ABUSE TRACKER

LOUISIANA
The American Conservative

By ROD DREHER • July 7, 2014

This is shocking:

The Catholic Diocese of Baton Rouge has issued a statement decrying a decision by the Louisiana Supreme Court that could compel a local priest to testify in court about confessions he might have received. The alleged confessions, the petitioner claims, were made by a minor child to the priest regarding sexual abuse by another church parishioner.

The statement, published Monday (July 7) on the diocese’s website, said forcing such testimony “attacks the seal of confession,” a sacrament that “cuts to the core of the Catholic faith.”

The statement refers to a lawsuit naming the Rev. Jeff Bayhi and the Catholic Diocese of Baton Rouge as defendants and compels Bayhi to testify whether or not there were confessions “and, if so, what the contents of any such confessions were.”

“A foundational doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church for thousands of years mandates that the seal of confession is absolutely and inviolable,” the statement says. ”The position of the Diocese of Baton Rouge and Fr. Bayhi is that the Supreme Court of Louisiana has run afoul of the constitutional rights of both the Church and the priest, more particularly, has violated the Establishment Clause and the separate of Church and State under the first amendment.”

The state’s high court decision, rendered in May of this year, demands that a hearing be held in 19th Judicial District Court, where the suit originated, to determine whether or not a confession was made. It reverses an earlier decision by the Louisiana First Circuit Court of Appeals to dismiss the original lawsuit filed against Bayhi and the diocese.

The entire statement by the Diocese of Baton Rouge can be found here.

The case involves a minor child who claims that she told her priest, Fr. Jeff Bayhi, that she was being sexually abused by a member of the parish, a man who later died while under criminal investigation. The plaintiff claims that Fr. Bayhi told her to keep quiet about it and handle the problem herself, because too many people would be hurt if she went public. This, plus the fact that he did not report the alleged abuser to police based on information received in the confessional, forms the basis of her lawsuit.

Fr. Bayhi is in an impossible position. He cannot under canon law reveal what he learned in the confessional, from anybody. The plaintiff could be making it up, but if he defends himself by disputing her testimony, or if he were to say that she was telling the truth, he would be defrocked. The seal of the confessional is absolutely sacred.

But according to the Louisiana Supreme Court’s ruling, under Louisiana law, a priest’s allegiance to confidentiality of the confessional only protects the penitent. Because the plaintiff has waived her right to confidentiality, the Court says Fr. Bayhi must testify. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of what the sacrament of confession is for the priest; he cannot, under severe ecclesial penalty, tell anyone what he learned in the confessional. Period. The end.

Unless the state Supreme Court is reversed, Fr. Bayhi will have to go to jail to protect the seal of the confessional, even if he is innocent of the accusation.

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LOUISIANA
The Advocate

BY JOE GYAN JR
JGYAN@THEADVOCATE.COM
July 07, 2014

The Diocese of Baton Rouge warned Monday the sanctity of the confessional is under attack by a recent Louisiana Supreme Court ruling the church says might force a priest to reveal in court what was privately told to him.

The case involves a young girl who claims she was sexually abused by a now-deceased church parishioner but that her confession to a local priest fell on deaf ears.

The decision resuscitates a 5-year-old lawsuit against the Roman Catholic Church of the Diocese of Baton Rouge, the Rev. Jeff Bayhi and others, and gave the girl, now an older teenager, the green light to testify and introduce evidence of “her own confession.”

At the same time, the state high court sent the case back to 19th Judicial District Court Judge Mike Caldwell, saying there is still a dispute “concerning whether the communications between the child and the priest were confessions per se and whether the priest obtained knowledge outside the confessional that would trigger his duty to report” sexual abuse allegations.

In a strongly worded two-page statement posted to its website, the Baton Rouge Diocese says the religious implications cannot be overstated.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WNEP

[with video]

JULY 7, 2014, BY SARAH BUYNOVSKY

SCRANTON — In an historic move, Pope Francis met with six victims of clerical sexual abuse in Vatican City on Monday. He led them in a private Mass, condemned sex abuse in the church and offered an apology.

“I beg your forgiveness, also, for the sins of omission on the part of church leaders who did not respond adequately to reports of abuse made by family members, as well as by abuse victims themselves,” he said.

People in Northeastern and Central Pennsylvania, Catholic or not, said they, too appreciate what the Pope has done.

“For him to apologize, I’m a fan of it. It’s good for the world, good for the Catholics, good for everybody,” said Pat Touhey of Dallas.

The local Catholic diocese has seen scandal.

Last month, suspended priest Rev. William Paulish of the Scranton Diocese was sentenced to eight to 23 months in prison.

He admitted to meeting a 15-year-old boy for a sexual encounter.

Earlier this year, Rev. Philip Altavilla of the Scranton Diocese was charged with indecent assault, accused of fondling a teenager 15 years ago. He faces trial.

“It’s an important issue and I don’t think things like that should be swept under the rug, I think you need to get it out there to inform everyone,” said Caitlin Liberatore, a University of Scranton student.

The Pope has also promised a crackdown on church leaders who fail to protect children.

“I think that it’s something that’s really good to acknowledge, that there’s progress being made and the victims are being recognized and everyone has apologized,” said Coleen Joyce, also a University of Scranton student.

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VATICAN CITY
Times Argus

July 08,2014

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis promised to hold bishops accountable for the protection of minors and begged forgiveness Monday from the victims of clergy sex abuse as he held his first meeting with several abuse survivors.

The pope celebrated a Mass with six survivors at his Vatican hotel Monday, but in his homily he didn’t spell out whether that accountability would include firing bishops and other prelates who systematically shuffled pedophile priests from parish to parish to avoid bringing shame upon the Catholic Church.

Victims’ advocacy groups around the world have pressed the Vatican for decades to severely discipline any complicit church hierarchy.

One of the six, Irishwoman Marie Kane, 43, said she asked Francis to remove an Irish cardinal, Sean Brady, from his post because of how he handled abuse allegations.

Kane told The Irish Times that she told Francis “A cover-up is still happening and you have the power to make these changes.” She said that he replied ‘It was difficult to make these changes.”’

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UNITED STATES
Washington Post

Pope Francis is the most popular pontiff in a generation — but can even he defeat the sex abuse scandal?

By Terrence McCoy July 8

Pope Francis is a man of immense personal charisma, one who combines the humility of a Nelson Mandela with an almost Clintonian drive to interact with people of the land. But that warmth that has at once made him this generation’s most popular pope has also to some degree deflected attention from a darker, ongoing reality in the church: clergy sexual abuse.

In the year Francis has been pope, he has addressed scores of politically unpalatable issues — ballooning inequality, church profligacy, poverty — but some observers say he has been more reticent on the matter of sexual abuse, a scandal that continues to haunt the Vatican and likely contributed to the resignation of predecessor Pope Benedict. “He’s carefully avoided all the issues that could lead to conflict,” the editor of Vatican Radio told Frontline.

The issue of sex abuse is “a real minefield in the life of this Pope,” Robert Mickens, longtime Vatican analyst for the Tablet, also explained to Frontline. “It’s such a big issue in the Catholic Church and it’s not gone away, even though they’re singing hosannas to him right now, and that’s the sexual abuse of minors, clergy sex abuse. I know a lot of Catholics would like it to be over, but it’s not. We’re seeing new cases all the time. If the Pope doesn’t come out and set very clear, transparent and public guidelines, I think this could cripple him.”

Francis has addressed the issue of clergy sexual abuse on multiple occasions, once even saying it was like “celebrating a black mass.” But for the first time on Monday, he met with six victims of clergy sexual abuse — three male and three female European victims — and begged for forgiveness.

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LOUISIANA
Bayou Buzz

[statement from the diocese]

The Diocese of Baton Rouge warned Monday the sanctity of the confessional is under attack by a recent Louisiana Supreme Court ruling the church says might force a priest to reveal in court what was privately told to him.

The case involves a young girl who claims she was sexually abused by a now-deceased church parishioner but that her confession to a local priest fell on deaf ears.

The decision resuscitates a 5-year-old lawsuit against the Roman Catholic Church of the Diocese of Baton Rouge, the Rev. Jeff Bayhi and others, and gave the girl, now an older teenager, the green light to testify and introduce evidence of “her own confession.”

At the same time, the state high court sent the case back to 19th Judicial District Court Judge Mike Caldwell, saying there is still a dispute “concerning whether the communications between the child and the priest were confessions per se and whether the priest obtained knowledge outside the confessional that would trigger his duty to report” sexual abuse allegations.

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VATICAN CITY
Emirates 24/7

AFP

Pope Francis said the suicides of sex abuse victims weighed on his conscience on Monday, speaking of the “terrible darkness” inside the Church as he met with survivors and pledged to crack down on paedophilia.

At his long-awaited first meeting with victims, the pope reached out to the tens of thousands of people abused by priests globally, telling them he was sorry for the “grave crimes of clerical sexual abuse committed against you”.

Three male and three female victims from Britain, Germany and Ireland slept in the pope’s residence near Saint Peter’s Basilica before breakfasting with him and spending half an hour each with him.

Francis said there was “no place in the Church’s ministry for those who commit these abuses” adding: “I commit myself not to tolerate harm done to a minor by any individual, whether a cleric or not.”

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VATICAN CITY
Al Jazeera

Pope Francis has begged for forgiveness in his first meeting with Catholics sexually abused by members of the clergy and gone further than any of his predecessors by vowing to hold bishops accountable for their handling of paedophile priests.

Abuse victims and their advocates have long demanded that higher-ups be made to answer for the decades-long cover-ups of rape and molestation of youngsters in a scandal that has rocked the church and dismayed its worldwide flock of 1.2 billion.

The pope celebrated a private Mass with six victims – two each from Ireland, Britain and Germany – at his Vatican residence on Monday, and spent the rest of the morning listening to their accounts, one-on-one. …

‘Cover-up’

One of the six victims, Marie Kane, 43, who was abused by a priest for three years while a teenager in Ireland, said she asked Francis to remove an Irish cardinal, Sean Brady, from his post because of how he handled abuse allegations.

Kane told the Irish Times newspaper that she told Francis a “cover-up is still happening, and you have the power to make these changes.”

She quoted him as replying, “It was difficult to make these changes.”

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IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

Abuse victim urges Pope to sack head of Catholic Church in Ireland Sean Brady over his handling of allegations

BY STAFF REPORTER – 08 JULY 2014

A survivor of clerical sex abuse has asked the Pope to stand down the Archbishop of Armagh as the leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland.

Irish woman Marie Kane was one of six victims of abuse who met Pope Francis during his first meeting with survivors yesterday.

The Pontiff promised to hold bishops accountable for the protection of minors and begged forgiveness from the victims of abuse.

The Pope celebrated a Mass with the six survivors at his Vatican hotel but in his homily he did not spell out whether that accountability would include firing bishops and other prelates who shuffled paedophile priests between parishes to avoid bringing shame upon the Catholic Church.

Victims’ advocacy groups around the world have pressed the Vatican for decades to severely discipline any complicit Church hierarchy.

Ms Kane (43) said she asked Francis to remove all-Ireland primate Cardinal Sean Brady from his post because of how he handled abuse allegations.

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NEW YORK
Post-Standard

By Douglass Dowty | ddowty@syracuse.com
on July 08, 2014

Syracuse, NY — A retired Catholic priest accused of possessing child pornography is due back to court today for a possible disposition to his criminal case. In all likelihood, that means a potential plea deal.

Robert Ours, 65, a former Southern Tier priest who lives in Syracuse, was indicted in May on six counts of possessing a sexual performance by a child, which is a felony.

The Catholic Diocese of Syracuse reported the allegations of child porn to the Onondaga County District Attorney’s Office several months ago.

A priest since 1980, Ours has lived at the Tommy Coyne Residence for Priests since retiring in 2012, diocese Director of Communications Danielle Cummings has said. He led churches in the Southern Tier before then.

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UNITED STATES
POPE FRANCIS the CON-Christ.

Paris Arrow

Jesus said, “but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.” (ESV Mathew 18:6) Read the John Paul II Millstone http://jp2m.blogspot.ca/

Pope Francis’s papal mass is the apex of the Eucharist Satanic Mass and it heals no one and it only fools everyone.

Pope Francis said in his homily at a papal mass with 6 abused victims that these “despicable actions” had been “camouflaged with a complicity that cannot be explained.” How stupid can 1.2 billion Catholics get not to be able to see Pope Francis is papal farting Opus Dei Beast pathological lies again at them?

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UNITED KINGDOM
Irish Examiner

By Jill Lawless, London

The British government vowed to discover whether public institutions have exposed vulnerable children to sexual abuse — and whether authorities suppressed abuse allegations to protect politicians and other powerful people.

Home Secretary Theresa May said a panel of legal and child-protection experts would investigate how public agencies, including governments and hospitals, handled child abuse allegations. She said she set up the inquiry after “appalling cases of organised and persistent” sexual abuse, including decades of assaults by the late TV host Jimmy Savile.

“Some of these cases have exposed a failure by public bodies to take their responsibilities seriously,” May told the House of Commons.

May said a related investigation, led by National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children chief executive Peter Wanless, would examine whether abuse claims handed to authorities in the 1980s were lost or destroyed to protect wrongdoers.

Last year, an internal government inquiry found that 114 files relating to allegations of child abuse that were handed to officials had been lost or destroyed. …

Abuse claims have sullied the reputations of some of the world’s most venerated institutions: Pope Francis yesterday told victims of sexual abuse by Roman Catholic clerics that the Church should “weep and make reparation” for crimes.

In Britain, local media have alleged that a group of British politicians and others in positions of authority may have used their positions to abuse children in state care during the 1980s. It was not possible to independently evaluate those claims.

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VATICAN CITY
Irish Times

Paddy Agnew

Tue, Jul 8, 2014

Pope Francis yesterday met with six clerical sex abuse survivors in a historic Vatican meeting, the first of this pontificate and one marked by the Argentinian pope’s now familiar compassionate ministry.

Pope Francis began the day by offering an apology to the six people – two Irish, two British and two German – during a homily at Mass in the Domus Santa Marta, his Vatican residence.

“The scene where Peter encounters Jesus after his terrible interrogation comes to mind . . . The eyes of Peter meet those of Jesus and he weeps . . . That scene comes to my mind as I look at you and think of so many men and women, boys and girls.

