ABUSE TRACKER

AUSTRALIA
if.com

By Don Groves

Lynette Curran, Susie Porter, Gillian Jones and Lisa Hensley are attached to star in a 30-minute drama which tackles sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.

A Priest in the Family is based on a short story by Irish writer Colm Tóibín about an elderly woman whose son, a parish priest, is accused of molesting his former students.

The producers aim to raise $40,000 via crowd-funding site Indiegogo (http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/a-priest-in-the-family/x/2213312) by August 5, with plans to start shooting in the hamlet of Portland, near Lithgow, on September 28. Peter Humble wrote the screenplay and will share the directing duties with the producer Anni Finsterer.

“We are making a film that tells the emotional tale of how clergy sexual abuse affects not just individuals but also families and communities,” Anni said. “We want to make people more informed and thereby give them a voice.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By IAN KIRKWOOD July 10, 2013

BISHOP Michael Malone says he never looked at confidential files about his priests despite the paedophilia controversy that raged during his 16 years in charge of the Maitland-Newcastle diocese of the Catholic Church.

In an extraordinary afternoon of evidence before the Special Commission of Inquiry sitting in Newcastle, the retired bishop agreed that some of his evidence “defied belief”.

But he insisted it was true, and repeatedly said he had never seen a trove of documents obtained by the commission’s investigators, even though they all came from the diocese headquarters and some came from filing cabinets in his own office.

Some of Bishop Malone’s early evidence yesterday about the circumstances of his taking over the diocese from Bishop Leo Clarke in 1995 drew sympathetic laughter from many in the 50-strong gallery.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By IAN KIRKWOOD July 11, 2013

A LETTER tendered to today’s Special Commission of Inquiry hearings shows the Maitland-Newcastle diocese should have known police in two states were considering ‘‘misprision of felony’’ charges over the concealment of child sex offences by priests.

The letter, dating from January 1996, was addressed to senior diocese figure Monsignor Allan Hart.

Bishop Michael Malone, whose 16 years at the head of the diocese began the year before, agreed with counsel assisting the inquiry, Julia Lonergan, that such a letter should have been drawn to his attention, but he ‘‘didn’t remember’’ seeing it before the current investigations.

This letter was one of a number tendered to the commission on Thursday that concerned the investigation of priests accused of child sexual abuse.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

DAN BOX From: The Australian July 11, 2013

A FORMER Catholic bishop has admitted his handling of child abuse committed by priests was “bumbling” and inadequate, and that he did not report one such pedophile to police despite believing he could reoffend.

Giving evidence to the NSW special commission of inquiry this morning, Bishop Michael Malone also appeared to contradict his earlier evidence about how much he knew about this priest, Denis McAlinden.

Bishop Malone yesterday told the inquiry he had not read McAlinden’s personnel file and only knew of two local victims of the priest when he took over the Maitland-Newcastle diocese, in NSW, in 1995.

However, today he said he was also aware at the time that McAlinden had previously been prosecuted for child abuse in Western Australia, although he was not convicted.

He also said he had read some documents within McAlinden’s file, including internal church correspondence from decades earlier that said the priest had admitted to abusing children.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

Paul Maguire, AAP
July 11, 2013

A retired Catholic bishop has admitted that he found the area of child abuse so distasteful that he didn’t look at the files of priests under his care.

One of the files was so big that Bishop Michael Malone couldn’t jump over it, he told the special NSW government commission of inquiry.

The former Maitland-Newcastle bishop appeared before the inquiry for a second day of evidence on Thursday.

Barrister assisting the commission, Julia Lonergan SC, asked the bishop why he didn’t think child protection was his responsibility from 1995, when he started in his Hunter Valley diocese, to 2004, when he first took some action.

“I wasn’t fully aware of the extent of the issue, I was on a sharp learning curve,” he replied.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

July 10, 2013

Paul Maguire
AAP

Michael Malone’s first official duty as bishop of Newcastle was to strip Denis McAlinden of his priesthood for sexually abusing children.

Bishop Malone began giving evidence on Wednesday at a special NSW Government commission of inquiry into how the church and police handled child sexual abuse allegations against Fr Denis McAlinden and another priest, James Fletcher.

Bishop Malone was appointed in 1995 and retired in 2011, after dealing with a succession of child abuse by clergy in his diocese.

Bishop Malone admitted that the diocese had stored confidential documents dating back to the 1970s confirming McAlinden was a known pedophile, with allegations reaching as far back as the 1950s.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Dan Cox

The former Bishop of the Catholic Church in the NSW Hunter Valley says he knew a paedophile priest had a psychological condition that made him an ongoing threat to children.

Former Maitland-Newcastle Bishop Michael Malone is giving evidence at the inquiry which was sparked by policeman Peter Fox.

Detective Chief Inspector Fox says the church covered up abuse by father James Fletcher and father Denis McAlinden.

Bishop Malone says he knew about the abuse but did not tell police because the victims did not want to press charges.

Bishop Malone told the public hearings today McAlinden “thought his tendency to sexual abuse was somehow controlled by prayer and the sacraments”.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

Paul Maguire, AAP
July 11, 2013

A Catholic priest accused of sexually abusing a boy was given control of a second parish four months after a police investigation had begun.

The appointment of Branxton’s Father James Fletcher to also run the Lochinvar parish in October 2002 was one of numerous regrets Bishop Michael Malone expressed to a special NSW commission of inquiry on Thursday.

When asked by a barrister assisting the commission, Julia Lonergan, why Fr Fletcher was appointed to a parish that had a primary school and high school whose students had no knowledge of the allegations, Bishop Malone answered: “We had no-one else to put in.

“So it was better to appoint someone accused of paedophilia than no-one at all?” Ms Lonergan asked.

“I take your point,” Bishop Malone responded.

“I have a lot of regrets about this.

“In hindsight I wish I’d have acted with more determination in standing him aside and not informing him (Fr Fletcher that the police investigation was underway).

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AUSTRALIA
lewisblayse.net

Lewis Blayse

Bishop Michael Malone, speaking to the NSW government inquiry into clerical child sexual abuse in the Newcastle-Maitland diocese, said he asked his predecessor, Leo Clarke, what the skeletons in the closet were. Bishop Clarke pushed a wooden box across the table and told him to also look in a briefcase in the corner of the room. “I asked what’s in the briefcase and he said ‘oh well, you’ll find out’,” Bishop Malone said.

The skeletons were paedophile priests, notably Fletcher and McAlinden (see previous postings). The elephant in the room, which went un-noticed, was that they were being protected. Malone may have continued his predecessors practice. Only the fly on the wall could be sure. Perhaps, Malone was just reluctant to open the can of worms. In the end, he let sleeping dogs lie.

The public interest in Malone’s evidence was reflected in the public gallery, which was full to over-flowing.

Bishop Malone admitted that the diocese had stored confidential documents dating back to the 1970s confirming McAlinden was a known pedophile, with allegations reaching as far back as the 1950s. Although Bishop Clarke, had formally removed McAlinden’s right to practice as a priest in 1993, in mid-1995 he was still being paid by the diocese, had been traveling the world for some time and was in the Philippines masquerading as a priest and carrying out the work of a priest.

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KENTUCKY
WDRB

By Valerie Chinn

Louisville, KY (WDRB) — Is a Louisville priest competent to stand trial? That’s the question both the defense and prosecution are hoping to get answered soon in the Father James Schook case.

Two boys who are now grown men say they were abused by Schook in the early 1970s. In 2011, he was charged with seven counts of sodomy.

Schook was supposed to be evaluated at the Kentucky Correctional Psychiatric Center, but the prosecution says because the facility didn’t think it could handle his medical needs, their doctors will now evaluate him at Atria Senior Living in St. Matthews, where is he currently staying.

The defense says Schook has terminal skin cancer and those records are now being looked at, as well.

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UNITED STATES
Huffington Post

Jon M. Sweeney

Right now, the United States government is doing all it can to capture a young man who leaked sensitive information that embarrassed it. They are probably justified in trying to capture Edward Snowden. But Catholics are still wondering why the U.S. government hasn’t insisted that the Vatican send Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston back to face charges for knowingly harboring and supporting a criminal priest who raped more than 150 boys in his archdiocese. After fleeing Boston in late 2002, Cardinal Law was appointed by Pope John Paul II to a prestigious position in Rome, where for a decade he recommended the appointment of new bishops and helped to investigate American nuns. Today, he sits in happy retirement behind the Vatican walls. Matthew Fox is angry about this sort of thing, as well he should be. So, too, are millions of Catholics.

It is from such a place of anger and frustration, but also hope for the future, that Fox’s Letters to Pope Francis: Rebuilding a Church with Justice and Compassion (July ’13, 152 pp, ebook and printed book editions) comes. Just published, the book is a welcome set of missives, echoing themes that are at once familiar and well argued. Surely, the new Pope will never read these letters, but one wishes that he would, particularly before planning what he will say to millions of Catholic youth in Rio de Janeiro later this month. (Look for millions of young people glued to the Pope’s every word, July 23-28.)

Fox reinvigorates a term from the Second Vatican Council, sensus fidelium, “sense of the faithful,” in these letters to Pope Francis. It is a beautiful phrase and a powerful reminder that the Catholic Church is larger–much larger–than the Chair of Saint Peter. The Second Vatican Council said that the Church was supposed to listen carefully to the sensus fidelium, and Fox makes the point that the performance and perspective of Pope Francis’s two predecessors shows that, not only hasn’t the Church done so, but it is actually in schism as a result. The last two popes have deliberately gone about undoing the reforms and teachings of Vatican II. Fox explains, “Quite simply, in Catholic theology a Council trumps a Pope but a Pope does not trump a Council.” What we’ve essentially had since 1978 is two popes turning their backs on reforms that were decided by a valid Council, leading to a schismatic Church.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Article by: RANDY FURST , Star Tribune Updated: July 10, 2013

The Archbishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis discovered in 1966 that a priest was engaging in sexual contact with boys, and that priest was assigned to four more parishes, according to documents.

The Archbishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis discovered in 1966 that a Minnesota priest was engaging in sexual contact with boys, but the priest was nonetheless assigned to four more parishes over the next 25 years, according to Archdiocese documents and information made public Wednesday.

The accused priest, John Brown, 92, who retired in 1991, said in an interview with the Star Tribune at his assisted living apartment in Maplewood that he “very, very vaguely” recalls fondling some boys in a locker room.

