ABUSE TRACKER

TEXAS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Monday, April 14, 2014

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

A lawyer representing clergy sex abuse victims has filed a motion seeking records from the Catholic Diocese of Corpus Christi because of the crimes of Fr. Clement Hageman.

[ABQ Journal]

We hope Corpus Christi Bishop Michael Mulvey will respond promptly and fully. Catholic officials should be voluntarily turning over and making public records about child molesting clerics, instead of waiting for subpoenas and court orders.

According to a New Mexico newspaper, Hageman “is accused in lawsuits of sexually assaulting at least six boys in the Gallup diocese” and “had earlier worked in the Diocese of Corpus Christi, where sexual abuse allegations were made against him, according to personnel records made public in other cases.

We hope that every single person who saw, suspected or suffered Fr. Hageman’s crimes will call police, expose wrongdoers and deter cover-ups. Those who commit and conceal heinous clergy sex crimes – whether living or dead, whether priest or bishop – should be exposed and, if possible, punished so that kids will be safer and crimes will be deterred.

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NEDERLAND
Dichtbij

[Summary: The Catholic Church already has 1,000 cases of known sexual abuse and it knows of 600 perpetrators. The offenders including priests, brothers and nuns. In the meantime, there is growing dissatisfaction with the way the church deals with allegations of sexual abuse. There is a storm of criticism over the silence of the Roermond diocese who knew for months that former Bishop Jo Gijsen had abused two boys.]

ROERMOND – De klachtencommissie seksueel misbruik in de RK Kerk heeft tot nog tot al zo’n 1000 zaken afgedaan, en daarbij zijn zo’n 600 daders door de mand gevallen. Met daders wordt bedoeld: priesters, paters, broeders, nonnen, kortom: geestelijken van de katholieke kerk in Nederland. In totaal had de kerk in maart al zo’n 11,5 miljoen euro uitgekeerd aan de slachtoffers van seksueel misbruik.

Dat zei voorzitter Wiel Stevens van het meldpunt voor seksueel misbruik binnen de RK Kerk voor het programma Nieuwsuur. Intussen groeit de onvrede over de manier waarop de kerk in Nederland omgaat met de aanpak van het misbruik. Zo gaat er een storm van kritiek door het land over het halsstarrige zwijgen door het bisdom Roermond, dat al maanden wist van het misbruik door Gijsen, maar de lippen op elkaar geperst hield. Totdat het bisdom er niet meer om heen kon.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Lancashire Telegraph

EAST Lancashire priests have said that there will be no ‘hiding place’ for the ‘wicked and wrong’ abusers of children in the Catholic Church.

Members of the clergy spoke out after Pope Francis insisted the church would ‘not take one step backward’ in tackling the problem, which has blighted the faith in recent years.

The move, which could now open the floodgates for hundreds of compensation claims by victims, has been supported across the area, with one priest saying the Pope’s strong stance is right even if it does bankrupt the Catholic hierarchy.

Several former priests and teachers at the Jesuit-run Stonyhurst College in the Ribble Valley were investigated over sex abuse allegations in the late 90s Father James Chaning-Pearce, who taught maths and physics there, was convicted of molesting four boys and jailed for five years in 1997.

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UNITED STATES
Center for Constitutional Rights

April 11, 2014 – In response to Pope Francis’s statement today asking for “forgiveness for the damage [some priests] have done for having sexually abused children” and promising “sanctions”, the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, issued the following statement:

“Actions speak louder than words. If Pope Francis wants to meaningfully address this crisis and the institutional impunity that perpetuates it, there are three steps he must take.

1. Remove all priests known to have raped children or others, and require reporting to secular authorities. Today, throughout the world, priests who are known to church officials continue to hold posts in congregations, schools, orphanages, and elsewhere, unbeknownst to local communities. The church has shown over and over that it cannot police itself. These matters must be turned over to the proper authorities, and it is well within the scope of Pope Francis’s power to make sure this happens.

2. Punish church officials who have covered up cases of rape and sexual violence by clergy, failed to report them, and obstructed investigations by law enforcement. Pope Francis’s promised “sanctions” must address the systemic impunity that helped to create the culture of rape and sexual violence that exists today within the church.

3. Encourage and protect church whistleblowers who have come forward with information about the crisis of sexual violence. So far church officials have intimidated and retaliated against whistleblowers. Pope Francis can and must work with whistleblowers to get to the root of the problem.

The Catholic Church is governed as a monarchy with the Pope having “supreme, immediate and universal ordinary power.” Pope Francis has all the authority he needs to move from words to action and stop further abuse.”

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NEW YORK
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Groups blast Vatican before UN panel
Victims & advocates file detailed new complaint
Top Catholic officials will soon be questioned in Geneva
A similar UN panel harshly criticized church after first such hearing
This time, it’s the Committee Against Torture looking at church hierarchy
Groups document on-going Catholic child sex abuse scandal as ‘acts of torture’
Their goal: to “expose, punish & deter widespread & systematic sexual violence”

WHAT
Holding signs and childhood photos at a sidewalk news conference, leaders of an abuse victims’ support group and a human rights organization will disclose and discuss their new formal complaint to a United Nations panel that sharply criticizes top Catholic officials for enabling and concealing sexual violence.

Next month in Geneva, Vatican officials will appear in person before that panel.

WHEN
Monday, April 14 at 1:00 p.m.

WHERE
Outside St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Ave (between 50th & 51st) in Manhattan

WHO
Four-six members of two groups – an international support group called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAPnetwork.org) and the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR)

WHY
Next month in Geneva, the UN Committee on Torture will question Vatican officials on their compliance with an international treaty condemning and forbidding torture.

Representatives of SNAP and CCR are formally making a detailed and extensive complaint to the UN Committee. The 80+ page submission documents a systematic, widespread and on-going global practice of concealing rape and abuse, tolerated and enabled by the Vatican and shows how these acts constitute torture.

The jurisdiction of the UN Committee Against Torture names rape as a form of torture. Top Catholic officials signed and ratified the Convention on Torture nearly 15 years ago. By doing this, they legally agreed to uphold the rights and regulations laid out in the treaty.

The Vatican is now being called by the committee for its periodic review on how they have implemented the treaty.

SNAP and CCR’s submission shows the role played by Vatican officials in the on-going protection of perpetrators, the hiding of crimes and the enabling of rape, sexual assault, and torture of thousands of innocent children and vulnerable adults around the world.

In January, Vatican officials were called before the Committee on the Rights of the Child, also in Geneva, for their periodic review under another UN treaty which top church officials also signed. A month later, that committee released a long and scathing report on how the Catholic hierarchy is refusing to protect children and stop the systematic and widespread cover ups. The report attracted worldwide attention.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

April 14, 2014

Annette Blackwell

A woman whose Salvation Army officer husband went to police to turn himself in for sexually assaulting an eight-year-old girl says she cannot recall details of the event and denies trying to intimidate an officer.

Kerry Haggar, a lieutenant colonel in the Salvation Army whose husband Colin has been subject of an inquiry into the army’s handling of abuse complaints said on Monday she could only recall that her husband had gone to police to report “he had inappropriately touched a child”.

The royal commission into child sex abuse hearing started two weeks ago and has heard that Colin Haggar admitted abusing the girl in a central western NSW town in 1989.

James Condon, who is now the man in charge of the army’s eastern region, gave evidence last week that he accompanied Mr Haggar when he went to police in 1990 to report the offence.

Mr Condon, who was a captain at the time, could also not recall details but said police had told Mr Haggar no action could be taken without the victim making a complaint.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

Salvo officer accused woman of blowing whistle on husband’s child sex abuse: royal commission hears

April 14, 2014

Paul Bibby
Court Reporter

A senior Salvation Army officer, whose husband, also an officer, sexually assaulted a young girl, later sent an accusatory Facebook message to a whistleblower, the royal commission into child-sex abuse has heard.

Lieutenant-Colonel Kerry Haggar denied she was trying to intimidate the whistleblower just weeks before the woman was due to give evidence at the commissions’ public hearings into abuse within the Salvation Army.

Colonel Haggar, formerly a member of the Salvation Army’s senior cabinet, broke down while giving evidence before the royal commission on Monday.

She apologised for sending the message to Captain Michelle White, who had gone to the Office of the Children’s Guardian and the Ombudsman in 2013 and reported that Colonel Haggar’s husband, Colin Haggar, had assaulted a young girl in 1989.

“I’m incredibly sorry and I’d like to reiterate publicly to Michelle my apologies for sending that,” Colonel Haggar said, after describing the message as “unwise”.

“It was – sorry. It was a very personal reaction out of my own distress.”

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

A former NSW detective says he formed the view a Salvation Army officer was not truthful when he said he only committed one offence against an eight-year-old girl.

John Greville has been contracted by the Salvation Army’s Professional Standards Office to investigate historical allegations of abuse.

On Monday Mr Greville, who has worked with the Wood Royal Commission and the NSW Ombudsman on child protection, said he was asked in January to look into the case of Colin Haggar, a Salvation Army lieutenant colonel who was director of a Sydney crisis shelter for women and children.

The commission has heard Haggar was dismissed from the Salvation Army in 1990 after he confessed to the sexual assault of an eight-year-old girl in a central western town in NSW. In 1993 he was re-admitted to the army and promoted.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

[with audio]

Major Peter Farthing was chair of the Personal Injuries Complaints Committee assessing claims of child sexual abuse from 2005 to 2009. He’s admitted some of their decisions were ‘pathetic’, and that in at least one instance of correspondence with a victim of child sexual abuse, the Salvation Army was trying to cover itself legally. At one point in the hearings, Major Farthing asked the Salvation Army’s lawyer to ‘remind him’ to review whether an extra payment should be offered to one victim who was raped as a child and had bricks tied to his feet before he was thrown into a swimming pool.

Transcript

MARK COLVIN: A former head of the Salvation Army committee that assessed claims of child sexual abuse has admitted that some of their decisions were ‘pathetic’, ‘disbelieving’, and ‘mean-spirited’.

Major Peter Farthing also told the child abuse Royal Commission that in at least one instance of correspondence with a victim, the Salvation Army was trying to cover itself legally.

At one point in the hearings, Major Farthing asked the Salvation Army’s lawyer to ‘remind him’ to review whether an extra payment should be offered to one victim who had bricks tied to his feet before being thrown into a swimming pool.

Sarah Dingle reports.

SARAH DINGLE: Major Peter Farthing notched up 36 years with the Salvation Army last January. He’s held senior leadership positions, including chair of the Personal Injuries Complaints Committee, or PICC, from 2005 to 2009.

As chair of the PICC he presided over the vast majority of victims complaints that came to the Salvation Army. Payments were calculated using a matrix.

Major Farthing confirmed to Counsel Assisting Simeon Beckett that the matrix allocated money depending on what kind of abuse was suffered.

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VIRGINIA
The New Republic

BY KIERA FELDMAN @kierafeldman

The March newsletter for Patrick Henry College’s Alumni Association began with a notice that birth announcements were temporarily suspended. Instead, it was to be a “more sober edition,” devoted to the fall-out from “Sexual Assault at God’s Harvard” a story I wrote for The New Republic in March about the mishandling of sexual assault cases at the elite evangelical school. In my investigation, I uncovered allegations that the Patrick Henry administration treated sexual assault perpetrators with impunity, discouraged women from going to the police, and blamed victims for dressing or behaving immodestly. Over the past month, the school’s administration, students, and alumni have responded to the story with an outpouring of public statements and online commentary.

Shortly after the story’s publication, Patrick Henry released a statement announcing the hiring of “a specialized legal firm” to audit the school’s policies and procedures regarding sexual assault and harassment. At the same time, the school maintained administrators “did not attempt to cover-up any sexual crimes” and “did not seek to blame women” for male students’ actions. “The fact is that the information provided by the key individuals at the time differs from the allegations now related in the New Republic article,” said the statement, which was read aloud during chapel. The student body responded with applause.

Some Patrick Henry students voiced their support for school administrators. “The monstrous Dean Corbitt described in the article is almost unrecognizable,” a sophomore wrote in an email to the American Conservative. “She seems like a twisted distortion of the friendly, cheerful woman who is always seems [sic] to be willing to help out all the students.”

