ABUSE TRACKER

IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

Mass baby grave in Tuam, Galway: Enda Kenny voices concerns that other mass graves exist across Ireland

BY NIALL O’CONNOR AND PA – 05 JUNE 2014

Taoiseach Enda Kenny has voiced concern that there exists other mass baby graves across the country.

Speaking during a trade mission to the US, Mr Kenny said the government will work actively to determine the scale of the situation.

The Taoiseach described the discovery of a mass grave in Tuam, Co Galway as “another element of our country’s past”.

He said Children’s Minister Charlie Flanagan will update the government on the findings of a newly established review group.

“I’ve asked Minister Flanagan to draw together a number of senior officials from across the department until we see what the scale of what is involved here. Whether this is an isolated (incident) or whether there are others around the country that need to be looked at,” Mr Kenny said.

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MICHIGAN
MLive

By Dominic Adams | dadams5@mlive.com
on June 05, 2014 at 5:30 PM

GRAND BLANC, MI – A Grand Blanc priest accused of inappropriately touching two children is the first priest put on leave in the Catholic Diocese of Lansing since a 2005 decision by the church to publicize the names of priests accused of abuse.

The church says police and child protective services opened an investigation after Rev. Ken Coughlin was accused of inappropriately touching the hands and legs of two students in May.

Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton told The Flint Journal on Thursday, June 5, that he’s reviewing the case to determine if criminal charges will be filed.

But the attorney for the priest says Coughlin did nothing wrong and wants to return the parish.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Citizens Voice

BY DAVID SINGLETON
Published: June 3, 2014

A suspended Diocese of Scranton priest who admitted meeting a 15-year-old boy for a sexual encounter will spend eight to 23 months in the Lackawanna County Prison.

The Rev. William Jeffrey Paulish, 57, of Blakely, told Judge Michael Barrasse he would like to change what happened Sept. 19 at the Penn State Worthington Scranton campus in Dunmore but he cannot.

“I should have known better,” the Rev. Paulish said.

In addition to handing down the eight- to 23-month jail sentence, Barrasse placed the Rev. Paulish on probation for two years and ordered him to perform 100 hours of community service. The priest will be required to register as a sex offender for 15 years under the Adam Walsh Act.

The Rev. Paulish was arrested after campus security discovered him with the teenager in the back of the priest’s 2009 Toyota Venza in a Worthington Scranton parking lot. The boy did not have pants on, and both he and the Rev. Paulish later said they had engaged in sex acts, police said.

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UNITED STATES
Advocates for Awareness of Watchtower Abuses

PRESS RELEASE –

Jehovah’s Witnesses begin 2014 convention series, but beware of “the wolf in sheep’s clothing”

June 5, 2014

On June 6th Jehovah’s Witnesses will start their 2014 convention series in various cities within the USA and Canada. During the first week they will be arriving in such diverse places as Bakersfield, California and Penticton, British Columbia. Many local businesses look forward to a temporary cash injection because Jehovah’s Witnesses conventions typically attract a few thousand visitors.

Some local newspaper editors might be reluctant to upset businesses who advertise in their publications by writing about certain often unknown and unpleasant facts about an organization whose adherents will soon be flooding into their area.

Advocates for Awareness of Watchtower Abuses (AAWA) respects this economic reality, but also wants the public and civic leaders living in the convention cities to know that the Jehovah’s Witness leadership has never been totally truthful about what happens when a person becomes entangled with their group.

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TENNESSEE
Associated Baptist Press

By Bob Allen

A Southern Baptist church in Tennessee is being sued for $2 million by a mother whose 10-year-old daughter was sexually abused while attending Vacation Bible School in 2009.

The girl, now 15, and her mother both use pseudonyms in a lawsuit filed May 20 Madison County Circuit Court alleging negligence by First Baptist Church in Bemis, Tenn., for allowing longtime church member Chad Luttrell to volunteer for VBS despite knowledge of “substantial problems” he had caused in the past concerning inappropriate conduct with female church members including girls between ages 6 and 10.

Luttrell, 35, was arrested June 10, 2009, and charged with aggravated sexual battery. He pleaded guilty, got probation and landed on Tennessee Sex Offender Registry.

Prior to that, the lawsuit alleges, church leaders knew of complaints involving Luttrell kissing a young girl on the face and stalking and harassing three adult female church members in 2006.

Then-pastor Mark McSwain filed a police report in December 2006 about “a problem growing in the church” for several weeks with Luttrell. The investigating officer said McSwain told him that Luttrell was caught kissing a young girl on the mouth and had been following and making physical threats toward three adult women.

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UNITED STATES
DFW Catholic

NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND FUNDRAISING MANAGER
Fundraising, FT Employee
Legionaries of Christ (White Plains, NY)

National Development and Fundraising Manager
Legion of Christ Incorporated, Institutional Advancement
Atlanta GA or White Plains NY

The Legion of Christ Incorporated is seeking a skilled, energetic and experienced National Development and Fundraising Manager to lead a team of nationwide lay fundraisers in achieving annual fund development goals that directly provide financial means for Regnum Christi Movement apostolic endeavors, religious community support and evangelization efforts. The position works in close collaboration with a wide array of internal and external individuals and organizations. Position reports to the Director of Marketing Development.

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OHIO
Cleveland.com

By Patrick Cooley, Northeast Ohio Media Group
on June 05, 2014 at 8:20 AM, updated June 05, 2014 at 1:09 PM

WESTLAKE, Ohio – The son of a pastor accused of sexual battery was indicted on similar charges this week, according to court records.

Jordan Endrei, 26, who lives in North Olmsted and serves as the assistant pastor of Church on the Rise in Westlake, was arrested Wednesday, court records said.

He faces a charge of unlawful sexual conduct with a minor, court records said. The victim was 14 years old at the time of the suspected abuse.

Lorain County Prosecutor Dennis Will told the Chronicle Telegram that Jordan’s father, Paul Endrei is accused of molesting the girl beginning in 2005. He is also accused of having sexual contact with her in 2009, 2010 and 2013, he said.

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VIRGINIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, June 5, 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 Virginia youth pastor was arrested for allegedly sexually soliciting a minor online. We are glad law enforcement stopped this dangerous predator.

[WTVR]

Deric Wallace Peacock was the youth pastor at Church of God South Hopewell since January 2013. We are grateful that undercover law enforcement officers were the ones Peacock was soliciting, but are worried that there might be real victims suffering in silence and self-blame. (Peacock and his wife reportedly were foster parents.)

We urge law enforcement to urgently investigate whether Peacock sexually assault any children that may have been in his care or at his church. Church officials should publicly disclose that Peacock has been arrested and beg anyone who saw, suspected, or suffered child sex crimes to come forward, call law enforcement and start healing.

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AUSTRALIA
Catholica

Dr Paul Collins and his wife, Marilyn, know the recently ‘excommunicated’ leader of the International Movement We Are Church, Dr Martha Heiser, well. Marilyn through her work with OCW (Ordination of Catholic Women) and Paul worked with her on media at the last two Papal Conclaves. In this report and commentary he suggests the ‘excommunication’ of Dr Heiser by an Austrian Bishop is ‘iniquitous’ given the world-wide crisis the Catholic Church is facing in having enough priests to minister to even a declining participating congregation.

Background…

Founded in 1995 in Austria in the wake of the Cardinal Hermann Gröer sexual abuse scandal, the International Movement Wir sind Kirche [We are Church (IMWAC)] is one of the largest and most important renewal movements in the Catholic church, with active groups in more than 25 countries. In Australia Catholics for Ministry (CfM) is affiliated with IMWAC and shares its ideals and works co-operatively with it. CfM shared much of the media work with the IMWAC leadership through two papal elections (2005 and 2013), with plans to co-operate again during the Synod on the Family in Rome in October this year.

However, on 21 May 2014 Dr Martha Heiser, President of IMWAC, was informed by the Bishop of Innsbruck, Manfred Scheuer, that she and her husband Gert had been formally excommunicated because for several years they had celebrated the Eucharist without a priest in their home. While essentially the excommunication was levied by Scheuer, it was issued with the approval of Cardinal Gerhard Müller, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (formerly the Roman Inquisition). According to Austria’s Kathweb ‘Pope Francis was reportedly not informed personally about the procedure.’ This has been confirmed by Martha Heiser who says that ‘the pope was not involved.’

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UNITED STATES
Associated Baptist Press

By Bob Allen

A support group for survivors of clergy sexual abuse is asking the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee to hire an independent consultant to investigate two churches’ handling of confessions by a former staff member subsequently convicted of molesting several boys decades earlier.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, a non-profit organization claiming to be the largest, oldest and most active self-help group for clergy sex abuse victims, sent a letter June 5 to Executive Committee President Frank Page recommending Boz Tchividjian’s organization GRACE for an independent review of circumstances involving John Langworthy, longtime associate pastor of music and ministries at Morrison Heights Baptist Church in Clinton, Miss.

Langworthy resigned from the church in 2011 and confessed to the congregation of “sexual indiscretions with younger males” that took place prior to his coming to Morrison Heights Baptist Church 22 years earlier.

In 1989, according to a former co-worker, Langworthy was fired by Prestonwood Baptist Church in Dallas after confessing to inappropriate behavior with boys but not reported to police as required by Texas law.

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VATICAN CITY
Religion News Service

Josephine McKenna | Jun 5, 2014

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Francis on Thursday (June 5) dismissed the five-member board that oversees the Vatican’s financial watchdog agency, an abrupt move that will give the financial operation more of an English-speaking focus.

The Vatican said the pope named five experts from Switzerland, Singapore, the United States and Italy to replace those who were removed from the board of the Financial Information Authority (AIF), the Holy See’s internal regulatory agency.

All five outgoing members were Italians who had been expected to serve five-year terms ending in 2016. The sole American on the new board is Juan Zarate, a senior adviser at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. Two of the new five members are Italian.

The pope has taken a hard line on cleaning up the Vatican finance system, and he had been urged to appoint professionals with international expertise to work with the head of the AIF, Rene Bruelhart, a Swiss lawyer. Francis has taken a personal interest in the scandal-tainted Vatican bank, or Institute for Religious Works.

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VATICAN CITY
Channel News Asia

Pope Francis dismissed the Italian five-man board of the Vatican’s Financial Information Authority and named new members including a woman for the first time and a former security adviser to US President George W Bush.

VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis on Thursday dismissed the Italian five-man board of the Vatican’s Financial Information Authority and named new members including a woman for the first time and a former security adviser to US President George W Bush.

Juan Zarate from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, who was Bush’s deputy national security adviser for counter-terrorism, will now have to enforce transparency rules for scandal-hit Vatican finances.

