ABUSE TRACKER

ILLINOIS
Patch

By Pam DeFiglio

The Niles Police Department said Wednesday that it was investigating Richard Balentine, a department head at Notre Dame College Prep, before he was found dead on Tuesday.

The department released a statement saying the investigation centered on whether inappropriate communications took place between Balentine and current or former Notre Dame students.

Police interviewed Balentine Monday morning, April 15, and said the investigation was in its preliminary stages, and nothing had been determined as to whether the communications were criminal in nature or violated school policy.

Police released Balentine after the Monday interview, and he was found dead Tuesday. Police said the investigation remains open.

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ILLINOIS
Daily Mail (UK)

Tragedy as Illinois high school teacher hangs himself in campus residence just days before receiving ‘Teacher of the Year’ award

By Helen Pow

Suicide: Richard Balentine, pictured, director of campus ministry at Notre Dame College Prep in Niles, was found hanged at around 9 a.m. yesterday in his home, which is on the school’s property

An Illinois high school teacher has been found dead of an apparent suicide on his school’s campus, just days before he was slated to receive a prestigious ‘Teacher of the Year’ award.

Richard Balentine, director of campus ministry at Notre Dame College Prep in Niles, was found hanged at around 9 a.m. yesterday in his home, which is on the school’s property.

The popular 38-year-old teacher had last been seen at around 6 p.m. on Monday night, police said.

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ILLINOIS
Niles Herald-Spectator

By JENNIFER JOHNSON | jjohnson@pioneerlocal.com April 16, 2013

Updated: April 17, 2013

A Notre Dame College Prep teacher who committed suicide this week had been under investigation by Niles Police prior to his death, authorities said Wednesday afternoon.

The Niles Police Department said in a statement that the investigation of Richard Balentine, 38, involved “inappropriate communications between Mr. Balentine and current or former Notre Dame students.”

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UNITED STATES
TheMediaReport

FACT: Catholic priests abuse at a rate far lower than that of other males in the general population.
Read more

Notwithstanding the media hysteria over sex abuse in the Catholic Church, priests abuse at a rate far lower than that of other males. While even one case of abuse is too many, approximately only 4% of all active priests between 1950 and 2002 were even accused of abuse – a rate far lower than that of other males in the general population.

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IRELAND
Journal

A COMPENSATION PACKAGE for the survivors of the Magdalene Laundry system will be discussed at a historic meeting between 75 women and former judge John Quirke tomorrow afternoon.

Advocacy organisation Magdalene Survivors Together said it has been inundated with requests from women for a meeting with the man tasked by government to examine what form redress should take.

“This is a unique opportunity for the women to express directly what their needs are,” said group director Seven O’Riordan.

Meanwhile, there have been claims made that many of the women who are still under the care of the religious orders and the HSE are not allowed to fill out the form about claiming compensation.

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FLORIDA
Miami Herald

By DAVID OVALLE
dovalle@MiamiHerald.com

A former West Miami-Dade altar boy cannot sue the Archdiocese of Miami for alleged abuse at the hands of a priest because the statute of limitations long ago ran out, an appeal courts ruled Wednesday.

The Rev. Francisco Carrera’s alleged abuse of Jorge Rubio ended in 1976, but the man did not file his lawsuit against the church until May 2011.

Miami’s Third District Court of Appeal said Rubio’s lawsuit should have been filed within four years of the abuse, the time period set by law.

“We certainly do not intend to discredit the courage of these survivors who break the silence that shielded their abusers,” Judge Thomas Logue wrote. “We hold only that Rubio’s lawsuit for money damages cannot be filed so long after the alleged injury was inflicted.”

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FLORIDA
WPEC

April 17, 2013

MIAMI (AP) — A Florida appeals court has ruled that a former altar boy who claimed he was sexually abused by a Roman Catholic priest filed his lawsuit decades too late.

The 3rd District Court of Appeal on Wednesday upheld a lower court’s ruling in favor of the Archdiocese of Miami. The archdiocese was sued by Jorge Rubio, who accused them of negligence for not protecting him from the priest’s abuse when he was 10 years old.

Rubio filed his lawsuit in May 2011, about 35 years after the alleged abuse took place. The judges said the lawsuit was barred by a four-year statute of limitations in such negligence cases.

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CONNECTICUT
Minutesman News Center

Published: Wednesday, April 17, 2013

By Meg Learson Grosso
mgrosso@fairfieldminuteman.com
Twitter: @mlearsongrosso

A judge has ruled that twenty-three Haitians may go forward with their lawsuit against Fairfield University, Father Paul E. Carrier, S. J., the Society of Jesus of New England (Jesuits), Hope Carter, and the Knights of Malta–the people and institutions that the lawsuit says should have protected the homeless boys from the sexual abuse they suffered in a school founded for street children by 1992 Fairfield University graduate Douglas Perlitz.

United States District Judge Robert N. Chatigny denied the motions of Fairfield University, Carrier, the Jesuits, Carter, and the Knights of Malta, to dismiss the lawsuit on some grounds and granted them on others. The judge said they could be sued for negligent supervision of Perlitz, for negligent supervision of Father Carrier and for a breach of fiduciary duty to the young boys. On the other hand, the judge wrote, in his March 31, decision, that the defendants could not be sued for vicarious liability, or for secondary liability. Nor said the judge, could they be sued on the grounds that either Father Carrier or Hope Carter gave assistance to Perlitz, with the purpose of aiding Perlitz in his wrongdoing.

Mitchell Garabedian, the attorney who won a large settlement against the Archdiocese of Boston in a Catholic clergy sex-abuse scandal, is arguing the case for the twenty-three boys, some of whom are now young men. The lawsuit asks damages of $20 million each for the sexual abuse they suffered from Perlitz between 1999 and 2007 when they were students at Project Pierre Toussaint, the residential school founded in Cap Haitien, Haiti by Perlitz, who, in 2002, was the speaker at Fairfield University’s commencement.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
JimmyCSays

“One does not become a university president without cultivating a close relationship with deniability.”

I had already been thinking how closely the Barchi-Pernetti situation mirrored the scandal surrounding Bishop Robert Finn last year. After it surfaced that the Rev. Shawn Ratigan had surreptitiously taken pornographic photos of elementary school girls at the parish where he was pastor in Kansas City, North, Finn attempted to shift the blame to Vicar General Robert Murphy, saying that he himself never saw the photos and that he relied on Murphy’s assessment that the photos were not pornographic.

In other words, Finn gave himself deniability.

That didn’t fly with a Jackson County Circuit Court judge, of course, who found Finn guilty of a misdemeanor charge of failing to report child abuse. Now, Finn, who is on probation for two years, stands as the most senior Catholic official convicted in the church’s long-running child sex-abuse scandal.

Nevertheless, Finn has refused to resign, even after ruining the reputation of the Kansas City-St. Joseph diocese. Like Barchi, he’d rather carry on tattooed with shame than bow out gracefully and allow his organization to start afresh with new leadership.

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IRELAND
Limerick Leader

By Alan Owens
Published on 17/04/2013

LIMERICK’S new Bishop has acknowledged the “darkness” and “the faults” of the Catholic Church and the pain of those who have suffered abuse at the hands of clergy, and has promised to “give the time, the resources, we want to be there” for people who seek the solace of the Church.

Speaking to media shortly after being ordained at St John’s Cathedral last Sunday, Bishop Brendan Leahy said to those struggling with faith or feeling marginalised “we are a community, we are close, we want to be there for each other, there should be nobody feeling alone”.

“We want to say, look, we recognise the faults, the wounds, they don’t heal easily,” he said.

“We want to give the time, the resources, we want to be there. And we recognise that it is very difficult to hear from us, because we are part of the problem, but we want to do our part.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Hayling Today

Published on 17/04/2013

A former choirboy who suffered years of abuse on the Isle of Wight by a “vile” Church of England priest has spoken of his relief at being awarded compensation of £200,000.

The victim, now aged in his 40s, says the abuse he suffered at the hands of Father Maxwell Halahan at St Faith’s Church in Cowes in the 1970s “ruined his life” causing him lifelong psychological damage.

The payout, agreed by the Bishop of Portsmouth, is to cover the cost of psychological treatment and loss of earnings.

Halahan, then aged 81, was jailed for three years in September 2011 at Portsmouth Crown Court after being found guilty of four counts of indecent assault.

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OSTERREICH
Betroffen

Der Wiener Rechtsanwalt Wolfgang Renzl hat Klage gegen die “Unabhängige Opferschutzkommission” eingebracht, an die sich Opfer kirchlicher Missbrauchsfälle wenden können. Der Anwalt verlangt in seiner Klage gegen deren Vorsitzende Waltraud Klasnic und deren Sprecher Herwig Hösele, die Verwendung des Namens zu unterlassen. Gegenüber der Austria Presseagentur begründete er die Klage damit, dass die Kommission einerseits nicht unabhängig sei und sich andererseits “wie eine Behörde” bezeichne und als solche aufzutreten versuche.

Der Anwalt erklärte, die Klage aus eigenem Antrieb eingebracht zu haben. Unterstützt wird er unter anderem von der Plattform “Betroffener kirchlicher Gewalt”.

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OSTERREICH
Salzburg 24

Schläge, Essensentzug, sexuelle Übergriffe, tagelange “Haft” im “Besinnungskammerl”: Fast drei Jahre lang haben sich drei Historiker der Universität Salzburg im Auftrag des Landes mit dem Thema Demütigung, Gewalt und Missbrauch in der Heimerziehung der Salzburger Jugendwohlfahrt auseinandergesetzt und am Mittwoch das Ergebnis in Buchform präsentiert.

Die Studie – mehr als 470 Seiten stark – durchleuchtet dabei die Situation fremduntergebrachter Kinder und Jugendlicher in Salzburg in der Zeit nach 1945. Bis in die 1970er Jahre hinein waren im Bundesland ständig von 1.200 bis 1.500 Personen von einer der im Jugendwohlfahrtsgesetz vorgesehenen Maßnahmen betroffen. Dabei gab es in Salzburg kein einziges öffentliches Erziehungsheim: Kinder wurden in Heime in andere Bundesländer, nach Bayern oder in kirchliche Einrichtungen geschickt. “Kilometertherapie”, nannte man das laut dem Salzburger Universitätsprofessor und Studienautor Robert Hoffmann damals. “Je weiter weg, desto besser.

