ABUSE TRACKER

AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun Leader

Fiona O’Doherty
From:Hobsons Bay Leader
February 20, 2013

A STREET named after a paedophile priest may keep its name after residents rejected a plea to change it, made on behalf of the man’s victims.

As children living in Laverton, Tony Hersbach and his twin brother, Will, were abused by Father Victor Rubeo over several years.

Family friends have petitioned the council to change the Altona Meadows street named after him: Rubeo Ave.

But half the street’s residents told the Hobsons Bay Council they did not support a name change.

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VATICAN CITY
Gazzetta del Sud

Vatican City, February 19 – A large number of Catholic faithful on Tuesday called for American Cardinal Roger Mahony to stay away from the upcoming conclave to elect a new pope amid a growing scandal over his alleged role in covering up sex abuse by priests in his former Los Angeles archdiocese. The deluge of opposition found expression on social networks and media blogs after the 76-year-old ex-archbishop posted a message on his Twitter account asking for prayer so that “we might elect the best pope for the Church of today and tomorrow” following the resignation of Benedict XVI with effect from the end of this month. “#Mahony Cardinal, please, stay home!” said one Twitter user, using a hashtag to identify the word Mahony as a trending topic. #Mahony voting for a new pope rankles some Catholics. I can see why!” said another. Mahony will be questioned under oath February 23 about how he handled Father Nicolas Aguilar Rivera, a visiting Mexican priest who allegedly molested 26 children in the Los Angeles archdiocese in 1987 during his tenure.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Barbara Dorris on February 19, 2013

To say that Cardinal Peter Turkson’s claims about clergy abuse in Africa are uninformed would be far too kind. We hope this awful comment disqualifies him from consideration as the next pope.

We hear less about clergy sex crimes and cover ups in Africa for the same reasons we do throughout the developing world: there tends to be lesser funding for law enforcement, less vigorous civil justice systems, less independent journalism, and an even greater power and wealth difference between church officials and their congregants.

So when we hear Turkson’s assertion that the sexual abuse crisis hasn’t come to Africa because of cultural reasons that demonize homosexuality, we can’t help but be upset and worried. Not only is the link between homosexuality and child abuse a fallacy, but it is a weak shield to hide behind.

It’s hard to address a crisis you don’t think exists. So we fear for the safety of kids in Turkson’s diocese if he denies there are predatory priests there.

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UNITED STATES
The New York Times

By FRANK BRUNI

Published: February 18, 2013

There were reports over the weekend that cardinals might tweak the rules and begin the conclave to choose Pope Benedict XVI’s successor sooner than March 15, which had been the earliest date mentioned. That would be a blessing. Already in the American news media it’s all pope all the time, a tsunami of papal coverage, and until a new pope is named, the tide won’t quit. You’d be forgiven for concluding that he’ll actually have significant sway over Catholics in this country.

He won’t, not over the majority of them, not in any immediate sense. And it’s worth pausing, amid this hoopla, to remember that. In large parts of the Roman Catholic world, certainly in North America and Western Europe, most Catholics don’t feel any particular debt or duty to the self-appointed caretakers of their church. They don’t feel bound by the pope’s interpretation of doctrine or moral commands. And many regard him and other Vatican officials as totems, a royal family of dubious relevance, partly because these officials have often shown greater concern for the church’s reputation than for the needs, and wounds, of the people in the pews.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

By Fergus Finlay

I WAS with a group of young people the other day when the news broke on a telly in the background. The Pope had resigned.

Astonishing, remarkable news. So I shushed the conversation, naturally, and turned to focus on the television. And the young people looked at me as if I had two heads.

It was clear that, in expressing an interest in the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, I had confirmed myself as a complete dinosaur (not the first time, of course). It was just as clear that the passing of a pope held absolutely no interest whatsoever for the young people I was with. And, over the following couple of days, the vast majority of people I met could care less.

Without asking all sorts of impertinent questions, I couldn’t establish whether the people I was talking to were Catholic, or what kind of Catholic they were. But surely the odds are that the majority of people for whom the resignation of the pope is a matter of supreme indifference are themselves members of his flock, at least nominally. And yet their eyes glaze over if you talk about it.

If it is the case — and it seems to be — that so significant a historic event as the resignation of a pope means so little to so many people raised in the Catholic faith, then surely the Church in Ireland, and presumably elsewhere, faces fundamental problems.

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UNITED STATES
Washington Post

By David Gibson
Religion News Service

When Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected Pope Benedict XVI in 2005, the surprising choice cast a pall over the liberal wing of the flock and left conservatives giddy with the prospect of total victory. Ratzinger had for decades served as the Vatican’s guardian of orthodoxy, the man known as “God’s Rottweiler,” and his vocal fans were crowing about the glorious reign to come.

“He’ll correct the lackadaisical attitudes that have been able to creep into the lives of Catholics,” the Rev. M. Price Oswalt, an Oklahoma City priest who was in St. Peter’s Square that April day, told The New York Times. “He’s going to have a German mentality of leadership: either get on the train or get off the track. He will not put up with rebellious children.”

Now, however, with Benedict set to leave office eight years later in an unprecedented departure, many on the Catholic right are counting up the ways that Benedict failed them, and wondering how their favorite watchdog turned into a papal pussycat.

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UNITED STATES
Huffington Post

Louis A. Ruprecht

The unexpected announcement by Pope Benedict XVI that he will step down from his pontifical duties on Feb. 28 came as a stunning surprise to media observers and Catholic faithful alike. Predictably, theories about what lay behind the move abound, most of them conspiratorial.

My first inclination in responding to this news was not conspiratorial. I am inclined to take the Pontiff at his word, and to assume that this decision is based on his declining physical abilitiess, or declining health, and that these are severe enough to warrant this highly unusual decision. I have seen nothing to support the most conspiratorial interpretation of his announcement, suggesting that his departure confirms that the pope is “giving up” in the wake of all the scandals that have beleaguered his papacy for so many years.

First among these is the sexual abuse scandal that spread like wildfire and refused to abate, suggesting at times the existence of a systemic failure on the part of ecclesiastical officials to take the matter up with sufficient seriousness. Since then-Cardinal Raitzinger was responsible for reviewing all such accusations of priestly impropriety, the pope is intimately, perhaps too intimately, involved in this scandal.

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UNITED STATES
Huffington Post

Michael D’Antonio

Benedict XVI is enjoying, from some, a warm and generous farewell as he vacates the papal throne for a quieter life behind the walls of the Vatican, but the context of his resignation — the first by a pope in roughly 600 years — is shadowy and cold. This is, after all, the man who long acted as Rome’s “Rottweiler” to punish loyal dissenters and who remains the subject of a “crimes against humanity” claim before the International Criminal Court. For him, seclusion in a Vatican convent provides a way to evade responsibility for his central role in protecting thousands of priests who raped children around the world.

The systemic and international nature of the long running sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church was illustrated quite starkly when victims from around the world climbed the steps to the courthouse in the Hague carrying boxes holding 20,000 pages of evidence linking the cover-up of these crimes to the highest officials in the Vatican. Their claim, filed in September 2011, argues that the Vatican state enabled thousands of crimes against children and a cover-up that allowed priest rapists to evade civil authorities.

Formerly Cardinal Josef Ratzinger, Benedict was at the center of the Church response to clergy sex abuse throughout the scandal, first as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (formerly the Inquisition) and, since 2005, as pope. In recent years has has apologized and met with representative victims. However he has never offered them the justice that comes with full disclosure of the facts, or acknowledgement of his own responsibility. Instead he has continued to favor the privileges of clergy and refused to participate in a genuine consideration of the ways Rome’s medieval approach to governance and morality set the conditions for abuse.

The hierarchy’s penchant for privilege was noted by a Vatican source in a Reuters report on Benedict’s decision to resign and live-out his life in the shelter of the papal state’s tiny autonomous district. “His continued presence in the Vatican is necessary, otherwise he might be defenseless,” the source told the news agency. “He wouldn’t have his immunity, his prerogatives, his security, if he is anywhere else.” The same source noted that the protection provided by the sovereign status of the Vatican was necessary to provide Benedict a “dignified existence.”

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CANADA
News 1130

OTTAWA (NEWS1130) – Interim Aboriginal Affairs Minister James Moore admits Canada has a horrible record on native residential schools.

For the first time ever, researchers have determined at least 3,000 First Nations children died during forced attendance at native residential schools in Canada.

The findings are included in unpublished research conducted by the Missing Children Project — part of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission which is examining the 120-year legacy of church-run residential schools across Canada.

Research manager Alex Maass says the numbers could climb as more documents are unearthed.

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CANADA
Leader-Post

By Jason Warick, The StarPhoenix With Canadian Press Files
February 19, 2013

Rita Custer is searching for answers about her late daughter, Monica, who died mysteriously in 1986 while attending an Indian residential school in Prince Albert.

“I want the truth for my family, but for all of the other families, too,” Custer said Monday in a telephone interview from her Pelican Narrows home.

A national report released Monday stated at least 3,000 children are known to have died during attendance at Canada’s Indian residential schools.

“As parents, this is painful, but we have the right to know how our children died (and) how many of them died,” Custer said.

While deaths have long been documented as part of the disgraced residential school system, the findings are the result of the first systematic search of government, school and other records.

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CANADA
Vancouver Sun

By Colin Perkel, The Canadian Press
February 19, 2013

At least 3,000 children, including four under the age of 10 found huddled together in frozen embrace, are now known to have died while attending this country’s Indian residential schools, according to new unpublished research.

While deaths have long been documented as part of the disgraced residential school system, the findings are the result of the first systematic search of government, school and other records.

“These are actual confirmed numbers,” Alex Maass, research manager with the Missing Children Project, told The Canadian Press.

“All of them have primary documentation that indicates that there’s been a death, when it occurred, what the circumstances were.”

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CANADA
CTV

CTVNews.ca Staff
Published Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2013

A grim report into Canada’s residential school system should serve as a “wake-up call” to end the ignorance surrounding the dark period in the country’s history, says the head of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada.

The research released Monday shows at least 3,000 children are now known to have died while in the Indian residential schools system that started in the 1870s. The new numbers are the result of the first systematic search of government, school and other records.

Marie Wilson, commissioner of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, said the numbers are shocking. Of the 3,000 confirmed to have died, she said, 500 are children whose identities remain entirely unknown.

“I hope it’s a huge wake-up call to Canada about the enormity of the impacts of the residential school story,” she told CTV’s Canada AM on Tuesday.

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CANADA
Daily Brew

Matthew Coutts | Daily Brew

Freshly studied documents on Canada’s disgraced Indian residential school system suggest more than 3,000 children died while in the imposed care of such facilities, stamping a harsh number on the cost of an often overlooked smudge on Canada’s history.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission said the number has been confirmed through the study of government and school records, telling the Canadian Press that all but 500 of those left dead have been identified.

What is amazing is that this is the first time a number has been placed on residential school fatalities based on systematic research.

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churchauthority.org

On the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) we call on all other members of the People of God to assess the situation in our church.

Many of the key insights of Vatican II have not at all, or only partially, been implemented. This has been due to resistance in some quarters, but also to a measure of ambiguity that remained unresolved in certain Council documents.

A principal source of present-day stagnation lies in misunderstanding and abuse affecting the exercise of authority in our Church. Specifically, the following issues require urgent redress:

The role of the papacy needs to be clearly re-defined in line with Christ’s intentions. As supreme pastor, unifier and prime witness to faith, the pope contributes substantially to the health of the universal church. However, his authority may never obscure, diminish or suppress the authentic authority directly given by Christ to all members of the people of God

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IRELAND
Irish Times

[Authority in the Catholic Church]

PATSY McGARRY, Religious Affairs Correspondent

More than 160 leading Catholic scholars worldwide have signed a “Declaration on authority in the Catholic Church” that calls for change in church governance.

