was frustrated, sure. But these things happen. Random day, random car.

Then, it happened again. Nails, adhesive, frustration. And it happened again, and again, and again. And Villanueva’s nail stock ran low, and his budget ran lower, new tires purchased after every few punctures.

And a pattern, beginning nearly three years ago in Edinburg, began to grow. The holes, this automotive stigmata, came only when Villanueva’s car was sitting in the parking lot of a new church he was visiting. They came only when he skipped out on his traditional place of Catholic worship, Edinburg’s Holy Family Church, and settled into another pew on Sunday mornings.

The whole time, Villanueva suspected. The location, and timing — it all pointed to one individual. It all pointed to a jilted love. It all pointed to a friend-cum-vagrant, a priest, Eusebio Martinez, who believed that he and Villanueva should maintain more than a simple pastor-parishioner relationship.

“When I met when him, I was building a house for him,” Villanueva told Hair Balls on Friday. A relationship developed, and flowered. It grew far quicker than Villanueva would have preferred. “He wanted me to be real close, wanted to be a real good friend. And then he wanted to be in control of myself.”

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MASSACHUSETTS
My Fox Boston

IPSWICH, Mass. (MyFoxBoston.com) – There are more abuse allegations against a Roman Catholic priest who is already accused of abusing a young boy in Ipswich.

The Salem News says Rev. Richard McCormack has been indicted on additional counts of child sex abuse.

Last year, McCormack was charged with abusing a young boy in the early 1980s. That’s when McCormack worked at the Salesian Brothers’ Sacred Heart retreat center and seminary in Ipswich. FOX 25 covered that story.

A second victim has reportedly now come forward to prosecutors after McCormack’s arrest. He claims he was abused between 1981 and 1983 when he was 9 years old.

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ROMA
La Repubblica

Lo strano affare del palazzo del cardinale che in un giorno raddoppiò il suo prezzo

Roma, pagato 9 milioni e rivenduto a Propaganda Fide per 20. Imbarazzo in Vaticano perché negli stessi locali c’è la sauna gay più famosa d’Italia. E grazie a Tremonti la Chiesa non paga un euro di tasse. L’acquisto voluto fortemente dal Segretario di Stato Bertone di CARLO BONINI

ROMA – Al civico 2 di via Carducci, nel cuore della città umbertina, a un centinaio di metri dal ministero dell’Economia, un palazzo nobiliare dall’elegante atrio e dalle grandi finestre tiene insieme, tra le stesse mura, la Congregazione per l’Evangelizzazione dei Popoli (Propaganda Fide) e la più grande sauna gay d’Italia.

Non solo. Custodisce i segreti di una singolare operazione immobiliare costata al Vaticano 23 milioni di euro, caldeggiata dal cardinale e Segretario di Stato Tarcisio Bertone, conclusa con grande soddisfazione e importanti plusvalenze da una società di Busto Arsizio, ma con nessun vantaggio fiscale per le casse dello Stato che, a questo complesso immobiliare acquistato dalla Congregazione ha riconosciuto l’extraterritorialità e dunque l’intangibilità e la totale esenzione fiscale che i Patti Lateranensi assicurano ai luoghi di culto.

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NEDERLAND
NRC

door Joep Dohmen

De Rooms-Katholieke Kerk moet vrouwen die als kind vaak ernstig mishandeld zijn in katholieke tehuizen, erkennen en smartegeld betalen. Dat adviseert Wim Deetman in een vandaag gepubliceerd vervolgonderzoek rond het misbruikschandaal in de Kerk.

In de bestaande klachtenprocedure krijgen alleen slachtoffers van seksueel misbruik erkenning en compensatie. Deetman stelt voor vrouwelijke geweldsslachtoffers te helpen via een speciale bemiddeling door mediators. Over mannelijke geweldsslachtoffers zegt hij niets.

Vervolgonderzoek commissie-Deetman

Het vervolgonderzoek bouwt voort op het onderzoek van de commissie-Deetman, naar seksueel misbruik van jongens en meisjes in de katholieke kerk. Daaruit bleek dat “enkele tienduizenden” kinderen, vooral jongens, sinds 1945 slachtoffer waren. Voor hen kwam er een klachten- en compensatieregeling. Op verzoek van de Tweede Kamer keek Deetman daarna nog specifiek naar het seksueel misbruik van meisjes en jonge vrouwen, en naar schrijnende gevallen van geweld.

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NEDERLAND
Kerknieuws

De commissie-Deetman heeft drie gevallen van seksueel misbruik binnen de Rooms-Katholieke Kerk gemeld aan het Openbaar Ministerie (OM). De gevallen zijn verjaard, maar omdat de gemelde mishandelingen zo ernstig waren, zijn ze toch aan het OM doorgegeven.

Dat meldde de commissie-Deetman maandag, op basis van vervolgonderzoek naar seksueel, fysiek en geestelijk misbruik van meisjes binnen de kerk.

De commissie onder leiding van Wim Deetman deed eerder al onderzoek naar seksueel misbruik binnen de kerk. Uit dat onderzoek bleek dat door falend toezicht tussen de 10.000 en 20.000 kinderen misbruikt konden worden in katholieke instellingen en internaten. Voor dit vervolgonderzoek kwamen 181 nieuwe meldingen binnen van minderjarige slachtoffers over seksueel misbruik, al dan niet in gecombineerd met geweld. 79 meldingen werden verder onderzocht. Ook 71 oude meldingen, uit het vorige onderzoek, werden meegenomen.