The three others chosen are Italian manager Maria Farina, Swiss financial consultant Marc Odendall and Joseph Pillay, who helped build up Singapore’s economy as a top civil servant and businessman, the Vatican said in a statement.

The five Italian members of the body, who were appointed by the Pope’s predecessor Benedict XVI, were dismissed in what a source told Vatican affairs news agency I.MEDIA was part of a bid by Francis to get rid of the “old guard”.

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IRELAND
Highland Radio

Almost 800 dead babies and infants were found in a septic tank on the grounds of a former Mother and Baby Home just outside Tuam.

In a statament this evening, the Sisters says they’re shocked and deeply saddened by the discovery and say that all records were returned to the local authority when the home closed in 1961 and would now be with the HSE in Co. Galway.

The Minister for Children told the Dáil this evening that the mass grave in Tuam will not be the only one subject to investigation.

But Charlie Flanagan admitted he had no power to ensure a criminal investigation by the Gardaí:

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VIRGINIA
WTVR

BY SCOTT WISE, ROB CARDWELL AND WAYNE COVIL

CHESTERFIELD COUNTY, Va. – A youth pastor from North Chesterfield was arrested and charged with several online sex crimes against children. Deric Wallace Peacock, 30, is charged with sexual solicitation of a minor by electronic means; requesting a minor to fondle her own sexual or genital parts; and three counts of exposing his sexual or genital parts to a minor.

All charges against Peacock are felonies.

Peacock was arrested as the result of an undercover investigation by the Christiansburg Police Department’s Internet Crimes Against Children unit, according to Christiansburg Public Relations Officer Becky Wilburn.

Wilburn said Peacock was never having a conversation with a child, rather he was communicating with undercover police officers.

He is being held without bond in the Montgomery County Jail.

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CALIFORNIA
The Worthy Adversry

Posted by Joelle Casteix on June 5, 2014

I have written on this subject before. But today’s story out of Sacramento is more tragic and upsetting.
The mother of an eight-year-old sodomy victim has filed a lawsuit against the mobile home park where the crime happened in 2013. She charges that the management of Sacramento’s Park Royal Estates Mobile Home Park knew that a 15-year-old boy was raping and terrorizing resident children in key-access, monitored, and “secured” areas of the park. But instead of calling the cops and reporting their suspicions, staffers kept quiet.

Fortunately, the boy immediately reported to his mother, who called the police. The 15-year-old is now in jail. He has allegedly raped at least one other child in the park.

Why wouldn’t park staffers report what they knew or suspected? Maybe it was fear of the 15-year-old. Maybe it was fear of his parents. Perhaps staffers feared that parents would pick up their children and move out of the park if they knew what was happening. Maybe they just though it was “child’s play.” Whatever the rationale, it was wrong. It’s a cover-up as tragic as the clergy sex abuse crisis … especially since, like clerics who offend and are moved around, juveniles who offend get a “free pass” and no help to actually stop the behavior.

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TENNESSEE
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, June 5, 2014

For more info: David Clohessy, 314-566-9790, SNAPclohessy@aol.com

Clergy abuse victims ask to speak at Baptist annual meeting
They also want independent review of clergy abuses & cover-ups
And group again urges SBC’s top official to apologize for insulting them

A victims group is asking the head of the Southern Baptist Convention for a chance to speak at the annual denominational meeting this month in Baltimore. They also want the SBC to hire an outside organization to study abuse in Baptist churches and an apology from the top SBC official.

Leaders of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, are writing to the Southern Baptist Convention’s Dr. Frank Page, wanting a chance to speak about preventing clergy sex crimes before thousands of Baptists who will gather in Baltimore on June 10-11.

SNAP has “25 years of experience working with clergy abuse survivors,” the group says, and so the organization “can help the SBC in shaping practices and policies that help prevent abuse and cover ups and foster more appropriate responses to abuse allegations.”

SNAP also wants the SBC Executive Committee to hire and consult with another organization, GRACE (Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment), for an independent expert review of the scandal involving a convicted child sex offender and Baptist employee John Langworthy of Mississippi and Texas.

“The way Baptist officials are responding and have historically responded to clergy sex abuse is and has been unproductive and does not make kids safer against clergy-predators,” said Amy Smith of Dallas, SNAP leader. “We hope that if they would just allow for an independent review of even one of the many reported cases of a cover-up, it might educate them on the dynamics of this problem and prod them and others to stronger action.”

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IRELAND
The Journal

SINN FÉIN HAS called for a full public inquiry into mother and baby homes after a mass grave allegedly containing the bodies of almost 800 infants was discovered on the grounds of a former children’s home in Tuam.

The party’s deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald said that any inquiry launched by the government must not focus exclusively on the home in Galway.

She said that similar graves could exist at “dozens” of mother and baby homes across the country.

“As shocking as Tuam has been – and it is very, very harrowing – it’s not an isolated incident at all.

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VATICAN CITY
Boston Globe

By John L. Allen Jr. | GLOBE STAFF JUNE 05, 2014

ROME – Pope Francis today pressed his campaign to internationalize the Vatican’s financial management, replacing an all-Italian panel overseeing his anti-money laundering agency with a new group drawn from four different nations, including a Harvard professor and former official in the George W. Bush administration.

The appointments came a day after the announcement that a Catholic business manager from Australia will hold a senior position in the pope’s new Secretariat of the Economy, designed to force fiscal transparency and discipline on all Vatican departments.

The “Financial Information Authority” (AIF) was created in 2010 under Pope Benedict XVI to bring the Vatican into compliance with international standards in the fight against money laundering and the financing of terrorism.

Its director is a Swiss lawyer named Renè Bruelhart, who previously led a European regulatory body called the Egmont Group, where one of his claims to fame was restoring a Gulf Stream jet owned by Saddam Hussein to Iraq’s new government in 2003.

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VATICAN CITY
Reuters

By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY, June 5 (Reuters) – Pope Francis sacked the five-man board of the Vatican’s financial watchdog on Thursday – all Italians – in the latest move to break with an old guard associated with a murky past under his predecessor.

The Vatican said the pope named four experts from Switzerland, Singapore, the United States and Italy to replace them on the board of the Financial Information Authority (AIF), the Holy See’s internal regulatory office. The new board includes a woman for the first time.

All five outgoing members were Italians who had been expected to serve five-year terms ending in 2016 and were laymen associated with the Vatican’s discredited financial old guard.

Reformers inside the Vatican had been pushing for the pope, who already has taken a series of steps to clean up Vatican finances, to appoint professionals with an international background to work with Rene Bruelhart, a Swiss lawyer who heads the AIF and who has been pushing for change.

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VATICAN CITY
The Local

Pope Francis on Thursday named four new members to the Vatican’s Financial Information Authority including a former security adviser to US President George W. Bush, sweeping away an “old guard” of Italian appointees.

Juan Zarate from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, who was Bush’s deputy national security adviser for counter-terrorism, will now have to enforce transparency rules for scandal-hit Vatican finances.

The three others chosen are Italian manager Maria Farina, Swiss financial consultant Marc Odendall and Joseph Pillay, who helped build up Singapore’s economy as a top civil servant and businessman, the Vatican said in a statement.

Five Italian members of the body who were appointed by the pope’s predecessor, Benedict XVI, were also dismissed.

A source told Vatican affairs news agency I.M

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VATICAN CITY
ABC News

VATICAN CITY June 5, 2014 (AP)
By NICOLE WINFIELD Associated Press

Pope Francis ousted the all-Italian board of the Vatican’s financial watchdog agency Thursday and installed a more international set of experts following clashes between the board and the agency’s director.

The four new board members are from Italy, Singapore, Switzerland and the United States.

The previous board of the Financial Information Authority had complained that it was being kept in the dark about agency activities since Swiss anti-money-laundering expert Rene Bruelhart arrived as director in 2012. The infighting led Italian Cardinal Attilio Nicora to resign as authority president earlier this year.

The Vatican created the agency in 2010 to supervise and regulate the Holy See’s financial activities and share financial information with other countries to comply with international anti-money laundering and anti-terror financing norms. Under Bruelhart’s direction, the Holy See has entered into about a dozen financial information-sharing agreements with other countries.

One of the former Italian board members, Giuseppe Dalla Torre, is also president of the Vatican tribunal, creating a potential conflict of interest given that the independent financial watchdog agency forwards suspected cases of financial crimes to the tribunal’s prosecutors for further investigation.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, June 5, 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 )

Omaha’s Archbishop George Lucas is being considered for the next archbishop of Chicago, replacing Cardinal George. We hope he isn’t chosen.

[CBS St. Louis]

In his previous post as bishop of Springfield IL, Archbishop Lucas let his predecessor, Bishop Daniel Ryan, continue to celebrate mass and remain on the job as a priest, despite the fact that Ryan was dogged by multiple accusations of having sex with young men.

[WOWT]

In 2010, as Archbishop of Omaha, Lucas kept silent about credible child sex abuse allegations against Fr. John Fiala, a priest who famously attempted to hire an assassin to kill his victim.

[SNAP]

In 2011, Lucas told his flock that Fr. Perry Robinson was being put “on sabbatical” due to his advanced age. In fact, he had actually suspended Robinson upon learning of sexual abuse allegations.

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UNITED STATES
Pokrov

Author: Staff
Date Published: 06/04/2014
Publication: Pokrov.org

This month Pokrov.org celebrates its 15th anniversary as an online resource for survivors of abuse in the Orthodox Christian Churches. As we recommit ourselves to continue the work we began in 1999, we would like to remind our readers that we have been under the umbrella of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, since 2008. If you want to do something in honor of our anniversary, please consider a donation to SNAP.

Thank you!
Cappy Larson
Melanie Jula Sakoda

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VATICAN CITY
Christian Post

BY MORGAN LEE , CHRISTIAN POST REPORTER
June 5, 2014

In a homily on Monday, the single and childless Pope encouraged married couples to not limit their love to their personal pets but to extend to having their own children.

Francis challenged married couples on Monday to resist a “culture of wellbeing” which he suggested had “convinced us it’s better not to have children.” …

Pope Francis recently announced that he will meet with victims of sexual abuse at the hands of Roman Catholic Church clergy for the first time in his papacy later this month. His decision was not universally applauded; a support group for victims, dismissed what it called a “public relations” gesture, arguing that it didn’t address the real problems.

The Vatican leader said at an inflight news conference as he was returning to Rome from the Holy Land that priests abusing children is “such an ugly crime” and a “very grave problem,” Catholic News Service reported.

“We must move ahead, ahead, zero tolerance,” he stated, revealing that he would meet six to eight sex abuse victims from various countries, including Germany, the U.K. and Ireland.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
KMOX

Fred Bodimer
June 3, 2014

ST. LOUIS (KMOX) – Catholic officials have confirmed the search for a successor for Chicago Cardinal Francis George has begun, and two archbishops with local ties are in the discussion.

