ABUSE TRACKER

MINNESOTA
Winona Daily News

By Madeleine Baran l Minnesota Public Radio News

A Ramsey County judge extended the deadline Friday for the Diocese of Winona and Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis to disclose new lists of priests accused of sexually abusing children since 2004.

Judge John Van de North already forced church officials in December to disclose the names of “credibly accused” priests on an earlier list. But the dioceses now have until Feb. 5 to produce the new list, which would include the names of all priests who have been accused of child sexual abuse since 2004.

In court Friday, archdiocese lawyer Tom Wieser objected to the broad scope of the order, as did the attorney for the Diocese of Winona. “It’s not reasonable,” Wieser said. “It’s not fair that every allegation, every mere allegation be disclosed.”

“We are delighted the judge didn’t retreat” in ordering full disclosure of the names of all the accused, not just the credibly accused, said attorney Jeff Anderson in an interview Friday.

The judge “tilted in favor of safety for children,” he said.

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MINNESOTA
Faribault County Register

January 4, 2014

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — A judge on Friday gave the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis more time to release a second list of priests who have been accused of child sexual abuse.

Ramsey County Judge John Van de North extended the deadline until Feb. 5.

Archdiocese officials went to court Friday morning to argue that the names of some priests accused of child sexual abuse should not be included on the list that it had been ordered to file by this coming Monday.

The second list updates a list the church prepared a decade ago of priests who it deemed had been “credibly accused.”

Attorneys for the archdiocese argued that the court order requiring the release of the names is ambiguous and could harm the reputation of innocent priests. This time, the list would include the names of all priests accused of abuse after 2004, regardless of whether the church had deemed the accusations against an individual priest to be credible, the Star Tribune reported (http://strib.mn/1crOcsN ).

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MINNESOTA
KARE

[with video]

ST. PAUL, Minn. – A judge has given the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the Diocese of Winona more time to release a second list of priests accused of child sexual abuse.

The new list is made up of priests accused of sexual abuse of minors after 2004. That list was supposed to be released by the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the Diocese of Winona on Monday.

But, lawyers for the Archdiocese requested court clarification on the term credibly accused because it was concerned about priests being falsely accused.

Jeff Anderson, who represents a plaintiff known as Doe No. 1, says the churches determination of falsely accused cannot be trusted.

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UNITED STATES
Pope Crimes & Vatican Evils…

Updated January 2, 2014

Paris Arrow

News from the Dominican Republic today shows the unrest and clamor for the ending of the Vatican Concordats which is especially spearheaded by a leading evangelist Ezequiel Molina who slammed the Concordat, which in his view protects priests accused of pedophilia. The Vatican Concordat in the Dominican Republic forced the country to adopt Catholicism as its “official and one-and only religion” and therefore forbids and quashes Evangelists and other religion to preach or to thrive. A Catholic Youth Ministry Coordinator, Luis Rosario, said that he wrote his thesis, 30 years ago, about ‘the need of an overall review of the Concordat, because in his view that kind of agreement has to be revised as time passes’.

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MINNESOTA
Legal Examiner

The Diocese of St Cloud Release Their List of 33 Priests Accused of Sexually Abusing Minors

Posted by Mike Bryant
January 3, 2014

The Diocese of St Cloud released a list today of 33 priests accused of sexually abusing minors. The release comes the day after a lawsuit was filed seeking the release of the information. These lists have been hidden until now. Along with the list the Bishop of St Cloud, Rev. Donald J. Kettler released a statement.

The List

Robert Blumeyer, OSB (Order of Saint Benedict): St. Augustine, St. Cloud; St. Benedict’s, Avon; St. Catherine, Farming. Deceased

Michael Brennan, TOR (Third Order Regular of Saint Francis): Our Lady of the Angels Boarding School, Belle Prairie. Status Unknown

Anthony Canu, TOR: Our Lady of the Angels Boarding School, Belle Prairie. Status Unknown

Cosmos Dalheimer, OSB: St. Mary’s, St. Cloud; St. Benedict’s Monastery and College, St. Joseph; St. Augustine, St. Cloud; St. Joseph, St. Joseph; St. Scholastica Convent, St. Cloud. Deceased

John Eccleston: Sacred Heart, Staples; St. Edward’s, Henning; Ave Maria, Wheaton; Chaplain St. Francis Convent, Little Falls. Deceased

Richard Eckroth, OSB: St. Benedict High School, St. Joseph; St. Augustine, St. Cloud; Seven Dolors, Albany; St. Raphael’s Convent, St. Cloud; St. Scholastica Convent, St. Cloud. Currently residing in Collegeville, MN.

Sylvester Gall: assistant pastor, Church of St. Joseph, Pierz, September 1938-December 1938; Cathedral of St. Mary December 1938-July 1942; Chaplain at St. Raphael’s Convent, August 1941-July 1942; pastor, Church of St. John, Swanville and Church of St. Bernard, Ward Springs, July 1942-September 1954; Church of St. Nicholas, Belle River, September 1954-June 1958; Church of St. Nicholas, St. Nicholas, June 1958-August 1959; Church of St. Andrew, Elk River, August 1959-June 1969; Church of St. Michael, Motley, June 1969-July 1981; and Church of St. John Nepomuk, Lastrup, July 1981-July 1993. Father Gall retired in July 1993. Deceased.

William Garding: St. Mary’s, Melrose; St. Paul’s, Sauk Centre; St. John the Baptist, Bluffton; Holy Cross, Butler; Assumption, Menagha; Director, Cemetary Office, St. Cloud. Deceased

Raoul Gauthier: Chaplain, St. Michael’s Hospital, Sauk Centre. Deceased

Thomas Gillespie, OSB: St. Boniface, Cold Spring; St. Joseph, St. Joseph; St. Raphael’s Convent, St. Cloud; St. Scholastica Convent, St. Cloud; St. Benedict’s Monastery, St. Joseph. Currently residing in Collegeville, MN

Stanislaus Goryczka: Holy Cross, Harding (Pulaski); St. Edward’s Elmdale; Our Lady of Lourdes, Little Falls. Deceased

Francis Hoefgen, OSB: St. Bonface, Cold Spring; St. Benedict’s Monastery, St. Joseph. Laicized. Address unknown

Othmar Hohmann, OSB: Immaculate Conception, New Munich; St. Boniface, Cold Spring; St. Joseph, St. Joseph. Deceased

Raymond Jacques: St. Peter and Paul, Sauk Centre; Assumption, Morris; St. Anne’s, Kimball. Deceased

Val Klimek: St. Mary’s Cathedral, St. Cloud; Spiritual Director, Cathedral High School; St. Columbkill, St. Wendel; St. Lawrence, Duelm; Director, Catholic Charities; Holy Trinity, Royalton; Mary of the Immaculate Conception, Rockville. Deceased

Reginald Krakowski, TOR: Local Superior, St. Louis Monastery, St. Cloud; Cathedral High School. Current Status Unknown

Joseph Kremer: Sacred Heart, Sauk Rapids; Staff, St. John’s Seminary/Diocese of St. Cloud; St. Michael’s, Spring Hill; Holy Spirit, St.Cloud. Deceased

Richard Kujawa: St. Mary’s, Breckenridge; St. Joseph, Bertha; St. Edward’s, Henning; Sacred Heart, Flensburg; St. Mary’s, Melrose; St. Hubert, Blue Grass; Our Lady of the Assumption, Menagha. Deceased

Henry Lutgen: St. Mary’s, Alexandria; Superintendent, St. Cloud Children’s Home; Director, Catholic Charities. Deceased

Brennan Maiers, OSB: St. Joseph, St. Joseph; St. Boniface, Cold Spring; St. Raphael’s Convent, St. Cloud; St. Benedict’s Monastery, St. Joseph; St. Scholastica Convent, St. Cloud. Currently residing in Collegeville, MN

James Mohm: St. Joseph, Pierz; St. Joseph, Brushvale; St. James, Maine; Immaculate Conception, Osakis. Deceased

Donald Rieder: St. Mary’s, Alexandria; St. James, Randall; St. Anne’s, Kimball; Assumption, Morris; St. Agnes, Roscoe; St. Louis, Paynesville; Chaplain, St. Gabriel’s Hospital, Little Falls; St. Stanislaus, Sobieski; St. John Cantius, St. Cloud. Deceased

Francisco Schulte, OSB: St. Boniface, Cold Spring. Collegeville, MN

Robert Smith: Holy Angels, St. Cloud; Holy Family, Belle Prairie; Our Lady of Victory, Fergus Falls; St. Leonard’s, Pelican Rapids; St. Paul’s, Sauk Centre; Chaplain, Poor Clare Sisters, Sauk Rapids; Holy Cross, North Prairie; St. Stanislaus, Sobieski. Deceased

Peter Snyers: Immaculate Conception, Rice; St. Mary’s, Breckenridge; St. Kathyrn’s, Ogilvie; St. Louis, Foreston; Assumption, Eden Valley; St. Hedwig’s and St. Mary’s, Holdingford; St. John Cantius, St. Cloud. Deceased

Allan Speiser: St. Ann’s, Wadena; Sacred Heart, Sauk Rapids; Holy Angels, St. Cloud; Chaplain, St. Raphael’s, St. Cloud; Cathedral High School, St. Cloud; St. Anthony, St. Anthony; St. Nicholas, St. Nicholas; Immaculate Conception, Becker; St. Francis Xavier, Sartell; St. John Nepomuk, Lake Reno; Our Lady of the Runestone, Kensington;Holy Cross, Butler; St. John the Baptist, Bluffton; Holy Spirit, St. Cloud; St. Francis, St. Francis. Deceased

James Thoennes: St. Anthony’s, St. Cloud; St. Mary’s, Melrose; St. Joseph, Waite Park; St. John’s, Foley; St. Anne’s, Kimball; Sacred Heart, Dent; St. Leonard’s, Pelican Rapids; St. Joseph, Bertha; St. Edward’s. Henning; Chaplain, St. Mary’s Villa, Pierz. Currently residing in St. Cloud, MN

Roger Vaughn, OSC (Canons Regular of the Order of the Holy Cross (Crosiers)) : St. Peter’s, St. Cloud. Currently residing in New York.

Michael Weber : Holy Spirit, St. Cloud as transitional deacon. Currently residing in Twin Cities, MN

William Wey: St. Mary’s Cathedral, St. Cloud; St. Donatus, Brooten; Immaculate Conception, Sedan; St. Gall, Tintah; Sacred Heart, Dent; St. Peter, Dumont; St. Patrick, Collis. Deceased

Adelbert Wolski, TOR: Cathedral High School. Current Status Unknown

Vincent Yzermanns: St. Boniface, Melrose; St. Mary’s Cathedral, St. Cloud; St. John the Baptist, Swanville; Editor, Saint Cloud Visitor; St. Nicholas, St. Nicholas; St. Rose, St. Rosa; St. Anthony, St. Anthony. Deceased

Francis Zilkowski: Chancellor, Diocese of Saint Cloud; St. Louis, Foreston; Sacred Heart, Flensburg; Our Lady of Lourdes, Little Falls; Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Opole. Deceased

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Article by: JEAN HOPFENSPERGER , Star Tribune Updated: January 3, 2014

33 priests are on latest church list of priests accused of abusing minors.

The St. Cloud Diocese on Friday released the names of 33 priests that have been credibly accused of sexual misconduct with children.

“It is my hope that the release of these names will provide validation to those victims who have been sexually abused and have already come forward,” St. Cloud Bishop Donald Kettler said in a statement released Friday afternoon. …

The names on the list are of priests accused of child sexual misconduct for 50 years, ending in 2004. It was compiled by the diocese for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The names are: Robert Blumeyer, Michael Brennan, Anthony Canu, Cosmos Dalheimer, John Eccleston, Richard Eckroth, Sylvester Gall, William Garding, Raoul Gauthier, Thomas Gillespie, Stanislaus Goryczka, Francis Hoefgen, Othmar Hohmann, Raymond Jacques, Val Klimek, Reginald Krakowski, Joseph Kremer, Richard Kujawa, Henry Lutgen, Brennan Maiers, James Mohm, Donald Rieder, Francisco Schulte, Robert Smith, Peter Snyers, Allan Speiser, James Thoennes, Roger Vaughn, Michael Weber, William Wey, Adelbert Wolski, Vincent Yzermanns, Francis Zilkowski.