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NEDERLAND
Trouw

UPDATE Ruim veertig procent van de meisjes die melding hebben gedaan van seksueel misbruik door rooms-katholieke geestelijken zijn ‘ernstig’ misbruikt. Dat blijkt uit het rapport dat Wim Deetman maandag presenteert.

Bij ‘ernstig’ misbruik is sprake van verregaande seksuele handelingen en penetratie. De meeste seksuele zaken vonden thuis en in de parochie plaats. Fysiek geweld vond vooral plaats in instellingen, zoals internaten en ziekenhuizen. Meisjes waren doorgaans tussen de 6 en 14 jaar toen het misbruik of het geweld begon.

Het onderzoek, dat zich richtte op de periode van 1945 tot 2010, bracht alleen verjaarde feiten aan het licht. Deetman kreeg 181 nieuwe meldingen binnen, waarvan er 79 nader zijn onderzocht. Ook zijn er 71 meldingen uit het vorige onderzoek (naar seksueel misbruik van jongens) meegenomen.

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VATICAN CITY
Rome Reports

March 11,2013 (Romereports.com) (-ONLY VIDEO-) On Monday morning at 9:30 a.m, Cardinals made their way to the Vatican to hold their last congregation meeting before the conclave begins on March 12th.

The congregation meetings are a time for the 115 cardinal electors (and non-electors) to discuss the state of the Church, its strengths, challenges and above all the profile the next Pope should have.

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VATICAN CITY
City News Toronto

Cardinals began arriving at the Vatican on Monday for a final day of talks before entering the conclave to elect a new pope.

The balloting process is due to start on Tuesday.

The cardinals are expected to discuss the state of their Church which was left reeling by the abdication last month of Pope Benedict and struggling to deal with a string of sexual abuse and corruption scandals.

“So today is really a day where the cardinals are coming together for a meeting, they’re having more prayer and reflection in their very great responsibility for the rest of the week,” Kim Daniels, the Director of Catholic Voices USA said.

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CANADA
Times Colonist

Following a coroner’s inquiry into the deaths of four truant children, frozen to death on Fraser Lake on New Year’s Day 1937, the headlines in most B.C. newspapers reported no blame for the tragedy should be attached to the priests who ran the Lelac Indian School, about 80 kilometres west of Prince George.

“Indian School Authorities Absolved in Lake Tragedy,” read one. “No blame in boys’ death,” echoed another. And the Catholic priest who ran Lelac suggested it was really the failure of parents to discipline their children that led to the deaths of eight-year-olds Maurice Justice and Allan Willie, and nine-year-olds Johnny Michael and Andrew Paul.

Careful reading of the coroner’s report tells a different story.

School principal Father Patrick MacGrath, testifying at the inquiry convened Jan. 4, 1937, by local coroner C. Pitts, MD, set the scene for casual indifference of staff toward students on the day the drama began. Mark his protestations of innocence carefully: “I had been away all day on Jan. 1, returning at 5 p.m., but it was not until 9 p.m that I first heard that four boys were missing.” Four boys aged eight and nine missing late on a winter afternoon with temperatures already below zero and falling fast, and no one thought to inform the principal for four hours? He added the runaways were “first reported to Bishop Caudert” but didn’t clarify whether the bishop had been alerted earlier or whether he, on hearing the news, had immediately passed the word along.

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ROME
CBS Miami

ROME (CBS4) – While many pilgrims on a spiritual journey are flocking to Rome to observe history in the making, others have made the trek here to expose hurt anger and outrage.

Dark clouds hovered above St. Peter’s Basilica Sunday, days before the start of the papal conclave. The haunting faces of innocence lost, allegedly stolen at the hands of abusive priests, emerged with the hope the world will watch and the cardinals will listen.

They feel that the cardinals need to select a Pope who will do more to heal the wounds of victims and more to safeguard the children.

“They have to do something, intervene, because there’s a problem. We are talking about children, they are completely abandoned before, during and after. They are treated like animals,” David Clohessy, director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) told CBS4′s Michele Gillen in Rome.

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AUSTRALIA
WA Today

AAP

Cardinal George Pell has labelled an article about him in the Fairfax media on Monday as a “smear of the most vindictive kind”.

A statement released by the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney on Monday says the article misrepresents the outcome of a 2002 inquiry into an allegation against Cardinal Pell.

The inquiry, headed by independent commissioner Alex Southwell QC, cleared Dr Pell of allegations he molested a boy during a camp at Phillip Island, in Victoria, in 1961.

The church says the article said Dr Pell was tainted by sex abuse scandals and long dogged by allegations of sexual abuse against him.

“These statements are utterly false and seriously defamatory,” the church said in a statement.

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CANADA
APTN

By Kathleen Martens
APTN National News
WINNIPEG – Canada’s chief adjudicator for the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement’s Independent Assessment Process (IAP) has resigned, APTN Investigates has learned.

Dan Ish gave his written notice to the IAP’s Oversight Committee a few weeks ago, saying it will be effective in June.

Ish has been overseeing the multi-billion dollar program since being appointed for five years in Sept. 19, 2007.

However, the IAP has received triple the expected number of applications from former residential school survivors, something Ish cited in stepping down.