The signatories include leading theologians Hans Kung, Leonardo Boff and Dr John Wijngaards, as well as three Australian bishops, William Morris, Pat Power and Geoffrey Robinson.

In a letter to The Irish Times today, Irish signatories to the declaration speak of the need for “a pope who will redress the present imbalance in the exercise of authority in the Catholic Church.” Their letter continues that “more autonomy should be given to national bishops’ conferences and collegiality enabled at all levels in the church”.

It calls for “a new, more democratic process of electing key office holders in the church including bishops, cardinals and experts of papal commissions”.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

by John L. Allen Jr. | Feb. 19, 2013

Rome —

John Allen is offering a profile each day of one of the most frequently touted papabili, or men who could be pope. The old saying in Rome is that he who enters a conclave as pope exits as a cardinal, meaning there’s no guarantee one of these men actually will be chosen. They are, however, the leading names drawing buzz in Rome these days, ensuring they will be in the spotlight as the conclave draws near. The profiles of these men also suggest the issues and the qualities other cardinals see as desirable heading into the election.

When it comes to “next pope” stories, nothing’s sexier from a media point of view than the idea of a “black pope,” referring in this case not to the head of the Jesuit order (traditionally dubbed the “black pope,” ostensibly because of the black cassock the Superior General wears, but also a derogatory reference to alleged Jesuit intrigue), but a pontiff from Africa.

At the symbolic level, the notion of what’s traditionally seen as the planet’s ultimate First World institution being led by a black man from the southern hemisphere has an undeniable magic.

Among the 117 cardinals who will shortly gather in the Sistine Chapel to elect the successor to Benedict XVI, the name of Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana usually figures prominently on the short list of possible African candidates.

Indeed, Turkson himself has not been shy about embracing the possibility. In a recent interview with the U.K. Telegraph, Turkson openly speculated about what it would mean for him to become pope. (In a good candidate for understatement of the year, Turkson was quoted as saying that “it would signal a lot of [personal] change.”)

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

The Curia is eager to turn spot light away from divisions

Paolo Mastrolilli
Rome

A drawn-out Conclave that ends up exposing divisions within the Curia. This is what circles close to the Curia are worried could happen with the papal election process. Meanwhile, cardinals have already started contacting each other to try to reach as quick and as unanimous a solution as possible.

Those closest to Joseph Ratzinger claim they were not very surprised by his resignation. He had spoken about it openly, people were aware he was considering it and some even say he had wanted to resign a year ago when he turned 85. But the time was not right given the internal scandals that had been plaguing the Curia, Nuncio Viganò’s transferral to Washington, the papal document leak, not to mention the continuous embarrassment caused by the sad events surrounding the clerical sex-abuse scandal. All these factors had made it impossible for the Pope to resign immediately because it would have looked as though he was trying to escape in the face of difficulty. But all he had done was postpone it. Those who were close to Benedict XVI knew it was only a matter of time before he decided to step down and they therefore had to prepare for that moment.

The announcement made on 11 February was the end of the road and despite the great shock it caused, it gave the Vatican the chance to think things over and to manage the succession process better. The end did not come suddenly. When they come to Rome for the Conclave, even the cardinals that were less informed about Ratzinger’s intentions will have had several weeks to reflect on the situation, contact their colleagues and get an idea of how his successor’s election could go. This, however, puts the pressure on for a quick solution to be found, particularly given the media landscape, where global communication never sleeps thanks to newspapers, television, internet and cell phones which are constantly collecting and transmitting all kinds of information. If after a day or so of voting we still see black smoke coming from the Sistine Chapel, the sense of a rift and a deep crisis within the Church will quickly spread across the world.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic Culture

Pope Benedict has named Cardinal Giuseppe Versaldi, the president of the Prefecture for Economic Affairs of the Holy See, as his pontifical delegate to govern the Congregation of the Sons of the Immaculate Conception.

The February 15 decision follows an apostolic visitation of the community by Archbishop Filippo Iannone, the second leading official in the Diocese of Rome.

Founded by Blessed Luigi Maria Monti in 1857, the community operates an Italian hospital group whose budget shortfall is estimated at $800 million.

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VATICAN CITY
Huffington Post

Carl Packman

After the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI the rumour mill was fired up without abandon. Already circulating around the blogosphere is the assumption that this pardon – only the third of its kind (unless you count Gregory XII in 1415 who agreed to quit at the request of the council of Constance) – is due to an impending arrest warrant with the Pope’s name on it.

One Stuart Wilde, a metaphysics writers, has alleged that a meeting will take place between the Pope and the Italian president Giorgio Napolitano, where the subject of full immunity from the prosecution for crimes against humanity will be raised.

Immediately this was countered by asking a simple question: why would the Pope resign, renouncing not only his Papacy, but also his immunity as a head of Vatican City, a sovereign state (as it has been since the the 1929 Lateran Pacts between Italy and the Holy See)? Even if the Vatican’s sovereignty was called in to question, the Holy See has a special status in international law which gives it rights that are in some cases analogous to sovereign rights.

One does not have to like these facts (indeed as a non-Catholic I benefit nothing from repeating them), but such they are.

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IRELAND
Herald

Alan O’Keeffe– 18 February 2013

PAYOUTS totalling €100m could be made to almost 1,000 former residents of Magdalene laundries.

Details of a system of compensation and State assistance will be finalised at a meeting of the Cabinet tomorrow.

The women’s experiences will be considered on a case by case basis by a person appointed by the State to access how best to address their individual needs.

Former residents say that a process of compensation amounting to more than €100m should be set up within a month and wound up by August, so as not to allow the issue to drag on.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Amnesty International

Posted: 19 February 2013

Amnesty International has written to Northern Ireland’s First and Deputy First Ministers to raise allegations of abuse suffered in Magdalene Laundry institutions within the jurisdiction.

Later today, the Dáil will debate a report showing state involvement in the operation of ten Magdalene Laundries in the Republic of Ireland, but Amnesty has warned that women who experienced abuse in such institutions in Northern Ireland risk being excluded from inquiries on both sides of the border.

The Historic Institutional Abuse Inquiry in Northern Ireland only covers abuse suffered by children in residential institutions, while the McAleese Report only covers Magdalene Laundries in the Republic of Ireland.

Patrick Corrigan, Northern Ireland Programme Director of Amnesty International, said:

“Magdalene Laundries operated in Northern Ireland into the 1980s. I have spoken with women survivors of these institutions who now fear being left behind, with no inquiry in place – north or south – into their suffering.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Thousands of women who survived Catholic-run workhouses known as Magdalene laundries are expected to receive a state apology from the Government.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny is to make a statement two weeks after a report revealed 10,000 women were incarcerated in institutions run by nuns for a myriad of reasons from petty crime to poverty, disability or pregnancy outside marriage.

Twenty women who were locked up in one of the laundries will attend a parliamentary debate to witness first hand the anticipated apology.

Representative group Magdalene Survivors Together is also hoping to hear details of a compensation scheme.

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IRELAND
RTE News

The Cabinet is to hold a special meeting this evening to agree the details of the Government’s response to the McAleese Report into the Magdalene Laundries.

Ministers are likely to discuss the wording of any apology and the shape of any redress or compensation scheme.

The meeting will be held before the Dáil debate on the report begins.

The Taoiseach is expected to begin the statements on the report at around 6.30pm, followed by the leaders of all the other parties.

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UNITED STATES
Anglican Curmudgeon

If there is one person within or without the Catholic Church who is qualified to place Pope Benedict XVI into a long-term perspective, it is James V. Schall, S.J., professor of political philosophy at Georgetown University. Father Schall has written and edited more than three dozen books and monographs, as well as countless articles (here are links to those published just in Crisis Magazine). Two of my favorites are his book on the paradoxes of G. K. Chesterton, and his book on Benedict’s Regensburg Address.

Even with all of Fr. Schall’s qualifications, his evaluation of the contributions made by Benedict XVI to our age may still come as a surprise. Here is an excerpt from his article, “On the Mind of the Pope”, at The Catholic World Report:

Over the years of his life, Benedict has produced an enormous amount of writings. I suspect his Opera Omnia, when finally published in a German critical edition, will equal or surpass the collected works of Augustine or Aquinas , both of which are enormous. It would take most of an ordinary person’s lifetime just to read the works of Aquinas or Augustine or Benedict, let alone write and understand them. We now have the works that Joseph Ratzinger produced as a philosopher and theologian, together with that which he wrote and spoke as part of his Petrine office. As pope he gave hundreds and hundreds of talks, wrote encyclicals, exhortations, letters, even books….

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IRELAND
Association of Catholic Priests

Brendan Butler of We Are Church outlines the main issues that he would like to see the new pope dealing with.

To restore the credibility of the Catholic Church for alienated Catholics and the wider society, a new Pope should :

1 . Decentralise the absolutism and creeping infallibility within the papacy in favour of national bishops’ conferences, who should exercise co-responsibility with the Pope, with the Roman Curia reformed to become an administrative arm of the Church .

2. Establish that unity through diversity rather than uniformity be a guiding principle in all areas of Church governance and theological reflection.

3 Ensure that respect for the human rights of all the people of God should be foundational in the exercise of power within the Church.

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IRELAND
Association of Catholic Priests

The King is Dead: Long live the King?

Pope Benedict XVI has not died. Rather, in a decision that has deservedly won him great praise, he has announced that he is to resign on health grounds. Nonetheless, attention has immediately switched to his successor: should it be a younger man? Should he come from outside Europe? What challenges will a future Pope face, and what does this tell us about a suitable candidate?

I suggest that there is a more important question. What should the role of Pope involve?

We have become accustomed to speak of the Supreme Pontiff, of a monarchical-style papacy, of Roman ‘hands-on’ intervention world-wide. But it was not always so and need not be so. It would be a good question for Sean Brady and his fellow Cardinal electors to ask if it should be so.

In Ireland our own former President Mary McAleese has written of the constitutionally incoherent nature of the Catholic Church’s organizational structure, with its unresolved tensions between papal primacy and Episcopal collegiality. She was, perhaps unwittingly, echoing the words attributed to Pope Pius IX in 1939: ‘The Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, has become a monstrosity.

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OSTERREICH
Nachrichten

KREMSMÜNSTER/STEYR/LINZ. Im Fall des mutmaßlichen sexuellen Missbrauchs von Zöglingen durch einen Pater des Stiftes Kremsmünster warten der Beschuldigte und die Opfer nun gespannt auf die Anklage der Staatsanwaltschaft Steyr.

Die Ermittlungen gelten längst als abgeschlossen. In der Vorwoche wollte die Steyrer Anklagebehörde eine Entscheidung verkünden. Doch die Oberstaatsanwaltschaft Linz ließ die Akten anfordern, um den Fall noch einmal zu überprüfen. Dies sei in öffentlichkeitswirksamen Verfahren auch so üblich, sagt ein Behördensprecher. Geprüft werde nun, ob das Vorhaben der Steyrer Staatsanwälte korrekt sei. Die Prüfung werde „mehrere Tage“ dauern.     

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Stern

Einen Papst zu wählen, gehört zu den größten Aufgaben eines Kardinals. Doch einer soll dem Konklave fern bleiben: Kardinal Roger Mahony. Die US-Katholiken setzen sich dafür ein. Aus gutem Grund.

Eine Vereinigung von US-Katholiken will die Teilnahme des früheren Erzbischofs von Los Angeles, Kardinal Roger Mahony, am Konklave zur Papstwahl wegen seiner Verstrickung in einen Missbrauchsskandal verhindern.