He was asked if he was sorry.

“I have to be sorry,” he said. “Wouldn’t anybody be sorry?”

Asked about other accusations of molestation, Brown appeared to contradict himself, saying “I don’t recall actually molesting,” adding, “If it happened I’d have to have remorse.”

A parent complained about Brown’s behavior to Archbishop Leo Binz in 1966, according to a 1992 memorandum by Rev. Kevin McDonough, the vicar general of the archdiocese. Attorney Jeff Anderson made the document public at a news conference Wednesday.

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MINNESOTA
KAAL

St. Paul attorneys and an alleged sexual abuse victim asked a Minnesota court Wednesday, July 10, to unseal a list of 33 priests in the Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis, who have been accused of sexual abuse.

The alleged victim identified as David Pususta, of Waverly, Minn., also came forward regarding abuse he allegedly experienced by Rev. John Brown. Brown is retired and living in a nursing home, Pususta said.

Pususta said he was abused by Brown from 1961-1962 while the priest was working at St. Mary Catholic Church in Waverly, which is west of the Twin Cities. Pususta was between the ages of 10 and 13 during the abuse, he said.

“I came forward because, not only did he molest me, I know he molested other people in our small community,” Pususta said. He said Brown also molested children on Pususta’s basketball team.

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MINNESOTA
Jeff Anderson & Associates

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Video: Abuse Survivor Requests Judge to Release List of 33 Accused Priests

Notice of intervention to unseal list

Memo of intervention to unseal list

Archdiocese’s 1992 letter regarding Fr. John Brown’s history

Father John T. Brown Timeline

JEFFREY R. ANDERSON

The courage of survivors such as David Pususta always inspires and amazes us. David came forward today to not only reveal publicly for the first time that he is a child sexual abuse survivor, but he also discussed his abuse and identified his abuser, who was never publicly named previously. David also filed court documents in Ramsey County District Court seeking to force the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis to unseal and make public its secret list of 33 Archdiocesan priests credibly accused of child sex abuse.

David’s act of courage today is monumental. It will help hold the Catholic Church and the Archdiocese accountable. More importantly, it will help protect children from predator priests.

While a minor, David was sexually abused by Father John Brown, a priest of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. David is fearful for the safety of other children and wants to ensure that no other harm is inflicted on children as it was on him. He believes releasing this list of known priest offenders will help keep children safe. David was made aware of the Archdiocese’s secret list of offender priests by virtue of new lawsuits filed under the recently enacted Child Victims Act.

Only approximately 30 U.S. dioceses have released lists of credibly accused priests in their diocese. That is a sad and disturbingly low number. The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis’ choice to keep its list secret is a choice to protect the Archdiocese and the credibly accused priests, instead of children. David didn’t have to come forward today – he chose to. His courageous act will help force the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, and all other dioceses, to do the morally right thing.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

Dan Cox

The former Bishop of the Hunter Valley’s Catholic Church has told a New South Wales inquiry he did not take child sexual abuse allegations to police because it was not what the victims wanted.

Former Bishop Michael Malone is the first Church witness to come under examination at the inquiry.

He was the head of the Maitland-Newcastle Diocese from 1995 to 2011.

Senior policeman Peter Fox sparked the Special Commission with claims the Church protected two paedophile priests, Denis McAlinden and James Fletcher.

Bishop Malone will be back in the witness box this morning.

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

by Madeleine Baran, Minnesota Public Radio
July 10, 2013

ST. PAUL, Minn. — St. Paul attorney Jeff Anderson called Wednesday for the Catholic Church to release information on all priests in Minnesota with “credible allegations” of child sex abuse.

The request comes after the passage of the Child Victims Act in May, a new state law that gives victims of child sexual abuse more time to file lawsuits. Anderson’s request also follows the release last week of thousands of pages of documents by the Milwaukee archdiocese about dozens of priests accused of sexually abusing children dating back decades.

Similar efforts by Anderson have failed in the past. However, the new state law may provide an opportunity to seek those names in court.

Anderson also announced that he has requested a Ramsey County District judge unseal a list of 33 priests that the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has identified as having credible allegations of abuse lodged against them. The list of names is already in court files from a previous lawsuit, but a judge sealed it.

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AUSTRALIA
Maitland Mercury

By ELLE WATSON July 11, 2013

The former head of the then Maitland Diocese denied knowledge of the existence of church letters that exposed paedophile priests as far back as the 1950s.

Bishop Michael Malone said he had never seen a series of letters filed in the diocese office that were found by the special ­commission of inquiry staff investigating ­concealment of child sex abuse in the Maitland-Newcastle Diocese.

“I’ve seen letters and statements in the last two weeks I’ve never seen before,” Bishop Malone told a packed gallery at yesterday’s inquiry.

Counsel assisting the inquiry, Julia Lonergan SC, asked Bishop Malone why, in his 16 years overseeing the diocese between 1995 and 2011, he had never seen the documents on paedophile activities by priests Denis McAlinden and James Fletcher.

“I didn’t have time to go trawling through archives,” the bishop said.

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By John Brewer
jbrewer@pioneerpress.com
Posted: 07/10/2013

St. Paul attorney Jeff Anderson (Pioneer Press file photo: Ben Garvin)
The most powerful men in Waverly, Minn., in the 1960s were the banker and the parish priest.

That’s why when the Rev. John T. Brown told the parents of 10-year-old David Pususta to send him over to the rectory for sex education, they sent him.

It was on that summer night, Pususta, now of St. Paul, said Wednesday morning, that Brown first sexually abused him.

Pususta said that during Brown’s sex education, he stroked, gripped and tugged the boy’s private parts.

Pususta spoke at a news conference at the St. Paul offices of attorney Jeff Anderson, who, on Pususta’s behalf, filed a notice of intervention in Ramsey County District Court to unseal a list of 33 priests credibly accused of sexual abuse.

Anderson, who first saw the list in 2009, said he couldn’t say whether Brown was included. But the public should know who is included, he and Pususta said, so no more children are put at risk and any abusers can be held accountable.

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OKLAHOMA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday July 10, 2013

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

A Tulsa pastor, Rev. Gregory Hawkins, was charged with sexual abuse of a teenage girl. The 15-year-old girl is now five months pregnant with Hawkins’ child. Hawkins is also the owner of Zion Child Care & Learning Center.

We commend the young girl for informing details to the police leading to his arrest and disabling him from bringing harm to others.

We strongly urge other potential victims and witnesses who have more information to come forward to help keep this predator in jail where he belongs. We also encourage officials at Zion Plaza Church to inform their flock of this crime in order to spread awareness and provide support to other potential victims.

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VATICAN CITY
Pravda

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child wants the Vatican to expose information about all the crimes committed by the clergy against minors. The request is published on the official website of the committee.

In addition, the committee asked the Vatican to clarify the cases when church authorities tried to cover up the actions of pedophiles and indicate what measures had been taken to protect children from sexual predators in church robes.

The committee also wondered what measures were in effect to avoid discrimination in parochial schools. To crown it all, church official want to know if textbooks still contain articles that demean the rights of children born out of wedlock and instill intersexual stereotypes. Such articles, committee officials believe, should be withdrawn from textbooks.

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VATICAN CITY
Washington Post

By Alessandro Speciale| Religion News Service, Updated: Wednesday, July 10

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican has been called to give detailed information on its record on child sexual abuse to a United Nations panel, a move that will show how Pope Francis wants to handle an issue that has deeply scarred the Catholic Church’s image in the past decade.

The Geneva-based U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child has asked the Vatican to “provide detailed information on all cases of child sexual abuse committed by members of the clergy, brothers and nuns.”

The request comes ahead of the Vatican’s scheduled appearance in front of the committee in January 2014.

All countries that have ratified the 1990 U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child must submit to a periodic evaluation of their performance on child protection. The Vatican was among the first countries to ratify the treaty.

According to the “List of Issues” submitted by the U.N. committee, the Vatican will have to explain the measures it has put in place to “ensure that no member of the clergy currently accused of sexual abuse be allowed to remain in contact with children.”

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AUSTRALIA
AD2000

Anne Lastman

Anne Lastman, BA (Psy/Rel Stds), Dip Ed, M Rel Ed, MA (Theol Stds) is a Member of the Australian Counsellors’ Association (Level 3), of the Federation of Victoria Counsellors and of the ACA College of Loss & Grief (Level 3). She is the founder of Victims of Abortion Trauma Counselling and Info Services (PO Box 6094, Vermont South, 3133).

A revised second edition of her book Redeeming Grief has just been published (see page 16).

There is a sense of shame which hovers over the Catholic Church at this moment. It’s a church limping towards Calvary, being spat upon, being vilified, despised. It’s the one church which is the focal point of child sexual abuse allegations by its ministers and others within its ranks. And yet I would suggest that there is more to what we are seeing. We are seeing the crucifixion of the Bride of Christ just like the crucifixion of her Groom. There is much pain, shame, guilt in this time, and enduring this can unhinge. Loss of faith is possible.

Defined, sexual abuse is the forceful intrusion or violation into the sacred space of sexuality in the life of a person, but in this instance, a child, in the context of one in whose trusting care the child or children were situated.

This is a very clinical explanation for sexual abuse, but behind these words there is an immensity of pain and distortion. However, there is still much more to the experience and more and more the voices of those who have lived with the experience report dimensions which had hitherto been unacknowledged.

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CONNECTICUT
New Britain Herald

By LISA BACKUS
STAFF WRITER

NEW BRITAIN — The sentencing for a former Berlin priest who pleaded guilty to charges he engaged in ribald Facebook chats with male teenage parishioners has been postponed until August.

Michael Miller, once affectionately called “Father Michael” by parishioners of St. Paul’s Church in Berlin, is expected to serve five years in prison followed by 20 years probation as a sex offender when his sentencing is complete Aug. 15.

Miller was scheduled to be sentenced Tuesday but his attorney asked for a continuance to gather more information, according to court staff.

Miller’s activities came to light in June 2011 when the mother of a 13-year-old male parishioner reported to police that the priest, who was well known for showing up at accident scenes and volunteering at youth events, was chatting in a sexual manner on Facebook with her son.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC – Lateline

[with video]

Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Broadcast: 10/07/2013
Reporter: Suzanne Smith

Retired Catholic Bishop, Michael Malone, who headed the Maitland-Newcastle Diocese from 1995 to 2011 has told the Newcastle Inquiry into sexual abuse in the church that he was not aware of all the documentary evidence in his files about a paedophile priest until three weeks ago.

