ABUSE TRACKER

ROME
Gazzetta del Sud

Rome, July 3 – Two men being probed together with disgraced Vatican prelate Msgr Nunzio Scarano denied Wednesday that 20 million euros in cash seized by police belonged to them. “Those 20 million euros are not ours,” Paolo and Cesare D’Amico, whose family was friendly with Scarano, told prosecutors. Their version of events does not correspond to what Scarano, who until recently led a key Vatican accounting unit, told prosecutors under continued questioning. Scarano has denied charges that he conspired with a former Italian spy and a financial broker to try to secretly repatriate 20 million euros of laundered money from Switzerland to Italy. Scarano, who is from the port city of Salerno near Naples, was suspended a month ago from his job as head of analytic accounts at the Holy See’s asset-management agency APSA when police started sifting through his assets because of his suspiciously large financial holdings and artistic trove.

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ROME
Bloomberg Businessweek

July 03, 2013

ROME (AP) — An Italian shipping family denies any role in an alleged money-smuggling plot involving a Vatican accountant. The d’Amico family says the priest who was jailed in the affair, Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, was their “spiritual” adviser.

A family lawyer, Vincenzo Cupri, spoke to reporters Wednesday as he left offices of Rome prosecutors who are investigating the alleged plot to spirit 20 million euros ($26 million) from Switzerland into Italy.

Scarano has been suspended by the Vatican from his accountant post. Prosecutors say they suspect the money belongs to the d’Amico family and was deposited in Switzerland to avoid Italian taxes.

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ROME
Fox News

ROME, Italy (AFP) – A senior cleric arrested last week is suspected of acting as a front for suspicious payments made through the Vatican bank from Monaco, Italian newspapers reported on Wednesday, citing leaked documents.

Monsignor Nunzio Scarano “is a real screen in front of the actual economic beneficiary of the operation and he interrupts the traceability of the money,” said one financial police document, quoted by the Corriere della Sera daily.

The investigators allege that Scarano had used Vatican bank accounts to make transfers on behalf of his friends, including an attempt to move 20 million euros ($26 million) on behalf of a Neapolitan shipowning family.

Scarano’s lawyers have rejected the charges.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Seattle PI

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Newly released financial statements show the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia had a whopping $39 million deficit last year.

However, church officials say their fiscal situation has improved dramatically since then. A spokesman for the archdiocese says the current deficit is about $6 million.

The church released full audited financial reports for the first time on Wednesday. Previously, the archdiocese had released only informal statements.

Archbishop Charles Chaput (SHAP’-yoo) wrote in his column last week that the fiscal problems stem mostly from years of overspending, not fraud or the priest sex-abuse scandal.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CatholicPhilly

See the full Archdiocesan financial report.

See the supplemental document to the report.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CatholicPhilly

BY MATTHEW GAMBINO

Archbishop Charles Chaput in his column last week on CatholicPhilly.com called the Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s new financial report “very serious – and that’s an understatement.”

True to his word, a 37-page report released today shows an operating deficit of $39.1 million for the fiscal year spanning July 1, 2011 to June 30, 2012.

An accompanying supplemental document to the report, audited by the firm Grant Thornton, put the deficit in the context of new accounting procedures and one-time expenses and revenues during the period.

Those “non-recurring” items included revenues of $15.8 million from the sale of Cardinal Dougherty and Northeast Catholic high schools (closed in 2010) and expenses totaling $21.2 million. Considering those one-time adjustments, the “core” operating deficit for the year was $17.4 million.

Notable components of those expenses were a $13 million increase in the self-insurance reserve needed to pay insurance claims against the Archdiocese in areas such as workman’s compensation, liability and automobile insurance; and legal and professional fees of $11.9 million.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

Harold Brubaker, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

LAST UPDATED: Wednesday, July 3, 2013

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia on Wednesday reported a staggering $39.2 million loss for the year ended June 30, 2012, while disclosing unprecedented details about longterm financial deficits totaling $350 million.

Even after stripping away millions in unusual expenses, including $11.9 million for legal and professional services related to the priest sex-abuse scandal and other issues, the archdiocese said its cash expenses 2012 still exceeded revenue by $17.4 million.

“It’s not so simple to say our problems are related to the sexual-abuse crisis,” Timothy O’Shaughnessy, chief financial officer for the archdiocese, said. “That is a serious issue, a very serious issue that I believe the church is taking more seriously now.

“We’ve also had serious financial problems independent of the abuse crisis,” said O’Shaughnessy, who became CFO in April 2012. Somewhat more positive financial news could be on the horizon in the nation’s sixth-largest diocese, which covers the five counties in Southeastern Pennsylvania and is home to nearly 1.5 million Catholics.

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WISCONSIN
Seattle PI

DULUTH, Minn. (AP) — Documents released by the Archdiocese of Milwaukee on sexual abuse of children by priests show the incidents often occurred on overnight trips.

The Duluth News Tribune reports (http://bit.ly/1aCqIFN ) that of 42 priest files released Monday, 22 contain references to molestation on camping trips, a cross-state bicycle ride and at least one Caribbean cruise.

The newspaper says geographic details aren’t always specific. Many incidents are noted vaguely as occurring “up north” — a generalization that sometimes refers to suburban Milwaukee, sometimes Wisconsin’s northern counties, but more often left unidentified.

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WISCONSIN
Patch

David Hanser was associate pastor at St. John Vianney Parish in the 1970s, and James Flynt, Vincent Silvestri, Charles Walter and Thomas Trepanier were associate pastors at St. Dominic Parish.

Posted by Charles Gorney (Editor), July 3, 2013

The release, partly motivated by the archdiocese’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings, includes about 6,000 pages of documents — from personnel files of priests accused of sexual abuse to depositions of high-ranking archdiocese officials, including former archbishop Timothy Dolan.

Among the names listed are:

David Hanser, associate pastor and temporary administrator at St. John Vianney Parish, 1972-1978
James Flynt, associate pastor at St. Dominic Parish, 1987-1989
Vincent Silvestri, associate pastor at St. Dominic, 1983-1993
Charles Walter, associate pastor at St. Dominic, 1984-1987
Thomas Trepanier, associate pastor at St. Dominic, 2000-2002

The documents were selected by the abuse survivor attorneys, archdiocese chief of staff Jerry Topczewski told Patch. Though the records were released as part of a bankruptcy agreement, Topczewski stressed that releasing the files can be part of the healing process for abuse survivors.

“Ultimately, we want them to know that the church loves them,” Topczewski said. “And the church owes them a debt of gratitude for having the courage to come forward.”

But according to press releases from SNAP Wisconsin, the local arm of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, the documents have some major implications for the archdiocese.

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AUSTRIA
New Straits Times

VIENNA: An Austrian court has found a defrocked Roman Catholic priest guilty of sexually and physically abusing dozens of boys and has sentenced him to 15 years in prison.

Alfons August Mandorfer was convicted Wednesday on charges arising from his time as a director of a school run by a monastery in the Upper Austrian town of Kremsmuenster. He held that position between 1973 and 1993.

Mandorfer was dismissed as a priest after several former pupils accused him several years ago of abuse.

Hundreds of alleged sexual victims of Catholic clergy in Austria have come forward in recent years as part of pedophilia accusations rocking the church internationally.

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MASSACHUSETTS
NECN – Broadside

[with video]

July 2, 2013

(NECN) – New documents have shed light on the role of Cardinal Timothy Dolan in sexual abuse claims against the Milwaukee archdiocese.

Letters show that he tried to warn the Catholic Church that “the potential for true scandal is very real.” Victims also claim the documents show he transferred $57 million into a trust in an attempt to protect it from abuse lawsuits, and that he devised a plan to pay abusive priests to leave the church.

Abuse survivor advocates Gary Bergeron and Anne Barrett Doyle join Broadside to discuss these revelations and what it means for Dolan and the Church.

“What’s shocking is that he seems to have anticipation of this bankruptcy of the Archdiocese, to protect some funds so victims would not have access to it,” Doyle said.

Bergeron was less concerned with what it means for Dolan, focusing on the lack of prominence this issue has had at the federal level.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

DAN BOX From: The Australian July 04, 2013

THE Pope’s representative in Canberra, and potentially the Vatican itself, were involved in an attempt by senior Australian Catholic bishops to defrock a pedophile priest rather than report his crimes to police, an inquiry has heard.

Three successive bishops in Newcastle also had knowledge that Father Denis McAlinden was abusing children, while bishops in England, The Philippines and Papua New Guinea were warned of allegations against him.

In an exchange of letters with McAlinden during the 1990s, the late bishop of Maitland-Newcastle Leo Clarke asked him to petition the Holy See in Rome for a formal laicisation — effectively ending his career as a priest.

“Your good name will be protected by the confidential nature of this process,” Clarke wrote.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

July 4, 2013

Catherine Armitage
Senior Writer

The Pope’s representative in Australia knew of ”serious accusations” against the notorious priest Denis McAlinden from at least 1995, the inquiry into alleged cover-ups of paedophilia by two Hunter region priests has heard.

Leo Clarke, then bishop of the Maitland-Newcastle diocese, wrote to the Holy See’s diplomatic representative in Australia in 1995 seeking his help with a ”very delicate matter” relating to ”serious accusations concerning a priest of the diocese, McAlinden”, counsel assisting the inquiry Julia Lonergan, SC, said on Wednesday.

The letter referred to steps being taken to remove McAlinden from the priesthood. It said during an interview with Father Brian Lucas, that ”Father McAlinden admitted that the allegations were true”.

Former bishop of the Maitland-Newcastle diocese: Leo Clarke. Photo: Supplied
The Manuka, ACT-based Apostolic Nuncio, as the papal ambassador is known, was also informed that McAlinden had agreed to seek counselling in England.

According to the evidence Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox asked Bishop Clarke, by then retired, about rumours he’d heard that the bishop might know about more victims of McAlinden. Bishop Clarke told him “no”, Chief Inspector Fox said.

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OSTERREICH
Kleine Zeitung

Der wegen sexuellen Missbrauchs und Misshandlung angeklagte ehemalige Konviktsdirektor des Stifts Kremsmünster ist am Landesgericht Steyr zu einer zwölfjährigen Haftstafe verurteilt worden. Das Urteil ist nicht rechtskräftig.

Der ehemalige Konviktsdirektor des oö. Stiftes Kremsmünster ist am Mittwoch von einem Schöffensenat im Landesgericht Steyr zu zwölf Jahren Haft verurteilt worden. Der 79-Jährige, dem sexuelle und gewalttätige Übergriffe auf insgesamt 24 ehemalige Schüler vorgeworfen werden, reagierte stoisch. Das Urteil in dem Prozess, der weitgehend unter Ausschluss der Öffentlichkeit stattfand, ist nicht rechtskräftig. Die Opfervertreter haben den 79-Jährigen und Unbekannte wegen der Vorgänge im Stift auch wegen Wiederbetätigung angezeigt.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

The reckless operations of Monsignor: isolated case or general mechanism that does not work? Why was it not stopped sooner?

ANDREA TORNIELLI
VATICAN CITY

If the investigative elements that emerge from eavesdropping an investigation for corruption and fraud that led to the imprisonment of Monsignor Nuncio Scarano are confirmed, this time it will not be easy for the authorities of Oltretevere to argue that we are faced with the classic “rotten apple.”

From inside the Vatican, someone who obviously still does not realize what has happened, filters out this observation: “The errors of the individual do not question the institution. If anything they can question the way in which the institution takes on staff.” In other words: the system works, but we need to be more careful about who we hire … An applicable reference to the same Monsignor Scarano, as well as to the managers of the IOR who authorized his reckless transactions just as the Vatican undertook the process to comply with money laundering regulations.