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MINNESOTA
Seattle PI

ST. CLOUD, Minn. (AP) — The Diocese of St. Cloud has joined other Catholic dioceses around Minnesota in releasing lists of clergy credibly accused of sexually abusing minors.

The St. Cloud diocese released a list of 33 names Friday. Twenty-one people on the list are dead.

On Thursday, a man who says he was sexually abused by a priest in the mid-1960s held a news conference with his attorneys to demand the list’s release.

But a diocese spokeswoman tells the St. Cloud Times (http://on.sctimes.com/JOV10B ) the diocese already had been working on the list.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

By Doug Moore dmoore@post-dispatch.com 314-340-81254

The Archdiocese of St. Louis on Friday succeeded in delaying a circuit judge’s order that the church hand over the names of all priests accused of sexual abuse in the past 20 years.

But the archdiocese in its successful appeal included a list, marked “confidential,” of 115 complaints that have been lodged against archdiocese employees over the last three decades.

Deep in a court filing of about 400 pages, an exhibit lists 234 people who have made complaints against archdiocese employees dating back to 1986. The accusers are identified only by a number.

The church employees also are referred to by a number. Some employees, such as No. 1, had one complaint; employee No. 5 had 15.

Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, a victims’ advocacy group, said 115 represents more than double the number of previously known alleged abusers in the archdiocese.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Houston Chronicle

By JIM SALTER, Associated Press | January 3, 2014

ST. LOUIS (AP) — A Missouri appeals court ruled Friday that the Archdiocese of St. Louis did not have to release the names of priests accused of sexual abuse in the past 20 years as part of a lawsuit against the archdiocese.

A St. Louis judge had given the archdiocese a Friday deadline to turn over the names to a woman who sued, alleging that she was molested by a priest when she was a child, and to the woman’s attorney. Otherwise, the names were to be kept under seal.

The Eastern District of the Missouri Court of Appeals ruling did not say if release of the names would eventually be required, nor did it set a new deadline.

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MINNESOTA
KSTP

By: Megan Stewart

The deadline for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and Diocese of Winona to release the list of credibly accused priests since 2004 has been extended to Feb. 5.

The change came after a hearing to determine whether the priests included in the list should be those “credibly accused,” where the allegations had been verified by the church, or all those accused.

On Dec. 3, Ramsey County District Judge John Van de North ordered the archdiocese and the diocese to release two sets of names. The first list was 46 names that had been compiled as of 2004.

The second list was set to be released on Jan. 6. It was originally outlined to consist of all names the archdiocese and diocese had learned about since 2004.

On Thursday, the archdiocese and diocese filed letters with the court seeking to clarify the criteria for the second list of names.

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By Emily Gurnon
egurnon@pioneerpress.com

A Ramsey County judge has given the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis and the Diocese of Winona an additional month to disclose the names of priests who have been accused of sexually abusing children since 2004.

Those names were to be disclosed by Monday; the new deadline is Feb. 5.

At the same time, Judge John Van de North took church officials to task for failing to report previous cases of abuse to police and for recently using terminology like “boundary issues” to describe certain priests’ behavior.

“I don’t think anybody knows what that means,” Van de North said. “One person’s boundary violation is another person’s sexual abuse.”

The Archdiocese used the term in reference to allegations against two priests who were suspended Sunday: Rev. Joseph Gallatin of the Church of St. Peter in Mendota and Rev. Mark Wehmann of St. Boniface Catholic Church in Minneapolis.

Attorneys for the archdiocese and diocese, as well as plaintiff’s attorney Jeff Anderson, appeared in court Friday to discuss the judge’s Dec. 3 order regarding priests accused of abuse.

A list of “credibly accused” archdiocese priests compiled by 2004 was released Dec. 5. The Winona diocese released its 2004 list Dec. 16. The judge set Monday for disclosure of priests accused since then.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, Jan. 3, 2014

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

Catholic archbishop admits 115 St. Louis church staff accused of abuse

Revelation comes in a new court filing that church officials wanted to be kept secret

A legal document filed late yesterday by the St. Louis Catholic archdiocese reveals that 115 church employees have been accused of child sexual abuse.

Lawyers Archbishop Robert Carlson asked that the document be kept secret. But a Missouri appeals court disagreed. It is available on CaseNet. (ED 100882) and on the SNAP website:

Doc 1 – See pages 188 – 194
Doc 2
Doc 3
Doc 4
Doc 5
Doc 6
Doc 7
Doc 8
Doc 9

This is more than double the number of previously known predators in the archdiocese. Leaders of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, believe the real number of predatory priests, nuns, seminarians, brothers, and other church employees is substantially higher.

“On a well-documented and widely-respected website called BishopAccountability.org, there are 52 names of local child molesting clerics,” said SNAP’s Barbara Dorris. “So Carlson is hiding more predators than have been exposed over decades of disclosures. In other words, local parents and parishioners know fewer than half of the proven, admitted and credibly accused child molesting clerics than the archdiocese does.”

“For the safety of kids, Carlson should post on church websites the names, photos, whereabouts and work histories of every last one of these individuals, starting with those who are alive and have never been ‘outed’ before,” said David Clohessy of St. Louis, SNAP’s director. “.”

The figure comes in an appeal sought by Carlson to delay having to turn over predators’ names to attorneys representing a 20 year old woman who says she was repeatedly molested by Fr. Joseph D. Ross at St. Cronan’s parish in St. Louis city.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
NBC 10

The Archbishop of Philadelphia released a statement Friday explaining the Roman Catholic Church’s decision to supply bail money for Monsignor William Lynn.

“The funding for his bail has been taken from no parish, school or ministry resources, impacts no ongoing work of the Church and will be returned when the terms of bail are completed,” wrote Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput. “As a result, I believe that assisting Msgr. Lynn’s family and attorney with resources for his bail is both reasonable and just.”

But contributing to Lynn’s bail shows the church hierarchy will continue to support church officials regardless of their actions, according to the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

“Catholic officials have for decades helped their corrupt colleagues who have committed or concealed heinous crimes against children,” said David Clohessy, SNAP director, in a response to Chaput’s statement. “And they’re still doing this.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CSN Philly

The Archbishop of Philadelphia released a statement Friday explaining the Roman Catholic Church’s decision to supply bail money for Monsignor William Lynn.

“The funding for his bail has been taken from no parish, school or ministry resources, impacts no ongoing work of the Church and will be returned when the terms of bail are completed,” wrote Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput. “As a result, I believe that assisting Msgr. Lynn’s family and attorney with resources for his bail is both reasonable and just.”

But contributing to Lynn’s bail shows the church hierarchy will continue to support church officials regardless of their actions, according to the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

“Catholic officials have for decades helped their corrupt colleagues who have committed or concealed heinous crimes against children,” said David Clohessy, SNAP director, in a response to Chaput’s statement. “And they’re still doing this.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Newsworks

BY HOLLY OTTERBEIN

A Catholic Church official whose child-endangerment conviction was overturned last month will stay out of public ministry for now.

Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput said in a statement that Monsignor William Lynn will remain on “administrative leave” and therefore “may not function publicly as a priest.”

This week, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia provided the 10 percent of the $250,000 bail needed to release Lynn from prison.

Lynn was convicted in 2012 for his lax oversight of a priest accused of sexual assault. But a Superior Court panel found that the child-endangerment law at the time did not apply to supervisors such as Lynn.

Chaput defended the Archdiocese’s decision to bail out Lynn.

“Msgr. Lynn has already spent 18 months in prison on a conviction which Pennsylvania’s state appellate court has reversed — unanimously — as ‘fundamentally flawed,'” he said. “This reversal is not a matter of technicalities but of legal substance.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Miami Herald

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
PHILADELPHIA — A church official who recently won an appeal of his landmark conviction in the priest-abuse scandal was released from custody Friday, and the city’s Roman Catholic archbishop defended the decision to use church funds to help with bail.

Monsignor William Lynn was staying at an undisclosed location in Philadelphia after being processed at a city jail and being fitted with an electronic monitoring device Friday morning, defense attorney Thomas Bergstrom said. He was due in court Monday for a bail hearing.

Lynn, who left a state prison on Thursday after 18 months behind bars, is the first U.S. church official to have been charged for hiding complaints that priests were molesting children.

City prosecutors had charged him with felony child endangerment, but the state Superior Court ruled that the law that existed at the time did not cover people who did not directly supervise children.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

ALLISON STEELE, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
POSTED: Friday, January 3, 2014

Philadelphia Archbishop Charles J. Chaput on Friday defended his decision to post bail for Msgr. William J. Lynn, saying it was reasonable and just for the archdiocese to help him.

“Msgr. Lynn presents no danger to anyone. He poses no flight risk,” Chaput said in a letter to parishioners that was released by the church.

“The funding for his bail has been taken from no parish, school or ministry resources, impacts no ongoing work of the Church and will be returned when the terms of bail are completed.

“Nor does it diminish in any way our determination to root out the possibility of sexual abuse from the life of our local Church.”

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CANADA
National Post

Mark Kennedy, Postmedia News | January 3, 2014

OTTAWA — Thousands of Canada’s aboriginal children died in residential schools that failed to keep them safe from fires, protected from abusers, and healthy from deadly disease, a commission into the saga has found.

So far, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission has determined that more than 4,000 of the school children died.

But that figure is based on partial federal government records, and commission officials expect the number to rise as its researchers get their hands in future months on much more complete files from Library and Archives Canada and elsewhere.

The disturbing discovery has cast a new light on the century-long school system that scarred the country’s First Nations peoples.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release Friday, January 3, 2013

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

Despite multiple orders from a judge and actual sanctions against him by that same judge, St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson will not be turning over any records today about predator priests.

Late yesterday, he sought, and today he won, a “stay” or delay, from an appeals court.

We’re sad that Carlson keeps spending the generous donations of his flock to pay lawyers, protect predators, endanger kids, maintain secrecy and cause more delays for the brave 20 year old woman who was sexually assaulted by a priest and is seeking justice.

Carlson should have publicly released these names years ago. For the safety of kids, the healing of victims and the benefit of his flock, he should publicly release these names right now – like 30 of his colleagues have done – and post them on parish and archdiocesan websites.

But at the very least, he should stop these costly and hurtful legal maneuvers that contradict his repeated pledges to be sensitive to victims and forthcoming about abuse. If clergy sex abuse and cover ups are all in the past and real reforms have been made, why is Carlson fighting this very limited disclosure so hard?

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MINNESOTA
MinnPost

By Brian Lambert

It does have the feel of everyone working from the same script … Tom Olsen of the Duluth News Tribune reports: “The Diocese of Duluth’s decision to conduct a private investigation rather than contact authorities about child sexual abuse allegations against a former priest was ‘unacceptable,’ St. Louis County Attorney Mark Rubin said Thursday. … ‘Maybe statutes run out on priests that were offenders, but I have to wonder as to why folks who did the covering up are not being held responsible for concealing this,’ [survivors group spokesman Verne] Wagner said. ‘I really believe the county attorney should hold a grand jury and find out what happened … ’ ”

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Article by: JEAN HOPFENSPERGER , Star Tribune Updated: January 3, 2014

Attorney for archdiocese told judge that court order could harm reputation of innocent priests.

A Ramsey County District judge Friday extended the deadline for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis to release a second list of priests accused of child sexual abuse until Feb. 5.

Archdiocese officials went to court Friday morning to argue that the names of some priests accused of child sexual abuse should not be included in the list it had been ordered to file by Monday.

The second list updates a list of priests the church deemed “credibly accused” that was prepared a decade ago. Attorneys for the archdiocese argued that the court order requiring the release of the names — this time of all priests accused of abuse after 2004, regardless of whether they were “credibly accused” — is ambiguous and could harm the reputation of innocent priests.

The diocese of Winona wrote a letter to the court, supporting the archdiocese.

“Rumors spread by a mentally unbalanced individual, by a disgruntled parish employee, by conservative parishioners disliking a liberal pastor [or vice versa] … would have to be publicly disclosed without regard to credibility,” wrote the archdiocese’ attorney Tom Wieser, in a Dec. 18 letter to Ramsey County Judge John Van de North.

