ABUSE TRACKER

UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Monday, June 09, 2014

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

Like millions across the world our hearts ache for the families who have suffered and are suffering because of the stunning callousness and deceit by Catholic officials who ran the now infamous Tuam center for unwed mothers. We simply can’t imagine the horrors they have endured and the lifelong trauma that suffering has caused.

The horror at Tuam will be dealt with adequately, we believe, only if the women who suffered there can overcome their grief enough to band together and seek justice. We hope they will do so.

History shows that healing, justice and truth-telling happens best when those who are hurt move beyond their pain and shame and organize.

As Frederick Douglass once said, “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”

We beg the women whose babies and toddlers were taken from them at Tuam to first and foremost take good care of themselves, by sharing their pain with others they love and trust, and by seeking professional help from independent sources.

But we also beg them to reach out to one another, and to independent sources of help, and use their voices to advocate for themselves and other mothers who have been exploited by Catholic officials.

Then, we call on every single Irish priest to reach out to as many of the moms of these horrible homes and beg them to share their stories, get help and start healing.

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.

MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Article by: JEAN HOPFENSPERGER , Star Tribune Updated: June 9, 2014

St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson investigated priest abuse in Twin Cities, but testifies he cannot remember much.

A former auxiliary bishop who was a key figure in the Twin Cities archdiocese’s response to priest sex abuse from the 1980s to mid 1990s, testified in a court deposition that he did not report to police the charges of child sex abuse that crossed his desk over the years and that he no longer remembers them.

The deposition of St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson was released Monday as part of a lawsuit making its way through the courts filed by an alleged victim of clergy sex abuse.

A news conference is scheduled for Monday at 11 a.m. to discuss the deposition.

Carlson had been a point person behind the chancery’s investigation of Tom Adamson, a former priest accused of more than a dozen cases of child sex abuse who is the subject of the lawsuit. However, when asked about his interactions with Adamson — a high-profile case even back in the 1980s — or any actions he took against him, Carlson said he didn’t recall.

“I don’t remember with any accuracy what I did or didn’t do, but there are memos that would explain that,” said Carlson.

The Carlson deposition is the latest testimony of a high-ranking church official to be made public, following former Archbishop Harry Flynn and current Archbishop John Nienstedt and others. The depositions come in response to a lawsuit filed in 2013 on behalf of a man who claimed Adamson abused him in the 1970s at his St. Paul Park church.

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MINNESOTA/MISSOUR
Jeff Anderson & Associates

[live stream of the news conference]

What: At a news conference Monday in St. Paul, MN attorneys Jeff Anderson and Mike Finnegan will:

• Release video clips and the deposition transcript of the current Archdiocese of St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson taken on May 23, 2014 as part of a civil lawsuit in Minnesota. Carlson was ordained in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis in 1970 and rose to the position of Auxiliary Bishop until 1994.

• Discuss the disturbing and alarming sworn testimony given by Carlson who chose not to recall important events he was personally involved in including advising former Winona Bishop Loras Watters “not to remember” when Watters’ gave his own testimony.

• Demonstrate how the documents show a conscious choice, made by then Bishop Carlson, to protect offenders and conceal crimes.

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UNITED STATES
World

By DANIEL JAMES DEVINE
Issue: “Day of reckoning,” June 14, 2014
Posted May 30, 2014

A criminal conviction has stoked the embers in a smoldering, two-year controversy surrounding Sovereign Grace Ministries (SGM), an association of about 80 Reformed, charismatic churches. Victims of childhood sexual abuse have claimed their pastors failed to report abuse allegations to police during years their families attended former SGM churches. The May trial of Nathaniel Morales offered legal confirmation of at least some of those victims’ claims.

In Montgomery County (Md.) Circuit Court on May 15, a dozen jurors convicted Morales, 56, of repeatedly molesting three teenage boys in the late 1980s and early ’90s. At the time, Morales was a member of Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, Md., where popular author C.J. Mahaney served as senior pastor, and from where Mahaney launched SGM. Morales led Bible studies, participated on worship teams, and attended sleepovers with teenage boys during his years at Covenant Life. He later moved away, married a woman with five boys from a previous marriage, and became a pastor in Las Vegas.

After hearing the verdict, victim Jeremy Cook told local ABC affiliate WJLA, “I started crying. It was … overwhelming to know that the struggle, the fight, the 25 years of trying to bring this forward, was worth it.” Morales’ sentencing is scheduled for Aug. 14. He faces up to 85 years in prison.

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VATICAN CITY
The Fiscal Times

BY ROB GARVER,
The Fiscal Times
June 9, 2014

When he took over as head of the Roman Catholic Church last year, Pope Francis made it clear that he meant to be the leader of a “poor church” – meaning that the Vatican would focus less on its own splendor and more on finding ways to use its vast financial resources to benefit the world’s poor.

It’s turning out to be more of a struggle than Francis may have expected; last week he found it necessary to fire all five directors of the Vatican’s Financial Information Authority – essentially the primary financial watchdog over the Papal State’s considerable financial operations.

The announcement on Thursday was only the most recent in a series of firings, replacements, and arrests that have rocked the Vatican’s financial hierarchy. It turns out that for Francis, casting the moneychangers out of the Temple has proven to be a time-consuming task.

Last summer, a number of senior officials with the Vatican Bank resigned around the time that one of its senior accountants, Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, was arrested and charged with conspiring to smuggle more than $20 million from Italy to Switzerland. Scarano, reportedly known in Rome as “Monsignor 500” for his habit of displaying a wallet full of €500 notes, has since been charged with multiple other offenses, including money laundering.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By Kieran Tapsell June 9, 2014

THE Catholic Church for some 1500 years recognised that simply stripping a priest of his status as a priest was not a sufficient punishment for the sexual abuse of children.

Canon law from the 12th century decreed that he should be dismissed from the priesthood and handed over to the civil authority for punishment in accordance with the civil law.

A commission set up by Pope Pius X in 1904 drafted a uniform code of canon law by discarding papal and council decrees that were no longer relevant, modifying others and creating new ones.

The 1917 Code of Canon Law discarded the decrees requiring priests who sexually assaulted children to be handed over to the civil authorities.

Five years later, Pope Pius XI issued his 1922 decree, Crimen Sollicitationis, imposing the “secret of the Holy Office”, a “permanent silence” on all information the Church obtained through its canonical investigations of clergy sex abuse of children. There were no exceptions allowing the reporting of these crimes to the civil authorities.

In 1962, Pope St. John XXIII reissued Crimen Sollicitationis. In 1974, Pope Paul VI, by his decree, Secreta Continere renamed ‘‘the secret of the Holy Office’’ ‘‘the pontifical secret’’, and it continued to apply to the sexual abuse of children under the new 1983 Code of Canon Law.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Monday, June 09, 2014

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

A North Carolina man, who was born in a now-infamous Irish orphanage – in the news now because of a just discovered mass grave of 800 infants and toddlers – is speaking up about the pain it caused him. We applaud this brave man for investigating his past and speak up about what happened to him.

[Washington Post]

Peter Ferris Cochran was adopted by an American family from the Taum center for unwed mothers in Ireland. We are grateful to Cochran for speaking publicly about his story. We hope it gives courage to others who suffered unimaginable cruelty in Catholic institutions.

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UNITED STATES
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on June 9, 2014

Last week, Pope Francis sacked his entire Vatican “watchdog” board, replacing them with an international “who’s who” list of financial reform and investigation gurus.

One of the names on the list surprised me: Juan Zarate. Zarate shot to prominence as the member of George Bush’s Treasury Department. He was a tenacious investigator who went after America’s enemies and other global terrorists where it hurt the most: their bank accounts. But that’s not the surprising part.

The surprising part is this: Juan Zarate was a year behind me at Mater Dei High School in Orange County, California. The Vatican probably knew that, since Mater Dei gave Juan its “Ring of Honor” award in 2002. But did the Vatican vet Mater Dei?

I didn’t know Juan very well in high school. But I did know this: he was an all-around awesome guy. He was friendly, outgoing, nice to everyone, smart and funny. In a school where it was very easy to fall into “cliques,” everyone seemed to know and like Juan. In fact, as he became more and more successful, everyone rooted for him. There was not a better, more hard-working or nicer guy out there. He has deserved every accolade he has received.

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OHIO
Think Progress

BY IAN MILLHISER JUNE 9, 2014

Last March, the Catholic Archdiocese of Cincinnati, Ohio revealed a new contract imposing sweeping limits on the speech and conduct of the schoolteachers it employs. Among other things, the contract forbids teachers from engaging in “improper use of social media/communication, public support of or publicly living together outside of marriage; public support of or sexual activity out of wedlock; public support of/or homosexual lifestyle; public support of/or use of abortion; public support of/or use of a surrogate mother; [and] public support or use of in vitro fertilization or artificial insemination.”

At least some of these restrictions are likely violations of various laws prohibiting discrimination. The ban on “use of in vitro fertilization or artificial insemination,” for example, violates the Pregnancy Discrimination Act according to at least one federal appeals court. Similarly, while Cincinnati’s ban on anti-gay discrimination exempts “any religious corporation, organization, or association,” should a state or federal law be enacted which does not contain this broad exemption, the contract’s ban on a “homosexual lifestyle” would also violate the law.

Which probably explains why, as CNN recently reported, the contract also contains a clause adding “the title ‘ministers’ to all teachers — from geography to gym class.” In a 2012 called Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Supreme Court held that the Constitution “bar[s] the government from interfering with the decision of a religious group to fire one of its ministers.” Thus, the school in that case was able to fire one of its teachers, despite the fact that this firing allegedly violated the Americans with Disabilities Act, because the teacher was also a formally commissioned “Minister of Religion.”

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IRELAND
The Journal

THE CHURCH MUST begin ordaining women and allow priests to marry if it is to survive, the Association of Catholic Priests has warned.

The ACP has made a number of recommendations to deal with the low number of vocations within the Church that will be discussed at the Irish Catholics Bishop Conference in Maynooth this week.

Fr Sean McDonagh of the ACP said that ordaining women as deacons “nothing unusual as they were ordained in the past”.

“It’s fairly clear historically that women have served in the Church, despite every effort to silence their voices since the 4th century.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
Get Hampshire

Jun 09, 2014 14:07 By Stephen Lloyd

A jury at Reading Crown Court returned their final verdicts on nine counts of indecent assault shortly after 1pm today

A 74-year-old retired vicar has been jailed for four years after being convicted of indecently assaulting four girls.

A jury at Reading Crown Court returned their final verdicts on nine counts of indecent assault shortly after 1pm on Friday June 6

Brian Spence, of Nursery Close, Hook, stood trial for nine indecent assault charges involving four girls aged between 10 and 15.

The jury of nine men and three women returned unanimous guilty verdicts on four counts on Thursday June 5 before delivering three majority guilty verdicts the next day.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By JOANNE McCARTHY June 9, 2014

MORPETH man Bob O’Toole would like Maitland-Newcastle Bishop Bill Wright to walk in the shoes of Hunter Catholics for a day or two.

They were confused, devastated and horrified by the findings of the NSW Special Commission of Inquiry, Mr O’Toole said.

Adverse findings against two former bishops, the general secretary of the Australian Bishops Conference, and a number of Hunter priests, along with shocking news that a senior Australian Catholic official could be charged with a conceal-type offence relating to the late child sex offender priest Jim Fletcher, had stunned many into silence, he said.

But there’s growing anger about the Catholic Church’s, and Bishop Wright’s, muted response to those findings, and the failure to stand down Father Bill Burston and Monsignor Allan Hart as Newcastle parish priests.

Commissioner Margaret Cunneen, SC, found Monsignor Hart had known since 1993 that paedophile priest Denis McAlinden had sexually abused a young girl. McAlinden died in 2005 with his ‘‘good name protected’’ by the Catholic Church.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Sunday, June 8

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

Another alleged predator priest – accused of both molesting kids and ignoring the molestation of a kid – is being put back on the job with no no explanation whatsoever.

[The Morning Call]

Msgr. Joseph Logrip faced allegations, according to the archdiocese, of sexually violating “minors.” Notice the plural. Few bishops in recent years have put priests facing multiple allegations back into parishes.

He also faced allegations, according to the Philly Inquirer, of knowing of an “attack” on a child by a priest but doing “nothing.”