“I feel the gaze of Jesus and I ask for the grace to weep, the grace for the Church to weep and make reparation for her sons and daughters who betrayed their mission, who abused innocent persons.
“Before God and his people I express my sorrow for the sins and grave crimes of clerical sex abuse committed against you. And I humbly ask forgiveness . . . There is no place in the Church’s ministry for those who commit these abuses and I commit myself not to tolerate harm done to a minor by any individual, whether a cleric or not. …

Cardinal Brady

Asked by The Irish Times about the fact that one of the Irish survivors, Marie Kane, had asked Pope Francis to remove Cardinal Sean Brady as Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of Ireland, Fr Lombardi declined to comment, saying that the content of the meetings was “a private matter”.

Fr Lombardi also added that yesterday’s meeting was not so much concerned about “concrete measures” in relation to the handling of the clerical sex abuse as about a highly significant gesture of compassion and solidarity.

Yesterday’s meeting had been preceded by criticism from survivors’ lobbies in both Argentina and the US which had questioned the criteria used to pick the survivors.

The papal spokesman was asked whether, in the light of that criticism, yesterday’s meeting was not simply a PR move on the part of the Holy See.

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ARGENTINA
Digital Journal

By Eric Morales

Buenos Aires – Pope Francis is accused of looking the other way when sex abuse occurred while he was still the Archbishop of Buenos Aires.

Pope Francis is just one year into his papacy and is considered by many as a champion of the poor, and the marginalized and on a day when the Bishop of Rome meets with victims of sexual abuse at the hands of priests, a report by Bishop Accountability could not have come at a worse time.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio now known to the world as Pope Francis served as archbishop of Buenos Aires from 1998 until his election as pope last year, and before that as a bishop in Buenos Aires and Auca from 1992 until 1997. During that time, according to Cardinal Bergoglio’s conversations with Argentine Rabbi and friend Abraham Skorka, his diocese didn’t have to confront child sex abuse.

“In my diocese it never happened to me, but a bishop called me once by phone to ask me what to do in a situation like this and I told him to take away the priest’s faculties, not to permit him to exercise his priestly ministry again, and to initiate a canonical trial.”

However, others would strongly disagree, according to BishopAccountability.org over 100 priests in the archdiocese of Buenos Aires offended against children, the watchdog organization goes on to allege in its report that at least a dozen of these such cases were known to Bergoglio.

Five cases of note are pointed out by Bishop Accountability that most certainly were known to Archbishop Bergoglio. In 2009, Fr. Julio César Grassi a priest in the suffragan diocese of Morón was convicted of molesting three young boys at a home for street children run by the Fundacion Felices los Niños (the Happy Children Foundation) which Grassi founded in 1993. As a suffragan diocese Bergoglio had limited authority in Morón, he could only step in at the sign of neglect by church authorities according to Canon Law.

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TEXAS
KIII

[with video]

CORPUS CHRISTI (Kiii News) – 3News has learned that the latest outcry against Monsignor Heras came from a 39-year old man out of Gregory, Texas.

The man walked into the Gregory Police Department last Thursday evening after seeing reports about allegations filed against the Monsignor in Corpus Christi.

Heras was a priest at the Immaculate Conception Church in Gregory some 25-30 years ago, and according to the Gregory Police Department, the alleged victim told them that is when the sexual contact was made. The Gregory police chief is not calling it a criminal complaint but rather a report of a possible offense. That’s because there have been so many changes to the State’s statute of limitations.

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VIRGINIA
WJLA

By The Associated Press, Suzanne Kennedy

VATICAN CITY (WJLA/AP) – Pope Francis begged forgiveness Monday from the victims of clergy sex abuse as he held his first meeting with several abuse survivors. He also promised to hold bishops accountable for the protection of minors.

The pope celebrated a Mass with six survivors at his Vatican hotel Monday, but in his homily he didn’t spell out whether that accountability would include firing bishops and other prelates who systematically shuffled pedophile priests from parish to parish to avoid bringing shame upon the Catholic church.

Victims’ advocacy groups around the world have pressed the Vatican for decades to severely discipline any complicit church hierarchy.

Even while the pope spent his morning with the three men and three women, listening to their stories one by one, several victims’ groups blasted the meetings as being “a PR event.” …

Becki Ianni of Burke, Va., a former abuse victim of a priest herself, told ABC7 she is not impressed.

“To me, it’s a PR move,” she said.

Ianni says she was abused by her family’s priest when she was in elementary school – but the priest committed suicide before he could be prosecuted.

Ianni said she received a letter of apology from the Catholic Church, acknowledging what she had gone through.

Ianni said she views today’s meeting of the Pope and six victims a nice gesture, but that the church needs to take action.

“I hope that the victims he met with…I hope they find healing,” she said. “It is brave of them to meet with him, but the meeting today isn’t going to protect a child, and that’s what we need to do.”

Parishioners attending daily mass at Cathedral of Saint Thomas Moore in Arlington Monday said they are encouraged by the Pope’s meeting.

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ALABAMA
AL.com

By Kent Faulk | kfaulk@al.com
on July 07, 2014

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama – People who fit in nearly two dozen job categories, including the clergy, are required under Alabama law to report suspected child abuse or face jail time and a penalty.

The issue of who and when suspected child abuse is to be reported came up last week when a man stepped forward to say that the former pastor at Lakeside Baptist Church in the late 1990s had covered up allegations of sexual abuse by the church’s youth minister Mack Allen Davis.

The pastor, the Rev. Mike McLemore, who is now executive director of the Birmingham Baptist Association, has denied the accusation, although he acknowledged dealing with the situation privately and confidentially with the family, which included forcing a youth pastor to retire early. McLemore said he advised the family what they had the right to do.

Alabama law (code section is 26-14-3) requires people who hold certain jobs, including the clergy, to report suspected child abuse.

Bessemer Cutoff Assistant Jefferson County District Attorney Leslie Schiffman, who handles many of the child abuse cases in that division, provided a synopsis of the law she uses for training. The clergy wasn’t added to the law until an amendment in 2003, she said.

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MINNESOTA
St. Cloud Times

David Unze, dunze@stcloudtimes.com July 7, 2014

Pope Francis meeting with survivors of clergy sex abuse and expressing sorrow for the crimes committed by priests is a positive step, but he needs to do more, according to a St. Cloud-area lawyer who is represents survivors of abuse.

“It’s like everything else,” said attorney Michael Bryant. “It’s going to come down to what action is taken as a follow-up. There’s a couple different times in history where the church has given lip service to feeling bad about it. They should feel bad about it. It’s a horrible incident. The reality is, what do they do about it?”

Bryant represents a man suing St. John’s Abbey and an abbey monk who is accused of abuse. He said he has more hope that Pope Francis will have a positive impact on the issue of abusive priests and protecting children than his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI.

Pope Francis met and prayed with six European victims of pedophile priests for the first time Monday and went further than any of his predecessors by vowing to hold bishops accountable for their handling of pedophile priests.

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OHIO
Fox 28

COLUMBUS (Ben Garbarek) – The Pope made some of his strongest remarks yet about the sexual abuse scandal surrounding the Roman Catholic Church, but those words aren’t enough for some victims of abuse.

Pope Francis begged for forgiveness and vowed bishops would be “held accountable” for failing to protect children from sexual abuse. He made the remarks during a private mass with half a dozen victims of sexual abuse.

Other victims said the remarks don’t go far enough.

“It’s not enough for him to reach out and say, ‘Oh, too bad. I’m sorry this happened,’” said Carol Zamonski, a child abuse survivor and member of the victim’s group SNAP. “I want action.”

Zamonski said the Pope’s words are not meaningless though. She just wishes he included more specifics on plans to protect children.

“What we really want to see is the Pope taking action on removing people from posts of any kind of responsibility who have withheld information on sex crimes or moved priests and nuns from place to place who were perpetrating sexual abuse,” she said.

Just last summer Father Ronald Atwood was removed from his post at St. Francis of Assisi Church in Victorian Village after allegations of sexual abuse from 1970s. That abuse allegedly happened while he was working at Bishop Ready High School.

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VATICAN CITY
Boston Globe

By Inés San Martín | GLOBE CORRESPONDENT JULY 07, 2014

ROME – From the age of 8 until he was 13, Peter Saunders was sexually abused by a member of his family, a lay teacher, and two priests of the Catholic school he attended. Growing up in a devout Catholic home, it was especially difficult for Saunders to cope with the shame, which may be part of the reason it took him 24 years to acknowledge what had happened.

Today, the 57-year-old Saunders heads a London-based group called the National Association for People Abused in Childhood (NAPAC), which for the last 19 years has been helping other victims overcome their suffering by providing a support system.

“I created NAPAC because when I was finally ready to talk about what had been done to me, I realized there was no one who could understand,” Saunders said.

Saunders was one of six abuse victims who met Pope Francis on Monday, describing the encounter afterwards as a “life-changing experience.”

Saunders expressed optimism that Francis will follow through on his pledges of zero tolerance and accountability.

“I believe him to be a sincere man,” Saunders said, “and I believe him to be someone who wants to do this right.”

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CHICAGO (IL)
Courthouse News Service

By JACK BOUBOUSHIAN

CHICAGO (CN) – An alleged victim of priestly sexual abuse cannot duck the statute of limitations by pointing to the bishop of Chicago’s offer of compassionate relief, the 7th Circuit ruled.

Charles Anderson, now 62 and an inmate at Shawnee Correctional Center, claimed to have been abused as a child while growing up in the Maryville Academy in Des Plaines, Ill., and St. Joseph’s Orphanage in Lisle, Ill., both of which are operated by the Roman Catholic church,

Anderson’s class action alleged that the Rev. Thomas Windham abused him at Maryville when he was younger than 10, and that the Rev. Father Cosmo sexually abused at St. Joseph’s.

An investigation launched by the Archdiocese of Chicago in 2005 remained incomplete after two years. Though the church noted that Anderson’s claims were barred by the statute of repose, which prevents alleged childhood abuse victims from suing after they turn 30, it said it was “interested in learning what [Anderson] needs in order to heal.”

Anderson requested $6.5 million and then filed suit when the archdiocese did not accede to his demand.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Pioneer Press

By Alan Scher Zagier
Associated Press
POSTED: 07/07/2014

The Archdiocese of St. Louis announced a confidential settlement in a priest sex-abuse case scheduled to go to trial Monday but questioned the truth of a 22-year-old woman’s statement that she was molested as a young girl.

The settlement for an undisclosed amount of money in the suit against defrocked Catholic priest Joseph Ross also spared the archdiocese from possible public disclosure of further details on hundreds of abuse complaints against its employees over decades.

The woman, identified in court documents only as Jane Doe, had accused Ross of molesting her as a small girl between 1997 and 2001 while she attended the St. Cronan parish on the city’s south side. The archdiocese announced the settlement just as jury selection in the civil trial was set to begin.

The St. Louis archbishop, Robert J. Carlson, served previously as a bishop in the Twin Cities. From 1979 to 1994 he served as a top handler of priest sexual-abuse cases in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, attorney Jeffrey Anderson said.

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OHIO
NBC4i

By: Marcus Thorpe

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Pope Francis met Monday with sex abuse victims at the hands of Roman Catholic Priests, and far away in Columbus, there were watchful eyes on what was happening.

Both local and national chapters of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) had plenty to say following the face-to-face meetings.

In a statement, SNAP said:

Pope Francis meeting with victims and his words: “all bishops must carry out their pastoral ministry with the utmost care in order to help foster the protection of minors, and they will be held accountable.” — does not protect one child today.

It’s just more words and vague promises coming from the Vatican.

–Until bishops, cardinals, and church officials are held accountable, demoted, and fired, for having covered up and who are still covering up sex crimes against innocents kids, nothing has changed. He is just saying more words.

–Until the full truth is exposed and church officials turn over all secret documents of child sex crimes and the names of the predator clergy to law enforcement, the church will never be a safe place for children.

It is time for Pope Francis to stop making promises and take decisive actions NOW to get this abuse of power and the cover up of these crimes stopped because it is still going on throughout the world today.

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VATICAN CITY
Reuters

BY PHILIP PULLELLA
VATICAN CITY, July 7

(Reuters) – The Vatican bank will soon hive off its investment activities and transform itself into an institution dedicated mostly to payment services for the Roman Catholic Church, Vatican sources said on Monday.

The details of the down-sizing will be announced on Wednesday by Australian Cardinal George Pell, who heads the Secretariat of the Economy set up earlier this year to oversee Vatican finances and stem scandals that have embarrassed the Church for decades.

The sources said French businessman Jean-Baptise de Franssu is expected to be named as the new head of the bank, formally known as the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR). He will succeed German Ernst von Freyberg, who is leaving after instituting major reforms..

Under the expected changes, the IOR will no longer have asset management functions. Its remit will be restricted to providing payment services and financial advice for religious orders, charities and Vatican employees.

The Holy See’s assets are expected to be managed by a newly created department, the sources added. The radical overhaul of the bank will be announced a day after the IOR publishes its performance numbers for 2013 on Tuesday.

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IRELAND
National Catholic Reporter

Michael Kelly Catholic News Service | Jul. 7, 2014

DUBLIN One of the Irish survivors of clerical sexual abuse who met Pope Francis on Monday described the encounter as a “huge vindication” for her.

The victim, Marie Kane, also asked the pope to remove Cardinal Sean Brady as archbishop of Armagh, Northern Ireland.

Brady was the subject of sharp criticism after a 2012 documentary revealed that he had been involved in a 1975 canonical inquiry into a notorious abuser-priest, Norbertine Fr. Brendan Smyth. Despite the canonical process, Smyth evaded the civil authorities for decades and went on to abuse in Northern Ireland, the Irish Republic and the United States before finally being arrested in 1994.

Kane, 43, told Ireland’s state-run radio RTE that she asked Pope Francis to remove Brady because of his handling of a clerical child abuse inquiry in 1975.

“It’s a big thing with me that there are still members of the hierarchy there who were involved in the cover-up. I feel personally they [the church] cannot contemplate any change happening, there will be no success,” as long as such people remained in place, she said.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
KPLR

JULY 7, 2014, BY CHRIS REGNIER

ST. LOUIS, MO (KPLR) – A settlement is reached in a civil sexual abuse case against the St. Louis Archdiocese and former priest Joseph Ross.