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MINNESOTA
WQOW

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) – A judge has given the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis more time to release a second list of priests accused of child sexual abuse.

Ramsey County Judge John Van de North granted the archdiocese’s request on Friday. The new deadline is Feb. 5.

Archdiocese officials went to court Friday morning to argue that the names of some priests accused of child sexual abuse should not be included in the list it had been ordered to file by Monday.

The second list updates a list of priests the church deemed “credibly accused” that was prepared a decade ago.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
The Republic

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
January 03, 2014

ST. LOUIS — A Missouri appeals court has ruled that the Archdiocese of St. Louis will not have to immediately turn over name of priests accused of sexual abuse in the past 20 years.

A St. Louis judge had given the archdiocese a Friday deadline to turn over the names to a woman who sued, alleging that she was molested by a priest when she was a child, and to the woman’s attorney. Otherwise, the names were to be kept under seal.

The Eastern District of the Missouri Court of Appeals ruling on Friday did not say if turning over the names would eventually be required, or set a new deadline.

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CHILE
Bio Bio

Defensa de sacerdote Audín Araya insiste en su inocencia a días de concluir juicio por abuso sexual

En los alegatos de clausura ante el Tribunal Oral de Concepción, el abogado Marcelo Torres calificó como débiles las pruebas presentadas por el Ministerio Público contra su cliente, el sacerdote Audín Araya. El veredicto en el emblemático juicio por abuso sexual de menores sería entregado el próximo martes.

El abogado Marcelo Torres siguió a la Fiscalía y los querellantes en la entrega de los argumentos de cierre, luego de tres semanas desde el inicio del juicio contra el ex rector del colegio Salesianos de Concepción.

En su intervención ante la sexta sala del tribunal oral penquista la defensa del religioso cuestionó la fuerza de los antecedentes recopilados por el Ministerio Público durante la investigación por abuso sexual contra tres jóvenes. Así lo explicó a Radio Bío Bío el abogado Torres.

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VATICAN CITY
Canoe (Canada)

PHILIP PULLELLA, REUTERS
Jan 3, 2014

VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis has said men studying for the Roman Catholic priesthood should be properly trained or the Church could risk “creating little monsters” more concerned with their careers than serving people.

In comments made in November but only published on Friday, Francis also said priests should leave their comfort zone and get out among people on the margins of society, otherwise they may turn into “abstract ideologists”.

The Italian Jesuit journal Civilta Cattolica published an exclusive text of the comments, made in a three-hour, closed-door meeting the Argentinian-born pontiff had in late November with heads of orders of priests from around the world.

“Formation (of future priests) is a work of art, not a police action. We must form their hearts. Otherwise we are creating little monsters. And then these little monsters mould the people of God. This really gives me goose bumps,” he said.

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UNITED STATES
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: A Jesuit of the Chicago Province ordained in 1978, Knoth was known for his work as an educator. His career took him from Chicago to Indianapolis, Washington DC and New Orleans. In 2003, nine years into his position as President of Loyola University in New Orleans, Knoth was accused of having sexually abused a high school student in Indiana in 1986. Knoth was the school’s principal during the time in question. The accusation was deemed credible by his superiors and Knoth was removed from public ministry. He denied the allegation. Knoth moved to Florida and is last known to have been working as a management consultant.

Ordained: 1978

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MINNESOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Statement by Megan Peterson, Twin Cities SNAP leader, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 218-689-9049 cell,survivor19@live.com )

For immediate release: Friday January 3, 2014

The foxes who have for decades ‘guarded the chicken coop’ want to keep doing so. Corrupt St. Paul Catholic officials who for decades have protected proven and accused predator priests are asking a judge to let them keep doing so. Shame on them.

[Star Tribune]

We doubt that documents about “rumors spread by a mentally unbalanced individual, by a disgruntled parish employee” are kept in church files. We believe that now, as before, claims of concern about allegedly wrongly accused clerics are a ruse. St. Paul Catholic officials are worried about themselves and their reputations and their power.

We imagine it must be very hard for an adult to be wrongly accused of child sexual abuse. But we don’t have to imagine something much harder: to be sexually assaulted as a child and watch your perpetrator be protected and hidden for decades and keep on assaulting kids thanks to allegedly spiritual figures who you were taught to believe were Christ’s representatives on earth.

For decades, we as a society have given Catholic officials every benefit of the doubt in clergy sex abuse and cover up cases. It’s time that innocent kids and wounded adults are given the benefit of the doubt.

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MINNESOTA
KAAL

By: Megan Stewart
A hearing to determine which additional names will be released by the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the Diocese of Winona is under way.

On Dec. 3, Ramsey County District Judge John Van de North ordered the Archdiocese and the Diocese to release two sets of names. The first list was 46 names that had been compiled as of 2004.

A second list is set to be released on Jan. 6. It was originally outlined to consist of all names the Archdiocese and Diocese had learned about since 2004.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CBS Philly

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – Monsignor William Lynn has been released from prison.

According to officials, Lynn was fitted with an electronic monitor and released from Philadelphia County Prison on Friday afternoon.

He reportedly must remain within city boundaries and is staying with an undisclosed relative until his Monday hearing.

On Thursday, Lynn was released from state prison, where he’d been housed for 18 months after being charged with child endangerment for reassigning sexually abusive priests to other parishes instead reporting them to law enforcement (see previous story).

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
NBC Bay Area

A Roman Catholic church official who won an appeal of his landmark conviction in the priest-abuse scandal left a Philadelphia jail after a one-night stay.

On Thursday, Monsignor William Lynn left another state prison after serving 18 months behind bars.

Lynn left the prison in Waymart in northeastern Pennsylvania around 10 a.m. Thursday, prison spokeswoman Terri Fazio said, and was taken by the Philadelphia Sheriff’s Office to Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility in Philadelphia where he spent the night.

On Friday morning Lynn was released to an undisclosed location in the city after being fitted with an electronic monitoring device.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
CBS St. Louis

ST. LOUIS (KMOX) – No indication yet what the St. Louis Archdiocese plans to do about Friday’s deadline to adhere to the court-ordered release of clergy abuse information.

The Archdiocese has until the end of the working day today to release the names of all priests accused of sexual abuse in the past 20 years and the names of those who made the complaints.

But St. Louis Circuit Judge Robert Dierker says the Archdiocese could withhold the names of those involved in cases the church determined were unsubstantiated.

A woman who is suing a defrocked priest, the Archdiocese and Archbishop Robert Carlson sought the records.

In a written statement, Archdiocesan officials say Judge Dierker’s 13 page order clearly shows these are very complicated issues and it will continue to work within the judicial process toward a resolution to this lawsuit which it says is rooted in the truth and fairness to all involved.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Article by: JEAN HOPFENSPERGER , Star Tribune Updated: January 3, 2014

Archdiocese must file a second list of accused priests next week.

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis will be in court Friday morning to argue that the names of some priests accused of child sexual abuse should not be included in a second list it must file by Monday.

Attorneys for the archdiocese say that the Ramsey County District Court order requiring the release of a second list of names — this time of all priests accused of abuse after 2004, regardless of whether they were “credibly accused” — is ambiguous and could harm the reputation of innocent priests.

The diocese of Winona wrote a letter to the court, supporting the archdiocese.

“Rumors spread by a mentally unbalanced individual, by a disgruntled parish employee, by conservative parishioners disliking a liberal pastor [or vice versa]…. would have to be publicly disclosed without regard to credibility,” wrote the archdiocese’ attorney Tom Wieser, in a Dec. 18 letter to Ramsey County Judge John Van de North.

The attorney for the victim who filed the lawsuit against the archdiocese, resulting in the court order, asked the judge to deny the request in a Dec. 20 letter.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Berger’s Beat

January 3, 2014 10:53 am | Author: berger

When Judge Robert Dierker sanctioned the St. Louis Catholic archdiocese earlier this week for refusing to turn over names of accused pedophile priests, it was the first time ever in Missouri history that church officials were punished for their legal maneuvers in the nearly 200 clergy abuse lawsuits that have been filed. Dierker also took a verbal swipe or two at Archbishop Robert Carlson, especially when the prelate claimed that “the archdiocese has no right to require parishes” to give him information about child molesters on the church payroll. That posture is “strikingly at odds with” the archdiocese’s actions and arguments in the St. Stan’s conflict, Dierker noted.“Across the country, 30 bishops have voluntarily and publicly disclosed predator priests’ names, and a dozen judges have forced bishops to reveal their names,” noted SNAP’s David Clohessy. “But Carlson won’t even turn the names over privately when they’re covered by a protective order.”

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AUSTRALIA/UNITED STATES
lewisblayse.net

Watch out YMCA, the Salvation Army is moving in. Salvation Army “Kroc Centers” are being built all over the U.S. They are named in honour of the founder of McDonalds restaurants, Ray Kroc, and some of the money for them came from the Joan Kroc bequest (see previous posting).

The centers have swimming pools, gyms, basketball courts, artificial rock climbing, ovals etc. They have many children’s programs, ranging from birthday parties, to after-school supervision, and in some cases, school holiday programs.

Most of the centers cost between $100 million to $200 million to build. All up, the 50 or so centers cost somewhere over $5 billion. That would provide a lot of meals in soup kitchens.

The idea was to provide fitness and child care facilities for underprivileged neighbourhoods. However, not many of them would be able to afford the fees. For example, the Coeur d’Alene center offers personal fitness coaching for $30 per half hour. The Boston center’s fitness membership is $660 per years plus a $50 joining fee.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Service

By Francis X. Rocca
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Francis said he has ordered a revision of what he called outdated Vatican norms on the relations between religious orders and local bishops, in order to promote greater appreciation of the orders’ distinctive missions.

The pope’s words were published Jan. 3 in the Italian Jesuit magazine La Civilta Cattolica. He made the comments Nov. 29 at a closed-door meeting with 120 superiors general of religious orders from around the world.

Pope Francis referred to “Mutuae Relationes,” a set of directives issued jointly by the Congregation for Bishops and the Congregation for Religious in 1978. The document said that religious orders are part of the local church, though with their own internal organization, and that their “right to autonomy” should never be considered as independence from the local church.

“That document was useful at the time but is now outdated,” the pope said. “The charisms of the various institutes need to be respected and fostered because they are needed in dioceses.”

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VATICAN CITY
Reuters

BY PHILIP PULLELLA
VATICAN CITY Fri Jan 3, 2014

(Reuters) – Pope Francis has told Roman Catholic priests to leave their comfort zone and get out among people on the margins of society or else risk becoming “abstract ideologists”.

The Italian Jesuit journal Civilta Cattolica published an exclusive text on Friday of a three-hour, closed-door meeting the Argentinian-born pontiff had in late November with heads of orders of priests from around the world.

Francis said priests had to have “real contact with the poor” and the marginalized.

“This is really very important to me: the need to become acquainted with reality by experience, to spend time walking on the periphery in order really to become acquainted with the reality and life-experiences of people,” he told them.

“If this does not happen we then run the risk of being abstract ideologists or fundamentalists, which is not healthy.”

Since his election in 2013 as the first non-European pope in 1,300 years, Francis has been prodding priests, nuns and bishops to think less about their careers in the Church and to listen more to the needs of ordinary Catholics, especially the poor.

Taking over an institution reeling from child sex abuse, financial and other scandals and losing members to other religions, Francis has tried to refocus on the basic Christian teachings of compassion, simplicity and humility.

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VATICAN CITY
Houston Chronicle

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis has warned that priests can become “little monsters” if they aren’t trained properly while studying as seminarians.

Francis also warned against accepting men for the priesthood who may have been implicated in sexual abuse, saying the protection of the Catholic faithful is most important.

Francis made the comments during a closed-door meeting of 120 superiors of religious orders Nov. 29 at the Vatican. On Friday, the Jesuit journal La Civilta Cattolica provided a report of the informal, question and answer session. The Vatican never provided a transcript of the meeting.

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CHILE
Bio Bio

La Fiscalía reiteró en sus alegatos de clausura las pruebas contra el sacerdote Audín Araya, acusado de abusar sexualmente de tres jóvenes el año 2008 cuando era rector del colegio Salesianos. En la audiencia también intervino el abogado querellante, restando sólo el cierre de la defensa antes del veredicto en este emblemático juicio.

