ABUSE TRACKER

RHODE ISLAND/WORCESTER (MA)
Boston Globe

By Todd Feathers | GLOBE CORRESPONDENT MAY 06, 2013

Bishop Robert J. McManus, head of the Diocese of Worcester, was arrested for driving under the influence this weekend after police stopped him in Narragansett, R.I., police said.

McManus was arrested at 10:32 p.m. Saturday on charges of drunken driving, leaving the scene of an accident, and refusing a chemical test, Narragansett Police Captain Sean Coorigan said. McManus is to be arraigned Tuesday in district court in Wakefield, R.I.

“I made a terrible error in judgment by driving after having consumed alcohol with dinner,” McManus said in the statement. “There is no excuse for the mistake I made, only a commitment to make amends and accept the consequences of my action.”

“More importantly,” he said, “I ask forgiveness from the good people whom I serve, as well as my family and friends, in the Diocese of Worcester and the Diocese of Providence.”

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RHODE ISLAND
Turn to 10

Posted: May 06, 2013
By NBC 10 News

Narragansett Police arrested Worcester Bishop Robert McManus Saturday night. Police said McManus was charged with DUI and refusal of a chemical test.

Police Chief Dean Hoxsie said McManus was involved in a hit-and-run accident Saturday on Boston Neck Road. The man he allegedly hit followed him and called police.

Police arrived at McManus’ home in Bonnet Shores and arrested McManus. He was released on a summons and is scheduled to be arraigned Monday or Tuesday.

In a statement to the press, Bishop McManus said,

“On Saturday evening, May 4, I made a terrible error in judgment by driving after having consumed alcohol with dinner. There is no excuse for the mistake I made, only a commitment to make amends and accept the consequences of my action. More importantly, I ask forgiveness from the good people whom I serve, as well as my family and friends, in the Diocese of Worcester and the Diocese of Providence.”

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WORCESTER (MA)
Telegram & Gazette

By Shaun Sutner TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
ssutner@telegram.com

Worcester Bishop Robert J. McManus was arrested Saturday night in Narragansett, R.I., charged with drunken driving and refusing a chemical test, Narragansett police confirmed this morning.

The arrest was first reported by Rhode Island TV station NBC10.

According to the station, the bishop was in a hit-and-run accident on Boston Neck Road. The man whose vehicle he allegedly hit followed him and called police.

Police arrested the bishop at his vacation home in Bonnett Shores. He was released on a summons and will be arraigned either today or Tuesday.

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UGANDA
The Voice of Russia

[with video]

The Catholic Church has suspended indefinitely an Uganda priest who chose to blow the whistle on widespread sexual abuse of children and other crimes committed by the African clergy instead of covering it all up as he had been instructed to do, media report.

Anthony Musaala said he was ostracized by the archbishop of Kampala for shining a light on what he called an open secret.

“The Vatican turns a blind eye because it doesn’t want to be embarrassed about this blooming church. But I think it’s time we had the truth,” he told reporters. “Wherever you go, people know about this. It’s like an open secret. People know. Nothing is ever done.”

The issue was brought to the limelight after the media laid hands on Musaala’s leaked letter to archbishop Cyprian Lwanga that cited numerous instances of wrongdoings among the Uganda priesthood, including secret wives, children and abuse of minors.

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MISSOURI
Courthouse News Service

By JOE HARRIS

CLAYTON, Mo. (CN) – A young man killed himself after years of sexual abuse by a St. Louis priest, his parents claim in court.

John Doe 118 and Jane Doe 117 sued the Archdiocese of St. Louis, Archbishop Robert J. Carlson and Father Bryan Kuchar, in St. Louis County Court.

The Does claim Kuchar sexually molested their son while he attended a church camp at Kenrick-Glennon Seminary from 1999 to 2002, when he was 12 to 14.

Their son was thinking of becoming a priest and Kuchar was his mentor, the parents say.

“Young John Doe SON and the defendant had a confidential and/or fiduciary relationship,” the complaint states. “The power imbalance between defendants and John Doe SON increased the young boy’s vulnerability to defendant Kuchar.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

JOANNE McCarthy was ‘‘the genesis’’ of a police strikeforce set up to investigate the Catholic Church’s alleged cover-up of paedophile priests, an inquiry was told on Monday.

But the Newcastle Herald journalist was largely ignored by senior police, Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox told the inquiry, and police were ordered not to talk to her.

At a meeting of senior police in December 2010, Mr Fox and other officers were gagged from talking to the media.

Mr Fox suggested police should involve McCarthy in their investigation because ‘‘she knows more about this issue than this entire room put together’’.

‘‘She is the be-all and end-all on this matter,’’ he said. ‘‘She has all the information and all the witnesses … it would be silly to cut her out.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By JASON GORDON May 6, 2013

DETECTIVE Chief Inspector Peter Fox was ‘‘uneasy’’.

His office had been raided while he was on leave, he and other police had been pulled off investigations into the alleged cover-up of child sex abuse, and a colleague had told him about the ‘‘Catholic Mafia’’ that existed within Newcastle’s police ranks.

‘‘I just didn’t trust other police,’’ he said.

Mr Fox spent most of yesterday in the witness box as the first day of inquiries into police handling of child sexual abuse allegations within the Maitland-Newcastle Catholic Diocese got under way.

The inquiry, headed by Commissioner Margaret Cunneen, heard a series of stunning allegations from Mr Fox including suggestions that a ‘‘Catholic Mafia’’ was behind a grand scheme of collusion, and that police chose not to charge former Catholic Bishop Michael Malone with hindering police investigations into paedophile priests.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By JASON GORDON May 6, 2013

COMMISSIONER Margaret Cunneen, SC, began proceedings yesterday with, quite possibly, the understatement of the year.

‘‘The Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle has had a very troubled history regarding issues of child protection and the sexual abuse of children perpetrated by persons associated with the diocese, including certain priests,’’ she said in her opening address.

She’s right. To this day, almost 20 people associated with the diocese have been convicted, charged or are facing court over child sex abuse allegations.

But this inquiry is not an exercise in proving the guilt of those who she said displayed ‘‘a reprehensible betrayal of faith and trust’’ against ‘‘vulnerable and innocent children’’.

This part of the statewide inquiry has two terms of reference: whether or not detective chief inspector Peter Fox was told to stop investigating the church’s cover-ups of those crimes, and whether or not the church assisted and co-operated with police investigations, or if they in fact colluded to protect members of the church.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

NEIL KEENE From: The Daily Telegraph May 07, 2013

A “CATHOLIC mafia” of senior officers within the NSW Police Force hampered investigations into child sex abuse within the Church, an inquiry was told yesterday.

A Special Commission of Inquiry heard from police whistleblower Peter Fox about conversations he had with another officer in 2010 about the so-called mafia and its role in covering up entrenched paedophilia within the Maitland-Newcastle diocese.

Detective Chief Inspector Fox said he and former officer Troy Grant – now a National Party MP in Dubbo – spoke about senior police “aligned to the Catholic Church” interfering with investigations into the clergy.

Those police allegedly sent Mr Grant on trips away and snowed him under with other investigations to ensure he would have no time to interview alleged victims or conduct a thorough investigation.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

DAN BOX From: The Australian May 07, 2013

NATIONALS MP and former policeman Troy Grant will directly contradict evidence given by whistleblower Peter Fox about alleged police cover-ups of child abuse in the Catholic Church, an inquiry has heard.

Detective Chief Inspector Fox told the NSW special commission of inquiry into child abuse yesterday that Mr Grant once used the phrase “Catholic mafia” to describe serving officers who were interfering with his own investigation of a pedophile priest.

Mr Grant, a former police inspector, “was referring to what he perceived to be police who he felt to be aligned to the Catholic Church, who were attempting to discourage investigations into clergy”, Mr Fox said.

During the 2002 conversation between the then-serving officers, Mr Grant was also “highly critical of some senior police at Newcastle (whom) he perceived to be hindering his investigation”, he said.

But counsel assisting the inquiry, Julia Lonergan SC, said Mr Grant, who will give evidence tomorrow, had signed a statement directly contradicting this claim. In this sworn statement, the member for Dubbo, in western NSW, denied using the phrase “Catholic mafia”, or that the conversation took place as Mr Fox described.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

A police whistleblower who alleges a “Catholic mafia” including police covered up child sexual abuse by priests in the NSW Hunter Valley has made explosive claims that his office was ransacked while he was away on leave.

Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox told a government-ordered inquiry that in September 2010, on the day he started a month’s leave, he was asked to handle a ministerial complaint regarding concerns about a “church conspiracy”.

When he returned from leave he was told by a now-retired public servant that his superior, Superintendent Charles Haggett, and Detective Chief Inspector Wayne Humphrey, had got the keys to his office and searched it “from top to bottom, looking in every filing cabinet”.

“You are kidding,” an astonished Insp Fox told the public servant.

“Please don’t tell them I told you,” she said. “But whatever it was they were looking for, they didn’t find it.”

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

May 7, 2013

Jason Gordon

A ”Catholic mafia” within the ranks of Newcastle police colluded with church leaders to cover up sex abuse in the Maitland-Newcastle diocese, an inquiry into the abuse has been told.

Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox told the inquiry on Monday that while on leave his office had been raided, he and other police had been pulled off investigations into the alleged cover-up of child sex abuse and a colleague told him about a ”Catholic mafia” within the ranks of Newcastle police.

”I just didn’t trust other police,” he said.

The inquiry, headed by Commissioner Margaret Cunneen, was told police chose not to charge former Catholic Bishop Michael Malone with hindering police investigations into paedophile priests.

The inquiry was also told that senior police were gagged from talking to Newcastle Herald journalist Joanne McCarthy, despite her being ”the genesis” of a strikeforce investigating the cover-up of child sex abuse within the diocese.

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MALTA
Times of Malta

When he was still the Vatican’s chief prosecutor in clerical abuse cases, Monsignor Charles Scicluna stated that the victims of clerical sex abuse at the St Joseph’s Home in Santa Venera deserved compensation, urging the Curia to set up a “fund which could go beyond the demands of damages granted by law”.

Later, on promotion to Auxiliary Bishop, he qualified this, saying that this was the “personal responsibility” of those who caused the damage. He said it was “unfair” to make the Church “vicariously liable” (that is, liable for the criminal acts of another because the institution has a particular legal relationship to the person who acted negligently or criminally) because the crimes were committed by individual priests, not the Church community as an institution.

The Church is cynically hiding behind the law in order to force 11 financially weak victims to desist from pursuing their rightful case for compensation.

In the immediate aftermath of the conviction of Godwin Scerri and Charles Pulis 20 months ago, Archbishop Paul Cremona had also publicly accepted responsibility for what had happened. He discussed financial compensation. But he reneged on this on the spurious grounds that the Church “bore no legal responsibility for what had happened to boys in the care of a religious order”.