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TEXAS
Spiritual Sounding Board

Sometimes, catastrophic events sweep us into a stress-inducing storyline that we never intended or even imagined. And the outcomes may change our lives forever. That’s the core of the story in the 2012 movie, The Impossible. Just as a family is enjoying what’s supposed to be a relaxing vacation together in Thailand, they get caught in a disastrous tsunami. It literally sweeps them apart from one another and lands them in crisis mode as they scramble just to survive – and then, hopefully, to search despite stress, find one another, and recover.

I think that’s kind of what happened to Chris Tynes this past week. I don’t know where this experience will take him, but for now, he’s ended up seemingly at the vortex of a long-term controversy involving Prestonwood Baptist Church (PBC) in Plano, Texas. Through a series of events outside his control, he became the latest lightning rod in a spiritual electric storm that started in the 1980s and has been building toward super-spark status since 2010. He was the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time, and he got shocked.

Or – if you believe that God providentially puts the right person in the right place at the right time – then Chris is yet another link in a heaven-ordained chain of people sent to Prestonwood to give them opportunities to respond to truth and justice. And pretty much all Chris did was ask questions, especially to confirm or deny some rumors that had surfaced. Here’s the new reality: Because we live in an era where allegations linger, in part because news online is “unscrubbable,” it turned out Chris read accounts from Amy Smith and Christa Brown about ongoing accusations of issues at PBC with a now-convicted sexual offender, John Langworthy, who previously served on staff with Prestonwood in Dallas. Apparently Chris asked PBC leaders “The Deplorable Question,” and it triggered what seemed to be self-protective actions by one of the largest churches in the entire Southern Baptist Convention.

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NEDERLAND
NOS

De commissie-Deetman komt vandaag met een tweede rapport over seksueel misbruik binnen de katholieke kerk. Het rapport gaat met name over het misbruik van meisjes en vrouwen, van 1945 tot nu.

Het onderzoek van de commissie, waarvan oud-minister Wim Deetman de voorzitter is, richtte zich eerder vooral op de gang van zaken in katholieke internaten. Daar werden jongens opgeleid en daardoor lag de focus op mannelijke slachtoffers van misbruik.

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NEDERLAND
RTL

Wim Deetman presenteert vandaag een rapport over seksueel misbruik van en geweld tegen meisjes en vrouwen in de Rooms-Katholieke Kerk. Het onderzoek richtte zich op seksueel misbruik en fysiek en psychisch geweld van 1945 tot nu.

Een commissie onder leiding van oud-minister en voormalig burgemeester van Den Haag Deetman deed het onderzoek op verzoek van de Tweede Kamer. Eerder al onderzocht de commissie-Deetman seksueel misbruik van minderjarige mannen binnen de Rooms-Katholieke Kerk.

Naast een analyse van de meldingen worden ook ervaringen van de slachtoffers beschreven. Voor het onderzoek zijn gesprekken gevoerd met een aantal melders, deskundigen en vertegenwoordigers van lotgenoten en met bestuurlijk verantwoordelijken. Ook zijn archieven onderzocht.

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SCOTLAND
Daily Record

THE Catholic Church in Scotland have been rightly accused of hypocrisy, their official spokesman admitted yesterday.

And the Church have failed to support people struggling with their sexuality, Peter Kearney, director of the Scottish Catholic media office, said in the most frank comments by a Church official yet about the downfall of Cardinal Keith O’Brien.

After a gruelling fortnight for the Church, which saw O’Brien, their most senior cleric, admit sexual misconduct, Kearney admitted the Church rightly faced charges of being hypocritical.

Archbishop Philip Tartaglia – who replaced O’Brien – said last week the Church had been accused of hypocrisy “for obvious reasons”.

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UNITED STATES
The Daily Beast

by Jason Berry
Mar 11, 2013

Marcial Maciel Degollado, a priest from Mexico with an extravagant name, was the greatest fundraiser for the postwar Catholic Church and equally its greatest criminal.

“A life … out of moral bounds,” is how Pope Benedict XVI described Maciel in a 2010 interview, two years after Maciel’s death. A “wasted, twisted life.”

And a life that exposed shocking flaws in the Vatican and the papacy. The saga of Father Maciel opens a rare view onto the flow of money in the Roman Curia across the last half century, a time during which his rise to power and late-life crash into scandal stained the campaign for John Paul II’s sainthood and became a quagmire for Benedict XVI.

In the late 1940s, Maciel began sexually plundering teenage seminarians in the religious order he founded, the Legion of Christ. He also shuttled between Mexico, Venezuela, and Spain, courting benefactors like a senator with silk between the fingers, portraying his Legionaries as a force of resurgent orthodoxy, himself a fearless foe of communism.

That message had booming resonance in Mexico, a heavily Catholic country seared by memories of lethal anticlerical persecutions set in motion by the Calles regime in the 1930s, a milieu powerfully evoked in Graham Greene’s novel The Power and the Glory. Maciel won government support for seminary scholarships in Madrid, after the Spanish Civil War cemented ties between Francisco Franco’s dictatorship and the Catholic hierarchy. Wealthy industrialists and patricians from the Spanish-speaking world poured money into Maciel’s fledgling order.