By comparison, a statement from the Patrick Henry College alumni association suggested that alums have been far more critical of the administration than most current students. The alumni made several demands: transparency in PHC’s audit; “better victim care to students when they come forward”; the hiring of a victim’s advocate; and campus education “regarding issues such as consent.”

PHC did not disclose the name of the “specialized legal firm” hired to run the audit, not even to its students. The school did not respond to follow-up questions from The New Republic. “The secrecy about the firm is just shady,” a PHC junior told me. “The whole problem was that they’ve been dealing with these things behind closed doors.”

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NEDERLAND
Dagblad De Limburger

[Summary: Government Minister Edith Schippers said she approves of the decision of the Catholic Church not to go actively public with information about Bishop Jo Gijsen’s abuse of two boys.]

Minister Edith Schippers (Volksgezondheid, Welzijn en Sport) keurt het besluit van de Rooms-Katholieke Kerk om niet actief naar buiten te treden met informatie over misbruik af.

door onze verslaggevers

Ze reageerde op het bericht dat het bisdom Roermond al twee maanden geleden wist dat oud-bisschop Jo Gijsen twee kinderen heeft misbruikt, maar deze informatie al die tijd bewust niet naar buiten heeft gebracht.

,,Ik vind het zelf wel kwalijk dat het allemaal zo lang duurt, dat het allemaal zo moeizaam gaat en dat je niet actief publiceert, maar dat je wacht totdat je gebeld wordt”, zei ze in het programma WNL op Zondag. De Kerk verplichten om informatie naar buiten te brengen, is volgens haar niet de oplossing. ,,Je kunt dingen verplichten, maar uiteindelijk beslist diegene die de informatie heeft of die hem geeft.”

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NEDERLAND
Dagblad De Limburger

[Summary: Bishop Frans Wiertz of the Roermond diocese on Monday will discuss the issue of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church during a service at Basilica of Our Lady in Maastricht. He will also unveil an artwork by Pierre Habets called the “Road to Reconciliation.” The diocese last week admitted that former Bishop Jo Gijsen sexually abused two boys from 1958 to 1961. Gijsen died last year.]

Bisschop Frans Wiertz zal maandag, tijdens een boeteviering in de basiliek van Onze Lieve Vrouwe in Maastricht, nader ingaan op het thema van seksueel misbruik binnen de katholieke kerk. Tijdens de kerkdienst zal ook het werk de ‘Weg naar Verzoening’ van kunstenaar Pierre Habets worden ingezegend.

van onze verslaggever
Roermond

De onthulling van het kunstwerk en Wiertz’ voordracht daarbij zijn sinds vorige week in het actuele daglicht komen te staan van het misbruik door oud-bisschop Jo Gijsen. Het bisdom Roermond bood vrijdag twee mannen die als minderjarige jongens tussen 1958 en 1961 meermaals door Gijsen werden misbruikt publiek excuus aan. Dat gebeurde nadat de klachtencommissie voor seksueel misbruik in de katholieke kerk hun klachten gegrond had verklaard.

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NEW JERSEY
The Record

APRIL 13, 2014

BY JEFF GREEN, MINJAE PARK AND JIM NORMAN
STAFF WRITERS
THE RECORD

In what seems to be shaping up as a tale of two churches, Roman Catholic Archbishop John J. Myers found himself increasingly isolated from congregants who attended an Easter season Mass at Newark’s Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart on Palm Sunday.

Although Myers greeted parishioners on the steps of the imposing twin-towered stone cathedral, he declined to meet with protesters carrying a stack of petitions signed by 22,000 people objecting to lavish renovations being made to his weekend residence and future retirement home in rural Hunterdon County.

Neither Myers nor his personal secretary, Monsignor Michael Andreano, who delivered the homily, made specific reference to the expansion of the residence, which includes a fifth bedroom, fireplaces and an indoor therapy pool, at a cost of more than $500,000.

But in his homily, Andreano focused on how Jesus was ostracized before his death.

“Perhaps we, too, are disappointed by crowds turning away from us, by being abandoned by friends and supporters, by experiencing our own little persecutions and beatings and horrors and tragedies and even death,” he said.

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CANADA
Canoe

DENIS LANGLOIS, QMI AGENCY
Apr 13, 2014

OWEN SOUND, Ont. — The leader of a Chatsworth, Ont.-area church who disappeared two years ago amid allegations of physical and sexual abuse was arrested on the weekend, police said.

Frederick Madison King, 55, was wanted on a Canada-wide warrant after OPP announced 31 charges last week against him and his brother, Judson William King, following a 16-month investigation

OPP were tipped late Friday that Frederick King was at a Hamilton, Ont., hotel, Sgt. Dave Rektor said. King was arrested without incident, Rektor said in a statement.

King is scheduled to appear in court Monday in Owen Sound.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

DAN BOX THE AUSTRALIAN APRIL 14, 2014

THE NSW government intends to make a formal submission to the royal commission alleging two senior Salvation Army officers lied over their account of the church’s handling of a child’s sexual abuse.

Cross-examining one of these officers this morning, the barrister representing the state, John Agius SC, said a letter signed by the pair describing why they were leaving a NSW country town in 1990 was “full of untruths”.

In the letter, sent to other local members of the Salvation Army, Colin and Kerry Haggar said “we are taking a break from the duties of officership so that we can spend time on our own spiritual growth”.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has heard the pair were forced to leave their positions after Mr Haggar admitted to sexually abusing an eight-year-old girl.

“So you lied to them, because that will be our submission at the end of the day?” Mr Agius asked Mrs Haggar, a Lieutenant Colonel in the Salvation Army, who was recently forced to stand down from her position on its “cabinet’’ of senior administrators.

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TENNESSEE
WGNS

A 54 year old pastor has been arrested in Gallatin on various child sex abuse charges. Randy Giulliani was arrested there last week after a victim went to authorities in Sumner County. Giulliani, who used to work as a preacher at a Rutherford County church, is being held on 200-thousand dollars bond in Gallatin. Authorities do say he has not been associated with the congregation for the past two years. Giulliani faces a charge of rape of a child and aggravated sexual battery.

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NEW MEXICO
ABQ Journal

By Olivier Uyttebrouck / Journal Staff Writer
PUBLISHED: Monday, April 14, 2014

People who allege they were sexually abused by priests in the Diocese of Gallup have until Aug. 11 to file claims in the diocese’s bankruptcy case, an Albuquerque judge ordered Friday.

The order, signed by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge David Thuma, also sets out steps the diocese must take – including a multistate advertising campaign – to alert the public about the process for filing claims.

The Diocese of Gallup plans to spend up to $40,000 for newspapers advertisements and 90-second TV and radio spots in a four-state area, the diocese’s lead attorney, Susan Boswell of Tucson, said in a hearing this week.

James Stang, a Los Angeles attorney who represent sexual abuse victims in the case, estimated last week that the diocese currently faces claims from 30 to 35 people who had not reached settlements with the diocese before it filed for bankruptcy last year.

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NEW JERSEY
The Daily Journal

Written by
Jim Walsh
Courier-Post

Before moving to South Jersey one year ago, Bishop Dennis Sullivan lived in a Manhattan mansion with a chair reserved exclusively for a visiting pope.

Sullivan, now leader of the Diocese of Camden, is again in a mansion — but this one has the church leader on a hot seat.

Critics have assailed Sullivan’s decision to spend $500,000 for a Woodbury estate, a 20-room manor known as Rugby Pines once used by the president of Rowan University.

They assert the money would be better spent helping the needy, and say the bishop should seek a more humble home.

Sullivan is not alone.

Controversies have flared recently over church leaders’ pricey homes in the Atlanta and Newark dioceses. And Pope Francis removed a German bishop from his post last month after the cleric spent the equivalent of $43 million for a new residence and related improvements.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

A former teacher who sexually abused his student at a high school in the NSW Blue Mountains now wants his victim to pay his legal bills.

Mark Wurth was repeatedly abused at the Blue Mountains Grammar School by then-house master and geography teacher Neville Gilbert Betteridge in the 1970s.

“He was coming into the dormitory through the infirmary of a night and taking me from my bed back to his room,” Mr Wurth told the ABC.

In 2004, Betteridge was convicted of two counts of indecent assault on Mr Wurth and given a three-year suspended jail term.

Seven years later, Mr Wurth decided to sue the Anglican Church Diocese, which ran the school at the time, and Betteridge for damages.

The church paid Mr Wurth an out-of-court settlement and Mr Wurth then offered to withdraw the action against Betteridge.

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AUSTRALIA
NEWS.com.au

AN elderly priest has been charged with child sex offences, accused of abusing two young girls in 1969 and 1980.

It will be alleged in 1980 a priest at the St Aloyius Church in Shenton Park indecently assaulted a girl who was aged 10 to 12 years old when she visited the presbytery after school.

The same priest allegedly indecently assaulted a girl aged six to seven years old in 1969 while working at the Holy Name Church in Carlisle, also allegedly in the presbytery.

A 79-year-old has been charged with six counts of indecent dealing with a child under 13 years old.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Telegraph

JANET FIFE-YEOMANS THE DAILY TELEGRAPH APRIL 14, 2014

THE wife of a Salvation Army officer has told how she apologised to the mother of an eight-year-old who he had sexually assaulted.

“She was very forgiving,” Lieutenant Colonel Kerry Haggar told the child sex abuse royal commission today.

“She told me not to worry about it.”

Lt Col Haggar said her husband Colin, who was also a lieutenant colonel in the Salvos until he was finally dismissed earlier this year, had told her what he had done in late 1989 when they were living in a western NSW town.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

A 79-year-old Perth priest has been charged with child sex offences going as far back as 1969.

Police allege the man indecently assaulted a girl who was aged 10 to 12 when he was a priest at St Aloysius Church in Shenton Park in 1980.

They claim the same priest was working at the Holy Name Church in Carlisle in 1969 when he indecently assaulted a girl aged six to seven.

The offences allegedly occurred at the presbytery.

The man has been charged with six counts of indecent dealing with a child under 13.

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AUSTRALIA
The West Australian

A 79-year-old man has been charged over alleged incidents involving children dating back to the 1960s while he was a Catholic priest.

The charges follow investigations by child abuse squad detectives relating to sexual assault and serious physical matters involving children in State care before March 1, 2006.

The priest was based at a Shenton Park church in 1980 when he allegedly indecently assaulted a girl who was aged 10-12 years when she visited the presbytery after school.

“It is further alleged in 1969, the same priest was working at a church in Carlisle, when he indecently assaulted a girl who was aged six to seven years of age,” police said.

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AUSTRALIA
Cowra Community News

A SPIKE in sex crimes may be the result of more people coming forward to report offenders, police say.

Sexual assaults in New South Wales increased by 125 per cent between 1990 and 2013.

More recently, in the two years up to December 2013, indecent assault and other sex offences jumped by 7.8 per cent, according to the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOSCAR) data released yesterday (Thursday).

NSW Police Deputy Commissioner Nick Kaldas says he believes the Special Commission of Inquiry and royal commission, both addressing institutionalised child sex abuse, have encouraged victims to come forward.

“We feel they have to have had an impact and probably a positive one in more people feeling confident in coming forward and reporting what has happened to authorities,” he’s told Sydney journalists.
“That can’t be a bad thing.”

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NEW JERSEY
WABC

NEWARK (WABC) — Critics are turning up the pressure on the Archbishop of Newark, over his plans to spend half a million dollars of Archdiocese money to expand his weekend home.

More than 17,000 petition signatures protesting the plans were delivered to Newark’s main cathedral Sunday.

The Archdiocese plans a 3,000 square foot expansion at the home in Hunterdon County. It includes an indoor pool. a hot tub, and three fireplaces.

It’s all to get the home ready for Archbishop John Myers’s retirement.

The Archdiocese has said donations and the sale of unnecessary properties are funding the expansion.

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NEW JERSEY
The Star-Ledger

By Erin O’Neill/The Star-Ledger
on April 13, 2014

As Barbara Grieco walked toward Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark today for Palm Sunday mass, she stopped to add her name to a petition calling on Archbishop John J. Myers to sell the large home in Hunterdon County where he plans to retire.

“Our Archbishop should really follow the Pope’s example by leading a simple life,” Grieco, a Montclair resident, said. “The money that’s going to this mansion, there are a lot of programs that could use the money.”

