Month: June 2013

ROME
The Guardian via YouTube

Silent footage released by Italian police of Vatican bank cleric Monsignor Nunzio Scarano after he was arrested in a parish in Rome. Scarano, 61, is accused of being involved in an attempt to help friends bring €20m (£17m) into Italy from Switzerland by plane, in league with a secret service agent and a financial intermediary. Scarano’s lawyer says the money never left Switzerland

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Jeff Anderson & Associates

St. Paul News Conference Monday, July 1

Historic release of secret church documents and depositions detailing Vatican’s role in abuse cases

Cardinal Dolan’s involvement in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee’s activities leading up to bankruptcy revealed

Attorneys say documents kept secret in Minnesota contain similar evidence of calculated denial and delay to avoid legal accountability and scandal

What: At a news conference on Monday in St. Paul, prominent clergy abuse attorneys Jeff Anderson and Mike Finnegan will:

· Discuss the contents of these secret documents and detail the Vatican’s role in priest
abuse cases

· Explain Cardinal Dolan’s role in the events leading up to the Archdiocese of
Milwaukee’s bankruptcy filing

· Reveal their own experience in gaining sworn testimony in depositions of former
Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland, Bishop Richard Sklba, and current New
York Cardinal Timothy Dolan and revelations disclosed in their depositions;

· Call for release of all Catholic Church child sex abuser files in the U.S., including
documents and files in Minnesota dioceses related to religious order clerics,
employees, and permanent deacons;

· Demand that Bishops in Minnesota release files and names of all known offenders in
order to prevent any further chance of known offenders harming additional children.

WHEN: Monday, July 1 at 1:00PM

WHERE: Law Offices of Jeff Anderson & Associates
366 Jackson Street, Suite 100
St. Paul, MN 55101

WHO: Attorneys Jeff Anderson and Mike Finnegan, St. Paul, Minnesota-based,
internationally known trial lawyers widely recognized as pioneers in sexual abuse
litigation. Anderson and Finnegan are representing hundreds of clergy abuse
survivors who registered claims in the bankruptcy case filed by the Archdiocese of
Milwaukee.

On Monday, July 1 go to www.andersonadvocates.com and click on the icon at the top of the page for access to all the released documents.

Press conference will be streamed live on the web and the link to the live stream can be found under the “News” section at www.andersonadvocates.com.

Contact Jeff Anderson: Office/651.227.9990 Mobile/612.817.8665
Contact Mike Finnegan: Office/651.227.9990 Mobile/612.205.5531

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ROME
Telegraph (UK)

The Catholic priest at the heart of a Vatican money scandal has claimed he did not act for personal gain when he attempted to bring 20 million euros into Italy from Switzerland illicitly.

Nick Squires in Rome 5:03PM BST 30 Jun 2013

Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, 61, will be questioned by investigators on Monday in the 17th century Rome prison in which is being held, as more details emerge of the complex scheme.

Nicknamed by fellow priests “Monsignor 500” for his habit of flashing a wallet full of 500 euro notes, he has insisted that he committed no crime when he allegedly tried to import the cash on board a private jet.

“Monsignor Scarano will answer all questions and will explain what his role was, showing that he had no personal interest in the matter,” Silverio Sica, his lawyer, said.

“There was no profit in it for him and he acted purely in a spirit of friendship.”

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Fox 6

Posted on: 2:04 pm, June 30, 2013, by Katie DeLong

MILWAUKEE (WITI) — The Archdiocese of Milwaukee on Monday, July 1st is set to release thousands of records released to Archdiocese sex abuse cases.

The files are expected to shed more light on who knew about alleged misconduct of priests, and for how long.

The document release was announced again by the Milwaukee Archdiocese in June, when the Archdiocese released a statement after news broke of an audit relating to sex abuse by Capuchin priests.

In the statement, the Archdiocese said:

“We commend the Capuchin’s decision to provide more open and candid communication related to clergy sexual abuse of minors. In 2004, when the Archdiocese of Milwaukee was one of the first dioceses in the country to make public the names of diocesan priest offenders with substantiated allegations of sexual abuse of a minor, we encouraged religious orders to do the same. Today, we continue to work toward reconciliation with abuse survivors. In two weeks, the archdiocese will post additional documents to our website as part of our own commitment to transparency.”

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DEUTSCHLAND
Papageno

Ich frage mich, wohin sich die katholische Kirche entwickeln wird.

Ich habe dem Verein zwar vor bald vierzig Jahren gekündigt, verfolge aber seine Entwicklung immer wieder mit gewissem Interesse. Wie bei Politikern und CEO’s der Wirtschaftbranche können wir auch bei Priestern, Bischöfen und Kardinälen feststellen: Wasser predigen und Wein trinken. Ueber Finanzielles des Vatikans werde ich ein anderes Mal schreiben. Heute geht’s um Sex im Vatikan.

Es ist bekannt, dass sehr viele Priester während vieler Jahre Knaben missbraucht haben. Das sind Tatsachen, die nach langem vertuschen und abstreiten schlussendlich von der Kirche bestätigt werden. Papst Benedikt hat aber z.B. 1996 auf Strafe oder Strafanzeige gegen einen pädophilen Priester verzichtet. Wie im “Spiegel Online” vom Oktober 2010 zu lesen war, handelte es sich um den pädophilen amerikanischen Priester Lawrence Murphy aus der Diözese Milwaukee.

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UNITED KINGDOM
UK Paedos Exposed

February 2013 – Now OVER 18,000 UK “Paedophiles/child abusers now profiled on this database – Search by offender/area or profession – Search bar and catergory drop down menu on right >>>>>
April 2012

Key child protection statistics

MORE than 400 children are sexually abused every week in Britain — one every 20 MINUTES, a shock investigation has revealed

The 43 police forces in England and Wales recorded 23,097 child sex offences in 2011. That included rape, incest, child prostitution and pornography.

The annual figure is equivalent to 444 attacks a week — or one kiddie abused every 20 minutes.

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VATIKAN
Radio Vatikan

Der wegen Verdachts auf Korruption verhaftete Vatikanmitarbeiter Nunzio Scarano soll am Montag dem Haftprüfungsrichter vorgeführt werden. Er müsse sich gegen den Vorwurf verteidigen, an einer – letztlich gescheiterten – Überführung von 20 Millionen Euro Bargeld in einem Privatjet aus der Schweiz am Fiskus vorbei nach Italien beteiligt gewesen zu sein, melden römische Zeitungen am Sonntag. Dafür soll Scarano, ehemaliger Rechnungsprüfer bei der vatikanischen Güterverwaltung Apsa, einem ebenfalls verhafteten ehemaligen Geheimdienstmitarbeiter 400.000 Euro gezahlt haben. Es soll sich um Geld der mit Scarano befreundeten Reederfamilie D’Amico aus der gemeinsamen süditalienischen Heimat Salerno handeln.

Der Anwalt des verhafteten Vatikanmitarbeiters sagte laut italienischen Sonntagsmedien, sein Mandant habe aus der Angelegenheit keinerlei Profit gezogen. Er habe „allein aus einem Geist der Freundschaft“ gehandelt. Er werde bei der Anhörung auf die Fragen antworten und seine Rolle erklären. Der Präsident der Apsa, Kardinal Domenico Calcagno, hob unterdessen in einem Presseinterview vom Wochenende hervor, dass seine Institution „mit dieser ganzen Angelegenheit nichts zu tun hat“, dass Scarano bereits Ende Mai von seinem Dienst suspendiert worden sei, als die italienische Justiz die Ermittlungen gegen ihn eingeleitet habe.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Die Welt

Andreas Huckele machte den Missbrauchskandal an der Odenwaldschule öffentlich. Jetzt fragt er: Was ist seither besser geworden?

Im vergangenen Jahr wurde Andreas Huckele mit dem Geschwister-Scholl-Preis ausgezeichnet. Wenn man weiß, was ihm widerfahren ist, wünscht man sich, das wäre ihm erspart geblieben: Denn die Auszeichnung für sein “seltenes Beispiel von Mut” galt einem Buch, in dem Huckele – noch unter dem Pseudonym Jürgen Behmers – detailliert von dem sexuellen Missbrauch erzählte, der ihm und anderen an der Frankfurter Odenwaldschule angetan wurde.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Fait Religieux

Le cardinal Sean O’Malley, archevêque de Boston (États-Unis), a interdit fin juin au père Helmut Schüller, chef de l’Initiative des prêtres autrichiens favorable à la réforme de l’Église, de s’exprimer dans l’archidiocèse de Boston.

Le père Schüller devait prendre la parole dans la ville de Dedham le 17 juillet, dans le cadre d’une tournée nationale. Son organisation appelle notamment à une plus grande transparence dans l’Église, au mariage des prêtres, et à l’ordination des femmes.

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VATICAN CITY
The Australian

JOHN FOLLAIN, VATICAN CITY From: The Australian July 01, 2013

A SENIOR Roman Catholic cleric arrested for allegedly plotting to bring E20 million ($28.6m) into Italy from Switzerland spoke in code to his accomplices, according to leaked telephone intercepts.

Nunzio Scarano, 61, a former Vatican finance official, was detained on Friday along with an Italian former spy and a financial broker. Prosecutors say they had planned to smuggle the money in a private plane. The three deny any wrongdoing.

Monsignor Scarano, a banker who became a priest at 32, is reported to have referred to millions of euros as “books of the Treccani” a reference to the authoritative 35-volume Italian encyclopedia.

“I think that the more books you bring the better,” Monsignor Scarano reportedly told Giovanni Maria Zito, the former spy, in July last year ahead of the shipment.

“If I can, I’ll bring twice as much,” Mr Zito replied.

“Can you manage 20-25 books?” asked Monsignor Scarano, who prosecutors said was called “Monsignor E500” because he flaunted E500 notes.

Mr Zito allegedly demanded a E400,000 commission for his part in the deal. The shipment, later aborted, allegedly involved funds from three brothers of the d’Amico shipping family.

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VATICAN CITY
Reuters

Sun Jun 30, 2013

* Scarano had vast amounts of money at disposal -judicial document
* Prelate had close connections to Vatican bank
* Poses first big headache for Pope Francis
* Francis has promised transparency, set up bank inquiry

By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY, June 30 (Reuters) – A senior Catholic cleric arrested in a plot to smuggle tens of millions of dollars into Italy controlled vast amounts of money and felt he could act with impunity because of his connections to the Vatican bank, according to a judge’s investigative document.

In the latest blow to the Vatican’s image, Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, 61, was arrested on Friday along with an Italian secret service agent and a financial broker.

The three had plotted to smuggle 20 million euros ($26 million) into Italy from Switzerland for members of a family of ship-owners in southern Italy, an investigating magistrate told reporters on Friday.

The magistrate said the pivotal protagonist was Scarano, who worked until recently as a senior accountant in the Vatican’s financial administration, and that he owned numerous pieces of property and had accounts in the Vatican bank.

A 48-page document in which Judge Barbara Callari approves magistrates’ requests for the arrests, and which was obtained by Reuters, contains transcripts or summaries of wiretaps, emails, letters, cheques and other results of police investigations.

It describes the development of a plot that reads like a spy novel, involving a private plane that was to collect the cash in Switzerland, burned cell phones, a shady financier and an allegedly corrupt secret service agent who promised to slip the money past customs.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

July 1, 2013

Barney Zwartz

Cardinal George Pell has failed Australia’s 5 million Catholics as a religious and moral leader and must be told to stand down as Sydney Archbishop, according to a petition by a clergy sexual abuse victims’ group to the Pope’s Australian ambassador.

”Cardinal Pell is a spiritually impotent leader, a leader who presents no empathy, no moral judgment and no felt deep concern for victims, a leader who is avoiding responsibility for the immorality and sodomy that has been breeding in his house of God,” says the petition to papal nuncio Archbishop Paul Gallagher.

”It is time for the Roman Catholic Church in Australia to change, and the starting point is for Cardinal George Pell to stand down. He is part of the problem, not the solution.”