The deal was announced just before the case was set to go to trial this morning downtown at the Carnahan Courthouse.

Jury selection was slated to start for the case.

Instead, a settlement was announced at a short hearing before Judge Jimmie Edwards at 8am.

Ross was the first priest defrocked by the St. Louis Archdiocese for sexually abusing children.

That happened in 2002.

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MAINE
Bangor Daily News

Maine advocates for those abused by priests say pope’s request for forgiveness ‘positive’ but not enough

By Julia Bayly, BDN Staff
Posted July 07, 2014

FORT KENT, Maine — Pope Francis on Monday said the Roman Catholic Church should “weep and make reparation” for the victims of sexual abuse at the hands of clergy, but for at least one advocacy group in Maine, that does not go far enough.

“For some time now, I have felt in my heart deep pain and suffering,” Pope Francis said in his strongest comments yet on the crimes, delivered in the homily of a Mass with adult victims on Monday. “So much time hidden, camouflaged with a complicity that cannot be explained until someone realized that Jesus was looking.”

In Maine, where at least 15 allegations of sexual abuse by a priest against a minor have been made over the years against the Diocese of Portland, an official with a group supporting those victims is looking for more from the church hierarchy.

“The pope’s meetings with these six victims may have helped those particular six,” Paul Kendrick of the Ignatius Group in Maine, an advocate for minors abused by church clergy, said Monday. “But kids are not safer today because of that meeting.”

Robert Gossart, the Maine representative to Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, and himself a survivor of childhood abuse at the hands of a priest, agrees.

“I think the pope meeting with those victims was something positive,” Gossart said Monday from his Mount Desert Island home. “But there has been so much negative in the past, and we have not seen much progress in the year or two Francis has been pope.”

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LOUISIANA
The Times-Picayune

By Emily Lane, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
on July 07, 2014

The Catholic Diocese of Baton Rouge has issued a statement decrying a decision by the Louisiana Supreme Court that could compel a local priest to testify in court about a confession he might have received.

The statement, published Monday (July 7) on the diocese’s website, said forcing such testimony “attacks the seal of confession,” a sacrament that “cuts to the core of the Catholic faith.”

The statement refers to a lawsuit naming the Rev. Jeff Bayhi and the Catholic Diocese of Baton Rouge as defendants, which compels Bayhi to testify whether or not there were confessions “and, if so, what the contents of any such confessions were.”

“A foundational doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church for thousands of years mandates that the seal of confession is absolutely and inviolable,” the statement says. “The position of the Diocese of Baton Rouge and Fr. Bayhi is that the Supreme Court of Louisiana has run afoul of the constitutional rights of both the Church and the priest, more particularly, has violated the Establishment Clause and the separate of Church and State under the first amendment.”

The state’s high court decision demands that a hearing be held in District Court to determine whether or not a confession was made. It reverses an earlier decision by the Louisiana First Circuit Court of Appeals to dismiss the original lawsuit filed against Bayhi and the diocese.

The testimony the lawsuit seeks to force is apparently related to sexual abuse or neglect of minors, as the diocese’s statement acknowledges “two conflicting statues of the State of Louisiana area involved regarding mandatory reporting of knowledge,” concerning those issues.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
CBS St. Louis

ST. LOUIS (KMOX) – Just hours before a child abuse case against a former priest was set to go to trial this morning, officials with the St. Louis Archdiocese announced a settlement.

A 22-year-old woman identified as Jane Doe had accused Father Joseph Ross of molesting her as a small girl between 1997 and 2001
.
Defense attorney Ken Chackes says he stands by Jane Doe 92 and her allegations that she was raped by Father Ross while she was a parishioner at St. Cronan’s Church.

“We believe a jury would have ultimately found that Father Ross raped Jane Doe 92,” he says.

Chackes says some of her therapists also support her story, and he thinks a jury would have found the same.

But, he also agrees with the Archdiocese that “no healing” would have come from a three-week trial.

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ST. LUCIA
Jamaica Observer

CASTRIES, St Lucia (CMC) – The Roman Catholic Church Monday confirmed that a priest had been withdrawn from the ministry “with immediate effect’ after he had a relationship with a male parishioner.

“It was clear that the Priest crossed his boundaries and acted inappropriately,” said Archbishop Robert Rivas adding that the Church had considered the matter to be serious.

In a statement, in which the priest was not identified, Archbishop Rivas said the priest had also been sent on administrative leave during which time he will receive “spiritual and counselling support.

“This is an ongoing process so whenever a situation develops, once it’s brought to the attention of the authorities the matter will be properly investigated and once it is proved that something is wrong, that there has been bad behaviour or an injustice, we have to ensure that it is corrected,” Archbishop Robert Rivas said, recalling the position adopted by the Catholic Church in the wake of allegations against priests over the past two decades.

He said that the Roman Catholic Church would not cover up for indiscretions by priests in the future.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Patsy McGarry

Mon, Jul 7, 2014

The second Irish clerical child abuse survivor to meet Pope Francis this morning was Dubliner Mark Vincent Healy (54). The meeting lasted for approximately 45 minutes and the only other person present was Cardinal Seán O’Malley, who acted as translator.

The meeting was “very comfortable,” Mr Healy told The Irish Times.

In March 2009, Spiritan/Holy Ghost priest Fr Henry Maloney pleaded guilty in the Circuit Criminal Court to abusing Mr Healy and the late Paul Daly when both were pupils at St Marys College in Dublin’s Rathmines between 1969 and 1973.

Irish abuse survivors were among those meeting with Pope Francis today. File photograph: Giampiero Sposito/ReutersIrish abuse victim tells Pope she wants Cardinal Brady removed
He was given a suspended sentence due to ill health and as he was already under strict supervision at Kimmage Manor in Dublin, where he has been since.

Out of ministry and under supervision since 1996, in 2000 Moloney was sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment for sexually assaulting two other boys at St Mary’s in the early 1970s. He served 15 months.

The Spiritan Congregation, formerly known as the the Holy Ghost Fathers, runs some of Ireland leading schools including Blackrock College, St Michael’s, St Mary’s and Templeogue College in Dublin, and Rockwell College in Co Tipperary.

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IRELAND
Irish Mirror

By Pat Flanagan

Survivor Marie Kane told the Pontiff that nothing will change until those who were involved in “cover-ups” are removed

An Irish clerical abuse victim who met the Pope yesterday pleaded with him to sack Cardinal Sean Brady.

Marie Kane, 43, personally asked Pope Francis to dismiss the Primate of All Ireland for failing to protect children from paedophile monster Brendan Smyth.

The Pope met six clerical sex abuse victims, including Ms Kane and Marie Collins, in the Vatican to express his sorrow and ask for forgiveness.

But Carlow-based Marie Kane said that nothing will change until those who were involved in “cover-ups” in this country are removed.

She said: “It’s a big thing with me that there are still members of the hierarchy there who were involved in the cover-up.

“Until people like (Cardinal) Sean Brady are gone I will never believe there is change.”

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VATICAN CITY
Financial Times

timeline

By Rachel Sanderson in Milan and Giulia Segreti in Rome

The Institute for Religious Works, the official name of the scandal-prone Vatican bank, is set to be radically slimmed down as part of Pope Francis’s mission to refocus the Catholic Church to supporting the poor and needy, according to insiders.

The overhaul, due to be unveiled this week alongside the publication of the bank’s annual report – only its second ever – is expected to strip the 127 year-old institution of most of its powers to manage assets. The bank, where decades of corruption and mismanagement did much to tarnish the image of the Vatican, will return to its original purpose of sending funds to missionaries and Church groups around the world.

By removing the asset management functions Vatican officials hope to cut out the source of the much of the scandal that has plagued the bank since the 1980s when Roberto Calvi, dubbed “God’s banker”, was found hanged under Blackfriars Bridge in London.

Jean-Baptiste de Franssu, former chief executive of Investco Europe, is on the shortlist to be named the new head of the Vatican bank in an attempt to boost its reputation for financial discipline, according to a person familiar with the matter.

“We cannot have any more scandal,” said a person close to the pope.

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NORTH CAROLINA
WSOC

By Tenikka Smith
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Pope Francis apologized to victims of sex abuse by clergy members.

The pope also asked for forgiveness that some church leaders did not adequately handle reports of sex abuse made by family members or victims themselves.

David Hains, spokesperson for the Diocese of Charlotte, said the pope’s message is a part of the church’s ongoing effort to be accountable and protect children.

“We’re very serious about preventing this issue from occurring. We’re very serious about making people aware children need our protection they are innocent,” Hains said.

The pope’s apology, comes days after a judge threw out a civil lawsuit against the Diocese of Charlotte from accusers who claim they were abused by Father Joseph Kelleher and Father Richard Farwell more than 30 years ago. The suit was thrown out because the statute of limitations ran out and the judge ruled it was too late to file the claim. A criminal case against Kelleher was also dismissed because the judge ruled the defendant was incompetent to proceed in a trial. Kelleher was accused of abusing a 14 year-old at a church in Albemarle in 1977.

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VATICAN CITY
KSPR

By Heidi Schlumpf
Jul 07, 2014

(CNN) –
After meeting Monday with six victims of sexual abuse by clergy members, Pope Francis apologized for the crimes committed against them and begged forgiveness “for the sins of omission on the part of church leaders who did not respond adequately to reports of abuse.”

Apologies are all well and good, but this one brings to mind two trite but true sayings: “Too little, too late” and “Actions speak louder than words.” Unfortunately, Francis has more to do so that future popes won’t have to keep saying “I’m sorry” for these crimes and the Catholic Church’s cover-up.

This is not to downplay the important symbolism of public apologies from the church’s top leader. Indeed, Francis seems sincere and acknowledges the complicity of the institutional church in the cover-up, not just the actions of individual men.

But Francis is not the first pope to meet with sex abuse victims or even the first to offer an official apology for what has to be one of the gravest evils in the church. His predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, met on several occasions with victims, including during a trip to the United States. After one such meeting, he also issued a formal apology, saying he was “deeply sorry for the pain and suffering the victims have endured.”

In comparison, Francis’ apology, given during a lengthy homily, was more extensive, emphasizing the psychological and spiritual pain victims have endured and noting that these “despicable actions” had been “camouflaged with a complicity that cannot be explained.”

It also was better than his, “Yes, but …” apology earlier this year, when he mentioned that abusers were “quite a few in number, though not compared to the total number” of priests, after earlier complaining about how the church had been unfairly singled out for the problem of sexual abuse of minors.

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VATICAN CITY
Washington Post

Pope Francis’ meeting with abuse victims wasn’t a PR stunt, Vatican says

By Josephine Mckenna | Religion News Service July 7

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis on Monday (July 7) held his first meeting with victims of clergy sex abuse, begging for forgiveness but remaining silent on how he’ll handle bishops who were complicit in covering up for predatory priests.

Francis held a private Mass with three male and three female victims from the U.K., Ireland and Germany before meeting them individually for around 30 minutes. In total, the first-ever meetings spanned more than three hours.

“Before God and his people I express my sorrow for the sins and grave crimes of clerical sexual abuse committed against you. And I humbly ask forgiveness,” the pope said, according to a Vatican transcript of his morning homily.

Irish survivor Marie Kane, who was among the victims who met with Francis, said later she believed the pope spoke from the heart but warned if the Catholic Church did not change it would “disappear.”

In his homily delivered Monday in his native Spanish, Francis said he felt “deep pain and suffering” for the “despicable actions” of priests and bishops who had abused their vocation and violated their victims. …

But the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, which represents 18,000 members around the world, said far more needed to be done to stop what it called an ongoing crisis in the church.

A Pew Research Center survey released last December showed that 70 percent of U.S. Catholics want the abuse scandal to be a “top priority” for the pope, and the issue ranked as “the most important” problem facing the church. …

Another U.S.-based group, Bishop Accountability.org, said the pope had been “largely silent” on clerical abuse in his native Argentina and he must remove and discipline abusive clerics.

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VATICAN CITY
Financial Times

By Rachel Sanderson in Milan

1887 Pope Leo XIII establishes the commission for Works of Charity (Commissione ad Pias Causas), the progenitor of the Vatican Bank.

1942 Pius XII (left) creates the Institute for Religious Works (IOR) by papal decree, absorbing the commission for Works of Charity.

1982 Banco Ambrosiano, in which the IOR is a shareholder, collapses. Italian court issues an arrest warrant for Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, IOR chairman, accusing him of being an accessory to fraudulent bankruptcy. On June 18, Banco Ambrosiano chairman Roberto Calvi (right) – known in the media as God’s Banker – is found dead hanging under Blackfriars bridge. Prosecutors allege mafia involvement.

Sept 2010 Italian magistrates seize €20m from IOR amid allegations that anti-money laundering laws have been violated.

May 2012 Ettore Gotti Tedeschi (left), chairman of the OOR, or Vatican bank, is ousted by its board for “failure to fulfil primary functions of his office”. Sources say Mr Gotti Tedeschi clashed with some members of the Vatican administration over his push for greater transparency.

June 2013 Italian police arrest a top Vatican cleric Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, as well as a former secret service agent and local businessman, accusing them of involvement in a conspiracy to smuggle €20m in cash into Italy from Switzerland.

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VATICAN CITY
Hot Air

[with video]

JULY 7, 2014 BY ED MORRISSEY

Pope Francis met for the first time with sex-abuse victims today, celebrating Mass with them at the Vatican and meeting separately afterward for 30 minutes at his residence. Francis begged their forgiveness and pledged to combat abuse throughout the church and the world, an effort begun earlier with a new task force to oversee the effort. One member of that panel, an abuse survivor herself, attended the Mass and the meeting:

Pope Francis begged forgiveness Monday from the victims of clergy sex abuse as he held his first meeting with several abuse survivors — but another victim called the gathering nothing more than “a PR event.”

The Vatican quoted Francis as expressing personal “sorrow” in his homily at a private Mass with six victims for the “sins and grave crimes” of clerical sex abuse against them.

Francis pledged “not to tolerate harm done to a minor by any individual, whether a cleric or not,” and promised that bishops “will be held accountable.”

