ABUSE TRACKER

POLAND
ABC News

AP

A high official of Poland’s Catholic Church apologized on Friday to the victims of pedophile priests while prosecutors said they will probe allegations that two Polish priests, including a Vatican envoy, sexually abused boys in the Dominican Republic.

Secretary of the Episcopate Bishop Wojciech Polak told a news conference that “sorry” was the least that was owed to the victims, and that the church was seeking to make amends and work on prevention.

But he said that any legal responsibility and financial compensation rested with the convicted wrongdoer, not with the church. He was addressing reporters in relation to both the allegations in the Dominican Republic and those in Poland, where some 27 priests have been convicted since 2001.

Mateusz Matyniuk, spokesman for the prosecutor general, said that Poland has obtained sufficient information from Dominican investigators to open a probe into pedophilia allegations against two Poles, one of whom has diplomatic status. He gave no names, but Dominican prosecutors have identified them as papal nuncio Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski and the Rev. Wojciech Gil, a parish priest.

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DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
GlobalPost

AFP

Prosecutors in the Dominican Republic said they have asked Interpol to issue an arrest order for an alleged pedophile priest alleged to have abused several young boys.

“We will use whatever judicial resources are needed, whether on the local level or internationally” to bring fugitive Polish priest Wojciech Gil to justice, Attorney General Francisco Dominguez Brito said in a statement.

Gil went missing in May after allegations of child sex abuse were raised.

A court in the city of Santiago, some 155 kilometers northwest of Santo Domingo, has declared him a fugitive from justice, and Interpol has been asked to help track him down.

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IRELAND
The Tablet

27 September 2013

A priest is facing censure by the Vatican for failing to perform a baptism correctly by allowing the parents and godparents to pour water over the child’s head during the ceremony.

A pro-life campaigner reported Fr Iggy O’Donovan to the Primate of All Ireland, Cardinal Sean Brady, after witnessing the baptism at a church in Drogheda. Cardinal Brady deemed the baptism unlawful and reported the matter to Rome.

Fr O’Donovan, an Augustinian, has left his parish to begin a one-year sabbatical in Limerick. He and his order have denied that he has already been censured by Rome. Some 1,500 people attended his final Mass.

Following the complaint, the parents of the child were asked by a local priest in Drogheda, acting on behalf of the Cardinal, to have their son re-baptised.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 27 September 2013 (VIS) – Next Monday, 30 September, the director of the Holy See Press Office, Federico Lombardi, S.J., will hold a briefing on the Pope’s meeting with the group of eight cardinals, regarding the nature of the meeting, preparation and working times involved, and the information that will be available.

“It is important to remember that the Group is constituted to offer advice to the Pope and not to make autonomous decisions, that it is a first meeting which will be followed by others, and that the participants will abide by criteria of privacy regarding the content of the consultations”.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Augsburger Allgemeine

[Catholic priest Michael W. has been convicted of child abuse and sentenced to two years and nine months in prison. The victim, a boy, lived in his parish house and was the son of the housekeeper. He called the priest Dad. The court said the abuse was significant sexual assault and went way beyond boundary issues.]

Das Landgericht Würzburg hat einen Priester wegen sexuellen Kindesmissbrauchs zu zwei Jahren und neun Monaten Haft verurteilt. Er hatte den Sohn seiner Haushälterin missbraucht.

Der Junge lebte in seinem Pfarrheim und nannte ihn Papa, der Priester erzählte ihm Gute-Nacht-Geschichten. Doch das hat ein katholischer Priester schamlos ausgenutzt. Nun ist er wegen sexuellen Kindesmissbrauchs zu zwei Jahren und neun Monaten Gefängnis verurteilt worden.

Das Landgericht Würzburg sprach den 58-Jährigen am Freitag schuldig, sich in neun Fällen am Sohn seiner Haushälterin vergangen zu haben. «Das waren nicht nur Grenzüberschreitungen, sondern ganz erhebliche sexuelle Übergriffe», sagte der Vorsitzende Richter Burkhard Pöpperl. Der Geistliche hatte die Taten aus den 1990er Jahren vor Gericht gestanden. Das Kind war bei den Übergriffen in Bayern und Hessen sechs bis zehn Jahre alt.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Abendzeitung

[Summary: A Catholic priest in Wurzburg has been found guilty of child sexual abuse and sentenced to two years and nine months in prison.]

Das Landgericht Würzburg hat einen katholischen Priester wegen sexuellen Kindesmissbrauchs zu zwei Jahren und neun Monaten Gefängnis verurteilt.

Würzburg – Die Richter sprachen den 58-Jährigen am Freitag schuldig, sich in neun Fällen am Sohn seiner Haushälterin vergangen zu haben. Der Ordensmann hatte die Taten aus den 1990er im Prozess gestanden.

Das Kind war bei den Übergriffen sechs bis neun Jahre alt.

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POLAND
The News

27.09.2013

The Dominican Republic’s attorney general has called on INTERPOL to facilitate the arrest of a Polish priest who has been charged with molesting minors.

Attorney General Francisco Dominguez Brito contacted the intergovernmental organisation after a panel of judges in the Dominican Republic declared Father Wojciech Gil a “fugitive” for failing to return to the country to face charges.

Father Gil, who led a parish in the highland town of Juncalito for close to a decade, had taken children on holiday to Poland earlier this year.

However, when allegations emerged of crimes against minors in recent years, he chose not to return to his post on the Caribbean island.

“We are going to resort to all the necessary judicial resources, both locally and abroad, so this case doesn’t go unpunished,” Francisco Dominguez Brito declared in a statement.

It is understood that Father Gil is currently residing in his family village south of Krakow.

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NEW JERSEY
Courier-Post

Written by
Jim Walsh
Courier-Post

CAMDEN — A former priest at the center of an ongoing clergy sex-abuse lawsuit against the Camden diocese has died.

The death of Joseph Shannon, 87, was disclosed in a court filing in a lawsuit brought by Mark Bryson, a North Carolina man who claims he was molested by Shannon in a Camden church more than 40 years ago.

Shannon, removed from the ministry in 1990, was the subject of four sex-abuse complaints, according to a brief filed Monday by the diocese.

The brief — which challenges Bryson’s claim that he repressed memories of childhood assaults — contends the deaths of key figures in the case raise concerns about the fairness of any trial.

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NEW YORK
The Jewish Daily Forward

By Paul Berger

Dozens of former students who say they were abused by rabbis at a Yeshiva University high school waited decades too long to file their $380 million lawsuit, Y.U.’s attorneys say.

“There is no debate that the abuse each plaintiff endured, if true, is unacceptable,” the attorneys stated in a recent court filing. But “the law strikes a balance between the rights [the plaintiffs] could have exercised long ago, and the defendants’ competing rights to a fair opportunity to present evidence in their defense.

“The passage of time, fading of memories and passing of witnesses deprives defendants [of] a fair opportunity to defend themselves against plaintiffs who sat on their claims.”

Under New York State law, child victims of sexual abuse have until their 23rd birthday to file a civil lawsuit.

Kevin Mulhearn, who represents the plaintiffs in this case, argues that the statute of limitations does not apply, because Y.U. fraudulently covered up the abuse and misrepresented the safety of the school. Mulhearn’s clients are 34 former students of Yeshiva University’s High School for Boys, in Manhattan, aged 39 to 60. The former students are suing Y.U., current and former senior administrators, and trustees for $380 million in damages for abuses that they say took place between 1971 and 1992.

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ROME
Chiesa

by Sandro Magister

ROME, September 27, 2013 – In his interview with “La Civiltà Cattolica” that has gone all around the world, Pope Francis describes the Church as “a field hospital after battle,” where the very first thing to do is “heal wounds.”

But what changes when the battle is fully underway?

In his Argentina, between 1976 and 1983, Jorge Mario Bergoglio lived through the ‘years of lead’ of the military dictatorship. Kidnappings, torture, massacres, 30,000 disappeared, 500 mothers killed after giving birth in prison to children who were taken away from them.

What the young provincial of the Argentine Jesuits at the time did during those years long remained a mystery. So dense as to prompt the suspicion that he had passively witnessed the horror, or worse, had exposed to greater danger some of his confrères, those most committed among the resistance.

Last spring, immediately after his election as pope, these accusations were issued again.

They were also immediately contradicted by authoritative voices, albeit highly critical of the overall role of the Argentine Church in those years: the mothers of Plaza de Mayo, Nobel peace laureate Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Amnesty International. The Argentine magistracy itself had exonerated Bergoglio of all accusations, after having subjected him to questioning in a proceeding between 2010 and 2011.

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REPUBLICA DOMINICANA
El Mensajero

AP

SANTO DOMINGO, República Dominicana — La Procuraduría General de República Dominicana solicitó el jueves el apoyo de Interpol para detener al sacerdote polaco Gil Wojciech, quien se encuentra prófugo desde que en mayo fue acusado de abuso sexual contra varios niños.

“Esperamos contar con la colaboración de los organismos internacionales” para que Wojciech “pueda ser juzgado en República Dominicana”, manifestó el procurador general Francisco Domínguez Brito en un comunicado enviado a Interpol y a la policía local.

El funcionario precisó que el cura de 36 años “se ausentó de su domicilio y del país para sustraerse del proceso que se sigue en su contra por supuesta violación y agresión sexual agravada” contra menores de edad.

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ILLINOIS
Chicago Tribune

By Lisa Black and Alexandra Chachkevitch, Chicago Tribune reporters
7:04 a.m. CDT, September 27, 2013

A request by a Glenview church to suspend its priest until the conclusion of a criminal investigation that involves him has prompted a sharp rebuke from the leader of the Greek Orthodox Church in Chicago, who then ordered the removal of the parish council president who made the request.

James Gottreich, council president at Sts. Peter and Paul Church, wrote last week to Metropolitan Iakovos, the patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Chicago, asking that the Glenview church’s pastor, the Rev. James Dokos, be placed on leave until the out-of-state criminal probe has wrapped up.

The district attorney’s office in Milwaukee confirmed it has launched a formal investigation into how money was distributed from a $1.3 million trust fund set up to benefit Annunciation Church in Milwaukee. Dokos oversaw the trust fund as pastor at Annunciation before being transferred to Sts. Peter and Paul last year.

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NEW JERSEY
The Record

FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 27, 2013
BY HANNAN ADELY
STAFF WRITER
THE RECORD

HACKENSACK – Newark Archbishop John J. Myers visited the Bergen County Courthouse on Thursday, months after a local priest was arrested on seven counts accusing him of violating a lifetime ban on ministering to children, charges that were referred to a grand jury.

The priest, the Rev. Michael Fugee, a former assistant pastor of a Wyckoff parish, was found guilty in 2003 of groping a teenage boy, but the conviction was overturned three years later because of a judicial error. He and the archdiocese later signed an agreement with the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office that barred him from working with children. He was returned to the ministry in 2009.

Prosecutors in May charged Fugee with seven felony counts of contempt of a judicial order, claiming he violated the agreement by hearing confessions from minors seven times from April 2010 to December 2012 at various churches, a retreat center and a private home.

A grand jury typically decides in private whether felony charges are credible enough to indict. Fugee has not been indicted. He was released on $25,000 bail.

It’s unclear why Myers was at the courthouse, which also is where the Prosecutor’s Office is located.

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PERU
RPP

El arzobispo metropolitano de Ayacucho, monseñor Salvador Piñeiro, a su retorno de su viaje a Estados Unidos, brindó una conferencia de prensa con relación a la destitución del exobispo Gabino Miranda Melgarejo, en la que dijo desconocer los motivos de su dimisión como sacerdote.