“Lieber Kardinal Mahony, bleiben Sie zu Hause”, hieß es am Montag in einer im Internet einsehbaren Petition der Organisation Catholics United. “Ihre Verwicklung in den Missbrauchsskandal der Kirche und das vom Erzbischof von Los Angeles verhängte Verbot der Ausübung öffentlicher Ämter sollten Ihnen Hinweis darauf sein, dass sie nicht am nächsten Papstkonklave teilnehmen sollten.”

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VATIKANSTADT
kathweb

Ehemaliger Justizpromotor der Glaubenskongregation, Bischof Scicluna: Papst wusste über Stand der Aufarbeitung genau Bescheid und gab zu den schlimmsten Fällen selbst Anweisungen

Vatikanstadt, 19.02.2013 (KAP) Lob für den Umgang Papst Benedikts XVI. mit dem Problem des sexuellen Missbrauchs in der Kirche kommt vom jahrelangen Justizpromotor in der Glaubenskongregation, Charles Scicluna. Wie der frühere vatikanische “Chefankläger” und nunmehrige Weihbischof von Malta gegenüber “Radio Vatikan” angab, habe sich der Papst in dem größten Kirchenskandal der vergangenen Jahre “mutig und entschieden” verhalten.

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ROME
National Catholic Reporter

by John L. Allen Jr. | Feb. 19, 2013

Rome

For a long time, conventional wisdom held that an American could not be elected to the Throne of Peter because you can’t have a “superpower pope.” Not only do the Americans already have too much power, or so the theory went, but a shadow would hang over the papacy as part of the world would suspect its decisions were being secretly crafted by the CIA.

In the early 21st century, however, some of the air has gone out of that bias, because the United States is no longer the world’s lone superpower. As a result, for the first time an American seems thinkable.

While the U.S. media has focused on Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York as the most plausible, if still remote, American prospect, another name has generated a surprising degree of buzz in the Italian press: Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, partly on the strength of his profile as a reformer on the church’s sexual abuse scandals, and partly because of his Capuchin simplicity as a perceived antidote to the Vatican’s reputation for intrigue and power games.

Here’s a sampling of what’s been in the Italian papers over the last few days vis-à-vis the 68-year-old Capuchin cardinal of Boston.

Marco Politi

One of Italy’s most-cited Vatican writers, Marco Politi gave an interview on Feb. 14 to the Suddeutsche Zeitung, the main daily in Munich, in which he was asked who the favorites are heading into the conclave. He replied: “There are no favorites. It’s not like 2005, when there was a clear candidate in Ratzinger and a strong contrast in Martini. The situation is very fragmented, and there are many papabili. There’s Cardinal Scola of Milan, and Cardinal Ouellet who heads the Congregation for Bishops. There are candidates from South America, as well as outsiders such as Cardinal O’Malley of Boston and Cardinal Erdo of Budapest. There’s not yet any aggregation of votes.”

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UNITED STATES
GlobalPost

Agence France-Presse
February 19, 2013

US cardinal Roger Mahony, retired from church duties as part of a paedophilia scandal, cannot be banned from the conclave to elect a new pope, but could be advised to stay away, a fellow cardinal and canon law expert said in an interview on Tuesday.

“The common practise is to use persuasion. There is no more that can be done. Cardinal Mahony has the right and duty to take part,” Velasio De Paolis, one of the 117 cardinal electors due to participate, told La Repubblica daily.

“This is a troubling situation but the rules must be followed,” he said.

“He could be advised not to take part only through a private intervention by someone with great authority,” the cardinal said, adding that ultimately “it will be up to his conscience to decide whether to take part or not”.

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IRELAND/UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

by James Flanigan | Feb. 13, 2013

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?: THE CRISIS IN IRISH CATHOLICISM
By Brendan Hoban
Published by Banley House, 9.95 euros

The statistics on the Irish and American churches are bleak. In both countries, only one-third of Catholics attend Mass regularly. Two of the most loyal churches in the Catholic world are dispirited; their good priests don’t know where to turn for the shame of it.

However, the book Where Do We Go From Here?, published in Ireland, where public reports of clergy sexual abuse of children cover more than five decades, offers guidance to the American church and particularly Los Angeles, where Cardinal Roger Mahony was forced to release records of clerical abuse and cover-ups that have unleashed a fresh explosion of denunciation, rebuke, sadness and apology (see story).

Author Brendan Hoban is a priest in rural Ballina, County Mayo, Ireland, who has written half a dozen books on church and the priesthood, as well as on history. His prescription is simplicity itself, that the church finally live by the tenets of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). “Under the inspirational guidance of Pope John XXIII, they ushered in a way for the church of being at home in a constantly changing world,” Hoban writes.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

Tens of thousands of survivors of priest rape worldwide, and many millions of other people, surely think it outrageous that either the Pope or any Cardinal is immune from prosecution for child endangerment. Nevertheless, the next Pope and Cardinals at the Vatican are likely immune, as Cardinal Law well knew when he fled Boston for the Vatican.

Philly’s Cardinal Bevilacqua lacked immunity, but died last year before his likely imminent indictment. His successor, Cardinal Rigali, appears to remain at risk as the civil case against him proceeds. Their top subordinate, Monsignor Lynn, today sits in prison for following the cover-up orders of his Cardinal.

Los Angeles prosecutors, recently emboldened by an evidentally “Vatican blessed” public shaming of Cardinal Mahony, are feverishly combing through recently released files apparently trying to find some basis to prosecute Cardinal Mahony.

Neither Cardinal Rigali nor Ireland’s Cardinal Brady have been publicly shamed, so far at least, for their well reported abuse cover-up misdeeds, nor has convicted Opus Dei Bishop Finn, a St. Louis protege like Cardinal Dolan of the Vatican clique’s longtime colleague, Cardinal Rigali.

It appears that, for the immune Vatican clique, there are different shaming standards depending on which Cardinal misbehaves. Apparently, Cardinals like Mahony, who may be disapproved of politically by key plutocratic Republican Vatican contributors, are at a higher risk of public shaming. If this arbitrary process fails to make some Cardinals anxious, they should have a serious talk soon with their criminal lawyers. …

We all have a moral obligation to protect children and signing a petition is a simple, yet potentially effective, way towards meeting that obligation. Please take a minute and sign it at:

[Click here for the petition.]

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UNITED STATES
National Secular Society (United Kingdom)

[note: This release does not link to the NSS Web site.]

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has expressed deep concern to the US Government about “sexual abuse committed by clerics and leading members of certain faith-based organizations and religious institutions on a massive and long-term scale amounting to sexual slavery or servitude of children”.

Concerned that the failure of the US authorities to prosecute the sexual abuse, it has urged them to investigate all cases of “sexual abuse of children whether single or on a massive and long-term scale, committed by clerics”.

The condemnation (shown in full below) was made as part of a cyclical five yearly review of states by the committee, and followed evidence given by the (UK) National Secular Society focussing on the Catholic Church. NSS Executive Director, Keith Porteous Wood commented:

“$2 billion has been paid out to abuse victims in compensation by the Catholic Church in the US indicating a massive scale of abuse. Yet very few clerical perpetrators have been convicted and only one official has been convicted for facilitating the abuse. Hundreds if not thousands of clerics have wrongly escaped incarceration due to the continuing secrecy of the Church and the issue being almost ignored by law enforcers.

“That so many perpetrators have escaped justice is yet a further abuse of the victims whose whole lives have often been ruined as a result.

“The Pope has been responsible since 1981 for the policing of the Church, and with it, child abuse, and many think, as I do, that no one is more responsible than him. He has hushed up abuse accusations to protect clerics, the Church’s reputation and funds. He has obstructed secular justice rather than encouraged it. We can only hope that his successor opens the secret files and treats victims with the respect they deserve.

“Prosecuting authorities have some very awkward questions to answer, and I hope they too take to heart the UN’s stinging criticism, where they mention ‘inaction and/or corruption’. This is relevant to the proceedings relating to Cardinal Mahoney.

“I acknowledge that child abuse in religious institutions is not confined to the RC Church, but there is no doubt that it has occurred within the RC church at a much greater level than any other religious institution.”

What the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child concluded:

[Click here for the UN report]

35. The Committee is deeply concerned at information of sexual abuse committed by clerics and leading members of certain faith-based organizations and religious institutions on a massive and long-term scale amounting to sexual slavery or servitude of children and about the lack of measures taken by the State party to properly investigate cases and prosecute those accused who are members of those organizations and institutions.

36. The Committee urges the State party to take all the necessary measures to investigate all cases of sexual abuse of children whether single or on a massive and long-term scale, committed by clerics, to issue clear instructions to all relevant authorities to actively prosecute those cases and to engage in a dialogue with faith-based organizations religious institutions and their leaders, in order to enlist their active and open collaboration to prevent, investigate and prosecute cases. The State party should also draw the attention of law enforcement authorities to the sanctions that may be imposed on them in case of inaction and/or corruption.

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WISCONSIN
Sheboygan Press

MOUNT CALVARY — Fr. Dennis Druggan, president and rector of St. Lawrence Seminary High School in Mount Calvary, has been removed from public ministry due to an investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct.

The allegations involve a minor in Montana more than 25 years ago, according to a statement from the Capuchin Province of St. Joseph and reported by the Fond du Lac Reporter.

Druggan, OFM Capuchin, had been on administrative leave since he was informed of the initial complaint in July. A second complainant came forward after the initial complaint, according to the statement. There have been no allegations involving his ministry at St. Lawrence Seminary High School in Mount Calvary, a village of about 800 people about 18 miles west of Plymouth.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Huffington Post

Patrick Corrigan

Today, it is our generation’s and our governments’ reputation for honour, not that of the Magdalene women, which is at stake.

The Church of the Good Shepherd on Belfast’s Ormeau Road is a gorgeous bit of red-brick Victorian splendour.

I was married there. But, on that joyful day, little did I realise the desperate, tragic stories which cling through history to its bricks.

For it was here that one of Northern Ireland’s own ‘Magdalene Laundry’ institutions was to be found, where thousands of girls and women, from the 1850s right through to the 1970s, lived lives scarred by shame, family separation and servitude.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

JACKY JONES

SECOND OPINION: Forster Street in Galway runs alongside the gates of the old Magdalene home and laundry. Ordnance Survey maps included in the report of the inter-departmental committee to establish the facts of State involvement with the Magdalene laundries show that in 1898 there were just a few buildings opposite the laundry site.

By 1944 the maps show a row of houses named St Mary Magdalen’s Terrace. The interesting thing about these houses is that they had no windows on the first storey, which overlooked the laundry grounds.

Preserve anonymity

Growing up in Galway, I was aware of the urban myths about the terrace, the most charitable being that no windows overlooked the laundry to preserve anonymity.

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IRELAND
The Telegraph (United Kingdom)

Later today the Irish prime Minister, Enda Kenny, is expected to offer a full apology for the suffering endured by thousands of women locked up in the Magdalene Laundries. Here, Samantha Long, the daughter of Margaret Bullen, who died in one of the laundries, shares her birth mother’s tragic story.

By Samantha Long
7:00AM GMT 19 Feb 2013

In 1993, at the age of twenty one my twin sister Etta felt a need and a curiosity to trace our beginnings. We had been adopted together at the age of nine months and always knew that – our loving upbringing was secure and carefree.

After a two year search, our social worker telephoned to say that she had located our biological mother and she was ready to meet. We expected to find a married woman with other children, who had moved on with her life and her past.

Nothing prepared us for what we found.

Margaret Bullen had been committed to Ireland’s Industrial School system at the age of two years because her mother was unwell and her father was unable to take care of their seven children. That was the end of Margaret and the outside world. By the age of five she was preparing breakfast for 70 children including herself. This work started at 4am after kneeling in the cold to say the rosary first. A fellow female child slave from this institution has told me that Margaret was a fretful bed-wetter, and to this day that woman can still imagine the smell of urine as the girls knelt to pray before dawn.

