ABUSE TRACKER

DEUTSCHLAND
Passauer Neue Presse

In Bayern zeichnet sich ein Rückgang der Verdachtsfälle von sexuellem Missbrauch in der katholischen Kirche ab. Im vergangenen Jahr gingen bei der Missbrauchsbeauftragen des Erzbistums Bamberg, der Anwältin Eva Hastenteufel-Knörr, sieben neue Vorwürfe ein. Im Jahr zuvor seien noch zwölf Fälle aktenkundig geworden, sagte ein Sprecher der Erzdiözese.

Seit Oktober 2011 registrierte das Bistum Passau einen Fall des Verdachts auf Missbrauch. Es seien Vorwürfe gegen einen Lehrer an einer kirchlichen Schule erhoben worden, teilte die Diözese mit. Seitens der Staatsanwaltschaft wurde dieses Verfahren eingestellt. In zwei weiteren Fällen wurde gegen zwei Priester der Diözese der Vorwurf übermäßiger Gewaltanwendung gegenüber Schülern erhoben. Beide Fälle lagen bereits so weit in der Vergangenheit, dass eine Weiterleitung an die Polizei bereits aus diesem Grund unterblieb, wie ein Sprecher mitteilte. “In beiden Fällen wurde mit den Opfern Kontakt aufgenommen und angemessene Hilfen angeboten.”

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Patsy McGarry

Tue, Apr 2, 2013

The Justice for Magdalenes advocacy group has published a guide for women who were incarcerated in the Magdalene laundries as they prepare to engage with the Government Magdalene Fund. Titled Survivor Guide to Magdalen Commission , it is available at magdalenelaundries.com.

Following the official State apology by Taoiseach Enda Kenny on February 19th, the Government asked Mr Justice John Quirke to undertake a three-month review following which he is to make recommendations on criteria for applications to the Magdalene Fund.

Women who had been in the laundries and who have not already registered with the Magdalene Commission are encouraged to do so.

The group’s guide is intended solely as an aid to the women. Its purpose is to help them and their families create a checklist of their current needs.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Breda Heffernan– 02 April 2013

MORE than 420 former residents of the Magdalene Laundries have applied to be included in a state compensation fund.

Meanwhile, the Department of Justice’s special helpline has received almost 1,100 calls about the fund since it was established last month.

The department invited former residents to register a preliminary expression of interest in receiving benefits from the fund and so far 424 women have registered their interest.

They were asked to give details of which laundry they were resident in, the dates when they were there and whether they have any records to support their application.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian Times (UK)

By Paul Bleakley on 2 April, 2013

CATHOLIC Cardinal George Pell will appear before a Victorian inquiry into child sexual abuse within weeks, at a time when the church has proposed sweeping changes to its handling of complaints of abuse against members of the clergy.

Pell was a driving force behind the introduction of a controversial process for dealing with complaints of abuse in Victoria while serving as Archbishop of Melbourne during the 1990s. This practice involved the Catholic Church investigating alleged abuse in-house and encouraging victims to avoid going to the police with their claims.

It is expected that current Archbishop of Melbourne Denis Hart and a range of other church officials will give evidence to the inquiry. Spokesman for the Catholic Church Shane Mackinlay said that the Victorian inquiry had been given “unfettered” access to files detailing over 600 allegations of abuse that had been investigated by the Victorian wing of the church since Pell’s complaints process was introduced.

Mackinlay said: “The committee has indicated some interest in Cardinal Pell attending and he’s certainly willing to co-operate with that.”

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Mercury

APN Newsdesk
2nd Apr 2013

THE much-anticipated Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse will hold its first hearing on Wednesday.

Justice Peter McClellan, who is chairing the inquiry, will outline the work of the Royal Commission, while senior counsel assisting will deliver an opening address.

No evidence will be taken during the hearing, which is being held in Melbourne.

All six commissioners will be present for the hearing.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard bowed to growing pressure and established the royal commission late last year.

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AUSTRALIA
Christian Today

By: Australian Catholic Bishops Conference

Tuesday, 2 April 2013

Archbishop Denis Hart, President of The Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference, and Sr Annette Cunliffe RSC, Chair of Catholic Religious Australia, have today announced the members of the Truth Justice and Healing Council (TJHC).

The TJHC will oversee the Catholic Church’s engagement with the Royal Commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse.

Francis Sullivan, CEO of the Council, welcomed the announcement saying the 13 member Council is made up of men and women with professional and other expertise, especially across child sexual abuse, paedophilia, trauma, mental illness, suicide and public policy.

“The Church and members of the TJHC are determined that the truth be told and that the Church assists victims and those damaged by abuse as children receive justice and to embark on a sustainable process of healing,” Francis Sullivan said.

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AUSTRALIA
The West Australian

Patrick Caruana, AAP
April 2, 2013

The royal commission into institutional sexual abuse will begin on Wednesday, but the flood of victims’ stories will have to wait.

No evidence will be tendered at the first sitting in Melbourne of the commission to examine institutional responses to abuse.

Instead, its chair, Justice Peter McClellan, will outline how the commission will conduct its hearings and counsel assisting the commission, Gail Furness SC, will make an opening statement.

Chris Wilding, who founded victims’ group Broken Rites in 1992, said it would be a significant day for survivors of abuse.

“It’s certainly very exciting for me to see this happen after 20 years of exposing these sorts of crimes,” she told AAP on Tuesday.

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OREGON
WNYT

(AP) SALEM, Ore. – A Catholic priest pleaded guilty Monday to sexually abusing a 12-year-old boy he invited for a sleepover when he was pastor of a church in a small city south of Portland.

The Rev. Angel Armando Perez was sentenced to more than six years in prison after pleading guilty in Marion County Circuit Court to first-degree sexual abuse, DUI and furnishing liquor to a minor.

Perez, a former pastor at St. Luke Catholic Church in Woodburn, was arrested in August. The Salem child told police he woke up during a sleepover in Perez’s home to find the priest touching his genitals and apparently taking photographs with a cellphone.

Police said the boy ran from the home with Perez chasing him. Neighbors took the boy to his sister’s house.

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WISCONSIN
Fox 6

WAUWATOSA (WITI) — Wauwatosa police are investigating a priest who serves at Tosa’s St. Pius X parish and Mother of Good Counsel parish — for alleged inappropriate behavior.

The Milwaukee Archdiocese says on March 27th, it received information that a teacher at Wauwatosa Catholic School had observed some behavior she believed to be questionable or inappropriate with a student by Father Robert Marsicek — a Salvatorian priest.

Following this report, Wauwatosa police launched an investigation.

Additionally, the Provincial of the Salvatorians, Father Joe Rodrigues was notified, and made the decision to remove Father Marsicek from his parish/pastoral duties effective immediately. Rodrigues has also restricted Father Marsicek’s exercise of any public ministry.

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OREGON
The Oregonian

By Everton Bailey Jr., The Oregonian

A Woodburn priest accused of sexually abusing a 12-year-old boy has been sentenced to a little more than six years in prison Monday.

The Rev. Angel Armando Perez, 47, pleaded guilty in Marion County Circuit Court to first-degree sexual abuse, DUII and furnishing alcohol to a minor charges. He will serve six years and three months in prison.

Previous charges of using a child in display of sexually explicit conduct and evidence tampering were dropped.

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OREGON
KATU

WOODBURN, Ore. – A Woodburn priest took a deal from prosecutors and pleaded guilty to a sex abuse charge on Monday.

Angel Armando Perez was accused of sexually abusing a 12-year-old boy last August. Court documents said Perez invited the boy to spend the night at his house after a party. The boy told police Perez touched his genitals and took pictures using a cell phone.

Perez pleaded guilty to sexual abuse in the first degree, which is a Measure 11 crime. He was sentenced to more than 6 years in prison.

He also pleaded guilty to DUII and a charge of giving alcohol to a person under 21. He will service those sentences concurrently.

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OREGON
Statesman-Journal

News Release from: Marion Co. District Attorney’s Office

On April 1, 2013, Angel Armando Perez entered guilty pleas before the Honorable Courtland Geyer to charges stemming from an August 12, 2012 investigation conducted by the Woodburn Police Department.

Mr. Perez was a priest at St. Luke’s Catholic Church when a complaint of sexual abuse was made to the Woodburn Police Department. Mr. Perez was arrested on August 13, 2012 and a grand jury subsequently indicted him on charges of Sexual Abuse in the First Degree, Using a Child in Display of Sexually Explicit Conduct, Tampering with Physical Evidence, Driving Under the Influence of Intoxicants, and Furnishing Alcohol to a Person Under 21 Years of Age.

Mr. Perez pled guilty to Sexual Abuse in the First Degree, Driving Under the Influence of Intoxicants, and 2 counts of Furnishing Alcohol to a Person Under 21 Years of Age. The remaining charges were dismissed. Mr. Perez was sentenced to 75 months in prison on the charge of Sexual Abuse in the First Degree, a Ballot Measure 11 offense. He was sentenced to concurrent jail sentences on the remaining counts.

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UGANDA
Daily Monitor

By Tabu Butagira

Posted Tuesday, April 2 2013

Kampala

A Catholic priest, who last month exposed prevalence of sexual adventure by his colleagues in violation of celibacy oath, has disengaged from the debate citing an “agreement” he reached with Kampala Archbishop Cyprian Lwanga.

Fr. Anthony Musaala, whom the prelate suspended about a fortnight ago for raising the allegations in public, yesterday said he was constrained to further discuss a subject he thrust into the public domain. “I made an agreement with the Archbishop [not to talk to the media] because there was so much happening; so much at stake, he said, “So, I will not comment and I hope you appreciate that.”

Fr. Musaala’s premature withdrawal came a day after Archbishop Lwanga, who suspended him mid-last month, made a U-turn on Easter eve to acknowledge and apologise for alleged sexual abuses, including of minors, by some priests. “It’s sad that there has been some misbehaving by some (priests) as alleged,” he said, before announcing an ad hoc commission had been constituted to inquire into the matter.

Findings of the investigations, according to Archbishop Lwanga, would not be made public because the Church has a cocooned mechanism of resolving such slip-ups.

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CALIFORNIA/CONNECTICUT
Orange County Weekly

By Matt Coker
Mon., Apr. 1 2013

A suspended, cross-dressing Roman Catholic priest nicknamed “Monsignor Meth” because of his role in a drug operation whose suppliers were alleged to be two South County residents is expected to plead guilty to charges against him Tuesday. Federal court papers in Waterbury, Conn., indicate Kevin Wallin, who was accused in January of laundering drug sales proceeds through his post-priestly Land of Oz adult entertainment shop, will cop to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute methamphetamine.

Chad McCluskey, 43, of San Clemente; his longtime girlfriend Kristen Laschober, 47, of Laguna Niguel, and two Connecticut men previously entered not guilty pleas at their arraignment hearing on the same federal counts, which carry with them fines of up to $10 million and 10 years to life in prison with convictions.