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ROME
Chiesa

It will be a Church with two thirds of the faithful in the southern hemisphere. With more Catholics in Manila than in Holland. With the West in a decline of faith. And with the United States at the center of the new geography

by Sandro Magister

ROME, March 11, 2013 – The pope whom the cardinals are preparing to elect will guide a Church that over the past century has experienced the most impetuous numeric growth of its history, and at the same time a very strong change in its geographic dislocation. With the United States as the focal point of the shift.

Catholics were and remain one sixth of the global population. They were and remain half of all Christians. But in absolute numbers they have quadrupled. In 1910 they were 291 million. In 2010 1.1 billion.

What is most arresting, however, is the geographical revolution. This has been presented by the Washington-based Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life in a recent survey:

> The Global Catholic Population

A century ago, 70 percent of Catholics lived in Europe and North America. Today just 32 percent, less than one third of the total.

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VEREINIGTE STAATEN
Die Presse

Boston. Jeder vierte Amerikaner ist Katholik, sieben von hundert Katholiken weltweit sind Amerikaner: Die römische Kirche ist in den Vereinigten Staaten nach mehr als 200 vorwiegend protestantisch geprägten Jahren eine etablierte Größe. Im Jahr 1910 waren 16 Prozent der US-Bürger katholisch, 2010 waren es 26 Prozent.

Und die Kirche dürfte trotz der wie überall im Westen fortschreitenden Verweltlichung der Gesellschaft weiterhin wachsen. Denn während im 19. Jahrhundert die Einwanderer aus Irland und Italien den Katholizismus in der Neuen Welt stärkten, sorgen heute die Lateinamerikaner für frisches Blut. Zwar war laut der aktuellsten Erhebung des Pew Research Center im vergangenen Jahr nur jeder dritte amerikanische Katholik hispanisch. Doch 30 Prozent der rund 75,4 Millionen Katholiken in den USA sind im Ausland geboren. Im US-Kirchenvolk gibt es somit mehr als doppelt so viele Einwanderer wie in der gesamten Bevölkerung. Die hispanischen Katholiken sind jung, die Hälfte ist unter 40 Jahre.

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OSTERREICH
Der Standard

Bringen wir das in wenigen Stunden beginnende Konklave auf den Boden der Realität: Es geht weniger darum, den Richtigen zu finden, als vielmehr darum, den Falschen zu vermeiden! Die Bekenntnisse des Kardinal O’Brien müssen für seine Amtsbrüder ein Schock sein. Fast wäre er in die Sixtinische Kapelle mit eingezogen. Kürzlich hat er sich zu sexuellen Übergriffen bekannt. Ist er der Einzige, der diesbezüglich etwas auf dem Kerbholz hat? Vermutlich nein. Gerade der konservative Flügel muss sich vor der Formel fürchten: je konservativer, desto Groër.

Aber es geht nicht nur um dieses Thema. In der römisch-katholischen Kirchengeschichte war stets die Dreifaltigkeit von Sex, Macht und Geld präsent. Geld: Wer von den Kardinälen ist in den internationalen Finanz-Schlamassel der Vatikanbank involviert? Macht: Wer ist politisch belastet, weil er in seinem Heimatland hinter den Kulissen zu sehr in politische Machenschaften involviert ist? Eine Frage vor allem für demokratisch wenig entwickelte Länder.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
New Hampshire Union Leader

By KATHRYN MARCHOCKI
New Hampshire Union Leader

The next Pope needs to be much more than a holy man, teacher and shepherd to the estimated 1.2 billion Roman Catholics worldwide and a better manager of the Vatican’s internal bureaucracy than his predecessor, several New Hampshire Catholics said.

But Pope Benedict XVI’s successor must be much more.

The new pontiff must continue to address the clergy sexual abuse crisis and – perhaps most importantly – confront what several clerics call the “godless” agenda of the primarily secular Western world that threatens to strip people of their humanity and seeks to silence the voice of religion. …

Clergy sexual abuse

While Catholics hold widely varying opinions on qualities the next Pope should have, most agree he must be committed to resolving the clergy sexual abuse crisis.

“It’s paramount,” Frontiero said. Benedict, he said, made “some progress in the accountability of bishops.”

“That progress needs to continue and there needs to be transparency … We can’t evade these things any more. We’ve got to handle them directly. Accountability, especially among the bishops, is critical,” he added.

Guevin added that “we need a Pope who would continue to address the clergy abuse scandal to make it clear to the bishops that … they really try to make it a priority to protect children.”

Longtime advocate of abuse victims, Carolyn Disco of Merrimack, said the only viable candidate for the post is Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin.

“There is a zero chance for his election, but he ‘gets it’,” Disco said in an e-mail response. Martin admitted bishops covered up clergy sexual abuse, voluntarily released church files to government-sanctioned investigators and served in the Holy See’s diplomatic corps, said Disco, who is New Hampshire Voice of the Faithful’s survivor support chairman.

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CANADA
Leader-Post

By Jason Warick, The StarPhoenix March 11, 2013

Saskatoon and area Roman Catholic priests and volunteers will soon be prohibited from meeting behind closed doors with parishioners.

The main goal of the new policy, which also mandates criminal record checks and directing those with criminal allegations to police first, is to eliminate sexual abuse, said Blake Sittler, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Saskatoon’s co-ordinator of care. It should also protect priests and other workers from false allegations, he said.

“This is a major paradigm shift,” Sittler said in an interview Sunday after attending a Calgary conference on the issue.

“We do not want this (abuse) to happen. It disgusts and disappoints us as well.”

