ABUSE TRACKER

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
KATV

Updated: Jan 25, 2013

By MARYCLAIRE DALE
Associated Press
PHILADELPHIA (AP) – The credibility of a 24-year-old heroin addict whose sex-abuse complaint took down a Roman Catholic church official in Philadelphia – and helped bring thousands of secret church files to light – is now in the hands of a jury.

The policeman’s son came forward in 2009 with the stunning claim that he’d been raped as a boy by two priests and his sixth-grade teacher. A jury heard two weeks of evidence before deliberations in the case began Friday.

One priest facing five other complaints accepted a plea deal on the eve of trial and went to prison, yet denies any contact with the trial accuser. The remaining defendants, the Rev. Charles Engelhardt, 66, of Wyndmoor, and ex-teacher Bernard Shero, 49, of Levittown, have staked their case on the accuser. He’s changed his story several times, in significant ways, since the disclosure.

In closing arguments Friday, prosecutor Mark Cipolletti pointed out the many civil lawyers in court representing financial interests of the Philadelphia archdiocese, Engelhardt’s religious order, the accuser and others.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

IRELAND
Leinster Express

A PORTLAOISE priest has defended the Irish priest threatened with excomunication by the Catholic church.

Writing in the Portlaoise Parish newsletter to be distributed at masses this weekend, Fr Paddy Byrne describes the silencing and threatened expulsion of Fr Tony Flannery as “distressing”.

Up to now Fr Byrne had used twitter to question the church’s stance but this weekend he speaks directly to his parishioners in defence of Fr Flannery and equates what is happening as “repression”.

“The recent silencing and possible excommunication of Fr Tony Flannery makes for distressing news. The gift of conversation is both valuable and necessary, when reflection is silenced and those who do so punished, it creates an atmosphere of fear and repression,” writes Fr Bryne.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on January 25, 2013

We applaud these brave victims who are helping to expose corruption Catholic officials in court.

We hope Pennsylvania’s archaic, predator-friendly statute of limitations won’t thwart their efforts to win justice. We also hope their courage will inspire others who were hurt ask kids to come forward. Silence and inaction helps predators and endangers kids.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
KMBC

KANSAS CITY, Mo. —A former congregant at a Kansas City church alleges the new head of the Missouri State Board of Education used his position as pastor to engage in sexual misconduct, the second such lawsuit filed against him in a little more than a year.

The latest lawsuit, filed late Wednesday in Jackson County Circuit Court, alleges that the Rev. Stan Archie made lewd comments about his sexual prowess after he began counseling a 15-year-old female member of the congregation, who is now 23. Archie also is accused of encouraging the teenage girl to act promiscuously and report her experiences to him, often by Skype. The suit said Archie sometimes would masturbate as she told him her experiences.

The suit said Archie told her he was her pastor and mentor and that nothing they were doing was wrong.

A lawsuit filed last year claimed that Archie engaged in inappropriate sexual conduct with his former assistant.

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YOUNGSTOWN (OH)
WFMJ

By Michelle Nicks, Reporter

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – At a press conference Thursday, the bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Youngstown apologized to the victims in a sexual abuse allegation against a former religious teacher and coach at the Warren John F. Kennedy High School.

“I am deeply sorry for the pain the victims of Brother [Stephen] Baker endured while at John F. Kennedy High School in Warren,” Bishop George Murry told news reporters. “Brother Baker betrayed the trust these young men placed in him as a spiritual leader.”

Baker was accused of sexually abusing 11 Warren JFK students more than 20 years ago, but the men just recently came forward in a lawsuit against the diocese and Third Order Regular Franciscans in Pennsylvania where Baker was a member.

The suit was settled with a monetary award for the men. The Third Order Regular Franciscans of Pennsylvania paid 70 percent of the settlement and the other 30 percent came from the Catholic Diocese of Youngstown.

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OHIO/PENNSYLVANIA
WKBN

A Pennsylvania attorney has filed a notice of intent to sue the Catholic diocese in Youngstown and Johnstown, Pa. and a school where a Franciscan friar allegedly abused teenage boys he was supposed to be treating for sports-related injuries.

About 60 people have now alleged abuse against Franciscan friar Brother Stephen P. Baker during his tenures at Warren’s John F. Kennedy High School and Johnstown, Pa.’s Bishop McCort High School, according to several attorneys now involved in the case.

Baker, according to attorneys and seven alleged victims from JFK and Bishop McCort, used his position as athletic trainer at the schools from 1986-2000 to give teenage boys massages where he would fondle their genitals and digitally penetrate them. Baker was also a religion teacher and baseball coach at both schools.

Baker was removed from ministry at Bishop McCort in 2000 when allegations surfaced that Baker molested a student during the 1980s. A confidential lawsuit was resolved in 2002, the Altoona Mirror reported. Bishop McCort, which is no longer a diocese school, launched an internal investigation Thursday, according to diocese spokesman Matthew Beynon. The diocese was in charge of the school when the alleged abuse occurred. They hired former Allegheny County District Attorney Kathleen A. Gallagher and Eckert Seamans to investigate the claims.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Failed Messiah

Britain’s Haredim Write Letter On Child Sex Abuse That Claims UOHC Is Blameless, Rabbis Must Screen Allegations

The letter written on Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations (Kedassia) stationary says that it is “our duty” to consider “every allegation” of child sexual abuse a “very serious” thing. UOHC therefore needs to inform the haredi public how to properly deal with this and to “make fences” to prevent it and to properly help everyone who has been abused.

UOHC says it has a committee of “rabbis, teachers and members of the community who know how to properly help abuse victims,” set up to deal with abuse cases in the haredi community. UOHC’s “rabbinic leadership recognizes that there are certain times when it is correct and necessary to call the social services and police. The committee will consult with the those rabbis to determine the proper course of action in each case. The committee will try to use the advice and help of experts to help families or children who have suffered from abuse, may God protect us.”

In other words, rabbis will screen cases and rabbis will decide whether or not police or social services will be called and the committee will try to follow the advice of experts to help victims and their families – but it will not promise to do so.

Why?

Almost certainly because 99.999% of these experts are not UOHC members or haredim, and to seek and follow their advice means to involve people outside the haredi community that UOHC does not control. And UOHC can’t have that in many cases – especially in cases of child sexual abuse where UOHC does not want police or social services to be involved. Why? Because those experts are often mandated reporters who will report the abuse to police or social services.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

Joseph A. Slobodzian, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

Posted: Friday, January 25, 2013, 1:18 PM

A Philadelphia Common Pleas Court jury has begun getting legal instructions from the judge after a morning listening to closing arguments by a second defense lawyer and the prosecutor in the child-rape trial of a Philadelphia Catholic priest and ex-parochial schoolteacher.

Judge Ellen Ceisler told the jury her legal instructions, known as the charge, will take about 40 minutes. After that, the jurors will begin evaluating the charges against the Rev. Charles Engelhardt and Bernard Shero.

Engelhardt, 66, and Shero, 49, are charged with rape, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with a child, child endangerment and two related counts involving the alleged serial sexual assault in 1998-99 of a 10-year-old altar boy in the St. Jerome’s parish in the Northeast.

Defense attorney Michael McGovern challenged the jury in his closing this morning not to convict Engelhardt as part of what he called a national “groundswell of the presumption of guilt” in cases involving Catholic priests and sexual abuse of children.

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PHILADELHIA (PA)
News Times

By MARYCLAIRE DALE, Associated Press

Updated 1:19 pm, Friday, January 25, 2013

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A courtroom “littered with lawyers” has heard closing arguments Friday in a priest-abuse case that rocked the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

A jury must decide whether a 24-year-old heroin addict whose complaint took down a church official — and brought thousands of secret church files to light — is credible.

The policeman’s son came forward in 2009 with the stunning claim that he’d been raped by two priests and a teacher.

One ex-priest has pleaded guilty, while the Rev. Charles Engelhardt and ex-teacher Bernard Shero are on trial.

In closings, prosecutor Mark Cipolletti pointed out the many civil lawyers in court representing financial interest of the archdiocese, Engelhardt’s religious order, the accuser and others.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

YOU may have read or heard in the last few days that the Vatican is threatening to excommunicate a priest – Fr Tony Flannery – because he believes in women priests.

Yes, he does believe in women priests, but no, he won’t be excommunicated for that. And according to the ‘Irish Catholic’, he isn’t going to be excommunicated for anything else either.

In fact, no priest or theologian that I can think of has ever been excommunicated for believing in women priests.

The only two priests I can think of who have been excommunicated in recent years are Tissa Balasuriya and Roy Bourgeois.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
WTAQ

MILWAUKEE (WTAQ) – The Milwaukee Catholic Archdiocese says it will run out of operating funds in April, unless a bankruptcy court creates some breathing room.

The church has paid around $9 million on legal and consulting fees in the bankruptcy case it filed two years ago.

Thursday, the archdiocese asked Judge Susan Kelley for permission to stop paying all those fees, except for $125,000 on a financial reorganization plan. The church also wants to use insurance money to keep challenging compensation claims made by those who were sexually abused by priests.

Archdiocese spokesman Jerry Topczewski said the church needs relief from its bankruptcy bills. And without it, “We will be unable to continue operating.” He said the archdiocese has used all its money from savings, reserves, investments, and funds that were budget for litigation.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
The Catholic Key

Bishop Robert W. Finn

When I was editor of the diocesan paper in St. Louis, my office had a statue of St. Francis DeSales, Bishop of Geneva, and Doctor of the Church. Francis died in 1622. He is regarded as a patron of journalists and of the Catholic Press. His feast day is January 24, and has been observed by the Vatican for many years as World Communications Day. Again this year, the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI has used the occasion to give a message to us on Social Communications.

The Forty-Seventh World Communications Day Message is entitled “Social Networks: Portals of Truth and Faith; New Spaces for Evangelization.” Here the Pope speaks about the opportunities for evangelization made possible through social media. He also addresses the moral responsibility we have to use these media in respectful ways. For nearly a half-century these messages have affirmed the value of modern communication in the presentation of the Gospel.

The Church’s Canon law places on the local bishop a particular responsibility to use the media effectively in the work of the Gospel, and to call the media to fidelity in the use of means of social communications. …

I am very proud of the work of our diocesan Catholic paper, The Catholic Key, our writers, and all involved with its production for the conscientious manner in which they use the paper to teach Catholic doctrine, to provide trustworthy reflections on issues that take place in our culture, and to provide stories of apostolic life and work – particularly from our local diocese – that inspire us to live our Catholic faith more fully.

Similarly, the apostolate of Catholic Radio has blossomed locally. KEXS, 1090 AM, Catholic radio has helped Catholics to know and live their faith. Catholic radio is enjoyed by non-Catholics and has been the cause of many coming to the Faith and entering the Church.