Current Atlanta Archbishop Wilton Gregory headed the Belleville Diocese during the height of the clergy abuse scandal from 1994 to 2004. He’s a Chicago native and a former Auxiliary Bishop there.

Another name being discussed is the current Omaha Archbishop George Lucas. He’s a St. Louis native and a former chancellor and vicar general of the St. Louis Archdiocese. He served as Bishop of the Springfield Illinois Diocese from 1999 to 2009.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, June 5, 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 )

Atlanta’s Archbishop Wilton Gregory is being considered for the next archbishop of Chicago, replacing Cardinal George. We hope he isn’t chosen.

[CBS St. Louis]

Gregory has worked in Illinois before and has a less than stellar history with child sexual abuse cases. Consider these five examples;

— In 2004, just two years after the Dallas bishops’ meeting, he was found in contempt of court for withholding evidence in a child sex abuse trial

[BishopAccountability.org]

–Members of the bishops’ own hand-picked abuse panel said he was guilty of “backsliding” on many of the child safety measures in the 2002 Dallas Charter for the protection of Children and Young People. Board members also claim that they were intentionally manipulated by Gregory and other bishops.

[BishopAccountability.org]

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VIRGINIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, June 5, 2014

Statement by Becky Ianni. Virginia director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests ( 703-801-6044, SNAPVirginia@cox.net )

A former school board chairman and federal employee has been indicted on 111 felony charges related to the sexual abuse of four children in Stafford, Virginia.

[Fredericksburg.com]

We applaud the federal authorities and the Stafford County Sheriff’s office for their efforts in bringing Thomas Francis Villacres to justice. Without their efforts, he may never have been exposed and countless children might still be in danger.

Villacres, who currently lives in Florida, is a former teacher and Army officer. We urge the Stafford School system to reach out to other possible victims. We fear that Villacres may have either committed or concealed child sex crimes in the school district.

According to a news report, he was also involved in St. William of York Catholic Church. We are worried that there might be other victims suffering in silence. We hope that Bishop Paul Loverde and the Arlington Catholic Diocese will use all their resources including the diocesan newspaper, church bulletins, and pulpit to encourage other possible victims to come forward to the authorities. We also hope that Loverde will personally visit each parish where Villacres spent time and beg victims, witnesses and whistleblowers to contact law enforcement immediately.

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OSTERREICH
Kurier

[Summary: Court proceedings involving allegations of sexual abuse at a Jesuit college have been closed to the public.]

Der Schadenersatzprozess gegen einen Lehrer, dem sexueller Missbrauch zur Last gelegt wird, musste ohne Zuhörer über die Bühne gehen.

Es ist schon von Weitem zu erkennen, wer der Beklagte ist: Mit großen Sonnenbrillen und einer Schirmkappe nähert sich Mag. S., 56, dem Verhandlungssaal 8 des Wiener Landesgerichts für Zivilrechtssachen. Die Fotografen, vor denen sich der des sexuellen Missbrauchs Geklagte schützen will, gibt es aber nicht.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

June 5, 2014

David Ellery
Reporter for The Canberra Times.

The Catholic Archbishop of Goulburn and Canberra has written to parishioners to prepare them ahead of next week’s visit to Canberra by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

He has also asked Catholics to pray for the victims who will be giving evidence over two weeks from next Tuesday.

“They [the commissioners] will be examining the way in which the Marist Brothers responded to allegations of child sexual abuse in their schools in the ACT, NSW and Queensland,’’ Archbishop Christopher Prowse said.

“I write to prepare you for the public testimonies of the very sad experiences of some victims.

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IRELAND
Galway Advertiser

BY MARTINA NEE Galway Advertiser, Thu, Jun 05, 2014

Calls for an urgent inquiry into the deaths of nearly 800 children at a Tuam mother and baby home continue, and pressure mounts on the Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, to take the lead into the investigation and apologise on behalf of the State.

The existence of a mass grave, containing a large number of unidentified remains, and the discovery that up to 796 children may have died at the mother and baby home run by the Bon Secours order during its period of operation from 1925 to 1961 has received national and international attention in recent weeks.

The site had previously been considered a graveyard for unbaptised babies or Famine victims. However, in 1975 two boys had been playing when they discovered partially broken concrete slabs covering a disused septic tank which was found to contain bones. It is believed that these remains were those of children disposed of without proper burial or records of their interment. Research was later undertaken by local historian and genealogist Catherine Corless through records in the possession of the Galway County Council revealing the large number of deaths at the mother and baby home. Ms Corless set up a committee and a campaign to erect a memorial has gained momentum in recent months.

Fine Gael Galway East TD and Minister of State for Training and Skills, Ciaran Cannon, has this week called for an urgent inquiry, including a Garda investigation, into the unexplained deaths. Minister Cannon raised the matter over the weekend with the Minister for Justice, Frances Fitzgerald, and the Minister for Children, Charlie Flanagan, with a meeting due to take place by today and an official announcement to follow.

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IRELAND
BBC News

A Catholic archbishop in the Republic of Ireland has said the church has no records about the burial of nearly 800 children at a mother and baby home.

The remains were in a concrete septic tank at the County Galway home. The children, aged between two days and nine years, died between 1925 and 1961.

The grave in Tuam was found nearly 40 years ago, but was initially thought to be from the 1850s famine.

Archbishop of Tuam Michael Neary said he was “greatly shocked” by the news.

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IRELAND
RTE News

A congregation of nuns that ran three of the State’s mother-and-baby homes has said it would welcome an independent inquiry into the issues surrounding the burial of babies and children in unmarked graves.

The Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary ran mother-and-baby homes in Sean Ross Abbey in Co Tipperary, Bessborough near Cork city and Castlepollard, Co Westmeath.

In a statement to RTÉ News, a spokesperson for the congregation said it would be happy to take part in such an inquiry to establish the truth about what it called a “very sad chapter in the history of Irish society”.

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IRELAND
RTE News

There have been increasing calls for an inquiry into the discovery of an unmarked mass grave at a former Catholic Church-run home in Tuam, Co Galway, where almost 800 children died between 1925 and 1961.

The grave was discovered in the former grounds of one of Ireland’s mother-and-baby homes run by the Bon Secours order of nuns.

Researcher Catherine Corless said the bodies were buried in a sewage tank on the grounds.

Ms Corless said public records show that 796 children died at the home before its closure just over 50 years ago.

She told RTÉ that some of the dead were as young as three months old.

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IRELAND
NBC News

BY ALEXANDER SMITH

Grim reports that nearly 800 dead babies were discovered in the septic tank of a home run by nuns has set off a round of soul-searching in Ireland and sparked calls for accountability from government and Catholic Church officials.

Fresh research suggests that some 796 children were secretly buried in the sewage tank of the home in Tuam, County Galway, where unmarried pregnant women were sent to give birth in an attempt to preserve the country’s devout Catholic image.

Officials said they were “horrified” at the discovery and said it revealed “a darker past in Ireland,” a country often haunted by its history of abuse within powerful church institutions.

The home was run by nuns from the Bon Secours Sisters congregation between 1925 and 1961. It was one of the “mother and baby” homes across Ireland, similar to the Sean Ross Abbey, in Tipperary, where Philomena Lee gave her child up for adoption in a story that was this year made into the eponymous Oscar-nominated film “Philomena.”

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IRELAND
Dundalk Democrat

The Government has bowed to national and international pressure over the scandal of the death of 4,000 babies who were buried in unmarked, unconsecrated and mass graves at homes for unmarried mothers.

The horrifying record of so-called mother and baby homes over several decades in the last century is being reviewed after campaigners forced renewed focus on the need to formally commemorate how 800 infants died and were buried in at one institute in Co Galway.

The remains of the youngsters were interred in a concrete, septic tank in the grounds of a since-abandoned home in Tuam, run by Catholic nuns from the Sisters of the Bon Secours between 1925 and 1961.

The names of the 796 children buried in the mass grave without a headstone have been confirmed by a local historian after she made repeated requests from the state for records. Records of hundreds more at other homes are still being held confidentially.

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IRELAND
Newstalk

Kerry Graye
08:05 Thursday 5 June 2014

The government has promised a comprehensive investigation into the deaths of children at Mother and Baby homes nationwide.

Brendan Howlin told the Dáil several departments are involved in a ‘scoping exercise’ to determine the extent of mass graves near homes.

The issue was raised by the opposition during Leaders’ Questions in the Dáil this lunchtime, after news that the remains of nearly 800 babies and children were found in a disused septic tank beside a former home in Tuam, Co. Galway.

Independent TD Catherine Murphy demanded to know why the site of the mass grave at a septic tank in Tuam, Galway had not been declared a crime scene:

Earlier, an adoption rights campaigner compared the process of digging out information on deaths at Mother & Baby homes to ‘trying to penetrate the iron curtain’.

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IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

Mass baby grave in Tuam, Galway: Bon Secours nuns told to assist investigation

05 JUNE 2014

The Archbishop of Tuam Michael Neary has told Bon Secours nuns that they have a moral obligation to engage with an examination of how 796 children died and were buried in a mass grave.

The remains of the youngsters were interred in a concrete septic tank in the grounds of a home in Tuam, run by the Sisters of the Bon Secours, between 1925 and 1961.

A “scoping exercise” to determine the facts behind the case will begin shortly, with a number of government departments involved.

Last night, the Archbishop acknowledged the horror suffered by women “in giving up their babies for adoption, or witnessing their death”.

“The pain and brokenness they endured is beyond our capacity to understand,” he said.

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OHIO
The Columbus Dispatch

By JoAnne Viviano
The Columbus Dispatch • Thursday June 5, 2014

Employees of Catholic schools, churches and other organizations overseen by the Diocese of Columbus are being asked to sign updated agreements that include examples of immoral conduct that could lead to their firing.

The changes also specify that workers must abide by Catholic Church teachings “both within and outside their employment duties” and regardless of their religious affiliation.

The changes are meant to clarify existing policies, diocesan spokesman George Jones said yesterday.

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IRELAND
UTV

Published Thursday, 05 June 2014

The Adoption Rights Alliance is calling for a mass grave discovered in Co Galway to be treated as a crime scene.

The remains of up to 800 babies and toddlers were found next to a home for unmarried mothers in Tuam, which was operated by the Bon Secours Sisters between 1925 to 1961.

A historian confirmed the names of the 796 children buried in the mass grave after she made repeated requests from the state for records.

The Tuam burial site was discovered in 1975 by 12-year-old friends Barry Sweeney and Francis Hopkins.

But, locally, it was referred to for years as a famine burial site where youngsters who had died in the 1840s disaster were buried in a mass grave, often on unconsecrated ground.