Faithful America, a national Christian group based in Washington, D.C., collected online signatures from more than 22,000 people who are critical of Myers for building a 3,000-square-foot addition on a 4,500-square-foot home in Franklin Township.

About a dozen parishioners and clergy sex abuse victims today had hoped to deliver the signatures directly to Myers after noon mass at the Ridge Street church.

Myers, who presided over the mass, did not meet with the group.

Rather, they delivered the signatures to Myers’ spokesman, Jim Goodness.

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NEW JERSEY
The Star-Ledger

By John Munson/The Star-Ledger

Mary Gannon presents a petition with over 22,500 names to Newark Archdiocese Spokesman Jim Goodness calling for the Archdiocese to sell the retirement home it is building for Archbishop John J. Myers. They met on the steps of the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart during Palm Sunday mass. Newark, NJ 4/13/14 (John Munson/The Star-Ledger)

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AUSTRALIA
Brisbane Times

A national inquiry into the Salvation Army’s handling of child abuse allegations resumes in Sydney on Monday.

Over the past two weeks the royal commission into child sex abuse in institutions has heard how some victims of abuse in army homes in NSW and Queensland felt they weren’t believed when they approached the charitable organisation with complaints.

The commission is also examining how the army dealt with officers about whom allegations were made.

James Condon, the Salvation Army commander in NSW, Queensland and ACT was questioned last week about the continued employment of one officer, Colin Haggar, who confessed to abusing an eight-year-old girl in 1989.

Commissioner Condon told the commission that in the early 90s he went with Mr Haggar to the Parramatta police station to report the assault.

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UNITED STATES
POPE FRANCIS the CON-Christ.

Paris Arrow

Updated April 11, 2014

TALK is CHEAP in Opus Dei PR Stunt of Crocodile tears apology of POPE FRANCIS the CON-Christ & WORST THIEF of MANKIND!

Pope Francis narcissist ego is distending so quickly that he is acting as the greatest pretender and impostor of Jesus and performing the biggest magic tricks more than all popes combined: First, he has “personally taken on” on the Vatican Bank’s hundreds of billions of Euros and swiftly magically reduced them to a mere 7 Billion – for appearance’s sake. Second, now, he has “personally taken on” responsibility for the JP2 Army – John Paul II Pedophile Priests Army of Biblical Proportions under the 27 years watch and responsibility of John Paul II – whom he’ll canonize in two weeks time. Pope Francis’s apology of “I feel compelled to personally take on all the evil of some priests…” is tantamount to President Obama if he were to say that he “personally takes on” responsibility for the Iraq War which was declared and presidentially launched by George W. Bush – (when Obama was merely a senator in Chicago) in the Bush era – that has cost Americans trillions of dollars and thousands of dead and maimed young American soldiers.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

April 13, 2014

Melinda Tankard Reist

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, the recent sentencing of Daniel Morcombe’s killer along with the imprisonment last week of former television star Robert Hughes after being found guilty of nine sex offense against three underage girls, have all heightened public attention on the scourge of child sexual assault.

There is deep distress in the community that defenceless children are used in such evil ways. But the broader culture that encourages the abuse of the children goes unaddressed. The same loathing that is directed toward child sexual abuse has not been extended to the mainstream promotion of paedophilic fantasies for profit.

Predators are emboldened and more networked through thriving internet child porn rings. But there are other drivers of the trade in children’s bodies. Products in local newsagencies, milk bars and retail outlets and online, normalise and eroticise child sexual assault.

Bookworld, Barnes & Noble and Amazon have been exposed for selling hundreds of rape and incest titles in categories emphasising terms like “taboo,” “forced,” and “reluctant.” Titles included Daddy takes my Virginity, Daddy forces himself on little teen, Daddy’s Sex Slave and I tempted Daddy.

On the same site as Bookworld’s Father and Daughter Erotica section, was Repair Your Life: A Program for Recovery from Incest and Childhood Abuse. There are currently 30 titles listed under ‘‘Daddy Fantasy’’.

Amazon was forced to withdraw The Paedophile’s Guide to Love and Pleasure: A Childlover’s Code of Conduct, written by a paedophile. But other pro-paedophile titles continue to be promoted.

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NIEDERLANDE
Kipa

Roermond, 13.4.14 (Kipa) Das niederländische Bistum Roermond hat pädophile Vergehen durch seinen früheren Bischof Joannes Baptist Gijsen (1932-2013) eingeräumt. Vorwürfe, Gijsen habe als Kaplan und Lehrer an einem Priesterseminar zwischen 1958 und 1961 zwei Jungen sexuell missbraucht, seien «gut begründet», erklärte Bischof Frans Wiertz am Wochenende. Wiertz bedauerte «den Missbrauch und das Leid, das den Opfern zugefügt wurde». Zudem seien die spätere kirchliche Stellung und Vorbildrolle Gijsens beschädigt.

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DEUTSCHLAND
MissBiT

Begründung von Herrn Dr. Stephan Kronenburg:

“Man habe sich nicht an die vorgebene Netiquette gehalten”

Auffallend, dass ausgerechnet und nachweislich diejenigen User von Kronenburg gesperrt wurden, die um Aufklärung sexuellen Missbrauchs durch Angehörige der katholischen Kirche bemüht sind. – Vor ca. 2 Monaten ließ Kronenburg bereits nachweislich diejenigen sperren, die die Kirchenfinanzen des Bistums Münster hinterfragten.

Seine Aussage, man habe ihn “persönlich beschimpft” sowie weitere Behauptungen, die er öffentlich aufstellte, konnte er allerdings nicht belegen.

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UNITED STATES
The Garden of Roses: Stories of Abuse and Healing

Virginia Jones

Then this morning when I got on Facebook, I received an appeal from the sister of a clergy abuse survivor named Gary who I have worked with since 2007. She and her mother had not seen him nor heard from him for months. Did I know anything about him? Could I look for him?

The answer is I have not heard from him or seen him in months but of course I will go look for him.

You know, I have been feeling that I was tired of working on the clergy abuse issue because lots of people have taken my help and not given back and have not acknowledged what I have done. There are many good people doing good things in the Catholic Church, but too many in leadership would rather keep the issue quiet and too many parishioners have feet of clay. However, just because the Church has failed as a whole to adequately care for survivors and, truthfully, parishes wounded by abuse, it does not mean that the good done by Catholic supported homeless shelters or soup kitchens or just plain ordinary support given to families or elderly parishioners or support for social justice issues is invalid. It is valid. I respect the Church for all the good it has done.

But I am tired of trying to help heal a Church that thinks it knows everything and does’t want healing.

I also hold clergy abuse survivors accountable too because many people who are healed enough to change things are stuck in a mind set that only one way works — lawsuits and demonstrating in front of churches.

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AUSTRALIA
NT News

A CATHOLIC priest accused of attempting to lure a girl into his car has been arrested at Los Angeles International Airport after arriving on a flight from Australia.

US authorities allege Michael T. Patrick, 57, drove alongside the 14-year-old girl and attempted to persuade her to get into his car as she walked home from school in Vancouver, Oregon about 5.30pm on March 10.

“Come on, cutie,” the priest told the girl after she repeatedly refused his requests, police said.

The girl ran to a daycare centre and phoned her mother, police were called and the victim described the driver as “heavy-set with a dark complexion, dark hair and facial hair on his sideburns and chin”.

The girl also remembered the vehicle’s numberplate.

When a police officer questioned Patrick, who confirmed he was a priest from the St Wenceslaus parish in Oregon, tears formed in his eyes, although he denied any sort of contact with a female pedestrian, police allege.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph (UK)

By Jenny McCartney
13 Apr 2014

15 cert, 101 min

Dir: John Michael McDonagh. Starring: Brendan Gleeson, Chris O’Dowd, Kelly Reilly, Dylan Moran, Aidan Gillen

Few actors have such a distinctively grounding presence as Brendan Gleeson, an auburn-haired native of Dublin with an impressively broad and stocky frame. He can anchor films that might otherwise have disappeared on the wings of their own conceits. Most memorably, perhaps, In Bruges (2008), Martin McDonagh’s film in which Gleeson played an older, quieter hitman struggling to wrestle his junior partner, a frantic fast-talking Colin Farrell, back to earth.

In Calvary – this time by the writer-director John Michael McDonagh, Martin’s brother – Gleeson plays a priest, Father James Lavelle, a thoughtful but morally muscular man who is well respected in his parish.

He is visited in confession one Sunday morning by a parishioner who informs him, in blunt and searing terms, that he was abused by a paedophile priest from the age of seven, from which he has suffered continuous torments, and that he now intends to wreak revenge by killing “a good priest”, Father Lavelle. The prospective assassin even makes a date for it.

Gleeson’s character thinks he knows who the parishioner is; the audience does not, and the film introduces a cast of bitter and troubled characters – each of whom, one feels, could suddenly reveal murderous intent. The arrangement is heavily theatrical, and yet the satire on the darkest extremes in modern Ireland retains a sharp and immediate bite.

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Times-Tribune

CHRIS KELLY: Trust shattered again by charges against well-known Father Philip Altavilla

BY CHRIS KELLY (COMMENTARY)
Published: April 11, 2014

I met the Rev. Philip Altavilla 14 Palm Sundays ago. He was the pastor of Immaculate Conception Church in Taylor, where my wife was raised in the Catholic faith.

I was brought up Presbyterian, but he never held it against me. Father Phil agreed to marry us in the church when many priests wouldn’t. I received communion during the ceremony, plain sacrilege to the Old Guard.

Jean Terruso, a wonderful woman scheduled to be my mother-in-law, died of lung cancer a dozen days before the wedding. She was buried in the dress she bought to wear on Her Little Girl’s Big Day.

Words are my trade, but I can find none to relate how caring and thoughtful Father Phil was as we mourned Jean’s death and celebrated the beginning of our life together. When Dad passed, Phil was there for us. When Phil’s father died, we went to the viewing. It was the right thing to do.

Knowing the right thing to do is suddenly complicated. Father Phil has been arrested, accused of giving alcohol to a 13-year-old and touching her inappropriately after a midnight Christmas Mass in 1998. Police say he confessed in a recorded conversation.

It is cliché to say an arrest sent shockwaves through the community, but this time it fits. Father Phil had multitudes of friends, religious and secular. As a stunned parishioner told a local TV station: “If there were a hundred priests, he’d be the last one” you would suspect.

Yet here we are. Again. Another priest, another child, another ugly reminder that supposedly sacred values are situational for some who preach them, that our yardstick for character may be too straight for accurate measurement.

Diocese of Scranton Bishop Joseph C. Bambera wasted no time throwing Father Phil under the public bus:

“I am both angry and demoralized to think that, yet again, a priest has been involved in such inappropriate, immoral and illegal behavior,” he said in a press release. “It is particularly distressing that the pastor of our Cathedral Parish, who is known to countless numbers of the faithful and has served in so many positions of trust and responsibility in the Diocese of Scranton has betrayed that trust in such a manner.”

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CANADA
Sylvia’s Site

For those who are planning to attend, a quick reminder that the Father Rene Labelle sentencing hearing and possibly sentencing is scheduled for this Monday, 14 April 2014 at 10 am in the Frontenac Court House in Kingston, Ontario.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Lancaster Online

Posted: Sunday, April 13, 2014
By SUZANNE CASSIDY | Staff Writer

The newly installed 11th bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg still had, on this day, some unpacking to do.

Somewhere in the boxes stacked in Bishop Ronald W. Gainer’s office was a lump of coal.

He’s kept it with him always, he said, and “it will be on my desk when I find it, just to remind me of my mom’s dad … who was a deep coal miner from Slovakia.”

Gainer said his family was “not at all wanting, but there were times when my dad [a bricklayer] was out of work because construction wasn’t happening, so we knew what it was to sometimes live close to the edge.” …

In an hourlong interview in his office at diocesan headquarters in Harrisburg, Gainer spoke of the effect Pope Francis is having on the church.

He also spoke about his eagerness to make the case for Catholic social teachings, and about the “disgrace” that was the church’s past handling of clerical sexual abuse cases.

He said he intends to hold town hall meetings with the diocese’s Catholics — he held more than 60 such forums in Lexington. ,,,

Statute of limitations

The Pennsylvania Catholic Conference has been criticized by child welfare advocates for opposing statute of limitation reform.