The Holy See has assured full cooperation with the Italian judiciary, and therefore the bank accounts of the former robed banker one can probably figure out who has authorized the movement of large sums and why, which were used – according to the accusation – to do favours (reciprocated) for businessmen friends. A movement that, even without waiting for the entry into force of special anti-money laundering rules, should worry about the leadership of the bank. Instead this has not happened. No one noticed anything. No one seems to have worried. Thus, Scarano has been suspended as a precaution after the news of the investigation on him by the Italian judiciary, and not before. Perhaps it is not correct to speak of “system”, but of “cultural habit” yes. Something evidently rooted in time.

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COLORADO
Courthouse News Service

By SAM REY
DENVER (CN) – A grieving woman who sought consolation from a Catholic priest claims in court that he took her clothes off, “prayed over her naked body,” sprinkled her with holy water and then sexually assaulted her.

Jane Doe No. 34 sued the Archdiocese of Denver in Denver County Court. The Archdiocese is the only defendant, though all the allegations concern its employee, Father Jose Saenz.

Doe claims she met Saenz when he was a pastor at Saint Mary of the Crown Mission in Carbondale, Colo. Saenz performed the funeral service for one of Doe’s friends, whose death left her “severely depressed to the point where she was having suicidal thoughts,” she says in the complaint.

The depression lasted for more than three months, she says, until July 4, 2011, when she called Saenz on the phone “to discuss her suicidal feelings.”

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
U.S. Catholic

By Bryan Cones

The much-anticipated release of documents related to sex abuse has revealed–exactly what we have come to expect from the this whole sorry affair. The most sensational news will surely be that current New York Archbishop and Cardinal Timothy Dolan moved some $57 million from diocesan accounts to cemetary trust funds to protect them from lawsuits. (Dolan has disputed the purpose of the transfer, but his request to the Vatican to transfer the funds stated that the purpose of the transfer was to protect them from legal liability.) Coverage also notes $20,000 payments to priests who were convinced to resign their orders voluntarily.

An NCR story quotes former Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland describing his dilemma regarding whether or when to make public allegations against priests: “There are a lot of things that when you make an assignment you don’t disclose,” he said, noting other problems such as alcohol abuse and financial troubles as other problems for some priests. Weakland also admitted treating priests accused of abuse differently from, say, a teacher: “There was a certain obligation that I had toward the priests that went beyond what I might have toward anyone else.”

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OSTERREICH
der Standard

3. Juli 2013

“Die Dauer und die Gleichgültigkeit des Angeklagten übersteigt für uns alles Dagewesene”, sagte der Richter – Urteil nicht rechtskräftig

Steyr/Kremsmünster – Der ehemalige Konviktsdirektor des oberösterreichischen Stiftes Kremsmünster ist am Mittwoch von einem Schöffensenat im Landesgericht Steyr zu zwölf Jahren Haft verurteilt worden. Dem heute 79-Jährigen, der mittlerweile in den Laienstand zurückversetzt wurden, werden sexuelle und gewalttätige Übergriffe auf insgesamt 24 ehemalige Schüler vorgeworfen.

Der Prozess fand großteils unter Ausschluss der Öffentlichkeit statt. Der Angeklagte hatte zwar ein Geständnis abgelegt und sich bei den Opfern entschuldigt, die Opferanwälte vermissten aber Reue. Der Verteidiger hatte einen Freispruch verlangt, weil die Taten verjährt seien.

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OSTERREICH
kathweb

Zwölf Jahre Haft für Sexual- und Gewaltdelikte – Stift: “Opfern wird auf diese Weise ein Stück Gerechtigkeit zuteil”

03.07.2013

Linz, 03.07.2013 (KAP) Ein 79-jähriger ehemaliger Pater des Stiftes Kremsmünster ist am Mittwoch wegen Missbrauch im Landesgericht Steyr zu zwölf Jahren Haft verurteilt worden. Das Stift hat das Urteil in ein er Stellungnahme gegenüber “Kathpress” begrüßt. Dem ehemaligen Ordensgeistlichen, der mittlerweile in den Laienstand zurückversetzt ist, wurde eine Reihe von Delikten angelastet, darunter sexueller Missbrauch sowie andere Sexual- und Gewaltdelikte. Nach Ermittlungen in anfangs 39 Fällen sprach die Staatsanwaltschaft nun von 24 Opfern, davon 15 von sexuellen Handlungen.

Der am Mittwoch im Landesgericht Steyr beendete Prozess fand aus Rücksicht für die Opfer großteils unter Ausschluss der Öffentlichkeit statt. Der Angeklagte hatte zwar ein Geständnis abgelegt und sich bei den Opfern entschuldigt, deren Anwälte vermissten aber Reue. Der Verteidiger hatte einen Freispruch verlangt, weil die Taten verjährt seien. Er meldete Nichtigkeitsbeschwerde und Berufung an. Das Urteil des Schöffensenats ist somit noch nicht rechtskräftig.

Stift: Opfern wird Gerechtigkeit zuteil

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DEUTSCHLAND
HPD

In einem sehr ausführlichen Artikel schildert das Evangelische Bayerische Sonntagsblatt einen gravierenden Dissens zwischen der Landeskirche in Bayern und der EKD über den Umgang mit Missbrauchstätern im Pfarrdienst.

In dienstlichen Zusammenhängen hat ein ordinierter evangelischer Theologe mindestens drei Frauen sexuell missbraucht. Als Pfarrer eine dreizehnjährige Konfirmandin, als Oberkirchenrat zwei Sekretärinnen.

Eine der Sekretärinnen hatten beim Landesbischof um Hilfe angefragt, die ihr aber nicht gewährt wurde.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Sonntagsblatt

Ein Oberkirchenrat missbrauchte Frauen – das Urteil wird von einem EKD-Gerichtshof kassiert

Von Helmut Frank

Ein Pfarrer missbraucht eine Konfirmandin, als Oberkirchenrat missbraucht er später mehrere Mitarbeiterinnen im Landeskirchenamt. Eine der Frauen bittet den Bischof um Hilfe, aber es passiert nichts. Jahrzehnte später erst kommt es zu einem Disziplinarverfahren, der Ruhestands-Oberkirchenrat wird aus dem Dienst der bayerischen Landeskirche entfernt. Doch dieses Urteil hat nun ein Berufungsgericht der EKD kassiert – und damit eventuell einen Präzedenzfall geschaffen.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Deutsche Welle

Kardinal Timothy Dolan soll als Erzbischof von Milwaukee 57 Millionen Dollar in einen Friedhofsfonds gesteckt haben, damit das Geld nicht an Missbrauchsopfer geht. Das ergibt sich aus Bistumsdokumenten.

Die katholische Zeitschrift “National Catholic Reporter” berichtet unter Berufung auf die Dokumente des Bistums von Milwaukee in den USA, dass der damalige Erzbischof Timothy Dolan 57 Millionen Dollar in einen Friedhofsfonds geleitet haben, um das Geld vor den Entschädigungsansprüchen von Missbrauchsopfern zu sichern. Demnach hatte Dolan 2007 den kirchenrechtlichen Vorgaben entsprechend den Transfer vom Vatikan genehmigen lassen.

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UNITED STATES
Watch Keep

You may choose to look the other way, but you can never say again that you did not know.

~ William Wilberforce

A Georgia pastor, Peter Lumpkins, authored a resolution on child abuse that was passed at the SBC annual meeting last month in Houston. A greater awareness of abuse is always a great start, but what are the practical implications of a non-binding resolution? Who will police it? Who will oversee accountability and action? What discipline will there be, if any, for churches and pastors who have failed or fail in the future to report abuse?

Does Lumpkins have a blind side when it comes to cases of recorded and documented sexual abuse of children within SBC churches, not just within evangelical organizations with which the SBC has close ties, like Sovereign Grace Ministries that prompted him to write and present the resolution?

While I appreciate the gravity of the SGM lawsuit that recently and rapidly captured his attention, where has Peter been in the last few years of documented cases of child sex abuse and coverup like happened at Prestonwood Baptist with Langworthy? Weeks ago when I first heard about his resolution, I tried a couple of times to submit a comment on Peter’s blog encouraging that the light of truth also shine on documented abuse and cover up WITHIN the SBC, like at Prestonwood, but he never would publish any of those comments. He doesn’t seem to have had any hesitation speaking out on behalf of the SGM survivors and the lawsuit (and rightly so), so why not for survivors of abuse within his own SBC churches?

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PHILIPPINES
GMA News

By Xianne Arcangel, GMA News
July 3, 2013

What can drive a revered man of cloth to turn away from his religious beliefs and become a reviled “cassocked hypocrite?”

Readers might just find the answer in the latest novel released by a Filipino author– who also happens to be a priest.

Gilbert Luis Centina III’s “Rubrics and Runes” tells the story of an idealistic priest, Jose Moran, whose convictions are tested when he discovers the double life being led by his “abominably corrupt religious superior.”

According to the book’s description on Amazon.com, the novel unmasks “cassocked hypocrites” who abuse their power by dipping their hands into their parishes’ pockets and engaging in other immoral activities.

Centina, who is described by literary critics as “a leading Christian voice in contemporary literature,” entered the Augtinian monastery in 1964. He was ordained as a priest by Jaime Cardinal Sin in 1975.

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AUSTRALIA
Bendigo Advertiser

By Barney Zwartz July 3, 2013

The Catholic Church has apologised for “legally abusing” a sexual abuse victim who lost a landmark compensation case after the church argued it could not be sued.

Asked for $750,000 in compensation for the abuse of John Ellis, the church instead spent almost exactly that sum “vigorously defending” the case, and later pursued him for those costs. Instead of giving him $750,000, it sought $755,000 from him.

Mr Ellis reveals correspondence between him and the church in a submission to the Victorian inquiry into how the churches handled sexual abuse. His evidence, posted on the parliamentary inquiry’s website on Wednesday, is a reply to Sydney Archbishop Cardinal George Pell’s evidence last month.

Mr Ellis says the cardinal provided “false and misleading” testimony to the inquiry about his case.

In the Ellis case, the NSW Court of Appeal found in 2007 that neither the Sydney archdiocese trustees nor archbishop were liable for child sexual abuse by a priest. Asked to identify who should answer his claim, the archdiocese refused to do so, saying the person liable was the priest who abused him.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

A memorial garden or museum is to to be erected in Dublin to honour women who survived the Magdalene Laundries, it has been announced.

The Magdalene Survivors Together group says the memorial is to be placed at Sean McDermott Street, where the last known laundry operated until 1996.

It comes ahead of a meeting today between President Michael D Higgins and Magdalene survivors at Aras an Uachtaráin.

Last week, the Magdalene Survivors Together group asked the UN to hold a one-day forum, so that women who lived and worked in the laundries could tell their stories of alleged abuse in public.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By IAN KIRKWOOD July 3, 2013

WEDNESDAY’S Special Commission of Inquiry hearing closed with a detailed examination of whistleblowing policeman Peter Fox’s record of a 2002 meeting with then Maitland-Newcastle diocese Bishop Michael Malone.

Counsel for Mr Malone, Simon Harben SC, repeatedly took Detective Chief Inspector Fox to evidence he had given in other parts of the inquiry that appeared to give conflicting accounts of when Mr Fox had drawn up his record of their meeting.

In private sittings of the commission in March and again in the opening days of the inquiry, Mr Fox said an account of their conversation – expressed in ‘‘I said, he said’’ form – was written a month or so after the event.

But earlier this week Mr Fox gave evidence that he had written it ‘‘a day or so’’ after the meeting, which took place on June 20, 2002.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Forbes

Jay Adkisson, Contributor

New documents that have recently come to in the Catholic Church sexual abuse scandal show that in 2007, the Catholic Church transferred $57 million into a trust fund “to protect it against court action”, according to an NPR Article at http://goo.gl/05N4b

In 2011, the Milwaukee Archdiocese filed its Petition for Chapter 11 protection in bankruptcy, and the judge overseeing the case ordered the documents revealing this transfer to be released for the first time.