Comenzó la cuenta regresiva en el juicio contra el religioso, al entregar el Ministerio Público sus alegatos de clausura, a cargo del fiscal Alejandro Alí.

Ante las juezas del Tribunal Oral de Concepción, el persecutor recordó todas las pruebas entregadas en las últimas tres semanas contra Audín Araya y que dieron cuenta -dijo- de las tocaciones que debieron soportar tres menores de edad asesorados por éste en su vocación sacerdotal.

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VATICAN CITY
Chiesa

VATICAN CITY, JANUARY 3, 2014 – The official news is that on February 22 Pope Francis will create the first cardinals of his pontificate. This means that at least one month before that date he will make public the list with the names of the churchmen he believes worthy of receiving the scarlet.

Creating new cardinals is a highly personal act of the pope, by which he can among other things influence the selection of his successor.

For this reason as well there is great curiosity over who will be the selections of Pope Francis.

In the past predictions could be made with a fair chance of guessing at least a good number of the new cardinals. It was enough to identify those occupants of ecclesiastical offices of longstanding “cardinalate tradition” – both in the curia and in the leadership of certain dioceses – who were still without the scarlet, and the trick was done.

But with Pope Francis, who has made surprise one of his management traits, the predictions are much more uncertain.

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MINNESOTA
Grand Forks Herald

DULUTH — No charges will be brought against a former Chisholm priest who was being investigated on child sex abuse allegations, St. Louis County Attorney Mark Rubin said Thursday.

Rubin had been investigating the Rev. Cornelius Kelleher, a retired priest who has been removed from ministry, for possible criminal charges after the Diocese of Duluth revealed in October that the priest had been removed from the ministry after abuse accusations.

While there may have been enough evidence to bring charges, the three-year statute of limitations for the disclosure has passed, Rubin said. Two other alleged victims of Kelleher also came forward during the investigation, Rubin said.

Rubin called the diocese’s initial decision to launch a private investigation rather than contacting authorities “unacceptable.” He said he has met with diocese officials to ensure that any future allegations are brought to investigators.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

ALLISON STEELE, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
LAST UPDATED: Friday, January 3, 2014

PHILADELPHIA Msgr. William J. Lynn was released from state prison Thursday, but before he returns to private life, he must again face the judge who put him behind bars.

After serving about 18 months in prison, Lynn left the prison in Waymart, in Northeastern Pennsylvania, on Thursday, a week after an appeals court overturned his child-endangerment conviction. Prosecutors are challenging the decision.

On Monday, Lynn is to appear before Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina, who in 2012 sentenced him to three to six years in prison for his role in enabling priests to abuse children. The judge ordered Lynn to come to court Monday so she could outline his bail conditions personally.

Lynn’s attorney, Thomas A. Bergstrom, acknowledged that such a proceeding was unusual.

“The bail’s been set, the terms have been complied with, and he certainly understands the conditions,” Bergstrom said. “But we’ll be there.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Daily News

CHRISTINE M. FLOWERS, DAILY NEWS COLUMNIST
POSTED: Friday, January 3, 2014

SETH WILLIAMS says he’s “disgusted” by the Pennsylvania Superior Court’s decision reversing the child endangerment conviction of Monsignor William Lynn. Fair enough. He’s probably a tad peeved that his grand experiment in statutory interpretation, one which ignored the meaning of “ex post facto” in an effort to catch a priest, fell apart. He is apparently “disgusted” that a man who was charged with aiding and abetting the abuse of children gamed the legal system.

Well, let me take a moment to tell you what leaves me “disgusted.” I am “disgusted” at the continuation of a show trial that was flawed at the outset and which exploited the public’s legitimate anger at the evil crimes committed against children by a minority of Catholic men. I am also “disgusted” at the hypocrisy of those who seek justice by embracing injustice.

Monsignor Lynn is not an example of profound moral courage. He could have gone outside the chain of command and broken the creeping, deadly silence that protected perverted creatures and exposed innocent children to unspeakable harm. No one – not even those who personally know Monsignor Lynn and attest to his kindness and humility – gives him a pass on his failure to act. Even those who think he was the “fall guy” for his superiors think that, at a human level, he could and should have done more.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Daily News

MENSAH M. DEAN, DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER DEANM@PHILLYNEWS.COM, 215-568-8278
POSTED: Friday, January 3, 2014

THE LAWYER representing the Catholic church official whose child-endangerment conviction was overturned last week by the state Superior Court said yesterday that District Attorney Seth Williams was “unprofessional” for criticizing the ruling and the Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s decision to pay his client’s bail.

Thomas Bergstrom said he will send letters to the Pennsylvania Bar Association and the Disciplinary Board of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania detailing Williams’ misconduct in response to Monsignor William Lynn’s case.

“I think Williams is way out of line. He’s a lawyer, he’s a public servant, an officer of the court. He is denigrating the court and denigrating the Archdiocese for assisting in the posting of bail for what is – at the moment – an innocent man,” Bergstrom told the Daily News.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CBS Philly

By Ileana Diaz

PHILADELPHIA (CBS)–Monsignor William Lynn is out of the state prison where he’s been locked up for 18 months.

He was moved to the Philadelphia County Prison today after the Archdiocese helped post his $25,000 bail, getting him one step closer to freedom and sparking concern amongst many Catholics.

Voice of the Faithful member Nancy Mortimer-O’Brien, says, “It just shows they’re not really sincere if it comes to protecting church or the child we know where they stand.”

Lynn was charged with child endangerment for reassigning sexually abusive priests to other parishes instead reporting them to law enforcement.

That conviction was overturned when the Superior Court ruled Lynn was convicted under a law that didn’t apply to him.

Lynn is now waiting for an ankle bracelet and living arrangements in Philadelphia before he can walk.

“It doesn’t surprise me. I’m disappointed but this shows lack of resolve for change,” O’Brien says.

Catholic parishioners at an afternoon mass said few words about Lynn, but did comment on the Church’s willingness to help.

“I think its money that could’ve been well spent in other places like Catholic education,” says parishioner Donna Whiteoak.

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MINNESOTA
Virginia MN

STAFF REPORT

DULUTH — St. Louis County Attorney Mark Rubin said Thursday that Catholic diocesan officials in Duluth should have immediately involved law enforcement after learning a priest had allegedly sexually abused a child.

Rubin said in a news release that an adult had reported in 2012 to the Diocese of Duluth about “a credible allegation of sexual abuse by Father Cornelius Kelleher, which abuse had occurred many years ago.”

The adult came forward when she learned that Kelleher had moved to a residence near her home. The incident occurred three years after the statute of limitations expired. The diocese did act promptly to remove Kelleher from where he was residing and under church law prohibited him from acting publicly as a priest.

Two other women also came forward and said they had been victims of sexual abuse as children by Kelleher, and also beyond the statute of limitations, the county attorney said.

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MINNESOTA
St. Cloud Times

Written by
Marta Jewson

Sexual abuse survivor Robert Ethen and his attorneys, Jeff Anderson and Mike Bryant, are calling for Bishop Donald Kettler to release a list of 26 priests in the St. Cloud diocese accused of sexual abuse.

At a news conference Thursday Anderson said a civil lawsuit filed this week in Stearns County District Court was an “invitation” for Kettler to “step up and simply do the right thing.”

Anderson, who represents many clergy sex abuse victims, said he believes there are likely many more abusers, and their names must be publicly released to protect the community.

Ethen said when he first went to inform the local diocese of the abuse he was nervous he would not be taken seriously. But when he named Father James A. Thoennes as the offender, he said, the person he was talking to pulled out a large file tied to the priest.

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MINNESOTA
Duluth News Tribune

By: Tom Olsen, Duluth News Tribune

The Diocese of Duluth’s decision to conduct a private investigation rather than contact authorities about child sexual abuse allegations against a former priest was “unacceptable,” St. Louis County Attorney Mark Rubin said Thursday.

Such delays hamper official investigations. But the county’s top prosecutor said he’s now satisfied that he and the diocese have put together an appropriate road map for future abuse reporting.

“The Diocese and I have agreed it is important for a representative of the Diocese to immediately advise any reporting victim of their right to contact law enforcement or social services through the Initial Intervention Unit at the time any allegation of sexual abuse by a priest is reported,” Rubin wrote in a letter issued Thursday.

After the Tuesday release of a list of former diocese priests deemed “credibly accused” of sexual abuse of minors, officials said they expected many previously unknown victims to come forward.
Verne Wagner, the northern Minnesota director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), said Thursday that he has already received several phone calls from victims who had not previously reported their abuse.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Times-Tribune

PHILADELPHIA – A Roman Catholic church official who won an appeal of his landmark conviction in the priest-abuse scandal left a Pennsylvania prison on Thursday after 18 months behind bars.

Monsignor William Lynn left the state prison in Waymart, prison spokeswoman Terri Fazio said, and was taken by the Philadelphia Sheriff’s Office to a city jail, where he was to be fitted with an electronic monitoring device.

He will then be released, probably to the custody of a family member, one of his lawyers said. It was not clear late Thursday when that would happen.

The attorney, Thomas Bergstrom, declined to say where in Philadelphia his client will live while prosecutors appeal the Superior Court ruling.

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MINNESOTA
St. Louis County Attorney Mark S. Rubin

The sexual abuse of a child is a felony offense. Jurisdiction to prosecute the case after investigation by law enforcement lies with the County Attorney’s Office. To enable us to hold offenders accountable and to protect our children, response to a report of sexual abuse needs to be compassionate and according to the law.

All allegations involving the sexual abuse of children by a priest or anyone, should always be reported. Allegations of sexual misconduct occurring within three years of the disclosure are required to be reported to either law enforcement or social services under the Minnesota Reporting of Maltreatment of Minors Law. These agencies then cross-report with each other. All other incidents should be reported, as they involve the alleged violation of criminal statutes. The issue of whether the statute of limitations has expired should be left up to the investigating agency. This is what should be done whether or not the victim wishes to remain anonymous. If there is any doubt about whether reporting is mandatory, the appropriate action is to report the matter to the responsible law enforcement agency or social services.

Earlier this year after conducting an internal investigation with the assistance of a professional, independent investigator, the Diocese of Duluth disclosed it had received from an adult in 2012, a credible allegation of sexual abuse by Father Cornelius Kelleher which abuse had occurred many years ago. The reporting victim requested that her privacy be respected and as a result, the Diocese did not report the allegation to law enforcement or social services. However, the Diocese did take immediate appropriate action to remove Father Kelleher from where he was residing as requested by the victim and has, pursuant to Church law, prohibited him from further acting publicly as a priest.

These actions addressed the voiced concern of the victim, however, this matter should also have been promptly reported to law enforcement or social services.

I have met with Diocesan leadership for the purposes of addressing the issues involved in the Father Kelleher matter and to provide guidance to the Diocese to ensure it is responding according to the law and in the best interests of victims.

Regarding the matter involving specific allegations against Father Kelleher, at my suggestion and due to the expressed privacy concerns of the victim, the Diocese gave the victim my name and telephone number. Since then, she and I have spoken on a number of occasions by telephone. She is an adult and is adamant that her privacy be respected and preserved.

In my conversations with her, it became apparent the incident occurred approximately three years beyond the expiration of the statute of limitations that would otherwise have allowed my office to prosecute the case after an investigation by law enforcement. The statute of limitations is a law that limits the number of years that can pass from the date the alleged incident of abuse occurred and the date charges can be filed. She remained adamant that she did not want the matter investigated further or prosecuted, even if the statute of limitations had not run. Her reason for reporting the incident in 2012 was because Father Kelleher had moved into a residence very close to her home.

I have subsequently received telephone calls from two other women who also reported being victims of acts of sexual abuse by Father Kelleher. These incidents also occurred a few years beyond the expiration of the statute of limitations. These women wanted to remain anonymous and did not want to report it to law enforcement, but wanted the matter brought to my attention to support the credibility of the first victim’s allegations.

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CANADA
Windsor Star

Sarah Sacheli
Jan 02, 2014

More than six decades after William Hodgson Marshall began sexually abusing male students, the former priest has lost his licence to teach.