Wallin had also originally pleaded not guilty, but he filed court papers last week to change his plea, the Associated Press reported.

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CONNECTICUT
CT Post

Monday, April 1, 2013

By Michael P. Mayko

HARTFORD — On Jan. 3, Monsignor Kevin Wallin was prepared to leave on a two-week vacation in London, before authorities arrested him for dealing crystal methamphetamine.

On Tuesday, the 61-year-old Wallin made preparations for a much longer trip — this one to federal prison for at least 10 years as a result of a guilty plea to participating in a conspiracy to deal the drug.

Wallin, once a charismatic priest with a knack for fund raising, is expected to enter a guilty plea before Senior U.S. District Judge Alfred V. Covello. He is the first of five defendants in the case to plead. The others, including his next door neighbor and close confident, Kenneth Devries and his two meth-addicted California suppliers, Chad McCluskey and Kristen Laschober and Michael Nelson, pleaded not guilty to the conspiracy charge and are awaiting trial.

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WISCONSIN
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By Annysa Johnson of the Journal Sentinel

April 1, 2013

A Catholic priest has been temporarily suspended from ministry at two parishes and elementary schools, pending a Wauwatosa police investigation into allegations involving inappropriate contact with a student, the Archdiocese of Milwaukee and his religious order confirmed Monday.

Father Robert Marsicek was relieved of his duties at Pius X parish in Wauwatosa, Wauwatosa Catholic School and at Mother of Good Counsel parish and school in Milwaukee last week, standard procedure for both the archdiocese and his Milwaukee-based religious order, the Society of the Divine Savior, or Salvatorians.

Archdiocese spokesman Jerry Topczewski said police were called after a teacher observed behavior she believed to be “questionable or inappropriate.” Teachers are required by law to report any suspicions.

Marsicek has not been charged with a crime, and Wauwatosa police have not returned repeated telephone calls for information.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

[Click here for the story.]

Nick Bramhill

Sun, Mar 31, 2013

Actor Gabriel Byrne has launched a stinging attack on the Catholic Church and described it as a “force for evil”.

The veteran Hollywood star had a strict Catholic upbringing in Dublin and spent five years in a seminary training to be a priest.

But he said it was his own unhappy memories of the seminary, where he says he was sexually abused by a priest, that made him decide not to raise his two children as Catholics.

And in an interview, the 62-year-old says he remains unrepetentant on his views of organised religion and even claimed the Catholic Church once drew inspiration from Hitler’s Nazis.

Recalling the the time he was sent away to an English seminary at just 11 to study for the priesthood, he said: “It was part of the culture. It was a very religious, oppressive society, though we didn’t see it as oppression at the time.

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MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Barbara Dorris on April 01, 2013

Lawmakers in Missouri are considering making significant changes to the state’s sex offender registry. We hope that any changes they make will aim to further protect children, and not convicted adults.

Among the changes, lawmakers are considering adding “levels” to the registry. While this is a good idea in theory, in reality prosecutors will often allow plea deals for lesser sentences in order to spare victims the pain of a trial. We fear this will lead to less protection for kids.

Another provision is the ability for offenders to petition to have their name removed from the list, dependent on a “risk assessment” done by mental health professionals. Again, this is a good idea in theory, but institutions like the Catholic Church have shown us that a psychiatrist who is friendly to a predator can give him a favorable review, allowing that person to potentially victimize more children.

The state also complains of the burden of maintaining the registry. Yet the burden of keeping an online database up to date is far less than the burden of knowing that another child was able to be abused because of policy changes.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

Stuart Rintoul
From:The Australian
April 02, 2013

VICTIM advocates have urged the child sexual abuse royal commission to use its powers aggressively to go to the heart of institutional cover up, while also expressing the hope the inquiry does not become adversarial.

With the royal commission to begin in Melbourne tomorrow , Broken Rites researcher Wayne Chamley said he had urged the commission to follow paper trails within the Catholic Church and use its subpoena powers to go “right up the line” to bring the church hierarchy into the dock.

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INDIA
Virtue Online

Fifteen out of 21 Anglican bishops said to be corrupt according to Central Intelligence Authorities
Nearly two million dollars given for Tsunami victims by The Episcopal Church that were siphoned off reveal tip of financial corruption

Special Report

By David W. Virtue in Chennai
www.virtueonline.org
March 27, 2013

Nearly two million dollars given by Episcopal Relief and Development (ERD), the social service arm of The Episcopal Church, for victims of the 2004 Tsunami never got to those for whom it was intended. A Church of South India General Secretary diverted a third of the money to a private clinic run by her medical daughter, a Dr. Beneta.

The money was supposed to have gone to fishermen who lost their boats following giant earthquake driven Tsunami waves that killed 155,000 people and decimated the fishing industry. Money was given to rebuild their homes and to buy new fishing boats destroyed by the 50 foot waves. They received minimal sums of money for boats but nothing for reconstructing their lives and homes.

This is just one of numerous stories of a decades-long history of corruption in the Church of South India that has left Christians cynical that change is possible and good order can ever be restored to the biggest Protestant Church in India. One Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) detective (the equivalent of the FBI) says that the problem remains so widespread in the Church of South India that as many as 15 of the church’s 21 bishops have been tainted by corruption over the years.

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CALIFORNIA
California Anti-SLAPP Project

Posted by Evan Mascagni on Mar 26, 2013

CASP has blogged and questioned whether Gerbosi v. Gaims, (2011) 193 Cal.App.4th 435, was the worst decision ever decided under the California anti-SLAPP law, as it held that the mere allegation that defendant’s conduct was criminal means that the anti-SLAPP law does not apply. Yesterday, five amici briefs were filed in Malin v. Singer, a case at the California Court of Appeal, which among other things, could help repudiate Gerbosi. The California Anti-SLAPP Project represents two of the appellants in this case – a woman who has been sued because her lawyer sent a pre-litigation demand letter, and her husband.

The five amici briefs that challenge the trial court’s decision that the demand letter was criminally extortionate and support the broad construction of California’s anti-SLAPP law were filed yesterday by the Association of Southern California Defense Counsel (ASCDC), the Beverly Hills Bar Association, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California (ACLU/SC), and Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP. Professor George (Rock) Pring and the Center for Public Interest Law, among others, signed on to the BHBA brief. Survivors, activists, survivors’ rights organizations, and law firms that represent survivors all signed on to the SNAP brief. …

Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests
Written by attorney David Cook of Cook Collection Attorneys.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) is a self-help group that supports people who have been victimized by clergy, and helps them try to pick up the pieces of their lives, heal and move forward. SNAP believes that survivors of sexual assault need and deserve compensation for life long therapy and medical expenses, which should be paid without the risk of adverse litigation for bogus claims. This is why SNAP supports survivors’ right to send a demand letter to a predator free of the risk that they will be sued for “extortion.” Many sexual predators are highly aggressive individuals, and would lack any motivation to settle, absent a threat that their misconduct would become public. The thrust of the amicus brief by SNAP is that the threat in a pre-litigation demand letter to reveal misconduct is not extortive if the misconduct itself is the act upon which the claim and ensuing lawsuit are based.

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TEXAS
From the Heights

For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. Romans 12:3

The movie Mississippi Burning chronicles the details of racial unrest in the southern part of the state during the 1960s. As the FBI begins to close in on the KKK, one of them says, “Looks like the rattlesnakes are starting to commit suicide.” And rattlesnakes turning on one another has to be an absolutely hideous sight.

Sometimes I feel that way as a Baptist. It seems that I (and many other people I know) can be pretty quick to criticize and call out those with whom we disagree. Since none of us are Saints, it’s pretty arrogant to jump the gun in our critique of other churches who may have nothing in common other than sharing the name Baptist and the classification as Christian.

Then again, issues seem to keep coming up that demand a response, from all of us. One of those has occurred at Prestonwood Baptist, one of the “crown jewels” of the Southern Baptist Convention. It boasts over 20,000 members and the pastor, Jack Graham, has been there for over twenty years. Graham has also been president of the Southern Baptist convention, and he is one of the keynote speakers at the 2013 gathering.

Graham is also in the middle of what could be–and perhaps should be–a massive scandal.

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UNITED STATES
IND

THU, MAR 28
by Walter Pierce

Dr. David Primeaux was beloved in Petersburg, Va. The computer science professor at Virginia Commonwealth University was an active member and past chairman of the Historic Petersburg Foundation, a country-club nonprofit that restores old buildings in this historic city of about 35,000, 23 miles south of the state capital, Richmond, where for nearly two decades he taught at VCU.

In addition to his Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Tennessee, Primeaux held a doctorate in philosophy from the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium. His academic interests included non-traditional artificial intelligence — heady topics that, buttressed by his philosophy degree, threw smart, dreamy VCU undergrads into a swoon.

David Primeaux was a popular professor and civic leader. Until Dec. 27, 2012.

That’s the day Petersburg police got a call from Primeaux’s wife telling them he had left the house distraught. Cops made brief contact with the professor via cell phone, but he said his phone battery was about to die and ended the call. The next day in a rural neighboring county, a local resident found Primeaux dead inside his 1986 Mazda pickup parked beside a gravel pit. Cause of death, carbon monoxide poisoning; manner of death, suicide, according to the medical examiner’s office, which only recently released the results. …

But until 1985, David Primeaux was a priest in South Louisiana, mainly in Lafayette Parish. A priest who molested children. A priest who benefitted from the church’s willingness — eagerness, it can easily be argued — to play shell games with its most toxic clergy, moving them around after allegations of sexual misconduct surfaced. A priest who got away with it.

And the Rev. David Primeaux was, in many ways, forgettable. The infamous Gilbert Gauthe saga began spilling its messy entrails all over everything in 1983. Gauthe probably molested hundreds of kids in Vermilion Parish, although he was prosecuted on only a fraction.

About the time Gauthe was convicted and sent off to prison in the mid 1980s, Primeaux, an Abbeville native, slipped quietly out of his collar. The story is sketchy for almost the next decade. He got a Ph.D. — we know that. He taught a few years in the mid ’90s at Troy University in Alabama, landing an assistant professorship at VCU in ’96.

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UNITED STATES
Juneau Empire

By Dr. MAUREEN LONGWORTH

Editor’s note: This column was inspired by the One Billion Rising rally and flash mob at the state office building atrium on Feb. 14, and was submitted by the author.

It was me.

“It could be anyone,” she said today. “One out of three women is raped or beaten in her lifetime in our world today.”

I was one.

My soul still screams.

I remain forever one who was raped by one of the hims who do the raping.

“It could be anyone,” she said.

But it was me.

It was my heart crushed by the weight of him pushing against my chest.

It was my voice unheard pleading, “No, please no.”

It was my beliefs shattered by this priest, my teacher, who violated me and my Church, robbing me of all spiritual connection to my rich religious past.