According to the NPR Article:

One document is a letter that Dolan sent to the Vatican in June 2007 requesting permission to move $57 million into a cemetery trust fund in order to protect the funds from “any legal claim and liability.” The Vatican approved the transfer a month later, according to the documents.

During a news conference on Monday, Jeff Anderson, an attorney representing more than 500 abuse victims, said the money was to be used to “pay off some of the offenders to quietly go away.”

Dolan disagreed with the characterization of the fund in a statement released on Monday. He said it was a “perpetual care fund” from for cemeteries, not an attempt to shield money from bankruptcy.

Under Wisconsin law, Chapter 893.425, the Statute of Limitations for a fraudulent transfer is either four years from the date of the transfer, or one year after the transfer “could reasonably have been discovered by the claimant.”

Assuming that the Statute of Limitations has not run on the 2007 transfer because it just became known to claimants, this transfer would appear to be voidable as a fraudulent transfer on several grounds.

Gifts to trusts are inherently without “reasonably equivalent value”, meaning that the debtor did not get anything back that would be of any utility to creditors. If the Milwaukee Archdiocese was insolvent at the time that it made the transfer, or the transfer rendered it insolvent, then the transfer would be considered a fraudulent transfer without regard to the Church’s intent in making the transfer.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
PBS Newshour

[with video]

Transcript

GWEN IFILL: Now: new documents that show a history of sexual abuse problems in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee.

Ray Suarez has the story.

RAY SUAREZ: Many of the cases go back decades, and most of the 6,000 pages of documents were released publicly for the first time yesterday. The records show pedophile priests were moved from parish to parish, often protected from criminal complaints.

The documents also contain files on more than 40 priests either dismissed or restricted, including the late Father Lawrence Murphy, believed to have molested as many as two hundred deaf boys. The documents also shine a light on New York Archbishop Cardinal Timothy Dolan, formerly the archbishop of Milwaukee. Documents show he asked for the Vatican’s approval in 2007 to move nearly $57 million dollars off the diocesan books into a cemetery fund to protect church assets.

Dolan denies the claims as long discredited.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic Culture

The Vatican bank has named new officers to replace the director and deputy-director who resigned on July 1.

Ernst von Freyburg, the president of the Institute for Religious Works (IOR), will act temporarily in the role of director for the bank. Rolando Marranci, who has been chief operating officer for an Italian bank in London, has been named acting deputy director. Antonio Montaresi, whose experience has been as a risk and compliance officer with American banks, will act as chief risk officer for the IOR.

The IOR’s president defended the institution, while acknowledging the need for continued work to repair the bank’s reputation. “Since 2010 the IOR and its management have been working hard to bring structures and processes in line with international standards for anti-money laundering,” said von Freyburg. “While we are grateful for what has been achieved, it is clear today that we need new leadership to increase the pace of this transformation process.”

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VATICAN CITY
International Business Times

By Athena Yenko | July 3, 2013

In the wake of the scandals that have plagued the Holy See, Pope Francis appointed a five-person crew solely tasked to wash the bank clean. This only goes to show that Pope Francis means business as he pressure the Vatican’s administrators’ to shape up.

As a result more evils were being ‘exorcised’ out of the holy institution.

In a report from Reuters on Tuesday, big-wig managers for Vatican bank, Institute for Works of Religion (IOR), Director Paolo Cipriani and Massimo Tulli resigned after another Vatican scandal involving Monsignor Nunzio Scarano.

Monsignor Scarano was accused of helping two people in smuggling 20 million euro to Italy from Switzerland. Ernest von Freyberg, the German president for IOR, will temporarily assume the position of the manager until such time that a replacement is selected. The IOR had also decided to create a new position of chief risk officer. The person to be appointed for the position will be task to work on improving the bank’s compliance with financial regulations.

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ROME
Enterprise Applications

By Paolo Biondi

ROME (Reuters) – Rome prosecutors are considering requesting that two directors of the Vatican bank who resigned on Monday be sent to trial on suspicion of authorizing illegal financial transactions, judicial sources said on Tuesday.

The Vatican bank’s director general, Paolo Cipriani, and its deputy director, Massimo Tulli, left after the arrest of a senior cleric who is accused of plotting to smuggle 20 million euros ($26 million) into Italy from Switzerland.

A spokesman from the Vatican bank, known formally as the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR), declined to comment. Reuters was unable to reach the two men concerned.

Neither has been accused of wrongdoing although police wiretap transcripts contained in magistrates’ evidence showed contacts between Tulli and Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, the senior cleric who was arrested last week.

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ROMA
Corriere della Sera

Finiscono sotto inchiesta altre 13 operazioni fatte sui conti dell’Istituto opere religiose

ROMA – Operazioni sospette per oltre un milione di euro effettuate su conti Ior aperti presso altre banche. Almeno tredici trasferimenti di denaro dei quali non si conosce l’origine e soprattutto il reale destinatario e la causale. Esattamente come accaduto per i 23 milioni di euro che si cercò di spostare nel 2010 dal Credito Artigiano a Jp Morgan. Su questo si concentrano le verifiche della procura di Roma che contesta il reato di riciclaggio al direttore generale Paolo Cipriani e del suo vice Massimo Tulli, entrambi dimissionari. Entro qualche giorno sarà notificato l’avviso della chiusura dell’indagine che prelude al rinvio a giudizio. Ma è soltanto il primo capitolo di un’inchiesta ben più ampia che continua su ulteriori illeciti che sarebbero stati compiuti negli ultimi tre anni dai vertici dell’Istituto per le Opere religiose.

Gli accertamenti, affidati ai pubblici ministeri Stefano Pesci e Stefano Rocco Fava e coordinati dall’aggiunto Nello Rossi, sono ormai conclusi. E consentono ai magistrati di sollecitare l’archiviazione nei confronti dell’ex presidente Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, indagato per lo stesso reato proprio in relazione al trasferimento di 23 milioni di euro. Il banchiere ha infatti dimostrato di non aver mai avuto alcuna delega ad operare sui depositi e anzi ha sempre sostenuto di essere stato tagliato fuori dall’operatività dell’Istituto di credito «per la mia volontà di cambiare le regole e rendere trasparente la procedura».

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ROME
Straits Times

ROME (AFP) – Italian police have found 13 suspicious money transfers through the Vatican bank, a newspaper said Tuesday, reporting that a senior cleric arrested last week allegedly offered his own accounts to transfer money for his friends.

The Corriere della Sera daily said that the suspect operations which have triggered money laundering controls totalled more than 1.0 million euros (S$1.7 million) and were similar to a larger 23-million-euro transfer that led to an investigation that is shaking up the bank.

It also quoted from documents in the investigation against Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, the senior Vatican accountant held as part of a sweeping probe of the scandal-plagued Vatican bank.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail – Thisis Money

By PETER CAMPBELL

Eight days after disappearing from his office, the body of an Italian financier known as ‘God’s banker’ was found hanged from Blackfriars Bridge in London.

Roberto Calvi, 61, was the President of Italy’s Ambrosiano Bank when it collapsed after making £1bn of unsecured loans to brass-plate companies in Latin America.

It is still not known for certain whether Calvi’s death, which happened three days after his secretary jumped to her death from a window of the Milan bank, was murder or suicide.

Rather than an extract from a dark thriller, this is really what happened in 1982 – just one of the controversies that has embroiled the Vatican Bank, Ambrosiano’s largest shareholder.
Three decades later, the plot surrounding the Holy See’s finances remains no less thick.

Accusations of money laundering, alleged links to the Mafia and Masonic organisations and the arrest of senior bank officials alongside former secret service agents all offer sufficient ingredients to whet any budding novelist’s appetite.

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WISCONSIN
Duluth News Tribune

[the documents – Jeff Anderson & Associates]

[the documents – Milwaukee archdiocese]

James Jablonski

Jablonski timeline

Franklyn Becker

Becker timeline

Michael Neuberger

Neuberger timeline

Lawrence Murphy

Murphy timeline

Oswald Krusing

Krusing timeline

Child sexual abuse by priests described in documents released this week by the Archdiocese of Milwaukee wasn’t limited to southeastern Wisconsin.

By: Robin Washington, Duluth News Tribune

Child sexual abuse by priests described in documents released this week by the Archdiocese of Milwaukee wasn’t limited to southeastern Wisconsin.

Rather, the incidents occurred from Chicago to California to the Caribbean — and also the Northland, frequently on overnight trips taken by priests and children.

Of 42 priest files released Monday by the Milwaukee Archdiocese and reviewed by the News Tribune, 22 contain references to child molestation on camping trips, a cross-state bicycle ride and at least one Caribbean cruise.

The abuse is often explicitly described. But the geographic details are less so, many noted vaguely as occurring “up north” — a generalization that sometimes refers to suburban Milwaukee, sometimes Wisconsin’s northern counties and more often left unidentified.

“When (name redacted) was in 7th grade, (redacted) felt uneasy about the amount of time (he) spent alone with Fr. Jablonowski, including at his private quarters and place up north,” reads the file on the Rev. James Jablonowski.

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UNITED STATES
Irish Independent

JON SWAINE NEW YORK – 03 JULY 2013

AMERICA’S most senior Roman Catholic cleric obtained permission from the Vatican to move $57m (€43.9m) of church funds into a trust to shield it from sexual abuse victims seeking compensation.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the President of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, told Vatican officials in a 2007 letter that the transfer offered “improved protection of these funds from any legal claim”.

Cardinal Dolan, who is now the Archbishop of New York, has been credited with helping to root out a serious sexual abuse scandal in his previous archdiocese of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

However, he has long insisted that he never deliberately sought to protect church funds from victims of abuse by clergy in the archdiocese, which he led as archbishop between 2002 and 2009.

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AUSTRALIA
The Telegraph

MIRANDA DEVINE THE DAILY TELEGRAPH JULY 03, 2013

A DAUGHTER repeatedly violently raped by her own father from the age of nine summons the courage to tell police what he did to her. He is let off by a NSW judge with a good behaviour bond as long as he attends a treatment program for incestuous paedophiles.

A boy born to a surrogate mother in Russia and bought for $8000 by the sperm donor and his Australian partner for their sexual gratification is subjected to vile abuse for six years from infancy.

A little boy constantly raped by the late serial paedophile priest Dennis McAlinden between the ages of five and nine tells his parish priest in Singleton about the rapes during his first confession.

He is given penance “apparently for his sin in being abused by that priest,” says Julia Lonergan, SC, counsel assisting the NSW commission into child sexual abuse in the Hunter Valley’s Catholic Church.

These are three stories of paedophile atrocities which appeared in this newspaper this week. There are countless others which haven’t.

While the community regards paedophilia as the most heinous crime, it seems authorities do not, whether church leaders who allowed paedophiles free rein, or courts which fail to jail them.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

By Dan Cox, ABC
Updated July 3, 2013

Documents tendered to a New South Wales inquiry into child sexual abuse in the Hunter Valley show senior Catholic Church officials knew about abuse by two paedophile priests, but failed to tell police.

The inquiry was sparked by Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox.

He claims the Maitland-Newcastle Catholic Diocese did not co-operate with police, who were investigating priests James Fletcher and Denis McAlinden over child sexual abuse allegations.

Counsel assisting the commission today tendered numerous documents which Peter Fox said would have proved helpful with his investigations into the men.

The documents show the former Maitland-Newcastle Bishop Leo Clarke tried to defrock McAlinden, rather than tell police about the allegations.

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CALIFORNIA
Modesto Bee

Published: July 3, 2013

By Andy Furillo — afurillo@sacbee.com

Sacramento Superior Court Judge Eugene L. Balonon is expected to rule today whether the Rev. Uriel Ojeda’s alleged admission to child molestation accusations can be used against him at his upcoming trial.

