ABUSE TRACKER

AUSTRALIA
Sky News

Cardinal George Pell removed an expression of regret from a letter to the victim of a pedophile priest because it was ‘illogical’ when the Catholic Church was disputing whether any abuse occurred, an inquiry has heard.

The royal commission into child sexual abuse saw the tracked changes of edits made by Dr Pell to a draft letter to John Ellis, a former altar boy who suffered years of abuse at the hands of a Sydney priest, Father Aidan Duggan.

Mr Ellis said the letter, which he received on Christmas Eve, 2002, felt like the church was slamming the door in his face by rejecting his complaint.

The original draft, prepared by the church’s former director of professional standards John Davoren, suggested an expression that the church “very much regret any hurt that you have experienced”.

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AUSTRALIA
Radio New Zealand News

Australia’s most senior Catholic cleric, Cardinal George Pell, has told an inquiry into child sexual abuse he should have exercised greater oversight in the case of a victim who sued the church.

John Ellis was abused by a priest in the 1970s and in 2007 lost his case against the Catholic Church, with a judge ruling it was not a legal entity which could be sued.

Conflicting accounts exist of what Cardinal Pell, the former Archibishop of Sydney, knew about the case when Mr Ellis sued the Church.

The hearing room at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Sydney was packed to capacity the cardinal gave his highly anticipated testimony, the ABC reports.

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POLAND
The News

Former Polish prime minister Hanna Suchocka has been nominated by Pope Francis as a member of an eight-strong group to fight sexual abuse of minors within the Roman Catholic Church.

There are four women and four men in the group, including Marie Collins, who was abused by priests in her native Ireland in the 1960s and has campaigned for the protection of children and for justice for victims of clerical pedophilia.

Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley, Baroness Sheila Hollins, a British psychiatrist, French child psychiatrist Catherine Bonnet, Italian canon law professor Claudio Papale and two Jesuit priests, Argentine moral theologian Humberto Miguel Yanez and German psychologist Hans Zollner also make up the group.

Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi has said that the group would examine options such as criminal action against offenders, education on child exploitation, most effective practices to screen priests and a clear definition of civil and clerical duties within the Church.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Belfast Telegraph

24 MARCH 2014

A Dublin-born former priest who spent more than two decades on the run in Spain is to be sentenced in the UK for sexually assaulting seven children.

Francis Paul Cullen, 85, was extradited to the UK last year to face charges of indecent assault and other sexual offences after being traced to Tenerife.

Cullen, who was located with the help of the Catholic Church’s safeguarding board, pleaded guilty last month to 21 charges relating to offences committed between 1957 and 1991.

The crimes against children aged between six and 16 took place in the UK while Cullen was a priest in Mackworth and Buxton, both Derbyshire, and Hyson Green, Nottingham.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Derby Telegraph

FORMER Derby priest Francis Paul Cullen is to be sentenced today for child sex offences.

The 85-year-old, who was parish priest at Christ the King, in Mackworth, from 1960 to 1978, pleaded guilty to 21 sexual abuse offences in February.

Four of his victims were altar boys during his time in Derby.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

Cardinal George Pell has told an inquiry that insurance for priests might be ‘a useful development’.

Dr Pell has also told the royal commission into child sexual abuse that the Catholic church could set up a corporate structure that would allow church officials to be sued for offences.

He proposed the establishment of a ‘corporation sole’ to appoint and supervise church employees and agreed with a suggestion from Commission chair, Justice Peter McClellan, that priests should take out insurance, in the same way that other professions are required to do.

‘I think that might be a very useful development,’ Dr Pell said.

Dr Pell said the church had the same rights as an Australian citizen and should be treated like a citizen or community in any legal proceedings.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

BY ANNETTE BLACKWELL
March 24, 2014

“I am not the sort of fellow who runs around blaming people for misunderstandings,” Cardinal George Pell said on Monday.

That was midway through his evidence to the child sexual abuse royal commission where he blamed a “muddled” John Davoren, the director of his Professional Standards Office, for giving him inconsistent advice on John Ellis.

Mr Ellis sued the cardinal and the trustees of the Sydney archdiocese for the abuse he suffered as an altar boy at the hands of a priest in the 1970s.

Cardinal Pell also dumped on the former vicar-general and chancellor of the Sydney Archdiocese, Monsignor Brian Rayner, “who continually got hold of the wrong end of the stick”.

The monsignor had been appointed by the cardinal but was fired after two years because the “job was completely beyond him”.

Cardinal Pell also said he had great respect for his private secretary Dr Michael Casey but said the good doctor was only surmising when he told the commission last week his boss would have known what money an abuse victim was being offered.

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AUSTRALIA
New Tang Dynasty Television

SYDNEY, March 24, 2014 (AFP) –
Australia’s Catholic Cardinal George Pell said Monday that some in the Vatican once saw accusations of child sex abuse by priests as coming from “enemies of the church to make trouble”.

Pell, recently appointed by Pope Francis to head a new Vatican finance ministry, was giving evidence to a Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Australia.

“The attitude of some people in the Vatican was that if accusations were being made against priests, they were being made exclusively or at least predominantly by enemies of the church to make trouble and therefore should be dealt with sceptically,” he said.

“And I think there was more of an inclination to give the benefit of the doubt to the defendent rather than listening seriously to the complaints.”

Pell said he felt that the church in Australia did not share this attitude to the same degree, and during the 1990s forged ahead in dealing with allegations of sex abuse by members of the Catholic Church.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian (UK)

Helen Davidson
theguardian.com, Monday 24 March 2014

A defensive Cardinal George Pell gave evidence to the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse on Monday, claiming ignorance of key aspects of the infamous John Ellis case and rebuffing much of the testimony given by church representatives in previous days.

Pell, appearing at the public hearing before taking up a senior role at the Vatican next Monday, described one former colleague as “a muddler” who was “sometimes illogical”.

The hearing is examining the Catholic church’s response to allegations made by the former altar boy John Ellis, who was abused by his parish priest, Father Aiden Duggan, in Sydney between 1974 and 1979. Ellis sued the church in 2007 but lost when the supreme court ruled that the church an entity could not be sued.

Senior counsel assisting the commission Gail Furness first took Pell through the minutes of several meetings of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference in the 1990s which discussed the development of the church’s Towards Healing process and other responses to claims of child sexual abuse by clergy.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian (UK)

Helen Davidson
theguardian.com, Monday 24 March 2014

Cardinal George Pell rebuffed the testimony of former colleagues who said he was far more aware of the details of the infamous John Ellis case than he maintains as he appeared before a child abuse inquiry in Sydney.

The cardinal, appearing at the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse, also defended the legal strategy the church deployed when Ellis sued.

Pell, who will take up a senior role at the Vatican on Monday, dismissed a suggestion by senior counsel assisting the commission that his proclaimed ignorance of key details – including the amount requested by Ellis in compensation – was “inconceivable” given his deep involvement in the case.

The commission’s eighth public hearing is examining the Catholic church’s response to allegations made by the former altar boy Ellis, who was abused by his parish priest, Father Aidan Duggan, in Sydney between 1974 and 1979. Ellis sued the church in 2007 but lost when the supreme court ruled the church as an entity could not be sued.

On Monday Pell laid much of the blame for the bungling of the Ellis case at the feet of the former director of the NSW-ACT professional standards office John Davoren and the former vicar general and chancellor of the Sydney Catholic archdiocese, Monsignor Brian Rayner. On Monday morning Pell described Davoren as “a muddler” who was “sometimes illogical”.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Boston.com

Pope Francis names Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley and seven others to new Vatican anti-abuse commission

By John L. Allen Jr. / Globe Staff / March 22, 2014

Pope Francis today named Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley of Boston and seven other figures with reputations as reformers to guide a new Vatican anti-abuse commission, a move intended to demonstrate resolve about confronting the child sexual abuse scandals that have rocked Catholicism.

O’Malley, already the lone American on the pope’s “G8” council of cardinal advisers, is also the lone American among the commission members announced today. O’Malley’s new responsibility is not a full-time position, meaning he will not move to Rome and will continue to serve as the Archbishop of Boston.

The lineup for the new “Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors” includes Irish lay woman Marie Collins, who has said she was raped at the age of 13 by a hospital chaplain. When she tried to report the abuse years later, she has said, she was told by church officials that “protecting the good name” of the priest was more important than remedying a “historical” wrong. …

In early March, the pontiff gave an interview to an Italian newspaper in which he seemed defensive about criticism of the church’s record, saying it “is perhaps the lone public institution to have moved with transparency and responsibility . . . yet the church is the only one to have been attacked.”

Just days later, the American advocacy group BishopAccountability.org released records purporting to show that the future pope had failed to act aggressively on five cases involving alleged abuser priests in Argentina, though only one of those priests was actually ever under his direct authority.

Sources told the Globe that Francis took a direct interest in the makeup of the anti-abuse commission, personally phoning subordinates in the Vatican to work out the timing of the announcement.

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UNITED STATES
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: An Oregon Province Jesuit ordained in 1962, Laudwein lived and worked in Alaska until around 1994, when he was transferred to Portland, Oregon. He was accused in a 2005 lawsuit of sexually abusing a 14-year-old girl in St. Mary’s, Alaska, in 1980. His accuser said the abuse happened during confession. Laudwein denied the accusations. The Jesuits ackowledged that he fathered a child in Alaska in an unrelated case.

Ordained: 1962

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Thomas Oriti, staff

Australia’s most senior Catholic cleric, Cardinal George Pell, has told an inquiry into child sexual abuse he should have exercised greater oversight in the case of a victim who sued the Church.

The hearing room at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Sydney is packed to capacity as Cardinal Pell gives his highly anticipated testimony.

It comes after two weeks of evidence from Catholic officials who have recalled their involvement in the case of John Ellis, who was abused by Sydney priest Father Aidan Duggan in the 1970s.

There are conflicting accounts of what Cardinal Pell, the former archbishop of Sydney, knew about the case when Mr Ellis sued the Church.

Mr Ellis lost his case in 2007, when the New South Wales Court of Appeal ruled the Church was not a legal entity that could be sued – the so-called ‘Ellis defence.’

Last week Cardinal Pell’s private secretary, Dr Michael Casey, told the commission the Church’s vigorous cross-examination of Mr Ellis during the litigation process was wrong.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Telegraph

Cardinal Pell has said sorry over the Catholic church’s handling of altar boy sexual abuse case

JANET FIFE-YEOMANS THE DAILY TELEGRAPH MARCH 24, 2014

* Cardinal George Pell ‘sorry’ about the handling of the sex-abuse case of altar boy John Ellis
* Australia’s most senior Catholic says church sex-abuse victims were akin to Nazis, communists and other ‘enemies’ of the church
* Pell maintains denial he told victim Ellis church also ‘legally abused’ him over Supreme Court defence

CARDINAL George Pell has said he is sorry and admitted that he made mistakes in dealing with the case of former altar boy John Ellis who was sexually abused by a Catholic priest.

But he stopped short of totally throwing up his arms and denied that he had ever told Mr Ellis that he had been the victim of “legal abuse” after his case was vigorously defended in the Supreme Court.

Mr Ellis, 52, now a lawyer, has told the commission that Cardinal Pell used that term when he finally met the cardinal in 2009, five years after he lost his court case.

“I am unsure what precisely Mr Ellis meant by legal abuse,” Cardinal Pell said.

“I did not use the term legal abuse. I did not regard the mere defending the litigation as legal abuse.”

In his first appearance in the witness box at the royal commission into institutional responses to child sex abuse, Cardinal Pell said he was now “troubled” that the Sydney diocese, of which he was archbishop, had disputed in court that Mr Ellis had been abused.

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AUSTRALIA
My Daily News

Owen Jacques 24th Mar 2014

FACING questions from a Royal Commission, Cardinal George Pell said claims about the prevalence of child sexual within the Catholic Church may have been “taken out of context”.

Cardinal Pell was quizzed on earlier comments that he might have described the number of allegations as being “exaggerated” .

He said he had no recollection of describing the numbers as exaggerated but said it was important the rate of abuse allegations were “made accurately”.

“What I probably did say was that they were taken out of context and not compared with the very significant number of offences that occur within other institutions and the overwhelming number of instances that occur outside of institutions.”

Later in the questioning, Cardinal Pell said he understood about 4% of Catholic priests were accused of child sexual abuse in Australia.

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AUSTRALIA
NEWS.com.au

Cardinal Pell has said sorry over the Catholic church’s handling of altar boy sexual abuse case

* Cardinal George Pell ‘sorry’ about the handling of the sex-abuse case of altar boy John Ellis
*Australia’s most senior Catholic says church sex-abuse victims were akin to Nazis, communists and other ‘enemies’ of the church
*Pell maintains denial he told victim Ellis church also ‘legally abused’ him over Supreme Court defence

CARDINAL George Pell has said he is sorry and admitted that he made mistakes in dealing with the case of former altar boy John Ellis who was sexually abused by a Catholic priest.

But he stopped short of totally throwing up his arms and denied that he had ever told Mr Ellis that he had been the victim of “legal abuse” after his case was vigorously defended in the Supreme Court.

Mr Ellis, 52, now a lawyer, has told the commission that Cardinal Pell used that term when he finally met the cardinal in 2009, five years after he lost his court case.

“I am unsure what precisely Mr Ellis meant by legal abuse,” Cardinal Pell said.

“I did not use the term legal abuse. I did not regard the mere defending the litigation as legal abuse.”

In his first appearance in the witness box at the royal commission into institutional responses to child sex abuse, Cardinal Pell said he was now “troubled” that the Sydney diocese, of which he was archbishop, had disputed in court that Mr Ellis had been abused. …

Earlier, Cardinal Pell told the inquiry that victims of child sex abuse were once viewed as enemies of the Catholic Church, much like the Nazis and the communists, Cardinal George Pell said today.

He said that in the mid-1990s, the Vatican’s attitude towards what he called the “scandal, the crimes” was inadequate.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

Catherine Armitage
Senior Writer

“I call Cardinal George Pell.’’ On those words the man they’d all been queuing to see strode into the child sexual abuse Royal Commission hearing room, the last of about 150 people to take his seat.

He swore by Almighty God he would tell the truth in the commission’s investigation into how the Catholic Church came to vigorously dispute the damages case brought by former high flying lawyer John Ellis, who was sexually abused for years by a priest in the Bass Hill parish from when he was a 13-year-old altar boy.