Fair play, natural justice and, overridingly, the Church’s moral responsibility alone should suffice to be outraged at such a line of argument.

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SPRINGFIELD (IL)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release Monday, May 6, 2013

For more information, please contact SNAP Leader Melanie Sakoda at:
925-708-6175
melanie.sakoda@gmail.com

Priest accused of sexual misdeeds is reassigned
He was ousted from Champaign church in 2007
Now, cleric pastors congregation in Springfield
SNAP to church officials: “Be upfront with his flock”

A Greek Orthodox priest from Champaign who was suspended from the priesthood now works at a Springfield church.

Rev. George Pyle (formerly of Three Hierarchs Church in Champaign, IL) is now the priest at St. Anthony Hellenic (Greek) Orthodox Church in Springfield.

Leaders of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, recently learned that Metropolitan Iakovos Garmatis assigned Father George Pyle to Saint Anthony’s in February. The group wants church officials to disclose all information.

“We beg the metropolitan to give Springfield parishioners a complete and candid history of the allegations that were made against Rev. Pyle, including information about his treatment at Saint Luke Institute in Maryland,” said Melanie Sakoda of SNAP. Saint Luke is a Catholic facility which specializes in treating abusive clergy.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Riverfront Times

By Sam Levin Mon., May 6 2013

A local couple is suing the St. Louis Archdiocese and Father Bryan Kuchar in a lawsuit alleging that their son was raped by the priest when he was a young boy and, once the “abuse finally overtook him,” killed himself.

“It has been almost four years since his death, and we struggle with the part the Archdiocese of St. Louis played in the death of our son,” the parents write in a statement. “The fault lies with the church officials who failed to keep our son and other victims of predatory priests safe.”

Ken Chackes, attorney for the St. Louis couple, tells Daily RFT, “The sexual abuse was a cause of the death.”

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NEW YORK
Huffington Post

Joseph Amodeo

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened” (Matthew 7:7-8).

Today, myself and others knocked at the door of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, but the door was not opened, rather it was slammed in our faces. As I begin to write this article, I’m cognizant of the raw emotions that I feel deep inside my heart. It’s a feeling that I’m unfamiliar with, because until today, I have never been denied a seat at Christ’s table. In fact, today marks the first day that I have ever felt disowned, abandoned, and lost.

Earlier today, a group of Catholics including myself gathered on the corner of East 46th Street and Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. We gathered for a simple purpose, to dirty our hands as we prepared to attend Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. We were soiling our hands as a silent response to Cardinal Dolan’s column last week in which he suggested that LGBT people were welcome in the church so long as they washed their hands. As we began to rub our hands together with pieces of ash, our hands took on the look and feel of the effort that has defined our work to receive an equal seat at the table of Christ in the Catholic Church. Those participating were not only LGBT Catholics, but also allies and, perhaps most importantly, parents of LGBT children. We gathered not in protest, but as a silent witness.

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NEW JERSEY
Spiritual Politics

Mark Silk | May 6, 2013

What are they thinking over at archdiocesan headquarters in Newark?

In last Thursday’s self-exculpatory announcement of the departure of Fr. Michael Fugee from the “public exercise of priestly ministry,” they assert:

Following the Memorandum of Understanding, the Archdiocese did not assign Fr. Fugee to any post involving ministry with minors. His assignments were supervised administrative positions located at the Archdiocesan Center in Newark.

That’s not true. As was reported four years ago, and recalled in the Star-Ledger‘s stories about Fugee’s recent employment with parish youth groups, after his term of probation was over in 2009, Fugee was assigned as a chaplain to St. Michael’s Medical Center, over a mile away from the Center.

This untruth comes in the wake of the archdiocese’s turnaround on the issue of whether, according the memorandum of understanding negotiated with the Bergen County prosecutor’s office, Fugee was permitted to engage in supervised ministry of, and work with, children. When the Star-Ledger‘s Mark Mueller reported two weeks ago that Fugee was indeed doing ministry with minors, the archdiocese said that he was. Last week, they confessed that he wasn’t.

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TEXAS
KFOX

By Mateo Arnold and Catholic Diocese

EL PASO, Texas — Pope Francis named an auxiliary bishop out of Dallas as the new bishop of El Paso.

Mark Rev. Mark Joseph Seitz will take over for Bishop Armando Ochoa. Ochoa was appointed to lead the Catholic Diocese of Fresno, Calif. by Pope Benedict XVI in December 2011. Ochoa has temporarily been helping the Catholic Diocese of El Paso since then.

Seitz will become the seventh bishop of the Diocese of EL Paso. He first entered the seminary in Dallas when he was 18 years old, in 1972. He has been in Dallas ever since that time.

Seitz was born in Milwaukee, Wis. on Jan 10, 1954. He was ordained to the priesthood on May 17, 1980. In 1985, he received a Master’s Degree in Liturgical Studies from St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minn. He also holds a Master’s in Divinity and a Master’s in Theology from the University of Dallas. Pope John Paul II named him a Monsignor in December 2004.

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TEXAS
Roman Catholic Diocese of El Paso

With Praise & Thanksgiving to Almighty God, the Holy Father Pope Francis will announce the new Bishop for the Diocese of El Paso on Monday, May 6, 2013 at noon (Vatican City Time), 4am Mountain Time. Press conference will take place at the Pastoral Center in the Martyrs of the Americas Hall and be available by live stream at 10am Mountain Time

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 4 May 2013 (VIS) – Today, the Holy Father: …

– appointed Bishop Mark Joseph Seitz as bishop of the Diocese of El Paso (area 69,090, population 848,00, Catholics 662,000, priests 103, permanent deacons 27, religious 190), Texas, USA. Bishop Seitz, previously auxiliary of Dallas, Texas, and titular of Cozyla, serves as a member of the Subcommittee on Hispanic Affairs in the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 5 May 2013 (VIS) – “Today, the National Day of Children Victims of Violence, I give a special greeting to the ‘Meter’ Association. This gives me the opportunity to turn my thoughts to all those who have suffered and who are suffering because of abuse. I want to assure them that they are present in my prayers but I also want to forcefully state that we must all commit ourselves with clarity and courage so that every human person, especially children who are among the most vulnerable, be always defended and protected.” These were the Pope’s words before praying the Regina Coeli with the numerous faithful gathered in St. Peter’s Square, many of whom were with confraternities on pilgrimage to Rome for the Year of Faith.

The Holy Father also noted, in the context of that pilgrimage, that love for the Virgin “is one of the characteristics of popular piety that must be esteemed and well-ordered. That is why I invite those present to reflect on the final chapter of the Vatican II Constitution on the Church, ‘Lumen Gentium’, that speaks precisely of Mary in the mystery of Christ and the Church. It says that Mary ‘advanced in her pilgrimage of faith’. …. In the Year of Faith I leave you this icon of Mary the pilgrim, who follows Jesus the Son, and precedes all of us in the journey of faith.”

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NEW JERSEY
The Record

SUNDAY, MAY 5, 2013

BY DENISA R. SUPERVILLE
STAFF WRITER
THE RECORD

WYCKOFF — For some parishioners attending Sunday Mass at the Church of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, the resurfacing in the news last week of a former assistant pastor once accused of molesting a 13-year-old boy brought back memories they had left in the past.

“I would say people have put it behind them,” said Michael Jones, 34, a former Franklin Lakes resident who now lives in Bloomingdale, as he left noon Mass.

Jones said he only recalled the incident after reading an article on Friday about the Rev. Michael Fugee, 52, who served as assistant pastor from 1997 to 2001, when he was charged with criminal sexual contact and children endangerment for allegedly groping a 13-year-old boy.

“No one talks about it,” Jones said

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NEW JERSEY
Asbury Park Press

Written by
Anthony Panissidi
@APPanissidi

COLTS NECK — The resignation of a St. Mary’s parish priest has evoked sympathetic outcries from parishioners, while others believe he had to know he was allowing another priest previously accused of child molestation to work with youth groups at the church.

Father Thomas J. Triggs stepped down Saturday as pastor of St. Mary’s parish in Colts Neck, effective immediately. Bishop David M. O’Connell accepted the resignation according to a news release from the Diocese of Trenton which oversees the parish.

Lay youth group ministers Michael and Amy Lenehan have also stepped down.

The shakeup comes just days after the resignation of the Rev. Michael Fugee, a priest in the Archdiocese of Newark. St. Mary’s parishioners say Fugee had been involved with the parish youth group in defiance of an agreement with Bergen County prosecutors that he not work with children. The Lenehans had invited Fugee to take part in youth ministry events without ensuring he would have been cleared for such ministry in compliance with the Diocese of Trenton’s policies.

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AUSTRALIA
Queensland Times

APN Newsdesk 6th May 2013

SURVIVORS of child sexual abuse will get the chance to “tell their stories” in face-to-face private sessions when the next phase of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse begins on Tuesday.

The commission plans to travel around Australia conducting private sessions in capital cities and regional locations.

Private sessions will begin in Sydney on Tuesday and are expected to run for many months.

There are also plans for the commission to hold private sessions in Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth in the coming months, with the details to be released soon.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

May 3, 2013

Dr Deb Anderson

Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse will involve thousands of witnesses, at once validating their experiences and heralding institutional reform. But for survivors, having realistic expectations of the inquiry is important, says clinical psychologist Simon Crisp. The adjunct lecturer at Monash University has worked with adult and youth survivors of abuse in both private practice and the public mental health system.

Explain to us the guilt survivors often feel.

Survivors often seek an explanation for how and why the abuse happened. Especially if the perpetrator is trusted or seen as an authority, the victim develops the idea that they – the victim – must have been responsible for the abuse. This can include believing they caused this otherwise upstanding person – the perpetrator – to succumb to temptation. They can retrospectively analyse events and blame themselves. The guilt can be so powerful, survivors often lose almost all self-worth and confidence in themselves.

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AUSTRALIA
Central Telegraph

APN Newsdesk 6th May 20131:50 PM

SURVIVORS of child sexual abuse will get the chance to “tell their stories” in face-to-face private sessions when the next phase of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse begins on Tuesday.

The commission plans to travel around Australia conducting private sessions in capital cities and regional locations.

Private sessions will begin in Sydney on Tuesday and are expected to run for many months.

There are also plans for the commission to hold private sessions in Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth in the coming months, with the details to be released soon.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

A senior police whistleblower’s office was searched while he was away on leave, an inquiry into the alleged cover-up of child sexual abuse by Catholic priests in the NSW Hunter Valley will hear.

Counsel assisting the inquiry, Julia Lonergan SC, told its first hearing in Newcastle on Monday that evidence relating to Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox would be presented to the inquiry.