[BishopAccountability.org]

So despite allegations of wrongdoing that first surfaced publicly in 2005 and 2011, Archbishop Charles Chaput is recklessly putting Msgr. Logrip back around children. Regarding the “enabling” abuse charge, Chaput says nothing. Regarding the abuse charges, Chaput says virtually nothing (except one word: “unsubstantiated).

Catholics, citizens and children deserve better. Whatever became of Chaput’s repeated pledges to be “open and transparent” about clergy sex cases? Where’s a real explanation of what Msgr. Logrip did and didn’t do?

We hope every single person who saw, suspected or suffered clergy sex crimes in Philly – by Logrip or other clerics – will step forward, find help, call police, protect kids, expose wrongdoers and start healing.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Sunday, June 8

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

It sounds harsh but must be said: It sure looks like the Pope cares more about cash than kids.

Last week, Pope Francis fired the entire Vatican financial watchdog board.

[The Guardian]

He’s made a number of other moves towards better church finances. And months ago, he ousted Germany’s so-called “Bishop of Bling,” Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst of the Limburg diocese, for spending $43 million to renovate his home.

Yet as of today, 14 months into his papacy, Francis has ousted no prelate who is protecting predators and endangering kids (not even one who has been convicted – Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas City Missouri).

He’s not done anything else that’s helpful or substantive on the abuse and cover up crisis.

In fact, Francis has taken the absolute wrong steps and sent the absolute wrong signals on this crisis, by;

–meeting with disgraced Cardinal Bernard Law within hours of becoming pope,

–meeting with disgraced Cardinal Roger Mahony earlier this year and saying mass in public with him,

–refusing to extradite a Polish archbishop wanted by law enforcement officials for alleged crimes, and

–claiming, just a few weeks ago, that “the Catholic Church is perhaps the only public institution to have acted with transparency and responsibility. No one else has done more. And yet the church is the only one attacked.”

So under Pope Francis, better children’s safety gets discussion and further delay (punting it to a panel that hasn’t even been fully set up yet), while better money management gets action and top priority.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Patsy McGarry

Mon, Jun 9, 2014

The investigation into a vaccine trial on children in mother and baby homes, which politicians and Catholic Church leaders are now calling for, has previously been dealt with by the High Court, which declared one invalid in June 2004.

The Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Diarmuid Martin, yesterday called for a properly constituted commission to examine issues raised by the discovery of mass baby deaths at St Mary’s mother and baby home in Tuam, Co Galway – including allegations that medical trials were carried out on children.

The 2004 court ruling followed a challenge to a government order directing an investigation into such vaccine trials, under the aegis of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse. The challenge was brought by retired UCD professor of microbiology Irene Hillary.

Professional reputation

Prof Hillary had expressed concern about the implications for her professional reputation of the establishment of an inquiry into the vaccination trials under the aegis of a commission set up to inquire into the issue of child abuse.

Previously, in July 2003, a unanimous judgment by the Supreme Court upheld an appeal by the late UCD professor Patrick Meenan against a High Court decision which had directed him to give evidence before the vaccine trials division of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Tim O’Brien, Tim O’Brien, Patsy McGarry

Mon, Jun 9, 2014

Child safeguarding expert Ian Elliott has welcomed a suggestion that he be part of any investigation which may be set up by the State into mother and baby homes in Ireland.

“Absolutely. I’d be very, very interested,” he told The Irish Times last night. “If there’s anything useful I can contribute, I’d be delighted.”

Chief executive of the Catholic Church’s National Board for Safeguarding Children until June of last year, his name was mentioned yesterday by the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, as the sort of person who ought to be on such an investigation team.

Dr Martin said it was very important that any investigation should be separated from the church and State or any other organisation that was involved “because there is an entanglement there that goes right through a period of Irish history. It is only an independent person who would be able to that.”

Such a commission should “perhaps be headed by a judicial personality” and he thought a person of the calibre of Ian Elliott, whom he described as a “very strong” person in the investigation of child abuse in the Catholic Church, would be a very interesting addition to any such commission, he said.

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IRELAND
Washington Post

BY TERRENCE MCCOY

Peter Ferris Cochran is a tall, tanned North Carolina man who likes his blazers colorful, his trucks big and, if conditions are to his liking, his head shielded by a baseball hat. He speaks in a slow drawl that immediately identifies him as a Southerner, and once owned a successful business called Cochran & Associates in the North Carolina beach town of Emerald Isle.

Nothing about Cochran would alert those around him of the unusual circumstances under which he came into this world. That his name was once Andrew Michael Gallagher. That, by birth, he’s not a Southerner or even an American. That he’s Irish, born in 1957 in the now-infamous Tuam center for unwed mothers in western Ireland, where the remains of nearly 800 babies–796 according to one historian’s estimates– may have been discarded in a massive septic tank. The full extent of what happened is now the subject of investigation, with authorities using ground sensor equipment to explore the tank.

“This was the information I’ve grown with over the last 50 years, and of every bit I knew was that this was a very evil orphanage,” he said Sunday afternoon in a phone interview. “It was evil for the orphans and it was evil for the unwed mothers. My mother was persecuted for out-of-wedlock sex, and the Catholic Church was just adamant about celibacy before marriage.”

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IRELAND
Irish Mirror

Averil Power

The Government is rightly under pressure now to investigate the circumstances in which these children died

Once again, Ireland is being forced to face up to another element of our dark and shameful past.

The discovery of hundreds of children buried in a septic tank on the site of a former “mother and baby home” in Tuam has served as a horrifying reminder of the abuse Irish women and children were subjected to for decades.

Women who were stigmatised and forced into institutions just because they became pregnant outside of marriage.

Children who were branded “illegitimate” from birth, treated as second-class citizens, and forced to live in conditions that put their health and lives at risk.

As the discovery of the mass grave in Tuam has so starkly reminded us, thousands of children died in these homes.

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IRELAND
ABC News (Australia)

By Europe correspondent Philip Williams, wires
Updated Mon 9 Jun 2014

The Archbishop of Dublin has called for a full inquiry into the deaths of almost 800 children at a home for unmarried mothers and their children.

Death records suggest 796 children – from newborns to eight-year-olds – were dumped in a septic tank near a Catholic-run home for unmarried mothers, turning it into a mass grave.

The St Mary’s home at Tuam in County Galway, run by the Bon Secours Sisters, was one of several “mother and baby” homes in early 20th century Ireland.

The search has started for the bodies on the site, with ground sensor equipment used to look for the disused septic tank.

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IRELAND
The Tablet

09 June 2014 by Fr Seán McDonagh, SSC

On the day that the papal nuncio to Ireland, Archbishop Charles Brown, told the US-based Catholic News Service that he saw “that Irish Catholicism had entered a new springtime,” representatives of the Association of Catholic Priests (ACP) were trying to convince a group of Irish bishops that the Irish Catholic Church was facing, among other things, a vocational crisis of enormous magnitude.

Archbishop Brown said that young Irish seminarians he met at St Patrick’s College, the national seminary in Maynooth, and in Rome, showed a “renewed enthusiasm for their faith”. That may well be true, but the numbers are miniscule.

Figures on the bishops’ own website show the age profile of Irish priests. Over 65 per cent of Irish priests are aged 55 or over. There are only two priests under the age of 40 in the Archdiocese of Dublin. A priest in Killala diocese, Fr Brendan Hoban, pointed out that there has been a priest and celebration of the Eucharist in his parish –Moygownagh – since the eighth century. But he believes he will be that last priest in that parish. At the moment there is a priest in every parish in Killala. Within 20 years there will be seven serving 22 parishes spread out over a wide area. The situation is much same in other dioceses.

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IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

BY RALPH RIEGEL – 09 JUNE 2014

The Irish government will include all major mother-and-baby homes in an independent inquiry commission after the dramatic intervention of the Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin.

Dr Martin said that only an independent inquiry led by a senior judicial figure could now provide the answers required from Ireland’s escalating mother-and-baby home scandal.

The move will be confirmed once gardai have concluded preliminary investigations into claims that 796 babies were buried in a septic tank near the Tuam, Co Galway, home, which was run by the Bon Secours nuns.

Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald has appointed two senior gardai and they will immediately begin work examining the Tuam mass grave claims.

A government source said last night that any wide-ranging commission of inquiry cannot interfere with garda investigations.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Steven Carroll

Mon, Jun 9, 2014

Minister for Education Ruairí Quinn has backed calls for the establishment of an independent inquiry into mother and baby homes, saying it was important to find out the facts while also considering the context of the time.

Mr Quinn said he “broadly” supported comments made yesterday by Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin, who said it was important that any investigation was independent and separate from the Catholic Church, the State or any other organisation involved in the homes.

Dr Martin said such a commission should “perhaps be headed by a judicial personality” and he said he would like to see Ian Elliott, a child safeguarding expert, involved.

Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin said it was very important that any investigation should be separated from the church and StateArchbishop Martin calls for full inquiry into mother and baby homes

Mr Quinn told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland programme he felt it was important to show this generation of Irish people what those who came before them did to “young women who got into to trouble, so to speak”.

“They didn’t get into trouble on their own [when they became pregnant],” he said, adding that many had their children taken away.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Una Mullally

Mon, Jun 9, 2014

I’m sure I’m not the only one who, upon seeing the dramatic splash screaming “800 BABIES” in the Irish Daily Mail, stared at it incredulously. It took days for it to sink in, as I tried to find out more. I think it’s a version of this personal process that unfolded as a collective, national one.

Journalists who stuttered on this “story” will contextualise it on a news agenda that was coming out the other side of a rollicking election, and the implosion of the Labour Party leadership. The news came from an unfamiliar source, a local historian compiling research. The initial break came in a local newspaper, not a blockbuster Prime Time or an Irish Times front page.

It all happened so long ago. The facts were scant. They were allegations. Tread softly, I’d imagine news editors thought, because this seems so big – surely we would have known about it before? We still don’t know all of the facts, but we know the context. We all know by osmosis the horrors committed in this State. It’s oral history. We all heard our parents talk about dodgy priests, creepy buildings at the top of the town and babies not deserving of burial in consecrated ground, its soil fertilised with hypocrisy.

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IRELAND
MSN News

DUBLIN (AP) — Ireland should investigate the Catholic Church’s mistreatment and burial of babies who died decades ago in nun-operated homes for unmarried mothers, a senior church official declared Sunday as the country confronted another shameful chapter of its history of child abuse.

Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin made his appeal following revelations that hundreds of children who died inside a former church-run residence for infants were buried in unmarked graves at the site in western Ireland.

Martin said the probe should have no church involvement, be led by a judge and examine the treatment of children in “mother and baby homes” for unwed mothers and their newborns. These mostly operated in Ireland from the 1920s to 1960s, when Catholic policy and control of social services reached their zenith in post-independence Ireland.

Typically, the women’s families and wider society had shamed and rejected them because of their pregnancies. Babies born inside the institutions were denied baptism and, if they died from the illness and disease rife in such facilities, also denied a Christian burial.

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IRELAND
Spiked

BRENDAN O’NEILL
EDITOR

The obsession with Ireland’s dark past has officially become unhinged.

For proof of the maxim that ‘A lie will go round the world while truth is pulling its boots on’, look no further than the Tuam 800 dead babies story. Courtesy of a modern media that seems more interested in titillating readers with gorno than giving us cool facts, and thanks to a Twittermob constantly on the hunt for things it might feel ostentatiously outraged by, the story about babies being dumped in an old, out-of-use septic tank by nuns at a home for ‘fallen women’ in Tuam in Galway made waves in every corner of the globe. Then, a few days later, having finally strapped its boots on, the truth – or at least a more sober analysis of what might have really happened in Tuam – staggered on to the stage. And it was a very different story to the fact-lite, fury-heavy tale that had already gone round the world.

The speed with which the work of one local researcher in Tuam became a global story was amazing. Catherine Corless has been looking into the Mother and Baby Home run by nuns in Tuam for years. The home, which was active between 1925 and 1961, took in single women who were pregnant, which was considered a terribly sinful state to be in in early to mid-twentieth century Ireland. Corless discovered two things during her research: first, that between 1925 and 1961, the deaths of 796 children were registered by the nuns who ran the Tuam home; and secondly that in 1975 two boys in Tuam discovered an old septic tank on the grounds of the then-closed home, smashed through the concrete covering and saw skeletal remains inside. A fairly vague posting about these findings was put on to a Facebook page, and then all hell broke loose.