“Soy amigo de la verdad y les digo que recién me enteré el 05 de julio, cuando la anunciatura me llamó y de manera verbal me dijo que para mi obispo auxiliar había esta pena canónica. Cuando los juicios son en relación con sacerdotes lo asume el obispo y cuando son de obispos lo asume directamente la Santa Sede. No sé cuáles son las causas, ni quiénes son los denunciantes; es contra el sexto mandamiento. Mañana a primera hora responderé al Ministerio Público. No tenemos nada que encubrir, ni nada que mentir”, dijo enfáticamente.

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PERU
La Republica

[Summary: Archbishop Savador Pineiro said that former Bishop Gabino Miranda was given time by the church to rebut the accusations of pedophilia but never did. The archbishop said he was informed of the action against Miranda on July 5 through verbal communication from the apostolic nunciature and said the action against Miranda taken by Pope Francis which included laicization. He was asked the reasons for the extreme measure by the Holy Father and the archbishop replied it was a “pontifical secret.” He said the sanctions involved sins against the sixth commandment which were recognized as being most serious. He believes Pope Francis must have had sufficient reason to impose the penalty.]

El arzobispo de Ayacucho, monseñor Salvador Piñeiro, declaró que el padre Gabino Miranda Melgarejo tuvo suficiente tiempo para ofrecer sus descargos ante las acusaciones pero que nunca lo hizo.

Doris Aguirre

La Iglesia peruana se niega a revelar por qué el ex arzobispo auxiliar de Ayacucho Gabino Miranda Melgarejo fue despojado de los hábitos y expulsado del clero.

El presidente de la Conferencia Episcopal del Perú (CEP), y arzobispo de Ayacucho, monseñor Salvador Piñeiro García-Calderón, afirmó que desconocía completamente el motivo de la drástica sanción impuesta por el Vaticano contra Miranda. No obstante, como obispo auxiliar de Ayacucho, el defenestrado sacerdote actuaba como brazo derecho de Piñeiro.

“No tengo ningún temor de decir la verdad sobre este lamentable caso. El 5 de julio de este año, mediante una comunicación verbal de la Nunciatura Apostólica, fui informado de la decisión del Santo Padre Francisco. Luego de recibir la denuncia (contra el ex obispo Miranda), investigó y castigó. Lo sancionó con la pena más rigurosa para un clérigo: la pérdida total del estado clerical, el retorno a la vida laical”, relató monseñor Piñeiro a La República.

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PERU
Diario Correo

[Summary: Archbishop Salvador Pineiro of Ayacucho said yesterday that former Bishop Bishop Gabino Miranda is currently staying with a family in Lima and is recovering from a gall bladder operation. The archbishop said he never received a complaint regarding alleged abuse by MIranda. At a press conference, the archbishop said he will provide the attorney general with all documents that they requested. He asked the people of Ayacucho to pray for him that he be a good shepherd. He thanked the people who support Miranda but asked them to cease their mobilization on the former bishop’s behalf and to accept the punishment meted out by the Vatican.

26 SEPTIEMBRE 2013 | AYACUCHO –

El arzobispo de Ayacucho, Salvador Piñeiro, reveló que el ex obispo Gabino Miranda -acusado presuntamente de pedofilia- habría sido operado en las últimas horas y estaría con una familia en Lima.

En conferencia de prensa en Ayacucho, monseñor Salvador Piñeiro aseguró que él es el mas afectado con el tema y contó que Gabino Miranda viene siendo acogido pro una familia en la capital y que se está recuperando de una operación a la vesícula.

El obispo de Ayacucho dijo que está muy apenado y que nunca recibió una denuncia y desconoce a los agraviados. Recalcó que es tema muy delicado y hay que tener respeto a las personas.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Big Trial

By Ralph Cipriano
for Bigtrial.net

District Attorney Seth Williams announced the arrest this morning of another Roman Catholic priest, charging Father Robert L. Brennan with rape, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and aggravated indecent assault.

Father Brennan, 75, a known abuser with 20 previous alleged victims, was charged with sexually assaulting an altar boy between 1998 and 2001, when the latest victim was between 11 and 14 years old. The altar boy was allegedly assaulted at Resurrection of Our Lord Parish in Northeast Philadelphia, where Father Brennan served as assistant pastor. The crimes, according to the D.A., supposedly took place in the church sacristy, the priest’s bedroom in the church rectory, a storage area on parish property, and in a movie theater.

The victim in this case, now 26, came forward in January 2013, six months after a jury convicted Msgr. William J. Lynn of endangering the welfare of a child. The D.A. said the latest victim was inspired by the Lynn verdict. Lynn was the first Catholic administrator in the country to go to jail for failing to adequately supervise sexually abusive priests. The allegations in the new arrest are eerily similar to the Billy Doe case.

Meanwhile, D.A. Williams used the press conference to again attack Msgr. Lynn for not reigning in abusive priests. But when push came to shove, Williams said his office had declined to indict Lynn on another child endangerment charge, because the crime in this latest case missed the statute of limitations by 3 months.

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AUSTRALIA
The West Australian

A Catholic priest has been charged with child abuse offences dating back 30 years.

Child Abuse Squad detectives have charged the 60-year-old man in relation to child abuse offences which are alleged to have occurred in the Peel District and North West Metropolitan District between 1983 and 1986.

Police will allege that the accused man, who was, and still is a Catholic Priest, met the victim through Church-related activities in the Peel District.

It will be further alleged the accused man abused his position of authority over the victim, who was aged between 15 and 17 years old at the time of the alleged offences, to perform indecent and sexual acts.

The accused man was aged between 30 and 32 years old at the time of the alleged offences.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

A 60 year-old priest working in the Peel District, south of Perth, has been charged with child sex offences.

It is alleged the Catholic priest abused a boy aged under 17 between 1983 and 1986.

Police say it will be alleged the priest was aged about 32 when he engaged in indecent sexual acts with the boy.

He has been charged with four counts of unlawful and indecent assault, attempted carnal knowledge and carnal knowledge against the order of nature.

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ARGENTINA
Pagina/12

El sacerdote recurrió a la Cámara de Garantías, aunque ese tribunal ya había pedido su detención en abril pasado. El martes, el Comité por los Derechos del Niño presentará ante la Corte nacional un recurso para que Grassi sea condenado también en los otros casos.

Por Carlos Rodríguez

La defensa de Julio César Grassi apeló ante la Cámara de Garantías de Morón el fallo del Tribunal Oral 1 que ordenó la detención, en una cárcel común, del cura condenado a 15 años de prisión por “abuso sexual agravado y corrupción de menores agravada”.

Consultado al respecto, el abogado Juan Pablo Gallego, querellante en la causa contra Grassi, dijo estar “muy tranquilo porque después del fallo del lunes, es imposible que pueda recuperar su libertad; hay que tener en cuenta que esa misma Cámara de Garantías, en abril de este año, había pedido la detención del cura, la que no se concretó porque hubo una apelación que estuvo varios meses sin ser resuelta por la Cámara de Casación”.

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ARGENTINA
Minuto Uno

[Summary: Lawyers for two other alleged victims of priest Julio Cesar Grassi petitioned the Supreme Court yesterday to extend Grassi’s sentence to 37 years. He is now jailed for 15 years. In the meantime, Grassi’s lawyers have filed yet another appeal.]

Los abogados que representan a “Luis” y “Ezequiel” presentarán en las próximas dos semanas un recurso ante la Corte Suprema de Justicia de la Nación pidiendo que se amplíe a 37 años la condena a Julio Grassi con la inclusión de esos dos casos de abuso que no fueron tenidos en cuenta por las tres instancias anteriores.

En tanto, la defensa del cura presentó este jueves el recurso contra la detención ante la Cámara de Garantías y Apelaciones de Morón basándose en el hecho de que no existe peligro de fuga y que la condena no está firme, ya que también presentarán una apelación extraordinaria a la Corte Suprema pero para pedir que revea todo el caso.

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ARGENTINA
InfoRegion

Los abogados defensores de dos víctimas aseguraron que presentarán ante la Corte Suprema de Justicia de la Nación un recurso para ampliar a 37 años la condena que recibió el sacerdote Julio César Grassi, quien está acusado de abusar sexualmente de menores. Se busca incorporar estos dos casos, que no habían sido tenidos en cuenta en las tres instancias anteriores.

Los abogados defensores de “Luis” y “Ezequiel” presentarán en las próximas dos semanas un recurso ante la Corte Suprema de Justicia con el fin de ampliar a 37 años la condena que recibió el cura Julio César Grassi por abuso de menores. Así se pretende incluir en la pena estos dos cosas, que no fueron tenidos en cuenta en las instancias anteriores.

En tanto, la defensa del cura presentó hoy el recurso contra la detención ante la Cámara de Garantías y Apelaciones de Morón basándose en el hecho de que no existe peligro de fuga y que la condena no está firme, ya que también presentarán una apelación extraordinaria a la Corte Suprema pero para pedir que revea todo el caso.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Church Times

Posted: 27 Sep 2013

The problem of sexual predators in churches needs to be addressed, says Susanna Gridley

THE phrase “sexual abuse” in a church context brings to mind paedophile priests (News, 24 May; Comment, 17 May). Like everyone else, however, most religious leaders are attracted not to children, but to other adults.

A survey by the ecumenical support organisation Minister and Clergy Sexual Abuse Survivors (MACSAS), The Stones Cry Out(2011, available on its website), says that: “Almost completely below the public …

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UNITED STATES
Religion News Service

Sarah Pulliam Bailey | Sep 26, 2013

The Christian mission field “is a magnet” for sex abusers, Boz Tchividjian, a Liberty University law professor who investigates abuse said Thursday (Sept. 26) to a room of journalists.

While comparing evangelicals to Catholics on abuse response, ”I think we are worse,” he said at the Religion Newswriters Association conference. But it’s harder to track.

“Protestants can be very arrogant when pointing to Catholics,” said Tchividjian, a grandson of evangelist Billy Graham and executive director of Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment (GRACE), which has investigated sex abuse allegations.

Mission agencies, “where abuse is most prevalent,” often don’t report abuse because they fear being tossed from countries, he said. Abusers will get sent home and might join another agency. Of known data from abuse cases, 25 percent are repeat cases.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC Brisbane

27 September 2013 , 4:27 PM by Heather Stott

The Catholic Church is no stranger to controversy, especially when it comes to claims of sexual abuse and fiscal corruption.

Now, three Catholic Bishops are joining with 100 church organisations, calling on Pope Francis to acknowledge the rights of Catholics when it comes to making decisions on these issues within their church.

Two of the three, Geoffrey Robinson and Bill Morris, join Tim Cox in the studio…

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WEST VIRGINIA
Charleston Daily Mail

A local pastor has pleaded not guilty to multiple charges of child sexual abuse relating to acts that allegedly occurred with family members 25 years ago.

Christopher Mark Winnell was arraigned by Kanawha Circuit Judge Paul Zakaib. The judge granted a $25,000 bond with a 10 percent cash option and gave Winnell until Monday to post it.

If Winnell makes bond, he is ordered to be on home confinement pending a Dec. 9 trial. The judge also ordered that he not be in contact with anyone under the age of 18.

Winnell was indicted by a grand jury after a victim recently contacted authorities. The 12-count indictment alleges he had sexual contact with three children.

His attorney said Winnell denied the allegations and called the indictment “sensational.”

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WEST VIRGINIA
WCHS

A Kanawha County pastor was in court Thursday charged in connection with a decades old sexual abuse case.

Christopher Winnell is accused of molesting three boys who were close family members.

The alleged abuse took place in Sissonville 25 years ago.

Winnell was just recently indicted in the case. He pleaded not guilty to the charges Thursday.

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DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
KENS

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) — The Dominican Republic’s attorney general asked for Interpol’s help Thursday in detaining a Polish priest who has been accused of sexual abuse involving three children in this largely Roman Catholic country.