It was a fumbling start as the emeritus archbishop of Sydney, who next Monday takes charge of the Vatican’s finances, admitted his statement to the commission had been incomplete. Then he couldn’t remember how. “Sorry about that,’’ he said. “When you get a little bit older, things come up slowly”.

Cardinal Pell said up until 1996 Australia was leading the way in the Catholic Church’s treatment of victims of sexual abuse by priests. He said it was “a mighty issue for us because it is so contrary to what we should be about”.

The attitude of some people in the Vatican was that accusations against priests “were being made exclusively or at least predominantly by enemies of the church to make trouble and therefore should be dealt with sceptically”, he said.

But “whatever the deficiencies, I think we were ahead of some countries”, he said.

Cardinal Pell said the trajectory of the Ellis litigation “would have been different” if a proper assessment had been made by the church when he first complained to the Sydney Archdiocese. He said he moved “vigorously” to address the issue when he became Melbourne Archbishop in 1996: the “Melbourne Response” was put together within 100 days.

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BOSTON (MA)
WCVB

[with video]

BOSTON —Protesters gathered Sunday morning outside the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, demanding more immediate action from the Catholic Church on clergy sex abuse.

On Saturday Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley was appointed by Pope Francis to a commission that will advise the Church on preventing child sex abuse.

Holding photos of abused children, critics said the church’s latest move — to create a commission — is a publicity stunt.

They argue Francis should release all records of alleged abuse, and remove any bishops who concealed accused priests.

Barbara Blaine is one of the victims who was abused a young girl.

She specifically railed Sunday against the appointment of O’Malley to the commission, claiming he has refused to release the names of more than 100 accused priests.

“If he really wanted to protect children, we think he would post on his website the names of all the sexual predator priests, but he hasn’t,” Blaine said.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

Cardinal George Pell has arrived at the child sex abuse royal commission where he is due to take the stand this morning. He is likely face tough questions over the Catholic Church’s handling of abuse claims.

The commission will examine Cardinal Pell’s role in the church’s treatment of John Ellis, who sought damages for abuse by Father Aidan Duggan at the Sydney Archdiocese’s Bass Hill parish. The abuse, which lasted years, began when Mr Ellis was a 13-year-old altar boy.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE HEARING

The commission has heard that the cardinal was in charge of the infamous case in which the church fought Mr Ellis’s claim.

The NSW Court of Appeal found the church was not a legal entity that could be sued. The case established the defence that has allowed the church to escape paying damages to victims in similar cases.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

CARDINAL George Pell has been met at the royal commission into child sex abuse by people demanding that he tell the truth.

The cardinal arrived in a white car just before 9am at Governor Macquarie Tower in Sydney.

As he was driven into the car park, a placard saying “tell the truth to the Royal Commission” was pressed up against the window of his car.

Jenny Brownley from Care Leavers Australia Network (CLAN) practically stopped the car and made sure the cardinal, sitting in the passenger’s seat, saw her message.

At the entrance to the car park, a sign reminded the church that children had suffered at the hands of its priests.

On the Farrar Place side of the tower, where the hearing is underway on the 17th floor, the CLAN group added extra signage to the red placards calling on the Catholic Church to own up to its “sins”.

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

Live stream of Cardinal George Pell testifying before the commission.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Catholics4Change

GUEST BLOG BY C&C

When I got the invitation to attend the healing mass, I had already only recently begun dealing with the damage to my relationship with the Church and God, my inability to participate at mass, and my anger that so many leaders were more concerned with the reputation of the Church than they were with the children entrusted to their care. Someone asked me simply, “Do you want to go?” I said, “Yes, I want to go.”

Why? Well, I am not going to let this mess ruin the the good parts of the relationship of a lifetime. I am not going to stay away and let them talk about distant, faceless victims. I am going to stand right in front of them and let them see my face. I know that many might find it difficult to understand not knowing my whole story, but I hope you will trust me when I say that, despite the harm done, my relationship with the Catholic Church and the many good people in it, saved my life.

When I was a teenager, I could have fought harder to bring the bad situation to light, but I let them play on my fear that my reputation would be destroyed, that I would suffer more by exposing what had happened. How do you fight against that as a child? When you grow up Catholic, almost everyone you know is Catholic. How can you face being questioned or doubted by everyone who matters in your life?

Back then, I had no way of knowing that I was not alone. It was not until the past decade that I became aware that it was not just this one man who had taken advantage of me. I was not alone and the conspiracy to cover this up went all the way to the top.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Science Monitor

By Randy Dotinga / March 21, 2014

UNT‘The Vatican Diaries’ author John Thavis looks at the Catholic Church under the leadership of Pope Francis

It may be the best of times for the worldwide Catholic church, which is enjoying a remarkable wave of affection for Pope Francis. But these are no glory days for many of those who toil within the immense bureaucracy of the Vatican.

Pope Francis, the surprise choice of last year’s papal conclave, continues his efforts to reform the church by pushing it away from unforgiving edicts, complex theology, and the Vatican itself.

Will the bureaucrats fight back? For perspective, I called author John Thavis, who divides his time between Minnesota and Rome. A former Rome bureau chief with the Catholic News Service, he wrote the bestselling 2013 book “The Vatican Diaries: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Power, Personalities and Politics at the Heart of the Catholic Church.”

15 best nonfiction books of 2013

“The Vatican Diaries” is now out in paperback with a new section about Pope Francis.

In our interview, Thavis talked about dissent within the Vatican, the Pope’s focus on the mother of Jesus and the devil, and the prospects for a long-lasting legacy.

Q: Is there an internal old guard that’s working against the Pope in the Vatican bureaucracy known as the Curia?

A: There is an old guard at the Vatican which encompasses much of the Curia, and they’ve lost control of the papacy.

I’ve been back to Rome quite often over the past year, and every time it has struck me how the level of enthusiasm around the world for this new Pope is definitely a notch or two above that inside the Vatican.

You hear this when you talk to people who have made their careers there. They’re disoriented by this new Pope and apprehensive when they say things how the church needs to decentralize, how it’s not some kind of royal court.

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

The Royal Commission will hold a public hearing in Sydney commencing in Thursday 27 March 2014 into the handling by The Salvation Army (Eastern Territory) of claims of child sexual abuse between 1993 and 2014.

The scope and purpose of the public hearing is to inquire into:

1. The policies, practices and procedures of The Salvation Army (Eastern Territory), between 1993 and 2014, for responding to claims of child sexual abuse at children’s homes it operated or elsewhere.
2. The application and adequacy of these policies, practices and procedures between 1993 and 2014.
3. The experience of people who made complaints to The Salvation Army (Eastern Territory) between 1993 and 2014.
4.The policies, practices and procedures between 1989 and 2014 concerning the disciplining of officers of The Salvation Army (Eastern Territory) who were the subject of allegations of child sexual abuse.
5. Any other related matters.

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CANADA
Sylvia’s Site

Posted on March 23, 2014 by Sylvia

See the article pasted below….

A reminder that Australia’s Cardinal George Pell is scheduled to take the stand tomorrow morning in Sydney Australia as a witness at the Australian Royal Commission into child sex abuse. In Sydney, Australia the hearings start at 10 am tomorrow morning (Monday 24 March 2014.) For those on Eastern Standard Time (EST) as we in Southern Ontario, Canada are, that means the start time is 7 pm this evening (Sunday, 23 March 2014)

Cardinal Pell is testifying specifically in relation to the inquiry into the Sydney Archdiocese’s handling of the clerical sex abuse allegation of John Ellis – that segment of the Commission of Inquiry (regarding Mr. Ellis) is identified on the commission website as Case Study 8.

I will re-post directions to access the commission webcam:

The inquiry into matters related to Mr. Ellis is referred to as “Case Study 8 March 2014″ Click here to access the relevant page for Case Study 8 on the commission website.

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VATICAN CITY
International Business Times

By Dennis Lynch
on March 23 2014

Can you think of three words that don’t belong together? How about Vatican, cocaine and condom? Well you’d be correct up until today, when German customs agents announced they found 14 condoms packed with liquid cocaine addressed to the Vatican.

The cocaine-filled condoms were found in a box at Leipzig Airport by German customs agents. It was mailed from an unnamed South American country and addressed to the Vatican post office, but not to anyone in particular, says the Federal Ministry of Finance. There was 340 grams of cocaine total, worth around $55,000.

The Germans sent it along to the Vatican in hopes of someone picking it up but no one ever came for it. It’s been sitting there since January. That’s right, a package of fourteen cocaine-filled condoms has been sitting untouched in the Vatican postal office for the past two months.

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UNITED STATES
Pope Francis the CON Christ.

Updated March 22, 2014

Paris Arrow

See the faces of rapists-priests whom Archbishop Chaput covered-up in Philadelphia here http://jp2m.blogspot.ca/2011/03/faces-of-rapists-priests-from-father.html

Archbishop Charles Chaput today celebrates the “Mass for Healing… to promote healing through prayer for the victims of clergy sexual abuse.” Archbishop Jerome E. Listecki announced that he will celebrate the “Mass of Atonement that will acknowledge the wrongs of archdiocesan clergy and laity, both past and present” in April. Hollow holy words. The Mass of Atonement has always been the Vatican Catholic Church’s (band-aid) remedy and solution (not jail time) for thousands of bestial pedophile priests whom those arrogant “Prince of the Church” Bishops covered-up – for decades. If all criminals simply offered the Mass of Atonement as reparation to their victims, whom they raped, stole from or murdered, our jails would be empty and our courts of law would not need judges and lawyers.

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UNITED STATES
Pope Francis the CON Christ.

Updated March 23, 2014

Paris Arrow

Are American Catholics suffering from dementia of Pope Crimes and Vatican Evils? read about them here – http://popecrimes.blogspot.ca/

USA Today wrote an article that Cardinal Sean Patrick O’Malley is the most powerful Catholic in America because he is “the single most important American prelate. As one of the eight cardinals Pope Francis famously selected to advise him in April 2013, and the only one from the United States, O’Malley has the ear of the pope.” So was Cardinal Bernard Law the cardinal he succeeded- which is why John Paul II promoted him back to Rome to be High Priest of St. Major despite the fact that we Bostonians successfully forced him to resign for aiding and abetting 80 pedophile priests. Cardinal Bernard Law indeed not only had the ear of John Paul II but he was also his hidden evil JP2 Achilles Heel which is why he can never be a “saint”. Are American Catholics really so unintelligent as to forget recent history of Vatican crimes against children in USA soil – that they are willing to chant “Saint” John Paul II the most responsible pope for its cover-up? Despite his crimes in Boston, why is Cardinal Law still living the lifestyle of the rich and famous in Rome and was one of the main guests at a special St Patrick’s Day lunch in Rome’s Irish College?

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

Occasionally, for lucky politicians, the right thing to do is also the politically smart thing to do.

President Obama will have such a rare opportunity on next Thursday (3/27). Obama then has his first meeting with Pope Francis. Obama will be able to directly confront Francis for failing to hold bishops accountable for facilitating priest predators.

Vatican sponsored experts have estimated priests have sexually abused over 100,000 children in the USA alone. That is many more, obviously, than the number of Penn State child sexual abuse victims of a football coach protected by an athletic administration that Obama, in effect, strongly condemned several times during the 2012 presidential election campaign.

When the courageous Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, set up over a year ago her Royal Commission to investigate institutional child abuse, reportedly 96% of Australians supported her decision to investigate child abuse. The widespread abuses that have been mainly disclosed in Australlia have been under the cover of Catholic and Anglican hierarchies and The Salvation Army’s leadership, locally and worldwide, all of whom have major presences in the USA as well.

Gillard has just superbly confirmed her strong commitment to the “rightness” of her Royal Commission decision in her generous tribute at the Memorial Service for the prominent and remarkable Australian activist, Lewis Blayse. The tribute was read earlier this month by his impressive daughter, Aletha. She is carrying on bravely her father’s advocacy efforts, as shown in her moving reading of Gillard’s speech in the video here:

[lewisblayse.net]
——————————————————————-
Julia Gillard’s bold stand followed a similar one against the Irish bishops and the Vatican by the popular Irish Prime Minister, Enda Kenny, as shown in the video here:

[New York Times]

———————————————————————–
Will President Obama display the courage comparable to that which Gillard and Kenny displayed?
Are children in the USA as valued by political leaders in the USA as much as they have been valued by political leaders in Australia and Ireland?
———————————————————————————-
While Pope Francis is currently still very popular, his halo is dimming as (1) his less than stellar record in Argentina is becoming better known worldwide, (2) his stonewalling on holding bishops accountable becomes clearer, (3) his support for continuing the ban on contraception becomes understood more widely, and (4) his support for women’s equality remains weak.

Moreover, Francis’ subordinate US bishops are directly challenging Obama on his key Obamacare program and his US Supreme Court legacy in anticipation of November’s key US Congressional elections.

Obama appears to have much to gain, and little to lose, in confronting Pope Francis on Thursday.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
WPVI

Amy Buckman

LOGAN SQUARE – March 23, 2014 (WPVI) — During the Mass for Healing for Victims of Clergy Sexual Abuse on Saturday, Archbishop Charles Chaput said he couldn’t explain why some church leaders covered up for clergy accused of sexually abusing children, but he did say their failure to act may have led to there being additional victims.

“We need to repent for that and ask the forgiveness of those who suffered sexual abuse because of that lack of attention,” Chaput said.

Many parishioners attending Mass at the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul Sunday were unaware of the Archbishop’s apology yesterday. But once they heard about it, those who agreed to comment said they thought it was a good idea.

“I think it was a good thing because everybody knows it and I think it’s good to apologize and go on from there and ask for forgiveness and just keep on going,” Paul Devine of Roxborough said.

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MASSACHUSETTS
CBS Boston

BOSTON (CBS) — Cardinal Sean O’Malley will join seven others on a new Vatican anti-abuse commission.

O’Malley is the only American named to the Pope Francis’ “G8″ council of advisors.

On Sunday, members of SNAP: survivors network of those abused by priests held a protest against the new commission. The group blasted the panel calling it a public relations stunt.

SNAP is instead, calling for less “study” and more action.

“Every single bishop should post names of child molesting clerics,” victims say.

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HAWAII
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on March 23, 2014

From today’s Hawaii Star-Advertiser:

Bills seek more time to file suit
Expanding the current two-year window, which expires next month, is unfair to the accused entities, critics argue

By Derrick DePledge
POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Mar 23, 2014

“Did you know these men?”

The question appeared in an ad in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser last Sunday that showed old black-and-white photographs of three Roman Catholic priests linked to child sexual abuse.