Under current law, a victim of child sexual abuse has until he’s 30 to bring civil action against his abuser.

Advocates say it takes some victims decades before they’re ready to seek justice.

“The church wants to stand with those who have been victimized in this horrible situation,” Gainer said. “And I think we have made laudatory and massive efforts to correct what had existed in the church, and secondly, to be part of the healing process for those who have been victimized.”
Within church law, he emphasized, there is no statute of limitations.

If an accusation were to be made about a priest abusing a child decades ago, “that would be examined as though it happened yesterday,” he said.

In accordance with the U.S. bishops’ Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People — often called the “Dallas Charter” — there is now a “one-strike-and-you’re-out” policy on sexual abuse, Gainer said.

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NETHERLANDS
Fox News

Published April 12, 2014

Associated Press

THE HAGUE, Netherlands – A former Dutch Catholic bishop, who died last year, was guilty of sexual abuse decades ago when he was a chaplain and teacher in the southern Netherlands, his diocese has acknowledged, in the latest abuse scandal to hit the church.

An organization of victims of church abuse, Mea Culpa, welcomed the statement Saturday as vindicating a fight for justice by victims, both boys at the time of the abuse.

The Diocese of Roermond said in a statement issued late Friday that a church complaints commission had ruled that the late Bishop Jo Gijsen was found to have committed the abuse.

The current Roermond bishop, Frans Wiertz, said in a written statement he “accepted the advice of the complaints commission to declare the allegations well-founded.”

He said he “regretted the abuse and the victims’ suffering” and had apologized to them.

Bert Smeets of Mea Culpa called the ruling “a slap in the face for the Dutch Roman Catholic Church.”

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UNITED STATES
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: Neil K. Murphy was a Jesuit of the Oregon Province, ordained in 1945. He spent his entire career in Alaska, assisting and pastoring at parishes in Nome, Bethel and Fairbanks. He was longtime director of the Fairbanks’ diocese’s Family Life Office and worked on the Tribunal and Bishop’s Council. Murphy died in 1982. According to the Fairbanks diocese’s bankruptcy reorganization documents in 2010, there was at some point a complaint against Murphy of sexual abuse.

Ordained: 1945
Died: April 16, 1982

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ARIZONA
Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix

March 21, 2014

The Diocese of Phoenix has learned that Fr. Charles Gielow, a deceased member of the Claretian Missionaries religious order, has been credibly accused of sexual misconduct with a minor. Following is a statement released by the Claretian Missionaries:

COMMUNITY NOTIFICATION STATEMENT

The US Province of Claretian Missionaries has received an allegation of sexual misconduct with a minor which has been deemed to be credible against Fr. Charles Gielow, CMF a deceased member of the order. This was reported to have occurred in the late 1970’s. Fr. Gielow served at Sacred Heart Parish in Prescott from 1960 to 1966. He later served at the Cursillo Center, now known as the Mount Claret Retreat Center, from January 1976 to June 1980. He died on June 29, 1980.

The Claretians are deeply saddened by these events and are committed to helping in a healing process for victims and to providing a safe environment for children.

The Diocese of Phoenix is committed to providing a safe environment where it values and honors every individual as created in the image and likeness of God. Great efforts have been made to put systems into place to keep our young people safe. Anyone who has been a victim of abuse or who may have information concerning these crimes is encouraged to call a local law enforcement agency.

Additionally, the Diocese of Phoenix provides support services through its Office of Child and Youth Protection at (602) 354-2396 or at diocesephoenix.org (click on “Youth Protection”). We ask for your continued prayers for Christ’s healing.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

When Roman emperors faced internal crises, they often sponsored spectacular free circuses of gladiators and wild beasts to distract the oppressed Roman people. Pope Francis appears to be continuing this imperial tradition, first by his World Youth Day extravaganza in Rio de Janeiro that cost over $ 50,000,000, and now with his lavish, but unnecessary, dual saint making Roman spectacular. Of course, Pope Francis appears to have access to considerable assets, both those owned by the Vatican as well as those offered by the Vatican’s opportunistic and wealthy “friends”, as reported here

[The Open Tabernacle: Here Comes Everybody]

In this Internet Era, however, these “circuses” are unlikely to distract many from the Vatican’s ongoing child abuse and financial scandals and regressive sexual policies. When the last cardinal’s red dress fades from the screen, the pressing question will remain: What about the cardinals and bishops who failed, and continue to fail, to protect children?

Francis is expecting over 5,000,000 tourists when on April 27 he “infallibly” declares Popes John Paul II and John XXIII saints. The Vatican is preparing its most ambitious TV and social media campaign yet for the millions who don’t make it to Rome, including 3-D movie theaters in 20 countries, with help from Cardinal Pell’s pal, Rupert Murdoch’s Sky TV network, Sony and other partners.

Michael Jackson would be envious, as Francis appears intent on outshining the Super Bowl halftime show. While many opportunistic papal media apologists will dwell on the pageantry of the “papal game”, a few will likely step up for defenseless children. Does Francis really think viewers who care about children will be distracted for long? Even many Catholics now realize modern popes have taken the early Christian practice of honoring martyrs and turned saint making into profitable propaganda projects.

By contrast to this current PR project aimed obviously at trying to enhance papal prestige and power by striving to glorify Francis’ “semi-divine” predecessors, Francis continues with his low key, almost sheepishly muted responses to the Vatican’s biggest crisis, the scandal of failing to hold bad cardinals and bishops accountable for their longstanding and often continuing child protection failures.

Indeed, even Francis’ recent widely reported brief “off the cuff” remarks in a closed meeting with international child protection advocates are ambiguous and inadequate with respect to key issue of imposing sanctions on bad bishops. Indeed, as AP’s astute Vatican reporter, Nicole Winfield honestly noted: “Though unclear, Pope Francis’ comments about the ‘sanctions that must be imposed’ could be a reference to the need to hold bishops accountable.” Could be? What is Francis problem with “straight talk” here? What are he and his cardinals afraid of?

Moreover, Winfield also noted, with respect to the highly touted Vatican media machine, the seeming effort of Vatican TV to avoid these off the cuff remarks. Winfield added: “Pope Francis’ comments during the closed audience were reported in part by Vatican Radio, and Vatican Television EXCLUDED THEM ENTIRELY in its initial edit of the audience. The full quote was obtained after The Associated Press requested video of the full comments from Vatican Television.” {Emphasis added}

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NEDERLAND
Trouw

[Summary: The Catholic Church has substantiated claims of sexual abuse of two minors against former Bishop Joe Gijsen but Klokk – a victims advocacy group – said there are more victims.]

Twee slachtoffers maakte oud-bisschop Jo Gijsen, zo blijkt uit uitspraken van de Klachtencommissie seksueel misbruik in de RK Kerk. Maar volgens belangenorganisaties Klokk en Mea Culpa lopen er meer zaken tegen de inmiddels overleden geestelijke. Het misbruik speelde zich af in de tijd dat Gijsen priester was in Zuid-Limburg.

Op 11 februari verklaarde de klachtencommissie twee klachten tegen Gijsen gegrond. Uit een van de adviezen blijkt dat eind jaren ’50 een toen 9-jarig jongetje van zijn vader geregeld brieven moest brengen naar een kapelaan in Valkenburg. Die kapelaan was Jo Gijsen. Bij een van die gelegenheden nodigde Gijsen het jongetje uit om chocolademelk te drinken. Daarbij trok hij het jongetje op zijn schoot en ging ertoe over met de penis van het hevig geschrokken kereltje te spelen. De jongen moest hierover van Gijsen zwijgen op straffe van de hel. Dit misbruik gebeurde vaker, en de commissie verklaarde de klacht hierover gegrond.

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NEDERLAND
Trouw

[Summary: The Roermond diocese knew of Feb. 11 that former Bishop Jo Gijsen had abused children during the time he was chaplain in South Limburg. The diocese had the information kept under wraps, the diocesan spokesman admitted today. He added that the diocese had a statement ready in case a journalist called.]

Het bisdom Roermond wist al op 11 februari dit jaar dat oud-bisschop Jo Gijsen kinderen heeft misbruikt in de tijd dat hij nog kapelaan was in Zuid-Limburg. Het bisdom heeft deze informatie al die tijd ‘onder de pet gehouden’, erkende een woordvoerder van het bisdom vandaag.

Op 11 februari deed de zogenoemde Klachtencommissie voor seksueel misbruik in de RK Kerk uitspraak in een zaak tegen Gijsen. De procedure is, dat zowel het bisdom als het slachtoffer dat geklaagd heeft hiervan direct op de hoogte wordt gebracht, zei de woordvoerder van het bisdom. ‘We gaan daarmee niet te koop lopen’, lichtte de woordvoerder toe. ‘We treden hiermee niet actief naar buiten, dat lijkt mij begrijpelijk’, aldus de woordvoerder.

Hij erkende verder dat het bisdom al langere tijd een verklaring klaar had liggen ‘voor het geval een journalist zou bellen’. Volgens de woordvoerder treedt het bisdom niet actief naar buiten met privacygevoelige informatie. ‘We willen de slachtoffers geen publiciteit bezorgen waaraan ze geen behoefte hebben’, zei hij.

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NETHERLANDS
Dutch News

Saturday 12 April 2014

The Catholic church in Roermond has finally admitted a former bishop abused two boys, despite denying the abuse claims for years.

Jo Gijsen, who died last year, was bishop of Roermond from 1972 to 1993. He then moved to Austria and Iceland, before returning to the Netherlands in 2007.

A Dutch Catholic church committee investigating abuse claims has decided two complaints against Gijsen were proven.

Gijsen, a traditional and controversial bishop, set up his own seminary in Kerkrade named Rolduc which was described as both ‘closed’ and ‘a feeding ground for homosexual relations’ by the Volkskrant newspaper.

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NETHERLANDS
Reuters

BY TOM HENEGHAN, RELIGION EDITOR
PARIS Sat Apr 12, 2014

(Reuters) – The Dutch Catholic Church, in a rare admission of guilt among senior clergy, has confirmed that a bishop who died last year had sexually abused two boys decades earlier.

The diocese of Roermond said a Church commission had found that accusations against former bishop Johannes Gijsen, dating back to his time as chaplain at a minor seminary from 1958 to 1961, were “well founded”.

The admission came on Friday, the same day that Pope Francis made his first public plea for forgiveness for “all the evil” committed by priests who molested children, and said the Church had to do more to discipline wayward clerics.

Mea Culpa, a Dutch group supporting abuse victims, welcomed the Roermond statement. But it said the accusations had been made while Gijsen was alive, and noted critically that “complaints against living suspects are often declared unfounded”.

Bishop Frans Wiertz, current head of Roermond diocese, said he accepted the commission’s findings and “regrets the abuse and suffering inflicted on the victims”. He has personally met the two men and apologized to them, he said.

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NEW JERSEY
Talking Points Memo

TOM KLUDT – APRIL 11, 2014

A Christian organization has drawn the support of thousands in its protest of a New Jersey bishop’s plush retirement home.

The group Faithful America intends to deliver a petition on Sunday to Newark Archbishop John J. Myers, calling on him to nix his plans to move into a retirement home that’s undergoing a $500,000, 3,000 square-foot addition. The expansion will include an indoor exercise pool (the home already boasts an outdoor pool), hot tub and three fireplaces.

“Archbishop Myers, you don’t need a 7,500-square-foot house for your retirement. Please start heeding Pope Francis’s admonitions, and put being a good pastor for New Jersey Catholics ahead of building an opulent lifestyle for yourself,” reads the petition, which has been signed by close to 20,000 people nationwide.

Michael Sherrard, executive director for Faithful America, told TPM in an email that local volunteers will deliver the petition to the Newark cathedral after its Palm Sunday mass, but he’s unsure if Myers will be on hand.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Journal Standard

By Jason Keyser
The Associated Press
Posted Apr. 11, 2014

CHICAGO —The Roman Catholic Church has agreed to begin formally searching for a successor to the head of the nation’s third-largest archdiocese.

Cardinal Francis George spoke about his most recent bout with cancer while meeting with reporters Friday to share his thoughts on the canonization of Popes John XXIII and John Paul II. George had been scheduled to travel to Rome for the April 27 ceremony, but canceled his plans on the advice of his doctors.