Records of hundreds more at other homes are still being held confidentially.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Giselle Wakatama

A former New South Wales MP who warned about clergy abuse in the Hunter Valley says people should be evicted from the Catholic church in the wake of a damning Special Commission of Inquiry.

The Inquiry looked at cover-ups relating to paedophile priests Denis McAlinden and James Fletcher.

Commissioner Margaret Cunneen was critical of some church witnesses saying they were misleading or reluctant to give evidence.

Former Independent MP John Hatton who is credited with instigating the Wood Royal Commission into police also gave evidence.

More than 25 years ago Mr Hatton wrote to the then Archbishop of Sydney Edward Clancy, raising concerns about McAlinden.

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IRELAND
Bock the Robber

Posted by Bock on May 30, 2014

If there was an outcry from Catholic groups about the mass burial of 800 babies in Tuam, news of it hasn’t penetrated as far as this little backwater.

David Quinn of the Iona Fringe Prayer Group has been remarkably silent on the issue, despite his usual eagerness to appear on TV if two dogs are caught copulating. Likewise, there hasn’t been a peep out of the Macaroonahoonarooney clan who built the Youth Defence franchise out of nothing, presumably because their campaign for the welfare of babies extends only to those not yet born. Every sperm is sacred, but apparently not every two-year-old, in the world of the Irish Catholic Right.

Why? The answer is simple enough. If you dominate women’s fertility, as the Catholic clergy did for decades, you control society. If you long to keep that control alive, as the extremists do, you’ll cling to the strategies that worked in the past and you certainly won’t be thinking of the demented, sexually-frustrated evil nuns and brothers who took their rage out on the unfortunates who fell into their clutches, or who were driven there by Monsignor Everyman in his fine parish priest’s motor car.

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UNITED STATES
Waiting for Godot to Leave

Kevin O’Brien

800 dead orphans thrown away in a septic tank by Catholic nuns in Ireland.

As this article reveals, the contempt with which these orphans were treated did not begin the minute they died. The “Home Babies” were ridiculed and ostracized throughout their typically short and miserable lives.

And, apparently, treated with criminal neglect.

A local health board inspection report from April 1944 recorded 271 children and 61 single mothers in residence, a total of 333 in a building that had a capacity for 243.

Children died at The Home at the rate of one a fortnight for almost 40 years, one report claims. Another appears to claim that 300 children died between 1943 and 1946, which would mean two deaths a week in the isolated institution. …

It’s a lesson we have yet to learn, for this is a staggering reality.

Elsewhere, writers are pointing out the hypocrisy of pro-life groups that have remained silent on this crime. “Every sperm is sacred, but apparently not every two-year-old, in the world of the Irish Catholic Right,” notes Bock the Robber.

And here in America, the bishops continue to behave like racketeers when it comes to sex abuse. In my home town of St. Louis, our archbishop’s favorite priest has now been accused for a second time of sex abuse, and the archbishop’s response has been to smear the alleged victim’s parents with a public press release.

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MEXICO
Milenio

[Summary: The San Luis Potosi archdiocese has initiated investigations against two priests accused of sexual abuse of minors. The cases have been forwarded to the state attorney general.]

EUGENIA JIMÉNEZ
05/06/2014
México

La arquidiócesis de San Luis Potosí inició investigaciones en dos casos más de sacerdotes acusados de abuso sexual contra menores, que fueron denunciados por los padres de las víctimas ante la Procuraduría General de Justicia Estatal (PGJE), informó Armando Martínez Gómez, abogado que representa al arzobispado potosino.

Respecto a los dos casos presentados ante las autoridades civiles, dijo que la arquidiócesis tiene conocimiento de que el cura Noé Trujillo, acusado del delito de estupro contra una menor de 14 años, se encuentra actualmente prófugo de la justicia porque ya se giró una orden de aprehensión.

La madre de la menor, que presentó la denuncia ante la PGJE, mencionó que descubrió en el perfil de Facebook de su hija que una persona le proponía tener relaciones sexuales en una cabaña. Su hija le confesó que el sacerdote Trujillo la llevó a un poblado que no identificó, donde sostuvo relaciones sexuales con ella.

Al respecto, la arquidiócesis inició un proceso canónico y suspendió a Trujillo de su ministerio mientras se integra el expediente para enviarlo a Roma.

El Directorio Eclesiástico Nacional señala que Trujillo fue incardinado a la arquidiócesis de San Luis Potosí, ordenado sacerdote el 9 de diciembre de 2006 y tiene 38 años.

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MEXICO
Notimundo

Condena Vaticano de manera definitiva a sacerdote mexicano abusador

Por Andrés Beltramo Alvarez. Corresponsal

Ciudad del Vaticano, 4 Jun (Notimex).- El Vaticano halló culpable del delito de abuso sexual contra menor al sacerdote mexicano Eduardo Córdova Mendoza y le retiró definitivamente del sacerdocio católico, con un decreto que será transmitido en las próximas horas a la Arquidiócesis de San Luis Potosí.

Según confirmaron a Notimex fuentes vaticanas, tras analizar los testimonios y las pruebas aportadas, la Congregación para la Doctrina de la Fe impuso al clérigo la “dimisión del estado clerical”, pena reservada a los casos más graves.

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NEW YORK
Road to Recovery

Media Release

June 4, 2014

The Board of Trustees of Notre Dame School refuses to believe an alumna’s account of sexual abuse, and the Sisters of St. Ursula, who administer the school, have ignored her requests for justice

Graduates and parents of Notre Dame School will be asked to join former nun’s call for justice from Notre Dame School and the Sisters of St. Ursula

What: A demonstration outside a Manhattan Catholic girls’ high school graduation

When: Thursday, June 5, 2014 from 5:00 PM until 6:30 PM

Where: On the sidewalk outside Cooper Union, 7 East 7th Street, New York, NY 10003

Who: Cecilia Springer is an 83 year-old former nun and graduate of Notre Dame School, class of 1948, who was approximately 14 years old and a sophomore at Notre Dame School when the Principal of the school, Sr. Mary Andrew (aka/ Sr. Frances Doyle), followed her up the school staircase from the lunchroom and sexually abused her. The sexual abuse occurred on more than one occasion. Ms. Springer, the former Sister Mary Grace, learned that at least one other classmate experienced similar sexual abuse by Sr. Mary Andrew. Her advocate from Road to Recovery, Robert M. Hoatson, will be present as will fellow clergy sexual abuse survivors.

Why: Cecilia Springer became a Sister of St. Ursula following graduation from college even though she had suffered sexual abuse as a child by her high school Principal, Sr. Mary Andrew, S.U., at Notre Dame School. She left the Sisters of St. Ursula many years later after it became untenable for her to remain in a religious order of women that did nothing about sexual abuse at their school, Notre Dame. Cecilia Springer was interviewed by representatives of the Notre Dame School Board of Trustees and their lawyer, but they have refused to help her in any way in her senior years. Those attending the graduation exercises of Notre Dame School will be asked to prevail upon Notre Dame School and the Sisters of St. Ursula to do the right thing by acknowledging that Cecilia Springer is, indeed, a victim of sexual abuse by Sr. Mary Andrew, apologizing to her for what happened, and assisting her in living a more stress-free life.

Contacts: Robert M. Hoatson, Ph.D., Road to Recovery, Inc. – 862-368-2800
Attorney Mitchell Garabedian, Boston, MA – 617-523-6250

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UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

Andrew Sullivan on Mass Grave of Irish Babies Born to “Fallen Women”: “That Is Not a Sign of a Church Gone Astray. It’s a Sign of a Church Given Over to Evil”

Andrew Sullivan looks at the discovery of the bodies of 800 babies in a mass grave (they were stuffed inside a septic tank) behind a home for “fallen women” run by the Sisters of Bon Secours in Tuam, Ireland, and asks why such a kerfuffle ensued when the U.N. Rapporteur on Torture tried to indict the Vatican for “crimes against humanity” because of its cover-up of the mass rape and abuse of children. As he notes, what can possibly describe the story now emerging from Tuam except the term “crime against humanity”?

These children were born to “fallen women” who bore them while living at the facility of the Bon Secours nuns, and who were then left in the care of the nuns when these women moved on to new lives after serving a term of penance as virtual slave laborers for the nuns. Documents indicate that many of these children died of outright neglect and malnutrition — and when they died, their bodies were stuffed into a septic tank.

The heart of the matter for Andrew Sullivan:

To my mind, these foul crimes against women and children, along with the brutal stigmatization of gay people as “objectively disordered”, remain a testament to how the insidious, neurotic and usually misogynist fixation on sex has distorted and destroyed Christianity in ways we are only now beginning to recover from. For what we see here is the consequence of elevating sexual sin above all others, of fixating on human sexuality as the chief source of evil in the world, and of a grotesquely distorted sense of moral priorities, where stigmatization of the sexual sinner vastly outweighs even something as basic as care for an innocent child.

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MASSACHUSETTS
WWLP

[with video]

BOSTON (STATE HOUSE) – House leaders sprung a proposal on Wednesday to extend the statute of limitations for civil lawsuits brought by victims of alleged child sexual abuse, reengaging with a controversial topic that has been debated for years on Beacon Hill but has eluded compromise.

The House gave initial approval to a bill (H 4126) recommended last week by the Committee on the Judiciary, co-chaired by Belmont Sen. William Brownsberger who has taken the lead on this issue in the Senate in recent years.

The committee does not currently have a House chair, but Rep. John Lawn, of Watertown, has taken the lead on the issue for House leadership.

“We think we’ve crafted a bill that we can put forward that people feel comfortable with that gives people who’ve been abused a chance to face their accusers in a timeline that they’re able to. It’s complicated,” Lawn told the News Service.

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UNITED STATES
WBUR

Thu, Jun 05, 2014
by Rich Barlow

Is Pope Francis really zeroing in on “zero tolerance” for clerical pedophiles and their episcopal enablers?

The pontiff’s recent declaration to that effect brought headlines but no action against abusers, critics said. Their despair is premature; Francis wouldn’t be the first leader who temporized before doing something that had to be done. Think of Lincoln, who vexed abolitionists by waiting two years after his election before issuing the Emancipation Proclamation. Or Franklin Roosevelt, who promised a balanced budget in his first presidential campaign, wising up once in office and siding with damn-the-deficit New Dealers. (If you think it profane to analogize the Vatican to crass politics, you haven’t been reading the news.)

Francis’s comments followed a harsh United Nations report, the second this year, on the Vatican’s management of abuse. Like Lincoln and FDR, he will have to back his words with deeds — more than just celebrating Mass with some abuse victims, which he also announced during an in-flight press conference last month. He further told reporters that the Vatican is investigating three unidentified bishops on sex abuse-related issues; he didn’t say whether the trio are alleged molesters themselves or suspected of concealing abuse, a practice among some mitered miscreants with which we’re sadly familiar.