Mark Gallagher, a Kailua attorney, and Jeff Anderson, a St. Paul, Minn., attorney, are searching for possible victims of child sexual abuse before a unique two-year window to file civil claims for decades-old misconduct closes on April 24.

Two dozen civil lawsuits have been filed during the past two years in what state lawmakers initially intended as a one-time opportunity to help victims in cases where the statute of limitations had long expired.

But some lawmakers now want to leave the window open longer — perhaps permanently — an idea opposed by the state attorney general’s office and the Catholic Church because it could potentially violate the due process rights of the accused.

Churches and other private organizations could have difficulty defending against claims involving priests and others who may have died or left the church or group. Two of the three priests in the newspaper ad, for example, are dead.

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.

AUSTRALIA
SBS

AAP

The royal commission into child sex abuse will hear from Cardinal George Pell on Monday, before he takes up his new job at the Vatican.

Former archbishop of Sydney George Pell takes the stand at a hearing on Monday to answer questions on how he handled an abuse complaint by former altar boy John Ellis.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse enters the third week of a hearing in Sydney in which Dr Pell’s senior associates have been grilled on why the archdiocese disputed in court that Mr Ellis had been abused when an internal church process had accepted his allegation as true.

Dr Pell is expected to shed light on his role in instructing the church’s legal team, which “vigorously defended” the case. It ended in a landmark finding, which some say created church immunity from abuse-related civil actions.

Mr Ellis was a 13-year-old altar boy at Bass Hill in Sydney in 1974 when Father Aidan Duggan first sexually abused him.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

March 24, 2014

Nicole Hasham

Cardinal George Pell is due to take the stand at the child sex abuse royal commission on Monday, where he will likely face tough questions over the Catholic Church’s handling of abuse claims.

The commission will examine Cardinal Pell’s role in the church’s treatment of John Ellis, who sought damages for abuse by Father Aidan Duggan at the Sydney Archdiocese’s Bass Hill parish.

The abuse, which lasted years, began when Mr Ellis was a 13-year-old altar boy.

The commission has heard the cardinal was in charge of the infamous case in which the church fought Mr Ellis’ claim. The NSW Court of Appeal found the church was not a legal entity that could be sued, and that the then-archbishop could not be sued because he was not in charge of the archdiocese at the time of the abuse.

The case established the defence that has allowed the church to escape paying damages in similar cases.

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VATICAN CITY
European CEO

By Jules GrayThursday, March 20th, 2014

The murder of Roberto Calvi in 1982 put the spotlight on corruption at the Vatican Bank. Recent allegations hint that the Catholic Church’s financial arm still isn’t without sin

With more than a billion members, the Catholic Church is the largest Christian church on the planet. Despite its colossal reach, it has garnered a reputation over its two millennia in operation of intense secrecy.

Headquartered in the Vatican City in the heart of Rome, the church’s vast power includes a considerable amount of financial influence, which means it has its own bank; a private institution that is governed by Cardinals and the Pope and has around $7bn in assets.

Unlike many traditional banks, the Vatican Bank has maintained the mysterious – and highly controversial – reputation of the religion it serves. Officially known as the Instituto per le Opere di Religione (IOR), it has been accused of a number of misdeeds over the last century, the most serious of which have been regarding money laundering.

However, the most damning scandal to hit the IOR was the Banco Ambrosiano affair that broke in the early 1980’s, and all of the subsequent stories that were connected to it. It resulted in the supposed murder of that bank’s chairman, Roberto Calvi, who had such an influence with the IOR and the Catholic Church that he was dubbed ‘God’s Banker’ by the media.

Such was the magnitude of the story that it has been linked to the death of Pope John Paul I a few years earlier, and provided the inspiration for the plot of The Godfather Part III. The scandal first broke in 1978 when the Bank of Italy (BOI) unveiled a report that said Banco Ambrosiano was heading for a disaster as a result of mismanagement and corruption. The IOR was implicated in the scandal because it was the main shareholder in Banco Ambrosiano.

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GERMANY
Expatica

German customs officials have intercepted a package addressed to the Vatican containing 14 condoms filled with cocaine, the finance ministry said Sunday.

A ministry spokesman told AFP that a box packed with 340 grammes of cocaine valued at 40,000 euros ($55,200) was seized at the international airport in the eastern city of Leipzig in January.

The narcotics, posted from an unnamed South American country, were in liquid form and had been poured into the condoms and placed in the package addressed to the main postal centre at the Vatican.

“I can confirm the incident as reported” in the Bild am Sonntag newspaper, the spokesman said.

“But we cannot say anything more about the case,” he added, saying it was now in the hands of local prosecutors.

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GERMANY
New York Post

Associated Press

BERLIN — The drug haul was unremarkable, but the destination raised eyebrows.

German customs officials intercepted a shipment of cocaine destined for the Vatican in January, weekly Bild am Sonntag reported Sunday.

Officers at Leipzig airport found 340 grams (12 ounces) of the drug packed into 14 condoms inside a shipment of cushions coming from South America, the paper, reported citing a German customs report. It said the package was simply addressed to the Vatican postal office, meaning any of the Catholic mini-state’s 800 residents could have picked it up.

The paper reported that a subsequent sting operation arranged with Vatican police failed to nab the intended recipient. No one claimed the package, indicating that he or she was tipped off about the plan. The drugs would have a street value of several tens of thousands of euros.

A spokesman for the German Finance Ministry, which oversees the customs office, confirmed the report. Prosecutors in Leipzig planned to issue a statement Monday providing further details, Martin Chaudhuri told The Associated Press.

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GERMANY/VATICAN
The Guardian (UK)

Agence France-Presse
theguardian.com, Sunday 23 March 2014

German customs officials have intercepted a package addressed to the Vatican containing 14 condoms filled with cocaine.

A government spokesman said a box packed with 340 grammes of the drug, valued at 40,000 euros (£33,470), was seized in January at the international airport in the eastern city of Leipzig.

The cocaine, posted from an unnamed South American country, was in liquid form. It had been poured into the condoms and placed in the package addressed to the main postal centre at the Vatican.

Authorities handed the parcel to a Vatican police officer with the aim of laying a trap.

But the box was not claimed. German investigators believe the intended recipient, who remains unknown, was tipped off about the interception.

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UNITED STATES
USA Today

Lorena O’Neil, Ozy.com EDT March 23, 2014

Despite his highly influential religious office, he makes time to sit with the people, comfort the sick, and help the poor. He often forgoes traditional fancy threads and maintains a quiet, humble disposition. He is, above all things, a pastoral man.

If you think we’re talking about Pope Francis, think again.

His support transcends ideology. Both conservatives and liberals seem to really love him.

If you were to see Cardinal Seán Patrick O’Malley walking around in his characteristic brown smock, with a small ego but a big laugh, you might not even realize that he is the single most important American prelate. As one of the eight cardinals Pope Francis famously selected to advise him in April 2013, and the only one from the United States, O’Malley has the ear of the pope.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites researcher (updated 23 March 2014)

Cardinal George Pell (as head of the Sydney Catholic archdiocese) directed the archdiocese’s legal battle against the former altar boy John Ellis, according to evidence and documents presented to Australia’s child-abuse Royal Commission in March 2014. Pell’s legal victory in 2007 (known as the “Ellis defence”) now forces church-victims to accept a discounted in-house “Towards Healing” settlement instead of suing in the civil courts for proper compensation, the Commission was told. And this Broken Rites article demonstrates that John Ellis was not the only victim of his abuser, Sydney priest Father Aidan Duggan.

John Ellis was thrice abused

According to statements and documents given to at the Royal Commission in 2014, the Sydney archdiocese victimised John Ellis three times:

The first abuse: In 1974 the Sydney archdiocese recruited Father Aidan Duggan (from a religious order in Britain) and appointed him to a Sydney parish (Bass Hill), where 13-year-old John Ellis was an altar boy. Duggan immediately used his priestly authority to begin sexually abusing John Ellis, thereby disrupting the boy’s adolescent development.

The second abuse: In 2002, when he was aged 41, John Ellis told the Sydney archdiocese about how his adult life had been damaged by this church-abuse. He sought an acknowledgement about this abuse, plus some support in addressing the damage. But the archdiocese behaved evasively, traumatising John Ellis further. The archdiocese refused him compensation and offered him only a discounted “pastoral” settlement (commonly known as a “Towards Healing” settlement). The draft settlement document stated that this settlement was being offered by:

1. George Pell (as the head of the Sydney archdiocese) and
2. the trustees of the archdiocese.

But the document would require Mr Ellis to give up his right to sue the archdiocese for proper compensation. Mr Ellis refused to sign away this right.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

By Peter Smith / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Greensburg Bishop Lawrence Brandt often recites a quote attributed to the 19th-century English Cardinal John Henry Newman: “To live is to change, and to have lived long is to have changed often.”

Things have changed, and changed often, in the decade in which Bishop Brandt has led the Roman Catholic Diocese of Greensburg.

He has overseen the wrenching closings and mergers of numerous parishes and schools; strategic planning sessions; a capital campaign that exceeded its goal; sometimes-controversial spending decisions; and a growing use of foreign priests and permanent deacons in the face of declining ranks in the pulpits and pews.

Whether such changes have been for the better has been debated from cyberspace to the Vatican, which is considering a last-ditch appeal by Fayette County parishioners who want their churches reopened.

More change is in store when Bishop Brandt, as required under church law, submits his resignation upon turning age 75 on Thursday. Typically, a pope takes months or even years before accepting a bishop’s resignation and naming a successor. …

A group called Ambrosians of Greensburg — named for the ancient Bishop Ambrose of Milan, who was chosen by popular acclamation — has launched an online petition (greensburgsnextbishop.org) for greater lay input into the next bishop’s selection. The group wants the Vatican to ask locals for names of potential candidates — rather than just checking references on a nominee submitted by insiders.

Thomas Severin of Ambrosians said Pope Francis’ call for a “church for the poor” has inspired many. “Perhaps a bishop [in Greensburg] could foster that same attitude.”

Tom Balya of Greensburg, who attends Blessed Sacrament Cathedral and put his name on the petition, added: “A lot of folks have felt a sense of marginalization under this bishop. I’m a baby boomer. I know countless baby boomers who were educated in Catholic schools who don’t participate in churches anymore for a number of reasons. I certainly wouldn’t lay it all on this current bishop’s lap, but he didn’t help.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

BOB WARNER, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
LAST UPDATED: Sunday, March 23, 2014

PHILADELPHIA Archbishop Charles J. Chaput apologized Saturday to victims of sexual abuse by the Catholic clergy and referred to “the negligence of the church’s pastors” in allowing it to occur.

“I apologize on behalf of the church,” Chaput said in his homily at a late-afternoon “Mass for Healing for Victims of Clergy Sexual Abuse,” attended by some 250 people.

Similar Masses have been held elsewhere for victims of clergy sex abuse, but this was the first in Philadelphia, coming at a time when the archdiocese and Chaput have been strongly criticized by some groups of victims.

Chaput’s formal public apology on behalf of the church, as opposed to past acknowledgments of wrongdoing and personal responsibility, struck at least one person who attended as something new.

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ARGENTINA
El Liberal

Publicado el 22/03/2014 – El papa Francisco anunció los primeros nombres de una comisión que lo asesorará en la política sobre abuso sexual por parte de sacerdotes, que incluirá a una víctima de acoso sexual.

Marie Collins, una irlandesa que fue abusada a los 13 años por un capellán de un hospital integrará el cuerpo junto a otros siete miembros, que son expertos laicos y religiosos. Collins hizo campaña para demandar responsabilidad a la Iglesia ante casos como el suyo.

Los ocho miembros fueron anunciados hoy después que grupos de víctimas criticara al papa Francisco por una supuesta falta de atención sobre el escándalo de abusos por parte de religiosos, que ha dañado seriamente la reputación de la iglesia católica y ha costado a las diócesis miles de millones de dólares en gastos legales y arreglos extrajudiciales.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

A former victim of sexual abuse by priests will sit on a new commission created to root out paedophilia in the Catholic Church, the Vatican says.

In a statement, Pope Francis revealed the first eight names of officials who will sit on the commission, which was first announced on December 5 last year.

Among them is Marie Collins, an Irish abuse survivor who has been an outspoken campaigner for the rights of victims.

She was raped at the age of 13 by a hospital chaplain.

Other experts include the Archbishop of Boston, Sean Patrick O’Malley, who has been a vocal spokesman for US victims, as well as psychiatrists Catherine Bonnet, from France, and Sheila Hollins, from Britain.

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.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CBS Philly

By Justin Udo

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – As they work to end abuse in the Catholic Church, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia hosted a healing mass Saturday at the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul for victims of clergy sexual abuse.

About 200 people took part in the mass, and a sentiment from many who attended was that this is something that is long overdue and is much needed.

“It’s about time the church recognized what happened and actually tried to do something that’s right, rather than sitting there trying to hide it in the past,” this churchgoer tells KYW Newsradio.

Archbishop Charles Chaput celebrated the mass. He says this is a time for the Church to stand in solidarity with victims of abuse:

“I hope that all of us here will entrust the suffering to those who have been abused by priests in the church to God’s provident care. He will do what we can’t do which is to bring them peace and to bring them healing.”

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UNITED STATES
The Daily Beast

Alisa Harris

They collect documents, interview sources, and get thousands of Facebook shares. Meet the army of ex-fundamentalists exposing the misdeeds of the organizations they left.

In early March, blogger Samantha Field contacted her alma mater, the notoriously fundamentalist Pensacola Christian College in Florida, before she published an explosive story. Field, who blogs about “overcoming fundamentalist indoctrination,” was going public with allegations from two former students who said they had been raped at Pensacola, and that the school had shamed and expelled them instead of punishing the alleged perpetrators. The stories had come in after Field posted a call on her blog. She contacted four different departments at Pensacola to ask how such cases were handled, and was finally told by the college’s communications officer that the school didn’t respond to “blog-type articles.”

That didn’t last long. Field’s “blog-type article” was quickly shared tens of thousands of times, and Pensacola was forced to respond to the allegations with an official statement.

Pensacola isn’t the only evangelical institution suddenly feeling the heat from bloggers and online activists, often with an inside knowledge of their operations. After decades in which church authorities tightly controlled information and successfully isolated their disaffected members from society, the internet is making it all but impossible for fundamentalist churches, colleges, and other institutions to hide the scandals in their midst. Online “survivor” communities are obsessively documenting alleged abuses and letting those trapped inside fundamentalist movements know they’re not alone.

“If you have 100 stories that are really similar, the likelihood that they’re all made up is really low.”