A recent infection forced him to be hospitalized for a week, delaying the start of his second round of chemotherapy, and doctors were worried that he could be vulnerable to another infection during the trip.

“I can’t do that, it would be very foolish” to travel against that advice, he said. “I’m not going to do something dangerous. … But I’ll be there in prayer.”

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NEW JERSEY
The Star-Ledger

[Read Faithful America’s letter to its members]

Mark Mueller/The Star-Ledger

Bearing a petition with more than 17,000 signatures, members of a national Christian group and parishioners from across northern New Jersey will gather in Newark Sunday to demand that Archbishop John J. Myers sell the expansive Hunterdon County home where he plans to retire.

Members of the group, Faithful America, contend Myers should follow the example of Atlanta’s archbishop, Wilton Gregory, who recently apologized to parishioners for using church funds to build a 6,100-square-foot, $2.2 million residence in an exclusive neighborhood.

Gregory announced earlier this week he would sell the home, with the proceeds going toward “the needs of the Catholic community.”

In Newark, the parishioners will seek to hand the petition to Myers after the noon Mass at the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart on Ridge Street. Myers is scheduled to say the Mass, his spokesman, Jim Goodness, confirmed Friday.

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OREGON
KGW

by Sara Roth, KGW.com Staff
Posted on April 11, 2014

SCAPPOOSE, Ore. – A Catholic priest from Scappoose was arrested in Lost Angeles on April 8 for attempting to lure a teenage girl into his vehicle.

The Catholic Sentinel reports Father Michael Patrick of St. Wenceslaus Parish was taken into custody after he walked off a plane at LAX that had just flown in from Australia.

He is accused of driving beside a teen and repeatedly asking her to get in the vehicle, despite her protests in March. She ran away and called for help.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

The vicar of a church in Greater Manchester has been arrested on suspicion of raping a teenage girl.

Simon Marsh, 54, is the vicar at St Michael and All Angels Church of England church in Stockport, Bramhall.

The alleged offences happened between 2011 and 2013 when the alleged victim was aged between 16 and 19, Greater Manchester Police said.

Officers added that the Reverend Marsh had been released on bail pending further inquiries.

The Diocese of Chester confirmed Reverend Marsh had been suspended from his duties while the investigation took place and that parishioners would be officially informed on Sunday.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail

By DARREN BOYLE

A church vicar has been arrested on suspicion of raping a teenage girl.

Anglican priest Rev Simon Marsh, 54, was questioned by detectives investigating allegations of sexual abuse between 2011 and last year.

The Rev Marsh is vicar of Bramhall in Stockport, Greater Manchester, and is based at St Michael and All Angels Church of England Church.

Church leaders at the Diocese of Chester expressed ‘shock and surprise’ at his arrest, which happened on Thursday.

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UNITED STATES
Reuters

April 11 – After Pope Francis’ plea for forgiveness for the ”evil” of priestly child abuse, some abuse victims say they’d rather see actions than listen to more words. Deborah Lutterbeck reports. (Transcript )

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FLORIDA
Local 10

Twenty-year-old David Newman says if he had a chance to talk to the jury that acquitted his former youth minister, Jeffrey London, of sexually abusing him and three other boys over the course of years during their childhoods in his London’s care, he’d ask them why.

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WASHINGTON
KPTV

By Jeff Kirsch
VANCOUVER, WA (KPTV) –

A Catholic priest from Vancouver is under arrest accused of trying to lure a 14-year-old girl into his car. According to court documents, the girl identified 57-year-old Michael T Patrick as the man who tried several times to get her into his car.

The incident happened on March 10 as the girl was walking home from school on Northeast 28th Street near Northeast 138th Avenue. The girl says the man urged her several times to get in his car as he drove past, including saying “Come on Cutie” at one point.

Patrick was arrested April 2 at the Los Angeles International Airport as he returned to the U.S. from Australia. He is currently lodged at the Los Angeles County Jail with a court date set for April 18. It is unclear when he will be extradited to Clark County.

Patrick is a pastor at the St. Wenceslaus Parish in Scappoose, but lives in Vancouver.

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UNITED STATES
Boston Globe

By John L. Allen Jr. | GLOBE STAFF APRIL 11, 2014

Pope Francis asked forgiveness for the child sexual abuse scandals in the Catholic Church on Friday, the first time he’s done so as pope, and also said the church must be “very strong” in responding to the ongoing legacy of that crisis, including imposing forceful sanctions.

In remarks during an address to a French child protection group, Francis said he took personal responsibility for what he described as the “evil” of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.

“I feel called to take upon myself all the evil that some priests — many, many in number, though not in proportion to the totality — to take it upon myself and to ask forgiveness for the harm they’ve done, for the sexual abuse of children,” the pope said.

“The church is aware of this harm,” he said. “It’s a personal and moral harm, but by men of the church. We do not want to take a step back in regard to treating this problem, and to the sanctions that must be imposed. On the contrary, I believe we must be very strong.”
Some experts on abuse issues praised the pope’s comments.

Everett Worthington Jr., a psychologist at Virginia Commonwealth University who’s also written on the subject of forgiveness, called the pope’s statement “a costly act that moves the church in the direction of beginning to restore a sense of justice to those who were wronged and harmed.”

Victims’ advocacy organizations, on the other hand, urged caution, saying they’ve heard apologetic language before from leading church figures but are awaiting concrete action.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Birmingham Mail

Father Ted Simpson, a former school governor and priest at Olton Friary, Solihull, will appear at Birmingham Crown Court on May 21 when he is due to enter a plea

A leading member of the Catholic church in Birmingham has been charged with indecently assaulting a child.

Father Ted Simpson, a former school governor and priest at Olton Friary, Solihull, will appear at Birmingham Crown Court on May 21 when he is due to enter a plea. He is currently on police bail.

The 84-year-old was arrested 14 months ago on suspicion of sexual activity with a minor. He was charged with indecent assault on a girl under the age of 14 on January 15 and initially appeared before city magistrates 14 days later.

In the past, the cleric has enjoyed close links with Olton voluntary-aided catholic primary school, Our Lady of Compassion. He no longer has any association with the school, a spokeswoman confirmed yesterday.

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CALIFORNIA
WCSC

[with video]

ROME (CBS) – Pope Francis made his first public plea for forgiveness on Friday for the “evil” committed by priests who molested children and used some of his strongest language yet on the Roman Catholic Church’s sexual abuse crisis.

Some, however, say the pontiff’s words are not enough. And that they would rather see more concrete action taken against priests accused of child abuse.

Joelle Casteix, an abuse victim and the western director for SNAP, the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, says that Pope Francis is simply following in his predecessors’ footsteps.

“This is the status quo. Pope Francis is the third pope to apologize for the sexual abuse of minors. He’s doing nothing but continues in the patterns of his predecessors. He is continuing by forming committees, by making apologies, by asking for forgiveness. And he’s also following in the path of his predecessors by not doing anything, by not punishing anybody and by not ensuring that what happened to me and other kids isn’t still going on,” Casteix said.

She also emphasized that the Catholic Church has repeatedly tried to obscure the issue of child abuse by redirecting the discussion away from the central topic of priests molesting children.

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VATICAN CITY
NorthJersey.com

APRIL 11, 2014
BY NICOLE WINFIELD
ASSOCIATED PRESS

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis said Friday that he took personal responsibility for the “evil” of priests who raped and molested children, asking forgiveness from victims and saying the church must be even bolder in its efforts to protect the young. It was the first time a pope has taken personal responsibility for the sex crimes of his priests and begged forgiveness.

The pontiff’s off-the-cuff remarks were the latest sign that he has become sensitized to the gravity of the abuse scandal after coming under criticism from victims advocacy groups for a perceived lack of attention to, and understanding of, the toll it has taken on the church and its members.

Pope Francis meeting Friday with members of the International Catholic Child Bureau.
The evolution began last month when he named four women and an abuse survivor to a sex abuse advisory panel that the Vatican has suggested will address the critical issue of sanctioning bishops who cover up for pedophiles. …

The main U.S. victims group, SNAP, said it was waiting for more.

“We beg the world’s Catholics: Be impressed by deeds, not words,” said SNAP’s outreach director, Barbara Dorris, in a statement. “Until the pope takes decisive action that protects kids, be skeptical and vigilant.”

Mark Crawford, the New Jersey director of SNAP, said Pope Francis’ statement was similar to previous apologies from church leaders over the sex abuse crisis. More than an apology, he said, abuse victims want to see the pope hold bishops accountable for concealing the crimes and shuffling predator priests around.

“As long as these issues remain unaddressed, the apology is mere empty words to victims,” he said. “We’ve heard it all before. It’s not huge. Huge will be when he takes action against a bishop or a cardinal who he knows put children in harm’s way.”

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PUERTO RICO
El Nuevo Dia

Por Yaritza Santiago Caraballo / ysantiago1@elnuevodia.com y ELNUEVODIA.COM

El Obispo de la Diócesis Católica de Arecibo, Daniel Fernández, acogió este viernes con satisfacción la determinación de El Vaticano al archivar una alegación de que incurrió en actos lascivos contra un menor de edad.ández, acogió este viernes con satisfacción la determinación de El Vaticano al archivar una alegación de que incurrió en actos lascivos contra un menor de edad.

“Recibo con satisfacción la determinación de la Santa Sede, quien luego de investigar el caso y evaluar las alegaciones en contra de este servidor, determinó que no se sostienen y ha dado por cerrado el caso. Siempre sostuve que las referidas alegaciones eran falsas y confié en que la verdad prevalecería”, dijo Fernández en un comunicado de prensa.

“Ha sido muy doloroso enfrentar la calumnia y la difamación, pero desde el primer momento que tuve conocimiento sobre esas alegaciones en mi contra perdoné a los autores de las mismas, y le pido al Señor que les de paz espiritual”, expresó Fernández.

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PUERTO RICO
Boston.com

By DANICA COTO / Associated Press / April 11, 2014

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — The Apostolic Delegation of Puerto Rico announced Friday that the Vatican found no basis for sexual abuse accusations made against a well-known bishop in the U.S. territory.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which takes on such accusations, closed the case against Arecibo Bishop Daniel Fernandez, according to the delegation.

Fernandez said in a statement that he was satisfied with the decision. He recently announced that he had defrocked six priests accused of sex abuse from his diocese and that the accusations against him were made in revenge.

‘‘I have always maintained that the allegations were false, and I trusted that the truth would prevail,’’ he said.

Agnes Poventud, attorney for the man who had accused Fernandez of molesting him when he was a child, rejected the decision. She was quoted by El Nuevo Dia newspaper as saying that Vatican officials never interviewed her client.

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BERMUDA
Royal Gazette

By Raymond Hainey

Bermuda’s Anglican church has become the first on the Island to train its parish priests to spot and prevent child sex abuse.

Clergy from every parish have undergone a special training course by anti-child abuse charity SCARS — and the church now plans to extend the training to lay people like youth leaders and Sunday school teachers.

“The clergy and I found the training provided by SCARS enlightening and extremely helpful in defining how we can collaborate with the community in the fight against child sexual abuse,” Nicholas Dill, the Anglican Bishop of Bermuda, said. “We plan to further push this agenda within the church from the top down.

“Our involvement with SCARS does not end with the completion of the training.

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UNITED STATES
The American Conservative

By ROD DREHER • April 11, 2014

A public statement:

I feel compelled to personally take on all the evil which some priests, quite a few in number, obviously not compared to the number of all the priests, to personally ask for forgiveness for the damage they have done for having sexually abused children. The Church is aware of this damage, it is personal, moral damage carried out by men of the Church, and we will not take one step backward with regards to how we will deal with this problem, and the sanctions that must be imposed. On the contrary, we have to be even stronger. Because you cannot interfere with children…

Excellent words. Let’s see some excellent action. SNAP’s David Clohessy responds:

Pope Francis says he felt “called to take upon himself” the subject of clergy sex crimes and cover ups. He should. He is the world’s only global monarch and he continues to let this decades-old crisis fester and build by refusing to take even a single step that protects a single child or exposes a single wrongdoer.