It was my vocation to be a nun, and serve God, stolen by him, replaced with emptiness.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Socialist Party of Great Britain

Sins of the Fathers

First there were the black and white smoke signals from the Vatican; then a bloke in a posh frock on the balcony announced in Latin (because these things have to be communicated in ways otherwise unused in the modern world) ‘Habemus papam’ which, roughly translated, means ‘We’ve got a new one.’ And out stepped the new Pope and asked the crowd of nuns and tourists, all weeping with joy because they’d got a new one, to pray for him.

He’ll need more than prayers to deal with all the stories of abuse, blackmail, bullying, gay rent boys and other dirty deeds in the Vatican, and in the Catholic Church generally, that beset the previous Pope’s last days in the job.

After deflecting the world’s attention from the widespread abuse of children in the Church, his job will be to deliberate on God’s latest thoughts on such things as abortion, celibacy, sin, sex, sodomy and contraception (or, when involving the priesthood, any combination of these).

But while the cardinals were still weighing each other up for the job, an organisation named SNAP (Survivors Network of Abuse by Priests) had come up with a list of a ‘Dirty Dozen’ candidates who, they say, because of their failure to deal with the problem, should not become Pope, or even be involved in the selection process. Their website (www.snapnetwork.org) makes interesting reading.

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CONNECTICUT
WTNH

Published : Monday, 01 Apr 2013

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — A court filing shows a suspended Roman Catholic priest in Connecticut accused of making more than $300,000 in sales of methamphetamines plans to plead guilty to one of the charges.

Kevin Wallin is scheduled to appear Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Hartford for a hearing in which he would plead guilty to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute methamphetamine.

Messages left with his attorney were not returned.

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UGANDA
Daily Monitor

By TABU BUTAGIRA

Posted Monday, April 1 2013

Some Catholic priests in Uganda are involved in sexual liaisons contrary to their celibacy vow and others have in the process secretly begotten children, a senior church official has admitted.

Speaking on Holy Saturday, Kampala Archbishop Cyprian Lwanga, who about a fortnight ago suspended Fr Anthony Musaala for expressing similar sentiments, unequivocally apologised to the victims.

“It’s sad that there has been some misbehaving by some as alleged,” he said, “we apologise to [those] who may have fallen victims of what happened, but I assure you that the church is doing its duty and don’t give up hope.”

The otherwise controversial subject of sexual shenanigans by priests, most of them allegedly clothed from sanction by their superiors, has rattled the Catholic Church in the West, resulting in a plethora of lawsuits and public apologies.

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WISCONSIN
58 News

by Elizabeth Fay

Story Created: Mar 31, 2013

WAUWATOSA — On one of the most attended Sunday services of the year, parishioners at St. Pius X Catholic Church in Wauwatosa were told their priest is under a police investigation.

“I was shocked when I found out,” said Ryan Kennedy who attended mass.

Father Bob Marsicek is at the center of allegations. He leads mass at St. Pius X and Mother of Good Counsel Churches in Wauwatosa but today, another priest led Easter mass in his place.

That’s because Marsicek is suspended from his roles at the churches and Wauwatosa Catholic School.

A spokesperson for the Archdioices of Milwaukee says removal of pastoral duties is standard policy while an investigatigation unfolds.

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HOLYOKE (MA)
WWLP

Sunday, 31 Mar 2013

Sy Becker

HOLYOKE, Mass. – Parishioners who want Holyoke’s Mater Dolorosa Church to re-open, hope that Pope Francis will agree to overturn the decision that closed Mater Dolorosa two years ago.

Parishioners who now attend other churches held a commemoration of Easter Sunday morning on the street outside of the church.

The Vatican had ordered them to leave the building after their round the clock prayer vigils at the closed church.

Attorney Victor Anop, chairman of the Friends of Mater Dolorosa told 22News, their appeal to the Vatican Supreme Court is still pending.

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WISCONSIN
SNAP Wisconsin

Pastor under police investigation in Wauwatosa illustrates archdiocese control over religious orders

March 31, 2013

Statement by John Pilmaier, SNAP Wisconsin Director
CONTACT: 414.336.8575

The removal from ministry Friday of Fr. Bob Marsicek, Pastor of Pius X parish in Wauwatosa, by Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki illustrates perfectly and conclusively that the archdiocese has control over religious order clerics. Marsicek, a member of the Salvatorians, is under a current police investigation and has been ordered to stay away from Pius X parish and its school. The Salvatorians have their international headquarters in Milwaukee.

Why is this important?

Because over half the clerics working in archdiocesan parishes, schools and ministries are members of religious orders like the one to which Marsicek belongs. In fact, three of Marsicek’s fellow Salvatorians have been convicted of child sex crimes in Milwaukee: Fr. Dennis Pecore, Fr. Simon Palanthingal and Br. John Rice.

The Milwaukee Archdiocese has traditionally been a sanctuary for religious order sex offender clerics, actively concealing their criminal histories. A particularly glaring example was the notorious pedophile nun, Sr. Norma Giannini, a Sister of Mercy, who was convicted in Milwaukee of child sex crimes in 2008, even though the archdiocese had investigated and determined Giannini had committed multiple acts of child sex assault against several boys years earlier as the principal of St. Patrick’s Catholic Grade School on the South Side.

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WISCONSIN
Patch

The Rev. Bob Marsicek has suspended from his duties at St. Pius X Church in Wauwatosa as police investigate an allegation against him, according to Patch’s media partner WISN 12 News.

Marsicek’s superior, the Rev. Joe Rodrigues, told 12 News that the suspension is part of church protocol when there is an investigation.

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Buenos Aires Herald

Bergoglio expected to tackle negative attitude to sexuality, women

by Mario Osava
IPS

RIO DE JANEIRO — Jorge Mario Bergoglio begins his papacy as Francis facing the challenge of a Catholic Church caught up in a burdensome contradiction with modern society, because of its negative attitude to sexuality and women.

“There would be much more common sense, efficiency and tenderness in the Church, rather than that immense wave of paedophilia and paederasty in the hierarchy and the Catholic schools” if the Catholic Church had incorporated women into the priesthood and the different leadership roles in the institution, said João Tavares, a married former priest living in São Luis, in northeastern Brazil.

Women, who are “the real pillar of Christian communities,” can no longer remain without equal rights within the Church, “as if they were second-class human beings,” he said.

As well as being excluded from the hierarchy, a woman cannot even become the partner of a priest without invalidating his ministry, unless they both live a secret, hypocritical life. In practice, women are depicted by the Church as a contagious source of sin.

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PHILIPPINES/UNITED STATES
Sun.Star

By Florence F. Hibionada

Sunday, March 31, 2013

CALIFORNIA, USA — Ilonggo Catholic priest Fr. Lowe Dongor is “enjoying” his temporary liberty after a US court recently granted an earlier plea for probation.

Albeit with travel restrictions and faced with possible deportation, Dongor faces up to his plight. Or so he said he tries to do every day.

Originally charged in 2011 with theft and possession of child pornography in Worcester, Massachusetts, he was additionally charged with one felony count of Unlawful Flight to Avoid Prosecution (UFAP).

Dongor surrendered to the Philippine’s National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) Western Visayas in December 2012. He is a native of Barotac Nuevo, Iloilo.

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UGANDA
Sunday Monitor

By Ivan Okuda

Posted Sunday, March 31 2013

Not many desire to try out Fr Anthony Musala’s shoes right now. How one writes a stinging letter while the Pope assumes office, laying bare facts on the filth in the church and goes ahead to call for radical reforms is a reality too huge for the throat. You can describe him by any adjective in your mind. You can agree or disagree with him and you have the choice to either love or hate him. But perhaps, after a moment of reflection and soul searching, you and I might ask the question: What if this man is right?

The first time I came face to face with issues of clerical celibacy, particularly in the Catholic Church, I was a student of Julius Ocwinyo’s Fate of Banished, which is arguably the most authoritative Ugandan fiction voice on the same, especially having been written by a former seminarian. In there, I came face to face with a one Santo Dila, a Catholic priest entangled in an affair with a married woman. But that was only fiction.

Hardly a year after I shelved Ocwinyo’s novel, Musaala drops a bombshell and earns himself instant suspension. What follows? Testimonies by the public of priests and bishops siring children. One caller actually had to be stopped by a moderator when he called in Kfm’s Hot Seat show on Thursday and made sweeping allegations of a tycoon fathered by a deceased cardinal. During the same show, Ethics Minister, Rev Fr Simon Lokodo admitted he had, “heard of but not seen,” priests with children.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Kevin McKenna
The Observer, Saturday 30 March 2013

The campaign by some in the Catholic church to limit the damage following Cardinal Keith O’Brien’s downfall was sadly inevitable. What could not have been foreseen, though, was how nasty and ham-fisted it would turn out to be. Catherine Deveney’s revelations in the Observer last month that three Scottish priests and a former priest had complained to the Vatican of being victims of inappropriate conduct by O’Brien exposed what many of us had long feared: that the leadership of the church in Scotland is rotten to the core and no longer fit for purpose.

The response by what passes for the church authorities since Deveney’s game-changing story only lends credence to this assertion. No pastoral outreach to these four men, each of whom believes they have a God-given vocation to serve His church, has been forthcoming. Instead, they have been subjected to a whispering campaign of innuendo and half-baked supposition. Incredibly, several influential Catholics, who really ought to have known better, have made shrill calls for the priests to “out” themselves. Last week it was suggested that they were motivated by little more than personal malice against O’Brien and that their claims amounted to a conspiracy to bring him down.

Nowhere has there been an acknowledgment of what would have happened had these four men not come forward: that O’Brien would have joined his 115 brother cardinals in Rome for the conclave to elect a new pope and that, as such, he would have been a not unreasonable each-way bet for the ultimate elevation. This despite the fact that Vatican authorities were by then aware of at least five complaints made against him. Informed sources to whom I’ve spoken recently have stated that O’Brien had been viewed as a viable compromise candidate during the conclave which elected Benedict XVI in 2005.

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SCOTLAND
Daily Record

THE priest who made explosive claims about gay sexual bullying in the Catholic Church fears he could be stripped of his priesthood, claim friends.

They say details Father Matthew Despard, 48, exposed in his bombshell book Priesthood in Crisis have left senior clerics reeling.

The whistleblower – who said sexual misconduct had been rife in junior seminaries for years – believes the church could turn its back on him. A friend said: “Bishop Joe Devine called diocesan advisers to an emergency meeting to discuss Fr Depard’s claims.

“They told him he must ask the priest to attend a private meeting and explain his actions.

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WISCONSIN
LaCrosse Tribune

By Mike Tighe | mtighe@lacrossetribune.com

Easter signals a new beginning unlike any other, and it takes on additional meaning this year, as the Catholic Church enters the season with a new leader.

Much has been said about the firsts for the cardinal from Argentina: the first pope from the Western Hemisphere, the first Jesuit, the first Francis.

As speculation swirls about what Pope Francis’ first actions might be as he settles into the Vatican, the Tribune surveyed some Coulee Region residents on what they expect from the new pontiff.

The theologians

Pope Francis must address the Vatican’s sexual abuse and financial scandals to restore people’s faith in the Catholic Church, theology professor Michael Lopez-Kaley says.

