ABUSE TRACKER

WASHINGTON
Yakima Herald-Republic

By Donald W. Meyers / Yakima Herald-Republic
dmeyers@yakimaherald.com

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Yakima was not responsible for the sexual abuse of a 17-year-old boy at a Zillah parish by a church deacon in 1999, a federal judge ruled Thursday.

U.S. District Judge Edward Shea rejected arguments by the victim, identified in court papers as John Doe, that the diocese failed to properly screen the deacon when it accepted him as a priesthood candidate or that it failed to supervise him as he worked in the diocese.

There was no evidence to prove that the church knew or should have known that Deacon Aaron Ramirez posed a risk of misconduct, Shea wrote in his 34-page ruling.

“As we have said many times, we’re very sorry for the abuse Mr. Doe suffered,” Yakima Bishop Joseph Tyson said in a statement. “Our prayers are with him.”

“At the same time, we’re pleased that the court recognized the diocese’s strong legal position,” the bishop said. “It is unfortunate we weren’t able to settle this matter outside of trial.”

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NEW ORLEANS (LA)
National Catholic Reporter

Brian Roewe Joshua J. McElwee | Jun. 12, 2014

NEW ORLEANS
Closing the six hours of open meetings at their annual assembly Thursday, the nation’s Catholic bishops heard from two speakers who outlined a stark image of the state of religious freedom and respect for marriage in U.S. society today.

Addressing the ties between evangelization and service to the poor, lawyer Helen Alvaré at one point said it was “getting difficult” for Catholics to partner with the U.S. government in providing social services because of laws like a federal mandate requiring coverage of contraceptive services in health care plans.

“We have always believed it has been eminently possible and good for us to partner with the public authority,” Alvaré said. “Part of me worries some [people] at some levels of government are beginning to imagine a charitable services world where we are not a partner.”

Catholics, she said, must “use every single tool in our disposal” to prevent that from happening.

Alvaré, a law professor at George Mason University who also serves as a consultor to the Pontifical Council for the Laity, spoke Thursday at the bishops’ plenary assembly in New Orleans. After three and a half hours of deliberation on a number of topics Wednesday, the bishops devoted the last part of their meeting Thursday to talks from Alvaré and sociologist W. Bradford Wilcox.

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NEW ORLEANS (LA)
The New York Times

By MICHAEL PAULSON
JUNE 12, 2014

NEW ORLEANS — They are rethinking what kinds of houses they live in, and what kinds of cars they drive. They are wondering whether, in anticipation of the 2016 presidential election, they need to rewrite their advice to parishioners to make sure that poverty, and not just abortion, is discussed as a high-priority issue. And they are trying to get better about returning phone calls, reaching out to the disenchanted and the disenfranchised, and showing up at events.

Fifteen months into the pontificate of Pope Francis, the Roman Catholic bishops of the United States find themselves unsettled in ways large and small, revisiting both how they live and what they talk about in light of the new pope’s emphasis on personal humility and economic justice.

Over the last several days as the bishops gathered here for their semiannual meeting, they grappled with the substantive and stylistic implications of a still-new papacy.

After several of their colleagues faced recent criticism for lavish houses, several bishops said in interviews that they were paying new attention to their own spending, mindful of the pope’s decision to eschew the apostolic palace for a small suite in a Vatican guesthouse, and aware that their parishioners are concerned about how the church uses its money.

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CALIFORNIA
KUSI

By Sasha Foo

The defendants are the very same ones named in the original suit in May: the head of this ministry, his wife, another program employee and the well-known Rock Church. But the list of plaintiffs has doubled to more than a dozen women who claim they were subjected to daily abuse, but were too intimidated and scared to speak out.

“I feel betrayed by the people who were promising to protect me,” professed plaintiff Brienna Hartz.

They say they were betrayed, abused and shamed. Seven more women have added their complaints to a civil lawsuit against David Powers and his wife, the operators of a drug and rehabilitation program that’s been promoted and endorsed by The Rock Church.

“Before long, he was slapping my butt,” stated one plaintiff wishing to remain anonymous.

Now there are 13 women in all who say David Powers harassed, abused or sexually assaulted them while they were staying in his sober-living homes or in a residential program in La Jolla that only admitted young women.

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WASHINGTON
KIMA

By Natalie Eucce Published: Jun 12, 2014

YAKIMA COUNTY, Wash. — We begin tonight with a ruling in the high-profile sex abuse case against the Catholic Diocese of Yakima. A federal judge ruled the Diocese is not liable for the sexual abuse of a boy at a Zillah parish in 1999.

Judge Edward Shea said it was clear that former deacon Aaron Ramirez abused the plaintiff “John Doe” but that no church authorities knew Ramirez was at the Resurrection Parish when the abuse occurred.

Yakima Bishop Joseph Tyson issued a statement saying the Diocese was sorry for what the plaintiff suffered, but is pleased the court agreed with the church’s legal arguments.

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MINNESOTA
LaCrosse Tribune

Jerome Christenson jerome.christenson@lee.net

A former priest who has admitted to having sex with more than 10 boys still draws a monthly check from the Diocese of Winona.

According to an agreement outlined in a letter signed Oct. 9, 2008, by Winona Bishop Bernard Harrington, Thomas Adamson will draw the annual pension agreed upon for senior priests under the Diocese Priests Pension Plan along with medical and dental coverage “the remainder of your life.”

Six months later, Pope Benedict XVI granted Adamson “dispensation from all the obligations connected to sacred ordination,” formally removing him from the Roman Catholic priesthood more than 45 years after he admitted sexually abusing boys to Bishop Edward Fitzgerald.

Adamson’s ongoing financial relationship with the diocese was revealed in a sworn May 16 deposition Adamson provided as part of a suit brought against the Diocese of Winona and the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis by an anonymous plaintiff who claims he was sexually abused by Adamson in the 1970s. The lawsuit is the first filed after the Minnesota Legislature opened a three-year window in 2013 that set aside the statute of limitations in cases of abuse.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
KSDK

[with video]

Stephanie Diffin, KSDK June 12, 2014

ST. LOUIS – NewsChannel 5 has learned about more local ties to a high-profile priest sex abuse case.

The abuser in the case is a former Minnesota priest, who served for a time under the current St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson. At the time, during the early ’80s, Archbishop Carlson was serving as a bishop in Minneapolis – St. Paul. He was one of the people in charge of monitoring former priest Thomas Adamson after the church became aware of Adamson’s sexual abuse.

Part of Carlson’s solution for Adamson brought the abuser to a treatment center in St. Louis.

The proof is in documents released as evident in a previous trial involving Adamson. They show Adamson agreed to undergo treatment at St. Michael’s Institute in St. Louis, which has since been integrated into programs at the Vianney Center in Dittmer, Missouri. The center is not affiliated with the school.

Documents outlining his stay show that at the beginning, Adamson’s doctors repeatedly described him as “angry” and “unsure of self.”

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KENTUCKY
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, June 12

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

We beg a Louisville judge to keep a convicted predator priest behind bars and away from kids while he appeals.

[WDRB]

Dozens of times, we’ve seen savvy pedophiles fake or exaggerate illnesses to get special treatment. And hundreds of times, we’ve seen elderly, greying, slow-moving, stoop-shouldered but cunning clerics win parents’ trust and hurt kids even though they look and seem utterly harmless. It’s reckless to assume that older or ill child molesters can’t or won’t hurt kids. These are compulsive, driven men who can rarely control themselves, even if they are sick.

We hope this judge will put the safety of innocent kids before the convenience of a convicted criminal.

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UNITED STATES
NJ.com

[Note: The Kindle edition can be downloaded free of charge from Amazon.]

By Jacqueline Cutler
on April 27, 2014

Lou Romano, of Park Ridge, has written a heartfelt thriller about a complicated, abused man who happens to be a serial killer of pedophiles.

‘Intercession’
By Louis Romano
(Vecchia Publishing, 336 pp, $12.95)

It’s unusual to finish a book full of gruesome murders and feel deeply satisfied. It’s also unusual to read a book set in the neighborhood of your youth and know the streets, stores and churches, but realize you had no idea what was going on.

That’s not to suggest that Louis Romano is anything less than accurate; we moved in different worlds. Romano spins an excellent and disturbing story about pedophiles, concentrating on Roman Catholic priests.

A longtime Park Ridge resident, Romano sets much of the book around the Bronx of his childhood. His hero, John Deegan, attended parochial school and tried to do right by everyone.

“John Joseph Deegan was the second born of six children to Jack Joseph Deegan and Maureen Duffy. He was the shining apple of his parents’ eyes. In his mother’s heart, soul and mind, Johnny Boy was destined to be a priest from the day he was born. With John as a priest and by the grace of God, one of her daughters perhaps would join the convent, Maureen Deegan would have been happy to have closed her eyes and gone to heaven that very day. Her work on earth would have been complete as her children would work on saving souls and doing God’s work to alleviate the sins of the people.”

John was a perfect student and even the most severe of the nuns could not help but adore him. Though far smarter than his classmates, he was not obnoxious about his superior intellect and helped others. He was also very cute and quickly became a favorite of the parish priest.

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IRELAND
The Economist

Jun 14th 2014 | DUBLIN

CATHERINE CORLESS, a farmer, housewife and local historian in Tuam, a small town in the west of Ireland, struggled for four years to establish the truth about two questions: how many children died in a local mother-and-baby home between 1925 and 1961, and where were their bodies buried? Although she received little help, she has succeeded in answering the first question. A government inquiry should soon help to answer the second.

Her recently completed research showed that 796 children had died in the town’s home for unmarried mothers in those 36 years. The home, previously a workhouse, was run by the nuns of Bon Secours, a Roman Catholic order of French origin; the rate of infant mortality was well above the national average.

The revelation of the very large number of baby deaths, and the suggestion, as yet unproven, that many infants may have been buried in a mass grave in the grounds of the former care-home, has stirred the national conscience. It has also shed light on a shadowy chapter in Ireland’s history: how the church, the state and society as a whole treated unmarried women and their children. The women were shown little compassion and generally shunned as social outcasts. Many were disowned by their families; polite society dismissed them as “fallen”. Since their offspring were born out of wedlock, they were stigmatised, too. Unmarried mothers and their children were seen as a “ problem” best solved by removing them from society and by sending them to institutional care and isolation.

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IRELAND
Sunday World

AMANDA BRUNKER

Seven-hundred-and-ninety-six babies and infants dumped in a septic tank.

Could the Catholic Church make it any more difficult for people to keep faith?

The Government has done what it does best: set up a complex inter-departmental committee to investigate this.

The home closed 53 years ago, so what’s another few years to wait for answers, eh?

The Church has ordered the nuns who ran the home where the mass grave was found to co-operate with all enquires. So they’ve hired a PR company with a fancy name to make statements.
Our own Fr Brian D’Arcy described the septic tank tomb of skeletal bones as akin “to a horror story from Nazi Germany in WWII”.