But if a husband keeps beating his wife, the tone, tenor or length of his words are irrelevant. …

UPDATE: Here are comments from links posted in the comments section. First, someone put up this essay by Lee Podles, the orthodox Catholic writer who has done deep investigation on the scandal. Excerpt:

Francis is a fixer. Whenever a parish or diocese experience a disaster, a fixer is sent in, as O’Malley was to Boston. Francis is the papal fixer. He is changing the subject from sexual abuse by his charm, hominess, and willingness to let people indulge their minor vices without a censoring voice from the clergy.

A fixer differs from a reformer in that a fixer does not address the roots; he is not radical. He merely papers over the problem, merely puts a poultice on the cancer.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Yorkshire Post

By Rob Parsons
Published on the 12 April 2014

A LEEDS school at the centre of a new Jimmy Savile child sex abuse probe hosted the disgraced presenter for a prize-giving ceremony in the 1970s, it has emerged.

Notre Dame Grammar School, now known as Notre Dame Catholic Sixth Form College in Woodhouse, is one of three sites in and around the city where allegations about Savile’s activities in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s are being investigated at the order of Education Secretary Michael Gove.

When the probe of 21 schools and children’s homes nationwide was revealed last month, the Diocese of Leeds, which runs Notre Dame, said it carried out its own investigation after the revelations first emerged about Savile in 2012.

Spokesman John Grady said at the time it “could find no evidence that Jimmy Savile had any contact with Notre Dame school or any of our [diocesan] children’s homes”.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Manchester Evening News

Apr 12, 2014 By Paul Britton

A church vicar has been arrested on suspicion of raping a teenage girl.

Anglican priest the Rev Simon Marsh, 54, was arrested and interviewed by detectives investigating allegations of sexual abuse between 2011 and last year.

The Rev Marsh is the vicar of Bramhall in Stockport and is based at St Michael and All Angels CofE Church.

Church leaders at the Diocese of Chester expressed ‘shock and surprise’ at his arrest, which happened on Thursday, and confirmed he is due to be suspended from his position.

No criminal charges have been brought and the Rev Marsh was later released on police bail after questioning.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

By Nic Rigby
BBC News

No evidence has been found to link disgraced TV star Jimmy Savile to an orphanage at the centre of an abuse inquiry, a chief constable has said.

Cabinet minister Justine Greening wrote to head of Bedfordshire Police Colette Paul after concerns were raised by constituent Gordon McIntosh.

It was reported Savile could have visited the home in the 1950s.

Mrs Paul said there was “anecdotal evidence” of Savile visiting the area but nothing linking him to the home.

Top of the Pops
Since Savile’s death in 2011, hundreds of people around the country have reported abuse by the former Top of the Pops presenter.

International Development Secretary Ms Greening said she had written to the chief constable asking for a new investigation to look at a “potential link with Jimmy Savile”.

In her reply, Mrs Paul said there was no evidence to “substantiate” links between the home and Savile.

“There have been anecdotal accounts of Jimmy Savile visiting the surrounding area in Bedfordshire but not St Francis Boys Home,” she said.” Should we receive any information or evidence to suggest that Jimmy Savile did attend the home this will be dealt with immediately.”

Mr McIntosh is a spokesman for a group of former residents of St Francis Boys’ Home, who allege abuse.

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ROME
Irish Times

Paddy Agnew

He was a holy man, but was he a saint? As Pope Francis prepares to canonise two of his predecessors, two weeks from now, that question mark hangs over the head of John Paul II, if not of John XXIII.

It is not that John Paul, like John XXIII, was not a patently good man. More than that, in his 27-year pontificate he proved to be one of most influential figures of the 20th century, not least because of his fundamental role in the downfall of Eastern bloc totalitarianism.

On top of that, until his latter, illness-ridden years he was an unfailingly engaging, witty and often inspirational preacher. He was a mystic and a man of profound faith, yet he had tremendous political savvy, honed in years of struggle first with Nazi-German forces and then with Poland’s communist rulers. …

By the time the sex-abuse crisis finally made its way both on to mainstream Vatican radar and to worldwide public attention, John Paul was a very sick man, not fully able to run the show.

That may or may not explain the mishandling of the sex-abuse issue, but it certainly doesn’t explain another controversial question that broke early in the pontificate: the Latin American liberation-theology movement, with its emphasis on the church’s preferential option for the poor.

Both John Paul and his trusty guardian of orthodoxy, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger – head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the man who became Pope Benedict XVI – treated the movement with suspicion. They regarded it as a falsified Christianity that put more emphasis on Marx than on Christ.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Mirror

Apr 12, 2014 10:07 By Paul Britton

Anglican priest the Rev Simon Marsh was arrested and interviewed by detectives investigating allegations of sexual abuse
A church vicar has been arrested on suspicion of raping a teenage girl.

Anglican priest the Rev Simon Marsh, 54, was arrested and interviewed by detectives investigating allegations of sexual abuse between 2011 and last year.

The Rev Marsh is the vicar of Bramhall in Stockport and is based at St Michael and All Angels CofE Church.

Church leaders at the Diocese of Chester expressed ‘shock and surprise’ at his arrest, which happened on Thursday, and confirmed he is due to be suspended from his position.

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UNITED KINGDOM
International Business Times

By Mark Piggott
April 12, 2014

An Anglican vicar at St Michael & All Angels Church in Bramhall, on the outskirts of Stockport, Greater Manchester, has been arrested and bailed by police on suspicion of raping a teenage girl. Reverend Simon Marsh, 54, was interviewed by detectives investigating alleged offences against the girl, who was aged between 16 and 19 at the time.

In a statement Greater Manchester Police said: “Police are investigating a report of historic sexual abuse in Bramhall. The offences occurred between 2011 and 2013 when the woman was aged between 16 and 19 years old. A 54-year-old man from Bramhall has been arrested on suspicion of rape. He has now been bailed pending further enquiries. Enquiries are ongoing.”

A spokesman for Chester Diocese confirmed the arrest, saying: “We are shocked and surprised at the arrest of the Vicar of Bramhall and the allegations he faces. We will co-operate fully with police enquiries. Simon Marsh will be suspended from his parish duties. A senior priest will be asked to stand in and provide pastoral and church services support.”

Rev Marsh has been a vicar for 32 years since his confirmation by Right Reverend Gerald Alexander Ellison, Lord Bishop of Chester in 1972. He has been vicar at St Michael & All Angels Church since 2006, before which he served in a number of other parishes. In the 1980s he served as Chaplain to Bishop Roy Williamson.

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VATICAN CITY
New York Times

By ELISABETTA POVOLEDO APRIL 11, 2014

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis said on Friday that he took personal responsibility for the harm done by priests who sexually abused children, and he pledged that the Roman Catholic Church would confront the issue unflinchingly and impose sanctions when necessary.

“The church is aware of this damage,” he said. “It is personal moral damage, carried out by men of the church, and we will not take one step backward regarding how we will deal with this problem. On the contrary, we have to be even stronger, because you cannot interfere with children.”

The remarks were made off the cuff before members of the International Catholic Child Bureau, a French nonprofit that promotes the rights and dignity of children. They were his most forceful comments to date on the church’s abuse scandal.

The two previous popes, John Paul II and Benedict XVI, condemned priests who harmed children and expressed sorrow and regret over abuse, but Francis is the first pope to take personal responsibility for the scandal. He said on Friday that he felt “compelled to personally take on all the evil” that some priests, “quite a few in number,” had committed against children.

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NEW MEXICO
KRQE

GALLUP, N.M. (KRQE) – A federal judge has set a deadline for people to file a sex abuse claim against the Catholic Diocese of Gallup.

It’s part of the diocese’s bankruptcy proceedings.

The diocese, which bills itself as one of the poorest in the country has been hit especially hard by sex abuse claims already and expects as many as 100 people to file claims.

The diocese decided to file for bankrputcy in September saying it would be the best way for sex abuse victims to be compensated fairly.

Now the court has ordered all potential victims to file their claims before August 11th of this year or possibly forfeit their right to sue the diocese.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

Pope Francis surprised many today by his following unexpected remarks about the priest child abuse scandal. He stated:

“I feel compelled to personally take on all the evil which some priests, quite a few in number, obviously not compared to the number of all the priests, to personally ask for forgiveness for the damage they have done for having sexually abused children. The Church is aware of this damage, it is personal, moral damage carried out by men of the Church, and we will not take one step backward with regards to how we will deal with this problem, and the sanctions that must be imposed. On the contrary, we have to be even stronger. Because you cannot interfere with children.”

A short video of Pope Francis’ above remarks, along with the circumstances of, and some reactions to, the remarks are included here:

[New York Times]

Francis has served in a major city for over a quarter century as either a bishop or a Jesuit provincial, and over a dozen years as a cardinal. He must know the score on the Vatican’s long standing failure to hold bishops’ accountable for protecting predatory priests. He then would also know the Vatican has never really taken a step forward, so it is impossible to take a step backward here.

Will Francis in fact now take a step forward and hold bisops accountable — that is the fundamental issue he has been ducking for over a year as pope. He has finally announced recently in general terms an advisory commission with a vague mandate and neither a specific schedule nor a clear agenda. Meanwhile, Francis recently in effect approved of permitting Italian priests to continue to avoid reporting abuse cases to the police.

Francis volunteered to be Pope. As part of the control group now, he like the ex-Pope and Cardinals Bertone, Sodano, Levada, Parolin and Mueller are all subject to the long arm of the International Criminal Court. The Court merely deferred taking action for now; a prosecution of Vatican leaders remains legally feasible. Moreover, the Vatican remains subject to the UN committee on children under the treaty the Vatican is bound by. Francis is running out of time.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

HAROLD BRUBAKER, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
LAST UPDATED: Friday, April 11, 2014

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia provided a sobering update on the Heritage of Faith – Vision of Hope fund-raising campaign, which ended its pledging period in early 2011.

The amount of write-offs and pledges considered unlikely to be collected was $52.2 million, as of June 30, 2013, the archdiocese said Friday.

The archdiocese also clarified that the $221.5 million in pledges previously reported by archdiocesan officials included $36.5 million for parish-level campaigns that ran simultaneously, but were not included in the original $200 million goal for the campaign.

“It is important to note that the goal of $200 million did not contemplate the existence of the combined campaigns,” the archdiocese said in a statement accompanying the Heritage of Faith audited financial statement for the year ended June 30, 2013.

That means pledges to the archdiocesan campaign actually fell short of the official goal by $15 million, or 7.5 percent, reaching $185 million.

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OREGON
Catholic Sentinel

Ed Langlois
Of the Catholic Sentinel

The pastor of St. Wenceslaus Parish in Scappoose was detained April 8 in Los Angeles when he stepped off a plane from Australia. Authorites made the arrest based on a warrant issued in Vancouver, Wash.

Father Michael Patrick, who has served in the Archdiocese of Portland since 1998, is now in jail in Los Angeles.

Father Patrick has been charged with luring. Vancouver Police say the priest is suspected of driving his vehicle beside a teenage girl and persistently asking to give her a ride despite her refusals. The girl became frightened and ran to phone for help. Authorities identified Father Patrick as the suspect then searched a residence the priest keeps in Vancouver. Police will not yet discuss what they have found.

In a statement, the archdiocese says it had no prior knowledge of the pending charge, and is trying to get in contact with Father Patrick but so far have been unsuccessful.

“The Archdiocese will cooperate with law enforcement,” the archdiocese says. “Father Patrick will be suspended from his ministry functions until the matter is concluded, even though the criminal charge had nothing to do with his parish assignment in Scappoose.”

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OREGON
The Oregonian

By The Oregonian
on April 11, 2014

A Catholic priest who is the pastor at St. Wenceslaus in Scappoose has been detained and accused of trying to lure a teenage girl into his car, according to a Catholic newspaper.

The Catholic Sentinel is reporting that Father Michael Patrick, who has been with the Archdiocese of Portland since 1998, is being held in a Los Angeles jail after being arrested after return from a trip to Australia. The arrest came on a warrant issued by Vancouver police.

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VATICAN CITY
Washington Post

By David Gibson, Friday, April 11

In his strongest remarks yet on the clergy sex abuse scandal, Pope Francis on Friday asked forgiveness “for the damage” that abusive priests have inflicted on children and pledged that the Catholic Church “will not take one step backward” in its efforts to address the crisis.

“I feel compelled to personally take on all the evil that some priests — quite a few in number, though not compared to the total number — and to ask for forgiveness for the damage they have done by sexually abusing children,” Francis said.