Ojeda’s attorney, Jesse Ortiz, argued Tuesday that the young priest believed his statements to a church official and a private investigator were confidential and should be excluded under a state Evidence Code provision that protects clergy-penitent communications.

Deputy District Attorney Allison Dunham told the judge Ojeda had no expectation of confidentiality in the administrative communication he had with the church official, the Rev. Timothy Nondorf, a former staff member to Bishop Jaime Soto, and the private investigator, Joseph Sheehan, who worked on contract for the law firm that represents the Catholic Diocese of Sacramento.

Ojeda is accused in a seven-count complaint of molesting a girl who was younger than 14 while he worked at parishes in Woodland and Redding.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
News Letter

A paedophile priest told a distraught seven-year-old boy that he could get his dead grandfather into heaven if he performed a sex act on him, a court heard yesterday.

Belfast Crown Court heard that the boy was quite distressed about his grandfather being in purgatory but that 55-year-old James Martin Donaghy told the child “he could get him into heaven if he helped him” before he exposed himself and then forced the boy to perform a sex act.

Last month, just before his trial was due to begin, Donaghy, originally from Lady Wallace Drive in Lisburn but now in Magilligan jail, pleaded guilty to four charges of indecently assaulting the boy and one of common assault against the schoolboy on dates between January and May 1989.

Following a lengthy trial at the end of 2011 Donaghy was convicted of a total of 17 sex offences including indecent assault and committing acts of gross indecency against three victims and two further charges of serious sexual assault on two of his victims.

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WASHINGTON
Yakima Herald-Republic

By Jane Gargas
Yakima Herald-Republic

A man who alleges he was abused as an altar boy by a priest in Roslyn has filed a lawsuit against the Catholic dioceses of Yakima and Spokane.

The lawsuit filed in Spokane County Superior Court on Tuesday contends that beginning in 1961, the Rev. Joseph Sondergeld sexually abused the victim at the Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Roslyn.

The man, who is in his early 60s and identified as R.P. in the filing, says he was 9 years old when the abuse began. He says Sondergeld, now deceased, used his position within the church to groom him for abuse and molest him on church property.

Monsignor Robert Siler, chief of staff of the Yakima Diocese, said the man didn’t contact the diocese about the alleged abuse. “It’s news to me. Our attorneys are looking into it,” he said.

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COLORADO
Gazette

By Lance Benzel Published: July 2, 2013

Was he a “prime target” for a teenage boy’s false claim – or a savvy predator who saw his opportunity and seized it?

Attorneys on Tuesday laid out divergent views of the Rev. Charles Robert “Bob” Manning as the 78-year-old priest’s trial on suspicion of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old altar boy drew to a close in 4th Judicial District Court.

After six days of testimony, a six-man, six-woman jury is to begin deliberations Wednesday morning.

The jury was released at 5 p.m. Tuesday after more than two hours of fiery closing arguments. Attorneys in the case dueled over the strength of evidence against Manning and the credibility of those who testified while Manning’s oxygen tank purred in the background. He is charged with multiple counts of sexual assault on a child by one in position of trust, contributing to the delinquency of a minor and possessing lewd photographs of the boy, one allegedly taken in secret.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Fox 6

[Michael Neuberger – file from Milwaukee archdiocese]

[documents]

[timeline]

July 2, 2013, by Ben Handelman

MILWAUKEE (WITI) — There are 42 names in thousands of pages of documents released on Monday, July 1st that shed light on the Catholic Church’s sex abuse scandal. These men named in the documents are men the church says are known sexual abusers — but one of those men says he has done nothing wrong, but says he has no way to prove that.

Like many of the priests named in the thousands of pages of documents released Monday, July 1st, Father Michael Neuberger has worked at many churches. A man who became a priest at a young age, he’s accused of molesting boys as soon as his career began.

In a psychologist’s report, released in the documents, Father Neuberger told doctors he found the confessional personally sexually arousing.

Documents say the priest offered to help by giving sex advice — sometimes including hands-on instruction.

The documents indicate Neuberger admitted his crimes to doctors and other priests. He was placed on restrictions and ordered away from churches.

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AUSTRALIA
Maitland Mercury

By ELLE WATSON July 3, 2013

A Commission of Inquiry into child sexual abuse in the Hunter has heard a priest omitted significant detail from his police statement after an abuse victim told him the clergy was committing “filthy” acts against children.

Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox resumed his evidence this morning and told the inquiry he spoke to Father Bob Searle in May 2003 after a victim went to his Nelson Bay presbytery and accused priests of paedophilia.

Chief Inspector Fox said Father Searle told him the upset man yelled from outside the presbytery, claiming priests were doing “filthy things” to young boys.

When it came time for Father Searle to make an official statement he left out the incident.

Chief Inspector Fox questioned the priest about the omission but he denied recounting the victim’s accusation.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Today’s TMJ

[with video]

By Lacey Crisp with Jay Sorgi

MILWAUKEE – A former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice says the Catholic Church has done the right thing by releasing information on priests who committed sexual abuse.

“I think it’s going to take a long time of reaching out to victims who want a relationship with the church, and parishoners to work at it,” said Justice Janine Geske, who has worked with the Milwaukee Archdiocese on healing projects.

She adds more still needs to be done to heal the church and its members.

“It’s going to take time, but I think the church is going to be stronger in the long run as it learns ways to protect children and make sure these scandals do not happen.”

Catholics who were not personally affected by the scandal say transparency is the key, and they can now move foward.

“I believe that it is enough for them to put it behind them and move on and hope it doesn’t happen again,” said Casey Prescott.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

By Dan Cox, ABC
Updated July 3, 2013

A New South Wales inquiry into child sexual abuse in the Hunter Valley’s Catholic Church has heard an angry victim went to a presbytery accusing priests of doing “filthy things to little boys”.

The inquiry is examining whether the Maitland-Newcastle diocese helped or hindered the police investigation into two paedophile priests, James Fletcher and Denis McAlinden.

The probe was sparked by senior policeman Peter Fox, who is giving evidence in Newcastle.

He told the hearing that in 1998 a victim of Fletcher was drunk and angry with the world – the night he went to a local presbytery yelling that priests do “filthy things to little boys”.

Peter Fox said a priest heard the comments and told him about it during a phone call, but he was surprised when it was not included in the priest’s official statement to police.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

DAN BOX From: The Australian July 03, 2013

SOME of Australia’s most senior Catholic bishops, as well as the pope’s representative in Canberra and potentially the Vatican itself, were involved in an attempt to defrock a pedophile priest rather than report his crimes to police.

Three successive bishops in Newcastle, NSW, also had personal knowledge that Father Denis McAlinden was abusing children, while bishops in England, the Philippines and Papua New Guinea were also warned about the allegations against him.

In an exchange of letters with the priest during the 1990s, the late bishop Leo Clarke asked him to petition the Holy See in Rome to request his formal laicisation – effectively ending his career as a priest.

“Your good name will be protected by the confidential nature of this process,” Clarke wrote.

“A speedy resolution of this matter would be in your interest as I have it on good authority that some people are threatening to take it to the police.”

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

A former Catholic priest is out on bail after he was charged with sexually abusing young boys more than 40 years ago.

The 70-year-old from Wentworth Falls was charged on Tuesday with five counts of indecent assault against three boys, aged between 11 and 15, which allegedly occurred between 1971 and 1982.

The victims are now aged in their fifties, police said.

Acting Detective Inspector Adam Wilson said the victims were abused at parishes in Blacktown, St Marys and Richmond, as well as on church property in Shoalhaven on the NSW south coast.

He said the investigation into the abuse claims, which were first reported to police in December last year, will continue under Strike Force Nemesis, the unit investigating historical abuse.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Post

By Nicola Menzie , Christian Post Reporter
July 2, 2013

Citing a desire to keep his peers from any “unfair and unwarranted criticism” stemming from a lawsuit filed against Sovereign Grace Ministries, C.J. Mahaney has announced his departure from the biennial Together for the Gospel (T4G) pastors conference he co-founded in 2006 with fellow evangelical Christian leaders Mark Dever, Albert Mohler and Ligon Duncan.

In a letter dated July 1, 2013, and published on the T4G website, Mahaney writes:

After much prayer, reflection and counsel I have decided to withdraw from participation in the 2014 Together for the Gospel conference. My reason for doing so is simple: I love these men and this conference and I desire to do all I possibly can to serve the ongoing fruitfulness of T4G.

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. Though dismissed in May (and now on appeal), the lawsuit could prove a distraction from the purpose of this important conference. My withdrawal is not intended to communicate anything about the merits of the suit. My decision simply reflects the reality that my participation could create a hindrance to this conference and its distinct purpose of serving so many pastors. My strong desire is to make sure this doesn’t happen. I believe the most effective way I can serve my friends who have supported me, and continue to support me, is by not participating in the 2014 conference.

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NEW YORK
The Jewish Week

07/02/13
Steve Lipman
Staff Writer

In open letter, Rabbi Norman Lamm admits he must now “do teshuva” over missteps in handling the Finkelstein allegations.

Nearly seven decades after he first entered Yeshiva University as a student, five decades after he began teaching at the school, 37 years after he became its president and a decade after he stepped down from that post, Rabbi Norman Lamm this week retired from his last, mostly ceremonial, position at YU.

In an open letter which acknowledged that it was being written with the help of family, Rabbi Lamm, 85, who has been in failing health, announced that he is ending his service as chancellor and rosh ha yeshivah in accordance with an agreement reached three years ago with YU officials.

The rabbi alluded in the letter to the controversy that became public knowledge six months ago over alleged cases of sexual abuse at the YU high school for boys in the 1980s, an incident that has tarnished his reputation in the twilight of his career.

“At the time that inappropriate actions by individuals at Yeshiva were brought to my attention, I acted in a way that I thought was correct, but which now seems ill conceived,” Rabbi Lamm wrote in his six-page open letter. “I understand better today than I did then that sometimes, when you think you are doing something good, your actions do not measure up. You think you are helping, but you are not.

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NEW YORK
Jewish Daily Forward

By Paul Berger

Norman Lamm has resigned his post as chancellor of Yeshiva University. The exit of one of the most revered figures in Modern Orthodoxy has been tarnished, perhaps indelibly, by Lamm’s admission to me last year that he covered up sexual abuse of students during his tenure as president of Y.U. between 1976 and 2003.

Since I first reported Lamm’s admission there has been a great deal of speculation surrounding the circumstances of our interview. I have been accused of knowingly taking advantage of a man with a deteriorating mental state while his daughter was terminally ill. There is even a version of our interview circulating in which Lamm’s wife turns me away from his apartment door, so that I have to lurk outside until she leaves before I can sneak back in and take advantage of Lamm.

Prior to my interview with Lamm, I was unaware of rumors that Lamm or his daughter, Sara Lamm Dratch, were ill. All I knew was that a handful of former students had told me painful stories of their sexual abuse at Y.U.’s Manhattan high school for boys and that, according to them, the person who knew the most about it was Lamm.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By IAN KIRKWOOD July 3, 2013

A VICTIM of paedophile priest James Fletcher threw a bottle at the Nelson Bay presbytery in an angry outburst about ‘‘the things priests did to boys’’, the Special Commission of Inquiry in Newcastle has heard.

Resuming his evidence under questioning from counsel assisting the commission, Julia Lonergan, Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox was taken through his recollection of the matter, which took place in 1998.

The bottle thrower was Fletcher victim AH.

Mr Fox said that a priest who was present when the bottle was thrown, Father Robert Searle, had initially confirmed that AH had yelled drunkenly about the things that priests did to boys.

In a phone conversation, Mr Fox said Father Searle had also said AH’s outburst was perhaps understandable ‘‘in the light of what we now know’’.

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WASHINGTON
Spokesman-Review

A man filed a lawsuit in Spokane County Superior Court on Tuesday against the Catholic Diocese of Yakima and the Diocese of Spokane. The suit claims child abuse by a Yakima priest and negligence by the Spokane Diocese.

