ABUSE TRACKER

TEXAS
Baptist Standard

January 9, 2014
By KEN CAMP / MANAGING EDITOR

When Calvary Baptist Church in Waco commissioned Chris Pillsbury to serve in Kenya a year and a half ago, he expected to help women market fair-trade handcrafts, work with a humanitarian medical program and maybe start a children’s choir.
.
He never anticipated collecting evidence and victims’ statements that would help convict a former American medical doctor now serving 20 years in prison for engaging in sexual conduct with 14 Kenyan minors.

“One thing I’ve learned is that God cares about the least of these,” Pillsbury said. “There is a lot of tragedy going on all over the world, but God cared enough about 14 young men in Kenya to send me over there.”

As a graduate student at Baylor University and Truett Theological Seminary, he attended a spiritual retreat where he met John Ott, a physician from the Pacific Northwest who worked in medical missions in Kenya.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The JC

By Simon Rocker, January 9, 2014

A special Beth Din set up to examine complaints against Golders Green rabbi Chaim Halpern is expected to resume its inquiries shortly.

The rabbinic court, which was convened by the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations (UOHC), the main umbrella for strictly Orthodox communities in London, suspended operations after Rabbi Halpern was arrested last February by police investigating alleged sexual abuse of women.

But in December, police said that no charges would be brought after they had “fully investigated” the matter.

The Beth Din, consisting of two rabbis from Israel and one from the United States, began its hearing a year ago.

‘The police have told us they have no objection to the inquiry’

Rabbi David Cohn, of the North Hendon Adath Yisroel Synagogue in London, who has helped the Beth Din collect evidence, said this week that the rabbis are “expected back soon. I am working hard to make sure it happens.”

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MINNESOTA
Mille Lacs County Times

By Jeff Hage
January 9, 2014

Two Catholic priests with ties to a church in Foreston were among a list of 33 priests in the St. Cloud diocese accused of sexual abuse.

The list became public on Friday, Jan. 3, days after Robert Ethen, of Sartell, filed suit seeking the release of the names. Ethen alleges that he was abused by a Catholic priest while attending St. Anthony Catholic School in St. Cloud.

The priests with connections to St. Louis Bertrand Catholic Church in Foreston are Peter Snyers and Francis Zilkowski. Both priests are deceased.

Snyers served at St. Louis from June 1965 until July 1968, according to his obituary at danielfuneralhome.com. Prior to coming to Foreston, he served as pastor at St. Kathryn’s Church, Ogilvie, from June 1958 to June 1965. He died on Jan. 19, 2012. He served at five other parishes in the St. Cloud Diocese before retiring in July 2001.

Snyers was also chaplain for the Boy Scouts of America, his obituary states.

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NEW YORK
The Village Voice

By Albert Samaha Thu., Jan. 9 2014

Updated at 1:40 p.m. with comments from the school’s founder Joseph Alexander.
A private school in the Bronx failed to take action after learning that a teacher had sexually abused at least one fourth-grader, according to a civil complaint filed on Monday in State Supreme court in the Bronx.

During the 2002-2003 school year, the complaint states, officials at New Covenant Christian School “had reason to know” that Edward Mills, a math teacher had inappropriately touched Shannon Young, an eight-year-old girl at the time. Young is suing the school and several employees, alleging that they “failed to prevent and/or stop the same from occurring, recurring and continuing.”

The complaint claims that Mills, who had worked at the school since 1999, sexually abused Young from September 2002 through June 2003. According to Young’s attorney Michele Betti, Mills often pulled Young out of her homeroom class, specifically requesting her help with something. Betti says that Mills also sometimes drove Young and other girls home from school.

Mills then tried “kiss them or get more aggressive,” says Betti.

Five sets of parents had made abuse allegations against Mills to Principal Gail Matthews, Betti claims. When the parents went to Matthews mid-way through the school year, however, they deemed that she was not taking the accusations seriously, Betti says. When the parents took their complaints to the school’s founder, Joseph Alexander, Betti alleges that he pushed them to stay silent on the matter.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Dear Chicago priest:

By now, you’ve seen a letter that Cardinal George wants you to give your flock this weekend. Please ask yourself this question: “Does that letter help protect the vulnerable?”

It does not.

And ask yourself: “Does that letter help heal the wounded, expose wrongdoers or deter wrongdoing?”

Again, it does not.

The letter burnishes your boss’ image. It misleads people. It causes complacency. Because it is self-serving and deceptive, it rubs salt into the already-deep and often still-fresh wounds of suffering victims and betrayed Catholics.

But it doesn’t make one child safer. It doesn’t expose one person who committed or concealed child sex crimes. It is about public relations, not public safety. It’s about spin, not about truth.

So we urge you to ignore the letter. We humbly believe that’s the right thing to do.

That takes courage, because in a feudal monarchy like the church, bucking the boss could cause you difficulty. But for the sake of actual prevention and true healing, we ask you to find this courage.

And we ask you instead to take a simple step this weekend that WILL help protect children. We ask that you read aloud from the pulpit and print in your bulletin the names of proven, admitted, credibly accused current and former Chicago child molesting clerics.

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CALIFORNIA
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on January 9, 2014

If you read nothing else this week, check out OC Weekly‘s Father John Lenihan and Me, Gustavo Arellano’s introspective piece on the recent release of serial molester Fr. John Lenihan’s secret personnel file.

Gustavo, who is usually not the poster child for humility, sums up the past few years of the news coverage of the child sex abuse scandal in the Diocese of Orange perfectly:

Because, as I look back at our decade of coverage, I see it’s one giant failure. Although Orange County may have a new bishop in Vann, he has yet to exile any of the men who let Lenihan roam all those years. Lenihan, meanwhile, never served any prison time for his crimes and is now happily married, living in South County and still beloved by his former parishioners. The Diocese of Orange grows, more money rushes in—and sex-abuse survivors are told the past is the past and get out of the way of progress.

The reason that this passage affects me so deeply is that the failure is mine, too. After more than 10 years fighting in my own backyard, I, somehow, began to believe what they—church flaks, faithful Catholics and other apologists—were telling me:

“Bishop Vann is new,” they said. “He’s had no role in the scandal here in Orange. Do not judge him until you have reason.”

“Mater Dei is different, Joelle. I send my children there. Those are old battles that you (mostly) won.”
Then it happened: I got tired. The news got less and less attention … until it got no attention at all. Not even from me.

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CROATIA
Naharnet

A Croatian priest dubbed the “playboy minister” for his luxurious lifestyle went on trial on Thursday charged with embezzling some 1.3 million euros ($1.7 million) through the illegal sale of church property.

Franciscan priest Sime Nimac was charged before a local court in the coastal town of Split together with a former bank employee believed to be his lover who allegedly helped him with the scheme, a court official said.

Nimac is accused of selling a plot of land in 2012 without church authorities’ approval.

He then allegedly withdrew the money paid for the property from the parish bank account and transferred it to his own, according to the indictment.

Both Nimac and his alleged accomplice, Jasna Bilonic, pleaded not guilty at the start of the trial.

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ROME
Gazzette del Sud

(By Christopher Livesay) Rome, January 9 – A scandal-rocked Catholic movement close to Pope John Paul II whose founder was a child sex abuser began reform meetings at the Vatican on Thursday with Pope Francis said to be paying close attention in his ongoing bid to rebuild dysfunctional elements of the Church. The meetings, known as an Extraordinary General Chapter, are the first since the Legionaries of Christ were put under Vatican oversight in 2010 after its founder, Mexican priest Marcial Maciel, was removed from leadership for inflicting decades of sexual abuse on boys and fathering several children, two of whom he also abused. The scandal tainted the pontificate of John Paul, a friend of the charismatic founder who publicly endorsed the Legionaries, sparking accusations of ignoring public reports as early as the 1990s of abuse that began in the 1980s. Maciel was stripped of his leadership role and ordered to a life of prayer and penitence by John Paul’s successor Benedict XVI in 2006 and died two years later in disgrace. Church probes have since confirmed nine other priests sexually abused children and at least 10 more are still under investigation. Some Vatican watchers have suggested John Paul’s canonisation, scheduled for the spring this year, may have been held even earlier had he aggressively addressed the Maciel affair during his papacy.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic Register

Written by Francis X. Rocca, Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY – After a year that included the historic resignation of Pope Benedict XVI and a series of celebrated innovations by Pope Francis, it is hard to imagine 2014 at the Vatican could be nearly as eventful. Of course, the biggest stories are likely to be those that come by surprise, but in the meantime, here are developments bound to loom large in Vatican news over the coming year:

o New cardinals: Pope Francis is scheduled to create new cardinals Feb. 22. By that time, no more than 106 members of the College of Cardinals will be under the age of 80 and thus eligible to vote in a conclave to elect a new pope. Under rules established by Pope Paul VI, the college should not have more than 120 such members, though subsequent popes have occasionally exceeded that number. So Pope Francis can be expected to name at least 14 new cardinal electors.

The election of the first Latin American Pope has raised expectations of greater geographical diversity among cardinal electors, so the new slate might prove relatively heavy on names from statistically underrepresented regions, especially Latin America and Africa.

o Vatican reform: The eight- member Council of Cardinals that Pope Francis formed to advise him on governance of the universal Church and reform of the Vatican bureaucracy has already joined him for two rounds of meetings at the Vatican and will do so again in February. The body is working on the first major overhaul of the Roman Curia, the Church’s central administration at the Vatican, since 1988.

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UNITED STATES
Religion News Service

Boz Tchividjian | Jan 9, 2014

As much of the nation was recently celebrating Christmas, a Memphis pastor was arrested for sexually abusing a 16-year-old family member. What makes this heartbreaking story even more repugnant is that church and family members had been informed about the abuse two years earlier, but failed to report the crime to the police. Instead, they decided that the best response was to simply pray for the offender and hope for the best. Tragically, this response to child sexual abuse by those within the church is not uncommon. Equally as tragic is that such responses fuel perpetrators to continue destroying the bodies and souls of untold numbers of children.

The statistics of child sexual abuse are startling to say the least. In her book, Predators, Pedophiles, Rapists, and other Sex Offenders, clinical psychologist Anna Salter outlines the results of numerous studies that clearly demonstrate the prevalence of this offense and the dangers of those who offend. Here are just a couple she mentions:

Abel Harlow Child Molestation Prevention Study:

This study found that pedophilia molesters average 12 child victims and 71 acts of molestation. An earlier study by Dr. Abel found that out of 561 sexual offenders there were over 291,000 incidents totaling over 195,000 total victims. These are enough victims to fill 2 ½ Superdomes! This same study found that only 3% of these sexual offenders have a chance of getting caught.

Russell Study:
This study revealed that up to 38% of women were molested before turning 18 years old. This same study found that up to 16% of boys are molested before they turn 18 years old. Dr. Russell also discovered that only 5% of child sexual abuse had been reported to law enforcement.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

POSTED BY DAVID CLOHESSY ON JANUARY 09, 2014

First, we should all thank Billy Doe, his family, the police and the prosecutors whose courage made Lynn’s conviction possible. And we should thank prosecutors who plan to appeal this ruling. We of course hope the Pennsylvania Supreme Court will overturn it. And we call on Philly Catholic officials to keep Lynn permanently off the job or at least until this case is finally resolved.

Literally thousands of U.S. Catholic officials have done precisely what Msgr. Lynn did and were never even charged or exposed, much less convicted. And we believe that hundreds or thousands of chancery officials across the U.S. are doing – right now – exactly what Msgr. Lynn did.

Survivors live every day knowing of these horrific injustices. So this one court ruling will not deter us from fighting to protect kids and expose criminals by this one ruling. It’s a setback, no doubt, one of thousands. But the long-term trajectory of this crisis is encouraging.

We remind ourselves that 15 years ago, Msgr. Lynn would never have been arrested, charged or convicted. . (In the last few days, I’ve reminded at least half a dozen survivors that Martin Luther King reminds us that “the moral arc of the universe is long but it bends towards justice” and that every single one of us who saw, suspected or suffered clergy sex crimes or cover ups must help that arc bend by sharing every single bit of knowledge or suspicion we have with law enforcement.)

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KENTUCKY
Fox News

Associated Press
LOUISVILLE, KY. – Guy Padraic Hamilton-Smith graduated in the top third of his law school class at the University of Kentucky, but the state Supreme Court blocked him from taking the bar exam because he is a registered sex offender.

In the first case of its kind in Kentucky, the court rejected Hamilton-Smith’s bid and a move by the state Office of Bar Admissions to create and endorse a blanket rule that would have kept all registered sex offenders from gaining access to the bar.

“Rather, we believe the better course would be to allow any applicant for bar admission who is on the sex offender registry the opportunity to make his or her case on an individualized basis,” Chief Justice John D. Minton wrote in the Dec. 19 opinion on Hamilton-Smith’s case and the proposed rule.