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POLEN
Tiroler Tageszeitung

Warschau – Die Opfer von Kindesmissbrauch durch Priester in Polen haben sich zusammengeschlossen. Eine neue Stiftung startet mit 15 Mitgliedern, erfuhr das Radio TOK FM. Sie sprechen zwar mit den Medien, geben ihre Nachnamen aus Angst vor Stigmatisierung nicht preis. Der Arbeitsname der Stiftung heißt „Fürchtet Euch nicht“. Das ist eine Anknüpfung an berühmte Worte von Papst Johannes Paul II. während seiner ersten Polenreise im Jahr 1979.

Die wichtigste Forderung der Stiftung ist, die Kirche solle einen Dialog mit den Sexualopfern von Priestern beginnen. „Wir wollen für die Kirche Partner sein. Heute betrachtet sie uns oft als Erpresser. Zu Gesprächen in den Kurien werden wir nicht eingeladen, sondern wie zum Verhör beinbestellt. Wir hoffen, dass das sich dank der Stiftung ändern wird“, erklärte einer der Mitgründer der Stiftung Marek, der angeblich im Alter von 14 Jahren von einem Priester in einem Kleinort der Plock-Diözese sexual belästigt wurde, gegenüber der Tageszeitung „Gazeta Wyborcza“. Danach wurde er süchtig und hatte psychische Probleme. Erst nach 30 Jahren entschloss er sich, die Sache an die Kurie zu melden.

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on April 17, 2013

A support group is blasting Pittsburgh’s Catholic bishop over a short announcement to one parish about a credibly accused child-molesting cleric.

In a letter to Pittsburgh Bishop David Zubik, leaders of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAPNetwork.org), charge that Zubik minimizes the impact of abuse by Fr. John Wellinger and that he may even be hindering police investigations into sex abuse and cover-up in the Diocese of Pittsburgh.

The letter raises four major concerns:

— Zubik does not urge victims to call police,
— Many parishes where Wellinger worked have NOT been warned,
— Parishes where 33 other accused clerics have worked have not been told about potential child sex crimes, and
— Zubik does not encourage witnesses and whistleblowers to report what they know to law enforcement.

“You [Bishop Zubik] may believe that since Wellinger is deceased, there is no need to contact the police,” the letter says. “But the cover-up of his crimes may still be a criminal offense. Victims, witnesses and whistleblowers may have important and valuable information that can still protect kids and put wrongdoers behind bars.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
Isle of Wight County Press

By Richard Wright

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Former parish priest Maxwell Halahan, who was jailed in 2011 for sexually abusing a child.

THE victim of a former Isle of Wight priest’s sex abuse has been awarded a £200,000 settlement from the Church of England to help him rebuild his shattered life.

The former choirboy received compensation from the church after suffering abuse in the 1970s at the hands of Father Maxwell Halahan at St Faith’s Church in Cowes.

It was not until 2011 that Halahan, then aged 81, was jailed for three years.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

by Joshua J. McElwee | Apr. 17, 2013

Within hours of the Vatican’s announcement Monday that Pope Francis had reaffirmed a controversial takeover of the primary group of U.S. Catholic sisters, reactions from prominent American sisters ranged from “wait and see” to the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.

It may be too early to tell what the news means for the country’s 57,000 Catholic sisters, said several former leaders of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. Others said it could signal it is time to reconsider their energy in trying to tamp down potential tensions with bishops.

“LCWR has spent an enormous amount of energy in conversations and in preparation materials and in actual meetings” with Vatican prelates, Mercy Sr. Helen Marie Burns, a former LCWR president, said. “The question becomes, How fruitful is the continued use of that energy for the church as well as for the LCWR organization?”

“It’s a question of limited energy and what’s the best use of that energy in the present moment,” said Burns, who served in LCWR’s presidency from 1988 to 1990.

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MALTA
Malta Independent

Wednesday, 17 April 2013, 13:10, by Martin Scicluna

In August 2011, two defrocked priests were sentenced to jail for sexually abusing eleven boys placed in their care at St Joseph’s Home in Santa Venera. The former Father Charles Pulis and Father Godwin Scerri, both members of the Missionary Society of St Paul, had sexually molested the victims, in ways too disgusting to describe here, over a long period until 2003, when the abuse allegations at the St Joseph Home were first brought to public attention.

When Charles Pulis was reported by a social worker, who had caught him at the Home lying on the bed in his vest and boxer shorts with a full erection with a young boy on top of him, the Missionary Society of St Paul chose to believe the priest, who denied the accusation, and not the care worker. The report was dismissed when the victim, not unexpectedly given his vulnerable position as someone who had nowhere else to call home, failed to support the accusation.

When Godwin Scerri escaped from Canada in 1993 to evade police arrest on charges that he had abused a twelve year-old boy for four years, he was welcomed back to the local Missionary Society of St Paul without demur. The Society totally disregarded the Canadian arrest warrant and the serious charges against him. Instead, he was given a job at St Joseph’s Home, including unlimited and unsupervised access to young boys like the one he was accused of abusing in Canada.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

Archbishop Marchetto comments on the creation of a mini-synod of eight cardinals appointed to advise the pope and help reform the Curia

Andrea Tornielli
Vatican City

It is fair to say that Pope Francis’s decision to set up a permanent group of cardinals hailing from the five continents to help him govern the Church and reform the Roman Curia is a ‘daughter’ of the Second Vatican Council. This is what archbishop Agostino Marchetto – a diplomat for the Holy See and former Secretary of the Pontifical Council for Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People, as well as a scholar specialising in the history of the Second Vatican Council – maintains in this interview with Vatican Insider.

What does the pope’s decision to appoint a group of eight cardinals to advise him in governing the Church and reforming the Curia mean? Is it a novelty from an historic point of view?

“The pope’s decision expresses the wish to proceed collatis consiliis along a process of ecclesiastical renewal, with loyalty, that takes into account the episcopal collegiality expressed by a representative council qualified to govern the church and in view of the approaching reform of the Curia. It is an instrument designed to exercise papal primacy in an authentic and proper collegial context. I wouldn’t say that it’s an unprecedented move, given the historical variety in relations between the episcopacy and papal primacy, which are both very complex and in constant evolution, even though a certain level of continental representation, which seems to have been deliberate, gives it its own particular character.”

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VATICAN CITY
John Thavis

Pope Francis is passing a strange milestone today, one that is more on some people’s minds than I would have guessed: his 34th day in office.

In 1978, Pope John Paul I died 34 days after his election, one of the briefest reigns in church history. His death shocked the world and launched conspiracy theories that the “smiling pope” was murdered by enemies inside the Vatican.

I was in Rome at the time, and based on what I have learned over the years I remain unconvinced of any supposed plot to remove the reform-minded John Paul I. He had serious health problems, and there’s no good reason to doubt that he died of a massive heart attack.

But in the popular imagination, the modern Vatican has never completely shed its Borgia-era image. The idea that powerful prelates will stop at nothing to advance their hidden agendas is still very much alive.

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VATIKAN
Katholisches

(Washington) Gestern empfing Kurienerzbischof Gerhard Ludwig Müller in Rom den Vorstand der rebellischen Ordensschwestern der US-amerikanischen Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR). Der Vatikan versucht noch einmal einen Dialog mit jenen ungehorsamen Schwestern, die den katholischen Glauben in Frage stellen, schwerwiegende Verfehlungen gegen die kirchliche Ordnung begangen und häretische Positionen eingenommen haben. Der Konflikt zwischen Rom und den in der LCWR zusammengeschlossenen Ordensfrauen spitzte sich 2012 zu und erreichte im Sommer einen Höhepunkt.

Die Delegiertenversammlung der LCWR, in der fast 80 Prozent der amerikanischen Frauenkonvente zusammengeschlossen sind, mußte im August 2012 entscheiden, ob sie mit den drei vom Vatikan ernannten Bischöfen zusammenarbeiten oder ein offenes Schisma vollziehen wollte. Papst Benedikt XVI. hatte den LCWR-Vorstand entmachtet und unter kommissarische Verwaltung gestellt. Schließlich fand sich eine Mehrheit, die den Eingriff akzeptierte und an der Einheit mit der katholischen Kirche festhielt.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Augsburger Allgemeine

Im Augsburger Internat St. Joseph waren körperlicher Züchtigung und sexueller Missbrauch offenbar gängige Praxis. Weitere Betroffene bekräftigen die jüngsten Vorwürfe. Von Rüdiger Heinze

Nach den schweren Vorwürfen , die der Komponist Wilfried Hiller vor kurzem in unserer Redaktion gegen zwei mittlerweile verstorbene Benediktiner-Patres des Augsburger Internats St. Joseph erhoben hatte, haben ihn und unsere Redaktion mehrere Reaktionen erreicht. Der in München lebende Hiller hatte von persönlich erfahrenem mehrfachen sexuellen Missbrauch sowie von persönlich erlittener schwerer körperlicher Züchtigung während seiner Schulzeit in den 50er-Jahren berichtet.

Vorwürfe belasten ehemaligen Seminardirektor

Dies bestätigen hinsichtlich der schweren körperlichen Züchtigung die uns erreichten Zuschriften und Telefonanrufe auch für die 60er- und 70er-Jahre in St. Joseph. Und sie spitzen sich, ohne dass unsere Redaktion die Namen der von Wilfried Hiller Beschuldigten genannt hat, auf den damals amtierenden Seminardirektor zu. Der jetzige Abt des Klosters St. Stephan, Theodor Hausmann, hatte nach Hillers Vorwürfen auch umgehend eingeräumt, dass er selbst zuvor schon zwei Beschuldigungen dieses ehemaligen Seminardirektors erhielt. Eine davon habe laut Richtlinien der Bischofskonferenz die freiwillige Entschädigungssumme von 5000 Euro nach sich gezogen.