In a different way, I am sorry to say, my attention has been drawn once again to the National Catholic Reporter, a newspaper with headquarters in this Diocese. I have received letters and other complaints about NCR from the beginning of my time here. In the last months I have been deluged with emails and other correspondence from Catholics concerned about the editorial stances of the Reporter: officially condemning Church teaching on the ordination of women, insistent undermining of Church teaching on artificial contraception and sexual morality in general, lionizing dissident theologies while rejecting established Magisterial teaching, and a litany of other issues.

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CALIFORNIA
Ms. Magazine

January 24, 2013 By Stephanie Geske

Confidential letters between Los Angeles Catholic church officials that had been withheld for decades–despite long efforts by victims to obtain them and stonewalling by the Church–were released Monday after becoming part of a civil court case against a priest accused of molesting 26 Los Angeles children in the 1980s.

The notes from then-Archbishop Roger M. Mahony and Monsignor Thomas J. Curry, published by the Los Angeles Times, have provided even more insight as to how sexual- abuse accusations against priests have been covered up for years. The notes detail plans by the two men to keep police from discovering that children were being molested in Los Angeles parishes, with Curry suggesting the predator priests not see therapists who could then alert authorities; instead, he wanted to give priests out-of-state assignments to avoid criminal charges. Curry was the chief advisor to the Archbishop on sex-abuse cases at the time.

One priest discussed in the released files was Msgr. Peter Garcia, who tended to abuse undocumented children because he could keep them quiet by threatening to have them deported. He went to a treatment center for pedophile clergy in New Mexico, but left the priesthood in 1989 after returning to Los Angeles and refusing to take medication to contain his sexual urges toward children. Never prosecuted, he died in 2009.

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COLORADO
Catholic News Agency

Denver, Colo., Jan 25, 2013 / 04:03 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Colorado’s three bishops will examine litigation surrounding Catholic Health Initiatives, after its lawyers allegedly argued in a wrongful-death lawsuit that human fetuses are not persons.

“The Catholic bishops of Colorado are not able to comment on ongoing legal disputes. However, we will undertake a full review of this litigation, and of the policies and practices of Catholic Health Initiatives to ensure fidelity and faithful witness to the teachings of the Catholic Church,” the bishops said Jan. 24.

“Catholic Health Initiatives has been accused by some of undermining the Catholic position on human life in the course of litigation,” they added. “Today, representatives of Catholic Health Initiatives assured us of their intention to observe the moral and ethical obligations of the Catholic Church.”

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GERMANY
Spiegel

By Frank Hornig, Barbara Schmid, Fidelius Schmid and Peter Wensierski

Rape victims are being turned away, and divorced employees are losing their jobs. Catholic hospitals, kindergartens and nursing homes — which are primarily tax-funded — are causing problems for Germany’s social welfare state. But some politicians are fighting back.

The origins of the Cellitine sisters and their beneficial ministry date back to late 13th-century Cologne, when the nuns devoted themselves to the “care of the sick, the weak and the poor.”

Their original mission has expanded into a corporation encompassing 16 nursing homes and 10 hospitals. The only problem is that care is precisely what has been lacking there recently. Wanting nothing to do with a possible early termination of a pregnancy, doctors working for the Cellitines turned away a woman who was seeking help shortly before Christmas, despite the strong suspicion that she had been raped.

Last week, the order publicly downplayed the case when it made national news, calling it “very regrettable” and “a misunderstanding.”

Turning away rape victims can hardly be called a misunderstanding. On January 10, Sylvia Klauser, the order’s chief ethics officer, explained to an emergency doctor the hospitals’ procedures for handling rape victims. The notes the doctor made on the conversation reveal an astonishing aspect of the order’s policy: As long as patients who have been raped are “responsive and capable of being moved,” they are to be transferred “to a city facility.” The apparent goal of the policy is to ensure that the nuns and doctors will not be confronted with a possible abortion.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 25 January 2013 (VIS) – ‘Ministrorum institutio’ is the title of the Motu Proprio by which the Holy Father modifies the Apostolic Constitution ‘Pastor bonus’, (John Paul II, 1988) and transfers the competency for seminaries from the Congregation for Catholic Education to the Congregation for the Clergy. Following are ample extracts from the document.

“The formation of sacred ministers was one of the main concerns of the Fathers of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, who wrote that, ‘fully aware that the desired renewal of the whole Church depends to a great extent on the ministry of its priests, [the Council] proclaims the extreme importance of priestly training’. In this context, canon 232 of the Code of Canon Law claims ‘the duty and the proper and exclusive right’ of the formation of those who are designated for the sacred ministries―that by regulation takes place in seminaries―as belonging to the Church.”

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COLORADO
Addicting Info

Posted by T. Steelman

In a stunning bit of hypocrisy, Catholic Health Initiatives – a non-profit that runs about 170 health facilities in 17 states – is arguing that fetuses are not people. Specifically, two fetuses involved in a wrongful death suit brought against them in Colorado.

This began on New Year’s Day 2006, when 31-year-old Lori Stodghill arrived at St. Thomas More hospital in Cañon City, CO. The seven-months-pregnant woman was short of breath and vomiting and she lost consciousness soon after her arrival. Her obstetrician, Dr. Pelham Staples (who also happened to be the OB on-call that night) was paged but he did not answer. Ms. Stodghill died from a heart attack less than an hour after she arrived at the Emergency Room. The twins she was carrying died in her womb. Her bereaved husband filed a wrongful death suit against the hospital on behalf of himself and his daughter (who was 2 at the time), charging that Dr. Staples should have at least directed the ER staff to perform an emergency C-section. An expert testified that while Lori could not in all likelihood have been saved, the babies could have been if a caesarean had been performed right away.

Catholic Health Initiatives, being the parent company of Thomas More Hospital, is the defendant in the case. For a non-profit they do remarkably well, with at least $15 billion in assets. But they maintain that all they seek to do is “nurture the healing ministry of the Church” guided by “fidelity to the Gospel.” Of course, they follow the rulings of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in the form of the Ethical and Religious Directives of the Catholic Church. Those directives, as we well know by now, speak of the sanctity of life “from the moment of conception until death.” The Church has made quite a big deal out of this lately to the point of objecting to birth control and even cancer screenings (don’t even try to follow that “logic”).

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COLORADO
The Denver Post

Posted: 01/24/2013

By Electa Draper
The Denver Post denverpost.com

Colorado’s three Catholic bishops Thursday evening said they will make a full review of a lawsuit in which a Catholic hospital defending against malpractice has argued that fetuses aren’t persons.

Jeremy Stodghill filed a wrongful-death lawsuit in District Court in Fremont County after his 31-year-old wife, Lori, seven months pregnant with twin boys, died of a blockage of the main artery of the lung at St. Thomas More Hospital in Cañon City on New Year’s Day 2006.

Stodghill’s lawyer argued that her obstetrician, Pelham Staples, never made it to the hospital — even though on call for emergencies — and there was no attempt by any medical personnel to save the Stodghills’ sons by cesarian section.The unborn children died in the womb.

The lead defendant is Englewood-based Catholic Health Initiatives, which runs St. Thomas More and hospitals in 14 states.

The Catholic Church has fought for decades to change federal and state laws to protect fetuses as persons. Yet, according to court documents, Catholic Health Initiatives argued in this case that the Colorado Wrongful Death Act requires the death of a person and the statute doesn’t include the death of a fetus that wasn’t born or delivered.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Houston Chronicle

MILWAUKEE (AP) — The Archdiocese of Milwaukee says it is going broke and wants a bankruptcy judge to allow it to suspend payments to attorneys and consultants.

Archdiocese spokesman Jerry Topczewski (top-CHES’-kee) says savings, reserves and investment earnings have all been exhausted. And if it doesn’t stop paying attorneys and consultants the archdiocese will be unable to pay its monthly operating expenses beginning in April.

The archdiocese would continue to pay its own attorneys to challenge sex abuse claims from its insurance carriers.

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UXBRIDGE (MA)
Telegram & Gazette

By Gary V. Murray TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
gmurray@telegram.com

WORCESTER — The co-founder of the Church of the End Times in Uxbridge was acquitted Thursday on a charge of violating an abuse prevention order obtained against him by his estranged wife.

It took a Central District Court jury less than 20 minutes of deliberations to find Dennis H. Stanley, 36, not guilty of the charge, which resulted from an allegation by Beth Ellen Stanley that her estranged husband came within 100 yards of her home at 41 Murphy’s Way, Uxbridge, on Oct. 21, in violation of the restraining order.

Ms. Stanley testified that she was looking out an upstairs window in the direction of her brother-in-law’s house at 51 Murphy’s Way on the afternoon of Oct. 21 when she saw her husband walking from the area of Route 122 toward his brother David’s home.

Ms. Stanley said Dennis Stanley “froze” when she opened the window and yelled out that she had seen him, then continued into his brother’s house.

David Stanley is the pastor of the nondenominational Church of the End Times he and his brother founded and Dennis Stanley is the second-in-command pastor.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By Annysa Johnson of the Journal Sentinel

Jan. 24, 2013

The Archdiocese of Milwaukee is hemorrhaging money on legal and professional fees as a result of its bankruptcy and will be unable to pay its monthly operating expenses beginning in April unless the judge suspends those payments, it says in court documents filed Thursday.

The archdiocese filed a motion asking U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Susan V. Kelley to allow it to suspend all payments to attorneys and consultants, except $125,000 for work on its plan of reorganization. And it would continue to pay its own attorneys to challenge sex-abuse claims with proceeds from its insurance carriers.

“Without it, we will be unable to continue operating. We’ve used all the money we had from savings, reserves, investment earnings and money budgeted for litigation,” archdiocese spokesman Jerry Topczewski said.

“This is a reorganization, not a liquidation,” he said, “and under bankruptcy law, the goal for Chapter 11 is to keep the organization operational.”

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Daily Pennsylvanian

By Claire Cohen · January 24, 2013

Few Penn alumni would recognize the former disc jockey at Smokey Joe’s as he stood on the witness stand in a light blue prison shirt with “DOC” — for Department of Correction — written on the back in white letters.

Last Thursday, defrocked West Philadelphia Catholic priest Edward Avery recanted his guilty plea of sexually assaulting a young boy in 1999 when called to testify during the trial against Rev. Charles Engelhardt and Bernard Shero, charged for molesting the same victim as Avery. Avery pled guilty last March and was sentenced to two and a half to five years in prison.

From September 1978 to June 1984, Avery served as assistant pastor at St. Agatha-St. James Parish on 38th and Chestnut streets. Known also as the “Smiling Padre,” Avery doubled as a disc jockey for hire.