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NEW YORK
Albany Times Union

By Brendan J. Lyons

Updated 5:59 am, Monday, March 11, 2013

NEW YORK — A proposal to abolish New York’s statute of limitations on sex crimes involving children was the subject of a gut-wrenching Assembly hearing in Manhattan that included testimony from an attorney for two brothers who said they were raped as boys by an Albany Roman Catholic Diocese priest.

Tina M. Weber, a Philadelphia attorney, read statements from the brothers, who are now adults, about their emotionally tumultuous lives since they said they were raped repeatedly in the 1980s and 1990s by a former priest, Gary Mercure, who was convicted two years ago of forcibly raping a child in Massachussetts.

Weber implored the Assembly’s Codes Committee to push legislation that would make New York one of a growing number of states that have expanded or eliminated statutes of limitations on child sex crimes.

Variations of the measure, known as the Child Victims Act, have passed the Assembly four times but never made it to a vote in the state Senate, where Republican leaders and other lawmakers say the legislation could be financially devastating to the Catholic Church and other organizations.

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IRELAND
New York Daily News

[PaddyPower.com]

By Stephen Rex Brown / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Sunday, March 10, 2013

There’s a new favorite in the Popestakes: Italy’s Angelo Cardinal Scola is 2-1 to be the next pontiff, overtaking the previous front-runner, Ghana’s Peter Cardinal Turkson, who is at 4-1, according to Irish bookie Paddy Power.

Rory Scott, a spokesman for the legal bookmaker, said the lengthy deliberations among the cardinals last week worked in Scola’s favor, because the formal conclave this week is now likely to move faster.

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BOSTON (MA)
NECN

(NECN: John Monahan, Boston) – There is renewed speculation that Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley is a top candidate to become Pope.

A leading Italian newspaper polled eight Vatican experts. Five of them list Cardinal O’Malley as one of their top picks to be elected during the conclave that will begin Tuesday.

Cardinal O’Malley tied a Brazillian cardinal as a top contender, but won an online reader’s poll.

Sunday, O’Malley and the other cardinals had a chance to say Mass in their honorary churches in Rome.

Cardinal O’Malley made no mention of the clamor during his Mass. Instead, he focused on praying for the best possible outcome.

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MICHIGAN
Detroit Free Press

By Christina Hall
Detroit Free Press Staff Writer

A lawsuit has been filed against the Archdiocese of Detroit, a Mt. Clemens church, its pastor and a parishioner who was convicted of a sex crime involving a 14-year-old girl on church property.

The lawsuit, filed last week in Macomb County Circuit Court, seeks at least $25,000 in damages from the archdiocese; St. Peter’s Catholic Church and the Rev. Michael Cooney, and Michael Lentini, who was convicted of assaulting the child. It also requests a jury trial.

The lawsuit was filed by the mother of the girl. The family belonged to the church.

The suit cites negligence on the part of the archdiocese, church and Cooney for failing to ensure child abuse or suspected child abuse or inappropriate sexual behavior is reported to authorities.

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MICHIGAN
WOOD

MOUNT CLEMENS, Mich. (AP) — A lawsuit against a priest and the Catholic church says they failed to protect a 14-year-old girl from sexual abuse by a 19-year-old man.

The Detroit Free Press (http://on.freep.com/YafjoD ) says the suit was filed last week in Macomb County Circuit Court against the Rev. Michael Cooney, St. Peter’s Catholic Church in Mount Clemens, the Archdiocese of Detroit and sexual misconduct convict Michael Lentini.

The suit says the priest and church were negligent and failed to act after getting reports of the sexual misconduct.

The archdiocese suspended Cooney in February 2012 after learning of the case, saying he apparently failed to report what he knew to police as church policy requires. He later was reinstated.

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VATICAN CITY
Canada.com

By Matthew Fisher, Postmedia News March 10, 2013

VATICAN CITY — Cardinal Marc Ouellet ambled across St. Peter’s Square Saturday afternoon unnoticed by swarms of pilgrims, tourists and journalists.

Thirty hours later the 68-year-old Canadian, who is among the favourites to be named as the next pope, was greeted by hundreds of journalists when he celebrated mass Sunday evening in a packed church 200 metres from the Vatican.

If Ouellet is chosen to succeed Benedict XVI as the Vicar of Christ at a papal conclave that is to begin Tuesday one can only imagine how much life will change for the burly prelate from the backwoods of Quebec. At a minimum the avid hockey player and fan will never again enjoy a leisurely stroll in St. Peter’s Square or a quiet vacation with his 91-year-old mother Graziella, or hunting and fishing with friends and relatives in his birthplace of La Motte, Que., a tiny village 500 kilometres northwest of Ottawa.

Parishioners who attended Ouellet’s mass at the Santa Maria in Traspontina Church in Rome on Sunday were unanimous that he had given a bravura performance. Speaking entirely in Italian at the local church assigned to him as cardinal-priest when he became one of the princes of the church is 2003, Ouellet said during his homily that God had already decided who the next pope would be and that the cardinals would simply be naming the one that He had already chosen.

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SCOTLAND
Scotsman

By STEPHEN MCGINTY
Published on Monday 11 March 2013

THE Catholic Church in Scotland should open its “secret” files and publish an audit of abusive priests, according to the former head of the Church’s working party on child protection.