“The church is aware of this damage,” he said. “It is personal and moral damage, but carried out by men of the church. And we do not want to take one step backward in dealing with this problem and the sanctions that must be imposed. On the contrary, I believe that we have to be very firm. Because you cannot take chances with children!”

The pope’s remarks were an unscripted addition to a speech to the International Catholic Child Bureau, a French Catholic network that works to promote the rights of children.

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TEXAS
Houston Chronicle

By Allan Turner

April 11, 2014

Advocates for children sexually molested by Catholic clergy Friday hailed Pope Francis’ apology and call for forgiveness – the pontiff’s strongest statement to date on the scandal that has rocked the church – but suggested the remarks mean little unless followed by tough action against church leaders who protected offenders.

“It’s a step in the right direction. It’s about time. But so much more needs to be done,” said Miguel Prats, cofounder and president of the Houston-based Maria Goretti Network, a lay Catholic victims’ support group. “The real thing that gets us is the bishops that allowed this stuff to happen, that moved priests around and covered up crimes – they haven’t been held to account.”

Prats, 61, said he was fondled by a priest when he was a teenager. “I’m in love with my church,” he said. “I’m trying to forgive, but it’s very hard.”

Francis made his Vatican remarks Friday to members of a French children’s protective group, saying the church, with more than 1 billion members worldwide, is committed to strengthening child-protection programs and punishing offenders.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC – PM

MARK COLVIN: Officials from the child abuse Royal Commission have rejected claims that only one person from the Kimberley in WA is prepared to give oral testimony.

For the past six months, the inquiry has been working intensively in remote Aboriginal communities to encourage survivors to tell their stories.

One non-government organisation, Relationships Australia, says only one person from an Indigenous community has signed up to speak to the inquiry.

The Royal Commission’s CEO Janette Dines spoke to Emily Bourke.

JANETTE DINES: We’re actually very pleased with the progress that we’re making in the Kimberley. We’re working very closely with trusted community organisations there. We’re working with Anglicare; we’re working with the Kimberley Stolen Generation; we’re working with the Kimberley Community Legal Services groups.

What those groups told us way back in August was, it would be slow and that we needed to take our time and that we couldn’t come once and expect that people would then be ready to talk, but that we needed to actually give people time, let some of the existing service providers in the community help us to engage, and that’s what we’re doing.

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NEDERLAND
RTL Nieuws

[Summary: The foundation that fights for victims of abuse in the Catholic Church – Klokk – is happy that the Roermond diocese has acknowledged that Bishop Joe Gijsen abused two boys. The organization said this gives peace to all parties. The victims has long sought recognition of what happened to them, according to Klokk.]

De stichting die opkomt voor slachtoffers van misbruik in de rooms-katholieke kerk, KLOKK, is blij dat het bisdom Roermond heeft erkend dat bisschop Jo Gijsen twee jongens heeft misbruikt. “Dit geeft rust voor alle partijen.”

“De slachtoffers hebben lang gezocht naar erkenning”, zegt de organisatie. Die denkt dat de erkenning van het misbruik de deur openzet voor anderen. “Er circuleerden nog twee klachten, uit een latere periode. Die is een vorm van steunbewijs en geeft een mogelijkheid tot herziening. Het siert het bisdom dat ze deze zaak zo afwikkelen.”

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NEDERLAND
Omroep Brabant

DEN BOSCH – De vroegere bisschop van Roermond, Jo Gijsen, heeft tussen 1958 en 1961 de geslachtsdelen van twee minderjarige jongens betast. Dat meldt het Katholiek Nieuwsblad. Jo Gijsen uit Oeffelt is vorig jaar op tachtigjarige leeftijd overleden. Het bisdom van Roermond heeft dit vrijdagavond erkend.

De klachtencommissie voor seksueel misbruik in de Rooms-Katholieke Kerk heeft twee klachten over misbruik tegen Gijsen gegrond verklaard. De commissie noemde geen naam, maar kerkelijke bronnen hebben tegenover het Katholiek Nieuwsblad bevestigd dat het gaat om de vroegere bisschop.

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NEDERLAND
Elsevier

Het bisdom Roermond erkent dat de vorig jaar overleden voormalige bisschop Jo Gijsen twee jongens heeft misbruikt. Bisschop Frans Wiertz biedt de slachtoffers zijn excuses aan.

Wierts spreekt vrijdag in een verklaring zijn verdriet uit dat ‘de latere kerkelijke positie en voorbeeldfunctie van oud-bisschop Jo Gijsen beschadigd zijn’.

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NEDERLAND
RTL Nieuws

[Summary: The foundation that fights for victims of abuse in the Catholic Church – Klokk – is happy that the Roermond diocese has acknowledged that Bishop Joe Gijsen abused two boys. The organization said this gives peace to all parties. The victims has long sought recognition of what happened to them, according to Klokk.]

Het bisdom Roermond erkent dat de vorig jaar overleden voormalige bisschop Jo Gijsen twee jongens heeft misbruikt.

Dat blijkt uit een verklaring van het bisdom. Bisschop Frans Wiertz biedt de slachtoffers zijn excuses aan en spreekt zijn verdriet uit dat ‘de latere kerkelijke positie en voorbeeldfunctie van oud-bisschop Jo Gijsen beschadigd zijn’.

Twee minderjarige jongens
De verklaring volgt op een bericht van het Katholiek Nieuwsblad eerder op de avond dat Gijsen tussen 1958 en 1961 de geslachtsdelen van twee minderjarige jongens had betast.

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NETHERLANDS
Dear Kitty

Translated from RTL TV in the Netherlands today:

Diocese admits: Bishop Gijsen abused little boys

The diocese Roermond acknowledges that its former Bishop Jo Gijsen, deceased last year, abused two boys.

They do this in a statement from the diocese. [Present] Bishop Frans Wiertz apologizes to the victims and expresses his sorrow that “the later ecclesiastical and role model position of former Bishop Jo Gijsen has been damaged.”

Two underage boys

The statement follows a report by the Katholiek Nieuwsblad [Catholic Newspaper] earlier in the evening that Gijsen had groped the genitals of two minor boys between 1958 and 1961.

The newspaper reports that it is a one time fondling of a former student of the boys’ boarding school in Kerkrade and repeatedly fondling a boy (9-10 years old) from the parish in Valkenburg where Gijsen was chaplain until 1959. This boy is also said to have been forced to perform oral sex. He says he was also repeatedly raped by Gijsen.

In December 2011 the complaints committee of the Roman Catholic Church has ruled that the former bishop had acted during the late 1950s at the Rolduc seminary “in an unseemly way” and had violated the privacy of a former student there ‘grossly’.

There are still more abuse accusations against Gijsen (not sorted out yet).

Like Gijsen was in a sexual abuse scandal in Iceland while being bishop there.

Joannes Gijsen had become bishop in Roermond, the Netherlands, as one of several ultra-conservative Vatican appointees, against the wishes of most Roman Catholics in the diocese. His position in the Netherlands became untenable because of various issues, including sexual abuse at a seminary founded by Gijsen because he considered existing seminaries to be too liberal. The Vatican then moved Gijsen to Iceland, where there are few Roman Catholics.

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NEDERLAND
De Telegraaf

HAARLEM –
Jo Gijsen, die volgens het Katholiek Nieuwsblad twee minderjarige jongens onzedelijk heeft betast, kon in katholieke kringen in Nederland moeilijk zijn draai vinden. Binnen de Nederlandse Bisschoppenconferentie kwam de eigenzinnige en oerconservatieve Gijsen geregeld in conflict met de meer progressieve koers van kardinaal Alfrink, de bisschoppen Bluyssen, Ernst en Möller. De enige met wie hij niet in conflict raakte, was generatiegenoot en huidig kardinaal Ad Simonis, die in 1970 tot bisschop van Rotterdam was benoemd.

Gijsen werd in 1972 tot bisschop van Roermond benoemd. Zeer tegen de gewoonte in werd hij niet gewijd in de Limburgse bisschopsstad, maar in de Sint Pieter in Rome. De emeritus bisschop trok al snel zijn eigen plan. Hij ontsloeg de naaste medewerkers van zijn voorganger Moors en richtte in Rolduc (Kerkrade) zijn eigen priesterseminarie op. Het seminarie werd vaak geassocieerd met geslotenheid en behoudzucht.

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NEDERLAND
RD

De vorig jaar overleden vroegere bisschop van Roermond, Jo Gijsen, heeft tussen 1958 en 1961 de geslachtsdelen van twee minderjarige jongens betast. Dat meldt het Katholiek Nieuwsblad.

De klachtencommissie voor seksueel misbruik in de Rooms-Katholieke Kerk heeft twee klachten over misbruik tegen Gijsen gegrond verklaard. De commissie noemde geen naam, maar kerkelijke bronnen hebben tegenover het Katholiek Nieuwsblad bevestigd dat het gaat om de vroegere bisschop.

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NEDERLAND
Katholiek Nieuwsblad

De Klachtencommissie voor seksueel misbruik in de R.-K. Kerk heeft twee misbruikklachten tegen de vorig jaar overleden bisschop Jo Gijsen gegrond verklaard.

Dat blijkt uit twee onlangs gepubliceerde bekendmakingen van de Klachtencommissie. Kerkelijke bronnen hebben tegenover KN bevestigd dat het gaat om de vroegere bisschop van Roermond.
Mgr. Gijsen (1932-2013) was eerder al beschuldigd van onbetamelijk ‘gluren’, maar die klacht werd niet gegrond verklaard omdat ‘ gluren’ niet als seksueel misbruik kon worden aangemerkt.

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NEDERLAND
NOS

De Klachtencommissie voor seksueel misbruik in de Rooms Katholieke Kerk heeft twee klachten tegen de vorig jaar overleden bisschop Jo Gijsen gegrond verklaard. Dat blijkt uit twee bekendmakingen van de klachtencommissie.

De commissie noemt geen namen in de verklaring, maar het bisdom Roermond erkent dat het gaat om oud-bisschop Jo Gijsen.

De twee klachten gaan over het betasten van de geslachtsdelen van twee minderjarige jongens tussen 1958 en 1961.

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NEDERLAND
Spits

[Summary: The deceased Roermond bishop, Joe Gijsen, touched the genitals of two underage boys between 1958 and 1961. This was reported in the Katholiek Nieuwsblad. The complaints of abuse by Gijsen have been upheld by the church committee that handles abuse complaints.]

De vorig jaar overleden vroegere bisschop van Roermond, Jo Gijsen, heeft tussen 1958 en 1961 de geslachtsdelen van twee minderjarige jongens betast. Dat meldt het Katholiek Nieuwsblad.

De klachtencommissie voor seksueel misbruik in de Rooms-Katholieke Kerk heeft twee klachten over misbruik tegen Gijsen gegrond verklaard. De commissie noemde geen naam, maar kerkelijke bronnen hebben tegenover het Katholiek Nieuwsblad bevestigd dat het gaat om de vroegere bisschop.

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AUSTRALIA
lewisblayse.net

Management experts know that organisational culture is a key determinant of how an organisation engages with stakeholders and comports itself in its day-to-day operations. Organisational leaders are particularly important in demonstrating, through their practices, what values an organisation embraces as part of its organisational culture. In particular, how a leader behaves says a lot about an organisation because organisational members generally follow a leader’s example as being a tacit indication of how they should behave themselves.

It is extremely disturbing, therefore, to see how Australian Salvation Army chief, ‘Commissioner’ James Condon, has acted in relation to claims of child abuse by Salvation Army members, including accused paedophile Colin Haggar. Disturbing not just in its own right but because of what his conduct conveys to organisational members who take direction from their leader about what conduct is acceptable or unacceptable, whatever official policy documents may say to the contrary.

James Condon’s rather bumbling testimony about how he took confessed paedophile Colin Haggar to the police raised disbelieving eyebrows to all who listened to it. You could drive trucks through his story in places. Close and critical observers of his testimony, which had just the right mix of uncertainty and certainty in its telling to sound somewhat plausible to the casual listener, felt instinctively that it was clearly scripted and, to be frank, utter rubbish, and were clearly increasingly distressed at having to listen to it.