The Ontario College of Teachers announced in December it has revoked Marshall’s credentials. The college began disciplinary proceedings against the retired teacher and principal after he pleaded guilty in 2011 to 16 counts of indecent assault of minors and one count of sexual assault for incidents that occurred between 1952 and 1986 while Marshall taught at Assumption and Holy Names in Windsor and other Catholic high schools in Toronto and Sudbury.

Marshall later pleaded guilty to further counts related to assaults on two boys in Saskatoon.

Marshall is 91 and is said to have cancer. He hasn’t taught in decades. But that shouldn’t preclude the college from going after his licence, said spokesman Brian Jamieson.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Big Trial

THURSDAY, JANUARY 2, 2014

By Ralph Cipriano
for Bigtrial.net

A week after a panel of Superior Court judges reversed his landmark conviction and ordered him to be “discharged forthwith,” Msgr. William J. Lynn remains in jail.

It’s not known whether Lynn will be out by Sunday, his 63rd birthday. But on 12:30 p.m. Monday, the prisoner is scheduled to return to the courtroom of Judge M. Teresa Sarmina, for another ritualistic humiliation.

“I want him in front of me when I tell him what his conditions are,” Judge Sarmina warned ominously from the bench last week, regarding what she described as her “conditions pending bail.” This is the same judge who presided over Lynn’s now discredited show trial in 2012, a judge whose application of the law in that case was unanimously panned by a panel of three Superior Court judges as “fundamentally flawed.”

Sarmina isn’t through with Lynn yet. Concerned about about the monsignor’s possible flight to the Vatican, the judge has ordered the official scapegoat of the archdiocese prosecution to turn in his passport and put up $250,000 bail. She also wants the monsignor to wear an electronic ankle bracelet, and report on a weekly basis to a Philadelphia parole officer.

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AUSTRALIA
lewisblayse.net

The Salvation Army’s Gill Memorial Boys’ Home will be one of the four Children’s Homes which will be covered by the next hearings of the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. The Home was opened in 1939 by then Australian Prime Minister Lyons, and closed in 1980. It catered for about 90 boys, aged from 3 to 18 years old.

The Salvos are still fighting compensation case from the Home, including in the courts. It clearly is resisting the payment of reasonable compensations. The revelations about the Home will be typical of those at the other three Salvation Army Boys’ Homes which the enquiry will consider – Alkira Indooroopilly Boys’ Home (the author’s old Home), Riverview Training Farm (see previous posting) and Bexley Boys’ Home (see yesterday’s posting).

Ralph Doughty, 80, (pictured above) entered the Home at age seven, when his mother died. His father had been a World War 1 veteran. He was there for 10 years. Recently, he has filed a civil claim against the Salvation Army for $10 million, or as he puts it, $1 million for each year. He claims that the Salvation Army has told him that it will use delaying tactics so that he will die before the case is resolved.

Despite having previously offered Dr. Doughty a $150,000 ex-gratia payment ((plus $3,000 for psychiatrists fees), including a clause saying he will not pursue further civil claims, the Salvos have entered an unusual statement to the courts. It would “not admit” that Mr Doughty ever resided at Gill Memorial Home, that he was abused or that he still suffers psychologically from any alleged abuse.

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MINNESOTA
Jeff Anderson & Associates

Hearing Friday Will Address Archdiocese and Diocese’s Attempt to Change or Clarify Judge’s Order to Release Additional Names of Priests Accused of Abuse

(St. Paul, MN) – On Friday, January 3, 2014 at 11:00 AM Ramsey County District Court Judge John Van de North will hold a hearing to address his previous order that called for the public release the names of priests with allegations of abuse which became known to the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the Diocese of Winona after 2004.

On December 3 Judge Van de North ordered the Archdiocese and Diocese to release two sets of names. First, they had to release the 46 names that they compiled as of 2004. Next the Archdiocese and Diocese were supposed to release all additional names that they learned about after 2004 by January 6, 2014. The Archdiocese and Diocese both filed letters with the court seeking to change or clarify the release of the additional names. The abuse survivor opposed that change and a hearing was set for tomorrow at 11 AM.

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MINNESOTA
WJON

[with audio]

By Alex Svejkovsky January 2, 2014

WAITE PARK — A Sartell man who says he was sexually abused by a priest in the mid-1960s is filing a lawsuit against the Diocese of St. Cloud.

In 1993, Robert Ethen told attorneys he was abused by Father James A. Thoennes and is filing the lawsuit against the diocese so that no child has to go through what he did.

Ethen says he tried to talk to Bishop Donald Kettler personally to see if he was going to release the names just as other diocese around the state.

In 2003, the Diocese of St. Cloud admitted there were 26 priests who worked in the Diocese who had been accused of sexually molesting minors.

Attorney Jeff Anderson says it’s time to release the names of the credibly accused priests of the St. Cloud diocese and to stop keeping secrets.

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UNITED STATES
Pope Crimes & Vatican Evils…

Paris Arrow

Children must call “Father” – only their own biological fathers or adoptive fathers – and they must not give away this unique paternal title and allegiance to other men on earth.

Children must call “Father” – only their own biological fathers or adoptive fathers – because these lay men alone deserve this unique title which they have rightfully earned through their daily labour and lifetime dedication.

Lay men must TAKE BACK their unique legal titles as “Fathers” because it is they who truly care and provide for their own children through their daily hard work!

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MINNESOTA
St. Cloud Times

[court document]

Written by
Marta Jewson

Robert Ethen, who says he is a survivor of sexual abuse by a priest, and his attorneys, Jeff Anderson and Mike Bryant, are calling for Bishop Donald Kettler to release the list of 26 priests in the St. Cloud diocese accused of sexual abuse.

At a news conference Thursday Anderson said a civil lawsuit filed this week in Stearns County District Court was an “invitation” for Kettler to “step up and simply do the right thing.”

Anderson, who represents many clergy sex abuse victims, said he believes there are likely many more and their names must be publicly released to protect the community.

When given the chance to speak, Ethen dropped his head in his hands before addressing the media gathered for the news conference. The lawsuit accuses the Rev. James A. Thoennes of abusing Ethen in the mid-1960s.

“I don’t want another child hurt,” Ethen said, while explaining his decision to file the lawsuit.

Anderson has sued other dioceses in the state and lists of names were released in December by the Minneapolis-St. Paul archdiocese, Winona and Duluth dioceses, and by St. John’s Abbey after a Ramsey County judge ordered the disclosure.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

POSTED BY BARBARA DORRIS ON JANUARY 02, 2014

For immediate release: Thursday, January 2

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

We again call on Archbishop Charles Chaput to reassure parents, parishioners and the public that he won’t put Msgr. William Lynn back on the job anywhere.

There’s some doubt about whether Msgr. Lynn can be criminally prosecuted for his wrongdoing. There is no doubt, however, that he did wrong. And his wrongdoing was repeated and serious – knowingly putting proven, admitted and credibly accused child molesters into new parishes without warning parents or telling police.

So we’re upset that Archbishop Charles Chaput paid Lynn’s bail. Chaput’s action sends the worst possible message to current and former Catholic employees: “No matter how recklessly, callously and deceitfully you danger kids and protect predators, the Catholic hierarchy will help you.”

Now, Chaput could add insult to injury – and send another distressing message – by giving Msgr. Lynn another assignment. We hope that Chaput won’t do this. In fact, we hope Chaput will show some compassion and sensitivity, and put the fears of Philadelphia Catholics and victims at rest, by publicly announcing that Msgr. Lynn will be given no position – now or ever.

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MINNESOTA
Northlands News Center

January 2, 2014

Duluth, MN (NNCNOW.com) — St. Louis County Attorney Mark Rubin is voicing his concerns that the Duluth Diocese never reported sexual abuse of a minor by a priest to law enforcement following last week’s release of names of priests accused of sexual abuse.

In the letter, Rubin says the allegations came too late, after the statute of limitations had expired. The County Attorney says he has spoken with three women who told him they were abused by Father Cornelius Kelleher, however, none of them wanted to report the allegations to law enforcement.

Rubin did acknowledge though that the Diocese of Duluth took immediate action to remove Father Kelleher from where he was residing and prohibited him from further acting publicly acting as a priest after one of the women had reported it to the Diocese.

According to the Diocese, the victim asked that her privacy be respected and as a result, the allegations of sexual abuse were not reported to law enforcement or social services.

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MINNESOTA
Duluth News Tribune

By: News Tribune staff, Duluth News Tribune

No charges will be brought against a former Chisholm priest who was being investigated on child sex abuse allegations, St. Louis County Attorney Mark Rubin announced today.

Rubin had been investigating the Rev. Cornelius Kelleher, a retired priest who has been removed from ministry, for possible criminal charges after the Diocese of Duluth revealed in October that the priest had been removed from the ministry after abuse accusations.

While there may have been enough evidence to bring charges, the statute of limitations of three years for the disclosure has passed, Rubin said. Two other alleged victims of Kelleher also came forward during the investigation, Rubin said.

Rubin called the diocese’s initial decision to launch a private investigation rather than contacting authorities “unacceptable.” He said he has met with diocese officials to ensure that any future allegations are brought to investigators

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MINNESOTA
Seattle PI

By AMY FORLITI, Associated Press
Updated 11:01 am, Thursday, January 2, 2014

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The lead prosecutor in St. Louis County says the Diocese of Duluth should have gone to police immediately after learning a priest was accused of sexually abusing a child.

County Attorney Mark Rubin says the diocese waited 15 months before notifying authorities that the Rev. Cornelius Kelleher was accused of abusing a girl years ago.

The alleged victim is now an adult and went to church officials in 2012. Rubin says the diocese removed Kelleher from ministry in 2013.

Rubin says two more women have since told him Kelleher also abused them years ago.

Rubin says he’s met with diocesan officials, and they now realize they must promptly report allegations.

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MINNESOTA
WDIO

Created: 01/02/2014

St. Louis County Attorney Mark Rubin issued the following statement regarding reports of sexual abuse by clergy within the Duluth Diocese:

The sexual abuse of a child is a felony offense. Jurisdiction to prosecute the case after investigation by law enforcement lies with the County Attorney’s Office. To enable us to hold offenders accountable and to protect our children, response to a report of sexual abuse needs to be compassionate and according to the law.

All allegations involving the sexual abuse of children by a priest or anyone, should always be reported. Allegations of sexual misconduct occurring within three years of the disclosure are required to be reported to either law enforcement or social services under the Minnesota Reporting of Maltreatment of Minors Law. These agencies then cross-report with each other. All other incidents should be reported, as they involve the alleged violation of criminal statutes. The issue of whether the statute of limitations has expired should be left up to the investigating agency. This is what should be done whether or not the victim wishes to remain anonymous. If there is any doubt about whether reporting is mandatory, the appropriate action is to report the matter to the responsible law enforcement agency or social services.

Earlier this year after conducting an internal investigation with the assistance of a professional, independent investigator, the Diocese of Duluth disclosed it had received from an adult in 2012, a credible allegation of sexual abuse by Father Cornelius Kelleher which abuse had occurred many years ago. The reporting victim requested that her privacy be respected and as a result, the Diocese did not report the allegation to law enforcement or social services. However, the Diocese did take immediate appropriate action to remove Father Kelleher from where he was residing as requested by the victim and has, pursuant to Church law, prohibited him from further acting publicly as a priest.

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MINNESOTA
WDIO

St. Louis County Attorney Mark Rubin says he cannot prosecute alleged cases of sexual abuse by clergy because the cases were reported after the statute of limitations expired and three alleged victims do not wish to pursue charges.

On Tuesday, the Catholic Diocese of Duluth released a list of priests who had been “credibly accused” of sexual abuse of a minor. The allegations stretch across the ten-county diocese from 1950 to the present. Most of the clergymen are now deceased.

In a statement issued Thursday, Rubin said the allegations were not made until the statute of limitations had expired. He said he had spoken with three women who said they were abused by Father Cornelius Kelleher, but, besides the statute of limitations issue, none wished to have the allegations turned over to law enforcement.

“The fact that these courageous women have come forward for the first time after so many years have passed exemplifies the harsh reality that sexual abuse has a life-long impact on victims. The women were afraid to tell anyone at the time the sexual abuse had occurred. Their fear was that they would not be believed and that matters would only be worse for them. These continue to be the concerns we hear from many victims similarly situated,” Rubin said.