Alan Draper, who compiled a report on 22 “problem priests” as long ago as 1995, criticised the Church for paying lip service and failing to act on a second damning report in 2004, which said certain priests were not adequately monitored and “unacceptable levels of risk to children may have been and could remain present”.

The second, 27-page report was written by May Dunsmuir, then director of child protection for the Catholic Church, and has been seen by The Scotsman. It criticised Scottish bishops for failing to provide proper training, adequate supervision of problem priests and for organising “no national or diocesan collation and dissemination of child protection statistical information and analysis”.

The report, which was sent to Archbishop Keith O’Brien, then president of the Bishops’ Conference, also criticised existing policy as “silent on certain matters, eg, how to respond to allegations involving clergy or a bishop”.

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SCOTLAND
Mirror

By: Greg Christison
Published: Mon, March 11, 2013

Speaking a week after Cardinal Keith O’Brien admitted sexual misconduct, the Church’s head of media, Peter Kearney, also admitted it rightly faces claims of hypocrisy.

His comments come as a child protection expert appointed to advise the Catholic Church over abuse claims said evidence suggested that priests were “out of control sexually”.

Academic Alan Draper has been informed of 20 child sex allegations in Scots parishes during the Eighties and Nineties and revealed that not all were reported to police.

Mr Kearney admitted more needs to be done to provide support for Catholics struggling with their sexuality.

He added: “If there’s an area where the Church hasn’t been seen – frankly, because it’s not present – it’s in that area of compassionate, pastoral outreach to people who are struggling with same-sex attraction, or they’re confused about it and would love the chance to talk to someone in a compassionate, pastoral context.

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SOUTH CAROLINA
WSPA

Sexual misconduct allegations have been made against a local Catholic Priest.

On Friday a man who was representing the catholic church approached an investigator at the Greenwood County Sheriff’s Office. He told investigators that a sexual incident involving a minor occurred years ago at Our Lady of Lourdes with Father Hayden Vaverek. Deputies say the victim now lives out of state and had someone from the catholic church meet with the Sheriff’s Office to make a report.

The Dioceses of Charleston tells 7 On Your Side that an allegation of sexual misconduct of a minor dating back more than 15 years has been made against Father Hayden Vaverek. As diocesan policy he has been put on administrative leave and his priestly faculties withdrawn.

According to Dioceses of Charleston, “The reported allegation indicates the alleged misconduct occurred while Father Vaverek was pastor at Our Lady of Lourdes in Greenwood; however, no parishioners of that parish were involved in the reported allegation.”

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SOUTH CAROLINA
ABC 4

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCIV) – A spokeswoman with the Diocese of Charleston says a pastor has been placed on administrative leave amidst allegations of sexual misconduct with a minor.

The allegations against father Hayden Vaverek date back more than 15 years to his time as pastor of Our Lady of Lourdes in Greenwood.

The Diocese says it is their policy to relieve Vaverek of his priestly facilities duing the investigation.

Father Vaverek has served in several parishes and schools in South Carolina, including nearby Moncks Corner.

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ROME
The Guardian (UK)

Lizzy Davies in Rome
The Guardian, Sunday 10 March 2013

It was a mass with a difference. For one thing, there were more worshippers in the Santa Maria della Vittoria church than usual. (“Come back!” begged the excited local priest.) For another, the liturgy was led by a jovial American who joked about swiping the church’s most exquisite treasure and taking it back to Boston. What’s more, the congregation knew that by the end of the week, that man, Cardinal Seán O’Malley, could – just possibly – be pope.

He wasn’t the only one, of course. Across Rome, a similar story was being played out in many of the titular churches whose status affords them a special link with one or other of the 115 cardinals who will choose Benedict XVI’s successor. On a day of rest before the start of conclave , many of the most prominent prelates visited their Roman flocks and called on them to pray for the right choice to be made. For many, good communication skills and a solid pastoral record are top of the list of qualities needed in the next pope – a fact that may not have gone unnoticed by the cardinals who chose to spend yesterday among the people.

“The conclave is just around the corner,” said Cardinal Angelo Scola, the archbishop of Milan and a leading papabile (possible candidate). “Let us pray that the holy spirit gives the church a man who can lead her in the footsteps of the great pontiffs of the past 150 years.”

As the preparations for conclave entered the final stretch, the chimney that will emit white smoke when a pope is elected was fixed on to the roof of the Sistine chapel on Saturday. A Vatican spokesman, Federico Lombardi, announced, meanwhile, that, among other objects, Benedict XVI’s fisherman’s ring had been scratched and thus destroyed. With a hint of relief, Lombardi also announced that yesterday was – as he put it – “a holiday”.

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ROME
CBS Boston

BOSTON (CBS) – Former Boston Cardinal Bernard Law is also in Rome ahead of the Papal Conclave.

Law will not vote because he is 81 years old and not eligible to take part in the Conclave to elect a new pope. The cut off for voting is age 80.

Law celebrated Mass at The Church of Santa Susanna in Rome Sunday morning.

Amid a throng of reporters, Law stopped for just a moment when asked what he wants from a new pope.

“Whoever the Holy Spirit chooses will lead us in this year of faith,” Law said.

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SOUTH CAROLINA
Independent Mail

By Michael Eads
Posted March 10, 2013
michael.eads@independentmail.com
864-260-1256

CHARLESTON — A former priest at Anderson’s St. Joseph’s Catholic Church has been accused of sexual misconduct with a minor.