As usual, he is the only member of the clergy to call it like it is. Because we can now see the network of mother-and-baby homes run under the cloak of Catholic morality for what they were: Ireland’s concentration camps.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Berger’s Beat

June 12, 2014 9:16 am | Author: berger

Local Catholic clerics have been accused of keeping too quiet about pedophile priests and there’s obviously some merit to those criticisms. But one wag noted the church hierarchy’s obsession with secrecy is a bit over the top when news releases by the official archdiocesan flack, Gabe Jones, go out to the media with this: “The information contained in this e-mail message and any attachments is confidential and is intended for use of the individual or entity named above. It may contain information that is privileged or exempt from disclosure under applicable law.”

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By Conall Ó Fátharta
Irish Examiner Reporter

Former children’s minister Frances Fitzgerald has admitted she read a dossier in 2011 calling for an inquiry into mother-and-baby homes, vaccine trials and illegal adoptions.

Ms Fitzgerald is coming under pressure to explain why she failed to act on the issue during her three years in office.

The 131-page dossier prepared by the Adoption Rights Alliance (ARA) called for a statutory inquiry into the homes, vaccine trials carried out in them and the scale of forced and illegal adoptions arranged in such institutions.

“During their time in the mother-and-baby homes, these women and girls were treated in a sub-human fashion, often denied adequate medical care or pain relief while giving birth. The women were also forced to carry out tough manual labour, whether they were pregnant or not. After their time was up (sometimes before) their babies were taken from them and sent for adoption, sometimes to America,” said the report.

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KENTUCKY
WDRB

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — A Louisville priest convicted of sexually abusing a teenage boy in the 1970s is asking a judge to set him free while he waits for the outcome of an appeal.

In April, a jury convicted James Schook of three counts of sodomy and one count of indecent and immoral behavior.
A judge sentenced Schook to 15 years in prison.

Schook’s attorney filed the appeal this week. He asks for a reversal of the conviction and possibly a new trial based on questions of which state statutes were relevant to the prosecution — those in effect at the time of the offenses, modern day statutes or both.

The request to stay out of prison during the appeals process is based on Schook’s argument that he is terminally ill, unlikely to commit any crimes and unlikely to flee the jurisdiction.

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NEW ORLEANS (LA)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, June 12, 2014

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

It’s said that the layman who heads the bishops hand-picked abuse panel apparently believes that his vague, mini-sermon today to America’s bishops might do something.

[National Catholic Reporter]

This panel, the National Review Board, was never a watchdog. And it quickly became a lap dog. Once filled with people who had independent jobs, it’s now largely stacked with people who depend on the church for paychecks (directly and indirectly). Once filled with high profile, somewhat outspoken people, it’s now filled with low profile and completely silent people. Once filled with somewhat savvy realists, it’s now largely filled with mostly naive optimists.

Reform of the Catholic hierarchy’s response to clergy abuse and cover ups, if it ever happens, will come thanks to external sources, not internal sources, and thanks to victims, police, prosecutors, journalists and advocates, and in spite of bishops and their carefully-chosen and cowardly appointees.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
KTRS

video only

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OSTERREICH
Initiative Gegen Kirchen-Privilegien

Ablehnungsantrag wurde eingebracht

(Leoben, Wien, 12.6.14, PUR) Vertuschung von körperlicher und sexueller Gewalt, Täter, die mit Billigung der Kirchenobersten weiterhin in Amt und Würden bleiben und eine kircheneigene “Opferschutzkommission” die mitspielte: Der Fall Admont gewährt tiefe Einblicke in die Missstände der Kirche heute.

So hatte bereits das Oberlandesgericht Graz das umstrittene Urteil des Leobener Richters im Missbrauchsprozess eines ehemaligen Zöglings gegen das Stift Admont aufgehoben. Der Zögling gibt an, in seiner Kindheit von Mönchen des Stiftes wiederholt ausgepeitscht und vergewaltigt worden zu sein. Der Richter erster Instanz hatte die Klage mit der abenteuerlichen Begründung abgewiesen, dass die Täter im Internat des Stiftsgymnasiums “ausführende Organe des Bundes” waren“ – und damit sei der Staat haftbar, nicht jedoch das Stift oder die Admonter Mönche. Dieses merkwürdige Urteil hat das OLG zurückverwiesen. Jetzt müsste das Verfahren von demselben Richter neue verhandelt werden. Doch genau dagegen wehrt sich Rechtsanwalt Hiebler im Namen des Opfers mit einem Ablehnungsantrag nun: Denn der Richter sei offenbar befangen.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Regensburg-Digital

Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst passt perfekt zum Bistum Regensburg. Und: Er hat sich beim Weitem nicht so viel zuschulden kommen lassen wie die Verantwortlichen hier.

bischof7953Tebartz-van Elst zieht nach Regensburg. Unmittelbar nachdem diese Nachricht heute von verschiedenen Medien vermeldet wurde, kam es in den Kommentar-Foren sozialer Netzwerke zu einer Vielzahl an – schonend ausgedrückt – ablehnenden Meinungsäußerungen. Die Frage ist aber doch: Was hat sich der ehemalige Limburger Bischof denn so Schlimmes zuschulden kommen lassen, was von den Verantwortlichen des nun von ihm zur neuen Heimat erkorenen Bistums Regensburg nicht problemlos getoppt werden könnte?

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
The Raw Story

By Travis Gettys
Thursday, June 12, 2014

The Archdiocese of St. Louis offered an explanation Wednesday for its leader’s claim to be unaware that priests could not legally have sex with children.

Archbishop Robert Carlson testified during a deposition last month that he was not sure in 1984, when he heard accusations of clergy sex abuse as an auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, that such relations were against the law.

“I’m not sure whether I knew it was a crime or not,” Carlson testified as part of a lawsuit filed in Minnesota. “I understand today it’s a crime.”

The St. Louis archdiocese, which Carlson has headed since 2009, said in a statement that the archbishop’s comments had been taken out of context.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic League

[the full deposition]

Bill Donohue comments on St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson:

According to attorney Jeffrey Anderson, as well as Commonweal, and other media outlets, the transcript of the exchange between Anderson and Archbishop Carlson reveals that the archbishop did not know it was a crime for an adult to have sex with a child. They are all wrong.

Prior to the controversial exchange (which began with a question regarding mandatory reporting laws—see pp. 108-09 of the transcript), Anderson asked Carlson several questions about Tom Adamson (a homosexual priest who had sex with teenage males). Carlson said, “I remember he was accused of sexual abuse. That’s the trial I participated in.” (See p. 34.) Having said as much, it is simply impossible to believe that Carlson did not know it was against the law for an adult to have sex with a minor.

Anderson also asked, “And you also knew when first degree criminal sexual conduct is written and recorded, that is the most serious of the sex crimes against a child. You know that?” To which Carlson said, “Correct.” (See pp. 98-99.) This is further proof that Carlson knew what the law was; this was also said prior to the controversial exchange.

After the exchange in question, Anderson asks Carlson, “But you knew a priest touching the genitals of a kid to be a crime; did you not?” Carlson answered, “Yes.” (See p. 145.)

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NEW ORLEANS (LA)
Religion Dispatches

Post by PATRICIA MILLER

Reaffirming their fine tradition of looking the future squarely in the eye and then blinking and retreating to the comforting exegesis of the past, the have voted .

The U.S. Catholic Bishops’ vote to maintain their politically aggressive Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Liberty for another three years signals that despite the warnings of Pope Francis to tone down the culture war stuff, the bishops are fully invested in their crusade against same-sex marriage and universal access to birth control.

And it’s no wonder, given the people they’re listening to for advice. On Thursday, the bishops will hear presentations on marriage from Helen Alvare, a former staffer and leading far-right proponent of the “contraceptive mentality” and its supposed dangers to women and marriage, and W. Bradford Wilcox, author of a controversial Washington Post op-ed which advised women to get married already so they wouldn’t get beaten or raped by their boyfriends (original headline: “One way to end violence against women? Stop taking lovers and get married”).

It’s the dream team of socially regressive conservative tripe on why marriage is good for everyone—except gay people, for whom it is very, very bad—and contraception is evil, largely because it allows women to avoid marrying their baby daddies.

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NEW ORLEANS (LA)
Advocate

BY MICHAEL O’LOUGHLIN JUNE 12 2014

The man appointed by U.S. Catholic bishops to fight the church’s battle against marriage equality called Wednesday for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would define marriage as a union between one man and one woman.

Speaking in New Orleans at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ summer meeting, San Francisco’s Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone rejected calls from some priests to move on from the issue and instead seemed to double down.

In his report to his fellow bishops, Cordileone, head of the bishops’ Subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage, said the nation finds itself at a “critical point,” according to the National Catholic Reporter.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Patsy McGarry

Thu, Jun 12, 2014

The return in 2012 of documents collated by the vaccine trial division of the Ryan Commission to relevant pharmaceutical firms, religious congregations and State agencies has been criticised as “further abuse” of children in institutional settings used “as guinea pigs”.

Independent TD Denis Naughten also pointed out that “the trials that took place in 1973 were approved by the National Drugs Advisory Board and a licence was issued to Wellcome for a two-year period, yet these trials were still ongoing in January 1976.”

The trials were suspended in 2003 following legal action.

In a written reply to Mr Naughten this week, Minister for Education Ruairi Quinn said he had approved the return of the vaccine module documents to their original sources and understood this had been done.

He also confirmed that he was preparing legislation to retain the records of the Commission itself, the Redress Board and the Residential Institutions Abuse Review Committee in the National Archives where they would be sealed for 75 years, following which access would be restricted. Consultation on this with survivor groups and other stakeholders was planned, he said.

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NEW ORLEANS (LA)
National Catholic Reporter

Brian Roewe Joshua J. McElwee | Jun. 12, 2014

NEW ORLEANS

Urged not to get complacent on clergy sexual abuse of minors, the nation’s Catholic bishops spoke little of holding one another accountable for failures in protecting children at their annual spring meeting.

The chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ National Review Board, which advises the bishops on child protection policies, told those gathered Wednesday in New Orleans that the church “continues to slowly make progress” on the abuse issue and asked bishops present to “resist complacency” and “remain committed” to the work still ahead of them.

“Every time we learn about a situation that results from a decision not in conformity with the Charter [for the Protection of Children and Young People], the commendable efforts of the bishops to address the issue of sexual abuse are compromised,” Francesco Cesareo said. “These instances further erode the credibility of the bishops.”

Toward the end of his 20-minute address, Cesareo said Catholics must “hold each other accountable for any actions or decisions that run contrary” to the prelates’ charter, which the bishops’ conference adopted in 2002. However, Cesareo did not specify who needs to be held accountable and to whom.

The topic received no wider discussion in the general sessions Wednesday, with retired Erie, Pa., Bishop Donald Trautman posing the only question on the subject from the floor: “Are we able to say that all dioceses and eparchies are implementing the charter?”

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NEW ORLEANS (LA)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, June 12, 2014

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

We’re saddened but not surprised that America’s bishops have invited a man to speak to them who minimizes and mischaracterizes abuse.

He’s W. Bradford Wilcox, co-author of a controversial recent Washington Post op ed about violence against women.

[National Catholic Reporter]

Bishops do this often – consult with questionable male “experts,” men like Paul McHugh who said “I believe that the belligerent frenzy characteristic of media reports on priestly sexual abuse has done much damage and needs to stop.”