The Rev. Wojciech Gil was in Poland on vacation when the allegations surfaced in late May and has not returned to the Dominican Republic, where he led a parish in the mountain town of Juncalito for eight years. He has denied wrongdoing in phone calls to Dominican reporters.

In a statement, Attorney General Francisco Dominguez Brito said he hoped for the collaboration of Interpol and other international organizations in detaining Gil so he “can be judged in the Dominican Republic.”

The father of one of the alleged victims has charged that his son was molested by the priest for about three years. A complaint against the 36-year-old priest also alleges he promised two other children that he would take them to the beach and to Europe if they dressed in thong underwear and appeared in videos and photos.

Gil took Dominican altar boys on vacation to Poland several times and lodged them at his mother’s house and at the local parish house, Polish media have reported.

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DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Hong Kong Standard

(09-27 11:23)

The Dominican Republic’s attorney general asked for Interpol’s help in detaining a Polish priest accused of sexual abuse involving three children in this largely Roman Catholic country.

The Reverend Wojciech Gil was in Poland on vacation when the allegations surfaced in late May and has not returned to the Dominican Republic, where he led a parish in the mountain town of Juncalito for eight years. He has denied wrongdoing in phone calls to Dominican reporters, AP reports.

In a statement, Attorney General Francisco Dominguez Brito said he hoped for the collaboration of Interpol and other international organizations in detaining Gil so he “can be judged in the Dominican Republic.”

The father of one of the alleged victims has charged that his son was molested by the priest for about three years. A complaint against the 36-year-old priest also alleges he promised two other children that he would take them to the beach and to Europe if they dressed in thong underwear and appeared in videos and photos.

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AUSTRALIA
Mandurah Mail

By Catherine Botman Sept. 27, 2013

A 60-YEAR-OLD local Catholic priest has been charged with five historic child abuse offences.

The man, who cannot be named until his court appearance, met the victim through church-related activities in the Peel district between 1983 and 1986.

It is alleged the man “abused his position of authority” and forced the victim, then aged between 15-17 years of age, to perform indecent and sexual acts.

The man has been charged with four counts of unlawful and indecent assault and two subsequent abuse charges after an investigation by Child Abuse Squad detectives.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Telegraph

KAITLYN OFFER PERTH NOW SEPTEMBER 27, 2013

A CATHOLIC priest has been charged with historic child sex abuse offences alleged to have occurred in the mid-1980s.

Child Abuse Squad detectives charged the 60-year-old in relation to alleged sexual acts that occurred between 1983 and 1986 in the Peel and North West Metropolitan Districts.

It will be alleged the accused man – who was and still is a Catholic priest – met the victim through church-related activities in the Peel District.

Police will further allege the priest abused his position of authority over the victim, who was aged between 15 and 17 years old at the time, to perform indecent and sexual acts.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

A 60-year-old Catholic priest has been charged with child abuse alleged to have occurred in Perth and south of the city 30 years ago.

Police claim the man met the victim through church-related activities in the Peel district.

It will be further alleged he abused his position of authority to make his victim perform indecent and sexual acts.

The victim was aged between 15 and 17 at the time of the abuse, which is said to have occurred between 1983 and 1986.

The priest has been charged with four counts of unlawful and indecent assault, and one count each of attempted carnal knowledge and carnal knowledge against the order of nature.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Daily News

MENSAH M. DEAN, DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER DEANM@PHILLYNEWS.COM, 215-568-8278
POSTED: Friday, September 27, 2013

A FORMER Philadelphia Catholic priest has been arrested and charged with sexually assaulting an altar boy, the Philadelphia district attorney announced yesterday.

The Rev. Robert L. Brennan, 75, was arrested Wednesday night in Maryland and charged with rape and related crimes for allegedly abusing the boy from 1998 to 2001, when he was 11 to 14 years old. Brennan, who was in his early 60s at the time of the alleged assault, was an assistant pastor at Resurrection of Our Lord Parish, in the Northeast.

D.A. Seth Williams said the boy’s abuse was facilitated by the inaction of Monsignor William Lynn, the disgraced former secretary of the clergy for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

Lynn, 62, who was convicted last year of child endangerment for failing to discipline predatory priests, is serving a three-to-six-year sentence in state prison. He has appealed.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CNN

By Ross Levitt, CNN
updated 2:15 AM EDT, Fri September 27, 2013

(CNN) — A Philadelphia priest who narrowly escaped prosecution during a recent clergy abuse scandal that rocked the city’s archdiocese has been arrested on charges that include raping an altar boy.

In a grand jury presentation in 2005, the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office revealed allegations against Father Robert Brennan, now 75, that included more than 20 alleged child sex abuse victims, according to Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams.

All of the cases were beyond the statute of limitations, and Brennan was never charged in that case, Williams said at a press conference Thursday.

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COLORADO
The Gazette

By Matt Steiner Published: September 26, 2013

A 4th Judicial District judge sentenced Colorado Springs Catholic priest Charles Robert “Bob” Manning to four years probation Thursday after he was convicted in July of two counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

Manning, who was acquitted July 3 of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old altar boy, apologized to the victim, his family, the court and the Diocese of Colorado Springs before Judge Robin Chittum handed down his sentence.

The 78-year-old who is confined to a wheel chair and on oxygen echoed the apology just outside the courtroom.

“I’m very sorry for what I did,” he said. “I’m just glad this is all over. It’s been a long road.”

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CANADA
The Chronicle-Herald

A former altar boy at Immaculate Conception Parish Church in Truro is suing the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Halifax for alleged sexual abuse by a priest.

Court papers filed Wednesday in Nova Scotia Supreme Court allege the claimant was fondled by the priest when he was between the ages of 14 and 15, and that the archdiocese is vicariously liable for the priest’s actions.

The papers claim the assaults and resulting injuries were caused by “the negligence, infliction of mental distress, breach of trust, breach of non-delegable duty and breach of fiduciary duty of the archdiocese,” and of its employees.

The negligence, the court papers allege, includes the archdiocese’s failure to take steps to implement programs or procedures to supervise the priest, to take steps to counsel or prevent him from assaulting the claimant and to use reasonable care in the ordination, training, supervision and employment of the priest.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Catholics4Change

SEPTEMBER 26, 2013 BY SUSAN MATTHEWS

Please call your Pennsylvania state rep and say you want the statute of limitations removed for child sex abuse. Protect children by exposing predators hiding behind the current law. Father Robert Brennan had many victims who don’t fall within the current statutes. For them, there is no justice. How many more abusers are roaming free in our communities because they can’t be prosecuted?

There is no statute for murder. Why should there be one for child sex abuse. Find your State Rep contact info by clicking here.

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REPUBLICA DOMINICANA
Noticias SIN

[con video]

[Summary: Archbishop Ramon Benito de la Rosa said Tuesday that the former apostolic nuncio who is accused to sexually abusing minors must face Dominican justice. Priest Wojciech Gil must also face justice, he said.]

SANTO DOMINGO, República Dominicana.- Monseñor Ramón Benito de la Rosa y Carpio dijo este martes que el ex nuncio apostólico y los sacerdotes acusados de pederastia deben enfrentar la justicia dominicana.

El escándalo que envuelve al ex nuncio Josef Wesolowski y al padre Alberto Gil debe ser juzgado por la justicia, según Monseñor Ramón Benito de la Rosa y Carpio.

De la Rosa y Carpio explica que veía normal la relación del ex nuncio con el padre Alberto Wojciech, asegura no entender como un sacerdote es capaz de violar las normas de la iglesia.

Monseñor de la Rosa y Carpio expresó que a pesar de este escándalo los feligreses en vez de dar la espalda a la iglesia, oran en abundancia por los sacerdotes y obispos del país.

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REPUBLICAN DOMINICANA
Al Momento

Por ELVIRA GUILLEN

SANTO DOMINGO.- El procurador general de la República Dominicana emitió este jueves una orden de captura internacional, contra el padre polaco Wojciech Gil (Aberto Gil) acusado de violación de menores.

Francisco Domínguez Brito colocó la orden en el sistema de la INTERPOL. La solicitud del se produce luego que los jueces del Tribunal de la Cámara Penal de la Corte de Apelación de Santiago declararan la rebeldía contra el imputado.

Fue sustentada en virtud de que el sacerdote se ausentó de su domicilio y del país para sustraerse del proceso que se sigue en su contra por los supuestos hechos que cometió en la localidad de Juncalito, del municipio de Jánico, provincia Santiago.

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REPUBLICA DOMINICANA
La Opinion

[Summary: The priest Wojciech Gil, who is accused to child sexual abuse in the community of Juncalito, had stored more than 87,000 pornographic pictures and videos on the parish computer. Prosecutor Bolivar Sanchez said Gil at 7:35 a.m. on May 27 asked a deacon to take out the computer hard drive.]

Santo Domingo, 23 sep – El sacerdote Wojciech Gil, conocido como el “padre Alberto” y acusado de abuso de menores en la comunidad de Juncalito, en Santiago (al norte del país), tenía más de 87 mil fotos y videos en la computadora de la parroquia con imágenes de actos pornográficos.

Según las investigaciones de los representantes de la fiscalía a través del procurador adjunto Bolívar Sánchez, una de las personas entrevistadas con relación al caso del destituido nuncio Josef Wesolowski, dijo haber visto fotos y vídeos pornográficos como los encontrados en la computadora portátil del religioso y que lo comprometen para ser juzgado por pornografía infantil.

Sánchez detalló que el pasado 27 de mayo, a las 7:35 de la mañana, Gil llamó a un diácono para pedirle que sacara el disco duro de la computadora y que, al obtener la información, el religioso entendió que había “cosas comprometedoras”.

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DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Dominican Today

Santo Domingo.- Dominican Republic’s top prosecutor on Thursday asked INTERPOL to arrest Polish national Wojciech Gil (Padre Alberto), indicted on several counts of sexually molesting at least seven minors.

Justice minister Francisco Dominguez’s request comes just hours after a panel of judges from the Santiago District Criminal Court declared the accused a fugitive, for failing to appear to face the pedophilia charges filed the parents of the boys in the village of Juncalito, in that north-central province.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
My Fox Philly

[with video]

A serial predator is now behind bars thanks to the brave actions of this young man. Those words are from District Attorney Seth Williams as he announced the arrest of 75-year-old Rev. Robert l. Brennan.

Brennan is accused of sexually assaulted an 11-year-old altar boy here at the Resurrection of Our Lord Parish from 1998 to 2001.

The assaults allegedly took place in the sacristy of the church in Reverend Brennan’s bedroom in the rector inside a storage area on parish property and at a movie theater.

Brennan was arrested at a private residence in Maryland Wednesday night. The DA said the now 26-year old victim bravely came forward last January and told officials at the Arch Diocese.

Williams went on to say that convicted monsignor William Lynn continued to transfer father Brennan from church to church despite numerous warning even reports at resurrection of our lord parish.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Post

BY MICHAEL GRYBOSKI, CHRISTIAN POST REPORTER
September 26, 2013

A Missouri-based group devoted to helping victims of clerical sexual abuse is critical of former Pope Benedict XVI’s recent claim that he did not hide sexual abuse incidents.

Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) of St. Louis took issue with Benedict XVI’s recently published letter denying involvement in a cover-up.

David Clohessy, executive director of SNAP, told The Christian Post that the Pope Emeritus’ recent words were “hurtful and deceitful.”

“They rub salt into the already deep and still fresh wounds of tens of thousands of clergy sex abuse victims and millions of betrayed Catholics,” said Clohessy. “And we’re deeply saddened that not a single one of the world’s tens of thousands of bishops and priests has the courage to publicly dispute Benedict’s self-serving, misleading and callous comments.”