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Monday, July 07, 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 )

We are glad the Pope promises to “hold accountable” Catholic officials who conceal abuse. But he hasn’t done it yet, not in Rome nor in Buenos Aires. Saying and doing are different things. The first is easy, the second is hard.

[BishopAccountability.org]

Many desperately want to believe that this humble, brilliant, and unpretentious pope is tackling the clergy abuse crisis with the same vigor he’s addressing church governance and church finances. He is not.

Church defenders bring up several alleged examples of recent progress. None of them are significant.

–Fr. Carlos Urrutigoity

Sending two clerics to Paraguay isn’t necessarily progress. It’s not clear whether or when this credibly accused child molester, now second in command of diocese, will be removed from office, nor whether or when church records about him will be given to law enforcement.

–Archbishop Josef Wesolowski

Internally handling child sex crimes, whether by a custodian or cardinal, is hardly progress. So we are not encouraged by Francis’ decision to rebuff police and prosecutors and to deal with Wesolowski through secretive church processes. Civilized countries usually have independent, experienced and impartial justice systems to handle crimes. That’s what must happen with clerics who commit and conceal child sex crimes.

When the pope starts turning over secret church records about tens of thousands of child molesting clerics to secular officials that will be progress.

–The papal abuse panel

This could result in progress but we aren’t optimistic. Over the past 30 years, many smart and caring individuals have given superb advice to Catholic officials on abuse. Most of them have been ignored. At best, it is too early to claim this as progress. At worst, it is a diversion and distraction.

In our desperation to feel hope in the midst of this on-going crisis, we hurt kids if we engage in “wishful thinking.” We endanger boys and girls if we confuse words with deeds.

We must ask ourselves “Does this protect kids from molesters?” Today’s meeting did not.

Luke’s Gospel tells us “If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone?” We’re asking for prevention, not symbols, gestures, pledges, or meetings. We beg Francis to listen carefully and act immediately.

Click here to see SNAP’s list of tips for the pope.

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UNITED STATES
New York Times

By ANDREW ROSENTHAL JULY 7, 2014

Pope Francis met over the weekend with six victims of abuse by Catholic clergy, denounced attacks on children in religious terms during a special Mass this morning and warned bishops of the Roman Catholic Church that they will be held accountable for their actions toward the abused and the abusers.

Some victims’ advocates dismissed the meetings and the Mass as a publicity stunt, but it seemed to me to be more than that. Francis said abusers “profane the very image of God” and talked about the way that sexual assaults by people who are in a position of profound trust can harm victims for the rest of their lives.

“Before God and his people I express my sorrow for the sins and grave crimes of clerical sexual abuse committed against you,” the pope said. “And I humbly ask forgiveness. I beg your forgiveness, too for the sins of omissions on the part of Church leaders who did not respond adequately to reports of abuse made by family members, as well as by abuse victims themselves.”

That very formulation was also a reminder that the church has still not done enough to acknowledge many decades of sexual violence against children, and to make sure that it will not happen again. The cover-ups of abuse – including the shuffling around to other parishes of priests known to have attacked children – were sins of commission, not omission.

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VATICAN CITY
The Daily Beast

Barbie Latza Nadeau

Francis met with rape victims Monday and begged for their forgiveness. The head of the world’s largest survivor network has 15 better ways for him to act.

ROME, Italy — On Monday, Pope Francis followed the footsteps of his predecessors Benedict XVI and John Paul II and met with a select group of men and women who had been raped, molested and lied to by their parish priests.

Francis spent around half an hour individually with each of the victims— a man and a woman each from Ireland, Germany, and England—whose names and ages were not disclosed. Prior to the one-on-one meetings, Francis presided over a Mass with the victims and members of the Papal Commission for the Protection of Children, led by Boston cardinal Sean O’Malley in which he apologized to the survivors for the “grave sins of clerical sexual abuse” committed against them.

“I beg your forgiveness, too, for the sins of omission on the part of Church leaders who did not respond adequately to reports of abuse made by family members, as well as by abuse victims themselves,” Francis said at the special mass according to the homily transcript released by the Holy See. “This led to even greater suffering on the part of those who were abused and it endangered other minors who were at risk.”

After the Mass and meetings, Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi briefed the press, explaining that while the content of each individual meeting should be kept private in accordance with the norms of pastor to parishioner confidentiality, one can be assured “they were profoundly emotional.” At times laughing nervously as he explained that he knew not what was said but that it was of utmost importance, Lombardi then went on to counter criticism from the clerical sex abuse victims’ groups that warned that the meet and greet was nothing more than a public relations stunt. “This body of opinion has always demonstrated its unwillingness to understand the pope’s actions,” he told reporters. “I’m not surprised by the reaction, but it is totally clear that it was not a public relations event. It was a profound spiritual encounter.”

Barbara Blaine, outreach director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests or SNAP disagrees. Even though SNAP, now 25 years old, is the most widely recognized global support group for clerical victims with more than 18,000 members, no one from their leadership was invited to meet with Francis.

Ahead of the meeting Blaine, who was raped by her parish priest as a teenager, posed a number of topics she would like to discuss with Francis, if only she were given a chance. First, she says she would like to tell the pope, “Stop talking about the crisis as though it’s past tense, and stop delaying while your abuse panels discusses details. You know the right thing to do. You don’t need a report.”

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DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Dominican Today

Santo Domingo.- The pedophilia scandals involving catholic clergy in the Dominican Republic were at the center of a heated debate Monday on the U.S. network CNN, whose commentator and Catholic priest Edward Beck cited the ongoing investigation of bishop Jozef Wesolowski, former Vatican envoy to the staunchly Catholic Caribbean nation of 10.5 million.

He said while it’s up to the governments of the Dominican Republic and of the prelate’s native Poland to request his extradition, both nations are seeking his prosecution by local judges.

The priest, speaking on CNN with Michaela Pereyra and John Berman, denied allegations of a cover-up, and said the Vatican is adhering to due process.

“If the allegations are credible, both Dominican Republic and Poland will seek extradition, but we’ve also seen how innocent people are accused,” the priest said, while Berman said the injuries “will unfortunately not be cured in the short term.”

Beck added that Pope Francis has shown a willingness to tackle the issue as evidenced y his meeting earlier today with six victims of abuse by Catholic priests.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
CBS St. Louis

Brett Blume (@brettblumekmox)
July 7, 2014

ST. LOUIS (KMOX) – This morning, officials with the St. Louis Archdiocese announced a settlement in a child abuse case against a former priest the same day it was supposed to go to trial.

A 22-year-old woman identified as Jane Doe had accused Joseph Ross of molesting her as a small girl between 1997 and 2001.

During a 5-minute press conference with no follow-up questions taken, spokesperson Katie Pesha said they were prepared to put credible witnesses on the stand to prove the plaintiff was lying about being abused by Father Joseph Ross.

“We do not say this lightly,” Pesha said. “Jane Doe 92 made allegations in this case that her own family members dispute. She said her father witnessed the abuse by Ross, and did nothing to stop it. Her father denied this allegation in open court.

So why not let all of that come out in open court?

Pesha said it’s time to move forward, and a trial would have wasted church resources.

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OHIO
SF Gate

TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) — Two organizations that help victims of clergy abuse are upset that a Roman Catholic priest convicted of killing a nun in Ohio back in 1980 will receive a full funeral Mass.

The groups including the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests are asking the Toledo diocese to reverse its decision allowing the usual protocol for diocesan priests’ funerals for the Rev. Gerald Robinson.

Robinson died Friday in a prison hospice unit, eight years after the 76-year-old was convicted in what church historians have characterized as the only documented case of a Catholic priest killing a nun.

Robinson remained a priest after he was convicted but was barred from ministry.

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VATICANO
Diario 24 Horas

Durante a manhã desta segunda-feira (7) o Papa Francisco, em missa dedicada à vítimas de abuso sexual implorou perdão em encontro com sobreviventes de “pecados e crimes graves” cometidos contra elas.

“Imploro seu perdão, também, pelos pecados de omissão em parte dos líderes da Igreja que não responderam adequadamente [às denúncias]”, disse o pontífice, que foi citado pelo Vaticano como expressando “tristeza” durante a homília em uma missa privada com seis vítimas pelos “pecados e crimes graves” do abuso sexual clerical contra eles.

Segundo informações da agência AP e da Agência Brasil, o Papa se encontrou com seis vítimas destes crimes, dois alemães, dois irlandeses e dois britânicos na Casa de Santa Marta, onde reside atualmente, com o encontro, que havia sido anunciado ainda em maio, que precedido pela missa.

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VATICAN CITY
TribTown

By FRANCES D’EMILIO Associated Press
First Posted: July 07, 2014

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis begged forgiveness Monday from the victims of clergy sex abuse as he held his first meeting with several abuse survivors. He also promised to hold bishops accountable for the protection of minors.

The pope celebrated a Mass with six survivors at his Vatican hotel Monday, but in his homily he didn’t spell out whether that accountability would include firing bishops and other prelates who systematically shuffled pedophile priests from parish to parish to avoid bringing shame upon the Catholic church.

Victims’ advocacy groups around the world have pressed the Vatican for decades to severely discipline any complicit church hierarchy.

Even while the pope spent his morning with the three men and three women, listening to their stories one by one, several victims’ groups blasted the meetings as being “a PR event.”

The Vatican quoted Francis as expressing personal “sorrow” in his homily at the private Mass with the victims for the “sins and grave crimes” of clerical sex abuse against them.

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VATICAN CITY
CNN

[with video]

(CNN) — Catholic bishops “will be held accountable” for failing to protect children from sexual abuse, Pope Francis said Monday, his strongest acknowledgment yet of what abuse victims have been saying for decades: that the cover-ups have often been as bad as the crimes.

But without strong action to back up those words, such groups are likely to view Francis’ comments as little more than lip service. Vatican officials have so far been reluctant to take action against bishops accused of concealing abuse.

In a homily given during a private Mass with six victims of church sexual abuse, Francis apologized for the abuse and asked for forgiveness.

“I beg your forgiveness, too, for the sins of omission on the part of Church leaders who did not respond adequately to reports of abuse made by family members, as well as by abuse victims themselves,” Francis said in the homily, according to a text of the statement provided by the Vatican.

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

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

For immediate release: Monday, July 7, 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 )

The brave, strong young woman who was abused by Fr. Joseph D. Ross, because Catholic officials protected him, has settled her civil case against the archdiocese.

We have the deepest admiration for this incredibly courageous young woman who prevailed against a mean-spirited onslaught by lawyers for Archbishop Robert Carlson. Her courage will inspire others to get help and expose Catholic officials who commit and conceal heinous crimes against children.

(Two-four SNAP members will discuss the settlement at 2 p.m. today outside the Cathedral on Lindell in the Central West End.)

Through this suit, she forced Archbishop Robert Carlson to disclose thousands of pages of long-secret church records about child molesting priests, nuns, seminarians and brothers.

Through this suit, she has shown that there are far more local church clerics and staff who have been accused of assaulting kids. Documents obtained through this suit reveal that at least 115 St. Louis Catholic priests and other employees have been accused of molesting children.

[St. Louis Post-Dispatch]

(Until this suit, the public knew of 51 proven, admitted and credibly accused St. Louis area predator priests and nuns, thanks to BishopAccountability.org, an online research and archive group.)

Through this suit, we suspect she has wrested millions from the archdiocese (though the amount of the settlement is confidential and we have no solid information about it). Given the horrific facts of this case, and the size of settlements in similar cases, we are confident in this estimate. Hopefully, that financial penalty might make one or two Catholic officials think twice before acting recklessly, callously, and deceitfully again in future clergy sex abuse cases.

And if anyone is uncertain about whether this priest assaulted this girl, ponder why Archbishop Carlson is willing to pay so much money to her, and to prevent her evidence from surfacing in court.

For decades, Catholic officials protected Ross despite his long and sordid history of sex crimes and misconduct. We suspect that dozens of families have suffered and are suffering because Carlson and his predecessors refused – and still refuse – to help law enforcement charge and convict this serial predator. If anyone is uncertain about whether local Catholic officials have reformed or are reforming on abuse, ponder why there’s precious little outreach to abuse victims in church pulpits bulletins and elsewhere.

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MISSOURI
St. Louis Public Radio

By RACHEL LIPPMANN

UPDATE: July 7, 9:30 a.m.

The St. Louis Archdiocese announced this morning that it had settled a civil lawsuit in the case of Doe Vs. Ross.

The case was set to go to court this morning starting with jury selection. But the Archdiocese called a press conference to announce the settlement. The terms of the settlement are confidential.

For more on the background of what was at stake in Doe vs. Ross, read below:

It’s been more than a decade since the sexual abuse scandal roiling the Catholic Church became public. From the very beginning, the church hierarchy has faced one main criticism – that it was more committed to protecting abusive priests than protecting potential victims. That complaint was bolstered by revelations that church officials ignored credible accusations against priests, shuffling them from parish to parish, all the while failing to tell parishioners about accusations and even convictions.

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MISSOURI
Daily Journal

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
First Posted: July 07, 2014

ST. LOUIS — A civil lawsuit against the Archdiocese of St. Louis and a former Catholic priest accused of sexual misconduct has been settled, sparing the church from possible public disclosure of details on hundreds of abuse complaints against its employees over decades.

The diocese announced the confidential settlement on Monday morning just as jury selection in the civil trial was set to begin. A 22-year-old woman identified only as Jane Doe had accused Joseph Ross of molesting her as a small girl between 1997 and 2001. Ross had previously pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting an 11- year-old boy in 1988 but was allowed to return to another parish.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 7 July 2014 (VIS) – This morning in the Holy See Press Office, the director, Fr. Federico Lombardi, S.J., gave a briefing on the meeting of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors and the Pope’s encounter with the victims of abuse, which took place on 6 and 7 July.

“On Sunday 6 July, all members of the Commission met at the Domus Sanctae Marthae, coordinated by Cardinal Sean Patrick O’Malley, O.F.M. Cap., with the collaboration of Msgr. Robert Oliver at an organisational level”, said Fr. Lombardi, who added that the issues under consideration were:
“proposals for the selection and appointment of new members, to integrate the Commission with representatives from other geographical areas; the statutes of the Commission; the need to institute an operative Office; the possibility of organising working groups on specific themes with the collaboration of specialists and other institutions”. He added that time had also been dedicated to the preparation of the Holy Father’s meeting with a number of victims, scheduled for the following morning, 7 July.