The scale and impact of these communities has unfolded just in the past few months, as some of the biggest names in Christian fundamentalism found themselves in the crosshairs. In March, Illinois-based fundamentalist Bill Gothard resigned after a website published a slew of stories from women alleging sexual harassment. In February, a filmmaker released a 90-minute, Kickstarter-funded documentary alleging hidden sexual abuse in the Jesus People USA Evangelical Covenant Church, a Christian community in Chicago. In January, Bob Jones University terminated its contract with a consulting firm it had hired to investigate the college’s handling of sexual assault, and then reinstated the contract after an internet outcry. Another fundamentalist patriarch, Doug Phillips, recently resigned after admitting to an affair with a younger woman—with every micro-development, including Facebook status updates of former staff, reported by blogs. Sovereign Grace Ministries, a large association of evangelical churches, is facing not just a class action lawsuit but a phalanx of sites publishing documents, transcripts of its counseling trainings, and testimonies from people who say church leaders ignored abuse.

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.

AUSTRALIA
the West Australian

For almost 40 years, Troy Treneman has tried to forget the horrific events that robbed him of a childhood.

All he has to remind him of a time of innocence is a primary school photo published on the front page of Melbourne newspapers in early 1976, showing him with a beaming grin, blond bowl haircut and neatly pressed shirt under the headline “Vanished”.

By the time Victorian police raised the alarm about the missing eight-year-old, Mr Treneman says he was already “damaged” – the victim of brazen child sex abuse at the hands of a female teacher who lured him away on the pretence of a “holiday treat” on a farm.

Only now – more than 20 years after he came to start a new life in WA and put the trauma behind him – is he trying to face his demons.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Herald

Sunday, March 23, 2014

By: Margery Eagan

It is a hopeful morning for Catholics, and for survivors of church sexual abuse.

Yesterday, Pope Francis named eight members to a commission to advise him on the sex abuse crisis.

Half of the eight are women — a first.

Five are laypeople — another first.

Also for the first time, a commission to deal with priestly abuse actually includes a true expert — an abuse survivor, Marie Collins of Ireland. She has detailed her molestation by a priest when she was a 13-year-old hospital patient in the 1960s and has since become an outspoken crusader for church accountability.

This all comes amid increasing fears that the pope, despite high expectations, would grossly underestimate the damage done by the crisis and the need for significant reform. Earlier this month, in an interview with an Italian newspaper, he stunned and disheartened abuse survivors by claiming the church itself as a victim in the scandal. He said it had been unfairly singled out for criticism. He even portrayed the church as transparent and accountable when reformers have been clamoring for both, with little success, for years.

The commission also includes Cardinal Sean O’Malley, who had announced its formation in December, although no members were named until yesterday. The commission was denounced then as toothless window dressing by survivors suspicious of its timing: The Vatican had just stonewalled a United Nations panel investigating the crisis. Then last month, the U.N. blasted the Vatican’s stonewalling. Francis was blasted himself for seeming not to grasp the depth of the abuse problem. And here we are.

“Guardedly hopeful,” was the reaction of Phil Saviano yesterday to this new group — particularly the inclusion of Collins. Saviano founded the New England chapter of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP). This afternoon, he moderates a Boston fundraiser for SNAP’s 25th anniversary and says many in his group are “ready to be hopeful too.” …

Still unknown is whether the commission will discipline bishops who enabled abuse and face no punishment, like our former archbishop, Bernard Law. Bishop
Accountability.org, the website which comprehensively chronicles it all, just raised questions about Francis’ own response to abuse cases in Argentina, charging that he failed to take strong, decisive action against accused priests there and even supported a priest convicted of molestation as recently as 2009. Numerous critics have wondered too at Francis’ failure to meet with a single survivor — and he’s been pope for a year.

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Liberty Voice

Added by Lydia Bradbury on March 23, 2014.

Pope Francis is being hailed by many as a revolutionary pontiff, bringing the ancient Roman Catholic Church into the modern era by his openness and acceptance and even his sense of humor. However some of Pope Francis’ recent appointments to Vatican positions carry with them a weight of inescapable irony. In making his initial selections for the new Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, he is assuredly making great strides in the way the church looks at cases of child sexual abuse, but his other appointments to different positions reveal a certain amount of hypocrisy in his selection process.

It was announced today that American Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley, the current Archbishop of Boston, will be the lone American in Francis’ initial selection for the new committee. The American church has been racked by child abuse claims and cases for many years, so it makes sense to have an American in the first round of draft picks. Despite the distance between America and Europe, O’Malley won’t be moving to the Vatican for his new job, since it is not a full-time position. None of the appointments are.

However the other appointees to the committee are all much closer, being primarily from Western Europe. These include high profile experts on child psychology, such as French child psychologist Catherine Bonnet and the former president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in the United Kingdom, Baroness Sheila Hollins. Francis is making good decisions in having acknowledged and highly qualified experts on the subject readily available to make policy and review cases. Pope Francis also made excellent choices in having campaigners against abuse, like the Reverend Hans Zollner, a Jesuit from Germany. Zollner coordinated a major conference on abuse in 2012 and continues to be an advocate for anti-abuse policy.

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.

BOSTON (MA)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests
National Survivor Advocates Coalition
STTOP – Speak Truth to Power

They’re worried it’s “mostly public relations”
SNAP: Vulnerable kids need action, not more “study”
A list of 20 “practical prevention steps” will be released
Groups are also highly critical of Boston’s Cardinal O’Malley
“Every single bishop should post names of child molesting clerics,” victims say

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

–blast Pope Francis’ new “hand-picked” abuse study panel,
–blast Cardinal Sean O’Malley’s track record on the church’s continuing abuse crisis, and
–release a list of 20 “practical steps” the pontiff should take now to better protect kids.

They will prod O’Malley to
–stop “fixating” on “internal” church abuse policies,
–start lobbying for improved secular child safety laws, and
–use his clout to prod his brother bishops to permanently post on their church websites the names, photos, whereabouts and work histories of all proven, admitted and credibly accused child molesting clerics (as 30 US prelates have reluctantly done).

WHEN
Sunday, March 23 at 11:30 a.m.

WHERE
Outside the Boston’s Holy Cross Cathedral, 1400 Washington Street (corner of Monsignor Reynolds Way) in Boston’s South End

WHO
Six – eight child sex abuse victims and supporters who belong three groups: SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (including a Chicago woman who is the organization’s president and founder), NSAC, National Survivors Advocates Coalition and STTOP, Speak Truth To Power.

WHY
1) SNAP, NSAC and STTOP say that Catholic officials have dealt with clergy sex crimes for centuries. They believe the pope’s new abuse panel is “based on a deceptive premise” and “perpetuates the self-serving myth that Catholic officials need more information about abuse and cover ups. They don’t.” Bishops know how to deal with abuse, the groups say, but often “refuse to do what’s right” because “they are monarchs and like their power and the status quo more than anything else.”

The Pope already can oust “enablers” or complicit bishops right now, but “hasn’t and won’t,” group members believe. Specifically, they want Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley to beg Francis to “defrock, demote, discipline or denounce even one of them,” starting with a convicted Missouri bishop “whose recent crimes directly lead to more little girls being sexually assaulted and exploited.” SNAP is also urging O’Malley to push the Pope to extradite an accused child molesting Polish archbishop wanted by law enforcement officials.

The group insists that over the past 20 years, “thousands of lay people, including dozens or hundreds of clergy sex abuse victims, sit on or have sat on church abuse panels” but these panels “have produced little if any real reform” in child sex aubse and cover-up cases.

2) Cardinal Sean O’Malley’s handling of clergy sex cases is deeply flawed, SNAP maintains, despite his caserfully crafted image and extraordinarily savvy public relations. BishopAccountability.org has painstakingly documented some of his misdeeds here:

[BishopAccountability.org]

Cardinal O’Malley left at least 161 names from his published list of accused Boston priests and released that list almost a decade after other bishops began doing so. He has also “cleared” a “disturbingly high” percentage of accused priests – four times the national average. O’Malley’s archdiocese has a double standard for employees accused of sexual misconduct: accused priests may remain in place; accused laypeople are suspended immediately. And troubling questions remain about certain accused priests “cleared” by O’Malley (including, in recent years, Fr. Jerome Gillespie, Fr. Thomas Curran, and Fr. James Power). Also, as bishop of Fall River MA, O’Malley was accused by the local prosecutor of concealing offenders’ names until the statute of limitations had expired.

3) Finally, for the safety of kids, SNAP, NSAC and STTOP also want the Pope and every bishop to disclose the identities of all child molesting clerics (proven, admitted and credibly accused) and post their names, photos, whereabouts and work histories permanently on diocesan web pages. Roughly 30 US bishops have tatken this step – reluctantly- over the past decade. (O’Malley was one of the last and his list was very incomplete.)

[BishopAccountability.org]

SNAP wants O’Malley to improve his own list and push his colleagues – in the US and in Rome – much harder to do this.

CONTACT
Barbara Blaine 312-399-4747, SNAPblaine@gmail.com, David Clohessy 314-566-9790 SNAPclohessy@aol.com, Barbara Dorris 314-503-0003 SNAPdorris@gmail.com, Steve Sheehan, Sheehan1777@aol.com, PAULKELLEN@aol.com

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UNITED STATES
National Survivors Advocates Coalition

March 22,2014

Kristine Ward

We wish anyone well who is willing to try and convince Pope Francis that strong and decisive action both against perpetrators and enablers of perpetrators is what it will take to end the sexual abuse crisis and protect children.

Only strong action will count not a ton of meetings and speeches and reports from a commission.

This is not a difficult subject to grasp. The rape and sodomy of children is a crime. People who rape and sodomize children are criminals. People who protect people who rape and sodomize children are criminals.

You can “get it” as the Vatican now says it does but “getting it” is not an accomplishment, getting rid of it is.

Let’s face it, it didn’t take a commission for Pope Francis to remove a German Bishop who built himself a luxury palace. Convicted Bishop Robert Finn remains the head of the Diocese of Kansas City – St. Joseph, Missouri.

Pope Francis played defense in his recent interview about the crisis. If he and the commission aren’t going to play offense, the game ought to be called off now before a dollar or a euro goes into meetings and reports.

Representation is crucial. The commission should be weighted in favor of survivors and whistleblowers. Survivors should certainly have more than a one eighth voice. They bear all the suffering, not just one eighth of it.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Register

by Edward Pentin Saturday, March 22, 2014

Last December, Pope Francis said he wanted to set up a special commission for the protection of minors in the Church.

Today he instituted the new body, called the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, and appointed the following to be a part of it:

Dr. Catherine Bonnet (France)
Mrs. Marie Collins (Ireland)
Prof. the Baroness Sheila Hollins (United Kingdom)
Card. Sean Patrick O’Malley, OFM Cap (U.S.)
Prof. Claudio Papale (Italy)
Her Excellency Hanna Suchocka (Poland)
Rev. Humberto Miguel Yañez, SJ (Argentina)
Rev. Hans Zollner, SJ (Germany)

Their Vatican says their principal role will be to prepare the Statutes of the Commission, which will define its tasks and competencies. “Other members will be added to the Commission in the future, chosen from various geographical areas of the world,” it added.

The commission members come from a wide variety of backgrounds and include one victim of abuse: Marie Collins.

A victim of sexual abuse as a child in the 1960’s who brought the priest who abused her to justice in 1997, Marie has campaigned actively for the protection of children, justice for survivors of clerical sexual abuse, and for a better understanding of the effects of sexual abuse on children. She has won awards, helped found a depression support group in her native Ireland, and assisted her archdiocese to set up their Child Protection Service.

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MASSACHUSETTS
WCVB

By Liam Martin

PEABODY, Mass. —For 14 years, Bernie McDaid has been urging the Catholic Church to address the clergy sex abuse scandal.

He says the new commission announced Saturday by the Vatican is a step in the right direction.

“I have my doubts. I have my hopes,” he told NewsCenter 5’s Liam Martin on Saturday afternoon in an exclusive interview at his Peabody home.

McDaid is a victim of clergy sex abuse. He went public with that abuse in the late 1990s, touching off a storm of controversy for the Catholic Church both in Boston and around the globe.

In December 2013 the new pope announced he would appoint a panel to advise him on better addressing the issue. The Vatican today announced the formation of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.

It’s made up of three clergy and five laity. The laymembers include four women — one of whom is also a victim of abuse — a progressive makeup for a pope who has drawn both praise and criticism for often shirking tradition in his first year in office.

The eight members also include Cardinal Sean O’Malley, archbishop of Boston, who was at one point considered a potential candidate for pontiff.

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VATICAN CITY
The Daily Beast

Barbie Latza Nadeau

Pope Francis named Boston’s Cardinal O’Malley, a psychotherapist, and four women—one of them raped by a priest—to deal with child abuse in the Catholic Church.

Some things are worth the wait. At least that is the hope when it comes to Pope Francis’s surprisingly well-rounded new commission appointed to deal with the ongoing priest sex abuse problem in the global Catholic Church. The commission, announced Saturday by the Holy See press office, is made up of four women, one of whom is a victim of sex abuse by a priest, and four men – only three of whom are clerics.

The highest-ranking church official on the commission is Cardinal Sean O’Malley who was a front-runner in the papal conclave that finally elected Pope Francis a year ago.

The other clerics are an Argentine priest Pope Francis shepherded through the Jesuit ranks in his home country and a German priest who is also a licensed psychotherapist. According to Vatican spokesperson Father Thomas Rosica, the Argentine, Humberto Miguel Yáñez, is a professor of moral theology who spearheaded the Symposium on the Sex Abuse of Minors two years ago. German Hans Zollner leads the Centre for Child Protection at the Institute of Psychology of the Pontifical Gregorian University.

The more surprising members of the group are the female members. Marie Collins is a married Irish woman who was raped at the age of 13 by a priest. She is an activist for child safety within the Catholic Church and has been vocal about how she was snubbed by her local parish and told to “protect the priest’s good name” when she accused him. Francis also appointed noted French psychologist Catherine Bonnet, who has written extensively about child sex abuse, and Baroness Sheila Hollins from the United Kingdom who is an expert in mental health.

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UNITED STATES
Pope Francis the CON Christ.