Hamilton-Smith, who was convicted of a charge related to child pornography in 2007, has until Jan. 13 to ask the court to reconsider its decision. In an email, Hamilton-Smith referred Associated Press questions to his attorney, who said the reconsideration request will be filed.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

SNAP: “Ignore Cardinal George’s letter
Instead, victims want predators’ names read aloud
And they blast church officials for keeping McCormack records sealed
“It’s self-serving for George to hide files that will show the real truth,”
SNAP says
And group charges that a third of Chicago’s child molesting clerics are
still not revealed

WHAT
Holding signs and childhood photos at a sidewalk news conference, clergy sex abuse victims and supporters will urge Chicago area priests to

–NOT read or distribute at masses this weekend a letter about clergy sex abuse written by Cardinal Francis George, and
–read or distribute instead, for the sake of public safety, the names of all proven, admitted and credibly accused Chicago child molesting clerics.

They will also criticize George for

–keeping records about the Fr. Daniel McCormack case hidden,
–posting fewer than one third of the names of Chicago’s child molesting clerics on his website.

WHEN
TODAY, Thursday, Jan. 9 at 1:30 p.m.

WHERE
Outside on the sidewalk in front of Holy Name Cathedral, 735 N State St (corner of State and Superior) in Chicago

WHO
Two-five members and supporters of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, (SNAPnetwork.org) the nation’s largest support network for men and women abused in religious and institutional settings

WHY
Yesterday, the Chicago archdiocese announced that a letter from Cardinal Francis George will be handed out at masses this weekend. The move is being taken because next week George is being forced to turn over records about 30 Chicago predator priests to victims’ attorneys. Soon thereafter, those records will be made public.

According to WLS TV, it is “a PR war of sorts,” with George “trying to get his story out before another round of unflattering information emerges about the handling of priest sex abuse allegations.”

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MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, Jan. 9, 2014

For more information: David Clohessy of St. Louis, SNAP Director (314) 566-9790 cell, SNAPclohessy@aol.com

Victim asks second court to sanction archbishop
His emergency writ appeal is “frivolous,” she says

In a new 51 page court filing, a 20 year old St. Louis woman who says she was repeatedly molested by an already-convicted Catholic priest asks that St. Louis’ Catholic archbishop be punished for an allegedly “frivolous” recent motion he submitted to a Missouri appeals court.

Last month, Archbishop Robert Carlson was sanctioned by St. Louis Judge Robert Dierker, in the same case, for refusing – for more than six months – to turn over names of accused child molesting clerics to the young woman’s attorneys.

Carlson’s legal conduct, Dierker wrote, “borders on if not amounts to contempt.”

Now, however, the alleged victim in that case charges that in a “writ” filed days ago with an appeals court, Carlson is guilty of “misrepresentations” and “inaccuracies” and should be sanctioned again.

“After seven months of briefing, three motions to reconsider, four oral arguments and multiple instances of failure to comply by the (archdiocese),” Carlson still hasn’t turned over a single predator’s name to the woman’s lawyers.

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CALIFORNIA
Orange County Weekly

Recently released personnel files on one of OC’s most notorious pedo-priests remind our Mexican-in-Chief why we’ve covered the Orange diocese sex-abuse scandal non-stop for a decade—and always

By Gustavo Arellano Thursday, Jan 9 2014

The release of the personnel file of John Lenihan, a pedophile priest who molested teenage girls at St. Norbert Catholic Church in Orange in the 1970s, happened this past November with a resounding thud. Few people seemed to care that its 268 pages further confirmed what the vast majority of Orange County doesn’t want to acknowledge: that the Diocese of Orange is a pedophile-protection racket that’s the envy of NAMBLA. No one raised a fuss that those documents showed that diocesan leaders knew Lenihan molested girls, and yet they promoted him in 1988 to the role of consultor (adviser to a bishop) in the middle of an “investigation”—I use quotation marks because this was the same case they had confirmed a decade earlier. And that letter buried in the files, the one written by attorney Peter Callahan in 1991 that has him blasting a woman who had bravely stepped forward to tell the world of her sexual abuse at the hands of Lenihan and mental abuse by the diocesan hierarchy—the one in which he vilifies her for going to the press for “actions . . . more vindictive than healing”? The public didn’t spend their holidays demanding that Orange Bishop Kevin Vann boot the bum out, as Callahan is still legal counsel for the diocese.

The Lenihan file release came on the anniversary of two important celebrations for me: the 10th year since the Weekly started covering the Diocese of Orange sex-abuse scandal, and the 25th anniversary of my First Communion at St. Boniface Church in Anaheim. The priest that presided over this most important of sacraments? Lenihan. And it’s this personal connection to the monster that has fueled my fusillades over the years against the snake-tongued guardians of my faith—and has taught me not only that few people care to listen (as evidenced by the non-news of the Lenihan file), but also that that’s the reason to report.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Archdiocese of Chicago

By Cardinal Francis George, O.M.I.

This January, as was announced a month ago in a press conference by a plaintiff’s lawyer, documents relating to the sexual misconduct of thirty priests of the Archdiocese will be released as part of settlement agreements over the past years. All these incidents were reported over the years to the civil authorities and claims have been mediated civilly. Almost all of the incidents happened decades ago, perpetrated by priests whom neither I nor many younger clergy have ever met or talked to, because the priests were either dead or out of ministry before I came to Chicago as Archbishop.

Nevertheless, the publication puts the actions of these men and the Archdiocese itself in the spotlight. Painful though publicly reviewing the past can be, it is part of the accountability and transparency to which the Archdiocese is committed. For more than twenty years, the Archdiocese has reported all allegations of sexual abuse to the civil authorities and to DCFS. Records of priests have been shared with civil authorities when asked for. Accountability to the civil authorities constitutionally responsible for the protection of children is part of the life of the Church here. The names of priests known to have abused a minor are published on the Archdiocesan website, and the Archdiocese will offer more information in the future. But publishing for all to read the actual records of these crimes raises transparency to a new level. It will be helpful, we pray, for some, but painful for many.

Pope Francis has spoken several times in recent months about “clericalism” as a vice. Clericalism appears when a person or group decides it is not accountable for its actions. Clericalism in the clergy is evident when a priest decides he is not accountable to his bishop or to the faithful for what he teaches or how he celebrates the Church’s liturgy or pastors the Church’s people or when a bishop, in turn, is not accountable to his Councils and his clergy for his own ministry. Clericalism is spiritually deadly when a priest decides he is not accountable even to God and breaks his promise of chaste celibacy as well as the commandments of the Lord himself. The general discipline of the clergy weakened during the years when sex abuse was most prevalent, during the 1970’s and 1980’s. Chicago followed the now well-known national trends. In the late eighties, however, the Archdiocese began to put its house in some order and started, sometimes hesitantly, to follow the path of accountability and transparency.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Thomas Reese | Jan. 9, 2014

ANALYSIS

Whenever a bishop dies or approaches 75, the age of retirement, I get phone calls from local journalists asking who I think will be his successor. I immediately tell them, “I don’t play Jimmy the Greek,” because the honest answer is I don’t have a clue. Those that know don’t talk; those who don’t know speculate.

The same is true for predicting who will be made cardinals, except here, guessing is a little bit easier because there are certain positions in the Vatican that are usually held by cardinals and there are certain archdioceses that are usually headed by cardinals.

Who might be created a cardinal at the next consistory to be held Feb. 22?

To answer that question, I consulted Salvador Miranda, the leading U.S. expert on cardinals and creator of a digital gold mine on the College of Cardinals. He is not foolish enough to make predictions, but he does have a list of those who have a better chance of being appointed based on historical experience — they lead Vatican offices or archdioceses that have been headed by cardinals in the past.

The problem is that the list contains 23 names where there are only 14 vacancies in the College of Cardinals, which by law is limited to 120 cardinals under the age of 80. Two more cardinals could easily be created since two more cardinals turn 80 in March. Pope Francis could also follow the example of Blessed John Paul II, who raised the size of the College of Cardinals to 135 in 2001. Once a cardinal turns 80, he can no longer vote for a new pope.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio) The Extraordinary General Chapter of the Legionaries of Christ begins its working sessions on Thursday, under the guidance of the Pontifical Delegate to the Legion, Cardinal Velasio De Paolis. The Chapter has been called with a view to helping the Legion reform and renew itself in the wake of revelations regarding the double-life led by the congregation’s deceased founder, Fr. Marcial Maciel. Following a Vatican investigation into Fr Maciel’s life and conduct as founder and leader of the congregation, Pope Benedict XVI in 2006 stripped the priest of his leadership role and ordered him to a life of prayer and penitence.

Cardinal Paolis granted an interview to the Vatican Radio’s Director-General, Fr. Federico Lombardi, SJ. The purpose of the interview was to present the progress made during the three and a half years of Card. De Paolis’ term as Delegate, in order more fully to understand what went into preparations for the Chapter, what are its goals and what are the expectations for it.

Below, please find a translation of the full text of the interview, preceded by Fr Lombardi, SJ’s synopsis.

******************

The extraordinary Chapter of the Legionaries of Christ: a journey of profound renewal

Interview of Fr. F. Lombardi with the Papal Delegate, Cardinal Velasio de Paolis, on the preparation outlook for the Chapter

On the occasion of the opening of the Extraordinary Chapter of the Legionaries of Christ, Cardinal De Paolis, Pontifical Delegate, agreed to grant an in-depth interview to Fr. F. Lombardi for Vatican Radio. The purpose of the interview was to present the progress made during the three and a half years of the mandate of the Delegate and his team of collaborators, in order to understand fully what has been done to prepare for the Chapter, and what are its goals and expectations.

First of all Card. De Paolis says that his mandate had been preceded by the Apostolic Visitation, which had dealt with the story of the founder and ended with a severe judgment on his work (cf. Bulletin of the Holy See Press Office, 1-5-2010). The task of the Delegate, appointed by Pope Benedict XVI (cf. Bulletin 9.7.2010), was therefore rather to guide the renewal of the Legion of Christ, relying on genuine religious commitment of the majority of its members.

The renewal required mainly the revision of the Constitutions and changing the superiors, but to be deep and lasting it had to involve as many members of the Legion as possible in the various provinces and communities.

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ROME
Gazzetta del Sud

Rome, January 9 – A scandal-rocked Catholic movement close to Pope John Paul II whose founder was a child sex abuser began reform meetings at the Vatican on Thursday. The meetings, known as an Extraordinary General Chapter, are the first since the Legionaries of Christ were put under Vatican oversight in 2010 after its founder, Mexican priest Marcial Maciel, was removed from leadership for inflicting decades of sexual abuse on boys and fathering several children, two of whom he also abused. The scandal tainted the pontificate of John Paul, a friend of the charismatic founder who publicly endorsed the Legionaries, sparking accusations of ignoring public reports as early as the 1990s of abuse that began in the 1980s. Maciel was stripped of his leadership role and ordered to a life of prayer and penitence by John Paul’s successor Benedict XVI in 2006 and died two years later in disgrace. Church probes have since confirmed nine other priests sexually abused children and at least 10 more are still under investigation. Some Vatican watchers have suggested John Paul’s canonisation, scheduled for the spring this year, may have been held up by his friendship with Maciel. The meetings, which will go on for six weeks, are being watched as an important chapter in the reform drive of Pope Francis, who has called for a major reworking of the group’s internal structure, said to be very secretive in order to prevent whistle-blowing, according to internal probes.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 9 January 2014 (VIS) – Cardinal Velasio De Paolis, C.S., Pontifical Delegate for the Congregation of the Legionaries of Christ, yesterday celebrated the Mass for the opening of the Extraordinary General Chapter of the Legionaries of Christ. The mass, celebrated in the Centre for Higher Studies of the Legion of Christ, was preceded by a Novena to the Holy Spirit in which all the Legionaries participated, and a week-long retreat for the Chapter fathers.

Following a path of renewal, which has lasted three and a half years and had a precise mandate from the Holy Father Benedict XVI, the Chapter will appoint the new government of the congregation, and approve the new constitutions.

In his homily, Cardinal De Paolis stressed that the revision of the constitutions “cannot simply be considered a technical effort, but should be accompanied by a process of examination of life, of review and of spiritual renewal for the institute”. Therefore, it cannot be regarded simply as a “code of laws”, that unites them “only in discipline”, but rather as “an expression of a common vocation, a common ideal, a common mission, a common path to healing”.

Referring to the appointment of the new government of the institution, the Cardinal repeated that its primary duty “is to preserve and promote the Institute’s charism; the charism is only guaranteed when authority is exercised as service, in the spirit of the Gospel and in fidelity to the norms of the Church. It is a point which should always be given special attention, especially for you, who have a history of suffering in this regard. It is important not to forget that. And this has been a topic about which the new constitutional text has been careful and vigilant”.

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TEXAS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

POSTED BY BARBARA DORRIS ON JANUARY 08, 2014

Victims want church’s help
Two accused predators worked there
One’s in prison; the other’s at a different church
Self help group says “If you were hurt, come forward”
It also urges Houston congregation to “do outreach to others”

WHAT
Holding signs and childhood photos at a sidewalk news conference, clergy sex abuse victims will

–release a police report about an alleged predatory minister at a huge Houston church,
–urge victims of his – or of another predatory minister at the same church – to step forward, and
–beg anyone who many have seen or suspected crimes – by either man – to call police.