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VATICAN CITY
DNA (India)

The Pope could receive a pension of 2,150 pounds a month once he steps down on Feb 28 and goes into retirement within the walls of the Vatican.

The Vatican has indicated that the most likely title for Benedict after his resignation will be Bishop Emeritus of Rome. That would entitle him to a pension of 2,500 euros a month. The Vatican would not confirm the arrangement but its spokesperson, Fr Federico Lombardi, said last week that the Pope would want for nothing. “We will ensure he can live a dignified existence,” he said.

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AUSTRALIA
Maroondah Weekly

By Barney Zwartz
Feb. 19, 2013

A FORMER Jehovah’s Witness elder who apologised to his alleged victim on Facebook has been charged with two counts of indecent assault. Richard Hill will appear in the Heidelberg Magistrate’s Court on March 1 over allegations that he sexually assaulted a six-year-old girl in 1981.

The victim, now 38, told Fairfax Media that Mr Hill did everything except penetrate her – ”he tried, but couldn’t manage”.

She said she ”did not realise the gravity” of what had happened until she was about 14.

At that point she told her mother, who could not act because of a Jehovah’s Witness rule that allegations of sexual abuse would only be acted on if two elders witnessed it, she said.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic Culture

Two Vatican experts on sex-abuse policies have agreed, in separate interviews, that Pope Benedict XVI deserves credit for an energetic response to the scandal within the Church.

Bishop Charles Scicluna, who was the top Vatican prosecutor in sex-abuse cases before his recent appointment as an auxiliary bishop in his native Malta, told Vatican Radio: “Pope Benedict XVI will certainly be remembered for his extraordinary reply and response to the very sad phenomenon of sexual abuse of minors by the clergy.”

Father Hans Zollner, a Jesuit who heads the Institute of Psychology at the Gregorian University, said that criticism of Pope Benedict on his handling of the sex-abuse issue is misguided. That criticism, he added, might be traced to “his public image as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith,” and the fact that many media reports portrayed him as a hard-line defender of entrenched policies.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Donald Clarke

Alex Gibney’s latest film, on sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, alleges a direct link between the outgoing pope and the abuse of children in the US

It seems redundant to note that Alex Gibney’s documentary on sexual abuse in the Catholic Church has emerged at an appropriate time. After all, given the endless torrent of grim revelations, Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God would, if released at any random point in the last two decades, have chimed with contemporaneous headlines.

The recent resignation of Pope Benedict XVI has, however, provided the American documentarist with an interesting afterword. The picture focuses closely on the abuse of deaf children in a Wisconsin school from the mid-1960s onwards, who later courageously blew the whistle. The film also implicates the former Joseph Ratzinger in a complex cover-up. Gibney has subsequently suggested that Benedict’s unexpected retirement was linked to the child-abuse scandal.

Visiting Dublin for the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival, Gibney, a taut, bald man with a serious demeanour, backtracks only slightly. “Maybe it would have been better to say that I hoped his resignation was connected to the child-abuse case,” he says. “I hope that for myself and hope that for him. I think it would be sad if it was just that he was tired. That’s what the church was saying.”

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UNITED STATES
RT

At a moment of turmoil for the Catholic Church following the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, a UN committee is accusing American law enforcement of being soft on child sex abuse in religious groups – a problem infamously associated with the Church.

­The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child stated in a February 2013 report that it was “deeply concerned” by systemic sexual abuse by higher-ups and staff of religious institutions. Most troubling was a “lack of measures taken by [American legal authorities] to properly investigate cases and prosecute those accused,” partially because of “a lack of measures … to properly investigate cases and prosecute them.”

The report, adopted in Geneva during a routine review of US compliance with the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child on February 1, urged American law enforcement officials to create such measures in order to get to work revealing cases of sexual abuse and taking predators to court.

Authorities from various religions have been accused and convicted of sexually abusing children, but none on the scale of the Catholic Church, which in the US alone has paid out some $2 billion in damages to victims of sexual abuse over the years.

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CALIFORNIA
The Poly Post

Juan Madrigal, Staff Writer

Pope Benedict XVI surprised the entire world on Feb. 11 when he did what no pope had done in almost half a millennium. During a routine morning meeting, he shocked all the Vatican cardinals when he announced his resignation.

Whether people liked Benedict or not, his decision earned him a special place in history books.

Benedict’s papacy has been known for having many tumultuous moments, which have hurt the Catholic Church deeply and unceasingly.

During his papacy, Benedict had to confront all of the allegations and cases of sexual abuse of children by some of the clergy members. This bombshell not only affected those involved and the church, but also Benedict’s ability to effectively lead church leaders.

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WISCONSIN
NBC 15

MOUNT CALVARY, Wis. (AP) — A priest who led St. Lawrence Seminary High School in Mount Calvary has been removed from public ministry over allegations of sexual abuse more than 25 years ago in Montana.

The Rev. Dennis Druggan had been on administrative leave since the first complaint in July. The Capuchin Province of St. Joseph says a second complainant later came forward.

The order says it found sufficient evidence to sustain the allegations, so it removed Druggan as rector and president of St. Lawrence Seminary, and barred him from public ministry. The order says he’ll be encouraged to live a life of prayer and penance in a suitable friary.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Telegraph

As a victim of abuse within the Orthodox Jewish community, Joe Byrne feels cheated by a recent C4 documentary.

By Joe Byrne
1:25PM GMT 18 Feb 2013

When Dispatches: Britain’s Hidden Child Abuse aired at the end of last month on Channel 4, I watched it with interest. The programme had been widely advertised. Its central revelation was to be that British orthodox rabbis were forbidding their followers to report child abuse to the police. As a member of the orthodox community who suffered abuse as a child, I knew how important this was.

The documentary began, and it soon became apparent that Jackie Long, the presenter, hadn’t learnt how to pronounce correctly the word Haredi (meaning the Ultra Orthodox Jewish community). She made it sound like “Harrods”, when it should be pronounced “Cha-rei-dee”, with a strong stress on the middle syllable. Would it have been so difficult, I thought, to ask one of the Jews in the programme for a few pronunciation tips?

A few minutes later, she called one of her principle interviewees “Ephrom” when his name was actually “Eph-ruy-im”. She later showed an important document, written in Hebrew, to the camera. She was holding it upside down.

These errors seemed minor at first, but they indicated a more serious problem. The Dispatches team had clearly been slapdash in their research, and did not seem concerned with creating an accurate portrayal. Sadly, this impression was confirmed in the substance of the documentary.

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UNITED STATES
First Things

Monday, February 18, 2013

Nathaniel Peters

One question that has always surrounded Benedict’s tenure as pope has been that of the sex-abuse scandals. In their assessment of his papacy, even otherwise friendly commentators, such as Ross Douthat, have said that he did not do enough to combat abuse, punish wrong-doers, and console victims.

In an interview with John L. Allen Jr., Fr. Hans Zollner, S.J., Vice-Rector of the Gregorian University, head of its Institute of Psychology, and a member of the “Round Table on Child Abuse” created by the German federal government, sets the record straight. He also describes the steps the complexity of dealing with sexual abuse in various cultures and the steps that the Catholic Church is taking in Rome and around the globe.

Now that Benedict XVI is stepping down, how do you evaluate his legacy on the sexual abuse scandals?

Based on what I know personally, at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith he was the first person, and the most determined person, to take on what he called the ‘open wound’ in the body of the church, meaning the sexual abuse of minors by clergy. He came to know about a number of cases, and the intensity of the wounds inflicted on victims. He became aware of what priests had done to minors, and to vulnerable adults. As a result, he became more and more convinced that it has to be tackled, and at various levels he started to deal with it – the canonical level, the ecclesial, and the personal.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio) Monsignor Charles Jude Scicluna, auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Malta, served as the “promoter of justice” of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith until October 2012.

He was effectively the prosecutor of the tribunal of the former Holy Office, whose job it is to investigate what are known as delicta graviora: the crimes which the Catholic Church considers as being the most serious of all and include crimes against the Eucharist and against the sanctity of the Sacrament of Penance, and crimes against the VIth Commandment committed by a cleric against a person under the age of eighteen.

Bishop Scicluna was in fact the man who embodied the line of zero tolerance of sexual abuse against minors, adopted by Benedict XVI.

He supported the Pope’s efforts to change canonical laws and existing laws and above all, the mentality placing special emphasis on the suffering of abuse victims and promulgating a series of “emergency” laws.

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RHODE ISLAND
National Catholic Reporter

by Joshua J. McElwee | Feb. 18, 2013

Editor’s note: Gabrielle Mee, a wealthy Rhode Island widow, directed tens of millions of dollars to the now-disgraced Legion of Christ between 1989 and her death in 2008. Among the volumes of court documents unsealed Friday in a lawsuit brought against the order is a July 12, 2001, deposition of Mee. In that deposition, Mee, who had just turned 90, describes her first contact with the order and her reasons for donating so profusely. This profile of Mee describes the benefactor in her own words as taken from that deposition, unless otherwise specified. See all stories in this series.

For Gabrielle Mee, the Legion of Christ was a group of men uncommonly focused on serving God’s people. In a continuing era of personnel shortages for the Catholic church, they seemed among an ever-decreasing number willing to take up a life of service as priests.

Mee, a native of the small Rhode Island city of Woonsocket on Massachusetts’ southern and western borders, first heard of the Legion in August 1989.

Concerned about a shortage of active priests, she asked a friend at her Narragansett parish: “What are we going to do when we have no more?”

The friend mentioned the order, saying they had a “lot of vocations.”

“Frankly, I caught fire,” Mee said of that interaction. “I thought there must be some priests. So I got home and I called up my banker. I said, ‘Find out everything you can about the Legionaries of Christ.’ ”

Visiting the Legion’s formation center in Cheshire, Conn., sometime after talking with her friend, Mee liked what she saw.

“What impressed me so much was to see a chapel filled with all these young men in their cassocks,” she said.

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RHODE ISLAND
National Catholic Reporter

by Jason Berry | Feb. 18, 2013

Newly released documents in a Rhode Island lawsuit show that the scandal-tarred Legion of Christ shielded information on their founder’s sex life from a wealthy widow who donated $30 million over two decades.

In 2009, the widow’s niece, Mary Lou Dauray, sued the Legion and the bank that facilitated key transactions, alleging fraud. At Dauray’s request, backed by a motion from NCR and three other media outlets, Superior Court Judge Michael Silverstein revoked a protective order the Legionaries had secured and released discovery findings Friday.

The thousands of pages of testimony, financial and religious records open a rare view into the Legion culture shaped by its Mexican-born founder, Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado.

Maciel built a power base in Rome as the greatest fundraiser of the modern church. He won the undying support of Pope John Paul II, who called him an “efficacious guide to youth” and praised Maciel in lavish ceremonies even after a 1998 canon law case at the Vatican in which the cleric was accused of sexually abusing Legion seminarians.

The Vatican is not a defendant in Rhode Island, but decisions by John Paul and Pope Benedict XVI permeate a larger story rising from the files.

A key strand in the new material aligns with an admission by Cardinal Franc Rodé, who told NCR in a recent interview that “in late 2004 or early 2005” he saw a videotape of Maciel “with a mother and child represented as his.” A Legionary, whom Rodé did not identify, showed him a tape of Maciel with a girl identified as his daughter.

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RHODE ISLAND
National Catholic Reporter

by Brian Roewe | Feb. 18, 2013

Editor’s note: The 2010 and 2011 depositions of Mary Lou Dauray, niece of Gabrielle Mee, were released to NCR as part of a court decision related to the lawsuit she brought against the Legionaries of Christ, her aunt’s estate (controlled by the Legion), and Bank of America. The depositions reveal that Dauray herself had experienced the overwhelming power of a persuasive spiritual leader earlier in her life and that she feared her aunt had fallen victim to one as well after learning of the numerous allegations against Legion founder Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado, who courted Mee as a prominent donor to his order. The following story is constructed from the two depositions. See all stories in this series.