Paris Arrow

Updated March 22, 2014

Goliath-bully Bill Donohue the jabbering foul mouth of Catholic League has emailed organizers with a request to march in this year’s New York City Gay Pride Parade. But he plans to be there – not to support gays but rather to deride and ridicule them – and to preach Catholic hypocritical values by holding a banner that reads, “Straight is Great.” Donohue is wasting his time in NYC in a one day parade because where he should be is within his own church – the Vatican Catholic Church worldwide where GAY PRIESTS are teeming camouflaged by magical Merlin robes for the Eucharist sorcery. Donohue should start marching at St. Peter’s Square – especially during the weekly Wednesday Angelus crowds of Pope Francis – maniacs because the Vatican is infested with active GAY ORGIES of high ranking Vatican Curia priests widely known as the GAY LOBBY Prelates that forced Benedict XVI to resign, read our related article

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INDIA
Times of India

BANGALORE: The Karnataka Kannada Priests’ Association has condemned the investigation into the murder of Fr KJ Thomas. Members of the association on Saturday termed as “false, fabricated, conspired and framed” the investigation into the priest’s murder. It criticized home minister KJ George and Archbishop Bernard Moras of pressurizing the police to nab innocent priests.

The members demanded a CBI inquiry into the murder, which happened 11 months ago at Yeshwantpur seminary, saying the minister and the archbishop were protecting the culprits. Three innocent men (two priests and an altar boy) were nabbed to close the case, they alleged.

“George and the archbishop have made every effort to derail the investigation. We demand the state government stops the archbishop from flying abroad. His tickets are booked for Sunday night (March 24); he should resign from the post until the investigations are over,” they said.

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VATICAN CITY
news.va

(Vatican Radio) In comments following Saturday’s announcement of the institution of the new Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi sj reaffirmed the commitment of Pope Francis’ predecessors, Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI to the safeguarding of minors. Fr. Lombardi cited Benedict XVI who said the Church needs “to establish the truth of what happened in the past, to take whatever steps are necessary to prevent it from occurring again, to ensure that the principles of justice are fully respected and, above all,to bring healing to the victims and to all those affected by these egregious crimes” (Pope Benedict XVI, Address to the Irish Bishops, 28 October 2006).

Listen to Tracey McClure’s report:

Fr. Lombardi said “Pope Francis has made clear that the Church must hold the protection of minors amongst Her highest priorities,” and as part of that commitment, has established this new commission by appointing “several highly qualified persons who are committed to this issue.”

Apart from initially drafting the body’s Statute, the members, he said, will be called to propose names of “additional candidates, especially from other continents and countries, who can offer service to the Commission.”

Fr. Lombardi said the Church has a “critical role” to play in upholding what he called a “sacred responsibilityof ensuring the safety of young people.” He explained the Commission will “take a multi-pronged approach to promoting youth protection, including: education regarding the exploitation of children; discipline of offenders; civil and canonical duties and responsibilities; and the development of best practices as they have emerged in society at large.”

Below please find the full transcript of Fr. Lombardi’s remarks:

As Blessed John Paul II declared, “People need to know that there is no place in the priesthood and religious life for those who would harm the young…. So much pain, so much sorrow must lead to a holier priesthood, a holier episcopate, and a holier Church” (Address of John Paul II to the Cardinals of the United States, 23 April 2002).

In the words of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, as we commit ourselves to the safeguarding of minors, we need “to establish the truth of what happened in the past, to take whatever steps are necessary to prevent it from occurring again, to ensure that the principles of justice are fully respected and, above all, to bring healing to the victims and to all those affected by these egregious crimes” (Pope Benedict XVI, Address to the Irish Bishops, 28 October 2006).

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic World Report

Francis establishes commission to protect minors; majority of members are lay, one an abuse victim

March 22, 2014
By Catherine Harmon

Last December, the Vatican announced that Pope Francis would establish a commission dedicated to the protection of minors, at the recommendation of the Council of Cardinals. Today the initial membership of that commission was announced; five of the eight members are lay, and four of those members are women. One of them, Irishwoman Marie Collins, is a well-known advocate for victims’ rights and was herself the victim of sexual abuse by a priest.

Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston is one of three clergymen named to the new commission, and the only North American representative. In a statement accompanying the announcement of the commission’s membership, Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi, SJ mentioned that additional members from other countries will be selected by the commission in the future. Some biographical information about the members can be found here.

The eight initial members are:

– Dr. Catherine Bonnet (France);
– Marie Collins (Ireland);
– Prof. Sheila Hollins (United Kingdom);
– Cardinal Sean O’Malley, OFM Cap. (United States);
– Prof. Claudio Papale (Italy);
– Her Excellency Hanna Suchocka (Poland);
– Fr. Humberto Miguel Yañez, SJ (Argentina);
– Fr. Hans Zollner, SJ (Germany)

The full text of Father Lombardi’s statement, via Vatican Radio:

As Blessed John Paul II declared, “People need to know that there is no place in the priesthood and religious life for those who would harm the young…. So much pain, so much sorrow must lead to a holier priesthood, a holier episcopate, and a holier Church” (Address of John Paul II to the Cardinals of the United States, 23 April 2002).

In the words of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, as we commit ourselves to the safeguarding of minors, we need “to establish the truth of what happened in the past, to take whatever steps are necessary to prevent it from occurring again, to ensure that the principles of justice are fully respected and, above all, to bring healing to the victims and to all those affected by these egregious crimes” (Pope Benedict XVI, Address to the Irish Bishops, 28 October 2006).

Continuing the work undertaken by his predecessors, and having heard the advice of a number of Cardinals, other members of the College of Bishops, and experts in the field, and having duly deliberated, Pope Francis now is forming a Commission for the safeguarding of minors.

Pope Francis has made clear that the Church must hold the protection of minors amongst Her highest priorities. Today, to carry forward this initiative, the Holy Father announces the names of several highly qualified persons who are committed to this issue.

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VATICAN CITY
Boston.com

By NICOLE WINFIELD / Associated Press / March 22, 2014

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis named the initial members of a commission to advise him on sex abuse policy Saturday, signaling an openness to reach beyond church officials to plot the commission’s course and priorities: Half of the members are women, and one was assaulted by a priest as a child.

The eight members were announced after Francis came under fire from victims’ groups for a perceived lack of attention to the abuse scandal, which has seriously damaged the Catholic Church’s reputation around the world and cost dioceses and religious orders billions of dollars in legal fees and settlements.

The Vatican in December announced that Francis would create the commission to advise the church on best policies to protect children, train church personnel and keep abusers out of the clergy. But no details had been released until Saturday and it remains unknown if the commission will deal with the critical issue of disciplining bishops who cover up for abusers.

In a statement, the Vatican hinted that it might, saying the commission would look into both ‘‘civil and canonical duties and responsibilities’’ for church personnel. Canon law does provide for sanctions if a bishop is negligent in carrying out his duties, but such punishments have never been imposed on a bishop for failing to report a pedophile priest to police. …

Collins’ appointment to the panel was hailed by Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, who has clashed both with the Vatican and his fellow bishops in demanding greater accountability and honesty about abuse. SNAP, the main U.S. victim’s group also praised her inclusion but said the pope doesn’t need another study panel, he just needs to oust complicit bishops.

‘‘He’s had more than a year to defrock, demote, discipline or denounce even one of them,’’ said SNAP’s outreach director Barbara Dorris in a statement. ‘‘But, just like his predecessors, he refuses to take this simple but crucial step toward justice, healing and prevention.’’

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VATICAN CITY
The New York Times

By JIM YARDLEY
MARCH 22, 2014

ROME — Pope Francis on Saturday named a diverse group of laypeople and clergy as his first appointees to a special Vatican commission addressing the clerical sexual abuse crisis, a list that includes an equal number of women as men, as well as an Irish activist who was abused by a priest as a child.

In recent months, Francis has come under criticism from a variety of advocacy groups for abuse victims, especially after he defended the Roman Catholic Church’s handling of the sexual abuse crisis in a recent interview. Last month, a United Nations commission issued a stinging report on the church’s record of handling cases of abuse, and some advocacy groups have considered the pope’s appointments to his commission as a telling signal of his commitment to combating the crisis.

The eight names released on Saturday suggested that Francis had deliberately shaken up the usual way of doing things at the Vatican: Four of the members are women, including Marie Collins, an Irish woman who was abused as a girl in the 1960s and later became a national activist to help other victims. She also pushed the authorities in Ireland to prosecute the priest who abused her in 1997, the Vatican said.

The list includes five laypeople, and just three clergy members. Among the clergy, the most notable is Cardinal Sean Patrick O’Malley of Boston, who has been a central figure in the Roman Catholic Church’s response to the abuse crisis in the United States.

In a statement, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, said the initial task of the eight members would be to determine the scope of the commission’s responsibility and also develop a list of other potential members from around the world.

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AUSTRALIA
lewisblayse.net

Posted on March 22, 2014 by lewisblayse

Dear all,

Well, it’s been a long time coming, but the edited film of the Lewis Blayse / Lewin Blazevich public memorial at the University of Queensland on 1 March, 2014 is now available. You can view it at the end of this post.

It was a small, but highly charged event. As well as it being a way of paying public tribute to my father, it was my desire that the event would serve a dual purpose of being an opportunity for key people to reflect on the work of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse on the themes of “Where are we now and where do we need to go from here?” and “The whole world is watching.”

There were a couple of last minute changes in the speaker list.

The people who spoke did so well and passionately. In what follows, I outline in my own words and using the words of the speakers, what was said.

Dr Cathy Kezelman’s (www.asca.org.au) well-considered speech was read out by Nicola Ellis, of Ellis Legal. Cathy spoke on the topic “A time for reflection and hope and optimism.” In her speech, she made several important points. Some of these include:

(a) That while the statistics on child abuse are shocking, we mustn’t forget the humans behind the statistics;
(b) That the long-term effects of child abuse are starting to be understood;
(c) That we’ve stood back and looked the other way for too long;
(d) That we need to help survivors more than we are already;
(e) That Australia is leading the world with the Royal Commission;
(f) That there needs to be greater education on the issues amongst medical professionals; and
(g) That the cost of inaction on child abuse is high – for victims and for communities.

Chris Wilding pulled no punches when she spoke on the topic of “The power of words.” She too made several excellent points, including:

(a) That the institutions in question rely on paid wordsmiths / spin doctors in their communications with the public, but that the true “corporate face” that survivors see is one of a lack of justice and fairness;

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MASSACHUSETTS
WCVB

VATICAN CITY —Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley has been appointed by Pope Francis to a commission created to advise the Catholic Church on how to protect children from sexual abuse.

Francis named the initial members of a commission to advise him on sex abuse policy Saturday, tapping lay and religious experts – and an Irish woman assaulted as a child by a priest – to start plotting the commission’s tasks and priorities.

The Boston Globe reports that O’Malley is the only American on the commission, but he will not have to move to Rome and will continue to serve as the Archbishop of Boston.

The eight members, four of them women, were announced after Francis came under fire from victims’ groups for a perceived lack of attention to the abuse scandal, which has seriously damaged the Catholic Church’s reputation around the world and cost dioceses and religious orders billions of dollars in legal fees and settlements.

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VATICAN CITY
International Business Times

By Mark Piggott March 22, 2014

Marie Collins, the Irish woman who has campaigned to highlight the issue of paedophilia in the Catholic Church since being abused as a child in the 1960s, has been invited to join a special panel set up by Pope Francis to end the evil of paedophilia within the Catholic Church, which the Pope has called “the shame of the church”.

Collins, who established the Irish victim support group One in Four, says bishops who fail to root out paedophile priests or protect children should themselves be punished by the Vatican.

Others invited to join the four-man, four-woman panel include British psychiatrist Baroness Sheila Hollins, Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley and Hanna Suchocka, the former Polish prime minister. The group will assume a number of responsibilities including educating people about child exploitation.

Marie Collins (L), an Irish victim of clerical abuse, attends Penitential VigilREUTERS/Tony Gentile
Pope Francis, who today also spoke out to condemn the Mafia, has been criticised for not acting fast enough to deal with the paedophilia scandal since he took over from Benedict XVI.

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VATICAN CITY
BBC News

Irish abuse victim Marie Collins has been appointed to the Vatican commission on protecting children from abuse.

In December, the Vatican said it would set up a committee to improve measures to protect children against sexual abuse within the Catholic Church.

Pope Francis announced the first eight members on Saturday, four men and four women.

However, the scope of the commission remains unknown.

Cardinal Seán Patrick O’Malley, who revealed the initiative, is also on the commission.

Protection of minors
The initial members will be responsible for rounding out the “commission for safeguarding minors” with other experts from around the world and defining the scope of the group’s action.

“Pope Francis has made clear that the church must hold the protection of minors amongst Her highest priorities,” Vatican spokesman Rev Federico Lombardi said in a statement.

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UNITED STATES
Wall Street Journal

By DEBORAH BALL
March 22, 2014

Pope Francis on Saturday appointed a victim of sexual abuse and a senior cardinal known for his zero-tolerance approach to a new group charged with advising the Catholic Church on how to respond to the problem of sexual abuse of children.

In December, Pope Francis announced plans to establish the special commission, in one of his first major moves to confront an issue that has shaken the church.

Among the pontiff’s eight nominations Saturday, four are women and five are lay people. They include Marie Collins, who was sexually abused by a cleric in the 1960s and is a leading campaigner on the issue in Ireland, and Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley, who spearheaded that city’s response to the problem. Poland’s former prime minister, a prominent British psychologist and an expert in canon law were also among those named, reflecting the range of issues the new group is supposed to address.

The Vatican said the panel, which has only advisory power, will start its work soon, but didn’t specify when. The members first will decide the scope of responsibilities of the new group, which will include additional members from other regions, the Vatican said in a statement.

While Pope Francis has enjoyed immense popularity since his election last year, some victims groups have expressed disappointment that he hasn’t spoken more forcefully about the problem.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Sonntags Zeitung

[Summary: If the insolvent Augsburg Weltbild Publishing Group is to survive, a total of 656 employees need to go. Insolvency administrator Arndt Geiwitz made the announcement at a Thursday staff meeting. The company is owned by the German Catholic bishops.]

Für die Rettung der insolventen Augsburger Verlagsgruppe Weltbild müssen 656 Mitarbeiter gehen. Ihnen soll jedoch der Wechsel in eine Transfergesellschaft angeboten werden, wie Insolvenzverwalter Arndt Geiwitz am Donnerstag bei der Betriebsversammlung ankündigte. Zugleich sei er “vorsichtig optimistisch”, dass eine Gesamtsanierung gelingen werde. Allerdings brauche es dafür einen schlankeren wie effizienteren operativen Betrieb, eine klarere Marktpositionierung und eine neue finanzielle Basis. Am Standort Augsburg sind knapp 1.800 Mitarbeiter tätig. Dauerhaft sollen rund 1.000 bleiben.