While working at St. Agatha-St. James Parish, Avery continued molesting an altar boy from his previous assignment at St. Philip Neri Church in East Greenville, known in court proceedings under the pseudonym “James.”

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AUSTRALIA
Big Pond News

Friday, January 25, 2013

Two alleged sexual assault victims of retired Catholic priest, Finian Egan, have waived their right to anonymity.

In the District Court in Sydney on Friday, the prosecution in the case against the 78-year-old asked that a non-publication order on the names of two of Egan’s alleged victims, Nikki Wells and Kellie Roche, be lifted at their request.

In May last year, Egan was arrested and charged with 17 sexual offences that allegedly occurred between 1972 and 1987 while he was serving as a priest in parishes in Sydney and on the NSW Central Coast.

The charges relate to one boy and three girls.

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CANADA
CFRA

Chris Holski
Friday, January 25, 2013

An 82-year-old Catholic priest who in the past taught at Ottawa high schools has been convicted of sexually assaulting a teenage boy for the second time in less than five months.

Father Kenneth O’Keefe pleaded guilty in Gatineau this week to indecently assaulting a 17-year-old boy back in 1969.

He’s been sentenced to nine months under house arrest at a retirement home in Toronto.

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CANADA
The Windsor Star

An elderly Catholic priest who once taught at Windsor’s Assumption high school as well as various high schools in the Ottawa region has pleaded guilty for the second time in a year to sexually assaulting a teen boy in his care.

Father Kenneth John O’Keefe, 82, pleaded guilty in a Hull courtroom this week to “indecently assaulting” a then-17-year-old boy over the course of four months between September and December 1969.

He also pleaded guilty to “an act of gross indecency” during the same period, with the same victim, known only as G-L.B.

G-L.B. was a student at Ottawa’s St. Joseph’s Catholic School.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

Joseph A. Slobodzian, Inquirer Staff Writer

Posted: Friday, January 25, 2013

The child-rape trial of a Philadelphia Catholic priest and an ex-parochial-school teacher goes to a Common Pleas Court jury Friday after the end of testimony and one defense lawyer’s plea for acquittal.

Burton A. Rose urged jurors not to convict former teacher Bernard Shero because of his awkward appearance or the salacious nature of the charges against him.
In his closing Thursday, Rose read the list of charges against the 49-year-old, vision-impaired English teacher: rape, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with a child, child endangerment, and two related counts.

“We have these charges in this case that are horrible,” Rose said. “Nothing is worse than being charged with the violent assault of a child. . . . But don’t be swept away by the allegations.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Big Trial

Thursday, January 24, 2013

By Ralph Cipriano
for bigtrial.net

The court crier swore in Father Charles Engelhardt and Bernard Shero as witnesses.

Judge Ellen Ceisler then asked if the two defendants were electing not to testify on their behalf at the Archdiocese of Philadelphia sex abuse trial.

Both defendants confirmed they had decided to take a pass.

The judge asked if either man was on drugs or alcohol, or prescription medications, or was mentally disoriented in any way.

To each of these three questions, each defendant replied, “No, Your Honor”three times. The judge assured both defendants that she would instruct the jury to draw “no adverse inference” from their decision not to testify.

After the two defendants testified, the defense today closed out its case with five more character witnesses on behalf of Father Engelhardt. The prosecution called a rebuttal witness, a cousin of the priest who said that Engelhardt had a “horrible reputation” in the community, without any explanation of what he was alluding to. Then it was on to the first closing statement from Burton A. Rose, on behalf of Bernard Shero.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Democrat

Sandra K Reabuck sreabuck@tribdem.com

EBENSBURG — The alleged sex abuse by a Franciscan friar of boys at Johnstown’s Bishop McCort Catholic High School decades ago now is moving into the civil side of Cambria County court.

This week, Greensburg attorney Susan Williams filed a notice in county court that a civil lawsuit is being filed on behalf of Victims Nos. 1, 2 and 3.

The alleged victims – whose names were not disclosed – are in their 20s and are relatively recent graduates of Bishop McCort, Williams said Thursday.

The three men have talked to her in detail about “the severity, pervasiveness and open nature of the abuse which they suffered at the hands of Brother (Stephen) Baker,” she said.

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YOUGSTOWN (OH)
Tribune Chronicle

January 25, 2013

By JOE GORMAN – Staff reporter (jgorman@tribtoday.com) , Tribune Chronicle | TribToday.com

YOUNGSTOWN – Bishop of Youngstown George Murray said Thursday that diocese officials did not announce terms of a settlement with victims of a Franciscan order brother who once coached at Warren John F. Kennedy High School because they believed the order’s headquarters in Pennsylvania would do so.

Because they did not and the allegations against Brother Steven Baker were made public last week, Murry said in a news conference from the diocese’s offices that they are asking for anyone who may have been a victim of Baker to contact civil authorities and the police.

No criminal charges were filed against Baker, and the statute of limitations has run out.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Barry Duggan

Friday January 25 2013

A CHURCH of Ireland lay minister who had severe child pornography images in a computer folder marked ‘Papist Humour’ has been sentenced to five months’ imprisonment.

Passing sentence at Limerick District Court, Judge Eugene O’Kelly said it was a concerning factor that Ger Fitzgerald (62) sought out work as a primary school caretaker in Limerick when he had an appetite for child pornography.

He was charged with possessing 13 child pornography images on March 19, 2010.

Fitzgerald of Grianan, Corbally, Co Clare, pleaded not guilty. His barrister said that his client did not knowingly have them in his possession.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Stern

Die Schweiz erschüttert ein Skandal um missbrauchte und misshandelte Kinder in der Obhut eines katholischen Ordens. Unabhängige Experten legten das ganze furchtbare Ausmaß offen. Von Thomas Schmoll

Kommissionspräsidenten haben allgemein den Ruf, Fachidioten zu sein, die gefühlsarm bis gefühlskalt ihrer Arbeit nachgehen. Nicht so Magnus Küng. Der Schweizer erlaubte es sich kürzlich, öffentlich Emotionen zu zeigen. Der Verkündung der Ergebnisse einer zweijährigen Studie stellte er “etwas ganz Persönliches” voran. Er bekannte: “Ich habe beim Lesen manchmal richtig Herzklopfen bekommen und mir eine Träne aus den Augen gewischt. Ich war oft wütend auf die Menschen, welche solches tun konnten und auf die damalige Gesellschaft, auf die Behörden und auf die Kirche, welche alle einfach weggeschaut haben.”

Küng, von Beruf Rechtsanwalt, leitete die unabhängige Expertenkommission, die die ungeheuerlichen Vorgänge in schweizerischen Kinderheimen durchleuchtete, die unter der Leitung des Ordens der Barmherzigen Schwestern vom Heiligen Kreuz standen. Die Untersuchung auf Veranlassung der Nonnen bezog sich auf die Zeit zwischen 1928 und 1970. im Fokus stand die Erziehungsanstalt Rathausen nahe Luzern.

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DEUTSCHLAND
General-Anzeiger

Von Ebba Hagenberg-Miliu.
BONN. Klaus Mertes hat eine besondere Sicht auf die Missbrauchsfälle am Aloisiuskolleg (Ako) in Bad Godesberg: Er war selbst Ako-Schüler, als der 2010 verstorbene Haupttäter Pater Ludger Stüper schon dort tätig war. 2010 brachte Pater Mertes den Missbrauchsskandal von Berlin aus ins Rollen. Im GA äußert er sich erstmals zum Ako.

Sie sagen, Sie haben selbst eine wunderbare Schulerfahrung am Ako gemacht?
Klaus Mertes: Ja. Ich bin dem Ako bis heute dankbar. Ich hatte gute Lehrerinnen und Lehrer, und auch ein paar weniger gute, wie an jeder Schule. Bis heute lebe ich mit Freundschaften aus dieser Zeit. Besonders wichtig war mir die KSJ (ND) am Ako, aber auch andere Freundeskreise, die sich um ehemalige Lehrer und Patres sammelten. Ich habe die Schule 1973 mit Stolz verlassen. Und schließlich: Ohne das Ako wäre ich nicht Jesuit geworden. Das Ako gehört zu meinem Leben.

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MISSOURI
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

By Jessica Bock jbock@post-dispatch.com 314-340-8228

A second woman has filed a lawsuit against the president of the Missouri State Board of Education alleging sexual misconduct while in his position as a pastor at a church in Kansas City.

The suit, filed Wednesday in Jackson County Circuit Court, accuses the Rev. Stan Archie of child sexual abuse, defamation and therapy malpractice that began after the woman, then 15 years old, began seeing him about 2006 for counseling at the church. It also names Archie’s church, Christian Fellowship Baptist Church, as negligent.

Archie has denied all claims, saying that disgruntled members of his church are trying to hurt his reputation and get money from the church. He has been on the state board since 2006, and began his term as president this month.

The women in both suits are not named in court documents, but referred to in each case separately as “Jane Doe.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
Legal Week

Author: Patrick Raggett

25 Jan 2013

City litigator Patrick Raggett recounts the turmoil and ultimate vindication he faced in pursuing a damages claim against the Catholic Church for abuse suffered as a schoolboy

I litigated for seven years against the Catholic Church and its insurers, Zurich. In doing so, I wore several hats – as former litigation partner with Pinsent Masons, as the client in a high-profile action, as a sexual abuse victim and latterly as a mentor to other claimants.

Over the years, I had to draw heavily on my 16 years doing commercial cases.

Finally, in November 2012, after two trials totalling 15 days, one appeal and several interlocutory applications, I was awarded £55,000 damages by Mrs Justice Swift arising from sexual assaults by a Jesuit priest in the 1970s.

The same judge, in finding at the first trial on liability in March 2009 that I had been sexually assaulted more than 200 times over four years, found my evidence “entirely compelling”.

At the second 11-day trial on causation and damage, Swift found the psychological effects had somehow evaporated by the time I was 21, just five years after the attacks ended, thus ruling out my loss of earnings claim.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Daily American

Bishop McCort Catholic High School has hired a Pittsburgh-based law firm to investigate allegations of sexual abuse involving Brother Stephen Baker, who taught at the school in the late 1990s.

The non-diocesan members the school’s board of trustees became aware of the allegations late last week, according to a press release. At the time of Baker’s tenure with Bishop McCort, the school was a part of the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown. It has since undergone privatization.

After learning of the allegations, the board ordered a voluntary internal review and investigation, hiring Kathleen A. Gallagher and Eckert Seamans Cherin & Mellott to conduct the investigation.

Gallagher is a former prosecutor with the Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office. The school said she has prosecuted numerous sexual assault cases and thus “brings a unique understanding of both the law and unique circumstances surrounding such cases.”

A settlement was reached with 11 people Baker allegedly victimized while at John F. Kennedy Catholic School in Warren, Ohio, from 1986 to 1990.