Ms Lonergan said evidence would show Insp Fox – whose allegations sparked the commission – pursued investigations that he kept to himself, rather than logging through official police channels.

In 2012 he was removed from any investigative role into sexual abuse in the Maitland-Newcastle diocese, and later that year he had become so concerned by the “absence of any obvious investigations” that he appeared on ABC TV’s Lateline program to air his claims.

Commissioner Margaret Cunneen SC said in her opening remarks the diocese had a “troubled history” of sexual abuse by clergymen, and many people had been deeply affected by such “abhorrent” crimes.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

A police whistleblower who alleges a “Catholic mafia” including police covered up child sexual abuse by priests in the NSW Hunter Valley has made explosive claims that his office was ransacked while he was away on leave.

Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox told a government-ordered inquiry that in September 2010, on the day he started a month’s leave, he was asked to handle a ministerial complaint regarding concerns about a “church conspiracy”.

When he returned from leave he was told by a now-retired public servant that his superior, Superintendent Charles Haggett, and Detective Chief Inspector Wayne Humphrey, had got the keys to his office and searched it “from top to bottom, looking in every filing cabinet”.

“You are kidding,” an astonished Insp Fox told the public servant.

“Please don’t tell them I told you,” she said. “But whatever it was they were looking for, they didn’t find it.”

Insp Fox told the special commission of inquiry in Newcastle on Monday he had taken the precaution of locking the file in his safe because he was concerned that “something like this” might occur.

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SCHWEIZ
Blick

Publiziert: 05.05.2013
Von Peter Hossli

Fast ein Menschenleben lang hatte Charles Probst (83) auf Worte der Reue gewartet. Bis sie am 11. April kamen. «Für das Leid, das Ihnen angetan wurde, bitte ich Sie im Namen der Landesregierung aufrichtig und von ganzem Herzen um Entschuldigung», sagte Bundesrätin Simonetta Sommaruga (52). Einstige Verdingkinder wie Probst hörten ihr im Berner Kursaal zu.

Mit sechs kam Charly 1936 zu einer Pflegefamilie auf einen Bauernhof im Oberaargau BE. Zu arm war seine Mutter für ein Kind. Beamte nahmen ihr den Kleinen weg.

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DEUTSCHLAND
BRF

Es handelt sich um einen Geistlichen im Ruhestand aus dem Saarland. Was ihm vorgeworfen wird, ist noch nicht bekannt. Die Entlassung aus dem Klerikerstand ist im Kirchenrecht die Höchststrafe.

Der Trierer Bischof Ackermann
Der Trierer Bischof Stephan Ackermann hat zum zweiten Mal einen Priester in seinem Bistum wegen sexuellen Missbrauchs aus dem Klerikerstand entlassen. Ein entsprechendes Dekret sei am 2. Mai ergangen, sagte der Sprecher des Bistums Trier am Montag und bestätigte damit einen Bericht der Zeitung «Trierischer Volksfreund».

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AUSTRALIA
ABC Newcastle

By Jeannette McMahon

Chief Inspector Peter Fox has spoken of the personal toll his pursuit of justice for child victims of sexual abuse by the Catholic Church has taken on himself and his family.

A number of senior police, including Chief Inspector Fox, will give evidence at a public inquiry which starts in Newcastle today.

Fox is seen as a hero by many of the victims and their families for his tenacious pursuit of justice and his public comments, which have created career and personal pressure for himself.

The inquiry was set up by the NSW Premier after Fox appeared on the ABC’s Lateline, alleging some church officials failed to report claims of child sex abuse to police, and that he was told to stop investigating the matter.

The inquiry, overseen by NSW deputy crown prosecutor Margaret Cuneen, will look specifically at how the church handled complaints about former Hunter priests Jim Fletcher and Denis McAlinden, both now deceased.

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AUSTRALIA
Courier Mail

NSW special commission of inquiry into alleged child abuse in Maitland-Newcastle Catholic diocese begins

NEIL KEENE From: The Daily Telegraph May 06, 2013

THE Special Commission of Inquiry into alleged child abuse in the Catholic diocese of Maitland-Newcastle got under way this morning in Newcastle.

This inquiry was ordered by the NSW Government and differs from the federal government’s royal commission into institutionalised child sex abuse which began earlier this year.

The NSW inquiry was launched last year to investigate alleged abuse by senior church members, along with allegations the church helped cover up those offences.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

[with audio and video]

By Dan Cox and staff

The New South Wales policeman who blew the whistle on an alleged cover-up of child sexual abuse in the Hunter Valley says senior police searched his office for sensitive files while he was on leave.

The inquiry is looking at how complaints about deceased former priests Denis McAlinden and Jim Fletcher in the Maitland-Newcastle diocese were investigated.

It was sparked by the allegations of whistleblower Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox, who is giving evidence today.

Peter Fox has told the inquiry two senior police officers turned his office upside down while he was on leave for a month.

He said the sensitive files they were after were in a secure safe, but after that he started to distrust senior police.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By JASON GORDON May 6, 2013

SENIOR Newcastle police held informal discussions about charging former Newcastle Catholic Bishop Michael Malone with concealing serious child sex crimes, an inquiry has heard.

The Special Commission of Inquiry into the police handling of allegations against the church began in Newcastle Supreme Court this morning before Commissioner Margaret Cunneen SC.

In her opening address, Commissioner Cunneen said the sexual abuse of ‘‘inherently vulnerable children’’ represented a ‘‘reprehensible betrayal of trust’’. She noted the Catholic Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle had a ‘‘very troubled history’’ of priests who had abused children.

Commissioner Cunneen said the inquiry would this week focus on allegations made by Detective Chief Inspector Fox in the Newcastle Herald and on ABC television’s Lateline program last November, during which he alleged he had been asked to cease his investigations into the church and that the church had attempted to cover up instances of child sexual abuse.

Inspector Fox took to the stand shortly after 11am today. He has told the inquiry he believed the diocese had warned former priest James Fletcher that he was being investigated by police.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

Special Commission of Inquiry into matters relating to the Police investigation of certain child sexual abuse allegations in the Catholic Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle

Opening Address of Commissioner Margaret Cunneen SC

Newcastle Supreme Court – Monday, 6 May 2013

1. Welcome to the public hearings of the Special Commission of Inquiry into matters relating to the Police investigation of certain child sexual abuse allegations in the Catholic Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle.

2. I intend to make some introductory remarks about certain matters before inviting Senior Counsel Assisting, Ms Lonergan SC, to provide an opening address.

3. After that, I will take the appearances for parties authorised to appear at the public hearing.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

DAN BOX From: The Australian May 06, 2013

NSW police officers discussed whether a “Catholic mafia” existed within the force, deliberately hindering the investigation of pedophile priests, an inquiry has heard.

Giving evidence at the NSW Special Commission of Inquiry into child sex abuse, Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox said he discussed these fears in 2002 with the current state Nationals MP, Troy Grant, then a serving officer.

Mr Grant “was highly critical of some senior police at Newcastle in what he perceived to be hindering his investigation” into alleged child abuse by clergy, Detective Fox said.

The MP, who will give evidence tomorrow, used the phrase “Catholic mafia” to describe two particular officers he felt were deliberately asking him to work on other criminal investigations, Detective Fox said.

“He was referring to what he perceived to be police who he felt to be aligned to the Catholic Church, who were attempting to discourage investigations into clergy,” he said.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

BY DOUG CONWAY, AAP SENIOR CORRESPONDENT From: AAP May 06, 2013

A POLICE whistleblower who alleges a “Catholic mafia” including police covered up child sexual abuse by priests in the NSW Hunter Valley has made explosive claims that his office was ransacked while he was away on leave.

Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox told a government-ordered inquiry that in September 2010, on the day he started a month’s leave, he was asked to handle a ministerial complaint regarding concerns about a “church conspiracy”.

When he returned from leave he was told by a now-retired public servant that his superior, Superintendent Charles Haggett, and Detective Chief Inspector Wayne Humphrey, had got the keys to his office and searched it “from top to bottom, looking in every filing cabinet”.

“You are kidding,” an astonished Insp Fox told the public servant.

“Please don’t tell them I told you,” she said. “But whatever it was they were looking for, they didn’t find it.”

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IRELAND
Irish Sun

By MICHAEL DOYLE

THE mum of a man who took his own life over the childhood abuse he suffered at the hands of Fr Bill Carney has hit out at the perv priest’s continued attempts to evade justice.

Paul Dwyer was just 13 when he was raped by the vile cleric and was left so mentally tormented by the attacks that he committed suicide in 2005, when he was 31.

Carney, who was defrocked in 1992 and has lived in the UK for the past 20 years, was described in the Murphy report as a serial sex offender and there was evidence that he carried out at least 32 attacks on boys and girls.

He is expected to be extradited from the UK in the coming week after British detectives arrested him in London on foot of a European Arrest warrant.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

By court reporter Jamelle Wells, ABC
Updated May 6, 2013

Some of the most senior police officers in New South Wales will give evidence at a public inquiry starting today into child sex abuse and the Catholic Church.

New South Wales Deputy Crown Prosecutor Margaret Cunneen is overseeing the inquiry, which is looking at how the church handled complaints about former priests Denis McAlinden and Jim Fletcher in the Newcastle-Hunter area of New South Wales.

The men have since died, but, giving an overview of the inquiry in February, Margaret Cunneen said they “victimised” children and it appears that “collective responsibility” to take action against them was ignored.

New South Wales Premier Barry O’Farrell set up the inquiry after Hunter police Chief Inspector Peter Fox appeared on the ABC’s Lateline program.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By JASON GORDON May 6, 2013

DETECTIVE Chief Inspector Peter Fox raised concerns with senior police about alleged cover-ups of child abuse within the Maitland-Newcastle Diocese of the Catholic Church as early as 2004, a court heard Monday morning.

The Special Commission of Inquiry into the police handling of allegations against the church began in Newcastle Supreme Court this morning before Commissioner Margaret Cunneen SC.

In opening statements, Commissioner Cunneen said the inquiry will this week focus on allegations made by Inspector Fox in the Newcastle Herald and on ABC television’s Lateline program last November where he alleged that he had been asked to cease his investigations into the church.

Counsel Assisting, Ms Lonergan SC, said the inquiry will consider whether or not Inspector Fox was asked to cease investigating the cover-up claims, what he had been investigating, and whether or not those matters were shelved or ‘‘put to one side because they were considered too complex’’.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC – The Drum

By ABC’s Suzanne Smith

The Special Commission into sexual abuse in the Hunter is about the importance of a fundamental principle – the separation of church and state, writes Suzanne Smith.