The next meeting is scheduled to take place during the month of October. It is hoped that new members of the Commission will be present.

He went on the refer to the meeting of the Pope on the morning of Monday, 7 July with various victims of sexual abuse by members of the clergy. “The invitees were six adults, three men and three women, from Germany, Ireland, and the United Kingdom. Each victim was accompanied by a family member or other companion. The invitation to meet the Pope had been made by Cardinal O’Malley in several countries where there exists a Church structure regarding the victims of sexual abuse”.

“The invitees arrived at the Domus Sanctae Marthae by the afternoon of Sunday 6 July. While they were dining in the refectory, the Holy Father appeared to address a first brief greeting to them. The Pope first offered them a Mass, celebrated in the Sanctae Marthae chapel at 7 a.m., attended also by the companions, members of the Commission and a limited number of other collaborators. The formula of the Mass was for peace and justice.

During Mass, the Pope pronounced a homily for them in Spanish; each participant was given a translation of the text in his or her own language. After Mass, the Pope greeted the individuals present, as usual”.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 7 July 2014 (VIS) – The following is the full text of the homily pronounced this morning by Pope Francis during the Mass celebrated in the Sanctae Marthae Chapel, attended by six victims of sexual abuse by members of the clergy.

“The scene where Peter sees Jesus emerge after a terrible interrogation… Peter whose eyes meet the gaze of Jesus and weeps… This scene comes to my mind as I look at you, and think of so many men and women, boys and girls. I feel the gaze of Jesus and I ask for the grace to weep, the grace for the Church to weep and make reparation for her sons and daughters who betrayed their mission, who abused innocent persons. Today, I am very grateful to you for having travelled so far to come here.

“For some time now I have felt in my heart deep pain and suffering. So much time hidden, camouflaged with a complicity that cannot be explained until someone realised that Jesus was looking and others the same … and they set about to sustain that gaze.

“And those few who began to weep have touched our conscience for this crime and grave sin. This is what causes me distress and pain at the fact that some priests and bishops, by sexually abusing minors, violated their innocence and their own priestly vocation. It is something more than despicable actions. It is like a sacrilegious cult, because these boys and girls had been entrusted to the priestly charism in order to be brought to God. And those people sacrificed them to the idol of their own concupiscence. They profane the very image of God in whose likeness we were created. Childhood, as we all know, young hearts, so open and trusting, have their own way of understanding the mysteries of God’s love and are eager to grow in the faith. Today the heart of the Church looks into the eyes of Jesus in these boys and girls and wants to weep; she asks the grace to weep before the execrable acts of abuse which have left life long scars.

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UNITED STATES
Spiritual Politics

Mark Silk | Jul 7, 2014

That’s the news out of Rome after Pope Francis’ meeting with six victims of clergy sexual abuse, and it’s potentially very big news. For the first time, a pontiff has acknowledged that the handling of abuse cases by bishops, and not merely the abuse itself, is a major part of the problem — and promised to sanction those who don’t do it right.

Here are the relevant sentences, from the homily Francis gave at Mass with the victims today in the Casa Santa Marta:

I beg your forgiveness, too, for the sins of omission on the part of Church leaders who did not respond adequately to reports of abuse made by family members, as well as by abuse victims themselves. This led to even greater suffering on the part of those who were abused and it endangered other minors who were at risk…All bishops must carry out their pastoral ministry with the utmost care in order to help foster the protection of minors, and they will be held accountable.

To be sure, “sins of omission” does not adequately describe what the bishops have done. The shifting of abusers from parish to parish, the concealment of evidence from ecclesiastical and civil authorities — these are sins of commission, and, in some cases, crimes.

Though he did not say so explicitly, the pope could well have been asking for personal forgiveness. As has been pointed out, most notably by the researchers at BishopAccountability.org., his own record in addressing clerical sexual abuse when he was Archbishop of Buenos Aires left a lot to be desired.

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VATICAN CITY
TheTablet

07 July 2014 by Hannah Roberts in Rome

Pope Francis met six victims of clerical sex abuse today to beg forgiveness for the “sacrilegious” crimes committed by the “sons and daughters of the Church who betrayed their mission, who abused innocent persons.”

The Pope told six victims of priestly abuse – two from Britain, two from Germany and two from Ireland – that the Church would “weep” for its “grave sin” and must make amends for the suffering it has caused.

“I ask for the grace to weep, the grace for the Church to weep and make reparation for her sons and daughters who betrayed their mission,” he said.

Despite his energetic and wide-ranging reforms, Francis has been accused of not taking concrete measures to show his determination to tackle the child abuse scandal. This was the first time he has met abuse victims since being elected pope 15 months ago.

But in his strongest words on the subject so far, he promised that bishops who fail to report or cover up abuse would be held accountable.

At a Mass at the Domus Sanctae Marthae, the guesthouse Francis has made his residence, he denounced the abuse of minors as “worse than despicable”. He said: “It is like a sacrilegious cult, because these boys and girls had been entrusted to the priestly charism in order to be brought to God.”

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VATICAN CITY
Rappler

Ella Ide, Agence France-Presse

Published 10:15 PM, Jul 07, 2014

VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis said the suicides of sex abuse victims weighed on his conscience on Monday, July 7, speaking of the “terrible darkness” inside the Church as he met with survivors and pledged to crack down on pedophilia.

At his long-awaited first meeting with victims, the Pope reached out to the tens of thousands of people abused by priests globally, telling them he was sorry for the “grave crimes of clerical sexual abuse committed against you.”

Three male and three female victims from Britain, Germany and Ireland slept in the pope’s residence near Saint Peter’s Basilica before breakfasting with him and spending half an hour each with him.

Francis said there was “no place in the Church’s ministry for those who commit these abuses,” adding: “I commit myself not to tolerate harm done to a minor by any individual, whether a cleric or not.”

In a moving speech written in his native Spanish, the 77-year-old spoke of the “toxic effect” of the abuse scandal, which he admitted had ruined many lives.

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MISSOURI
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Settlement reached in sex abuse case against Archdiocese of St. Louis, defrocked priest

By Lilly Fowler lfowler@post-dispatch.com 314-340-82210

A settlement has been reached in a civil lawsuit against the Archdiocese of St. Louis and a defrocked St. Louis priest.

The trial was to have begun this morning against the archdiocese and former priest Joseph D. Ross. A young woman who attended St. Cronan Catholic Church between 1997 and 2001 claimed Ross abused her when she was 5 or 6 years old.

The Ross case was poised to become only the second child sexual abuse case against the St. Louis archdiocese to make it to trial, and it would be the first since the priest abuse scandal erupted nationwide in 2002.

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VATIKAN
Tagesschau

Papst Franziskus hat erstmals Opfer sexuellen Missbrauchs durch katholische Geistliche getroffen. Bei der Morgenmesse mit je zwei Betroffenen aus Deutschland, Irland und Großbritannien bat Franziskus um Vergebung “für diese Sünden und schweren Verbrechen”.

Er bat um Verzeihung für jene Kirchenführer, die nicht angemessen auf Berichte über Missbrauch geantwortet hätten. In der Geistlichkeit sei kein Platz für jene, die Missbrauch begehen, sagte der Pontifex und bekräftigte, Vergehen an Minderjährigen nicht tolerieren zu wollen. Die Kirche müsse auch über die Priester-Ausbildung solche Sünden aus der Kirche verbannen.

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VATIKAN
Sueddeutsche

Opfervertretungen haben es schon lange gefordert: Jetzt hat Papst Franziskus im Vatikan mit Menschen gesprochen, die jahrelang von katholischen Geistlichen missbraucht wurden. Das Treffen heißen allerdings nicht alle Interessensverbände gut.

* Papst Franziskus empfängt erstmals Opfer sexuellen Missbrauchs durch katholische Geistliche
* Die sechs Opfer aus Deutschland, Großbritannien und Irland trafen sich mit dem Papst zu einem persönlichen Gespräch
* Opfervertreter kritisierten das Treffen als PR-Veranstaltung

Franziskus empfängt Missbrauchsopfer im Vatikan

Der Papst hat am Montag im Vatikan erstmals Menschen empfangen, die in der Vergangenheit Opfer sexuellen Missbrauchs durch katholische Geistliche wurden. Das Oberhaupt der katholischen Kirche traf sich mit zwei Deutschen sowie je zwei Briten und Iren in seiner privaten Residenz, wie der Heilige Stuhl mitteilte. Jedem einzelnen der Betroffenen widmete er sich in einem persönlichen Gespräch. Zuvor habe Franziskus mit den drei Männern und drei Frauen eine Messe in seiner Kapelle gefeiert. Opfervertreter hatten ein solches Treffen seit Langem gefordert.

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VATICAN CITY
Reuters

* Vows zero tolerance, says bishops will be held accountable
* Six attended morning Mass, told their stories to the pope
* Argentines say they are pained by not having been invited (Updates with meeting, details, homily)

By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY, July 7 (Reuters) – Pope Francis told victims of sexual abuse by Roman Catholic clerics the Church should “weep and make reparation” for crimes he said had taken on the dimensions of a sacrilegious cult.

“For some time now I have felt in my heart deep pain and suffering,” he said in his strongest comments yet on the crimes, delivered at a Mass with adult victims. “So much time hidden, camouflaged with a complicity that cannot be explained until someone realised that Jesus was looking.”

He said he would not tolerate abusers and bishops would be held accountable if they shielded them.

One prominent critic of the church’s long failure to act on the cases, and of the pope’s failure to meet victims earlier in his pontificate, said he must quickly follow up on the meeting with clear action to prove it was not just a ceremonial event.

Francis delivered his homily to six victims of abuse, two each from Ireland, Britain and Germany, before meeting all individually at a gathering that lasted nearly four hours, spending about 30 minutes with each one.

“I ask for the grace to weep, the grace for the Church to weep and make reparation for her sons and daughters who betrayed their mission, who abused innocent persons,” he said, according to a Vatican transcript.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Fox 2

JULY 7, 2014, BY CHRIS REGNIER

ST. LOUIS, MO (KTVI) – There is a major development in the case of a defrocked priest accused of sexual abuse.

FOX 2 has learned attorneys in the case have agreed upon a settlement. Jury selection was set to begin at 8 a.m. Monday morning. The Archdiocese of St. Louis plans to hold a news conference at 9 a.m. To stream it live visit: archstl.org/trial

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Riverfront Times

By Chad Garrison Mon., Jul. 7 2014

Nearly three years after it was first filed, a civil suit alleging sex abuse and a church cover-up heads to trial today.

The historic case — one of just a few local Catholic sex abuse cases to make it to trial — accuses the Archdiocese of St. Louis of reckless negligence in placing a convicted child molester in a church where it knew he was likely to abuse again. And that’s exactly what happened, according to a woman — now in her early twenties — who says she was sexually assaulted for years at the hands of Joseph Ross, the former priest of St. Cronan Church in the Forest Park Southeast neighborhood.

In 1988, prior to being installed as pastor at St. Cronan, Ross pleaded guilty to molesting a boy while working at Christ the King Church in University City. The archdiocese later sent Ross to St. Luke Institute, a Maryland center that treats priests for sexual disorders, before assigning him to St. Cronan.

It was while at St. Cronan in the late 1990s and early 2000s that Ross is accused of molesting Jane Doe, with the abuse beginning while the child was five or six and lasting until the age of 9. According to the lawsuit, Ross told the girl he was disciplining her on behalf of God and that she was helping him overcome his sexuality because he “liked boys more than girls.” Some of the sexual abuse — which allegedly included hand-to-genital, genital-to-genital and object-to-genital contact — occurred while the victim was in Ross’ care as her mother attended choir practice.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Patsy McGarry

Mon, Jul 7, 2014

Clerical child abuse survivor Marie Kane (43) this morning asked Pope Francis to remove Cardinal Seán Brady as Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland due to his handling of a clerical child abuse inquiry in 1975.

Now living in Carlow, her abuse by a priest took place in Bray for three years until she was 18.

“It’s a big thing with me that there are still members of the hierarchy there who were involved in the cover-up. I feel personally they (Church) cannot contemplate any change happening, there will be no success,” as long as such people remained in place, she told The Irish Times this morning.

Pope Francis: expected to meet six clerical sex abuse survivors this morning after Mass in the Vatican. Photograph: Luca ZennaroPope to meet six survivors of clerical sex abuse

She told Pope Franci s that “cover-up is still happening and you have the power to make these changes.” There were others besides Cardinal Brady, she said, but “Ididn’t want to go into a litany.” Pope Francis responded that “it was difficult to make these changes,” she said, “but it’s a big thing with me that Seán Brady is gone.”

In 1975, while investigating allegations of child sexual abuse against paedophile Fr Brendan Smyth, Cardinal Brady swore two boys to secrecy as part of a canon law investigation process. The allegations were not reported to police and Smyth continued to abuse children before being jailed in Belfast in 1994.

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VATICAN CITY
Merced Sun-Star

BY FRANCES D’EMILIO
Associated Press
July 7, 2014

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis has begged forgiveness from the victims of clergy sex abuse in his first meeting with several abuse survivors.

The Vatican quoted Francis as expressing personal “sorrow” in his homily at a private Mass with six victims Monday for the “sins and grave crimes” of clerical sex abuse against them.

Added the pope: “I beg your forgiveness, too, for the sins of omission on the part of Church leaders who did not respond adequately to reports of abuse made by family members, as well as by abuse victims themselves.”

“This led to even greater suffering on the part of those who were abused and it endangered other minors who were at risk,” the pope said, according to the English translation of his homily, delivered in Spanish.

Francis noted the abuse caused some victims to resort to addictions, or even suicide. “These deaths of these so beloved children of God weigh upon the heart and my conscience and that of the whole church,” he said.

Advocacy groups for clerical abuse survivors have denounced the Vatican repeatedly for failing to fire or otherwise discipline bishops and other prelates who routinely shuffled known pedophile priests from parish to parish without alerting parishioners to the danger.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Monday, July 7, 2014

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

As he has done for millions over the past year, today Pope Francis seems to have won the hearts of six clergy sex abuse victims with his humble, kind personality. Sadly, however, kids and Catholics need a leader who combines these traits with the toughness to fire complicit church officials.