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NEW YORK
Jewish Daily Forward

By Anne Cohen
Published September 26, 2013.

The former chancellor of Yeshiva University may be excused from testifying at in the $380 million sex abuse lawsuit currently pending against the Modern Orthodox institution, the New York Post reported Thursday.

Rabbi Norman Lamm, 85, was reportedly examined on September 16 by Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center neuropsychologist Elise Caccapolo. According to Lamm’s lawyer, she found that his testimony, if provided, would not be reliable.

“Dr. Caccappolo found that a deposition was unlikely to pose a risk or threat to Dr. Lamm’s health,” lawyer Joel Cohen wrote to Judge John Koetl, who is overseeing the case at the U.S. District Court, the Post reported.

“However, after administering a battery of tests conducted over a period of nearly five hours, Dr. Caccopolo determined that ‘the pattern of Dr. Lamm’s cognitive impairment impedes his ability to independently comprehend and adequately respond to questions posed to him, as well to reliably retrieve and report past information.”

On September 9, Koeltl ordered a medical evaluation of Lamm, in response to claims by Cohen during a pre-trial hearing that Lamm is unfit to be deposed because he is suffering from dementia.

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NEW YORK
Times Ledger

By Phil Corso

A St. Francis Preparatory School graduate has revealed her name to the public in the midst of a $17 million sexual abuse lawsuit against her former school.

Felicia Mooradian, 21, graduated from the Fresh Meadows school in 2009 and had kept her identity private since accusing a Franciscan brother at the school of sexual harassment in Brooklyn federal court in June. She revealed her name to the New York Post over the weekend, saying she wanted to be the face for other victims to come forward.

“It should be called St. Francis ‘Predatory’ School,” she told the Post. “The Christian thing would be to admit your mistakes, not hide them.”

Attorneys on the school’s side contended from the beginning that she had no legal reasons to remain anonymous. She had previously been referred to in court documents only as Jane Doe.

She, another former student and a former teacher filed the suit against St. Francis Prep, Franciscan Brothers of Brooklyn and various members of the school’s board of trustees.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Courier Express

Associated Press

A former Philadelphia priest named in more than 20 abuse complaints during a long church career has been criminally charged for the first time after a new accuser came forward within the new time limit.

The Rev. Robert L. Brennan, 75, was arrested on rape charges in Perryville, Md., where he’s been living since he was suspended after being named in a 2005 grand jury report on sexual abuse within the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia. He is now charged with sexually abusing an altar boy from 1998 to 2001 in northeast Philadelphia.

Earlier complaints against Brennan were long buried in a locked vault at the archdiocese, according to documents unearthed in a landmark church-abuse trial last year. But Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams said the archdiocese _ after the conviction of a church official over his handling of complaints _ did the right thing when Brennan’s latest accuser contacted them in January.

“This shows the sea change, I believe, in the manner in which the archdiocese under (Archbishop Charles) Chaput is handling” complaints, Williams said.

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CALIFORNIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Cleric allegedly abused in Monterey, San Jose & San Francisco

Statement by Joelle Casteix of Newport Beach, SNAP Western Regional Director, jcasteix@gmail.com, (949) 322-7434

Coming forward to expose abuse is never easy, especially when an predator is still working as a priest in one of the largest archdioceses in the United States. We applaud the three brave victims who came forward to report being abused by Fr. Donald Flickinger. Were it not for their action, Flickinger would still be living and working as a priest around children in San Francisco.

We are disappointed that church lawyers have fought to keep Flickinger’s personnel documents secret in the hopes that more victims will not come forward. We fear that the documents may outline Flickinger’s long career of abuse and cover-up by church officials. It is our hope that anyone who may have been hurt by Flickinger—or anyone else—comes forward and gets the healing they deserve. We also beg anyone who may have seen or suspected abuse, or has evidence of abuse by Flickinger in Monterey, San Jose or San Francisco reports to law enforcement. Children are only safe with predators are behind bars.

The victims were represented by attorney Tim Hale of Santa Barbara, timothy@nps-law.com, (805) 963-2345 (cell)

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BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe

By Melissa Hanson, Globe Correspondent

A Boston priest has been appointed interim president and chief executive of iCatholic Media, the media arm of the Boston archdiocese, officials announced today.

Father Robert Reed was appointed by Cardinal Sean O’Malley and the board of trustees for iCatholic Media, the archdiocese said in a statement.

The nonprofit company operates a number of media outlets for the archdiocese. The company oversees Catholic TV, the radio program “The Good Catholic Life,” The Pilot newspaper, Pilot New Media, and Pilot Bulletins and Printing, the statement said.

Sister Marian Batho chairwoman of iCatholic Media, said Reed “brings a wealth of experience and energy to the position.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Catholic Philly

BY MATTHEW GAMBINO

Father Robert L. Brennan, a priest of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia whose priestly faculties were suspended since 2005, has been arrested in Maryland on charges of sexually abusing a Northeast Philadelphia boy between 1998 and 2001.

Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams made the announcement at a press conference today, Sept. 26, in Philadelphia.

Father Brennan, 75, was arrested on charges of rape, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and aggravated indecent assault in Perryville, Md., where he was living in a private residence. He is being held in Maryland’s Cecil County where he faces an extradition hearing today.

He was included in the 2005 Philadelphia Grand Jury report investigating incidents of sexual abuse of minors by clergy. The report cited a years-long pattern of reports of inappropriate behavior, including touching and other physical contact, between Father Brennan and boys with whom he came into contact during his assignments at parishes and schools in the archdiocese.

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UNITED STATES
National Survivors Advocates Coalition

The Interview, The Denial, The G-8

It’s an understatement to say that survivors’ lives are difficult.

They carry burdens, scars, and pouches of psychological festerings that can protrude in unlikely ways and places.

It’s not an overstatement to say that the abuse is always present tense no matter when it happened.

It seems the first rule of the Church and particularly its leaders should be in line with Hippocrates’ thinking: First, do no harm.

That hasn’t been what’s emerged through a media swollen with the interview and reports of the interview given by Pope Francis to Jesuit colleagues, the letter written by Pope Emeritus Benedict and the imminent opening of the gathering with Pope Francis of the eight cardinals he tapped to be a chapel cabinet.

The wide ranging Pope Francis interview spanned three question sessions and a copy of the interview was provided to him for review in Italian and approved before publication and translation.

That doesn’t leave much, if any, wiggle room that the great void of non-mention of sexual crisis, the largest crisis in the Church since the Reformation, was the fault of a hasty process, quick on the fly, shoe horned in sessions, bad translation, misinterpretation of meaning and intent.

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UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

Meanwhile, as Pope Francis’s recent interview and what it portends for the direction of the Catholic church continues to be discussed, Kristine Ward of the National Survivor Advocates Coalition (NSAC) points out that what Francis didn’t say also deserves notice. Nothing in his interview touches on the abuse crisis in the Catholic church, which is, as Kris notes, “the largest crisis in the Church since the Reformation.”

Francis did speak, but glancingly, of “wounds” from which the Catholic church is suffering, Kris observes–and the fact that his language about the abuse crisis, to which the coded term “wounds” clearly refers, has to be encoded while he speaks bluntly about abortion, contraception, and homosexuality, speaks loudly and clearly about the way in which the church’s top leaders too often continue approaching (or, better, failing to approach) this subject. As she points out, it’s difficult for pastoral leaders to speak transparently about a crisis in whose mismanagement they themselves have long been “in too deep.”

And right on the heels of the interview, as she also notes, comes a denial from the previous pope, Benedict XVI, that he ever participated in covering up abuse. To which Barbara Blaine of Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) replies, “We obviously and vehemently disagree.” And to which Barbara Dorris of SNAP says, “He could not be more wrong.”

Here’s Andrew Sullivan on Benedict the “unrepentant”:

To give some obvious, glaring examples of his complicity: despite sitting on mounds of evidence of the crimes of Marcial Maciel for years, Benedict waited and waited to act, and refused to talk in public about the matter, while Maciel went on to rape even his own son; he also helped give refuge to Cardinal Law, one of the most heinous cover-up artists in the whole disgusting saga; he even personally ensured that the man who raped over 200 deaf boys at St John’s School for the Deaf, Father Murphy, was allowed to retire in peace in the “dignity” of his priesthood. And yet Benedict is still capable of telling his interlocutor: “I never tried to cover up these things.”

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UNITED STATES
The Dish

[with video]

Andrew Sullivan

As Pope Francis has charmed the globe, the former Pope has been corresponding with Piergiorgio Odifreddi, an Italian mathematician and philosopher, on a whole range of topics. I haven’t been able to get an English translation and cannot find one online (if a reader has one, I’d be most obliged). Maybe the reported fragments lack important context, but they sound like Benedict to me, especially on the long, horrifying child-rape conspiracy from the Vatican on down, over which he had total control and unique knowledge from 2001 onwards.

To give some obvious, glaring examples of his complicity: despite sitting on mounds of evidence of the crimes of Marcial Maciel for years, Benedict waited and waited to act, and refused to talk in public about the matter, while Maciel went on to rape even his own son; he also helped give refuge to Cardinal Law, one of the most heinous cover-up artists in the whole disgusting saga; he even personally ensured that the man who raped over 200 deaf boys at St John’s School for the Deaf, Father Murphy, was allowed to retire in peace in the “dignity” of his priesthood. And yet Benedict is still capable of telling his interlocutor:

I never tried to cover up these things.

Seriously. But to me, the most egregious statement is the following:

That the power of evil penetrates to such a point in the interior world of the faith is, for us, a source of suffering. On the one hand we must accept that suffering, and on the other, at the same time, we must do everything possible so that such cases aren’t repeated.

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UNITED STATES
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on September 26, 2013

Your Holiness:

I was a nobody. A lost sheep – a victim of sex abuse in the Catholic church who was “thrown away” by the priests and bureaucrats in the Diocese of Orange, California. I was disposable. But unlike the parable, no shepherd came to look to me. Alone and isolated from my community, my family and my faith, I had to struggle to heal myself. Against the odds, I succeeded. And now I speak for those who still suffer alone, in silence.

I am not a nobody anymore. And that is why I am writing to you.

You have reached out to atheists and agnostics. You have said you cannot judge the homosexual community. Those were huge steps, but very easy things to do. You followed your heart and the teachings of the Bible. Now I ask you to do the hard thing: embrace the lost sheep that your people sexually abused, shunned and shamed. Tackle the “elephant in the room” that has been ignored for so long.

Doing that will be difficult. But rumor has it that dying on the cross wasn’t terribly easy either.
You have a bishop in Missouri, USA, who was convicted of child endangerment. Why is he still a bishop? I can’t help but think that Jesus would weep to see that secular authorities are doing more to save your lost sheep than you are.

You have Cardinals in the United States who have covered up abuse, yet they stand in judgement—saying that victims are just bitter, money-grubbers.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Newsworks

Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams is charging 75-year-old Rev. Robert Brennan with rape, involuntary deviate sexual assault, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and aggravated indecent assault.

“Rev. Brennan is charged with sexually assaulting an altar boy at Resurrection of Our Lord Parish in Northeast Philadelphia between 1998 and 2001,” Williams said. “The assaults started when the boy was 11 years of age and continued until he was 14 years old.”

Brennan was assistant pastor of the church at the time of the alleged assaults. Williams says his team began investigating the case after receiving information from the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

“The victim reported Brennan’s abuse to the Archdiocese in 2013, the Archdiocese immediately — I mean that same day — contacted the District Attorney’s office to share that report,” he said.