“He has got to clean up the scandals of the church first,” said Lopez-Kaley of Viterbo University in La Crosse.

“I think there is a lack of confidence that the bishops are really serious” about the clergy’s sexual abuse cases, he said. “The pope definitely needs to state: You guys have to get serious about this and turn in the priests who are involved.”

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
WISN

[with video]

MILWAUKEE —The Milwaukee Archdiocese confirmed the pastor of St. Pius X church in Wauwatosa has been removed from active ministry while police investigate an allegation against him.

The Rev. Bob Marsicek is suspended from his duties at both the church and Wauwatosa Catholic School.

Marsicek’s superior, the Rev. Joe Rodrigues, said the suspension is part of church protocol when there is an investigation.

Rodrigues told 12 News, the police contacted Marsicek and told him to stay away from Wauwatosa Catholic School while they look into the allegation. Rodrigues said police have not released many details about the allegation or investigation, but he noted Marsicek has not been arrested and is cooperating with the police.

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WISCONSIN
WISN

The Milwaukee Archdiocese confirmed the pastor of St. Pius X church in Wauwatosa has been removed from active ministry while police investigate an allegation against him

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NEW YORK
The Jewish Daily Forward

By Stacey Klein

Published March 31, 2013, issue of April 05, 2013.

We in the Orthodox Jewish community claim to value children deeply. We want to have children, and we pressure our own children to get married and have children, and yet, when it comes to really ensuring those children’s utmost protection from harm, somehow the silence is deafening.

As a Yeshiva University alumnus and a psychotherapist who works with abused children, I was horrified to learn that my alma mater was apparently involved in a 30-year cover-up of sexual abuse that affected hundreds of children and protected known abusers. Y.U. — an institution to which I am grateful for making me who I am today — also has refused to commit to releasing to the public details of its investigation into these abuses.

So I created a petition urging Y.U. to commit to sharing the report findings with the public. Nearly everyone I know — many alumni from Y.U. and its Stern College for Women, including rabbis, did not sign. Other than one or two brave figures, the people I worked with for years through Y.U., programs teaching Jewish children worldwide about Jewish values, wouldn’t sign, nor would they do anything else I am aware of to support victims.

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UNITED STATES
Palm Beach Post

By Richard D. Schuler

Question: Do I have a remedy if my child was sexually abused at camp, school or church?

Answer: Child sexual abuse cases present unique challenges, especially when the abuse occurs in an institution that should be protecting children. When the offender is an employee, holding the institution liable is the key to getting justice.

Liability against an institution such as a school or church generally involves either negligent hiring or supervision, both of which would apply to employees and volunteers.

Also, the injured party must first prove that the institution had actual notice of the danger the individual posed or, alternatively, through the exercise of reasonable diligence, the institution would have been on notice that the perpetrator was a danger to the injured child or others. This involves doing a thorough background check.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Ruaidhri Giblin– 31 March 2013

A censored chapter in Judge Yvonne Murphy’s report into the handling of clerical child sex abuse allegations by the Catholic Church and State is finally set for full publication.

Chapter 20 has remained censored on foot of a High Court direction that its full publication could damage the trial of a defrocked priest charged with the sexual assault of children in the 1970s and 80s.

Former priest Patrick McCabe was sentenced last week by the Circuit Criminal Court after having pleaded guilty to indecently assaulting two 13-year-old boys.

Although sentenced by Judge Margaret Heneghan to two concurrent 18-month jail terms, he walked free from the court because he had already been in custody for longer than the sentences handed down.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Radio Koln

Die Aufarbeitung des Mißbrauchsskandals in der katholischen Kirche scheint ins Stocken zu geraten. Nach einem Bericht des Stadt-Anzeigers hat der Kölner Kardinal Meisner seinen Ausstieg aus den Gesprächen angekündigt.

Als Grund für die Absage der Dialog-Initiative wird unter anderem eine Überlastung des Kardinals genannt. Der bundesweite Dialog der Bischöfe zu den Kirchen-Themen ist laut dem Bericht abgesagt.

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TEXAS
Stop Baptist Predators

Over the course of two and a half years, Amy Smith made dozens of phone calls, and sent even more emails, to try to assure that Southern Baptist minister John Langworthy would not be able to molest more children. Smith knew what had happened 20 years earlier at the prominent Prestonwood Baptist Church in Dallas, when she was a college intern there.

“Although ministers at Prestonwood fired Langworthy in 1989 when at least one teen told church leaders Langworthy molested him, they never reported the allegation to police,” reports the Clarion Ledger.

Langworthy simply picked up and moved to Mississippi, where he went to work as a staff minister at another prominent Southern Baptist church, Morrison Heights. He also became a choir teacher in the Clinton school district.

In her efforts to bring Langworthy to justice, Smith encountered the usual brick wall of Baptists’ keep-it-quiet system. The saga of her efforts to get around that system, and to find someone who would put kids’ safety first, is a saga that implicates “the silence of the many.”

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

March 31, 2013

Judith Ireland
Breaking News Reporter

Victims groups are bracing for a flood of people wanting to give evidence about child sexual abuse, as the royal commission holds its first sitting in Melbourne this week.

The royal commission into child sexual abuse will outline how it plans to deal with the sensitive nature of the evidence at the session at the County Court of Victoria on Wednesday.

It will not take evidence, but the sitting will be the first major update on how the commission will work since the six commissioners were appointed in January.

Tens of thousands of Australians are expected to come forward over the three years of the inquiry to tell their stories of abuse in institutions such as schools, churches and orphanages.

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CALIFORNIA
San Francisco Chronicle

Reverend Monsignor
John Joseph O’Connor
Aug. 8, 1934 – Mar. 15, 2013

Fr. Jack was born in San Francisco on August 8, 1934 to John and Josephine O’Connor (both from Wexford, Ireland). He died on March 15, 2013. He was the nephew of the late Monsignor James O’Connor, brother of Philip O’Connor (deceased), and Peggy Vollert (Joseph). …

Fr. Jack began his journey to ordination in 1948 at St. Joseph’s Seminary. He then attended Archbishop Riordan High School where he served as Student Body President before graduating in 1952 and then returning to his studies at St. Joseph’s and St. Patrick’s. He was ordained on June 11, 1960. After earning a Masters Degree from Catholic University, he served in Catholic Social Services for the next twenty-five years. During that time he was in residence at St. Stephen’s, Sacred Heart, St. Isabella’s, and St. Kevin’s.

In 1983 he was appointed Pastor of his beloved Mission Dolores Basilica. He was named Prelate of Honor with the title of Monsignor by Pope John Paul II. In 1997 he was named Pastor of St. Mary’s Cathedral.

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NEW JERSEY
NorthJersey.com

BY MEGAN BURROW
MANAGING EDITOR
Teaneck Suburbanite

A Teaneck rabbi appeared in state Superior Court last week for a hearing in advance of his upcoming trial on charges of child endangerment, aggravated sexual contact and criminal sexual assault.

Rabbi Uzi Rivlin, 65, is accused a molesting two 13-year-old Israeli boys in his home in 2009 and 2010. According to Bergen County prosecutors, the victims had been staying in Rivlin’s house during two summers as part of a scholarship fund run by the rabbi. Upon returning to Israel, the alleged victims made the accusations separately to Israeli authorities.

The boys, along with three other witnesses, will be flown to the United States to testify at the trial.

Rivlin taught at Temple Beth Abraham in Tarrytown, N.Y. and ran the scholarship fund for more than a decade. The Israeli children who attained the scholarships would stay in the United States for several months, living with a host family and attending summer camp.

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UNITED STATES
Ledger-Enquirer

By BEN WRIGHT — benw@ledger-enquirer.com

Hours after the annual School of the Americas Watch protest ended at the Fort Benning gate last year, the Rev. Roy Bourgeois said the Maryknoll headquarters called and notified him that Pope Benedict XVI had expelled him from the priesthood.

With the election of new Pope Francis, Bourgeois said Friday he is working with an attorney to appeal the decision that expelled him from being a Catholic priest for the next 40 years.

“He signed the order in November and we are appealing it right now,” Bourgeois said of Benedict. “We hope the new pope will be more open to women in the church.”

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WISCONSIN
WTMJ

[with video]

By Keller Russell

WAUWATOSA – Good Friday is a time for reflection and celebration in most churches.

But one religious community has been rocked to the core by a police investigation. Their priest has been told to stay away from children.

Father Bob Marsicek is a long time fixture at St. Pius Catholic community.

But Friday we confirmed police are investigating allegations against the priest, and that he’s been removed from ministry while they do so.

On the holiest week for Catholics, parishioners at St. Pius X are stunned to hear their priest isn’t allowed to celebrate mass with them.

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UGANDA
The Independent

Vatican is watching how Archbishop Lwanga deals with the Fr. Musaala saga

“It is a good point for reflection but it will not change the fundamentals of the church.” That is how one practicing Catholic assessed the impact of recent revelations by renowned celebrity Catholic priest, Father Anthony Musaala of sexual impropriety in the church. That belief in theinvincibility of the old Catholic Church might be similar to the Biblical house built on quick sand, without a foundation.

What one hears in conversations on the street and in the media across the country is that Fr. Musaala’s letter has sparked unprecedented public debate of what some have called the “double standards and hypocrisy’ of the Catholic Church that the letter points out.

It is without doubt that depending on how the leadership of Uganda’s biggest religious congregation of 14 million Catholics in four archdioceses and 19 dioceses handles the Fr. Musaala saga, the church could be changed; perhaps irrevocably. The man on whose shoulder lays the task of steering the church through the storm is Archbishop Cyprian Kizito Lwanga of Kampala diocese.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

Jared Owens
From:The Australian
March 30, 2013

CHRISTIAN leaders across Australia have urged believers to reflect on social injustice this Easter, especially those “shattered” by sexual abuse, living in poverty on our streets or struggling with diseases such as HIV/AIDS.

As Pope Francis broke tradition by washing and kissing the feet of young female sinners at a Roman prison, Cardinal George Pell cited the newly elected pontiff’s call for believers to carry the Christian message “certainly in our conversations and official teaching, but especially through our care for one another”.

“Once again the Easter message comes from Francis of Assisi – peace and goodness, especially to those who are suffering, to those wounded by Catholic church members, to the sick, the depressed, the bereaved, those experiencing misfortune,” the Archbishop of Sydney said in a video message from Rome.

“Deeds are more important than words. Christ is risen, and the victory over evil will one day be complete.”

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UNITED STATES
Pension Rights Center

For Immediate Release

Contact: Nancy Hwa, 202-296-3776

March 29, 2013

WASHINGTON — After a 10-year struggle, hundreds of former workers and retirees from the Hospital Center at Orange (HCO) once again have federal protections for their pensions. In an unprecedented move, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has reversed its 2003 decision to grant HCO’s pension plan recognition as a “church plan.” In response to the IRS action, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) will restore insurance protections to the HCO plan.