[Baltimore Sun]

(Bishops put McHugh on their first National Review Board overseeing the crisis.)

Bishops send predator priests to therapists like Father Benedict Groeschel, who said in 2012: “In many cases, the youngster — 14, 16, 18 is the seducer.”

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

June 12, 2014

Richard Ackland
Sydney Morning Herald columnist

How is it that the Catholic Church has not only harboured so many paedophile priests but strenuously covered up their criminal activities?

This conspiracy exists not only in Australia but in other countries where the Catholic Church functions. We’ve seen the same pattern in Ireland, Britain and the US. It is a cover-up on a global scale.

With the work of the royal commission into child sexual abuse and the Newcastle Maitland special commission we’ve been hearing, almost on a daily basis, of senior priests protecting the worst sort of offenders, failing to report them to the civil authorities, moving them around when things got hot, and generally being part of what can only be described as a large-scale criminal protection racket.

In his evidence to the special commission in Newcastle, Father Brian Lucas said that the obligation to report a serious crime depended on the wishes of the victim. The other rabbit hole of escape was that the secrecy of the confessional overcomes obligations to the criminal law.

This week the Marist Brothers in Canberra have been the focus of the McClellan royal commission, and the story is the same – protection of clergy against whom allegations of paedophilia have been made and giving victims the most incredible run-around.

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IRELAND
Aljazeera

Sinead O’Shea Last updated: 12 Jun 2014

Tuam, Ireland – “Everyone knew there was babies buried here, but we thought it was only a small few,” says James Mannion, a resident of this western town.

Camera crews and satellite vans assemble in the middle of a housing estate in Tuam. Mannion and other locals have come down to have a look. All are focused on a walled-in, grassy area the size of a basketball court.

Catherine Corless, a local historian, thinks there are 796 babies buried here, not including stillborns.

The site is on the former grounds of the Tuam Mother and Baby Home, which was owned by the Bon Secours nuns and was in operation from 1925 to 1961. This was one of several institutions funded by the state and run by the Catholic clergy to accommodate unmarried mothers – the “untouchables” of Irish life.

Unwed mothers brought their families great shame at a time when the Catholic Church’s influence over society was strong, and children born out of wedlock who died often did not receive a Christian burial.

At the institutions, mother and child were separated after nursing, and the children fostered out or, sometimes, sold to prosperous American families. Meanwhile, the mothers stayed to work off their “debts”. Some escaped to England. They risked arrest if they returned.

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SOUTH DAKOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, June 12, 2014

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

In a deposition released Monday that’s attracting national attention (The Washington Post, NBC News, the Religion News Service, and elsewhere), former Sioux Falls bishop Robert Carlson claimed 193 times that he “couldn’t recall” information about predator priests. He also made two other startling claims;

1) that he never called the police about known or suspected clergy sex crimes at any point in his 24 years as a priest, bishop and other top church official in Minnesota.

2) that he wasn’t sure whether he knew it was illegal for priests to have sex with children when he worked as chancellor of the Twin Cities archdiocese in the 1980s.

[Minnesota Public Radio]

And another Catholic bishop testified under oath – in a different deposition – that Carlson advised him to claim memory loss if he were deposed in clergy sex abuse cases.

Clearly, he’s being deceptive. And he continues to be deceptive in clergy sex cases here in St. Louis.

Given this, we can’t help but suspect he also concealed clergy crimes during his years in Sioux Falls (1995 – 2005). According to BishopAccounatbility.org, there are 24 publicly exposed predator priests, nuns, brothers and seminarians in the Sioux Falls diocese.

So we call on current Sioux Falls Bishop Paul Swain to do what Carlson never did – take a firm stand to protect children and expose wrongdoing. He must post on his website the names, photos and whereabouts of all predator priests (proven, admitted and credibly accused). He needs to personally visit the parishes where they worked, begging victims, witnesses and whistleblowers to call police. And he should publicly denounce his predecessor for being deceitful.

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IRELAND
Evening Echo

THURSDAY, JUNE 12, 2014

A CORK MAN born in Bessborough Mother and Baby Home is hoping the imminent inquiry will give him the answers he has been waiting five decades for.

Christopher Kirwan, a 53-year-old from Glanmire, was born in the Bessborough home in November 1960 and was adopted the following June.

Christopher, who attended last night’s vigil outside the Dáil for the 796 babies who died at the Tuam Mother and Baby Home, says he has eight unexplained marks on his body.

Six are on his arms and two are on one of his legs.

Another two resulted from the BCG and smallpox vaccinations — but he doesn’t know what caused the others saying: “I want answers about why I am so badly scarred.”

He believes the unexplained marks are the result of vaccine trials which were carried out on some babies born at Bessborough.

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UNITED STATES
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

The Association of U.S. Catholic Priests will meet in St. Louis June 23-26.

On June 12, the AUSCP released details of a letter written to Pope Francis, expressing sadness and dismay at the Vatican response to the Leadership Conference of Women Religious.

June 12, 2014

The Association of U.S. Catholic Priests has written to Pope Francis to express “sadness and dismay” at the release of comments by a Vatican official regarding the Leadership Conference of Women Religious.

The letter was sent June 2 to Pope Francis, and signed by the AUSCP president, Father David Cooper of Milwaukee, and also by the AUSCP board members.

In their letter to the pope, the priests noted that the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith published on April 30 the “introductory observations” of Cardinal Gerhard Muller, but did not release “any aspects of the subsequent discussion.”

Those discussions were characterized by LCWR as “honest, respectful, and engaging” during which the LCWR leadership was able to “offer responses that illuminated some of the perceptions about the LCWR held by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith,” the priests said.

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ITALY
Newser

By Evann Gastaldo, Newser Staff
Posted Jun 12, 2014

(NEWSER) – In what could be one of history’s more intriguing cases of a Catholic confessing his sins, a former mobster has asked for a meeting with Pope Francis so he can confess three “very important secrets.” Vincenzo Calcara, described by the BBC as a “mafia turncoat” who was a member of Sicily’s Cosa Nostra before becoming a police informant, wrote a six-page letter to the pope claiming that what he has to say “can change the course of certain events,” according to local media. (This after Pope Francis in March warned mobsters to repent or “end up in hell.”) Specifically, he implies he has information about the 1983 disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi, the 15-year-old daughter of a Vatican employee.

Calcara wrote that what happened has been kept secret “because to reveal it would be like opening a box and bringing to light truths so weighty as to throw into crisis a system that links the Vatican with other deviant entities.” It’s not Calcara’s first run-in with the church: Years ago, he claimed that Ali Agca, who attempted to assassinate Pope John Paul II in a St. Peter’s Square shooting in 1991, was a hitman hired by the mafia, according to the Catholic Herald.

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SAN FRANCISCO (CA)
Huffington Post

By Lydia O’Connor

The archbishop of America’s most liberal city is scheduled to speak at a massive anti-gay rally later this month, prompting more than 80 political and religious leaders to demand in a letter that he cancel his participation.

San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, a leading supporter of California’s Prop. 8 to ban same-sex marriage in 2008, will speak June 19 at Washington D.C.’s March for Marriage, an event organized by the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) and the Family Research Council — two groups that have taken some of the most hostile stances against same-sex marriage.

His involvement in their rally, the letter’s authors argue, is out of line with Pope Francis’ recent progressive words on treatment of the gay community.

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NEW ORLEANS (LA)
Huffington Post

By RACHEL ZOLL
Posted: 06/12/2014

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The nation’s Roman Catholic bishops meeting Wednesday renewed their focus on abortion and gay marriage under Pope Francis.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops voted to make only limited revisions to a guide they publish every presidential election year on church teaching, voting and public policy. The bishops also reaffirmed their fight for broader religious exemptions to laws recognizing gay marriage and a requirement in the Affordable Care Act that employers provide health insurance covering birth control.

Francis has said the church has been alienating Catholics by focusing more on divisive social issues than on mercy and compassion.

The bishops’ document on political responsibility, titled “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship,” has been published every four years since 1976, and has become a point of contention within the church over which issues voters should consider most important: abortion or social justice. The bishops voted Wednesday to incorporate Francis’ teachings into the document, but rejected a complete rewrite in favor of limited changes instead.

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MINNESOTA
KTTC

[with video]

By Nicole Goodrich, Reporter

ROCHESTER, Minn. (KTTC) — A defrocked priest at the center of a lawsuit against church officials in Winona and the Twin Cities has admitted to abusing several teens over three decades.

Thomas Adamson now lives in Rochester, and his newly released deposition details admitted abuse across communities in southeastern Minnesota.

Adamson is at the center of the lawsuit filed after a former alter boy from St. John’s Parish in Caledonia came forward accusing Adamson of allegedly raping him.

The sworn deposition was taken nearly four weeks ago but only released Wednesday.

“How many kids did you sexually molest?” Adamson is asked during the deposition.

“I don’t know,” the former priest responds. “I would have to study that out.”

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BELGIUM
National Post (Canada)

Araminta Wordsworth | June 11, 2014

Police in Belgium have charged a Roman Catholic deacon in the deaths of at least 40 patients during a 20-year killing spree, allegedly to put them out of their misery.

Ivo Poppe, 57, worked as a nurse and chaplain at the Hôpital du Sacré Coeur in Menin, west of Brussels, from 1980 to 2002, when he was ordained a deacon — one step below becoming a priest.

But prosecutors believe the killings continued up to 2011 as he went on visiting the hospital in his role of a part-time pastoral assistant.

The married father of three kept records of his victims, whom he killed by smothering with a pillow or administering a lethal dose of insulin. The list apparently included several family members, the Antwerp Gazette reported.

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UNITED STATES
Associated Baptist Press

By Bob Allen

The mother of a child sex abuse victim who is suing a Maryland ministry with ties to leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention said June 11 that a “good-old-boy” network among evangelical preachers is just as effective in covering up clergy predators as the Catholic hierarchy.

“It’s almost like a mafia system,” Pam Palmer, a plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit heard June 9 by the Maryland Court of Special Appeals, said in a media event staged outside the SBC annual meeting in Baltimore by the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

“To me, as a Bible-believing Christian, it should not be that way,” Palmer said of an alleged conspiracy to conceal child abuse by Sovereign Grace Ministries, an evangelical network of churches that during internal strife moved its headquarters from Montgomery County, Md., to Louisville, Ky., in part because of proximity to Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

“They have come out very publicly in support of Sovereign Grace Ministries,” Palmer described the grievance that brought her to Baltimore for a demonstration prodding Southern Baptist officials “to take child sex abuse cases more seriously and take strong steps now to safeguard innocent children and vulnerable adults from those who commit and conceal clergy sex crimes.”

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

BY JOHN MARZULLI
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Wednesday, June 11, 2014

These Onionheads were a bunch of knuckleheads.

The feds are suing a Long Island company that employees say they were forced to leave because they refused to participate in religious rites in the workplace called Onionhead — which included praying, thanking God for their jobs, and saying “I love you” to management and co-workers — a lawsuit charges.

Three former employees complained to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and federal investigators confirmed that United Health Programs of America in Syosset and its parent company, Cost Containment Group, had discriminated against them based on religion.