Mary Lou Dauray last saw her aunt, Gabrielle Mee, in 1991 when Dauray returned to her home state of Rhode Island after living the previous 20-plus years in California.

During the visit, Mee and Dauray spoke of mostly family matters, but the 80-year-old aunt also told her goddaughter that she intended to begin a consecrated life. In Dauray’s mind, that meant cloistered and separated from outside contact, meaning she likely would never see her Aunt Gaby, as she called her, again. She didn’t bother to ask details about the community, like which order or where it was located; rather, she just wished her the best.

“I was happy for her,” she said.

Dauray never did see her aunt again, but after learning of her death in 2008, she found the details of Mee’s consecrated community disturbing and all too familiar. In some ways, it reminded her of her own past.

Dauray, now 72, grew up in Woonsocket, R.I. The daughter and first child of Lucille Jarrett and Charles Joseph Dauray (Mee’s brother), she was raised Catholic. From age 5 through her high school graduation at 16, she attended the Convent of Jesus and Mary, founded by her great-uncle, Msgr. Charles Dauray.

As a boarder, Dauray spent most of her week at the convent, though she was able to return home for periods each weekend. Her time at the school gave her a feeling of spiritual bliss, she said. Mee would visit her occasionally, and the two would pray the rosary together. With Mee having no children, Dauray said she felt her aunt saw her like a daughter.

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RHODE ISLAND
National Catholic Reporter

by Tom Gallagher | Feb. 18, 2013

Editor’s note: Robert G. Sylvestre, of Westerly, R.I., who spent 35 years — his entire career — in the trust department at Fleet Bank, now Bank of America, played a pivotal role in the lives of Timothy Mee and his widow, Gabrielle Mee, for 25 years. A lifelong Catholic, Sylvestre attended La Salle Academy and Providence College in Providence, R.I. It was Sylvestre who introduced Gabrielle Mee to the Legion of Christ. Sylvestre was deposed in September 2011 by lawyers representing the Legion of Christ; Gabrielle Mee’s niece, Mary Lou Dauray; the Estate of Mrs. Mee; and Bank of America and Sylvestre. The following story is based on Sylvestre’s deposition. See all stories in this series.

Robert “Bob” Sylvestre began working in 1960 for Fleet Bank while attending Providence College, and in 1967 or 1968 became a trust officer. It was about this time he met Timothy Mee and was assigned his trust account. For the next 17 years, until his client died in 1985, Sylvestre played a pivotal role in Mee’s estate planning and financial affairs.

“I knew them well,” said Sylvestre of Mee and his wife, Gabrielle.

Timothy Mee, who also served on the board of directors of Fleet Bank and was a shareholder there, had lost his first wife and twin boys “in the ’38 hurricane,” Sylvestre testified. Years later, in 1948, Mee married Gabrielle. Sylvestre said he came to know her when “I met with Tim a number of times at his home, and she was present.”

Sylvestre’s close relationship with Timothy Mee was professional, he said. The two did not socialize. However, he was “a client I felt very strongly towards,” Sylvestre said.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Volksfreund

Begleitet von kirchenkritischen Veranstaltungen hat am Montagnachmittag in Trier die Frühjahrsvollversammlung der deutschen Bischöfe begonnen. Ein Treffen beider Seiten werde es nicht geben, machte der Konferenzvorsitzende, Erzbischof Robert Zollitsch, gleich zu Beginn deutlich.

Trier. Das Tagungszentrum der 66 deutschen Bischöfe und der Balkensaal, in den das “Aktionsbündnis Aufklärung” an diesem Montag zur Pressekonferenz geladen hat, liegen Luftlinie nur einen knappen Kilometer entfernt. Doch inhaltlich trennen beide Seiten Welten, das ist an diesem Nachmittag deutlich zu spüren. Wohl um sicherzugehen, dass sie wahrgenommen werden, haben die zu dem Aktionsbündnis zusammengeschlossenen Gruppierungen, darunter die Initiative der Missbrauchsopfer aus dem Bistum Trier und die kirchenkritische Bewegung Wir sind Kirche, die Journalisten zwei Stunden vor dem Zollitsch-Statement in den viel zu engen Raum der Katholischen Studierenden Jugend KSJ geladen.

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UNITED STATES
Leon J. Podles: Dialogue

The centralized administration of the Roman Catholic Church is not a theological necessity. It may be the best way of administering the Church under current circumstances; or another way may be best.

The current situation is the result of the papacy’s attempts to preserve the unity of the church which was threatened by nationalist, Protestant, and later totalitarian movements. The French revolution swept away all the old feudal structures that had limited the centralization of administration in Rome, focusing more and more attention on the person of the pope.

But a church with over a billion members is too big to be administered in every detail from Rome; in fact much is left up to the bishops and local organizations.

Bishops failed in their handling of sexual abuse, and they suffered no consequences.

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UNITED STATES
Leon J. Podles: Dialogue

I once asked a patristics scholar how Jerome, the translator of the Bible into Latin, ever got canonized. He was a nasty, cruel man. The scholar replied that in those days Saint meant “someone important in the Church.” And not only in those days.

John Paul grievously mishandled the cases of sexual abuse in the Church. Priests and at least one cardinal (Schoenborn) pleaded with him to do something, and he refused. Children committed suicide because of abuse that John Paul’s failures and willful blindness allowed to continue. And now he is Blessed John Paul and soon will be Saint John Paul.

Why?

Poland.

Poland is the last Catholic country in Europe and what John Paul did to help bring down Communism eclipses for the Poles everything else he did or failed to do.

Little will happen to Cardinal Mahony.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Leon J. Podles: Dialogue

Several people here and elsewhere have criticized Archbishop Gomez, He has been in charge of the Los Angles archdiocese for two years – why did he wait until now to do anything, as Mahony himself asked.

My guess is that events passed something like this:

When Gomez began archbishop, it took him a while to assimilate what had happened. He had enormous new duties as archbishop, the paper trail ran to tens of thousands of pages, and the leftover staff from Mahony’s years was not in a hurry to point out how compromising the documents were.

When Gomez realized what had happened, he knew he had to do two things: release the documents and rebuke Mahony.

They had to be done simultaneously.

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UNITED STATES
Leon J. Podles: Dialogue

Benedict’s resignation should not be all that surprising. He has maintained that a pope can resign, and canon law provides for it.

Despite his reputation as a hard-line, Ratzinger expressed discomfort with the tendency to idolize the pope, culminating in the rock-start image of John Paul II. At one point Ratzinger said that the separated Eastern Churches would only have to acknowledge the papacy as it existed in the first millennium, when it was not all that important.

In their battles with secular and totalitarian states, popes put the focus on themselves as the locus of unity in the Church – ubi Petrus, ibi Eccelsia. This may have been necessary to prevent the church from being taken captive by nationalist and totalitarian governments (as has happened with a large segment of the Catholic Church in China). But such a focus distorts the papal office.

One result has been an unrealistic expectation about what a pope can or should do. The impression is that the pope can by his own will change whatever he wants in the Church, including the moral law. He could allow priests to marry, allow women to be ordain, say that contraception, abortion, and homosexual acts are not sins, etc.

Maciel told the seminarians he abused that, of course while homosexuality was wrong, the pope had given him a dispensation from that law because of his health needs.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Servicei

Vatican City, 16 February 2013 (VIS) – Today the Holy Father renewed, for a five-year period, the Commission of Cardinals for oversight of the Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR).

The new oversight commission is composed of: Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, S.D.B., secretary of State (president of the commission); Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue; Cardinal Odilo Pedro Scherer, archbishop of Sao Paulo, Brazil; Cardinal Telesphore Placidus Toppo, archbishop of Ranchi, India; and Cardinal Domenico Calcagno, president of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (APSA), who takes the place of Cardinal Attilio Nicora, president of the Financial Information Authority (AIF).

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic Culture

February 18, 2013

Pope Benedict XVI has renewed the terms of 4 of the 5 cardinals on the committee that supervises the work of the Vatican Bank, of the Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR).

Rumors of sweeping changes in the supervisory board had circulated in Rome last month. But only one of the 5 cardinals on the board was replaced. Cardinal Attilio Nicora, the president of the new Financial Information Authority, was due for replacement because his new duties—ensuring transparency in all financial transactions–could create a conflict of interest with the work of the IOR, which he now scrutinizes. He place on the supervisory board has been taken by Cardinal Domenico Calcagno, president of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (APSA).

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Rorate Caeli

In June 2012, Polish magazine Fronda published an extensive, incisive, and influential article on the papacy and what it calls the “Homoheresy” and the great powers of the group it calls the “Homomafia” in all levels of the Church hierarchy, going all the way to the Roman Curia – and on how Benedict XVI has tried to curtail the great influence of this underground network of deviation. The Rev. Dr. Dariusz Oko, the author, is a Professor of Theology at the Pontifical Academy of Theology (Pontifical University John Paul II), in Krakow. The article was published in German as well (D. Oko, Mit dem Papst gegen Homohäresie, “Theologisches” 9/10 [2012] pp. 403-426), but it has been sparsely available in English.

In the days following the announcement of his resignation, we have been hearing the repeated warnings of Pope Benedict against the divisions in the Church. They recall one of the most somber declarations made by His Holiness, when, en route to Portugal, he said:

As for the new things which we can find in this [Fatima] message today, there is also the fact that attacks on the Pope and the Church come not only from without, but the sufferings of the Church come precisely from within the Church, from the sin existing within the Church. This too is something that we have always known, but today we are seeing it in a really terrifying way: that the greatest persecution of the Church comes not from her enemies without, but arises from sin within the Church, and that the Church thus has a deep need to relearn penance, to accept purification, to learn forgiveness on the one hand, but also the need for justice. (Interview, May 11, 2010)

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UNITED STATES
Catholic Culture

By Phil Lawler February 18, 2013

Several informative and/or provocative commentaries on the Pope’s resignation and the impending papal conclave appeared over the weekend:

• “Benedict’s ‘wager’”–David Warren mentions the ignorance of the mainstream media, emphasizes that the Church’s main enemy is the power of secular ideology, and observes that Pope Benedict encountered a great deal of resistance from inside the Church. He suggests that the papal resignation is a “gamble,” with the Pope banking on the Holy Spirit to break the stalemate that he has encountered:

Benedict is saying, in effect, “Lord you must act in these circumstances, which have passed beyond my power.” And praying thus, as he will continue to pray, with all the gravity of a man who has represented, as Priest before God, more than a billion living Catholics. He is taking the weight of this upon himself, as he has taken the weight of the consequences of his decision.

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UNITED STATES
Religion News Service

Wesley Granberg-Michaelson | Feb 18, 2013

(RNS) As the 117 Roman Catholic cardinals walk into the Sistine Chapel next month for the election of a new pope, one hopes that they fully recognize the unfolding, dramatic pilgrimage of world Christianity: The demographic center of Christian faith has moved decisively to the Global South.

Over the past century, this astonishing demographic shift is the most dramatic geographical change that has happened in 2,000 years of Christian history. Trends in the Catholic Church — comprising about 1 out of 2 Christians in the world — have generally followed this global pattern:
•In 1900, about 2 million of the world’s Catholic faithful lived in Africa; by 2010, this had grown to 177 million.

•11 million Catholics were found in Asia in 1900; by 2010 there were 137 million Asian Catholics.
•Through colonial expansion, 59 million Catholics populated Latin America and the Caribbean in 1900; but by 2010, that number had grown to 483 million.
•In 1900, two-thirds of the world’s Catholic believers were in Europe and North America; today, two-thirds are in Latin America, Africa, and Asia.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

by Pam Cohen | Feb. 18, 2013

The question’s been floating around since Feb. 11: Who will be chosen to be the next pope after Pope Benedict XVI steps down Feb. 28?