The request by victims’ advocacy group COIN comes as another petition, launched last month by Sydney Catholic Bishop Geoffrey Robinson calling for a global church council to tackle the scourge of clergy sexual abuse, has passed 80,000 signatures.

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ITALIA
Francesco Zanardi

[con il video]

CENSURATO IN ITALIA “Orge gay con minorenni” Inchiesta su dossier e ricatti in Vaticano. Questa è la prima di molte conversazioni avvenute tra il manager che lavora in Vaticano e Francesco Zanardi portavoce di Rete L’ABUSO. Dopo una serie di verifiche fatte prima da Zanardi e poi dai giornalisti del Fatto Quotidiano, Ferruccio Sansa e Marco Lillo si è potuta accertare l’attendibilità dell’informatore. Nella puntata di Servizio Pubblico http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KFzjsen4wM&hd=1 quello che è emerso dall’indagine.

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VATICAN CITY
The Observer

Tom Kington in Rome
The Observer, Sunday 30 June 2013

A tide of lurid speculation, questionable accusations and possible blackmail attempts is buffeting the Vatican following Pope Francis’s claim that he is preparing to tackle a gay lobby secretly at work behind the Holy See’s walls.

The new pope’s private comments to a group of visiting South American churchmen, which caused a sensation when they appeared on a religious website earlier this week, prompted blushes in the Vatican, but have also unleashed feverish gossip in Rome regarding the contents of a report on Vatican infighting prepared last year for Francis’s predecessor, Joseph Ratzinger.

On his retirement in February, Ratzinger handed his Argentine successor the dossier, which reportedly describes a lobby of gay, senior churchmen inside the Vatican, running a network of patronage while fighting off blackmailers.

The pope’s unguarded remarks, which appeared to confirm the speculation, have fuelled a new round of accusations, beginning with a convicted paedophile priest, Father Patrizio Poggi, who last week named nine fellow prelates in Rome as part of a secret band who used a police officer to supply them with eastern European rent boys. By Friday, Poggi was under arrest, accused of defamation as investigators claimed he had invented the whole story to take revenge on fellow priests who stood by when he was found guilty of abusing children.

On Thursday, anti-paedophile campaigner Francesco Zanardi posted a taped conversation on his website in which an informant told him about alleged secret sex parties inside the Vatican involving 14-year-old male prostitutes and cardinals, as well as rented apartments in Rome where prelates kept a supply of young men.

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ISRAEL
Israel Hayon

Dr. Aviad Hacohen

As originally conceived, the institution of the Chief Rabbinate was supposed to be a “spiritual center,” a fount of creativity and moral inspiration for the Jewish people and the world at large. If anyone needs additional proof of the depths to which this institution has sunk, look no further than the recent house arrest and suspension of Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger as well as the statement issued by his spokesman, which breathlessly announced nothing short of a “revolution.”

“From now on, kosher bakeries will be required to bake parve phyllo-dough bourekas in the shape of a closed triangle or spiral, while the dairy bourekas will be bagel-shaped. Parve croissants and rogalech will be straight while the dairy ones will be crescent-shaped,” the statement said.

There you have it, folks. The “bourekas revolution,” as brought to you by the Chief Rabbinate, will surely join the communist revolution, the French revolution, the industrial revolution and the digital revolution in import. Clearly its instigators expect it to enter the pantheon of history.

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NEW YORK
The Jewish Press

By: Eliyahu Federman
Published: June 30th, 2013

NBC ‘Rock Center‘ did a story on Judy Braun’s book ‘Hush,’ which chronicles Judy’s journey to raise awareness on reporting and discussing sexual abuse in her deeply insular Hasidic community. The book resulted in her being threatened and shunned by her community.

Rabbi Avraham Berkowits was interviewed for the show. But when his views did not fit the story line, NBC deceptively edited his quotes adding grossly misleading voice-overs that implied he believes sex abuse crimes should be handled only by rabbis. This was all a lie.

The transcript of the unedited interview shows that Berkowitz said things like in his community “the Rabbis work together hand-in-hand with the authorities,” “deviants must be punished,” “they’ll be caught.”

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VATICAN CITY
John Thavis

The first 100 days of a pope are not like the first 100 days of a president or prime minister or a CEO. A pope thinks long-term, and is under less pressure to put forward a series of short-term goals or programs. Most of the issues facing a pope transcend the pragmatic and the political. They require careful thought, prayer and consultation, not a string of policy statements.

For journalists, though, 100 days is a marker that requires evaluation and commentary. It was certainly the hot topic at the Catholic Media Conference this week in Denver, where I gave a talk this morning to several hundred Catholic communicators.

So what do we know about Pope Francis after 100 days in office? We’ve had no important documents, few significant appointments and no earth-shaking reforms of the Roman Curia.

But we do have a healthy dose of papal thinking and papal preaching – on everything ranging from clerical careerism to sweatshop employment. And we have a number of papal gestures that speak volumes to people inside and outside the church.

I don’t want to recap Pope Francis’ 100-day “greatest hits” here. Instead, I’d like to identify a few core characteristics and directions that seem to be emerging:

1. Francis has relocated the papacy outside the Roman Curia.

First, choosing to live in the less formal Vatican guesthouse instead of the papal apartments has turned out to be a crucial decision, because geography counts at the Vatican. The papal apartments are surrounded by Roman Curia offices, deep inside the Apostolic Palace, and Francis would have been much more isolated there. He is a people person, after all.

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MINNESOTA
Jeff Anderson & Associates

[the lawsuit]

(Duluth & Brainerd, MN) – Attorneys for a 55-year-old Arizona man filed a lawsuit in St. Louis County today claiming that beginning in the early 1960s officials of the Diocese of Duluth knew a parish priest assigned to St. Rose Parish in Proctor, Minnesota, Father John Nicholson, was sexually abusing children but failed to report the abuse to law enforcement or take action to keep the priest from harming other children.

The lawsuit seeks to have the names of the priests accused of sexually molesting children made public. In 2004 the Diocese of Duluth admitted that it had the names of 17 priests who had been accused of sexually molesting minors in the Diocese of Duluth.

The Plaintiff, identified as John Doe 5 to protect his privacy, appeared at a press conference in Duluth today and said, “I am here today to make sure that children are safe and let survivors know that they now have a chance at justice. Children can’t be safe without the Diocese coming clean about what it knows about abuse in this Diocese. That should start with the Diocese releasing the names of the 17 priests it knows were accused of sexually molesting children.”

Also at the press conference, Mike Finnegan, an attorney for the Jeff Anderson & Associates in St. Paul, who is representing Doe 5, explained that the lawsuit claims that the Diocese’s failure to take any action, such as reporting to law enforcement or warning parish families about the priest, caused his client to be abused. “They choose to protect themselves and avoid scandal over protecting children in their care from harm. For that, this courageous survivor deserves justice and accountability.”

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WISCONSIN
Green Bay Press-Gazette

Written by
Scott Cooper Williams
Press-Gazette Media

Six months after exposing a loophole in Green Bay’s sex offender ordinance, a former Catholic priest convicted of molesting a young boy continues living near a public park on the city’s east side.

Donald Buzanowski, 70, moved to an apartment building at 2258 Imperial Lane last year despite being banned from living there by the city’s Sex Offender Residence Board.

City officials later discovered that they had no jurisdiction over Buzanowski, because he was convicted under a state law not listed among the city’s reasons for restricting where sex offenders could live.

Aldermen voted to close the loophole in December, but they have since learned that the change cannot be applied retroactively to Buzanowski.

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CONNECTICUT
The Advocate

Michael P. Mayko
Published 9:59 pm, Saturday, June 29, 2013

The sordid sex scandal involving 24 Haitian street boys, Douglas Perlitz and the Project Pierre Toussaint program has come to an end.

Lawyers for the boys, who claim they were sexually abused by Perlitz, reached a $12 million settlement Friday with attorneys representing people and charities accused of promoting and raising money for Perlitz’s program but failing to properly supervise him.

Perlitz was among the founders of Project Pierre Toussaint, which outlined its purpose as helping to feed, clothe and educate Haitian boys in their country. Instead, the boys’ lawyers claim, it became an instrument of abuse.

“This ends the litigation pending in the District of Connecticut in connection with the Perlitz matter,” said Stanley A. Twardy Jr., Fairfield University’s lawyer. Twardy previously served as Connecticut’s chief federal prosecutor.

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ROME
National Catholic Register

by Jimmy Akin Saturday, June 29, 2013

This man is Patrizio Poggi, an ex-priest and convicted pedophile. When the Vatican refused to reinstate him to the priesthood, he tried to get various Roman priests and bishops in trouble with the law. What is the truth in this situation?

A few days ago, the Catholic blogosphere began buzzing with the sensational charge that a prostitution ring involving homosexual pedophiles had been discovered at the Vatican.
Is this true?

Or is it one more case of people running amok with rumors?

Here are 8 things you need to know . . .

1. What was initially reported?
The initial claim was that there was a former priest who applied to the Holy See to be reinstated to the priesthood, though he had been convicted of pedophilia and sent to prison.

When the Holy See refused to reinstate him, he got mad and began acting as a whistleblower on the existence of a prostitution ring involving pedophiles at the Vatican.

It was claimed that 10-20 members of the clergy were involved, possibly including 4 bishops.

Further, it was claimed that the procurer for the boy prostitution ring sold consecrated hosts to Satanists.

2. Who was the priest in question?
His name is Patrizio (Patrick) Poggi.
According to The Daily Mail:

Don Patrizio Poggi, 46, who served a five-year sentence for abusing five boys aged 14 to 15, at his parish outside Rome [St. Philip Neri]. . . .

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ITALY
The Economist

HE WAS known in his home town as “Monsignor Cinquecento”—not an allusion to the super-economic Fiats Roman Catholic priests drive in Italian television dramas, but to the €500 notes that Monsignor Nunzio Scarano (pictured) is said to have had in abundance.

Monsignor Scarano was one of three people arrested by Italian police on June 28th in an affair that has turned an unsettling spotlight on the Holy See’s financial institutions just days after Pope Francis began a clean-up of the Vatican’s scandal-plagued “bank”, the Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR).

Monsignor Scarano, who denies all wrongdoing, is certainly no barefoot priest. A banker before his ordination, he was appointed to a senior post in the department that manages the Holy See’s assets (from which he has been suspended since being placed under investigation earlier this month on suspicion of money-laundering). According to an Italian press report, Monsignor Scarano owns a 90% stake in a property firm and has a circle of friends that includes one of Italy’s best-known show business personalities.

Few writers of fiction would tax their readers’ credibility with a story like the one outlined in the warrant issued for the arrest of the Monsignor and his two alleged co-conspirators, both of whom also deny wrongdoing. One, Giovanni Maria Zito, is an officer in the Carabinieri police force, who was previously attached to Italy’s domestic intelligence service, the Agenzia Informazioni e Sicurezza Interna (AISI). The other is Giovanni Carenzio, a financial broker, reportedly active in Switzerland and the Canary Islands. According to the financial daily Il Sole-24 Ore, the two men came into contact through a Catholic order of chivalry, the Ordine Constantiniano, that claims to be the oldest in Christendom.

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VATICAN CITY
The Independent (UK)

PETER POPHAM SUNDAY 30 JUNE 2013

The timing was neat. Just two days after Pope Francis set up a commission to investigate the Vatican bank, known in Italian by the  acronym IOR, meaning Institute for Religious Works, a high-ranking priest who worked for it, Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, was arrested in Rome along with two other men and accused of corruption.

Father Scarano, ordained aged 35 after a first career as a banker and now in custody, had already been suspended on suspicion of involvement in money laundering. In the new case, it is alleged that the three men tried to smuggle €20m into Italy from Switzerland, presumably to avoid paying Italian duty on it.