Transcript

TONY JONES, PRESENTER: A retired Catholic bishop has told the NSW inquiry into child sexual abuse that despite being bishop of his diocese for 16 years he’d not acquainted himself with a substantial amount of documentary evidence about a known paedophile priest held in his own files until the documents were released three weeks ago.

The internal Church letters and documents on father Denis McAlinden were released last week, showing the Church had information about his paedophile behaviour as far back as 1953.

Bishop Michael Malone, who headed the Maitland-Newcastle Diocese from 1995 until 2011, said he’d been the bishop of a busy diocese and hadn’t had the luxury to go trawling through personnel files.

Suzie Smith reports from Newcastle. The producer is Stephen Crittenden.

SUZIE SMITH, REPORTER: Michael Malone was nominated to succeed the Bishop of Maitland-Newcastle Leo Clarke in November, 1994.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

DAN BOX From: The Australian July 11, 2013

THE former Catholic bishop of Newcastle has claimed he was unaware of documentary evidence dating back decades that one of his priests was abusing children, despite the files being stored in his own office.

Giving evidence yesterday to the NSW special commission of inquiry into church child abuse, Michael Malone said he had been too busy to access the files, which contained allegations of abuse dating back to 1954.

“I don’t know where (the inquiry’s) investigation team found all these letters. Presumably they would have accessed the archives of the diocese, and that’s a luxury I didn’t have,” he said.

“I was bishop of a large, busy diocese.”

Bishop Malone said he had not seen many of the documents, which included letters to and from abusive priest Denis McAlinden, until a few weeks ago.

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UNITED KINGDOM
ITV

A woman from Warwickshire who was raped by a Catholic priest when she was a child has given evidence to a United Nations Committee on the rights of the Child.

It has now ordered the Vatican to appear before it.

Sue Cox leads a group representing hundreds of people who say they were abused by priests.

The Vatican must now explain how it is dealing with allegations of child abuse.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

July 11, 2013

Catherine Armitage
Senior Writer

All the retiring Bishop Leo Clarke did when handing over the Maitland-Newcastle Catholic diocese to successor Bishop Michael Malone in 1995 was slide an ancient ornamental cross across the desk and point to a ”rather large briefcase that sat in the corner of his office”, Bishop Malone says.

Bishop Malone asked him, ”Are you going to show me where the skeletons are, where the secret things are?” But Bishop Clarke merely responded, ”Ah, you will find out,” Bishop Malone testified on Wednesday.

The state inquiry into alleged police and church cover-ups of child sexual abuse by priests in the diocese heard evidence that by then Bishop Malone knew of sexual abuse allegations against the disgraced priest Denis McAlinden and was aware of suspicions about another priest.

Bishop Malone told the inquiry that although one of his first tasks as bishop was to continue the process of defrocking McAlinden, he did not remember reading McAlinden’s personnel file during his 16 years as bishop. Bishop Malone, who retired in 2011, said he would have personally placed letters and correspondence in McAlinden’s file ”as matters came in” concerning the two victims he knew about in 1995, but ”I don’t recollect that I actually sat down and read the file”.

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SOUTH CAROLINA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday July 10, 2013

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

A new South Carolina study finds that in child abuse cases “churches often stand between victims and help” and that churches “were least likely to report abuse and sometimes covered it up, urging victims to forgive their abusers instead of reporting them,” according to today’s New York Times.

This is very distressing. Churches know better. But time and time again, church officials and members timidly put their selfish interests above the safety of kids.

It’s been more than 25 years since the first shocking clergy sex abuse and cover up case garnered national attention. In just one denomination (Catholic), church officials admit there have been more than 6,200 child molesting clerics (and we strongly suspect the real figure is substantially higher).

Yet we still see, time and time again, spiritual figures acting like cold-hearted CEOs instead of like compassionate shepherds.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Today TMJ4

By Cody Holyoke
CREATED JUL. 9, 2013

MILWAUKEE – One Milwaukee business is crying foul against the Catholic Church, a week after the archdiocese released scathing details on its long sex abuse scandal.

The problems, however, have nothing to do with assaults.

North Side Coal & Oil Company supplied fuel to three Catholic cemeteries for decades.

“It’s for machinery. Basically the lawnmowers, weedeaters, backhoes, anything that they would use. Pickup trucks. Dump trucks. Anything they would use within the cemetery,” explained Steven Pitel, the company’s general manager.

The money stopped coming in years ago, and the church owes the company more than 10-thousand dollars. Pitel contacted TODAY’S TMJ4 after watching an interview last week with Archbishop Jerome Listecki.

Listecki discussed a $57 million fund set aside to defray the costs of maintaining those cemeteries.

“…it’s our responsibilty on the part of the leadership that that money is set aside for that purpose and and basically it’s protected,” Listecki said.

Pitel wants to be paid. He sees his shop as yet another victim of the church.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
NBC 10

By Vince Lattanzio | Wednesday, Jul 10, 2013

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia has barred local churches from inviting a rebel priest to speak at parishes during his upcoming trip to Philadelphia.

Austrian Catholic priest Father Helmut Schuller, described by supporters as a priest activist, has been pushing for major reforms in the Roman Catholic Church through his organization, the Austrian Priests’ Initiative. Schuller is scheduled to speak at Chestnut Hill College this month on his “The Catholic Tipping Point” tour.

In a 2011 edict called the “Call to Disobedience,” Fr. Schuller and the Austrian Priests’ Initiative, citing a shortage of priests and declining followings, called for lay people to take a larger role in the church and help with decision-making.

Fr. Schuller also supports relaxing the rule barring women and married people from being ordained as priests and prohibiting communion from being given to divorced parishioners and other Christians.

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UNITED STATES
KUOW

[with audio]

By THE CONVERSATION WITH ROSS REYNOLDS

In the mid-1980s a dynamic young monsignor assigned to the Vatican’s embassy in Washington set out to investigate the problem of sexually abusive priests. He found a scandal in the making, confirmed by secret files revealing complaints that had been hidden from police and covered up by the Church hierarchy.

Meanwhile, a young lawyer listened to a new client describe an abusive sexual history with a priest that began when he was ten years old. The lawsuit he filed would touch off a legal war of historic and global proportions. Ross Reynolds talks with author Michael D’Antonio about his new book “Mortal Sins,” which reveals this long and ferocious battle for the soul of the largest and oldest organization in the world.

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UNITED STATES
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on July 10, 2013

A United Nations’ committee has asked the Vatican to turn over documents pertaining to child sex abuse and cover up.

According to The Tablet:

The UN’s Geneva-based Committee on the Rights of the Child on Tuesday issued a list of demands for detailed information from the Holy See regarding all cases of child sexual abuse committed by clergy and Religious.

The Vatican has until January to compile the information, in time for a meeting of the UN committee at which Vatican officials will be questioned.

The Vatican is asked about the steps it has taken to prevent accused clergy from having access to children, about bishops who have failed to report allegations to the police, about what investigations the Church has run and what compensation or counselling [sic] the Church has offered victims, and about the safeguarding measures the Church has put in place to prevent future abuse.

The real story will be in Francis’ response. The UN has no real authority over Vatican sovereignty – in fact, Vatican officials have been giving this committee the run-around for years. The only consequences for noncompliance are sanctions. For a nation-state eye-deep in wealth and with a constant income stream from faithful Catholics worldwide, I am sure the Curia could not care less.

So Francis has three choices:
1, Pony up the documents,
2. Tell the committee to go pound sand, or
3. Stall

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GENEVA
CBC News

A United Nations panel is demanding that the Vatican hand over detailed information on child sex abuse cases involving Catholic clergy.

In a document published online, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has asked the Vatican to come clean with how it addresses children’s rights around the world, including what measures it takes when dealing with sexual violence.

The panel, which polices the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child, wants the Catholic Church to reveal confidential records on investigations and legal proceedings against clergy members accused of sexual crimes on children.

The Geneva-based committee also wants to know what measures are being taken to ensure that clergy members accused of sexual abuses are not in contact with children and how members are told to report allegations of sexual violence.

The document mentions specific cases of abuse, including the Magdalene Laundries, which were Catholic-run workhouses in Ireland where thousands of women and girls were forced to work unpaid and under harsh conditions. The committee wants any records looking into complaints of torture and inhumane treatment as well as information on the number of babies taken away from their mothers at the laundries.

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GENEVA
Reuters

Robert Evans
Reuters
July 10, 2013

GENEVA (Reuters) – A United Nations human rights panel has posed a list of tough questions to the Vatican about child abuse by Catholic priests, a potential embarrassment for Pope Francis a few months into his papacy.

The U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) asked for “detailed information on all cases of child sexual abuse committed by members of the clergy, brothers or nuns” since the Holy See last reported to it some 15 years ago, and set November 1 as a deadline for a reply.

The request was included in a “list of issues”, posted on the CRC’s website, to be taken up when the Vatican appears before it next January to report on the Church’s performance under the 1990 U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child.

It will be the first time the Holy See has been publicly questioned by an international panel over the child abuse scandal which severely damaged the standing of the Roman Catholic Church in many countries around the world.

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OKLAHOMA
Fox 23

A Tulsa pastor arrested is charged with sexually abusing a teenage girl.

Rev. Gregory Hawkins, 54, of Zion Plaza Church in North Tulsa is charged with six counts of child sexual abuse for allegedly having sex with a 14-year-old girl.

Records show the victim is now age 15 and five months pregnant with Hawkins’ child. Court documents allege they had sex several times at Zion Plaza, a Holiday Inn and in his Suburban at a park.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Tuesday, July 7

Statement by Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, Outreach Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314 862 7688 home, 314 503 0003 cell, SNAPdorris@gmail.com)

A United Nations panel is seeking information from Vatican officials about clergy sex crimes and cover ups. We are grateful for this and hope it inspires other international institutions to take similar steps to protect the vulnerable, heal the wounded, expose the truth and prevent more heinous crimes.

The ongoing sexual violence against children by priests and the enabling of those crimes by bishops should outrage the global community. And this horror will continue until more secular authorities show insist that the Catholic hierarchy honor common sense laws and practices that prosecute those who commit and conceal child sex crimes and safeguard those who suffer child sex crimes.