Father Hayden Vaverek has been placed on administrative leave by the Diocese of Charleston and will be unable to conduct Mass, due to a criminal complaint filed Friday with the Greenwood County Sheriff’s Office. An unidentified man told police investigators about an incident with a minor that allegedly occurred more than 15 years ago.

“The reported allegation indicates the alleged misconduct occurred while Father Vaverek was pastor at Our Lady of Lourdes in Greenwood; however, no parishioners of that parish were involved in the reported allegation,” according to a news release issued Sunday by the diocese.

“In regards to the criminal process, law enforcement authorities will conduct their investigation and we will fully cooperate with them,” said Maria Aselage, director of media relations for diocese.

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UNITED STATES
Aljazeera

Rob Reynolds

American Catholics say the clergy child sexual abuse scandal is the biggest problem confronting the church today. That’s one finding of a survey by the Pew Research Center conducted in February. The survey also shows large majorities feel Pope Benedict XVI and American bishops have done a poor job of handling the crisis and in dealing with sexual abusers in the clergy.

No one knows precisely how many boys and girls have been sexually molested by priests; one estimate says at least 100,000 children were abused in the United States alone.

Adrian Ramirez, a 38-year-old married father of two who lives in the Highland Park section of Los Angeles, spoke to Al Jazeera about the sexual abuse that blighted his childhood and affected his adult life.

From the age of 11 Ramirez was brutally and repeatedly raped- hundreds of times over the course of two years.

The abuser was a man studying for the priesthood who had been placed in charge of youth activities in the parish.

“I’m constantly reliving it,” he says quietly. “After the youth groups he would rape me in his car. He would…even at church he would do it—in the pews. He would say, ‘imagine it’s God touching you. ‘ Who does that to a kid, you know? I was 12-years-old and I’m like, ‘Really? God is saying this is OK?’”

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SOUTH CAROLINA
Greenville Online

Associated Press

CHARLESTON — The Diocese of Charleston has placed a priest on administrative leave after someone made an allegation of sexual misconduct against him.

Church officials said they are cooperating fully with investigators reviewing the allegation against Hayden Vaverek.

Authorities say someone went to police last week and said Vaverek assaulted the person about 15 years ago when Vaverek was pastor at Our Lady of Lourdes in Greenwood. During his career, Vaverek has also served in parishes and schools in Greenville, Simpsonville, Anderson, Greenwood, McCormick, Myrtle Beach, Garden City, Moncks Corner, Bonneau, and Hilton Head Island.

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ROME
KL.FM (UK)

A victim of a paedophile priest has called for an Italian cardinal who will help elect the next Pope to step down, accusing him of covering up abuse.

Francesco Zanardi says he was abused by his local priest, father Nello Giraudo, when he was a young boy and is adamant Catholic Church chiefs knew of the case but failed to act.

At a press conference close to the Vatican, Mr Zanardi showed a letter dated 2003 which was written by the then Bishop of Savona in northwest Italy, Domenico Calcagno, who is now one of the 115 elector cardinals.

In the letter Bishop Calcagno wrote to Joseph Ratzinger, two years before he was elected Pope and while he was head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, outlining the case against Father Giraudo.

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ROME
Irish Central

By
PATRICK COUNIHAN,
IrishCentral Staff Writer

Published Sunday, March 10, 2013

Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley is the joint favorite to win the Papal election according to Italy’s paper of record, Corriere della Sera – and their readers’ pick.

The National Catholic Reporter website reports that the well respected paper asked eight contributors, including their own Vatican reporters and noted Vatican-watchers, to name their top three picks to be the next pope.

The report says Cardinal O’Malley was mentioned by five of those eight experts, tied with Odilo Pedro Scherer of Brazil and just one mention ahead of Angelo Scola of Milan.

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ROME
National Catholic Reporter

by John L. Allen Jr. | Mar. 10, 2013

January 2012 was the ten-year anniversary of the eruption of the clerical sexual abuse scandals in Boston, and on that occasion Cardinal Sean O’Malley sat down for an exclusive interview with NCR to discuss where things stand in Boston, across the country and around the world. He also spoke in candid terms about the toll the crisis has taken on him personally, and how the experience in Boston may have forced him to “toughen up.”

In light of the continuing buzz around O’Malley as a possible pope, it may be worth taking a second look at that interview, which can be found here: O’Malley on the sex abuse crisis: ‘It’s not behind us’

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ROME
First Things

Sunday, March 10, 2013,

Kevin Staley-Joyce | @KevinSJoyce

For the small percentage they comprise of Catholics worldwide, Italians are disproportionately represented in the Roman Curia and ecclesial governance more broadly, not to mention their long history of native-born popes. And while the last memory of an Italian pope is now three decades old, today’s populus Romanus has not let go of its special concern for the Roman pontiff. If the Corriere della Sera‘s polling can be trusted, a strong current of Italians (it claims nearly forty percent) has expressed admiration for Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley among the field of papabile cardinals. Along with his pastoral and theological strengths are qualities that resonate profoundly with the loyalties and hopes of many Italians. He is a Capuchin Franciscan like the nation’s beloved Padre Pio. He speaks Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese flawlessly, and strikes most as humble and consummately apolitical.