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PENNSYLVANIA
PhillyBurbs

By Jo Ciavaglia Staff writer
Posted on September 26, 2013

A Catholic priest who briefly served at a Lower Makefield church has been charged with sexually assaulting a Philadelphia man starting when the man was an 11-year-old altar boy at a Northeast Philadelphia church.

Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams announced the charges against the Rev. Robert Brennan, 75, at a news conference Thursday. He is charged with rape, involuntary deviant sexual intercourse and aggravated assault.

Brennan was arrested Wednesday in Maryland, where he has been living since he was suspended following a 2005 Philadelphia grand jury report. He remains an ordained priest, but was removed from active ministry in 2005, according to the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

Brennan is suspected of abusing more than 20 children, according to the grand jury report. But in 2005, prosecutors said the statute of limitations for criminal prosecution had expired.

He served at St. Ignatius Catholic Church for about six months in fall 1989, according to his archdiocese profile. Robert Brennan is not related to the Rev. James J. Brennan, who faces retrial after a jury last year could not reach a verdict in his case of alleged sexual abuse of children.

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PERU
RPP

[Summary: At leave 50 parishioners – men and woman – from the parish of San Francisco de Paula are mobilized in the streets of Aycucho in support of former Auxiliary Bishop Gabino Miranda, who ahs been accused of pedophilia. The group, carrying rosaries, are demanding justice for the bishops who ws removed by the Vatican. These people believe the bishop is innocent and that no formal complaints have been made against him at district police stations.]

Al menos 50 feligreses entre varones y mujeres pertenecientes a la parroquia San Francisco de Paula se movilizan por las calles de la ciudad de Ayacucho, en respaldo al exobispo auxiliar acusado de pedofilia, Gabino Miranda.

El grupo de personas portan rosarios y piden justicia para el Miranda, quien fue destruido por el Vaticano. Incluso indican que es inocente de los hechos que se le imputan.

Por lo pronto, no existe ninguna denuncia formal de los agraviados en las comisarías de las provincias.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Republic

[Report of the Philadelphia Grand Jury – BishopAccountability.org]

By MARYCLAIRE DALE Associated Priest
September 26, 2013 – 12:40 pm EDT

PHILADELPHIA — A former Philadelphia priest suspected of abusing more than 20 children has been criminally charged after a new accuser came forward.

Seventy-five-year-old Fr. Robert L. Brennan was arrested in Perryville, Maryland, where he’d been living since he was suspended after a 2005 grand jury report.

At the time, prosecutors said it was too late to pursue complaints that went back decades.

But accusers now have more time to pursue charges, and a new accuser says Brennan sexually assaulted him from 1998-2001, starting when he was 11.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia

Father Robert L. Brennan was removed from active ministry in September 2005 following the Grand Jury report issued by the Philadelphia District Attorney. He has not been permitted to function as a priest anywhere since that time. A canonical process aimed at his laicization is in progress with the Holy See.

His current arrest stems from an allegation of sexual abuse involving a minor reported to the Archdiocese in January 2013. The alleged wrongful conduct occurred between 12 and 15 years ago prior to his removal from ministry. The Archdiocese immediately reported the information to the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, and cooperated fully with the subsequent investigation. Since arriving in Philadelphia, Archbishop Chaput has reinforced the Archdiocese’s strong commitment to work with law enforcement in ensuring justice for victims of sexual assault. The Archdiocese reports all allegations of sexual abuse of minors to public authorities.

Father Brennan is 75 years old. He was ordained in 1964. He has served at the following parishes in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia: Saint Pius X, Broomall (1964-1970); Our Lady of Calvary, Philadelphia (1970-1974); Stella Maris, Philadelphia (1974-1981); Saint George, Glenolden (1981-1986); Chaplain, Archbishop Prendergast High School, Drexel Hill (1986); Saint Helena, Philadelphia (1986-1988); Saint Ignatius of Antioch, Yardley (1988-1989); Saint Eleanor, Collegeville (1989); Saint Mary Schwenksville (1989-1992); Leave of Absence (1992-1993); Resurrection of Our Lord (1993-2004); Chaplain, Camilla Hall (2004-2005); Ministry Restricted and faculties removed (2005).

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Office of the District Attorney

September 26, 2013: The Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office has charged the Rev. Robert L. Brennan with Rape, Involuntary Deviate Sexual Intercourse (IDSI), and Aggravated Indecent Assault. He is charged with sexually assaulting an altar boy at Resurrection of Our Lord Parish in Northeast Philadelphia between 1998 and 2001, beginning when the boy was 11 and continuing until he was 14 years old. Brennan, then 60 to 63 years old, was the assistant pastor at the church. Brennan is accused of digitally penetrating the boy’s anus, beginning when the victim was in 6th grade. He later began forcing the boy to perform oral sex on him. The assaults took place in the sacristy of the church, in the priest’s rectory bedroom, in a storage area on parish property, and in a movie theater. The abuse continued for three years.

Brennan, who now lives in Maryland, was arrested late on Wednesday, September 25th by Perryville Maryland police. He is currently being held in Cecil County and is expected to go before a judge there later today for an extradition hearing.

The victim reported Brennan’s abuse to the Archdiocese in January 2013, six months after a jury convicted Monsignor William Lynn of child endangerment for failing to supervise predatory priests. In accordance with its current policy of reporting all sexual abuse accusations to law enforcement, the Archdiocese immediately forwarded this victim’s allegations to the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office. The lengthy subsequent investigation resulted in Brennan’s arrest.

“A serial abuser is now behind bars thanks to the brave actions of this young man,” said District Attorney Seth Williams. “It takes tremendous courage for any sexual assault victim to come forward and report the horrors he or she endured, particularly if it happened over the course of several years. The Archdiocese is also to be commended for immediately turning this case over to our office. I hope this arrest continues to send the message to sexual assault victims that we hear you, and we will bring the person to justice.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Philly Post

Simon van Zuylen-Wood

Rev. Robert Brennan, a 75-year-old former Philly priest has been charged with assaulting a altar boy over the course of four years in the late 90s and early 2000s. The alleged abuse began when the boy was 11.

[District Attorney Seth] Williams said the alleged assaults occurred when Brennan was an assistant pastor at Resurrection of Our Lord Church in Northeast Philadelphia. According to Williams, some of the assaults happened on church grounds, Brennan’s bedroom and a movie theater.

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POLSKA
Gazeta Wyborcza

[Summary: The Polish church believes that if priests hurt someone in the Dominican Republican, then it is up to the individuals and not the church to fix the problem. Archbishop Jozef Kowalczyk said there is no collective responsibility in the church. All crimes, where pedophilia or other, are the responsibility of the person who committed those crimes.]

Katarzyna Wiśniewska 26.09.2013

O polskich księżach oskarżonych o pedofilię mówi cały świat. Trudno dziś przekonywać – jak lubi to nadal robić wielu księży – że pedofilia w naszym Kościele to problem marginalny.

Dowiedzieliśmy się znów, jakie podejście do rozwiązywania problemów z pedofilią ma polski Kościół. – Jeżeli ksiądz skrzywdził na Dominikanie kogoś, to jest jego obowiązkiem naprawić tę sprawę, a nie Kościoła w Polsce. Nie ma w Kościele odpowiedzialności zbiorowej, jest indywidualna – stwierdził prymas Polski abp Józef Kowalczyk. Tłumaczył, że “za wszelkie przestępstwa – pedofilskie czy inne – odpowiada podmiot, który tego dokonał, a nie fabryka, wspólnota czy podmiot prawa międzynarodowego”.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, Sept. 26

Statement by David Clohessy of St. Louis, Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 314 566 9790, SNAPclohessy@aol.com )

We respectfully disagree with DA Seth Williams. The Philadelphia archdiocese deserves no kudos for reporting this priest to law enforcement. And one incident cannot be deemed some sort of “sea change” in a long-standing, deeply-rooted culture of secrecy, recklessness, callousness and deceit.

Church officials reported Fr. Brennan, we believe, because they didn’t want to go to jail like Msgr. William Lynn has. It’s self-interest, not reform, that prompted this call.

We are disappointed that Catholic officials are being praised for simply, finally, obeying the law.

We caution Mr. Williams and Philadelphia Catholics against premature complacency. Premature complacency protects on one. Only sustained vigilance protects kids.

Here’s what the 2005 grand jury report said about Fr. Brennan:

[BishopAccountability.org]

He was psychologically evaluated or “treated” four times. (NOTE-Archbishop Charles Chaput wants us to believe church officials are ‘reforming.’ But we suspect they still send sexually troubled clerics to the same discredited church facilities they’ve always used.)

Depending on the level of scandal threatened by various incidents, Cardinal Bevilacqua either transferred Fr. Brennan to another parish with unsuspecting families or ignored the reports and left the priest in the parish with his current victims. The Cardinal’s managers advised Fr. Brennan to “keep a low profile,” but never restricted or supervised his access to the youth of his various parishes.

When Cardinal Bevilacqua retired, Fr. Brennan was still a parochial vicar at Resurrection parish in Philadelphia, despite reports from parish staff that he had inappropriate contact with several students from Resurrection’s grade school. In June 2004, Fr. Brennan was appointed Chaplain at Camilla Hall, a retirement home for nuns.

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POLSKA
Wielkopolskie

[Summary: The cases of Rev. Wojciech Gil and Archbishop Jozet Wesolowski are so shocking that Archbishop Josef Kowalczyk, the Polish primate, said that if the priests harmed someone in the Dominican Republic then action must be taken. He added that the church does not have collective responsibility but the responsibility is with the individuals.]

Dla pedofilów nie powinno być litości. Wszyscy księża zamieszani w tę sprawę powinni ponieść karę. Cała ta afera bulwersuje cały świat – tak w skrócie podsumować można aferę polskich duchownych na Dominikanie.

Całym światem wstrząsnęła wiadomość o pedofilskich skłonnościach księży na Dominikanie. W całą sprawę zamieszani są również polscy duchowni: ks. Wojciech Gil oraz abp Józef Wesołowski.

Ostatnio media żyją informacjami o tym, że badająca tą sprawę prokuratura prawdopodobnie posiada już wypowiedzi pokrzywdzonych chłopców. Nieoficjalne źródła podają również, że na skonfiskowanym komputerze jednego z księży zabezpieczono filmy pornograficzne.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Daily Times

PHILADELPHIA – A former longtime priest in the Philadelphia Archdiocese has been arrested on charges of raping an altar boy, and District Attorney Seth Williams said it is both a sign of how the church has changed in terms of reporting crime, and another troubling sign of the way the issue used to be handled.

The Rev. Robert L. Brennan, 75 was arrested in Perryville, Md., Wednesday afternoon and faces an extradition hearing Thursday afternoon. Brennan has been living in Maryland since he was suspended following a 2005 grand jury report.

Williams said Brennan has been charged with the rape of an altar while he was an assistant pastor at Resurrection of Our Lord Parish in the Rhawnhurst section of Northeast Philadelphia from 1998 to 2001.

“A serial predator is now behind bars thanks to brave actions of this young man,” said Williams.

Williams said the alleged assaults included penetration and oral sex.

The district attorney congratulated current archdiocese officials for immediately notifying authorities when they learned of the allegations against Brennan. Williams also castigated former archdiocese officials, in particular Monsignor William Lynn, for failing to stop Brennan despite clear evidence of a troubling pattern of behavior.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
WFMJ

Updated: Sep 26, 2013
By MARYCLAIRE DALE
Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA (AP) – A former Philadelpiha priest suspected of abusing more than 20 children has been criminally charged after a new accuser came forward.

Seventy-five-year-old Fr. Robert L. Brennan has been arrested in Perryville, Md., where he has been living since he was suspended following a 2005 grand jury report.

At the time, prosecutors said it was too late to pursue complaints that went back decades.