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YOUNGSTOWN (OH)
Youngstown Vindicator

By Ashley Luthern
aluthern@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

For the third time in almost three years, the Catholic Diocese of Youngstown is pledging transparency and again reassuring the public that it is “taking every possible action” to protect children from sexual abuse.

For the third time in almost as many years, the Catholic Diocese of Youngstown is pledging transparency and again reassuring the public that it is “taking every possible action” to protect children from sexual abuse.

But those promises are increasingly being met with skepticism from victim advocates, such as the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP).

Bishop George V. Murry had a Thursday news conference to address recent reports that 11 men settled out of court as a result of sexual abuse perpetrated by Franciscan Brother Stephen P. Baker, who worked at John F. Kennedy High School in Warren from 1986 to 1991 but was never a member of the clergy.

He is a member of the Franciscan Third Order Regular, and victims said the abuse most often occurred in an athletic training room where Brother Baker would find excuses to massage athletes and would sometimes massage their genitals.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Altoona Mirror

January 25, 2013

By Russ O’Reilly (roreilly@altoonamirror.com) , The Altoona Mirror

The magnitude of accusations against Brother Stephen Baker is staggering, said an Altoona attorney who has represented victims of sexual abuse since 1987.

“He appears to be the most prolific child predator I’ve dealt with, and I’ve been doing this for 25 years,” attorney Richard Serbin said.

Serbin filed his first lawsuit against the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown and its bishop for allegedly protecting a serial child predator, the Rev. Francis Luddy.

That trial began in 1994 – when Baker was at Bishop McCort Catholic High School in Johnstown. Baker served as a religion teacher at Bishop McCort from 1990 to 2000 or 2001.

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ARIZONA
The Arizona Republic

[Lovell file – BishopAccountability.org]

[Documents Selected and Highlighted on the AbusedInSoCal.com Website – Lovell 1985]

By Michael Clancy
The Republic | azcentral.com
Thu Jan 24, 2013

A former Diocese of Phoenix priest imprisoned in Arizona is one of 14 priests whose files were released this week in a Los Angeles court case involving sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

Lawrence Lovell is serving a 14-year sentence for abusing children in Yavapai and Maricopa counties. He is imprisoned at the Central Arizona Correctional Facility in Florence.

His file included a letter from his superior in the Claretian religious order, a report of his history in the Los Angeles area, a list of actions taken against him, and a letter from a parent accusing Lovell of molesting his children.

What it does not include is Lovell’s full clerical history, including assignments in Prescott and Phoenix.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

A second Catholic priest will come under the scrutiny of a NSW inquiry into sex abuse allegations in the Hunter region.

Premier Barry O’Farrell announced on November 9 a special commission of inquiry into matters relating to a police investigation of sex abuse allegations in the diocese of Maitland-Newcastle.

The inquiry, headed by Margaret Cunneen SC, came after allegations by Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox that the church had hindered police.

Mr O’Farrell said the inquiry would look at whether Insp Fox was asked to stop investigating Father Denis McAlinden, and whether the church hindered or obstructed the investigation.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
SNAP Wisconsin

Statement by Peter Isely, SNAP Midwest Director
CONTACT: 414.429.7259

In a major victory today for some 570 victim/survivors who have filed cases in federal bankruptcy court charging fraud by the Milwaukee Archdiocese in the concealment and transfer of priest child sex offenders, Judge Susan V. Kelley has ruled that three key cases the archdiocese has sought to dismiss can proceed. Because the majority of cases filed by victims are similar to the three allowed into court today, the ruling should finally bring an end to the archdiocese unprecedented two year legal attack seeking to have nearly all the cases thrown out.

Sadly, it probably won’t.

Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki’s aggressive and wasteful legal strategy has also, it was learned, cost parishioners 9 million dollars in lawyers and consultant fees. Because of this, church lawyers are today claiming that, while they themselves have billed for millions, there is no restitution available from the archdiocese for a single victim/survivor.

Listecki, who is himself a lawyer, filed for bankruptcy two years ago “to properly compensate all victim survivors.” It’s clear now he never intended these words, and has instead made a lot of other lawyers rich.

It’s doubtful that the archdiocese, which moved tens of millions of dollars off the books before filing for bankruptcy, is suddenly without resources. In fact, Listecki himself claimed before filing that the archdiocese had only 4.2 million dollars to settle cases and lawyers’ fees. He has now spent over twice that amount without settling a single case.

Kelley also has indicated that she is willing to revisit and possibly lift significant sections of the protective order placed on the 60,000 plus pages of abuse related documents now under court seal, saying she will rule on the matter soon. The documents and depositions are expected to provide the fullest picture yet of the extent of criminal behavior by scores of offender clergy against children over the past 50 years, along with the systematic efforts by Milwaukee archbishops, bishops and church officials to cover-up these crimes.

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WISCONSIN
CBS 58

[with video]

by Michele McCormack

WAUKESHA—A judge revoked the probation of 53-year-old Joel Hochmuth Wednesday and ordered him to prison for four years.

Court documents reveal he violated court orders to stay away from the Internet and hasn’t followed terms of his work release schedule.

Hochmuth also admitted to masturbating in some woods near his workplace.

Hochmuth lost his job at the Wisconsin Lutheran Synod last year after he was arrested on child porn charges.

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FLORIDA
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: Rev. Neil Doherty, also known as “Gus”, was an active priest of the Miami archdiocese for nearly 33 years, and the subject of accusations of child sexual abuse which span his entire career. Doherty worked as a counselor for Catholic Family Services to whom the archdiocese would regularly refer troubled boys. Many of those boys have sinced surfaced with accusations against Doherty. Doherty’s modus operandi is reported to have been to drug the boys, some of whom have said they would awaken to find Doherty abusing them. Doherty’s accusers contend the archdiocese was warned many times over the decades that he was abusing children. In 1972 a fellow priest reported that Doherty had adopted an adolescent boy, who was sleeping in Doherty’s bedroom. The same priest had warned archdiocesan officials the year before that Doherty should stay away from drug rehabilitation facilities after a raid on a halfway house for boys at which Doherty was a supervisor. Both warnings were ignored. There were reports of the sexual abuse of boys by Doherty to the archdiocese in 1983 from a psychologist and in 1987 from a psychologist and a church secretary, after which Doherty was allowed to continue in ministry. The church secretary was fired. In 1992 the archdiocese received a report from the parents of a boy who claimed to have been drugged and raped by Doherty in 1978; the archdiocese settled with the family 1n 1994. In 1992 Doherty was sent for a psychological evaluation; his superiors were told he should be removed from his role as a parish priest. He was not. It wasn’t until the clergy sexual abuse crisis was making headlines in April 2002 that Doherty was placed on leave. In 2006 Doherty was arrested and charged with child sexual abuse for drugging and raping a boy between 1996-2000, beginning when the boy was 9 years old. By November 2011, 26 men had come forward with accusations that Doherty drugged and sexually abused them as children. In January 2013 Doherty pleaded “no contest” to the charges of lewd and lascivious acts on a child.

Ordained: 1969

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MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Barbara Dorris on January 24, 2013

We’re disturbed by these new child sex abuse accusations against Rev. Stan Archie.

Research, history and our experience shows that false allegations in cases like this are extremely rare. We strongly suspect there are others who have been sexually victimized by this minister. For their healing, and for the safety of others, we hope they step forward, call police, expose wrongdoing so that more crimes can be prevented.

We commend both of the young women who are, by seeking justice, essentially warning other unsuspecting and vulnerable individuals about this predator. Their courage is safeguarding others.

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LOUISIANA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on January 24, 2013

An accused former priest from Louisiana is asking a judge and to reduce his bond.

We hope that the judge in this case does not reduce Fr. Mark Broussard’s bond. Kids are always safer when predators are behind bars, and we hope that Broussard remains there and away from children. Given the fact that he was originally charged with 224 counts related to child sex crimes, we think it is a no-brainer that he is a danger to children and must be kept away.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

January 25, 2013

Paul Bibby
Court Reporter

Two alleged victims of child sexual abuse by the now-retired Catholic priest Father Finian Egan have had court-imposed suppression orders on their names lifted so they can talk publicly about their experiences.

Nikki Wells and Kelly-Anne Roache are among four people who were allegedly abused by Father Egan between 1972 and 1987 while he worked at parishes in Sydney and on the central coast.

Father Egan was arrested in April last year and charged with 17 child sex offences.

He denies the charges and is expected to face trial later this year.

On Friday, the prosecution in the case asked Downing Centre District Court Judge, Reg Blanch, to lift the suppression orders preventing publication of Ms Wells and Ms Roache’s names at their behest.

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IRELAND
The Irish Catholic

The Vatican case against Fr Tony Flannery hinges on whether or not the Redemptorist accepts the Church’s teaching on the nature of the priesthood.

Michael Kelly

There is “no question” of Fr Tony Flannery facing excommunication senior Vatican sources have told this newspaper, and they have insisted that the case hinges on whether or not the Redemptorist accepts the Church’s teaching on the nature of the priesthood.

During a press conference in Dublin at the weekend, Fr Flannery (66) – a founder member of the Association of Catholic Priests (ACP) – said he was “threatened with excommunication from the Catholic Church for suggesting that, in the future, women might become priests and calling for this and other matters to be open for discussion”.

However, senior Vatican sources have indicated to The Irish Catholic that the Holy See has not threatened excommunication against the priest and the case against Fr Flannery is about the fundamental nature of the Church’s understanding of the priesthood.

Sources in the Roman Curia who spoke to The Irish Catholic this week claim that it is a 2010 contention by Fr Flannery that he no longer believed that “the priesthood as we currently have it in the Church originated with Jesus” or that Jesus designated “a special group of his followers as priests,” that is problematic for the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith (CDF).

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IRELAND
Irish Times

PATSY McGARRY, Religious Affairs Correspondent

Redemptorist Fr Tony Flannery was threatened with excommunication by the Vatican, according to documents seen by The Irish Times, contrary to claims by “senior Vatican sources”, as reported in this week’s Irish Catholic newspaper.

It quoted such “senior Vatican sources” and “sources in the Roman Curia” as saying there was “no question” of Fr Flannery facing excommunication” and that “the Holy See has not threatened excommunication against the priest”.

A document from the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), dated June 11th, 2012, accused Fr Flannery of expressing “heretical or heterodox statements about central church doctrines of the Catholic Christian faith” in “several of his columns” for Reality magazine.

The same document pointed out that “the Church’s canon law (canon 1044) calls a priest who has committed the delict of heresy ‘irregular for the exercise of orders received’, while canon 1364 says that ‘a heretic incurs a latae sententiae excommunication’.”