It is the genesis of decades of suffering, the silent wrecking ball in our community behind too many broken families, too many lost and shattered lives and too much pain.” (Joanne McCarthy, The Newcastle Herald, 2012)

For many victims and their families in the northern NSW region of the Hunter, today will be a historic day.

It is the first day of hearings by the Special Commission of Inquiry set up by the premier Barry O’Farrell to investigate the police investigations into two notorious paedophile priests; Father James Fletcher and Father Denis McAlinden.

The Terms of Reference for the next two week’s inquiry is about the “circumstances in which Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox was asked to cease investigating relevant matters and whether it was appropriate to do so.”

Which brings us back to the fundamental question; why has there not been, until fairly recently, a more concerted effort by the police to investigate, with the full resources and power of the law, the most senior members of the clergy? Some police have done a tremendous job but in very difficult circumstances. Troy Grant, the current National Party MP from Dubbo, successfully prosecuted Father Vincent Ryan who had 31 victims in the Hunter. One of his victims was awarded the largest payout in Australia’s history; a sum of $3 million.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

An inquiry has opened in Newcastle into an alleged cover-up of child sexual abuse by Catholic priests in the NSW Hunter Valley.

The special commission of inquiry began on Monday with an opening address by counsel assisting, Julia Lonergan SC.

Over the next fortnight Commissioner Margaret Cunneen will investigate the circumstances in which Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox, whose allegations of a church cover-up sparked the inquiry, was asked to stop probing certain matters.

She will hear evidence from senior police including two assistant commissioners and two superintendents, as well as former policeman and now state Nationals MP Troy Grant.

The inquiry will concentrate on two priests, serial sex offender Father Denis McAlinden and convicted pedophile Father James Fletcher, both now dead.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

NSW special commission of inquiry into alleged child abuse in Maitland-Newcastle Catholic diocese begins

NEIL KEENE From: The Daily Telegraph May 06, 2013

THE Special Commission of Inquiry into alleged child abuse in the Catholic diocese of Maitland-Newcastle got under way this morning in Newcastle.

This inquiry was ordered by the NSW Government and differs from the federal government’s royal commission into institutionalised child sex abuse which began earlier this year.

The NSW inquiry was launched last year to investigate alleged abuse by senior church members, along with allegations the church helped cover up those offences.

It will also investigate why senior police officer Detective Inspector Peter Fox was ordered to halt his investigation into the allegations.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

A senior police whistleblower’s office was searched while he was away on leave, an inquiry into the alleged cover-up of child sexual abuse by Catholic priests in the NSW Hunter Valley will hear.

Counsel assisting the inquiry, Julia Lonergan SC, told its first hearing in Newcastle on Monday that evidence relating to Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox would be presented to the inquiry.

Ms Lonergan said evidence would show Insp Fox – whose allegations sparked the commission – pursued investigations that he kept to himself, rather than logging through official police channels.

In 2012 he was removed from any investigative role into sexual abuse in the Maitland-Newcastle diocese, and later that year he had become so concerned by the “absence of any obvious investigations” that he appeared on ABC TV’s Lateline program to air his claims.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

PIA AKERMAN From: The Australian May 06, 2013

THE royal commission examining institutional responses to child sexual abuse has revealed it will begin hearing from victims this week, as a separate inquiry into alleged Catholic Church cover-ups in the Hunter Valley begins.

Survivors of child sexual abuse in institutions will start telling their stories to the royal commission in private sessions beginning tomorrow in Sydney, ahead of other private hearings in Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth.

Commission chief executive Janette Dines said many people had already come forward wanting to speak about their experiences.

“I want to assure people who have already called that we will get back to them,” she said. ‘As soon as we have enough people registered in a particular location we will make arrangements to travel to that place.

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AUSTRALIA
Border Mail

By SAM RIGNEY and EMMA SWAIN May 6, 2013

AUSTRALIA’S first commission of inquiry into child sex abuse in the Catholic Church will begin today in Newcastle Supreme Court.

Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox, who helped bring about the NSW public inquiry, is scheduled to give evidence during the first two days.

A long list of senior NSW police will follow Chief Inspector Fox into the witness box during the first two weeks of the inquiry, which precedes and runs separately from the broader federal royal commission into sex abuse.

Commissioner Margaret Cunneen SC will rule on hearing in-camera testimony from some witnesses to avoid prejudicing potential future criminal proceedings.

The NSW commission of inquiry will consider police investigations of the late Hunter paedophile priests Denis McAlinden and Jim Fletcher over the next two weeks. It will later examine Church handling of allegations involving the priests, from June 24 to July 12.

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SCOTLAND
Scotsman

By CRAIG BROWN
Published on 06/05/2013

THE MSP Margo MacDonald has voiced her support for Cardinal Keith O’Brien following reports the Vatican ordered the disgraced former archbishop to leave the UK.

Ms MacDonald, a friend of 75-year-old cleric, said if the reports were true then the Vatican’s position showed “a lack of charity”.

The cardinal was last week seen moving his possessions from his former residence in Edinburgh to a church property in Dunbar where, he said, he intended to settle.

It was the first time he had been seen in public since February when he was ordered by Pope Benedict XVI to step down after allegations emerged of his relations with a priest in Aberdeen and four priests in the diocese of Edinburgh and St Andrews.

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NEW JERSEY
News 12

Protesters demonstrated outside St. Mary’s in Colts Neck after learning a convicted child molester has been working with children.

Father Thomas Triggs has been serving as pastor of the church since 2007. Under his watch, Father Michael Fugee was allowed on retreats with children. Since 2007, Fugee has had an agreement with the Bergen County prosecutor to never again work with children following…

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NEW JERSEY
Asbury Park Press

COLTS NECK — The pastor and two youth ministers at a Colts Neck church have left their posts amid criticism that a priest once accused of child molestation was allowed to work with young parish members.

The Star-Ledger of Newark reported that the Rev. Thomas Triggs announced his resignation from the pulpit during a service Saturday night at St. Mary’s Parish in Colts Neck. The newspaper also said youth ministers Michael and Amy Lenehan no longer held those positions, though it was not clear if they resigned or were forced out.

The shakeup comes just days after the resignation of the Rev. Michael Fugee, a priest in the Archdiocese of Newark. Parishioners say Fugee, who is longtime friends with the Lenehans, had been involved with the parish youth group in defiance of an agreement with Bergen County prosecutors that he not to work with children.

Fugee was convicted in 2003 of criminal sexual contact involving a boy. It was overturned by an appeals court and the priest eventually entered a pretrial intervention program.

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NEW JERSEY
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

I can’t let this week end and another begin without mentioning, at least, the important story that has been reported of late from the archdiocese of Newark, NJ. As many readers of this blog will now know, it has come to light that after Father Michael Fugee was convicted of abusing minors in 2003, his conviction got overturned, in part, because the archdiocese of Newark agreed to keep him from contact with children.

That didn’t happen. Knowing fully Fugee’s track record and having made an agreement with the court to keep Fugee away from children, Newark archbishop John Myers has permitted Fugee to attend youth retreats and to go on youth pilgrimages. He appointed Fugee to the important position of co-director of an office forming new priests for the diocese, and he sent Fugee to a parish to do pastoral ministry among families with children without telling any of the parishioners of Fugee’s past.

And so the Newark Star-Ledger is now calling for Myers’s resignation, while Fugee has submitted his resignation from the priesthood. As Mike McShea notes at his This Cultural Christian site, some of the state’s legislators including Sen. Joseph Vitale are also echoing the call for Myers to resign.

Myers, don’t forget, is the Opus Dei bishop (and see also here) who told Catholics supporting marriage equality to stop taking communion last year. At the very same time in which Myers has known that he was exposing children to danger and violating a court agreement to keep Fugee from children, that is to say, he’s been rattling his moral saber about someone else–about his gay brothers and sisters.

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AUSTRALIA
Government of New South Wales

Special Commission of Inquiry into matters relating to the Police investigation of certain child sexual abuse allegations in the Catholic Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle

Margaret Cunneen SC has been appointed as Special Commissioner to inquire into and report on matters relating to the Police investigation of certain child sexual abuse allegations in the Catholic Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle.

The Commissioner will be assisted by Julia Lonergan SC, David Kell and Warwick Hunt of Counsel and the Crown Solicitor.

View the Terms of Reference for the Inquiry [PDF, 133kb]

Court dates

Public hearings will be held in the Newcastle Supreme Court, Court Room No.1, Church Street, Newcastle from 6 May to 17 May and from 24 June to 12 July 2013.

The Schedule of Witnesses [PDF, 147KB] details the witnesses proposed to be called to give evidence at public hearings starting at 10am on Monday, 6 May 2013. Please note that this schedule may be subject to change and will accordingly be updated periodically.

Practice Note no.1 [PDF, 138kb] explains the authorisation process for individuals or organisations who wish to appear at public hearings before the Commission.

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AUSTRALIA
Maitland Mercury

By EMMA S WAIN May 6, 2013

Today marks the start of the first public hearings into child sexual abuse allegations within the Catholic Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle.

By his own admission, Diocesan head Bishop Bill Wright (pictured) said the hearings would leave the community appalled, outraged and angered. He said above all – the stories about to be heard – would be extremely grim.

“We know there will be a lot of people wishing to tell their stories and that’s going to be pretty awful,” Bishop Wright said.

“In the first instance, the community will be appalled, outraged, angry, sympathetic and all the rest of it. And for people who have not had their minds turned too much to this whole issue, I think it’s going to be very hard to avoid it in the coming time.

“There will be a lot of stories that will be very grim for people to hear and there will be a lot of anger ­directed, and fair enough, at the ­perpetrators. But this will also be directed at the church and, as time goes on, other institutions which have dealt badly with these things.” …

The hearings will continue until May 17 and will resume again on June 24 until July 12. The special commission of inquiry will work with the National Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

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NEW JERSEY
Roman Catholic Diocese of Trenton

Bishop David M. O’Connell, C.M., has accepted the resignation of Father Thomas J. Triggs as pastor of St. Mary Parish, Colts Neck, effective immediately. The May 4 resignation follows recent reports that Father Michael Fugee, a priest of the Archdiocese of Newark, had assisted in several activities of the parish’s youth group despite having been restricted from such ministry in an agreement with law enforcement authorities in Bergen County.

Bishop O’Connell has granted Father Triggs a period of sabbatical before he will be given a new assignment. A parish administrator will be appointed for St. Mary Parish.

In one of his last official acts as pastor, Father Triggs accepted the resignations of Michael and Amy Lenehan, parish youth group ministers, effective immediately. The Lenehans had invited Father Fugee to take part in youth ministry events without ensuring that he would have been cleared for such ministry in compliance with the Diocese of Trenton’s policies.