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OSTERREICH
Nachrichten

KREMSMÜNSTER / STEYR. Der Verteidiger des ehemaligen Kremsmünsterer Paters, der von der Staatsanwaltschaft Steyr wegen sexuellen Missbrauchs sowie anderer Sexual- und Gewaltdelikte angeklagt wird, ergreift dagegen Rechtsmittel.

Konkret gehe es um die Frage, ob der illegale Waffenbesitz, der dem 79-jährigen Ex-Geistlichen ebenfalls vorgeworfen wird, die Verjährung hemmen kann oder nicht, so Anwalt Oliver Plöckinger. Wie lange eine Entscheidung des Oberlandesgerichts dauern wird, ist offen. Weil der Einspruch aber nur einen Teil der Anklage betrifft, wird der Prozess dadurch wohl nur verzögert und nicht verhindert.

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POLAND
Interfax

Kaliningrad, April 15, Interfax – A group of citizens, victims of priests-pedophiles, wants to establish a fund in Poland, which will pursue the phenomenon in the Church, the Polish cultural center in Kaliningrad said citing Polish mass media outlets.

The center said that this would be the first organization of this kind in Poland.

People who were sexually abused by priests as children intend to make such cases public and help other victims and their families.

The idea to create such a fund emerged as a result of the discussion of the issue on online forums, during which people talked about what had happened to them in the past. The group comprises both genders. Most of them are over 40 years old but there are those who are just over 20.

The fund’s base was formed in 2011 when three victims had joined, one of the fund’s founders said. “The legal form will allow us to be partners during talks with the Church because when we reach it as private citizens, this establishment is not taking that very seriously,” he said.

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AUSTRALIA
The Global Mail

By Stephen Crittenden
April 17, 2013

The role of record-keeping is close to the centre of what the royal commission into abuse is all about: the battle between the Closed and the Open Society. But — at least in some cases — documents have been subpoenaed only as far back as 1970.

——————

In Belgium in 2010, such was the level of paranoia surrounding the investigation of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church that police broke into the cathedral tombs of cardinals, drilling holes and poking cameras down in search of hidden cachès of documents – which they didn’t find.

Australia’s national Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse doesn’t seem to be provoking anything like those levels of lurid sensationalism, at least not so far.

In his address opening the royal commission this month the chairman, Justice Peter McClellan, welcomed the Catholic Church’s repeated assurances that it wants to co-operate fully with the royal commission, and said he understood that the “enormous task” of collecting and organising documents held by the Church had already begun.

Justice McClellan conceded that most of the organisations whose activities are likely to be of interest to the commission are not yet in a position to provide documentation about their internal management practices or the way they have dealt with complaints of child sexual abuse.

But he also revealed that the commission has already served notice for production of documents on “particular bodies within the Catholic Church in Australia, its insurer, the Salvation Army and the NSW Director of Public Prosecutions.”

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ORANGEVALE (CA)
Divine Savior Parish via Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

FINAL
April 12, 2013

(Please attribute to Fr. Roman Mueller, SDS, Pastor at Divine Savior Parish)

To be read at all Masses (Weekend of April 13-­‐14),

We have received notice that Fr. Robert Marsicek, a Salvatorian priest and former Pastor of this
Parish, has been accused of sexually abusing minors and has been removed from ministry by the
Salvatorian Provincial.

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WISCONSIN/CALIFORNIA
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By Annysa Johnson of the Journal Sentinel

April 17, 2013

Catholic Church officials in Milwaukee had known for 10 months that Father Robert Marsicek was under investigation on suspicion of molesting two children in California, according to the Sacramento diocese.

But they did not move to suspend him from his duties at two local parishes and schools until a new allegation surfaced at a Wauwatosa school last month.

Kevin Eckery, a spokesman for the Diocese of Sacramento, said officials there notified the Archdiocese of Milwaukee; Marsicek’s Milwaukee-based religious order, the Society of the Divine Savior; and attorneys for both of the organizations about the California allegations in May 2012.

Marsicek is accused of sexually abusing two children in one family while he served at Divine Savior Parish in Orangevale, according to an announcement read at the California parish last weekend.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Fox 8

[with video]

The Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown says they are conducting an internal investigation of abuse allegations. Diocese spokesman Tony Degol says the investigation started very recently. This just months after dozens of former Bishop McCort High School students came forward with abuse allegations against Friar Stephne Baker who worked as a trainer at the school. Baker committed suicide in January. Since then Principal Ken Salem was put on Administrative leave.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph

A priest has been cleared of rape after a court heard the woman made up the allegation based on the violent books of a popular crime writer.

By Telegraph reporters
1:17PM BST 16 Apr 2013

Father John Taylor, 49, found himself accused of raping the woman after meeting his accuser on Facebook and going on a dinner date which ended in sex.

The woman reported him for rape and he lost his job, found himself shunned by parishioners and had his car vandalised three times.

He was also banned from seeing his two young children who live with his ex wife Zsanett, 34, in her native Hungary because of the allegation.

Father Taylor was due to stand trial for rape on Monday but the case collapsed minutes before it was due to start.

Canterbury Crown Court heard that the woman, in her late 20s, told police she identified with the characters in the novels by Martina Cole which feature violent rape.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CBS Philly

By Mark Abrams

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — A prominent nun active in supporting survivors of clergy sex abuse in Philadelphia says she is surprised the new pope is backing the crackdown on a group representing religious women in the Roman Catholic Church here in the US.

Sister Maureen Paul Turlish belongs to the Sisters of Notre Dame and is active in the Philadelphia chapter of Voices of the Faithful, a national organization which represents nuns in the US.

Turlish had hopes that Pope Francis would distance himself from the actions of his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, who, while pope, directed the organization to change its ways because of what he called “radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith,” an apparent reference to the group’s exploration of church stance on sensitive topics including birth control, abortion, church governance, and the ordination of women.

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VATICAN CITY
Alaska Dispatch

Jason Berry|GlobalPost.com|

April 15, 2013

The Vatican announced that Pope Francis supports a controversial plan approved one year ago by Pope Benedict which calls for leaders of the organization representing the majority of American nuns to function under a Vatican-appointed overseer. The pope’s decision lets stand an investigation critics say is of dubious research, and which has been likened to a modern ‘inquisition.’

Upholding the “supervision” of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) signals that despite his conciliatory words on working with women that drew favorable attention in his first days as pope, Francis has taken a traditionalist stance toward progressive American nuns.

A Doctrinal Assessment issued last April by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) empowered Seattle Archbishop Peter Sartain as delegate, or effective overseer of LCWR, which represents the superiors of 80 percent of American nuns.

A Vatican Press Office communiqué today said that LCWR officials met in Rome at CDF, the office that enforces doctrinal conformity among theologians and religious groups. The CDF also has responsibility for defrocking priests found guilty of abusing children.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

by Maureen Fiedler | Apr. 16, 2013

The Leadership Conference of Women Religious has posted a statement from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in which Archbishop Gerhard Müller of the doctrinal congregation said he talked to Pope Francis about the LCWR mandate and claims the pope affirmed it.

I am frankly very skeptical of that information. First, I doubt this issue is on the top of the new pope’s agenda or that he had much knowledge of this when he was an archbishop in Argentina.

And what does “affirm” mean? Affirm what? Some general, vague report? Did Müller give him a full explanation, talk about the opposition to it among U.S. Catholics or give him an outline of the actions proposed? Did he talk about the accusation that says U.S. women religious spend too much time on social justice and not enough on other issues? I frankly doubt the new pope would “affirm” that.

Did he even mention the questions raised by LCWR at the meeting several months ago? I doubt he gave both sides.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

A former choirboy who suffered years of abuse in the 1970s by a priest has been awarded compensation of £200,000.

The payout comes two years after Father Maxwell Halahan who worked at St Faith’s Church in Cowes, Isle Of Wight was jailed for three years.

Halahan, a Church of England priest, was found guilty at Portsmouth Crown Court in September 2011, of four counts of indecent assault.

His victim said the abuse, which went on for five years, “ruined his life”.

The payout has been agreed by the Bishop of Portsmouth and will cover the cost of psychological treatment and loss of earnings.

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WISCONSIN
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By Annysa Johnson of the Journal Sentinel

April 16, 2013

The Wauwatosa Catholic priest suspended from ministry over inappropriate contact with a child is the subject of a similar investigation in California, a spokesman for the Sacramento diocese said Tuesday.

Father Robert Marsicek, 71, was removed from ministry at Pius X Catholic Church in Wauwatosa, Wauwatosa Catholic School and Mother of Good Counsel parish and school in Milwaukee, on March 28, after a teacher reported what she considered inappropriate contact with a child.

The Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department has been investigating an allegation, reported last year, that Marsicek molested two boys while serving at Divine Savior Parish there in the 1990s, said diocese spokesman Kevin Eckery.

The Milwaukee County district attorney’s office declined to charge Marsicek, saying it could not prove the elements of a crime.

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WISCONSIN
Patch

By Jim Price and Viviana Buzo

A popular Wauwatosa priest suspended from his duties during an investigation of possible inappropriate behavior with a child is also under investigation in his former California parish and diocese on allegations that he sexually abused two boys when he was pastor there.

Father Robert Marsicek, 71, was suspended from his duties at St. Pius X Church in Wauwatosa last month for allegations of inappropriate contact with a student. No charges have yet been filed in that investigation.

A congregational letter signed by the pastor of his former parish in Orangevale, CA, announces the investigation there and also sheds more light on the allegations against Father Robert Marsicek in Milwaukee.

The letter, approved by the Diocese of Sacramento and signed by Father Roman Mueller, pastor at Divine Savior Parish in Orangevale, says that Marsicek is under investigation by the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department and has been accused of sexually abusing minors.

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UNITED STATES
Legal Examiner

Eric Chaffin
Attorney

In February 2012, a Connecticut jury awarded a $1 million verdict to a boy who was sexually abused by a priest 30 years ago. The plaintiff brought claims against the Archdiocese of Hartford, arguing it was negligent and reckless when appointing the priest, who had a history of child abuse.

Though trying a child sexual abuse case against an institution can be more challenging than trying one against the perpetrator, it can also result in more substantial compensation for the plaintiff. Understanding the steps necessary to prove such a case can help increase the odds of securing a result the client deserves.