Today O’Malley offered Mass at his titular church, Santa Maria della Vittoria, the Roman landmark famed as the home of Bernini’s masterwork, St. Theresa in Ecstasy. The church has received much attention of late, if perhaps for indecorous reasons, being a stop on the city’s Angels and Demons tour. But at least Dan Brown’s fantasy manages to commit the irony of bringing tourists into churches instead of away from them.

The aged Carmelite friars who serve as the church’s caretakers excitedly said they had never in recent memory witnessed a crowd of today’s size. Perhaps forty print journalists, cameramen, and reporters packed into the transepts of the diminutive space, one of them having to be pulled away to allow O’Malley to process to the altar. A large congregation also attended, most of them natives, judging by their laughter when O’Malley joked in Italian of his desire to take the Bernini statue back to Boston. The press were largely Italian as well, save a number from Boston news outlets.

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ROME
Wisconsin Rapids Tribune

by Marco della Cava, USA TODAY

ROME – Applause is not what you commonly hear at a solemn Catholic Mass. And yet there it was, clear as the blue sky overhead.

The 100-odd parishioners packed inside Santa Maria della Vittoria, a gleaming jewel box of a Baroque edifice near this city’s central train station, directed their clapping Sunday toward U.S. Cardinal Sean Patrick O’Malley, who had come to say Mass at his titular church. Every cardinal has a titular church in Rome designated to him where he preaches when he’s in town.

The gesture was in response to an introduction by Father Rocco Visca, who in Italian had said, “May this be your last visit here as cardinal, and may we be the first church you visit as the next pope.”

Seated nearby, O’Malley, 68, allowed himself the briefest of smiles.

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BOSTON (MA)
Boston Catholic Insider

The international buzz about Cardinal Sean O’Malley has a few facts correct and a lot of them missing or wrong. In this post, we try to lay out everything as best we can, so you, the reader, can separate fact from fiction. This post will emerge by the end as a summary of the experiences in Boston over the recent years of his tenure.

We start with a discussion about what folks are saying the Catholic Church and Cardinals are looking for in the next Pope, then the positive references cited about Cardinal O’Malley, then the facts, results, and wrong or missing information about his track record in Boston in the areas of teaching and governing. Check back a few times between today and Monday morning as we add to the content.

Attributes Cardinals Say We Need in Next Pope

The key attributes we keep hearing repeatedly quoted in the press as desirable for the next pope are the following:
o Great governance, leadership and managerial skills: to shake-up and overhaul a Vatican curia tainted by internal political infighting and the “Vatileaks” scandal, restore financial transparency to the Catholic Church’s operations and assemble a solid team of people around him to support his teaching and apostolic ministry
o Great teaching skills—someone who can proclaim the Gospel and truths of our faith to all people, in-season and out-of-season, and who teaches not just by his words but also by his actions.

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CANADA
CBC News

Several dozen people who say they were sexually abused by members of Quebec’s Catholic church gathered today on the steps of St-Viateur church.

They were protesting against what they see as a lack of action in addressing sexual abuse in the church.

Some protesters wore white paper hats mimicking bishops’ mitres that read “Vote for Monseigneur Ouellet.”

They’re hoping Cardinal Marc Ouellet’s position as a possible candidate for Pope will shed some international light on their pending cases against the church.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Democrat

Kathy Mellott kmellott@tribdem.com

JOHNSTOWN — An application for notice of incorporation forming Friends and Family of Bishop McCort was shipped off to Harrisburg late last week, as Catholics in the area take another step toward coming to grips with what allegedly happened at one of their most sacred institutions – the place where they send their children to be educated.

Still reeling from the revelation two months ago of alleged sexual abuse by a Franciscan friar employed at Bishop McCort Catholic High School, parents, alumni and financial supporters of the school were shocked when principal and longtime school employee Ken Salem was placed on leave with pay.

The response has been swift and harsh.

The hope is that a formal organization will help the group, now several hundred strong and growing, get a response as they demand answers to why Salem was placed on leave and seek information about the makeup of the board of directors.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

The first voting session to elect the new Pope will take place on Tuesday 12th at 6 pm. The strongest candidates are Scola and Scherer

Andrea Tornielli
Vatican City

The Conclave’s real test, after the “extra omnes” pronounced by the Master of Ceremonies and the closure of the Sistine Chapel’s heavy wooden door, will come at around 6 pm this coming Tuesday.

The initial scrutiny for the election of Benedict XVI’s successor is the equivalent of political primaries. This is when the real candidates will shine through, those who have the strongest chances of getting majority votes. These will be the candidates who emerged as favourites in last week’s informal meetings.

The 2005 Conclave was a first for all but two cardinals. While the crowds paid their respects to Pope Wojtyla, a number of influential cardinals were subtly trying to push for the election of the strongest candidate among the cardinals: the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Joseph Ratzinger. The so-called “progressivists”, who were already at death’s door so to speak, tried to get Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini through but he only obtained 12 votes in the first scrutiny, while Ratzinger obtained a consistently high majority, with 47 votes in his favour. This time there is much more uncertainty but it is highly unlikely groups of electors will be trying to reach a consensus on the basis of a cardinals’ nationality. What has emerged from the recently held discussions is that cardinals are looking for a man with spiritual depth, who is able to govern, engage in dialogue and communicate. Even if there is no candidate who has quite the same authority and power as Ratzinger, the almost unanimous decision to bring the Conclave forward proves that something must have happened between Wednesday and Thursday.

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