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CALIFORNIA
NPR

by Tovia Smith

January 24, 2013

Prosecutors in California say they are reviewing newly-released personnel files that document efforts by the Los Angeles Archdiocese to cover up clergy sexual abuse. They haven’t said whether they might pursue criminal charges against retired Cardinal Roger Mahony. Statutes of limitations make prosecution difficult, but victims are calling on authorities to be more creative and find a way to punish church higher-ups for protecting abusive priests, rather then children.

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NEW YORK
The Jewish Daily Forward

By Batya Ungar-Sargon

Published January 24, 2013.

When is a long prison sentence too long?

That’s the question many inside and outside the ultra-Orthodox community are asking this week after a judge dealt Nechemya Weberman a 103-year term behind bars for abusing a young girl.

“The abuse of a child cannot be swept under the rug or dealt with by insular groups believing only they know what is best for their community,” Brooklyn District Attorney Charles J. Hynes said at a press conference following Weberman’s sentencing.

The prosecutor’s statement closely echoed his thoughts in a written statement published in the New York Daily News on January 19, in which Hynes compared the Hasidim to organized crime groups. He proudly trumpeted the Weberman sentencing as a way to “send a message” to the community as a whole.

“I compare it to the Mafia, but at least in Mafia cases we can offer victims witness protection. That does not work in these insular communities,” Hynes wrote. “I hope the verdict and sentence sends a very clear and unmistakable message to people in certain parts of the Orthodox community.”

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WISCONSIN
Patch

By Sarah Millard

January 23, 2013

The former Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS) communication director — who was fired from his position upon his arrest for child pornography possession — will spend four years in prison after he followed a boys cross country team on multiple occasions.

Joel W. Hochmuth also was sentenced Wednesday to five years of extended supervision after his probation was revoked on his child porn possession conviction.

In addition to the “stalking conduct,” according to a hearing report, Hochmuth’s probation was revoked for the following reasons:
•Masturbating while naked in the woods near his workplace in Colgate and inside his workplace
•Having access to the Internet via his cell phone and failing to provide that information to his probation agent.
•Deviating from his approved schedule at the work-release jail
•Leaving his approved work site without permission
•Having “drive by” contact with minors

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WISCONSIN
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By Bruce Vielmetti of the Journal Sentinel

Jan. 24, 2013

Waukesha – A former Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod official has been sentenced to prison after he violated conditions of his probation on a conviction of possessing child pornography.

Joel Hochmuth, 53, had been sentenced last year to a year in jail with work release privileges and 10 years of probation.

At the time, Waukesha County Circuit Judge Kathryn W. Foster warned Hochmuth that any hint of “going back to any kind of behavior like this” would result in a prison term of up to the maximum 25 years.

Foster sentenced Hochmuth on Wednesday to four years in prison, followed by five years of extended supervision. He was given credit for 242 days he’s spent in jail.

His attorney, Paul Bucher, said Hochmuth’s violations did not involve any assaultive behavior, or more exposure to pornography. He said Hochmuth, after failing a polygraph exam, admitted that he had watched a boy’s cross-country team as it ran, and once disrobed and masturbated in the woods while he was performing his work-release job as a landscaper.

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MISSOURI
Missourinet

By Mike Lear

The president of the state Board of Education is accused of child sexual abuse, defamation and counseling malpractice in a lawsuit filed this week.

The Kansas City Star reports the suit was filed by a Kansas City area woman who accuses the Reverend Stan Archie of encouraging her to be sexually promiscuous and tell him about her sexual experiences in counseling sessions beginning when she was 15. She says when she ended their relationship, he began harassing and defaming her. The suit also names the his church.

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MISSOURI
Daily Journal

The new head of the Missouri State Board of Education is facing a second lawsuit accusing him of using his position as pastor of a Kansas City church to engage in sexual misconduct.

The latest lawsuit, filed late Wednesday, alleges the Rev. Stan Archie made lewd comments about his sexual prowess after he began counseling a 15-year-old congregant, who is now 23. The lawsuit says Archie encouraged the girl to act promiscuously and report her experiences to him.

A lawsuit filed last year claimed that Archie engaged in inappropriate sexual conduct with his former assistant.

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SPAIN
The Bellingham Herald

By SINIKKA TARVAINEN — dpa

MADRID — Spain will do “whatever it can” to help the judiciary investigate cases of stolen babies and illegal adoptions stretching back for decades, Interior Minister Jorge Fernandez Diaz said Thursday, after one of the key suspects died.

As many as 300,000 children may have been stolen from their mothers by independently operated rings comprised of doctors, nurses, midwives, officials, cemetery workers and intermediaries between the 1940s and 1990s, according to victims’ representatives.

The government has already adopted measures such as arranging for free DNA tests for some of those affected.

One of the best-known suspects – Maria Gomez Valbuena, a nun – died Tuesday at the age of 87 in Madrid, her religious order said.

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MISSOURI
The Kansas City Star

January 24

By JUDY L. THOMAS
The Kansas City Star

A lawsuit filed in Jackson County accuses the new president of the Missouri State Board of Education of child sexual abuse, defamation and counseling malpractice.

The civil suit, filed this week in Jackson County Circuit Court by a Kansas City-area woman identified as Jane Doe DL, alleges that the Rev. Stan Archie began committing repeated acts of sexual misconduct against the plaintiff when she went to him for counseling at 15.

Archie, who began his term as Board of Education president this month, is co-founder and senior pastor of Christian Fellowship Baptist Church at 4509 Troost Ave. in Kansas City. The lawsuit is the second in a year alleging sexual misconduct against Archie.

Archie’s actions, the lawsuit says, were “outrageous and utterly repugnant to a civilized society.”

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

The Vatican priest child abuse “cover-up denial”, that was so evident at the recent Roman Synod of Bishops, may be manageable for another year or two, but likely not much longer, even with a new Pope. International reality checks, in the form of factual and not mythical revelations, are rapidly exposing the Vatican’s latest mystical smokescreens to be the poor public relations ploys they are. So many innocent Catholic children have been raped by too many predatory priests protected by complicit Cardinals and Bishops. There are limits to trusting Catholics’ inculcated gullibility, and even an ex-FOX News pro working for the Pope can spin only so much. Facts stubbornly speak for themselves. Papal “Tweets” and “Apps” are no substitute for papal candor.

On an academic level, a promising young UK/Italian lay ecclesiologist has effectively exposed the mainly mythological foundation of the Vatican’s claim for absolute papal primacy. The recent book, “Democracy and the Christian Church”, concisely shows the scriptural, theological, philosophical and historical weaknesses of the papal claim and is accessible in part by clicking on at: http://amzn.com/0567449521

Catholics are increasingly learning that hierarchical conduct too often deviates significantly from papal propaganda. Initial Los Angeles secret abuse file revelations have exposed Cardinal Mahony’s reckless protection of known predatory priests. Criminal allegations of drug dealing against, and related cross-dressing and porn shop operation reports about, a former Bridgeport state chaplain of the Knights of Malta and top subordinate to Cardinal Egan and to Archbishop Lori, head of the Pope’s anti-Obama “religious liberty crusade”, are almost incredibly unsavory.

Moreover, reported efforts apparently to protect the secrecy of Munich and Regensburg files of the Pope and his brother, relating to alleged failures in the 1970′s to curtail a Munich predatory priest and to protect abused Regensburg choir boys, by sacking a too thorough German academic investigator, further erodes the steadily disappearing papal credibility. Ruthless attempts to silence a popular Irish priest who spoke about women and married priests, and apparently also to try to curtail an Irish priests’ “union”, are backfiring as the brave priest stands fast. Continued diatribes against gay marriage by a reported drunk driver San Francisco Archbishop appear cynical and desperate at best. Seemingly unending criminal trial disclosures about Cardinal Rigali’s Philly pedophile priest paradise continues to disgust many Catholics. Millions of U.S. Catholics have had enough and want to see these hypocritical and unaccountable actions curbed promptly.

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UNITED STATES
Uprising Radio

In the same week that Jewish ultra-Orthodox counselor Nechemya Weberman was sentenced to 103 years in prison for sexually abusing a teenage girl in 2007, documents were released this past Monday showing that Catholic religious leader Cardinal Roger Mahony of the Los Angeles Archdiocese knowingly conspired with other church officials to protect priests who were known to have sexually abused children in the 1980s.

The LA Archdiocese, which is the nation’s largest, had been fighting to keep the documents secret since 2007 when a $660 million dollar judgment was awarded to 500 victims of church sexual abuse. A recent LA superior court judge’s ruling however, ordered the release of 30,000 documents naming the pedophile priests despite the church’s pleas to protect their privacy.

Although all the documents have not yet been released, the ones which have, provide proof that Mahony and Monsignor Thomas J. Curry acted to protect Monsignor Peter Garcia who had bound and raped an 11 year old boy and sexually abused more than a dozen other boys.

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UNITED STATES
We the People – petition site

The Robert William Finn Atonement Act would require the following:

Immediate registration with the National Sex Offender Public Registry (NSOPR) of any religious authority (practicing on American soil) convicted of any child sexual abuse or tangentially related crime, to include criminal conviction of failure to report suspected child abuse by anyone within the oversight of a religious authority;

Immediate registration of a convicted religious authority with his/her state and/or local (where applicable) sex offender registry;

Immediate prohibition of the convicted religious authority from living or working within 1000 feet of any school, playground, church or other common gathering places for children for a minimum of 25 years.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WeAreCentralPA

By: Danielle Krout

Updated: January 23, 2013

JOHNSTOWN, CAMBRIA COUNTY— SNAP, The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests is urging the alleged victims of Brother Stephen Baker to step forward to police.

“Victims feel like they’re alone they always feel like they’re the only ones,” said Judy Jones, SNAP Associate Director. “Once they know they’re not… that helps them have the courage to speak up and come forward.”

Jones spoke in Johnstown Wednesday morning outside the Public Safety Building. She said she wanted to let others know it’s OK to come forward.

‘My brother and several of my family members were abused by our parish priest back in Ohio growing up,” said Jones. “It’s why I work for SNAP and I why I am here today.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
The JC

By Simon Rocker, January 24, 2013

Britain’s Charedi establishment, already buffeted by allegations of sexual abuse against women by one of its senior rabbis, is about to become embroiled in fresh controversy.

Channel 4’s Dispatches strand is to broadcast an investigation next Wednesday night into claims of the sexual abuse of children within the strictly Orthodox communities of the UK.

In Britain’s Hidden Child Abuse, in secretly filmed footage, Rabbi Ephraim Padwa, the rabbinical head of the Stamford Hill-based Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations, tells a man who says he was abused as a child in Stamford Hill not to go to the police.

One Orthodox community worker, aware of the programme’s contents, said its effect would be “like a tsunami”.