Bereits am Freitag werde 582 Beschäftigten das Angebot gemacht, in eine Transfergesellschaft zu wechseln, bestätigte am selben Tag die Arbeitnehmervertreter. Wer sich bis 28. März dafür entscheide, werde nicht gekündigt und behalte seine Sozialleistungsansprüche. Bis Spätherbst könnten weitere 74 Mitarbeiter ihren Arbeitsplatz verlieren. Wer in die Transfergesellschaft wechsle, könne bis zu 90 Prozent seines bisherigen Nettogehaltes erhalten. Üblicherweise liege die Höhe nur bei 60 bis 67 Prozent, führte Rechtsanwalt Michael Huber aus. Er wertete das Ergebnis als einen Meilenstein, der hoffentlich Vorbildcharakter haben werde.

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DEUTSCHLAND
kathweb

[Summary: Munster canonist Thomas Schuller sees Pope Francis as being in an “unfortunate situation” regarding controversial Limburg Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz- van Elst. Since the bishop has not resigned, the pope must make the decision. No matter how the pope decides, one side of the controversy will not be happy, he said.]

Deutscher Kirchenrechtler Schüller übt scharfe Kritik übte Schüller an jüngsten Äußerungen des Präfekten der Glaubenskongregation, Kardinal Müller
21.03.2014

Bonn, 21.03.2014 (KAP) Der Münsteraner Kirchenrechtler Thomas Schüller sieht Papst Franziskus im Fall des umstrittenen Limburger Bischofs Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst in einer “unseligen Situation”. Tebartz-van Elst sehe nicht ein, dass er dem Papst seinen Rücktritt anbieten müsse und bringe Franziskus in die schwierige Situation, eine Entscheidung treffen zu müssen, sagte Schüller in einem Interview für die ARD (Südwestrundfunk). “Egal wie sich der Papst entscheidet, er wird danach beschädigt sein, weil jeweils eine Seite das nicht gut finden wird”, so Schüller laut einer Vorabmitteilung des Senders.

Scharfe Kritik übte Schüller an jüngsten Äußerungen des Präfekten der römischen Glaubenskongregation, Kardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, in Sachen Tebartz-van Elst. Müller habe den Eindruck erweckt, die Kirche sei ein rechtsfreier Bereich.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Frankfurter Allgemeine

22.03.2014 · Papst Franziskus hat einen Ausschuss gegen Kindesmissbrauch in der Katholischen Kirche eingesetzt. Mit dabei sind katholische Würdenträger, außerkirchliche Experten – und ein Missbrauchsopfer.

Papst Franziskus hat eine Kommission zum Schutz von Minderjährigen vor sexuellem Missbrauch in der katholischen Kirche eingesetzt. Wie der Vatikan am Samstag mitteilte, ist unter den Mitgliedern des neuen Gremiums auch ein Missbrauchsopfer aus Irland. Die Mitglieder des Gremiums sollen zunächst die Aufgaben und Kompetenzen des Ausschusses genauer bestimmen und weitere Mitglieder weltweit rekrutieren.

Zu den weiblichen Gremiumsmitgliedern gehören unter anderem die französische Kinderpsychiaterin Catherine Bonnet, das irische Missbrauchsopfer Marie Collins und Polens früherer Ministerpräsidentin Hanna Suchocka. Franziskus hatte im Dezember die Bildung des Ausschusses angekündigt und damit auf den Pädophilie-Skandal reagiert, der die Kirche erschüttert hatte.

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VATIKAN
Radio Vatikan

Papst Franziskus ist es ernst mit dem Thema Kinder- und Jugendschutz. Wie im Dezember angekündigt hat er eine Päpstliche Kommission für Kinder- und Jugendschutz eingerichtet. Das wurde an diesem Samstag im Vatikan bekanntgegeben. Franziskus ernannte acht Mitglieder der Kommission, darunter den aus Regensburg stammenden Jesuiten Hans Zollner, der sich gegen Missbrauch im kirchlichen Bereich engagiert. Der Psychologe und Psychotherapeut leitet ein Komitee für Kinderschutz an der Päpstlichen Universität Gregoriana.

Unter den weiteren Mitgliedern sind Kardinal Sean Patrick O`Malley von Boston (USA), der auch einer der acht Kardinalsberater von Franziskus ist, die frühere polnische Ministerpräsidentin Hanna Suchocka und der argentinische Jesuit Humberto Miguel Yáñez, ein Vertrauter des Papstes. Mit der Irin Marie Collins aus Dublin wurde auch ein Missbrauchsopfer in das neue Gremium berufen. Collins ist in den 1960er Jahren von einem katholischen Priester sexuell missbraucht worden; sie engagiert sich seit längerem für einen besseren Schutz von Kindern in der katholischen Kirche.

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VATIKAN
Katholisch

Papst Franziskus hat eine Kommission zum Schutz von Minderjährigen vor sexuellem Missbrauch in der katholischen Kirche eingesetzt. Wie der Vatikan am Samstag mitteilte, ist unter den Mitgliedern des neuen Gremiums auch ein Missbrauchsopfer aus Irland.

Die aus Dublin stammende Marie Collins wurde in den 1960er Jahren von einem katholischen Priester sexuell missbraucht. Sie engagiert sich seit längerem für einen besseren Schutz von Kindern in der katholischen Kirche. Von den insgesamt acht Mitgliedern der Kommission sind fünf Laien, unter ihnen vier Frauen. Aus Deutschland gehört der Kommission der Jesuit und Psychologieprofessor Hans Zollner an. Der aus Regensburg stammende Zollner lehrt an der römischen Universität Gregoriana. Er gilt als einer der führenden kirchlichen Fachleute auf diesem Gebiet.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Times Herald

By PATTI MENGERS, pmengers@21st-centurymedia.com
POSTED: 03/22/14

Officials in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia say it is another step in the healing process for Roman Catholics who were abused by priests when they were children. Advocates for survivors of abuse say it is just adds insult to injury.

Touted by the archdiocese as “the Mass for healing for victims of clergy sex abuse,” the service will be conducted by Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput at the Cathedral Basilica of SS Peter and Paul in Philadelphia Saturday evening.

“All are welcome to attend as we continue to pray for the survivors of clergy sexual abuse, for the healing of the Church and for all who have been affected by clergy sexual abuse,” said the press release issued by the archdiocese 10 days before the Mass.

That would translate to dozens of victims of more than 60 priests since the 1940s in the five-county area that comprises the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, according to two Philadelphia Grand Jury reports issued in 2005 and 2011. “Holding the Mass is just one way in which the archdiocese reaches out to victims in an effort to assist them on the path to healing,” said Kenneth A. Gavin, Director of Communications for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

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UNITED STATES
Examiner

March 22, 2014

Judy Byington

With numerous charges of priest sex abuse against children mounting on the Catholic Church, Pope Francis’ meeting last Wed with Actor Russell Crowe on his new movie “Noah” may have been the only positive point in his week.

A scathing Feb UN report criticizing Pope Francis for concealing sex abuse crimes on Catholic child sex abuse survivors now numbering in the millions, didn’t seem to affect Vatican policies that appeared designed to protect Catholic authorities, not their child victims:

· On March 14 Pennsylvania Roman Catholic Priest Carlos Urrutigoity, who was transferred, again, to another parish after claims he forced children to have sex, was promoted to the number two position in his new Paraguay diocese. Former Bishop Joseph Martino of the Diocese of Scranton transferred Urrutigoity after he was named in several court cases as routinely sleeping with boys in his care, calling it spiritual guidance. Urrutigoity has faced several such transfers. The US Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) were incensed.

· On March 19 the Catholic Church headed for another State Supreme Court battle. Mary Caplan, co-director of the New York City chapter of SNAP, criticized New York Cardinal Dolan’s challenge to a law which allowed victims to report crimes up to 30 years after a their 18th birthday. She said parishioners shouldn’t pay the Catholic Church to re-victimize victims.

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ARGENTINA
Telam

[Summary: The national justice court has denied the request for release of former Colegio Marianista religious Fernando Enrique Picciochi, who was sentenced to 12 years in prison for sexual abuse of two children.]

La Justicia Nacional denegó el pedido de excarcelación al ex religioso del Colegio Marianista Fernando Enrique Picciochi, condenado a 12 años de prisión por abusos sexuales sobre dos niños, por considerar que no complimentó aún los años para recibir el beneficio del “2 por 1”.

Picciochi, quien se fugó del país en el año 2000 tras haber sido procesado con prision preventiva por el delito de “corrupción de menores calificada, reiterada”, estuvo detenido en Estados Unidos entre 2007 y 2010.

No obstante, el Tribunal Oral en lo Criminal 8 (TOC 8) determinó que, a la hora de contabilizar el inicio de la prisión preventiva se debe computar desde su ingreso al país pues “no puede incluirse el tiempo de detención preventiva” en el extranjero por “el tiempo que insumió el trámite de extradición”.

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CIUDAD DEL VATICANO
El Comercio (Peru)

Ciudad del Vaticano (Reuters). El Papa Francisco designó el sábado a una víctima de abuso sexual de un sacerdote para que sea parte de un grupo creado para ayudar a la Iglesia Católica a abordar el problema de la pedofilia clerical que la ha perseguido por dos décadas.

La formación de un grupo de expertos fue anunciada por primera vez en diciembre y el sábado el Papa nombró a sus primeros ocho miembros- cuatro mujeres y cuatro hombres- de ocho países diferentes.

Estos miembros iniciales serán responsables de completar la “comisión para proteger a los menores” con otros expertos de todo el mundo y definir el rango de acción del grupo.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

Marie Collins and Sean O’Malley are among the first eight chosen by the Pope. “Other members from various parts of the world will be appointed in due course”

DOMENICO AGASSO JR
ROME

Today Pope Francis nominated the first eight members of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors instituted to prevent abuse in the Church. The new Commission is made up of four men and four women from different countries, including Marie Collins, who was a victim of sexual abuse in Ireland in the 1960s and the Franciscan Cardinal Sean O’Malley, Archbishop of Boston and a member of the Pope’s eight-member Council of Cardinals. O’Malley had announced the establishment of a special anti-paedophilia Commission last December. The other individuals selected are: Catherine Bonnet (France); Sheila Hollins (Britain); Claudio Papale, an Italian jurist and Professor of Canonical Law at the Pontifical Urbaniana University; former Polish ambassador Hanna Suchocka; the Jesuit priest Humberto Miguel Yanez (Argentina) and the Dean of the Gregorian Faculty, Hans Zollner (Germany).

The director of the Holy See Press Office, Fr. Federico Lombardi, announced the first nominations explaining that “the Commission created by Francis to protect minors from sex abuse, is part of the Pope’s mission to respond to his sacred duty of ensuring the safety of young people.” “There will be other members chosen from various parts of the world joining this initial group,” he added.

For the time being, most of the eight members that form the structure’s foundation are European. This is in order “to make meetings easier,” the Vatican spokesman said. “The Commission believes the Church has a crucial role to play in this field and intends to look towards the future without forgetting the past, adopting a multifaceted approach to ensure the protection of minors. This includes education to prevent the exploitation of children, the adoption of criminal procedures where offences are committed against minors civil and canonical duties and responsibilities, development of best-practices identified and developed within society as a whole,” Lombardi said.

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VATICAN CITY
John Thavis

Pope Francis today named eight members of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, including an Irish victim of clerical sexual abuse.

This core group of the commission, which includes four women, has been asked to further define the scope of the panel’s responsibilities and recommend additional members.

The Vatican said the commission would promote “a multi-pronged approach to promoting youth protection, including: education regarding the exploitation of children; discipline of offenders; civil and canonical duties and responsibilities; and the development of best practices as they have emerged in society at large.”

The commission includes Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston and Catholic experts from seven other countries. Most are from Europe, but the Vatican said additional members would be found from other continents. Among the eight are specialists in human rights, church and civil law, moral theology and psychology.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Tablet

22 March 2014 by Robert Mickens

Marie Collins, an Irish sex-abuse survivor and founder of the One in Four victims support group, and Baroness Sheila Hollins, a British psychiatrist and life peer, are among those who were appointed today to the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors. Poland’s former Prime Minister and Ambassador to the Holy See, Hanna Suchocka, and French child psychologist, Dr Catherine Bonnet, are the other two women on the commission. The fifth layperson is Claudio Papale, an Italian civil and canon lawyer that works at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Pope Francis today also appointed Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston and two Jesuit priests from the Gregorian University — Humberto Miguel Yáñez from Argentina and Hans Zollner from Germany — to round out the eight-member commission. A Vatican communiqué said more members “from various geographical areas of the world” would eventually be added to the commission.

Francis announced on 5 December that he had accepted a request from his eight-member Council of Cardinals (C8) to set up the new child protection commission. Cardinal O’Malley is a member of the C8 advisory council and has a reputation as one of the bishops most credible in dealing with clergy sex abuse of minors. Fr Zollner is a psychologist and head of the Gregorian-based “Centre for Child Protection”, a data base and e-learning curriculum set up in early 2012 with strong financial backing from the Archdiocese of Munich. The archdiocesan ordinary, Cardinal Reinhard Marx, also a member of the C8 advisory council, is believed to be the one that persuaded Pope Francis to establish the new commission for child protection. Fr Yáñez, meanwhile, is an Argentinian Jesuit like Francis and directs the Gregorian University’s department of moral theology.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

President Obama’s scheduled visit with Pope Francis next Thursday (3/27) is apparently already paying some dividends on curtailing priest child abuse. Apparently to head off potential public pressure from Obama, Francis has after a year as Pope finally just announced the initial members of his child abuse prevention Commission. While the Commission’s undetermined mandate does not appear to include holding bishops accountable for protecting priest abusers, it may be enough to head off President Obama’s raising the abuse issue strongly and publicly next Thursday.

Per the Vatican Radio release (3/22): “Pope Francis has instituted the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors whose task will be to advise the Holy Father on ways to prevent abuse and provide pastoral care for victims and their families … Members of the new Commission announced Saturday by the Holy See’s Press Office, include four men and four women who will be tasked firstly, with drawing up the Statutes of the Commission, defining “its tasks and competencies”.