We applaud each of the victims for having the strength to attend this meeting. And we especially applaud Marie Kane of Ireland, who chose to disclose her identity and speak to reporters. Speaking publicly about our abuse is one way we can help show other victims they have nothing to be ashamed of.

The Pope says the church should “make reparations” to victims. That’s secondary. Stopping abuse and protecting children comes first. And sadly, no child on earth is safer today because of this meeting.

With or without church officials, abuse victims can heal themselves. But only with church officials’ help can children protect themselves from child molesting clerics. That’s where the Pope must focus. And that’s where he’s refusing to act.

Reparations happen when the violence is over. But this is an on-going crisis. Children are being assaulted by clerics right now. Bishops are concealing these crimes right now. And Francis must take decisive action right now, action to expose and remove clerics who commit and conceal heinous crimes against the most vulnerable.

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CITTA’ DEL VATICANO
Bolletino

Santa Messa nella Cappella della Casa Santa Marta con alcune vittime di abusi sessuali da parte di esponenti del clero

Omelia del Santo Padre

Testo in lingua italiana

Testo in lingua inglese

Questa mattina alle ore 7, nella Cappella della Casa Santa Marta in Vaticano, Papa Francesco ha celebrato la Santa Messa alla quale hanno partecipato alcune persone vittime di abusi sessuali da parte di membri del clero, con alcuni famigliari e accompagnatori e con i membri della Pontificia Commissione per la Tutela dei Minori.
Nel corso della Celebrazione Eucaristica il Santo Padre ha tenuto l’omelia che riportiamo di seguito:

Omelia del Santo Padre

La imagen de Pedro viendo salir a Jesús de esa sesión de terrible interrogatorio, de Pedro que se cruza la mirada con Jesús y llora. Me viene hoy al corazón en la mirada de ustedes, de tantos hombres y mujeres, niños y niñas, siento la mirada de Jesús y pido la gracia de su orar. La gracia de que la Iglesia llore y repare por sus hijos e hijas que han traicionado su misión, que han abusado de personas inocentes. Y hoy estoy agradecido a ustedes por haber venido hasta aquí.

Desde hace tiempo siento en el corazón el profundo dolor, sufrimiento, tanto tiempo oculto, tanto tiempo disimulado con una complicidad que no, no tiene explicación, hasta que alguien sintio que Jesus miraba, y otro lo mismo y otro lo mismo… y se animaron a sostener esa mirada.

Y esos pocos que comenzaron a llorar nos contagiaron la consciencia de este crimen y grave pecado. Esta es mi angustia y el dolor por el hecho de que algunos sacerdotes y obispos hayan violado la inocencia de menores y su propia vocación sacerdotal al abusar sexualmente de ellos. Es algo más que actos reprobables. Es como un culto sacrílego porque esos chicos y esas chicas le fueron confiados al carisma sacerdotal para llevarlos a Dios, y ellos los sacrificaron al ídolo de su concupiscencia. Profanan la imagen misma de Dios a cuya imagen hemos sido creados. La infancia, sabemos todos es un tesoro. El corazón joven, tan abierto de esperanza contempla los misterios del amor de Dios y se muestra dispuesto de una forma única a ser alimentado en la fe. Hoy el corazón de la Iglesia mira los ojos de Jesús en esos niños y niñas y quiere llorar. Pide la gracia de llorar ante los execrables actos de abuso perpetrados contra menores. Actos que han dejado cicatrices para toda la vida.

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VATICAN CITY
The Guardian

Lizzy Davies in Rome
theguardian.com, Monday 7 July 2014

Leaders of the Roman Catholic church who failed to “respond adequately” to reports of child sex abuse by paedophile priests caused “even greater suffering” to their victims and will in future be held accountable, Pope Francis has said; in a clear rebuke to bishops who helped cover up the scandal and shield abusers.

In his strongest condemnation yet of the clerical abuse that shook the Catholic community around the world, Francis asked for forgiveness on behalf of the church not only for the perpretrators of abuse but those senior figures whose “sins of omission” he said had exacerbated the problem.

The sexual abuse of minors by priests and other men of the cloth was, he said, was a “crime and grave sin” that required the church to “make reparation”. The Argentinian pontiff delivered the powerful homily at a morning mass in the Vatican before a group of six abuse victims, including two from the UK. Sixteen months into his papacy, it was his first such encounter.

“It is something more than despicable actions,” Francis said of clerical sex abuse. “It is like a sacrilegious cult, because these boys and girls had been entrusted to the priestly charism in order to be brought to God. And those people sacrificed them to the idol of their own concupiscence.”

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VATICAN CITY
NBC News

BY CLAUDIO LAVANGA AND CASSANDRA VINOGRAD

ROME – Pope Francis begged forgiveness for the Church on Monday and cited the need for “reparation” as he met with victims who had suffered at the hands of Roman Catholic priests.

The pontiff invited six victims of abuse from Ireland, Germany and Britain to attend an early-morning private Mass at the Domus Sanctae Marthae, the residence next to St. Peter’s Basilica where he lives.

Francis called the abuse a “grave sin” decrying how it was hidden for “so much time” and “camouflaged with a complicity that cannot be explained.”

“I ask for the grace to weep, the grace for the Church to weep and make reparation for her sons and daughters who betrayed their mission, who abused innocent persons,” the pope said in his homily. “I beg your forgiveness, too, for the sins of omission on the part of Church leaders who did not respond adequately to reports of abuse.”

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Service

By Carol Glatz
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Asking for forgiveness, Pope Francis told abuse survivors that “despicable actions” caused by clergy have been hidden for too long and had been “camouflaged with a complicity that cannot be explained.”

“There is no place in the church’s ministry for those who commit these abuses, and I commit myself not to tolerate harm done to a minor by any individual, whether a cleric or not,” and to hold all bishops accountable for protecting young people, the pope said during a special early morning Mass for six survivors of abuse by clergy. The Mass and private meetings held later with each individual took place in the Domus Sanctae Marthae — the pope’s residence and a Vatican guesthouse where the survivors also stayed.

In a lengthy, off-the-cuff homily in Spanish July 7, the pope thanked the men and women — two each from Ireland, the United Kingdom and Germany, for coming to the Vatican to meet with him. The Vatican provided its own translations of the unscripted homily.

The pope praised their courage for speaking out about their abuse, saying that telling the truth “was a service of love, since for us it shed light on a terrible darkness in the life of the church.”

The pope said the scandal of abuse caused him “deep pain and suffering. So much time hidden, camouflaged with a complicity that cannot be explained.”

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VATIKAN
Nachrichen

ROM. Papst Franziskus hat am Montag drei Stunden mit Opfern von sexuellem Missbrauch durch Kleriker verbracht. Sechs Personen, je zwei aus Deutschland, Irland und England, waren von Kardinal Sean O Malley, dem Erzbischof von Boston, zu dem Treffen eingeladen worden.

Das Treffen sei intensiv und bewegend gewesen, berichtete Lombardi. Jedes Missbrauchsopfer habe tiefe Dankbarkeit für die Möglichkeit eines Gesprächs mit dem Papst gezeigt. Die sechs Personen nahmen an der Morgenmesse im vatikanischen Gästehaus Santa Marta teil, bei der Franziskus auf Spanisch eine Predigt hielt. Darin wurde das Problem des Missbrauchs durch Kirchenleute breit thematisiert, informierte der Sprecher. “Der Papst hat das Thema Missbrauch auf direkte Weise in Angriff genommen. Es handelt sich um einen starken und vielsagenden Text”, sagte der vatikanische Pressesprecher.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic Herald (UK)

Pope Francis has told abuse survivors that bishops who fail to protect children from abuse “will be held accountable”.

Speaking at Mass in the chapel of his residence, the Pope said: “There is no place in the Church’s ministry for those who commit these abuses, and I commit myself not to tolerate harm done to a minor by any individual, whether a cleric or not. All bishops must carry out their pastoral ministry with the utmost care in order to help foster the protection of minors, and they will be held accountable.”

He compared child abuse by priests and bishops to “a sacrilegious cult” and said that such crimes had “a toxic effect” on faith and hope in God.

“Some of you have held fast to faith, he said, “while for others the experience of betrayal and abandonment has led to a weakening of faith in God. Your presence here speaks of the miracle of hope, which prevails against the deepest darkness. Surely it is a sign of God’s mercy that today we have this opportunity to encounter one another, to adore God, to look in one another’s eyes and seek the grace of reconciliation.”

Six abuse survivors – two each from Ireland, Britain and Germany – attended the Mass. The Pope received afterwards them at his residence, the Domus Sanctae Marthae. Vatican spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi said Francis spent 30 minutes with each of the six visitors.

FULL TEXT OF POPE FRANCIS’S HOMILY

The scene where Peter sees Jesus emerge after a terrible interrogation… Peter whose eyes meet the gaze of Jesus and weeps… This scene comes to my mind as I look at you, and think of so many men and women, boys and girls. I feel the gaze of Jesus and I ask for the grace to weep, the grace for the Church to weep and make reparation for her sons and daughters who betrayed their mission, who abused innocent persons. Today, I am very grateful to you for having travelled so far to come here.

For some time now I have felt in my heart deep pain and suffering. So much time hidden, camouflaged with a complicity that cannot be explained until someone realized that Jesus was looking and others the same… and they set about to sustain that gaze.

And those few who began to weep have touched our conscience for this crime and grave sin. This is what causes me distress and pain at the fact that some priests and bishops, by sexually abusing minors, violated their innocence and their own priestly vocation. It is something more than despicable actions. It is like a sacrilegious cult, because these boys and girls had been entrusted to the priestly charism in order to be brought to God. And those people sacrificed them to the idol of their own concupiscence. They profane the very image of God in whose likeness we were created. Childhood, as we all know, young hearts, so open and trusting, have their own way of understanding the mysteries of God’s love and are eager to grow in the faith. Today the heart of the Church looks into the eyes of Jesus in these boys and girls and wants to weep; she asks the grace to weep before the execrable acts of abuse which have left life long scars.

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VATICAN CITY
New York Times

By JIM YARDLEY
JULY 7, 2014

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis held his first meeting with victims of clerical sex abuse on Monday, leading them at a private Mass at a small Vatican chapel where he asked for forgiveness and described the abuse as a “grave sin,” even as some critics criticized the meeting as a publicity stunt.

“Before God and his people, I express my sorrow for the sins and grave crimes of clerical sexual abuse committed against you,” Francis said during his homily at the Mass, according to a text released by the Vatican. “And I humbly ask forgiveness. I beg your forgiveness, too, for the sins of omission on the part of church leaders who did not respond adequately to reports of abuse made by family members, as well as by abuse victims themselves.”

Francis met with six victims — two each from Ireland, the United Kingdom and Germany — and first greeted them when they arrived at a Vatican guesthouse on Sunday. They reconvened on Monday morning for Mass and then ate breakfast together before the pope held individual meetings with the victims that, in total, lasted more than three hours.

In his homily, Francis vowed “not to tolerate harm done to a minor by any individual, whether a cleric or not,” and declared that bishops would be held accountable for protecting minors. He said the abuse scandals had had “a toxic effect on faith and hope in God.”

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ITALIA
Il Tempo

[Summary: Francesco Zanardi, a survivors of clergy abuse in Italy who heads the Abuse Network, said the meeting between the pope and victims of abuse is a “farce.” He said he didn’t care about the meeting and does not believe in a “turning point” at the Vatican. Zanardi said there are no legal instruments to combat clergy abuse even by the Italian State and there is no obligation for the bishops to report about.]

«L’incontro di Papa Bergoglio con le vittime degli abusi? Ne ero a conoscenza, ma non ci interessa. Allo stato attuale, è una farsa mediatica». Francesco Zanardi è stato una delle centinaia di minori vittime accertate di violenza sessuale perpetrata da sacerdoti, ed è presidente della Rete L’Abuso Onlus, che si occupa di dare sostegno e assistenza, legale e psicologica, a chi denuncia molestie o abusi. Zanardi non crede a una «svolta» da parte del Vaticano, nemmeno di fronte ai duri intendimenti esternati da Papa Francesco. L’assenza di strumenti giuridici per il contrasto del fenomeno, anche da parte dello Stato italiano, il non obbligo di denuncia da parte dei vescovi e, a suo dire, una vera e propria rete di copertura internazionale, farebbero dell’Italia una sorta di «paradiso legale dei pedofili».

Zanardi, lei non è convinto degli intendimenti di Papa Francesco, vero?

«Ad oggi no. Abbiamo delle vittime che non sono risarcite né seguite, e i sacerdoti non vengono nemmeno più spretati. Localmente le diocesi continuano a insabbiare questi casi, a fare il solito lavoro di stalking nei confronti delle vittime. Per i vescovi portare brutte notizie in Vaticano non è una bella cosa».

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VATICAN CITY
GMA Network (Philippines)

VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis, in his strongest words ever on the sexual abuse of minors by Roman Catholic clerics, told victims on Monday that the abuse was “camouflaged with a complicity” and begged forgiveness.

In the homily of a Mass with six victims of abuse, he said the Catholic Church “must weep and make reparation” for what it did to victims and begged forgiveness for what he said had become “a sacrilegious cult” that profaned God. —Reuters

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VATICAN CITY
Bangkok Post

AFP

VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis slammed the “complicity” of Catholic Church leaders in covering up sexual abuse on Monday, after his first meeting with victims of paedophile priests.

Pope Francis leads a mass at St Peter’s basilica in the Vatican, on June 29, 2014

The pope told the six he was sorry for “the sins and grave crimes of clerical sexual abuse committed against you”.

“So much time hidden, camouflaged, with a complicity that cannot be explained.”

“I know that these wounds are a source of deep and often unrelenting emotional and spiritual pain, and even despair. Some have even had to deal with the terrible tragedy of the death of a loved one by suicide,” he added.

“The deaths of these so beloved children of God weigh upon the heart and my conscience and that of the whole Church,” the 77-year-old said.