The footage of Rabbi Padwa was shot undercover by a man raised in Stamford Hill who says that he was “sexually abused… when I was younger” and asks whether “it is a good idea to speak to the police about it”.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
LA Daily Nes

Doug McIntyre: Facts blow holes in Cardinal Roger Mahony’s accounts

By Doug McIntyre, Columnistdailynews.com
Posted: 01/22/2013

He has index cards, says the Holy Man. And on those index cards are names. He prays in his chapel nightly for the names on those index cards.

They’re the names of children molested – even raped – by priests in his charge.

“I was naive” about abuse, says the Holy Man. “I’m sorry,” he says.

Which is not what he says in internal church documents, 30,000 unredacted pages worth, finally brought into the light of day after years of foot-dragging, stonewalling and legal maneuvering.

The Holy Man is the former head of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, Cardinal Roger Mahony.

In these documents we find the Smoking Cassock proving Mahony complicit in the cover-up of the worst crime short of murder, child molestation.

“This is all intolerable and unacceptable to me,” Mahony wrote in 1991.

Yet he continued to tolerate it. He continued to accept it.

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YOUNGSTOWN (OH)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on January 24, 2013

According to WFMJ, Bishop George Murry claims that the diocese “may need review to see if it could have handled the situation better.” That’s absurd.

For more than three years, he and his top aides kept secret about multiple and credible child sex crime allegations against a serial child molesting cleric. They did this even though the predator walks free and had been sent to another state where he lived, for years, among unsuspecting neighbors and families. They did this despite a decade of promises to be “open and transparent” in child sex and cover up cases. And they did this – kept silence – for five months after paying settlements to 11 wounded victims. They never disclosed a single allegation or settlement involving Br. Baker. Baker’s victims warned parents, parishioners and the public about this dangerous cleric.

It’s hard to imagine how they could have handled this sordid matter any worse. It’s clear that Bishop Murray and his staff wanted to do what Catholic officials have done for years – keep everyone in the dark until the criminal and civil statutes of limitations expired, so they could protect themselves and their reputations.

Murry essentially is trying to blame everyone else: lawyers, Fransiscans and victims.

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NEW YORK
New York Post

Justice arrived surely and sternly for child sex abuser Nechemya Weberman, thanks to an effective prosecution by Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes.

Give him and his office credit — without forgetting that it has taken far too long for victims of sex crimes in the borough’s Hasidic community to have their prosecutor fully in their corner.

Let this welcome change be a permanent one.

Weberman, 54, was sentenced Tuesday to 103 years in prison for repeatedly preying upon a young girl, starting when she was just 12.

She fell into his power when her school told her parents to send her to Weberman for counseling. At their sessions, he forced her to perform oral sex and reenact scenes from pornographic videos.

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NEW YORK
New York Post

There’s no understating the importance of the 103-year prison sentence imposed this week on Nechemya Weberman. A respected member of the Satmar Hasidic community, Weberman will probably die in prison now that Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice John Ingram threw the book at him after his conviction for sexually abusing a child he was “counseling.”

His fate is richly deserved.

The conviction wouldn’t have come without the courage of the victim, now a teenager, who defied the politically connected Orthodox sect to testify.

It was also a big win for Brooklyn DA Joe Hynes, who finally brought a sex-abuse case against a member of the insular Satmar community. Of course, only the harsh glare of the press spotlight — shone by The Post, among others — got Hynes to act.

The DA says this case marks “a sea change.” We sure hope so.

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YOUNGSTOWN (OH)
WFMJ

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – The Diocese of Youngstown hosted a press conference Thursday morning to address the recent media attention surrounding its schools.

At the event, Bishop George Murry addressed this slew of recent accusations and the coverage surrounding them.

Murry says there are currently no credible accusations against anyone in the ministry nor any of the diocesan employees, but wants to ensure Mahoning Valley residents that the diocese takes all precautions to protect the children in their care.

The diocese was recently under fire for lawsuits with 11 men who say Franciscan Brother Stephen Baker molested them when they were boys attending school at Warren John F Kennedy.

Those suits have been settled, but over a dozen more people have come forward since the settlement went public also saying Brother Baker molested them.

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UNITED STATES
City of Angels

Kay Ebeling

Mainstream news again reports that a bishop will not be prosecuted due to the statute of limitations in one particular state.

When will some reporter somewhere realize that in every archdiocese in the country the same pattern of cover-up, and aiding and abetting of pedophile priests took place, so the crimes of the bishops happened across state lines, on a national level.

The crimes of the bishops are Federal Crimes.

So instead of we as a nation just throwing up our hands and saying the statutes of limitations are past on state and county levels, why are there no FEDERAL INDICTMENTS of bishops all across the country, since they carried out their crimes in exactly the same manner in every archdiocese across the country?

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OHIO
Tribune Chronicle

January 24, 2013

YOUNGSTOWN – Bishop George Murry of the Catholic Diocese says there are no current allegations of abuse against any members of the diocese.

At a news conference this morning, Murry also said he is personally reaching out to any victims of abuse by Brother Stephen Baker, a Franciscan brother who was a coach and trainer at John F. Kennedy High School in the mid-1980s.

Last week it was announced that at least 11 former students had accused Baker of sexually abusing them and that they reached a settlement with the order, diocese and the school.

Murry also said he thought the Franciscans would make the settlement public because Baker was never an employee of the diocese, but because they have not, they are asking that if anyone else is a victim of Baker that they contact civil authorities and the diocese.

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YOUNGSTOWN (OH)
Youngstown Vindicator

YOUNGSTOWN

Bishop George V. Murry said Thursday he wants to reassure the people of the Mahoning Valley that the Diocese of Youngstown is taking “every possible action” to protect children from sexual abuse.

The bishop held a news conference this morning to address the recent news that 11 men settled out of court with Warren John F. Kennedy High School as a result of sexual abuse they suffered there.

The man accused of the abuse is Franciscan Brother Stephen P. Baker, who taught, coached baseball and served as athletic trainer at the school from 1986 to 1991.

“While I understand that nothing I say will eliminate their agony, I want them to know that I stand with them and will not tolerate abusive behavior from church officials,” Bishop Murry said.

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CANADA
Ottawa Citizen

By Teresa Smith, Ottawa Citizen January 24, 2013

OTTAWA — An elderly Catholic priest who taught at various high schools in the Ottawa region has pleaded guilty for the second time in a year to sexually assaulting a teen boy in his care.

Father Kenneth John O’Keefe, 82, pleaded guilty in a Hull courtroom this week of “indecently assaulting” a then-17-year-old boy over the course of four months between September and December, 1969.

He also pleaded guilty to “an act of gross indecency” during the same period, with the same victim, known only as G-L.B.

G-L.B. was a student at Ottawa’s St. Joseph’s Catholic School, which closed down a decade ago and reopened in a new location.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
San Luis Obispo Tribune

By MARYCLAIRE DALE — Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA — A lawyer for a Philadelphia Catholic school ex-teacher accused of raping an altar boy says the accuser is “gaming the system” after years of drug addiction.

The lawyer says his awkward, vision-impaired client is an easy target for someone hoping to sue the Roman Catholic church.

The 24-year-old accuser says he was raped by two priests and the sixth-grade teacher, Bernard Shero.

Philadelphia prosecutors relied on the accuser to file a landmark 2011 grand jury report and charge the three men with passing the boy around.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Duckhome

Geschrieben von
Jochen Hoff

Donnerstag, 24. Januar 2013

Ach ja die Katholiban. Sie sind extrem verlässlich darin, alles Schlechte was man über sie denkt und laut ausspricht, vom Vorwurf des Vorurteils zu befreien, indem sie es sofort in der schlimmsten denkbaren Form realisieren. Der Bischof von Kansas City, Robert W. Finn wurde wegen der Beihilfe zur Vertuschung von Kindesmissbrauch verurteilt.

Auch der frühere US-Erzbischof Roger M. Mahoney dürfte einer Verurteilung wegen der aktiven Vertuschung von 75 Missbrauchsfällen wohl nicht entgehen, genauso wenig wie seine Helfer. Aber beiden amerikanischen Priestern muss man zugute halten, dass sie lediglich Schaden von ihrer Kirche abwenden wollten. Der ehemalige Bischof von Regensburg Müller, hat aber den Pfarrer von Riekhofen bewusst und nach eigener Aussage in seiner alleinigen Verantwortung nachdem er bereits wegen Kindesmissbrauch in Viehtach auffällig und verurteilt wurde in Riekhofen eine neue Pfarrtselle und damit die Gelegenheit zum erneuten Kindesmissbrauch gegeben.

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DEUTSCHLAND
domradio

Laut der neuen Milieustudie fordern Katholiken aller Lebenswelten die Kirche zu Änderungen auf. domradio.de-Chefredakteur Ingo Brüggenjürgen meint dazu: “Es braucht keine weiteren klugen Analysen und Papiere, sondern den Mut zum Aufbruch!”

Gerade erst hat das vorzeitige Ende der “Pfeiffer-Studie” zur Aufklärung des sexuellen Missbrauchs die Gemüter erregt, da kommt für die Kirche der nächste Hammer. Die neue Sinus-Milieu-Studie der katholischen Kirche hat es in sich: Die befragten Katholiken, gerade auch die treuesten Anhänger, leiden unter dem Umgang mit den Missbrauchsfällen. Der Priestermangel und die großen Seelsorgeeinheiten sowie wenig sprachkundige Priester aus fernen Ländern werden nicht als gute Lösungen angesehen. Themen wie “Stellung der Frau”, “Zölibat”, “Pastoral an wiederverheirateten Geschiedenen” und “Sexualmoral der Kirche” sind nicht die Themen der bösen Medienschaffenden, sondern werden von den Katholiken selber nicht länger geduldig ertragen, sondern offen angesprochen und vielfach kritisiert.

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OSTERREICH
Kurier

“Liebe deinen Nächsten, wie dich selbst”, heißt es in der Bibel. Ein Pater aus Vorarlberg hat das Zitat über Jahre hinweg zu wörtlich genommen und sehr frei interpretiert. Zudem hat er Liebe mit sexuellem Missbrauch verwechselt.

Pater Johannes aus dem Bregenzer Kloster Mehrerau soll mehrere Kinder sexuell missbraucht und vergewaltigt haben. Als Lehrer und Regens des Kloster-Gymnasiums. Der Mann ist geständig und wurde dennoch nie dafür verurteilt.