The priest is known to his friends as “Monsignor 500” because of the number of €500 bills he carries around. In the earlier case, which is still under investigation, he is said to have withdrawn €560,000 from his IOR account to pay off a mortgage on his home in Salerno, south of Naples. The money, it is charged, consisted of donations by churchgoers who believed it was going towards building a home for the terminally ill. It is alleged the monsignor gave 56 friends €10,000 each in cash, asking them for cheques or money transfers in exchange, thus enabling him to pay the cheques into his personal Italian account. Father Scarano’s lawyer has said that he declares himself “absolutely innocent”. The home for the terminally ill, meanwhile, remains unbuilt.

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VATICAN CITY
Telegraph (UK)

By David Willey
29 Jun 2013

“It’s like the end of the Berlin Wall,” said a high-ranking Vatican official last week after an invisible financial barrier marking the legal separation between the Vatican and Italy was breached for the first time.

According to officials at the Bank of Italy, the Institute for Works of Religion – the Vatican’s own offshore bank – has for years been allowing organised criminals, even terrorists, to launder money with impunity.

On Friday, Italian tax police arrested a high-ranking Italian prelate, Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, who until last month was working as a senior accountant inside the Vatican’s financial administration. They also arrested a financial intermediary and an agent from Italy’s secret services on charges of conspiring with Mgr Scarano to commit crimes of embezzlement and money laundering.

Mgr Scarano is alleged to have masterminded a plot that sounds like an airport novel. He attempted to bring €20million in cash belonging to a wealthy family of shipowners from a Swiss bank to Rome in a private plane, thereby evading customs and tax controls.

Italian prosecutors have had their eye on the Vatican bank for several years but, until now, have had great difficulty in obtaining any information from the Holy See, which has pleaded diplomatic immunity and exemption from normal international banking rules on the grounds that the Institute for Works of Religion “is not a bank in the normal sense of the word”.

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WYOMING
The Missoulian

Former Wyoming church janitor acknowledges sex abuse of children

Associated Press

CASPER, Wyo. – A 29-year-old former janitor has acknowledged leading multiple young girls to believe he was a youth group leader at a Casper church and then taking advantage of that trust.

The Casper Star-Tribune reports James David Jaure pleaded guilty Thursday to one count of third-degree sexual abuse of a minor and two counts of second-degree sexual abuse of a minor. The charges carry up to 15 and 20 years in prison, respectively

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NEW JERSEY
The Star-Ledger

By Mark Mueller/The Star-Ledger
on June 30, 2013

A public school teacher in Newark has agreed to the revocation of his teaching certificates over allegations that he repeatedly groped teenage boys in the 1970s and 1980s, when he was engaged in active ministry as a Roman Catholic priest.

The Rev. John Capparelli reached a settlement with the State Board of Examiners, the body that regulates teachers, ahead of a scheduled hearing before an administrative law judge earlier this month. The revocation takes effect today.

At least two of Capparelli’s alleged victims, Rich Fitter and Andrew Dundorf, were to testify at the hearing. A deputy attorney general also was expected to present evidence showing the teacher ran a fetish website featuring young men wrestling in skimpy bikini bathing suits.

“I’m happy that after all this time, he’s finally being held accountable,” said Fitter, a Montclair resident who contends Capparelli, now 64, touched him inappropriately and brutalized him during “submission wrestling” matches in the 1980s. “He should not be around children. To me, he should be in jail.”

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By Annysa Johnson of the Journal Sentinel June 29, 2013

In a major turning point in its nearly 3-year-old bankruptcy, the Archdiocese of Milwaukee on Monday is scheduled to make public thousands of pages of documents detailing the sexual abuse of minors by priests going back decades, and what church leaders did — and did not do — in response.

The records will contain parts of 42 priests’ personnel files as well as depositions of former Archbishop Timothy Dolan, now cardinal of New York; retired Archbishop Rembert Weakland; retired Bishop Richard Sklba; and now-defrocked priest Daniel Budzynski.

Most of the information, which is being released as part of an agreement in the archdiocese’s bankruptcy proceedings, has never been seen publicly.

“Needless to say, there are some terrible things described in many of the documents,” Archbishop Jerome Listecki said in his weekly letter to local Catholics in advance of the release. To those deciding to read the files, Listecki advised, “prepare to be shocked.”

According to interviews and court records, the documents are expected to include: details about how church officials shuttled abusive priests from one parish or school to the next without divulging their histories; correspondence between the archdiocese and the Vatican, which has the final word on defrocking priests; evidence that the archdiocese under Dolan paid some priests to accept that decision without protest; and graphic accounts of sexual assault of young people. …

The archdiocese and attorneys for victims are expected to post the documents on their respective websites — www.archmil.org and www.andersonadvocates.com— at 1 p.m. Monday.

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VATICAN CITY
Sacramento Bee

By FRANCES D’EMILIO
Associated Press
Published: Saturday, Jun. 29, 2013

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis told prelates Saturday to shun the ”logic of human power,” pressing his campaign to root out corruption and other wrongdoing from the Vatican’s scandal-tainted power structures.

The admonition came a day after the latest embarrassment for the Vatican hierarchy – the arrest by Italian authorities of a Vatican accountant, in a probe of an alleged attempt by the prelate to secure the smuggling of 20 million euros ($26 million) in banknotes from Switzerland into Italy. The Italian monsignor, who was suspended a few weeks earlier from his job in the Vatican’s finance office, is also under investigation in a separate money-laundering probe by prosecutors in southern Italy.

Francis is making reforms aimed at ensuring his papacy’s priorities, which include paying more attention to the world’s poor and concentrating on cultivating spiritual, not material, wealth. He delivered a kind of moral pep talk to church leaders, including Vatican cardinals, gathered in St. Peter’s Basilica for an annual ceremony to welcome newly made archbishops.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

Updated Fri Jun 28, 2013

Catholic school teacher, Brother Martin Harmata, who worked at Sydney’s Patrician Brothers Blacktown College has pleaded guilty to eight charges of sexually abusing three children in his care in the 1980s.

Transcript

Editor’s Note: The Diocese of Parramatta has informed the ABC that it did not oppose the lifting of the suppression order on the school’s name; that it did not pay for Br Martin Harmata’s legal representation or costs; and that it did not authorise or pay for a hire car to pick up Br Martin Harmata from the court proceedings.

EMMA ALBERICI, PRESENTER: A Catholic school teacher who worked at Sydney’s Patrician Brothers Blacktown college has pleaded guilty to eight charges of sexually abusing three children in his care.

The District Court revoked a suppression order that previously prevented publication of Harmata’s name or the name of the school.

The abuse took place in the mid and late 1980s.

Brother Martin Harmata taught science and maths at Patrician Brothers college Blacktown for 30 years. He left the school in 2012 after one of his victims confronted him in the playground.

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VATICAN CITY
Washington Post

ANALYSIS: Pope Francis confronts his first scandal in Vatican Bank mess

By Alessandro Speciale| Religion News Service,

VATICAN CITY — Just two days after creating a commission to review the activities of the scandal-plagued Vatican Bank, Pope Francis is confronting the first major crisis of his papacy — starring once again an unscrupulous prelate and large amounts of cash of unclear origin.

On Friday (June 28), Italian police arrested the Rev. Nunzio Scarano, a senior prelate working in the Vatican treasury, officially known as the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See.

Scarano stands accused of trying to smuggle some 20 million euros from Switzerland to Italy on behalf of a financier. According to prosecutors, Scarano and his associates concocted a plan that seems to come straight out of a spy movie, involving a rented plane and help from contacts within the Italian secret service.

While it is not clear whom the money belonged to, the investigation stemmed from prosecutors’ years-long probe into alleged money laundering at the Vatican Bank.

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UNITED STATES
World

Thomas Kidd

The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) held its annual meeting in Houston in June, and although the assembly did not witness any of the spectacular controversies that have marked previous SBC meetings, it nevertheless confronted some hotly debated topics.

The meeting’s most anticipated issue concerned the SBC and the Boy Scouts. Some had predicted that the SBC would endorse a full-fledged boycott of the Scouts for the group’s recent decision to admit openly gay boys as members. But the actual resolution stopped short of a boycott, expressing “opposition to and disappointment in the decision” and calling for the removal of Boy Scouts executive leaders who supported the change.

SBC representatives (called “messengers”) also passed a resolution exhorting member congregations about their “legal and moral responsibility to report any child abuse to authorities.” Its sponsor, Peter Lumpkins, crafted the statement in response to a lawsuit alleging abuse cover-ups by leaders of Sovereign Grace Ministries (SGM), including its founder, C.J. Mahaney. A judge dismissed the case against SGM pastors in May, citing statute of limitation requirements. Mahaney stepped down as president of SGM in April. Prominent Baptist leaders Albert Mohler of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Mark Dever of Capitol Hill Baptist Church expressed their individual support for Mahaney in a public statement in May.

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TEXAS
NECN

June 29, 2013

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — A former Catholic priest serving a 50-year sentence for sexually abusing a boy has been denied an early medical release.

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports ( ) that 72-year-old Thomas Teczar had applied for early release, seeking to serve only four years of his sentence. Texas prison officials denied the request Friday.

Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Jason Clark said Teczar had recently been admitted to a medical facility in Dickinson and was listed in fair condition.

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CALIFORNIA
KUOW

[with audio]

By THE CONVERSATION WITH ROSS REYNOLDS

In the mid-1980s a dynamic young monsignor assigned to the Vatican’s embassy in Washington set out to investigate the problem of sexually abusive priests. He found a scandal in the making, confirmed by secret files revealing complaints that had been hidden from police and covered up by the Church hierarchy.

Meanwhile, a young lawyer listened to a new client describe an abusive sexual history with a priest that began when he was ten years old. The lawsuit he filed would touch off a legal war of historic and global proportions. Ross Reynolds talks with author Michael D’Antonio about his new book “Mortal Sins,” which reveals this long and ferocious battle for the soul of the largest and oldest organization in the world.

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LOUISIANA
The Town Talk

Reverend Jamie Medina-Cruz, a priest of the Diocese of Alexandria, died Friday, June 7, 2013, in Alexandria, Louisiana. He was born December 8, 1964. He was 48 years old. He was ordained to the priesthood on May 29, 1999 at Saint Francis Xavier Cathedral, Alexandria. He is the son of Senor Claudio Medina and Senora Maria Cruz Medina of Quebradillas, Puerto Rico.

He received a Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy from St. John Vianney Seminary in Miami, Florida, a Masters of Art from St. Vincent de Paul Seminary, Boynton Beach, FL and later a Master’s Degree in Theology. He went on to the Pontifical University Gregorian in Rome, Italy, where he received a Licentiate Degree in Theology.

Fr. Jamie served as parochial vicar at the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception Church in Natchitoches, at Saint Joseph Church in Marksville and later at Our Lady of Prompt Succor Church and Saint Rita Church in Alexandria. He was appointed pastor of Saint Patrick Church in Ferriday in 2002. In addition he served as pastor at Saint Anthony Church, Natchitoches and Saint Mary’s Assumption Church, Cottonport.

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DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Dominican Today

Santo Domingo.- Catholic priest Jesús María Tejada on Friday said the gay U.S. ambassador-nominee to Dominican Republic James “Wally” Brewster shouldn’t be discriminated against because of his preference, noting that that type of prejudice needs to be surmounted.

The prelate, who’s an advisor to the patriotic values commission, said the Catholic Church doesn’t accept homosexuals as seminarians, because in his view, can become pedophiles and sexual deviations.

He rebuked the alleged sexual violations by the Polish priest Nojache Alberto Gil in Juncalito, Jánico (north-central), a conduct he affirms the church should’ve noticed while he was a seminarian to avert his reaching the priesthood.

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AUSTRALIA
lewisblayse.net

Lewis Blayse

It is not normally the practice, here, to give a book review. However, there has been a book just released which deserves wider attention than that afforded by the usual book review section of the popular media.

That book is “Unholy Trinity: the Hunt for the Paedophile Priest Monsignor John Day” by Denis Ryan (pictured above) and Peter Hoysted (Allen and Unwin).

Day died in 1978, without having ever been made to face charges. Ryan was a detective in the Victorian police, based in Mildura. He tells a tale of a “Catholic Mafia” within the force, at the time, which actively protected paedophile priests like Day, with collusion from the highest levels of the Catholic Church in Victoria.