Negligent Hiring and Negligent Supervision

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about one in six boys and one in four girls are sexually abused before the age of 18. The American Psychological Association (APA) adds that other research indicates about 300,000 children are abused every year in the U.S., though the problem is likely underreported.

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NEW YORK
National Catholic Reporter

by Ben Feuerherd | Apr. 16, 2013

New York —
Victims of clergy sex abuse are tired of the meager steps taken by the church to prevent these crimes. These victims want the Vatican to acknowledge them and want their suggestions taken into account. Above all, they want bishops and priests who do not report these crimes to be held accountable. These were among the issues raised Thursday at a Manhattan fundraiser for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, known as SNAP.

“Bishop after bishop will say to me, ‘The media have caused this problem,’ ” said retired Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Gumbleton at the event. “They are the ones the bishops blame on a regular basis, as well as blaming the victims themselves. They want to keep it all quiet.”

Three Catholic organizations sponsored the event — Call To Action – Metropolitan New York; Voice of the Faithful, New York; and Dignity/NY — and was endorsed by the Center for Constitutional Rights. About 50 people attended.

For Gumbleton and the other speakers at the fundraiser, the sex abuse crisis is an institutional problem. Documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney showed a clip from his recent HBO documentary, “Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God,” to prove this point. The clip showed Laurie Goodstein of The New York Times speaking about her investigation of clergy sex abuse at a church-run school for the deaf in Wisconsin. The documentary says documents Goodstein unearthed implicated Pope Benedict XVI in an attempt to keep the abuse quiet.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Register

by Edward Pentin Monday, April 15, 2013

For the third time in as many weeks, Pope Francis has warned not to speak ill of others, and again mentioned the devil in another striking homily this morning in the chapel of the Vatican’s Santa Martha residence.

Calumny, he said, is worse than sin and is the direct expression of Satan. “We are all sinners; all of us. We all commit sins. But calumny is something else. It is of course a sin, too, but it is something more,” he said, according to a Vatican Radio report.

“Calumny aims to destroy the work of God, and calumny comes from a very evil thing: it is born of hatred. And hate is the work of Satan. Calumny destroys the work of God in people, in their souls. Calumny uses lies to get ahead.” Be in no doubt, he said: “Where there is calumny, there is Satan himself.”

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CITTA DEL VATICANO
Quotidiano

Roma, 15 aprile 2013 – “La calunnia distrugge l’opera di Dio nelle persone”, “è peggio di un peccato: la calunnia è un’espressione diretta di Satana”. Questo è il monito lanciato da Papa Francesco nella consueta omelia mattutina, durante la messa presieduta nella cappella della Domus Santa Marta. Il Pontefice ha inoltre invitato a pregare, come aveva già fatto ieri, per i tanti martiri che anche oggi sono falsamente accusati, perseguitati e uccisi in odio alla fede. Tra essi, il Santo Padre, ha ricordato il primo martire della Chiesa, Stefano, che è stato vittima della calunnia. “Stefano viene trascinato davanti al sinedrio per via della sua testimonianza al Vangelo. Qui lo accusano dei falsi testimoni”. Così, ha sottolineato il Pontefice, i nemici hanno intrapreso “la strada della lotta sporca: la calunnia”.

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CITTA DEL VATICANO
Vatican Insider

La homilía de Bergoglio en la misa con el personal de los Servicios telefónicos vaticanos y de la Oficina de Internet del Vaticano

Redacción
Roma

«La calumnia destruye la obra de Dios en las personas». Lo afirmó el Papa en la misa de hoy en Santa Marta en la que participaron, entre otros, el personal de los Servicios telefónicos vaticanos y de la Oficina de Internet del Vaticano. Una síntesis de la homilía fue publicada por la radio Vaticana.

El Papa Bergoglio invitó a rezar por todos los mártires que todavía hoy siguen siendo injustamente acusados, perseguidos y asesinados por su fe. «Esteban, el primer mártir de la Iglesia –observó– es una víctima de la calumnia». Y la calumnia, indicó el nuevo Pontífice, «es peor que un pecado: la calumnia es una expresión directa de Satanás». Los enemigos de Esteban, explicó el Papa, «tomaron la vía de la lucha sucia: la calumnia».

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CITTA DEL VATICANO
Vatican Insider

L’omelia di Bergoglio al personale il personale dei Servizi telefonici vaticani e dell’Ufficio Internet vaticano

Redazione
Roma

«La calunnia distrugge l’opera di Dio nelle persone». Lo ha affermato il Papa nella messa a Santa Marta, cui oggi ha partecipato, tra gli altri, il personale dei Servizi telefonici vaticani e dell’Ufficio Internet vaticano. Una sintesi dell’omelia del Pontefice è pubblicata dalla Radiovaticana.

Papa Bergoglio ha invitato a pregare per i tanti martiri che anche oggi sono falsamente accusati, perseguitati e uccisi in odio alla fede. «Stefano, il primo martire della Chiesa, – ha osservato il Papa – è una vittima della calunnia.

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VATICAN CITY
Zenit

Vatican City, April 15, 2013 (Zenit.org) Staff

Drawing from the First Reading account of Stephen, the first martyr, being dragged before the Sanhedrin, Pope Francis today strongly condemned the sin of calumny.

At his customary morning Mass in Domus Sanctae Marthae, the Holy Father noted that Stephen was accused of “false witness,” and that his enemies chose “the path of calumny.”

Vatican Radio reported on the Holy Father’s homily, noting that Francis described calumny as worse than sin and a direct expression of Satan.

“We are all sinners; all of us. We all commit sins. But calumny is something else. It is of course a sin, too, but it is something more. Calumny aims to destroy the work of God, and calumny comes from a very evil thing: it is born of hatred. And hate is the work of Satan. Calumny destroys the work of God in people, in their souls. Calumny uses lies to get ahead. And let us be in no doubt, eh?: Where there is calumny, there is Satan himself,” he said.

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CZECH REPUBLIC
Prague Daily Monitor

ČTK |

15 April 2013

Olomouc, North Moravia, April 12 (CTK) – The Czech and Slovak Orthodox Church Metropolitan Krystof stepped down Friday amid his critics’ allegations that he has breached his oath as a monk and had sex with women, a church dignitary said, adding that Krystof has resigned on his own for the sake of the church’s unity.

Krystof (Christopher of Prague), 59, previously dismissed the accusations and said he would take legal steps to clean his name.

TV Nova reported last week that Krystof, who headed the Orthodox Church in the Czech Lands and Slovakia from 2006, had several girlfriends with whom he has children. It said the urged Primate Krystof to refute the accusations by mid-May.

According to Nova, the church has accused Krystof of having sex with church synod discussed the issue at an extraordinary meeting and the wife of one of the priests for seven years. In addition, she is not the only woman with whom Krystof committed a sin. He has even children with others, maybe up to ten of them, Nova said.

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CZECH REPUBLIC
Columbus Dispatch

PRAGUE — The head of the Orthodox Church in the Czech Republic and Slovakia resigned yesterday, amid allegations of affairs with women and fathering illegitimate children.

Having already denied the charges, Metropolitan Krystof, 59, opted to resign to help maintain the unity of the church, a church spokesman said.

TV Nova cited church documents suggesting the metropolitan had an affair with a priest’s wife. It is also alleged that he had fathered several illegitimate children.

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PENNSYLVANIA
San Francisco Chronicle

JOHNSTOWN, Pa. (AP) — The Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown in central Pennsylvania says it is investigating claims that a Franciscan friar who committed suicide in January molested Catholic high school students when he helped at the school from 1992 to 2001.

More than 50 former students at Bishop McCort High School in Johnstown have hired attorneys and say they intend to sue church and school officials they believe are responsible for their alleged abuse by Brother Stephen Baker.

Baker committed suicide Jan. 26 at a monastery in Newry more than a week after the Youngstown, Ohio diocese disclosed financial settlements involving 11 students who claimed Baker abused them at a northeastern Ohio school in the late 1980s.

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MEXIQUE
Lavenir

Le procès de l’abbé Ernesto Rueda-Moreno a commencé. En l’absence de l’ancien curé de Tarcienne, retourné au Mexique.

L’abbé Ernesto Rueda-Moreno, de nationalité mexicaine, a exercé durant 3 ans comme curé de la paroisse Saint-Martin, à Tarcienne (Walcourt). Ce mardi, il était cité à comparaître devant le tribunal correctionnel de Dinant, pour des faits de moeurs, que l’on pourrait qualifier d’une gravité relative. On peut même écrire que si le prévenu n’avait pas d’ascendant moral sur sa victime mineure, il n’aurait pas eu à se défendre dans les prétoires.

Que lui reproche-t-on? D’avoir embrassé et enlacé une jeune paroissienne, issue d’une famille très croyante au sein de laquelle il était régulièrement accueilli.

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AUSTRALIA
SBS

Published – 15 April 2013

A group representing victims of child abuse has revealed that several survivors have received death threats, warning them against giving evidence to the Royal Commission. The group says the threats have come from individuals inside the Catholic Church, and are yet another barrier to survivors coming forward.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Democrat

Randy Griffith rgriffith@tribdem.com

ALTOONA — Facing several lawsuits, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown is conducting its own investigation into events surrounding allegations that a Franciscan friar sexually abused some Bishop McCort students in the 1990s and early 2000s.

“I can confirm that the diocese is conducting an investigation,” spokesman Tony DeGol said in an emailed statement.

“As for the status, I can tell you that it is ongoing.”

Baker died in late January of a self-inflicted stab wound to the heart at his residence in St. Bernardine Monastery near Hollidaysburg. He was 62.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Radio Vatikan

Die Anwälte von Missbrauchsopfern im kirchlichen Bereich wollen vertrauliche Unterlagen einsehen. Sie fordern von Ordensgemeinschaften Einsicht in deren Aufzeichnungen über Priester, die des Missbrauchs beschuldigt werden. An diesem Dienstag soll bei einer gerichtlichen Anhörung entschieden werden, ob und wie die Dokumentationen der Orden, darunter Jesuiten und Salesianer, öffentlich gemacht werden.