Father Joseph Sondergeld, who is now dead, allegedly sexually abused the victim in 1961 when he was about nine years old, according to the suit. At the time, Sondergeld was a priest at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Roslyn, Wash., in the Yakima Diocese.

The victim, who was an altar boy at the church, alleges Sondergeld molested him on church property.

Sondergeld worked as a priest in the Spokane Diocese from 1916 to 1951. The victim alleges the Spokane Diocese knew Sondergeld had a history of child abuse, but negligently decided to transfer him rather than reporting his crimes to the proper authorities, according to the suit.

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NEW JERSEY
Patch

Posted by Noah Cohen (Editor), July 2, 2013

The trial of a 65-year-old Teaneck rabbi accused of molesting two teen boys is set to begin in January after the alleged abuser was reportedly hospitalized earlier this month, according to the county prosecutor’s office.

Rabbi Uzi Rivlin is scheduled to appear in court Jan. 13, 2014, a Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office spokeswoman said. Rivlin suffered a stroke and was in a medically-induced coma at Holy Name Medical Center, his attorney said at a hearing last month, NorthJersey.com reported. A doctor at the hospital reportedly confirmed Rivlin was unable to walk and talk, forcing the trial to be delayed.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
CBS 58

[with video]

by Laura Rodriguez
Story Created: Jul 2, 2013

MILWAUKEE– Moments after the Archdiocese of Milwaukee released its history of clergy sexual abuse, the attention seemed to zero in on the former archbishop rather than the current archbishop.

“That’s the big picture about Cardinal Dolan, but today it’s about that letter. That in our opinion is a smoking gun,” said Peter Isely, SNAP Midwest Director.

According to the documents released on the archdiocese website, in 2007, Archbishop Dolan letter sent a letter to the Vatican to request the transfer of about $57 million from a cemetery fund into a trust.

“To protect the fund is due diligence, in terms of leadership, to make sure that that is established the way it is,” said Archbishop Listecki.

In the letter, Dolan writes: “I foresee improved protection from any legal claim.”

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki warned Catholic parishioners to “prepare to be shocked” by revelations in a trove of documents released Monday related to the church’s sex abuse scandal.

He was right. The details in thousands of pages of depositions, personnel files and letters are profoundly disturbing.

Equally disturbing is something else the documents reveal: a pattern of willful neglect stretching across decades within church hierarchy.

Church officials moved accused priests from one parish to another, often accompanied by cordial letters; they failed time after time to notify authorities; they maintained what even bishops describe in depositions as a culture of silence; they paid priests to leave the priesthood; and they moved money, apparently, to protect it from the claims of victims.

Even now, we wonder if the hierarchy really gets it: In his letter last week, Listecki wrote that “the arc of understanding sexual abuse of a minor” had evolved over the years. Really? Does he mean that church officials once did not consider abuse of a child to be criminal activity that needed to be dealt with directly and firmly? That sounds like an excuse, though Listecki probably did not mean for it to be.

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BOSTON (MA)
Boston College Chronicle

By SEAN SMITH | CHRONICLE EDITOR
Published: July 2, 2013

Last week’s announcement by the Irish government that it will compensate survivors of Ireland’s notorious Magdalene Laundries seemed to conclude one of the country’s most controversial and wrenching scandals.

But a Boston College faculty member who researched the scandal and later became an advocate for the “Magdalenes” says real closure is likely to prove elusive for the women who endured abuse and exploitation in the Catholic Church-run asylums — and that the tragedy’s larger lessons may likewise be lost.

“The compensation scheme offers much that will make a significant impact on the lives of these women and their families,” said Associate Professor of English James Smith. “That is very, very important and should not be discounted. However, this is not, and cannot be, closure — that can only come when the truth is revealed about both the government’s and the Church’s role in the scandal.”

Under the terms of the compensation plan announced on June 26, Magdalene survivors would receive tax-free ex-gratia payments — the amount determined by the how much time the individual was confined — state-funded retirement pensions and free medical care at state facilities. In addition, a dedicated Department of Justice unit will ensure survivors’ easy access to services and supports.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
National Catholic Reporter

Brian Roewe | Jul. 2, 2013

Archbishop Rembert George Weakland of Milwaukee first heard of sexual abuse allegations related to Fr. William J. Effinger during the summer of 1979.

Fourteen years later, Effinger was charged with sexually assaulting a teenage boy in the late 1980s at his home in Sheboygan, Wis. He would eventually end up in prison while close to 10 others would allege the priest abused them as children during his 30-plus years in ministry.

Retrospectively, the Effinger case would become a turning point in the evolution of how Weakland, who served as Milwaukee archbishop from 1977 to 2002, viewed the sexual abuse of minors by clergy.

In an October 2011 deposition, released among the 6,000 pages of documents made public by the archdiocese Monday, Weakland told victims’ attorney Jeff Anderson he immediately sent Effinger for “psychiatric or psychological treatment” upon learning of the accusations. That decision, Weakland said, followed the general practice in place when a case came to the archbishop’s attention and spoke to the way he and others viewed sexual abuse at the time: that with treatment, a priest could be cured and returned to ministry.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
National Catholic Reporter

Marie Rohde | Jul. 2, 2013

MILWAUKEE Publicity surrounding the 1993 release of an earlier deposition of then-Archbishop Rembert George Weakland served as the impetus for survivors of sex abuse to unite, a movement that has dogged the Milwaukee archdiocese for 20 years.

Milwaukee lawyer Robert Elliott questioned Weakland under oath as part of a lawsuit brought by victims of Fr. William J. Effinger, a priest with a history of abuse who was eventually convicted and sent to prison, where he died.

At the request of lawyers for the church, Weakland’s sworn statement and others were sealed. Elliott released some of the information in a 1993 brief filed with the court. Using portions of Weakland’s response to questions, Elliott said the archbishop and other church officials were aware of the problems.

After the story appeared in the Milwaukee Journal, Weakland sent letters to parish priests and other leaders in the archdiocese denying the report, which said the archdiocese did not have a policy that required allegations to be reported to civil authorities and that it had no program to educate school and parish personnel of allegations of misconduct. Many priests read his letter at weekend Masses.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
National Catholic Reporter

[Archbishop Weakland deposition]

[exhibits]

Kate Simmons | Jul. 2, 2013

In the 1980s, the bishops of the Milwaukee archdiocese dealt with priests who sexually abused minors in much the same way they handled those who were alcoholics or even those who had credit problems: They assumed the issue could be resolved through therapy or similar means, former Archbishop Rembert George Weakland said in a 2011 deposition released this week.

“We were probably all of us naive in thinking that it was a question of willpower and a question of self-discipline,” Weakland said. “I handled cases [in the 1980s] thinking, hoping, praying that it would be the last one I would have to deal with.”

He said the bishops viewed pedophilia as an “affliction” and, following practices used with other issues, did not consider it necessary to alert parishioners to previous instances of sexual misconduct.

“There are a lot of things that when you make an assignment you don’t disclose,” Weakland said in the deposition. “If they had alcohol problems in the past, if they had credit problems with their checking accounts … I don’t think one makes a list of the foibles and the problems that way so it would not have been customary to make that kind of a profile of a priest.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

DAN BOX From: The Australian July 03, 2013

A PEDOPHILE Catholic priest groomed at least one of his victims during confession, using deliberately suggestive questions to encourage the schoolgirl to talk about sex.

Witness statements tendered to a NSW government inquiry into church child abuse, as well as the text of a letter sent by Father Denis McAlinden, reveal how he systematically groomed girls as young as four.

In one statement, a victim told police she was 11 years old when McAlinden befriended her through her school choir and started taking her in his car for drives in the NSW Hunter Valley.

“When we were stopped, Father McAlinden took my underpants off from under my dress, which I think was my school uniform as I had been at school,” her statement said. The priest then raped the girl.

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WASHINGTON
Yakima Herald

The Associated Press

SPOKANE, Wash.- A man who says he was abused as a child by a priest has filed a lawsuit against the Catholic dioceses of Yakima and Spokane.

The lawsuit filed in Spokane County Superior Court Tuesday contends that beginning in 1961, Father Joseph Sondergeld sexually abused the victim at the Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Roslyn, Washington.

The victim was nine years old when the abuse began.

The lawsuit contends the Spokane Diocese knew Sondergeld’s past abuse of children and failed to report him to the authorities. The Spokane Diocese instead transferred Sondergeld to the Yakima Diocese.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
I Should Be Laughing

After years of listening to the Catholic Church sing their Deny, Deny, Deny song, this week a box of files was released by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Milwaukee that shows that back in 2007, anti-gay Cardinal Timothy Dolan, then the archbishop there, requested permission from the Vatican to move nearly $57 million into a cemetery trust fund to protect the assets from victims of pedophile priests who were demanding compensation.

Let’s get that queer: Dolan asked the Vatican for permission to hide money in case monies were awarded victims of child rapists.

Still Cardinal Timmy, now the archbishop of New York, denied that he tried to hide funds, and, again, reiterated his denial in a statement just this week that these were “old and discredited attacks.” But, the files contain the actual letter, written by Dolan in 2007, to the Vatican in which he explains that by transferring the assets, “I foresee an improved protection of these funds from any legal claim and liability.”

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
News 8000

MILWAUKEE (AP) –
The U.S. Attorney’s office in Milwaukee confirms that it received a letter from an activist group requesting an investigation into how the Milwaukee archdiocese moved money around ahead of its bankruptcy filing.

U.S. Attorney spokesman Dean Puschnig confirmed receipt of the letter Tuesday. But he says he can’t confirm or deny the existence of any investigation.

The letter was from the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. Spokesman Peter Isely says a 2007 letter released Monday shows evidence of bankruptcy fraud.

In the letter, then-Archbishop Timothy Dolan asked the Vatican for permission to move $57 million into a cemetery fund. Isely suggests that Dolan wanted to protect the money from creditors.

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AUSTRALIA
Courier Mail

IAN WALKER THE DAILY TELEGRAPH JULY 03, 2013

A FORMER member of the Catholic Church was arrested and charged over alleged historical sexual assaults dating back to the 1970s.

Police arrested the 70-year-old man in Wentworth Falls after receiving information relating to alleged child sexual assault offences committed during the 1970s and 1980s.

The man was former member of the Catholic Church police said.

He was taken to Springwood Police Station where he was charged with five counts of indecent assault on a male.

The man was given conditional bail and will appear in Penrith Local Court on the 29th of July.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

New South Wales police have charged a former Catholic priest with indecent assault offences against children dating back to the 1970s.

Police arrested the 70-year-old man at his home at Wentworth Falls in the Blue Mountains at about 3:00pm (AEST) yesterday.

He was targeted as part of Strike Force Nemesis, a team investigating child sex offences allegedly committed in the state’s south coast and Sydney’s western suburbs.

The former priest has been charged with five counts of indecent assault on a male.

Inspector Maureen Deegan says the victims were all children.

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VATICAN CITY
Chiesa

Not only the resignation of its highest-ranking operational directors, but also the revelations about the new “prelate” appointed by Francis. Having been made aware of them, the pope could revoke his appointment soon

by Sandro Magister

ROME, July 3, 2013 – Since the first of this month, the Institute for Works of Religion, IOR, has been at the center of a twofold storm.

Twofold because it is made up not only of the sensational resignations of the director general and of the vice-director of the controversial Vatican “bank,” Paolo Cipriani and Massimo Tulli, but also of another scandal near the point of exploding, concerning the “prelate” of the IOR, Monsignor Battista Ricca, just appointed by Pope Francis.

As for the resignation of the two highest-ranking operational directors of the IOR, the statement that gave the news on the evening of Monday, July 1 says that “after many years of service both have decided that this action would be in the best interests of the Institute itself and of the Holy See.”