They will also prod current and former church officials to use pulpit announcements and website pleas to encourage anyone with knowledge of or suspicions about either minister to speak up.

WHEN
Thursday, Jan. 9 at 12:30 p.m.

WHERE
Outside a mega-church, Second Baptist, 6400 Woodway (corner of Voss) in Houston

WHO
Three members of a support group called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, including a Missouri woman who is the organization’s assistant Midwest director

WHY
SNAP is worried about more possible victims two former Second Baptist ministers, both accused of crimes.

The first is Chad Foster, a young minister who was sentenced in April to five years in prison after he pleaded guilty to raping a 16-year-old girl in 2011 and soliciting another teen online

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ROM
kathweb

Die Beratungen über neue Statuten haben in Rom begonnen und sollen rund 20 Tage dauern – Vertreter der alten Garde mussten seit 2010 ihre Posten räumen
08.01.2014

Rom, 08.01.2014 (KAP) Die Legionäre Christi beraten seit Mittwoch in Rom über neue Statuten für ihre Ordensgemeinschaft. Das Generalkapitel soll die nach dem Missbrauchsskandal um den Ordensgründer Marcial Maciel Degollado (1920-2008) vom Vatikan angeordnete Reform abschließen.

Der aus Mexiko stammende Priester und Gründer der Legiönäre Christi hatte jahrelang Minderjährige in Ordenseinrichtungen sexuell missbraucht und mit zwei Frauen drei Kinder gezeugt. Der Vatikan sprach von einem “gewissenlosen Leben ohne echte religiöse Gesinnung” und forderte nach einer Untersuchung im Mai 2010 eine umfassende Neuausrichtung des Ordens. Seither stehen die Legionäre unter Aufsicht des italienischen Kurienkardinals Velasio de Paolis.

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DEUTCHLAND
Volksfreund

Es ist ein Novum im Missbrauchsskandal: Ein Priester, der beschuldigt wird, 1985 einen damals 16-Jährigen sexuell missbraucht zu haben, geht nach der Messe in die Offensive – er verteilt einen Brief an die Gottesdienstbesucher. Darin wirft er den Verantwortlichen des Bistums Trier Hinhaltetaktik vor. Auch das mutmaßliche Opfer und Opferinitiativen kritisieren die Aufarbeitung.

Trier. Damit hatten die Gottesdienstbesucher nicht gerechnet: Am dritten Adventssonntag verteilte der Priester nach einer Messe im Dekanat Koblenz “Flugblätter” an die Gläubigen. Es waren die Kopien eines Schreibens, das der Geistliche ursprünglich wohl nur an Generalvikar Georg Bätzing gerichtet hatte. In dem Brief, der unserer Zeitung vorliegt, schreibt der Priester, dass er des sexuellen Vorwurfs beschuldigt wird. Weiter heißt es, dass es im Januar 2013 ein “längeres Gespräch” mit dem Offizial gegeben habe und er sich zwei forensischen Gutachten unterzogen habe. “Der Vorwurf des Missbrauchs wiegt schwer. Aus meiner Sicht habe ich mir gegenüber Herrn … nichts zuschulden kommen lassen. Selbst wenn dies zuträfe, glaube ich als unmittelbar Betroffener und Mitglied des Presbyteriums eine zügige Aufklärung und einen baldigen Bescheid meines Bischofs erwarten zu dürfen”, heißt es in dem Schriftstück.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Volksfreund

Missbrauchsopfer kritisieren Trierer Bischof wegen mangelndem Aufklärungswillen

Rund vier Jahre nach Bekanntwerden des Missbrauchsskandals in der katholischen Kirche fällt die Bilanz bei den Opferverbänden nüchtern aus: Sie werfen dem Trierer Bischof Stephan Ackermann sogar Vertuschung vor.

Mit 18.000 Euro war Claudia Adams (41) entschädigt worden, weil ein Priester sie im Kindergartenalter sexuell missbraucht hatte – die höchste Entschädigung bei insgesamt 280.000 Euro, die Opfer im Bistum Trier erhalten haben sollen. Bischof Ackermann, Missbrauchsbeauftragter der katholischen Kirche in Deutschland, hält den Skandal für aufgearbeitet.

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VATICAN CITY
DFW Catholic

Vatican City, Jan 9, 2014 / 05:46 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Earlier this morning the Legionaries of Christ began their first Extraordinary General Chapter meeting to draft and approve their new constitutions, after which they will elect their new leadership.

Opening with a Jan. 8 Mass celebrated by Cardinal Velasio De Paolis, the Chapter, which will be held behind closed doors throughout its duration, began its official meetings the morning of Jan. 9, and is slated to last roughly 20 days.

The General Chapter was mandated by Benedict XVI in wake of the revelation of the double-life led by the congregation’s founder, Fr. Marcial Maciel, who is since deceased.

An official investigation into the life and conduct of Fr. Maciel was launched by the Vatican, and in 2006 Benedict XVI stripped him of his duties and role of leadership within the congregation, ordering him to a life of prayer and penance.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Big Trial

By Ralph Cipriano
for Bigtrial.net

She’s a judge who’s developed “a true ability to keep an open mind.”

She strives to “advance the fair administration of justice.” One of her “special strengths” is “the ability to look at both sides” of an argument, balance competing interests, and “arrive at a well-reasoned and just decision.”

She can think “outside the box.” She’s skilled at research, reading and writing. That’s why “it’s not infrequently” that the appellate courts “are praising” her opinions.

Who is this Wonder Woman in judicial robes? Is it Sandra Day O’Connor? Judge Judy Sheindlin? Nope, it’s Philadelphia Common Pleas Judge M. Teresa Sarmina.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
TheMediaReport

Philly D.A. Williams Loses It After Appeals Court Overturns His Wrongful Conviction of Msgr. Lynn; Kudos to Philly Journalist Who Lambastes Williams’ ‘Show Trial’ For a ‘Priestly Scalp’

After a Pennsylvania appeals court unanimously overturned the landmark conviction of Msgr. William J. Lynn – a conviction which the mainstream media naturally loudly trumpeted – Philadelphia D.A. Seth Williams publicly attacked Msgr. Lynn, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, and even the appellate court judges to whom he is ethically bound to show due respect.

After Williams intemperately declared that the court’s ruling was an “injustice,” writer Ralph Cipriano reports that Lynn’s lawyer, Thomas A. Bergstrom, believes that Williams’ conduct was “unbecoming of his office and position as the city’s top law enforcement officer.”

Rather than dutifully discharging his role as simply a publicly elected law enforcement officer, Bergstrom adds, “All of a sudden he [Williams] is now judge, jury and executioner, and he’s still railing about this man (Msgr. Lynn) being guilty, and he’s innocent.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
Get Reading

A 49-year-old Spencers Wood vicar was charged on Friday with a number of sexual offences against teenagers.

Reverend Peter Jarvis, of Clares Green Road, was charged with three counts of being an adult abusing a position of trust by inciting sexual activity with a boy aged 13 to 17 and one of abusing a position of trust by inciting sexual activity with a girl aged 13 to 17.

The vicar of St Michael’s Church in Spencers Wood was also charged with causing or inciting a girl aged 13 to 15 to engage in sexual activity and a similar charge involving a boy aged 13 to 15 years.

He faces four further counts of causing or inciting a girl aged 13 to 15 to engage in sexual activity and one of engaging in sexual activity with a boy aged 13 to 15.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Newbury Today

Tanya Haji Thatcham Reporter
Email: tanya.haji@newburynews.co.uk
Contact: 01635 886641

A FORMER Thatcham team vicar has been charged with a number of sexual offences against children.

The Rev Peter Jarvis, (pictured) aged 49, was charged with the offences on Friday (January 3).

Yesterday (Tues), Thames Valley Police said: “Peter Jarvis, of Clares Green Road, Spencers Wood, was charged with three counts of adult abuse of position of trust – inciting sexual activity with a boy aged 13 to 17; one count of adult abuse of position of trust – inciting sexual activity with a girl aged 13 to 17; causing or inciting a girl 13 to 15 to engage in sexual activity; one count of offender 18 or over causing or inciting a boy 13 to 15 to engage in sexual activity; four counts of offender 18 or over causing or inciting a girl 13 to 15 to engage in sexual activity; one count of offender 18 or over engaging in sexual activity with a boy 13 to 15.

“The charges relate to three victims between 2009 and 2011.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

A vicar has been charged with sexually abusing three teenagers over three years.

The Reverend Peter Jarvis, 49, faces 11 counts relating to two boys and a girl aged from 13 to 17, allegedly carried out between 2009 and 2011.

The charges include abusing a position of trust, inciting sexual activity and engaging in sexual activity with a boy.

Mr Jarvis has been suspended from his duties at St Michael’s Church in Spencers Wood, Reading.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune

By Manya Brachear Pashman and Stacy St. Clair
Tribune reporters
11:01 p.m. CST, January 8, 2014

In the 11 years since Kathy Laarveld learned her son had been molested by their parish priest, she has wanted the Catholic Church to come clean and disclose how it ultimately handled the allegations against its clergy.

She didn’t waver in her position seven years ago, when the Chicago Archdiocese reached a monetary settlement with her son. She also didn’t relent when it substantiated allegations that the priest molested him in the early 1980s, when he was an 8-year-old having his Communion party.

“There are so many people who think the church did nothing wrong or that they did the best they could at the time,” she said. “I don’t believe that. I want people to see exactly what happened and how these priests were protected.”

Laarveld’s wish soon will be granted. In a letter to parishioners of the Chicago Archdiocese, Cardinal Francis George announced this week that documents on substantiated abuse claims linked to at least 30 current and former archdiocese priests will soon be made public. He apologized to the victims for the abuse they suffered, as well as to “rank-and-file Catholics who have been shamed” by the scandal.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic and Enjoying It!

January 8, 2014 By Mark Shea

He writes:
Just a short note to say that I read your blog about destroy the Legionaries and I thought I would drop you a quick email to ask you to have a cup of coffee with one of them so you can formulate an opinion about these fine men after you meet with one of them. I have been around them since 1996 and I shared my opinions and dissatisfaction with their some of their methods and the ways that they did things. I would also like to point out the many good things that they did and continue to do. Through them I learned to be a better father and husband and they helped me be a better person.

They are not perfect and have faults but they are trying to improve and reform. Please encourage them and be kind to them. I respect your passion and your direct way of speaking because I am cut from the same cloth. I am hurt by your words destroy the Legion, they do not deserve this. If you got to know them, you would really like them. I have had to refrain from writing emails when I am angry or have a disagreement with someone because I call a spade a spade but I realized that my words hurt people and I cannot do this anymore so the only emails I write are kind emails. That way I stay out of trouble. Maybe you can try the same thing. It helped me, maybe it can help you.

I’m sure there are many nice and good Legionaries. Most of them were the victims of a con artist and obviously sought and seek to serve God. But the robot he built is, I think, unsalvageable and needs to be destroyed because it will continue to use its members as human shields for grave evil since that’s what Maciel built the robot to do. The members need to be freed from this evil organization and go find something to do in some other apostolate that is ordered toward God and not toward defending its evil founder. Organizations, like computers, don’t do what we want them to do. They do what they are designed to do. The Legionaries were carefully and deliberately designed by an evil monster to facilitate and cover up his monstrous crimes and that organization continues to do what he built it to do, despite the best intentions of the rank and file good folk who joined it for entirely pious reasons and who continue to this day to try to serve Christ with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength. The organization is, in fact, designed to act as a drag on that and diverty all that energy toward defending the ghost of its evil founder.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio) The Extraordinary General Chapter of the Legionaries of Christ begins its working sessions on Thursday, under the guidance of the Apostolic Delegate to the Legion, Cardinal Velasio De Paolis. Among the challenges facing the Legion are those of adopting new constitutions and electing new leadership in the wake of revelations regarding the double-life led by the congregation’s deceased founder, Fr. Marcial Maciel. Following a Vatican investigation into Fr Maciel’s life and conduct as founder and leader of the congregation, Pope Benedict XVI in 2006 stripped the priest of his leadership role and ordered him to a life of prayer and penitence.

Cardinal De Paolis celebrated Mass on Wednesday evening in Rome, to open the Chapter officially, during which he delivered a homily addressing the principal tasks of the six-week convocation of 61 priests from 11 different nations, specifically the needed constitutional reform and election of leadership. “The constitutions that you give yourselves,” said Cardinal De Paolis, “will therefore not be simply a code of laws that unites you only externally in discipline,” but, “an expression of a common vocation, a common ideal, a common mission, a common path to healing.” Cardinal De Paolis went on to call the election of new officers to govern the congregation, “a point which should always be given special attention, especially for you, who have a history of suffering in this regard,” adding, “it is important not to forget that.”