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DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Dominican Today

Santo Domingo.- One of most outspoken Catholic priests on Thursday said he agrees with revising the sweeping pact in effect for more than half a century between the Vatican and the Dominican Republic, known as the Concordat, slammed by one of the country’s leading evangelists.

Catholic Youth Ministry Coordinator Luis Rosario said 30 years ago his thesis was over the need of an overall review of the Concordat, because in his view that kind of agreement has to be revised as time passes.

He affirmed that some parts of the pact aren’t being enforced, and as an example cited the ban of divorce, because that has been repealed by local laws.

Lauds Medina

Speaking at House of the Youth, Rosario lauded president Danilo Medina’s attendance at two religious services in various churches, “which helps the understand that there should be unity among the people. Times must and should change.”

Agreement criticized

During a religious service on Wednesday leading evangelist Ezequiel Molina slammed the Concordat, which in his view protects priests accused of pedophilia. “Many have south to take these pedophiles to court so they pay for their sin, for their harm to society and youth, and they might not be.”

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OREGON
OPB

Father James Radloff was told in August he was being removed from his post at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic in Bend. On New Year’s Eve, about 100 parishioners gathered outside the old church downtown to pray for the pastor, who they believe was a victim of injustice.

“Many of us feel that he was not treated with dignity and respect when he was relieved of his duty as pastor,” parishioner Paul Imwalle said.

He says Tuesday night’s vigil was not a a protest, just a time for the congregation to pray for the former priest.

No one has said publicly why Radloff was asked to leave. It’s a closely guarded secret that Bishop Liam Carey of the Diocese of Baker and Radloff have agreed not to reveal.

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UNITED STATES
Religion News Servicei

Kevin Eckstrom | Jan 2, 2014

WASHINGTON (RNS) The Rev. Robert Nugent, a Catholic priest who was silenced by the Vatican for his work with gay and lesbian Catholics, died Wednesday (Jan. 1) after a three-month battle with cancer. He was 76.

In many ways, the scrutiny of Nugent’s activism symbolized the Vatican’s approach to all talk of homosexuality under Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI — what one gay Catholic group called a “witch hunt” — compared to the more tolerant “who am I to judge?” tone set recently by Pope Francis.

Nugent, a member of the Salvatorians religious order, co-founded the Maryland-based New Ways Ministry in 1977 with Sister Jeannine Gramick to build bridges between the gay community and the Catholic Church. Their activities drew repeated condemnation from U.S. Catholic leaders in the 1980s.

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UNITED STATES
Stop Baptist Predators

Christa Brown

“When the truth is spoken and it don’t make no difference, something in your heart goes cold.”
— Bruce Springsteen

Trauma experts confirm the critical importance of social context in determining how people process traumatic events. If traumatized people are supported by a caring community, they may often do quite well even after terrible events. But when traumas are inflicted on a child by someone who is supposed to take care of the child, and when the child experiences those traumas repeatedly, and when the child’s community colludes to deny the reality, and when the child is not allowed to feel what he feels or give voice to what he knows, then the child’s mind cannot process what has happened and the trauma embeds itself more deeply.

This truth about the importance of context manifests itself in the stories of clergy sex abuse survivors. These are people who, in childhood, experienced a terrible crime, but for whom the traumatic impact is typically derived from much more than the predatory acts of a single person. Rather, when the offender is a much-trusted minister, the degradation of childhood rape and molestation is often exponentially magnified by the community’s long-continuing efforts to minimize, deny, and cover up – i.e., by the context. We have seen this pattern over and over again.

Thus, the context that surrounds clergy sex abuse makes it a classic context for giving rise to long-term trauma-related issues. For those who experience such traumas during the vulnerable developmental periods of childhood and adolescence, the impact is often more profound than is encompassed within the usual parameters of a post-traumatic-stress-disorder diagnosis. Generally, the diagnosis of PTSD was developed in connection with adults and does not take into account the ways in which chronic, repeated traumas affect a child’s development.

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UNITED STATES
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: Arthur Falvey was a priest of the California Province of the Society of Jesus, ordained in 1930. Most of his career was spent in California as a faculty member of Jesuit high schools and colleges. He died in 1966 in Nevada, where he had lived and worked for a short while. In 2009 the Jesuits settled with a man who claimed Falvey sexually abused him over a 4-year period in Sacramento, beginning in 1954 when the man was a 7-year-old boy. Falvey was the brother of Rev. Mark Falvey, s.j., who was accused of sexually abusing at least 10 children.

Ordained: 1930
Died: Feb. 23, 1966

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UNITED STATES
Spiritual Politics

Mark Silk | Jan 2, 2014

To its credit, the archdiocese of Philadelphia responded to a Pennsylvania appeals court’s overturning of the criminal conviction of Msgr. William Lynn last week with the statement: “We recognize that today’s news is especially difficult for survivors and their families. We profoundly regret their pain.”

Whether their pain will be alleviated by yesterday’s news that the archdiocese has helped post Lynn’s $250,000 bail may be doubted. But at least Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput didn’t follow the lead of the Catholic League’s Bill Donohue in acclaiming the man who managed sexual abuse cases for the archdiocese for many years and denouncing those who wanted to hold him accountable.

“The guilty parties that worked overtime to convict an innocent man—they include attorneys, judges, newspapers, professional “victims’ groups,” activists, TV talking heads—have been disgraced,” Donohue wrote. “Msgr. Lynn spent 18 months in prison because of dishonest people who harbor an anti-Catholic agenda. We expect he will soon be released. God bless him.”

To understand what innocence means in this context, It is important to understand the basis for the appeals court’s action. The statute under which Lynn was convicted applied to ”a parent, guardian or other person supervising the welfare of a child under 18 years of age” — and the court disagreed with the prosecution’s theory, accepted by the trial judge, that Lynn had supervisory responsibility for the welfare of the child abused by Rev. Edward V. Avery. Yet it made sufficiently clear that the conviction would have stood had Lynn been charged under the statute as it was revised in 2007, extending responsibility explicitly to ”a person that employs or supervises such a person”:

Constrained by our standard of review, we cannot dispute that the Commonwealth presented more than adequate evidence to sufficiently demonstrate that Appellant the prioritized the Archdiocese’s reputation over the safety of potential victims of sexually abusive priests and, by inference, that the same prioritization dominated Appellant’s handling of Avery…

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Newsworks

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia has helped Monsignor William Lynn post $25,000 to bail him out after his landmark conviction was overturned last week. His entire bail is $250,000 but is allowed to be released after posting 10 percent.

Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams, himself a Catholic, criticized the church’s decision.

“Well, he committed those acts and he’s responsible for what he does and he should be responsible for paying his bail,” said Walt Kenney from Northeast Philly.

Jim Clearkin, from Ambler said regardless of what Lynn did, he deserved the help because his conviction was overturned.

“I also feel somewhat that Monsignor Lynn might be a scapegoat for others. If he was wrongly convicted, he should have been given bail,” said Clearkin.

“I really don’t have a problem with it, considering it sounds like he was wrongly convicted. Not that I don’t know that he didn’t do anything wrong, but it sounds like legally, he should not have been convicted, so I don’t see a problem with them posting bail for him,” he added.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Times Herald

By The Associated Press
POSTED: 01/02/14

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A Roman Catholic church official has left state prison after 18 months because he won an appeal of his landmark conviction in the priest-abuse scandal.

A state prison spokeswoman, Terri Fazio, says Monsignor William Lynn was released Thursday from the prison in Waymart in northeastern Pennsylvania.

The Philadelphia Sheriff’s Office is taking Lynn to a Philadelphia jail to be fitted with an electronic monitoring device. After that, he’ll be released.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
NBC 10

[with video]

A Catholic monsignor locked up for the past 18 months as part of the clergy sex-abuse sandal stepped out of a Pennsylvania prison this morning.

Monsignor William Lynn was freed around 10 a.m. Thursday after the Roman Catholic Church helped him post bail earlier in the week.

Sheriff’s officers are expected to transfer Lynn temporarily to Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility where he will be processed and told rules for his release.

Defense lawyer Thomas Bergstrom said required electronic monitoring will track Lynn. The priest’s attorneys already turned over his passport, which was also a condition of his release.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Times Herald

By The Associated Press
POSTED: 01/02/14

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A Roman Catholic church official is set to leave prison after 18 months because he won an appeal of his landmark conviction in the priest-abuse scandal.

A state prison spokeswoman, Terri Fazio, says Monsignor William Lynn is scheduled to be released Thursday from the prison in Waymart, in northeastern Pennsylvania.

Lynn is set to be taken to Philadelphia, where he must remain on electronic monitoring while prosecutors appeal the Superior Court ruling.

The 62-year-old Lynn was the first U.S. church official ever charged for hiding complaints that priests were molesting children. He was the point person for those complaints in Philadelphia from 1992-2004.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philly.com

Teacher-turned-talk show host Dom Giordano is heard weekdays 9AM to 12 noon on WPHT 1210-AM Radio. Contact Dom at www.domgiordano.com.

POSTED: Thursday, January 2, 2014

INSIGHTS for this column often come in strange places. I was getting my final thoughts together for my year in review for all the issues that affect parents, kids and teachers.

I was getting changed in a men’s locker room when two guys were discussing Monsignor William Lynn and the Superior Court decision. The appeals judge said that Lynn, by statute, was not able to be held legally responsible for his actions, although even the Superior Court said that “Lynn prioritized the Archdiocese’s reputation over the safety of potential victims of sexually abusive priests.”

One guy actually defended Lynn, claiming that he had to do what he did because he had taken a vow of obedience.

On my radio show that day, I had heard rationalizations like this to try to spin Lynn’s actions. It clearly struck me that this is the both the biggest and worst local story of the year involving kids and parents.

It’s the worst because it opens all the old wounds. It also undermines the good work of Archbishop Charles Chaput, who has judiciously worked his way through a multitude of cases involving allegations against priests. My hope is that District Attorney Seth Williams appeals the Superior Court decision and wins, so that Lynn is returned to jail.

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MISSOURI
KCTV

[with video]

By Betsy Webster, News Reporter

KANSAS CITY, MO (KCTV) –
A Missouri Court of Appeals is questioning a legal rule that has essentially treated religious schools differently from public schools when it comes to child sex crimes.

The case in question involves a man who recently reported a crime he says happened 40 years ago at the hands of his priest and teacher at St. Elizabeth’s in Waldo.

David Tate filed the lawsuit against Father Michael Tierney and the Diocese of Kansas City and Saint Joseph in 2011. He said he had repressed memories of his abuse until he heard of other victims filing suit.

It was the early 1970s. Tate was an eighth-grader at St. Elizabeth’s School. Tierney was his teacher and the priest who supervised altar boys at the church. Tate was an altar boy at the time.

Tate’s lawyer says Tierney’s supervising priest was aware that he was a risk around children.

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ISRAEL
The Jerusalem Post

By ISI LEIBLER
01/01/2014

Rabbi Chaim Druckman, one of the most prominent rabbis of the national-religious movement, has responded to Rabbi Mordechai Elon’s conviction for indecent assault by force against a minor by employing him as a teacher in the Or Etzion Yeshiva where Druckman serves as the rosh yeshiva. This has sent shockwaves through the religious-Zionist community, and also poses a serious challenge to the Bayit Yehudi political party.

Naftali Bennett, the head of Bayit Yehudi, ran on a platform which highlighted religious reform. A charismatic personality, he communicates well with secular Israelis and has even succeeded in projecting himself as a trendy liberal. But until now, due either to inability or unwillingness, he has failed to confront the tough issues of religious reform.

Bayit Yehudi cannot remain on the sidelines in relation to such a fundamental issue as sexual misconduct within the rabbinic community. If it does not respond appropriately to this latest imbroglio, it will contribute to its own demise.