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MASSACHUSETTS
The Sun Chronicle

Schools locally, across country dealing with teacher-student sex abuse allegations

Posted: Monday, June 9, 2014

BY RICK FOSTER SUN CHRONICLE STAFF

Three area schools have been rocked by allegations of sex between students and teachers or staff over the past six months: the principal of an Attleboro Christian academy in January, a North Attleboro Middle School guidance counselor last month, a former Attleboro High School science teacher just last week.

What, you might ask, is going on?

Whatever it is, it seems to be happening everywhere.

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CANADA
VOCM

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Antigonish, N.S., says it will hold a special service to acknowledge the pain of victims of sexual abuse. Father Donald MacGillivray says he hopes the victims of the abuse by members of the clergy will attend the service, which is being held at 3 p.m. Sunday at St. Joseph’s Church in Port Hawkesbury.

MacGillivray says the service was agreed upon as part of a class-action lawsuit against several priests dating back more than 50 years.

The diocese paid out $16 million in compensation for the 125 confirmed and alleged victims of sexual abuse.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Daily News

WILLIAM BENDER, DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER BENDERW@PHILLYNEWS.COM, 215-854-5255
POSTED: Monday, June 9, 2014

ARCHBISHOP Charles Chaput announced yesterday that a monsignor could return to ministry because allegations that he sexually abused minors 20 years ago were “unsubstantiated.”

Chaput said that Monsignor Joseph L. Logrip is “suitable for ministry,” although archdiocese spokesman Ken Gavin said that his “return to active ministry is not immediate.”

Logrip, 67, had been placed on administrative leave following the February 2011 grand-jury report on sexual abuse by local priests. At the time, he was chaplain at St. Mary Manor, a health-care facility, and living at St. Stanislaus Parish. Both are in Lansdale.

Logrip was among 26 priests placed on leave as a result of the grand-jury report. Fourteen were found unsuitable for ministry; 10 were found suitable for ministry; one priest died before the investigation concluded.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
WPVI

[with video]

Monday, June 09, 2014
PHILADELPHIA — The Archdiocese of Philadelphia has reinstated a priest suspended after a scathing 2011 grand jury report on child sexual abuse.

The archdiocese said Sunday that Archbishop Charles Chaput decided Monsignor Joseph Logrip is suitable for ministry.

It cited “unsubstantiated allegations that he sexually abused minors over 20 years ago.”

It says Logrip’s case is the last to be decided out of 26 priests put on leave after the grand jury report was unsealed.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Lorna Siggins

Mon, Jun 9, 2014

Archbishop of Tuam Dr Michael Neary made no specific reference to the controversy surrounding the former Bon Secours mother and babies home when he celebrated the ordination of a Castlebar man as priest yesterday.

Dr Neary, who stated last week that the archdiocese would co-operate with any inquiry, has said that it did not have any involvement in the running of the home in Tuam and had no records in its archives.

“There exists a clear moral imperative on the Bon Secours sisters in this case to act upon their responsibilities in the interest of the common good,” Dr Neary said.

A spokesman for the archbishop said Dr Neary would not be commenting further yesterday, as his statement of last week “still stood”.

Speaking at the ordination Mass in the Church of the Holy Rosary for Seán Flynn from Keelogues, Co Mayo, who formerly worked at a funeral undertakers in Castlebar, Dr Neary spoke of how the priest today “must be an agent of hope in what often might seem a hopeless situation”.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CBS Philly

Dan Wing

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – The Archdiocese of Philadelphia has reinstated a priest that was one of 26 priests suspended following 2011′s grand jury report into the sexual abuse of children in the church.

In a written statement, the Archdiocese says Archbishop Charles Chaput has decided that 67-year-old Monsignor Joseph Logrip is suitable for ministry, citing “unsubstantiated allegations that he sexually abuse minors over 20-years ago.”

Logrip’s case was the last to be decided after 26 priests were put on leave when the grand jury report was unsealed.

Out of the 26 cases, eleven priests, including Logrip, were reinstated, while 14 were permanently removed from ministry. One priest died during the investigation, and one was charged.

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IRELAND
Sunday Independent

Majella O’Sullivan
Published 08/06/2014

THE body of a 15-year-old boy who was brutally beaten and died a few days later in hospital lies in a communal unmarked grave. John Pyke had no family to claim his remains or ask why he died days after he was beaten with a leather strap at an industrial school in Tralee, Co Kerry.

Historian, author and columnist Ryle Dwyer, who grew up within a mile of St Joseph’s Industrial School or Christian Brothers’ Monastery, which was demolished in the eighties, said he wasn’t surprised to hear about the discovery of a mass grave near Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, Co Galway.

He says when the murder of a child in Tralee went uninvestigated it was not any surprise to hear the burial of children in an unmarked mass grave had been covered up.

John Pyke’s death certificate states: ‘Bilateral Pleural Effusion. Senility Certified.’ This was later amended to read: ‘Bilateral Pleural Effusion. Septicaemia Certified.’

The teenager was first brought up by nuns in Dublin and then sent to the monastery, aged seven.

In February 1958, Pyke was suffering double pneumonia, had lost his appetite and was beaten by Br Conor Lane in the dining hall in front of the other boys for not eating.

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IRELAND
Sunday Independent

Jerome Reilly
Published 08/06/2014

“We wouldn’t allow a girl to take her baby to bed with her unless it was at least two months old. Then she is probably fond of it. Before then there might be accidents.” – Reverend Mother of Bon Secours mother-and-baby home in Tuam

THE year was 1955 and the nun was speaking to Dr Halliday Sutherland, a Scottish doctor, author and TB treatment pioneer who visited both the Tuam home run by the French sisters, and the infamous Magdalene Laundry in Galway City as he was researching his book, Irish Journey.

To gain access to the Magdalene Laundry, Dr Sutherland had to accept interrogation by the fearsome Bishop of Galway, Michael John Browne – one of the most senior Catholic clerics and a noted supporter of the notorious sectarian boycott of Protestants in Fethard-on-Sea.

Dr Sutherland’s original 1955 manuscript kept by his grandson Mark (hallidaysutherland.com) is a remarkable contemporary account of what he found at the Tuam mother-and-child home 59 years ago.

He wrote: “At Tuam I went to the old workhouse, now the Children’s Home, a long two-storied building in its own grounds. These were well-kept and had many flowerbeds. The home is run by the Sisters of Bon Secours of Paris and the Reverend Mother showed me round. Each of the sisters is a fully trained nurse and midwife. Some are also trained children’s nurses. An unmarried girl may come here to have her baby. She agrees to stay in the home for one year. During this time she looks after her baby and assists the nuns in domestic work. She is unpaid.

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IRELAND
Sunday Independent

Niamh Horan
Published 08/06/2014

‘The mother went absolutely hysterical. There was a big picture of the Sacred Heart on the wall, she pulled it off the wall and danced on the glass of it … ‘

‘Good! I have another bloody PFI … ! She came to us this morning! How soon can you take her?”

PFI stands for ‘pregnant from Ireland’ and this was the typical late-night call picked up by Fr James Good in the Fifties.

Now one of Ireland’s most eminent and outspoken theologians, Fr Good had been appointed as the head of an adoption agency to bring back babies who had been left by their mothers in England for adoption.

“They were normal, happy girls,” he recalls from his home in Douglas, Co Cork. “But ‘get rid of the baby’, that was the main idea. It was such a shame. All of ours [mothers in crisis] would have gone to England for one purpose only and that was to cover the pregnancy.

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MISSOURI/MINNESOTA
Jeff Anderson & Associates

Media Advisory

June 8, 2014

St. Paul Press Conference Monday

What: At a news conference Monday in St. Paul, MN attorneys Jeff Anderson and Mike Finnegan will:

· Release video clips and the deposition transcript of the current Archdiocese of St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson taken on May 23, 2014 as part of a civil lawsuit in Minnesota. Carlson was ordained in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis in 1970 and rose to the position of Auxiliary Bishop until 1994.

· Discuss the disturbing and alarming sworn testimony given by Carlson who chose not to recall important events he was personally involved in including advising former Winona Bishop Loras Watters “not to remember” when Watters’ gave his own testimony.

· Demonstrate how the documents show a conscious choice, made by then Bishop Carlson, to protect offenders and conceal crimes.

WHEN: Monday, June 9, 2014 at 11:00AM CDT

WHERE: Law Office of Jeff Anderson & Associates
366 Jackson Street Suite 100
St. Paul, MN 55101

Notes: The press conference will live stream from our website www.andersonadvocates.com and copies of the video testimony will be available in our office. The entire video, clips and transcript will be posted tomorrow on our website and YouTube page, AndersonAdvocates.

Contact: Jeff Anderson: Cell: 612.817.8665 Office: 651.227.9990
Mike Finnegan: Cell: 612.205.5531 Office: 651.227.9990

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IRELAND
BBC News

Mari Tatlow-Steed lives in Philadelphia, but was born at the Bessborough home run by Sacred Heart sisters in County Cork.

She said there were two categories of children in the home.

“Children that were earmarked to go over to the United States for adoption or even remain in Ireland, we were fattened up, we were given the better food,” she said.

‘Neglect’

“And I have no doubt there were probably children who might have had difficulties when they were born, congenital problems, weaknesses whatever it may be, that the nuns just decided, ‘well we know this one is not going to be earmarked for adoption’, so they’re not going to get the same level of decent care.”

She described it as a form of “benign neglect”.

“They (nuns) felt these children were not going to thrive or be as marketable, ‘well, we’re just not going to spend as much effort or time’,” she said.

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IRELAND
BBC News

One of the most senior figures in the Catholic Church in Ireland has said a full inquiry is needed into the deaths of almost 800 children at a convent-run mother and baby home.

The remains were found in a disused septic tank in County Galway.

The children, one as old as nine, died between 1925 and 1961. The grave in Tuam was initially thought to date to the 1850s when discovered 40 years ago.

Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin said the truth must come out.

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IRELAND
Daily Mail (UK)

‘My granny delivered the Tuam babies’: Michelle Fleming grew up hearing stories about the ‘abandoned children’

By MICHELLE FLEMING

What happened at Tuam, at the Mother and Child Home run by the Bon Secours nuns, shocked everyone.

But for me, it feels personal – for my Granny Nora delivered many of those babies.

Michelle Fleming’s granny, Nora Burke, who was a midwife at the Tuam Mother and Child Home
I grew up hearing stories about these abandoned children, the ‘Home Babies’, with whom my mother Mary and her sister Eleanor played as children.

I think I was about 10 when my mother first told me about the Home Babies. She told me how she was in fifth class at the Mercy Convent when Sister Lawrence attempted to teach the girls the ‘facts of life’.

Puzzled by Sister Lawrence constantly prefacing every statement with ‘when you get married’, she shot up her hand.

‘No Sister, that can’t be right,’ she said. ‘What about the Home Babies, Sister? Their mammies and daddies aren’t married.’

The flustered nun accused my mother of being disruptive and sinful.

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IRELAND
Daily Mail (UK)

We need to dig ‘babies graves’: Ground Penetrating Radar reveals two ‘anomalies’ beneath Tuam Home site

By ALISON O’REILLY and NEIL MICHAEL

An expert survey of what is thought to be the burial site of 796 babies in Tuam has uncovered two areas of interest where anomalies in the soil indicate likely human activity beneath the surface.

The survey recommends further investigation and experts say if we are to find out anything more a dig would be necessary.

The Irish Mail on Sunday can also reveal that the Sisters of Bon Secours, who are at the centre of the scandal, had the remains of 12 members of the order exhumed and re-buried in a cemetery in Knock before they abandoned their base in Galway in 2001 – after selling property to the Western Health Board for a reported €4m.

Meanwhile, Government sources say that an inquiry into the scandal is inevitable and will probably be announced within the next few days.

The ground penetrating radar survey carried out by a top engineering company on behalf of the MoS revealed there are ‘two anomalies’ on the site at the centre of the Tuam babies scandal.

The specialised radar showed two areas at the site which are likely to be man-made or unnatural structures; one a box-like structure and another a wide area of up to 48 square metres which has been covered over and which contains items of denser material than the surrounding soil.

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IRELAND
RTE News

The Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Diarmuid Martin, has called for an independent commission of investigation with judicial powers into all mother-and-baby homes.

His comments come after reports of a mass grave of infants and children found in the grounds of a convent run by the Bon Secours order of nuns in Tuam, Co Galway.

The home operated from the 1920s to the 1960s.

The Government has established an initial inquiry, the results of which will determine the nature of a more thorough investigation.

In an interview with RTÉ’s This Week, the Archbishop said the issue of adoption should also be included in any inquiry.