Der juristische Kampf ist in Gang gekommen, nachdem die Erzdiözese Los Angeles Dokumente über 120 ihrer Priester veröffentlichte, die wegen sexuellen Missbrauch zivilrechtlich angeklagt wurden. Bis zu einem Drittel der betroffenen Priester gehören einem Orden an; diese Orden haben allerdings jeweils eigene Hierarchien, Strukturen und Disziplinarverfahren.

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CALIFORNIA
Fox 40

by Sam Cohen
Executive Producer of Digital Content

ORANGEVALE-

A Catholic priest was removed from the ministry after accusations of abuse during a period of time he was pastor at an Orangevale church.

Father Robert Marsicek was formerly the pastor at Divine Savior Parish along Greenback Lane. More recently, he was pastor for two parishes in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee.

Marsicek faces allegations of sexual abuse of minors from two people who were parishioners at Divine Savior in the 1980s and 90s, and also more recent allegations from two people in Wisconsin.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Associated Press

By GILLIAN FLACCUS, Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Less than three months after the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles released the files of priests accused of sex abuse, attorneys for alleged victims are back in court seeking similar records kept by more than a dozen religious orders.

A hearing Tuesday will begin the process of determining if — and in what form — the records kept by religious orders such as the Jesuits, Vincentians, Salesians and Dominicans, among others, will be made public.

The continued legal battle comes after the Los Angeles archdiocese unsealed under court order the files it kept over the years on 120 of its priests who have been accused of sex abuse in civil lawsuits. The church agreed as part of a $660 million settlement to release the documents, but attorneys for individual priests fought for five years to keep them under wraps, citing privacy issues.

A number of religious orders signed off on the settlement agreement and contributed significant amounts to it because up to one-third of the accused priests belonged to religious orders, said J. Michael Hennigan, an archdiocese attorney representing the interests of the orders at the hearing.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

AAP
April 16, 2013

A NSW priest who sexually abused underage girls says evidence about how hypnosis could have distorted the memories of witnesses should have been allowed into his trial.

The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is appealing his sentence and conviction after he was found guilty in 2010 of nine counts of indecently assaulting two underage girls and a 16-year-old girl.

Describing the assaults as “predatory and planned”, Judge Michael Finnane sentenced him in 2012 to a minimum of five years in prison, with his earliest date of parole set for November 2015.

But in a hearing before the Court of Criminal Appeal on Tuesday, his solicitor Greg Walsh said justice had been miscarried on a number of fronts.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Washington Post

By Associated Press

Updated: Monday, April 15

LOS ANGELES — In an April 14 story about confidential personnel files on Roman Catholic religious order priests, The Associated Press reported erroneously that such clergy were loaned out to the Los Angeles Archdiocese to relieve priest shortages. Religious order priests were assigned to work in the archdiocese in many capacities.

A corrected version of the story is below:

LA priest ministered despite abuse conviction

Attorneys seek religious order files on accused priests, including 1 who served after jail

By GILLIAN FLACCUS

Associated Press

LOS ANGELES — When the Rev. John Anthony Salazar arrived in Tulia, Texas, in 1991, he was warmly welcomed by the Roman Catholic community tucked in the Texas Panhandle. What his new parishioners didn’t know was he’d been hired out of a treatment program for pedophile priests — and that he’d been convicted for child molestation and banned from the Archdiocese of Los Angeles for life.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on April 15, 2013

A leading advocacy organization will this weekend (April 19-21) hold a conference that will address the prevention and awareness of the past and present abuse of missionary children.

Missionary Kids Safety Net (MK Safety Net) has been raising the issue of abuse of missionary children by evangelical missionaries for the past 20 years. This weekend, they will hold their first national conference in Rolling Meadows to address the state of the crisis and focus on solutions. Speakers include William Paul Young (author of the best-selling novel The Shack), David Clohessy (Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests), and Dr. Andrew Schmutzer (Professor of Bible at Moody Bible Institute).

“This is a current, cutting edge issue in the North American evangelical mission community,” said Rev. Rich Darr, a Board Member of MK Safety Net and Lead Pastor at First UMC in Park Ridge, IL.

The conference will take place at the Holiday Inn Rolling Meadows-Schaumburg at 3405 Algonquin Rd in Rolling Meadows, IL (847-259-6600), and will run from noon on Friday, April 19 to noon on Sunday, April 21. Beyond the plenary speakers, items on the agenda include sessions on topics like how to report abuse to authorities, and screenings of documentary films like “All God’s Children.”

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BOSTON (MA)
Daily Mail (UK)

By Daily Mail Reporter

The head of the Roman Catholic church in Boston is among eight cardinals named by Pope Francis to advise him on running the church and reforming the Vatican bureaucracy.

Cardinal Sean O’Malley, known for imposing a ‘zero tolerance’ policy on clerical sex abuse in his archdiocese of Boston, was given the honor by the Vatican on Saturday.

The group includes only one current Vatican official, with the rest being cardinals from Europe, the Americas, Australia and Asia. They will hold their first meeting Oct. 1-3, though the group are reportedly already in communication with the Pope.

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VATIKAN
Spiegel

Wie weit geht der Reformwille von Papst Franziskus? Gerade bestätigte der neue Pontifex einen Bericht, in dem allzu liberal gesinnte US-Nonnen abgemahnt wurden. Sie hätten radikal-feministische Thesen vertreten, hieß es. Der Argentinier fordert Gehorsam.

Rom – Er will die Kurie reformieren, hat eigens einen Arbeitskreis zusammengerufen, in dem acht Kardinäle aus fünf Kontinenten sitzen. Mit seinen ersten Schritten im Amt verbreitet Papst Franziskus allerorts Hoffnung auf Bewegung, Veränderung und Reformen in der katholischen Kirche. Jetzt bestätigen Berichte von US-Medien, dass der Pontifex liberalen Strömungen offenbar weniger zugetan ist als vermutet.

Der Vatikan hatte im vergangenen Jahr auf eine Reform der US-Vereinigung katholischer Nonnen gedrängt. Die hatten sich mit allzu progressiven Ideen in Sachen Empfängnisverhütung, Abtreibung und der Homosexualität innerkirchliche Feinde gemacht. Man warf der Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) vor, “radikal-feministische Thesen” zu vertreten. Die Organisation ist in Maryland ansässig und hat etwa 1500 katholische Frauen in führenden Positionen als Mitglieder.

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VATICAN CITY
BBC News

The Pope has approved a report criticising the leadership of the largest group of American nuns.

The Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) is accused by the Vatican of “radical feminism” and of failing to obey church teaching on such matters as the possible ordination of women as priests.

They have accused the Vatican of a “flawed” process of investigation.

The report was ordered by Pope Francis’ predecessor, Benedict XVI.

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VATICAN CITY
Washington Post

By Alessandro Speciale| Religion News Service,

Updated: Monday, April 15

VATICAN CITY — Nearly a year after the Vatican announced a makeover of the largest umbrella group for American nuns, Pope Francis has directed that the overhaul of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious continue.

The decision, while not entirely unexpected, could nonetheless bring an end to Francis’ honeymoon with the many American Catholics who had viewed the crackdown on nuns as heavy-handed and unnecessary..

Archbishop Gerhard Ludwig Mueller, who heads the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, met on Monday (April 15) with the LCWR’s leadership for the first time since Francis’ election on March 13.

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UNITED STATES
Slate

By Abby Ohlheiser
Posted Monday, April 15, 2013

New pope, same story—at least when it comes to America’s nuns.

Pope Francis announced Monday morning that he will stick to his predecessor’s hard-line approach to reforming an umbrella group representing about 80 percent of U.S. nuns, an organization that Benedict XVI believed was promoting “radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith.”

Given Francis’ Jesuit background, some had speculated that he might take a softer approach to dealing with the more liberal wings of the church. But the new pope, like his predecessor, leans theologically conservative, so his commitment to Benedict’s hard line shouldn’t come as a shock. In the case of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), that means the continuation of a five-year plan that Benedict set into motion last year aimed at pushing the group back in line with the Vatican’s positions on social issues like homosexuality, abortion, euthanasia, and women in the priesthood.

Leaders of the nun’s group were informed of Francis’ decision at a morning meeting with church officials, according to the Vatican. As part of the ongoing plan, the Vatican has given Archbishop of Seattle Peter Sartain the authority to take the steps he sees as necessary to ensure the group better toes the party line as laid out by the Vatican and echoed by the American contingent of Catholic bishops. Those steps including requiring the nuns to get approval from the archbishop for every speaker they invite to a public event, replace their handbook, and revise their statutes, along with generally ensuring that they don’t publicly “disagree with or challenge positions taken by” American bishops or the Vatican.

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VATICAN CITY
Los Angeles Times

By Tom Kington
April 15, 2013

ROME — Pope Francis has backed the Vatican’s doctrinal crackdown on a major group of American nuns, reasserting the Roman Catholic Church’s conservative approach to various social issues in a move that could cool the warm reception he has received from some liberal Catholics since taking office last month.

In a statement issued Monday, the Vatican said Francis had “reaffirmed” the doctrinal evaluation and criticism of U.S. nuns carried out last year by the Vatican under his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI. The assessment accused the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, an umbrella organization that represents most U.S. female Catholic orders, of promoting “radical feminism” and of ignoring the Vatican’s hard line on same-sex marriage and abortion.

At the time, the Vatican dispatched an archbishop to rewrite the group’s statutes and set up reeducation programs to bring nuns back into line, alleging that leaders of U.S. orders had challenged the church’s teachings on women’s ordination and ministry to homosexuals.

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VATICAN CITY
Toronto Sun

Philip Pullella, REUTERS

VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis has reaffirmed the Vatican’s criticism of a body that represents U.S. nuns which the Church said was tainted by “radical“ feminism, dashing hopes he might take a softer stand with the sisters.

Francis’s predecessor, Benedict, decreed that the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), a group that represents more than 8% of the 57,000 Catholic nuns in the United States, must change its ways, a ruling which the Vatican said on Monday still applied.

Last year, a Vatican report said the LCWR had “serious doctrinal problems” and promoted “radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith”, criticising it for taking a soft line on issues such as birth control and homosexuality.