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Jeff Anderson & Associates

JEFFREY R. ANDERSON

Archbishop of Milwaukee, Jerome Listecki, is arguing the Hierarchy’s choices to protect priests first and children second should be viewed under the arc of understanding.

“The arc of understanding sexual abuse of a minor progressed from being seen as a moral failing and sin that needed personal resolve and spiritual direction; to a psychological deficiency that required therapy and could be cured; to issues of addiction requiring more extensive therapy and restrictions on ministry; to recognition of the long-term effects of abuse and the need to hold the perpetrator accountable for this criminal activity.”

When you look at the history of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee you see an Ark filled with understanding regarding the causes, identification and suppression of the scandal of childhood sexual abuse by the clergy.

Here are a few highlights to consider.

1939 – Father Clement Hageman is admitted to the Alexian Brothers Hospital “to do penance, and give proof of his sincerity to do penance for that which I was forced to dismiss him from the Diocese.”

1947 – The Bishops open the Saint John Vianney Institute in the East and the Servants of the Paraclete in the West to care for problem priests.

1952 – Father Gerald Fitzgerald sP, founder of the Servants of the Paraclete, flew to Rome for a personal audience with Pope Pius XII.

1962 – Father Gerald Fitzgerald sP tells Pope John XXIII on April 11th, “On the other hand, when a priest has fallen into repeated sins which are considered, generally speaking, as abnormal (abuse of nature) such as homosexuality and most especially abuse of children, we feel strongly that such unfortunate priests should be given the alternative of a retired life within the protection of monastery walls or complete laicization.”

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

[WTMJ-AM interview]

By Annysa Johnson of the Journal Sentinel

Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki on Tuesday defended his predecessor’s transfer of $57 million off the Roman Catholic archdiocese’s books and into a special cemetery trust, saying Archbishop Timothy Dolan, now cardinal of New York, was simply ensuring that the funds would be used for their intended purpose.

“The cemetery funds have always been seen as an asset in trust, and Cardinal Dolan perpetuated that,” Listecki told WTMJ-AM on Tuesday.

A document released Monday as part of the bankruptcy shows Dolan sought Vatican approval for the transfer in June 2007, saying it would help protect the funds “from any legal claim or liability.”

Victims and their attorneys have called the move a fraudulent transfer that is illegal under U.S. bankruptcy code, which prohibits moving assets in a way that benefits one class of creditors over another. Dolan and the archciocese deny that the transfer was unlawful.

The letter was written just weeks before a Wisconsin Supreme Court decision that allowed sex abuse victims to sue religious institutions for their actions in response to sexual abuse allegations under the state’s fraud statute.

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UNITED STATES
Religion News Service

David Gibson | Jul 2, 2013

(RNS) Before convening its second annual meeting last month, a fledgling organization of U.S. priests that wants to reform the Catholic Church was tweaked by critics as the last gasp of a dying liberal Catholicism.

But when the members the Association of U.S. Catholic Priests gathered in Seattle on June 24, they wound up adopting fewer than half of the proposals on their agenda and voted down the most controversial item: a call for the church to examine opening the priesthood to women and married men.

The Rev. Dave Cooper, a priest from Milwaukee who heads the 1,000-member AUSCP, said Tuesday (July 2) that the middle course charted by the 140 delegates reflected a goal of promoting dialogue, not laying down markers for a confrontation with the hierarchy.

“We realized that if we hope to dialogue with bishops we have to find bridges to do that,” Cooper said. If the group had adopted the resolution on ordaining women priests – a ban that the Vatican has said is not open for discussion – “it would have become an obstacle, a barrier, rather than a bridge.”

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CALFORNIA
Sacramento Bee

The prosecution’s expert witness testified Tuesday that the Rev. Uriel Ojeda had no expectation of confidentiality when he allegedly made admissions to a church official and a private investigator that he molested an underage parish girl.

A priest who was acting as a representative of Bishop Jaime Soto and an investigator for a law firm that represents the Catholic Diocese of Sacramento were both acting in “external” and not spiritual capacities when they confronted Ojeda two years ago about the sexual abuse allegations, according to the testimony of Monsignor Steven Callahan.

“The topic is not the priest’s spiritual life, but information that would have come to the bishop … and his responsibilities to act and report it to the civil authorities,” Callahan, the judicial vicar for the San Diego diocese, testified in Sacramento Superior Court.

The conversation Ojeda had with the bishop’s representative, Father Timothy Nondorf, and the private investigator, Joseph Sheehan, who was working on contract with the law firm of Sweeney & Greene, “had nothing to do with spiritual growth and development and everything to do with an allegation brought to diocesan authorities that they needed to take action on,” Callahan testified.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Catholic League

Bill Donohue comments on the reaction by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel to the public disclosure of Cardinal Timothy Dolan’s deposition regarding his tenure as the Milwaukee Archbishop:

Many of the bishops in the Catholic Church have made public the names of suspected sexual offenders. By contrast, there is not a single institution, secular or religious, that has done likewise. To be sure, this brazen honesty has persuaded fair-minded people to applaud such efforts, but others, less kind, see this as an opportunity to exploit. For example, today’s Journal Sentinel features the pictures of 45 priests who at one time or another had substantiated allegations made against them. This is pure hype: it was Archbishop Dolan who posted the names of these priests 9 years ago. Where are the pictures of alleged sex offenders in non-Catholic communities? Where is the same level of scrutiny?

Today’s Journal Sentinel says the bishops’ conference adopted a charter in 2002 that addresses the sexual abuse of minors. “How effective that charter has been is a matter of some debate.” Nonsense. There is no debate: in the past six years, the average number of credible allegations made against over 40,000 priests is exactly 7.0. If the Journal Sentinel knows of any institution with a comparable record, it should say so. Its comment about a 2011 grand jury report in Philadelphia failed to mention the 20-plus errors that have been found, to say nothing about the veracity of the principal accuser: he is a congenital liar, school dropout, thief and drug addict.

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OHIO
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

A Cincinnati priest is pleading not guilty to abusing a 10-year-old boy and is seeking to exploit a legal technicality, claiming that the charges against him have been filed too late.

Fr. Robert Poandl is accused of molesting a boy in 1991. He belongs to a religious order called the Glenmary Home Missioners

We believe that all victims are entitled to a fair legal process regardless of when the abuse occurred. It takes courage and often many years for victims to report crimes that are committed against them at a young age.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By JASON GORDON July 2, 2013

THERE were tip-offs to paedophiles, accusations that senior police had deceived, even the discovery of gay porn in the presbytery of a Catholic priest.

The only thing missing in yesterday’s hearing of the Special Commission of Inquiry in Newcastle was reliable evidence that the Church had hindered, obstructed or failed to co-operate with police investigations.

It was a long day in the stand for Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox, the man who accused the Catholic Church of hindering police investigations. It was equally long for counsel assisting the commission, Julia Lonergan, who spent the entire day questioning Mr Fox.

Ms Lonergan had Mr Fox under extreme fire throughout the morning session. The court had heard evidence that, in 2002, former Maitland-Newcastle Bishop Michael Malone had tipped off paedophile priest Jim Fletcher about a police investigation into claims he sexually abused a child, and that the bishop also revealed to Fletcher the name of his accuser.

Both claims were first revealed by Newcastle Herald journalist Joanne McCarthy three years ago.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Salon

BY MARY ELIZABETH WILLIAMS

Someday, we may reach the point where there are no more horrific sexual abuses within the Catholic Church to be uncovered, when there will be nothing left to say about the conspiracy of silence and the longstanding policy of protecting child molesters. Today is not that day. Already this week, on two continents, new revelations about how Catholic officials protected abusers and its own financial interests have revealed more about the depth and malevolence of the church’s self-interest.

As Reuters reports, 6,000 pages of court documents — spanning eight decades of cases — released Monday in Milwaukee “showed in great detail” the ways in which the archdiocese routinely reassigned priests accused of sex abuse to new parishes — while cleverly protecting millions of dollars of church funds from lawsuits. Included in the documents are requests from Archbishop Timothy Dolan to the Vatican to transfer $57 million to a trust fund to protect it from, in his words, “any legal claim and liability.” The transfer was approved a month later. On Monday, Dolan insisted that his request has been misinterpreted, saying the transfer was a “perpetual care fund.” The documents also show that Dolan did take action to notify the Vatican of abuses by Reverend John O’Brien – and that it took six years for the man to be stripped of his priesthood. The AP reports that to date the diocese has already spent “$30.5m on litigation, therapy and assistance for victims and other costs related to clergy sex abuse.”

But Dolan’s shabby track record isn’t all the newly released records reveal. They show the personnel files for 42 of the 45 priests “with verified abuse claims against them,” including one who is under police investigation now. The records also show how the diocese moved one priest, Raymond Adamsky, to eleven parishes over 22 after the first time a family accused him of abusing their daughter. And they show how the diocese routinely laicized priests accused of sex abuse, removing them of their duties but still providing them with benefits and sometimes substantial payments. Milwaukee’s current Archbishop Jerome Listecki has said that the documents reveal that “22 priests were reassigned to parish work after allegations of abuse,” and that “eight of them abused again.”

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INDIA
UCAN India

Chennai:
An Indian Catholic priest, who allegedly molested two teenage girls in the US nine years ago, continues to be in a New Delhi jail with his lawyer denying reports that the priest will be soon moved to the US.

Pappa Mohan, lawyer of Father Joseph Palanivel Jeyapaul, told ucanews.com that some Indian media wrongly reported on July 1 that the priest will be extradited to the US soon, as his bail plea was rejected last week.

“That was misrepresentation of facts. Our challenge against extradition will continue in the court of extradition in New Delhi. There is no prima facie evidence against the accused priest,” Mohan said July 1.

Police in Tamil Nadu arrested Father Jeyapaul in 2012 at the request of Interpol. The 58-year old priest from Ootcamund diocese is accused of molesting a 14-year-old girl while he was working in a parish in Crookston diocese in the state of Minnesota in 2004. He is now housed in New Delhi’s Tihar jail.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
The Dish

[Cardinal Dolan deposition]

[deposition exhibits]

Andrew Sullivan

You know where this man is coming from when he dismissed the organization SNAP – Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests – as having “no credibility“. The records from his old diocese in Milwaukee show he authorized pay-offs to child-rapist priests to encourage them to leave the ministry. (In the Catholic hierarchy, you don’t report rapists to the police; you eventually offer them financial incentives to leave.) Nonetheless, at the time, Dolan insisted that these charges were “false, preposterous and unjust,” whatever the records or even the spokesman for his old diocese said. Now, in another piece of stellar reporting, Laurie Goodstein adds more context to this man’s record:

Files released by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Milwaukee on Monday reveal that in 2007, Cardinal Timothy F. Dolan, then the archbishop there, requested permission from the Vatican to move nearly $57 million into a cemetery trust fund to protect the assets from victims of clergy sexual abuse who were demanding compensation.

Cardinal Dolan, now the archbishop of New York, has emphatically denied seeking to shield church funds as the archbishop of Milwaukee from 2002 to 2009. He reiterated in a statement Monday that these were “old and discredited attacks.”

However, the files contain a 2007 letter to the Vatican in which he explains that by transferring the assets, “I foresee an improved protection of these funds from any legal claim and liability.” The Vatican approved the request in five weeks, the files show.

So, twice now, we have been forced to choose between his words and our lyin’ eyes, when it comes to questions of how he handled and cosseted child-rapists under his jurisdiction in Milwaukee. We now know he deliberately sequestered church assets so he could argue he had no more funds to compensate those raped by his subordinates. He was once again putting the institutional church’s interests above those of the raped. And he seems to be able to lie about all of it – in the face of massive evidence – with nary a flicker of hesitation.