It is not my intention to provide a detailed analysis of the tragic Elon issue. Rabbi Elon was one of the leading and most charismatic rabbis within the religious- Zionist movement. His weekly Torah television presentations were widely popular. He was at one time head of the renowned Yeshivat Hakotel, headed the Horev School and was considered a candidate for chief rabbi. To this day he retains numerous followers who insist on his innocence.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Daily News

JULIE SHAW, DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER SHAWJ@PHILLYNEWS.COM, 215-854-2592
POSTED: Thursday, January 2, 2014

MONSIGNOR William Lynn has not been released from state prison in northeastern Pennsylvania yet, but life is looking rosier for him in the new year.

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia on New Year’s Eve posted $25,000, or 10 percent of his $250,000 bail, enough to free him.

But Lynn, the Archdiocese’s former secretary for clergy, still needs to have his electronic-monitoring system set up and may not be freed “until the end of the week or next week,” his attorney, Thomas Bergstrom, said yesterday.

The holiday meant “no one’s working,” Bergstrom said, so Lynn, who is at the State Correctional Institution at Waymart in Wayne County, will have to wait.

Lynn could be back in Philadelphia in time for his 63rd birthday on Sunday. Bergstrom said Lynn will stay in the city when he is hooked up with an electronic-monitoring ankle bracelet, but would not say specifically where Lynn will live.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia City Paper

By Ralph Cipriano
Published: 01/02/2014

The overturning of a criminal conviction is a rare event, with the odds of it occurring at less than 5 percent. Reversals in the criminal courts are “like diamonds,” as one local defense lawyer put it.

So it was a shocker on Dec. 26 when a panel of three state Superior Court judges unanimously ruled that the landmark conviction of Monsignor William J. Lynn should be reversed and he should be “discharged forthwith” from prison.

There may be more surprises when the alleged victim in the Lynn case takes the stand next June, when his civil case against the Archdiocese of Philadelphia is scheduled to go to trial.

Lynn, former secretary for clergy for the archdiocese from 1992 to 2004, was the first Catholic administrator in the country to go to jail for the sexual sins of the clergy — not for touching a child, but for failing to rein in the predator priests he supervised.

Though it reversed his 2012 conviction, the Superior Court judges noted there was evidence that he “prioritized the archdiocese’s reputation over the safety of potential victims.”

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My Atheist Life

I asked a simple question of my readers. The response was about what I had thought it would be.

“Can someone please show me a case in the last few months of child sexual abuse / assault that does not involve a priest, pastor, or some religion related individual?”

When I tried to get some actual numbers myself I found some interesting statistics.

Information on Catholic sex abuse cases is about what you think it would be but with some surprise conclusions if you’ll allow some lateral thinking.

* Apparently the Catholic clergy are not the only religious organization to fail to stop sex abuse by their employees
*Catholicism does not decrease the incidence of sex abuse among its adherents
*There are a lot of theories as to why sex abuse is so high among the Catholic clergy
*The Catholic church has hidden sex abuse cases all over the planet

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AUSTRALIA
lewisblayse.net

Bexley Salvation Army Boys’ Home will be one of the institutions examined at the next hearings of the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, due to commence on 28th January. One of its former residents, Kevin Marshall, was interviewed for the government-owned Australian Broadcasting Corporation Television’s “Four Corners” investigative journalism program in 2003 (see link below). Two other former residents of that Home were also interviewed, but not named, and were filmed in “shadows”.

Bexley commenced as a Probationary Home for Boys in 1915, taking boys referred from the courts. It became a boys’ home in 1931. It was renamed Kolling Memorial Boys’ Home in 1967 and closed in 1979. When Bexley Boys’ Home was closed, the remaining boys were transferred to the Marrickville Children’s Residence. It is now renovated and used as the Salvation Army’s officer training facility and museum.

The enquiry will find certain things common to all Salvation Army Boys’ Homes. It will find that boys were given a number and not a name. [The author was no.32]. Extreme violence, for trivial transgressions, such as talking at the dinner table, not standing straight enough in line etc., was the norm.

Being put down psychologically also was routine, such as “we pulled you out of the gutter” or “your mother was a prostitute.” For boys with English as a second language, speaking in their native language was severely punished. This was in an era when there had been large scale European migration to Australia for the first time, and the official government policy was “assimilation”. That meant, in practice, become British. Now it is “multiculturalism.” A large proportion of inmates were there because, as children of migrants, there was usually no close relatives to care for them when their own parents were unable to do so.

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OREGON
Statesman Journal

Written by
Dan Lucas
Commentary

Kelly Clark, an Oregon attorney who brought lawsuits against some large organizations on behalf of the victims of sexual abuse, died recently. As well as being a champion for victims of sexual abuse, he also was a self-acknowledged sexual victimizer several decades ago.

He worked to bring justice to victims of abuse within “institutions of trust” such as “the Catholic Church, the Boy Scouts of America, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and school districts.”

I’m writing this to recognize all of the other victims — of all forms of sexual abuse and sex crimes — who are still awaiting justice. The victims whom no one has stood up for yet. The victims who tried to get help from those who are supposed to help and were let down. The victims whose painful stories have not been told yet. The victims who’ve blocked out the painful memories and the victims who’ve succumbed to drugs, alcohol and even suicide because they couldn’t see hope through the pain and hopelessness.

My own brief experience researching and dealing with sexual predators in Oregon politics has shown me that for every known victim, there are many more unknown victims. Unknown to the public anyway.

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MINNESOTA
Legal Examiner

St Cloud Press Conference Today : Survivor Calls on Diocese of St. Cloud to Release List of 26 Priests Accused of Sexual Abuse of Minors

Posted by Mike Bryant
January 2, 2014

What: At a press conference on Thursday, sexual abuse survivor Robert Ethen along with his attorneys will:

· Announce the filing of a civil lawsuit seeking the release of the list of credibly accused priests from the Diocese of St. Cloud.

· Abuse survivor Robert Ethen will speak publically about his abuse in the mid-1960s by Father James A. Thoennes and the necessity of releasing the list of credibly accused priests in the St. Cloud diocese.

· In 2003, the Diocese of St. Cloud admitted there were 26 priests who worked in the Diocese who had been accused of sexually molesting minors. By keeping its list a secret the lawsuit alleges that the Diocese has harmed and continues to harm the Plaintiff, who is unable to protect others from sexual abuse by priests. The lawsuit also alleges that by choosing not to release the list the Diocese endangers the public in the communities where these unknown priests live and work.

· Similar lists have been released by the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, the Diocese of Winona, the Diocese of Duluth, and St. John’s

When: Thursday, January 2, 2014 at 1:00 PM

Where: Law Office of Bradshaw & Bryant, PLLC
1505 Division St.
Waite Park, MN 56387

Who: Robert Ethen, a survivor of sexual abuse by Father James A. Thoennes, a priest of the Diocese of St. Cloud. Jeff Anderson, a St. Paul, Minnesota sexual abuse attorney. Mike Bryant, a sexual abuse attorney based in the St. Cloud, Minnesota area.

Notes: Copies of the complaint will be available at www.andersonadvocates.com

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MISSOURI
TribTown

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
First Posted: January 02, 2014

ST. LOUIS — A Missouri judge has ordered the Archdiocese of St. Louis to release by the end of the working day Friday the names of all priests accused of sexual abuse in the past 20 years.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch (http://bit.ly/19Jiw5D) reports St. Louis Circuit Judge Robert Dierker’s disclosure order also includes the names of those who made the complaints.

The judge said the archdiocese could withhold the names of those involved in cases the church determined were “unsubstantiated,” leaving it unclear what the archdiocese will ultimately release from 234 complaints identified by the court.

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MINNESOTA
St. Cloud Times

A sexual abuse survivor and his attorneys plan to announce Thursday a civil lawsuit against the St. Cloud diocese seeking a list of priests credibly accused of abuse.

Robert Ethen and his attorneys Jeff Anderson and Mike Bryant will hold a press conference at 1 p.m. Thursday at the law office of Bradshaw & Bryant, Waite Park. The lawsuit was filed Tuesday afternoon in Stearns County District Court.

Ethen of Sartell will discuss the abuse he said occurred in the mid-1960s by the Rev. James A. Thoennes, according to a statement from Anderson’s office.

Thoennes was named in a 2009 lawsuit. That lawsuit accused the diocese of failing to alert parishioners that Thoennes was accused of abuse. He instead was moved from parish to parish, it said.

The statement from Anderson’s office says the diocese admitted in 2003 there were 26 priests who had been accused of sexually abusing children, but no names have been released.

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MINNESOTA
KSTP

Created: 01/01/2014

By: Cassie Hart

A lawsuit will demand that the Diocese of St. Cloud release a list of priests accused of sexual abuse.

A St. Paul attorney announced one of his clients will file a civil lawsuit asking for the list.

The client says he was abused by a priest in the 1960s, and says keeping the list secret is causing him additional harm.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
My Fox Philly

PHILADELPHIA –
Monsignor William Lynn is still waiting to leave prison after the Archdiocese of Philadelphia helped post his quarter-million-dollars bail.

An appeals court overturned his conviction in a case linked to the priest-sex abuse scandal.

Lynn is the first U.S. church official ever convicted for his handling of abuse claims. He’ll be subject to electronic monitoring.

Prosecutors will try to restore the conviction.

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KENTUCKY
Albany Times Union

OWENSBORO, Ky. (AP) — The Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office has asked the Owensboro Police Department to investigate allegations against a priest accused of inappropriate conduct with a minor.

The Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer reports (http://bit.ly/1g19fXB) the Catholic Diocese of Owensboro on Tuesday announced the temporary suspension of the Rev. John Meredith following an investigation.

A letter from Diocese of Owensboro Bishop William Medley says the Diocesan Review Board unanimously judged the allegation to be credible and urges compassion for the person who brought the matter to light.

Meredith has been a priest at Blessed Mother Catholic Church since 2008.

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MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2014

For more info: David Clohessy ( 314 566 9790, SNAPclohessy@aol.com ), Barbara Dorris ( 314 862 7688 home, 314 503 0003 cell, SNAPdorris@gmail.com )

Victim to appeal “bizarre” ruling
Catholic abuse case will move forward
Church not responsible for child sex crimes
The reason: abuse happened on private property
Missouri Supreme Court is expected to hear case this year

A man who says he was sexually assaulted as a child by a priest will soon ask the Missouri Supreme Court to reverse a ruling that ended his civil lawsuit against Kansas City Catholic officials. Clergy sex abuse victims called the court decision “bizarre” and harshly criticized KC Bishop Robert Finn for his defense tactics in the case.

In November, a western Missouri appeal court tossed out a case called John Doe D.T. v. the Kansas City Catholic diocese and Fr. Michael Tierney. In it, the court ruled that Catholic officials could not be held responsible for the alleged child sex crimes of Fr. Tierney because they occurred on private property, not church property.

This week, another court declined to hear the case and the victim’s attorney pledged to appeal it to the Missouri Supreme Court.

“The blame here squarely lies with Bishop Finn. He could have fought this case on the merits. Instead, he’s fighting it on technicalities, and in fact, on the most absurd technicality: where Fr. Tierney and his victim were standing when Fr. Tierney sodomized the child,” said Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, outreach director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

“Imagine a painting company sending a known rapist on its payroll out to paint your mom’s house. He rapes her. Would the painter’s boss get ‘off the hook’ because the rape was not on company property?” asks David Clohessy of SNAP.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
KSDK

[with video]

Ryan Dean

ST. LOUIS (KSDK) – The Archdiocese of St. Louis has until Friday 5 p.m. to release the names of priests accused of sex abuse throughout the past 20 years, according to court documents released Tuesday morning.

The priests’ names will not be made public, according to the documents. They will remain sealed and will only be seen by the plaintiff and her lawyer in an ongoing civil case against the Archdiocese.

The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priest held a small demonstration Tuesday near the Cathedral Basilica applauding the ruling. However, they say the names of the accused should be made public.

“We think the public should be given these names. Several Catholic bishops across the country have released names voluntarily of predator priests. But, it takes an enormous and long legal struggle in this Archdiocese just to get the names turned over privately in litigation,” David Clohessy, director of SNAP, said.

This case started back in October 2011. The unnamed plaintiff accused the Archdiocese and some of its clergy of several wrongdoings including sexual abuse, intentional failure to supervise clergy and negligent supervision of a priest.