Any investigation should be independent of Church and State, he said.

He said: “The indications are that if something happened in Tuam it probably happened in other mother-and-baby homes around the country.

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AUSTRALIA
The Canberra Times

June 9, 2014

David Ellery
Reporter for The Canberra Times.

Brother Alexis Turton, the former Provincial of the Marist Brothers who supported Brother Kostka Chute at his trial in 2008, is one of several senior members of the order who will give evidence at the royal commission hearing in Canberra that begins on Tuesday.

Three former students of Brother Kostka (aka William John Chute) from Marist College Canberra will also testify before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

The hearings, set down for nine days, will also take evidence from former teachers from Canberra and Lismore and past and present high-ranking Catholic church and Marist Brothers officials.

Brother Alexis was the head of the Marist Brothers in 1993 when, after repeated complaints to the Marist College Canberra hierarchy from parents about sexual abuse, the decision was made to end Brother Kostka Chute’s teaching career.

Chute was transferred to Sydney and no public mention was ever made of the allegations that had prompted his departure. The matter was not referred to the police.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

EXCLUSIVE JANET FIFE-YEOMANS THE DAILY TELEGRAPH JUNE 09, 2014

THE 40-year cover-up by the hierarchy of the Marist Brothers, of one of the state’s most notorious paedophiles, is at the centre of the child sex abuse royal commission’s latest investigation.

The Catholic order moved Brother Kostka Chute around at least 12 schools across NSW, Canberra and Queensland until he was finally jailed for two years in 2009 after admitting to abusing six of the boys he was teaching.

That was only the tip of the iceberg, lawyer Jason Parkinson said yesterday.

Mr Parkinson represented 90 students from the Marist College Canberra who were victims of Brother Kostka and after initially denying they owned the school, the Marist Brothers has settled almost all of the claims in out of court ­settlements.

“This was the first case where the Australian public got to see the ugly side of the Catholic Church,” Mr Parkinson said. “It was also the first time so many people came forward on the one occasion to sue a school.”

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CHILE
Terra

[Summary: The story of Juan Carlos Cruz is painful. Abused by priest Fernando Karadima, his voice still breaks when he tries to tell what happened to him.]

La historia de Juan Carlos Cruz es a ratos dolorosa. Tanto, que a pesar de la fortaleza que intenta mostrar, su voz se quiebra y sus ojos reflejan los abusos de los que fue víctima, cuando formaba parte del séquito de jóvenes que mantenía el párroco de la iglesia de El Bosque, Fernando Karadima.

Un periodo de su vida, que por mucho que lo intenta, reconoce le ha costado superar, no sólo porque fue víctima de abusos sexuales y sicológicos, sino porque constantemente se siente revictimizado producto de la falta de apoyo recibida por parte de la jerarquía de la
Iglesia chilena, la que según dice, le ha cerrado las puertas y le ha dado la espalda.

Juan Carlos Cruz, es uno de los que se atrevió en 2010 a denunciar junto a Fernando Batlle, James Hamilton y José Murillo los abusos sufridos más de veinte años atrás en la parroquia del Bosque y ahora se atreve a revelar con más detalles en el libro “El fin de la inocencia. Mi testimonio”.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Daily Journal

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
First Posted: June 08, 2014

PHILADELPHIA — The Archdiocese of Philadelphia has reinstated a priest suspended after a scathing 2011 grand jury report into child sexual abuse.

The diocese said Sunday that Archbishop Charles Chaput decided Monsignor Joseph Logrip is suitable for ministry. It cited “unsubstantiated allegations that he sexually abused minors over 20 years ago.”

It says Logrip’s case is the last to be decided out of 26 priests put on leave after the grand jury report was unsealed.

Including Logrip, 11 were reinstated while 14 were removed from ministry. One died during the investigation and one, the Rev. Andrew McCormick, was charged.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

DYLAN PURCELL, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
LAST UPDATED: Sunday, June 8, 2014

Archbishop Chaput has restored Monsignor Joseph L. Logrip to ministry after concluding that allegations that he sexually abused minors over two decades were unsubstantiated.

Logrip was among 26 priests placed on administrative leave following a February 2011 grand jury report on sexual abuse by Archdiocesan priests. His is the last case to be resolved by the Archdiocese.

Of the priests placed on leave, fourteen were found unsuitable to return to the ministry, ten were permitted to return. One died before the investigation concluded. The investigation resulted in the arrest of one priest.

Logrip, 67, served in parishes in Philadelphia, Norristown, Plymouth Meeting and most recently, Saint Stanislaus, Lansdale.

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AUSTRALIA
Brisbane Times

June 9, 2014

Ben Doherty
South Asia correspondent for Fairfax Media

George Pell, the Catholic Church’s new finance tsar, has tapped the manager of the Sydney archdiocese’s finances to help clean up the Vatican’s accounts, which have been plagued by corruption and cronyism scandals.

Cardinal Pell, former archbishop of Sydney and now Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy in Vatican City, has appointed the archdiocese business manager, Danny Casey, to his office. The pair will work out of Saint John’s Tower in the Vatican, a building usually reserved for VIP guests or the Pope if his apartments are unavailable.

Mr Casey told priests in Sydney his office ”will be central to the establishment of new policies, systems and practices”.

Mr Casey’s abilities as a financial manager were revealed before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse earlier this year when it held hearings on the Catholic Church’s handling of child sex abuse complaints.

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IRELAND
Sunday Independent

Ralph Riegel
Published 08/06/2014

ARCHBISHOP of Dublin Dr Diarmuid Martin has warned that only an independent inquiry led by a senior judicial figure can provide the answers required from Ireland’s escalating mother and baby home scandal.

The move will be confirmed once gardai have concluded preliminary investigations into claims 796 babies were buried in a septic tank near the Tuam, Co Galway home run by the Bon Secours nuns.

Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald has appointed two senior gardai and they will immediately begin work examining the Tuam mass grave claims.

The operation of mother and baby homes from the 1920s to 1960s is regarded as the last of Ireland’s Church-linked scandals.

Dr Martin warned that it was vital for modern Irish society the issue be independently investigated with controversial issues such as secret adoptions and vaccine trials included.

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Morning Call

Paul Muschick, Of The Morning Call
1:43 p.m. EDT, June 8, 2014

Allegations of sexual abuse against a priest who served two parishes in Lansdale are unsubstantiated and he is suitable for ministry, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia announced Sunday.

Monsignor Joseph L. Logrip was among 26 priests placed on administrative leave following a 2011 report by a Philadelphia grand jury that investigated sexual abuse of minors by clergy and archdiocese employees. His case is the final one to be resolved.

Logrip had most-recently served the St. Mary Manor and St. Stanislaus parishes in Lansdale from 2010 to 2011. Announcements about the disposition of his case were made at those parishes this weekend and counselors were made available, the archdiocese said in a statement.

The district attorney’s office had declined to press criminal charges and Logrip was investigated by the archdiocese.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia

Archbishop Chaput makes final decision in last remaining case of priests placed on
administrative leave following the February 2011 Grand Jury Report

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia announced today that Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap. has made a final decision in the last remaining case of priests placed on administrative leave following the February 2011 Grand Jury Report. While on administrative leave, priests are not permitted to exercise their public ministry, administer any of the Sacraments, or present themselves publicly as priests.

Archbishop Chaput has decided that Monsignor Joseph L. Logrip is suitable for ministry based on unsubstantiated allegations that he sexually abused minors over 20 years ago.

Announcements were made at Saint Stanislaus Parish and Saint Mary Manor, both in Lansdale, when Monsignor Logrip was placed on administrative leave in March of 2011. Follow up announcements were made at those locations this weekend regarding the final decision in this case. Counselors were also made available.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CatholicPhilly

BY MATTHEW GAMBINO

Msgr. Joseph L. Logrip, whose case was the last to be resolved among the 26 priests placed on administrative leave following the 2011 Philadelphia Grand Jury report on clergy sexual abuse of minors, has been found suitable for ministry based on unsubstantiated allegations that he sexually abused minors over 20 years ago.

Archbishop Charles Chaput made the decision on the priest and it was announced by the Philadelphia Archdiocese in a statement June 8. Announcements about the decision were made at St. Stanislaus Parish and St. Mary Manor, both in Lansdale, this weekend and when Msgr. Logrip was placed on leave in March 2011.

All such priests were not permitted to exercise their public ministry, administer the sacraments or present themselves publicly as priests.

The archdiocese did not indicate when or in what capacity Msgr. Logrip, 67, will return to priestly ministry. Ordained in 1972, he served in the following assignments: St. Ignatius, Yardley (1972-1974); St. Rose of Lima, North Wales (1974-1975); Bishop Kenrick High School (1974-1983); Epiphany of Our Lord, Plymouth Meeting (1975-1981); St. Gabriel’s Hall (1981-1983); Archbishop Carroll High School (1983-1990); St. Francis of Assisi, Norristown (1990-1992); St. Monica, Philadelphia (1992-1994); Mater Dolorosa, Philadelphia (1994-2000); Immaculate Conception, Levittown (2000-2007); SS. Philip and James, Exton (2007-2008); Mother of Divine Grace, Philadelphia (2008-2010); Chaplain, St. Mary Manor (2010-2011) and St. Stanislaus, Lansdale (2010-2011).

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TEXAS/ARIZONA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, June 06, 2014

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

An Arizona priest is facing a civil complaint over allegations that he abused a mentally disabled person. We are grateful to the brave victim for stepping forward and working to expose the truth.

The complaint also alleges that the Diocese of Tucson and the Diocese of El Paso were aware of the risk the priest posed and did nothing. We hope church officials come clean about what they knew about this dangerous priest.

[Courthouse News Service]

Fr. Richard Zamorano, a former teacher at Salpointe Catholic High School in Tucson, allegedly befriended the victim and then sexually assaulted him. We want church officials in Tucson and El Paso to come clean about everything they know about this priest. It is not enough to simply suspend him.

Bishop Gerald Kicanas of Tucson and Bishop Mark Seitz should visit every parish Zamorano worked and beg witnesses, whistleblowers, and victims to come forward and report to secular officials. They should post Zamorano’s name, photo, and work history on parish bulletins and websites.

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TEXAS
KTSM

EL PASO, TX (KTSM) — An El Paso priest is under fire and facing a civil complaint for allegedly sexually assaulting a mentally disabled man.

“He has not been in the Diocese of El Paso since 2002 and he will not be re-instated until this is resolved,” said El Paso Bishop Mark Seitz.

Father Richard Zamorano was ordained by the El Paso Diocese in 1993 and served as priest at San Elizario Parish, according to Bishop Seitz.

In 2002, he took a leave of absence to move to Tucson, Arizona and care for his mother.

“Around that time in 2002, when he left the Diocese, he adopted 2 boys from Mexico,” said Bishop Seitz.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Sun, Jun 8, 2014

Breda O’Brien

In the film Calvary, there is a scene where two airport workers are waiting to load a coffin onto an aircraft. They are having a chat and one of them is leaning his elbows on the coffin, as if it were any old piece of freight.

A young French woman, who is in the appalling situation of having to transport her husband home in a coffin after a car crash, witnesses this as she waits to board the aircraft along with Fr James Lavelle, the central character in Calvary (played brilliantly by Brendan Gleeson.)

Without wishing to give away the plot, the casual disrespect and the disregard for the grief of the bereaved shown by the workers triggers an important turning point in the film.

We Irish pride ourselves on doing death well, on having healthy rituals that help both to make sense of grief and to build a sense of community.

It seems that it all depends on who you are. Yet again, we see that if you are small and powerless, even the most basic respect of having a marked grave may be denied you.

We have witnessed this already in the long struggle of the survivors of the Bethany Home for recognition.

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IRELAND
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin

The Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin has urged those responsible for running any of the Mother and Baby homes in Ireland, or any other person having information about mass graves, to give that information to the authorities.

Archbishop Martin said, “The Gospel message is that authentic faith is measured by how we treat children who represent Jesus Christ.” He said the details emerging from Tuam, and perhaps elsewhere, were sickening.

Several months ago, Archbishop Martin asked the Dublin Diocesan Archivist to compile information in the archive concerning Mother and Baby homes in Dublin. Hundreds of documents have already been collated. The Archbishop has said he will share this information with any inquiry the government will establish. He expressed the hope that a full bodied inquiry will be set up, examining all aspects of life in the homes and crucially how adoptions were organised.