Das Kloster muss von seiner Vergangenheit gewusst haben. Jahrzehntelang wurde darüber geschwiegen. Was Pater Johannes wiederum ermöglichte, Kinder zu missbrauchen. Bereits 1968 war Pater Johannes wegen sexuellen Missbrauchs eines Kindes bedingt zu vier Monaten schweren Kerkers verurteilt worden. Anfang der 1970er-Jahre wurde er dennoch als Lehrer im Stiftsgymnasium aufgenommen. Das Zisterzienser-Stift ließ den Pädophilen wieder auf Kinder los. Erst im Jahr 2004 kam seine pädophile Neigung erneut ans Tageslicht. Der Polizei gestand Pater Johannes, von etwa 1970 bis 1982 “fünf bis zehn Schüler wiederholt sexuell missbraucht” zu haben. Das Gericht musste ihn dennoch ziehen lassen. Wegen Verjährung. Trotz Geständnisses.

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LOUISIANA
NECN

LAKE CHARLES, La. (AP) — A former priest accused of molesting boys asked the court to reduce his bond and suppress his statement to police.

The American Press reports ( ) the motions were two of six filed Wednesday by Mark Anthony Broussard.

Broussard is being held at the Calcasieu Correctional Center on $3.42 million bond.

The motion to suppress his statement was on Wednesday’s docket, but both sides met for a pretrial conference at which the dates were set. A hearing on the motions is set for April 10.

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UNITED STATES
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: A Third Order Regular Franciscan brother, Baker was a religion teacher, baseball coach and athletic trainer at high schools in Youngstown, OH and Johnstown, PA; he was also assigned at some point earlier in his career to a high school and boys’ home in Norfolk, VA. Baker is said to have sexually abused “dozens, if not hundreds” of former students. His modus operandi is said to have been to tell male athletes they needed massages to prevent injuries, then to proceed to rub them down with oils, including their genitals. He is also accused of digitally penetrating them. Former students have said he would grope them in hallways and during religion class. One former female student has reported that he requested she show up for treatment of a sports injury in loose fitting clothing and no underwear. Baker was the subject of a 2012 settlement with eleven of his accusers. He is said by a superior to have been removed from ministry “long before 2010.”

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Lurgan Mail

A FORMER Lurgan priest, who pleaded guilty to indecently assaulting a young girl, is to face sentencing next week.

Fr Terence Rafferty, who had been a priest in St Peter’s Parish in Lurgan, was convicted at Craigavon Crown Court before Christmas on four counts of indecent assault relating to offences in 2001.

He was due to appear before Craigavon Magistrates Court last Friday however the case was adjourned until January 31.

The former Administrator of Newry Cathedral, whose address was given as Chestnut Grove, Newry, had five other offences of indecent assault between December 2000 and January 2002 left on the books.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Albany Times Union

By MARYCLAIRE DALE, Associated Press

Updated 10:56 am, Thursday, January 24, 2013

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A Roman Catholic priest and an ex-teacher charged with sexually assaulting an altar boy won’t testify at their trial, which will soon move to closing arguments.

The case hinges on the credibility of the accuser, a 24-year-old policeman’s son and longtime heroin addict.

His accounts of being raped in about 1999 by the Rev. Charles Engelhardt, teacher Bernard Shero and a now-defrocked priest have changed significantly over time.

A church social worker has testified that the accuser initially said he had been violently attacked for hours by one man, punched by another and tied up by a third.

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MISSISSIPPI
Clarion-Ledger

Editorial

There sometimes appears to be no such thing as fairness in the courts when sentencing is involved — ironic since our systems are set up to foster that very thing.

But take the John Langworthy case as an example. The former Clinton church music minister and school choir director pleaded guilty this week to five felony counts of gratification of lust for molesting children almost 30 years ago.

Langworthy will serve no time in prison for molesting the children, a fact that seems outrageous for the heinous crimes. Consider only that former Penn State assistant coach Jerry Sandusky received last year 30 to 60 years in prison — effectively a life sentence — from a Pennsylvania judge for the sexual abuse of 10 boys.

Sandusky, of course, did not plea bargain. He was convicted by a jury on 45 of 48 counts related to the sexual abuse of boys over a 15-year period.

Langworthy, a longtime Clinton school district choir director and former music minister at Morrison Heights Baptist Church in Clinton, entered a guilty plea before Hinds Circuit Court Judge Bill Gowan to five counts of an eight-count indictment. The guilty pleas were part of a plea agreement with the Hinds County district attorney’s office.

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OHIO
Roman Catholic Diocese of Youngstown

January 18, 2013

The story in today’s Tribune Chronicle claiming that the Trumbull County Children Services Board did not receive notification from the Diocese of Youngstown about Brother Stephen Baker, who has been accused of abusing 11 former students at John F. Kennedy High School in Warren, is inaccurate.

The fact is that once the Diocese received sufficient information to make a report from the attorney representing the alleged victims, a letter was sent by Diocesan legal counsel to the Trumbull County Children Services Board.

Although Ohio State law does not require the reporting of allegation when the victims are presently adults, it is the policy of the Diocese to make such a report. This policy was followed in this case.

We regret that inaccurate information was published in the Tribune Chronicle.

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YOUNGSTOWN (OH)
WYTV

Youngstown Diocese Bishop George Murry apologized Thursday to alleged victims of sexual abuse by a Franciscan friar who abused teenage boys during his tenures at Warren’s John F. Kennedy High School and at Bishop McCort High School in Johnstown, Pa.

It was the first time Murry directly addressed questions about the abuse accusations that came to light last week when Boston attorney Mitchell Garabedian announced 10 former JFK students and a former St. Mary’s students reached high-five figure settlements with the diocese, JFK and the T.O.R. Franciscan Order.

Since, more than 35 former students at JFK and Bishop McCort have come forward and alleged friar Stephen P. Baker sexually molested them under the guise of treating sports-related injuries at the schools.

Garabedian said on Thursday a teacher at one of the schools, that eventually committed suicide in Canada, was aware of the abuse allegations and instructed at least one student to stay away from Baker.

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CALIFORNIA
Orange County Weekly

[Caffoe file – BishopAccountability.org]

[Documents Selected and Highlighted on the AbusedInSoCal.com Website
Caffoe 1975 – Manning’s Chancellor Rawden Keeps Caffoe, Overly Affectionate with Altarboys, in Parish]

[Other Information
• Summary of Caffoe’s Personnel File, in the Addendum Released by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles in 2005
• Information on Caffoe’s Assignments and Allegations, in the Database Compiled by the LA Times
• Cheat Sheet on Caffoe by AbusedInSoCal.com
• Secrecy and Reluctant Revelation in the Los Angeles Archdiocese: The Example of the Rev. Lynn Caffoe File]

By Gustavo Arellano
Thu., Jan. 24 2013

In 1975, Lynn Caffoe, a priest at St. Callistus Church in Garden Grove, approached officials at the Archdiocese of Los Angeles with a curious demand: he wanted to leave because he had just molested a boy.

The Diocese of Orange had yet to be born, so each of Orange County’s Catholic churches fell under the domain of LA Cardinal Timothy Manning and his right-hand man, Monsignor John A. Rawden. The two already knew that one of Caffoe’s superiors had already complained that they should keep an eye on the young priest lest he spend “too much time with the chosen few,” according to church documents. And who might that be? The same report said he has a “tendency to gather younger ones around.”

So when parents at St. Callistus went to Rawden to complain that Caffoe had been “overly affectionate to some of the altar boys,” what did Rawden do? Side with the pervert.

Caffoe, according to a document included in the LA archdiocese’s recent document dump of priest personnel files, “wanted an immediate transfer in spite of the fact that he claimed innocence of the charge. He felt it better for the well being of the parish.”

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
SNAP Wisconsin

Action Alert: Important Milwaukee Archdiocese Bankruptcy Court Hearing Thursday January 24, 1:00 p.m.

WHERE: Milwaukee Federal Courthouse, 517 E. Wisconsin Avenue

In Federal Bankruptcy Court on Thursday January 24, Judge Susan V. Kelley will rule on four cases that could determine if the remaining 570 victim/survivors who have filed cases will be allowed to proceed. Last month, lawyers for the archdiocese sought to dismiss these cases. Kelley heard arguments but declined to issue a ruling and is likely to do so tomorrow. The archdiocese, by objecting to these four claims, is seeking, in principle, to dismiss nearly every one of the cases filed. (For details, see the press advisory from last month when the ruling was first expected.)

The archdiocese has also just filed another 157 case objections, this time based on the argument that they have no responsibility for religious order offenders, even though most of these individuals were officially assigned to the archdiocese to work in parishes and schools and could only work here with the direct consent and supervision of the archbishop. It’s not sure if Kelley will start hearing arguments on this issue tomorrow. There has not been sufficient time for victims’ attorneys and the Creditors Committee to submit their written response to the court. An eventual ruling for victim/survivors on this crucial issue, however, would be a major step in bringing accountability, transparency and public safety concerning scores of religious order child molesters who have harmed children while working for the archdiocese. (NB: Some of these claims objections also include lay employees and volunteers from the archdiocese who committed sex crimes against children.)

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FRANCE – REUNION
Linfo

L’ancien curé des paroisses de Sainte-Rose et de Bras-Panon qui est accusé d’avoir agressé sexuellement de jeunes paroissiens nie catégoriquement les faits graves qui lui sont reprochés.

Depuis ce mardi après-midi, le Tribunal Correctionnel de Saint-Denis examine une affaire très sensible qui a ébranlé l’Eglise de La Réunion. Le Parquet a requis aujourd’hui une peine de six ans de prison à l’encontre de Michel Tual.

Michel Tual, cet ancien prêtre qui a officié durant près de dix ans dans les paroisses de Sainte-Rose et de Bras-Panon est jugé pour des faits d’agression sexuelle sur des mineurs de moins de 15 ans.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WJAC

[with video]

By Maria Miller

JOHNSTOWN, Pa. —

It’s been a week since sex abuse allegations surfaced in Johnstown involving a Franciscan brother who worked at Bishop McCort in the 1990s. Students have come forward alleging abuse took place while brother Baker worked at the school as a religion teacher and athletic trainer.

6 News learned Wednesday that Baker also held teaching positions at a middle school in Ohio and a boys home in Virginia.

The Catholic Diocese of Altoona – Johnstown admitted last week that Bishop Mark Bartchak first heard allegations against Baker in 2011. Before that, it’s not clear as to who knew what and when. But the Boston attorney representing several alleged victims said he’s working to find that answer.

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FRANCE – REUNION
Linfo

Au terme de plusieurs heures de délibérations, le Tribunal Correctionnel de Saint-Denis a condamné l’ancien curé Michel Tual à une peine de cinq ans de prison, le jugeant coupable d’agressions sexuelles sur des mineurs.

Il est arrivé libre au Palais de Justice de Champ-Fleuri mais c’est en prison que Michel Tual dormira ce soir.

Le Parquet avait requis cet après-midi à son encontre une peine de six mois de prison avec mandat de dépôt.