The Legionaries of Christ have as many as 950 priest-members, and an estimated one thousand seminarians at various levels of formation. With the help of their once 30 thousand-stron lay organization, Regnum Christi, the Legion operates schools and other works of social and charitable service in more than 20 countries around the world.

Below, please find the full text of the Legion’s English translation of Cardinal De Paolis’ homily, which was delivered in Italian.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio) The Extraordinary General Chapter of the Legionaries of Christ begins its working sessions on Thursday, under the guidance of the Pontifical Delegate to the Legion, Cardinal Velasio De Paolis. The Chapter has been called with a view to helping the Legion reform and renew itself in the wake of revelations regarding the double-life led by the congregation’s deceased founder, Fr. Marcial Maciel. Following a Vatican investigation into Fr Maciel’s life and conduct as founder and leader of the congregation, Pope Benedict XVI in 2006 stripped the priest of his leadership role and ordered him to a life of prayer and penitence.

Cardinal Paolis granted an interview to the Vatican Radio’s Director-General, Fr. Federico Lombardi, SJ. The purpose of the interview was to present the progress made during the three and a half years of Card. De Paolis’ term as Delegate, in order more fully to understand what went into preparations for the Chapter, what are its goals and what are the expectations for it.

Following an examination of conscience apt to allow for unclouded evaluation of the path the Legion has taken, especially in recent years, the six-week convocation of 61 priests from 11 different nations is to turn its attention to the needed constitutional reform and the election of new leadership.

In his broad-ranging conversation with Fr. Lombardi, SJ, Card. De Paolis recalls that his mandate followed the Apostolic Visitation that concluded with the removal of Fr. Maciel. Cardinal De Paolis says that, from the outset, he has regarded his task as Delegate as one of guidance in the work of renewing Legion of Christ, counting on the genuine religious commitment of the majority of its members.

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VATICAN CITY
The Globe and Mail (Canada)

VATICAN CITY — The Associated Press
Published Wednesday, Jan. 08 2014

The Vatican delegate running the troubled Legion of Christ has urged its priests to elect a new leadership worthy of authority, after suffering for years from shame and suspicion following revelations that its founder was a pedophile.

He says the new leaders must infuse the religious order with a new spirit to finish a process of reform that he said had only just begun.

Cardinal Velasio De Paolis presided Thursday over a Mass opening a month-long meeting of Legion delegates to elect a new leadership and finalize new constitutions that must be submitted to Pope Francis for approval.

The meeting is the culmination of a three-year Vatican experiment to try to turn the congregation around after a Holy See investigation uncovered serious problems in the cult-like movement.

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UNITED STATES
Christianity Today

Ed Stetzer

I recently spoke at Liberty University convocation. While there, I had the privilege to sit down with my friend, Boz Tchividjian.

Boz is a prosecutor by background, specifically dealing with child sexual abuse cases. He has recently been engaged in advocacy for the protection of victims—first and foremost that there might not be victims. Second, he advocates that those who are victims might be heard and that the perpetrators might ultimately be prosecuted.

Sadly, this is an ongoing challenge in the life of the church. We are certainly all aware of the scandals within the Catholic Church. But increasingly people are asking questions about the Protestant and the Evangelical world. I’ve blogged on such abuse situations on several occasions—see here, here, and here.

For this reason, I felt that an interview with Boz would be worth our time.

Over the course of the next few weeks I will post parts of my interview with Boz and link them together. I recognize that I have written frequently on the subject of child protection, and this will just add more, but I think the protection of children is worth dwelling on since this blog is read mostly by pastors and church leaders.

Let me encourage you to check out Boz’ brand new Religion News Service blog. Also, be sure to check out this article from CBN.

Boz, thanks for taking a few minutes to talk.

The issue of child sexual abuse continues to be in the news, and rightfully so. We need more attention to the issue and more awareness on how to prevent such abuse and then to respond to it if it happens. So, let’s jump in.

First, as you look at some of the challenges right now, what is wrong with the way churches are dealing with sexual abuse issues?

I think, perhaps, one of the major problems is the understanding and acknowledgement that this is an issue within the church. If you don’t acknowledge and understand it to be an issue in the church, then you won’t spend any time dealing with it.

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CHICAGO (IL)
WGN

[with video]

by Julie Unruh
Reporter

The Catholic Archdiocese will release a report detailing sexual abuse cases in the Chicago area on January 15th.

The report is 8 years in the making and details 30 offenders and over 40 survivor.

A week or so after the 15th, the public will get its first glance at it. Lawyers want time to put it in a readable format and they also want to make sure victims making sexual abuse claims are properly protected.

Today, in a letter to parishioners, Cardinal George attempted to prepare the public. He says the information will “be helpful, we pray, for some. But painful for many.”

The letter will be printed in church bulletins over the weekend. It addresses the painful scandal. It also refutes some facts for the first time. Cardinal George states his case saying in part, “Neither in Chicago nor in any previous posting as a bishop or a religious superior have I assigned to pastoral ministry or transferred for ministry a priest whom I knew to have sexually abused a child.”

His letter goes to great lengths to address the sexual crimes by Fr. Daniel McCormack. McCormack made headlines for years and was eventually prosecuted. Critics of the church suggest he was protected time and time again. To that, Cardinal George tells parishioners, “From the time he was arrested and released to the time that he was arrested a second time and eventually plead guilty, no one involved in investigating the allegation, not even the review board that struggled with their justified concerns, told me they thought he was guilty. … The response, in retrospect, was not always adequate to all the facts, but a mistake is not a cover up.”

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SOUTH CAROLINA
The Post and Courier

Dave Munday
Posted: Wednesday, January 8, 2014

A brother and two sisters whose sex-abuse lawsuit against the Catholic Diocese of Charleston was dismissed can proceed to trial after all, the S.C. Supreme Court ruled Wednesday.

The siblings allege they were abused by a priest at St. William Church in Ward between 1965 and 1971. Ward is west of Columbia near Saluda.

The diocese announced a class-action settlement setting up a fund for sex-abuse victims in 2007 and announcing a deadline to apply for compensation. The siblings, who were living near Charlotte at the time, did not hear about the settlement since it was announced in the Rock Hill Herald and not the Charlotte Observer, attorney Gregg Meyers said. He argued they should also be entitled to compensation and filed for a trial in 2009.

Circuit Judge Kristi Harrington dismissed the case. She ruled that the siblings had missed the deadline specified in the suit for filing for compensation and could not file a similar suit. She also said the statute of limitations on sex-abuse litigation had expired.

Meyers appealed to the state’s high court. The appeal also includes the mother, who is listed as another Jane Doe.

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ALABAMA
Montgomery Advertiser

FLORENCE, Ala. (AP) — A former Methodist church worker faces sex abuse charges in northwest Alabama, but questions about his conduct go back decades.

The TimesDaily reported that Oliver Brazelle, 79, of Sheffield was charged with sexual abuse and sodomy.

Brazelle is a former music and youth minister at First United Methodist Church of Sheffield, where he worked until 2012.

The paper reported that Brazelle was arrested Monday, but an investigation over allegations dating from the 1970s resulted in Brazelle being restricted from working with youth choirs by the church’s bishop a decade ago.

The criminal charges involve allegations that Brazelle sexually abused a teenage boy who was a member of his church youth group in the mid-1990s.

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ROME
CT Post

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican delegate running the troubled Legion of Christ has urged its priests to elect a new leadership worthy of authority, after suffering for years from shame and suspicion following revelations that its founder was a pedophile.

He says the new leaders must infuse the religious order with a new spirit to finish a process of reform that he said had only just begun.

Cardinal Velasio De Paolis presided Thursday over a Mass opening a month-long meeting of Legion delegates to elect a new leadership and finalize new constitutions that must be submitted to Pope Francis for approval.

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ROME
Legionaries of Christ

Cardinal De Paolis celebrates Legionaries’ General Chapter Opening Mass

The opening Mass for the extraordinary general chapter of the Legionaries of Christ was held at 6:30 this afternoon in the chapel of the Legion’s Center of Higher Studies, located in Rome. Cardinal Velasio De Paolis presided the Mass and delivered the homily, which can be found here. 60 of the chapter fathers concelebrated, along with many other Legionary priests.

The Mass comes at the end of a novena to the Holy Spirit that all Legionaries participated in and an 8 day silent retreat in which the chapter fathers sought light and guidance from God for this important step in the life of the Legion and Regnum Christi.

Tomorrow, January 9th, the formal discussions begin. The two specific tasks of the general chapter are to approve the draft of the Legion’s constitutions and to elect a new government for the Legion.

In his homily, Cardinal De Paolis addressed each of these tasks.

Regarding the approval of the constitutions, he said: “The constitutions that you give yourselves will therefore not be simply a code of laws that unites you only externally in discipline, but the text will be an expression of a common vocation, a common ideal, a common mission, a common path to healing, an impulse to strive in common striving for the fulfillment of God’s plan for the congregation and for each of you, for the glory of God and service to the Church and to the Legion. The heart of the constitutions is the charism, or spiritual patrimony, of the Institute. The Pope, although he showed us that the main purpose of the journey undertaken and the Chapter should be the review and approval of the constitutions, also stressed that in such a work, the very charism of the Institute should be examined in depth. In fact, the constitutions must contain the vocation and identity of the Institute (that is, its charism or spiritual patrimony) and the fundamental norms for its protection, advancement and progress. This has been the concern in drafting the text, and the Chapter should have the same concern when approving the new text to be submitted to the Holy Father.”

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NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News

A former Belfast priest has told a jury he “totally denied” allegations that he sexually abused a young female parishioner in the 1980s.

Peter Donnelly, from Drumaroad Hill in Castlewellan, County Down, is a former priest at St Matthew’s Catholic Church in east Belfast.

He is accused of sexually assaulting the girl in the church’s parochial house from July 1982 to August 1987.

The 71-year denies the seven charges against him.

He has been charged with six counts of indecently assaulting the girl, and a further charge of gross indecency with a child.

Giving evidence at his trial, Fr Donnelly told the jury he served at St Matthew’s in east Belfast from 1983 until 1988. The allegation of abuse was made in September 2010 and at that time, Fr Donnelly was a parish priest in south Down.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Daily Chronicle

By The Associated Press
CHICAGO — As part of a court settlement, the Archdiocese of Chicago plans to release church files on former Catholic priests accused of sexually abusing children.

Cardinal Francis George made the announcement in a letter to priests that will be published Sunday in church bulletins. In it, he acknowledges mistakes in the church’s response to the allegations, but says there was no cover-up.

Plaintiffs in abuse cases have sought the information for years. Under the terms of an ongoing settlement, the church will deliver the documents to their attorneys on Jan. 15. The information will go public a week later after information about the alleged victims is removed.

Jeff Anderson, an attorney for plaintiffs, has seen the records and says they include church documents on 30 former clergy members accused in the cases. Anderson says the files also identify current and former church officials who he says sought to protect them.

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ILLINOIS
Christian Newswire

Illinois Law Passed After Adult Survivor Chicago Motivational Speaker Tiffany Denmark Testified Before Congress

Contact: Mrs. McMillian, 312-914-6605

CHICAGO, Ill., Jan. 8, 2014 /Christian Newswire/ — Tiffany Denmark is a Chicago adult clergy child sex abuse survivor who testified before The Senate and The House of Representatives compelling the legislature to pass House Bill 1063 which eliminates the criminal statute of limitations on child sexual abuse in the State of Illinois. Victims now have the opportunity to initiate legal action at any time without regard to their current age effective January 1, 2014. The civil statute of limitations was eliminated with Senate Bill 1399 which went into effect in 2013.

She was inspired to share her story of abuse after an adult immigrant victim confided in her revealing that she bore a child with a pastor when she was only twelve years old, but due to a fear of deportation her family never reported the crime.

The sheriff of Cook County stated that adults who were child victims of sexual assault could have received justice in the case where several rape kits were recently discovered sitting untested in the Robbins, Illinois police evidence room for nearly twenty years if HB-1063 had previously been in effect, but the statute of limitations has since expired, now the criminals who were matched to the DNA crime database cannot be prosecuted.

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BOSTON (MA)
Politico

By HADAS GOLD | 1/7/14

The Boston Globe has hired one of the top English-speaking Vatican reporters and is considering launching a free-standing publication devoted to Catholicism, the paper announced Tuesday.

John Allen, a senior correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter and senior Vatican analyst for CNN, will be joining the Globe in early February, Globe editor Brian McGrory said in a statement.

“(Allen will play) several roles of prominence. He will be a correspondent first and foremost. He will be an analyst on all things Catholic. He will also help us explore the very real possibility of launching a free-standing publication devoted to Catholicism, drawing in other correspondents and leading voices from near and far,” McGrory said.

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BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe PR

(BOSTON, Jan. 7, 2014) John Allen, a senior correspondent for the highly respected National Catholic Reporter, will be joining the staff of The Boston Globe in early February.

Allen, widely hailed as the best-sourced and most knowledgeable English-speaking reporter on the Vatican, will help lead coverage of Catholicism and the Vatican as an associate editor of The Globe.