In many nations, Catholic officials violate child safety laws. And at the international level, we believe, Catholic officials violate the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

They do this because they can. They get by with it because few secular authorities have the courage and strength to hold the Catholic hierarchy accountable for repeatedly reckless, callous, deceitful and self-serving actions regarding vulnerable kids, powerful prelates, and child molesting clerics.

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SOUTH CAROLINA
The New York Times

By KIM SEVERSON

In South Carolina, people accused of sexually abusing children do not face trial for years. Children who report abuse are not interviewed for weeks. Churches often stand between victims and help.

Those were among the findings of a privately financed report that comes as South Carolina is working to shore up its child protective system. The state is facing lawsuits and legislative scrutiny after a series of deaths, rapes and other assaults on children who were in state custody.

The report was welcomed by Gov. Nikki R. Haley, who said it offered useful recommendations for improving how the state — both the government and its citizens — can better address childhood sexual trauma.

It also prompted Ms. Haley to recount her own experience as a physically abused child.

While her mother worked she spent her days in day care at a neighborhood home, the governor said.

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NEDERLAND
Katholiek Nieuwsblad

De schadevergoedingen voor slachtoffers van het misbruik in de Rooms-Katholieke Kerk lopen waarschijnlijk op tot boven de 10 miljoen euro.

Dat zei Wim Deetman, voorzitter van de commissie die onderzoek deed naar het misbruik, donderdag in het KRO-radioprogramma Goedemorgen Nederland.

Tot dusver is door de Kerk 3,7 miljoen euro uitbetaald aan slachtoffers, maar volgens Deetman is nog niet de helft van de zaken behandeld.

“De zaak is nu op stoom en er komt nog heel veel aan”, aldus Deetman. Hij verwacht dat het uiteindelijke bedrag boven de tien miljoen euro uitkomt.

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NIGERIA
allAfrica

Vanguard

BY EGUFE YAFUGBORHI, 8 JULY 2013

Port Harcourt — A CHURCH founder simply identified as Pastor Chinagoro has been released by the Oyigbo Divisional Police Office in Rivers State after five days in detention for alleged abuse of a 13-year-old Destiny Kalu.

The police, acting on complaints by the victim’s mother, Mrs. Kalu through a counsel, had arrested the Pastor who runs a church in Mbesie, Imo State after the teenager had confided in her mother that the suspect has been having sex with him through his anus.

Vanguard investigations revealed that Destiny, a drummer, had been living with Chinagoro who offered to take care of him out of pity over his parents’ living condition in their Port Harcourt residence.

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NEDERLAND
Trouw

Robin de Wever − 09/07/13

Rooms-katholieke monniken, nonnen en oversten hebben ‘alles gedaan om slachtoffers van misbruik tegemoet te treden’. Toch stort de hele samenleving zich op de katholieke kerk, vindt de voorman van de kloosterorden.

In een interview in De Volkskrant vertelt secretaris Patrick Chatelion Counet dinsdag dat de oversten de maatschappelijke kritiek ervaren als een ‘groot onrecht’. ‘In feite werpt de katholieke kerk veel minder barrières op dan alle andere maatschappelijke instellingen, inclusief de overheid. Zij geeft het voorbeeld aan andere instellingen om zaken te aanvaarden die verjaard zijn.’

‘Geen enkel ziekenhuis, school of sportorganisatie, noch een overheid, gemeente of provincie, zou processen accepteren tegen overleden daders waarbij ook nog eens geen sluitend bewijs hoeft te worden geleverd. De kerk wel.’ Volgens Counet pakt de knieval niet gunstig uit voor de kerk. De rechtsbescherming van beschuldigde paters en zusters zou nu ‘bedenkelijk zwak’ zijn. ‘Het rechtsprincipe dat iemands onschuld verondersteld wordt tot het tegendeel is bewezen, is hier al lang verlaten.’

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VATICAN CITY
The Tablet (UK)

10 July 2013

The UN’s Geneva-based Committee on the Rights of the Child on Tuesday issued a list of demands for detailed information from the Holy See regarding all cases of child sexual abuse committed by clergy and Religious.

The Vatican has until January to compile the information, in time for a meeting of the UN committee at which Vatican officials will be questioned.

The Vatican is asked about the steps it has taken to prevent accused clergy from having access to children, about bishops who have failed to report allegations to the police, about what investigations the Church has run and what compensation or counselling the Church has offered victims, and about the safeguarding measures the Church has put in place to prevent future abuse.

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VATICAN CITY
Irish Independent

NICK SQUIRES ROME – 10 JULY 2013

A UNITED NATIONS committee has demanded that the Vatican reveal potentially explosive details about the systematic cover-up of child sex abuse by Roman Catholic clergy.

Campaigners have called on Pope Francis, who was elected in March, to make tackling the issue of sexually abusive priests a priority of his papacy.

The UN’s Committee on the Rights of the Child said yesterday that “given the scale” of the sexual violence acknowledged by the Holy See, it must provide detailed information on all cases of abuse committed by clergy and on its investigations into such abuses.

The Vatican was told to show whether it had implemented measures “to ensure that no member of the clergy currently accused of sexual abuse be allowed to remain in contact with children”.

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VATICAN CITY
Irish Independent

SARAH MCCABE – 10 JULY 2013

THE Vatican Bank is one of Europe’s best known but least understood financial institutions, and it is no stranger to scandal.

This week Italian prosecutors decided to drop a negligence inquiry into the bank’s former president, but investigations roll on; two of his juniors are now implicated in a money-laundering scandal.

Under the microscope are the bank’s director general Paolo Cipriani and its deputy director Massimo Tulli, who both resigned last week. The allegations cast yet more global scrutiny on the secretive 70-year-old institution.

The Vatican Bank is known formally as the Institute for the Works of Religion and was established in 1942 by Pope Pius XII. It is used by Vatican agencies, church organisations, bishops and religious orders around the world.

It has an investment portfolio and offers currency exchange services and savings accounts to its members.

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NEW YORK
CBS New York

[with video]

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — An attorney spoke Tuesday about a lawsuit alleging abuse by trusted teachers at the prestigious Yeshiva University High School for boys.

As CBS 2’s Tony Aiello reported Tuesday, the 148-page lawsuit demands $380 million for pain and suffering.

The school sits like a fortress at 186th Street and Amsterdam Avenue in Upper Manhattan, but 19 former students said the school was no place of safety.

“They were housing known sexual predators who were roaming the hallways looking for new victims to abuse,” said attorney Kevin Mulhearn.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Dan Cox

A former bishop of the Hunter Valley’s Catholic Church has told a New South Wales inquiry into child sexual abuse his predecessor had a briefcase containing secret files.

Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox sparked the Special Commission with claims the church protected two paedophile priests.

Documents tendered at the commission show three former Maitland-Newcastle bishops, including Michael Malone, knew about abuse by priests James Fletcher and Denis McAlinden.

Bishop Malone today gave evidence at the public hearings in Newcastle, with around 50 people packing out the gallery.

He was the Maitland-Newcastle bishop from 1995 to 2011, and is the first church witness to come under examination at the inquiry.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By IAN KIRKWOOD July 10, 2013

A FORMER police officer has denied he was concerned about collusion between senior church figures as depicted by whistleblowing officer Peter Fox.

Donald Mark Brown, who left the force in 2010, was the officer that Mr Fox had assigned to take a statement from Father Robert Searle over a 1998 outburst by AH, a victim of paedophile priest Jim Fletcher.

Mr Fox had expected Father Searle to make a statement saying that AH had been complaining about paedophile priests. But this detail was absent from the statement Mr Brown obtained from Father Searle.

Mr Brown said Mr Fox had not asked him about the differences after he arrived with the statement.

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AUSTRALIA
Maitland Mercury

By ELLE WATSON July 10, 2013

A former police officer has denied he ever had concerns about a church cover-up despite contrary evidence by whistleblower Peter Fox.

Donald Brown’s only involvement with the investigation into paedophile priest James Fletcher was taking a statement from Nelson Bay priest Robert Searle in 2003 over a confrontation with one of Fletcher’s victims five years earlier.

Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox said Father Searle told him that the man was drunk and yelling about “filthy things” priests do to children outside the presbytery.

But the statement taken by Mr Brown, who left the NSW Police Force in 2010, had no mention of filthy things.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By IAN KIRKWOOD July 10, 2013

BISHOP Michael Malone says he has never seen files obtained by the Special Commission of Inquiry even though some had been in his office for all of his 16 years at the head of the Maitland-Newcastle Diocese.

In an extraordinary afternoon of evidence, Bishop Malone told the inquiry he eventually ‘‘tipped off the police’’ about paedophile priest Denis McAlinden in 1999 but that at no time did he look at McAlinden’s personnel file, or that of any other priest in his diocese.

This was despite the files being contained in an office he inherited from his predecessor, Bishop Leo Clarke, sitting in filing cabinets until their discovery by the commission’s investigators.

Late on Wednesday afternoon, counsel assisting the inquiry, Julia Lonergan, said to Bishop Malone that it ‘‘defied belief’’ that he ‘‘did not familiarise’’ himself with McAlinden’s file during the years the diocese was battling to defrock him.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

DAN BOX From: The Australian July 10, 2013

A DETECTIVE investigating a pedophile failed to identify existing police records that suggested the Catholic priest had a number of other victims and did not follow up a postal address in the man’s name, an inquiry has heard.

Despite learning the priest, Denis McAlinden, returned to Australia from the UK in 2002, the detective did not subsequently attempt to locate him using Centrelink or ATO records, or follow up a PO Box address registered in his name.

Three years later, the NSW special commission of inquiry has heard, a separate police investigation into McAlinden used Centrelink records to find him living in Western Australia, but detectives could not extradite the priest due to his health and he died shortly after.

Giving evidence to the inquiry this morning, Detective Senior Constable Jacqueline Flipo said she received a report in 2002 that McAlinden had sexually abused a young girl.

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VATICAN CITY
Radio New Zealand

The United Nations has asked the Vatican to provide details of thousands of cases of child abuse committed by members of the Catholic clergy.

The request by the committee, which governs the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child, comes six months ahead of Vatican representatives appearing before the UN body.

The Holy See has been asked to answer a range of questions, many of them linked to the epidemic of child sex abuse within the Church, the BBC reports.

The request for details of all abuse committed by priests, nuns and brothers over several years is accompanied by queries about support for victims and any incidents where complainants were silenced.