Factor in Francis’s demonstrated compassion and his creation of an advisory panel on abuse — including Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley, who won kudos for his handling of abuse cases — and there’s reason to hope this pope will follow through with publicizing credibly accused abusers and punishing bishops who covered up for them. Those reasonable demands come variously from victims’ advocates and even some Catholic traditionalists. Perhaps some names on this scandal will serve as markers for assessing the pope. Here are three clerics, named in the U.N. report, whose cases will be instructive as to whether the church has learned the tragic lessons of its past sins:

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ILLINOIS
NWITimes

June 02, 2014 • Sarah Reese sarah.reese@nwi.com, (219) 933-3351

HAMMOND | An attorney for a former pastor of First Baptist Church of Hammond filed a motion Monday asking a federal judge to overturn his client’s 12-year prison sentence for sex with a teenage parishioner.

Jack Schaap, 56, was sentenced in March 2013 during a hearing in U.S. District Court in Hammond. He pleaded guilty in September 2012 to having the then-17-year-old girl transported to Illinois and Michigan for sexual encounters.

In a motion to vacate, correct or set aside Schaap’s sentence, Florida lawyer Charles Murray says Schaap’s defense attorneys provided ineffective counsel.

Schaap laid out a similar argument in a March letter to U.S. District Judge Rudy Lozano. At the time, Schaap was acting as his own attorney and requested more time to hire an attorney to help him seek post-conviction relief.

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ILLINOIS
Christian Post

Megachurch Pastor Convicted of Sexually Abusing Teen Appeals Prison Sentence, Blames Victim for Seducing Him

BY MORGAN LEE , CHRISTIAN POST REPORTER
June 4, 2014

A former Indiana megachurch pastor imprisoned for sexually abusing a former female student at his church’s high school is attempting to overturn his prison sentence by accusing the victim of seducing him.

The former leader of a 15,000-person congregation, Jack A. Schaap, 56, who is married and has two children, has asked U.S. District Judge Rudy Lozano to overturn his 12-year sentence, “due to the aggressiveness of (the girl) that inhibited impulse control.”

Schapp was sentenced in 2013 for sexually abusing the victim and taking her across state lines, and is not set to be released until 2023.

According to Charles Murray, Schaap’s attorney, the defense wants to present new evidence casting the victim as an alcohol and marijuana user and one who met Schaap with “prior extensive sexual experience,” reported NWI.com.

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ILLINOIS
Inquisitr

Megachurch pastor Jack Schaap, who was convicted in 2011 on charges of child molestation with an underage girl, is hoping to have his 12-year sentence overturned, claiming that he was a victim of the girl’s “aggressiveness” and that she “inhibited [his] impulse control.”

The risky defense was uncovered in new court documents by NWITimes.com. Schaap was a former minister of the First Baptist Church of Hammond, a congregation of around 15,000 members.

Schaap, a married father of two at the time, pleaded guilty to “transporting a female student of the church’s high school to Illinois and Michigan for sexual encounters,” the site noted. “He also had sex with her in his church office here in June and July 2012.”

If the megachurch pastor fails to convince the judge of his underage victim’s aggressiveness, then he will likely stay at the correctional facility in Ashland, Kentucky, until April 20, 2023.

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ILLINOIS
TribTown

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
First Posted: June 04, 2014

HAMMOND, Indiana — The former pastor of a northwestern Indiana megachurch is asking a judge to reduce his 12-year sentence for having sex with a teenage congregant because he claims the girl was sexually experienced and aggressive.

An attorney for Jack Schaap filed a memorandum this week in U.S. District Court in Hammond asking to present new evidence about the girl’s “prior extensive sexual experience” and her use of alcohol and marijuana, The (Munster) Times reported (http://bit.ly/S9lpqi ) Wednesday.

Schaap, now 55, was pastor of the 15,000-member First Baptist Church of Hammond for 11 years when he was fired in July 2012. He pleaded guilty last year to transporting the girl to Illinois and Michigan for sexual encounters over a four-week period starting the week before the girl turned 17. He also had sex with her in his church office.

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ILLINOIS
NWITimes

June 03, 2014 • Bill Dolan bill.dolan@nwi.com, (219) 662-5328

HAMMOND | A former minister of First Baptist Church of Hammond is gambling he can get out of prison by branding as a seductress the underage girl he molested.

Jack A. Schaap, 56, is asking a federal judge to overturn his 12-year sentence “due to the aggressiveness of (the girl) that inhibited impulse control …”

It is a risky strategy that may backfire with U.S. District Judge Rudy Lozano, who sentenced Schaap last year and would hear the new petition, according to veteran local defense attorneys.

“Judge Lozano may give him more time,” said one lawyer, who asked to remain anonymous.

Schaap pleaded guilty to transporting a female student of the church’s high school to Illinois and Michigan for sexual encounters. He also had sex with her in his church office here in June and July 2012.

He is being held in the Federal Correctional Institute in Ashland, Ky., and he isn’t eligible for release until April 20, 2023.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Daily Times

After enduring many years of parish grade school closures being an annual event, Roman Catholics in Delaware County now must face the annual prospect of seeing entire parishes closed.

Archdiocesan officials prefer to euphemistically refer to them as “mergers” since the disenfranchised parishioners are advised to attend the nearest surviving parish. But the reality is, their parishes no longer exist in name or in their neighborhoods. Their churches are merely “worship sites.”

It is part of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s Parish Planning Initiative proposed in 2010 by former Philadelphia archbishop, Cardinal Justin Rigali, to determine parish sustainability in the five-county region. Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput started implementing the initiative in 2011, but Delaware County’s then-46 parishes did not starting coming under the microscope until fall of 2012. Last year five Delaware County parishes were closed. Three more are targeted this year, bringing the number of parishes for Delaware County’s more than 200,000 Roman Catholics down to 38.

Parishioners and their pastors are expected to engage in “self-studies” and assess their parishes’ fitness for survival as part of the initiative. The regional bishop and the dean usually meet with the pastors as well as their pastoral and finance councils to hear their recommendations. The Archdiocesan Strategic Planning Committee shares all final proposals with the Council of Priests and the College of Consultors for their review before final approval by the archbishop.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

[with video]

The Catholic Church is under fire over its weak response to revelations that its officials failed to act against paedophiles in New South Wales’ Hunter Valley region.

Transcript

SARAH FERGUSON, PRESENTER: The Catholic Church is under fire over its weak response to revelations that its officials failed to act against paedophiles in the New South Wales Hunter Valley.

The Church has stood down two mid-level priests from minor bureaucratic roles, but is yet to act against two of its most senior clergymen, who were criticised in the report by the special commission of inquiry.

One of the priests who was singled out by the inquiry who’s at the very top of the Church, we can’t name.

The other is the general secretary of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, Brian Lucas. Tonight, there are calls for his resignation.

Adam Harvey reports.

WILLIAM WRIGHT, BISHOP, DIOCESE OF MAITLAND-NEWCASTLE: As Bishop of Maitland-Newcastle, I am profoundly sorry for the terrible hurt caused by the crimes of McAlinden and Fletcher and I have a deep and abiding regret that individuals in this diocese failed to protect the most vulnerable.

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IRELAND
CNN

By Laura Smith-Spark, CNN
Thu June 5, 2014

(CNN) — Outrage over the reported discovery of the bodies of almost 800 children at a former home for unmarried mothers run by nuns in Ireland prompted calls Wednesday for a full investigation.

The children whose remains have apparently been found in Tuam, in County Galway, are believed to have died between 1925 and 1961, according to local media reports.

The grim discovery was highlighted in a front-page report in the Irish Mail on Sunday, which cited the efforts of local historian Catherine Corless to research the burial sites of 796 children listed as having died at the home, which was run by the Sisters of Bon Secours.

According to the newspaper, Corless believes their remains are all buried in the unmarked mass grave next to the place where the home once stood. Local children stumbled upon the grave in the 1970s, local media reported, but the site was never examined afterward.

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KENTUCKY
Daily Reporter

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
First Posted: June 04, 2014

OWENSBORO, Kentucky — A former western Kentucky priest has pleaded guilty to first-degree sexual abuse in the 1970s.

The Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer (http://bit.ly/Tf9gRJ ) reports the Rev. Louis Francis Piskula, who is now 74, entered into a plea agreement that dropped a first-degree sodomy charge brought in a 2012 indictment.

Piskula’s lawyer, Steven Dowell of Owensboro, said his client “vehemently denied” the sodomy charge and dropping it made it possible for Piskula to accept the deal. It calls for a maximum five-year sentence, with sentencing set for Aug. 6.

The case involved a minor under the age of 12 while Piskula was serving at Blessed Mother Catholic Church in Owensboro.

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UNITED STATES
POPE FRANCIS the CON-Christ.

Paris Arrow

Updated June 4, 2014

Mary Gail Frawley-O’Dea has been a guidance counselor for 30 years with victims of sexual abuse and in her recent article about the planned meeting of Pope Francis with victims, she ridicules SNAP, the largest group in the USA and the world, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, and she calls its director David Clohessy “arrogant and guilt-inducing”. Anyone can tell that something is intrinsically wrong with a guidance counselor who’s mocking and deriding the victims of rape, say a raped woman, the victim of a rapist, as “arrogant”. Mary Gail Frawley-O’Dea is not an exception and she demonstrates how as cold-blooded and lacking in compassion and compunction for victims she is just like her Holy Father saint John Paul who is no saint for children because he said nothing and did nothing to save and protect them for 27 years – read here http://popecrimes.blogspot.ca/2014/05/cold-blood-ed-pope-john-paul-ii-is-no.html. For her information, David Clohessy as a little boy suffered between 1969 and 1973, from the ages of 12 to 16, at the bestial hands of priest Reverend Whiteley – http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/12/magazine/12PRIEST.html?pagewanted=all Mary Gail Frawley-O’Dea lacks professionalism as a counselor despite the years of experience under her belt.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Register

by JOAN FRAWLEY DESMOND 06/05/2014

Twelve years have passed, but Father Roger Landry, a Fall River, Mass., priest, vividly remembers then-Bishop Seán O’Malley weeping during a meeting with his priests as he recalled the stories of victims of clergy abuse.

At the time, Bishop O’Malley was preparing for the 2002 Dallas meeting that would approve a landmark “zero tolerance” policy for priests credibly abused of child sexual abuse. Bishop O’Malley had come to Fall River in 1992, in the wake of a scandal involving a serial clerical predator, James Porter.

“As he was recalling what some of the victims of Father Porter had told him, he started to weep so profusely that he needed to excuse himself for several minutes,” Father Landry told the Register.
“The sexual abuse of minors in the Church was never an ‘issue’ for him that he could approach in a detached way. It had a human face — in fact, many human faces — and affected him viscerally,” Father Landry added.