“There is a resurgence of global interest in the Catholic Church, inspired by the words and deeds of the newly-installed leader, Pope Francis,” said editor Brian McGrory. “There’s nobody in the nation better suited. John is basically the reporter that bishops and cardinals call to find out what’s going on within the confines of the Vatican. His inexhaustible energy, supported by extraordinary insights, is legendary.”

McGrory said Allen, 48, will play “several roles of prominence. He will be a correspondent first and foremost. He will be an analyst on all things Catholic. He will also help us explore the very real possibility of launching a free-standing publication devoted to Catholicism, drawing in other correspondents and leading voices from near and far.”

Allen’s coverage will supplement the work of the Globe’s award-winning religion writer, Lisa Wangsness. McGrory stressed that Allen’s role “will have no impact whatsoever on how we cover other religions. We will remain as dedicated to the mission of broad coverage of all faiths.”

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ZIMBABWE
allAfrica

The Herald

Three of RMG Independent End Time Message pastor Martin Gumbura’s wives and their alleged five accomplices yesterday appeared in court on charges of photographing themselves naked and possessing pornographic videos.

Choice Neganje (32), Amadeus Mutakwa (32), Rutendo Sekai Mandiya (28), Pamera Kandawire (27), Runyararo Musvovi (27), Veronica Mbanga (27), Tendai Kwatara (34) and Moreblessing Takawira (35) appeared before Harare magistrate Mr Douglas Vakayi Chikwekwe.

Neganje, Mutakwa and Kandawira are three of Gumbura’s 11 wives. Gumbura is facing separate rape charges and judgment in his case is expected today.

Their trial was scheduled to start yesterday, but their lawyer Ms Rekai Maposa indicated to the court that she was not ready as she thought they would be furnished with a trial date yesterday.

The matter was postponed to January 14. Prosecutor Mr Micheal Reza told the court that the eight women lived at number 6 Helena Close in Marlborough, Harare. Mr Reza alleged that on October 21, 2013 Victim Friendly Unit police officers received allegations that abuse of children and women was occurring at the house.

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ZIMBABWE
allAfrica

New Zimbabwe

A HARARE magistrate’s court has been inspecting RMG Independent End Time Message Church founder Robert Martin Gumbura Marlborough mansion as part of his ongoing trial on charges of allegedly raping six female congregants.

Gumbura denies the charges.

One of the six women allegedly raped Gumbura, 57, claimed group sex orgies were performed at the pastor’s residence and how Gumbura thwarted her efforts to escape the sexual abuse.

Speaking early last month during cross examination before Harare regional magistrate Hosea Mujaya the woman said the sex orgies often involved married women from the church, including her own husband’s first wife.

She said one would lick Gumbura’s toes, another would kiss him while he would be having sexual intercourse with the third woman at the same time.

Meanwhile, during the inspection on Wednesday, Gumbura’s wives could be seen loitering around the compound while some of his children peeped from the windows of one of the cottages.

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CALIFORNIA
Santa Barbara Independent

Wednesday, January 8, 2014
by PAUL FERICANO

I recently met with a group of former schoolmates — all survivors of clergy abuse — who attended St. Anthony’s Seminary in Santa Barbara in the ‘60s and ‘70s. This is where the crisis first exploded onto the national stage in 1992. At this gathering several issues were discussed regarding the Franciscans, the religious order of men who were our teachers. What puzzled, angered, and disappointed many was the shortage of moral courage witnessed over the years among the friars in general and, in particular, with the Franciscans at Mission Santa Barbara. Promises of cooperation were broken, allowing grief to fester like an unattended wound. Suffering in the community continues to this day, but the pastoral care that once defined Franciscan charity does not. This is what mystifies most survivors and former students of St. Anthony’s Seminary.

The Franciscans took a leap forward in 1993. Urged by the laity after allegations at St. Anthony’s came to light the year before, they created the church’s first Independent Review Boards (IRB) to deal openly with clergy sexual abuse. At the time, these charges represented the largest case of reported institutional abuse in the country — 39 students molested by 12 friars over a span of 25 years. The friars took responsibility, and the IRB became a model for other religious orders enmeshed in similar cases.

In 2006 the Franciscans got it right again. They crafted the Office of Pastoral Outreach (OPO). This was a new model built on the ashes of the IRB to help survivors continue to receive counseling. Its success is due to the efforts of one woman — a lay psychotherapist and Buddhist practitioner who is the program’s outreach coordinator and sole survivor advocate. The OPO represents both a measure of independence and a sense of safety for survivors. Unfortunately, that’s where much of the Franciscan outreach ends.

A “circle the wagons” mentality — which landed the Franciscans in trouble in 1993 — has returned. The refusal by friars in charge at Mission Santa Barbara to participate in the healing process is at the heart of it. For more than six years, there has been no attempt or inclination, as a group or as individuals, to reach out to survivors, their families, and the greater community. Some have even thwarted such efforts. Two friars, newly assigned in 2012 to the Parish of St. Barbara are trying to accomplish some things privately. One believes he’s been called to Santa Barbra to help people heal. This is a hopeful sign.

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BOSTON (MA)
Law and More

Pope Francis is right up there with Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela as a change agent. Millennials searching for spirituality might ditch eastern philosophies and check out what Catholicism offers. King had a dream. Mandela wanted to heal the past. And Francis has put in play the meme not to judge.

So, it’s no surprise that the BOSTON GLOBE has hired a top Vatican reporter John Allen. It might also launch a publication targeted at Catholics. Here is that coverage in POLITICO.

Some lawyers might recall that it was the BOSTON GLOBE which broke the story of the sexual abuse of children by Roman Catholic clergy. After that, the story went global. Clergy who were found to commit those acts and superiors who tolerated that behavior were outed in the courts of law and public opinion.

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VATICAN CITY
Huffington Post

VATICAN CITY, Jan 7 (Reuters) – Pope Francis is set to make the most important decisions of his young papacy in the next few weeks by naming new cardinals – the “princes of the Church” who will help him set its future course and one day elect his successor from their number.

A pope’s choice of cardinals is one of the clearest signals of the direction in which he wants the 1.2 billion-strong Roman Catholic Church to go, and what type of man he wants to succeed him.

Francis immediately set about changing the Vatican’s image with his simple style after his election last March, so his choice of clerics to elevate on Feb. 22 is more eagerly awaited than usual.

He is expected to reveal his choices before the end of January so that preparations for the ceremonial “consistory” can be made, but so far there have been few if any whispers of likely names.

In the past, it was a fairly safe bet that archbishops of big dioceses or those heading Vatican departments traditionally headed by cardinals would get the three-peaked “biretta”, the red ceremonial hat that cardinals wear.

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NORWAY
The Local

A German priest on trial in Norway for having sex with a 15-year-old girl claimed he did so because he did not know the country’s legal age of consent was higher than Germany’s.

“She was the love of my life,” the priest, who is in his early 30s, told the court on Tuesday. He added he “did not know the age of consent was 16 years old in Norway. In my home country of Germany it is 14.”

“If I had been familiar with Norwegian law in this field, it would not have happened,” he said. “When we started the relationship, I knew I broke the laws of the Church. I was not aware that I was also breaking Norwegian law.”

The relationship only came to light when the girl made a church confession she thought was confidential. Yet the church’s pastor claims confidentiality did not apply, as the teenager was not a confirmed Catholic.

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ROME
Life-After-RC

As the General Chapter looms before us, we turn to this brilliant description of the status quo to remind us of the prevailing winds in Rome:

The game of musical chairs with the superiors began when the LC could no longer pretend not to hear the clamor for leadership different from the hand-picked minions of Fr. Maciel. Lists were drawn up and the more notorious remnants of the old guard were shuffled around to make room for reliable, sometimes younger substitutes. Yet the supreme criterion for assuming any real role in the government of the Legion continues to be ‘loyalty.’ Non-dissenting, unquestioning fealty to the myth, the established story-line, the core convictions imparted over the years by Maciel to his followers. Any changes made up to now in the roster of superiors have been, at best, cosmetic.

So who are these Council Fathers who are helping to script a shiny new Legion that nevertheless still harbours in its bosom the methodology of the founder? One is Salvador Maciel, about whom a former member reminds us:

There are testimonies referring to events in the 1960s and the 1970s regarding Fr. Salvador Maciel (no relation to Marcial Maciel) who will participate in the General Chapter of the Legion of Christ. While the accusations concerning grave faults against chastity and actual sexual abuse are the most troubling, it is important to note that S. Maciel considered himself a faithful spy for Marcial Maciel in the 1950s during the Vatican Investigation of the Legion of the private life of Marcial Maciel.

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ARIZONA
The Raw Story

[with video]

By Travis Gettys
Wednesday, January 8, 2014

The lead pastor at an Arizona megachurch that draws about 6,000 people to its services has resigned after admitting to multiple extramarital affairs, church officials confirmed.

Church members were told Saturday and Sunday at worship services that Pastor Mark Connelly had resigned Dec. 30 from Mission Community Church in Gilbert.

“We are committed to helping Mark rebuild his marriage and we have offered all of the mercy and counseling resources of our church to help him and his family through this time,” said Gary Sutcliff, the executive pastor of ministries who was named as Connelly’s interim replacement. “In addition, we have offered the same resources to the women involved. Our priority right now is helping all those involved, including the people of our church, heal from this.”

Pastor Randy Thomas, who told congregants the news Sunday, said he initially felt angry and betrayed by his friend and colleague.

“We may be knocked down but we are not knocked out,” Thomas said. “If ever there was a time for us to lean on each other, this is it.”

Church officials declined to confirm whether any of the women involved in the affairs were members of the church, which started in 1995 as Superstition Springs Community Church in a high school cafeteria.

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UNITED STATES
Religion News Service

David Gibson | Jan 6, 2014

(RNS) Any day now, Pope Francis is expected to make his first appointments to the College of Cardinals, the select group of about 120 scarlet-clad churchmen whose main duty is to advise the pope while he reigns – and gather in the Sistine Chapel when he dies or resigns to name his successor.

That makes the nominations especially critical, and they will be another indicator of what direction Francis wants to push the church’s leadership. As the Rev. Thomas Reese of National Catholic Reporter put it in his analysis of the importance of the choices: “People in red hats tend to stand out in a crowd.”

The Vatican has announced that Francis will officially “create” the new cardinals (that is the technical church term for the papal appointments) on Feb. 22, and the list of names is usually released weeks in advance.

Canon law provides a ceiling of 120 eligible electors among the cardinals; those who turn 80 no longer have the right to vote in a conclave. As of Feb. 1, there will be 106 cardinals under 80, giving Francis 14 vacancies to fill, though he can use his papal prerogative and exceed that limit. The late John Paul II pushed the number of cardinal-electors to 135 at one point.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release Wednesday, January 8

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

Soon, Pope Francis will name new cardinals. We suspect that each of his choices will be men who are hiding records that are protecting child molesting clerics and are endangering innocent children.

[Religion News Service]

Pope Francis should be demoting archbishops, not promoting them. Until at least a few top Catholic officials are disciplined and denounced for concealing child sex crimes, top Catholic officials will keep concealing child sex crimes.

Many people are focused on the geographic or ideological make-up of the next batch of prelates. Those concerns should be a distant second.

The church’s central, on-going crisis is not too many conservative prelates or too few prelates from the southern hemisphere. It’s the continuing clergy sex abuse and cover up crisis.

Whether they’re from the north or south, from the Curia or not, or from the left or right wing, the Pope’s choices – like almost everything he has done over the past ten months – will have little, if any, impact on the crisis. In fact, his choices will likely worsen the crisis, because he will almost certainly promote corrupt church officials, thereby reminding Catholic employees everywhere that protecting predators and endangering kids is a safe way to ensure that your career in the church won’t ever be disrupted. It is, of course, irresponsible for Pope Francis to do this. But he will do it, we believe, nonetheless.

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CANADA
The Tyee

By Mark Abley, Today, TheTyee.ca

[Editor’s note: Author Mark Abley has long been haunted by the contradictory figure of Duncan Campbell Scott, known both as the architect of Canada’s most destructive Aboriginal policies and as one of the nation’s major poets. In a new biography, Abley holds the longtime deputy minister of Indian Affairs to account for Canada’s deplorable abuses of indigenous children, while also acknowledging the chilling attitudes that initiated the residential school program he supervised. With permission from Douglas & McIntyre, we reprint an excerpt of this frank dramatization of early 20th century colonialism.]

The traditional ways were dying: Duncan Campbell Scott believed this.

Nearly everyone believed it. The past was nomadic; the future was agricultural and industrial; he trusted it would also be imperial. The poet in him had started off as something of a cultural nationalist, keen to evoke Canadian landscapes, proud to write on Canadian themes. Yet the poet in Scott was at the mercy of his political convictions, his public faith. As an old man in 1939, he fulfilled a commission to celebrate a royal tour by delivering a servile ode in which he promised the people of this country would “do our part in high and pure endeavour / To build a peaceful Empire round the throne.” The CBC broadcast the poem from its Halifax studios as the king and queen were sailing out of Halifax harbour back to an England on the brink of war. Three months before Scott died, he semi-facetiously wrote to a friend, “Why don’t you order a poem on some special subject, say the marriage of Princess Elizabeth, if the CBC would pay me for it!” Against what he had called, in his ode, the “ageless, deep devotion” of Canadians to the Crown, he found it only natural to believe that Aboriginal cultures, languages and ways of life were doomed.