For decades, the Hospital Center at Orange was an independent nonprofit hospital, not affiliated with any religious organization. Its pension plan was covered by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), the federal law that governs and insures most private pension plans, requiring them to follow certain funding rules and pay insurance premiums to the PBGC.

In 1998, the hospital entered into a financial arrangement with Cathedral Health Systems and, four years later, based on this affiliation, applied to the IRS for a ruling that its pension plan was a “church plan” exempt from ERISA. The IRS granted HCO’s request for church plan status in early 2003. It was only later that year that HCO employees learned that their pensions would no longer be protected by the PBGC, and that their underfunded plan only had enough money to pay retirement benefits for a few years. The Hospital shut down the following year.

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ROME
The Guardian (UK)

Lizzy Davies in Rome
guardian.co.uk, Friday 29 March 2013

Traditionalists in the Roman Catholic church have expressed concern after Pope Francis became the first pontiff to wash the feet of two women during a Maundy Thursday mass, a move liberals welcomed but some conservatives feared set a worrying precedent.

At the Casal del Marmo youth detention centre on the outskirts of Rome, the Argentinian pope washed and dried the feet of 12 inmates as part of the traditional rite representing Jesus’s final act of humility towards his disciples.

He had surprised the Vatican with his decision to wash the prisoners’ feet – a move that echoed the early years of John Paul II, who once performed the rite in the St John Lateran basilica with a dozen homeless men.

But it was his inclusion of two young women, as well as Muslims, in the ceremony that was the most dramatic break with tradition. It even caused some traditionalists to wonder openly whether Francis, who is doctrinally a theological conservative who has explicitly stated he is against female ordination, might one day be willing to open the priesthood to women.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Service

By Francis X. Rocca
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Of the several widely acknowledged priorities in the run-up to the conclave that chose Pope Francis, including the challenge of secularism and the growth of the church in the global South, none was more prominent than a need to reform the Roman Curia, the church’s central administration in the Vatican.

The College of Cardinals extensively discussed corruption and mismanagement sensationally documented in the 2012 “VatiLeaks” of confidential correspondence, which were also the subject of a detailed report that Pope Benedict XVI designated exclusively for the eyes of his successor.

The new pope has already given signs of his intention to reform. According to his personal notes for his pre-conclave speech to fellow cardinals, subsequently published with his permission, then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio denounced the “self-referentiality” of a church “living within herself, of herself, for herself.” Although his main target seems to have been a “theological narcissism” that saps evangelical zeal, the future pope’s words were also an implicit rebuke to the inward-looking mindset of a pre-modern royal court, which still characterizes the Vatican in the 21st century.

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AUSTRIA
Montreal Gazette

By The Associated Press
March 29, 2013

VIENNA – An Austrian group representing victims of clerical sex abuse is criticizing a bishop’s plan to attend a memorial Mass for a late cardinal accused of molesting young boys.

Agidius Zsifkovics, the Bishop of Eisenstadt, says he will attend the April 8 Mass marking the 10th anniversary of the death of Cardinal Hans Hermann Groer.

Groer stepped down as archbishop of Vienna in 1995 after former theological students accused him of sexual abuse.

A statement Friday on the website of “Those Affected by Churchly Abuse” says Zsivkovics will be honouring a man who left “a trail of spiritual destruction.”

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CALIFORNIA
Orange County Weekly

By Gustavo Arellano
Fri., Mar. 29 2013

Wow, the pathetic legacy of former Diocese of Orange Bishop Tod D. Brown just keeps getting pathetic-er and pathetic-er-er. The Weekly has obtained a copy of a letter that His Excellency wrote back when he was merely His Stupidity, when Brownie was a Reverend Monsignor at the Diocese of Monterey during the mid-1980s. It concerns one Gerald Funcheon, a guy who was looking for a job after getting driven out of Hawaii after parents complained he told boys he wanted to get naked with them. Before Hawaii, Funcheon had been pushed out of other parishes after similar complaints–and this was the man Brownie would vouch for?

You know it!

Funcheon is currently facing lawsuits by students who suffered at his grubby hands at Palma High School in Salinas, a school where the pedo-priest has already admitted to molesting boys. In a June 11, 1984 letter obtained by the Weekly, Brown–then the chancellor for the Monterey diocese–wrote to Funcheon’s Crosier superiors that he would extend faculties (allow him to minister in another parish, in Catholic-speak) so he could be a chaplain at Palma. “Your evaluation of his ministry,” Brown wrote, “is very encouraging.”

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

March 30, 2013

On 11 March 2013, the online edition of The Sydney Morning Herald published an article “Tainted Pell out of race after lobbying” by journalist Barney Zwartz. A shortened version of this article titled “Pell has no chance of top job” also appeared in the print and online editions of The Sydney Morning Herald on 11 March 2013.

Our description of the outcome of the 2002 investigation by retired Victorian Supreme Court Judge A.J. Southwell into allegations against Cardinal George Pell did not fully set out his findings about Cardinal Pell. Soon after Mr Southwell made his findings in 2002, The Age published an article describing the findings as “a just result” and The Sydney Morning Herald accepts and agrees with this conclusion. As we said in an article published on 14 June 2010, this independent investigation cleared the Cardinal.

The Sydney Morning Herald apologises sincerely to Cardinal Pell for any suggestion to the contrary and for any adverse reflections on him in our 11 March articles.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

[Bishop Hart’s statement]

[Cardinal Pell’s statement]

March 30, 2013

Barney Zwartz
Religion editor, The Age.

Australia’s two most senior Catholic prelates, Cardinal George Pell and Archbishop Denis Hart, have repudiated as inaccurate allegations against them at Victoria’s clergy sex abuse inquiry.

Melbourne Archbishop Hart denied testimony by Victorian Police Commissioner Ken Lay to the parliamentary inquiry that the church has hindered and obstructed police, and challenges police about why they have not acted already if they have evidence of such behaviour.

Cardinal Pell again rejected claims by Melbourne lawyer Vivian Waller that he was present in 1969 when a child described being raped to another priest, and attacked the claims as ”seriously defamatory” and possibly a contempt of Parliament and professional misconduct.

Their responses were posted on Thursday on the inquiry website, on a new section called ”right of reply”. Archbishop Hart first wrote on October 17 and Cardinal Pell’s statement is dated January 15.

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BHUTAN
Huffington Post

By Vishal Arora
Religion News Service

NEW DELHI (RNS) Health officials in the tiny Buddhist kingdom of Bhutan are making condoms available at all monastic schools in a bid to stem the spread of sexually transmitted diseases and HIV among young monks who are supposed to be celibate.

“We are making condoms freely available everywhere, even in monastic schools and colleges,” Bhutan’s minister of health, Zangley Drukpa, said in a phone interview. The ministry, he added, has formed a special action group to deal with STDs in monasteries.

Warning signs of risky behavior among monks first appeared in 2009, when a report on risks and vulnerabilities of adolescents revealed that monks were engaging in “thigh sex” (in which a man uses another man’s clenched thighs for intercourse), according to the state-owned Kuensel daily.

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IRELAND
Irish Central

An elderly Irish cleric is appealing his dismissal from the priesthood directly to Pope Francis and to a top Vatican court.

According to the Irish Independent the priest, known only by the pseudonyms ‘Fr Ronat’ and ‘Fr B’, faces being defrocked after a church canonical court upheld the abuse allegations lodged against him by former minors in the diocese of Cloyne. ‘Fr Ronat’ was at the center of judicial enquiry known as the Cloyne Report which dealt with complaints against 19 priests made from 1996.

A relative of the cleric told the Independent that an appeal has been lodged within the stipulated 15-day period.

‘We are very disappointed with the negative outcome. But there will be an appeal, particularly in respect of the fact we believe that a full defense against the allegations was not properly taken into account,’ he said.

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CALIFORNIA
Appeal-Democrat

March 28, 2013

A Catholic priest charged with kissing a Yuba City teenager posted bail earlier this week and was released from custody following a hearing on his immigration status in Sacramento County.

The Rev. Julio Cesar Guarin-Sosa posted a bail bond on Wednesday, the Sutter County District Attorney’s Office confirmed. The bail amount was not available.

Prosecutors also confirmed they are moving ahead with the case against the Colombian priest.

Guarin-Sosa, 43, is accused of kissing a 16-year-old Yuba City girl on March 8 at the girl’s home.

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PHILIPPINES
Rappler

by Tara Yap
Posted on 03/29/2013

ILOILO CITY, Philippines — In time for Easter weekend, 3 Catholic Ilonggo priests with families renewed their call for optional celibacy.

“Priesthood and marriage are not a contradiction. Marriage blends with priesthood,” said Fathers Hector Canto, Jose Elmer Cajilig, and Jesus Siva in a joint statement.

The 52-year-old Canto is married with 3 children, while 51-year-old Cajilig and 52-year-old Siva are both unmarried priests who have children.

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CALIFORNIA
Alameda Sun

Written by Ekene Ikeme Published: Friday, 29 March 2013

A former Catholic priest and Alameda resident was released from prison in his native Ireland after pleading guilty to child-abuse charges last Friday, March 22.

Patrick Joseph McCabe, 77, pled guilty to four counts of indecent assault to two boys in Ireland in the 1970s at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court in Ireland earlier this month. Judge Margaret Heneghan sentenced McCabe to 18 months in prison on Friday with his sentence backdated to when he first went into custody in Ireland in June 2011 following his extradition from Alameda.

Judge Heneghan said both assaults carried a maximum possible sentence of two years and this was “not a case where consecutive sentences were appropriate.” Heneghan also cited Mc- Cabe’s “guilty plea, his admission of guilt to gardai (Ireland’s police officers), his remorse, his age and medical condition” for reasons to release him.

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MISSISSIPPI
Associated Baptist Press

By Bob Allen

A 71-year-old former Southern Baptist minister has been indicted by a grand jury in northern Mississippi on 18 felony counts of child sexual abuse.

Larry SingletonThe Democrat newspaper in Senatobia, Miss., reported March 26 that Larry Gene Singleton, former pastor of Bay Springs Baptist Church in Abbeville, Miss., faces charges of fondling, sexual battery and child pornography.

The Tate County Sheriff’s Department arrested Singleton Dec. 3 after an 18-year-old man accused the former pastor of sexually abusing him for a number of years, starting when he was 11 years old.

Police said Singleton also volunteered as a tutor at an extension campus of Gateway Christian Schools, sponsored by the independent Gateway Baptist Church in Memphis, Tenn., but did not have any contact with students there.

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OSTERREICH
pressetext

Wien (pts005/28.03.2013/07:00) – Stellungnahme von Sissi Kammerlander:

Im Zuge des Symposiums “Prävention von Missbrauch und Gewalt – ein gesamtgesellschaftliches Anliegen” im Februar im Haus der Industrie in Wien wurde unter anderen Aspekten der extensiven Kindesmissbräuche das Anliegen geäußert, Kindesmissbrauch, also jede Gewalt, insbesondere auch sexuelle Gewalt gegen Kinder, dürfe keinesfalls verharmlost werden.