“Defendants have required employees to engage in practices pursuant to a belief system called ‘Harnessing Happiness,’ or more commonly, ‘Onionhead,’” EEOC lawyer Sunu Chandy said in the complaint.

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NEW YORK
The Raw Story

By Travis Gettys
Thursday, June 12, 2014

Three former employees have sued a New York health care provider, claiming company officials retaliated against them for refusing to embrace the “Onionhead” religion.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed suit Wednesday based on the women’s claims against United Health Programs of America and its parent company, Cost Containment Group.

The women said they were forced out of their jobs because they refused to take part in workplace religious rituals – such as prayer circles, thanking God for their jobs, and saying “I love you” to managers and co-workers.

Company officials also required employees to pray, discuss personal matters with colleagues, read spiritual texts, burn candles, and keep dim lighting in the workplace, the suit claims.

The lawsuit claims company officials required employees to participate in a belief system called “Harnessing Happiness,” more commonly known as “Onionhead,” which was developed two decades ago by a mother and daughter to help promote more peaceful and successful lives.

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POLAND
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release Thursday, June 12, 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 )

For apparently the first time in its history, the Polish Catholic hierarchy will publicly apologize to sexual abuse victims. We’re not buying it.

Vulnerable kids and wounded victims need actions, not words.

[Wirtschafts Blatt]

The Catholic church in Poland has an appalling track record when it come to the clergy sex abuse scandal. Their first focus must be on preventing child sex crimes.

Apologies make a few people feel good in the short term but produce no real change in the long term. The time to apologize is once the damage is over and the risk of more damage is past. That’s not the situation here. Clergy sex crimes and cover ups are still happening in Poland.

Often, bishops apologize with deceitful intent, hoping to convince parishioners and the public that all of this is somehow “in the past.” It’s not. It’s going on now. And it must be addressed by courageous action, not public relations gestures.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Catholic League

[Unhappy with your press? Give the ‘out of context’ talisman a try. – Commonweal]

Bill Donohue comments on how Commonweal is treating St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson:

It is pathetic to read how Commonweal, home to Catholic dissidents, is straining to put the worst possible face on St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson’s exchange with Jeffrey Anderson. Every objective observer who has ever tracked Anderson knows that this lawyer has a pathological hatred of the Catholic Church. So when he locks horns with an archbishop—any bishop will do—we know what to expect. Sadly, we also know what to expect from some on the Catholic left: when in doubt, side with Anderson’s interpretation.

On June 11, Dennis Coday at the National Catholic Reporter essentially offered the account by the St. Louis Archdiocese regarding a controversial exchange between Anderson and Carlson. He should have stopped there. Instead, later in the day he walked back his piece, saying Grant Gallicho at Commonweal may have been right when he accepted Anderson’s version.

At issue is whether Carlson was responding to a question regarding mandatory reporting laws, or a question about the criminal nature of sex between an adult and a child. Carlson maintains that he was responding to the former question; Anderson claims he was responding to the latter.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Claire McCormack
Published 11/06/2014

ONE of the country’s newest nuns is horrified by the stories emerging from the mother and baby homes but believes an independent inquiry will not draw a line in the sand on the country’s past.

Sr Liz Deasy (41) fears that even when the controversy over the latest scandal to rock the Catholic Church in Ireland subsides it will only be a matter of time before another emerges.

“I’ve no problem with an independent inquiry but it won’t be the end. There will be something else, it’s been going on since Bishop Casey and I’m already waiting for the next one to emerge,” said Sr Liz, who entered the Cistercian community of St Mary’s Abbey, Glencairn, Co Waterford last year.

Although she said the truth needed to come out, she thinks it will be difficult and confusing.

“I was horrified by the headlines but that was then, and this is now, and a lot of those women had nowhere else to go,” said Sr Liz, who lives with 32 other nuns at St Mary’s.

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NEW ORLEANS (LA)
National Catholic Reporter

[live stream – U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops]

Jamie Manson | Jun. 12, 2014 Grace on the Margins

Did you happen to read the Washington Post op-ed on Tuesday that seemed to incite the outrage of every major publication on the Internet? You know, the op-ed that argued that one way to end violence against women is for women to stop sleeping around and get married?

The op-ed was originally titled, “One way to end violence against women? Stop taking lovers and get married,” with the subhead, “The data show that #yesallwomen would be safer hitched to their baby daddies.”

But the headline created such a firestorm that the editors soon changed it to: “One way to end violence against women? Married dads,” with the subhead, “The data show that #yesallwomen would be safer with fewer boyfriends around their kids.”(The webpage’s address still bears the original title.)

Now here’s the kicker for Catholics. One of the co-authors of the piece is W. Bradford Wilcox. Guess who Wilcox is addressing today? The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. The topic? That’s right: marriage.

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

[with audio]

Matt Sepic Jun 11, 2014

A former member of a central Minnesota boys’ choir says a priest at St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville abused him while on a trip to Europe more than two decades ago.

The alleged victim and his family say they decided to go public with their allegations against the Rev. Timothy Backous after learning Backous was still in public ministry and had recently been working with minors.

The abbey says it stands by Backous. However, Essentia Health in Duluth, where the priest is now a vice president, says Backous is on voluntary leave pending an internal investigation. Late this afternoon, the Twin Cities Archdiocese said it is looking into the matter as well.

The man, now 37, says he endured unwanted sexual touching from Backous throughout a bus ride during the May 1990 European trip, while Backus was a chaperone. Backous could not be reached for comment.

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MINNESOTA
MinnPost

By Brian Lambert

The St. Louis Archdiocese is upset with the way .. the media here … have portrayed its archbishop. The one who wasn’t certain priests having sex with boys was against the law. Jim Salter of the AP writes: “The St. Louis Archdiocese on Wednesday condemned some media portrayals of Archbishop Robert Carlson’s deposition in a Minnesota lawsuit over alleged abuse by priests, saying ‘inaccurate and misleading’ reporting has prompted unfair criticism of him. … The archdiocese said that when Carlson said, ‘I’m not sure whether I knew it was a crime or not,’ he was referring to the fact that he did not know exactly when clergy were bound by law to report child abuse.”

Very much related … Matt Sepic of MPR reports: “A former member of a central Minnesota boys’ choir says a priest at St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville abused him while on a trip to Europe more than two decades ago. The alleged victim and his family say they decided to go public with their allegations against the Rev. Timothy Backous after learning Backous was still in public ministry and had recently been working with minors.”

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Riverfront Times

By Ray Downs Thu., Jun. 12 2014

The archdiocese of St. Louis says that everybody — especially the media — misunderstood Archbishop Robert Carlson’s statements about not remembering if he knew back in the ’70s and ’80s that an adult having sex with a kid was a criminal act.

The comments, which Carlson made during a deposition for a sexual-abuse lawsuit filed against the Twin Cities Archdiocese in Minnesota, caused an uproar in St. Louis and was widely reported on in national media. Faced with with a daunting public-relations task, the St. Louis Archdiocese put out a statement accusing the plaintiff’s attorney of taking the comments out of context, and everybody in the media misunderstood the clear and blatant statements Carlson made about not remembering.

“When the Archbishop said ‘I’m not sure whether I knew it was a crime or not,’ he was simply referring to the fact that he did not know the year that clergy became mandatory reporters of suspected child abuse,” says the archdiocese’s statement.

Here’s more from the archdiocese’s press release, which can be read in full here:

In the deposition video, which was released by Plaintiff’s counsel, the dialogue between Plaintiff’s counsel and Archbishop Carlson focused on Archbishop Carlson’s knowledge of Minnesota child abuse reporting statutes and when clergy became mandatory reporters. In the full transcript of Archbishop Carlson’s deposition, the actual exchange between Archbishop Carlson and Plaintiff’s counsel is quite different from what is being widely reported in the media. Plaintiff’s counsel began his line of questioning as follows:

Q. Well, mandatory reporting laws went into effect across the nation in 1973, Archbishop.

Charles Goldberg, the attorney representing Archbishop Carlson at this deposition, explained that while current Minnesota law makes it a crime for clergy persons not to report suspected child abuse, that statute did not become effective until 1988. What Plaintiff’s counsel has failed to point out to the media is that Goldberg himself noted at this point in the deposition: “You’re talking about mandatory reporting?” (Emphasis added by the archdiocese.) When the archbishop said, “I’m not sure whether I knew it was a crime or not,” he was simply referring to the fact that he did not know the year that clergy became mandatory reporters of suspected child abuse (pgs. 108-109).

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POLEN
Radio Vatikan

Polens katholische Kirche will an diesem Freitag im Rahmen eines Bußgottesdienstes bei den Opfern sexuellen Missbrauchs durch Priester um Entschuldigung bitten. An der von Bischof Piotr Libera geleiteten Messe in der Krakauer Herz-Jesu-Kirche wollen nach Angaben der polnischen Nachrichtenagentur KAI auch der neue Primas des Landes, Erzbischof Wojciech Polak, und der Apostolische Nuntius in Polen, Erzbischof Celestino Migliore, teilnehmen. Zu dem ersten derartigen Gottesdienst in Polen sollen laut unbestätigten Medienberichten auch Missbrauchsopfer eingeladen werden.

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POLEN
Wirtschafts Blatt

[Summary: The Catholic Church in Poland wants to make a statement of apology to victims of sexual abuse by priests, according to a newspaper report. The event will be in Krakow and abuse victims will be invited. Archbishop Wojcieck Polak, new primate of the Polish church, said they want to ask for forgiveness for the assaults.]

Mit einem Reuegebet will die katholische Kirche Polens einem Zeitungsbericht zufolge ein Zeichen der Entschuldigung an Opfer sexuellen Missbrauchs durch Priester setzen.

Zu der Veranstaltung im südpolnischen Krakau würden nach inoffiziellen Angaben auch Missbrauchsopfer eingeladen, berichtete die polnische Zeitung “Rzeczpospolita” am Donnerstag.

“Wir wollen um Vergebung bitten für alle sexuellen Übergriffe, die sich in der Kirche ereigneten”, sagte Erzbischof Wojciech Polak, der neue Primas der katholischen Kirche Polens, der Zeitung. “Wir haben gesündigt, ob wir die Kinder ausnutzen oder jene abschirmten, die zu Tätern wurden” zitierte “Rzeczpospolita” aus dem für den 20. Juni geplanten Reuegebet.

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CHICAGO (IL)
NBC Chicago

[with video]

By Mary Ann Ahern | Wednesday, Jun 11, 2014

Cardinal Francis George says he knows who he wants to succeed him, but he’s keeping the information close to the vest.

George says he’s forwarded to Apostolic Nuncio Vigano a list of three names that he feels would be a worthy successor.

“They always ask you to give us three names, so I have,” George said.

Those three individuals were likely attending the American Catholic Bishops gathering in New Orleans Wednesday, what will likely be George’s last meeting as Chicago’s acting archbishop.

But whoever George favors, the Vatican will still need to agree. It will be Pope Francis’ first significant appointment during his tenure.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
CBS St. Louis

Fred Bodimer
June 12, 2014

ST. LOUIS (KMOX) – A spirited defense from the attorney representing St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson in his deposition on how he handled a clergy abuse case in Minnesota in the early 1980s.