Before going into the details of Mr. Ryan’s allegations, a couple of observations need to be made, in the interests of fairness. Sometimes, people are blinded by the prevailing attitudes of their era, and often would act differently in another era. Some people once, sincerely, thought taking Aboriginal children of mixed race away from their families was a good deed. The thoughtful reader will think of many other examples of misguided motives.

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AUSTRALIA
lewisblayse.net

Lewis Blayse

Documents obtained under Freedom of Information laws recently revealed that NSW police officer Beth Cullen shredded documents from liaison meetings with Catholic Church officials from the Newcastle-Maitland diocese (see previous posting). The matter has been referred to the NSW enquiry, the Royal Commission, and the NSW Police Integrity Commission.

The head of the NSW enquiry, Ms. Cunneen, has now revealed that she will not consider the matter, as she claims it falls outside her terms of reference for the enquiry. She could have applied for her terms of reference to be widened to include this matter. She did not.

The NSW Police Minister has received his reports from police and, in response, has spoken to the State Parliament in defence of the officer, Ms. Beth Cullen. “I am informed that at no stage did the NSW police representative destroy any document which could be used in any investigation or prosecution,” he said. “I am also assured by the police force that the officer’s positive contribution to the field of child protection is unmatched.”

The NSW enquiry is now completely compromised, especially since these most recent developments follow on from the earlier decisions to allow Adelaide Archbishop, Phillip Wilson, to give evidence behind closed doors, and forcing a victim to do the same (see previous posting). The aim of the enquiry can only be to undermine the credibility of Newcastle Herald journalist, Joanne McCarthy, and police whistleblower, Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox (see previous postings).

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WORCESTER (MA)
Telegram & Gazette

A defrocked Worcester priest serving time in a Texas prison for sexually abusing children has been denied early medical release, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

The ex-Catholic priest, Thomas H. Teczar, 72, petitioned the parole board for early release for an undisclosed illness after having served four years of a 50-year sentence.

“Kids are safer with Teczar behind bars,” David Clohessy, director of SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests), said in a press statement.

“Just because a predator is elderly doesn’t mean he’s less dangerous. And just because a predator claims he’s ill doesn’t mean he really is.”

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ROME
Mirror (UK)

A top Catholic cleric with connections to the Vatican Bank was under arrest last night accused of laundering tens of millions of euro.

Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, 61, is suspected of plotting to help rich friends smuggle huge sums of cash into Italy from Switzerland.

The move comes two days after the Pope set up an inquiry to look into the activities of the troubled bank.

In a scandal that reads like a spy novel, it involves police wiretaps, a private plane rented to collect the cash and burned mobile phones.

An allegedly corrupt secret services agent who promised to get the money past Customs is also being quizzed by police.

The case against Msgr Scarano will come as an acute embarrassment to Pope Francis who has dispensed with many of the trappings of office stressing the importance of a simple life.

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ROME
Irish Sun

By GARY MENEELY

ONE of the Pope’s top moneymen was behind bars yesterday over an alleged bid to smuggle €20million in cash across Europe.

Cops lifted Monsignor Nunzio Scarano on suspicion of fraud and corruption along with a financial adviser and an Italian secret service agent.

It’s claimed that the Vatican accountant, 61, who spent last night in a Rome prison, had been asked by wealthy pals to spirit in suitcases of money from Switzerland.

In phone calls tapped by police last July, he apparently offered the spook €600,000 to fly the cash into Rome on a private jet, and use his spy skills to avoid customs checks. Chief investigator Nello Rossi said the plane was to have been met on the runway and the wads of notes taken under armed escort to Msgr Scarano’s home.

In the event, the operation was abandoned when the alleged conspirators — who include the money owners’ broker — got cold feet.

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ROME
ABC News (US)

[with video]

By NICK SCHIFRIN (@nickschifrin) and GIULIA SAUDELLI

LONDON. June 28, 2013

Is the world’s holiest bank riddled with corruption?

Many are asking that question today after a senior Vatican accountant was accused of plotting to sneak $26 million in bags of cash into Italy by stashing them away on a private jet, with the help of a former Italian spy.

The accountant, the former spy and an Italian financial broker have all been arrested in a case that highlights the Vatican’s continuing challenge to eliminate fraud within the famously secretive Vatican Bank.

Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, who was the head of analytic accounts at the Holy See’s property-management agency, has been accused of fraud, corruption and slander. He was the middle-man in a complex plot that involved secretly flying his friends’ money from Switzerland to Italy, evading customs and driving to his house in an armored convoy in order to avoid taxes, according to prosecutors.

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TEXAS
Fort Worth Star-Telegram

BY MITCH MITCHELL
mitchmitchell@star-telegram.com

FORT WORTH — Texas prison officials denied a petition for early medical release Friday for convicted child sex abuser Thomas Teczar, a former Catholic priest.

Teczar, 72, wanted to serve only four years of a 50-year sentence handed down in 2009 on three charges of aggravated sexual assault of a child and one charge of indecency with a child.

Teczar was recently admitted to a medical facility in Dickinson and continues to be treated there for an undisclosed condition. He was listed in fair condition Friday, said Jason Clark, spokesman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

Eastland County District Attorney Russ Thomason said his office received notice Wednesday that Teczar had applied for early release. Teczar served as parish priest in Ranger, about 90 miles southwest of Fort Worth, and in other parishes in Eastland and Tarrant counties.

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VATIKAN
Kleine Zeitung

Es geht um Geldwäsche, Korruption und Betrug: Mehrere hohe Mitarbeiter der römischen Kurie sollen in Finanz- und Pädophilie-Skandale verwickelt sein. Ein Bericht des Korrespondenten Julius Müller-Meiningen.

Es ist eine dieser Geschichten, die man aus Spionagefilmen kennt: Ein Agent fliegt in geheimer Mission Millionen-Summen in einem Privatflugzeug um die Welt.

Dass der Urheber einer solchen Affäre ein Priester und wichtiger Mitarbeiter des Vatikans sein könnte, überstieg bisher die Fantasien. Im katholischen Rom hingegen scheint nichts mehr unmöglich.
Nach dem “Vatileaks”-Skandal um gestohlene Geheimdokumente des Papstes und der von Papst Franziskus erwähnten “Homosexuellen-Lobby” nun der nächste Skandal. Und wieder ist das Institut für die religiösen Werke (IOR), die Vatikanbank mit im Spiel.

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ROM
Katholisches

(Rom) Der bekannte Kirchenhistoriker und katholische Intellektuelle Roberto de Mattei befaßte sich in einem jüngsten Aufsatz mit der aufsehenerregenden Feststellung von Papst Franziskus, daß im Vatikan eine „Homo-Lobby“ existiere.

Von Roberto de Mattei

Die Feststellung von Papst Franziskus, daß es im Vatikan eine „Homo-Lobby“ gibt, ist nicht auf einen improvisierten Scherz zu reduzieren. Sie ist vielmehr zu bedenken und in ihrer tragischen Tragweite abzuschätzen. „In der Kurie gibt es heilige Personen, wirklich, aber es gibt auch eine korrupte Strömung. Man spricht von einer ‚Homo-Lobby‘ und so ist es, sie existiert. Wir müssen abwägen, was getan werden kann.“

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OSTERREICH
Saltzburger Fenster

Die Sozialbürokratie des Landes ringt sich nur mühsam zur versprochenen Akteneinsicht für frühere Heimkinder durch. Man fürchtet Klagen.

Gut 10.000 ehemalige Heim- und Pflegekinder in Österreich wurden in den Nachkriegsjahren Opfer eines Fürsorge- und Erziehungssystems, das noch im Geiste des Nationalsozialismus stand. Die Kinder sollten mit unerbittlicher Härte, Gewalt und Arbeit gebrochen werden. Zwei Drittel der Zöglinge wurden auch sexuell missbraucht. Historiker sprechen von einem geschlossenen, repressiven System, das Behörden, Gerichte und Kirche gegenüber den schutzlosen Kindern errichtet hatte. Das Land Salzburg hat in 20 Fällen 265.000 Euro Entschädigung bezahlt – bundesweit gehen die Summen in Richtung 30 Mio. Euro. Aus Furcht vor möglichen weiteren Schmerzengeld- und Opferrentenklagen durften Betroffene in Salzburg bis jetzt lediglich Fragen zu ihrem Akt stellen. Nun soll endlich das Versprechen von Ex-Sozialreferent Walter Steidl auf echte Akteneinsicht umgesetzt werden. Daten Dritter werden jedoch geschwärzt, heißt es in der Sozialabteilung. Ob man dazu etwa auch (Halb-)Geschwister zählt, ist noch offen.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Bistum Dresden-Meissen

Dresden, 28.06.2013 (KPI): Im Bistum Dresden-Meißen sind seit 2002 insgesamt 18 Anträge wegen sexuellen Missbrauchs eingegangen.

Davon wurden 13 Fälle abschließend bearbeitet und als relevant eingestuft. Diese bezogen sich auf acht Täter, von denen fünf bereits verstorben sind. Insgesamt wurden in diesen Fällen als Ausgleich für erlittenes Leid 72.000 Euro als Entschädigung gezahlt. Soweit möglich, hat das Bistum von den Tätern die Rückerstattung dieser Zahlungen eingefordert, was auch erfolgt ist.

Ein Antrag war offensichtlich unbegründet und wurde nicht weiterverfolgt. Bei zwei Anträgen konnte kein Zusammenhang mit dem kirchlichen Dienst festgestellt werden. Ein weiterer Antrag endete mit dem Freispruch des Priesters durch das zuständige kirchliche Gericht.

Ein Vorgang ist noch offen und befindet sich im Stadium des kirchlichen Voruntersuchungsverfahrens.

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DEUTSCHLAND
MissBiT

Seit vergangener Woche verzichtet in Lebach ein Priester auf sein Amt als Pfarrer.

Laut Angaben des Bistums Trier, wurde dieser am 22. Juni 2009 zum Diözesanrichter am Bischöflichen Offizialat Trier ernannt – “für weitere zehn Jahre”.

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ROMA
Corriere della Sera

ROMA – Arrestato per calunnia il sacerdote sospeso a divinis che aveva denunciato un presunto scandalo di pedofilia e prostituzione minorile nella Curia Romana. Don Patrizio Poggi, aveva denunciato ai carabinieri di Roma quella che a suo dire era «un’organizzazione criminale dedita a reclutare ragazzi, anche minorenni, per farli prostituire» con esponenti del clero romano. Le indagini dei carabinieri del Nucleo investigativo di Roma hanno tuttavia «dimostrato come Poggi abbia concepito e attuato un piano calunnioso, prospettando circostanze non veritiere o, comunque, basate su mere dicerie», «in quanto animato da risentimento per motivazioni personali nei confronti di alcuni dei prelati da lui accusati di fruire di prestazioni sessuali omosessuali a pagamento con minorenni». Da qui l’ordinanza di custodia cautelare in carcere emessa dal Gip di Roma Aldo Morgigni, su richiesta del Procuratore Aggiunto Maria Monteleone.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Wisconsin Public Radio

[with audio]

By CHUCK QUIRMBACH

Sexual assault victims say the Milwaukee Catholic Archdiocese ought to release more documents about clergy abuse cases than planned next Monday.

A deal reached in the archdiocese bankruptcy case in federal court in Milwaukee calls for the church to release personnel files of 45 priests with verified abuse claims against them. Also to be released are depositions from several church officials — including New York cardinal Tim Dolan, who used to lead the Milwaukee Archdiocese.

But Peter Isely of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests says the church ought to release more files, including ones about current abusers.

Isely: “They were clergy. They committed their crimes here. Some of them have been in prison recently. Not on the list, don’t have the files. Why? That’s our question.”

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AUSTRALIA
Maitland Mercury

This week the second round of public hearings into child sexual abuse allegations across the Maitland-Newcastle Diocese began in the Newcastle Supreme Court. As such, The Maitland Mercury will resume its series of reflections of Hunter members of the Catholic Church.