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AUSTRALIA
Greek Reporter

By Margarita Papantoniou on April 15, 2013

The Greek Orthodox Church in Australia shows zero tolerance for the sexual abuse of minors and has no intention of covering such atrocities. This is what Bishop Iakovos of Militoupolis pointed out on behalf of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Australia, making a statement to the committee that is conducting an official inquiry on child sexual abuse in various institutions.

Bishop Iakovos told the parliamentary committee of Victoria that the Archdiocese’s fixed position is to refer any complaint of such nature to the police. “There has never been any complaint of child sexual abuse”, he added, although he admitted that some may be embarrassed or scared and do not want to report it.

The Bishop of Militoupolis said that the Archdiocese holds a record with accusations against its own clergymen. “There have been two cases that we unfrocked priests, but that was not about sexual abuse of minors”, Bishop Iakovos noted and added that in one of these cases, a priest withheld money from the marriage ceremonies he solemnized.

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UNITED STATES
Leadership Conference of Women Religious

April 15, 2013

On April 15, 2013 Sister Florence Deacon, OSF, LCWR president; Sister Carol Zinn, SSJ, LCWR president-elect; and Sister Janet Mock, CSJ, LCWR executive director; met with Archbishop Gerhard Ludwig Müller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF); Archbishop Luis Ladaria, secretary of CDF; and other members of the CDF dicastery. Archbishop J. Peter Sartain was also present.

The LCWR officers reviewed the activities of this past year since receiving the report of CDF’s doctrinal assessment of LCWR in April 2012.

In his opening remarks, Archbishop Müller informed the group that he had met with Pope Francis who “reaffirmed the findings of the assessment and the program of reform for this Conference of Major Superiors”.

The conversation was open and frank. We pray that these conversations may bear fruit for the good of the Church.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

by Joshua J. McElwee | Apr. 15, 2013

Pope Francis has reaffirmed Pope Benedict XVI’s rebuke of the main leadership group of U.S. Catholic sisters and approved a plan to place the group under the control of three U.S. bishops, according to the Vatican.

Reaffirmation of the move came in a meeting Monday between the leaders of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) and Archbishop Gerhard Ludwig Müller, the head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, according to a statement from the Vatican.

During the meeting, the Vatican said, Müller told the LCWR leaders that he had “recently discussed” the issue with Pope Francis, “who reaffirmed the findings of the Assessment and the program of reform.”

The meeting was the first between LCWR, which represents about 80 percent of the United States’ approximately 57,000 sisters, and Müller, who became head of the doctrinal congregation in July.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

by John L. Allen Jr. | Apr. 14, 2013

A Vatican announcement Saturday that Francis has named eight cardinals to advise him on governance represents the first concrete step toward the reform that was so much in the air during the run-up to the conclave that propelled a Latin American outsider to the papacy.

Twenty-four hours later, five points seem most noteworthy about the “G8” that will likely be the new pope’s most important sounding board.

1. A Cabinet, not a blue-ribbon commission

In some early reporting, the mission of this body has been described as helping Francis to reform the Roman Curia. Yet reading Saturday’s announcement, that’s not what it says. The key line states that Francis has assembled this group “to advise him in the government of the universal church,” and only then “to study a plan for revising the Apostolic Constitution on the Roman Curia, Pastor Bonus.”

In other words, curial reform is only the second task. The first is to advise the pope on decisions about the universal church, meaning there’s almost nothing that falls outside its purview.

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AUSTRALIA
Vice

In 2006, Australia instituted mandatory background checks for those who work with children to ensure they’re not baby touchers or prone to cooking little kids in cauldrons. But apparently, God thinks this law is wrong, at least according to the country’s Jehovah’s Witnesses, who have chosen to follow their savior’s law in lieu of their government’s and refuse to have their members screened. But an 11-year-old schoolboy from Traralgon, Victoria, has had enough. He recently filed a lawsuit against the Witnesses, declaring that this negligence is tantamount to child abuse. To learn more, I spoke with Steven Unthank, an ex-Witness who’s launched a crusade against the sect’s policies toward children and who helped the boy (who can’t be named in the press under Australian law) file the suit.

VICE: What is the rationale behind the Jehovah’s Witnesses refusing these background checks?
Steven Unthank: They believe that anyone high up in the church has been chosen by God, and it’s unreasonable to make them conform to man’s law. It’s like questioning the will of God.

It’s not every day that an 11-year-old sues an international religious organization. How did this boy’s case come about?
When he was eight, he witnessed the rape of another child within the church. He then saw that neither the church nor the police did anything because the person who raped the girl remained in the church.

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CALIFORNIA
KCRA

Claire Doan

ORANGEVALE, Calif. (KCRA) —A former pastor of the Divine Savior Catholic Church now faces accusations of sexual abuse and has been temporarily removed from public ministry in the Milwaukee area.

Father Robert Marsicek, 71, who helped build the Orangevale church and served as pastor there from 1987 until 2001, is now under investigation by the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department for possible child abuse, according to Kevin Eckery, a spokesperson for the Sacramento Catholic Diocese.

Marsicek has been temporarily relieved of his duties at two parishes in the Milwaukee area, as the church investigates a possible incident of child molestation before Easter of this year.

Eckery said the Sacramento Catholic Diocese learned that there could be two victims — two boys from one family — who experienced child abuse in the late 80s and 90s, months before the Milwaukee allegations surfaced.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Courthouse News Service

By KEVIN KOENINGER

PHILADELPHIA (CN) – A priest sexually assaulted a woman he asked to see him for “counseling,” then “smeared her menstrual blood on her face,” and when the church found out it sent him to Poland, the woman claims in court.

Jane Doe and her husband sued the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, the Order of St. Paul the First Hermit, the National Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa and Father Marek Lacki, in Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas.

The Does claim that while they were volunteering at a church retreat, “defendant Lacki met with plaintiffs at Our Lady of Czestochowa to celebrate their wedding anniversary. Defendant Lacki encouraged plaintiffs to drink alcohol with him and to discuss any marital difficulties they were having. He was very charming and encouraged them to be open with him.

“Plaintiffs trusted defendant Lacki to act in their best interests and shared their marital challenges with defendant Lacki, who was particularly interested in learning about their sex life.

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VATICAN CITY
Gazzetta del Sud

Vatican City, April 15 – Pope Francis is continuing the Church’s critical position on the majority of American nuns for deviating from official Catholic doctrine, the Vatican said Monday. Gerhard Mueller, prefect of Church orthodoxy watchdog Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, met with directors from the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), which represents more than 80% of American nuns. In April last year the LCWR was chided in a Vatican report for allegedly promoting “radical feminist themes” and devoting too much time to social justice while remaining unacceptably quiet on the Church’s opposition to birth control and same-sex marriage.

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VATICAN CITY
NEWS.com.au

[doctrinal assessment]

POPE Francis has backed a doctrinal report drawn up under his predecessor Benedict XVI that accuses the largest group of nuns in the United States of holding “radical feminist” views, the Vatican says.

The new Pope has “reaffirmed the findings of the assessment and the program of reform” for the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), which represents around 45,000 US nuns and is known for its social work, the Vatican said.

The statement said the head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Ludwig Mueller, met with representatives of the LCWR in the Vatican on Monday in an attempt to smooth over differences.

Mueller thanked the group for its work in “many schools, hospitals, and institutions of support for the poor” in the US, the statement said.

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VATICAN CITY
DFW Catholic

Vatican City, Apr 15, 2013 / 07:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis has reaffirmed the Vatican’s assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which found it had “serious doctrinal problems” and initiated a program for reform.

Archbishop Gerhard L. Müller, the prefect for the Vatican’s doctrine congregation, met in Rome with conference president Sister Florence Deacon on April 15, along with Archbishop J. Peter Sartain of Seattle, who was named to carry out the reform of the group.

Archbishop Müller told Sr. Deacon that he “recently discussed the Doctrinal Assessment with Pope Francis, who reaffirmed the findings of the Assessment and the program of reform for this Conference of Major Superiors,” an April 15 statement from the congregation said.

“It is the sincere desire of the Holy See that this meeting may help to promote the integral witness of women Religious,” the communiqué stated, and this requires “a firm foundation of faith and Christian love, so as to preserve and strengthen it for the enrichment of the Church and society for generations to come.”

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 15 April 2013 (VIS) – “Today, the Superiors of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith met with the Presidency of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) of the United States of America. Archbishop James Peter Sartain, archbishop of Seattle, Washington, USA, and the Holy See’s Delegate for the Doctrinal Assessment of the LCWR, also participated in the meeting,” informs a communique from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

“As this was his first opportunity to meet with the Presidency of the LCWR, the Prefect of the Congregation, Archbishop Gerhard Ludwig Muller, expressed his gratitude for the great contribution of women Religious to the Church in the United States as seen particularly in the many schools, hospitals, and institutions of support for the poor which have been founded and staffed by Religious over the years.”

“The Prefect then highlighted the teaching of the Second Vatican Council regarding the important mission of Religious to promote a vision of ecclesial communion founded on faith in Jesus Christ and the teachings of the Church as faithfully taught through the ages under the guidance of the Magisterium. He also emphasized that a Conference of Major Superiors, such as the LCWR, exists in order to promote common efforts among its member Institutes as well as cooperation with the local Conference of Bishops and with individual Bishops. For this reason, such Conferences are constituted by and remain under the direction of the Holy See.”

“Finally, Archbishop Muller informed the Presidency that he had recently discussed the Doctrinal Assessment with Pope Francis, who reaffirmed the findings of the Assessment and the program of reform for this Conference of Major Superiors.”

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

15 April 2013

THE case taken by three staff against the Dublin Archdiocese has done much to flesh out the emerging financial crisis facing the Catholic Church in Ireland.

The archdiocese is the largest in the country, covering 198 parishes in Dublin, most of Wicklow, and parts of Kildare, Carlow, Wexford and Laois.

Its fortunes are crucial to the well-being of the church here, and if the details revealed as part of the pay case are anything to go by, the future is not looking bright.

It is well known that clerical abuse claims have taken their toll on the archdiocese’s coffers, with over €13.5m paid out in settlements and legal costs.