There’s no set date for the conclave yet, but there are lists all across the Internet of papabili, and everyone’s talking about who might be the cardinal who gets chosen.

Because of this, we’ve assembled our own conclave: the conclave of the people of God. We’ll start with the 117 cardinals eligible to vote in the conclave, then next Monday, we’ll take the 25 cardinals with the most votes and vote again, then the top 10, and so on until we’re down to the one cardinal you, the readers, think will be chosen to be pope.

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UNITED STATES
Straits Times

WASHINGTON (AFP) – An association of US Catholics has launched a petition to keep a retired Los Angeles cardinal mired in a paedophilia scandal from taking part in the conclave that will choose the next pope.

The group, Catholics United, is targeting Roger Mahony, who last month was relieved of all church administrative and public duties for mishandling abuse claims against dozens of priests, dating back to the 1980s.

“Cardinal Mahony: Stay Home,” the online petition reads. “Your further implication in the church sex abuse scandal and being barred from public ministry in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles should be an indication to you that you should not attend the next Papal Conclave.”

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ROME
Vatican Insider

The case regarding the cardinal’s involvement in the paedophilia scandal has caused a storm in the U.S. which has now reached Rome

Maria Teresa Pontara Pederiva
Rome

Is it ethical for someone whose image has been tainted by the paedophilia scandal to take part in the next Conclave? It seems right to at least ask the question: California in particular and the U.S. in general have certainly been doing so over the past few days, as cardinals hurry to book their flights to Rome.

One of them is the 76 year old archbishop emeritus of Los Angeles, Roger M. Mahony, who was “relieved of all public duties” by his successor, Mgr. José H. Gomez, last 31 January, as announced by the Los Angeles Times.

The files the current pastor of the Diocese of California had to examine and which were the focus of a five year court case handled by the Superior Court of Los Angeles (Judge Emilie Elias) leave no room for doubt. The Church, led by Mahony (from 1985 to 2011) had fought for years to conceal reported sex-abuse cases, in particular reports against Fr. Nicolas Aguilar Riveira (accused of molesting 29 minors during a nine-month stay in the archdiocese) who eventually fled to Mexico.

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ROME
Vatican Insider

Negli Stati Uniti scoppia la polemica per la partecipazione del cardinale all’elezione del nuovo pontefice. E’ stato coinvolto nello scandalo pedofilia

Maria Teresa Pontara Pederiva
Roma

E’ morale che possa partecipare al prossimo Conclave anche chi si è macchiato di crimini in materia di pedofilia? Sembrerebbe legittimo almeno porsi l’interrogativo: se lo chiedono in molti in questi giorni in California e un pò in tutti gli Stati Uniti, mentre i cardinali si apprestano a prenotare un volo alla volta di Roma.

E della partita, fino ad un clamoroso contrordine, dovrebbe essere compreso anche Roger M. Mahony, 76 anni, arcivescovo emerito di Los Angeles che il 31 gennaio scorso era stato “sospeso da ogni incarico” dal suo successore, monsignor José H. Gomez come annunciava il Los Angeles Times a tutta pagina.

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UNITED STATES
Reuters

By Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor

VATICAN CITY | Mon Feb 18, 2013

A U.N. committee has accused U.S. legal authorities of failing to fully pursue cases of child sex abuse in religious groups, an issue especially troubling the Roman Catholic Church.

The Committee on the Rights of the Child wrote this month that it was “deeply concerned” to find widespread sexual abuse by clerics and staff of religious institutions and “a lack of measures … to properly investigate cases and prosecute them”.

Britain’s National Secular Society, which drew attention on Monday to the little-noticed report, said it hoped the Catholic pope to be elected next month would open Church files to help prosecute as yet undiscovered cases of clerical sexual abuse.

The scandal of predator priests has haunted the pontificate of Pope Benedict, who will resign on Feb 28. The pope has apologized for the abuse and met victims in several countries, but cases and damning internal files are still coming to light.

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DEUTSCHLAND
kathweb

Vorsitzender der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz: Keiner hat wie Benedikt XVI. Fehlbarkeit und Verwundbarkeit der Kirche selbst ausgesprochen

Trier, 18.02.2013 (KAP) Der Vorsitzende der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz (DBK), Erzbischof Robert Zollitsch, hat den scheidenden Papst Benedikt XVI. öffentlich um Verzeihung für Fehler aus den Reihen der Kirche in Deutschland gebeten. “Ich möchte den Heiligen Vater um Verzeihung bitten für alle Fehler, die vielleicht aus dem Raum der Kirche in Deutschland ihm gegenüber begangen wurden”, sagte der Freiburger Erzbischof am Montag in Trier, wie die deutsche Katholische Nachrichtenagentur KNA berichtete. Zugleich dankte er Benedikt XVI. “im Namen vieler Millionen Menschen in Deutschland und aller Gläubigen”, die sich von ihm “geistlich genährt und im Glaubensbemühen unterstützt fühlen”. Sie hätten Benedikts Dienst als Guter Hirte und Brückenbauer “als großartig erlebt”.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

The Vatican Titantic is sinking rapidly. The key 85 year old “Captains”, Pope Benedict and Cardinal Sodano, spent their formative years under Hitler and Mussolini and know how to survive a sinking ship. They, with their octogenerian Vatican clique, are now trying to commandeer a personal lifeboat by ramming through quickly a subservient new Pope who will do their bidding for their few remaining years, leaving younger Cardinals, Bishops and worldwide Catholics to swim for themselves thereafter. The Pope and his architects have been planning his nearby “refurbished convent” for many months, yet Cardinals are now being stampeded to vote early. Will all Cardinals be so shortsighted to fall for this? Will at least one-third of them slow the election process down and still salvage the Church (and themselves) instead? There is a way they can do this as described below.

Captains Ratzinger and Sodano, however well intentioned, have for three decades misdirected the Church after hitting the iceberg of priest child abuse, amidst increasing irrelevance to world Catholics. All Cardinals need to act now to begin to fix the Church first before it is too late, especially before an ineffective new Pope is installed for life to bail out the reckless Captains. Prosecutors are increasingly moving into the Church, while Catholics are steadily moving out, and all will continue to do so if the Church is not fixed promptly.

President Obama’s new Catholic chief of staff, Denis McDonough, just said on Meet The Press, in effect, that the Church will do fine if it does the right things. And what if it continues to do some bad things? President Obama and a U.S. Presidential investigation commission, similar to Australia PM Julia Gillard’s new commission, would have the clout to compel much of the fix needed. Will Cardinals instead try to fix the Church themselves now or risk sitting in future prison cells, as some of them very well may be doing soon, wishing they had fixed it when they could have.

Here’s what Cardinals can and should do. They need to block by a one-third vote any papal candidate that will not agree publicly now to take the following three actions:

(1) Serve only a three year term subject to re-election thereafter. Pope Benedict just proved by resigning that the papacy is not a lifelong position.

(2) Appoint now a special committee to identify and recommend within nine months needed structural and pastoral changes, as described in my April 2010 Washington Post web column warning Pope Benedict what he was facing, that he failed to acknowledge, and which is linked here at:

[Washington Post]

(3) Implement the needed changes so identified at a worldwide council held away from Rome within six months of receipt of the special committee’s recommendations as described in my Washington Post column. …

We all have a moral obligation to protect children and signing a petition is a simple, yet potentially effective, way towards meeting that obligation. Please take a minute and sign it at:

[Click here for the petition.]

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DEUTSCHLAND
domradio

Kurz vor dem Eröffnungsgottesdienst der Frühjahrsvollversammlung der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz hat Erzbischof Robert Zollitsch in Trier die Themen vorgestellt und eine emotionale Dankrede an den Papst gerichtet.

Der Missbrauchsskandal in katholischen Einrichtungen und der Skandal um eine von katholischen Kliniken abgewiesene vergewaltigte Frau überschatten das Frühjahrstreffen der Deutschen Bischöfe in Trier. Dass eine hilfesuchende vergewaltigte Frau von Kölner Krankenhäusern abgewiesen wurde, sei erschreckend, sagte der Vorsitzende der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz, Robert Zollitsch, zum Auftakt des viertägigen Treffens am Montag in Trier. “Es wäre schade, wenn das, was in Köln passierte, auf alle kirchlichen Krankenhäuser übertragen würde”, sagte der Freiburger Erzbischof. Es werde auch zur Sprache kommen, wie die katholische Kirche in der Öffentlichkeit dastehe.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Deutsche Welle

Von der Wahl des nächsten Papstes bis zur “Pille danach” – bei ihrer Frühjahrsversammlung dieses Jahr in Trier haben die deutschen katholischen Bischöfe viel zu besprechen. Nicht zuletzt die Lage ihrer Kirche.

Die Tagung wird wohl eine Mischung aus Ungewissheit, Problemdiagnosen und Gebeten. Zunächst jedoch steht die Wahl eines neuen Papstes an. Von den 66 Mitgliedern der Bischofskonferenz werden vier im März nach Rom reisen und als Kardinäle zur Papstwahl ins Konklave einziehen. Dazu zählen der frühere Konferenz-Vorsitzende aus Mainz, Bischof Karl Lehmann (76), der Kölner Erzbischof Joachim Meisner (79), der Münchner Erzbischof Reinhard Marx (59) und der Berliner Erzbischof Rainer Maria Woelki (56).

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DEUTSCHLAND
epd

Trier/Saarbrücken (epd). Aus Anlass der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz in Trier haben Opferverbände und kirchliche Initiativen eine konsequentere Aufklärung des sexuellen Missbrauchs in der katholischen Kirche gefordert. An den vier Tagen des Bischofstreffens, das am Montag beginnt, mache das “Aktionsprogramm Aufklärung!” mit begleitenden Veranstaltungen auf Versäumnisse aufmerksam, sagte Heiner Buchen, Sprecher der Saarbrücker Initiative gegen sexualisierte Gewalt in der katholischen Kirche dem Evangelischen Pressedienst (epd). Vorgesehen seien unter anderem eine Podiums-Diskussion, eine Licht-Installation sowie der Kreuzweg “Tatbestände” mit Missbrauchs-Opfern.

Kardinäle und Bischöfe setzten sich nach wie vor nicht mit der kirchlichen Macht- und Gewaltgeschichte auseinander, kritisierte der katholische Theologe, Pastoralreferent im Dekanat Saarbrücken. Dabei hätten gerade diese Strukturen den Missbrauch begünstigt und Kinder zu Opfern gemacht. Die Kirche gehe jedoch weiterhin von irregeleiteten Einzeltätern statt von struktureller Gewalt aus, beklagte er.

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ITALY
San Francisco Chronicle

ROME (AP) — An influential Italian Catholic magazine is asking its readers if disgraced former Los Angeles archbishop Roger Mahony should participate in the upcoming election for a new pope.

Famiglia Cristiana, one of Italy’s most-read magazines, featured the question on its website Monday asking readers: “Your opinion: Mahony in the conclave: Yes or No?”

Mahony was stripped of his duties last month by his successor at the largest Catholic diocese in the United States. Recently released documents showed that Mahony and other diocesan officials maneuvered to shield child-molesting priests and keep Catholics unaware of sexual abuse in their parishes.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Famiglia Cristiana (Italia)

[La tua opinione: Mahony sì o no al conclave?]

Negli Usa è partita una petizione affinché il cardinale Mahony, coinvolto nello scandalo pedofilia, non partecipi al conclave. L’azione dell’acivescovo Gomez a Los Angeles.