Through their own words these church members have endeavoured to answer the highly complex question: How do you keep the faith?

This week East Maitland lay person Pam Tierney reveals how she left the church because of paedophilia and also explains her reasons for returning. Compiled by EMMA SWAIN

Some years back I was experiencing a growing disenchantment with the structure and hierarchy of the Catholic Church in Australia, especially in relation to women.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Yorkshire Evening Post

A church worker has been jailed for sexually abusing young boys.

Stuart Helm, 29, wept in the dock as he was handed a three-year sentence by a judge sitting at Leeds Crown Court.

Jailing Helm, Judge Guy Kearl, QC, said: “All your victims were vulnerable, some more vulnerable than others, and the sentence must be of immediate imprisonment.”

The court was told how after his arrest police found evidence that Helm had also been in contact with underage boys in America and had tried to get them to engage in sexual activity via a webcam. Helm, of Church Mount, Horsforth, pleaded guilty to two offences of sexual assault on a child under 13, two of inciting a child to engage in sexual activity, three of sexual activity with a child, three of causing a child to engage in sexual activity and three of attempting to incite a child to engage in sexual activity.

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ILLINOIS
Rockford Register Star

By Nick Crow
RRSTAR.COM
Posted Jun 28, 2013

OREGON — A Crossroads Community Church pastor entered a not-guilty plea Friday to the charge of aggravated sexual abuse.

Charles Babler, 64, of Mount Morris has worked at the church’s Freeport and Polo campuses but is on administrative leave,

Babler entered the Ogle County Courthouse with his wife and sat quietly in Judge Robert T. Hanson’s courtroom.

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COLORADO
Gazette

By Lance Benzel Published: June 28, 2013

On a curio table in a Colorado Springs priest’s rectory sat a framed picture of the boy he is now accused of molesting, smartly dressed in a crisp uniform worn for one of his extracurricular activities.

It was among images found during a police sweep of the Rev. Charles Robert “Bob” Manning’s home that captured detectives’ attention.

A Colorado Springs police investigator testifying Friday at the now-retired priest’s ongoing sexual assault trial said a computer removed from Manning’s home contained a picture of “a younger male” with his shorts and underwear pulled down and his penis exposed. According to detective Nicholas Kundert, who described the image, the shot appeared to have been taken from inside Manning’s rectory.

Manning, 78, formerly the pastor at St. Gabriel the Archangel Catholic Church in Colorado Springs, has pleaded not guilty to charges that he used booze, pot and gifts to coerce sex from a then-15-year-old altar boy.

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AUSTRALIA
Maitland Mercury

A senior police officer who was abused by a priest as a child said Peter Fox’s suggestions that officers failed to investigated a church coverup were “abhorrent”.

Superintendent John Gralton revealed to the Special Commission of Inquiry this morning that he was assaulted by a priest in front of 40 students.

“Every time I see a paedophile hit the dock…I celebrate.”

Superintendent Gralton was the Commander of Central Hunter at the time of Strike Force Lantle – an investigation into alleged concealment of sexual abuse by Hunter priests.

During cross examination, NSW police barrister barrister Pat Sadie, asked the superintendent if police were reluctant to investigate matters that would upset the church.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By Annysa Johnson of the Journal Sentinel June 28, 2013

The Catholic Archdiocese of Milwaukee, which faces more than a dozen civil fraud lawsuits over its handling of clergy sex abuse cases, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in January. As the case proceeds, we’ll have updates, analysis, documents and more.

Monica Barrett has waited for years to learn what the Archdiocese of Milwaukee knew about Father William Effinger, who raped her, she says, when she was a child at a Lake Geneva parish.

Her wait is scheduled to end Monday when the archdiocese releases thousands of pages of documents detailing its handling of clergy sex-abuse cases going back decades, as part of its bankruptcy.

Barrett stood Friday with other abuse survivors outside Milwaukee’s Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist to herald the release as a historic moment that would vindicate victims. But it is not enough, they said.

The survivors and their supporters called on the archdiocese to release all of its files — not just those concerning the 42 current and former diocesan priests covered in Monday’s release, but those of every known abuser.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

By Nic Rigby
BBC News

A second man who says he was sexually abused as a child by a priest at an orphanage in Bedfordshire has said he hopes legal action will bring justice for former residents.

The man, now in his 60s, attended St Francis Boys Home in Shefford, near Bedford, in the 1950s and 60s.

He says he was repeatedly abused by priest Father John Ryan.

Fr Ryan was arrested in 2003 following other allegations, but released without charge. He died in 2008.

‘Evil man’

The former resident of the home, who now lives in Woolwich, south London, spoke out about the abuse after a group of former victims pledged to take legal action against the Catholic church.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

[with video]

Newcastle’s most senior police officer, Superintendent John Gralton, has told the inquiry into sexual abuse in the Catholic Church that he and some friends were abused by a priest as schoolboys.

Transcript

EMMA ALBERICI, PRESENTER: Newcastle’s most senior police officer has told a special commission of inquiry he and his friends were abused by a priest as schoolboys.

The evidence came as the chief investigator into alleged child sexual abuse by the Catholic clergy in the Newcastle region shone a light of the volume of cases.

Philippa McDonald reports.

PHILIPPA MCDONALD, REPORTER: For the man who runs one of the busiest police commands in the state, this inquiry is personal.

“I was assaulted by a priest in front of 40 students.”

Superintendent John Gralton has told the special commission into child sexual abuse in the Hunter region that he wasn’t alone in his humiliation, which he reported to police.

“I gave details of probably five or six friends of mine who were indecently assaulted to investigators.”

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Fox 6

June 28, 2013, by Bret Lemoine

MILWAUKEE (WITI) — The Milwaukee Archdiocese is set to release over 6,000 pages of secret documents on Monday, July 1st, detailing substantiated allegations of abuse by priests.

Victims have been working for almost two years to have the documents unsealed.

“As a survivor, we’ve lived with the truth of these documents for a long time. The release of these documents will validate the claims we have been making for a long, long time,” said Monica Barrett.

45 priests are expected to be named in the documents, however there is concern that dozens of clergy-offender names are being withheld.

Critics believe there are two dozen deacons, Catholic school teachers and others who are not being named.

“There are priests, three ordained deacons that they said abused children in 2005. Where are they? Where are these three ordained deacons who assulted children?” asked Midwest Director of SNAP, Peter Isely.

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WISCONSIN
SNAP Wisconsin

June 28, 2013
Over two dozen clergy, others who committed child sex crimes or abuse names and files will be missing from Archdiocese of Milwaukee court supervised document release Monday

CONTACT:
Peter Isely, SNAP Midwest Director (414.429.7259)
John Pilmaier, SNAP Wisconsin Director (414.336.8575)
Mike Sneesby, SNAP Milwaukee Director (414.915.4374)

On Monday, July 1st the Archdiocese, through a court supervised agreement, is scheduled to release the files of 45 priests who committed what church officials characterize as “substantiated” acts of criminal child sexual assault.

The list and files were not compiled by law enforcement, the court, or independent review but by the Archdiocese.

That is why the actual number of known and alleged offenders is considerably greater than 45, when a true list is compiled of all clergy and others known or alleged form court and other published records and accounts.

The purpose of any list, such as those found published by occupational or licensing boards, is to alert the public that a teacher, or psychologist or social worker, for example, has had his or her license revoked for misconduct, such as sexual assault of a patient or student, through the process of a formal ruling by the occupational or state licensing board.

Who is served by keeping the identities, files and information of known clergy abusers from a diocese secret? Not the public, or families, or parents. Only the offender and the bishop who covered up the act or the report.

What, then, is the true number of abusive clergy and others who have sexually assaulted children working or living in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, under the authority of the Milwaukee Archbishop? Below is a partial list (will be updated).

a. The number Fr. of abusive clergy from the archdiocese is at least 66. Bishop-Accountability.org, the world’s oldest and largest independent online Boston archive of church abuse documents and reports from around the United States, lists the number of clergy who have sexually assaulted children in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee as 66. (Go the BA “database of accused priests” page and scroll down to Milwaukee Archdiocese and click for name and details.)

b. Parish priests recently removed from ministry with current cases or reports of assaulting children whose files are not being released. Fr. Robert Marsicek, a Wauwatosa priest under current and former police investigation for recent allegations of child sex crimes with who has been removed from ministry, according to his religious order. Fr. Michael Nowak pleaded guilty Fr. Lauren Wenig, pastor of St. Mary’s Elm Grove, removed from ministry three years ago with five victims coming forward. There is also a retired priest removed three years ago for a child sex assault report whose name and file has not been released.

c. 3 deacons have been confirmed by archdiocese to have assaulted children. In a published report to Wisconsin State legislators in 2003 by the Catholic’s Conference of Wisconsin, the Archdiocese of Milwaukee revealed that at least 3 permanent deacons ordained in Milwaukee and assigned to parishes in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee sexually assaulted children. The Archdiocese will not disclose their names, files or assignment history.

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VATICAN CITY
Houston Chronicle

By NICOLE WINFIELD, Associated Press | June 28, 2013

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The plot involved an armed police escort, a wealthy shipping family and a plan to secretly transport $26 million (20 million euros) from a Swiss bank account into Italy aboard a private jet. At the heart of the story of greed: a silver-haired Vatican monsignor.

The latest corruption scandal to hit the Holy See unraveled in public on Friday as Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, a Vatican accountant, was arrested in the customs-dodging Swiss bank case. He is also under investigation in a separate case of alleged money-laundering involving his Vatican bank account.

The developments came two days after Pope Francis created a commission of inquiry into the Vatican bank to get to the bottom of the problems that have plagued it for decades and contributed to its reputation as an unregulated, offshore tax haven.

Francis has made it clear that he has no tolerance for corruption or for Vatican officials who use their jobs for personal ambition or gain. He has said he wants a “poor” church that ministers to those most in need. He has also noted, tongue in cheek, that “St. Peter didn’t have a bank account.”

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ITALY
New York Daily News

BY CORKY SIEMASZKO / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

FRIDAY, JUNE 28, 2013

Thou shalt not smuggle a fortune into Italy.

Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, a top Vatican bean counter, was busted Friday for trying to do just that along with an Italian military police honcho and a shady financier.

Scarano was the middleman in a scheme to avoid paying customs and taxes by sneaking $26 million from a Swiss bank to Rome by private jet, an Italian prosecutor said.

But Scarano, who was already under investigation for using money meant for a hospice to buy himself a Sicilian hideaway, was undone when the wiretaps on his phone caught him plotting, prosecutor Nello Rossi said.

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FLORIDA
WPTV

[with video]

By: Alex Sanz
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — In a recorded interrogation with the West Palm Beach Police Department, Stephen Budd, the former Rosarian Academy teacher accused of engaging in sexual activity with at least two of his fourth grade students, questioned why the now-teenage girls would have made the allegations against him.

Earlier this year, two former students came forward and told the police department that in 2006, when they were in the fourth grade, Budd had engaged in sexual activity with them.

Excerpts:
Investigator: “Why do you think this is going on now?”
Budd: “I don’t know. I don’t know.”
Investigator: “And, you don’t have anything that you think that you should be forthcoming about right now?”
Budd: “No.”
Investigator: “Were there any times where you were at the school and you did masturbate and then the girls did walk in or something?”
Budd: “No.”

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

The police whistleblower who sparked an inquiry into an alleged cover-up of abuse in the Hunter Valley’s Catholic Church says he is glad the first half of the probe is over.

It examined Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox’s claims police tried to cover-up allegations of abuse by two priests.

Newcastle Local Area Commander Superintendent John Gralton rejected the claims, yesterday revealing he was particularly keen to see clergy investigated because he was abused by his school priest.

Stage two gets underway on Monday and will investigate claims the church protected paedophile clergy.

Peter Fox says it has been a tough three weeks of public hearings.