The Diocese of Trenton released a statement April 29 reporting that it was first made aware of the presence of Father Michael Fugee at a youth retreat held in St. Mary Parish through an inquiry from the media on April 23, 2013. The statement stipulated that Father Fugee had been given no permission to exercise ministry there by the Diocese nor had he filed with the Chancery the “letter of suitability” required of all priests outside of the Diocese before they are to conduct ministry here.

According to that statement, upon learning of Father Fugee’s activities, Bishop O’Connell immediately contacted Father Triggs and indicated that Father Fugee may not exercise ministry there, including any ministry involving youth. Bishop O’Connell then contacted officials in the Archdiocese of Newark to inform them of developments concerning Father Fugee.

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ROME
National Catholic Reporter

Joshua J. McElwee | May. 5, 2013

ROME The controversial Vatican decision last year to place the main representative group of U.S. Catholic sisters under the control of bishops was made without consultation or knowledge of the Vatican office that normally deals with matters of religious life, the office’s leader said Sunday.

That lack of discussion over whether to sharply criticize the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), said Cardinal João Braz de Aviz, caused him “much pain.”

“We have to change this way of doing things,” said Braz de Aviz, head of the Vatican’s Congregation for Religious.

“We have to improve these relationships,” he continued, referring to the April 2012 order regarding LCWR from the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith — approved by Pope Benedict XVI — that ordered the U.S. sisters’ group to revise.

“Cardinals can’t be mistrustful of each other,” Braz de Aviz said. “This is not the way the church should function.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
Manchester Evening News

Governors at a top Catholic school rocked by historic sex abuse claims have stepped down to shield themselves from legal action brought by almost 20 alleged victims.

Former headmaster John Byrne is among seven governors who have resigned from the board at St Bede’s College, the M.E.N. can reveal.

The Bishop of Salford, the Diocese of Salford and governors at the Whalley Range school all face being sued over accusations that former rector Monsignor Thomas Duggan sexually abused schoolboys at St Bede’s during the 1950s and 1960s.

The M.EN. has learnt that one alleged victim claims he was raped by the late Mgr Duggan as a 12-year-old. We can also reveal that accusations of serious sexual abuse have been made against two other priests at St Bede’s in the 1950s – Father Charles Mulholland and Father Vincent Hamilton – who have both also since died.

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VATICAN CITY
Huffington Post

Reuters | By Philip Pullella
Posted: 05/05/2013

(Reuters) – Pope Francis wants the Catholic Church to “act decisively” to root out sexual abuse of children by priests and ensure the perpetrators are punished, the Vatican said on Friday.

Francis, in a meeting with the Holy See’s doctrinal chief, Archbishop Gerhard Mueller, had declared that combating sexual abuse was important “for the Church and its credibility”, a statement said.

Francis inherited a Church mired in problems and a major scandal over priestly abuse of children. It was believed to be the first time he had taken up the issue of sex abuse with a senior member of his staff since his election on March 13.

Mueller is head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican department which includes the office of the “promoter of justice”, or sex crimes prosecutor, which investigates cases of sexual abuse and decides if priests are to be defrocked.

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NEW JERSEY
The Star-Ledger

By Mark Mueller/The Star-Ledger
on May 05, 2013

COLTS NECK — The pastor and two youth ministers at the Monmouth County church where a visiting priest violated a lifetime ban on ministry to children have stepped down from their posts, the latest fallout in an escalating scandal enveloping Newark Archbishop John J. Myers.

The Rev. Thomas Triggs, pastor of St. Mary’s Parish in Colts Neck, announced his resignation from the pulpit during Mass on Saturday evening, parishioners said. Trenton Bishop David M. O’Connell confirmed the development in an email to priests of his diocese, said the Rev. John Bambrick, a diocesan priest who received the message.

The email said the youth ministers, Michael and Amy Lenehan, no longer held those positions. It was not immediately clear if they voluntarily resigned or were forced out.

O’Connell met with Triggs at the church Saturday morning to discuss the controversy, Bambrick said. Based on the email, it did not appear as if the bishop demanded Triggs’ resignation, the priest said.

“Bishop O’Connell said Father Triggs offered to resign and that he accepted,” Bambrick said.

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NEW JERSEY
Newsday

Updated: May 5, 2013
By The Associated Press
COLTS NECK, N.J. – (AP) — The pastor and two youth ministers at a central New Jersey church have left their posts amid criticism that a priest once accused of child molestation was allowed to work with young parish members.

The Star-Ledger of Newark (http://bit.ly/12FwUnN) reported that the Rev. Thomas Triggs announced his resignation from the pulpit during a service Saturday night at St. Mary’s Parish in Colts Neck. The newspaper also said youth ministers Michael and Amy Lenehan no longer held those positions, though it was not clear if they resigned or were forced out.

The shakeup comes just days after the resignation of the Rev. Michael Fugee, a priest in the Archdiocese of Newark. Parishioners say Fugee, who is longtime friends with the Lenehans, had been involved with the parish youth group in defiance of an agreement with Bergen County prosecutors that he not to work with children.

Fugee was convicted in 2003 of criminal sexual contact involving a boy. It was overturned by an appeals court and the priest eventually entered a pretrial intervention program.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

MARY MINIHAN

Taoiseach Enda Kenny has said he has told the Catholic Church’s most senior representative in Ireland Cardinal Sean Brady that politicians have a duty and responsibility to legislate for limited abortion.

“Everybody’s entitled to their opinion here but as explained to the Cardinal and members of the church my book is the constitution and the constitution is determined by the people. That’s the people’s book. We live in a Republic and I have a duty and responsibility as head of Government to legislate in respect of what the people’s wishes are,” Mr Kenny said.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

BRIAN MCDONALD – 05 MAY 2013

The Catholic Church has left the threat of excommunication hanging over the heads of Catholic members of the Dail who vote for the abortion legislation in its current format.

Cardinal Sean Brady yesterday refused to be drawn on the consequences for either Catholic ministers who introduce the legislation or those TDs who vote for it as it stands.

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IRELAND
The Journal

The Catholic Church teaching on abortion still holds – but the bishops are opposing the proposed legislation the wrong way, writes Fr Tony Flannery.

THE IRISH BISHOPS have made a very strong statement condemning the Heads of Bill presented by the Government under the title Protection of Life during Pregnancy. I asked a friend of mine today, a solid, intelligent older man who is a regular church goer what he thought. “It is just what I expected them to say”, he replied in a weary voice. He was clearly not impressed.

In the unlikely event that they might ask me for advice I would suggest the following:

Firstly, it is still about fourteen weeks before the final vote on this bill in the Dail. There are a number of stages to go through, and plenty of opportunity for discussion and change in the proposed bill. By coming out so strongly, in such an aggressive and black-and-white way, they have effectively ruled themselves out of any real engagement in the process from now on. They will condemn, and they will lobby individual legislators, but their public position is now fixed and unbending. This is not the way to go about influencing a democratic process.

Secondly, the choice of Cardinal Sean Brady as spokesperson for the campaign is a big mistake. Cardinal Brady is a lovely man, warm and friendly to meet at a personal level. But in the media he comes across as stiff and authoritarian. Also, whether we like it or not, he is massively damaged by his involvement in investigating a case of clerical sexual abuse in his early life. This has left him permanently ‘holed beneath the water line’, and as such, he is no longer the proper person to lead such a campaign. Apart from the Cardinal’s credibility difficulties, it appears as if the Catholic hierarchy have not yet recognized that they no longer hold a significant position of influence in Irish society—for two reasons: (a) their reluctance to tackle the clerical child sexual abuse issue and (b) their failure to revoke the church’s teaching on contraception as outlined in Humanae Vitae which is so out of tune with this generation that it makes the Church’s teaching on any sexual matter appear ridiculous.

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NEW JERSEY
The Record

SUNDAY MAY 5, 2013, 9:52 AM
THE RECORD

Editorial

[RELATED DOCUMENTS via The Star-Ledger
• Read the Rev. Michael Fugee’s agreement with the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office

• Read the Rev. Michael Fugee’s confession to police

• Read Archbishop John J. Myers’ February letter to priests about the Rev. Michael Fugee]

THE REV. Michael Fugee’s resignation from ministry last week closes one chapter, not the book on why this priest was ever returned to ministry after being charged with groping a 13-year-old boy.

Fugee was convicted in 2003 on a charge of aggravated criminal sexual contact, but that verdict was overturned on appeal because jurors hadn’t been given a full explanation of the charge. Rather than face a new trial, Fugee cut a deal with the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office that prohibited him from any unsupervised contact with children and ministering or working with children.

But in the ensuing years, Fugee had unsupervised contact with children and ministered to children. He also held two positions within the Archdiocese of Newark. Those are the positions from which Fugee resigned. He is no longer a priest in good standing in the archdiocese, which means he cannot celebrate Mass or perform sacramental work. But he remains a priest. It would take Vatican action to defrock Fugee.

Throughout, Newark Archbishop John J. Myers has held firm to the position that the archdiocese did not violate the agreement Fugee made with prosecutors. The Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office has said it continues to investigate. What is most troubling is that the archdiocese continues to hew to a course bound by a faulty reading of criminal law rather than follow the moral high road that is not ambiguous at all. Fugee should have been barred from all ministry after he entered a probation program for first-time offenders and signed the agreement restricting his access to children.

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VATICAN CITY
Newsmax

Sunday, 05 May 2013

Pope Francis is calling for courageous defense of children to protect them from abuse.

Francis made no mention of the church scandals in many countries in which clergy abused children and hierarchy covered up for them. At a Mass he celebrated Sunday in crowded St. Peter’s Square, Francis said abuse victims are in his prayers.

He stressed that all must work with courage so that children, who are among the most vulnerable people, be always defended and protected.

Ignoring sometimes heavy rain, Francis toured the square in a popemobile, but left the vehicle to embrace disabled adults and children along his route.

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VATICAN CITY
DFW Catholic

Vatican City, May 5, 2013 / 06:57 am (CNA/EWTN News).- At the end of Mass, Pope Francis noted that the Day of Child Victims of Violence is observed today and assured all those who “have suffered and are suffering because of abuse” that they “are present in my prayers.”

“I would also say emphatically that we must all commit ourselves with clarity and courage to every human person, especially children, who are among the most vulnerable,” the Pope told the crowd of thousands on May 5, before reciting the Regina Caeli prayer.

He also spoke to the groups from throughout Europe who are devoted to particular saints and were present at the Mass.

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VATICAN CITY
Ottawa Citizen

BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS MAY 5, 2013

VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis is calling for courageous defence of children to protect them from abuse.

Francis made no mention of the church scandals in many countries in which clergy abused children and hierarchy covered up for them. At a Mass he celebrated Sunday in crowded St. Peter’s Square, Francis said abuse victims are in his prayers.

He stressed that all must work with courage so that children, who are among the most vulnerable people, be always defended and protected.