Los Angeles, il cardinale in tribunale

Il Washington Post scrive di lui che “è fortunato a non essere in prigione” e il suo successore, monsignor Josè Gomez lo ha sollevato da tutti gli incarichi. Ma il cardinale Roger Mahony parteciperà regolarmente al conclave che eleggerà il nuovo Pontefice. Eppure monsignor Gomez lo ha riconosciuto responsabile di aver insabbiato 129 casi di abusi su minori da parte di ecclesiastici e, proprio su uno di questi casi di pedofilia (un sacerdote messicano accusato di aver abusato di 26 bambini della diocesi nel 1987) il porporato dovrà deporre in tribunale, alla corte superiore della contea di Los Angeles, il 23 febbraio.

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VATICAN CITY
Gazzetta del Sud

Vatican City, February 18 – The scandal surrounding American Cardinal Roger Mahony for allegedly covering up priest sex abuse is heating up in Rome ahead of a conclave to elect a successor to Pope Benedict XVI. On Monday, influential Catholic newspaper Famiglia Cristiana launched an online poll asking if Mahony, the former archbishop of Los Angeles, should participate in the conclave, which will take place days after he will be deposed as part of a clergy abuse suit. Mahony, the senior American cardinal attending the conclave, will be questioned under oath February 23 about how he handled Father Nicolas Aguilar Rivera, a visiting Mexican priest who allegedly molested 26 children in the Los Angeles archdiocese in 1987.

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CNN

(CNN)–Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation brings calls for his prosecution. CNN’s Nic Robertson investigates the claims.

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GERMANY
Spiegel

With Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation drawing closer, The struggle for power in the Vatican has gotten underway in earnest. The church badly needs to reform itself, but with Ratzing lurking in the shadows, will it be able to? By SPIEGEL Staff

Naked and goaded viciously by hornets and wasps, his blood sucked by loathsome worms. Such was the fate of a pope in Dante’s “Divine Comedy” who “by his cowardice made the great refusal.”

Benedict XVI, in short, knew what could happen to one who rebelled against a centuries-old tradition in a church in which suffering is far from foreign. But he also knew that it wasn’t just a matter of his own suffering — it was a matter of the exhaustion, weakness and sickness of the church at large.

The pope from Bavaria has given up. Nevertheless, when he announced his resignation last Monday, hastily and almost casually mumbling the words as if he were saying a rosary, as if he were returning the keys to a rental car rather than the keys to St. Peter, there was still a sense of how deeply his move has shaken the Catholic empire.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

by John L. Allen Jr. | Feb. 17, 2013

Rome —
Openly campaigning for the papacy is not only taboo, it’s usually fatal. Most cardinals are of the belief that if someone actually wants the job, they have no idea what it’s about.

On the other hand, sometimes circumstances align to thrust someone into the spotlight, creating an opportunity to either boost or diminish his electoral prospects, even if that’s not officially the purpose of what’s going on.

Today one such papabile steps onto the stage in Italian Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, a 70-year-old biblical scholar, essayist and intellectual omnivore.

From Sunday evening to Saturday morning, Ravasi will preach the Lenten spiritual exercises for the Roman Curia, an annual retreat during which the Vatican more or less goes into lockdown while its personnel gather in the Redemptoris Mater chapel in the Apostolic Palace.

Ravasi is the son of an anti-fascist tax official who was lost to the young Ravasi for 18 months after deserting the army during World War II. In a typically reflective flourish, Ravasi later said his lifelong search for permanence is probably related to that early sense of loss.

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SCHWEIZ
Aargauer Zeitung

Anwalt und Notar Magnus Küng leitete die Expertenkommission des Schwyzer Klosters Ingenbohl. Er sagt im Interview, dass ihm die grausamen Schicksale der Kinder nahe gegangen sind. von Dieter Minder

«Ich hatte das riesige Glück, wohlbehütet und glücklich aufwachsen zu dürfen. Für andere Kinder galt das nicht, sie waren leider oft der Willkür einzelner Menschen ausgesetzt.» Mit diesen sehr persönlichen Worten beginnt Magnus Küng seine Ausführungen zum Schlussbericht der unabhängigen Expertenkommission des Klosters Ingenbohl. Der Wettinger Jurist hat die vom Kloster eingesetzte sechsköpfige Expertenkommission geleitet, welche die Missbrauchsfälle in den von Ingenbohler Schwestern betreuten Kinderheimen untersuchte.

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IRELAND
Galway Bay FM

Galway native singer Mary Coughlan will lead a candle lit vigil tomorrow evening outside the Dáil in solidarity with the Magdalene survivors and their families.

The Vigil at 5pm will precede the Dáil Debate on the McAleese Report during which the Magdalene Laundry survivor groups say they’re hopeful the Taoiseach will make a full formal apology.

The McAleese report found the State had a hand in the running of the laundries, one of which was located at Forster Street in the city.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

by John L. Allen Jr. | Feb. 18, 2013

Starting today, John Allen will be offering a profile each day of one of the papabili, or men who could be pope. The old saying in Rome is that he who enters a conclave as pope exits as a cardinal, meaning there’s no guarantee one of these men actually will be chosen. They are, however, the leading names drawing buzz in Rome these days, ensuring that they will be in the spotlight as the conclave draws near. The profiles of these men also suggest the issues and the qualities other cardinals see as desirable heading into the election.

Rome

By consensus, there’s no slam-dunk, take-it-to-the-bank favorite heading into the next papal election, but the closest to thing to someone in pole position is probably 71-year-old Cardinal Angelo Scola of Milan.

Scola breathes the same intellectual air as Benedict XVI, coming out of the Communio theological school co-founded by the young Joseph Ratzinger in the period following the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). As a young theologian himself, he published book-length interviews with Henri de Lubac and Hans Urs von Balthasar.

During his college years Scola met the famed Italian Fr. Luigi Giussani and became part of his Communion and Liberation movement. Of late Scola has tried to put some distance between himself and the ciellini, as the center-right movement’s members are known, especially because several leading Italian politicians identified with it have been engulfed in corruption scandals.

Still, in Italian ecclesial politics, Scola is inextricably linked with the movement, which cuts both ways – some deeply admire Communion and Liberation, others not so much. The linkage with Scola was solidified amid the Vatileaks scandal, which included a letter from Giussani’s successor to Pope Benedict XVI in March 2011, suggesting that the previous two archbishops of Milan had fostered a critical stance toward some aspects of church teaching, and that Scola was the best candidate to take over.

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AUSTRALIA
WA Today

Gerard Henderson
Executive director, The Sydney Institute

The advent of the 24/7 news cycle has led to an explosion of opinion in which politicians, former politicians, opinion leaders and other celebrities prevail. There is simply not enough hard news to fill the allocated hours on talk radio or such television outlets as Sky News and ABC News 24.

Most people can talk with some authority about contemporary politics. However, this is not the case with some other subjects, which require a degree of expertise if a commentator is to make sense. Yet, this constraint does not necessarily bother panellists on such shows as Paul Murray Live (Sky News) or The Drum (News 24). It is often a case of – have panel chair, will comment.

The resignation of Pope Benedict XVI is a case in point. This took the international media by surprise. Yet this should not have been the case. In fact, the Pope had raised this very matter in his conversation with Peter Seewald, which was published under the title Light of the World (2010). It was known that Benedict XVI had prayed at the tomb of Pope Celestine V, who had resigned as pontiff in 1294. I referred to Seewald’s book in this column shortly after it was published.

The Pope’s resignation led to considerable comment, some of it ill-informed and much of it ideologically driven. Let’s start with the invincible ignorance. As anyone who has an awareness of Christian theology understands, the doctrine of papal infallibility does not mean that the Pope is always right, still less divine.

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VATICAN CITY
Chicago Tribune

February 17, 2013

Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor | Reuters

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – After Pope Benedict’s papacy of almost eight years, the cardinals who will elect the next Catholic pontiff are more European, more conservative and more “Roman” than the conclave that chose him in 2005.

Benedict has hand picked more than half the men who will elect his successor. The rest were chosen by the late Pope John Paul, a Pole with whom the German pope shared a determination to reassert a more orthodox Catholicism in the new millennium.

Those two popes made sure any man awarded a cardinal’s red hat was firmly in line with key Catholic doctrine supporting priestly celibacy and Vatican authority and opposing abortion, women priests, gay marriage and other liberal reforms.

Benedict has also stiffened the Church’s missionary spirit by creating a Vatican department for what is called the New Evangelization, a drive to spread the faith more vigorously.

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NEW YORK
New York Post

By ANTONIO ANTENUCCI and BETH DEFALCO
From With Post Wire Services

Anyone who believes Timothy Cardinal Dolan has a chance of becoming the next pope is smoking funny cigarettes — so says Dolan.

At St. Patrick’s Cathedral yesterday, Dolan was asked about rumors that he would be named the first American pope when the College of Cardinals convenes next month to select Pope Benedict’s successor.

“I’d say those are only from people smoking marijuana,” Dolan said.

When Benedict stunned the world last week by saying he would resign on Feb. 28, it was expected the Vatican conclave to choose the next pope would be held a couple of weeks later.

But now, there are indications it will be moved up because there is no period of mourning, as there would be for a deceased pope.

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UNITED STATES
National Survivor Advocates Coalition

by Jim Jenkins

There is so much one can say about B16′s resignation. We can only speculate on the outcome of the conclave soon to assemble in Rome. Since Ratzinger has been such a careful politician over his entire career, it is hard for me to imagine that he has left the choice of his successor to chance.

With the stink from the “Paolo-the-Butler-Did-It Affair” still hanging like acrid incense in the air, it could be very plausible that Ratzinger has quietly arranged to have his successor already fitted for his white cassock. The Butler Affair revealed, if nothing else, is that there are seismic tensions within the Vatican hierarchy that even the Panzer pope could not tame. Challenges galore ready for anyone who dares slip his big toe into the “shoes of the fisherman.”

Nonetheless, to those of us still old enough to remember, miracles do happen: Angelo Roncalli, J23rd, defied the pundits and naysayers, and became what is arguably the greatest Christian apostle since Peter and Paul. IF, IF such a man could, or should emerge, I would be the first to cheer. But alas, I fear that we shall not see the like of J23rd again for at least another millennium.

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UNITED STATES
The New York Times

By BILL KELLER

Published: February 17, 2013

Behold a global business in distress — incoherently managed, resistant to the modernizing forces of the Internet age, tainted by scandal and corruption. It needs to tweak its marketing, straighten out its finances, up its recruiting game and repair its battered brand. Ecce Catholicism Inc.

Yes, the business of the church is saving souls, but it is nevertheless a business: a closely held conglomerate with a work force of more than a million, 1.2 billion more-or-less regular customers, 10 times as many outlets as Starbucks, more real estate than Donald Trump dreams of and lobbying clout to rival that of any secular industry. Now its C.E.O., physically and mentally depleted at age 85, is stepping down, creating an opportunity for a serious relaunch. …

The first major task facing Benedict’s successor will be to get past the lingering horror story of predatory priests, to restore the trust of the faithful and the respect of the general public. The business world has much to teach about surviving scandal. Michael Useem, director of the Center for Leadership and Change Management at the Wharton School, told me the church might learn from the way Warren Buffett cleaned up Salomon Brothers after a bond-trading scandal and Ed Breen revived Tyco International after its chief executive went to prison for theft. The remedies were bold and effective. First, a purge of those responsible for the abuses and the cover-up. (“Managing out,” as it is called in the corporate vernacular, has been a major weakness in the church, so it was heartening to hear the Vatican spokesman say that Benedict’s retirement could “open the door for a potential wave of resignations.”) Second, unstinting disclosure to investigators, waiving any privileges. Third, appointment of a compliance officer with impeccable credentials, ethical tenacity and conspicuous support at the top. At Tyco, the new leadership went on a high-profile road show of the company’s outposts to drive home the reforms.