But accusers now have more time to pursue charges, and a new accuser says Brennan sexually assaulted him from 1998 to 2001, starting when he was 11.

District Attorney Seth Williams says he would have also charged Monsignor William Lynn with child endangerment for allegedly hiding the earlier complaints, but the statute for that charge had run.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
NBC 10

[with video]

A Philadelphia priest is accused of sexually molesting an altar boy over a three-year period.

Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams announced the arrest Thursday morning of Rev. Robert L Brennan.

“A serial predator is now behind bars thanks to brave actions of this young man,” said Williams.

Williams described in graphic detail how Brennan, who was 60 when the alleged attacks began, allegedly penetrated the boy when the boy wasn’t even in seventh grade before proceeding to oral sex once the boy entered seventh grade.

The alleged assaults happened inside the church and rectory and off church grounds while Brennan was an assistant pastor at Resurrection of Our Lord Parish in the Rhawnhurst section of Northeast Philadelphia from 1998 to 2001.

“The assaults took place in the sarcricy of the church, in REv. Brennan’s bedroom, in the rectory, in a storage area on parish property and in a movie theater,” said Williams.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
6 ABC

PHILADELPHIA – September 26, 2013 (WPVI) — A priest who once served in Philadelphia has been arrested on charges of sexually abusing an altar boy.

Robert L. Brennan, 75, is charged with rape, deviate sexual intercourse and other offenses.

Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams announced the arrest Thursday.

Williams said the alleged abuse happened between 1998 and 2001 at the Resurrection of Our Lord Church in Northeast Philadelphia when Brennan was an assistant pastor there.

According to Williams, the alleged abuse began when the victim was 11 years old and continued until he was 14. The victim told prosecutors the incidents took place in the church, in Brennan’s bedroom and in a movie theater.

Williams said the victim came forward in January 2013 and reported the incidents to officials at the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

He said the archdiocese contacted the district attorney’s office that same day to report the allegations.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

JOSEPH A. SLOBODZIAN AND JOHN P. MARTIN, INQUIRER STAFF WRITERS
LAST UPDATED: Thursday, September 26, 2013

A Catholic priest whose alleged sexual abuse of teen and preteen boys figured prominently in last year’s trial of a Philadelphia church official was arrested Thursday on sex abuse charges.

The arrest of the 75-year-old Rev. Robert Brennan, 75 – confirmed by a source close to the case – is to be announced at a news conference this morning by District Attorney Seth Williams.

Though Brennan was not charged as a result of the 2011 county grand jury report on clergy sex-abuse of children in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, the source said Brennan has been accused by a man, now in his 20s, of sexually molesting him between the ages of 11 and 14.

The allegations against Brennan surfaced at last year’s trial of Msgr. William J. Lynn, the first Catholic church official convicted for his supervisory role in covering up the conduct of pedophile priests.

Prosecutors introduced details of Brennan’s case to show that Lynn and other Archdiocesan officials had a longstanding practice of moving abusive priests to different parishes where they were then able to prey on a new group of children.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
NBC 10

Live stream of the press conference.

Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams is expected to announce details this morning about the arrest of a Philadelphia priest.

An 11 a.m. press conference should reveal more details about the arrest.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, Sept. 26, 2013

Statement by Karen Polesir of Philadelphia SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 267-992-9463, karenpolesir@yahoo.com )

Prosecutors in Philadelphia will announce the arrest of a suspected predator priest at a news conference this morning.

“Discrimination!” “We’re being singled out.” “The DA doesn’t call a news conference to announce the arrest of a child molesting Lutheran pastor or Methodist minister.”

Apologists for Archbishop Charles Chaput and others in the corrupt archdiocesan hierarchy will no doubt make these claims.

Those complaints are, of course, disingenuous. For decades, many in the archdiocese have ignored, enabled and covered up child sex crimes. And little in the archdiocesan hierarchy has changed. So prosecutors are doing their duty when they continue to shine a light on that small band of secretive, self-serving individuals who keep putting their reputations and careers and colleagues ahead of the safety of children.

We applaud prosecutors who use their “bully pulpits” to expose individuals who commit and institutions that conceal heinous child sex crimes. That should happen more often. That’s smart law enforcement. That better protects kids.

It’s very hard to deter child sex crimes. It’s not hard, however, to deter cover ups. It takes two things: prosecuting and exposing those who cover up child sex crimes.

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GERMANY
National Catholic Reporter

Christa Pongratz-Lippitt | Sep. 26, 2013

Curia reform and how to improve the Vatican’s negative image will take priority when Pope Francis’ eight-member council of cardinals meets in October, says the German cardinal on that council.

He also says Francis has brought a “new atmosphere” and “new sensitivity” to the church.

Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich gave an extended interview to the German weekly newsmagazine Die Zeit in September. He discussed the present state of the church and the changes that are crucial in his eyes.

“We need a strong central authority and that is why, as I have already emphasized in Rome, we must improve the Holy See’s reputation. The Curia is here to help local churches, which are not just Roman offshoots. We must bring a positive change to the Vatican’s image. It must no longer be possible for our faithful to regard the Vatican primarily as something negative. We must once again be able to be proud of our headquarters,” said Marx, who is president of the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Community.

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PERU
Trome

[Summary: Former Bishop Gabino Miranda apparently was denounced by a 14-year-old boy from Huanta who accused the bishop of improper touching. The alleged victim was an altar boy, according to the magazine Caretas, and the abuse is said to have occurred in 2012 during confession in the church of San Francisco de Paula, which is a block from the Plaza de Huamanga. Garay Chavez, a provincial prosecutor, said he does not know whether there are other victims.]

El exobispo de Ayacucho Gabino Miranda habría sido denunciado por un menor de 14 años oriundo de Huanta por “tocamientos indebidos”.

Según fuentes de la revista Caretas, la presunta víctima era su monaguillo y el abuso ocurrió durante un acto de confesión en la iglesia San Francisco de Paula, a una cuadra de la Plaza de Armas de Huamanga, en 2012.

Luego de que el Vaticano destituyera a Miranda por las acusaciones de pedofilia que pesan en su contra, la Fiscalía de esa región le abrió de oficio una investigación.

El fiscal Garay Chávez, de la Primera Fiscalía Provincial de Huamanga, dijo al semanario que ignora si hay más víctimas de Miranda.

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DEUTSCHLAND
FN Web

WÜRZBURG/KARLSTADT. Tatort war ein Pfarrhaus im Landkreis Main- Spessart, missbraucht worden ist über Jahre hinweg der Sohn einer evangelischen Pfarrers-Frau, die nach der Scheidung mit ihren Kindern bei dem mit ihrem Ex-Mann auf ökumenischer Basis befreundeten katholischen Bekannten Unterschlupf fand und das Opfer war, als ihn der “Ersatz-Vater” zum ersten Mal “anfasste”, gerade fünf Jahre alt.

Einen 58 Jahre alten katholischen Priester, Mitglied des “Deutschen Ordens”, hat Oberstaatsanwalt Thomas Trapp am Dienstag vor einer Großen Strafkammer des Landgerichts Würzburg wegen sexuellem Missbrauch eines Kindes in mindestens 14 Fällen angeklagt. Der Priester hatte sich über zwölf Jahre nach der letzten Tat bei dem für den Deutschen Orden zuständigen Missbrauchs-Beauftragten selbst angezeigt. Möglicherweise ein taktisches Manöver, denn der Pfarrer soll kurz zuvor erfahren haben, dass auch sein “Opfer” eine Anzeige vorbereitet.

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PERU
Caretas

[Summary: Details about the removal of Auxiliary Bishop Gabina Miranda have not been revealed but sources told Caretas the complaint goes back to June 2012 when a 14-year-old altar boy from Huanta said Gabino improperly touched him. The abuse is said to have happened in the confessional. The Archbishop of Ayacucho, Salvardor Pineiro, who is also president of the Episcopal Conference, immediately opened a case against Miranda in strictest confidence and sent the file to the Vatican. Aware of the complaint, Miranda in April wrote a letter to Pope Francis asking for a sabbatical to reflect on imprudence. The Vatican ignored him and he was gone by early August. Prosecutor Garay Chavez said he does not know if there are more victims but it is believed another complaint was made by a 15-year-old.

Miranda was born in the Curahuasi district in Apurimac and studied at the minor seminary at Abancay. His education was clearly linked to Opus Dei at the major seminary at Our Lady of Cocharcas. He was ordained on Dec. 12, 1987 and he studied theology at the University of Navarre in Spain. He was appointed bishop in 2002 by Pope John Paul II at request of Juan Luis Cipriani, cardinal and Archbishop of Lima. Opus Dei said Miranda is not a bishop of the prelature but belonged to the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross which is separate from the prelature.]

Contra Sextum. Con los vientos que hoy soplan en el Vaticano, este concepto de derecho canónico es uno de los más temidos. Son los delitos que van contra el sexto mandamiento (“No cometerás adulterio”).

Se refieren en primer lugar, al concubinato del clérigo. Pero también a “cualquier forma de pecado externo” que “se comete por fuerza, amenaza, públicamente o con menores de 16 años” (canon 1396).

En carta del 1 de julio dada a conocer por la prensa, el obispo titular de Usula –y auxiliar de Ayacucho–, Gabino Miranda (53), niega haber cometido delito contra sextum a pesar de que “en algunas circunstancias he sido imprudente”.

La misiva se la dirige a monseñor Aloisius Franciscus Ladaria, el número dos de la Congregación Para la Doctrina de la Fe que en mayo pasado decidió en Roma su retiro del cargo y su suspensión como obispo y sacerdote.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philly.com

PHILLY.COM STAFF
LAST UPDATED: Thursday, September 26, 2013

Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams announced this morning that a priest from the Archdiocese of Philadelphia has been arrested.

Williams did not release further information, but set an 11 a.m. press conference.

Fox29 is reporting that the yet unidentified priest is accused of molesting a 6th grader. However, that was not officially confirmed.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CBS Philly

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – A Philadelphia priest has been arrested after being accused of sexually assaulting a grade school student.

Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams is expected to announce the charges during a news conference at 11 a.m. today.

The details regarding the alleged sexual assault remain unclear, but the priest is in police custody. His identity was not immediately released.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
NBC 10

By Dan Stamm | Thursday, Sep 26, 2013

Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams is expected to announce details this morning about the arrest of a Philadelphia priest.

An 11 a.m. press conference should reveal more details about the arrest.

All that is known at this point is that a priest in the Philadelphia Archdiocese was arrested.

NBC!0 is working to find out the identity of the priest and the accusations against the Catholic leader.

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GALLUP (NM)
Gallup Independent

By Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola

September 19, 2013

After a last-ditch legal maneuver was denied by an Arizona judge, Bishop James S. Wall of the Diocese of Gallup submitted to a deposition Wednesday by two attorneys who have filed 13 clergy abuse lawsuits against the diocese.

Wall’s deposition was held in Albuquerque and was accompanied by the deposition of the Rev. Alfred Tachias, a longtime Gallup priest. The depositions took place as scheduled because the diocese has yet to file its Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition, a move that will halt the proceedings in the civil lawsuits.

However, at least for the time being, the contents of Wednesday’s depositions are confidential, over the objection of the plaintiffs’ attorneys, Robert E. Pastor of Phoenix and John C. Manly of Irvine, Calif.

“Bishop Wall and Father Tachias gave statements under oath today,” Pastor said in an email Wednesday evening. “We are not permitted to discuss the content of their testimony because at the outset of the deposition the Diocese of Gallup designated the testimony confidential. We noted our objection and found it odd that the Diocese would make the testimony confidential before the witnesses even testified. We hope that one day all of the facts surrounding clergy sexual abuse of children in the Diocese of Gallup will be shared with the faithful Catholics of the diocese.”