Carlson has drawn criticism for saying that he wasn’t aware at that time that it was a crime for an adult to engage in sex with a child.

“I’m not sure whether I knew it was a crime or not,” Carlson said in the deposition. “I understand today it’s a crime.”

Comments like this, says the Archbishop’s attorney Charles Goldberg, have been taken totally out of context.

“I think it’s apparent if you read the deposition exactly what the context of the questions and answers were,” he says.

So what was the context?

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IRELAND
Rabble

Posted by Paul Doyle on Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Paul Doyle lines up the usual suspects that attempt to give cover to Church crimes and skewers them as rightous cretins infesting our media.

During the recent European Elections the Catholic Democrats’ Theresa Heaney stood dead-eyed and Dana-esque on Vincent Browne; a relic of antiquity on whom the irony of having a hard-on for chastity is lost. Today, most people reject Heaney’s ilk, their views and the horrendous human toll those views have cost.

The Catholic Church’s inscrutable power saw 796 babies and children die and their bodies put in a mass grave in Tuam, Co. Galway. Tuam was not alone. Since the Church was forced to admit to these crimes, apologists have been out in force – their attempts at absolving the Church of as much responsibility as possible an ugly coda to the horrid tale, a final insult to the Churchs victims.

Everyone knew. Nobody knew better. Their families abandoned them. It was a problem with society. It was a different time.

Apologists are either ignoring, or are too ignorant to realize, that when the Church claimed infallibility, it qualified itself to be judged by future standards.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Martina Devlin

Mothers of adopted babies face a new trauma if the cloak of invisibility is suddenly torn away

Irish people have a knack for pretending. But let us have no charade it was only in the remote past that Ireland was a cold house for pregnant girls without a ring on their fingers.

As recently as the 1980s, this was no country for unmarried mothers. Remember the Ann Lovett case? Even now, it is impossible to read her story without wincing – both for the tragic schoolgirl, and for the society from which she sprang.

In 1984, a terrified 15-year-old named Ann Lovett gave birth alone, outdoors, by a grotto in honour of the Virgin Mary. She made her way from her school in Granard, Co Longford, to the grotto, and on a wet winter’s day there had a baby son, who died.

Ann died on the same day, from haemorrhage and exposure, and the father’s name was never revealed.

It shocked the nation, not least because some people in her community must have known about her condition. But it also led to a cascade of similar stories: the sense of fear, shame and isolation experienced by Ann was the lot of other young women who stepped outside sexual controls set in stone.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Chris Donoghue
Published 12/06/2014

One of the doctors behind a clinical drug trial at five mother and baby homes says he is willing to travel to Ireland to be interviewed by the upcoming government inquiry into the establishments.

Canada-based Dr Alex Kanarek (84) has told the Irish Independent that he will co-operate with any inquiry – but he wants business-class flights if he has to travel to Dublin.

He confirmed to the Irish Independent that he manufactured a vaccine given to 58 children in 1960. Speaking from his home in Toronto, the retired doctor said: “My role was to prepare the polio vaccine combinations that were used.”

This specific trial involved testing a 3-in-1 and a 4-in-1 vaccine on 25 children at Bessborough House in Cork, 14 children at St Patrick’s in Dublin, six children at St Peter’s in Westmeath, four children at St Clare’s in Stamullen, and nine children at the Good Shepherd in Meath.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Referendum may be needed to help children find out about their birth parents, says Taoiseach

John Downing
Published 12/06/2014

Taoiseach Enda Kenny has said a referendum may be needed to clear a planned law helping adoptive children get more information about their birth parents.

Mr Kenny’s comments came as Social Protection Minister Joan Burton spoke for the first time since the mother-and-baby home controversy about her own circumstances as an adopted child.

Ms Burton said she also understood constitutional difficulties – but insisted that adopted children should have access to information about their origins.

Speaking in the Dail, the Taoiseach said the issue of adoptive children getting information on their backgrounds was full of legal difficulties.

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IRELAND
Journal

HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE attended a vigil last night in remembrance of babies and mothers who died in mother and baby homes across the country.

Crowds marched from the Department of Children and Youth Affairs to the gates of the Dáil.

The vigil was organised by Justice for the Tuam Babies.

Items such as teddy bears and children’s shoes were attached to the railings outside the Dáil to memory of those who died in the homes.

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IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

BY NICOLA ANDERSON AND CAROLINE CRAWFORD – 12 JUNE 2014

Teddies, babygrows and children’s shoes were the poignant tributes left at the gates of the Irish Parliament last night during a candlelit vigil marking the deaths of 796 babies in a mother and baby home in Co Galway.

One message inked on a tiny babygrow read: “For the babies we hold in our hearts, and not in our arms.”

A march took place from outside the Department for Children in Dublin under banners demanding justice. Earlier, two seven-year-old girls, Dasha Dlyaritskaya-Hilliard and Juliette Bruce Merzouk from Dublin, delivered a petition to Irish Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald.

Signed by 30,000 people from more than a dozen countries, it urged the Irish Government to escalate investigations into mother and baby homes.

Around 250 people turned up for the rally, which began with song and verse, before a minute’s silence was observed for the young lives lost.

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AUSTRALIA
The Recorder

By Hollie Joyce June 12, 2014
.
NATIONAL sexual abuse service representatives visited Port Pirie recently to network with the local service providers to combine forces to make a difference.

Knowing where to go for help and support is essential in dealing with large issues in life and these women are passionate about making the appropriate services known.

Royal Commission support services counsellor with Victim Support Service Jac Taylor and knowmore legal service lawyer Kate Halliday met with regional coordinator for the Victim Support Service, Jenny Lewis, who is based in Port Pirie. They also met with Centacare, police, welfare group Uniting Care Wesley, Red Cross and social workers from the hospital.

The Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse gives the opportunity for people to disclose and receive help for the first time with both current and historic incidents

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian (UK)

Australian Associated Press
theguardian.com, Thursday 12 June 2014

The assistant principal at a Catholic school thought it was strange that a Marist brother used to keep his classroom blinds closed.

The teacher, former Brother Gregory Sutton, has since been convicted and jailed for numerous child sex offences.

Sutton started work at St Carthage’s School at Lismore in 1985 after stints at schools throughout NSW, the ACT and Queensland.

Soon after Sutton’s arrival at St Carthage’s school at Lismore, northern NSW in 1985, assistant principal Jan O’Grady began noticing odd practices, including that even on sunny days he would keep the classroom blinds closed.

He isolated himself from other staff and used to hang around with the same small group of students.

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AUSTRALIA
The Canberra Times

June 12, 2014

Primrose Riordan
Reporter at The Canberra Times

The headmaster of Canberra’s Marist College Richard Sidorko has asked parents and students to pray together after meeting a sex abuse victim currently giving evidence at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Canberra.

In an emotional letter sent to Marist College families dated June 11, Mr Sidorko said he was shocked by statements from witnesses at the commission.

“When listening to these statements I experienced a variety of emotions including shock, disbelief, sadness and anger,” Mr Sidorko said.

At the hearing this week he said he approached witness DD – a former student of the college who had been assaulted while he was a year 7 student – after DD gave his testimony. Mr Sidorko said in the letter that he thanked DD for intervening when he was in year 12 and saw another boy in year 7 being groomed by his abuser.

Mr Sidorko said: “I’m sure DD’s memories of Marist College are not positive. That saddens me because in him I saw qualities that I believe are Marist.”

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

“Leave it with me.”

That’s what a Marist Brothers school principal was told by the head of the order after reporting a teacher suspected of child sexual abuse.

The principal, Brother Terence Heinrich, on Thursday revealed a culture of secrecy among the Marist Brothers where delicate matters were dealt with in-house – “privately, internally”.

Head of Canberra’s Marist College between 1983 and 1988, Br Heinrich – who is still with the order – recalled being visited by the father of a student in 1986.

Then-brother John Chute, also known as Brother Kostka, had touched the man’s son on the genitals during a film night at the school.

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OREGON
TribTown

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
First Posted: June 11, 2014

PORTLAND, Oregon — A bank robber who made phony claims of child sex abuse by priests in four states in an unsuccessful effort to get money has been sentenced to nearly three years in prison for mail fraud.

The U.S. attorney’s office says 50-year-old Shamont Sapp was given a 33-month sentence Wednesday in Portland by U.S. District Judge Anna Brown.

The former Pennsylvania resident pleaded guilty to pursuing phony cases against Roman Catholic dioceses in Portland; Tucson, Arizona; Covington, Kentucky; and Spokane, Washington, from 2005 through 2010. Federal prosecutors say he filed the fraudulent claims while he was a federal prison inmate serving lengthy sentences for 10 Pennsylvania bank robberies he committed in 1995.

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ALASKA
News-Miner

By Sam Friedman / sfriedman@newsminer.com

FAIRBANKS—The Catholic Diocese of Fairbanks has established a ministerial team to fill in while a Fairbanks priest under investigation by the FBI remains on administrative leave. No charges have been filed.

The Catholic Diocese of Fairbanks announced May 23 that Rev. Clint Landry, the parish priest of the Sacred Heart Cathedral, was put on administrative leave because he was under investigation by the FBI.

As of this week, Landry remains on leave, said Ronnie Rosenberg, director of human resources and legal coordinator for the diocese. In Landry’s absence, a three-member ministerial team will together cover ministries including the Sacred Heart Cathedral, the Spanish Ministry, the Filipino Ministry, St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Barrow and St. Raphael’s Catholic Church on McGrath Road, she said.

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IRELAND
Irish Mirror

Jun 12, 2014 06:00 By Alana Fearon

Two men who survived the mother and baby home reveal the physical and mental scars they were left with

Two men who survived the Tuam mother and baby home have opened up about the physical and mental scars their childhood experiences left them with.

Galway men Joe Donelan and Colm Sullivan were born 20 years apart in the now infamous Bon Secours home and both have been deeply affected by claims that up to 800 babies were secretly buried on the site.

Joe, who lives in Abbeyknockmoy, was born in the home in December 1938 and considers himself one of the lucky ones as he lived and was adopted at the age of four.

His adoptive parents Mary and John Keane didn’t reveal the truth about his past until he was a teenager – but Joe believes the way he behaved when he first went to live with his new family suggests he was beaten in the home.

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IRELAND
Irish Mirror

Jun 12, 2014 06:00 By Alana Fearon

Woman reveals there was a special dorm in Westmeath home for infants who never left the room to play and were never seen again

A woman who spent eight years in a religious-run orphanage says she is haunted by memories of a room of “secret” babies she never saw grow up.

The woman, who was put into Mount Carmel Industrial School in Co Westmeath when she was eight, revealed there was a special dormitory in the building that none of the girls was allowed enter.

But speaking exclusively to the Irish Mirror, the Co Offaly native, 62, said the room was full of babies in cots who no one ever saw leave.

And admitting that she has been haunted by these memories for years, she admitted the Tuam buried babies scandal has left her wondering what ever became of the tots.