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CHILE
Cooperativa

El denunciante de Fernando Karadima, Juan Carlos Cruz, fustigó la respuesta del cardenal Francisco Errázuriz tras las críticas al ser elegido como parte del grupo papal que reformará la curia.

Ante las críticas que recibió por parte de las víctimas de Karadima, Errázuriz respondió que el papa Francisco “pensó distinto” al nombrarlo a él como uno de los ocho religiosos que forman este grupo.

Para Cruz, Errázuriz “nunca ha hecho su deber y montones de chilenos lo saben”.

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WISCONSIN
YouTube

A group called Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, is speaking out after the Green Bay Catholic Diocese reported a retired priest has been accused of abuse of a minor.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

The Federal Government has rejected a call for the removal of one of six royal commissioners investigating child sexual abuse.

A victims’ support group is concerned commissioner Robert Fitzgerald may have a conflict of interest because of his 30-year association with the Catholic Church.

The International Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests says some victims are worried they will not be able to speak openly about their experiences in front of Mr Fitzgerald.

The group’s Nicky Davis said the commissioner sat in some very prominent positions in Catholic organisations.

‘It would be best if he resigned from the royal commission and was replaced with someone that does not have close ties to any organisation that’s been involved in large scale child sexual abuse,’ she said.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Sueddeutsche

Von Christian Krügel

Der neue Papst will die Kurie reformieren und hat dafür nun acht Kirchenmänner berufen. Unter den Auserwählten ist der Münchner Kardinal Reinhard Marx. Er gilt in der Weltkirche als strukturierter Organisator, als einflussreich – ohne zu den Cliquen der Kurie zu gehören.

Es war ein Immobiliendeal, der viele Münchner Katholiken richtig ärgerte: Für knapp zehn Millionen Euro kaufte sich das Erzbistum 2012 ein eigenes Haus in Rom. Gedacht ist es für Pilger und natürlich auch für die Bistumsleitung. So umstritten der Immobilienkauf war, so weitsichtig war er auch. Denn die Bistumsleitung in Gestalt von Kardinal Reinhard Marx dürfte das neue römische Domizil in Zukunft ziemlich regelmäßig nutzen. Papst Franziskus benannte am Wochenende ein neues Kardinalsgremium, das ihm bei der allseits geforderten Reform der Kurie beraten soll. Nur acht Kirchenmänner sind darin vertreten. Darunter: der Münchner Kardinal Reinhard Marx.

Gemeinsam mit seinen Amtsbrüdern soll er den neuen Papst “bei der Regierung der Kirche beraten” und eine Reform der Kurien-Verfassung erarbeiten, heißt es in der Erklärung des Vatikans. Der Kardinal selbst schwieg am Sonntag zu seiner Berufung.

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POLEN
epd

[Summary: Polish survivors of sexual abuse are starting a foundation to study abuse in the Catholic Church and to offer help and support to the survivors.]

In Polen wollen frühere Pädophilieopfer eine Stiftung zur Aufarbeitung der Missbrauchsfälle in der katholischen Kirche des Landes gründen. Wie der Radiosender TOK FM am Wochenende meldete, soll die Stiftung Betroffenen helfen und in einen Dialog mit der Kirche treten. Zudem will die Organisation die Zahl der Missbrauchsfälle umfassend erheben.

“Die Rechtsform einer Stiftung erlaubt es uns, ein Partner für die katholische Kirche zu sein, denn wenn wir uns einzeln an die Kirche wenden, werden wir nicht ernst genommen”, erklärte einer der 15 Gründer dem Sender. Es gehe nicht darum, einen “Krieg gegen die Kirche” zu führen, unterstrich er.

Die polnische Bischofskonferenz veröffentlicht bislang keine Zahlen über Missbrauchsfälle. Opfer könnten auch nicht mit einer Entschädigung rechnen, hieß es in einer kirchlichen Erklärung vom März.

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IRELAND
Galway Independent

Marie Madden

The former Magdalene Laundry site on Forster Street is to be converted to a refuge for sufferers of domestic violence.

It was announced this morning that the Sisters of Mercy Convent at 47 Forster Street will become the new location for Waterside House, the Domestic Violence Refuge operated and managed by COPE Galway.

Earlier this year, COPE Galway approached the Sisters of Mercy about the site and the Sisters have responded by donating the property to the charity on a 99-year lease for the benefit of women and children in Galway.

Speaking about the announcement, CEO of COPE Galway Jacquie Horan said she could not express how “delighted and relieved” she was about the opportunity.

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IRELAND
Galway Bay FM

The former Magdalene laundry site in the city is to be transformed into a domestic violence refuge.

The Sisters of Mercy today handed the keys to the convent at 47 Forster street, behind the former Anglo Irish building, to Cope Galway.

The existing refuge at Waterside house has been unfit for purpose for many years, as it comprises ‘bedsit’ style accommodation forcing families to live in one large room.

Last year, Waterside House accomodated 100 women and their families but did not have sufficient capacity to accomodate a further 200, who had to be referred elsewhere.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

Alison Caldwell, ABC
Updated April 15, 2013

A support group for victims of child sexual abuse is calling for one of the six people on the royal commission to resign or be removed from the panel.

International Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, also known as SNAP, is concerned that commissioner Robert Fitzgerald may have a conflict of interest.

Victims are worried they will not be able to speak openly about their experiences in front of Mr Fitzgerald because of his 30-year association with the Catholic Church.

SNAP’s Nicky Davis says he is too close to the church to be sitting on the royal commission.

“He sits in some very prominent positions in Catholic organisations,” she said.

“I think that this is a serious enough issue and is going to affect so many victims that it would be best if he resigned from the royal commission and was replaced with someone that does not have close ties to any organisation that’s been involved in large scale child sexual abuse.

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AUSTRALIA
The West Australian

AAP
April 15, 2013

The federal government has rejected a call for the removal of one of six royal commissioners investigating child sexual abuse.

A victims’ support group is concerned commissioner Robert Fitzgerald may have a conflict of interest because of his 30-year association with the Catholic Church.

The International Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests says some victims are worried they will not be able to speak openly about their experiences in front of Mr Fitzgerald.

The group’s Nicky Davis said the commissioner sat in some very prominent positions in Catholic organisations.

“It would be best if he resigned from the royal commission and was replaced with someone that does not have close ties to any organisation that’s been involved in large scale child sexual abuse,” she told ABC radio on Monday.

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AUSTRALIA
News-Mail

FEDERAL Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus has defended the appointment of Robert Fitzgerald as one of the commissioners investigating child sexual abuse.

Victim support groups have led a chorus of people calling for Mr Fitzgerald, a former Deputy Ombudsman of NSW and Commissioner for Disability, to resign because of his strong links to the Catholic Church.

But Mr Dreyfus rejected calls to remove Mr Fitzgerald, one of six commissioners conducting the inquiry, making the point he was chosen following a “rigorous selection process”.

“I think we have to look at who Mr Fitzgerald is; we have to say that he accepted this role in good faith and in the knowledge that it will be a long, deep and difficult investigation into responses by institutions, including the Catholic Church.

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CALIFORNIA
News 10

Suzanne Phan

ORANGEVALE- Sacramento County Sheriff’s deputies are investigating a former priest at an Orangevale church for alleged child abuse. This comes after other allegations involving the priest surfaced in Wisconsin.

Father Robert Marsicek, a priest at Divine Savior Catholic Church in Orangevale from 1987 until 2001, is now under investigation for allegations of child abuse.

27 year old Catherine Knepshield, who just a child at the time, remembers “Father Bob.”

“He’d have a boat, he’d take all the families out on the lake,” said Catherine.

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CALIFORNIA
Modesto Bee

By Robert D. Dávila
rdavila@sacbee.com

A former pastor at Divine Savior Catholic Church in Orangevale is under investigation following allegations that he sexually abused two children who were parishioners in the 1980s and 1990s.

Officials at Divine Savior read a statement at Sunday Masses informing parishioners about the allegations against the Rev. Robert “Bob” Marsicek, who was pastor from 1987 to 2001. The statement said Marsicek is under investigation for a similar complaint in Wisconsin, where he is a pastor in the Milwaukee Archdiocese.

The statement read by the Rev. Roman Mueller, current pastor at Divine Savior, said the allegations against Marsicek involve two children who belonged to the church in the 1980s and 1990s.

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UNITED STATES
Orthodox Church in America

SYOSSET, NY [OCA]

In a pastoral letter dated April 14, 2013, His Beatitude, Metropolitan Tikhon addressed the clergy and faithful of the Diocese of the Midwest with regard to recent events concerning His Grace, Bishop Matthias.

The complete text as it appears below also is available in PDF format.

PASTORAL LETTER
April 14, 2013
Sunday of Saint John of the Ladder

To the Very Reverend and Reverend Fathers, Reverend Deacons, Venerable Monastics, Esteemed Members of the Diocesan and Parish Councils and Faithful of the Diocese of the Midwest,

The past eight months have been difficult for the entire Diocese of the Midwest and have seen the clergy and faithful in all of the parishes deeply affected by the matter of the allegations against His Grace, Bishop Matthias. The resolution of this matter has likewise required significant attention and the Holy Synod recognizes the stress that everyone has been under during this time.

Since Archbishop Nathaniel’s letter to the diocese of November 3, 2012, the Holy Synod has been carefully reviewing all aspects of this matter, including the Report of the Response Team that investigated the complaint, the Report of the Institute which offered the week-long evaluation and the discussions held at the Assembly and Diocesan Council of the Diocese of the Midwest.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Sun-Times

BY MITCH DUDEK Staff Reporter/mdudek@suntimes.com April 14, 2013

Bishop Matthias, the Chicago-based head of the Midwest diocese for the Orthodox Church in America, will step down Monday, eight months after email and text messages sent by the bishop to a female parishioner came to light.

A statement posted to the church’s website Sunday read: “The healing of the Diocese and of the complainant, as well as Bishop Matthias’ own healing, would not be possible should he be returned to the Diocese as a ruling hierarch.”

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune

By Manya A. Brachear, Chicago Tribune reporter
April 15, 2013

Unable to overcome the disgrace of a sexual misconduct accusation, Bishop Matthias, head of the local diocese for the Orthodox Church of America, has announced he will step down Monday, leaving a vacancy in Chicago just weeks before Orthodox Christians celebrate Easter on May 5.