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FRANCE – REUNION
Linfo

Hier, les victimes de l’ancien curé de Bras Panon ont dû affronter l’homme qui les a fait souffrir durant leur enfance. Une épreuve difficile qui a fait remonter bien des souvenirs douloureux. Un jeune homme a accepté de témoigner.

Aujourd’hui adulte, Martin (prénom d’emprunt) attendait la vérité lors du procès de Michel Tual. Le jeune homme a été surpris par le comportement du prévenu qui a nié en bloc les faits graves qui lui sont reprochés. L’attitude de l’ancien curé de Bras Panon et de Sainte-Rose a choqué les victimes présentes à l’audience.

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UNITED STATES
Pope Crimes & Vatican Evils…

Paris Arrow

Updated January 23, 2013

8 SUGGESTIONS on how to publicly defy and stop Benedict XVI excommunication of Fr. Flannery

Italian Galileo & Irish Tony Flannery: parallel victims of Vatican Last Tsar Benedict XVI Tyranny

In the 17th Century, Galileo offered the Pope and the Vatican Inquisition to look at the telescope “a thousand times” but they refused. By using merely their naked eyes to look at the planets, they doggedly insisted that ‘the Earth is the center of the universe and that the Sun revolved around the Earth’ – based on the Bible alone, and they shamed and condemned Galileo for his scientific beliefs. The rest is history.

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UNITED STATES
Pope Crimes & Vatican Evils…

Paris Arrow

BOYCOTT the Vatican Museum and boycott ALL donations to the Vatican Catholic Church Reign of Terror

Vatican Assets in England and in the United States of America

Vatican assets in London

– premises of Bulgari, the upmarket jewellers in New Bond Street

– headquarters of the wealthy investment bank Altium Capital, on the corner of St James’s Square

– Pall Mall

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
NECN

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A Roman Catholic priest and ex-teacher charged with sexually assaulting an altar boy could testify Thursday as the two-week Philadelphia trial nears an end.

The case hinges on the credibility of the accuser, a 24-year-old policeman’s son and longtime heroin addict.

His accounts of being raped in about 1999 by the Rev. Charles Engelhardt, teacher Bernard Shero and a now-defrocked priest have changed significantly over time.

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
Tribune-Democrat

Associated Press

PITTSBURGH — The Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh is alerting parishioners that a priest accused of molesting a New Hampshire teen in the 1980s once served in western Pennsylvania.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported earlier this month that the Rev. Michael Ledoux resigned as dean of secular Widener University in July after school officials learned he was accused of abusing the boy decades earlier. Ledoux has denied wrongdoing and was never criminally charged by New Hampshire authorities, though his Franciscan order settled a related lawsuit in 2002 and banned him from public ministry.

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ESPANA
La Informacion

La madres de los “niños robados” seguirán adelante con sus demandas ante la Justicia

Madrid, 24 ene (EFE).- La presidenta de Sos Bebés Robados, María Cruz Rodrigo, ha asegurado hoy que los afectados seguirán adelante con sus demandas ante la Justicia, aunque la religiosa María Gómez Valbuena, conocida como “Sor María”, imputada en dos casos de “niños robados”, haya fallecido.

“Si de verdad creía en Dios, cosa que algunas veces dudo, entonces tendría que haber dicho lo que hizo”, ha indicado Rodrigo, quien se ha mostrado convencida de que “sor María” era una pieza dentro de una trama dedicada al robo de niños.

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ESPANA
Puranoticia

La religiosa María Gómez Valbuena, conocida como «sor María», ha fallecido en Madrid, según han confirmado a ABC fuentes del convento de las Hijas de la Caridad de San Vicente Paúl que no han querido dar más detalles sobre su muerte. Al parecer la muerte se habría producido el martes y fue enterrada ayer.

Sor María, que a sus 87 años sufría de diversos problemas de salud, estaba imputada por el presunto robo de bebés en clínicas madrileñas por los delitos de detención ilegal y falsedad en documento público. Había sido citada para declarar el pasado 18 de enero tras la denuncia de Purificación Betegón por la supuesta desaparición de dos gemelas nacidas en la clínica Santa Cristina en 1981, pero la declaración fue aplazada por motivos de salud. El abogado de la religiosa presentó unos informes médicos en el Juzgado de Instrucción número 50 de Madrid para solicitar el aplazamiento. Según informó el letrado de la demandante, Alipio Barbero, los documentos alegaban una «insuficencia cardíaca».

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SPAIN
Times LIVE (South Africa)

An 87-year-old Spanish nun accused of trafficking in newborns in the 1980s, a practice believed to date from the Franco dictatorship, has died, her convent said.

Sister Maria Gomez Valbuena in April last year was the first person to go before a judge over the “stolen babies” scandal.

General Francisco Franco’s regime allowed children to be taken from their parents on moral or ideological grounds, and the practice allegedly continued for profit for years after his death in 1975.

Asked about press reports that she had died on Tuesday, a spokeswoman for the Daughters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul convent said: “Yes indeed, but we do not have more information.”

Sister Maria had been scheduled to appear in court for questioning for a second time last week but the hearing was postponed indefinitely because of her poor health.

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UNITED STATES
National Survivor Advocates Coalition

The Roman Catholic Church in the United States is spending a bucketload of Catholic cash on the Catholics Come Home advertising campaign currently running in a number of media markets.

The Church has also spent incredible amounts of Catholic cash on attorneys and public relations firm to suppress, hide, and delay making public what the Catholic hierarchy and their aides and chancery staffs did with their knowledge of sexual abuse of children and minors.

Now in Los Angeles comes the deluge.

The deluge of the documents that as part of the 2007 clergy sexual abuse victims’ $660 million settlement were to be made – and now are being made – public.

But not before the Los Angeles Times and the Associated Press joined forces to bring pressure to bear for the agreement for the records to be made public. And not before the Archdiocese of Los Angeles tried a last minute desperate effort to Swiss cheese the documents of the names of those in authority. The ploy didn’t work thanks to a stand-up judge who simply asked the question: don’t Catholics have a right to know what happened in their Church?

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IRELAND
Association of Catholic Priests

Tony Flannery

Some clarifications of stories that are doing the rounds in the Media.
1. The Irish Catholic says that I am not threatened with excommunication.
In June of last year, 2012 I received a document from the CDF which contained the following paragraph:

“The Church’s canon law (c. 1044) calls a priest who has committed the delict of heresy ‘irregular for the exercise of orders received’, while canon 1364 says that ‘a heretic … incurs a latae sentientiae excommunication’. Before imposing the sanctions provided for in the law, it is the practice of the CDF to take steps to restore a priest to the faith, and to ensure that he is not in a state of contumacy regarding the position(s) he may have taken. Only should these remedies fail would the canonical penalties be required”

I am not a theologian, but to me that definitely reads like a threat. If the Vatican has now decided to withdraw that threat I would be very glad. Though I would be happier still if they allowed me to continue my ministry as a priest. But if that is the case I would like to get it in writing from the CDF, but this time on official paper and with a signature! Hearing it from that classic journalistic cliché of an ‘informed source’ telling the editor of a minor Irish newspaper is not totally convincing.

2. The second issue is what exactly the argument between me and the Vatican was about.
It is correct that at first it concerned a few sentences taken for various articles I had written in Reality Magazine over the years, to do with the origins of Church and priesthood. During the early part of last year I worked on this, and in June presented the following statement to the CDF through the head of the Redemptorists:

Since some concerns have been raised by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith over possible interpretations of articles I have written in the past few years. I respectfully take this opportunity to clarify my views and to offer the reassurance necessary to lay those concerns fully to rest. Such words as I have written were written in good faith with absolutely no intent whatever to imply anything contrary to the truths we are all obliged to hold by the divine and catholic faith to which I fully adhere and to which I have always adhered.

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IRELAND
Association of Catholic Priests

We have created a petition to to have Fr. Tony Flannery returned to his priestly ministry

This will be sent to The Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the faith.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Michael Kelly

Thursday January 24 2013

THERE is “no question” of Fr Tony Flannery facing excommunication, senior Vatican sources have said.

And the sources also insisted that the case hinges on whether the Redemptorist priest accepts the church’s teaching on the nature of the priesthood.

The outspoken cleric, who has already been banned from ministering, claims he is facing excommunication for suggesting women might become priests in the future.

During a press conference in Dublin at the weekend, Fr Flannery (66) said he had been told by the Vatican that if he wants to remain in the church he must end his involvement with the liberal Association of Catholic Priests, of which he is a founder member.

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CALIFORNIA
Mountain News

By Glenn Barr, Reporter

An allegation of child molestation which church officials believe to be credible has been raised against Father Tim Keppel, the former long-time pastor of Catholic churches in Crest Park and Running Springs.

The allegation surfaced in a letter read by Father Leonard Krzywda to parishioners attending all Masses at both Our Lady of the Lake and St. Anne’s in the Mountains on the weekend of Jan. 12 and 13. This newspaper obtained a copy of that letter.

It states that the Congregation of the Resurrection—the church order to which Father Keppel belongs—had received information about an incident of sexual misconduct involving a minor that involved Keppel.

“The case is alleged to have occurred in the late 1970s here in the Diocese of San Bernardino involving a minor who was not a member of your parishes,” says the letter, printed on the Congregation’s letterhead.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

Joseph A. Slobodzian, Inquirer Staff Writer

Posted: Thursday, January 24, 2013

After eight days of testimony, the Philadelphia jury in the child sex-assault trial of a priest and a former parochial-school teacher is expected to hear its final witnesses Thursday.

Common Pleas Court Judge Ellen Ceisler told jurors Wednesday that they would begin deliberations this week.

The judge’s comments ended a day in which 20 defense witnesses testified for the Rev. Charles Engelhardt and Bernard Shero.

What remains unknown is whether either man will testify in his defense for the alleged serial rape of a 10-year-old altar boy in 1998 and 1999 at St. Jerome’s church in Northeast Philadelphia.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Big Trial

By Ralph Cipriano
for bigtrial.net

Before he ever told his story to detectives, the district attorney, the grand jury, or the jury in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia sex abuse case, “Billy Doe” gave an interview to a couple of social workers from the archdiocese.

And the story he told was pretty wild, and full of violence. According to one of the social workers, Billy claimed a predator priest sat on his chest, cutting off his air, before the priest pummeled the 10-year-old altar boy with hours of anal sex. Billy told the social worker another predator priest punched him in the face and knocked him out, and when he woke up, the boy was naked and tied up with altar sashes. Billy also claimed a Catholic teacher punched him in the face, and wrapped a seat belt around his neck before raping him.

By the time Billy Doe told his story to authorities, all the violence and wild details were gone. The jury in the archdiocese sex abuse case may have to figure out why.

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