The Archdiocese of St. Louis released the following statement Tuesday, “The Archdiocese of St. Louis will review with its attorneys today’s court order for the release of identities of victims and accused clergy dating back many years that involve any substantiated allegation of sexual abuse.”

Tuesday’s court order indicates there are more than 200 cases of “accused individuals” during that time frame.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
NBC 10

[with video]

The Roman Catholic Church and attorneys for a former church official, who’s been locked up for the past 18 months related to the clergy sex-abuse scandal, have posted his bail.

Monsignor William Lynn’s attorneys posted 10-percent of the $250,000 bail, which was set after an appeals court overturned his conviction last week.

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia also “assisted” with providing the bail, spokesman Ken Gavin said.

Speaking on the issue on New Year’s Eve, Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams was livid over the archdioceses’ involvement.

“Clearly this sends the wrong message to all victims of child sexual abuse,” said Williams, who is Roman Catholic. “As a Roman Catholic, as I am, it sends the wrong message to [church members] that they’re going to use our funds, church money, to pay to release this man.”

Lynn is the first U.S. church official ever convicted for his handling of abuse claims. But an appeals court now says the child-endangerment felony didn’t apply to him.

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MINNESOTA
Jeff Anderson & Associates

Statement of Attorney Mike Finnegan

(Duluth, MN) – The release of the list of priests credibly accused of sexual abuse of minors is a good first step for the Diocese of Duluth.

We applaud the courageous survivors, including Michael DeRoche, for standing up and seeking the release of this list.

While we are encouraged by this first step, for there to be true transparency, the Diocese must also release the secret documents that it has on each priest on the list. These documents will show what the Bishops knew, when they knew it, and what they did in response.

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AUSTRALIA
lewisblayse.net

The Salvation Army became embroiled in controversy, including internally, when it agreed in 2012 to accept a $22 million contract from the Australian government in relation to the Manus Island and Nauru immigration detention centres for people who arrived by boat to claim asylum here. By 2013, the contract had risen to $74.9 million for the year to 31st January 2014. The new government has recently announced that the contract will not be renewed after that date.

[This blog does not make any comment on the issue of asylum seeker policy itself, and in the past has done the same with other political issues. While the author may have private opinions on Australia’s immigration policies, that is something for others to argue. What this blog is concerned with is the hypocrisy of the Salvation Army on the issue.]

For the benefit of readers from other countries, Australia has had many people set out from, mainly, Indonesia, in often unseaworthy boats headed for Australia to claim refugee status. Many of those boats have sunk en route, with the loss of at least 1,000 lives. Whether or not to accept these people has become a significant political issue in Australia.

Both of the two major political parties refuse to accept these people as genuine refugees and now detain them in centres on the small Pacific island nation of Nauru, and Manus Island, off the coast of Papua- New Guinea, while their claims are processed. Apparently, this policy will encourage many of them to return to their homeland, or face indefinite detention. Debate on all of this runs hot in the community, on both sides of the argument.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

SARAH MACDONALD – 01 JANUARY 2014

Radical Irish priest Fr Tony Flannery has described the Irish church as “bereft of leadership” in a stinging rebuke to the Irish bishops.

The Redemptorist, who was silenced by the Vatican in February 2012 and is currently forbidden to say Mass or minister as a priest because of his liberal views, said he believed the Vatican’s “witch hunts” against liberal priests were over, thanks to the election of Pope Francis.

Speaking to the Irish Independent, the 66-year-old said of the spate of censures which targeted Irish clerics: “If Pope Francis had been elected a year earlier, I would not be in the position I am in, and neither would the other five priests in Ireland — because clearly Francis doesn’t approve of this.”

The Co Galway-based cleric, who had an unblemished 40-year record as a missioner until he was censured by the Vatican’s doctrinal watchdog, The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said the Pope had made it clear that he “doesn’t want to be hearing this sort of thing in the Vatican and that he wanted this to be dealt with at the local level by the bishops.”

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ISRAEL
The Jewish Week

Tue, 12/31/2013

Daniel Goldman and Miriam Zussman

Society in Israel and North America are different in many ways, but when it comes to understanding the dangers of sexual abuse of children by rabbis, communities in Israel and the diaspora must find ways to cooperate in making progress on this painful and complex issue.

Several years ago, a group called the Takanah Forum, was established by Orthodox leaders including Rabbis Aaron Lichtenstein, Shlomo Riskin, Eliyakim Levanon and David Stav along with Rabbanit Chana Henkin, Yaffa Gisser and others, as a watchdog for sexual abuse and harassment in the religious community. It found Rabbi Mordechai “Moti” Elon, a charismatic, much beloved rosh yeshiva of Yeshivat HaKotel who hosted television and radio programs in Israel, responsible for multiple cases of abuse of power, and sexual exploitation against students. They made the difficult but necessary decision to require Rabbi Elon be removed from teaching, or having any contact with youth in an effort to protect future victims.

Nearly four years ago Rabbi Elon violated his agreement with the Takanah Forum, and hence the issue was brought into the public domain. This past week, the Jerusalem District court convicted Rabbi Elon on two counts of indecent assault by force against a minor. Although the punishment was disappointingly light, the conviction should have caused deep repercussions in the Orthodox world – a sign that abuse can come from highly respected rabbis. Unfortunately not everyone is outraged at Rabbi Elon’s violations, and not everyone sees him as a dangerous and habitual predator.

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ISRAEL
The Jewish Week

Tue, 12/31/2013

The sad story of Rabbi Moti Elon took another troubling twist last week. The once highly popular rosh yeshiva of Yeshivat HaKotel in Jerusalem, whose Torah teachings on radio and television attracted wide audiences beyond the Orthodox community, was sentenced by a local district court on two counts of indecent assault by force against a minor.

He had been accused in recent years of sexually abusing his students. And even after being reviewed and warned by a group of highly respected Torah scholars who make up the Takanah Forum, a watchdog group dealing with rabbinic abuse in the Orthodox community, he had violated their call for him to cease contact with young men. At that point the forum members reluctantly alerted the authorities, and they in turn brought Rabbi Elon to trial. He was convicted in August. (See Opinion piece, “Defying The Court, Protecting The Sinner,” online at thejewishweek.com.)

Beyond the sorrow, though, this week there was frustration and anger in the religious Zionist community when Rabbi Elon was given a surprisingly light sentence — six months of community service, three years probation and a fine, but no jail time. What’s more, Rabbi Elon insisted he had done nothing wrong, and won the continued support of Rabbi Haim Druckman, the spiritual leader of the Bnei Akiva network of schools in Israel and rosh yeshiva of Orot Etzion, who continues to allow Rabbi Elon to teach in the school despite strong complaints from families there.

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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

Wednesday 1 January 2014

Mark Smith
Feature writer

In the last, quiet days of 2013, in a corner of the Tron bar in Glasgow, Steven Thomson is looking backwards and forwards – backwards to the 20th anniversary year of Glasgay!, the gay arts festival he has run since 2004, and forwards to some of the ideas he is working on for the 2014 festival.

The ideas include a farce about a Roman Catholic cardinal accused of sexual misbehaviour. Resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely deliberate.

Thomson thinks this idea of a comedy inspired by the Cardinal Keith O’Brien debacle is exactly the kind of work Glasgay! should be doing, although not the only kind. The mission statement he has composed for himself over the last few years is complicated: partly, it is about discussing the taboos around sexuality, including religious taboos; partly it is about being one of the few organisations in Scotland commissioning new theatre; partly it is about reflecting and inspiring changes in gay life and culture. And partly it is about having a good time.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Fox News

Philadelphia prosecutors have blasted the city’s archdiocese for posting at least part of the bail for a monsignor whose conviction for crimes related to sex abuse was recently overturned.

Monsignor William Lynn’s lawyers said Tuesday that he had posted 10 percent of the $250,000 bail and surrendered his passport, both necessary conditions for him to be released while awaiting an appeal by prosecutors to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams accused the archdiocese of posting the entire $25,000 at a hastily called news conference Tuesday night. A spokesman would only say that the archdiocese “assisted” in posting bail for Lynn, but declined to specify an amount when contacted by The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Williams said the archdiocese’s action “sends the wrong message and protected pedophiles,” and called it “business as usual.”

Lynn, the former archdiocesan secretary for Philadelphia responsible for the supervision of priests, was the first U.S. church official ever convicted for his handling of abuse claims. He began serving a three-to-six-year prison sentence in June 2012. However, a Pennsylvania Superior Court judge ruled Monday that the child-endangerment law Lynn was convicted of violating did not apply to him.

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UNITED STATES
GlobalPost

Jason Berry

There is Pope Francis with angelic wings, smiling beatifically on the cover of the New Yorker magazine wherein James Carroll’s profile sings hope for a church reformed. And there is Francis featured as Time Magazine’s Person of the Year. They are just two of the many prominent public expressions of the new pope’s virtues that stand in high relief from the darkness that has shadowed the church for two decades now.

In the nine months since his election in Rome, the pope from Argentina, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, has become a moral statesman on the global stage, preaching an ethos of mercy, justice and peace. …

Cardinal Bergogolio was elected last March by cardinals aghast at a Roman Curia so balkanized that a butler leaked papal correspondence to the media; money-laundering at the Vatican Bank; and the clergy abuse scandals which sociologist Father Andrew M. Greeley, in 1992, called “perhaps the most serous crisis Catholicism has faced since the Reformation.”

How has Francis responded to the crisis? Do his early moves suggest structural changes to match his eloquence on mercy and justice? …

“Masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape,” Francis wrote, “not the ‘exploited’ but the outcast, the ‘leftovers.’”

But the church has her own leftovers, like the 575 claimants sexually violated as children by priests in the Milwaukee archdiocese, which chose grinding bankruptcy litigation to slash its compensation to victims. A central issue there is $57 million then-Archbishop Timothy Dolan took from general funds and buried in the budget for cemeteries. A Catholic federal judge with relatives buried in those Milwaukee cemeteries ruled the $57 million “untouchable” and cannot be used to pay victims because the US Constitution guarantees freedom of religion. His ruling is on appeal.

“I prefer a Church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a Church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security,” Pope Francis stated in “The Joy of the Gospel.”

Dolan left Milwaukee to become archbishop of New York, and a cardinal under Benedict. In the run-up to the March conclave, the Italian press gushed over Dolan’s glad-handing and kissing babies, suggesting that he’d be a grand pope. Imagine what the international media would have made of that $57 million stuffed in cemetery coffers, had Dolan become pope, or the $20,000 bonus package he gave Milwaukee pedophiles to leave the priesthood. Dolan wisely tamped down the speculation.

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KENTUCKY
Messenger-Inquirer

Posted: Wednesday, January 1, 2014

By James Mayse Messenger-Inquirer

The Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office has asked the Owensboro Police Department to investigate allegations against a priest who was recently suspended by the Catholic Diocese of Owensboro following accusations of “inappropriate conduct with a minor.”

The diocese informed Blessed Mother Catholic Church parishioners Monday that the Rev. John Meredith has been temporarily suspended following an investigation by the Diocesan Review Board.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

ABC

One of Australia’s most notorious paedophile Catholic priests has died in a Victorian prison.

Corrections Victoria has confirmed Michael Glennon died of what is believed were natural causes at the Hopkins Correctional Centre at Ararat, west of Melbourne.

Glennon was serving a 10-year minimum sentence for child sexual offences committed between 1973 and 1991.

Most of his victims were children who were in his care at a camp near Lancefield, north of Melbourne, in the 1980s.

Glennon was due to complete his sentence in 2016.

Dr Bernard Barrett from Broken Rites says Glennon’s case was a turning point for the prosecution of paedophile priests.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

Notorious pedophile Catholic priest Michael Charles Glennon has died in prison.

Corrections Victoria spokesman Mario Xuereb confirmed on Wednesday that Glennon, 69, died overnight of natural causes at the Hopkins Correctional Centre in Ararat.

Glennon was serving a 14-and-a-half year sentence with a 10-year minimum for child sex offences.
In 2003, a court heard that he faced 30 charges for molestation against four victims between 1983 and 1991.

Most of the offences were committed at youth camps held at Karaglen, a rural property at Lancefield, north of Melbourne, which Glennon helped operate.

The former priest was convicted of sexually abusing 15 children between 1974 and 1991, mostly at Karaglen.

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