The surprise, or paradox, or twist of the knife is that while doing his utmost to enforce government control over indigenous people, Scott made them the subject of his most vibrant writing. Of the 11 pages Margaret Atwood found for him in the New Oxford Book of Canadian Verse, eight are devoted to poems about Indians. These items form a small minority of his total output; they also show his talents at their best. When John Masefield spoke at a memorial service held for Scott in St. Martin-in-the-Fields, London, the British poet laureate declared that Scott had been deeply impressed by many of the Indians he had met: “Admiration is a great help to understanding. In his poems and stories about them we are brought, perhaps for the very first time, to a living knowledge of what they are.”

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VATICAN CITY
GMA News (Philippines)

By DARIO THUBURN, Agence France-Presse
January 8, 2014

VATICAN CITY – A scandal-tainted conservative Catholic religious movement whose founder was a sexual predator begins a series of meetings in Rome on Wednesday in what is being seen as a key test of Pope Francis’s reform drive.

Top members of the Legionaries of Christ are meeting to reform their congregation and elect a new leadership in their first meetings since they were put under Vatican oversight in 2010 after the scandals first exploded.

“Pope Francis faces the first major challenge, the first major clash of his pontificate,” said Jesus Bastante, a columnist for the Spanish-language Vatican affairs website Religion Digital.

Francis has called for a radical overhaul of the group and a Vatican-appointed delegate, Italian cardinal Velasio De Paolis, will inaugurate the proceedings with a mass and will take part in the discussions.

There have been tensions between senior Legionaries in favour of the status quo and De Paolis, whose mandate runs out at the meetings starting Wednesday.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

KAREN HELLER, INQUIRER COLUMNIST
POSTED: Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Monsignor William Lynn descended five stories Monday from the courtroom to freedom, only to be met by a scrum of cameras and foul-mouthed hecklers. But he is also 80 pounds lighter from 18 months of exercise and prison grub, so perhaps incarceration wasn’t all bad.

The day after Christmas, a three-judge appeals panel overturned the former archdiocese secretary’s conviction of child endangerment in protecting pedophile and defrocked priest Edward Avery. The laws then on the books, the court ruled, applied only to direct supervisors of children, not people supervising those supervisors.

While overturning the conviction, the judges noted that the monsignor was all about shielding his seniors. Like many successful bureaucrats, Lynn managed up.

Lynn’s “first priority in dealing with sexually abusive priests appeared to be the protection of the reputation of the archdiocese,” the judges wrote. “His second priority appeared to be protection of the reputation of the offending priest.”

The sex-abuse scandal has cost the Philadelphia Archdiocese an estimated $12 million in legal defense. It does not appear to be over, at least to District Attorney Seth Williams, who took his second-term oath the day of Lynn’s bail hearing. He said his office most likely would appeal the court’s ruling.

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CANADA
Sylvia’s Site

Posted on January 7, 2014 by Sylvia

Father Eric Dejager has a court date in Edmonton, Alberta tomorrow. I will try to check that today to ensure it is still on. Without doubt everything in Edmonton will be on hold until Dejaeger has been sentenced in Iqaluit so setting dates for now is a bit of a shot in the dark (Yes, I did say sentenced – Dejaeger has already entered guilty pleas to a handful of the multitude of charges against him so there will definitely be a sentencing.) The trial in Iqaluit resumes 20 January when defence will present its case. Whether or not Dejaeger will take the stand in his own defence remains to be see.

As it stands, and unless I find out otherwise, the Edmonton courtdate is as follows:

09:00 am, courtroom # 356, “to set date,” Edmonton, Alberta courthouse

As always. please keep the many Dejeager victims and complainants in your prayers.

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AUSTRALIA
lewisblayse.net

While the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse’s next hearings (beginning 28th January) will cover two Queensland and two NSW Boys’ Home, operated by the Salvation Army, there are many others not being covered.

One of these is the Algate House Boys’ Home in the New South Wales State town of Broken Hill. This is a mining town, and original home of the Broken Hill Pty. Ltd. company (BHP, now BHP-Billiton), one of the largest mining companies in the world. It is situated in a harsh, inland environment, even for Australia.

Algate House was opened in 1968 and closed in 1995.

The Home itself was also a harsh environment. Last year, it was named specifically by Leonie Sheedy, from the Care Leavers of Australia Network (CLAN), as one of the Homes where abuses occurred. She said that the abuse was “horrific.” Unfortunately, for the former residents, the Royal Commission will not be covering this Home at the public hearings.

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NORWAY
News in English

A Catholic priest in his 30s told a court in Bergen on Tuesday he didn’t know 16 was the age of consent in Norway. The priest had a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old girl during the summer, who he described as the “love of his life”.

In a statement to the court, the priest said he thought the age of consent was 14 years, as in other countries he has lived in. “When we started the relationship I knew I had broken the church’s laws,” reported newspaper Bergens Tidende (BT). “I was not aware that I broke the Norwegian law.” He said the relationship was not just about sex, and started as an innocent flirtation before they first had intercourse.

The girl said she went to the Catholic church to confess the relationship, and was promised “100 percent” that it would be in confidence, but that confidence was broken with catastrophic effects. “The case was prosecuted against my will after my confession,” she testified. “It was not I who reported this, but the Catholic Church. I didn’t want this to be known.”

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NORWAY
UPI

BERGEN, Norway, Jan. 8 (UPI) — A German Catholic priest said he didn’t know the Norwegian age of sexual consent was 16 when he had sex with a 15-year-old girl.

The priest, who is in his early 30s, told a court he didn’t realize he was breaking the law when he had a sexual relationship with the girl, whom he called “the love of my life.”

“I did not know that the age of consent was 16 years old in Norway. In my home country of Germany it is 14 years old,” the priest said.

The girl asked the court not to convict the priest because she said the relationship was consensual, TheLocal.no reported Wednesday.

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ROME
The Tablet (United Kingdom)

[General Chapter – Legion of Christ]

08 January 2014 12:43 by Robert Mickens

The scandal-scarred Legion of Christ today began a general chapter at its Rome headquarters aimed at re-writing the constitution of the conservative men’s order and electing a new superior general.

Today’s meetings were attended by 61 priest-delegates from 22 countries where the order is present.
Their main task will be to write a new charter for the religious community and then begin voting on 20 January for a new superior and his assistants.

The sessions could last for up to two months.

The Legion was thrown into scandal in 2008 when it was confirmed that its late founder, Marcial Maciel, a key fundraiser for the Church during the papacy of John Paul II, had long been sexually abusing young seminarians and had even had children.

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VATICAN CITY
International Business Times

By Christopher White
on January 08 2014

Next month Pope Francis will install the first new cardinals of his papacy. Cardinals are the highest-ranking clergy in the Church and the College of Cardinals will be responsible for selecting his eventual successor. While no names have been announced, there’s already much speculation as to what considerations Pope Francis might weigh in naming his appointees.

Ideally, the Cardinals should reflect the composition of the Church worldwide, hence geography is always a critical factor. Historically, there has always been a large contingent of European cardinals—specifically, Italian—with the global south being underrepresented. Given Francis’s South American heritage, he might look to balance out the electorate by naming more Cardinals from South America, Africa, or Asia.

There’s also the question of doctrinal priorities. We might gain some insights into the type of future Church that Francis is hoping to shape by looking at the type of men whom he’ll appoint. Will they be “social justice” bishops or are might they more concerned with cultural matters such as abortion, marriage, and religious liberty?

Yet, these types of questions often focus on potential divides within the Church. What we’ve seen thus far in Pope Francis’s leadership style is that he’s far more interested in its unity. At the same time, Francis is not shying away from the fact that the role of the Church is to religiously inform a public philosophy on how to best create a society that establishes the best conditions for liberty, human happiness and prosperity.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Genevieve Carbery

Former president Mary McAleese’s criticism of the Catholic Church’s stance on gay people has been welcomed by priests and LGBT activists.

Her comments will “send a profoundly positive message to all lesbian and gay people,” Kieran Rose, chair of the Gay and Lesbian Equality Network (GLEN) said in a statement today.

“Mrs McAleese continues to be a wonderful advocate for lesbian and gay people out of office, just as she was as president,” he said .

Fr Tony Flannery of the Association of Catholic Priests said he was “very happy” with the former president’s remarks. She was bringing the issue out “into the open” as “it really does need to be discussed in the Church,” he told Newstalk radio today.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Mark Hennessy, Patsy McGarry

Former president Mary McAleese, who has urged a Scottish cardinal forced to stand down last year to admit publicly that he is gay, has said “a very large number” of Catholic priests are homosexuals.

The Catholic Church has been in denial over homosexuality for decades, particularly since many priests are gay, she said. “It isn’t so much the elephant in the room but a herd of elephants.

“I don’t like my church’s attitude to gay people. I don’t like ‘love the sinner, hate the sin’. If you are the so-called sinner, who likes to be called that? We also know that within the priesthood a very large number of priests are gay.”

She also criticised words attributed to the previous Pope on this subject as being contradictory. “Things written by [Pope] Benedict, for example, were completely contradictory to modern science and to modern understanding, and to the understanding of most Catholics nowadays in relation to homosexuality.

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ROME
Jacaranda FM

[General Chapter – Legion of Christ]

08 January 2014 at 13:27 – A scandal hit Catholic religious movement whose founder was a sexual predator is under reformation.

A scandal-tainted conservative Catholic religious movement whose founder was a sexual predator begins a series of meetings in Rome on Wednesday in what is being seen as a key test of Pope Francis’s reform drive.

Top members of the Legionaries of Christ are meeting to reform their congregation and elect a new leadership in their first meetings since they were put under Vatican oversight in 2010 after the scandals first exploded. “Pope Francis faces the first major challenge, the first major clash of his pontificate,” said Jesus Bastante, a columnist for the Spanish-language Vatican affairs website Religion Digital.

Francis has called for a radical overhaul of the group and a Vatican-appointed delegate, Italian cardinal Velasio De Paolis, will inaugurate the proceedings with a mass and will take part in the discussions. There have been tensions between senior Legionaries in favour of the status quo and De Paolis, whose mandate runs out at the meetings starting Wednesday. “The Legion is not some internal issue to be discussed and decided on exclusively by the Legionaries,” Bastante said, adding that the gravity of the scandals meant “the pope cannot be gentle”.

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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

Wednesday 8 January 2014

Gerry Braiden
Senior reporter

DISGRACED cardinal Keith O’Brien should formally resign when Pope Francis announces major papal appointments in the next few weeks, a leading commentator on church affairs has claimed.

The Pope is to name a raft of new cardinals in what will be the most significant stamp of his papacy since he was elected by his peers last March.

But the consistory, where new cardinals from across the globe will be appointed in ­February, is expected to overlook Scotland. None of the senior clergy here are tipped to receive the red biretta, the ceremonial hat worn by cardinals.

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AUSTRALIA
The West Australian

The royal commission into child sex abuse will conduct its first public hearings in Perth into an unnamed organisation from April 28.

The hearing is set down for two weeks and the organisation involved will be named about a month before hearings begin.

Among the possible WA child sex abuse scandals the commission could investigate is systematic abuse that occurred in State-run boarding hostels.

A 2012 inquiry headed by former judge Peter Blaxell found public servants and parents ignored at least 20 attempts to warn them about abuse over two decades.

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CANADA
Indian Country Today Media Network

ICTMN Staff
1/7/14

The dark years of the residential schools era in Canada have long obscured the fate of many of the 150,000 indigenous children who were taken from their families from the 1860s through the 1990s and “educated” with the goal of “killing the Indian in the child,” as the motto went.

Though about 80,000 of these former students survive, many were never accounted for. Until now.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), mandated to unmask what really went on at the schools, has documented the deaths of at least 4,000 children during that chapter in Canada’s history. And that’s just the ones they know about, Postmedia News reported on January 3.

The figures, based on only partial federal government records, is expected to rise as more complete records come to light, Postmedia News said.

From fires, to abuse, to disease, even to suicide, indigenous children died in droves. They were buried in unmarked graves near the schools because the Canadian government did not want to pay to have them shipped back home. Moreover, in many cases the parents were never told what happened to their children, Postmedia News said.

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OSTERREICH
Kleine Zeitung

Ein ehemaliger Schüler des Stiftsgymnasiums Kremsmünster ist vor dem Landesgericht Steyr mit einer Schadenersatzklage abgeblitzt, wie das “Neue Volksblatt” am Mittwoch berichtete. Der Mann hatte 65.000 Euro vom Kloster und jenem Ex-Pater gefordert, der im Vorjahr nicht rechtskräftig zu zwölf Jahren verurteilt wurde. Der Anwalt des Klägers kündigte im Gespräch mit der APA Berufung an.