“Nothing comes as a surprise,” he said.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By JASON GORDON June 28, 2013

IF anyone wondered what was at stake in this Special Commission of Inquiry, they needed to look no further than the rafts of tables stacked with barristers between Commissioner Margaret Cunneen and the public gallery.

Most days, more than 18. Highly skilled, highly paid and highly charged.

Some, such as Julia Lonergan, SC, and Warwick Hunt, were there to assist the commissioner and lead witnesses through the mountainous volumes of evidence submitted to the inquiry. The remainder represented individual interests – the police, the top brass, the church, the top clergy, the Newcastle Herald.

This was round one. At stake was the public credibility of a police force faced with damning allegations that a “Catholic mafia” existed within its ranks and that a key detective was shut out of investigations by forces wanting to protect the Church.

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ILLINOIS
Journal Standard

By Nick Crow
JOURNALSTANDARD.COM
Posted Jun 28, 2013

OREGON — Charles Babler, the 64-year-old Mount Morris man who had worked as a pastor with Crossroads Community Church in Polo for the past decade, will appear before a circuit court judge at 1 p.m. to face charges of criminal sexual abuse of a minor.

Babler was arrested by sheriff’s deputies last Friday in the wake of an investigation of a 2011 incident in which police say he had contact with a person younger than 13.

Aggravated criminal sexual abuse is a Class 2 felony, punishable by three to seven years in prison. Probation is possible, and guilty offenders must register for mandatory lifetime classification as sexual predators.

Ogle County State’s Attorney Mike Rock said that the charges facing Babler could be amended during the hearing.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Big Trial

By Ralph Cipriano
for Bigtrial.net

It’s one of the enduring mysteries of the current district attorney’s self-described “historic” prosecution of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

How could one former district attorney, Lynne Abraham, and one grand jury look at the state law for endangering the welfare of a child [EWOC], in 2005 and decide that the law didn’t apply to Msgr. William J. Lynn, Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua, or any other high-ranking official at the archdiocese?

And how could the current district attorney, Seth Williams, and another grand jury look at that same exact EWOC law in 2011 and decide that the law did apply, not only to Msgr. Lynn, but also to Father James J. Brennan, Father Edward V. Avery, Father Charles Engelhardt, and Bernard Shero?

In the appeals battle over the conviction of Msgr. Lynn, District Attorney Seth Williams finally had to answer the question that he had previously been stonewalling on. The D.A.’s official explanation for the legal flip-flop was contained in a 63-page brief filed June 25th in Superior Court.

In the brief, written by Hugh L. Burns, chief of the D.A.’s Appeals Unit, the author conceded that one Philadelphia district attorney got it right and one Philadelphia district attorney got it wrong, but that it would be up to the Superior Court to make the final call.

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ROMA
AGI

(AGI) – Roma, 28 giu. – Le accuse mosse dall’ex sacerdote Patrizio Poggi sarebbero scaturite dal risentimento nutrito nei confronti di altri sacerdoti e monsignori che, dopo la sua condanna definitiva per abusi sessuali nei confronti dei minori, lo avevano scaricato e, anzi, lo avevano ostacolato nel suo progetto di essere reintegrato nell’ordine sacerdotale.

Questo quanto ipotizzato dal procuratore aggiunto di Roma, Maria Monteleone, che ha chiesto e ottenuto l’arresto per calunnia dell’ex sacerdote fermato dai carabinieri in un residence sulla via Camilluccia a Roma dove occupava un appartamento.

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ROME
il Messaggero

ROMA – I carabinieri del Nucleo Investigativo di Roma hanno arrestato l’ex sacerdote Patrizio Poggi, in esecuzione di un’ordinanza di custodia cautelare in carcere emessa dal gip Aldo Morgigni, su richiesta del procuratore aggiunto della Procura della Repubblica di Roma, Maria Monteleone.

Poggi è indagato del reato di calunnia aggravata e continuata per avere denunciato, a marzo 2013, circostanze non veritiere in ordine alla presunta esistenza di un’organizzazione criminale gestita da tre personaggi romani, attiva nel procacciare ragazzi italiani e stranieri, anche minorenni, per avviarli alla prostituzione maschile in favore di vari esponenti del clero romano, di cui Poggi aveva indicato i nominativi in sede di denuncia.

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ROMA
ASCA

(ASCA) – Roma, 28 giu – I Carabinieri del Nucleo Investigativo di Roma, nel corso della mattinata, hanno arrestato l’ex sacerdote Patrizio Poggi, in esecuzione di un’ordinanza di custodia cautelare in carcere emessa dal Gip presso il Tribunale di Roma Aldo Morgigni, su richiesta del Procuratore Aggiunto della Procura della Repubblica di Roma, Maria Monteleone. Poggi e’ indagato del reato di calunnia aggravata e continuata per avere denunciato, a marzo 2013, circostanze non veritiere in ordine alla presunta esistenza di un’organizzazione criminale gestita da tre personaggi romani, attiva nel procacciare ragazzi italiani e stranieri, anche minorenni, per avviarli alla prostituzione maschile in favore di vari esponenti del clero romano, di cui Poggi aveva indicato i nominativi in sede di denuncia.

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ROME
The Times (UK)

James Bone Rome

The convicted paedophile priest who told police that other Catholic clergy used underage rent-boys was arrested for slander yesterday after prosecutors concluded he had made up the allegations.

Prosecutors said the claims by Patrizio Poggi, who served a five-year sentence for child abuse while a priest on the outskirts of Rome, were “untrue or based on mere hearsay” and motivated by personal animosity against some of the clerics named. They accused him of attempting to coach possible victims to back up his allegations.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Vikram Dodd
The Guardian, Thursday 27 June 2013

Imams in 500 mosques across Britain will on Friday give the same sermon denouncing the grooming and sexual abuse of children.

The co-ordinated effort follows the convictions of Muslim men in British courts for a series of horrific cases. Organisers say it is the first time that so many imams will deliver the same sermon before hundreds of congregations.

The sermons will urge people to report those suspected of involvement in sexual abuse offences, and opens with a quotation from the Qur’an which forbids Muslims from “sexual indecency, wickedness and oppression of others”.

The courts have dealt with a cluster of horrific cases including those in Rochdale, Derby and Oxford, where on Thursday five men were sentenced to life imprisonment and two others to long sentences for the abuse of girls.

It is organised by a group called Together Against Grooming, and backed by bodies including the Muslim Council of Britain, the Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board, and the Islamic Society of Britain.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

Nunzio Serrano, who served in the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See, has been arrested after he apparently helped friends bring 20 million Euros into Italy. Vatican spokesman Lombardi says the Vatican is prepared to cooperate with the judiciary

ANDREA TORNIELLI
VATICAN CITY

Less than forty eight hours after it was announced that Francis had ordered the setting up of a commission to inquire into the activities of the IOR, the Vatican bank has come under the media spotlight again, following the arrest of Italian monsignor Nunzio Scarano, who had been working for APSA (the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See). Two others were arrested as well: Italian policeman Giovanni Maria Zito, who was dismissed from the Italian secret services three months ago and broker Giovanni Carenzio. They are accused of corruption, slander and fraud. The arrest was made as part of the inquiry that is being carried out by the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Rome, into the activities of the IOR. Public Prosecutors Nello Rossi and Stefano Fava have been leading the three year investigation into the violation of anti-money laundering regulations by the IOR’s director general Paolo Cipriani and deputy director Massimo Tulli.

Mgr. Scarano, a former banker who became a priest 27 years ago, apparently agreed to pay 400 thousand Euros to have 20 million Euros in cash brought into Italy on a private jet. According to Scarano’s lawyer, the money was in fact transported on a State-authorised flight and the prelate only acted as a go-between. The money belonged to one of his friend’s families. But the monsignor was also placed under investigation by the Public Prosecutor’s Office of his home city, Salerno, last 13 June, on charges of money-laundering. The investigation is being led by Public Prosecutor Elena Guarino and looking into the illegal transaction of money via cheques worth 10 thousand Euros each. Although accounting records show these as donations to help settle debts accumulated by a property in Salerno, it is suspected the transactions were part of a money laundering operation. In 2009, Mgr. Scarano withdrew 560 thousand Euros in cash from his IOR bank account, claiming it went towards paying off a mortgage.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

STRIKE Force Georgiana had resulted in 11 people being charged with 440 offences involving 110 victims and the numbers were growing almost daily, strike force investigator Detective Sergeant Kristi Faber has told the special commission of inquiry in Newcastle.

In a session just before lunch on Friday Detective Sergeant Faber said the strike force had done extremely good work.

She said 13 detectives over five years had worked on Georgiana matters. Investigating child sexual abuse was physically hard, and mentally extremely hard.

Detective Sergeant Faber said no one in Georgiana was ever discouraged from investigating matters involving the church and she had never had ‘‘any resistance whatsoever’’ from her superior officers to such investigations.

Sergeant Faber was questioned about her account of a conversation with Newcastle Herald reporter Joanne McCarthy, which took place on May 30, 2008.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

DAN BOX From: The Australian June 29, 2013

A DETECTIVE working with a police strike force that has charged 11 priests with hundreds of child abuse offences was warned by a colleague that her life was in danger from the “Catholic mafia”, an inquiry has heard.

A DETECTIVE was warned by a colleague that her life was in danger from the “Catholic mafia”, an inquiry has heard.

Detective Sergeant Kristi Faber told the NSW special commission of inquiry into church child abuse that another detective, Peter Fox, made the claim during a telephone conversation last year.

Detective Chief Inspector Fox told Ms Faber that her investigation into historic abuse committed by local priests meant she “would not be liked” and her “life was in danger from the Catholic mafia”, she said.

In his own sworn evidence to the inquiry, Mr Fox has previously denied the conversation took place, although he has repeatedly used the phrase to describe serving officers who allegedly attempted to discourage investigations into the clergy.

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CONNECTICUT
Journal Inquirer

By Alex Wood Journal Inquirer

St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in South Windsor and the Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut aren’t liable to a man who says the priest at St. Peter’s sexually molested him in 1977 when he was in sixth grade and serving as an acolyte, the state Appellate Court ruled this week.

The court concluded that the harm inflicted by the former priest, Bruce Jacques, on the plaintiff in the case, Robert Gough, “was not foreseeable.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philly.com

The Associated Press POSTED: Friday, June 28, 2013

PHILADELPHIA (AP) – The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia says recent improvements to its financial health won’t be reflected in data being released next week. Archbishop Charles Chaput (SHAP’-yoo) says results of the 2012 audit “are serious – and that’s an understatement.”

The information will be released online Wednesday morning. Chaput said Friday that most of the problems stem from bad spending habits, not fraud or the priest sex-abuse scandal. The church had a $6 million deficit in August 2012. The archdiocese got a new chief financial officer in April 2012. The previous CFO is behind bars for embezzling $900,000.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Friday, June 28, 2013

The Government has thrown down the gauntlet to the four religious orders that ran the Magdalene Laundries, saying it expects them to contribute money towards the redress scheme — as two groups said they would not pay.

By Conall Ó Fátharta
Irish Examiner Reporter

Justice Minister Alan Shatter told the Dáil the Government, survivors of the laundries and the wider public “expect” those who ran the institutions to pay to compensate the women who suffered in their care. Mr Shatter’s challenge comes as two of the orders have told the Government they will not be contributing any money towards the Quirke redress scheme, expected to cost between €34m and €58m.

The Irish Examiner understands from sources that both the Sisters of Mercy and the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity of Refuge told the Government in advance of the Quirke Report being published on Wednesday, they would not be contributing money to the compensation fund.

The report recommended the women be paid compensation ranging from €11,500 to a maximum of €100,000 depending on the duration spent in a Magdalene Laundry.

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ITALIA
Giornalettismo

E’ stato arrestato per calunnia aggravata e continuata l’ex sacerdote Patrizio Poggi, che aveva denunciato l’esistenza di un’organizzazione criminale dedita a reclutare ragazzi, anche minorenni, per farli prostituire con esponenti del clero romano.