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VATICAN CITY
Washington Post

[open letter to the pope from four survivors of clergy abuse in Argentina]

BY MICHELLE BOORSTEIN July 7

Pope Francis met for the first time Monday with people sexually abused by priests, reportedly saying Mass with six survivors and then meeting privately with each for half an hour.

Immediate details were scarce, as representatives of the survivors and the Vatican said they’d not discuss the meeting until afterwards. Even the names of the survivors were not released; two each came from Great Britain, Ireland and Germany.

Vatican blogger Rocco Palmo reported that half were men and half were women. Reuters reported that the meeting was at the pope’s Vatican residence.

In April, Francis asked for forgiveness for “the damage” done by clergy abusers and created a commission, half of whose named members are women. One of the women is a survivor.

But survivors and their advocates – particularly in Argentina – have been critical of the pope, saying he never met with victims in his many years as a church leader there and didn’t comply with the Vatican’s demand that countries create guidelines for handling sex-abuse allegations.

No Argentine survivors were included in Monday’s meeting. It wasn’t clear how people were picked to attend.

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VATICAN CITY
The Journal News

[with video]

Eric J. Lyman, Special for USA TODAY 8:41 a.m. EDT July 7, 2014

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis met and prayed with six European victims of pedophile priests for the first time Monday, in what is being cast as a gesture designed to help change the mentality toward sexual abuse scandals that have severely tarnished the church’s image.

The encounter with victims from Britain, Ireland and Germany was low key. The victims met the pope briefly Sunday night, according to Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi, and then joined him for a private Mass on Monday morning. After that, he met with each in his private apartment for about 30 minutes of informal discussions about their individual experiences.

The Vatican did not release the names of the victims, and none attended Lombardi’s briefing to the media. However, the Vatican quoted Francis as expressing “sorrow” for the “sins and grave crimes” of the clerical abuse against them.

“I beg your forgiveness, too, for the sins of omission on the part of church leaders who did not respond adequately” to reports of sex abuse, the pope said.

The meetings are significant because it is the first time Francis — at least officially — has met with the victims of clerical sex abuse. It is also the first time such victims have met with a pontiff on the Vatican grounds.

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VATICAN CITY
Irish Independent

Pope Francis has begged forgiveness from the victims of clergy sex abuse in his first meeting with abuse survivors.

The Vatican quoted Francis as expressing “sorrow” in his homily at a private Mass with six victims today for the “sins and grave crimes” of clerical sex abuse against them.

The Pope added: “I beg your forgiveness, too, for the sins of omission on the part of Church leaders who did not respond adequately.”

Earlier, Vatican spokesman the Reverend Federico Lombardi said two Irish, two British and two German victims had met separately for about 30 minutes apiece with Francis at the pope’s Vatican hotel.

He said Francis had already greeted the six on Sunday evening at dinner.

Other abuse survivors not at the meeting said the encounter will not ease complaints that the Vatican has failed to punish bishops and other prelates who systemically covered up the abuse of minors.

A German survivor advocacy spokesman, Norbert Denef, called the meeting “nothing more than a PR event”.

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VATICAN CITY
KSPR

(CNN) — Pope Francis on Monday asked for forgiveness for the sins of church leaders who didn’t “respond adequately” to reports of clerical abuse. During a Mass with six victims of clerical sexual abuse, Francis said: “I beg your forgiveness, too, for the sins of omission on the part of church leaders who did not respond adequately to reports of abuse made by family members, as well as by abuse victims themselves. This led to even greater suffering on the part of those who were abused and it endangered other minors who were at risk.”

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VATICAN CITY
Miami Herald

BY FRANCES D’EMILIO
ASSOCIATED PRESS

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis has begged forgiveness from the victims of clergy sex abuse in his first meeting with several abuse survivors.

The Vatican quoted Francis as expressing “sorrow” in his homily at a private Mass with six victims Monday for the “sins and grave crimes” of clerical sex abuse against them.

Added the pope: “I beg your forgiveness, too, for the sins of omission on the part of Church leaders who did not respond adequately” to sex abuse reports.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

HOLY MASS IN THE CHAPEL OF THE DOMUS SANCTAE MARTHAE WITH A GROUP OF CLERGY SEX ABUSE VICTIMS

Monday, 7 July 2014

The scene where Peter sees Jesus emerge after a terrible interrogation… Peter whose eyes meet the gaze of Jesus and weeps… This scene comes to my mind as I look at you, and think of so many men and women, boys and girls. I feel the gaze of Jesus and I ask for the grace to weep, the grace for the Church to weep and make reparation for her sons and daughters who betrayed their mission, who abused innocent persons. Today, I am very grateful to you for having travelled so far to come here.

For some time now I have felt in my heart deep pain and suffering. So much time hidden, camouflaged with a complicity that cannot be explained until someone realized that Jesus was looking and others the same… and they set about to sustain that gaze.

And those few who began to weep have touched our conscience for this crime and grave sin. This is what causes me distress and pain at the fact that some priests and bishops, by sexually abusing minors, violated their innocence and their own priestly vocation. It is something more than despicable actions. It is like a sacrilegious cult, because these boys and girls had been entrusted to the priestly charism in order to be brought to God. And those people sacrificed them to the idol of their own concupiscence. They profane the very image of God in whose likeness we were created. Childhood, as we all know, young hearts, so open and trusting, have their own way of understanding the mysteries of God’s love and are eager to grow in the faith. Today the heart of the Church looks into the eyes of Jesus in these boys and girls and wants to weep; she asks the grace to weep before the execrable acts of abuse which have left life long scars.

I know that these wounds are a source of deep and often unrelenting emotional and spiritual pain, and even despair. Many of those who have suffered in this way have also sought relief in the path of addiction. Others have experienced difficulties in significant relationships, with parents, spouses and children. Suffering in families has been especially grave, since the damage provoked by abuse affects these vital family relationships.

Some have even had to deal with the terrible tragedy of the death of a loved one by suicide. The deaths of these so beloved children of God weigh upon the heart and my conscience and that of the whole Church. To these families I express my heartfelt love and sorrow. Jesus, tortured and interrogated with passionate hatred, is taken to another place and he looks out. He looks out upon one of his own torturers, the one who denied him, and he makes him weep. Let us implore this grace together with that of making amends.

Sins of clerical sexual abuse against minors have a toxic effect on faith and hope in God. Some of you have held fast to faith, while for others the experience of betrayal and abandonment has led to a weakening of faith in God. Your presence here speaks of the miracle of hope, which prevails against the deepest darkness. Surely it is a sign of God’s mercy that today we have this opportunity to encounter one another, to adore God, to look in one another’s eyes and seek the grace of reconciliation.

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VATICAN CITY
Malta Independent

Monday, 07 July 2014
by John Cordina

As a fresh shake-up – the second in as many years – appears imminent at the Vatican Bank, Maltese economist Joseph F.X. Zahra, entrusted by Pope Francis to serve in two entities seeking to reform the bank and the Vatican’s economic affairs, is facing accusations of being at the centre of a conspiracy.

According to sources which spoke to Italian newspaper Il Giornale and news magazine L’Espresso, Mr Zahra is heading a so-called “Maltese lobby” which is seeking to gain control over the Vatican Bank – whose official name is the Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR) – for their financial gain.

When contacted by The Malta Independent, Mr Zahra categorically rejected the accusations, but also said that they were to be expected given his involvement in the reform process of a financial institution whose history has often been marked by controversy.

“A clear mandate for reforms was given to the Reform Commission by Pope Francis last year. Sadly these are the expected reactions that one gets during a reform process. Experience has shown that a price one pays in any reform is that of fabricated stories and other allegations that are aimed at eroding credibility of the reform process.”

Mr Zahra stressed that he was not in a position to comment on the workings of the two entities the Pope appointed him to serve in, but a report on La Repubblica – a sister newspaper to L’Espresso – suggests that he may have been caught up in the crossfire as factions within the Holy See are divided over the direction the reforms should take.

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VATICAN CITY
Irish Independent

Sarah Mac Donald
Published 07/07/2014

ONE of the two Irish survivors of abuse who met Pope Francis this morning in the Vatican has described the meeting as a “huge vindication” for her.

Marie Kane, who has never spoken publicly about the abuse she suffered at the hands a curate in the archdiocese of Dublin, told the Irish Independent that the meeting with the Pope would help bring her healing.

“It was pretty amazing. There were no time constraints on the meeting and the only others in the room were Marie Collins, who came as a support to me and [Cardinal] Sean O’Malley who acted as translator,” she said.

In all six survivors of abuse, two from Ireland, two from Britain and two from Germany met the Pope individually this morning, the first official meeting the pontiff has held since his election in March 2013. The other Irish survivor was a man. His identity remains unclear at the moment.

According to Marie Kane, the Pope “listened intently” to her and “at times seemed frustrated by what he was hearing” about her experiences. Her case was covered in the Murphy Report into the mishandling of allegations of clerical abuse in the archdiocese of Dublin. Her abuser was taken out of ministry but has not been defrocked.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

A former Catholic priest has been committed to stand trial in the Sydney District Court on 10 counts of indecently assaulting a male. The order, involving former priest Peter John Ryan, 71, now living in western Sydney, was made on 30 June 2014 by a magistrates court. The alleged victim was a student of St Stanislaus College boys’ school, New South Wales.

The magistrate, in Bathurst Local Court, placed Ryan on a list for a preliminary procedure, to be held soon with a judge in Sydney’s Downing Centre District Court. The Sydney judge would then schedule the Ryan case for subsequent steps in the prosecution process, probably months later.

The Bathurst magistrate authoritesed Ryan to remain on bail. The bail conditions include Ryan reporting to a particular Sydney police station twice a week. He is banned from approaching or contacting the alleged victim and any prosecution witnesses.

Ryan was charged earlier in 2014 by police officers attached to Strike Force Belle, which was established in 2008 to investigate allegations regarding St Stanislaus’ College at Bathurst, 200 kilometres west of Sydney, in the 1970s and 1980s.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

During this week’s meeting, the Council of Cardinals discussed the IOR, the Governorate, the Secretariat of State and the role of women, lay people and couples in the Vatican. Procedures for the appointment of bishops were also discussed.The overall tone of the meeting was “free, frank and friendly”

IACOPO SCARAMUZZI
VATICAN CITY

The nine cardinals assisting the Pope with the reform of the Roman Curia and the government of the universal Church, the “C9” as it is called, will meet again in September following a four-day meeting, which ran from Tuesday to today, the fifth since the start of the pontificate. Other meetings will also be held in December and February but it is not certain that the February gathering will give birth to the new apostolic constitution that would replace the “Pastor Bonus”, the blueprint for the Vatican’s various congregations, pontifical councils and offices. The Pope and his cardinal advisors discussed the role of women, lay people and married couples in the Roman Curia and of the Nunciatures, with a focus on the process for the nomination of bishops. In terms of the IOR, changes are expected in the Institute’s governance and these will be presented at a press conference with Cardinal George Pell, the Vatican Secretary of the Economy, next Wednesday.

The C9 will next meet from 15 to 17 September, from 9 to 11 December and from 9 to 11 February, the Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi said during a press briefing. But Fr. Lombardi did not confirm whether the Council of Cardinals would conclude its work at the last of these meetings: “It is too premature to say whether it is the final meeting,” he said. “No drafts have been produced for a new apostolic constitution,” Fr. Lombardi said. “We are moving along at a steady pace but more time is needed” before the Council concludes its work. The Vatican spokesman denied one journalist’s suggestion that the work of the C9 is slowing down. The downside of an assembly that “represents the Church and all its various components across various continents and throughout the world” is that meetings cannot “last that long” and the group’s work “cannot be completed quickly.” There is no sense of urgency in the process of Church reform but the Pope is, of course, free to decide to speed things up.

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MISSOURI
KSDK

ST. LOUIS (AP) – A civil lawsuit against the Archdiocese of St. Louis and a former Catholic priest accused of sexual misconduct goes to trial Monday in a case that could reveal further details on hundreds of abuse complaints against church employees over decades.

A 22-year-old woman identified only as Jane Doe is accusing Joseph Ross of molesting her as a small girl when she attended St. Cronan Church between 1997 and 2001. It’s one of only two child sexual abuse cases against the St. Louis archdiocese to go to trial without being dismissed our settled out of court.

The woman’s lawyers hope to introduce evidence from other abuse complaints after the archdiocese was ordered to turn over records in those cases, but the judge has set limits on the use of that information.

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VATICAN CITY
Irish Central

Patrick Counihan @irishcentral July 07, 2014

Pope Francis has concluded his first meeting with victims of clerical abuse – two of them from Ireland.

Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley was present when the Pontiff met six clerical abuse survivors from Ireland, Britain and Germany in Rome.

Cardinal O’Malley had earlier attended a meeting of the so-called G8 council of cardinals on reforming the governance of the Catholic Church.

The American cardinal and other members of the Child Protection Commission, including Irish survivor Marie Collins, were expected to attend the papal Mass.

The Pope met the victims as a Vatican commission moves to address the problem of clerical sex abuse in developing countries.

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VATICAN CITY
IOL

July 7 2014
By Philip Pullella

Vatican City – Pope Francis holds his first meeting with victims of sexual abuse by priests on Monday, an encounter that some say should have happened long ago, and victims from his native Argentina say they are pained over their exclusion.

Six victims, two each from Ireland, Britain and Germany, will attend the pope’s private morning Mass in his Vatican residence and then meet with him afterwards, according to people who organised the meeting.

Francis has said he would show zero tolerance for anyone in the Catholic Church who abused children, including bishops, and compared sexual abuse of children by priests to a “Satanic Mass”.

But he has also come under fire from victims groups for saying in an interview this year that the Roman Catholic Church has done more than any other organisation to root out paedophiles in its ranks.

Why the pope waited nearly 16 months since his election in March 2013 to meet with sexual abuse victims is not clear, particularly as his predecessor, former Pope Benedict, met several times with them during his trips outside Italy. …

“I think its very important that the pope meet with victims,” said Anne Doyle of Bishops Accountability, a US-based documentation centre on abuse in the Catholic Church.

“We know that this pope is capable of compassion and his refusal to meet with sexual abuse victims so far has been inconsistent with the mercy he has shown with so many marginalised. This is something that he had to rectify,” she said.