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NEW YORK
Christian Post

[Cardinal Dolan deposition]

[deposition exhibits]

By Stoyan Zaimov , Christian Post Reporter
July 2, 2013|1:59 pm

NEW YORK – Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York has responded to depositions released by the Archdiocese of Milwaukee that share details of how priests, including Dolan, handled several cases relating to child abuse by clergy.

“Responding to victim-survivors, taking action against priest-abusers, and working to implement policies to protect children, were some of the most difficult, challenging, and moving events of the 6 ½ years that I served as Archbishop of Milwaukee,” said Dolan, who currently serves as president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

“One of the principles that guided me during that time was the need for transparency and openness, which is why I not only welcomed the deposition as a chance to go on-the-record with how we responded to the clergy sexual abuse crisis during my years in Milwaukee, but also encouraged that it be released.”

The deposition discloses a 2003 case, among others, where the Milwaukee archdiocese asked the Vatican to remove a priest who had been found to have repeatedly abused children. The priest received counseling and alcohol abuse treatment and was eventually ordered to stop dressing as a priest and told not to attend seminary buildings.

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AUSTRALIA
Maitland Mercury

By ELLE WATSON July 3, 2013

Paedophile priest James Fletcher destroyed a collection of homosexual pornography hidden inside his Lochinvar presbytery when he was under police investigation for the repeated sexual abuse of a young boy.

The church member who helped Fletcher move documents, that included the pornographic magazines and videos, tipped off Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox, who was leading the Maitland investigation in 2003.

Chief Inspector Fox told the special commission of inquiry the information “gave weight” to the investigation and linked Fletcher’s “interest in this sort of activity” to the “most ugly” homosexual abuse suffered by the child.

The detective said he did not believe another member of the church who claimed ownership of the material after Fletcher denied it was his.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Esquire

By Charles P. Pierce

And boom, as Saint Jerome once put it, goes the dynamite.

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, half of which was the blog’s first alma mater in the biz, has done us all an estimable service to putting online all the documents that were jacked out of the Archdiocese there as part of the bankruptcy proceedings resulting from thousands of cases of sexual abuse by priests of said Archdiocese. Needless to say, nobody comes out looking very good. In fact, the Roman Catholic Church comes out of them looking very much like an organization that should be disbanded and fed piecemeal — hierarchy first — into a woodchipper. One guy molested 50 people in 11 parishes before anything happened to him, and not very much did. The sheer magnitude of the criminality is stunning, and this is one archdiocese, and not the biggest one, either.

I would call your attention, though, to the documents and exhibits concerning the time spent in Milwaukee by Dolan Of New York, who has been one of the prime mouthpieces of the phony “religious liberty” argument by which HMC presumes to deny to its Presbyterian cleaning ladies their ladyparts medicine as required by the Affordable Care Act. Dolan is also one of those happy-priest nuisances who thinks he looks cute in a Yankees cap. In Milwaukee, it turns out, he was pretty much Winston Wolf.

Four years before the Archdiocese of Milwaukee filed for bankruptcy, then-Archbishop Timothy Dolan sought Vatican approval to move nearly $57 million in cemetery funds off the archdiocese’s books and into a trust to help protect them “from any legal claim or liability,” according to documents made public Monday.

Read more: Bad Day For Milwaukee Archdiocese – Boom Goes The Dynamite – Esquire
Follow us: @Esquiremag on Twitter | Esquire on Facebook
Visit us at Esquire.com

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OHIO
Bluefield Daily Telegraph

July 2, 2013

Associated Press

CINCINNATI — An Ohio priest accused of taking a 10-year-old boy to West Virginia for sex more than two decades ago says the government waited too long to file charges and he wants the case dismissed.

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.

Poandl is out of jail on the condition that he has no contact with children. A jury trial is scheduled for Aug. 26.

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UNITED STATES
Wonkette

We’ve been thinking a lot about how to streamline our workload, synergize our growth goals, lifehack a four-hour work week, and generally figure out ways to be even more lazy. One of the proactive methodologies we’re considering is creating a one-touch macro so we can efficiently deploy a post every time the Catholic Church does something incredibly awful related to the pedophile priest scandal. We could save literally MINUTES by having pre-written and recycled this post because all we really need to point out is that they are being horrible again. Today’s particular flavor of horrible: moving assets around so that they could insulate themselves from legal claims from victims:

Files released by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Milwaukee on Monday reveal that in 2007, Cardinal Timothy F. Dolan, then the archbishop there, requested permission from the Vatican to move nearly $57 million into a cemetery trust fund to protect the assets from victims of clergy sexual abuse who were demanding compensation….

[T]he files contain a 2007 letter to the Vatican in which he explains that by transferring the assets, “I foresee an improved protection of these funds from any legal claim and liability.” The Vatican approved the request in five weeks, the files show.
Hiding your money in trust funds does indeed improve your protection of those delicious monies. Doing so to dick over victims is just what Jesus said to do in First Corinthiananans, right?! NOPE NOT RIGHT.

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ROME
Boston Herald

By:
Associated Press

ROME — Italian news reports say prosecutors have wrapped up their money-laundering investigation into the Vatican bank and are focusing on the institute’s two recently resigned managers.

Paolo Cipriani and Massimo Tulli stepped down late Monday from the Institute for Religious Works.
Cipriani was placed under investigation in 2010 for alleged violations of Italy’s anti-money laundering laws along with the bank’s then-president, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, stemming from a routine transaction involving an IOR account at an Italian bank. Italian financial police also seized the 23 million euros ($30 million).

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VATICAN CITY
Bloomberg Businessweek

By Carol Matlack

It sounds like a thriller plot: A Vatican cleric, a spy, and a financier accused of conspiring to smuggle 20 million euros ($26 million) out of Switzerland aboard a private jet. In fact, it’s the latest scandal to hit the Vatican bank, prompting Pope Francis to make sweeping management changes.

The Holy See removed the bank’s longtime director and deputy director on July 1, three days after Monsignor Nunzio Scarano and two other men were arrested in connection with the alleged smuggling scheme. Scarano has denied the allegations.

Since his installation in March, the pope also has appointed a trusted aide to help supervise the bank while naming a special commission to investigate charges of corruption and money laundering that have dogged the institution for decades. The bank also is to start publishing its financial accounts for the first time. Now the Vatican has even reached across the Atlantic for help, recruiting Washington, D.C.-based Promontory Financial Group to conduct a forensic review and screen the bank’s client relationships. The effort will be led by Elizabeth McCaul, a former New York state banking supervisor based in Promontory’s New York City office, and Rafaele Cosimo, an expert in bank governance and operations who works for Promontory in Europe.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Telegraph (UK)

America’s most senior Roman Catholic cleric obtained permission from the Vatican to move $57 million (£38 million) of church funds into a trust to shield it from sexual abuse victims seeking compensation.

By Jon Swaine, New York
02 Jul 2013

Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the President of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, told Vatican officials in a 2007 letter that the transfer offered “improved protection of these funds from any legal claim”.

Cardinal Dolan, who is now the Archbishop of New York, has been credited with helping to root out a serious sexual abuse scandal in his previous archdiocese of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

However, he has long insisted that he never deliberately sought to protect church funds from victims of abuse by clergy in the archdiocese, which he led as Archbishop between 2002 and 2009.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
National Catholic Reporter

Marie Rohde | Jul. 2, 2013

MILWAUKEE Cardinal Timothy Dolan says it isn’t so, but advocates for victims of clergy sex abuse say they can now prove what they suspected: Dolan shifted almost $57 million into a cemetery trust fund to protect the money from lawsuits brought by victims.

In 2007, when Dolan was archbishop of Milwaukee, he wrote the Vatican’s Congregation for Clergy seeking permission for a “transfer of assets from the patrimony of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee to a separate juridic person, an autonomous pious foundation known as The Archdiocese of Milwaukee Catholic Cemetery Perpetual Care Trust.”

The reason for the transfer: “I foresee an improved protection of these funds from any legal claim and liability,” Dolan wrote in the letter, one of many documents the Milwaukee archdiocese released Monday.

Dolan’s letter to the Vatican provided the ” ‘smoking gun’ proving he committed federal bankruptcy fraud,” said a statement released Monday by the Milwaukee chapter of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

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IRELAND
The Journal

THE Court of Criminal Appeal has reserved judgment in the case of former priest Tony Walsh, who is appealing against separate sentences imposed for the rape and sexual abuse of young boys.

Walsh (59), formerly of North Circular Road, Dublin, who was known as the ‘Singing Priest’ for his role in a travelling all-priest vocal group before he was defrocked, is serving a 16-year sentence imposed on him in 2010 for the rape and abuse of three schoolboys.

Last month, Walsh had 15 months added to this sentence for abusing two other boys.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

Paedophile priest told boy (7) he could get dead grandfather into heaven if he performed sex act

2 JULY 2013

A paedophile priest told a distraught seven-year-old boy that he could get his dead grandfather into heaven if he performed a sex act on him, a court has heard.

Belfast Crown Court heard that the boy was quite distressed about his grandfather being in purgatory but that 55-year-old James Martin Donaghy told the child “he could get him into haven if he helped him” and performed a sex act.

Last month just before his trial was due to begin Donaghy, originally from Lady Wallace Drive in Lisburn but now languishing in Magilligan prison, pleaded guilty to four charges of indecently assaulting the boy and one of common assault against the schoolboy on dates between January and May 1989.

Following a lengthy trial at the end of 2011, Donaghy was convicted of a total of 17 sex offences including indecent assault and committing acts of gross indecency against all three victims.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

Yesterday, the archdiocese of Milwaukee, previously headed by the current president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Cardinal Timothy Dolan, released a trove of documents having to do with how the archdiocese has handled (and covered up) cases of sexual abuse of minors. The story is told by Laurie Goodstein for New York Times, Marie Rohde (and also here) in National Catholic Reporter, Karen Herzog for the Journal-Sentinel (Milwaukee), and by M.L. Johnson in the Star Tribune (Minneapolis/Milwaukee).

On behalf of the National Survivor Advocates Coalition, Kris Ward writes:

Cardinal Timothy Dolan’s letter to the Vatican asking permission to transfer $57 million from the cemetery fund to a trust fund as the archdiocese moved toward filing for bankruptcy included the then Archbishop Dolan persuasive phrase for his request, “By transferring these assets to the Trust, I foresee an improved protection of these funds from any legal claim and liability.” Within a month the Vatican agreed.

As late into the crisis as 2007 when the letter was written Dolan assumed the letter would never be read beyond the chancery building and the stone castle walls of the Vatican.

And then she concludes:

Improved protection. That’s got some ring to it.

For Bishop Accountability, Terence McKiernan states:

The documents provide additional evidence that, contrary to Cardinal Dolan’s repeated denials, he concluded settlements with numerous offending priests, paying them bounties if they would agree to request laicization for sexually abusing children. The archive also contains an important 2007 exchange of letters between Dolan and the Vatican on the eve of the bankruptcy filing, in which Dolan asked permission to shelter $56.9 million, envisioning “an improved protection of these funds from any legal claim and liability.” The revelations about these actions, and Dolan’s denials, raise the question whether he is fit to lead the USCCB and the Archdiocese of New York. Documents also demonstrate that requests for laicization, which had been handled slowly by Cardinal Josef Ratzinger, continued to be processed at a snail’s pace, and that children continued to be endangered thereby, after Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI.

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UNITED STATES
Spiritual Politics

Mark Silk | Jul 2, 2013

Yesterday brought big developments in two ongoing sexual abuse stories: the resignation of Rabbi Norman Lamm as chancellor of Yeshiva University and the revelation that Cardinal Timothy Dolan shielded a pile of cash from legal claims when he was archbishop of Milwaukee.

Lamm’s resignation came six months after the Jewish Forward reported that in late ’70s and early ’80s two senior staff members who had abused students at Yeshiva’s high school for boys were permitted by Lamm to resign and take jobs at other Jewish schools. “If it was an open-and-shut case, I just let [the staff member] go quietly,” Lamm told the Forward. “It was not our intention or position to destroy a person without further inquiry.”