Tendenz zur schnellen Einstellung von Gerichtsverfahren bei Missbrauchsfällen in Österreich: Wenn man die Gesetzgebung prüft, ist unschwer zu erkennen, dass selbst der Gesetzgeber Probleme hat, dem Missbrauch und der Gewalt gegen Kinder effektiv entgegenzutreten. Die festgelegten Verjährungsfristen beispielsweise fallen gern in die Zeitperiode, in welcher Missbrauchsopfer aufgrund der schweren Traumatisierung nicht über ihre Erfahrungen sprechen können. Wenn Opfer oder ihre Angehörigen eine Anzeige einbringen, sind die folgenden Verfahren oft von kurzer Dauer: Die Staatsanwaltschaften tendieren dazu, sie einzustellen.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Kolner Stadt-Anzeiger

Nach dem Missbrauchsskandal wollte sich die katholische Kirche reformieren. Auch das Kölner Erzbistum wollte sich am „Dialogprozess“ beteiligen. Kardinal Meisner macht nun einen Rückzieher. Die Pfarreien hoffen auf seinen Nachfolger. Von Joachim Frank

Köln.
Mitten hinein in den österlichen Frieden platziert der Kölner Erzbischof, Kardinal Joachim Meisner, eine Festtagsgabe, die engagierten Laien, aber auch Meisners Mitbrüdern in der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz als faules Ei erscheinen wird: Der von langer Hand geplante „geistliche Gesprächsprozess“, mit dem sich das Erzbistum am 2010 initiierten bundesweiten Dialog der Bischöfe als Antwort auf den Missbrauchsskandal und andere innerkirchliche Probleme beteiligen wollte, ist abgesagt.

Darüber informierte Generalvikar Stefan Heße die Leitenden Pfarrer und die Vorsitzenden der Pfarrgemeinderäte in einem Schreiben, das am Gründonnerstag einging. Es liegt dem „Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger“ vor. Als Hauptgrund wird darin der Wechsel von Weihbischof Heiner Koch, der für den Gesprächsprozess zuständig war, ins Bistum Dresden-Meißen genannt. Zudem, so Heße wörtlich, „bindet der Eucharistische Kongress in der Vorbereitung sehr viele Kräfte“, so dass die geplanten Gesprächstage „zu viel“ würden.

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OSTERREICH
der Standard

28. März 2013, 17:13

Wien/Eisenstadt/St. Pölten – Ein angekündigter Auftritt des Eisenstädter Bischofs Ägidius Zsifkovics bei einer Gedenkmesse für den vor zehn Jahren verstorbenen Kardinal Hans Hermann Groer erbost die Plattform “Betroffene Kirchlicher Gewalt”. Groer musste Mitte der 90er-Jahre aufgrund von Missbrauchsvorwürfen als Wiener Erzbischof zurücktreten. Die Diözese verteidigte die Anwesenheit von Zsifkovics bei der Feier in der niederösterreichischen Klosterkirche Marienfeld.

Der Auftritt des Eisenstädter Diözesanbischofs bei der Gedenkmesse am 8. April schlage dem Fass den Boden aus, daher legte die Opfer-Plattform “schärfsten Protest ein”. “Kardinal Groer hat eine Spur der seelischen Verwüstung, u.a. mit Suizidfolgen durch das Land gezogen. Bis heute leiden viele seiner Opfer weiter.” Alleine “die jährlichen Wallfahrten und Gedenkmessen zu Ehren des Missbrauchskardinals” würden einen Affront darstellen.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Mittelbayerische

von Pascal Durain, MZ

Regensburg. Als im Jahr 2010 Fälle von sexuellen Missbrauch und Misshandlungen in zahlreichen katholischen Einrichtung in Deutschland bekannt wurden, erschütterte der Skandal auch Regensburg. Denn auch in einem der ältesten Knabenchore der Welt, den Regensburger Domspatzen, kam es zu Übergriffen und Gewaltexzessen. Das Bistum versprach Aufklärung und betonte immer wieder, nichts unter den Teppich kehren zu wollen. Doch zahlreiche Opfer hegen schon lange Zweifel daran.

Die Suche nach der Glaubwürdigkeit

Bistumssprecher Clemens Neck weist diese Kritik zurück. Persönliche und individuelle Aufarbeitung könne sehr unterschiedlich sein. Diese könne zum Beispiel Therapieangebote umfassen oder auch Gespräche mit Beschuldigten.

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MISSOURI
StJoeChannel

(KANSAS CITY, Mo.,) A former St. Joseph priest will be sentenced in September after pleading guilty to multiple child pornography charges.

Rev. Shawn Ratigan, pleaded guilty in August to five counts of producing child pornography and attempting to produce child pornography.

Wednesday, a judge announced Ratigan would be sentenced Sept. 12.

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UNITED STATES
The Jewish Week

03/28/13

David Cheifetz
Special To The Jewish Week

My name is David Cheifetz and I am a victim of childhood sex abuse in a Jewish institution.

There. I have said it. After more than 30 years I have shared the dark secret that has haunted my soul.

I was 13 years old, attending sleep-away camp at Camp Dora Golding, an all-boys Orthodox camp that some of you still send your sons to. I was befriended by a 28-year-old member of the rabbinic staff. Over the course of a week he sexually abused me repeatedly. When the activity was exposed, I was summoned to the camp director’s office and forced to confront the assailant. Then I was summarily sent home, as if it were I who had committed the crime. The camp never even told my parents why I was being sent home. They were just advised to pick me up at the Greyhound terminal at New York’s Port Authority.

I do not know if the perpetrator was ever fired; to the best of my knowledge he was never reported to legal authorities. I understand that he went on to a long career in Jewish education, and based on whispers on the Internet, probably continued targeting young Jewish boys within the walls of Jewish educational institutions. [Camp Dora Golding officials did not respond to repeated attempts for comment on the author’s allegations.]

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NEDERLAND
KNR

‘S-GRAVENHAGE – Op donderdag 28 maart 2013 vond in Den Haag een rondetafelgesprek plaats over de eerste monitorrapportage van de heer Deetman (Onderzoekscommissie). Hiervoor waren naast vertegenwoordigers van slachtoffers en de Stichting Beheer en Toezicht de voorzitters van de Konferentie Nederlandse Religieuzen (KNR) en de Bisschoppenconferentie uitgenodigd.

Het rondetafelgesprek (hoorzitting) op 28 maart werd gehouden door de Commissie voor Veiligheid en Justitie van de Tweede Kamer en vond plaats van 11.00 tot 13.00 uur.

Namens de KNR en de Bisschoppenconferentie brachten broeder Van Dam en kardinaal Eijk beide een gespreksnotitie in.

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NEDERLAND
KNR

Gespreksnotitie van Willem kardinaal Eijk, voorzitter van de Nederlandse Bisschoppenconferentie, op verzoek van de Vaste Commissie voor Veiligheid en Justitie van de Tweede Kamer, ten behoeve van het gesprek over de eerste monitorrapportage van de (voormalige) Onderzoekscommissie naar seksueel misbruik van minderjarigen in de Rooms-Katholieke Kerk

28 maart 2013, 11.00 tot 13.00 uur

Inleiding
De Nederlandse bisschoppen hebben zich na het verschijnen van het rapport van de (voormalige) Onderzoekscommissie naar seksueel misbruik van minderjarigen in de Rooms-
Katholieke Kerk 1945 – 2010 (hierna: Commissie Deetman) op 16 december 2011 gecommitteerd aan de aanbevelingen van deze commissie. De bisschoppen zijn en blijven vastbesloten om naast erkenning van het leed te zorgen voor hulp en genoegdoening. Dit doen zij in samenwerking met de hogere oversten van de religieuze ordes en congregaties.

Zorg voor slachtoffers was ook de belangrijkste reden voor de onderzoeksopdracht die aan de heer Deetman werd verstrekt.

Om de zorg voor slachtoffers adequaat gestalte te geven heeft de Commissie Deetman aanbevolen om de Stichting Hulp en Recht uit 1995 te vervangen door een onafhankelijke stichting naar Nederlands recht. Daarom is de Stichting Beheer en Toezicht inzake Seksueel Misbruik in de Rooms-Katholieke Kerk in Nederland (hierna: Stichting Beheer en Toezicht) opgericht, die onafhankelijk van de Bisschoppenconferentie en van de Konferentie Nederlandse Religieuzen (KNR) opereert en waaronder vier pijlers vallen: het Meldpunt, de Klachtencommissie, de Compensatiecommissie en het Platform Hulpverlening. Hulp wordt verleend, ongeacht of de klachtenprocedure is afgerond of niet.

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NEDERLAND
Rijksoverheid

[Click here for the story.]

Informatieblad over excuses, hulpaanbod en concept regelingen financiële tegemoetkoming aan slachtoffers van seksueel misbruik

Informatieblad over excuses, hulpaanbod en concept regelingen financiële tegemoetkoming aan slachtoffers van seksueel misbruik

Publicatie | 22-03-2013 | VenJ

Naar aanleiding van de bevindingen van de Commissie Samson heeft de Minister van Veiligheid en Justitie tezamen met de Staatssecretarissen van Volksgezondheid, Welzijn en Sport (VWS) en van Veiligheid en Justitie (VenJ) op 29 oktober 2012 namens het kabinet excuses aangeboden aan iedere volwassene en aan ieder kind dat onder de verantwoordelijkheid van de overheid in een pleeggezin of een jeugdinstelling is geplaatst en daar vervolgens slachtoffer is geworden van seksueel misbruik.

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NEDERLAND
Bert Smeets

Vanaf begin 2010 heeft MCU goede contacten opgebouwd en onderhouden met andere organisaties, zoals bijvoorbeeld Mensenrechten in de Kerk, België, SNAP Amerika, en andere Engelse, Duitse, Oostenrijkse lotgenoten. MCU heeft zich sterk gemaakt om het fysiek / psychisch geweld op de agenda te krijgen. Helaas heeft men destijds besloten om dit buiten de klachtenprocedure te houden van het seksueel misbruik in de RKK.

Omdat we destijds geen weerklank vonden hebben we zelf gekozen om civiele procedures te voeren. Anderzijds zijn er diverse meldingen bij de politie gedaan waar wij tot op heden geen actie hebben ondervonden. Ondanks het feit dat dhr Moraal Hoofdadvocaat-generaal de ontvankelijkheid van deze meldingen zou entameren.

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CHILE
La Tercera

Ezzati en misa a sacerdotes: “Que el acompañamiento espiritual no se convierta en instrumento de dominación”

por Angélica Baeza Palavecino – 28/03/2013

El arzobispo de Santiago, Ricardo Ezzati, encabezó la misa crismal en la Catedral Metropolitana, donde sostuvo a los sacerdotes que integran la liturgia que “el acompañamiento espiritual no se convierta en instrumento de dominación”.