Ignoring sometimes heavy rain, Francis toured the square in a popemobile, but left the vehicle to embrace disabled adults and children along his route.

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NEW JERSEY
NJ.com

[RELATED DOCUMENTS via The Star-Ledger
• Read the Rev. Michael Fugee’s agreement with the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office

• Read the Rev. Michael Fugee’s confession to police

• Read Archbishop John J. Myers’ February letter to priests about the Rev. Michael Fugee]

By Steve Adubato
on May 05, 2013

Sometimes people play games with words. I call it “the communication game.” Often the game doesn’t matter very much, but sometimes the stakes can be very high. Do you remember when former President Bill Clinton argued the definition of the word “is” and boldly said on camera, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky”? Corporate executives often play the communication game when trying to avoid responsibility.

Often our children play communication games with words. If you don’t ask exactly the right question, even if they know the intent behind the question, they will parse your words and give you an answer that gets them out of a jam or shades the truth.

Now consider the case involving the Rev. Michael Fugee who, according to an April 28 Star-Ledger editorial, was convicted, “after he confessed to fondling a 14-year-old boy …”

Fugee’s conviction was later overturned on a technicality, and prosecutors decided they would not try the priest again, but rather allow him to evade going to jail by entering a program for first-time offenders. According to The Star-Ledger editorial, part of the deal was an agreement that Fugee signed along with the Archdiocese of Newark, in which all parties committed to keeping Fugee away from minors. Specifically, “he would have no affiliation with youth groups. He would not attend youth retreats. He would not hear the confessions of minors.”

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By court reporter Jamelle Wells

Some of the most senior police in New South Wales will give evidence at a public inquiry into child sex abuse and the Catholic Church.

NSW deputy crown prosecutor Margaret Cunneen is overseeing the inquiry, which begins tomorrow.

It will look at how the church handled complaints about former priests Denis McAlinden and Jim Fletcher in the Hunter area.

The men have since died but when giving an overview of the inquiry in February, Ms Cunneen said they “victimised” children and it appears that “collective responsibility” to take action against them was ignored.

NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell set up the inquiry after Hunter Chief Inspector Peter Fox appeared on the ABC’s Lateline program.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

May 5, 2013

The man who helped bring about a NSW public inquiry into alleged Catholic Church cover-ups of child sex abuse will give evidence on its first two days.

Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox will be the first of a long list of senior police who will be in the witness box when the inquiry begins in the Newcastle Supreme Court on Monday.

The special commission of inquiry was announced by NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell in November, following explosive allegations made to the media by Insp Fox.

He alleged the Catholic church had covered up evidence about pedophile priests in the diocese of Maitland-Newcastle in the Hunter region of NSW.

The inquiry will look at how the church handled complaints about former priests Denis McAlinden and Jim Fletcher, both now dead.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By SAM RIGNEY May 5, 2013

AUSTRALIA’S first commission of inquiry into child sex abuse in the Catholic Church will begin today in Newcastle Supreme Court.

Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox, who helped bring about the NSW public inquiry, is scheduled to give evidence during the first two days.

A long list of senior NSW police will follow Chief Inspector Fox into the witness box during the first two weeks of the inquiry, which precedes and runs separately from the broader federal royal commission into sex abuse.

Commissioner Margaret Cunneen SC will rule on hearing in-camera testimony from some witnesses to avoid prejudicing potential future criminal proceedings.

The NSW commission of inquiry will consider police investigations of the late Hunter paedophile priests Denis McAlinden and Jim Fletcher over the next two weeks. It will later examine Church handling of allegations involving the priests, from June 24 to July 12.

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WISCONSIN
Wisconsin State Journal

DOUG ERICKSON | Wisconsin State Journal | derickson@madison.com | 608-252-6149

Bishop Robert Morlino is continuing to put more distance between the Madison Catholic Diocese and Holy Wisdom Monastery, a former Catholic monastery on the outskirts of Madison that is now a non-Catholic ecumenical retreat center.

In the latest development, Morlino is now prohibiting priests in the diocese from “attendance or participation at all events held at Holy Wisdom Monastery and all events sponsored or co-sponsored by Holy Wisdom Monastery or the Benedictine Women of Madison,” according to a March 7 letter to priests leaked to the State Journal.

A February visit to the monastery by Sister Simone Campbell, an outspoken, progressive Catholic nun, appeared to be the final straw for Morlino.

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NEW JERSEY
The Star-Ledger

By Star-Ledger Editorial Board
on May 05, 2013

After denying the charge for several days, Archbishop John J. Myers reversed himself Thursday and acknowledged that a pedophile priest under his supervision, the Rev. Michael Fugee, repeatedly violated a binding legal agreement to stay away from children.

That will have to count for progress. But this goes well beyond the behavior of Fugee, who resigned his ministry that day. Myers was a party to that legal agreement, with a responsibility to protect children by ensuring that Fugee would keep his distance.

Given his failure in this case, and his long history of irresponsible stewardship over pedophile priests, it is clear that the archdiocese cannot be trusted to handle these cases on its own, at least while Myers continues to resist growing calls for his resignation.

The next move is up to Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli, who struck the agreement with Myers and Fugee in the first place.

Fugee was convicted in 2003 on a charge of aggravated criminal sexual contact after admitting that he fondled a teenage boy and derived sexual pleasure from the act. That crime draws a maximum penalty of five years in prison, but Fugee, like most first-time offenders, was sentenced to five years’ probation. He was also required to register as a sex offender under Megan’s Law.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

MAEVE SHEEHAN AND SHANE HICKEY – 05 MAY 2013

He was known for decades as the foul-mouthed, flashy priest whose abusive friendships with vulnerable children forced him out of the church.

But a subdued Bill Carney appeared before the London court that last Friday ordered his extradition to Ireland to face 34 charges of indecent assault on eight males and two females.

Now 73 and still imposing at 6ft 4in, a green jumper covered his large gut. He stared around the courtroom, only speaking to confirm his name and age. His solicitor mentioned his heart condition and listed his many medications. Afterwards, he was sent back to Holloway prison, where he remains this weekend.

When his shocking past as child abuser was first exposed by the Commission of Investigation into clerical abuse in 2009, Carney had reinvented himself as a respectable married man and owner of a guest house in the Scottish golfing town of St Andrews, where he passed his days perfecting his swing. Since then, his marriage has collapsed but he continued to live freely in the UK, pursued occasionally by the media and blaming his past on his drinking.

On April 25, Carney was arrested in the leafy village of Bidford in Warrickshire, where he has been living in recent months.

The latest alleged offences occurred during the late Seventies and Eighties when Bill Carney was at his most “crude and loutish” as a priest in various Dublin parishes. One former resident of a children’s home in south Dublin recalled how, as a young seminarian at Clonliffe College, Bill Carney, inveigled his way in as chaplain, delighting the nuns and making himself “the children’s favourite”.

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NEW JERSEY
Herald News

[RELATED DOCUMENTS via the Star-Ledger
• Read the Rev. Michael Fugee’s agreement with the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office

• Read the Rev. Michael Fugee’s confession to police

• Read Archbishop John J. Myers’ February letter to priests about the Rev. Michael Fugee]

SUNDAY, MAY 5, 2013
HERALD NEWS

THE REV. Michael Fugee’s resignation from ministry last week closes one chapter, not the book on why this priest was ever returned to ministry after being charged with groping a 13-year-old boy.

Fugee was convicted in 2003 on a charge of aggravated criminal sexual contact, but that verdict was overturned on appeal because jurors hadn’t been given a full explanation of the charge. Rather than face a new trial, Fugee cut a deal with the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office that prohibited him from any unsupervised contact with children and ministering or working with children.

But in the ensuing years, Fugee had unsupervised contact with children and ministered to children. He also held two positions within the Archdiocese of Newark. Those are the positions from which Fugee resigned. He is no longer a priest in good standing in the archdiocese, which means he cannot celebrate Mass or perform sacramental work. But he remains a priest. It would take Vatican action to defrock Fugee.

Throughout, Newark Archbishop John J. Myers has held firm to the position that the archdiocese did not violate the agreement Fugee made with prosecutors. The Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office has said it continues to investigate. What is most troubling is that the archdiocese continues to hew to a course bound by a faulty reading of criminal law rather than follow the moral high road that is not ambiguous at all. Fugee should have been barred from all ministry after he entered a probation program for first-time offenders and signed the agreement restricting his access to children.

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UNITED STATES
Lez Get Real

Posted by: Bridgette P. LaVictoire on May 4, 2013.

Cardinal O’Brien was set to retire to a little cottage in Dunbar, Scotland, but he has, apparently, been told by the Vatican to pack his bags and head to Coventry. This has upset the parish priest in Dunbar, one Canon John Creanor, who apparently expressed his upset over the decision by the Vatican to move against his “dear friend.”

It appears that the Vatican moved against O’Brien after Archbishop of Glasgow Philip Tartaglia appealed to the Holy See to take action after O’Brien reemerged in Scotland earlier this week. O’Brien admitted to having consensual sexual relationships with other priests, and been accused of assaulting a seminary student.

One anonymous supporter of O’Brien told the Scotland Herald that:

“The cardinal has been advised not to relocate to the parish in Dunbar and has been told he should leave the country. That’s extremely disappointing and not a Christian way to treat someone. There’s clearly pressure from within and outwith the Church and no show of unity.

“People expect some sort of jail sentence for Keith O’Brien or at least a desire to see him retired to monastic life. It would certainly be convenient for them. Personally, I find it an atrocious way to treat someone who has been facing up to their responsibilities.”

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NEW JERSEY
Asbury Park Press

Written by
Kathleen Hopkins
@Khopkinsapp

TOMS RIVER — In a tight-knit community of people accustomed to handling problems among themselves, one young boy bucked the trend.

He accused a Yeshiva teacher and camp counselor of molesting him, and when a religious council of Orthodox Jews failed to take action against the man, the boy and his family went to the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office for help.

Because they skirted religious protocols, the boy and his family were ostracized by their community. Some in the community even embarked on a campaign to get the boy and his father to drop the criminal charges.

And, a flier was circulated in Lakewood saying the boy’s father made a “mockery” of the Torah and committed a “terrible deed” by going to the secular authorities.

But the family stood its ground. Now, six years after the alleged abuse occurred, the man accused of molesting the boy is set to go on trial in a case that likely is to be closely watched by Lakewood’s Orthodox Jewish community.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Frankenpost

«Wir müssen in Deutschland eingestehen – in Ost wie West: Es gab solche Fälle tausendfach – es gab tausendfach den unwiederbringlichen Verlust von Vertrauen», sagte Gauck am Freitag bei der 60-Jahr-Feier des Deutschen Kinderschutzbunds in München. Die Enttäuschung über die Aufarbeitung dürfe nicht zur Entmutigung werden. «Die gesellschaftliche Verständigung muss weitergehen», sagte Gauck. Die Opfer hätten ein Recht auf Unterstützung durch die Gesellschaft. «Genauso wie wir heute alles daran setzen müssen, Missbrauch keinen Raum zu geben, genauso entschlossen müssen wir auch die Untaten der Vergangenheit zum Thema unserer Gegenwart machen.»