Over the past number of years Archbishop Martin has met with representative groups and some people who were born in Mother and Baby homes. He said the story of the homes was not simply one from another time or era, but the personal story of hundreds of men and women alive today, living here and abroad. He said every effort should be made, by all parties who were involved in setting up, running and overseeing these homes to ensure the mothers and children who were sent there, have an accurate account as possible of their own life stories.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Tim O’Brien, Elaine Edwards

Sun, Jun 8, 2014

The Catholic archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin has called for a properly constituted commission to examine issues raised by the discovery of a mass babies’ grave in Tuam, Co Galway – including the allegation that medical trials were carried out on children.

Archbishop Martin also said the commission should investigate whether similar burials took place at other mother and baby homes throughout the State.

He suggested the commission be independent of the Catholic Church and State agencies with a chairman possibly taken from the judicial profession. He suggested membership should include people such as Ian Elliott former chief executive officer of the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland.

Gardaí have begun to examine the circumstances around the discovery of a large quantity of human remains at a site in Tuam, Co Galway beside a former mother-and-baby home run by the Bon Secours order between the 1920s and the 1960s.

Archbishop Martin said the indications were that “if something happened in Tuam it probably happened in other mother and baby homes around the country”.

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IRELAND
Sunday Independent

Maeve Sheehan and Niamh Horan
Published 08/06/2014

TWO senior gardai are to conduct a “fact-finding” mission into the deaths of 796 babies believed to be buried in a mass grave in Tuam, the Sunday Independent has learned.

The officers were appointed on Friday, on foot of a request by Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald to gather the “facts” behind reports that almost 800 children were buried near a disused septic tank at a mother and babies home that was run by the Bon Secours nuns.

They have been asked to gather all surviving records, including death certificates and the ledgers kept by the mother and baby home until it closed in 1961. Crucially, the officers are also expected to carry out preliminary tests on the site of the suspected mass grave, which lies on the edge of a housing estate in the Galway town.

The exploratory inquiry marks the first step in an official Garda response to the revelations, as yet another religious scandal that was overlooked by Irish authorities for years hit the international headlines.

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IRELAND
Sunday Independent

Caroline Crawford
Published 08/06/2014

THE full extent of the horrendous conditions children were forced to live in at the Tuam mother-and-baby home, where up to 300 infants are buried, are revealed in an official inspector’s report obtained by the Sunday Independent.

The damning 1947 report, compiled after a visit to the home, paints a picture as grim as the harrowing accounts of starved children that emerged from Romanian orphanages after the fall of Ceausescu in the early 1990s.

It tells how children were suffering from malnutrition and in many instances were pot-bellied – a sign of starvation. The report records children as having wizened limbs, with many described as being ‘mentally defective’.

One child is described as ‘a miserable, emaciated child with a voracious appetite and no control over bodily functions’, while another is reported to be ’emaciated, with flesh hanging loosely on limbs’.

It also reveals that the home was crowded with 271 children and 61 mothers living there at the same time. This number exceeded the ‘desirable’ level of 243, according to the inspector.

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IRELAND
Daily Mail (UK)

‘I thought I’d seen it all. Then I found nuns’ secret grave for 800 babies’: By Philomena writer MARTIN SIXSMITH

SPECIAL REPORT BY MARTIN SIXSMITH
PUBLISHED: 7 June 2014

In nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent, I covered stories of mass graves in far-flung locations in Eastern Europe and Russia. The thought of them has remained lodged in my memory.

But never did I expect to be covering a mass grave from modern times on my own doorstep; I thought Western and Northern Europe was immune from such horrors.

Yet that is exactly what I came across in January this year in the small Irish town of Tuam in County Galway, an ugly place with its rundown streets and council estates.

On a grey, rainy afternoon, I was taken to a patch of land in the centre of one such estate. Surrounded by houses built in the 1970s, on the edge of a scruffy playground, I found a plaster statue of the Madonna on a pile of stones, incongruously sheltered by an old enamel bathtub. Beneath it were the bodies of nearly 800 babies.

The remains of a forbidding 8ft wall nearby were a clue to the place’s history. Until 1961 this had been the site of a Catholic religious community run by the Sisters of Bon Secours.

They had bought the workhouse in the 1920s and converted it into a home for unmarried mothers. For the next 36 years, the nuns took in thousands of women. In those days, sex outside marriage was proclaimed a mortal sin.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Catholics4Change

JUNE 8, 2014

OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia announced today that Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap. has made a final decision in the last remaining case of priests placed on administrative leave following the February 2011 Grand Jury Report.

While on administrative leave, priests are not permitted to exercise their public ministry, administer any of the Sacraments, or present themselves publicly as priests. Archbishop Chaput has decided that Monsignor Joseph L. Logrip is suitable for ministry based on unsubstantiated allegations that he sexually abused minors over 20 years ago.

Announcements were made at Saint Stanislaus Parish and Saint Mary Manor, both in Lansdale, when Monsignor Logrip was placed on administrative leave in March of 2011. Follow up announcements were made at those locations this weekend regarding the final decision in this case.

Counselors were also made available. Monsignor Logrip’s case followed the same procedure as all other cases of priests placed on administrative leave following the February 2011 Grand Jury Report. Prior to any investigation, the case was submitted to the appropriate local district attorney’s office. After the district attorney declined to press charges, investigations were conducted by the MultiDisciplinary Team and the Archdiocesan Office of Investigations.

The results of this process were submitted to the Archdiocesan Professional Responsibility Review Board (APRRB). The APRRB is comprised of twelve men and women, both Catholic and nonCatholic, with extensive professional backgrounds in the investigation and treatment of child sexual abuse. It functions as a confidential advisory committee to the Archbishop, which assesses allegations of sexual abuse as well as allegations of violations of The Standards of Ministerial Behavior and Boundaries. This body provided a recommendation as to suitability for ministry to the Archbishop, who made the final decision.

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IRELAND
Breaking News

Up to one-third of infants died in homes in Dublin, Tipp and Cork in 1933

Up to a third of infants died in mother and baby homes in Dublin, Tipperary and Cork in 1933.

Newly released archive material from the Dublin Archdiocese, show mortality rates in Tuam were either matched or exceeded, by homes elsewhere in the country.

Pelletstwon in Cabra, Sean Ross Abbey in Roscrea and Bessborough in Cork had death rates of up to one-third in 1933.

The General Registration Office is to carry out a trawl of death certificates in the hope of establishing the exact number of deaths in all seven mother and baby homes.

The GRO was the source used by historian and genealogist Catherine Corless, who revealed the fact that 796 babies died in Tuam.

Conor Mulvagh is a lecturer in Irish History in UCD, he published the latest findings in today’s Sunday Business Post.

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IRELAND
Irish Central

Cahir O’Doherty @randomirish June 06,2014

Christopher Quirin, 63, was born to a single mother in Ireland in 1950, a time when such a thing was considered an unspeakable disgrace. Back then Quirin’s mother was sent by her parents to the now notorious Sean Ross Abbey in Roscrea, Co. Tipperary, the same mothers and babies home as Philomena Lee. Lee is the woman whose shocking life-story inspired the recent Academy Award-nominated movie starring Judi Dench.

Lee and Quirin’s mother had children just two years apart, and Quirin says he imagines he must have played in the same rooms as Michael, Lee’s boy who was later adopted by the American couple Doc and Marge Hess.

Unlike Lee, however, after beginning his new life in America Quirin was left to piece together the details of the one he had left behind with no help from a dedicated senior journalist or the nuns at Sean Ross Abbey.

Because of the shame attached to their origins and the desire to prevent the birth mother from ever tracing her offspring at a later date, to this day adoption records have been closely guarded by the religious orders and the Irish state.

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IRELAND
Daily Mail (UK)

‘A miserable, emaciated child with a voracious appetite and no control over his bodily functions’: Documents which reveal the tragic story of a short life at St Mary’s

By ALISON O’REILLY
PUBLISHED: 7 June 2014

It is the harrowing certificate that shows how 16-month-old John Desmond Dolan was described as being a ‘congenital idiot’ at the time of his death in St Mary’s Mother and Baby home.

John is one of the 796 children whose remains were left in a mass grave on the grounds of St Mary’s, which was run by the Sisters of Bon Secours.

Documents given to the Irish Mail on Sunday by the boy’s sister reveal how he had a healthy birth and weighed 8lbs 9oz when he was born at the Tuam home on February 22, 1946.

His mother Bridget Dolan, a farmer’s daughter from Clonfert, Co. Galway, gave birth to him in the presence of a woman known as Bina Rabbitte.

There are no details given of his father. Records from the home show how a health inspection was carried out in April 1947 by a man known as Mr Humphreys.

Despite being born a healthy baby, a year later John was described as a ‘miserable emaciated child with a voracious appetite and no control over his bodily functions’.

Doctors referred to John as ‘probably mental defective’.

That year there was an outbreak of measles in the home, which John contracted.

He died on June 11, 1947. On his death certificate it showed how Ms Rabbitte was again present at the time of John’s death.

It is understood she had been born in the home and remained on, assisting the nuns with the children.

John’s cause of death was recorded as ‘congential idiot and measles’.

His sister said: ‘He was born healthy and yet he died less than two years later. What is a congenital idiot? How could anyone call a child that?

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IRLAND
Focus

Entdeckt wurde das Massengrab von zwei Forscherinnen. Eine von ihnen, Catherine Corless, glaubt laut Sixsmith nicht, dass dies das einzige Massengrab in Irland ist: “Ich weiß, dass es in ganz Irland solche Gräber gibt. Und es gibt Menschen, die endlich Gewissheit haben wollen. Unbekannte, identitätslose Kinder wurden einfach abgelegt. Wir hoffen, dass wir ihnen zumindest hier in Tuam zu ein bisschen Gerechtigkeit verhelfen können.”

Warum die Frauen trotz der Gräueltaten in solche Kloster gingen, erklärte Corless im Gespräch mit der US-Zeitung “Washington Post” so: “Es war das schlimmste Verbrechen, das eine Frau begehen konnte. Selbst wenn sehr oft eine Vergewaltigung die Ursache war.” Die Frauen seien von ihren Familien verstoßen worden, die Mutter-Kind-Heime oft die einzige Zuflucht gewesen.

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IRLAND
Focus

Martin Sixsmith wurde bekannt durch sein Buch “Philomena”, das jüngst mit Judi Dench in der Hauptrolle verfilmt wurde. Nun berichtet Sixsmith von einer weiteren herzzerreißenden Geschichte: In einem irischen Mutter-Kind-Heim starben über Jahrzehnte Hunderte Kinder. Ihre Leichen endeten in einer Grube vor dem Gebäude – ein westeuropäisches Massengrab.

Dieses Erlebnis wird Martin Sixsmith für immer verfolgen: Der Autor des inzwischen verfilmten Dramas “Philomena” hat im irischen Tuam ein Massengrab besucht. 800 Kinder wurden dort zwischen 1920 und 1970 auf dem Grundstück eines Mutter-Kind-Heims verscharrt – von den dort lebenden Nonnen.

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IRLAND
Kronen Zeitung

Die Vergangenheit holt Irland ein: missbrauchte Kinder in Schulen und Heimen, ausgebeutete Frauen in Arbeitshäusern, und nun auch noch Massengräber voller Kinderknochen. Die Überreste von 796 Kindern und Säuglingen liegen im westirischen Ort Tuam. Die Spuren führen in ein katholisches Heim für ledige Mütter, das von 1925 bis 1961 von Nonnen betrieben wurde. Die Kinder sollen zwischen 1921 und 1965 gestorben sein.

In den irischen Heimen für unverheiratete Mütter lag die Kindersterberate “bei über 50 Prozent”, erklärt Susan Lohan von der Initiative “Adoption Rights Alliance”. Zu Tausenden wurden die kleinen Leichen anonym verscharrt. Der Fall, der derzeit Schlagzeilen macht, ist besonders grausam. Fast 800 Skelette liegen in einer Jauchegrube in Tuam, einem Örtchen im Westen des Landes.

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IRLAND
N-TV

Von Nora Schareika

Bis in die 1960er-Jahre leben irische Mütter mit unehelichen Kindern wie Aussätzige in kirchlichen Heimen. Die Kinder müssen für ihre pure Existenz büßen und erreichen kaum das Schulalter. Aktivisten rollen nun die Geschichte eines Baby-Massengrabs neu auf.