Esto, luego de que se diera a conocer hace algunos días atrás las medidas disciplinarias en contra del sacerdote y más cercano a Fernando Karadima, Juan Esteban Morales, por “abuso de poder”.

Morales había sido denunciado por manipular las conciencias de algunos feligreses, tomando control sobre sus vidas, ante lo cual, luego de la investigación del padre Jaime Ortiz de Lazcano, se determinó que el religioso estará supervisado por el vicario de la zona correspondiente y no podrá asumir las “guías de almas”.

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MONTANA
National Catholic Reporter

by Dan Morris-Young | Mar. 28, 2013

A weeklong “global mediation” slated to begin April 15 in Seattle will seek a broad settlement for two comprehensive sex abuse lawsuits pending against the diocese of Helena, Mont., and the Ursuline Sisters.

More than 360 plaintiffs, several insurance carriers, the Helena diocese and Ursuline Sisters will be represented at the Seattle gathering to negotiate culpability and potential financial awards for sex abuse claims against priests and women religious.

Some claims date to the mid-1930s, but the bulk are from the 1950s through 1970s, attorneys said.

If the process is successful, at least two major goals would be met, attorneys for both the diocese and claimants told NCR. First, the diocese would avoid bankruptcy. Second, a significantly larger portion of any ultimate monetary settlement would reach claimants rather than be consumed by costly, extended legal maneuvering.

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UNITED STATES
AlterNet

March 25, 2013

By Valerie Tarico

At age sixteen I began what would be a four year struggle with bulimia. When the symptoms started, I turned in desperation to adults who knew more than I did about how to stop shameful behavior—my Bible study leader and a visiting youth minister. “If you ask anything in faith, believing,” they said. “It will be done.” I knew they were quoting the Word of God. We prayed together, and I went home confident that God had heard my prayers. But my horrible compulsions didn’t go away. By the fall of my sophomore year in college, I was desperate and depressed enough that I made a suicide attempt. The problem wasn’t just the bulimia. I was convinced by then that I was a complete spiritual failure. My college counseling department had offered to get me real help (which they later did). But to my mind, at that point, such help couldn’t fix the core problem: I was a failure in the eyes of God. It would be years before I understood that my inability to heal bulimia through the mechanisms offered by biblical Christianity was not a function of my own spiritual deficiency but deficiencies in Evangelical religion itself.

Dr. Marlene Winell is a human development consultant in the San Francisco Area. She is also the daughter of Pentecostal missionaries. This combination has given her work an unusual focus. For the past twenty years she has counseled men and women in recovery from various forms of fundamentalist religion including the Assemblies of God denomination in which she was raised. Winell is the author of Leaving the Fold – A Guide for Former Fundamentalists and Others Leaving their Religion, written during her years of private practice in psychology. Over the years, Winell has provided assistance to clients whose religious experiences were even more damaging than mine. Some of them are people whose psychological symptoms weren’t just exacerbated by their religion, but actually caused by it.

Two years ago, Winell made waves by formally labeling what she calls “Religious Trauma Syndrome” (RTS) and beginning to write and speak on the subject for professional audiences. When the British Association of Behavioral and Cognitive Psychologists published a series of articles on the topic, members of a Christian counseling association protested what they called excessive attention to a “relatively niche topic.” One commenter said, “A religion, faith or book cannot be abuse but the people interpreting can make anything abusive.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Catholics4Change

BY KATHY KANE

I have been called for jury duty a few times but have never made it past the waiting area. This time when the summons arrived, I started to think about the possible case. If it involved anything to do with child sex abuse, could I be an impartial juror?

In the Sandusky trial there was overwhelming evidence of guilt, but that is not always the case. Child sex abuse cases rarely have eyewitnesses, multiple victims taking the stand, and a trail of odd behavior and past police calls in reference to the perpetrator. I have read that most cases are hard to prosecute. In those instances, it must be hard to be a juror.

When you hear of a person being arrested for sexually abusing a child, do you automatically assume guilt? What if it’s a priest? Does the emotional response outweigh the understanding that the case needs to be proven in court and the defendant is assumed innocent until proven guilty?

If the victim testifying seems believable but the evidence is weak, could you vote to acquit? Does the juror have the added burden of feeling that if they acquit and are wrong, they just helped release a person back into society who could harm more children? Would the possibility of that make a juror more willing to vote guilty?

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

March 29, 2013

Barney Zwartz
Religion editor, The Age.

Victoria’s Human Rights Commission will investigate a complaint by Zephaniah Waks, the father of Jewish abuse victim advocate Manny Waks, that he has been shunned by the Orthodox Jewish community in Melbourne because of his son’s anti-abuse campaign.

Mr Waks snr says that since the police began investigating child sexual abuse complaints around Melbourne’s Yeshivah Centre nearly two years ago, he has suffered an escalating campaign of ”innuendo, lies, vilification, victimisation and discrimination”.

The case, which is shocking in a community that prefers to sort out disputes internally, names Yeshivah Centre spiritual head Zvi Telsner and its committee head Hershel Herbst as respondents.

Mr Waks said on Thursday he had tried to resolve issues internally and through Jewish courts, but the Yeshivah leadership refused, so he had gained permission under Jewish law to go to the secular courts from a leading American rabbi, Yosef Blau from Yeshiva University.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
National Catholic Reporter

by Brian Roewe | Mar. 28, 2013

As Cardinal Roger Mahony entered the Sistine Chapel in Rome March 12 to begin the process of electing the next pope, his name made headlines in his home diocese for other reasons.

The cardinal, the Los Angeles archdiocese and an ex-priest agreed to settlements in four clergy abuse-related cases, totaling $9.9 million. The settlements are the first since the late January court-ordered release of 12,000 pages of abuse-related documents, and Mahony’s ban from public and administrative duties in the archdiocese.

On the same day another case, at the northern end of the state, also made headlines when a visiting priest was arrested on suspicion of child abuse.

The former priest at the center of the Los Angeles settlements was Michael Baker, who was removed from the priesthood in 2000 and convicted in 2007 of molesting two children. He was paroled in 2011 after initially receiving a 10-year prison sentence.

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CALIFORNIA
San Francisco Chronicle

The news that confessed pedophile priest Patrick Joseph McCabe had been released early from an Irish prison shook Greg Horne, who said the priest abused him while he was a student at St. Bernard’s Catholic School Church in Eureka from 1983 to 1985.

“Take every human emotion you can have, put it in a blender and that’s how I feel,” said Horne, a 41-year-old juvenile corrections officer who lives in McKinleyville (Humboldt County).

A judge in Ireland released the 77-year-old McCabe over the weekend, three months before the end of a two-year sentence. He cited McCabe’s advanced age and his confession that he had assaulted two boys in Ireland in the 1970s. This was before he was sent to the U.S., where he worked at churches in Eureka, Guerneville and Sacramento.

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IRELAND
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin

“Pope Francis continues to surprise us day after day. I spoke to a friend of mine working in the Vatican who is in close contact with the Pope and asked him how he would describe the atmosphere in the Vatican under Pope Francis and he summed it up saying: “surprises and more surprises and even more surprises to come” and my friend is one of those who is pleased with the surprises he is seeing.

We thank God for a Pope who has the interior freedom to surprise us. We thank God for a Pope who shows us that simplicity and humility are not signs of weakness and concession, but signs of strength and signs of a strength that comes from faith.

Pope Francis has given us some very significant signs and gestures about how he understands his role as Bishop of Rome and successor of Saint Peter. But they are not just signs about himself; they are signs about what the Church means. He does not want us just to look at these gestures on television and feel good about them and feel good that we have a new Pope like him. There are many who have no belief who will like the new Pope. There is not much good, however, in Christians feeling good about the new Pope if we do not make our own what he is saying and teaching and doing.

The first thing that this involves is allowing Jesus to surprise us and for us to find the courage to change. We are at a critical juncture in the history of the Catholic Church in this diocese and in our country. We are at critical juncture about the place of the Catholic Church in Irish society and in the future culture of Ireland. And we are at a critical juncture about the very place of faith and the very understanding of faith within the Catholic community.

We are at a critical juncture and the only valid answer is an answer of enthusiasm and optimism, of commitment and renewal in our own lives. We have to witness to others the sense of meaning and purpose that Jesus brings to our lives. If all we have to offer is a tired and discouraged faith, then we have to ask questions about the quality of our own faith

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IRELAND
Journal

ARCHBISHOP DIARMUID MARTIN has said, “we are at a critical juncture in the history of the Catholic Church in this diocese and in our country”.

He was speaking at the Chrism Mass this morning in St. Mary’s Pro Cathedral in Dublin.

The Archbishop also spoke about the amount of people losing faith and leaving the Catholic church:

“We are at critical juncture about the place of the Catholic Church in Irish society and in the future culture of Ireland. And we are at a critical juncture about the very place of faith and the very understanding of faith within the Catholic community.”

But he said “despite the difficulties of the Church in Ireland there are also so many signs of hope”.

Victims

He prayed for the “anguish” of victims of child clerical sex abuse following the sentencing of former priest of the Diocese, Patrick Mc Cabe, for abuse. Seventy-year-old McCabe was, who abused two boys over 30 years ago, was sentenced to 18 months in prison last week.

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CALIFORNIA
Santa Cruz Sentinel

By VIRGINIA HENNESSEY
Herald Staff Writer
montereyherald.com
Posted: 03/27/2013

A former Palma High School chaplain and teacher has admitted in sworn testimony that he sexually assaulted a Palma student.

In a videotaped deposition, the Rev. Gerald Funcheon claimed he molested just one student at Palma and that the boy was his last. The redacted video does not include the names of any of the priest’s alleged victims.

Five men have leveled claims that Funcheon molested them when they were students at the school during the Crosier priest’s tenure from 1984 to 1985.

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CALIFORNIA
Lodi News-Sentinel

By Ross Farrow/News-Sentinel Staff Writer

An immigration judge allowed a Catholic priest temporarily serving in Lodi to be released on bail Wednesday.

Father Julio Cesar Guarin-Sosa, 43, has been charged with a felony count of false imprisonment, and misdemeanor counts of annoying or molesting a minor and sexual battery involving a 16-year-old girl at a Mass conducted in a private home in Yuba City, according to the Appeal-Democrat newspaper, based in Marysville.

Jacquelyn Stenson, a deputy district attorney in Sutter County, refused to discuss specifics of the Sutter County charges. Guarin-Sosa’s attorney, Markus Dombois, has not returned several calls from the News-Sentinel since Guarin-Sosa was arrested.

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NEDERLAND
Nieuws

(Novum) – Wim Deetman is het niet eens met de kritiek op zijn rapport over misbruik van meisjes in de rooms-katholieke kerk. Dat bleek donderdag tijdens een gesprek dat hij had met de Tweede Kamer.

Het Vrouwenplatform Kerkelijk Kindermisbruik uitte eerder ‘ernstige bezwaren’ tegen het rapport. Zo herkennen vrouwen zich niet in de manier waarop hun geschiedenis in het rapport is beschreven. Ook ontbreekt een ‘ondubbelzinnige morele veroordeling’ van het fysieke en psychische geweld. Dat vindt het platform onacceptabel.