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DEUTSCHLAND
MissBiT

Er mag es, wenn man um Hilfe schreit

Bischof räumt Fehler in Missbrauchsfall ein
Bischof Ackermann: “Sie glauben mir hoffentlich”
Trierer Bischof gesteht Fehler im Umgang mit Missbrauchsfällen ein
Bischof Ackermann: “Es gab gravierende Fehler – wir haben die Vorgaben nicht konsequent umgesetzt”

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NIEDELANDE
kathweb

Utrecht, 04.05.2013 (KAP) Die Missbrauchsmeldestelle der katholischen Kirche in den Niederlanden verzeichnet einen Zuwachs von Berichten über Misshandlungen, wie die deutsche Katholische Nachrichtenagentur KNA berichtet. Im Februar und März seien Dutzende neuer Meldungen eingegangen, die sich zu etwa 40 Prozent auf körperliche und psychische Gewalt bezögen, so niederländische Medien am Freitag unter Berufung auf die Meldestelle in Utrecht. Anfang März hatte die von den niederländischen Bischöfen eingesetzte sogenannte Deetman-Kommission einen Bericht zu sexuellem Missbrauch von Mädchen in kirchlichen Einrichtungen veröffentlicht.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

Alan Howe From: Herald Sun May 05, 2013

LAST week, the Catholic Church came clean. Sort of.

A retired bishop admitted things the rest of us had known for years – that his church realised long ago it had serious criminals within its ranks and that these men raped children.

The church also admitted it had destroyed documents detailing incidents of paedophilia and that it had listened to lawyers and insurers at the expense of its devastated victims. So far so bad.

In any case, it was much too little, far too late, and lacking still was a sense the church understood the depths of its employees’ depravity, and the extended tragedy of ruined lives, traumatised parents and countless suicides.

Finally, the Catholic Church aired much of its dirty linen, the pungent stench of which will forever occupy our nostrils.

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NEW JERSEY/ILLINOIS
The Record

SUNDAY, MAY 5, 2013
BY LISA ARTHUR
STAFF WRITER
THE RECORD

While the leader of the Archdiocese of Newark is under intense scrutiny for his handling of a Wyckoff priest-abuse case, Archbishop John J. Myers is also being faulted by those bringing a civil lawsuit in Illinois, claiming that the diocese he led there as a bishop failed to keep an alleged pedophile priest away from children.

The suit, filed in 2008 against the Diocese of Peoria, and Monsignor Thomas Maloney, claims that the plaintiff Andrew Ward was molested by Maloney in 1995 and 1996, when he was about 8 years old. The alleged abuse of the boy began a year after a woman had alleged to the diocese that she had been molested by Maloney in her childhood, according to the suit.

“The diocese did not further investigate the report … did not do a follow-up interview with the woman, did not ask Maloney’s fellow co-workers about his activities and didn’t contact law enforcement with the information,” the suit alleges.

News of the Illinois litigation comes amid questions about how the Newark Archdiocese managed the Rev. Michael Fugee, a former assistant pastor at St. Elizabeth of Hungary Church in Wyckoff who was convicted in 2003 of aggravated criminal sexual contact on allegations he repeatedly groped a 13-year-old boy.

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NEW JERSEY
The Star-Ledger

[RELATED DOCUMENTS
• Read the Rev. Michael Fugee’s agreement with the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office

• Read the Rev. Michael Fugee’s confession to police

• Read Archbishop John J. Myers’ February letter to priests about the Rev. Michael Fugee]

By Mark Mueller/The Star-Ledger
on May 05, 2013

At Holy Family Church in Nutley, the Rev. Michael Fugee was a familiar face.

He sometimes said Mass. He visited his close friend, the Rev. Paul Bochicchio. And he gave occasional talks to the parish youth group on the Bible’s meaning.

“One thing I can tell you is that his greatest fans are teenagers,” said Bochicchio, a monsignor and Holy Family’s pastor.

Bochicchio makes no secret of Fugee’s interactions with young people. Indeed, there was nothing furtive about it. Photos on Facebook show the two priests celebrating Mass together and joining in a prayer circle with teens on an annual pilgrimage to a Canadian shrine.

A week after The Star-Ledger disclosed that Fugee had violated a lifetime ban on ministry to children by working with a Monmouth County youth group, what’s become clear is that the purported supervision of the priest by the Archdiocese of Newark amounted to little or no supervision at all.

Fugee, who admitted to police in 2001 that he fondled a teenage boy, went where he wanted to go, whether it was to youth retreats outside the archdiocese or to give talks to the teens at Holy Family in Nutley. If officials in the archdiocese were watching, no one raised a flag.

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UGANDA
Los Angeles Times

By Robyn Dixon, Los Angeles Times
May 4, 2013

KAMPALA, Uganda — He is a celebrity across eastern and central Africa, a gospel music star known to many as the “Dancing Priest.” But for years he also was a keeper of painful secrets — his own and many others’.

In going public, Anthony Musaala has forced the Roman Catholic Church in Uganda to confront a problem it had insisted didn’t exist. And he may stir a debate far beyond Africa’s most Catholic of countries.

The Ugandan priest has been suspended indefinitely by the archbishop of Kampala for exposing what he calls an open secret: Sex abuse in the Catholic Church is a problem in Africa as well as in Western Europe and North America.

The African Catholic Church is fast-growing, pious and traditional. As the church elsewhere forks out billions of dollars to compensate the child sex abuse victims of priests, few African Catholics have questioned the assumption, voiced recently by Ghanaian Cardinal Peter Turkson, that the African church is purer than its counterpart in the West, which is regarded as secular and permissive.

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SCOTLAND
The Sunday Times

Cardinal Keith O’Brien, who retired after admitting inappropriate sexual conduct with priests, has reportedly been told by the Vatican to leave Scotland. O’Brien had intended to move to East Lothian but is understood to have been told that his continued presence in Scotland could further damage the Catholic church.

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SCOTLAND
Scotsman

By SHÂN ROSS
Published on 05/05/20

CARDINAL Keith O’Brien has been told to leave the UK amid fears that his continuing presence could lead to further criticism of the Catholic Church in Scotland.

Friends of the cardinal, still Scotland’s most senior Catholic, have been reported as saying officials in Rome have told him to abandon his plans to retire to a small church-owned property in Dunbar, East Lothian.

It is understood the cleric was contacted on Friday afternoon, days after he was photographed carrying cardboard boxes of his belongings from his official residence in Edinburgh.

The former Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, aged 75, had been forced by Pope Benedict XVI to retire after admitting “inappropriate behaviour” with four priests and a seminarian.

Philip Tartaglia, Archbishop of Glasgow, acting as president of the Bishop’s Conference of Scotland, was behind an appeal to the Vatican. He wrote to the Papal Nuncio in London informing him of the cardinal’s return and the subsequent publicity.

A source close to the cardinal said: “The cardinal has been advised not to relocate to the parish in Dunbar and has been told he should leave the country. That’s extremely disappointing and not a Christian way to treat someone. There’s clearly pressure from within and outwith the Church and no show of unity.

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UNITED STATES
Pope Crimes & Vatican Evils…

Updated May 4, 2013

Paris Arrow

A 47-year-old priest in Brazil, who studied theology in Germany, who is popular in the southeastern city of Bauru, where he has been a priest since 2001, was excommunicated for supporting gay rights. But way across the othe side of the globe, the Vatican has closed its investigation on active gay Cardinal Keith O’Brien and is allowing him to retain his title as Cardinal – after he admitted in public that he has had many gay relations – as a priest , as a Bishop and as a Cardinal, that’s about 50 years of his life until his sudden retirement before the papal conclave. O’Brien in now retiring in Scotland , see news updates below. Vatican hypocrisy is at its all time high and Catholics in the world should be appalled at the Vatican Titanic ruling the 1.2 billion Catholics with double standards of morality.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Berger’s Beat

. . .Meanwhile, students at Rosati-Kain High were surprised to be let out early the other day. Staff calls to parents blamed “unforeseen circumstances.” In truth, administrators apparently wanted the place evacuated before a SNAP sidewalk news conference outside the school. The support group announced a wrongful death suit against the archdiocese and now-defrocked priest, Bryan Michael Kuchar, who worked at the school.. …

. .N.Y. Cardinal Timothy Dolan, prez of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, has hired a spokesman to help recast the hierchy’s image which some feared was started to become unfriendly to women based upon Pres. Obama’s contraception mandate.

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OHIO
NBC4i

By: Denise Alex

COLUMBUS, Ohio –
Supporters of a teacher fired because of her relationship with another woman violates the teachings of the Catholic Church took their message to the Catholic Diocese of Columbus.

“I think that she realizes what we’re doing here is bigger than any of us as individuals. What we’re doing here today (Friday) has the potential to impact policy,” says Amanda Finelli, creator of HaleStorm Ohio.

Dozens rallied in front of the building on Gay Street, wanting Carla Hale to get her job back.

The 57-year-old lost her job when a parent of a Bishop Watterson student alerted the church to an obituary which named Hale’s partner.

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ROME
National Catholic Reporter

Joshua J. McElwee | May. 4, 2013

ROME “Serious misunderstandings” exist between Vatican officials and Catholic sisters, the head of the U.S. sisters’ group that was ordered to place itself under the review of bishops told some 800 of her global peers Saturday.

Franciscan Sr. Florence Deacon, president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), addressed the sisters during the plenary assembly of the International Union of Superiors General, a group of nearly 2,000 leaders of women religious throughout the world.

Deacon’s remarks constituted LCWR’s most public narrative of their relations with the Vatican. Citing a need to continue dialog with the Vatican, the group has kept a tight lip on their discussions.

In a detailed, 20-minute address, Deacon outlined for her peers how her group, which represents about 80 percent of the some 57,000 U.S. sisters, had been ordered to revise itself last April by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

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SCOTLAND
Helensburgh Advertiser

Published 19 Apr 2013

A visitor to the pilgrimage trail at Luss has called on the church to remove a picture of disgraced Cardinal Keith O’Brien from site.

The picture of the cardinal is included on a plaque beside a tree which he planted during a visit in 2010.

However, a Roman Catholic visitor to the glebe has emailed Rev Dane Sherrard calling for the image to be removed as they found it “disturbing”.