The mum-of-four, who now lives in Co Louth, revealed: “They were in a tiny room that we had to pass when we were going to the toilet but no one was allowed into it and there was a curtain covering the window but we all knew there were babies in there, sharing cots.

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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

Thursday 12 June 2014

A HINDU priest is to stand trial in July for allegedly making inappropriate sexual remarks and trying to cuddle two women.Sarveshwar Sharan, 40, appearing at Glasgow Sheriff Court, allegedly repeatedly acted in a way that caused “fear and alarm” while in a position of trust as a priest.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Catholics4Change

JUNE 12, 2014 BY SUSAN MATTHEWS

The founding of this blog was based on how the sex abuse cover up impacted my faith. That same impact is what drew Kathy Kane’s partnership in this effort. That same sense of betrayal led others here. Over the years, it has become so much more. It has also become a safe haven for victims to share their stories with each other and the laity. It’s been a platform for debate and an information hub offering related news. Priests, nuns, atheists, converts to other faiths and devoted Catholics have all reached out via our private messaging. It became really clear this is something people needed to talk about. It was God affirming for me and my faith has become stronger. However, practicing my religion in the traditional sense became much more difficult. How should I handle my children’s Catholic education and parish contributions? Where could I attend Mass in good conscience? How do I reconcile the evil with the good of my Church?

What do you think about these things? Would you be interested in sharing your experiences, questions and solutions with others. A couple of our “regulars” have posed the question of holding a forum on these matters. The purpose wouldn’t be to address sex abuse directly but to address our Catholic faith development in light of the crisis. They welcome any ideas on location, time of year and other planning elements. Please leave your comments.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
KSDK

[with video]

Stephanie Diffin, KSDK June 11, 2014

ST. LOUIS – There are new developments in a priest sex abuse case out of Minnesota. The Archdiocese of St. Louis says Archbishop Carlson knew a crime had been committed when he learned of the abuse.

That abuse was happening where Carlson was serving in Minneapolis – St. Paul more than 30 years ago. So now, questions are being raised about why Carlson did not report the crimes to police.

In a conference call Wednesday, Archbishop Carlson’s attorney, Charles Goldberg, said reporting the abuse at the time of the abuse was not mandatory. He also pointed out that Carlson did not discourage the victim’s parents from going to police. The abuser in the case is former Minnesota Priest Thomas Adamson. His deposition for a lawsuit in Minnesota was just released by a Minneapolis area law firm Wednesday.

In the deposition, Adamson responds “Yes,” to the question “Did you abuse that kid?” He goes on to say it happened several times.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

This is one of the really stinky sort of Catholic birdcage droppings: in his deposition last month about his period as a bishop of St. Paul-Minneapolis, which was released yesterday, when attorney Jeff Anderson asked him whether he knew it was a crime for an adult to engage in sex with a child, St. Louis archbishop Robert J. Carlson stated,

I’m not sure whether I knew it was a crime or not. I understand today it’s a crime.

Anderson then went on to ask Carlson whether he knew in 1984, when he was auxiliary bishop in St. Paul-Minneapolis, for a priest to engage in sex with a child, and Carlson answered,

I’m not sure if I did or didn’t.

But as Lilly Fowler points out in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch article I’ve linked above, in the same cache of materials released yesterday along with Archbishop Carlson’s deposition, there are documents recounting conversations Carlson had with church officials during his years as a bishop in Minnesota, which clearly indicate that Carlson did, indeed, understand that sexual abuse of children by adults is, in fact, criminal behavior.

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NEW YORK
CNYCentral

by Jim Kenyon
Posted: 06.11.2014

OSWEGO COUNTY — In 1998 Ray Younis pleaded guilty to some 86 charges of child sex abuse involving 17 boys in and around the Village of Phoenix, but authorities say there were perhaps dozens of other victims for which Younis could not be prosecuted because of the statute of limitations.

Oswego County District Attorney Gregory Oakes says there is no statute of limitations for certain crimes including 1st degree rape and 1st degree criminal sex act, but many other felony sex crimes against children must be prosecuted within 5 years.

Oakes told CNY Central’s Jim Kenyon, “I can’t go into specifics but we have cases pending now where victims have come forward on a defendant and if the allegations are true, it’s horrifying. But this office can’t go forward because it’s beyond the statute of limitations.”

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IRELAND
Galway Advertiser

BY MARTINA NEE Galway Advertiser, Thu, Jun 12, 2014

A statutory inquiry into all mother and baby homes must have “full powers” to compel witnesses and secure documentary evidence, particularly against religious orders, that is according to Justice for the Tuam Babies.

The comments were made following the announcement on Tuesday by the Minister of Children, Charlie Flanagan, that the cabinet has agreed to set up a Commission of Investigation into all mother and baby homes. Cautiously welcoming the decision, Justice for the Tuam Babies spokesperson Gary Daly vowed that until the Government releases the terms of reference of this inquiry the campaign group will continue to “press for a full inquiry into the neglect suffered by the children and mothers in all these homes, including medical testing” and that the inquiry must have full powers which are enforceable against the religious orders that operated those homes on behalf of the State.The Justice for the Tuam Babies and its supporters marched from the Department of Children to the gates of the Dáil last night. A candlelight vigil was held to remember the 796 infants believed to have died at the Tuam home, run by the Sisters of the Bon Secours, between 1925 and 1961.

While the Dublin march took place, Galway Pro-Choice also held a vigil at the children’s playground in Eyre Square at 7pm last night and which was supported by John Rodgers, a survivor of the Tuam home. According to Rachel Donnelly, Galway Pro-Choice is demanding sincere apologies from the Catholic Church and the Irish State which “must include a concrete agenda of action on criminal investigations and independent inquiries, compensation, and redress for mothers and survivors, plus any commemorations”. She added that Ireland must learn from its past and that there must be a “separation of Church and State, above all in our health system”.

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MEXICO
Pulso

[Summary: Hundreds of families gathered Wednesday at St. Rose of Lima parish in Soledad de Graciano Sanchez to hear an explanation from the San Luis Potosi diocese regarding the Gil Gillermo situation. With cards, loud cheers, they said the priest is innocent of the allegations of child sexual abuse and called for his return to the parish.]

Cientos de familias se reunieron este miércoles en la parroquia Santa Rosa de Lima, ubicada en la colonia 21 de Marzo perteneciente al municipio de Soledad de Graciano Sánchez, para escuchar la explicación de parte de integrantes de la Diócesis de San Luis Potosí, respecto a la situación del párroco Gillermo Gil.

Con cartulinas, aplausos y gritos, pidieron el regreso y clamaron la inocencia del padre Guillermo Gil a quien se le acusa de supuesta pederastia; decenas de niños y hasta adultos hablaron de la forma en que el sacerdote cambió la vida de la colonia y la atención en la Iglesia.

El vicario general Benjamín Moreno Aguirre, pidió que se haga oración y eviten cualquier provocación o manifestación, ya que legalmente se desconoce si se afectaría o beneficiaría al párroco.

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MEXICO
Zocalo-SaltilloX

[Summary: In his first public appearance since the scandal involving allegations of pedophilia against priest Eduardo Cordova Bautista, Archbishop Jesus Cabrero Romero apologized to the victims. He urged Cordova, who cannot be found, to step up and answer for the crimes for which he is accused.]

San Luis Potosí, S.L.P.- En su primera aparición pública tras desatarse el escándalo por las denuncias de pederastia contra el sacerdote Eduardo Córdova Bautista, el arzobispo Jesús Cabrero Romero pidió perdón a las víctimas “por estos actos deleznables que han llenado de vergüenza a la Iglesia potosina” y exhortó a Córdova a dar la cara y responder por los crímenes de que se le acusa, por el bien de su conciencia “y para evitar un daño mayor a esta iglesia”.

Cabrero anunció la integración de una comisión al interior de la arquidiócesis que encabeza para la atención a las víctimas de Córdova y dar seguimiento a los casos, así como para recibir y escuchar a quienes se acerquen a denunciar a cualquier otro sacerdote bajo su jurisdicción que hubiera abusado sexualmente de otras personas.

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MEXICO
CNN

[Summary: The attorney general of San Luis Potosi has accused officials of the Catholic Church of covering up abuse by priest Eduardo Cordova Mendoza, who is alleged to have sexual abused many children. Miguel Angel Garcia Covarrubias said the church has been reluctant to turn over information regarding the priest. The priest’s whereabouts are still unknown.]

(CNNMéxico) — La Procuraduría General de Justicia de San Luis Potosí (PGJE) acusaría de encubrimiento a la Arquidiócesis del estado en el caso del exsacerdote acusado de abuso sexual contra un menor, Eduardo Córdova Mendoza.

Miguel Ángel García Covarrubias, titular de la PGJE, aseguró que la Iglesia católica en San Luis se ha mostrado renuente, al no entregar datos de una denuncia en contra de Córdova Mendoza, del que se desconoce su paradero, según expresaron las autoridades en un comunicado.

El funcionario estatal mencionó que la queja de supuesto abuso sexual cometido a un menor por parte del exsacerdote potosino, que presentó la iglesia local, “ni siquiera llega a denuncia, ya que el escrito no trae ni nombre del denunciado ni de la víctima, y tampoco narra los hechos”.

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NEW ORLEANS (LA)
National Catholic Reporter

Brian Roewe Joshua J. McElwee | Jun. 11, 2014

NEW ORLEANS The nation’s Catholic bishops during their annual summer assembly voted to stay the course they have set for themselves over the last several years, focusing on issues of religious liberty, same-sex marriage, and participation in the U.S. political sphere.

In one of only three public deliberations at the event, the prelates voted to renew their efforts in addressing concerns over religious liberty, granting another three-year term to a special bishops’ committee organized on the issue.

The bishops are gathered in New Orleans until Friday for their spring meeting, one of two annual plenary assemblies of the U.S. bishops’ conference.

Going into the event, many analysts and even some bishops had asked if the prelates would be reorienting their work around the new emphases of Francis’ first year as pope, particularly his apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium (“The Joy of the Gospel”), and his pastoral tone.

Yet in three and a half hours of open discussion on 17 topics Wednesday, the bishops focused more on old business than new — hearing updates from the lay group that advises them on preventing sexual abuse of minors, Catholic Relief Services, and the bishops’ Subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage.

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AUSTRALIA
The Canberra Times

Vice-principal suspected Marist Brother Gregory Sutton was abusing students but did not tell police

June 12, 2014

David Ellery
Reporter for The Canberra Times

Margaret O’Grady did not report her fears Brother Gregory Sutton was abusing children at St Carthage’s Primary School in Lismore to the police, while she was vice-principal, because she had already alerted church authorities.

Ms O’Grady told Thursday’s hearing of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, she had concluded there was a likelihood Sutton was abusing students after reading an entry in the teaching diary he kept on his desk.

But as mandatory reporting had not taken effect, she had put all her concerns and evidence in the hands of the Catholic Education Office.

Ms O’Grady, and another teacher, had decided to check the diary while investigating Sutton’s unexplained absence after a school camp.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian (UK)

Helen Davidson
theguardian.com, Thursday 12 June 2014

Time is running out for the child sexual abuse inquiry to hear all the cases before it is scheduled to end, the chairman has revealed.