”The members of the Commission include: French psychologist Catherine Bonnet; Marie Collins, an Irish victim of abuse; British Professor Sheila Hollins, a specialist in mental health; American Cardinal Sean Patrick O’Malley; Italian jurist Claudio Papale; Poland’s former Prime Minister and Ambassador to the Holy See, Hanna Suchocka; and the Jesuits Humberto Miguel Yanez, a moral theologian and former pupil and collaborator of Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Argentina and Hans Zollner, vice-rector of the Pontifical Gregorian University and Chair of the Centre for Child Protection at the University’s Institute of Psychology. Other members will be added to the Commission in the future, chosen from around the world.”
——————————————————————-
With respect to next week’s scheduled Vatican meeting and the upcoming US Congressional elections, please note that Pope Francis recently held after almost a year his much anticipated meeting with his select council of eight cardinals, with Boston’s Cardinal O’Malley as the US representative. The meeting reportedly focused on Francis’ top priorities: (1) consolidating his worldwide control over his childless male hierarchical subordinates, and (2) reviewing his efforts to clean up sordid Vatican finances in order, among other goals, to minimize Vatican cardinals’ potential criminal liability exposure for financial misdeeds.

At the same time, Francis and his media echo chamber have increasingly tried to claim counterfactually and inconsistently, apparently to avoid potential legal liability for covering up for priest child abusers, that popes do not control local Church officials. Other Vatican challenges, including addressing pressing issues affecting child protection, responsible family planning and respecting gay persons’ rights, have continued mainly simmering on Francis’ back burner, if not already precluded by his often inconsistent utterances.

The announcement of the eight abuse Commission members, with no specific mandate at present, may be enough, however, to defuse this issue publicly before Obama’s meeting on Thursday with Francis.

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PORTUGAL
Publico

O Papa Francisco nomeou uma vítima de abuso sexual de um padre para fazer parte de comissão que tem como objectivo ajudar a Igreja Católica a resolver o problema de pedofilia que, nas últimas duas décadas, tem assombrado a instituição. Neste sábado, o Papa nomeou os primeiros oito membros – quatro mulheres e quatro homens – de oito países diferentes.

Estes primeiros membros vão ser responsáveis por criar uma comissão para a protecção de menores com outros especialistas de todo o mundo, e vão definir o alcance da acção do grupo. “O Papa Francisco tornou claro que a Igreja tem de pôr a protecção dos menores entre as suas principais prioridades”, disse o porta-voz do Vaticano, Federico Lombardi. “Olhando para o futuro sem esquecer o passado, a comissão terá uma abordagem multifacetada para promover a protecção da juventude”, acrescentou.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

PUBLISHED 22 MARCH 2014 03:44 PM

Irish abuse survivor Marie Collins was today appointed to the Vatican commission to protect children from abuse.

The committee was first drafted in December and Ms Collins is one of the first eight members announced today.

The commission has been comprised of four men and four women who will tackle the ongoing issue of paedophilia in the Catholic Church.

Ms Collins was abused in the 1960s and has been a vocal campaigner against the exploitation of children.

Cardinal Sean O’Malley is also on the board.

Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi said in a statement today: “Pope Francis has made clear that the Church must hold the protection of minors amongst Her highest priorities.

“Looking to the future without forgetting the past, the Commission will take a multi-pronged approach to promoting youth protection,” he added.

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VATICAN CITY
Boston Globe

By John L. Allen Jr. | GLOBE STAFF MARCH 22, 2014

Pope Francis captured the imagination of the world within hours after his election a year ago through his flashes of humility, and that’s not just a PR facade. In Argentina, he was known as a “bishop of the villas,” referring to the vast slums that ring Buenos Aires, because he had a special love for the poor.

Yet one should never forget that beneath that simple exterior lies the mind of a brilliant Jesuit politician. Some Argentines believe he may actually rival Juan and Evita Perón for the title of best set of political instincts the country ever produced.

That savvy was on display again Saturday, when Francis rolled out the initial members for a new Vatican commission to lead the charge in the fight against clerical sexual abuse.

Despite the generally glowing reviews Francis has drawn over his first year, there have been two streams of criticism that, if allowed to fester, could grow into serious headaches for the pontiff:

— Critics say he hasn’t engaged the church’s clerical abuse scandals with the same vigor he has brought to other problems. An American advocacy group recently raised questions about his response to five abuse cases in Argentina, while his comments in a recent Italian interview reminded some observers of the defensive rhetoric employed by church officials at the onset of the crisis.

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IRELAND
The Journal

ABUSE SURVIVOR AND campaigner Marie Collins, of Aware and One in Four, has been named as a member of the Vatican’s new commission for the protection of minors.

The committee was set up to help improve measures within the Catholic church to protect children against sex abuse.

A statement from the Vatican today said:

…having heard the advice of a number of Cardinals, other members of the College of Bishops, and experts in the field, and having duly deliberated, Pope Francis now is forming a Commission for the safeguarding of minors.

The members of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors are:
Dr Catherine Bonnet (France)
Mrs Marie Collins (Ireland)
Professor the Baroness Sheila Hollins (United Kingdom)
Cardinal Sean Patrick O’Malley, OFM Cap (US)
Professor Claudio Papale (Italy)
Her Excellency Hanna Suchocka (Poland)
Reverend Humberto Miguel Yañez, SJ (Argentina)
Reverend Hans Zollner, SJ (Germany)

They will prepare the Statutes of the Commission, which will define its tasks and competencies. Other members will be added to the commission in the future.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

First published:
Sat, Mar 22, 2014

Pope Francis today appointed Irish abuse survivor Marie Collins to the Vatican commission on protecting children from clerical abuse.

The group has been formed to help the Catholic Church tackle the problem of clerical paedophilia that has dogged it for two decades.

The formation of a group of experts was first announced in December, and today the pope named the first eight members – four female and four male – from eight different countries.

These initial members will be responsible for rounding out the “commission for safeguarding minors” with other experts from around the world and defining the scope of the group’s action.

“Pope Francis has made clear that the Church must hold the protection of minors amongst Her highest priorities,” Vatican spokesman Rev Federico Lombardi said in a statement.

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UNITED STATES
dotCommonweal

Grant Gallicho March 22, 2014

Pope Francis has named the first eight members of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, which he announced last December. Half are women. Five are laypeople. Two are Jesuits (one of them was formed in Argentina by the pope himself). One is a cardinal–Sean O’Malley–and he’s the only American. Here they are:

Dr. Catherine Bonnet (France)
Mrs. Marie Collins (Ireland)
Prof. the Baroness Sheila Hollins (UK)
Card. Sean Patrick O’Malley (U.S.A.)
Prof. Claudio Papale (Italy)
Her Excellency Hanna Suchocka (Poland)
Rev. Humberto Miguel Yañez, SJ (Argentina)
Rev. Hans Zollner, SJ (Germany)

They will be tasked with writing the “statutes” of the commission, and more members will be added at a later date. In a statement, Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi, SJ, explained that the commission “will take a multi-pronged approach to promoting youth protection, including: education regarding the exploitation of children; discipline of offenders; civil and canonical duties and responsibilities; and the development of best practices as they have emerged in society at large.”

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Pope Francis has appointed Irish abuse victim Marie Collins to the Vatican commission on protecting children from abuse.

The new eight member commission also includes Cardinal Sean Patrick O’Malley, who revealed the initiative last December.

It is hoped the commission will help the church develop protocols on dealing with clerical child sex abuse cases.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

Joshua J. McElwee | Mar. 22, 2014

Pope Francis on Saturday announced eight members of a new commission in the Catholic church’s central bureaucracy tasked with advising the pontiff on safeguarding children from sex abuse and working pastorally with abuse victims.

Among the members are Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley, four laywomen, one Italian professor, and two priests.

Strikingly, one of the laywomen, Marie Collins, is herself a survivor of clergy sexual abuse. An Irishwoman who has campaigned for more thorough investigation of clergy accused of abuse, Collins struggled for years to bring her own abuser to justice.

Announcing the names of the new group in a press release Saturday, the Vatican said the eight would be responsible for determining the commission’s structure, outlining its duties, and putting forward names of other candidates who might join its work.

Detailing of the new commission, officially titled the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, comes as Francis has been facing renewed questioning regarding his understanding of the continuing global clergy sex abuse crisis and his lack of discussion of the topic.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Agency

Vatican City, Mar 22, 2014 / 08:21 am (CNA).- Today Pope Francis instituted the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, issuing the names of eight members tasked with structuring the future form of the commission.

“Pope Francis has made clear that the Church must hold the protection of minors amongst her highest priorities. Today, to carry forward this initiative, the Holy Father announces the names of several highly qualified persons who are committed to this issue,” said Fr. Lombardi, the director of the Holy See’s press office, on March 22.

A statement from the Vatican press office noted that the members’ “principal role will be to prepare the Statutes of the Commission, which will define its tasks and competencies. Other members will be added to the Commission in the future, chosen from various geographical areas of the world.”

The eight initial members are comprised of three women and four men, including Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston. Several are university professors and experts in psychology, law, and aiding those victimized by sexual abuse.

Fr. Lombardi noted that these eight will be “participating in the deliberations concerning the Commission’s final structure; describing the scope of its responsibilities; and developing the names of additional candidates, especially from other continents and countries, who can offer service to the Commission.”

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VATICAN CITY
USA Today

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis announced the initial members of a commission to advise him on sex abuse policy Saturday, tapping lay and religious experts — and an Irish woman assaulted as a child by a priest — to start plotting the commission’s tasks and priorities.

The eight members were announced after Francis came under criticism from victims’ groups for a perceived lack of attention to the abuse scandal, which has seriously damaged the church’s reputation around the world and cost dioceses billions of dollars in legal fees and settlements.

The Vatican in December announced that Francis had decided to create the commission to advise the church on best policies to protect children, train church personnel and keep abusers out of the clergy. But no details had been released until Saturday and it remains unknown if the commission will deal with the critical issue of disciplining bishops who cover up for abusers.

In a statement Saturday, the Vatican hinted that it might, saying the commission would look into both “civil and canonical duties and responsibilities” for church personnel. Canon law does provide for sanctions if a bishop is negligent in carrying out his duties, but such punishments have rarely if ever been imposed in the case of bishops who failed to report pedophile priests to police.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service – Bolletino

[Italiana]

The Holy Father Francis has instituted the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, which was announced on Dec. 5, 2013, and called to be a part of it:

Dr. Catherine Bonnet (France)
Mrs. Marie Collins (Ireland)
Prof. the Baroness Sheila Hollins (United Kingdom)
Card. Sean Patrick O’Malley, OFM Cap (U.S.)
Prof. Claudio Papale (Italy)
Her Excellency Hanna Suchocka (Poland)
Rev. Humberto Miguel Yañez, SJ (Argentina)
Rev. Hans Zollner, SJ (Germany)

Their principal role will be to prepare the Statutes of the Commission, which will define its tasks and competencies. Other members will be added to the Commission in the future, chosen from various geographical areas of the world.

* * *

Di seguito riportiamo i cenni biografici dei Membri della Commissione (manca la biografia della Dott.ssa Catherine Bonnet):

[The biographies of the members are published below. The biography of Dr. Catherine Bonnet is not included.]

Marie Collins

Marie Collins was born in Dublin, Ireland and is married with one son. She is a founder Trustee of the Marie Collins Foundation, a UK NGO dedicated to the needs of children, young people and their families for whom sexual abuse and harm has arisen via the internet and mobile technologies. Marie was a victim of sexual abuse as a child in the 1960’s and brought the priest who abused her to justice in 1997. She has campaigned actively for the protection of children, justice for survivors of clerical sexual abuse, and for a better understanding of the effects of sexual abuse on children and in 2010 Marie was one of the joint recipients of the Irish Humbert Summer School award for Courage. Marie was a founding member of the Irish depression support group “Aware” in 1985 and ran their voluntary “Helpline” for many years, and she is founding Trustee of the Advocacy and Counselling support group for abuse survivors, One in Four (Ireland). She assisted the Archdiocese of Dublin in setting up their Child Protection Service and drafting of the Catholic Church’s all-Ireland child protection policy, “Our Children Our Church.”

Sheila Hollins

Professor the Baroness Hollins was born in England and is married, with two children. Sheila is a life peer in the House of Lords, Chair of the Board of Science of the British Medical Association, Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry of Disability at St George’s University of London, and Honorary Professor in Theology and Religion at the University of Durham. She is a specialist in mental health and has conducted extensive research into clinical and social aspects of the mental and physical health of people with learning disabilities, with a particular focus on bereavement, palliative care and sexual abuse. Sheila has also served as Chair of the World Health Organisation’s Euro Steering Group (2008), President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists (2005-2008) and President of the British Medical Association (2012-2013).

Seán Cardinal O’Malley, OFM Cap.

Cardinal O’Malley was born in Ohio and a member of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin. Cardinal Seán is Archbishop of Boston, a member of the Council of Cardinals, the Congregation for the Clergy, the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, and the Presidential Council of the Pontifical Council for the Family. The Cardinal holds a PhD in Spanish and Portuguese literature from the Catholic University of America, where he served as professor (1969-1973) and is presently a Trustee. He founded Centro Católico Hispano in Washington, DC, an organization which provided educational, medical and legal help to immigrants. Since his ordination to the episcopacy in 1984, the Cardinal has also served as the Bishop of the dioceses of St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands; Fall River, Massachusetts; and Palm Beach, Florida. Cardinal Seán is well-known for his extensive efforts for the protection of children and was one of the Visitators for the Apostolic Visitation of dioceses and seminaries in Ireland (2010).

Claudio Papale

Claudio Papale è nato a Roma (Italia) ed è coniugato. È Professore straordinario presso la Facoltà di diritto canonico della Pontificia Università Urbaniana ed ha il titolo di Avvocato civilista. Ha conseguito la Laurea in Giurisprudenza presso la Seconda Università degli Studi di Roma Tor Vergata e la Laurea in diritto canonico presso la Pontificia Università Urbaniana. È anche Officiale della Sezione disciplinare della Congregazione per la Dottrina della Fede e Difensore del vincolo sostituto presso il Tribunale Regionale Pugliese. Recentemente ha tenuto una Relazione su “Delitti contro la morale” presentata in occasione del Corso intensivo sui delitti riservati alla Congregazione per la Dottrina della Fede svoltosi presso la Pontificia Università Urbaniana.

Hanna Suchocka

Hanna Suchocka was born in Poland. Her Excellency is Professor, University of Poznan, Faculty of Law, a specialist in Constitutional Law, and author of numerous papers and scientific articles on themes regarding human rights. She is the former Prime Minister of the Republic of Poland (1992-1993), Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Republic of Poland (1997-2000), and Ambassador of Poland to the Holy See (2001-2013). She has received honorary degrees from Institut for Family at the Lateran University, Kardinal Wyszynski University in Warsaw, and John Paul University in Krakow. Among many awards, Hanna has received the Max Schmidheimy Stiftung Peace Prize and the Gold Medal of the “Jean Monnet” Foundation (Lausanne) for her activity in favor of integration and human rights.