DON POGGI, PIANO CALUNNIOSO – Le indagini dei carabinieri del Nucleo investigativo di Roma – riferisce una nota – ”hanno dimostrato come Poggi abbia concepito e attuato un piano calunnioso, prospettando circostanze non veritiere”, ”in quanto animato da risentimento per motivazioni personali”.

COSA AVEVA DETTO DON PATRIZIO POGGI – Nei giorni scorsi giornali e quotidiani avevano riportato i verbali di Don Poggi. Don Poggi, del quartiere romano di Primavalle, fu condannato nel 1999 a otto anni di reclusione (poi ridotti a cinque, ndr) per aver abusato di cinque ragazzi fra i 14 e 15 anni. Minori che erano stati a lui affidati negli anni ’90 e poi vittime delle sue violenze. Come aveva svelato il Fatto quotidiano, scontato il suo debito con la giustizia, aveva chiesto di essere riammesso a celebrare la messa. Di fronte al rifiuto delle gerarchie ecclesiastiche, aveva però deciso di raccontare altre “verità”, accusando anche un importante monsignore “con la passione per i ragazzini”. Lo stesso quotidiano di Padellaro e Travaglio ha pubblicato il testo della denuncia dello scorso 8 marzo, quando Poggi si presentò ai carabinieri.

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ROMA
Corriere della Sera

ROMA – Arrestato per calunnia il sacerdote sospeso a divinis che aveva denunciato un presunto scandalo pedofilia nella Curia Romana. Don Patrizio Poggi, aveva denunciato ai carabinieri di Roma quella che a suo dire era «un’organizzazione criminale dedita a reclutare ragazzi, anche minorenni, per farli prostituire» con esponenti del clero romano. Le indagini dei carabinieri del Nucleo investigativo di Roma hanno tuttavia «dimostrato come Poggi abbia concepito e attuato un piano calunnioso, prospettando circostanze non veritiere o, comunque, basate su mere dicerie», «in quanto animato da risentimento per motivazioni personali nei confronti di alcuni dei prelati da lui accusati di fruire di prestazioni sessuali omosessuali a pagamento con minorenni». Da qui l’ordinanza di custodia cautelare in carcere emessa dal Gip di Roma Aldo Morgigni, su richiesta del Procuratore Aggiunto Maria Monteleone.

LA CONDANNA PER ABUSI – Il risentimento di Poggi sarebbe legato alle sue personali vicende giudiziarie e alla sua sospensione dal sacerdozio in seguito a casi di pedofilia – questi sì provati – in cui era stato coinvolto negli Anni Novanta. Ai carabinieri del Noe (Nucleo per la tutela dell’ambiente) aveva egli stesso premesso di essere stato condannato a 5 anni di reclusione (ma la condanna in primo grado, nel 1999, era stata più pesante: 8 anni) per violenza sessuale nei confronti di minori, l’ex parroco del San Filippo Neri di Roma assicura di aver sentito «il dovere di tutelare la Santa Chiesa e la comunità cristiana».

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ITALIA
Lazio News

Denunciò falsi casi di pedofilia all’interno del Vaticano: con questa accusa è stato arrestato oggi l’ex sacerdote Patrizio Poggi.

Don Poggi aveva denunciato ai carabinieri di Roma “un’organizzazione criminale dedita a reclutare ragazzi, anche minorenni, per farli prostituire” con esponenti del clero romano. Le indagini dei carabinieri del Nucleo investigativo hanno però “dimostrato come Poggi abbia concepito e attuato un piano calunnioso, prospettando circostanze non veritiere o, comunque, basate su mere dicerie, in quanto animato da risentimento per motivazioni personali nei confronti di alcuni dei prelati da lui accusati di fruire di prestazioni sessuali omosessuali a pagamento con minorenni”.

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ITALY
The Atlantic Wire

DASHIELL BENNETT

A high-ranking official at the troubled Vatican bank (who was already under investigation for a possible money laundering scheme) was arrested on Friday for trying to bring 20 million euros in to the country illegally. Monsignor Nunzio Scarano was detained along with two others for the failed plot that involved bringing the cash from Switzerland to Italy on an Italian government plane, presumably so they could avoid customs checks, and therefore, taxes.

Scarano’s lawyer denies all the charges and says his client “can explain,” though he did not elaborate on how. The new charges follow a separate investigation of Scarano that stemmed from a series of shady transactions he made back in 2009, transferring money between his personal accounts in The Vatican and in Italy.

On a personal scale, Scarano’s crimes are not that disastrous, but they come at a very difficult time for the Church and the new pope. Just two days ago, Pope Francis created an inquiry commission to investigate corruption and mismanagement at the Vatican bank. The bank, which operates under different laws than the rest of the European Union, has been accused of failing to meet the more rigorous standards of the world financial community and an excess of secrecy. Scarano’s alleged crimes appear to be exactly the kind of behavior the Pope is trying to put a stop to.

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VATICAN CITY
adnkronos

Vatican City, 28 June (AKI) – The Holy See on Friday said it would “cooperate fully” with Italian investigators after the arrest of senior cleric on suspicion of fraud and graft amid a wider probe into the Vatican Bank.

“The Holy See has not received any request by Italian authorities in this case, but it confirms it is willing to cooperate fully,” Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said in a statement.

Lombardi said the body which oversees the Vatican’s financial institutions was also across the case of Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, a Vatican accountant arrested on Friday for suspected fraud, corruption and slander.

“The Financial Information Authority (Ais) is following this problem and will take any necessary action within its remit,” Lombardi stated.

He noted that Scarano was suspended last month from his post with the Vatican’s Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (Apsa), which manages the Vatican’s portfolio of assets including its real estate.

As a Vatican employee, Scarano was eligible to hold an account at the Vatican Bank, which Pope Francis on Wednesday put under investigation amid several money-laundering scandals.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service | Jun. 28, 2013

VATICAN CITY An Italian monsignor, already suspended from his Vatican accounting job while under investigation for money laundering, was arrested Friday on charges of fraud, corruption and slander in a separate case.

Msgr. Nunzio Scarano, a priest of the archdiocese of Salerno-Campagna-Acero, was head of the analytical accounting service at the Administration of the Patrimony of the Holy See, the Vatican office that oversees Vatican property and investments.

Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman, said Scarano was suspended in May, “as soon as his superiors were informed that he was under investigation.” Vatican rules call for the suspension of any employee who is the subject of a criminal investigation, he said Friday.

The spokesman also said, “The Holy See has not yet received any request on this matter from the proper Italian authorities, but confirms it is ready to collaborate fully.”

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ROME
CNN

By Hada Messia and Laura Smith-Spark, CNN
June 28, 2013

Rome (CNN) — A Vatican official, a financial broker and a former secret service police officer were arrested Friday on suspicion of corruption over an alleged attempt to smuggle a huge sum of cash into Italy, Rome’s prosecutor said.

The official, Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, works as a financial analyst in the Vatican office that administers Vatican-owned property.

The archdiocese of Salerno, in southern Italy, issued a statement saying media reports identifying him as a bishop there were incorrect.

Prosecutor Nello Rossi told reporters the three suspects could face corruption charges, with Scarano also facing a possible count of defamation.

He stressed that the investigation is ongoing and that money laundering is not among the possible charges based on what investigators have uncovered so far.

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WORCESTER (MA)
The Republican

By Kevin Koczwara, MassLive.com
on June 28, 2013

WORCESTER – A defrocked Worcester priest serving a 50-year sentence in Texas for molesting an 11-year-old boy more than 20 years ago could be released from prison because of medical problems, reports The Worcester Telegram & Gazette*.

Thomas H. Teczar, 72, was convicted of rape and sexual abuse of an 11-year-old boy in 2009 and he was accused of abusing at least 14 boys over a 50 year span, reports the Telegram & Gazette. He is not supposed to be considered for parole until Oct. 23, 2019. He was formally removed from the priesthood by Pope Benedict XVI in September 2011.

According to BishopAccountability.org, Teczar is accused of complaints of sexually abusing teams as far back as the mid-1960s and had issues in parishes in Leicester, Worcester, Uxbridge as well as California and Texas, where he was eventually convicted of the sexual abuse of an 11-year-old boy in Ranger, TX in the 1990s.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) released a statement urging Teczar not be released.

“We oppose parole for Fr. Thomas H. Teczar, who in 2009 was convicted of rape and sexual abuse of an 11-year-old boy. In addition to this conviction, there are documented accusations of Teczar sexually assaulting children for nearly 50 years,” read a statement posted by David Clohessy on SNAP’s website.

“Despite this, he wants to serve only four years of a 50-year-sentence. Having a long history of committing crimes without consequence, he cannot be allowed to walk free from the only punishment he has ever received, punishment which keeps him away from children,” the statement continues. “We urge Texas officials will recognize that Teczar’s entire history of sexual violence against children exceedingly overshadows his case for parole based on alleged medical conditions.”

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ROME
National Catholic Reporter

John L. Allen Jr. | Jun. 28, 2013 All Things Catholic

Perhaps it’s the curmudgeon in me, but I’m always drawn to news stories that seem to upend conventional wisdom, and I award bonus points if the story challenges both liberal and conservative biases at the same time. …

Everyone knows that the cardinals who propelled a Latin American outsider to the papacy in just five ballots in March were acutely frustrated with what they saw as breakdowns in Vatican management. To date, Francis hasn’t done much to break with business as usual, but signals continue to accumulate that when he gets started, we may be in for an earthquake rather than a mere tremor.

The Vatican announced Wednesday that Francis has created a new commission to investigate the Vatican bank, technically known as the Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR). Here is my piece on the commission.

Early reaction among seasoned Vatican-watchers is that this is a big deal. Writing in Corriere della Sera on Thursday, Massimo Franco said that it augurs “a radical project of renewal” in the Vatican. Noting that two of the five members appointed to the commission are Americans, Msgr. Peter Wells of the Secretariat of State and former Ambassador to the Holy See Mary Ann Glendon, Franco also said the pope’s move reflects a healthy dose of “Anglo-Saxon pragmatism.”

An accompanying piece in Corriere quoted Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga of Honduras, the coordinator of the pope’s new kitchen cabinet formed of eight cardinals from around the world. In the article, Maradiaga expressed a degree of skepticism about the bank’s current modus operandi: “They’ve said that the IOR is not a bank but a foundation,” Maradiaga said. “Then why in the world has it acted like a bank?”

The ferment over the bank is unfolding against the backdrop of yet another scandal. An official of another Vatican financial office, the Apostolic Patrimony of the Holy See, was recently suspended after prosecutors in Salerno opened an investigation because he apparently withdrew $730,000 in cash from a Vatican bank account and then used it to pay off personal debts, allegedly convincing more than 50 friends to convert 10,000 Euro each into cashier’s checks in order to evade reporting requirements.

In Thursday’s La Repubblica, Vatican writer Paolo Rodari said the creation of the commission presages “a revolution not just in structures but in personnel,” a point seemingly confirmed by an accompanying interview with Cardinal George Pell of Australia, another member of the pope’s “Gang of Eight.”

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 28 June 2013 (VIS) – This morning, Fr. Federico Lombardi, S.J., director of the Holy See Press Office, issued the following communique regarding the arrest, in Italy, of Msgr. Nunzio Scarano, director of accounting analysis service of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (APSA), in the context of an investigation on corruption and fraud.

“As has been made known in the past few days, Msgr. Nunzio Scarano was suspended from his position at the APSA over a month ago, as soon as his superiors were informed that he was under investigation. This is in compliance of the Regulations of the Roman Curia, which require the precautionary suspension of persons against whom prosecution has been initiated.”

“The Holy See has still not received any request from the competent Italian authorities on the matter, but has confirmed its willingness to cooperate fully.”

“The competent Vatican authority, the AIF (the Vatican Financial Information Authority), is following the issue in order to take, if necessary, appropriate measures within its competence.”

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COLORADO
Gazette

By Lance Benzel Published: June 27, 2013

A former Colorado Springs priest being tried on charges of sexually assaulting a teenage altar boy was considered “part of our family,” the boy’s mother told a jury Thursday while choking back tears.