Peter McClellan said the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse would only have time to hold 40 more hearings, even though “at least 30 more” institutions must be examined in public.

He also revealed that the Vatican was yet to respond to a request for key documents.

Speaking to a men’s health symposium at Griffith university in Brisbane, McClellan said the commission had contacted the Vatican and requested documents relating to complaints of abuse by Catholic priests, as well as “documents which reveal the nature and extent of communications between Catholic congregations in Australia and the Holy See”.

However, only some documents relating to an upcoming hearing in Wollongong have been received, and the royal commission is still awaiting a reply to its general request.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Barry and District News

A “RESPECTED and trusted” church elder has gone on trial accused of sexually abusing children and women in the Jehovah’s Witness community over a 10 year period beginning in 1985.

Mark Sewell, 53, of Porthkerry Road, Barry denies 12 charges including indecent assaults against girls under the age of 14, indecent assaults against a girl aged under 16 and a single charge of rape against a woman in 1990.

The jury at Merthyr Crown Court heard from prosecutor Sarah Waters that Sewell was a predator who had used his standing in the community to target girls and women for his sexual gratification.

On the opening day of the trial the court heard how Sewell had been accused of a string of offences against young girls and a charge of rape, following which the alleged victim became pregnant, before miscarrying.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

ABC

Royal commission into child sexual abuse: Former Marist College principal denies covering up allegations

EWAN GILBERT
June 12, 2014

Former Canberra Marist College headmaster Brother Terence Heinrich has denied he was involved in covering up allegations of child sexual abuse during the 1980s.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is examining the response of the Marist Brothers to allegations of child sexual abuse in schools across the ACT, New South Wales and Queensland.

Brother Heinrich today admitted under cross-examination that dealing with allegations secretly and internally was the way it was.

Brother Heinrich was the headmaster at Marist College from 1983 to 1989, while Brother Kostka Chute was sexually abusing boys at the school.

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BALTIMORE (MD)
Religion News Service

Adelle M. Banks | Jun 11, 2014

BALTIMORE (RNS) Southern Baptists prayed Wednesday (June 11) that the Supreme Court would rule in favor of the Green family, the evangelical owners of the Hobby Lobby craft chain that challenged the contraception mandate in the Affordable Care Act.

During its annual conference in Baltimore, Southern Baptists prayed that the U.S. Supreme Court would rule in favor of Hobby Lobby’s owners, members of the Green Family, who challenged the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate. Creative Commons photo by Nicholas Eckhart
Show caption

During its annual conference in Baltimore, Southern Baptists prayed that the U.S. Supreme Court would rule in favor of Hobby Lobby’s owners, members of the Green Family, who challenged the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate. Creative Commons photo by Nicholas Eckhart
This image is available for Web and print publication. For questions, contact Sally Morrow.

“God, we ask for a favorable, favorable ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States for the cause of religious liberty,” prayed the Rev. Ronnie Floyd, incoming president of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Historians said the prayer from the podium during the SBC’s annual meeting about a pending court decision was noteworthy, though Southern Baptists have preached and issued statements for years on current events.

“I think it’s unusual for it to happen at a convention event,” said Bill Sumners, director of the Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives. …

As the Southern Baptist meeting concluded Wednesday, representatives of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests passed out fliers outside urging the denomination to take stronger steps to safeguard children from abuse and prevent cover-ups of clergy sexual offenders.

Roger “Sing” Oldham, spokesman for the SBC’s Executive Committee, said Southern Baptists are regularly reminded that they are responsible for reporting child abuse accusations to local authorities.

“The Southern Baptist Convention remains clear and unambiguous in its condemnation of sex abuse of any kind and views molestation of innocent children as particularly heinous,” he said.

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ALABAMA
The Alabama Baptist

Two pastors have left a Reformed evangelical group after a pastor from the Maryland megachurch they oversaw confessed to covering up sex abuse claims, the latest chapter in a public struggle over evangelicals coming to terms with abuse within their ranks.

Pastors Joshua Harris and C.J. Mahaney left the leadership council of The Gospel Coalition, a central hub for the Reformed evangelical movement, after a trial involving child abuse at Covenant Life Church, Gaithersburg, Md., which both men have overseen.

A criminal trial that concluded recently raised questions about what pastors at Covenant Life knew about the abuse and why steps weren’t taken to stop it.

Nathaniel Morales, 56, was convicted May 15 of sexually abusing three underage boys between 1983 and 1991 when he was a youth leader at Covenant Life.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Telegraph

Marist brother left diary on desk which revealed liaisons with young girl Royal Commission told

JANET FIFE-YEOMANS THE DAILY TELEGRAPH JUNE 12, 2014

WHEN Marist brother Gregory Sutton was caught out lying about taking an afternoon off school, a suspicious teacher looked in his school diary which he openly kept on his desk.

“Picked up (girl). What an afternoon. She is magnificent”, the former assistant principal of Lismore’s St Carthage’s primary school, Jan O’Grady, said she read in his diary.

His entry for the following day said: “I had a fight with (same girl) and we made up.”

Ms O’Grady has told the child sex abuse royal commission today that when she rang the Catholic Education Office, they suggested that Brother Sutton take a month off and then return to the school.

She said she was furious and almost hysterical and contacted the then former director of the Catholic Education for the Diocese of Lismore, John Kelly, and it was only then that Bother Sutton left the school.

Ten years later when Brother Sutton was tracked down in the US and extradited to NSW, he pleaded guilty to 67 counts of child sex assault including having sexual intercourse with the girl, then aged 10 or 11.

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AUSTRALIA
Radio Australia

Child sexual abuse royal commission: Peter McClellan requests Vatican documents on priest abuse claims

The head of the royal commission into child sexual abuse is seeking help from the Vatican with complaints about abuse involving priests.

Justice Peter McClellan took time out to address an international men’s health symposium in Brisbane last night.

He told the gathering the royal commission had received stories of abuse from more than 1,700 people in private hearings.

Justice McClellan said the allegations involved more than 1,000 institutions and that faith-based institutions were a “significant portion” of the complaints.

He revealed he has written to the Vatican seeking copies of all documents held in Rome relating to complaints of abuse by members of religious orders.

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

Archdiocese says Carlson’s statements about abuse were reported out of context

By Lilly Fowler lfowler@post-dispatch.com 314-340-82214

Statements by St. Louis Archbishop Robert J. Carlson about not knowing whether sexual abuse of children by priests was a crime that have ignited outrage were taken out of context, a spokesman for the archdiocese said Wednesday.

The spokesman, Gabe Jones, said the comments Carlson made in a deposition last month had been misconstrued in news reports to suggest the archbishop didn’t know it was a criminal offense for an adult to molest a child.

“Nothing could be further from the truth,” Jones said.

“When the archbishop said ‘I’m not sure whether I knew it was a crime or not,’ ” Jones said, “he was simply referring to the fact that he did not know the year that clergy became mandatory reporters of suspected child abuse.”

The 181-page deposition is part of a sexual abuse lawsuit in Minnesota involving the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the Diocese of Winona, Minn. Carlson was responding to questions from plaintiff attorney Jeff Anderson.

The plaintiff in the case, identified only as “Doe 1,” alleges abuse in the 1970s by the Rev. Thomas Adamson at St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church in St. Paul Park, Minn.

The deposition shows Carlson claiming he was uncertain whether during his time as auxiliary archbishop in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis he knew that a priest engaging in sex with a child constituted a crime.

Over and over, for a total of 193 times throughout the deposition, Carlson said he did not remember, in response to questions posed by Anderson.

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MINNESOTA
KAAL

[with video]

By: Jenna Lohse

(ABC 6 News) — In a sworn deposition released today Thomas Adamson, who currently lives in Rochester, talks openly about sexually abusing young teens. This includes at least one at Lourdes High School while he was principal.

The abuse happened decades ago and Adamson is at the center of a civil lawsuit. But because so much time has passed, he can’t be punished in a criminal court.

“How many kids, minors, do you estimate you engaged in sexual contact with while you were a priest?” asked Jeff Anderson, the alleged victims’ attorney. “That would be just a guess, several,” Thomas Adamson replied under oath.

Former priest Thomas Adamson admits sexually abusing at least 12 teens from the 1960’s to the mid 1980’s.

“While you were at St. Adrian and Lourdes?” Anderson asked.

“I think that got more involved, it probably started with masturbation and developed from there,” Adamson replied.

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MINNESOTA
Fox 9

[with video]

video report by Leah Beno

Abbot John Klassen, of St. John’s Abbey, described the sexual abuse allegations leveled against a former St. John’s Prep School headmaster “unsubstantiated” as he defended the integrity of Rev. Timothy Backous — and the victim’s family says that’s disturbing.

The St. Cloud Times reported that the accusations against Backous — which claim he had inappropriate sexual contact with a former member of the St. John’s Boys’ Choir — surfaced in a letter dated May 31. That letter, sent by St. Cloud residents Chris and Kathy McDermid, claims their son was repeatedly sexually assaulted while on a choir trip to Europe in 1990 when he was just 12.

“They need to get his name on the list of accused because he was accused and he did abuse our son,” Kathy McDermid told Fox 9 News.

Although they tried to file a police report, the McDermids say the Stearns County Sheriff’s Office told them the alleged abuse was out of their jurisdiction.

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ARIZONA/TEXAS
Tucson News Now

By Sonu Wasu

A Civil lawsuit has been filed in Pima County Superior Court against the Catholic Diocese of Tucson and the Diocese of El Paso.

At the center of the lawsuit is a former teacher at Salpointe Catholic High School, Father Richard Zamorano.

Court documents state Father Zamorano was incardinated in El Paso, but later moved to Pima County.

The lawsuit claims Father Zamorano was under the supervision of the Diocese of Tucson and El Paso at the time the wrongful acts he was accused of, occurred.

The lawsuit states the victim in this case is a”vulnerable adult”with mental, cognitive, and physical disabilities. He was raised in the Roman Catholic Faith and was raised to believe that priests were next to holy. He placed a great amount of trust in Father Zamorano because he was a priest.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

The head of the royal commission into child sexual abuse is seeking help from the Vatican with complaints about abuse involving priests.

Justice Peter McClellan took time out to address an international men’s health symposium in Brisbane last night.

He told the gathering the royal commission had received stories of abuse from more than 1,700 people in private hearings.

Justice McClellan said the allegations involved more than 1,000 institutions and that faith-based institutions were a “significant portion” of the complaints.

He revealed he has written to the Vatican seeking copies of all documents held in Rome relating to complaints of abuse by members of religious orders.

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AUSTRALIA
Brisbane Times

Madonna King

Pope Benedict XVI was personally alerted to a shocking sex abuse case at a local Toowoomba school but dismissed pleas by local Bishop Bill Morris to stay on and deal with it.

Bishop Morris was controversially sacked by the Pope in May 2011, prompting international news.

The revelation that the Pope was informed of the case is among many penned by Morris in his book Benedict, Me and the Cardinals Three, which will be released this weekend.

Private correspondence between Bishop Morris and the Vatican show a stunning ignorance of the fallout from clerical sex abuse in Australia, as well as the birth of “Temple police’’ – local extreme right Australian parishioners who are taking notes in churches and complaining directly to the Vatican.