“He approached the sexual-abuse crisis in the Diocese of Fall River as a spiritual father and human being, not litigiously,” Father Landry said.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Harry McGee, Ronan McGreevy

Thu, Jun 5, 2014

There is growing pressure on the Government to hold a full historical inquiry into the deaths of almost 800 children in a mother and baby home in Tuam, Co Galway between the 1920s and the 1960s.

There were numerous calls from TDs, Senators and councillors yesterday for a full inquiry following the disclosure that many infants and children who died in the home run by the Bon Secours order were buried in an unmarked plot.

Minister for Children Charlie Flanagan said yesterday that he was giving “active consideration to the best means of addressing the harrowing details emerging regarding the burial arrangements for children who died many years ago in mother and baby homes”.

‘Deeply disturbing’

“Many of the revelations are deeply disturbing and a shocking reminder of a darker past in Ireland when our children were not cherished as they should have been,” he said.

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AUSTRALIA
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn

05 June 2014

Archbishop Christopher Prowse is asking people throughout the Archdiocese to pray for victims of child sexual abuse due to give evidence at the Royal Commission hearings in Canberra from 10 June.

In an open letter circulated to all parishes, the Archbishop has warned that the testimonies of some victims are likely to shock many people.

The letter includes a suggested prayer of the faithful to be used at Mass.

The letter reads:

“Dear People of God in the Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn,

“Starting June 11th, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse will be conducting their next public hearings in Canberra.

“They will be examining the way in which the Marist Brothers responded to allegations of child sexual abuse in their schools in the ACT, NSW and Queensland.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Nick McLaren

Allegations into the Wollongong Catholic Church’s dealings with the Vatican over an alleged child sex abuse case in the 1990’s are set to be investigated by the Royal Commission into Child Sex Abuse.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse will hold hearings into allegations involving John Gerard Nestor, who was was a priest when he was charged and found guilty of indecently assaulting a 14 year old altar boy.

The now Prime Minister Tony Abbott provided a character reference for Father Nestor and his conviction was overturned on appeal.

Nicky Davis from the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, says the initial investigation will bring more cases to light.

“Wollongong is one particular area that SNAP has been aware of where there is a particularly bad cover up in that area,” she said.

“It’s certainly one of the worst regions where there has been a concentrated amount of abuse and survivors have not seen any sort of justice or been heard or treated.”

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MASSACHUSETTS
The Valley Dispatch

The Lowell Sun
POSTED: 06/04/2014

By Matt Murphy
State House News Service

BOSTON — House leaders sprung a proposal on Wednesday to extend the statute of limitations for civil lawsuits brought by victims of alleged child sexual abuse, re-engaging with a controversial topic that has been debated for years on Beacon Hill but has eluded compromise.

The House gave initial approval to a bill (H 4126) recommended last week by the Committee on the Judiciary, co-chaired by Belmont Sen. William Brownsberger, who has taken the lead on this issue in the Senate in recent years.

The committee does not currently have a House chair, but Rep. John Lawn, of Watertown, has taken the lead on the issue for House leadership.

“We think we’ve crafted a bill that we can put forward that people feel comfortable with that gives people who’ve been abused a chance to face their accusers in a timeline that they’re able to. It’s complicated,” Lawn told the News Service.

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UNITED STATES
TheMediaReport

Recognizing perhaps that whether they like it or not, the sex abuse story line is getting so long in the tooth that they will soon be out of business, the bigots at the anti-Catholic group SNAP have now become more and more unglued in their public statements, if that were even possible.

When Pope Francis recently announced that he would be personally meeting with abuse victims in the near future (something Pope Benedict repeatedly did, by the way), SNAP’s National Director David Clohessy – who was recently feted by the radical, pro-abortion group Feminist Majority at a high-priced Hollywood gala in Los Angeles – derided the Pope’s gesture as simply “another savvy public relations move” and claimed the meeting would be “just utterly, utterly meaningless.”

Then Joelle Casteix, SNAP’s “western regional director,” actually went as far as to claim that Pope Francis’ gesture was actually “intended to promote complacency,” without, of course, providing any evidence for her claim.

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UNITED STATES
POPE FRANCIS the CON-Christ.

June 4, 2014

Since the canonization of false Saint John Paul II, the Vatican Catholic Church’s evils and crimes against humanity keep resurging first at the UN, in the USA and in countries as far as Australia, and they confirm what Christ inspires and impels us to do – to set Him free from Pope Francis the CON-Christ con-artist and biggest thief of mankind, and to set Him free from the Opus Dei Beast tentacles and from the sorcery of the Eucharist and gold tabernacles worldwide!

When we were writing our blogs about the recent canonization of John Paul II and the events at the UN, Christ inspired and impelled us to include photos of nuns who camped out at St. Peter’s Square and cheered on Pope Francis –to caption them as “Stupid Catholic nuns worshipping the Opus Dei new Golden Cow Saint John Paul II.” We doubted that inner voice that lingers up to now and in hindsight, Christ was right.

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MONTANA
Choteau Acantha

Posted: Wednesday, June 4, 2014

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Helena through its Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceeding is notifying the public that the deadline for filing claims relating to, or arising from, sexual abuse is Aug. 11 at 4:30 p.m.
The Diocese provided the Teton County Attorney’s Office a copy of the notice of deadline to be posted at the courthouse in Choteau. The County Attorney’s Office also has a copy of the proof of claim form. More information on how to file a claim is available at www.diocesehelena.org.

The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Montana has set the deadline to file claims as Aug. 11. Even if potential victims have already filed a lawsuit against the Diocese alleging sexual abuse prior to Jan. 31, 2014, those potential victims must still file a Sexual Abuse Proof of Claim Form to maintain and preserve their rights in the Diocese’s Chapter 11 case.

Victims whose sexual abuse claims have already been paid in full should not file in the Chapter 11 proceeding. Also, anyone who holds a claim that has been allowed by an order of the Bankruptcy Court on or before the Sexual Abuse Bar Date does not need to file a proof of claim form.

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MEXICO
Latin Times

By Oscar Lopez | Jun 04 2014

The Vatican has found Mexican priest Eduardo Mendoza Cordova guilty of sexual abuse of minor. Mendoza will officially be retired from the Catholic priesthood, a decree which will be broadcast in the coming hours to the Archdiocese of San Luis Potosí. According to Vatican sources, after reviewing the testimony and evidence, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith cleric ordered a “dismissal from the clerical state,” a punishment reserved for the most severe cases.

It will now be up to Bishop Carlos Cabrero Jesus Romero to communicate with the sentence to Mendoza and make it known publicly. For this to happen, the Vatican will not need to physically locate the defendant, who is currently on the run. According to canon law, which governs all ecclesiastical processes, the Holy See need only to look for Cordova Mendoza in his latest reported residence. If he does not appear, the sanction shall be deemed notified and automatically come into force. He also has 60 days to appeal or file an appeal with the Vatican courts.

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KENTUCKY
Tristate Homepage

A former priest accused of sexually abusing a 12-year-old nearly 40 years ago enters a guilty plea in Daviess County Court.

Louis Piskula pleaded guilty to first degree sexual abuse this afternoon. He was originally charged with sexual abuse and sodomy. Prosecutors say the crime happened in the late 1970s while Piskula was a priest at an Owensboro church. He’s scheduled to be sentenced on August 6th. Prosecutors say they’re recommending Piskula be sentenced to five years in prison and requiring him to register as a sex offender.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

The Archbishop of Tuam, Michael Neary, said he welcomes the announcement that a cross-departmental examination is to be carried out of the burial arrangements for children in Mother and Baby Homes.

The remains of almost 800 babies and infants were discovered in a septic tank beside a mother and baby home run by the Bon Secours nuns in Tuam, Co Galway.

Archbishop Neary said he is shocked to learn of the magnitude of the number of children buried there and says he learned of the extent of the situation from the media and historical research.

Dr Neary said the Archdiocese of Tuam will co-operate fully – but said that 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, and there is a clear moral imperative on the sisters to act upon their responsibilities.

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MEXICO
National Catholic Reporter

David Agren Catholic News Service | Jun. 4, 2014

MEXICO CITY A priest in north central Mexico has been stripped of his position by the Vatican and faces criminal charges in connection with alleged sexual abuse of a teenage boy.

The case marks the first time the Catholic Church in Mexico has turned a priest in to authorities.

The move follows instructions from Pope Francis for the Catholic Church to better protect children and take a hard line with priests accused of sexual offenses.

Father Eduardo Cordova Bautista, a priest in the Archdiocese of San Luis Potosi, was ordered in late April by the Vatican to face charges for allegedly abusing a 16-year-old boy in 2012. The actions were implemented in late May. His whereabouts were unknown, however.

“This is simply acting on a petition of the pope and what he’s asking: that we collaborate completely with the judicial system,” said Armando Martinez Gomez, president of the College of Catholic Lawyers of Mexico.

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MINNESOTA
KARE

Associated Press and Blake McCoy, KARE June 4, 2014

ST. PAUL, Minn. – A newly released deposition shows retired Twin Cities Archbishop Harry Flynn said he could not remember how he handled clergy sex abuse cases during his 13-year tenure.

Under oath last month, Flynn said at least 134 times that he could not recall how he handled the cases.

The 81 years old former archbishop retired six years ago. He said he didn’t have dementia or other diagnosed memory problems.

In the deposition Flynn did defend the decision to pay priests accused of abuse even after they were removed from active ministry.

“I felt very strongly that they would not be able to get jobs very easily and so I wanted to give them some help,” said Flynn. “What message would it send to the world if we threw these people out on the street without any assistance?”

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KENTUCKY
Messenger-Inquirer

By Don Wilkins Messenger-Inquirer

The Rev. Louis Francis Piskula, a former priest at several local Catholic parishes, pleaded guilty to first-degree sexual abuse in Daviess Circuit Court on Wednesday.

Piskula, 74, was scheduled to face trial on June 18 on one count of first-degree sodomy of a minor under 12 and one count first-degree sexual abuse of a minor under 12.

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NEW JERSEY
The Star-Ledger

By Star-Ledger Editorial Board
on June 03, 2014

In a case of flawless logic, the Catholic Church’s lawyers have discovered a magical loophole that absolves the church of legal responsibility for crimes committed by its priests: a holy punch clock.

Catholic priests, we now know — courtesy of a Delaware Supreme Court hearing in a New Jersey priest-abuse lawsuit — can be “off duty.” When they’re not officially priests, lawyers for the Diocese of Trenton argued, the church shouldn’t be held responsible for their actions.

“How do we determine when a priest is and is not on duty,” one justice asked.

“Well,” the diocese’s lawyer explained, “you can determine a priest is not on duty when he is molesting a child, for example.”