Testifying on the third day of the prosecution’s case against the Rev. Charles Robert “Bob” Manning, the woman said the then-pastor of St. Gabriel the Archangel Catholic Church was a frequent guest at the family home.

“Holidays. Dinners. Everything,” the woman said. “I included him as part of our family.”

According to earlier testimony, the accuser was 14 when he sent an email to St. Gabriel’s, 8755 Scarborough Drive, saying that he wanted to explore Catholicism.

Manning, 78, has pleaded not guilty to all counts, with his attorneys portraying him the victim of false allegations by the boy, who became an altar server during the course of one-on-one tutelage by Manning in his church office.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC Mildura-Swan Hill

By Deb Banks (ABC Mildura-Swan Hill)

A former police detective living in Mildura wants a government inquiry into what happened to him 40 years ago, after he uncovered hundreds of cases of sex abuse at the hands of a Catholic church priest and found himself confronted with a conspiracy to prevent investigation, damaging his career and leading ultimately to his resignation from the force.

Denis Ryan says his investigation into Catholic priest – Monsignor John Day – uncovered hundreds of cases of child sex abuse, but was smothered by Victoria Police and the church.

Mr Ryan has documented his quest for justice in a book released this week, and is telling his story for the first time.

Mr Ryan first came in contact with Father Day on the streets of St Kilda, in 1956, while on divisional van duties.

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INDIA
IBN Live

Press Trust of India | Updated Jun 28, 2013

The Madras High Court has upheld the arrest of a Catholic priest from Tamil Nadu, charged with abusing a minor girl in the US, facilitating his extradition to face justice in that country.

A Division Bench comprising Justices Dhanapalan and C T Selvam dismissed the petition filed by the priest’s sister Pushpavathi, seeking to quash his arrest on the ground that there was a delay in producing him in Delhi and his continued incarceration amounted to illegal detention.

The bench rejected her plea and facilitated the priest’s extradition contending that the crime is a “first degree criminal sexual conduct.” Additional Solicitor General G Masilamani had pointed out that there was a valid extradition treaty with the US since 1999 and that the US has furnished all relevant documents validating its extradition request.

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CALIFORNIA
Appeal-Democrat

June 28, 2013

By Rob Parsons/A-D Reporter

A Catholic priest “nibbled” a Yuba City teenager’s nose, put his head against her chest, pulled her down onto a bed and kissed her face repeatedly, the 16-year-old testified on Thursday.

“Then he put his tongue inside my mouth,” the girl said in Sutter County Superior Court. The Appeal-Democrat is not naming the girl because she is a minor and an alleged victim.

During a recorded phone call between the girl and the Rev. Julio Cesar Guarin-Sosa, the Colombian priest apologized for the alleged March 8 incident in the Yuba City girl’s bedroom and asked her to keep it secret, Yuba City police Officer Isabel Kodani testified.

“Because he said it would destroy his life,” Kodani said. “He told her it would never happen again.”

Superior Court Judge Christopher R. Chandler ordered Guarin-Sosa, 43, to stand trial on misdemeanor counts of sexual battery and child molestation following Thursday’s preliminary hearing.

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CALIFORNIA
TheMediaReport

How do the cultural elites in Hollywood deal with a successful actor after he has been accused by at least four different men of child sex abuse? Not screaming headlines, of course. Instead, it rewards him with three Emmy Awards.

Kevin Clash struck it big in Hollywood by developing the personality and voice of the popular Sesame Street character Elmo. Yet after a number of men came forward late last November to accuse him of abusing them as boys, he resigned from the hit children’s show, thus joining a growing list of Hollywood celebrities accused of sex abuse with scant media disapprobation.

Roman Polanski: ‘It wasn’t rape-rape’

Clash is not the first Hollywood star to be celebrated by media elites even after being accused of child sex crimes.

In March of 1977, Los Angeles law enforcement arrested famed director Roman Polanski for the savage rape of a 13-year-old girl that happened at the home of his famous friend, Jack Nicholson. Court records indicate that after Polanski plied the underage girl with alcohol and drugs, he then forcibly performed oral sex, intercourse, and sodomy. …

Contrast the treatment by the Los Angeles Times to the death of Jackson with the death of a popular L.A. cleric, Bishop Juan Arzube, who passed away less than a year before Jackson. Arzube was the target of a single accusation during 2003, the year that California lifted the statute of limitations in order for accusers to file money-seeking lawsuits against the Catholic Church.

Arzube vehemently denied the decades-old allegation, but that did not stop the Times from devoting nearly 30 percent of his obituary to the stale accusation against him and stamping the word “ACCUSED” below the photograph accompanying it. (See for yourself and read about this episode.)

Meanwhile, unlike Bishop Arzube, charges of abuse against Jackson continue to this day, even after his death.

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UNITED STATES
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: Burton was ordained a priest of the Society of Jesus, Maryland Province, in 1967. His ministry took him from Maryland to Chile, North Carolina and New Jersey. He taught, served in hispanic ministry, established and co-directed a youth ministry program, and worked as a campus minister. In 1994 the Jesuits received a report that in 1982 Burton had engaged in “inappropriate touching” with a minor in North Carolina. Burton underwent a brief period of therapy, but remained in ministry. In June 2007 the Jesuits claimed that they discovered the earlier accusation in reviewing Burton’s personnel file. Burton acknowledged the sexual misconduct and was removed from active ministry. He died in August 2011.

Ordained: 1967
Died: Aug. 20, 2011

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MINNESOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, June 27

Statement by Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, Outreach Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314 862 7688 home, 314 503 0003 cell, SNAPdorris@gmail.com)

A dangerous predator priest is one step closer to being sent back to the US for trial. We are grateful for Indian court officials for their ruling today in the case of Fr. Joseph Palanivel Jeyapaul, who molested girls in the Crookston MN diocese.

We’ve long worried about the safety of girls in India near Jeyapaul, especially since his bishop put him in charge of overseeing schools, knowing full well that he was considered a fugitive from US criminal authorities.

Jeyapaul is one of an increasing number of accused predator priests who are allowed to flee to other countries despite credible child sex abuse allegations or sometimes arrest warrants.

According to BishopAccountability.org, Minnesota Catholic officials “knew of rumors about inappropriate behavior by (Jeyapaul) in 8/04” but Jeyapaul “suddenly returned to India in 9/05.”

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TEXAS/MASSACHUSETTS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

POSTED BY DAVID CLOHESSY ON JUNE 27, 2013

We oppose parole for Fr. Thomas H. Teczar, who in 2009 was convicted of rape and sexual abuse of an 11-year-old boy. In addition to this conviction, there are documented accusations of Teczar sexually assaulting children for nearly 50 years.

Despite this, he wants to serve only four years of a 50-year-sentence. Having a long history of committing crimes without consequence, he cannot be allowed walk free from the only punishment he has ever received, punishment which keeps him away from children. We urge Texas officials will recognize that Teczar’s entire history of sexual violence against children exceedingly overshadows his case for parole based on alleged medical conditions.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, June 27

Statement by Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, Outreach Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314 862 7688 home, 314 503 0003 cell, SNAPdorris@gmail.com)

In a predictable move, Milwaukee’s archbishop posted a blog today in which he again tries to obscure the truth and deceive parishioners and the public about clergy sex crimes and cover ups.

A centerpiece of Archbishop Jerome Listecki’s public relations effort is his claim that Catholic officials did “their best with what they knew at the time.” He suggests that it was largely ignorance that led Milwaukee church supervisors to ignore, minimize, hide and enable horrific crimes against children.

He’s wrong.

The documents will prove that they did no better. Archdiocesan officials consistently refused to call police or notify parishioners about known and suspected clergy child sex crimes. Church officials are smart, well-educated men guided by expensive lawyers. They have known, for decades, that child sex abuse was illegal. They have known, for decades, that parishioners deserved to know if their pastor, priest or teacher was a child molester.

Yet they insisted on protecting themselves, their reputations and their clerical careers by intimidating victims, threatening whistleblowers, discrediting witnesses, ignoring police, stonewalling prosecutors, lobbying to defeat child abuse protection laws, and deceiving parishioners while paying secret settlements and quietly transferring predators.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Milwaukee

Most Reverend Jerome E. Listecki
Archbishop of Milwaukee

Click here to read this blog in Spanish.

On April 3rd, I informed you of my decision to authorize the release of documents related to diocesan priests with substantiated allegations of sexual abuse of a minor. These documents are scheduled to be posted to the archdiocesan website next week and I’m sure they will generate many stories in the news.

We have worked with the attorneys for abuse survivors who identified almost 6,000 pages of documents they believe should be made public and that best demonstrate how the archdiocese handled allegations of sexual abuse, responded to reports, and dealt with offending priests. Those are the documents that will be posted.

My hope in voluntarily making these documents public is that they will aid abuse survivors, families, and others in understanding the past, reviewing the present and allowing the Church in southeastern Wisconsin to continue moving forward. We can never tell abuse survivors enough how sorry we are for what they endured. My apology goes out to all who have been harmed and I continue to offer to meet with any individual abuse survivors who would find it helpful.

What we do today in responding to reports of abuse is different than in decades past but that fact does not erase the past. The documents present one part of the history of what happened and demonstrate how people tried to do their best with what they knew at the time. We may never have the complete picture because the records are not always clear and there is no way to delve more deeply because many of the people involved are dead or have had memories fade as 20, 30 or 40 years or more have passed.

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NEW JERSEY
NJ Today

[with video]

Myers Mum After Chat With Catholic Publication; Critics Renew Call for Resignation

By David Cruz
NJ Today

Newark Archbishop John Myers’ slow emergence from media silence is doing little to shed light on the church’s role in the Father Michael Fugee case. That’s what critics of Myers are saying today as they repeat their calls for his resignation.

“It’s typical Archbishop John Myers,” said Bob Hoatson of Road to Recovery, a victims’ advocacy group. “Once again he deflects all criticism from himself; he deflects all criticism from the Archdiocese of Newark, from the priest who molested the child, and he talks about things like review boards and protocols and things that are tangential to the essential issue here.”

In an interview with the National Catholic Register, Myers admitted that the church dropped the ball on properly monitoring Fugee, who was arrested in May for allegedly violating a 2003 Memorandum of Understating with the Bergen County Prosecutor to stay away from children. Myers said that in the future, “We would not enter into a memorandum of understanding that places a burden on the Church. The state has more resources.”

Jay Fahey, a former Bergen County Prosecutor now in private practice told us today that the church did indeed violate the agreement but that, barring a smoking gun, he didn’t expect the church as a corporation, or Archbishop Myers as its head, to face any charges.

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WORCESTER (MA)
Telegram & Gazette

By Bronislaus B. Kush, TELEGRAM & GAZETTE
bkush@telegram.com

WORCESTER — Thomas H. Teczar, the defrocked Worcester priest serving a 50-year sentence in Texas for molesting an 11-year-old boy more than 20 years ago, may be released from prison because of medical problems.

Mr. Teczar, who was also publicly accused of sexually assaulting at least two Central Massachusetts boys, was formally removed from the priesthood by Pope Benedict XVI in September 2011.

Texas prosecutors and victims of Mr. Teczar were informed this week that the Parole Division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice is considering an early parole for the former priest and asked them to provide comments on any such action.

Ordinarily, Mr. Teczar would not be considered for parole until Oct. 23, 2019. …

Spokesman Raymond L. Delisle said the Diocese of Worcester had no comment.

“The decision of whether or not to parole him is up to Texas officials,” he said.

David Clohessy of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests said there are documented accusations of Mr. Teczar sexually assaulting children for nearly 50 years.

“Despite this, he wants to serve only four years of a 50-year sentence,” Mr. Clohessy said. “Having a long history of committing crimes without consequence, he cannot be allowed to walk free from the only punishment he has ever received, punishment which keeps him away from children.”

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

Transcript Day 11
Monday, June 24, 2013

Transcript Day 12
Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Transcript Day 13
Wednesday, June 26, 2013

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