Neue Enthüllungen über die teils grausige Vergangenheit der Heime für unverheiratete Mütter in Irland setzen die Regierung in Dublin unter Druck. Besonders die Geschichte eines abgelegenen Heims im Westen des Landes bewegt die Iren, nachdem lokale Medien mit Zeitzeugen gesprochen, Fotos und schockierende Details veröffentlicht haben.

In der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts hatten Familien ihre Töchter in solche Heime abgeschoben, weil diese unverheiratet schwanger geworden waren – im erzkatholischen Irland jener Zeit eine Schande.

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IRELAND
Irish Central

Cahir O’Doherty @randomirish June 08,2014

Reporting from Tuam, County Galway

“You would not talk to them,” the locals told me in Tuam near Galway City this weekend, “they were outcasts.”

They were speaking to IrishCentral about the mothers and babies secreted away to The Home, an 1840’s institution run by the Bon Secours sisters in the town from 1925 to 1961, but this week locals insisted that more and more people want to remember them now.

One of them is Paul Kanahan, 46. Yesterday he took the long drive to Tuam from his home in County Sligo to visit the site that in the last fortnight has become one of the most controversial in the world.

Inspired by news reports, Kanahan told IrishCentral he made the trip to the unmarked grave site to pay his respects to the Home Babies and reflect on his own experience as a Home Baby from another notorious mother and baby home called Castlepollard in County Westmeath.

An adoptee and now a father himself, Kanahan found his birth mother and sister in 2010 through a series of lucky breaks and with the health of a priest and a Facebook page for adoptees from the Castlepollard Mothers and Babies home.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

We need to know why the death rate among ‘illegitimate’ children was so high, writes Gene Kerrigan

How come hundreds of children died in the care of a Catholic Church institution in Tuam? And how come some – if not all – of them were disposed of like spoiled fruit? Dumped beside a septic tank. Why did it happen?

What do we know about this country that might explain how such a thing could happen?

And let’s leave aside the unbearable thought that there were more – many more – children, in other locations, who had similarly short lives and who were disposed of with similar lack of human dignity.

It didn’t just happen. It wasn’t just bad management. It took years of organisation, strategies of intimidation and control. And, let’s face it, it took a citizenry steeped in fear and reverence.

A population that was deferential. People who did what they were told. People who didn’t dare ask questions.

Not, of course, that dumping the bodies of almost 800 kids near a septic tank was the object of the exercise – that was just a byproduct. Just some human waste that had to be tucked away in a suitable place.

It was about sex and power. It was about the right of the Church to do whatever it thought necessary to preserve its domain. It stemmed from a hierarchy of old men who were obsessed with sex.

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IRELAND
Daily Mail (UK)

By ALISON O’REILLY
PUBLISHED: 7 June 2014

One woman who knows the truth of how nuns in Ireland of the late 1950s handled the children entrusted to their care is Mary Lawlor, who was adopted out by the nuns at Sean Ross Abbey, Co. Tipperary.

Letters she obtained from her adoptive parents detailing how she was given to them also sheds light on the nuns’ attitudes towards children of poorer single mothers.

The nuns cautioned the prospective parents not to pick a child of the ‘wrong class’, and to take a young child as ‘the better class girl has to leave here quickly so as not to be detected in her sorrow’.

In a letter dated July 26, 1961, sent to the adoptive parents of Mary Lawlor, the sister in charge of the Roscrea institution reads:

‘We had a wonderful reference from your priest and we think you should take a baby over six months… the baby will be brought up just as you would bring your own child up and a child of two years has been too long in an institution to fall easy into your ways. We have a very nice little girl Mary Margaret who is of good background and very intelligent,’ the nun wrote.

Speaking to the Irish Mail on Sunday, Mary Lawlor said the nuns also gave her adoptive parents a book detailing how to look after a baby.

‘They were picking and choosing babies, so the older ones – who would have needed a bit more
support – ended up being left there because the nuns were putting people off them.

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AUSTRALIA
Canberra Times

David Ellery
Reporter for The Canberra Times.

Daniel Hopkinson is 36 years old and still waiting for his life to start. The former Marist College Canberra student has never been able to finish a university degree, make a long-term relationship work or secure lasting employment.

“I am now unemployed, under-educated and still looking for a life path,” he wrote in a submission to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse on May 23.

He had been prompted to tell his story for the first time in more than two decades by the news the commission was to hold a public hearing in Canberra starting on Tuesday, June 10.

While specific details of his allegations cannot be published as they have yet to be tested in a court of law, Mr Hopkinson names a brother, whose name has not come up in previous investigations and court actions, as an alleged sexual predator.

Mr Hopkinson says while he was never sexually abused himself, he did become aware other children were being molested, and that in his final year at the college in the mid-1990s, he confronted staff over that abuse.

“I was victimised by this individual [the alleged sexual predator] for three years [from year 4] and when I progressed into the senior school, the victimisation continued through different brothers.”

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IRELAND
Sunday Independent

Ralph Riegel
Published 08/06/2014

THEY were made to scrub the hard, cold floors on their knees with a toothbrush, and to cut the huge lawns with only a scissors.

Mothers at the Bessborough mother-and-baby home in Co Cork, privately referred to as “a secret penitential jail”, were refused all social contact with the outside world, and not allowed to even speak with each other.

Former inmates believe up to 3,000 children are buried in unmarked graves at the country’s largest mother and baby home.

John Barrett, who was born at Bessborough on July 17, 1952, told the Sunday Independent: “If there are 800 babies buried in a single plot in Tuam, I can guarantee you that there are thousands buried at Bessborough. I would estimate from my information that there are probably between 2,000 and 3,000 children buried there.”

The infant mortality rate at Bessborough in the late Forties was 55 per cent – meaning burials would have been taking place on a weekly basis.

The young women were routinely forbidden from attending the funerals of their babies and, in one case, a woman who lost her baby received nothing more than a pair of his shoes as she was sent home.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

But in Ireland we have never pursued the people responsible for horrors such as the little bodies in the cesspit.

Emer O’Kelly
Published 08/06/2014

Seventy years ago, on the orders of a maniac, little children and babies were herded into barren camps in Germany and occupied Poland by men in black uniforms. They were starved to death in those camps; sometimes they had hideous medical experiments carried out upon them while alive, so hideous the silence of death was probably merciful. And when they died, their little bodies were thrown into huge pits. Because they were scum: Jewish scum.

And since then we have called what was done in those camps the greatest collective evil ever carried out by humankind.

Twenty years ago, the opposing tribes who comprised the population of a country called Rwanda festered in such hatred for each other that one tribe took to the ritual slaughter of the other in an attempt to wipe its existence from the face of the earth. And often the mass of slaughtered bodies, including those of little children, and comprising 20 per cent of the country’s population, was so great that they were flung unceremoniously into great pits. Because they were scum: tribally inferior scum.

A year later, a town was wiped off the face of the earth in a place called Srebrenica in what had until recently been Yugoslavia, the flower of its youth, the young men and boys, marched into woodland where they were ritually slaughtered, and their bodies thrown into huge pits. Because they were scum: Muslim scum.

And the men who gave the orders and supervised the slaughter went on the run. But the world pursued them, and charged them with crimes against humanity.

And in Ireland, where there is still a widespread smugness about our decency and our devotion to the Faith of our Fathers, the Virgin Mother of God, and the efficacy of the Holy Rosary, a pit has been found filled with the skeletons of tiny babies and small children, 800 of them, dumped in the pit which some prefer to call a “mass grave” but is actually a septic tank.

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IRELAND
Irish Mirror

Jun 08, 2014 By Adelina Campos

Shocking claim after woman’s 35-year search to find her infant cousin’s burial place

Every household in Ireland could be rocked by the forgotten babies inquiry, a mum-of-two warned last night.

Mary Frances Joyce, who has been trying to find the grave of her infant cousin for more than three decades, said: “Ireland needs to get its head out of the sand because tens of thousands of women were sent to mother-and-baby institutions and had children there.

“I don’t think there is a family in this country that hasn’t got a dark secret hanging over them somewhere.”

Mary’s cousin was born at Castlepollard, Co Westmeath, one of the largest mother-and-baby homes in the country on October 4, 1950.

She died just over two months later but there is no burial record for her.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Published 07/06/2014

Gerard O’Regan

There was a time in rural Ireland when the amount of money donated by individuals and families to various Catholic Church collections was read out from the altar by the local priest at Sunday Mass.

As the priest intoned his way through the names, listing whether they gave five shillings, 10 shillings, one pound, or even the odd five pounds, it was a public affirmation of where people were placed in the social hierarchy. Those financially better off were obviously near the top of the contributions list, those doing not too badly in the middle, and the really hard done by somewhere near the bottom.

So when it came to monies for Christmas or Easter Dues, or whatever the awesome power of unquestioned Irish Catholicism expected at the time, everybody knew and accepted their place. This was determined by their economic circumstances. And it would be unmarried mothers from the five shillings – or less – contributions figure, who would most likely end up in places like the converted Famine workhouse run by the nuns in Tuam, now at the centre of international controversy.

Those who want to get their heads round the fact that the bodies of nearly 800 babies and young children were seemingly disposed of in such shocking circumstances need to transport themselves back to the Ireland we had from the 1920s to the 1960s. It is absolutely pointless, when trying to understand the motives of the nuns involved, applying the norms of this more affluent, mainly secular, better informed age, to the psychological rigidity of Ireland back then.

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CALIFORNIA
CBS SF Bay Area

DAVIS (CBS/AP) — A Roman Catholic priest has been charged with three felonies for allegedly engaging in a sexual relationship with a teenage girl he met while working at a Davis church.

Yolo County prosecutors released a criminal complaint on Friday that charges the Rev. Hector Coria Gonzales with three counts of unlawful sexual intercourse.

According to the complaint, the charges stem from encounters between the 46-year-old Coria and a 17-year-old girl that took place at a home, in a vehicle and at the church rectory over eight months.

Coria has been a staff pastor at St. James Parish in Davis for almost two years. After his arrest in May, Roman Catholic Diocese of Sacramento put him on leave.

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UNITED STATES
New Oxford Review

By Jay Dunlap

Jay Dunlap served as communications director in North America for the Legion of Christ and its lay affiliate, Regnum Christi, from 1998 to 2006 and as a communications consultant from 2006 to 2010. He is currently President of Madonna School & Workshop, the Archdiocese of Omaha’s outreach to children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

This April Popes John XXIII and John Paul II were canonized together. This moment of great rejoicing in the Church arose under a shadow, due in large part to two high-profile television documentaries that detail how the Church responded — or failed to respond — to the criminal actions of Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado, founder of the Legion of Christ. A PBS Frontline investigation titled Secrets of the Vatican, and a documentary on Irish television titled The Legion, both dwell on the fact that three Popes — John XXIII, Paul VI, and John Paul II — failed to take action when informed of Fr. Maciel’s sexual abuse, drug addiction, and misuse of funds.

There is a good explanation for why these three Popes did not move against Maciel. The explanation does not excuse inaction, nor does it abrogate responsibility at various levels of the Vatican for having enabled Maciel’s corruption and deception. But such an explanation answers the question raised about these three Popes: Why didn’t they act?

I served as communications director for the Legion of Christ in North America from 1998 to 2006. My responsibilities included media relations and helping the Legion in crisis management. Published reports of allegations against Fr. Maciel kept me and my colleagues busy for long stretches of time. And a central part of the Legion’s response, I am convinced, explains why the three Popes ignored the allegations: “The charges had already been thoroughly examined and found baseless.” Or so we were led to believe, and so we told others.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Nick Webb
Published 08/06/2014

Former AIB chairman Peter Sutherland flew to a crisis meeting in the Vatican last July as Pope Francis, left, sought to deal with the financial scandals that have hit the Catholic Church.

Sutherland addressed the Council of Cardinals, the most senior advisers to the Papacy, in a room close to Doma Santa Marta, the Pope’s residence.

Sutherland, an unpaid financial adviser to the Vatican, is understood to have pressed for the church to change its ways. ‘Transparency is important and necessary’ is said to have been the theme of his briefing. Sutherland, chairman of Goldman Sachs international, was appointed as an adviser to the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See, an asset manager for the Vatican.

Pope Francis has ordered a major reform of the Vatican’s banking and financial systems after a series of scandals have emerged in recent months.