See? Bulletproof.

If their legal Hail Mary works, it would effectively cloak the Catholic Church in a legal state of grace.

Bishops could argue that any time a priest breaks the law — in this case, he’s accused of molesting a boy during youth outings to Delaware — he’s on personal time, absolving the church of liability.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
World

By RYAN HILL
Posted June 4, 2014

The dead in Milwaukee’s Catholic cemeteries rest in peace as they await Christ’s second coming. The living are less content. Hundreds of sexual abuse victims want the city’s bankrupt archdiocese to pay for their pain.

This Monday, a battle between the Milwaukee Archdiocese and victims filing bankruptcy claims reached the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago. Attorneys for the abuse victims demand money from the archdiocese’s $55 million cemetery trust fund. Archdiocese officials say that money belongs only to the buried.

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By Emily Gurnon
egurnon@pioneerpress.com

The former Twin Cities archbishop said in a six-hour deposition that he could not recall any circumstances involving sexual abuse of children by priests that “should have been handled better.”

Harry J. Flynn was asked whether there were any such situations during his 13 years as archbishop.

“No. I can’t think of any,” Flynn said. Nor did he believe there was ever a “crisis” pertaining to child sexual abuse by clergy in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

He said he never reported information about suspected abusers to police, and didn’t know whether anyone on his staff did.

Attorney Jeffrey Anderson took Flynn’s deposition May 14 as a part of a lawsuit filed in May 2013 against the archdiocese and former priest Thomas Adamson. Anderson’s office released a transcript and video copy of the deposition Wednesday.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic Culture

Two ranking officials at the Institute for Religious Works (IOR) have been eased into early retirement, signaling a likely acceleration of reforms in the Vatican bank.

The ANSA news service reports that the two officials had worked at the IOR for years, and their departure suggests a strong push to change the management approach of the Vatican institution. The two were encouraged to take early retirement shortly after the completion of reports by two separate ad hoc committees appointed by Pope Francis to study Vatican finances in general and the functioning of the IOR in particular.

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IRELAND
Salon

MARY ELIZABETH WILLIAMS

They have no headstones, no coffins. No memory boxes of toys and photographs. There are nearly eight hundred of them – and counting. They are the 796 babies and young children aged between two days and nine years whose grave, “filled to the brim with tiny bones and skulls,” was found last week in an unmarked site that once housed a septic tank near a County Galway home for unwed mothers.

Local death records show that the children, mostly babies and toddlers, died during the years The Home, run by the Bon Secours Sisters, was in operation — between 1926 and 1961. The causes of death listed include “sicknesses, diseases, deformities and premature births.” A full tally of the bodies has not yet been made, and it’s unknown yet if investigators will find more bodies than the ones whose deaths were recorded.

The grave was first discovered nearly forty years ago. In 1975, two boys playing in the area first uncovered a broken slab that revealed small skeletons underneath. As the Guardian reports, “a parish priest said prayers at the site, and it was sealed once more, the number of bodies below unknown, their names forgotten.” But more recently, local historian Catherine Corless spearheaded a long overdue investigation into what happened to the bodies of those children. She was inspired in part by her own memories of the children from The Home that she grew up with. “They were always segregated to the side of regular classrooms,” she recently told Irish Central. “By doing this the nuns telegraphed the message that they were different and that we should keep away from them. They didn’t suggest we be nice to them. In fact if you acted up in class some nuns would threaten to seat you next to the Home Babies. That was the message we got in our young years.” When Corless contacted the Galway registry to find out how many children had died there, she said the person at the office asked her, “Do you really want all of these deaths?” It was only then she learned the magnitude of her task. She is now fundraising to create a memorial for the mothers and children who passed through The Home. (You can contact her directly about donating: catherinecorless@hotmail.com)

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IRELAND
Irish Mirror

Jun 04, 2014 21:29 By Niall Moonan

Tom Ward, 72, reveals how he and other children were treated as “outcasts” at home where 800 bodies were found in unmarked grave

A pensioner has told how he and other children were treated as “outcasts” at the home at the centre of 800 babies scandal.

Tom Ward, 72, spent five and a half years at the institution before he was fostered by a Galway family.

He said: “The teachers, doctors, priests, they all looked down on us. We were only a number but things have changed, thanks be to God.

“I was fostered off to somebody. There were a lot of us fostered people. They got paid for having us in the house and they reared us, but the priests, the teachers, they all left us out.

“When we would go to town events or coming down from Mass, someone would say ‘Who’s the little laddie?’ and they would reply ‘Oh he was fostered out of that home’ and all eyes turned away. We were just outcasts.

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MINNESOTA
St. Cloud Times

The Associated Press June 4, 2014

ST. PAUL – A newly released deposition shows retired Twin Cities Archbishop Harry Flynn said he could not remember how he handled clergy sex abuse cases during his 13-year tenure.

Under oath last month, Flynn said at least 134 times that he could not recall how he handled the cases.

Flynn, who is now 81, retired six years ago. He said he didn’t have dementia or other diagnosed memory problems.

Minnesota Public Radio News reports the former archbishop said he did not report any accusations of child sexual abuse to police and doesn’t recall asking anyone else to report abuse claims, either.

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MINNESOTA
Catholic Culture

Retired Archbishop Harry Flynn, who once headed the US bishops’ committee implementing norms for handling sex-abuse cases, has testified that he never informed police about abuse complaints in the St. Paul-Minneapolis archdiocese, which he led from 1995 to 2008.

In a sworn deposition that was made public June 4, Archbishop Flynn said that while working on national policies, he delegated much of the work of handling sex-abuse complaints against clergy in Minnesota. The archbishop said over 100 times that he could not accurately recall the details of various cases. “It’s unfortunate that we did not pay more attention to this as a result,” he testified.

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MINNESOTA
KSTP

A newly released deposition shows retired Twin Cities Archbishop Harry Flynn said he could not remember how he handled clergy sex abuse cases during his 13-year tenure.

Under oath last month, Flynn said at least 134 times that he could not recall how he handled the cases.

Flynn, who is now 81, retired six years ago. He said he didn’t have dementia or other diagnosed memory problems.

Minnesota Public Radio News reports the former archbishop said he did not report any accusations of child sexual abuse to police and doesn’t recall asking anyone else to report abuse claims, either.

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VATICAN CITY
Headlines from the Catholic World

Vatican City, Jun 4, 2014 / 12:03 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Holy See’s envoy to the United Nations in Geneva has no doubt that the body is useful in the pursuit of the common good, but he also says it is important that law prevail over ideologies.

The U.N. system “is very complex and sometimes muddled,” Archbishop Silvano Tomasi said in a May 30 interview with CNA.

This character, he added, “may present the risk of a deficit of democracy if experts replace states in making decisions.”

Archbishop Tomasi was responding to a question about the tendency of the U.N. Committee on the Convention Against Torture to highlight themes “which might strike some as only tenuously connected to the actual text and the intent of the Convention Against Torture,” as the permanent observer stressed in a May 4 press release.

As the Holy See’s permanent observer to the U.N.’s Geneva office, Archbishop Tomasi spoke at a May 6-7 hearing concerning the Holy See’s implementation of the Convention Against Torture.

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CALIFORNIA
Bakersfield Now

By DAVE COLLINS, Associated Press Published: Jun 4, 2014

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — A California man who supplied nearly 10 pounds of methamphetamine to a Roman Catholic priest’s drug operation in Connecticut has been sentenced to more than five years in prison.

Forty-four-year-old Chad McCluskey of San Clemente was sentenced Wednesday in federal court in Hartford to 65 months in prison, under a plea bargain.

McCluskey and his girlfriend, Kristen Laschober of Laguna Niguel, California, pleaded guilty to drug conspiracy charges for supplying meth to now-suspended priest Kevin Wallin of Waterbury. Laschober awaits sentencing.

McCluskey apologized for his actions. He said he was overcome by his meth addiction and never meant to hurt anyone.

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MINNESOTA
Jeff Anderson and Associates

(St. Paul, MN) – Archbishop Emeritus Harry Flynn’s sworn testimony, taken May 14, 2014, has been released publicly. Flynn’s deposition was taken in a civil lawsuit involving a man sexually abused in the 1970s by former priest Thomas Adamson.

The entire deposition transcript and video clips are available at http://www.andersonadvocates.com/Posts/News-or-Event/1830/Deposition-of-Archbishop-Harry-Flynn.aspx and on YouTube (AndersonAdvocates). A DVD copy of the video deposition is also available at our office.

Contact: Jeff Anderson: Cell: 612.817.8665 Office: 651.964.3473
Mike Finnegan: Cell: 612.205.5531 Office: 651.964.3473

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Article by: JEAN HOPFENSPERGER , Star Tribune Updated: June 4, 2014

Former Archbishop Flynn does not recall details of clergy abuse during his 13 year tenure.

Retired Twin Cities Archbishop Harry Flynn did not report any charges of clergy sex abuse to police during his 13 year tenure, according to a court deposition made public Wednesday.

Flynn did not recall the details of how the archdiocese handled abuse cases. But he did recall that the archdiocese made special payments to priests who had been credibly accused of abusing children.

“I felt very strongly that they would not be able to get jobs very easily, and so I wanted to give them some help,” he said.

Flynn said he couldn’t remember how many priests received the special payments, adding “I couldn’t take a guess.”

Flynn’s deposition is the latest deposition of a high-ranking church official to be made public, joining those by Archbishop John Nienstedt and former vicar generals Peter Laird and Kevin McDonough.

They come in response to a lawsuit filed in 2013 on behalf of a man who claimed he had been abused decades earlier by the Rev. Thomas Adamson, who later was removed from ministry. It contends that church officials in the Twin Cities and Winona put children and others at risk of abuse by failing to disclose information about priests accused of abuse.

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UNITED STATES
GlobalPost

Jason Berry

June 4, 2014

Editor’s note: In GlobalPost’s 2013 series “A New Inquisition,” religion writer Jason Berry went deep behind the daily headlines on the Vatican investigation of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the 1500-member council representing the majority of America’s 57,000 nuns.

After Benedict became the first pope in 600 years to retire, Pope Francis has set the church on a different course, reviving ideas of pluralism and “radical mercy” inspired by the reform-minded Second Vatican Council. Nevertheless, religious sisters who have carried a social justice message to the ragged edges of globalization are under pressure to bend to a Vatican agenda of obedience. Jason Berry’s two-part series explores the forces behind the issues.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was a French Jesuit and paleontologist who died a church outcast in New York City in 1955 at age 74. Vatican officials had suppressed his writings on sequential evolution in the universe.

Teilhard was not officially a heretic, but rather a victim of church officials who were ignorant and fearful of science.