Witnesses to his self-serving accounts and his intermittent attempts to use a grave environment such as the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse to get in little ‘plugs’ for the Salvation Army also became increasingly angry as Mr. Condon continued on with his testimony in a way that indicated that Mr. Condon appeared to be using the proceedings to push the image of the Salvation Army.

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UNITED STATES
Voice of the Faithful

Voice of the Faithful Annual Gathering
April 5, 2014, Hartford CT

Thomas P. Doyle, J.C.D., C.A.D.C.

Where the Institutional Church is Today

Sources of information: media reports, official church statements, court records, official and private reports, information from victims, bishops statements, bishops’ actions

1. The so-called sex abuse “crisis” or “scandal” is thirty years old this year. My authority for any conclusions or opinions I offer rests partially on the fact that I have been directly involved for all of those thirty years. I will admit today that in the summer of 1985 and the winter of 1985 I would not have been able to imagine what would unfold in the following decades. I certainly had no idea of the impact my own experience would have on my relationship to the institutional Church, to my belief system and to my concept of the Higher Power.

2. Before considering the transition from discussion to action, it is essential to consider the foundation for action and the reasons why it is essential to the life and growth of the Church. By “Church” I do not mean the very limited institutional dimension but the far more dynamic reality, the People of God.

3. The past three decades have revealed much about clergy sexual abuse but even more important, they have revealed much about the institutional Catholic Church and the tension between it and the Body of Christ.

a. Sex abuse of minors by clerics of all ranks is an historical constant. There is sexual abuse of minors by clerics in every geographic area where the church exists.

b. The extent of revelations of sex abuse has been commensurate with the willingness of victims to seek relief in the civil courts and in the capacity and willingness of the courts to respond to the victims with objectivity.

c. Sex abuse has been actively denied and covered up by bishops, religious superiors and popes since the early 19th century. The bishops’ negative and inadequate response to reports of abuse and to suspected abusers has been uniform and consistent throughout the international scope of the Church.

d. The institutional Church as a whole and bishops in general, including the bishops of Rome, have never given any credible indication that they understood the nature and gravity of the spiritual damage done to victims.

e. Likewise the Church and bishops in general have given no credible evidence to date of an ability and willingness to make the pastoral welfare, i.e., compassionate care and support, the priority in their response.

f. Bishops remain on the defensive. Their responses have been administrative and bureaucratic. The bishops in the U.S. have expended significant monetary and human resources on programs and policies to protect children in the future.

g. No effort by any diocese has been proactive or initiated independent of pressure from the media, the courts and angry laypersons. In other words, all of the programs and other “advances” referenced by bishops and by Pope Francis have been forced on the institutional Church since the public revelations and nearly all have been instituted since 2002.

h. Attorneys for the institutional Church continue to exert great influence over bishops. Victims are treated with disdain if they decide to resort to the civil courts for justice and recognition. Some examples: Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Kansas City, Philadelphia, St. Paul, and Denver.

i. The archetype of revictimization and institutional abuse is George Pell formerly of Sydney.

j. There are few known examples of bishops who have exhibited sincere pastoral concern for victims. Perfunctory visits at the bishop’s office and penitential liturgies are not examples of pastoral concern.

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CHICAGO (IL)
NBC Chicago

By Mary Ann Ahern | Friday, Apr 11, 2014

Cardinal Francis George says the Vatican’s American representative has agreed to begin the process of choosing his successor.

“I know it looks as if I’m going to have to be spending a little more attention on my health,” Cardinal George told reporters Friday, “and so it’s just not fair to the Archdiocese to have someone who may not be able to do the job as well as I believe it should be done.”

The Archdiocese of Chicago announced this week the Cardinal, 77, has resumed his chemotherapy and will not make a scheduled trip to Rome to attend the canonization of Popes John Paul II and John XXIII on April 27.

The Cardinal is suffering from cancer near his right kidney and underwent his second chemotherapy treatment on Monday. He survived bladder cancer eight years ago and was diagnosed with urothelial cancer in 2012.

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AUSTRALIA
lewisblayse.net

From: Aletha Blayse
Date: Fri, Apr 11, 2014 at 6:57 PM
Subject: Settlement of Lewis Blayse Matter (OR: An Opportunity for the Salvation Army and a New Beginning)
To: “peterfarthing2 .” , james.condon@aue.salvationarmy.org, General André Cox , bruce.redman@aus.salvationarmy.org, mediaofficer@aue.salvationarmy.org, luke.geary@salvoslegal.com.au

Dear Mr. Farthing,

Thank you for your repeated offer at the Royal Commission hearings to meet with me to discuss my complaint with the Salvation Army in relation to its treatment of my father and his family.

While I am concerned about your continued refusal to have a member of the media present at a meeting, I have thought of a way to protect my interests and avoid the problems I am concerned about by conducting our ‘discussions’ via email.

Accordingly, I now state for you what the Salvation Army needs to do in order to settle the matter of compensation to my father’s family in a way that will satisfy me, my family, and other people with an interest in our matter that your organisation has indeed turned over a new leaf in relation to how it treats victims of the Salvation Army and their families.

I have calculated a sum of $600,000 as being suitable to achieve, to a reasonable degree, the objectives I have set out in my petition and elsewhere and the principles I have enunciated for what compensation payments should look like. Needless to say, this is quite different from your ‘Matrix’ system, which is deeply flawed in its failure to examine the actual effects of abuse on individuals and their families and compensate for them. As you know, since you were provided with the documentation from a world expert on PTSD many years ago, my father was totally and permanently disabled. There is nothing in the ‘Matrix’ to account for such situations. Accordingly, it cannot be regarded as an appropriate way to calculate compensation sums.

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UNITED STATES
Perez Hilton

Pope Francis has asked a pretty big request of the victims sexually abused by priests:

He wants them to forgive their abusers!

More specifically, The Pope says that HE assumes responsibility for the “evil” of priests who raped and molested children, and promised that the church will continue to fight its disturbing trend of sexual assault. That’s when he asked for forgiveness.

That’s a hard thing to do in ANY situation for ANY victim, especially since he’s been trying to fix the Catholic church’s awful reputation without publicly punishing the offending priests.

We’re pretty sure public outing and punishment is just what the people want!

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

In his strongest statement yet on the abuse of children by priests, Francis promised: “We will not take one step backwards with regards to how we deal with this problem”, on the contrary, “We have to be even stronger” at combating this

GERARD O’CONNELL
ROME

Pope Francis today publicly asked “forgiveness” for the sexual abuse of children by priests, and stated clearly that “we will not take one step backwards with regards to how we deal with this problem and the sanctions that must be imposed”. On the contrary, he promised “even stronger” action.

In what was his strongest statement yet on this most serious problem, Francis gave this firm commitment when he addressed members of the International Catholic Child Bureau (BICE) in the Vatican on Friday morning, April 11. BICE is a Catholic NGO that works to protect the rights and dignity of children worldwide. Putting aside his prepared Italian text, he spoke to them from the heart about this serious problem that profoundly disturbs him because it has done such terrible harm to children and minors, and also tarnished the image of the Catholic Church.

“I feel compelled to personally take on all the evil which some priests, quite a few in number, (though) obviously not compared to the total number of priests, to personally ask for forgiveness for the damage they have done, for having sexually abused children”, he said.

“The Church is aware of this damage; it is personal, moral damage carried out by men of the Church, and we will not take one step backward with regards to how we will deal with this problem, and the sanctions that must be imposed. On the contrary, we have to be even stronger. Because you cannot interfere with children”, he stated firmly.

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UNITED STATES
New York Times

Pope’s Request Abuse Victims Forgive Church Draws Calls for Action

By CHRISTINE HAUSER APRIL 11, 2014

Pope Francis said in remarks broadcast on Friday that he was “personally” asking for forgiveness for the damage that priests have done in the sexual abuse of children.

The Pope’s full statement — made as he met with members of the International Catholic Child Bureau, a non-governmental organization — was transcribed by Vatican Radio.

An excerpt where he addresses the sexual abuse issue, apparently departing from his prepared speech:

I feel compelled to personally take on all the evil which some priests, quite a few in number, obviously not compared to the number of all the priests, to personally ask for forgiveness for the damage they have done for having sexually abused children. The Church is aware of this damage, it is personal, moral damage carried out by men of the Church, and we will not take one step backward with regards to how we will deal with this problem, and the sanctions that must be imposed. On the contrary, we have to be even stronger. Because you cannot interfere with children.

The remarks came just a few weeks after the Pope made his first appointments to a special commission intended to signal the Vatican’s new resolve in tackling the clerical sexual abuse problem.

The statement on Friday drew swift reaction on social media forums, where many said the Church needed actions more than words to end the problem of priest abusing children.

Colm O’Gorman, the executive director of Amnesty International in Ireland and the founder of One in Four, an organization that supports victims of sexual abuse, shared his thoughts on his Twitter account.

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UNITED STATES
CBS Philly

By David Madden

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – Pope Francis has reached out to the victims of sex abuse at the hands of Catholic priests, asking for their forgiveness. Meantime, a group that works on behalf of the victims is not impressed.

Vatican Radio is reporting that the Pontiff told members of a French group that protects children that the church should not ”take a step back in dealing with this problem and the sanctions that must be imposed.”

The reaction from America’s Survivors Network of those abused by priests is that nothing has changed
.
“Be impressed by deeds, not by words, and until this Pope takes decisive actions that will protect children…be skeptical. Be vigilant,” spokeswoman Barbara Dorris says.

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VATICAN CITY
Seattle PI

[with video]

April 11, 2014 | By Joel Connelly

Pope Francis, in unscripted remarks Friday, promised that the Vatican will more more directly confront the “evil” of clergy sex abuse of children.

“I feel compelled to personally take on all the evil that some priests — quite a few in number, though not compared to the total number — and to ask forgiveness for the damage done by sexually abusing clergy,” the pontiff said in a meeting with leaders of the International Catholic Child Bureau, a French Catholic group.

“”The church is aware of this damage,” he added. ”It is personal and moral damage, but carried out by men of the church. And we do not want to take one step backward in dealing with this problem and the sanctions that must be imposed. On the contrary, I have to be very firm. Because you cannot take chances with children.”

The pope pledged late last year that a commission will work out uniform policies for Catholic dioceses around the world in dealing with the abuse crisis.

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VATIKAN
Blick

Vatikanstadt – Papst Franziskus hat sich persönlich bei den Opfern sexuellen Missbrauchs durch Kleriker entschuldigt. Er fühle sich verpflichtet, «persönlich um Vergebung für den Schaden zu bitten», den Priester durch den sexuellen Missbrauch von Kindern angerichtet hätten, sagte der Papst bei einem Treffen mit Vertretern einer Kinderhilfsorganisation.

«Die Kirche ist sich dieses Schadens bewusst.» Die Kirche werde im Umgang mit dem Thema «keinen Schritt zurück» machen und «Sanktionen verhängen», sagte Franziskus dem Bericht von Radio Vatikan zufolge.

Tausende Missbrauchsfälle in zahlreichen Ländern hatten die katholische Kirche in den vergangenen Jahren in eine Krise gestürzt. Papst Franziskus kündigte kurz nach dem Beginn seines Pontifikats im März 2013 an, härter gegen Kindesmissbrauch in der Kirche vorzugehen.

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VATIKAN
Aktuell

Papst Franziskus hat die Opfer von Kindesmissbrauch durch Priester in der katholischen Kirche um Vergebung gebeten.

“Ich fühle mich berufen, mich der Sache anzunehmen, des Bösen, das einige Priester getan haben (…), und um Vergebung zu bitten, für den Schaden, den sie angerichtet haben, für den sexuellen Missbrauch an Kindern”, sagte der Pontifex am Freitag bei einem Treffen mit Kinderschützern im Vatikan. Die Kirche sei sich der schlimmen Folgen bewusst und wolle keinen Schritt zurück machen bei der Behandlung des Problems und der Bestrafung der Täter.

“Es ist ein persönlicher und moralischer Schaden, verübt durch Männer der Kirche”, betonte Franziskus. Das Oberhaupt der katholischen Kirche hatte im Dezember eine Kommission gegen Kindesmissbrauch eingerichtet und kurz nach seinem Amtsantritt vor gut einem Jahr angekündigt, entschlossen gegen Fälle von sexuellem Missbrauch in der Kirche vorgehen zu wollen.

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