The depositions were scheduled as part of Pastor and Manly’s first clergy sex abuse case against the Gallup Diocese, which is scheduled to go to trial in February in Coconino County Superior Court in Flagstaff, Ariz. The case involves abuse allegations against the Rev. Clement Hageman, who is deceased. Tachias formerly worked as an assistant pastor under Hageman.

Last-minute motion

In Masses held over the Labor Day Weekend, priests in the Gallup Diocese read a letter from the bishop, announcing plans to seek Chapter 11 reorganization because of increasing numbers of clergy sex abuse lawsuits and claims. [For texts of the letter and related civil complaints, see Diocese of Gallup to File Bankruptcy, by Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola, Gallup Independent, September 3, 2013.]

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

BY DANIEL BEEKMAN / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2013

The former president of Yeshiva University has a doctor’s note that could excuse him from testifying in the shocking $380 million sex abuse lawsuit against the Washington Heights institution.

Norman Lamm, a longtime Yeshiva administrator named as a defendant in the federal case, has a “cognitive impairment” that makes him an unreliable witness, a brain expert determined earlier this month, Lamm’s lawyer said.

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NEW YORK
New York Post

By Rich Calder
September 25, 2013

One of the defendants in a scathing $380 million lawsuit accusing Yeshiva University of covering up decades of sexual and physical abuse against students now has a doctor’s note that could get him out of testifying in the case.

Former Yeshiva University Chancellor Norman Lamm, 85, was examined on Sept. 16 by neuropsychologist Elise Caccappolo of Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, who found that he can’t provide reliable testimony, Lamm’s lawyer wrote this week.

“Dr. Caccappolo found that a deposition was unlikely to pose a risk or threat to Dr. Lamm’s health,” lawyer Joel Cohen wrote Judge John Koetl on Tuesday.

“However, after administering a battery of tests conducted over a period of nearly five hours, Dr. Caccopolo determined [in her written report] that ‘the pattern of Dr. Lamm’s cognitive impairment impedes his ability to independently comprehend and adequately respond to questions posed to him, as well to reliably retrieve and report past information.”

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AUSTRALIE
Trouw

Paus excommuniceert priester die pleit voor homo’s en vrouwen

Een Australische priester die campagne voerde voor de priesterwijding van vrouwen en het homohuwelijk moet de rooms-katholieke kerk verlaten. Het Vaticaan heeft hem geëxcommuniceerd.

Dat melden de Australische krant The Age en het katholieke tijdschrift National Catholic Reporter (NCR). Volgens de brief die de priester uit Rome ontving, is de beslissing genomen door of namens paus Franciscus.

Greg Reynolds uit Melbourne kreeg naar eigen zeggen niet te horen wat de reden is van zijn excommunicatie, de meest drastische maatregel die het Vaticaan kan nemen. De aartsbisschop van Melbourne legt de schuld in een brief aan zijn priesters bij Reynolds’ pleidooien voor vrouwelijke priesterwijding en het feit dat hij onbevoegd de eucharistie (het ritueel van brood en wijn) viert. Daarmee gaat hij, ondanks enkele waarschuweingen, in tegen de kerkleer.

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NEDERLAND
Trouw

UPDATE In een donderdag gepubliceerd interview neemt paus Franciscus het op voor homo’s en geeft hij scherpe kritiek op de kerk. Toch is hij volgens Vaticaankenners niet radicaal.

Heeft u het 27 pagina’s tellende interview nog niet gelezen? Geen nood. De opmerkelijke uitspraken vindt u hier.

Vaticaankenner John Allen: Franciscus wijkt niet af van de kerkleer
‘Franciscus geeft naar eigen zeggen slechts een samenvatting van de rooms-katholieke catechismus (de kerkelijke leer, red.) Daarin staat dat de kerk homoseksuele handelingen afkeurt, maar dat homoseksuelen behandeld moeten worden met ‘respect, compassie en gevoeligheid’.’

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PERU
El Pais (Espana)

[Summary: Last Thursday, Diego Garcia Sayan, president of the inter-American human rights court, said that a bishop in an Andean jurisdiction was removed from office because of pedophilia. Hours later, Luis Bambaren, bishop emeritus, confirmed that it was Gabino Miranda, former auxiliary bishop of Ayacucho. However, the Peruvian Episcopal Conference is still silent on the case although Miranda was dismissed in May. This is the first expulsion in Peru under the new papal regulations which are more drastic when sexual abuse of minors is alleged. Juan Luis Cipriani, archbishop of Lima, said Saturday he was unaware of the case and asked that people “do not beat a dead horse.” Garcia Syan also said that MIranda and Cipriani were members of the Opus Dei prelature.]

El jueves pasado, Diego García Sayán, presidente de la Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos, comentó en su columna quincena que un obispo de una jurisdicción andina fue destituido de su cargo por pedofilia. Horas después, el obispo emérito de Chimbote, Luis Bambarén, confirmó que se trataba de Gabino Miranda, antiguo obispo auxiliar de Ayacucho. Ambos pidieron que el Ministerio Público investigara de oficio, lo cual se concretó. Sin embargo, la Conferencia Episcopal Peruana aún guarda silencio sobre el caso a pesar de que Miranda fue cesado en mayo. Se trata de la primera expulsión por este motivo en Perú, y bajo el nuevo reglamento papal, más drástico sobre actos sexuales contra menores.

El arzobispo de Lima, Juan Luis Cipriani, dijo el sábado pasado que no estaba enterado del caso y pidió “no hacer leña del árbol caído”. “Estando en Roma, no me resulta fácil interpretar los datos tan delicados que me están anunciando”, dijo a una radio peruana. García Sayán también comentó que el sacerdote cesado pertenecía al Opus Dei, prelatura de la que Cipriani es miembro, pero el jerarca lo negó. “Conozco bastante bien la situación de este sacerdote y obispo, que tiene una dirección espiritual y una cercanía en la espiritualidad libremente escogida con gente el Opus Dei, pero no es un sacerdote incardinado en el Opus Dei”, refirió. Hoy, el periodista Andrés Beltramo confirma en Vatican Insider que el obispo Miranda perteneció a la Sociedad Sacerdotal de la Santa Cruz, “una fraternidad que es parte de la prelatura”.

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PERU
Tuteve

[con video]

A raíz de lo acontecido por la denuncia contra exobispo auxiliar de Ayacucho, Gabino Miranda, por pedofilia, el Arzobispo de Lima, Juan Luis Cipriani, más allá de mostrar su preocupación por las presuntas víctimas, se solidarizó con el religioso.

Tal como señala el informe del programa “Al Día”, Cipriani dejó dudas si tenía conocimiento o no de este hecho, sobre todo porque el desaforado obispo es un miembro cercano al Opus Dei.

Por su parte, José Godoy, periodista especializado en temas religioso, manifiesta que la máxima autoridad del catolicismo en el Perú con el tema de derechos humanos ha sido “accidentado” y “conflictivo”.

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ARGENTINA
UPI

BUENOS AIRES, sep. 25 (UPI) — César Cigliutti Presidente de la CHA dijo que “La detención del sacerdote Julio César Grassi nos permite confiar un poco más en la justicia ya que termina con la impunidad de los delitos de abuso de menores.

En la Comunidad Homosexual Argentina como organización de Derechos Humanos trabajamos para proteger, en este caso, a los niños abusados. Las actuales “dudas” planteadas públicamente hoy por el obispado de Morón ratifican la denuncia de la CHA sobre la complicidad que tuvieron sistemáticamente los obispos frente a las denuncias de abusos a menores.

Lo menos que pueden hacer es guardar un respetable silencio y lo que se espera (que hagan en algún momento) es que condenen y repudien estos actos y que protejan a las víctimas, respetando lo resuelto por la justicia argentina. Los testimonios, las pruebas presentadas durante el proceso, más la actitud del propio acusado hacen que el juico tenga sobrados elementos (más que suficientes) para haber determinado la culpabilidad de Grassi. Lo que agrava la persistencia de los obispos por seguir encubriéndolo.

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ARGENTINA
UPI

[Summary: Three convictions of sexual abuse were not enough to convince the church that priest Julio Cesar Grassi was guilty, according to newspaper Clarin. The Moron bishopric expressed doubts about his guilt and even questioned the flight risk that Grassi posed which was an argument the prosecutor made to the judges. Last Thursday, a few hours after the Supreme Court upheld Grassi’s conviction, Bishop Marcelo Cuenca became the first senior member of the church to defend him and say he was totally innocent. He later confirmed his statements. The bishop said although pedophilia exists in the church, it does not so in this situation.]

Publicado: sep. 26, 2013

BUENOS AIRES, sep. 25 (UPI) — Tres fallos condenatorios por abuso sexual no alcanzaron a convencer a la Iglesia de la culpabilidad del acusado, el antes mediático cura Julio César Grassi, consignó el diario Clarín.

El obispado de Morón –al que pertenece Grassi– expresó sus “dudas” acerca de la culpabilidad del sacerdote. Fue a través de un comunicado difundido al día siguiente de que un tribunal dispusiera, finalmente, su encarcelamiento. E incluso también se puso en duda el “peligro de fuga” de Grassi, un concepto que formó parte de los argumentos de los jueces que lo enviaron a la cárcel.

El jueves pasado, a escasas horas de que la Suprema Corte de Justicia confirmara la condena a Julio César Grassi, el obispo de la diócesis del Alto Valle de Río Negro, Marcelo Cuenca, se convirtió en el primer integrante de alto rango de la Iglesia en defender a Grassi. “Es totalmente inocente”, afirmó en declaraciones periodísticas. Más tarde, Cuenca le confirmó sus dichos al tabloide. “La pedofilia existe dentro de la Iglesia, pero en este caso concreto es una situación armada. Nos han enviado resúmenes gruesos, tres volúmenes, con argumentos legales. Ahí se nos muestra que hay algunas de las acusaciones en contra del padre Grassi que están armadas”, señaló al diario.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC – PM

MARK COLVIN: The Royal Commission into child sexual abuse is preparing to turn its attention to the North Coast Children’s Home in Lismore. Public hearings set down for November will examine how the Anglican diocese of Grafton, which ran the home, handled complaints of abuse. It will also revisit the civil legal action of 2006 and 2007.

Leading the charge against the church is one survivor, Richard “Tommy” Campion, who was in the Lismore home between the 1940s and ’60s. He launched the campaign to have the Anglican Church admit that it had a legal duty of care for the orphans who were sexually and physically abused in the home. He’s now hoping the Royal Commission will lead to public apologies to individual victims and compensation.

Emily Bourke reports.

EMILY BOURKE: Richard “Tommy” Campion lived in the North Coast Children’s Home from the late 1940s to 1963.

RICHARD “TOMMY” CAMPION: I can say it was a hellhole. Brutal bashings. Children were flogged with broomsticks, canes, pony whips, belts. Children were locked in cupboards. Children were made to stand on one leg and if they did fall over they’d be belted and flogged.

If the child wee’d the bed, they were paraded in the dormitory with the sheets over their head, telling this would be a lesson to you guys if you do this. And then they had to go out to the back into the laundry and wash them, and some of the children couldn’t reach the tubs. It was pretty sad.

EMILY BOURKE: When the trauma of the abuse surfaced decades later, he approached the Anglican Church which ran the Lismore orphanage.

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VATICAN CITY
All Voices

BY Mike Sarzo

Pope-emeritus Benedict XVI broke a months-long silence Tuesday kept since he left the papacy back in February in order to defend the Catholic Church’s response to child sexual abuse scandals that has roiled the world community for years.

In a letter he wrote to well-known Italian atheist and author Piergiorgio Odifreddi, Benedict denied personal responsibility for the scandal surrounding a potential cover up of wrongdoing by priests.
“I never tried to cover these things up,” Benedict wrote. Regarding the scandal and the negative press the church faced as a result, the former pontiff said the church had to bear responsibility.