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TEXAS/ARIZONA
El Diario

[Summary: A priest who belonged to the El Paso diocese until 2002 remains suspended from his job after being accused to sexually abusing an adult with mental disabilities in Tucson, Ariz. Cleric Richard Zamorano allegedly began a friendship with the claimant, who is classified as a vulnerable adult with mental disabilities, and the person has now filed a civil complaint against the church. According to the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, the lawsuit also alleges that the Tucson and El Paso dioceses were aware of the risk posed by the priest.]

Perla Chaparro
El Diario de El Paso

Un sacerdote que perteneció a la Diócesis de El Paso hasta 2002, continúa suspendido de sus funciones luego de que se le acusara de presunto abuso sexual a un adulto con discapacidad mental en Tucson, Arizona.

El clérigo Richard Zamorano inició presuntamente una amistad con el reclamante, quien es calificado como un adulto vulnerable con discapacidad mental, y está presentando ahora una queja civil en contra del eclesiástico.

Se dice que el sacerdote, quien fue investigado y el caso fue cerrado–, pasó por el demandante a su casa, y presuntamente Zamorano compró alcohol para sí mismo y para el demandante, luego lo llevó a un hotel en el Condado de Pima y abusó sexualmente de él, según el portal de Courthouse News Services y en base a la queja.

De acuerdo a la Red de Sobrevivientes Abusados por Sacerdotes (SNAP), la demanda también alega que la Diócesis de Tucson y de El Paso eran conscientes del riesgo que planteaba el sacerdote y fallaron en no advertir sobre él.

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CANADA
Cape Breton post

Dolores Campbell
Published on June 06, 2014

Will the repentance service on Sunday in Port Hawkesbury signify case closed to the abuse scandal as it applies to the Diocese of Antigonish?

It was to be a reconciliation service when it all began quite a few months ago, but those attending any of the seven meetings held to prepare for such a service heard quite a bit of anger expressed by parishioners as to how the scandal had impacted on their lives.

Some thought any such service would merely keep open the wound the abuse scandal had inflicted on the world, and especially on our diocese. For them, it was time to move on. And, in fact, many were trying to do just that in their home parishes.

At the time, many were upset at new security requirements for anyone working with children in their parishes, despite some having been involved in those ministries for years. In fact, anyone wishing to donate their time and energy to assisting in any way in their various parishes faced security checks.

Church closures were blamed on the fact that money was confiscated and used for abuse compensation; leaving a shortfall for churches needing maintain their buildings and programs. The fact that church closures have been on the books for more than 30 years cut no ice with those faced with the loss of their worship space.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Los Angeles Times

KURT STREETER

The four men were dressed in white and cream-colored robes. They knelt on the stone floor, ending up face down in a supplicating sign of obedience and respect. In front of thousands of onlookers, they were about to become Catholic priests.

“Lord have mercy,” the crowd chanted, slowly. “Christ have mercy…. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us….”

It was a ritualized, peak moment during Saturday’s ordination — an annual event held at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in which seminarians become full-fledged priests, prepared after years of study to serve parishes throughout the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. …

Even as the number of parishioners climbs, the Roman Catholic church has long struggled with a shortage of priests in the U.S., a falloff that hasn’t been helped by sex abuse scandals that have rocked the church in recent years. (Cardinal Roger Mahony, whom some blame for failing to aggressively root out abuse during his tenure as L.A.’s archbishop, was on hand at Saturday’s ceremony.) There are currently about 40,000 priests nationwide, according to statistics from the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate. In 1965, there were about 60,000.

The shortage isn’t felt as acutely in Los Angeles, said Father Sam Ward, the diocese’s associate director of vocations, partly because the region attracts clerics from outside areas. Still, the diocese is pushing to boost the number ordained locally each year.

Heartened by the number of men who’ve recently entered the diocese’s St. John’s Seminary — enrollment hit 92 in the fall of 2013, up from 71 in 2008, an uptick ascribed in part to the popularity of Pope Francis — officials say they expect to soon be ordaining groups of 10 to 12 priests, and possibly more, each year.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Article by: TONY KENNEDY , Star Tribune Updated: June 7, 2014

The Rev. Timothy McCarthy was the “kids’ pastor” who wore sneakers under his vestments and dropped profanities into his sermons. Girls had crushes on him, and parents let their children go camping with him.

When McCarthy abruptly resigned the priesthood in 1991, he told his flock at the Church of the Most Holy Redeemer in Maplewood that he had outgrown Catholic Church dogma. He was quitting, he said, to go down a new spiritual path.

But newly released files reveal that the church ousted McCarthy after allegations that he sexually abused two boys early in his career and later engaged in an exploitative sexual relationship with a college student. Despite those concerns, the church helped McCarthy gain credentials that allowed him to work closely with teenagers and young adults. He later lost his job as a Hennepin County correctional officer after being accused of criminal sexual conduct with a 17-year-old.

McCarthy’s previously hidden history is laid out in documents that the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis divulged under an order from a Ramsey County district judge in a clergy sexual abuse lawsuit brought by St. Paul attorney Jeff Anderson. The court order has triggered the release of more than 70,000 pages of classified memos about more than 45 accused priests — and could bring more litigation under a change in Minnesota law that allows people to bring claims of long-ago abuse.

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CALIFORNIA
Daily Democrat

By The Associated Press and Democrat staff
CREATED: 06/07/2014 0

A Roman Catholic priest has been charged with three felonies for allegedly engaging in a sexual relationship with a teenage girl he met while working at a Davis church.

The Sacramento Bee reports that Yolo County prosecutors released a criminal complaint on Friday that charges the Rev. Hector Coria Gonzales with three counts of unlawful sexual intercourse.

According to the complaint, the charges stem from encounters between the 46-year-old Gonzales and a 17-year-old girl that took place at a home, in a vehicle and at the church rectory over eight months.

Gonzales has been a staff pastor at St. James Parish in Davis for almost two years. After his arrest in May, Roman Catholic Diocese of Sacramento put him on leave. According to a Facebook page of St. Thomas Catholic Church in Paradise, he was ordained in January 2011.

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AUSTRALIA
Illawarra Mercury

By GEMMA KHAICY June 8, 2014

n the wake of sex abuse scandals enveloping the Catholic Church and an ageing population of priests, Stephen Varney stepped into a seminary at age 26. Nearly six years later he couldn’t be happier. He speaks to GEMMA KHAICY about his decision to be a priest.

Stephen Varney doesn’t have sex.

He has made a vow of celibacy because, he says, his life is filled with a passion greater than his carnal cravings.

His deep love of God and commitment to his faith provides him with satisfaction no woman can fulfil.

Ironically, he says, this sacrifice allows him to connect with others on a deeper level as he enters the priesthood. …

Italian women in love with priests sent a letter to Pope Francis last month asking him to make celibacy optional, while other proponents of overturning this rule have linked it to the sexual abuse of children.

The church, however, has rejected this argument, saying paedophilia is the result of psychological problems.

“I think it’s a bit rude to imply that someone who is living a celibate life, whether voluntary or involuntary, is somehow a potential child abuser,” Stephen says.

“It seems strange in my mind to think if you were going to disregard your vow of celibacy, why that would suddenly be towards children.

“It’s completely abnormal.”

As a priest-to-be, he says sex abuse scandals and cover ups in the church have been demoralising at times.

“I am disgusted by it and you might even lose faith in what you’re doing, but that would give even more power to those who have done wrong,” he says.

“I think the Royal Commission needs to happen and I am willing to be that champion of faithful priesthood and helping the victims who have been abused by priests or people in other institutions.”

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CANADA
Winnipeg Free Press

By: The Canadian Press

PORT HAWKESBURY, N.S. – The Roman Catholic Diocese of Antigonish, N.S., says it will hold a special service to acknowledge the pain of victims of sexual abuse.

Father Donald MacGillivray says he hopes the victims of the abuse by members of the clergy will attend the service, which is being held at 3 p.m. Sunday at St. Joseph’s Church in Port Hawkesbury.

MacGillivray says the service was agreed upon as part of a class-action lawsuit against several priests dating back more than 50 years.

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IRELAND
The Sunday Times (UK)

Justine McCarthy Published: 8 June 2014

THE historian who discovered that 796 children may be buried in a mass grave in the west of Ireland believes three mothers are also interred there with their babies.

Catherine Corless has established that nine women were buried in the grave in the grounds of the former St Mary’s mother-and-baby home in Tuam, Co Galway. She has identified three of them by matching the home addresses on their death certificates with the addresses of those of the children. She has so far been unable to identify the other six women.

Corless is adamant that the Tuam crypt, which she says was originally a septic tank, contains scores of bodies.

Barry Sweeney, who accidentally found the grave in 1975 when he was playing there with a friend, Francis Hopkins, said he had been left with the impression that there were “about 20 bodies” of boys aged 10 to 12.

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IRELAND
culchieworks

The tides are finally turning…

Twenty years I’ve been at this, promoting and advocating for the rights of adopted people in and from Ireland (and in the US). We’ve talked, cajoled, written, and held countless meetings with successive governments in that period. A small but fearless band of us connected in the early days of the Internet, spanning the Atlantic. It was the first time I’d ever spoken with people adopted in and from Ireland in my life. We eventually began a Yahoo! group, which even today continues to receive members and posts. Some of us who had been ‘banished’ to the US, particularly in the Northeast, formed a small group (Adopted Citizens of Eire).

The topics have certainly been well-covered, even internationally. In 1989, activist and survivor Paddy Doyle led the charge with his excellent The God Squad. In 1997, former RTÉ journalist Mike Milotte researched and published his results on the trafficking of children from Ireland to the US in his seminal Banished Babies (updated in 2012). Mary Raftery and Eoin O’Sullivan had written Suffer the Little Children on the heels of Raftery’s award-winning three-part series States of Fear on RTÉ in 1999. Stephen Humphries produced an excellent documentary on the Magdalene Laundries, Sex in a Cold Climate, in 1997 and it eventually became the basis for Peter Mullan’s award-winning feature film The Magdalene Sisters in 2002. BBC also released the documentary Sinners in 2002. The latest, and perhaps most widely-seen chronicle of Irish adoption, is the award-winning film Philomena. The film was inspired by Martin Sixsmith’s 2009 book, The Lost Son of Philomena Lee. And our heroine, the real-life Philomena Lee, has been playing a blinder as one of the most eloquent, gracious and courageous spokeswomen for Irish mothers of loss. Thanks to her good work, Adoption Rights Alliance has now partnered with The Philomena Project, and it set the cogs in motion toward the most recent explosion and revelation in Tuam.

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

Documents offer glimpse of correspondence

Cases that may be used as evidence

By Lilly Fowler • lfowler@post-dispatch.com 314-340-8221 AND Robert Patrick • rpatrick@post-dispatch.com 314-621-51541

When the Rev. Joseph D. Ross was assigned to minister at St. Cronan Church, the other priest there already knew his secret.

He heard the pastor coming to help him in 1991 had just returned from the St. Luke Institute in Silver Spring, Md., a mental health treatment center for Catholic clergy, according to court filings.

The priest recognized that in all likelihood this was code for Ross having just undergone therapy for a sexual attraction to children. Although the priest worried about the well-being of the parishioners, according to court filings, the Archdiocese of St. Louis assured him that Ross was fit to return to ministry.

Twenty years later, a young woman who attended St. Cronan between 1997 and 2001 would claim she was abused by Ross when she was only 5 or 6 years old, filing a civil lawsuit against the priest and the archdiocese. The alleged victim and perpetrator are set to finally have their day in court when a trial begins next month at the Carnahan Courthouse in downtown St. Louis. …

JOSEPH D. ROSS: A TIMELINE

In a lawsuit, a woman claims the Rev. Joseph D. Ross abused her when she was a child attending St. Cronan Church. The suit also claims the Archdiocese of St. Louis failed to take steps to protect children.

1969 • Ross is ordained.
1969-1974 • Ross is assigned to Immacolata Catholic Church in Richmond Heights.
1972 • Ross is arrested after being caught by police masturbating with two other men in a store bathroom. The charges are later dismissed.
1974-76 • Ross is assigned to St. William in Woodson Terrace.
1975-77 • According to a 2002 lawsuit, Ross is accused of sexually abusing a young boy at St. William.
1978-82 • Assigned to St. Bridget of Kildare in Pacific.
1982-86 • Assigned to St. Francis De Sales in St. Louis.
1986-88 • Assigned to Christ the King in University City.
1986 • Ross is charged with grabbing and kissing an 11-year-old boy multiple times during confession at Christ the King. He pleads guilty in 1988 to sexually assaulting the boy and is sentenced to two years probation.
1988 • Sent to treatment center in Washington D.C. area.
1989 -1991 • Assigned to Corpus Christi Parish in Jennings.
1991 • Assigned to St. Cronan Church in St. Louis.
1997-01 • According to the current lawsuit, Ross is accused of molesting and raping a young girl. Criminal charges are filed in the case in 2008, but are dropped in 2010.
2002 • The Vatican announces Ross’ laicization. Ross then moves to Arkansas.
Source: Post-Dispatch archives and BishopAccountability.org

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Caroline Crawford and Tom Brady

GARDAI are preparing an initial dossier for Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald on reports of an unmarked grave at a former Catholic Church-run home where almost 800 children died.