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VATICAN CITY
International Business Times

By Esther Tanquintic-Misa | July 10, 2013

The United Nation’s Committee on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) wants the Vatican, the seat of the Holy See and Pope Francis’ bailiwick, to hand over the Catholic church’s records as to how it dealt the child sex abuse cases against the church throughout the years.

“In the light of the recognition by the Holy See of sexual violence against children committed by members of the clergy, brothers and nuns in numerous countries around the world, and given the scale of the abuses”, the UNCRC believed it is high time that the Vatican should provide detailed information on all cases of child sexual abuse committed by the Catholic clergy around the world.

More precisely, the committee wants to know if the Vatican properly instituted and implemented measures “to ensure that no member of the clergy currently accused of sexual abuse be allowed to remain in contact with children.” Unfortunately, it is an open secret among the Roman Catholic faithful that bishops just moved abusive priests from one parish to another to avert potential crisis and leadership breakdown.

The committee’s aggressive stance follows the apparent determination of Pope Francis to crack down on allegations of corruption and money laundering within the Vatican bank. A complete opposite of his predecessor, the new pope who was installed in March is seen by many as more approachable, sensible and open.

“I think it’s a good sign,” Keith Porteous Wood, the executive director of the National Secular Society, was quoted by The Telegraph. “Child abuse is a major issue, along with corruption, that he needs to sort out. His legacy will be judged, I think, on his ability to deal with these immensely difficult problems.”

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VATICAN CITY
BBC News

A major UN child rights protection body has asked the Vatican to disclose details of thousands of paedophilia cases involving Catholic clergy.

The Committee on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) made the request ahead of its hearing with Holy See officials, scheduled for January.

It is the first time the UN has asked for such a wide-ranging appraisal.

After taking office in March, Pope Francis said cracking down on sex abuse was vital for the Church’s credibility.

He said the Vatican needed “to act decisively as far as cases of sexual abuse are concerned, promoting, above all, measures to protect minors, help for those who have suffered such violence in the past (and) the necessary procedures against those who are guilty”.

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UNITED STATES
Charisma News

7/9/2013 SHAWN A. AKERS

C.J. Mahaney, who was recently accused in a lawsuit of covering up sexual abuse of children, has withdrawn from participation in the April 2014 Together for the Gospel (T4G) conference in Louisville, Ky., a biennial pastors’ conference he co-founded in 2006.

A May 23 statement that voiced support for Mahaney from pastors Mark Dever, Al Mohler and Ligon Duncan has been removed from the Together for the Gospel website.

Mahaney says he wanted to draw any type of negative attention away from the conference that might have stemmed from the civil lawsuit, which was dismissed in May by a Maryland judge and is now on appeal.

“I love these men and this conference, and I desire to do all I possibly can to serve the ongoing fruitfulness of T4G,” says Mahaney, president of Sovereign Grace Ministries (SGM) and pastor of Sovereign Grace Church in Louisville. “Unfortunately, the civil lawsuit filed against Sovereign Grace Ministries, two former SGM churches and pastors (including myself), continues to generate the type of attention that could subject my friends to unfair and unwarranted criticism.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Dan Cox

A detective involved in the arrest of a paedophile priest has told an inquiry into child sexual abuse he has no evidence of collusion within the Catholic Church in the New South Wales Hunter Valley.

The inquiry is examining whether senior church officials helped or hindered a police investigation into Maitland-Newcastle priests James Fletcher and Denis McAlinden.

Former policeman Donald Brown has given evidence at the public hearings and was involved in Fletcher’s arrest.

Police whistleblower Peter Fox was his supervisor in May 2003, when the pair interviewed and charged Fletcher over child sexual abuse.

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AUSTRALIA
Big Pond News

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

A NSW commission of inquiry has heard a policewoman was not told a priest previous sexual assaults.

A policewoman investigating allegations that a Hunter Valley Catholic priest sexually abused a little girl was not told of his previous offending, a special NSW commission of inquiry has heard.

Detective senior constable Jacqueline Flipo also admitted on Wednesday she did not make inquiries of several government bodies, including Centrelink, Medicare and the taxation office, to help track down Fr Denis McAlinden.

The inquiry, before commissioner Margaret Cunneen in Newcastle Supreme Court, is examining how police and church leaders handled sexual abuse allegations against McAlinden and another priest, James Fletcher.

Constable Flipo said that for about three years, from July 2001, she investigated historic allegations that Fr McAlinden abused a girl when she was aged eight to 11.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

By Dan Cox, ABC
Updated July 10, 2013

A former bishop of the Hunter Valley’s Catholic Church has told a New South Wales inquiry into child sexual abuse his predecessor had a briefcase containing secret files.

Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox sparked the Special Commission with claims the church protected two paedophile priests.

Documents tendered at the commission show three former Maitland-Newcastle bishops, including Michael Malone, knew about abuse by priests James Fletcher and Denis McAlinden.

Bishop Malone today gave evidence at the public hearings in Newcastle, with around 50 people packing out the gallery.

He was the Maitland-Newcastle bishop from 1995 to 2011, and is the first church witness to come under examination at the inquiry.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

Michael Malone’s first official duty as bishop of Newcastle was to strip Denis McAlinden of his priesthood for sexually abusing children.

Bishop Malone began giving evidence on Wednesday at a special NSW Government commission of inquiry into how the church and police handled child sexual abuse allegations against Fr Denis McAlinden and another priest, James Fletcher.

Bishop Malone was appointed in 1995 and retired in 2011, after dealing with a succession of child abuse by clergy in his diocese.

Bishop Malone admitted that the diocese had stored confidential documents dating back to the 1970s confirming McAlinden was a known pedophile, with allegations reaching as far back as the 1950s.

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ILLINOIS
My Suburban Life

By MARY BETH VERSACI – mversaci@shawmedia.com
Created: Wednesday, July 10, 2013

WEST CHICAGO – A West Chicago priest released on parole in early June after serving most of a prison sentence for felony criminal sexual abuse now faces deportation to his native country of Bolivia.

Alejandro Flores, 40, pleaded guilty in 2010 to charges that he abused a St. Charles boy after his relationship with the 13-year-old from St. Mary’s Catholic Parish in West Chicago was investigated. He was released on parole after serving about 80 percent of a four-year prison sentence.

Although Flores was released on parole, he now is being held at the McHenry County Adult Correctional Facility in Woodstock, pending his removal to Bolivia, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.

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WISCONSIN
Green Bay Press-Gazette

Editorial

Last week, the Archdiocese of Milwaukee released an estimated 6,000 pages of documents related to clergy sex abuse. It is believed this is only a tenth of all the information given to victims’ attorneys during litigation.

But those 6,000 pages confirmed what many had talked about — some priests preying on parishioners, officials publicly denying it while privately covering it up and moving abusers to other parishes. And they included some revelations, such as payments to priests and the legal, but questionable, transfer of $57 million to a trust that would provide “protection of these funds from any legal claim and liability.”

While the accusations of clergy sexual abuse in the Catholic Church are not new, the documents renewed some of the bitterness many have felt toward the church.

It’s hard not to be upset when the church questioned the integrity of many of the victims while offering some priests accused of abuse buyouts of $20,000 — $10,000 when they applied to leave and $10,000 when the pope dismissed them.

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AUSTRALIA
Catholic Leader

Published: 14 July 2013
By: Paul Dobbyn

AUSTRALIAN Catholic lay people in some parishes are already meeting to discuss issues surrounding the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, including how the Church has handled the issue.

Truth, Justice and Healing Council chief executive officer Francis Sullivan (pictured) said priests and clergy needed to consider encouraging such initiatives.

He met with more than 30 priests responsible for the pastoral care and support of clergy to discuss the role of the council as it prepares for the September start of public hearings at the Royal Commission.

At the recent National Conference of Directors of Clergy Life and Ministry in Sydney’s north-west, Mr Sullivan said priests and clergy needed to help parishioners understand what the Catholic Church had done and was doing to protect children.

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NEDERLAND
Volkskrant

De schandalen over seksueel misbruik hebben de kerkreputatie onrechtvaardig zwaar aangetast, vindt de voorman van de kloosterorden. ‘Religieuzen berusten nu in de vernedering.’

‘Dat de hele samenleving zich nu stort op de katholieke kerk en al onze inzet uit het verleden in een kwaad daglicht stelt, ervaren de oversten als een groot onrecht.’ Patrick Chatelion Counet, algemeen secretaris van de Konferentie Nederlandse Religieuzen (KNR), de koepelorganisatie van zo’n tweehonderd kloosterorden en congregaties in Nederland, is het zat.

Voor het eerst treedt de KNR naar buiten over de misbruikaffaire in de rooms-katholieke kerk, en vooral de afwikkeling daarvan. De kloostergemeenschappen willen niet meer door het slijk worden gehaald en weggezet als ‘obscure clubjes’.

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AUSTRALIA
Maitland Mercury

By ELLE WATSON July 10, 2013

The father of one of James Fletcher’s victims lost his job with the Maitland-Newcastle Diocese when his son made a formal complaint against the paedophile, according to police whistleblower Peter Fox.

Detective Chief Inspector Fox told the special commission of inquiry a Hunter husband and wife suffered reprisals from the clergy during investigation and trial of Fletcher – who was convicted of sexually abusing their son.

The inquiry heard the man told the chief inspector he began to feel “more and more alienated” at the diocese office in Hamilton where he worked in 2002.

“He felt that because he sided with his son he was being made to pay the penalty by the diocese,” Chief Inspector Fox said.

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ILLINOIS
CBS Chicago

[with audio]

(CBS) — A 40-year-old priest who served time in an Illinois prison for abusing an 8-year-old boy is set to be deported to his native Bolivia – but the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests is opposing deportation.

Alejandro Flores is the priest whom after abuse allegations were made public, he apparently attempted suicide by jumping from the choir loft of a Joliet church.

Flores pled guilty to molesting an 8-year-old St. Charles boy and was paroled after serving part of a four-year prison term.

After he was released from prison a month ago, he was taken into custody by the federal government, which plans to deport him.

Barbara Blaine, president of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, says Flores should not be deported.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By IAN KIRKWOOD July 9, 2013

POLICE whistleblower Peter Fox has been questioned at length over his reaction to gay pornography found at the Lochinvar presbytery a few months after Father Jim Fletcher took up duties there as a priest.

In a session of cross examination before lunch on Tuesday, Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox was taken through evidence he had previously given to the Special Commission of Inquiry sitting in Newcastle.