“That the power of evil penetrated so far into the interior world of the faith is a suffering that we must bear, but at the same time, we must do everything to prevent it from repeating,” he wrote.

However, instead of citing new ways in which the church could own up to and combat the abuses and strive to prevent such abuses in the future, Benedict copped out.

“The percentage of priests who commit these crimes isn’t any higher than the percentage of other similar professions,” Benedict wrote. “One shouldn’t present this deviation as if it were something specific to Catholicism.”

That misses the point, which is the church has rightly received intense scrutiny for abdicating its responsibility in rooting out and stopping the abuse.

Before he was pope, the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger led the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and was responsible for handling abuse cases. In that role during 2001, he instructed bishops to send cases to his office rather than allow them to reshuffle priests accused of sexual abuse to avoid church trials. In 1988, he asked the Vatican’s legal team for faster ways to remove priests accused of abuse but was denied because it didn’t allow the priests to defend themselves.

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AUSTRALIA
Maitland Mercury

Difficulty coming to terms with allegations of child sex abuse prevented Catholic Church officials reporting pedophile priests, a NSW inquiry has heard.

Barrister Lachlan Gyles says it was not the culture of the Church that held senior figures back, but their problems in grasping the nature of what was alleged.

“It was not a cultural disinclination to report,” Mr Gyles told the last day of the special commission of inquiry’s public hearings in the Newcastle Supreme Court.

“It was coming to terms (with the fact) that people were capable of doing the things that they were alleged to have done.”

Mr Gyles said church leaders were just as repulsed by child sexual abuse as other people in the community and were now doing all they could to ensure that the offences of the past were not repeated.

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SOUTH DAKOTA
Keloland

[with video]

ABERDEEN, SD – A priest working as a chaplain in Aberdeen has lost his job after allegations of sexual harassment.

Charles Emezie was a chaplain at an Avera hospital and nursing home. Emezie no longer works for Avera and can’t practice ministry in the Catholic Diocese of Sioux Falls either.

Emezie worked more than 18 years as a chaplain for Avera in Aberdeen. When word spread that he’d lost his job after sexual harassment allegations, Nicholas Berens was surprised.

“I think everybody is equal and the same measures should be taken no matter what, but I would expect more out of a clergyman,” Berens said.

Because it’s a personnel matter, administrators with Avera say they can’t comment beyond saying Emezie doesn’t work for Avera any longer and he didn’t hurt any patients in the hospital or residents in the nursing home.

According to a statement released by the Catholic Diocese of Sioux Falls, an investigation found that reports that Emezie sexually harassed adult female staff members have been found credible. The Diocese also says Emezie’s conduct violated its sexual misconduct policy.

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GEORGIA
Coastal Courier

A Catholic priest, who once worked in Pembroke, was found guilty last week of criminal child sex abuse in U.S. Federal Court in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Father Robert “Bob” Poandl was found guilty of federal child sex charges that he transported a 10-year-old boy from Cincinnati to Spencer, W.Va., in August 1991 where he sexually assaulted the child.
He is expected to be sentenced by the end of the year.

In addition to Pembroke, Poandl also worked six other Georgia towns: Blairsville, Dahlonga, Cleveland, Glenville, Claxton and Sand Hill.

Poandl belongs to a Fairfield, Ohio-based Catholic religious order called the Glenmary Missioners. Besides Georgia, he worked at churches and church assignments in Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas, Kentucky, Louisiana and Mississippi.

“We believe there are more victims of Poandl, and it’s never too late to share what you know or suspect with law enforcement officials,” Judy Jones of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said.

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GEORGIA
Statesboro Herald

BY Jason Wermers
jwermers@statesboroherald.com 912-489-9431

In the wake of a former Catholic priest who used to work in southeast Georgia being found guilty on a child sex abuse charge, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Savannah is reminding parishioners of its sexual abuse hotline.

Robert Poandl, 72, was found guilty Friday by an Ohio jury of transporting a minor across state lines with intent to engage in sexual activity.

Poandl, also known as “Father Bob,” took a 10-year-old Cincinnati boy to West Virginia on an overnight trip in 1991. The victim reported the incident in 2009, saying that during the trip to a rectory, Poandl awakened him to have sex, then said they had just sinned and needed to pray for forgiveness, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported.

Poandl will be sentenced at a later date.

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Patriot-News

By Jan Murphy | jmurphy@pennlive.com
on September 25, 2013

Rep. Mark Rozzi came to the state Capitol on Wednesday to talk about justice for child abuse victims after a restless night of repeatedly re-living the nightmare of sexual abuse he suffered as a boy at the hands of a Catholic priest.

The 42-year-old Berks County Democrat said he would like to close that chapter of his life that he was unable to talk publicly about until four years ago but until he feels justice is served, he can’t.

Pennsylvania allows child sex abuse victims until age 30 to bring civil claims against their abusers.

Unfortunately, he said victims operate on their own time schedule as to when they are ready to open up about the abuse they experienced. Oftentimes, he said it is not until they aged out of the opportunity to seek justice through civil litigation.

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IRELAND
RTE News

The first lump sum payments to survivors of the Magdalene Laundries are expected to be issued within four to six weeks of forthcoming Cabinet consideration of the matter.

Minister for Justice Alan Shatter made the announcement in the Dáil this afternoon.

The Government approved the immediate implementation of cash lump sum payment scheme based on duration of stay in laundries, as recommended by Mr Justice John Quirke, on 25 June.

It also tasked an inter-departmental group with giving further detailed consideration to the steps necessary to implement the recommendations made by Judge Quirke.

Minister Shatter said he has already established a special unit to process applications and to determine whether an applicant resided and worked in an institution covered by the scheme and the duration of their stay, as well as the calculation of the capital sum due to be paid to them.

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PERU
Peru 21

[Summary: Monsignor Percy Quispe, chancellor of the Archdiocese of Ayacucho, said they do not know the details about the accusations made against former Bishop Gabino Miranda who was removed by the Vatican after being accused of pedophilia. He believes the complaint might have gone directly to the Vatican.]

El monseñor Percy Quispe, canciller de la Arquidiócesis de Ayacucho, manifestó que en dicha ciudad no saben de qué se le acusa al exobispo auxiliar Gabino Miranda, quien fue destituido de su cargo por el Vaticano, tras ser acusado por pedofilia.

“Me da mucha pena el caso de (Gabino) Miranda; sin embargo, aquí en Ayacucho no hubo ningún tipo de denuncia en las instancias judiciales por pedofilia”, indicó el religioso, quien dijo que Miranda Melgarejo no se comunica con ellos para explicar sus razones por temor a que sea víctima de interceptaciones telefónicas.

En una carta, con fecha del 1 de julio de 2013, el exsacerdote reconoce que “en algunas circunstancias he sido imprudente”, pero asegura que esas “supuestas faltas no pueden ser tipificadas de delito contra sextum (sexto mandamiento)”.

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ARGENTINA
Nuevo Diario

BUENOS AIRES.- El Padre Grassi, condenado a 15 años de prisión efectiva por el delito de abuso sexual y corrupción de menores, se encuentra en una situación difícil con la iglesia. Se encuentra suspendido como sacerdote y no puede ejercer misa en público. El mismo s e enfrentará a un juicio canónico, que consiste en que su congregación lo juzgue. En caso de que se lo encuentre culpable, pierde su condición de clérigo.

El rector de la Catedral Metropolitana, Alejandro Russo, sostuvo que el padre Julio César Grassi podría ser exonerado luego de ser condenado por abuso sexual.

“El Vaticano puede echarlo como clérigo de la Iglesia pero tiene que haber un juicio canónico previo”, explicó en declaraciones a “Hola Chiche” por Radio 10. Russo aclaró que “sacerdote no deja de ser nunca, quien se ordena sacerdote muere sacerdote”.

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Standing on My Head

September 24, 2013 By Fr. Dwight Longenecker

Pope Benedict has broken his self imposed silence to defend his record against attacks that he did not do enough to expose child molesting priests. London’s Daily Telegraph reports on the Pope Emeritus’ dialogue with a leading atheist about this issue here.

The critics have jumped in with unfounded accusations that he never exposed a pedophile priest. They don’t know how the Church works. It was never his job to be a one man pedophile police force. Within his area of authority Benedict did everything he could to root out the evil, but too often the diocesan authorities themselves obstructed and hid what was going on.

Nevertheless, the rot still goes on. This week a priest in Pennsylvania was charged with molesting a teenaged boy he met through Craigslist and the news reports about Fr. Curtis Wehmeyer in Minnesota make for depressing reading. The Vicar General in particular seems to be a classic case of an ignorant, arrogant, incompetent churchman of the highest order.

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NEW JERSEY
The Jersey Journal

By Charles Hack/The Jersey Journal
on September 25, 2013

Just after it was announced that he appointed as coadjutor the New Jersey’s largest diocese yesterday morning, Archbishop Bernard Hebda headed to a Hoboken church with Archbishop John J. Myers in the afternoon to make his first parish visit.

There the two archbishops met with Hebda’s old friend and fellow alumni of the Pontifical Gregorian University in Italy, The Rev. Robert S. Meyer, pastor of Ss. Peter and Paul Catholic Church at Hudson and Fourth streets.

Yesterday morning it was announced that Hebda would Myers in running the state’s largest diocese and eventually take over.

“I’m honored that he came here as his first parish visit,” Meyer said yesterday after the visit, adding that Hebda promised to return in November. “I believe that Archbishop Myers suggested that Hoboken is a great, vibrant and active community of faith.”

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SOUTH DAKOTA
Aberdeen News

By Jeff Bahr, jbahr@aberdeennews.com
12:56 p.m. CDT, September 25, 2013

The Rev. Charles Emezie, who has been terminated from his work at two Aberdeen institutions, did not work for any parishes in the Catholic Diocese of Sioux Falls, says diocese director of communications Jerry Klein.

Emezie, 59, was employed as chaplain at Avera St. Luke’s Hospital and Avera Mother Joseph Manor in Aberdeen for more than 18 years. Emezie is a priest of the Diocese of Orlu in Nigeria.

The Diocese of Sioux Falls announced Tuesday that Emezie has been terminated from his chaplaincy employment by the Avera administration. According to the press release, “Recent allegations of sexual harassment of adult female staff members have been found credible.”

Klein said Wednesday that he believes Emezie’s only employment within the diocese was at Avera St. Luke’s and Mother Joseph Manor.

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PERU
La Republica

[Summary: The Peruvian Episcopal Conference is still maintaining some secrecy about the case of former bishop Gabino Miranda of Ayacucho who was expelled from the church by Pope Francis for engaging in pedophilia. Church sources explained only Archbishop Salvador Pineiro, also titutal Bishop of Ayacucho, should answer inquiries he he is abroad and not expected back until Saturday.]

A pesar de los días transcurridos, la Conferencia Episcopal Peruana (CEP) mantiene cierto hermetismo sobre el caso del ex obispo de Ayacucho Gabino Miranda, quien fue expulsado de la Iglesia Católica por el papa Francisco por haber incurrido en pedofilia.

Fuentes de la Iglesia Católica explicaron que solo el presidente de la CEP, monseñor Salvador Piñeiro, por ser también obispo titular de Ayacucho, es quien debe absolver las consultas de este caso pero se encuentra en el extranjero y su retorno está programado recién para este sábado.

Benedicto aclara

De otro lado, el papa emérito Benedicto XVI, a través de una carta al escritor Piergiorgio Odifreddi, señaló que nunca trató de encubrir el abuso de niños cometidos por miembros de la Iglesia Católica.

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