Victims groups have said the pope had a spotty record of dealing with abuse cases in Argentina when he was archbishop of Buenos Aires, and victims from that country sent him a letter asking him why they were not invited.

“This fact pains us,” four victims of sexual abuse by priests said in a letter sent to the pope and made available to Reuters.

“You must know the things that happen here and why the victims have been fighting for so many years, as well as the new cases that are surfacing,” said the letter, signed by four victims.

Doyle, of Bishops Accountability, said the pope should quickly follow up with “several core actions” to show that the meeting is not merely ceremonial.

“He definitely must explicitly tell his bishops that all Church officials must report crimes and suspected crimes to civil authorities,” pointing that in a number of developing countries it is up to the victim to report sexual crimes.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Spectator

Alexander Chancellor

One problem from which I am confident I don’t suffer is paedophilia. I have always liked picking up babies and hugging them, especially my own children or grandchildren, but never in the ‘Rolfie deserves a cuddle’ kind of way. The idea of sexually lusting after children seems to me not only abhorrent but almost unimaginable. If anything is against nature, it must be to regard children as sexual objects.

I have always known of course, that paedophiles exist. I was aware of it when, as an eight-year-old, I went to a prep school in Berkshire where the headmaster would snog the prettiest boys (alas, not me) in their dormitory beds and where the violin teacher had a habit of placing his hand on my thigh. But this was fairly innocuous stuff, and only later did I learn that some paedophiles have urges so strong that they will not or cannot keep them within tolerable bounds.

Accordingly, parental panic about paedophilia has sometimes brought about controversial responses such as ‘Megan’s Law’ in the United States, which decreed that the identities of convicted sexual offenders should be made known to their neighbours, and such as Rebekah Brooks’s copycat campaign in the News of the World for the ‘naming and shaming’ of such people in Britain. But neither had any perceptible effect on the amount of sex offending that went on, and even Brooks herself later admitted that her campaign ‘could have been done better’ and that it had ‘carried risks of vigilantism’.

In addition to all that, we all became aware in recent years of the many cases of the sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests and of the shock that this created within the Church (possibly, in my opinion, being a significant factor in the abdication of Pope Benedict XVI, who in his previous Vatican job as Prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith had to read all the revolting dossiers on this scandal pouring in from around the world). Nevertheless, despite everything, I had continued to regard paedophilia as something that didn’t affect most people, a perversion confined to an unfortunate few, and an evil that was at least limited in its effects.

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VATICAN CITY
BBC news

Pope Francis has met the victims of sexual abuse by priests for the first time since his election last year.

He received the six victims – two each from Ireland, Britain and Germany – at his residence after they attended a private morning Mass in the Vatican.

The Pope has vowed to punish clergy who have abused children, describing their actions as “satanic”.

The Church has been heavily criticised for failing to tackle abuse, following a series of scandals worldwide.

Some victims have also criticised Pope Francis for having failed to meet their representatives sooner.

The Pope’s predecessor, Pope Benedict, met abuse victims several times on trips outside Italy.

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VATICAN CITY
RTE News

Pope Francis is, for the first time, meeting survivors of clerical child sexual abuse, including two Irish victims, in the Vatican today.

The meetings are taking place in the guest house inside the Vatican where the Pontiff lives.

They follow sharp exchanges earlier this year between UN panels and the Holy See over the Catholic Church’s cover-ups of many abuse scandals.

There has been no official confirmation of today’s encounters, but Pope Francis broke with protocol last May by revealing his plans to meet abuse survivors around now.

RTÉ News understands he is holding one-to-one meetings with six unnamed guests: a female and a male survivor each from Ireland, England and Germany.

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COLORADO
The Denver Post

By Jordan Steffen
The Denver Post
POSTED: 07/05/2014

Investigators would have found numerous inappropriate photos of a 13-year-old girl posted on the walls of her math teacher’s office, but administrators at her Douglas County school never called them.

At least two students and their parents warned school officials about an inappropriate relationship between the teacher and his student. But instead of calling law enforcement or child welfare services — as required under a state law to help prevent child abuse — two former administrators at Rocky Heights Middle School punished children who reported the abuse, and failed to trigger an investigation that could have stopped the 30-year-old from preying on the girl for months before he raped her for the first time, according to a lawsuit filed by the girl’s parents.

Mandatory reporters, like the school’s then-principal, Patricia Dierberger, and assistant principal, James McMurphy, are required by law to report suspected child abuse. Failing to do so can result in criminal charges and up to six months in jail. But Dierberger and McMurphy will likely never face that charge or punishment for their alleged inaction.

In fact, few mandatory reporters — such as teachers, nurses, coaches and clergy members — ever face punishment for failing to report suspected child abuse, a Denver Post review has found. And the punishment for failing to report can be as little as $50.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Michael Kelly
Published 07/07/2014

When Pope Francis meets survivors of clerical sexual abuse today it will be the Pontiff’s first opportunity to hear of their suffering first-hand. The carefully planned encounter, which takes place in the Vatican guesthouse where the Pope has made his home, will be an opportunity for survivors to underline the fact that church mishandling of complaints against priests compounded their suffering.

Vatican officials see the meeting as a key moment in reassuring survivors that the Vatican and the Pope is determined to continue to act decisively on the issue of abuse. The Pontiff will surely be in listening mode, and survivors are likely to speak not only of their experiences of abuse but also to impress upon the Vatican what still needs to be done.

Everyone acknowledges that in places like Ireland, Britain and the US, the church now has first-rate policies in place to deal with abuse. But there is significant unfinished business that Pope Francis will have to tackle if his strong words on abuse are to be taken seriously.

For a start, the church’s ‘zero tolerance’ stance on abuse is undermined by the fact that, while abusive priests are immediately removed and reported to the civil authorities, there has been no meaningful sanction taken against bishops who have been shown to have covered up abuse.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

Dolan confirmed the deposition, but declined to comment. In June, he was grilled in the case of Joseph Ross, a former pastor. Ross was kicked out of the church in 2002 after Dolan began overseeing claims of abuse against the Archdiocese of St. Louis.

BY BILL HUTCHINSON NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Monday, July 7, 2014,

Timothy Cardinal Dolan has been deposed in the case of a defrocked Missouri priest facing a civil trial Monday for molesting a girl beginning when she was 5.

Dolan was grilled last month in the St. Louis case of Joseph Ross, the former pastor of St. Cronan Church. Ross pleaded guilty in 1986 to misdemeanor sexual abuse of a young boy. Despite his conviction, he was allowed to remain a priest for a decade.

He was kicked out of the church in 2002 after Dolan began overseeing claims of abuse against the Archdiocese of St. Louis. Dolan confirmed the deposition, but declined to comment.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

07 JULY 2014

The Clerical Abuse NI campaigner has vowed never to rest until the Stormont Executive takes responsibility for victims like himself failed by the state. He is demanding an overarching inquiry into clerical abuse, he tells Joanne Sweeney.

Q. What’s the current situation with the Clerical Abuse NI campaign?

A. The be-all and end-all of all of this is that we want a clerical abuse inquiry. I was abused by a parish priest in the village of Donagh in Co Fermanagh, where I grew up — Canon Peter Duffy. But I also have to join with all the other victims in Northern Ireland who have been left out of the Historical Abuse Inquiry that’s currently taking place in Banbridge, Co Down.

Q. What’s the current state of play?

A. I’m not hopeful. It’s very disappointing that the Northern Ireland government has refused, despite our best efforts, to even respond to the meeting that took place with Junior Ministers Jennifer McCann and Jonathan Bell well over a year ago now. I’ve recently written directly to the first and deputy first minister and the response has not been anything better than I’ve been receiving over the last year.

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VATICAN CITY
International Business Times

By Vittorio Hernandez | July 7, 2014

Pope Francis will make history again on Monday, July 7, by being the first head of the Roman Catholic Church to meet with sex victims of paedophile priests. The move represents a big leap forward for the church which had been accused in the past of covering up the sex abuse cases involving clergy by moving those accused to other parishes or dioceses and not cooperating with authorities.

The pontiff will meet with six victims from Britain, Germany and Ireland at his private residence. Victim support groups, however, has criticised the pope for not acting earlier.

Along with the meeting, a Vatican commission created by Pope Francis is moving to address the problem, especially in developing countries. The commission is made up of experts from eight countries, including sex abuse victims Marie Collins from Ireland who was assaulted by a hospital chaplain when she was 13 years old, a German psychologist, an Italian cannon law professor, British and French psychiatrists and Cardinal Sean O’Malley, archbishop of Boston where a sex abuse scandal broke in 2002.

The meeting could possibly open up the commission to experts from developing nations and the Southern Hemisphere where paedophilia is considered taboo and there is less openness in reporting sex abuse cases.

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WASHINGTON
Seattle Times

Seattle Times Editorial

THE Washington state Constitution is unequivocal about public access to courts. Section 10 reads, “Justice in all cases shall be administered openly, and without unnecessary delay.”

But in practice, it is not so simple. There is an obvious tension between institutional transparency and individual requests for privacy. Courts, for example, protect psychiatric-commitment records and allow plaintiffs in sensitive civil cases to proceed with initials only, yet they conduct child welfare hearings in the open.

That balancing act is now threatened by a disturbing proposal to throw the blanket of secrecy over a vastly larger set of court records. A judicial subcommittee has proposed a change to a court rule, General Rule 15, which was heard on Monday by the full Supreme Court. The court should reject the change.

The proposal lowers the legal threshold for sealing an array of records, particularly in civil cases, and it would grant near-total secrecy to criminal cases that don’t end in a conviction.

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OHIO
NBC 24

TOLEDO — A plan to hold a traditional funeral reserved for Catholic priests for Father Gerald Robinson is raising controversy among parishioners. Robinson is the priest who was convicted in 2006 of murdering Sister Margaret Ann Pahl just before Easter in 1980.

Despite being found guilty of killing Sister Pahl, Father Gerald Robinson remained an ordained priest in the Roman Catholic Church until his death last Friday. In a statement released Saturday, the Catholic Diocese of Toledo said Robinson will receive the ceremony reserved for all priests at the time of their passing.

Full statement from the Catholic Diocese of Toledo:

Father Gerald Robinson, a priest of the Diocese of Toledo died July 4, 2014. He was ordained May 30, 1964 and served across the diocese during his ministry.

At the time of his death, Father Robinson was in the custody of the Ohio Department of Corrections following his conviction for murder in 2006.

Father Robinson’s funeral will follow the usual protocol for a diocesan priest’s funeral. Diocesan Administrator Father Charles Ritter said “Whether in the eyes of God Father Robinson was or was not guilty of this crime, I do not know. I do know that he is the work of God’s hands, as are we all. He was a sinner, as are we all. He was a baptized member of the body of Christ, and he was, and remains an ordained priest of the Roman Catholic Church. This is the context in which his funeral will take place. “

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UNITED STATES
Central Florida Future

By Kendra Semmen, Staff ColumnistOn July 6, 2014

Church is a place you should feel safe leaving your children at, but reports of child abuse go beyond the Catholic church to affect almost every religion.

People may want to think twice before sending their children to Sunday school, or any church activities, if parents aren’t in the vicinity to ensure protection.

In the U.S., 16,787 people have said that they were abused as children by priests between 1950 and 2012, according to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, as reported by PBS. However, child abuse within the church isn’t exclusive to the Catholic denomination.

A lawsuit was filed in May that stated that a missionary with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints abused a woman in the mid-1980s, according to The Desert Sun.

And although Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t have Sunday school, child abuse still goes on. A woman was awarded $28 million by a jury after reporting being abused by a congregant in the North Fremont Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Northern California in 2012, according to The New York Times.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
St. Louis Public Radio

[with copy of the lawsuit]

By RACHEL LIPPMANN

It’s been more than a decade since the sexual abuse scandal roiling the Catholic Church became public. From the very beginning, the church hierarchy has faced one main criticism – that it was more committed to protecting abusive priests than protecting potential victims. That complaint was bolstered by revelations that church officials ignored credible accusations against priests, shuffling them from parish to parish, all the while failing to tell parishioners about accusations and even convictions.

Monday, in circuit court in downtown St. Louis, jury selection gets underway in Doe vs. Ross – a civil case that accuses the St. Louis Archdiocese of exactly that kind of negligence.

This is not the first time the Archdiocese of St. Louis has faced these allegations. Rebecca Randles, an attorney who has handled priest sexual assault cases throughout Missouri, said at least 80 cases have either been settled or otherwise disposed of in St. Louis. This rundown is meant to outline this particular case – Doe vs. Ross – which Randles said is only the second case in Missouri to go to trial.

WHO ARE THE PARTIES INVOLVED?

Joseph Ross – A defrocked priest now living in Little Rock, Ark., according to court records.

The Archdiocese of St. Louis – The non-profit corporation that serves as the seat of the Catholic Church in St. Louis.

Archbishop Robert Carlson – The man in charge of the day-to-day operations of the non-profit corporation known as the Archdiocese of St. Louis. Carlson was dismissed as a party to the suit in April 2014.

Jane Doe 92 ­– The pseudonym for a young Catholic woman who claims that Joseph Ross repeatedly raped and sodomized her between 1997 and 2001 while he was a priest at St. Cronan in the Botanical Heights neighborhood. Doe was 19 when she filed this suit in 2011.

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VATICAN CITY
Mic

By Eileen Shim

The news: Since Francis’s papacy began last February, he’s vowed to fix the Catholic Church’s ongoing issues with sexual abuse. And while critics argue he’s been relatively quiet on the issue, on Monday Pope Francis will be taking an important step towards addressing the issue: meeting with survivors of sexual abuse by Catholic priests.

Six survivors from Britain, Germany and Ireland will say mass with the pope at his personal chapel and enjoy a private audience with him afterwards. This will be Francis’ first meeting with sexual abuse victims. His predecessors, Benedict XVI and John Paul II, did so several times but failed to make any real progress on the problem. But with a progressive track record in his young papacy, Francis may have an easier time affecting real change on this terrible problem.

The pope is renewing efforts to address the scandal. Monday’s encounter will follow the meeting of the pope’s special international commission to advise him on the issue and develop plans to address the problems. In May, Francis also announced that three bishops were under investigation, although he didn’t clarify whether they were accused of abuse or for covering up other priests’ crimes.

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