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ROME
Gazzetta del Sud

Rome, February 18 – The Catholic Church should be in no rush to elect a new pontiff, following Pope Benedict XVI’s shock announcement last week that he is stepping down, the Archbishop of New York Timothy Dolan has said. The Vatican initially said the conclave to elect a new pope will not take place until 15 to 20 days after Benedict leaves the position on February 28, in accordance with Church rules. But at the weekend Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said the conclave may start earlier, given that the pope has not died, but has quit. Cardinals from around the world have begun informal talks about what sort of person the next pope should be and many are already in Rome. Some reports have suggested the Church may want to accelerate proceedings in order have a new pope installed before Palm Sunday on March 24, so he can preside at the Holy Week services leading up to Easter. But Dolan said that the 117 cardinals who will elect the next head of the Church should have plenty of time to reflect. “I haven’t heard anything about the possibility of bringing forward the conclave, I’m waiting for instructions,” Dolan, who is considered one of the cardinals who is in with a chance of becoming pope, told Turin daily La Stampa.

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VATICAN CITY
Irish Times

PADDY AGNEW in Rome

For the first time, a senior Curia cardinal this morning suggested publicly that the successor to Pope Benedict may well be an African, Asian or Latin American cardinal.

In an interview in this morning’s Rome daily, La Repubblica, Portuguese Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins, former Prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation For the Cause of Saints, confirmed the thinking of many Vatican insiders and commentators, saying: “A vast and authoritative range of candidates, who reflect the truly universal and not just European nature of the Church, will present themselves at the Conclave (papal election). Therefore, the big surprise may come from faraway places such as Asia, Africa and Latin America.”

Asked to make a prediction about the forthcoming Conclave, he added: “The next Conclave is open to just about any surprise because this is a Universal Church and.in the end I wouldn’t be surprised if the chosen one ended up being a young Cardinal, like the Filipino Luis Antonio Tagle, or it could be a figure like (Italian Cardinal) Gianfranco Ravasi.”

Both 55-year-old Cardinal Tagle and 70-year-old Cardinal Ravasi, the current President of the Pontifical Council of Culture, have featured prominently on the “papabile” short lists that mushroomed last week.

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IRELAND
RTE News

Minister for Justice Alan Shatter has said the Government will make very specific announcements in the Dáil on Tuesday to address the issues raised in the Magdalene Laundries report.

Speaking on RTÉ’s This Week, Mr Shatter said the Government was working on producing a comprehensive package of measures on the issue.

The Dáil will debate the report next week.

The report found there was significant State involvement in the Magdalene Laundries, which were run by Catholic nuns.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Irish Times

MARK HENNESSY, London Editor

Taoiseach Enda Kenny came face to face in London with the distress of survivors of the Magdalene laundries

For years, the women once held in the Magdalene laundries were ignored or called liars. On Saturday, some of them sat around a table in London with Taoiseach Enda Kenny, recounting a lost youth.

In the wake of the publication of the McAleese report into the Magdalenes, Kenny was criticised for offering a tepid apology to the thousands of women incarcerated on the instruction of the State or religious, or, frequently, of their families.

Unexpectedly, perhaps, Kenny received support from the women.

“I don’t think he should have taken the criticism, because he is not long in government. I think he shouldn’t have taken the stick that he did get,” Mary O’Connor (82) says, “because what we got here today is that he is very genuine about this.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

JOANNE HUNT

Compensation amounts for Magdalene laundry survivors may be awarded on a case-by-case basis, it has emerged.

Minister of State Kathleen Lynch yesterday said the Government would appoint someone with whom victims could interact and who would assess survivors’ needs on an individual basis.

“What we have decided is that the person who would have both the competence and the compassion and the expertise will be asked to deal with the issue,” the Minister said.

“That person will be asked to put in place a framework where women can interact with that person and their team and we will then look at what needs to be put in place.”

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Monday, February 18, 2013

Former residents of Magdalene laundries said that a process of compensation amounting to more than €100m should be set up within a month and wound up by August, so as not to allow the issue drag on any longer.

By Mary Regan, Political Correspondent

A package to deal with their concerns is expected to be agreed at tomorrow’s cabinet meeting, which will also sign off on the appointment of an individual who will examine the needs of the 800 or so surviving women who formerly worked and lived in the institutions.

Minister of State Kathleen Lynch said: “A person who will have the competence and the compassion and the expertise in the area will be asked to deal with the issue.

“That person will then be asked to put forward a framework where women can interact with that person and their team and we will then look at what needs to be put in place.”

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IRELAND
Galway Bay FM

Magdalene Laundry survivor groups say they’re hopeful the Taoiseach will make a full formal apology this week.

It’s expected to come during a Dáil debate tomorrow (tue) on the McAleese report which found the State had a hand in the running of the work houses, one of which was located at Forster Street in the city.

One group is calling for compensation of one hundred thousand euro as a lump sum to each Magdalene survivor.

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UNITED STATES
Huffington Post

Bruce Davis, Ph.D.

Dear Holy Father or Holy Mother (I believe in miracles),

Please let’s get through the politics so the Church can truly have a new beginning.

First day in office let there be an announcement: there will now be married priests, women priests, gay priests (there are already many just kept a secret). All forms of abuse are strictly forbidden including any church denial or cover up. Life has no beginning and no ending since we are all spiritual beings. We should respect and support life in the womb, prisons, hospitals, ghettos, individual freedom, the dying and the deceased. We should respect and support all life!

We’re done! It’s not hard to make change when it is the truth. Let’s take care of the politics, so everyone can get back to the purpose of the Church. Enough distraction. We all know the gender of the priest and the details of their private life is not what spirituality is about. There is too much spiritual need in the world! One billion people and more are wanting a spiritual home, a safe place to open their hearts and feel the peace and love of God.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Volksfreund

Vor Beginn der Frühjahrsvollversammlung der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz (DBK) in Trier hat ein kirchenkritisches Aktionsbündnis vor dem Trierer Dom die lückenlose Aufklärung des Missbrauchsskandals gefordert.

Dutzende leere Aktenordner wurden auf einen Haufen gestapelt: «Sie sollen ein Symbol für die jahrelange, systematische Vertuschung von sexuellem Missbrauch in der katholische Kirche sein», sagte Hermann Schell von der Betroffenen-Initiative «Schafsbrief» am Montag. Auch ein riesengroßer «Aussitzer»-Stuhl und ein Karnevalswagen mit dem Logo «Verschweigen & Vertuschen» sollten auf Missstände bei der Aufarbeitung aufmerksam machen.

Die katholische Kirche war jüngst heftig in die Kritik geraten, nachdem sie eine wissenschaftliche Missbrauchsstudie mit dem Hannoveraner Kriminologen Christian Pfeiffer gekündigt hatte. Triers Bischof Stefan Ackermann leitet als Missbrauchsbeauftragter der DBK seit drei Jahren die Aufarbeitung der Missbrauchsfälle.

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RHODE ISLAND
Digital Journal

By Greta McClain
Feb 17, 2013

Providence – The release of court documents involving a Roman Catholic organization is fueling speculation that Pope Benedict was forced to resign.

Prior to her death in 2008, wealthy Rhode Island widow, Garielle Mee, designated a Catholic order known as the Legion of Christ as the beneficiary of her $60 million fortune. Following Mee’s death, her niece, Mary Lou Dauray, filed a lawsuit challenging Mee’s will, claiming the Legion had defrauded Mee.

In September 2012, Judge Michael Silverstein of Rhode Island Superior Court said there was evidence that the Legion had “unduly persuaded” Mee to change her will so the Legion would be the beneficiary of the fortune. Silverstein also pointed to a detailed process used by the Legion to slowly take control of Mee’s finances. Despite the evidence, Silverstein dismissed the case against the Legion, saying Dauray had no legal standing in the case.

Rev. Marcial Maciel, founder of the Legion, was investigated by the Catholic Church for allegations of sexual abuse on several occasions. In 1997, nine men accused Maciel of sexual abuse, filing a formal complaint with the Vatican in 1998. The case was never investigated however, being shelved by the Sacred Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith which was led by then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. Digital Journal reported that Ratzinger, who is now known as Pople Benedict XVI, was named head of the Congregation of Faith in November 1981. In that capacity, Ratzinger was in charge of overseeing all investigations into sexual abuse by Catholic clergy.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

February 18, 2013

Barney Zwartz

A TRARALGON child has clubbed his pocket money together with three others, paying $69.70 to launch a private criminal prosecution against the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

The child, 11, who is due to give evidence on Monday at the state inquiry into how the churches handled child sex abuse, wanted to force the church to comply with working with children laws. After four hearings, to which church leaders did not send a representative, the church began complying and the Office of Public Prosecutions intervened to discontinue the case.

The inquiry will also hear from anti-Jehovah’s Witness campaigner Steven Unthank, a former member of the church who says he and his family were ostracised and persecuted after he tried to tackle child abuse.

His submission alleges the church and its incorporated body, the Watchtower Society, covered up criminal child abuse, including rape, sexual assault, death threats, blackmail and assault, across four states by ordained ministers and officers of the church.

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VATICAN CITY
MercoPress

The Vatican appointed a German lawyer to head its bank, but the bid to turn the fortunes of the scandal-hit institution was clouded by his business links to a military shipbuilder.

The appointment, made by a commission of cardinals, was approved by Pope Benedict and is likely one of his last major decisions before he resigns at the end of the month, a move he announced last week, stunning Catholics around the world.

As chairman of the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR), Ernst von Freyberg will head efforts to improve the image of the Vatican’s bank which is under investigation for money laundering and has been without a head for nine months.

But within minutes of announcing his appointment, the Vatican faced a new public relations challenge when asked to explain Freyberg’s chairmanship of Blohm + Voss, a Hamburg-based shipbuilder in which he is a minority shareholder.

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UNITED KINGDOM
UK Progressive

by Denis G. Campbell

Pope Benedict XVI is gone in ten days. Many inside and outside the Catholic Church are saying, “don’t let the door hit you on the way out.” This papacy, controversial from his initial selection to replace John Paul II, was hit with damning revelations of a child sexual abuse cover-up that reached all the way up to Los Angeles’ Cardinal Mahony. It was alleged in numerous court documents that Mahony deliberately sought to evade the law by sending sex-offender priests to treatment facilities in states outside of California who specifically did not require health professionals to report these crimes to authorities.

So the question remains, if the child sex abuse scandal reached all the way to a Cardinal, one of 130 or so global leaders of the church, could the trail reach Pope Benedict? It’s not a stretch since, as Cardinal Ratzinger of Germany, Pope Benedict was the church’s lead authority handling the controversy. Add in reports of Cardinal Mahony paying off $660 million dollars of child sex-abuse settlements with monies from church cemetery funds (a practice illegal for all but religious cemeteries), one can see how truly despicable a crime and cover-up this all is. Mary Dispenza, a woman who received a sex-abuse settlement back in 2006 said it best, “I think it’s very deceptive, and in a way they took it from people who had no voice: the dead. They can’t react, they can’t respond.”

Benedict did not help himself while leading the church. A hard right conservative, he lashed out at homosexuality and the use of any and all birth control measures including condoms and The Pill. But no stain is as deep as his two decades as Pope John Paul II’s point man on the growing allegations of sexual abuse of young boys the last four decades.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

A Victorian man who grew up in church-run orphanages says he was beaten and locked in a dark basement by priests and nuns, but never saw any evidence of sexual abuse.

Alan “Charlie” Walker also alleges a man he grew up with had made false claims of sexual abuse to win compensation.

Mr Walker was abandoned at a babies’ home in Broadmeadows in Melbourne’s north when he was nine days old and lived in several Catholic orphanages in Victoria until the age of 15.

Speaking of mistreatment, such as being caned and locked in a basement for bad behaviour, Mr Walker told the Victorian parliamentary inquiry into sex abuse there had been good and bad in his upbringing.

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