The email, included in Mr Sherrard’s daily blog, says: “I came across the peaceful and delightful pilgrimage centre and found it thought provoking and helpful. I was however taken aback by the picture of Keith O’Brien – I found it disturbing to see his image here and that it impacted on my thoughts and feelings in a negative way.

“I think it time that image was removed, especially in light of further revelations in today’s press and his admission of terrible hypocrisy. As a Catholic I find this increasingly disturbing.”

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NEW JERSEY
ABC News

By KATIE ZEZIMA Associated Press

NEWARK, N.J. May 4, 2013 (AP)

The agreement with prosecutors, reached after a priest’s conviction on charges that he fondled a teenage boy were thrown out, was unequivocal.

The Rev. Michael Fugee could return to ministry in the Archdiocese of Newark, but was barred from having unsupervised contact with minors or a job that requires him to oversee or minister to children under the age of 18.

But despite the legally binding agreement, Fugee was a presence at a church youth group, traveling with teenagers to Canada on a mission to help disabled Catholics, hearing confessions from teenagers and participating in retreat trips.

This week’s disclosure that Fugee continued to work with children has roiled the faithful in New Jersey, opening up wounds from the church abuse scandal that started in Boston more than 10 years ago and raising questions about how closely the archdiocese monitored Fugee’s activities.

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SCOTLAND
The Guardian

Conal Urquhart
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 4 May 2013

Cardinal Keith O’Brien, Britain’s most senior priest, has been ordered by the Vatican to leave Scotland, it has been reported.

The cardinal, who retired from the leadership of the church in Scotland after admitting inappropriate sexual conduct with priests, has been advised against going ahead with his plan to move to a house in Dunbar in East Lothian after vacating his official residence in Edinburgh, according to the Herald.

The archbishop of Glasgow, Philip Tartaglia, wrote to the pope’s envoy in London to warn of the possibility of damage to the Catholic church if O’Brien maintained a public profile in Scotland, the paper reported.

“The cardinal has been advised not to relocate to the parish in Dunbar and has been told he should leave the country,” an anonymous source told the paper. “That’s extremely disappointing and not a Christian way to treat someone. There’s clearly pressure from within and outwith the Church and no show of unity.”

Canon John Creanor, of the Our Lady of the Waves in Dunbar, said he had no knowledge of any instructions from the Vatican to O’Brien to leave the country.

“If that was the case, I would be horrified. The people of Dunbar are keenly awaiting his arrival,” he said.

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SCOTLAND
Telegraph

Damian Thompson

Gerry Braiden of the Glasgow Herald is reporting today that Cardinal Keith O’Brien, former Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, has been ordered to leave Britain by the Vatican following his admission that he made sexual advances to priests during his time as Primate of Scotland. It’s a terrible end to the career of a flawed but likeable man who, clearly, should never have accepted a cardinal’s hat in the first place. Writes Braiden:

Friends of the cleric have said he has been told by Rome to shelve his plans to retire to a church-owned cottage in East Lothian and instead leave the country.

The Herald understands Cardinal O’Brien was given the news yesterday afternoon, three days after being photographed moving his personal belongings from his official residence in Edinburgh to the residence in Dunbar where he had been spending regular weekends over the past few years.

The parish priest in Dunbar, Canon John Creanor, is understood to have voiced upset at the Vatican’s move against his “dear friend”.

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NEW JERSEY
The Record

FRIDAY MAY 3, 2013

BY JEFF GREEN
STAFF WRITER
THE RECORD

Ron Fraioli said he went to his pastor at St. Elizabeth’s of Hungary Church in Wyckoff in 2000 with a stunning allegation: An assistant pastor, the Rev. Michael Fugee, was repeatedly groping a 13-year-old boy in mock wrestling sessions when he visited the home of the boy’s mother.

The pastor, Monsignor Thomas O’Leary, wrote a letter making a strong case for an investigation of Fugee to his superiors at the Archdiocese of Newark, Fraioli said. Months passed with no reply.

Fraioli, a lawyer who has kept a large file of exacting notes of conversations and correspondence related to the alleged sexual abuse, said he sought a direct response from the archdiocese and was told by a lawyer there that the allegations were based on third-hand information and that he could not report them to authorities.

Five months had elapsed, he said, since the pastor wrote his letter. Fraioli and parishioner Janice Thomas, both devout Catholics who said they sought action first from their church, went to state child protection services, which referred them to the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office, they said in interviews this week.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

By Kate Wilcox

Published: Saturday, May 4, 2013

Two parishes in the Greensburg Catholic Diocese will close, several others will merge and the fate of three diocesan elementary schools is in question, Bishop Lawrence E. Brandt announced Friday.

Citing an ever-declining population and funds, as well as a shortage of priests, Brandt said the diocese has been slowly closing and merging schools and parishes since a strategic plan was put in place in 2006.

All parish closings and reorganizations will be effective Tuesday, June 25, 2013.

• St. Hedwig in Smock, Fayette County, and St. Boniface in Latrobe will close. There are other parishes within five to seven miles of the two churches that parishioners can attend, Brandt said.
St. Hedwig has 192 families and St. Boniface has 141 families.

• Merging into one: Madonna of Czestochowa, Cardale; St. Thomas, Footedale; Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Leckrone; All Saints, Masontown; St. Procopius, New Salem; and Holy Rosary, Republic. The new parish will be named St. Francis of Assisi with worship sites in Footedale and Masontown.

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NEW JERSEY
Asbury Park Press

Written by
Kevin Pentón
@kevinpentonAPP

COLTS NECK — With hugs, tears and wistful smiles, hundreds of parishioners gathered at St. Mary’s Church on Friday to share their emotions and their concerns about the presence of the Rev. Michael Fugee amidst their congregation.

As they spoke with each other outside the community meeting, held a day after Fugee submitted his letter of resignation, some parishioners questioned the actions of St. Mary’s leaders in allowing Fugee to be part of a youth group at the church. Several wiped tears.

An agreement with prosecutors, reached after Fugee’s conviction on charges that he fondled a teenage boy were thrown out, had been unequivocal.

Fugee could return to ministry in the Archdiocese of Newark, but was barred from having unsupervised contact with minors or a job that requires him to oversee or minister to children under the age of 18.

But despite the legally binding agreement, Fugee was a presence at St. Mary’s, traveling with teenagers to Canada on a mission to help disabled Catholics, hearing confessions from teenagers and participating in retreat trips.

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OAKLAND (CA)
San Francisco Chronicle

Matthai Kuruvila

Pope Francis named a Boston priest with longtime ties to the Bay Area as the bishop of Oakland, where the future bishop emphasized that he would lead a path more pastoral than political.

Until now, Rev. Michael Barber had been the director of spiritual formation at a Boston seminary. In his first comments to diocesan staff in Oakland on Friday, Barber spoke of spending time in soup kitchens serving food, washing dishes, visiting jails and otherwise “getting my hands dirty.”

Barber, 58, is the first Jesuit bishop named by Francis, the first Jesuit pope. Oakland’s bishop-elect said it was Francis’ example he sought to follow, “to show, symbolically, that the church is there to serve the poor and the marginalized.”

The message is a notable contrast to that of his predecessor in Oakland, Salvatore Cordileone, the current San Francisco Archbishop. Cordileone has made the politics of marriage a central part of his leadership stretching back to his advocacy of Proposition 8, banned same-sex marriage in California.

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NORTH DAKOTA
The Dickinson Press

By: Bryan Horwath, The Dickinson Press

A civil suit brought against the Diocese of Bismarck by a man who claimed a priest with North Dakota ties sexually abused him has been settled.

Both parties involved in civil case John Doe No. 87 vs. the Diocese of Bismarck filed in U.S. District Court in Hawaii agreed to settlement terms last month, triggering a court-ordered dismissal of the case Friday. The case had been scheduled to go to trial in July.

Colorado resident Steven Crochet, 46, who agreed to waive his anonymity as the plaintiff in the suit during an interview with The Press in January, accused Rev. Maurice G. McNeely of forcing Crochet — then a pre-teen — to perform oral sex on him at a U.S. Army base in Hawaii in the mid-1970s.

Both Crochet’s attorney, Florida-based Adam Horowitz and diocese spokesman Matthew Kurtz declined to disclose the terms of the financial settlement when contacted Friday.

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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

Saturday 4 May 2013

Gerry Braiden
Senior reporter

CARDINAL Keith O’Brien has been told by the Vatican to leave the UK amid concerns of wreaking further damage on the Catholic Church in Scotland.

Friends of the cleric have said he has been told by Rome to shelve his plans to retire to a church-owned cottage in East Lothian and instead leave the country.

The Herald understands Cardinal O’Brien was given the news yesterday afternoon, three days after being photographed moving his personal belongings from his official residence in Edinburgh to the residence in Dunbar where he had been spending regular weekends over the past few years.

The parish priest in Dunbar, Canon John Creanor, is understood to have voiced upset at the Vatican’s move against his “dear friend”.

It is the clearest indication yet of the Vatican’s unwillingness to let the matter drift and concern that the Cardinal’s admission of gay activity over decades and allegations of abuse towards trainee priests continues to damage the Church.

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SCOTLAND
Gay Star News

04 MAY 2013 | BY DAN LITTAUER

Friends of the disgraced Cardinal Keith O’Brien say he’s been ordered by the Vatican into exile and ditch his plans for retirement in Scotland.

The Herald commented that: ‘It is the clearest indication yet of the Vatican’s unwillingness to let the matter drift’ of the Cardinal’s sexual assault on male priests when he run seminaries in the 1980s and during a drinks party in Rome.

According to the The Herald, O’Brien was given the news yesterday (3 May) after starting to move his belongings from his Edinburgh residence to his retirement home in Dunbar, East Lothain, three days ago.

The Herald revealed on Thursday that Philip Tartaglia Archbishop of Glasgow and likely to become O’Brien’s successor, was behind an appeal to the Vatican to intervene after Cardinal O’Brien’s re-emergence in Scotland this week.

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CANADA
Hindustan Times

A priest at an Abbotsford Hindu temple has been found guilty of three counts of sexual interference with two young women in his congregation. Karam Vir, 33, was charged in November 2010 with two counts of touching a young person for a sexual purpose, and one count of sexual
assault.

While delivering the verdict BC Supreme Court Justice Neill Brown remanded Vir to custody until his sentence is pronounced in August.

Brown, in reviewing the evidence, painted a picture of long-term friendships that had developed between Vir and the two teenagers over months (girls identities protected due to a publication ban).

These relationships of trust were breached when Vir made sexual advances, sexually exploiting the girls, then 17.

“I believe their testimony in the way that Vir exploited their trust,” Brown said. “I find credible the complainants’ evidence that Vir sexually touched them . . . I find both complainants were fearful.”

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