But it is not clear when they will be in a position to determine if a criminal investigation is warranted.

Two local senior officers, Chief Supt Tom Curley and Supt Patrick McHugh, visited the site in Tuam, Co Galway, yesterday along with 51-year-old Frannie Hopkins, who found what he believed to have been a mass grave there when he was 12 years old.

Separately yesterday, President Michael D Higgins said he was “appalled” at the terrible reports that have been appearing, in particular in relation to the high death rates in Tuam.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Ralph Riegel
Published 07/06/2014

A MAN born in one of the most notorious mother-and-baby homes has called for a major audit of its cemetery to establish whether it too hides a mass grave.

John Barrett said: “I have been saying for years that we need answers about what exactly happened at places like Bessborough.

“There were always rumours about burials and the (Bessborough) graveyard. There could well be thousands of babies buried there. This was the largest mothers-and-baby home in Ireland so who knows?

“I think we now need to find out whether these were just rumours, or whether just like Tuam in Galway, there was some- thing tragic going on.”

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

NCR Staff Catholic News Service | Jun. 7, 2014

WASHINGTON The U.S. bishops are scheduled to meet in New Orleans June 11-13. On their agenda is a discussion of today’s economy and its impact on marriages and evangelization. They are also to review their efforts in preventing sexual abuse of children, strengthening marriage, helping typhoon victims and preparing for upcoming church-sponsored events on family life.

The bishops are to hear presentations on “Marriage and the Economy” and “the New Evangelization and Poverty” on the second day of their gathering before they close for executive sessions.

The first day is to be filled with reports on upcoming events, including presentations on the Oct. 5-19 extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the family and on the World Meeting of Families, set for Sept. 22-27, 2015, in Philadelphia. …

Other items on the agenda for the meeting include:

* The annual progress report of the bishops’ efforts to protect children and young people from sexual abuse, presented by Francesco Cesareo, chairman of the National Review Board;

* Debate and vote on the renewal of the bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty, formed in 2011, for an additional three-year term;

*An update on the work of the bishops’ Subcommittee on the Catechism and their Subcommittee on the Promotion and Defense of Marriage;

* Debate and vote on the request for renewal of the “recognitio,” or Vatican approval, for the national directory for the formation, ministry and life of permanent deacons.

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IRELAND
Daily Mail (UK)

Thousands of children in Irish care homes at centre of ‘baby graves scandal’ were used in secret vaccine trials in the 1930s

By HARRIET ARKELL and NEIL MICHAEL

Scientists secretly vaccinated more than 2,000 children in religious-run homes in suspected illegal drug trials, it emerged today.

Old medical records show that 2,051 children and babies in Irish care homes were given a one-shot diphtheria vaccine for international drugs giant Burroughs Wellcome between 1930 and 1936.

There is no evidence that consent was ever sought, nor any records of how many may have died or suffered debilitating side-effects as a result.

The scandal was revealed as Irish premier, Enda Kenny, ordered ministers to see whether there are more mass baby graves after the discovery that 800 infants may be buried in a septic tank outside a former mother and baby home in Tuam, Co. Galway.

The Taioseach intervened from the United States yesterday to say that he had ordered his officials to ‘see what the scale is, what’s involved here, and whether this is isolated or if there are others around the country that need to be looked at.’

Michael Dwyer, of Cork University’s School of History, found the child vaccination data by trawling through tens of thousands of medical journal articles and archive files.

He discovered that the trials were carried out before the vaccine was made available for commercial use in the UK.

Homes where children were secretly tested included Bessborough, in Co. Cork and Sean Ross Abbey in Roscrea, Co. Tipperary, both of which are at the centre of the mass baby graves scandal.

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IRELAND
Irish Central

Patrick Counihan @irishcentral June 07,2014

More than 2000 Irish children in religious run homes were subjected to drugs trials in the 1930s according to a shocking new report.

As the Tuam burial ground scandal erupts, it has now emerged that Catholic Church run homes and state institutions let the children of unmarried mothers be used in medical experiments.

The Irish Daily Mail has published a damning report which outlines how scientists secretly vaccinated more than 2,000 children in religious-run homes in suspected illegal drug trials.

The paper says that old medical records show that 2,051 children and babies in Irish care homes were given a one-shot diphtheria vaccine for international drugs giant Burroughs Wellcome between 1930 and 1936.

The report adds that no evidence exists that consent was ever sought.

Historian Michael Dwyer who unearthed the documentations says that no records of how many may have died or suffered debilitating side-effects as a result are in existence.

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IRELAND
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Tuam

Archbishop Neary welcomes the announcement today of the Minister to establish a Cross-Departmental Examination for the burial arrangements of Children in Mother and Baby Homes.

I was greatly shocked, as we all were, to learn of the extent of the numbers of children buried in the grave-yard in Tuam. I was made aware of the magnitude of this situation by media reporting and historical research. I am horrified and saddened to hear of the large number of deceased children involved and this points to a time of great suffering and pain for the little ones and their mothers.

I can only begin to imagine the huge emotional wrench which the mothers suffered in giving up their babies for adoption or by witnessing their death. Many of these young vulnerable women would already have been rejected by their families. The pain and brokenness which they endured is beyond our capacity to understand. It is simply too difficult to comprehend their helplessness and suffering as they watched their beloved child die.

Regardless of the time lapse involved this is a matter of great public concern which ought to be acted upon urgently. As the diocese did not have any involvement in the running of the home in Tuam we do not have any material relating to it in our archives. I understand that the material which the Bon Secours Sisters held, as managers of the Mother and Baby Home was handed over to Galway County Council and the health authorities in 1961.

I welcome the announcement today by Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Mr. Charlie Flanagan, TD to establish a Cross-Departmental examination for the burial arrangements of Children in Mother and Baby Homes. This will have the legal authority to examine the situation and to determine the truth. While the Archdiocese of Tuam will cooperate fully nonetheless there exists a clear moral imperative on the Bon Secours Sisters in this case to act upon their responsibilities in the interests of the common good.

The Diocese will continue to work with the Sisters and the local community to provide a suitable commemorative prayer based memorial service and plaque and to ensure that the deceased and their families will never be forgotten.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Caroline Crawford
Published 07/06/2014

Bodies of nine women who died in the Tuam Mother and Baby home may also lie near the 796 infants buried in a septic tank on the grounds, according to locals.

The records obtained by local historian Catherine Corless – which show that close to 800 babies died at the Tuam Mother and Baby home – also reveal that nine women died over the same period.

However, she has been unable to ascertain where their graves are.

Local man Martin Ward, who is heavily involved in the committee to erect a plaque in memory of the dead, said he believes the women lie alongside the infants.

“We believe there’s nine women buried there as well,according to the records. They show nine women died and we presume that they are buried there,” he said.

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IRELAND
Irish Mirror

Jun 07, 2014 06:00 By Adelina Campos

President Higgins calls for State inquiry as detectives finally begin to investigate the horrific discovery

Gardai have launched an investigation into the mass baby grave scandal, it was revealed last night.

Detectives have questioned two men who found bones on the site in Tuam, Co Galway, in 1975.

They will now decide whether to launch a full criminal investigation into the dumping of the children’s bodies without proper burial or records.

The move came as President Michael D Higgins said he was “appalled” by the revelations and called for a Government inquiry.

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IRELAND
Newstalk

Eoin Brennan

Saturday 7 June 2014

The bodies of nine women who died at the Tuam mother and Baby home may also be in the septic tank believed to hold the bodies of 796 children.

Catherine Corless – the local historian who first discovered the death records of the children – show nine women also died at the home during the same period and their burial spots are currently unkown. At this point Corless can confirm that the women died at the home between the years of 1937 to 1961 but she has not been able to find graves for the women. Corless stresses that she cannot confirm the nine are buried with the children.

“When I was getting the names of the children who died in the home …they also gave me a list of nine adult women who died, and it stated on the certs that they died in the home in Tuam.

“Now, I can’t confirm that they were buried with the children. They died in the home during the years from 1937 to 1961, that’s all I can tell you. I have nine names and I have no idea where they are,” Corless told Newstalk.

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IRELAND
Herald

BY CAROLINE CRAWFORD – 07 JUNE 2014

DETECTIVES have visited the site where almost 800 babies are believed to be buried in a mass grave.

Two officers called to the site in Tuam, Co Galway, yesterday along with Frannie Hopkins (51) who found the mass grave when he was 12.

It is also feared that the bodies of nine women who died in the Tuam Mother and Baby Home may lie near the 796 infants buried in a septic tank in the grounds.

After meeting the detectives, Mr Hopkins went through in detail where he had discovered the bodies.

“They brought me up to the site and I showed them where it was and how we came across it. It was all quite informal and only took about 15 minutes,” he said.

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IRELAND
Bock the Robber

Posted by Bock on June 6, 2014

The bishop of Tuam has released a statement in which he seeks to distance his diocese from the appalling treatment of the women who were locked up in the notorious Mother and baby Home.

In doing so, he follows in the footsteps of Cardinal Cahal Daly, who also sought to distance himself from any responsiblity for the monstrous behaviour of Father Brendan Smyth, the paedophile whose activities brought down a government and first exposed to the world what was really going on behind the veil of sanctity in Ireland.

Daly, you might recall, pointed out that he had no authority over Brendan Smyth, because the priest was a member of the Norbertine order and was therefore under the control of his religious superior within that order. This was why, according to Daly, he could not intervene in the priest’s rape of children. He was powerless to do so.

Oddly enough, this lack of power didn’t prevent Daly’s successor from intervening in the activities of another priest who was also a member of a religious order. Cardinal Seán Brady who, as a young priest, had sworn abused children to secrecy on pain of damnation, had no hesitation in stepping in when Father Iggy O’Donovan, an Augustinian priest in Drogheda committed a transgression in 2006.

His crime? Iggy O’Donovan celebrated an ecumenical service with a Protestant clergyman, in a spirit of reconciliation and solidarity.
…

When Dr Deeny, the Chief Medical Officer, unilaterally closed Bessborough Home because of the number of children it was killing, the Papal Nuncio complained him to DeValera on the order of Bishop Lucey of Cork, even though the home was run by nuns.

The bishops knew everything and the bishops controlled everything. Let us not forget that this bishop of Tuam was the very same one to whom the entire county library catalogue was submitted for vetting. Gilmartin selected the books to be burned, and yet, somehow, Michael Neary would have us believe he was a benign, bumbling old Santa Claus figure who had nothing to do with the systemic oppression of women in post-independence Ireland.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites researcher (article posted 7 June 2014)

Australia’s national child-abuse Royal Commission is currently investigating how Catholic Church authorities ignored the crimes of a Marist Brother who (for legal reasons) is being referred to as “Brother Z.A.” He was inflicted on Australian Catholic schoolchildren for 20 years. The letters “Z.A.” do not refer to this Brother’s real name; this is merely the Royal Commission’s code-name for him. Some revelations about the cover-up are likely.

Broken Rites understands that “Brother Z.A” worked as a primary teacher, from the early 1970s to the early 1990s, in various Catholic schools in Queensland, New South Wales and Canberra.

Starting on 10 June 2014, the Royal Commission is holding a week or more of public hearings (Case Study 13) which will include the question of how the Marist Brothers administration responded (or failed to respond) to the crimes of “Brother ZA”, plus another Marist (Brother John “Kostka” Chute).

These public hearings will examine:

* Any steps taken (or not taken) by the Marist authorities to report these allegations to the police.
* The response of government and other agencies to these allegations.
* The settling of compensation claims for victims of Marist Brothers, including Brother Kostka Chute and Brother Z.A.

The public hearings of Case Study 13 (including both Kostka Chute and ZA) will be streamed, via webcast, on the Royal Commission’s website. To reach the Commission’s webpage for Case Study 13, click HERE.

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