Mr Fox had said previously that a lay worker had found gay pornography in the presbytery and that Mr Fox believed it had belonged to Fletcher, who was subsequently convicted of abusing an altar boy and who died in jail in 2009.

But counsel assisting the inquiry, Julia Lonergan, put it to him that he had no evidence that proved the pornography belonged to Fletcher, and that another priest, Father Desmond Harrigan, had told him it belonged to him.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

The former Catholic Bishop accused of tipping-off a paedophile priest about a police investigation will today front a New South Wales inquiry into clergy sexual abuse in the Hunter Valley.

Documents tendered at the commission last week show senior Catholic church officials, including the former Maitland-Newcastle Bishop Michael Malone, knew about Father James Fletcher and Father Denis McAlinden’s abuse.

Late yesterday, whistleblower detective, Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox finished giving evidence at the special commission.

DCI Fox claimed Bishop Malone intentionally hindered his investigation into Fletcher by telling the priest about the allegations, which gave him time to “destroy evidence”.

Michael Malone’s barrister Simon Harben has previously told the inquiry the former Bishop was legitimately concerned for the priest’s poor health and Peter Fox he had “no basis” for the accusation.

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UNITED STATES
Huffington Post

Michael D’Antonio

In 1993, more than seven years after the Catholic sexual abuse crisis began, John Paul II acknowledged it for the first time. He called it evil, and expressed his concern for how much his brother bishops and the faithful “are suffering because of certain cases of scandal given by members of the clergy.”

It was the scandal, not the rape and molestation of children that was the main problem, according to the Pope. Indeed, he didn’t mention the pain, suffering and loss of faith among victims, nor did he use words like “abuse” or “rape.” Instead he referred to “certain offenses” and “sins” and he said that America’s bishops had two responsibilities in the face of the crisis — to deal with problem priests and their victims and to address the damage done to society when the Church is swept by scandal.

By any measure, John Paul II’s sentiments were focused primarily on the welfare of the Church. The problem of clergy abuse was, he said, a product of an American society that “needs much prayer — lest it lose its soul.” Prayer was the primary remedy recommended by John Paul II, but he also suggested temperance on the part of the mass media. “Evil can indeed be sensational,” he wrote, “but the sensationalism surrounding it is always dangerous for morality.” This point, echoed repeated complaints by priests and bishops who said the media and plaintiffs lawyers were exaggerating claims, stirring public animosity, and singling out Catholicism in a bigoted way.

Anyone who missed the Pope’s point could turn to his spokesman Joaquín Navarro-Valls for clarification. “One would have to ask if the real culprit is not a society that is irresponsibly permissive, hyper-inflated with sexuality and capable of creating circumstances that induce even people who have received a sound moral formation to commit grave immoral acts.”

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VATICAN CITY
The Guardian (UK)

Owen Bowcott
The Guardian, Tuesday 9 July 2013

The Vatican is to face tough questioning by a United Nations committee over the Catholic church’s record in tackling child sexual abuse by its clergy around the world.

A detailed “list of issues” has been released by the Geneva-based Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) before the appearance of officials from the Holy See. The session is expected early next year.

The decision to ask senior Roman Catholic clerics to hand over confidential internal documents to such a high-profile inquiry marks a fresh initiative in the global debate over clerical abuse. It will present the new pontiff, Pope Francis, with a direct challenge to provide records of financial compensation given to victims of sexual abuse and disclose whether secret deals were made to preserve the church’s reputation.

The UN committee’s document is headed: “List of issues to be taken up in connection with the consideration of the second periodic report of the Holy See.” Paragraph 11 of the CRC’s document states: “In the light of the recognition by the Holy See of sexual violence against children committed by members of the clergy, brothers and nuns in numerous countries around the world, and given the scale of the abuses, please provide detailed information on all cases of child sexual abuse committed by members of the clergy, brothers and nuns or brought to the attention of the Holy See.”

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VATICAN CITY
Telegraph (UK)

A United Nations committee has demanded that the Vatican reveal potentially explosive details about the systematic cover-up of child sex abuse by Catholic clergy.

By Nick Squires, Rome 09 Jul 2013

Campaigners have called on Pope Francis, who was elected in March, to make tackling the issue of sexually abusive priests an urgent priority of his papacy.

The UN’s Committee on the Rights of the Child released its demands for information from the Holy See on Tuesday.

The committee said that “in the light of the recognition by the Holy See of sexual violence against children committed by members of the clergy, brothers and nuns in numerous countries around the world, and given the scale of the abuses”, the Vatican should provide detailed information on all cases of child sexual abuse committed by clergy.

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CONNECTICUT
Hispanic Business

July 9, 2013

Distressed after losing his job at Starbucks in December 2010, accused cannibal Tyree Lincoln Smith asked his brother-in-law to get him a gun.

“He was hearing voices that were instructing him to kill certain people: a pedophile priest, a cop in Bridgeport he thought was involved in drugs,” Yale University psychiatrist Dr. Reena Kapoor testified Monday.

Kapoor testified that Smith’s behavior so frightened his family they reported the incident to officials in California, where he was living, and officials took his young son away from Smith. Kapoor’s testimony is the crux of the defense case to prove Smith was insane when he killed and cannibalized Angel “Tun Tun” Gonzalez.

The police officer and priest were not identified.

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MICHIGAN
The Detroit News

Robert Snell
The Detroit News

Detroit — A former Catholic priest charged with downloading child pornography is expected to plead guilty in federal court July 24, according to court officials.

Timothy Murray of Novi, former pastor of St. Edith Parish in Livonia, is expected to enter the plea in front of U.S. District Judge Victoria Roberts, said Gina Balaya, spokeswoman with the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

According to prosecutors, Murray was detected by undercover U.S. Department of Homeland Security investigators downloading pornographic pictures of naked young children engaged in sexual poses on his personal computer between May and November 2012.

Murray is free on a $10,000 bond.

The former priest allegedly admitted to investigators that he used special software to download child porn and that he had about 500 images and videos of child porn that he downloaded from the Internet onto his computer, according to court files.

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AUSTRALIA
lewisblayse.net

Lewis Blayse

Lawyers for the Catholic Church at the NSW government enquiry into clerical child sexual abuse in the Newcastle-Maitland diocese, appear to have been emboldened by the recent decision of the enquiry Commissioner, Margaret Cunneen, to hold “in-camera” hearings for Adelaide Archbishop Wilson.

[As a reader comment by “James” notes in one newspaper: “In camera = in secret. Calling it ‘in private’ is a euphemism. Whatever their rationalization, it looks bad.”]

Lawyers for Fr. Hannigan and Fr. Searle both tried to gain a gag order on evidence relating to these two priests. Elizabeth McLaughlin, for Harrigan, wanted a non-publication order which was rejected. Then Searle’s lawyer, Lachlan Gyles, tried the same thing. This time his move was opposed by both Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox’s lawyer, and the Counsel Assisting the enquiry. It, too, was rejected.

Mr. Gyles has had better success in the past at suppressing information. When the publication the Australian Financial Review obtained information under Freedom of Information laws on the money given by the Federal Government to Ford and General Motors, these organisations, and the Australian Government, moved for a suppression order to stop the newspaper publishing the information.

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MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

POSTED BY BARBARA DORRIS ON JULY 08, 2013

We believe that church officials agreed to settle this case because proof of the cover-up of these horrific crimes would have been made public during the course of this trial. We are grateful to the Teeman family for their courage and for putting aside their pain in order to protect others.

We hope anyone else who may have seen, suspected or suffered clergy sex crimes will follow their lead and report crimes to the police and begin to heal.

Church officials may pretend this settlement is to spare this family pain but cases like this are often settled on the eve of a trial in order to protect how much they knew and how little they did to protect children.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

From his choice of residence to the break with past practices: Francis’ sobriety is taking over the Vatican

ANDREA TORNIELLI
VATICAN CITY

It’s a pleasant sultry summer afternoon in Rome and two Swiss guards and a Vatican policeman, all in uniform, stand in front of the entrance to St. Martha’s House, home to the Pope and another forty or so bishops, monsignors and lay people who work in the Vatican. It is a sign the Holy See’s top man is about. The white and yellow flag with the Vatican crest hangs limply in front of the windows on the second floor of the anonymous rectangular building which John Paul II had built in the mid 90’s to give cardinals taking part in the Conclave a decent place to stay.

Now we are in Francis’ living quarters. Guests take the semi-circular staircase that leads down to the austere and slightly cold hall. There, standing behind a bar is an Oriental looking layman in a tobacco-coloured suit. All is silent. One can feel it’s summer even inside St. Martha’s House and guests know Bergoglio could pop out from just about anywhere, at any moment: from the elevator, from an opening door, from the dining hall or from one of the sitting rooms. Everyone needs to look their best when the Pope is about.

In the hall way there is another Swiss Guard and Vatican policeman in plain dress. “I was seated in a sitting room with green upholstery. The Pope appeared out of nowhere, alone, without any butlers or secretaries and he was carrying an envelope with some rosaries,” says an anonymous source who was received by the Pope in a private audience. “At the end of our meeting he opened the door for me himself and showed me the way out.” No other scene can better describe the change that is taking place in the Holy See. St. Martha’s House is half-way between a hotel and a pilgrim’s residence: there is almost no trace of that courtly feeling you get in the apostolic palace with its renaissance-like dignity. St. Martha’s House is the ideal starting point to our journey through the most important changes introduced by the Argentinean Pope, the small and big breaks with protocol and their significance. Francis’ choice to stay put in the residence where he stayed as a cardinal elector during the Conclave was taken for “psychiatric reasons” because he did not want to be isolated. As he wrote to his friend, the Argentinean priest Enrico Martinez, also known as “Quique”: “I am visible to people and I lead a normal life. A public Mass in the morning, I eat at table with everyone…”

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UNITED STATES
Wonkette

Oh, man, New Pope is doing that thing again, where he says stuff that makes us like him even if he is that head of a big corrupt institution that does evilnasty things. But we give him credit for trying to turn some of that down, what with the living in a little apartment and not eating gold and stuff, and so let’s have a little cheer for some comments Saturday that would probably bring a smile to the face of his simple-living namesake. In a talk to trainee priests and nuns, New Pope said that they should avoid fancy material possessions and instead concentrate on helping the poor. That shouldn’t be news — it’s no “New Pope Blesses Bikers” — but considering that the papacy is notorious for Prada slippers and a level of décor that Donald Trump considers a tad overdone, it’s news.