Not that anyone was admitting that the resignation had anything to do with the cover-up. To the contrary, the official version was that it had been arranged for Lamm to step down three years ago. Who knew?

Still and all, in a letter to the Yeshiva community, he did repent for what he had done: “True character requires of me the courage to admit that, despite my best intentions then, I now recognize that I was wrong.” And indirectly, he acknowledged that he is in fact paying a price for what he did: “You submit to momentary compassion in according individuals the benefit of the doubt by not fully recognizing what is before you, and in the process you lose the Promised Land.”

So, despite giving himself too much credit for good intentions, and permitting himself some Mosaic self-aggrandizement (no Promised Land), Lamm did the right thing.

Meanwhile, the release of thousands of pages of documents on the handling of abuse cases by the archdiocese of Milwaukee revealed that in 2007 Archbishop Dolan obtained the permission of the Vatican to transfer a nearly $57-million cemetery fund off the archdiocesan books and into a special trust. Dolan’s request came just a few weeks before the Wisconsin Supreme Court issued a ruling that allowed victims of sex abuse to sue the archdiocese. Seventeen days after the ruling, the Vatican approved the request.

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HOUSTON (TX)
KTRK

HOUSTON (KTRK) — A Houston church pastor was behind bars Monday evening, accused molesting two young girls.

Ricardo Pena faces two counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child.

Pena is the pastor at Doverside Baptist Church in north Houston.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Nicholas P. Cafardi | Jul. 2, 2013

COMMENTARY

In the last few days, Pope Francis created, in a handwritten document, a five-person group to review the operations of the Vatican bank, whose real name is the Istituto per le Opere di Religione, or IOR for short. That group will have its hands full because, you see, Italian authorities arrested Msgr. Nunzio Scarano, a Vatican official, and charged him with attempting to use the Vatican bank as part of a scheme to avoid Italian fiscal control laws. He is currently a guest of the Italian government in Rome’s Regina Coeli (Queen of Heaven) prison.

Scarano is in jail because of a reported scheme to use an Italian government jet to bring 20 million euros, owned by some friends of his, from Switzerland into Italy. (One wonders what kind of friends they were who did not want Italian authorities to know about the importation of this money.) Scarano’s alleged accomplice, an Italian secret service agent named Giovanni Maria Zito, is also in jail.

The importation scheme fell apart when the fellow in Switzerland who owed the money to Scarano’s “friends” failed to pay it, and Zito still demanded his 400,000 euro (about $525,000) “commission” for arranging the transport. Scarano evidently used his personal account at IOR to give Zito a 200,000 euro check as a down payment then reported the check as stolen, at which point things really fell apart.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
National Survivor Advocates Coalition

[the documents – Jeff Anderson & Associates]

[the documents – Milwaukee archdiocese]

EDITORIAL

Cardinal Timothy Dolan’s letter to the Vatican asking permission to transfer $57 million from the cemetery fund to a trust fund as the archdiocese moved toward filing for bankruptcy included the then Archbishop Dolan persuasive phrase for his request, “By transferring these assets to the Trust, I foresee an improved protection of these funds from any legal claim and liability.” Within a month the Vatican agreed.

As late into the crisis as 2007 when the letter was written Dolan assumed the letter would never be read beyond the chancery building and the stone castle walls of the Vatican.

Seems dead men can indeed tell tales when there is persistent, courageous and dedicated work by sexual abuse victims to get to the truth. SNAP leaders in Milwaukee, Peter Isley and John Pilmaier who have worked diligently on this issue cannot be over commended for their dedication, persistence and courage.

The truth is in the documents.

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WISCONSIN
Journal Times

Documents reveal details of former Racine County priests’ misconduct

[Michael Benham]

[Michael Benham]

[Benham timeline]

[Jerome Lanser]

[Jerome Lanser]

[Jerome Lanser]

[Lanser timeline]

[Eugene Kreuzer]

[Kreuzer timeline]

[Daniel Budzynski]

[Daniel Budzynski]

[Daniel Budzynski]

[Budzynski timeline]

[Raymond Adamsky]

[Raymond Adamski]

[Adamski timeline]

[Oswald Krusing]

[Krusing timeline]

ALISON BAUTER alison.bauter@journaltimes.com

MILWAUKEE — Thousands of documents released Monday detail allegations against 42 Milwaukee Archdiocese priests accused of sexually assaulting minors, including at least six who allegedly molested children in Racine County parishes.

In many instances, the priests have admitted to all or some of the charges, and several cases resulted in settlements with the church and received no media coverage at the time.

Former Milwaukee Archbishop Timothy Dolan made 45 names public in 2004, identifying each with substantiated allegations of sexually abusing one or more minors; documents released Monday as part of the regional archdiocese’s bankruptcy process detailed 42 of those cases.

Six former Racine County parish leaders on the list allegedly abused minors while serving here.

A series of letters from then-Archbishop Dolan detail his efforts to de-frock Michael Benham, formerly an associate pastor at St. John Nepomuk Parish in Racine, who admittedly repeatedly sexually abused an 11-year-old there in the mid-1970s. The church stripped Benham of his title in 2009.

As was the case with many of the 42 priests, the documents detail

Benham’s struggle with alcoholism. In several of those cases the alcohol abuse reportedly intersects with instances of same-sex child abuse, as with Jerome Lanser, formerly of Racine’s Sacred Heart Catholic Church, where a police report states he sexually abused an eight- or nine-year-old boy from 1975 to 1976.

Children at St. John the Baptist in rural Union Grove reportedly feared former Pastor Eugene Kreuzer during his two-decade career there, which included multiple alleged abuses of teenage boys.

Daniel Budzynski, formerly of Caledonia’s St. Louis Catholic Church, references an “unfortunate incident” with a young boy during a church retreat, which Budzynski in a 2001 letter identified as “horsing around.” He transferred parishes shortly thereafter, and over the years allegedly abused multiple boys between age 7 and 16.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Your Local Guardian

A catholic priest, arrested on suspicion of sexually assaulting a teenage boy, will face no further action, police have said.

Canon Francis Moran of St Andrew’s Roman Catholic Church in Brook Road, Thornton Heath, was arrested last September and withdrew from his role at the church following his arrest.

Parishioners were informed of the allegation when they were read a statement during a Sunday Mass.

The 52-year-old answered bail at a south London police station last week and was told no further action would be taken against him.

The Archdiocese of Southwark have yet to confirm whether he will return to his role as parish priest at St Andrew’s.

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IRELAND
The Journal

The Catholic Church and the Irish State were both responsible for incarcerating women in the Magdalene Laundries – and so both must pay, writes Anne Ferris TD.

IN APRIL 1955, a Scottish writer researching a book about Ireland talked his way into the Magdalene Laundry in Galway. First he had to obtain the permission of the Bishop of Galway, Dr Michael John Browne, the same man who a decade later would refer to the RTE broadcaster Gay Byrne as “a purveyor of filth” for the sin of discussing the colour of a lady’s nightgown on the Late Late Show.

True to form, Bishop Browne warned the Scotsman “if you write anything wrong it will come back on you” adding as a condition of entry to the laundry that anything intended to be published about the visit would have to be approved in advance by the Mother Superior of the Sisters of Mercy.

The Scotsman, Dr Halliday Sutherland, agreed to abide by the bishop’s stipulation and was granted rare access to a Magdalene laundry. His subsequent account is worked into a single chapter in his 1956 book ‘Irish Journey’. To what extent it was censored by the Mother Superior, we will never know.

An ‘agreed’ year of unpaid domestic service

The day before he visited the laundry in Galway, Dr Sutherland visited the Mother and Baby home in Tuam. He noted that the accepted practice was that unmarried mothers in the Tuam home ‘agreed’ to provide a year of unpaid domestic service to the nuns, and that in addition to this servitude, the home received State support, via Galway County Council, to the tune of £1 per child or mother per week.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

President Ernst von Freyberg to assume General Director duties ad interim

VATICAN INSIDER STAFF
VATICAN CITY

IOR-Director Comm. Paolo Cipriani and Deputy Director Dott. Massimo Tulli have offered their resignations from their current positions. After many years of service both have decided that this decision would be in the best interest of the Institute and the Holy See. The Oversight Council and the Commission of Cardinals have accepted their resignations and asked President Ernst von Freyberg to assume the functions of the General Director ad interim with immediate effect. The Vatican regulator AIF has been informed accordingly. The Special Commission appointed on June 26 2013 has acknowledged the decision.

Ernst von Freyberg will be supported by Rolando Marranci as acting Deputy Director and Antonio Montaresi in the newly created position as acting Chief Risk Officer with the remit of overseeing compliance and special projects. Previously Rolando Marranci served as Chief Operating Officer at a leading Italian bank in London. Antonio Montaresi has served as Chief Risk and Chief Compliance Officer with various banks in the US.

“In the name of the Oversight Council I thank Mr. Cipriani and Mr. Tulli for their personal dedication over the past years,” said President Ernst von Freyberg. “I welcome Rolando Marranci and Antonio Montaresi as outstanding professionals,” he said. “Since 2010 the IOR and its management have been working hard to bring structures and processes in line with international standards for anti-money laundering. While we are grateful for what has been achieved, it is clear today that we need new leadership to increase the pace of this transformation process. Our progress is in no small measure due to the continued support from the governing bodies of the Institute and its personnel.”

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
WTMJ

[with audio]

By Jaclyn Brandt

MILWAUKEE – Archbishop Listecki agreed to talk about the thousands of pages of documents recently released regarding the sex abuse scandal in the Milwaukee Archdiocese.

He began by confronting the idea that Cardinal Dolan (then archbishop of Milwaukee) transferred funds to an account that would be protected by bankruptcy.

“Of course it was a proper transfer,” he said. “Those funds continue to be set aside for the perpetual care of the cemeteries. My sense is all Cardinal Dolan was doing is being diligent as a leader.”

Archbishop Listecki explained that the release of documents was an attempt to help the victims.

“One of the things immediately is we made the documents available in response to the attorneys representing the claimants in the bankruptcy,” Listecki explained. “Their sense was to help the individuals understand what the archdiocese knew when it knew and how it responded to various aspects.”

The archdiocese said they are attempting to move forward, while understanding the problems of their past to help heal, and make sure they can stop it in the future.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Vatican City, 2 July 2013 (VIS) – A communique was issued in English by the Holy See Press Office late yesterday afternoon, the full text of which is given below:

“IOR-Director Comm. Paolo Cipriani and Deputy Director Dott. Massimo Tulli have offered their resignations from their current positions. After many years of service both have decided that this decision would be in the best interest of the Institute and the Holy See. The Oversight Council and the Commission of Cardinals have accepted their resignations and asked President Ernst von Freyberg to assume the functions of the General Director ad interim with immediate effect. The Vatican regulator AIF has been informed accordingly. The Special Commission appointed on June 26 2013 has acknowledged the decision.

“Ernst von Freyberg will be supported by Rolando Marranci as acting Deputy Director and Antonio Montaresi in the newly created position as acting Chief Risk Officer with the remit of overseeing compliance and special projects. Previously Rolando Marranci served as Chief Operating Officer at a leading Italian bank in London. Antonio Montaresi has served as Chief Risk and Chief Compliance Officer with various banks in the US.

“’In the name of the Oversight Council I thank Mr. Cipriani and Mr. Tulli for their personal dedication over the past years,’ said President Ernst von Freyberg. ‘I welcome Rolando Marranci and Antonio Montaresi as outstanding professionals,’ he said. ‘Since 2010 the IOR and its management have been working hard to bring structures and processes in line with international standards for anti-money laundering. While we are grateful for what has been achieved, it is clear today that we need new leadership to increase the pace of this transformation process. Our progress is in no small measure due to the continued support from the governing bodies of the Institute and its personnel.’

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