Deetman zei donderdag dat zijn commissie heeft voorgesteld om met een speciaal bemiddelingstraject te komen voor vrouwen die te maken hebben gehad met buitensporig geweld. “Dat is naar mijn oordeel ten principale de erkenning. Daar kan geen misverstand over zijn”, zei hij. “Dat is ook mijn antwoord naar diegenen die zeggen: wij herkennen ons er niet in.” Hij beklemtoonde dat geweld niet valt goed te praten.

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FLORIDA
Sun-Sentinel

A South Florida man is organizing a chapter of SNAP, or the Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests.

The group will offer support to abuse survivors, said David Pittman, at meetings on the fourth Thursday of every month. SNAP is a nonprofit organization with no connection to the Catholic Church.

The initial meeting will be Thursday. For confidentiality purposes, Pittman is asking prospective members to call him at 754-234-7975 or email him at snappittman@ymail.com to learn where and when the meeting will be.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Democrat

Randy Griffith rgriffith@tribdem.com

JOHNSTOWN — Supporters of suspended Bishop McCort High School principal Ken Salem have formally organized as they continue to push for more information about the shake-up.

Salem was placed on suspension March 1.

Although reasons for the suspension have not been made public, the school is conducting an internal investigation following accusations that the late Franciscan Brother Stephen Baker molested numerous students throughout the 1990s when he worked as an athletic trainer at McCort. Baker committed suicide on Jan. 26.

“This group of parents and alumni are very interested smoothing over the issues related to Brother Baker and in helping the faculty at the school and the students at the school get through this with as little impact on their education as possible,” said Rod Eckenrod, vice president of the newly incorporated Friends and Family of Bishop McCort High School.

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ROME
Chiesa

The handwritten notes of his remarks to the cardinals at the congregation of March 9. The intention of electing him pope was strengthened. The outcries against the “spiritual worldliness” that afflicts the Church

by Sandro Magister

ROME, March 27, 2013 – It is a widespread opinion, confirmed by numerous testimonies, that the intention of electing pope Jorge Mario Bergoglio grew substantially among the cardinals on the morning of Saturday, March 9, when the then-archbishop of Buenos Aires spoke at the second to last of the congregations – covered by secrecy – that preceded the conclave.

His words made an impression on many. Bergoglio spoke off the cuff. But we now have the account of those words of his, written by the hand of the author himself.

Bergoglio’s remarks in the preconclave were made public by the cardinal of Havana, Jaime Lucas Ortega y Alamino, in the homily of the chrism Mass that he celebrated on Saturday, March 23 in the cathedral of the capital of Cuba, in the presence of the apostolic nuncio, Archbishop Bruno Musarò, of the auxiliary bishops Alfredo Petit and Juan de Dios Hernandez, and of the clergy of the diocese.

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NEDERLAND
NOS

Audio De leider van de franciscanen in Nederland, pater Jan van den Eijnden, is niet blij met de manier waarop de Tweede Kamer zich bemoeit met de afhandeling van klachten over misbruik in de katholieke kerk. Vandaag hoort de Kamer Wim Deetman die de zaak onderzocht. Verslaggever Roel Pauw sprak met Van den Eijnden over het misbruik binnen zijn congregatie

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NEDERLAND
Katholiek Nieuwsblad

Beschuldigingen als zou de onderzoekscommissie Deetman belastende informatie over bepaalde bisschoppen hebben achtergehouden zijn ongefundeerd en feitelijk onjuist.

Dat concludeert de voormalige onderzoekscommissie in een 21 pagina’s tellende reactie op twee recente artikelen in NRC-Handelsblad. Daarin werd de beschuldiging geuit dat voorzitter Wim Deetman “belastende feiten” verbloemd zou hebben over de Rotterdamse oud-bisschop Ad van Luyn en diens Roermondse collega Frans Wiertz. Dat zou zijn gebeurd, suggereert het artikel van Joep Dohmen en Wereldomroepredacteur Robert Chesal, omdat Deetman en Van Luyn “elkaar goed kennen”.

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OREGON/NEBRASKA
The Oregonian

By Aimee Green, The Oregonian
on March 27, 2013

Thomas Laughlin — one of Oregon’s most notorious pedophile priests who admitted to molesting dozens of boys over decades in parishes throughout the state — has died after spending his last years living a quiet existence near family in Omaha, Neb.

Laughlin was known as an exceptionally charismatic priest and tremendous church fundraiser who hobnobbed with Portland’s Catholic business and political elite — someone many in the church thought could be bishop one day. But he also was the first priest molester to be criminally convicted in the Archdiocese of Portland.

At his 1983 sentencing hearing for sexually abusing two boys, the then-57-year-old priest pondered aloud a concern that he’d be remembered only as a child molester.

“I felt everything good I had done for 35 years would be forgotten, and I would be remembered only for the harm I had done to those I was sent to serve,” he said.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Business Journal

Jeff Blumenthal
Reporter- Philadelphia Business Journal

Last week, I interviewed Marci Hamilton, a lawyer representing victims in the Sandusky and Philadelphia Archdiocese child abuse scandals, as part of our Inside the Reporters Notebook series. And it was a lively discussion where the audience included some knowledgeable people on child sexual abuse matters, including former Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham and Support Center for Child Advocates Executive Director Frank Cervone.

But the session was not a one-sided affair. In an exchange that can be viewed in full on the link above, an audience member questioned the “wisdom and constitutionality” of so-called window legislation that would lengthen Pennsylvania’s statute of limitations period for when alleged victims can file lawsuits against accused predators. He also asked Hamilton if she was benefitting financially from her work on the Sandusky and Archdiocese cases.

Hamilton’s pointed response explained what she says is a personal reason for her involvement. She is a professor at Cardozo School of Law and not a litigator by trade. But she said she was incensed on February 10, 2011, when a Philadelphia Grand Jury released a report following an investigation into allegations that two priests and a teacher sexually abused a 10-year-old boy at St. Jerome Parish in Philadelphia, and that another priest assigned to St. Jerome sexually assaulted a 14-year-old boy.

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CALIFORNIA
New Times

A document dump reveals local aspects of the church’s sex abuse scandal

BY NICK POWELL

It is unfortunate that he has been guilty of improper actions on two or three occasions … but how many priests are there completely blameless over a period of 10 years?”

The above words were penned in 1980 by Juan Arzube, a now-deceased bishop in the Catholic Church’s Los Angeles Archdiocese, which governs parishes in Santa Barbara, Ventura, and Los Angeles counties. Arzube wrote to Rome pleading that Father Willebaldo Castro be allowed to transfer home to Mexico and remain in the ministry following the latest allegation of the priest’s sexual deviancy.

That time, according to the letter, Castro had been arrested after approaching a security guard—presumably for sex—in a Pomona department store bathroom, but previous troubles include a vague “moral charge” from his early years in Mexico and the accusations of molestation of teenage boys in Los Angeles and Santa Maria—incidents that were described in his private clergy file and made public with the recent release of 12,000 pages detailing the church’s internal handling of 128 priests accused of abuse.

The release stems from a 2007 settlement of 508 lawsuits that blamed 194 priests and bishops in the L.A. Archdiocese for the sexual abuse of underage victims. The church agreed to pay $660 million, an average settlement of $1.3 million per victim, and a federal judge ordered that the files on accused clergy be made public, with privacy protections built in for victims. At first, members of church hierarchy were also to be protected, but another judge later ordered that their names be included as well. The files were collected, redacted, and finally made available on the L.A. Archdiocese website Jan. 31, 2013.

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CALIFORNIA
Monterey County Weekly

By Sara Rubin

Thursday, March 28, 2013

A Catholic priest removed from leading the Old Mission San Juan following allegations of sexual abuse is preparing to leave the priesthood for good. But he may walk away with enough money to live on for the rest of his life. 


Lawyers for Father Edward Fitz-Henry and the Diocese of Monterey are hashing out the terms of a settlement over a lawsuit Fitz-Henry filed, according to Tom Riordan, vicar for temporalities and administration at the diocese, and Fitz-Henry’s attorney, Daniel De Vries. 


The priest claims the diocese failed to protect him against a 2011 sexual-abuse lawsuit. In February 2011, a young man identified in court papers only as John RJ Doe alleged Fitz-Henry sexually abused him as a teen at Madonna del Sasso parish in Salinas. Fitz-Henry never admitted wrongdoing, and the diocese maintains that John Doe’s allegations were unfounded. 


Still, the diocese settled a case for $500,000 in exchange for John Doe dropping his lawsuit.


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UNITED KINGDOM
National Catholic Reporter

by Simon Caldwell, Catholic News Service | Mar. 27, 2013

Manchester, England —
Twenty-one Catholic members of Parliament have written to Pope Francis to ask him to relax the rule on priestly celibacy for Latin-rite priests.

The members of the House of Commons and the House of Lords said in a letter Monday to the pope that the rule should be changed to allow married men to be ordained priests where pastoral needs required it.

They suggested it was unfair to allow married former Anglican ministers to be ordained as Catholic priests in England, Wales and Scotland while the church insisted on the celibacy rule for Catholic candidates in those countries.

The letter did not suggest that serving priests should be given permission to marry, and the legislators proposed that the celibacy rule be retained for bishops, as in the Eastern Catholic churches, which allow priests to marry.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
Kansas City Star

A judge announced Wednesday that he will sentence the Rev. Shawn Ratigan in September, more than a year after the Catholic priest pleaded guilty to producing child pornography.

Ratigan pleaded guilty in August to using five girls to produce or attempt to produce child pornography over several years while serving as pastor to congregations in the Northland and St. Joseph. Prosecutors have said they plan to seek a “virtual life sentence” when Ratigan is sentenced Sept. 12.

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UNITED STATES
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: Ordained in 1939, Axer was a priest of the Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus who spent the bulk of his career as a professor at the University of Seattle. The Province notified the Seattle U. community in 2006 that Englebert had been accused of sexually abusing a boy in 1956 at a summer ministry program in northern California. Englebert died in 1989.

Ordained: 1939
Died: Sept. 1989

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CUBA
Inquirer (Philippines)

Associated Press
4:18 am | Thursday, March 28th

HAVANA—Pope Francis issued a strong critique of the Church before the College of Cardinals just hours before it selected him as the new Pontiff, according to comments published on Tuesday by a Roman Catholic magazine in Cuba.

According to Havana Cardinal Jaime Ortega, then-Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio urged the Vatican to eschew self-absorption and refocus its energies outward.

“The Church is called on to emerge from itself and move toward the peripheries, not only geographic but also existential (ones): Those of sin, suffering, injustice, ignorance and religious abstention, thought and all misery,” Bergoglio said.

Ortega said Bergoglio’s comments were made to cardinals as they gathered to select Benedict XVI’s replacement, and reflect his vision of the contemporary Catholic Church. He said Bergoglio later gave him a handwritten version and permission to divulge its contents.

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