A decade later after his death, Teilhard’s books were being taught in Jesuit schools. Today he has a global reputation on evolution and spirituality.

Long before the internet, Teilhard wrote of an emergent planetary consciousness as a scientific development. He also wrote of this “noosphere” in mystical terms, as mankind’s quest for closeness with the divine. And he sounded prescient notes of warning.

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MINNESOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, June 04, 2014

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

We hope that the obvious deceit and duplicitous shown by Archbishop Harry Flynn in his just-released deposition will prod police and prosecutors to more vigorously pursue corrupt Catholic officials in the Twin Cities.

According to Minnesota Public Radio, Flynn;

– “said at least 134 times that he could not remember how he handled clergy sexual abuse cases,”

– claimed “he didn’t know why he refused to release the names” of credibly accused child molesting clerics,

– said he didn’t “know the process for defrocking priests,” and

– “said he did not report any accusations of child sexual abuse to police and doesn’t recall asking anyone else to report abuse claims either,” even though he headed the archdiocese for 13 years (as recently as six years ago) and even though there are 53 publicly accused child molesting clerics who are or have been in the archdiocese.

[Minnesota Public Radio]

He said “I don’t recall” at least 15 times.

He said “I can’t recall” at least 10 times.

He said “I don’t remember” at least 67 times.

He said “I can’t remember” at least 40 times.

He said “I don’t know” at least 46 times.

Gimme a break.

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IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

04 JUNE 2014

The Government has bowed to national and international pressure over the scandal of the death of 4,000 babies who were buried in unmarked, unconsecrated and mass graves at homes for unmarried mothers.

The horrifying record of so-called mother and baby homes over several decades in the last century is being reviewed after campaigners forced renewed focus on the need to formally commemorate how 800 infants died and were buried in at one institute in Co Galway.

The remains of the youngsters were interred in a concrete, septic tank in the grounds of a since-abandoned home in Tuam, run by Catholic nuns from the Sisters of the Bon Secours between 1925 and 1961.

The names of the 796 children buried in the mass grave without a headstone have been confirmed by a local historian after she made repeated requests from the state for records. Records of hundreds more at other homes are still being held confidentially.

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IRELAND
The Journal

CHILDREN’S MINISTER CHARLIE Flanagan has said that a number of departments are looking into how best to address the issues raised as a result of the allegations of a mass grave on the grounds of a former children’s home in Galway.

Flanagan said in statement today that, “active consideration is being given to the best means of addressing the harrowing details emerging regarding the burial arrangements for children who died many years ago in mother and baby homes, and the many questions raised regarding these deaths”.

Speaking to TheJournal.ie yesterday, Flanagan said that said he was shocked by the “appalling revelations” about the home and said that he expected it to be discussed at yesterday’s Cabinet meeting.

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VATICAN CITY
Boston Globe

By John L. Allen Jr. | GLOBE STAFF JUNE 04, 2014

ROME – It’s a telling fact that there’s no exact equivalent in Italian for the English word “accountability,” because as linguists know, when a language is missing a word it’s often because the underlying concept doesn’t quite resonate.

This may be why in the Pope Francis era, the financial management of the Vatican is increasingly becoming an English-speaking enterprise.

The latest step in that direction came today, when an Australian Catholic business manager informed priests in his Sydney archdiocese that he has been named to head up a project management office in the Vatican’s new Secretariat for the Economy, created by Francis in February to oversee the financial clean-up operation.

Danny Casey, formerly the business manager for the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney, will join his old boss, Australian Cardinal George Pell, already tapped by Francis to head that secretariat.

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UNITED STATES
The Dish

Andrew Sullivan

You may recall the kerfuffle recently when the UN Rapporteur on Torture tried to indict the Vatican for “crimes against humanity” because of the widespread scheme, orchestrated by the church hierarchy, to facilitate and cover up the mass rape and sexual abuse of children. Many argued that the very term “crime against humanity” was over the top, fueled by anti-Catholicism or secularism, and effectively undermined itself by its extreme language.

But what can possibly describe the following unless it is a crime against humanity?

In a town in western Ireland, where castle ruins pepper green landscapes, there’s a six-foot stone wall that once surrounded a place called the Home. Between 1925 and 1961, thousands of “fallen women” and their “illegitimate” children passed through the Home, run by the Bon Secours nuns in Tuam. Many of the women, after paying a penance of indentured servitude for their out-of-wedlock pregnancy, left the Home for work and lives in other parts of Ireland and beyond. Some of their children were not so fortunate.

More than five decades after the Home was closed and destroyed — where a housing development and children’s playground now stands — what happened to nearly 800 of those abandoned children has now emerged: Their bodies were piled into a massive septic tank sitting in the back of the structure and forgotten, with neither gravestones nor coffins.

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

Madeleine Baran St. Paul, Minn. Jun 4, 2014

Faced with tough questions under oath last month, former Twin Cities archbishop Harry Flynn said at least 134 times that he could not remember how he handled clergy sexual abuse cases during his 13-year tenure, according to documents made public Wednesday.

Flynn, 81, retired six years ago. He said he didn’t have dementia or other diagnosed memory problems. “I think it has more to do with age than anything,” he said, although he noted that he has been diagnosed with cancer, pneumonia and Legionnaires’ disease.

The former archbishop said he did not report any accusations of child sexual abuse to police and doesn’t recall asking anyone else to report abuse claims, either, according to a transcript of the May 14 deposition released by victims’ attorneys. Flynn claimed no memory of a high-profile lawsuit brought in the mid-1990s by a man who said he was abused by the Rev. Robert Kapoun. The case attracted national attention at the time.

Flynn testified as part of a lawsuit filed by a man who says he was sexually abused by the Rev. Thomas Adamson as a child in the 1970s. The man claims the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the Diocese of Winona created a public nuisance by keeping information on accused priests secret. The broad claim has allowed the man’s attorneys, Jeff Anderson and Mike Finnegan, to question archdiocese officials about decisions from the 1970s to the present. The archdiocese has also been forced to turn over thousands of internal documents on abusive priests.

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MINNESOTA
Jeff Anderson and Associates

[videos]

STATE OF MINNESOTA
COUNTY OF RAMSEY

IN DISTRICT COURT
SECOND JUDICIAL DISTRICT

Defendants

Videotape deposition of ARCHBISHOP
HARRY FLYNN, taken pursuant to Notice of
Taking Deposition, and taken before Gary W.
Hermes, a Notary Public in and for the county
of Ramsey, state of Minnesota, on the 14th day
of May, 2014 at 30 East 7th street, St. Paul,
Minnesota, commencing at approximately 10:04
o’clock a.m.

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IRELAND
BBC News

The Irish government has launched an inquiry after the remains of nearly 800 children were discovered in an unmarked grave at a former home for unmarried mothers run by the Catholic Church.

The remains were interred in a concrete septic tank in the grounds of the home in Tuam, County Galway.

The children, aged between two days and nine years, died between 1925 and 1961.

The grave was found nearly 40 years ago, but the remains were initially believed to be from the 1850s famine.

However, local historian Catherine Corless found that the register of deaths and burials in the town did not match.

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IRELAND
Casa Grande Dispatch

Posted: Wednesday, June 4, 2014
Associated Press

DUBLIN — The Catholic Church in Ireland is facing fresh accusations of child neglect after a researcher found records for 796 young children believed to be buried in a mass grave beside a former orphanage for the children of unwed mothers.

The researcher, Catherine Corless, says her discovery of child death records at the Catholic nun-run home in Tuam, County Galway, suggests that a former septic tank filled with bones is the final resting place for most, if not all, of the children.

Church leaders in Galway, western Ireland, said they had no idea so many children who died at the orphanage had been buried there, and said they would support local efforts to mark the spot with a plaque listing all 796 children.

County Galway death records showed that the children, mostly babies and toddlers, died often of sickness or disease in the orphanage during the 35 years it operated from 1926 to 1961. The building, which had previously been a workhouse for homeless adults, was torn down decades ago to make way for new houses.

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MEXICO
Press TV (Iran)

[with video]

In Mexico’s northern state of San Luis Potosi, a catholic priest is on the run following nineteen separate accusations of sexually assaulting minors.

Eduardo Cordova, priest and legal counsel for the church, has not been seen since Friday when authorities first sought to arrest him. Residents of San Luis have been horrified by the priest’s actions, and many have little faith in authorities to bring the criminal priest to justice. It was while working here, in this church, in the El Paseo district of the state capital, that local activists claim Eduardo Cordova sexually abused over one hundred minors.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Sorcha Pollak, Patsy McGarry

Wed, Jun 4, 2014

News that a large number of unidentified remains were discovered in a water tank close to the Tuam mother-and-baby home in Galway has made international headlines around the world.

Following research by the local Tuam historian Catherine Corless into the operation of the mother-and-baby home run by the Sisters of Bon Secours congregations there, it has emerged that up to 796 children may have died at the home during the period of its operation from 1925 to 1961.

The Washington Post, which opens with the headline ‘Bodies of 800 babies, long-dead, found in septic tank at former Irish home for unwed mothers’, told readers how unmarried pregnant women in Ireland were “stigmatised” by societal and religious mores during the 20th century and that “special kinds of neglect and abuse were reserved for the Home babies”.

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IRELAND
Newstalk

Fianna Fáil TD calls on the Taoiseach to apologise on behalf of the State to the women and children who resided at mother and baby homes.

Nadine Maloney

15:47 Wednesday 4 June 2014

It’s believed almost 800 babies were buried in a mass grave next to the Tuam Mother and Baby home in Co Galway between 1925 and 1961. The home was run by the Bons Secours nuns in Galway.

The Archbishop of Tuam is due to meet with the Bon Secours nuns to discuss the grave.

Fr Iggy O’Donovan, an Augustinian Priest based in Limerick and Fianna Fáil TD Colm Keaveney join Ciara McDonagh on Newstalk Lunchtime to discuss the issue.

Keaveney said it was “premature to talk about commemoration as commemoration would indicate closure”

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UNITED KINGDOM
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, June 4, 2014

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

A group of British MPs are calling for an investigation into past child sexual abuse cases. We are glad that these MPs want truth and justice about child sexual abuse. When the truth is revealed about the past, children are safer in the present and future.

[Breitbart)

We’re less interested in seeing investigations of “celebrities” who abused and more interested in seeing investigations of institutions that have concealed or are concealing child sexual violence.

We hope this inquiry goes forward – fully funded and independently established – and that those at every institutional level are investigated. Officials should encourage anyone who saw, suspects, or suffered child sexual abuse to immediately call law enforcement and get help. And whether this investigation happens or not, officials should use their “bully pulpits” to repeatedly and compassionately urge every single person who saw, suspected or suffered child sex crimes to step forward, get help, expose wrongdoers, protect others and start healing.

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