Humberto Miguel Yáñez, SJ

Gesuita argentino, nato a Mendoza nel 1956, ordinato sacerdote nel 1986, attualmente è Professore di Teologia Morale alla Facoltà di Teologia dell’Università Gregoriana e all’Urbaniana; Direttore del Dipartimento di Teologia Morale dell’Università Gregoriana. In Argentina è stato Direttore del Centro de Investigacion y Accion Social e Direttore della sua Rivista e ha insegnato alla Facoltà di Teologia di San Miguel, al Seminario Interdiocesano di Resistencia e al Seminario di Moron. Membro del Gruppo Teologico. Al Simposio sugli Abusi sessuali su Minori «Verso la Guarigione e il Rinnovamento» della Pontificia Università Gregoriana ha partecipato come membro del Gruppo Teologico.

Da studente gesuita si è formato con il P. Bergoglio, Rettore del Colegio Maximo di San Miguel e nella Parrocchia San José da lui fondata dove la sua attività pastorale si è indirizzata soprattutto ai giovani.

P. Hans Zollner, SJ

P. Hans Zollner, SJ, Dr. theol., was born in 1966 in Regensburg (Germany). He is a licensed psychologist and psychotherapist, Academic Vice-Rector of the Pontifical Gregorian University, Director of the Institute of Psychology, and Chair of the Steering Committee of the “Centre for Child Protection” of the Institute of Psychology of the Pontifical Gregorian University. Father Zollner was Chair of the organizing committee of the Symposium “Towards Healing and Renewal” on sexual abuse of minors which was held at Gregorian University in February 2012 and a member of the Scientific Working Group of the “Round Table on Child Abuse” of the Federal Government of Germany.

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ARGENTINA
Buenos Aires Herald

Pope Francis has named an Argentine theologist and a victim of sexual abuse by a priest to be part of a core group formed to help the Catholic Church tackle the problem of clerical pedophilia that has dogged it for two decades.

The formation of a group of experts was first announced in December, and today the pope named the first eight members – four female and four male – from eight different countries.

These initial members will be responsible for rounding out the “commission for safeguarding minors” with other experts from around the world and defining the scope of the group’s action.

“Pope Francis has made clear that the Church must hold the protection of minors amongst Her highest priorities,” Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi said in a statement.

“Looking to the future without forgetting the past, the Commission will take a multi-pronged approach to promoting youth protection,” he said.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis has instituted the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors whose task will be to advise the Holy Father on ways to prevent abuse and provide pastoral care for victims and their families. Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley of Boston, a member of the Pope’s advisory Council of Cardinals, had announced on Dec. 5, 2013 that such a new commission would be formed in the coming months. At the time, he said the new commission would continue Pope Benedict XVI’s efforts to combat sex abuse by clerics, study current child protection programs, and make suggestions for new Vatican initiatives together with bishops’ conferences and religious orders.

Members of the new Commission announced Saturday by the Holy See’s Press Office, include four men and four women who will be tasked firstly, with drawing up the Statutes of the Commission, defining “its tasks and competencies:”

The members of the Commission include: French psychologist Catherine Bonnet; Marie Collins, an Irish victim of abuse; British Professor Sheila Hollins, a specialist in mental health; American Cardinal Sean Patrick O’Malley; Italian jurist Claudio Papale; Poland’s former Prime Minister and Ambassador to the Holy See, Hanna Suchocka; and the Jesuits Humberto Miguel Yanez, a moral theologian and former pupil and collaborator of Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Argentina and Hans Zollner, vice-rector of the Pontifical Gregorian University and Chair of the Centre for Child Protection at the University’s Institute of Psychology.

Other members will be added to the Commission in the future, chosen from various geographical areas of the world.

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VATICAN CITY
NBC News

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis on Saturday named a victim of sexual abuse by a priest to be part of a core group formed to help the Catholic Church tackle the problem of clerical pedophilia that has dogged it for two decades.

The formation of a group of experts was first announced in December, and today the pope named the first eight members — four female and four male — from eight different countries.

These initial members will be responsible for rounding out the “commission for safeguarding minors” with other experts from around the world and defining the scope of the group’s action.

“Pope Francis has made clear that the Church must hold the protection of minors amongst Her highest priorities,” Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi said in a statement.

“Looking to the future without forgetting the past, the Commission will take a multi-pronged approach to promoting youth protection,” he said.

These will include taking criminal action against offenders, educating people about the exploitation of children, developing best practices to better screen priests, and defining the civil and clerical duties within the Church, Lombardi said.

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VATICAN CITY
Boston Globe

By John L. Allen Jr. | GLOBE STAFF MARCH 22, 2014

Pope Francis today named Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley of Boston and seven other figures with reputations as reformers to guide a new Vatican anti-abuse commission, a move intended to demonstrate resolve about confronting the child sexual abuse scandals that have rocked Catholicism.

O’Malley, already the lone American on the pope’s “G8” council of cardinal advisers, is also the lone American among the commission members announced today. O’Malley’s new responsibility is not a full-time position, meaning he will not move to Rome and will continue to serve as the Archbishop of Boston.

The lineup for the new “Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors” includes Irish lay woman Marie Collins, who has said she was raped at the age of 13 by a hospital chaplain. When she tried to report the abuse years later, she has said, she was told by church officials that “protecting the good name” of the priest was more important than remedying a “historical” wrong.

Collins has acquired an international reputation as a campaigner for the rights of abuse victims.

The pope tapped three clergy and five laity, including four women. The members come from eight different countries, with seven from Europe or the United States.

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IRELAND
RTE News

Irish abuse victim Marie Collins has been appointed to the Vatican commission on protecting children from abuse.

In December, the Vatican said it would up a special committee to improve measures to protect children against sexual abuse within the Catholic Church.

Pope Francis announced the first eight members today, four male and four female, but the scope of the commission remains unknown.

Also on the commission is Cardinal Sean Patrick O’Malley, who revealed the initiative last December.

The initial members will be responsible for rounding out the “commission for safeguarding minors” with other experts from around the world and defining the scope of the group’s action.

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VATICAN CITY
Columbus Dispatch

Saturday March 22, 2014

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) — Pope Francis today named a victim of sexual abuse by a priest to be part of a core group formed to help the Catholic Church tackle the problem of clerical pedophilia that has dogged it for two decades.

The formation of a group of experts was first announced in December, and today the pope named the first eight members – four female and four male – from eight different countries.

These initial members will be responsible for rounding out the “commission for safeguarding minors” with other experts from around the world and defining the scope of the group’s action.

“Pope Francis has made clear that the Church must hold the protection of minors amongst Her highest priorities,” Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi said in a statement.

“Looking to the future without forgetting the past, the Commission will take a multi-pronged approach to promoting youth protection,” he said.

These will include taking criminal action against offenders, educating people about the exploitation of children, developing best practices to better screen priests, and defining the civil and clerical duties within the Church, Lombardi said.

Among those named to the group was Marie Collins, who was a victim of sexual abuse in Ireland in the 1960s and who has campaigned actively for the protection of children and for justice for victims of clerical pedophilia.

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AUSTRALIA
Courier Mail

TERRY SWEETMAN THE SUNDAY MAIL (QLD) MARCH 22, 2014

MAYBE it’s a defence mechanism, but lots of bad-taste bloke jokes in pubs revolve around dirty old men offering boiled lollies to children.

It’s a simplistic and stereotypical view that doesn’t stack up against reality but what if the man was not so old and not so dirty and was offering love and security instead of sweets?

That was the experience of a reader whose worst memories have been fuelled rather than quenched by the royal commission into child abuse. The inquiry might bring relief, vindication, justice, revenge or even the elusive closure to some, but for our reader it reopened the windows to her private hell.

It (and my questions about childhood memories a few weeks back) forced her to confront events she had been trying to put behind her for maybe 50 years.

“Does the general public realise,’’ she asked, “that for every victim willing to testify there are as many people hiding in fear that their secrets will be exposed, ashamed of the past, feeling dirty and tainted, confused about their feelings for their abuser?’’

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UNITED STATES
dotCommonweal

Mollie Wilson O’Reilly March 21, 2014

On Wednesday I was part of a panel discussion on the occasion of Pope Francis’s one-year anniversary, featuring Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, moderated by Ken Woodward, and hosted by the American Bible Society. It was really more of a group interview than a discussion — after Cardinal O’Malley spoke about the spiritual side of Francis’s papacy, the other panelists, Matt Malone of America and Rusty Reno of First Things, and I took turns asking him questions but didn’t talk much to each other (not onstage, anyway).

If you were there, thank you! I spoke to a lot of audience members afterward and truly enjoyed meeting you all. For those who couldn’t make it, if I find out about a recording or a transcript of the event, I will certainly let you know. In the meantime I am grateful to Beth Griffin’s report for Catholic News Service for capturing the highlights.

The Cardinal, as one of the eight men named by Pope Francis to his personal advisory council, is very well positioned to give an insider’s view of Francis’s plans. You probably won’t be surprised to learn that he was, for the most part, too discreet to do so. I put to him some of the questions that were on my mind and yours: I noted that many people, including myself, were disappointed with the pope’s recent remarks on the sex-abuse crisis in that he did not make any reference to the question of accountability for bishops and administrators who mishandled cases of abuse, despite the role that lack of accountability has played in the scandal and in damaging the church’s credibility. So, I asked Cardinal O’Malley, do you have any sense of whether that issue is on the pope’s radar (I think that’s how I put it), and what he might plan to do about it? His answer, as Griffin transcribes it:

The pope is anxious to launch a committee for child protection, which is coming soon, and has recently spent a lot of time on the abuse issue, Cardinal O’Malley said. “His love for people and his sense of God’s mercy is something that energizes everything he does and he brings that also to the way he looks at the sex abuse crisis.”

The cardinal acknowledged he is “trying to be of service to the Holy Father in this area” because he has more experience than the other cardinal advisers.

That last bit was in response to a follow-up question from me about whether the pope would be asking O’Malley for advice about who should serve on that committee. Anyway, Griffin did not leave out any significant detail that I can recall. The question of accountability was left largely unaddressed, although it’s possible to read the cardinal’s reference to love and mercy as a hint that we shouldn’t be holding our breath waiting for Francis to start firing people.

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GUAM
Jungle Watch

Note: I received this letter with the question of whether or not it should just be sent to Archbishop Apuron or posted on this blog. Since the letter addresses many of the concerns already posted on this blog, I recommended that it be shared here on behalf of everyone. I also had some questions as to whether the author was using a pseudonym or his real name, so I decided to redact the name of the sender, especially since the letter already speaks for so many. The letter makes several points which will be extracted in a later post so that the inquiries into financial accountability can be enumerated more clearly. Here is the letter (emphases mine):

————————————————–

Archbishop Anthony S. Apuron
Most Reverend Archbishop of Agana
Agana, Guam

Your Excellency:

My family has long supported the Church through our stewardship offerings of time, talent, and treasures. Our family has always supported the church, and my parents were an example of faith in action through their generosity.

While I have been aware of some of the issues raised in the media since July, 2013, I have tried to stay away from those issues, trusting that God will guide His church. Matters of ritual adherence and questions of parish unity do not directly concern me, as I know there are those who will decide on these. However, there has been quite a lot of discussion on fiscal responsibility, and I have not seen any clarification to questions asked, and accusations made. I am very deeply committed to helping the Church, but at the same time I am deeply concerned whether my funds are being used as stated.

While I do not speak for the people of Guam, I have been asked to speak on behalf of my family to clarify some issues we are concerned with. Once these are answered, our family will again meet to go over these issues to determine to what level we are to support the Archdiocesan Annual Appeal. All of my questions pertain to the information released to the faithful in the March 2 edition of the U Matuna Si Yu’os on pages 8 and 9.

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IRELAND
Association of Catholic Priests

Sean O’Connaill deplores the bishops’ lack of transparency on the funding and independence of the national body for child protection that they set up (the NSBCCC), and hopes for the day when bishops will be accountable to their people.

Beginning 20 years ago in 1994, the Irish Catholic church was struck by the greatest ever blow to its morale and survival – the revelation that not only could Irish Catholic children suffer life-threatening abuse from a small minority of their clergy, but (far worse) that other ordained men who carry the church’s symbol of pastoral care, the shepherd’s crook, could fail to exert their canonical power to protect those children – and could use that power instead to conceal the crime of the erring priest. In the years that followed, and especially in 2002, it became clear that this failure, and the secrecy that masked it, would follow a pattern affecting even Ireland’s most populous diocese, Dublin.

So serious was the ensuing loss of trust in their commitment to the safety of Catholic children that Irish bishops set up in 2007 the National Board for the Safeguarding of Children in the Catholic Church – to monitor their own safeguarding performance. In recognition of the depth of scepticism that the clerical church could ever be trusted to monitor itself, the NBSCCC’s first CEO was Ian Elliott, a highly experienced child care professional – and a Presbyterian layman.

Elliott soon proved his determination and integrity by not only finding serious failings in the child safeguarding provision of the diocese of Cloyne, but by withstanding the threat of legal action against him by the diocese’s child protection team. He went on to train the child safeguarding personnel, and to develop the clear safeguarding guidelines, that allow the Irish Bishops’ Conference to claim today that their church in every diocese in Ireland is a model for child safety that the wider world could learn from.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

Catherine Armitage
Senior Writer

The Catholic Church’s insurer insisted on being “kept in the loop” in the John Ellis case after lawyers expressed concern at Cardinal George Pell’s “tooth and nail” approach, according to evidence at the child sex abuse royal commission.

Peter Rush, then general manager of Catholic Church Insurance Ltd, complained to the business manager of the Sydney Archdiocese about being “kept out of the loop” in the case and warned this could jeopardise the church’s insurance, the commission heard.

Cardinal Pell will give evidence on Monday. His testimony is eagerly anticipated after two weeks of hearings in which commission chairman Justice Peter McClellan has sought to establish Cardinal Pell’s role in the church’s treatment of Mr Ellis, which the commission has been told caused him harm and suffering.

The questions put to Cardinal Pell’s private secretary of more than 10 years, Dr Michael Casey, may be a guide to what the Cardinal can expect on Monday. The “conduit to the Cardinal”, who handles all his correspondence, admitted the church failed in its moral responsibility to Mr Ellis and his own handling of Mr Ellis’s case lacked compassion.

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