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MISSOURI
The Kansas City Star

YAEL T. ABOUHALKAH

July 9

It takes a lot to grab the national spotlight given the continued unfolding of the Catholic priests’ sexual abuse scandal, which seemingly has reached into every corner of this country with its disgusting revelations for years.

But Kansas City has managed to do it once again, in another embarrassment for Catholics in this city.

On Monday the Kansas City-St. Joseph Diocese decided to pay the eye-popping total of $2.25 million to settle a wrongful-death lawsuit. It had been filed by the parents of a boy who allegedly killed himself 30 years ago because of sexual abuse by a local priest.

The case gain national attention this week given the size of the settlement and the fact that the Catholic church apparently had decided it was culpable, in some way, for the boy’s death. The church settled the lawsuit just as a trial was about to begin, a trial that might have reached a verdict awarding even more money in the boy’s death.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

An employee of the Maitland-Newcastle Diocese was ostracised by the clergy and lost his job of ten years because he supported his son, who was the victim of a paedophile priest.

Transcript

EMMA ALBERICI, PRESENTER: The New South Wales Special Commission of inquiry into child sexual abuse was today told that an employee of the Maitland Newcastle Diocese lost his job because he supported his son who was the victim of a paedophile priest. The employee known as B.I. had a senior job with the diocese for more than 10 years. His son was abused by Father James Fletcher who was convicted and died in jail in 2006. The whistleblower police officer who sparked the inquiry, Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox gave evidence today that BI told him that after his son reported the abuse to police he was ostracised by senior clergy and treated unfairly by Bishop Michael Malone.

PETER FOX, DETECTIVE CHIEF INSPECTOR (voice over): He confided me very early on that. He felt the diocese would ultimately refuse to renew contract and try to terminate his employment as such, which is ultimately what occurred.

EMMA ALBERICI: DCI Fox also told the inquiry that the victim’s mother had told him that Bishop Malone felt he’d been handed a poisoned chalice when he became bishop of the Maitland Newcastle diocese in 1995.

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OHIO
Albany Times Union

CINCINNATI (AP) — Prosecutors are urging a federal judge to reject an Ohio priest’s contention that he was charged too late with allegedly sexually abusing a 10-year-old boy he took to West Virginia more than two decades ago.

Robert Poandl (POHN’-duhl), of the Cincinnati-based Glenmary Home Missioners, has pleaded not guilty to sexually abusing the boy while the two visited a church in Spencer, W.Va., in 1991.

His attorney has asked U.S. District Judge Michael Barrett to throw out the case, saying a five-year statute of limitations should apply.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

DAN BOX From: The Australian July 10, 2013

A DETECTIVE at the centre of a state inquiry into church child abuse has been forced to defend his public claim that Catholic priests destroyed gay pornography that would have provided evidence in a criminal investigation.

In a 2012 interview with the ABC that led to the establishment of the NSW Special Commission of Inquiry, Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox claimed priests were “removing evidence and destroying it before we were able to secure it”.

Under cross-examination at the inquiry yesterday, Mr Fox said this was a reference to gay pornography found in a presbytery in 2003, when he was investigating the late pedophile priest Jim Fletcher.

Despite being told the magazines and videos belonged to someone else, Mr Fox said he continued to believe it was actually owned by Fletcher and did not have a “completely open” mind during his investigation.

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UNITED STATES
Jeff Anderson & Associates

JEFFREY R. ANDERSON

The Vatican has fast-tracked Pope John Paul II for sainthood, even though a significant portion of the clerical sex abuse scandal happened on his watch. This is concerning, but not surprising, given the Church’s history of protecting priests instead of children and patting itself on the back while willfully failing to take meaningful action regarding abusive priests or abuse survivors.

According to an Associated Press (AP) story, Pope Francis signed a decree on Friday declaring John Paul for sainthood, culminating a “fast-track” process that informally began at John Paul’s 2005 funeral , where thousands at St. Peter’s Square chanted “Santo subito” – Sainthood now! John Paul’s sainthood was initially fast-tracked by his successor, Pope Benedict XVI, when he “dispensed with the traditional five-year waiting period and allowed the beatification process to begin weeks after John Paul’s death,” according to the AP story. The canonization ceremony may take place by the end of 2013 and reports speculate that the ceremony could occur as soon as December 8.

Fast-tracking. Yes, the Vatican has the power to move things along quickly.

Or very slowly – or not at all – as documents released last week by the Archdiocese of Milwaukee starkly show. According to those documents, the Vatican delayed the requested laicization of admitted Archdiocese sexual offender priests for several years while children continued to be abused and at risk. But when asked by then Archbishop of Milwaukee Timothy Dolan to “proceed with alienation of property” owned by the Archdiocese – approximately $57 million – for transfer to a cemetery trust and offer “an improved protection of these funds from any legal claim and liability,” the Vatican acted and approved the transfer in a little more than one month. This maneuver was done as the Archdiocese prepared to file for bankruptcy. Clerical sex abuse survivors and their attorneys have accused Dolan of bankruptcy fraud and moving money to protect it from abuse survivors.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Your Local Guardian

By Rachel Bishop

A third man has been arrested in connection with the investigation into historic allegations of child abuse in the early 1980s at the Elm Guest House in Barnes.

Officers from Operation Fernbridge have today, Tuesday, July 9, arrested a 69-year-old at an address in west London on suspicion of possession of indecent images of children.

He was taken into police custody and has since been bailed to return, pending further inquiries, in September.

Reverend Tony McSweeney, 66, from Norfolk, was arrested in February 2013, along with another man aged 70 from East Sussex on suspicion of sexual offences relating to the guest house in Rocks Lane.

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NEW JERSEY
Courthouse News Service

By ROSE BOUBOUSHIAN

(CN) – The Diocese of Camden, N.J. cannot dismiss a woman’s claim that a priest sexually abused her repeatedly when she was 11 years old, a federal judge ruled.

Lisa Syvertson Shanahan, 44, sued the Diocese of Camden on May 15, 2012, claiming she had been sexually abused as a child by an ordained Catholic priest, Father Thomas Harkins of St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church in Hammonton, N.J.

Shanahan, whose “devoutly Catholic” family “regularly attended Mass and participated in the ministry” at St. Anthony’s, attended Harkins’s catechism (CCD) classes while she was in fifth grade, from 1980-81, to prepare for religious confirmation.

Harkins sexually abused her 10 to 15 occasions, in his office and his bedroom in the church rectory, “by touching her genitals over her underwear,” the complaint states.

During the final incident of abuse, Shanahan says, “Harkins brought [her] to his bedroom in the priest’s home, the rectory, pulled down [her] tights, and sexual [sic] abused her by putting his hands on her genitals and digitally penetrating her.”

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MINNESOTA
Fairmond Sentinel

July 9, 2013
Jodelle Greiner – Staff Write, Fairmont Sentinel

BLUE EARTH – Investigators and prosecutors want to know what are in files found on the computer of Father Leo Charles Koppala before proceeding with the case against him.

Koppala, who had been serving as priest for Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Blue Earth, has been charged with second-degree criminal sexual conduct.

The charges stem from an incident June 7 in which Koppala allegedly engaged in sexual conduct with a child under 13 years of age, with the defendant being more than 36 months older than the child. The charges allege that Koppala, 47, fondled the child while visiting the home where the child was staying.

The subject of the computer files came up Monday at Koppala’s contested omnibus hearing.

His attorney, Philip J. Elbert, asked Judge Douglas Richards to suppress evidence gathered from a search warrant, and recounted the numerous times he has requested that the prosecution turn over evidence, such as an audiotape of a statement Koppala gave to police.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Agency

Vatican City, Jul 9, 2013 / 02:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Vatican Bank donated some $70 million to charities in 2012, according to a Vatican statement released Thursday.

“The Members of the Council expressed their deep gratitude for the support given, often anonymously, to the Holy Father’s universal ministry in spite of moments of economic crisis, and encouraged perseverance in this good work,” said the July 4 statement of the Council for Cardinals for the Study of Organisational and Economic Problems of the Holy See.

The Vatican Bank, officially called the Institute for the Works of Religion, distributed its charitable funds among the Amazon Fund; the Pro-Orantibus Fund, which supports cloistered monasteries; the San Sergio Fund, which supports the Church in the former Soviet Union; and the Commission for Latin America, as well as other Catholic charities.

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NEW YORK
Chronicle of Higher Education

July 9, 2013 by Charles Huckabee

Nineteen former students of a high school that is run by Yeshiva University have filed a $380-million lawsuit against the New York university and the school, accusing administrators and teachers of covering up decades of physical and sexual abuse, The Jewish Daily Forward reported.

The lawsuit was filed on Monday, a week after the university’s chancellor and former longtime president, Rabbi Norman Lamm, announced his retirement in a letter that acknowledged having made mistakes in his response to students’ complaints of sexual abuse by administrators and faculty members at the high school. The Forward previously reported that Rabbi Lamm had allowed staff members accused of abuse to quietly leave their jobs, without reporting the accusations to law-enforcement officials or notifying their subsequent employers.

Rabbi Lamm is one of several former university administrators and trustees named as defendants in the lawsuit. He was the university’s president from 1976 to 2003. The assaults are alleged to have taken place during the 1970s and 1980s

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By IAN KIRKWOOD July 9, 2013

POLICE whistleblower Peter Fox has been questioned at length over his reaction to gay pornography found at the Lochinvar presbytery a few months after Father Jim Fletcher took up duties there as a priest.

In a session of cross examination before lunch on Tuesday, Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox was taken through evidence he had previously given to the Special Commission of Inquiry sitting in Newcastle.

Mr Fox had said previously that a lay worker had found gay pornography in the presbytery and that Mr Fox believed it had belonged to Fletcher, who was subsequently convicted of abusing an altar boy and who died in jail in 2009.

But counsel assisting the inquiry, Julia Lonergan, put it to him that he had no evidence that proved the pornography belonged to Fletcher, and that another priest, Father Desmond Harrigan, had told him it belonged to him.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Dan Cox

A New South Wales inquiry into child sexual abuse has heard a Catholic Church worker lost his job because he supported his son, who had been the victim of a Hunter Valley paedophile priest.