“There was no depth of understanding of the devastating effects that clerical sexual abuse was having on the lives of families and communities throughout Australia,’’ the Bishop writes.

He says he tried to “explain how abuse damages the psyche of a community, having a debilitating effect on some individuals to the degree that they mistrust the church and its ministers’’ but senior Vatican chiefs “would have nothing of this’’.

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CANADA
APTN

Kathleen Martens
APTN Investigates

WINNIPEG – A residential schools lawyer is distancing himself from a form-filling company after a judge ruled they are illegal.

Ken Carroll of Winnipeg says he’s cut ties with the company – First Nations Residential School Solutions – and given up his financial stake in the firm.

“I have worked with a form filler organization and the original concept proposed by them involved my owning a 25 per cent interest in that company. But that interest was abandoned very early in my involvement in the process as soon as I recognized problems with the concept which was over a year before we engaged in our first hearing and about 18 months before the incidents being reported upon,” Carroll said in a two-page statement sent to APTN Investigates.

Carroll says he divested himself well before Justice Perry Schulman’s strongly worded decision of June 4, in response to a request-for-direction from the Indian Residential Schools Adjudication Secretariat.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By Victoria White

WHEN is a dead baby in an unmarked grave not a dead baby in an unmarked grave? When it’s a Protestant baby!

The Tuam “babies in the septic tank” scandal and the media hysteria which culminated in the Government’s frantic announcement of an statutory inquiry into mother and baby homes show how carefully we choose what we remember and when.

It is four long years since the academic Niall Meehan found records which led to 222 unmarked graves of babies and young children who died in the Protestant-run Bethany home in the Dublin suburb of Rathgar.

Last July survivors of the home were refused redress by this Government, a decision which the Government said was “based on an examination of the human suffering involved and no other criteria.” Alan Shatter told the survivors that the State would pay for a “modest” memorial to those 222 innocents who died of exactly the same causes — infection and hunger — as the Tuam babies.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Lorna Siggins

Thu, Jun 12, 2014

When Annie Smith was ordered out of the house by her father over 70 years ago in Dublin, she spent several nights sheltering in a watchman’s hut before taking refuge in St Patrick’s mother-and-baby home on the Navan Road.

Annie, christened Honora, was 22, had a job in the Ever Ready battery factory and was six months pregnant. Life had not been easy. Her own mother had died when she was seven, and her father, a Guinness brewery employee, had survived the first World War as a British army sergeant-major.

“She had lived with her father and siblings. He remarried when she was 12, and they were among the first group of inner-city residents who were moved out to new housing estates being developed in Cabra,”Annie’s daughter, Nuala, now living in Connemara, says. “But they spent five years in Keogh Barracks in Inchicore before that move, and my mother says it was horrendous.”

On finding herself with child, Annie told her boyfriend, who was from a middle-class Dublin family. He tried to persuade her go to to England with him.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
KPLR

[with video]

POSTED 7:13 PM, JUNE 11, 2014, BY BETSEY BRUCE

ST. LOUIS, MO (KPLR) – A lawyer for St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson defended the church leader Wednesday saying his reputation had been tarnished by statements taken out of context.

This came after a firestorm of public criticism over Carlson’s testimony regarding child sex abuse in a thirty year old case against a Minnesota priest. Attorney Charles Goldberg described the archbishop as a “leader” in combating child abuse by clergy. At the time, Carlson was part of the leadership of the Catholic Church in Minneapolis-St. Paul.

The video showing segments of Carlson’s sworn testimony regarding the Minnesota case was released by lawyers for the plaintiff. Goldberg said it was taken out of context and the questions really referred to whether Carlson knew at the time if it was a crime to fail to report abuse of children to law enforcement.

St. Louis critics of Carlson gathered outside the New Cathedral Wednesday afternoon calling on him to show transparency regarding abusive clergy within the St. Louis Catholic Church. Catholic Ellen Prendergast of Old Monroe urged “good” priests to demand the bad ones be removed. “I can’t stand that the good priests continue to let the bad priests and their past and even their present be covered up,” she said.

Linda Briggs-Harty, a member of the church from Brentwood, said, “I don’t know if he should step down or not but people need to start looking at the fact this is absolutely ridiculous to be talking like this as a moral leader.”

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MINNESOTA
The Worthy Adversary

[with video]

Posted by Joelle Casteix on June 11, 2014

Yesterday, attorneys for victims of child sexual abuse in Minnesota and Missouri released a recent sworn deposition of St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson. In the deposition, which can be read here and viewed in excerpts below, Carlson states 193 times that he “does not remember” various incidents regarding the sexual abuse of children.

From the Huffington Post:

(Attorney for victims Jeff) Anderson went on to ask Carlson whether he knew in 1984, when he was an auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, that it was crime for a priest to engage in sex with a child.

“I’m not sure if I did or didn’t,” Carlson said.

So I did a little research into priests in Minnesota who were arrested for sexual abuse in the 1980s. As auxillary bishop of the archdiocese, Carlson would have intimate knowledge of the activities in his own and neighboring dioceses.

I found some interesting material:

1979 – St. Cloud priest Fr. Raoul Gauthier is charged with sexual assault on a 37-year-old developmentally disabled man. He fled the country before he could be tried.

1980 – Duluth Diocese priest Dennis Puhl is convicted of 4th degree sexual assault of a 15-year-old boy. He was sentenced to 21 months, but a judge stayed the conviction. Puhl instead served five years probation on the condition he receive treatment in a church-run facility.

1982 – Fr. Gilbert Gustafson of the St. Paul and Minneapolis Archdiocese pleads guilty to the sexual abuse of a boy. He serves 4 1/2 months in jail. Although convicted, he was not removed from the ministry until 2002, but still can be found doing leadership training for nuns in the state.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

The Taoiseach has said Ireland will probably need to hold a referendum to allow children who were forcibly adopted to trace their parents.

Enda Kenny said the move was one of the issues being considered by the Government as part of its inquiry into mother-and-baby homes.

The forced adoption of illegitimate children is set to be one of the issues considered by the Commission of Investigation announced yesterday.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Two seven-year-old girls have handed ministers a petition signed by 30,000 people demanding a judge lead the inquiry into church-run, state-sanctioned institutions for single mothers.

Dasha Klyaritskaya-Hilliard and her friend, Juliette Bruce Merzouk, from Dublin, took the message on behalf of people in more than a dozen countries who joined an online campaign urging the Government to escalate investigations.

Robin Hilliard, Dasha’s father, from Dalkey, Co Dublin, helped create the petition with a friend, Amanda Maloney, from Limerick, following revelations about the deaths of 796 infants at a mother and baby home in Tuam, Co Galway between 1925 and 1961.

“I’m old enough to remember the reputation of some of those places as a kid. And now that the thing has come out in the open it seems you have to wonder how was this allowed to happen and what on earth were people thinking,” he said.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Sinn Féin deputy leader Mary Lou is backing calls for the Mother and Baby Home inquiry to include the Magdalene Laundries.

A full commission of inquiry is being set up, and will have the power to compel documents and witnesses.

It will include at least one institution outside Catholic control.

Speaking today Deputy McDonald said concerns expressed about a report on the issue carried out by Martin McAleese could be addressed in the new investigation.

“To understand the Mother and Baby homes you have to include the Magdalene Laundries,” Deputy McDonald said.

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UNITED STATES
PopeCrimes& Vatican Evils.

Paris Arrow

MSM source of this news calibre did not fall from the sky.

At the 70th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy, the media showed the white crosses and marked “unknown” graves of thousands of fallen allied forces soldiers on June 6, 1944. But why are there no little crosses – or one single cross –above the grave site of 800 babies who died between 1927-1961 in a house run by stupid Catholic nuns who sold the babies of unwed mothers to wealthy Americans or killed those un-pure women’s sick babies by merely dumping them in a septic tank, tiny skeletons discovered by two little boys in 1975 in Tuam, Ireland? Strange how the Vatican Catholic Church condemns lay women’s abortion (of a few clumps of cells of the unborn) but do not condemn nuns who sell healthy babies or kill sick babies and dump them in a septic tank or unmarked graves.

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NEW YORK
Saratogian

By Glenn Griffith, The Saratogian
POSTED: 06/11/14

Clifton Park >> A Catholic priest arrested in April on one charge of endangering the welfare of a child appeared in Clifton Park Town Court on Wednesday and had his case adjourned until July.

Rev. James Michael Taylor, 30, walked into the town’s Public Safety Building with head held high shortly before the 4 p.m. start of court. He was accompanied by his attorney, Daniel Stewart. Neither man commented on the case as they entered the building.

After a request from a member of the Saratoga County District Attorney’s Office, Taylor’s case was continued until July 23.

An assistant district attorney, who said he was not in charge of the case, told Town Judge James Hughes the continuance was needed because more evidence is being processed.

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OREGON
Oregonian

By Bryan Denson | bdenson@oregonian.com
on June 11, 2014 at 3:37 PM, updated June 11, 2014 at 3:43 PM

A convicted bank robber was sentenced to nearly three years in prison on Wednesday for making fictitious claims of child sex abuse against Roman Catholic priests in Portland and three other cities from behind bars.

Shamont Lyle Sapp was serving time at the U.S. Penitentiary in Allenwood, Pa., in 2008, when he sued the Archdiocese of Portland, claiming he was sexually assaulted by one of its priests during his years as a teen runaway in the 1970s.

Sapp first drew national headlines in 2011, when he sued comedians Jamie Foxx and Tyler Perry for $1 million each, falsely claiming they stole his idea for a movie project titled “Skank Robbers.”

But the Skank Robbers scheme was child’s play compared to the work Sapp put in from 2005 to 2010, as he made false claims against priests in Portland, Spokane, Covington, Ky., and Tucson, Ariz. He took advantage of pending bankruptcies in Catholic dioceses to make his baseless claims, records show.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
St. Louis Review

SUBMITTED ON JUNE 11, 2014

Joseph Kenny | jkenny@archstl.org | twitter: @josephkenny2

A videotaped deposition of Archbishop Robert J. Carlson in a lawsuit involving an alleged abuse some 35 years ago was covered extensively this week when a video clip of it was highlighted to news media outlets at a press conference June 9 by the plaintiff’s lawyer.

The attorney “strategically took Archbishop Carlson’s response to a question out of context and suggested that the archbishop did not know that it was a criminal offense for an adult to molest a child. Nothing could be further from the truth,” a statement from the Archdiocese of St. Louis pointed out.

In another part of the deposition that wasn’t reported in the media, Archbishop Carlson is asked by the plaintiff’s attorney whether he knows a specific sexual act by a priest on a child is a crime, and the archbishop answers, “Yes.”

The deposition was related to a lawsuit seeking damages in a Minnesota state court against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, the Diocese of Winona and a former priest of Winona, Thomas Adamson. Archbishop Carlson is a former priest and auxiliary bishop of the St. Paul and Minneapolis archdiocese, where he served on the Personnel Board and as vice chancellor and chancellor. Neither Archbishop Carlson nor the Archdiocese of St. Louis are parties of the lawsuit.

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