In dem Prozess ging es um schwere Anschuldigungen gegen den 80-jährigen ehemaligen Konviktsleiter, aber auch gegen mehrere Lehrer und Erzieher. U.a. war in der Klage die Rede von Gruppenvergewaltigungen und Scheinexekutionen durch eine “GeStiPo” (Geheime Stiftspolizei) aus älteren Schülern, die bewusst eingesetzt und geduldet worden sein soll.

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VATIKAN
Religion@orf

Das UNO-Kinderrechtskomitee (UNCRC) will am 16. Jänner den Schutz von Minderjährigen durch den Vatikan untersuchen. Dabei gehe es auch um Kinderpornografie, teilte das UNO-Menschenrechtsbüro mit.

Ergebnisse des Gremiums von 18 unabhängigen Experten werde man am 5. Februar vorstellen, hieß es am Dienstag aus Genf. Es handelt sich um eine turnusmäßige Prüfung, der sich alle 193 Unterzeichnerstaaten der UNO-Kinderrechtskonvention zu unterziehen haben, jedoch ist es der erste derartige Check für den Vatikan. Bei der Sitzung des Komitees vom 13. bis 31. Jänner wird auch die Lage für Kinder in der Republik Kongo, dem Jemen, Portugal, Russland und Deutschland erörtert.

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CHICAGO (IL)
WLS

[with video]

Ben Bradley

January 7, 2014 (CHICAGO) (WLS) — The Archdiocese of Chicago is preparing a PR war of sorts, trying to get its story out before another round of unflattering information emerges about the handling of priest sex abuse allegations. The cases are not new, but the details are– and they’re expected to reopen old wounds of a church crisis that is yet to pass.

In a letter to be included in church bulletins this weekend, Francis Cardinal George writes: “Publishing for all to read the actual records of these crimes raises transparency to a new level. It will be helpful, we pray, for some, but painful for many.”

Victims’ attorney Jeff Anderson is one of the attorneys that reached a settlement with the Archdiocese requiring the church to turn over the information. He says it includes internal church documents on 30 accused priests, detailing the claims of dozens of victims, and also church communications detailing transfers of suspected priests.

“What they really do is reveal a systemic pattern of choices being made by top officials to protect reputations, the image of the Archdiocese and to choose to protect offenders at the peril of many children,” said Anderson.

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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

Wednesday 8 January 2014

Gerry Braiden
Senior reporter

CAMPAIGNERS have handed over a 1300-name petition to the acting Bishop of Motherwell calling for the return of their suspended parish priest.

Father Matthew Despard has been suspended since November last year, when Bishop Joseph Toal, Acting Bishop of Motherwell, removed him after he published a book alleging a culture of homosexual bullying within the Catholic Church.

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NEW YORK
New York Post

By Larry Celona, Jamie Schram and Aaron ShortJanuary 5, 2014

The millionaire Hasidic slumlord found burned and suffocated in a Nassau County dumpster — his body still smoldering from the waist down — had so many enemies that investigators say they almost don’t know where to start looking.

“Any number of people wanted to kill this guy,” one law-enforcement source said of Menachem “Max” Stark, 39, describing the father of eight as embroiled in several “shady” real-estate transactions and being up to his tuchus in debt. …

“He was involved in shady business deals, was known to carry around a lot of money and had a sealed arrest for forcible touching” in his past, one law-enforcement source told The Post.

The alleged victim was a young teen girl, said the source, declining to give further details.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Bolton News

Exclusive By Joanne Rowe, Reporter

A CHOIRMASTER has been jailed after admitting abusing young children in the vestry at a Farnworth church.

Peter Williams was in charge of two choirs and was organist at St James’ CE Church, Farnworth, in the 1970s, Bolton Crown Court heard.

Rachel White, prosecuting, told how he preyed on an 11-year-old girl and a nine-year-old boy, using his position of trust in the church to sexually assault them.

Judge Timothy Clayson sentenced 60-year-old Williams to 28 months in prison adding that, had he committed his crimes more recently than the 1970s, he would have been facing a much longer sentenc

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WEST VIRGINIA
Christian Post

BY MORGAN LEE , CHRISTIAN POST REPORTER
January 7, 2014

A West Virginia pastor pleaded guilty on Jan. 6 to sexually abusing a 14-year-old, female family member.

Johnnie Winnell, 60, who formerly pastored United Gospel Mission in Elkview, W.Va., was arrested in April last year and charged with three counts of sexual abuse by a parent, guardian or custodian, reported The WV Gazette.

Winnell admitted to investigators last year that there were three separate occurrences when he molested the girl while she slept in his home.

According to The Charleston Daily Mail, Winnell told investigators he touched the victim “once under her clothes while she was lying on the couch with him” when he believed she was asleep. The second time, “he took her hand and ‘swiped it across his crotch’ over his clothes.” In the last act, Winnell said that the victim had been sleeping in bed with him and his wife when he “touched her over her clothes.”

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Sun-Times

BY ART GOLAB Staff Reporter January 7, 2014

Details of sexual abuse by priests, along with information about church officials who may have covered up the abuse, will be turned over next week to attorneys suing the Archdiocese of Chicago and will be made public shortly afterward.

Cardinal Francis George announced the move in a letter to priests that will be printed in church bulletins this Sunday.

The church files, sought for nearly seven years by plaintiffs’ attorneys, will be handed over Jan. 15 under terms of a court settlement. But they will not become public for at least another week in order to remove victims’ information, according to Jeff Anderson, a St. Paul, Minn., attorney involved in the suit.

Anderson, who has reviewed the documents, said they contain “not just the histories of the offenders but those who made the choice to protect them . . . top officials current and past.” The files contain information on cases involving 30 priests, most of them already named on an archdiocese website listing priests with substantiated allegations against them.

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CHICAGO (IL)
CBS Chicago

[with video]

Jay Levine

CHICAGO (CBS) — A letter from Francis Cardinal George on sex abuse cases by Chicago area priests will appear in church bulletins throughout the Archdiocese on Sunday.

The letter contains an apology and a plea from Francis Cardinal George to Chicago area parishioners as attorneys prepare to release documents detailing sexual abuse by 30 priests.
CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine has obtained the letter to be read at mass this week.

The names of nearly all 30 priests guilty of sexual misconduct have been listed on the Archdiocese website for years. Just three of them, who’d died before allegations against them surfaced, are new, as is the Cardinal’s most complete explanation yet, a personal defense of the one which occurred on his watch.

It’s the case of Daniel McCormack, now defrocked and in state custody for molesting young parishioners on the West Side. McCormack was allowed to return to his parish after being arrested in 2005 because, the Cardinal writes, “various offices involved did not consistently share what they knew with each other or with me.”

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By Emily Gurnon
egurnon@pioneerpress.com
POSTED: 01/07/2014

When the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis said late last month that it had placed two priests on leave because of inappropriate conduct with minors, they said the conduct was not sexual abuse.

Instead, it labeled the actions “boundary violations,” and did not elaborate.

Rev. Mark Wehmann of St. Boniface Catholic Church in Minneapolis had several incidents, some of which were reported to law enforcement, the archdiocese said in its Dec. 29 statement. Rev. Joseph Gallatin of the Church of St. Peter in Mendota was also placed on leave.

One incident reported to law enforcement involving Wehmann was a 2006 Anoka County case, the Pioneer Press has learned. The sheriff’s office investigated after the children’s parents reported it to Epiphany Catholic School in Coon Rapids. Law enforcement declined to seek charges, and the case was closed.

What happened was this, according to the sheriff’s report:

Wehmann, who did not serve at the Coon Rapids parish, became friends with a family who had two children under age 10. On a couple of occasions, while visiting their home, he gave them what he called “root beer barrel kisses,” in which two people place their cheeks together and stick their tongues toward the cheeks, the children’s father told Detective Bryon Fuerst.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

BY OREN YANIV / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

TUESDAY, JANUARY 7, 2014

A year after a spiritual adviser in Brooklyn’s Hasidic community was convicted of sex abuse at trial, the young woman he molested is taking him to court again.

The teenage victim of Nechemya Weberman is suing her imprisoned former tormentor for emotional distress. Her civil suit, filed last month in Brooklyn Supreme Court, requests unspecified damages, and also names as a defendant the United Talmudic Academy, the yeshiva in Williamsburg where educators referred her to Weberman for violations of personal conduct standards.

During Weberman’s headline-making criminal trial in 2012, the victim testified for four days about how the spiritual adviser forced himself on her and made her reenact porn-movie scenes during disturbing counseling sessions that began when she was just 12 years-old. The abuse spanned a period of about three years between 2007 and 2010.

The victim, who is now 19 and enrolled in college, “will continue to suffer depression, anxiety, emotional distress, anguish and ridicule, embarrassment, humiliation and degradation,” according to papers filed in connection with her civil suit.

The Daily News could not reach the victim for comment, and is withholding her name due to the nature of the abuse she suffered.

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ILLINOIS
Chicago Tribune

Posted By State Rep. Stephanie Kifowit, Community Contributor
4:00 p.m. CST, January 7, 2014

Legislation supported by state Rep. Stephanie Kifowit, D-Oswego, allowing prosecutors to bring charges against suspected sex offenders at any time by removing statutes of limitation, took effect at the beginning of the year.

“Sex abuse is one of the most horrific crimes that can be committed against a child, and our laws need to be strong enough to give victims the ability and the time to fight back,” Kifowit said. “Just as the effects of sexual abuse continue past a victim’s 18th birthday, so should the ability of our justice system to prosecute abusers.”

House Bill 1063 removes the statute of limitations for aggravated or predatory sexual offenses or criminal sexual abuse, in cases where the victim was under 18 at the time of the offense. Prosecutors will now be able to file charges anytime if there is corroborating physical evidence of the crime, or in cases where an individual who is required to report the sex offence at issue failed to do so. Previously, most sexual offenses had to be prosecuted within three years of the victim turning 18 years old.

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CANADA
CBC News

New documents released to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) may shed some light on the number of children in British Columbia who died in residential schools.

The TRC was recently given over 4,000 documents, including death certificates for aboriginal children aged four to 19 who died between 1917-56 in British Columbia. It is unclear how many of them were residential school students.

The commission previously reported that at least 4,100 children died in 130 schools across the country, but that number could grow as more federal and provincial documents are analyzed.

“What we need to do is we need to take those names and cross reference them to the list of students who were in the various residential schools during that period of time to see if we can start matching names,” said TRC chair Justice Murray Sinclair.

Sonny McHalsie is a researcher for the Sto:lo First Nation near Chilliwack. He hopes the list of names supplied by B.C.’s coroner and vital statistics department may eventually identify some of the children in unmarked graves located close to Coqualeetza residential school.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Dennis Coday | Jan. 7, 2014 NCR Today

I am preparing a longer response to reactions I have received since NCR suspended the commenting feature of our website yesterday. I have a newspaper to get to the printer before I can do that, so for now, let me offer this for your reflection. It addresses well the quandary we face.

First, let me correct two things that some people are misreporting:

1) We have suspended the comments, not closed them down completely. I wrote yesterday: “NCR editors will explore options that will allow commenting to return in a way that respects our writers, the subjects of our stories, and our readers.” Yes, I did write the suspension is “indefinite,” because we don’t know how long the evaluation will take.

2) We are not reacting to “irreverent comments.” The words I used to describe the comments were “malicious,” “abusive” and “vile.” An NCR contributor called me and asked me to read some of the comments over the phone to him, and I declined. That’s how vile they were.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Dennis Coday | Jan. 7, 2014 NCR Today

The Boston Globe, which is exploring the launch of a free-standing publication devoted to Catholicism, has announced that John L. Allen Jr., a reporter with NCR since 1997, will be joining the newspaper as an associate editor.

John’s new job begins Feb. 1. Until then, he’ll keep reporting for NCR, including coverage from Rome later this month.

We will miss John and the contributions he has made to NCR over the years. You know John as a journalist or a speaker, but we also know John as a colleague and a friend. While we regret that he will no longer be reporting for NCR, we also recognize on a professional level that this is an important career move for him.

We wish him well in his new challenges.

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AUSTRALIA
lewisblayse.net

[Thanks to those who read my rave yesterday about why I want to appear before the Royal Commission, and also to those who are contacting the commission on my behalf. I hope I have not caused readers pain – but this is a turning point for me and I had to make a clear statement about why I should appear at the hearings. I will resume normal postings from tomorrow and not dwell on my own case any longer. As the e-mail exchanges from today indicate, the ball is firmly in the commission’s court. I will respond in my own way at the appropriate time and need not bother the reader with further details.]

This is the email I received from the commission (Fran):

Tuesday 8:27 AM – Attention:Mr Blayse

Lewis, thank you for your email. I understand your concern. I am currently in Brisbane for work commitments. I have forwarded your email to my Director for immediate attention. I hope to have a response before close of business this afternoon.