It is the fifth week of the Special Commission’s public hearings in Newcastle, with senior policeman Peter Fox giving evidence for a 10th day.

The second stage of the inquiry is investigating his claims that senior Catholic clergy tried to cover up abuse by two priests, James Fletcher and Denis McAlinden.

Detective Chief Inspector Fox today told the inquiry he has heard several stories of reprisal from the Church, after victims went to police accusing priests of sexual abuse.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

THE royal commission into institutional child sexual abuse has begun private hearings in Adelaide.

Royal commission chief executive Janette Dines said the face-to-face meetings involved people telling their stories to one or two commissioners in an informal setting.

The sessions will continue throughout July.

She said people who had come to similar meetings in Sydney and Brisbane in recent weeks had described them as positive experiences.

“We understand how difficult it can be for people to come forward and talk about what happened to them,” she said in a statement on Tuesday.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

A royal commission on institutional responses to child abuse is starting face-to-face, private meetings between commissioners and abuse victims in Adelaide.

Chief executive Janette Dines said the sessions would not provide direct evidence to the inquiry, but would give the commissioners a deeper sense of what the victims had endured.

“They’re completely confidential, no one from an institution will ever be present,” she said.

“What we attempt to do, recognising that this is a very difficult thing for people, is to make the session feel as secure and as relaxing and safe as possible.”

Ms Dines said feedback had been positive in Sydney and Brisbane from those who took part in the private meetings.

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AUSTRLALIA
Herald Sun

EDUCATION EDITOR SHERADYN HOLDERHEAD
THE ADVERTISER JULY 09, 2013

SEXUAL abuse of children within Australian institutions continues today, a national royal commission has heard.

Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse chief executive Janette Dines said it was unclear how large the inquiry would be but about 5000 people had made contact.

“It’s certainly bigger than anything that’s been attempted before in this country,” she said.

“Many of the people coming to is in a private session are talking about their experience for the first time – sometimes in 50, 60 or 70 years … Some people are talking about abuse that happened a long, long time ago but others are much more recent.”

The commissioners began private sessions in Adelaide on Monday and will be here until the end of the month. The informal face-to-face appointments give people the chance to tell their story.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

Barney Zwartz
Religion editor, The Age.

Problems and experiences with the Catholic Church’s national abuse response have been targeted by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse as its next focus of inquiry.

The commission wants to hear about victims’ experience with the Towards Healing process, how it dealt with complaints and provided redress. It published its second discussion paper – of a planned total of 24 – on its website on Tuesday afternoon.

Towards Healing, the church’s response process for every diocese except Melbourne and for every religious order, has been the nation’s busiest complaints procedure for victims of clergy child sexual abuse.

Introduced in 1996, it has upheld 310 complaints of criminal abuse of children in Victoria, with another 110 not going through the process because victims went to the police or withdrew, according to the church’s evidence to the Victorian inquiry into how the churches handled sexual abuse.

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ILLINOIS
Hispanically Speaking

Father Alejandro Flores is being deported to his native Bolivia after finishing a portion of his four-year sentence for sexually abusing an 8-year-old boy.

Flores, 40, was a priest in the Chicago suburb of Joliet who no longer has any “sort of public ministry” according to a Chicago Catholic archdiocese spokesman. The Catholic Church is taking steps to defrock Flores who they now claim should never have been ordained. Court records indicate the Church held up his ordination so he could receive counseling for viewing pornography on line and after hearing the victim and his brother call Flores “daddy”.

The Bolivian priest was recruited in 2004 to come serve the Catholic Church in the U.S. This is a common occurrence due to the fact the U.S. has declining number of men joining the priesthood.

The molestation of the eight-year-old started a year after Flores arrived and endured for five years according to court documents. Flores was a seminarian in West Chicago when the abuse began.

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AUSTRALIA
Dungog Chronicle

By Catherine Armitage July 9, 2013

The credibility of police whistleblower Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox came under prolonged testing in the NSW inquiry into whether the police covered up child sexual abuse allegations against Catholic priests in the Hunter Valley.

Counsel assisting the inquiry, Julia Lonergan SC, quizzed Chief Inspector Fox on Tuesday as to why he doubted an “extraordinary” alleged admission by one priest, Father Des Harrigan, that he had owned and subsequently destroyed gay pornography.

The policeman has given evidence that he suspected videos and magazines found in a presbytery at Lochinvar in 2003 had belonged to Father James Fletcher.

Ms Lonergan put it to Chief Inspector Fox that he had no evidence that the material belonged to Fletcher. She also suggested Chief Inspector Fox had not kept an open mind when speaking with Father Harrigan, and as a result did not believe the priest’s admission.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Patsy McGarry

A former missionary priest Peter Kennedy (74), who also worked on a locum basis in parishes around Ireland, was responsible for one of the largest ever settlements in a clerical child sex abuse case in the State.

In July 2003 one of his victims was awarded €325,000 in a High Court settlement with the St Patrick’s Missionary Society. He was a member of that congregation, based at Kiltegan, Co Wicklow, until he was laicised in 2003.

He was removed from active ministry in the 1980s following persistent complaints of sexual abuse against him dating back to the 1960s, when he was a missionary priest in Africa. In the late 1980s he moved to London, where he continued to be under the supervision of the St Patrick’s Society. He worked as a taxi driver.

Following publicity over the 2003 High Court settlement in Dublin he left London on a British passport and flew to São Paulo in Brazil where he taught English to adults.

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AUSTRALIA
Gay Star News

09 JULY 2013 | BY ANDREW POTTS

Whistleblower Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox has told a New South Wales (NSW) state inquiry into allegations that police helped cover up sex crimes by Catholic priests that a priest destroyed gay porn owned by another priest who abused children.

Fox told Australia’s ABC TV channel in 2012 that priests had destroyed evidence ‘before we were able to secure it’ when he had been investigating sex abuse claims against Catholic priests in the Hunter Valley region.

Fox told the inquiry that the evidence he alleges was destroyed was a cache of gay porn including videos and magazines found in a presbytery.

Fox told the inquiry that he believed the pornography had been removed and destroyed because it was owned by Father Jim Fletcher – who was later convicted of child abuse.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

AAP

MICHAEL Malone believed he had inherited “a poisoned chalice” when he became bishop of the Maitland/Newcastle Catholic diocese, an inquiry into child sexual abuse has been told.

Whistleblower cop Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox told commissioner Margaret Cunneen Bishop Malone used that description when commiserating with the mother of a boy who had been repeatedly sexually assaulted during his teenage years by Hunter Valley priest James Fletcher.

Det Insp Fox said the mother told him in 2002 there was animosity between Bishop Malone and his predecessor Bishop Leo Clarke because Bishop Clarke had not revealed the extent of “indiscretions” and “bad decisions” that had taken place in the diocese, possibly for decades.

But the mother felt Bishop Malone was just “going through the motions” speaking to her and was not showing genuine pastoral care, Det Insp Fox said.

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SINGAPORE
KBND

The Roman Catholic church in Singapore has vowed to investigate any charges of sexual misconduct by its clergy after an Australian woman claimed she was abused by priests as a teenager in the city-state.

Singapore-born psychotherapist Jane Leigh, 36, said in an autobiography published last month that she had been sexually abused by two Catholic priests before she moved to Australia in 1995.

Leigh, now a practitioner in Melbourne, said in her book “My Nine Lives” that she was first abused by a priest in Singapore when she was 13. She alleged that she was abused by another priest when she was 15 after being sent to him for counselling.

Leigh used pseudonyms for both churchmen, but a Singapore newspaper reported over the weekend that it contacted the priests and they denied Leigh’s allegations.

“The Church is deeply concerned with any report of alleged sexual misconduct by its clerics, staff and those who volunteer their services in the Church,” the Archdiocese of Singapore said in a statement on its website Monday.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Dan Cox

The whistleblower behind an inquiry into child sexual abuse in the New South Wales Hunter Valley has been accused of lying to beef up his case of an alleged cover-up by the Catholic Church.

It is the fifth week of the Special Commission’s public hearings in Newcastle, with senior policeman Peter Fox giving evidence for the tenth day.

The second stage of the inquiry is investigating his claims senior Catholic clergy tried to cover up abuse by two priests.

The inquiry has previously heard a victim went to a Nelson Bay presbytery drunk and angry, accusing of priests of doing “filthy things to little boys”.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

A former priest who was on the run in Brazil for almost a decade has been jailed for 10 years for abusing 18 boys during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Peter Kennedy (74), a former member of the Kiltegan Fathers order, committed the abuse in five counties as he was moved from parish to parish.

In the early 2000s many of his victims began to come forward causing Kennedy to go to Brazil. He stayed there eight years until he was deported to the UK in 2011. From there he was returned to Ireland to face these charges.

Kennedy was a missionary in Africa before serving in several parishes in Ireland. He would use his position as a priest to gain access to the boys and molest them. In some instances he threatened them with damnation if they reported what he did and on one occasion told a boy that he [Kennedy] was an “angel of God and God didn’t mind what he did”.

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COLORADO
9 News

[with video]

CARBONDALE – The Archdiocese of Denver continues to defend a priest accused of sexual assault while admitting he made “a mistake” during an encounter with a woman.

The woman, named “Jane Doe” in a lawsuit, accuses Father Jose Saenz of taking advantage of her while she was drunk and depressed over the death of a friend.

The lawsuit alleges the sexual assault occurred at the Hotel Colorado in Glenwood Springs in 2011.

“He manipulated the situation by telling her he needed to pray over her naked body,” said the woman’s attorney, Jeff Herman. “He would put holy water on her forehead and eventually manipulated a situation where he began to have sex with her.”

The lawsuit alleges the woman was trying to seek help from the priest.

In a written statement sent out on July 3, the Archdiocese of Denver defended Father Saenz, saying it “disputes the plaintiff’s allegations.”

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

CONOR GALLAGHER – 09 JULY 2013

In some instances he threatened the boys with damnation if they reported what he did

A FORMER priest who had been on the run in Brazil for almost a decade has been jailed for 10 years for abusing 18 boys over three decades.

Peter Kennedy (74), a former member of the Kiltegan Fathers order, committed the abuse across five different counties as he was moved from parish to parish.

On one occasion he told a boy that he was an “angel of God and God didn’t mind what he did”.

Some of the children went to their parents about the abuse but the situation was not reported to gardai or the church authorities. When one boy told his mother what had happened she slapped him and said “how dare you say that about a priest”.

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