On a leave of absence since allegations of inappropriate communication with a woman surfaced in August, Matthias, 64, would have celebrated his two-year anniversary as leader of the church in Chicago and the Midwest this week.

In a letter to parishioners Sunday, the bishop asked for forgiveness.

“It is my hope that my stepping down will end the ordeal, allowing the diocese to move toward healing,” he said. “I ask for everyone’s forgiveness for my failings, my mistakes and sins. In turn, I assure everyone of my forgiveness.”

The national church asked Matthias to step down last month. In a speech at Chicago’s Holy Trinity Cathedral a week later, he blamed clergy for plotting his ouster in reaction to edicts he issued shortly after his arrival.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Inquisitr

A parish in Chicago has witnessed the resignation of Bishop Matthias (aka David Lawrence Moriak), amid allegations of sexual misconduct, according to a Sunday report from The Chicago Tribune.

The newspaper reported that the head of the diocese faced initial accusations in August 2012 and was placed on leave around that time.

But unlike recent scandals in the Catholic Church where priests were guilty of rampant child sexual abuse, Moriak’s misconduct was more a professional violation than a criminal one.

The bishop allegedly engaged in sexual activity with a woman, who went unnamed in the Tribune report. In a March address to parishioners at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Chicago, Matthias questioned the motives of his detractors.

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VATICAN CITY
The Wall Street Journal

By STACY MEICHTRY

In his first major move as the new leader of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Francis on Saturday appointed a panel of cardinals from around the world to advise him in overhauling the Roman Curia, the scandal-plagued administrative body of the Vatican. On Sunday, he followed that up by telling priests to practice what they preach.

The Vatican on Saturday said eight cardinals—ranging from Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston to Cardinal Oswald Gracias of Bombay—will be responsible for drawing up a plan to revise the Curia’s constitution. That document defines the roles and reporting lines within Vatican central administration, determining how the pope governs his 1.2 billion-strong flock in matters including Roman Catholic doctrine, bishop appointments and Vatican finances.

Sunday during a Mass in Rome, Pope Francis said ordinary Catholics need to “see in our actions what they hear from our lips.”

“Inconsistency on the part of pastors and the faithful between what they say and what they do, between word and manner of life, is undermining the church’s credibility,” he said.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Mercury News

[John Salazar – Los Angeles Archdiocese]

By GILLIAN FLACCUS Associated Press
Posted: 04/14/2013

LOS ANGELES—When the Rev. John Anthony Salazar arrived in Tulia, Texas, in 1991, he was warmly welcomed by the Roman Catholic community tucked in the Texas Panhandle. What his new parishioners didn’t know was he’d been hired out of a treatment program for pedophile priests—and that he’d been convicted for child molestation and banned from the Archdiocese of Los Angeles for life.

Over the next 11 years, Salazar would be accused of abusing four more children and young men in Texas, including an 18-year-old parishioner who suffered teeth marks on his genitals. Today he awaits trial on one molestation charge, while his accusers and former followers seek a way to move forward.

Many details of Salazar’s past are contained in a confidential personnel file that was among 120 such files the Archdiocese of Los Angeles made public this year after a legal battle with abuse victims. But those records tell only part of the story.

On Tuesday, attorneys return to court to argue over the release of records for about 80 priests, including Salazar, who belonged to Roman Catholic religious orders that kept their own personnel files on accused clergymen. The hearing will address in what form and when those files will be made public, and involves orders such as the Jesuits, Salesians, Vincentians and Dominicans.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CBS Philly

By Molly Daly

PHILADELPHIA (CBS)

– On Saturday, Pope Francis named eight cardinals from around the world, with only one from Europe, to a permanent advisory panel to counsel him on how the church is run, and how to reform the Vatican bureaucracy.

“It’s important because of how immediately following his election he’s impaneled this group.”

Sister Maureen Paul Turlish is on the steering committee of the Philadelphia chapter of Voice of the Faithful, whose motto is “Keep the Faith, Change the Church.”

She says although Francis became pope a little less than four weeks ago, he’s wasting no time in showing his willingness to break with tradition, rejecting many of the trappings of the papacy.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

Tess Livingstone
From:The Australian
April 15, 2013

LAYMEN and laywomen with professional expertise could be invited to take on more prominent positions, including leadership roles, in the Vatican bureaucracy, Australia’s cardinal George Pell said yesterday.

“Professional men and women with expertise in areas such as finance, for example, could have a lot to offer in overseeing some Vatican departments, perhaps under the leadership of a cardinal,” he said.

Cardinal Pell, 71, is one of eight cardinals appointed by Pope Francis to a permanent advisory group to help him run the Catholic Church and reform the curia.

The appointment, announced on Saturday, shows that Cardinal Pell, a strong supporter of Pope John Paul II and a friend of Benedict XVI, has been recognised for his talent and energy by the new pontiff. The two have served together on several Vatican bodies.

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VATICAN CITY
Stuff (New Zealand)

NICOLE WINFIELD

Pope Francis has told priests to practice what they preach, saying the church’s credibility is on the line.

During a Mass to formally take possession of one of the Vatican basilicas in Rome, Francis said ordinary Catholics need to “see in our actions what they hear from our lips”.

Francis has made himself an example of a more humble and frugal church by refusing many of the trappings of the papacy, living in the Vatican hotel rather than the Apostolic Palace and wearing a simple white cassock of the papacy rather than fancy vestments and capes for formal occasions that his predecessors wore.

“Inconsistency on the part of pastors and the faithful between what they say and what they do, between word and manner of life, is undermining the church’s credibility,” he said.

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VATICAN CITY
NDTV

Vatican City: Pope Francis on Sunday said clergy and Christians must not betray the word of God with their actions or they undermine the credibility of the Catholic Church.

Francis, elected a month ago, inherited a Church struggling to restore credibility after a series of scandals, including the sexual abuse of children by priests.

The pope spoke at the Papal Basilica of St. Paul’s Outside the Walls, where he celebrated Mass. He also greeted pilgrims and local Church members earlier in St. Peter’s square.

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VATICAN CITY
The Guardian (UK)

John Hooper in Rome
The Guardian, Sunday 14 April 2013

Pope Francis presaged a revolution in the running of the Catholic church when, at the weekend, he announced the formation of an eight-strong panel of cardinals from all parts of the world who are to advise him on governance and the reform of the Vatican.

The Italian church historian Alberto Melloni, writing in the Corriere della Sera, called it the “most important step in the history of the church for the past 10 centuries”. For the first time, a pope will be helped by a global panel of advisers who look certain to wrest power from the Roman Curia, the church’s central bureaucracy.

Several of the group’s members will come to the job with a record of vigorous reform and outspoken criticism of the status quo. None has ever served in the Italian-dominated Curia in Rome and only one is an Italian: Giuseppe Bertello, the governor of the Vatican City State.

The panel will be headed by one of the most dynamic figures in the Catholic leadership: Cardinal Oscar Rodríguez Maradiaga, the archbishop of Tegucigalpa in Honduras and head of the global charity Caritas Internationalis. A polymath who plays the saxophone and piano, Maradiaga has trained as a pilot and speaks six languages. Like Pope Francis, he has long been a tenacious critic of economic inequality.

In an interview with the Italian television news service Tgcom24, Maradiaga said his group would “certainly” be tackling the ever-controversial Vatican bank.

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KANSAS
Marysville Advocate

Published:
Sunday, April 14,

Officials in the Archdiocese of Kansas City say a priest who formerly served at St. Gregory’s Catholic Church in Marysville faces an allegation of child abuse.

The diocese reported in its newspaper, The Leaven, that Father Anthony Putti, who is now a priest in the diocese of Guntur, India, was named in an April 2 complaint about misconduct with a child. The complaint was made to the Safe Environment Coordinator for the Archdiocese of Kansas City.

Putti denied the allegation, according to The Leaven’s report. The newspaper also stated the diocese had reported the complaint to the Kansas Department of Children and Families (formerly SRS) as well as local law enforcement and a diocesan independent review board.

Church officials said they’d received no prior complaints against Putti of sexual misconduct with a child, according to The Leaven report, which did not specify when the alleged abuse occurred.

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CITTA DEL VATICANO
Lettera 43

di Barbara Ciolli

Negli Usa l’hanno ribattezzato International offshore rule (Ior): Regime internazionale offshore. In realtà Ior è Istituto per le opere di religione, la banca del Vaticano, e tra le grandi missioni incompiute che Benedetto XVI ha tramandato a Francesco c’è il suo spinoso risanamento.

Durante il suo pontificato, Joseph Ratzinger aveva avviato un’operazione trasparenza, miseramente fallita con la cacciata dell’ex presidente Ettore Gotti Tedeschi e del cardinale Attilio Nicora dalla Commissione di vigilanza della banca di San Pietro.

«Chi tocca lo Ior muore», è la regola che – più o meno metaforicamente – domina il Torrione Niccolò V, sede dell’istituto, dalla sua apertura nel 1942.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

THURSDAY

Michael D’Antonio • The author discusses “Mortal Sins: Sex, Crime and the Era of Catholic Scandal.” 6:30 p.m. at Left Bank Books Downtown, 321 North 10th Street. Free. 314-367-6731.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

April 15, 2013

Nicky Davis

The inquiry on child abuse must be survivor-driven as the victims relive their pain.

When the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse sat for the first time recently, there were smiles among those who had long campaigned for justice for Australia’s forgotten children.

But for the survivors it was not a day for smiling. We did smile, briefly, when the royal commission was announced. Pure joy as truth won an unwinnable battle against evil and corruption. But we haven’t won the war yet. Not by a long way.

We have dark days ahead, unlike those who struggled with us to get us here. Their job is done and they can leave the task of exposing the truth in the hands of the professionals. And on the shoulders of the survivors.

We must peel away our protective coping strategies and speak the words we have been ordered never to say. Try to find voices that have shrivelled to a croak after a lifetime of being silenced. Risk being overwhelmed by emotions we have buried all our lives. And pick ourselves up again after we open this Pandora’s box of undeserved guilt, shame, worthlessness and betrayal.

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