Once I have that response I will notify you.

Kind Regards Fran Ralph

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MINNESOTA
Pine and Lakes

By Kate Perkins
Staff Writer

On Dec. 31, the Diocese of Duluth released a list of clergy whom were credibly accused of sexual abuse of young persons while serving or residing in the Duluth Diocese. A former lakes area priest is on that list.

The Rev. Kirby Blanchard, who is deceased, served at three lakes area churches from 1969-1971. The Diocese of Duluth news release states that he served as pastor at St. Christopher’s Church in Nisswa, St. Alice Church in Pequot Lakes and Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Pine River, from Feb. 27, 1969, to March 17, 1971.

The list also states that Blanchard was chaplain at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Brainerd from Sept. 1, 1976, to Dec. 5, 1993. He was removed from ministry on Dec. 27, 1995, and died Aug. 11, 2006. He served in numerous other cities as well, including Duluth, Garrison, Deerwood, Cohasset and Deer River. His career with the church spanned from 1953 to 1993.

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ROMA
Milenio (Mexico)

ROBERTA GARZA
07/01/14

A partir de mañana, bajo la conducción del ornamental Velasio de Paolis, se llevará a cabo el largamente esperado capítulo general extraordinario de la Legión de Cristo. Allí deberán redactarse las nuevas constituciones y darse la elección del futuro director general, puesto vacante desde que a Álvaro Corcuera, sucesor de Maciel desde su retiro forzado a inicios del 2005, le fuera diagnosticado un tumor cerebral hace cerca de un año.

No puede esperarse demasiado. La mayoría de los 65 delegados legionarios son quienes siempre le fueron fieles a Maciel, a pesar de conocer sus trapacerías. La precisión no es especulativa: en la deposición del juicio que los herederos de Gabrielle Mee tienen en Connecticut contra la Legión por haber copado los últimos años —y con ellos la herencia— de la señora, bajo juramento, altos directivos de la orden afirmaron saber de la “doble vida” del fundador desde el 2006 —aunque desde 2005 el Vaticano lo investigara abiertamente; por algo se relevó entonces al antes inamovible director y fundador—, sin mencionar las décadas anteriores cuando ya se hablaba de los muchos dolores físicos que el pobrecito santo debía paliar con morfina, de sus desapariciones recurrentes que se explicaban con misiones místicas y remotas para salvar almas y de las infames llamadas a la enfermería. Maciel murió a principios de 2008, pero no fue hasta tres o cuatro años después cuando fue reconocido su pecado por la Legión, que hasta entonces siguió ordenándole a sus seguidores estudiar sus textos con fervor, rezarle al fundador como si fuera santo y llamarlo “nuestro padre”. Dicho de otra manera, la mayoría de quienes decidirán a partir de mañana el futuro de la orden lo sabían todo, cuando menos desde 2006, y cada uno de ellos decidió seguir mintiendo.

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CIUDAD DEL VATICANO
El Nuevo Herald

BY POR NICOLE WINFIELD
ASSOCIATED PRESS

CIUDAD DEL VATICANO — La orden religiosa Legión de Cristo elige nueva conducción por primera vez desde que su fundador fue revelado como un pedófilo y un fraude. El proceso que comenzará el miércoles pondrá oficialmente fin al movimiento de rehabilitación iniciado hace tres años por el Vaticano, una reforma que la Legión considera un éxito y sus detractores una patraña.

La Legión fue considerada otrora como un modelo por el Vaticano, que desvió la mirada ante las tropelías del reverendo Marciel Maciel mientras la orden fue una de las congregaciones de más rápido crecimiento en la Iglesia católica y atrajo millones en donaciones. Tras tres años de reformas impuestas por el Vaticano, sigue habiendo interrogantes sobre cómo puede existir la Legión cuando su fundador era un fraude y su misión fundamental sigue siendo incierta.

La Legión espera que tras el encuentro de un mes, el papa Francisco apruebe una nueva constitución que explique la misión, jerarquía y normas de la orden y permita a la Legión continuar sin más supervisión vaticana. Los supriores de la Legión y 42 sacerdotes elegidos como representantes —incluyendo muchos allegados a Maciel— terminarán de elaborar la constitución y elegirán entonces una nueva conducción.

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CIUDAD DEL VATICANO
El Golfo

Ciudad del Vaticano.- Primero, una de las más altas autoridades de la Legión de Cristo renunció abruptamente a la orden debido a la lentitud con que se procesan los cambios. Después, los sacerdotes facultaron a los protegidos y socios del fundador caído en desgracia, Marcial Maciel, para que eligieran el nuevo líder.

Durante el mes pasado hubo varios retrocesos en el proceso de la legión para reformarse mediante la elección de un nuevo dirigente, con lo que terminará la supervisión del Vaticano que duró tres años. Pero aunque la Legión quiere mostrar una nueva cara, sus más altos directivos siguen hablando con nostalgia y veneración de Maciel, quien violó a varios seminaristas, tenía tres hijos y fue definido como alguien “carente de escrúpulos y auténtica vocación religiosa” por los investigadores designados por el Vaticano para indagar los abusos de los que se le acusaba.

Eso significa que se reducen las posibilidades de éxito para una reforma drástica de la Legión como lo desea el Vaticano y plantean el interrogante de qué hará el pontífice con la otrora poderosa y acaudalada congregación una vez que termine el mandato del enviado papal.

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

Elizabeth Baier · Rochester, Minn. · Jan 6, 2014

Lawyers for a victim of clergy sexual abuse have asked Brown County Court Judge Robert Docherty to order the Diocese of New Ulm to release a list of priests who have been credibly accused of sexual abuse.

Attorney Jeff Anderson, who represents victims of clergy sexual abuse, said he is alarmed that the New Ulm diocese has not released its list.

“It begs the question ‘Why do they continue to adhere to this secret list and not choose to voluntary release it so the community can know and the children can be protected?'” Anderson said.

A lawsuit Anderson filed last month seeks the release of a list of 12 priests in the diocese. The suit alleges the New Ulm diocese and the Servants of the Paraclete, a religious order, neglected to supervise the Rev. Francis Markey, who worked in the diocese in the mid-1980s. The plaintiff alleged that Markey sexually abused him at St. Andrew parish in Granite Falls, Minn., in 1982, when he was 8 years old.

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MINNESOTA
MinnPost

[Doe 18_Opposition to the Diocese of New Ulm’s Motion to Dismiss via Jeff Anderson & Associates].
[Doe 6 and 7_Opposition to the Diocese of New Ulm’s Motion to Dismiss]

By Brian Lambert

The New Ulm Diocese can’t quite get its head around why it should release a list of problem priests. Elizabeth Baier of MPR reports: “During a hearing on Monday, officials from the Diocese of New Ulm told the judge that the list should remain secret. They moved to dismiss a nuisance claim that demands the diocese disclose the names. In a statement, diocese officials said two of the people named on the list believe the sexual abuse allegations made against them are false and their names should therefore not be made public.” And how would that play in your average criminal proceeding?

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TEXAS
Southeast Texas Record

January 7, 2014
By MARILYN TENNISSEN

The Catholic Diocese of Beaumont recently settled a civil suit alleging a priest abused young boys for 30 years.

The suit was filed April 12, 2012, against the diocese and Bishop Curtis Guillory. It alleges the Rev. Ronald Bollich abused six boys in at least three parishes over three decades. Diocese of beaumont crest

Guillory and the diocese were accused of negligence for keeping Bollich on staff when it “knew or should have known he had a propensity to molest boys,” the suit states.

The details of the settlement, reached Dec. 11, are not disclosed.

Bollich was a priest from 1964 until his death in April 1996. He worked parishes in Jefferson County, Orange County and Nacogdoches County, according to the final petition in the case, filed Nov. 15, 2013. His duties took him to churches in Beaumont, Bridge City, Port Arthur, Groves, Silsbee, Buna, Moral, Nacogdoches and Chireno, the petition reads.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2014

Statement by Barbara Blaine, President of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 312 399 4747, SNAPblaine@gmail.com )

It’s distasteful to see Chicago’s top Catholic official plays the “blame game” about a serial pedophile priest, Fr. Daniel McCormack, who severely hurt perhaps dozens of innocent childrenbut would have been stopped much sooner if only Cardinal Francis George and his staff hadn’t covered up.

[NBC Chicago]

First, George blames his deceased predecessor.

Then he blames nameless “people” who might have “been more wary.”

Then, he blames his own priests (for electing McCormack to a position).

Then, he blames nameless “offices” involved the investigation of this serial pedophile priests that allegedly “did not consistently share what they knew with each other or with me.”

Then, instead of stepping up and taking responsibility, he conveniently uses the vague third person to say “The response, in retrospect, was not always adequate.”

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ROME
Legionaries of Christ

Legion of Christ begins Extraordinary General Chapter tomorrow, January 8, 2014

Rome, Italy — Culminating a three-year renewal process, the General Chapter for the Legion of Christ begins tomorrow, January 8, 2014.

The opening Mass of the Extraordinary General Chapter will take place at 6:30 p.m., (Roman time) Wednesday, January 8, 2014, in the Center for Higher Studies of the Legionaries of Christ. The concelebrated Mass will be presided over by Cardinal Velasio De Paolis, C.S., Pontifical Delegate for the Legion of Christ, who will deliver the homily.

The text of the homily and photos will be available for viewing on the new General Chapter’s website: http://capitulogeneral.legionariosdecristo.org/index.php/en/.

Regnum Christi members are asked to go to the special segment on the website to join the Legion in prayer for the success of the General Assembly: http://capitulogeneral.legionariosdecristo.org/index.php/en/home/pray-with-us

The website will also offer links to the following:

Day by day developments: http://capitulogeneral.legionariosdecristo.org/index.php/en/day-by-day

A section with all the latest press releases: http://capitulogeneral.legionariosdecristo.org/index.php/en/news/press-releases
Photos, videos and other multimedia content: http://capitulogeneral.legionariosdecristo.org/index.php/en/home/media

All official messages and decrees, and documents from the Papal Delegate and the General Director about the Chapter: http://capitulogeneral.legionariosdecristo.org/index.php/en/info

The extraordinary General Chapter is an important milestone in the revision of the order’s constitutions and of the congregation’s life, a journey begun more than 3 years ago under the guidance of Pope Benedict XVI, who entrusted Cardinal Velasio with the task of governing the Legion and the Regnum Christi Movement in his name (appointment letter).

The General Chapter will have its first formal meeting the morning of January 9 at the Legion’s General Directorate. Only the Presidency of the Chapter (the Pontifical Delegate and two of his personal councilors) and the Chapter fathers will participate in the sessions of the Chapter. Representatives of the consecrated men, consecrated women and lay members of Regnum Christi have been also invited to participate.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Tuesday, January 7, 2014

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

As the embattled and controversial Legion of Christ picks new leaders, some question whether it’s reforming or not. It’s a dreadfully premature and naive question.

[ABC News]

Until the Legion takes clear, proven steps that protect kids and “out” wrongdoers, this question shouldn’t even be asked.

Some of the Legion’s trouble stems from questionable finances and its cult-like atmosphere. But most of it stems from clergy sex crimes and cover ups.

And very specific “reform” steps can be taken in clergy sex cases – measurable moves that actually safeguard kids by exposing those who commit and conceal sexual violence against kids.

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CHICAGO (IL)
NBC Chicago

By Mary Ann Ahern | Tuesday, Jan 7, 2014

Next week the Chicago Archdiocese will release the names and details of 30 priests involved in sexual misconduct, and the information will grace the bulletins for thousands of Catholics this weekend.The disclosures are part of a settlement agreement ongoing for years.

Cardinal Francis George has written a letter to all priests under his supervision, and requested that his letter be published in this Sunday’s parish bulletins, hoping to get in front of what he explains will be the “the actual records of these crimes.”

“It will be helpful, we pray, for some,” George said. “But painful for many.”

The Cardinal’s letter is titled “Accountability and Transparency”. In it, he makes clear that so far as can be known there is no priest in public ministry known to have sexually abused a child.

But, the case that poses the most difficulty for Cardinal George is former priest Daniel McCormack.

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

UNITED STATES
Religion Dispatches

By MARY E. HUNT

Will Pope Francis be featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated engaging in “spiritual exercises” in next month’s issue?

Given the spate of media attention he has received in the U.S. market, I will not be surprised by anything. Just to head off distractions, let me stipulate that I do have a heart, and approve of the personal direction of this pope: a simple lifestyle, a commitment to the poor, a soft touch with those who are young or ill, all indicate a fine human being, indeed what Christianity would hold up as a model.

I note only that his predecessor popes and some of their episcopal sycophants gave the job such a bad name that the bar is low. Undoing their structures and policies, especially regarding criminal sexual scandals and Vatican finances, will take longer than these first nine months of the Francis papacy.

The phenomenon of a pope becoming a pop culture icon is fascinating, troubling, and not a little confusing. Here are a few of the puzzles I’m struggling with as I try to make sense of the current Catholic religious scene.

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