ABUSE TRACKER

UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

Discussions That Should Be Placed Side by Side: Abuse Survivors Want Juan Barros Removed as Bishop of Osorno, San Francisco Catholics Want Salvatore Cordileone Removed as Archbishop of San Francisco

William D. Lindsey

Two items I’ve read this morning strike me as a revealing synchronistic fit for one another. The first is Kristine Ward’s editorial in today’s edition of NSAC (National Survivor Advocates Coalition) News.*Kristi is commenting on the recent meeting of Marie Collins, Peter Saunders, and other members of the pope’s abuse advisory commission with Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the pope’s “fixer.” She notes that NSAC members “are appalled that they [the lay members of the abuse advisory commission] are the people who had to initiate the action to speak with the commission chair, Cardinal Sean O’Malley and through him seek to get the attention of Pope Francis.”

The members of the abuse advisory commission wanted to discuss with Pope Francis, of course, his choice to make Juan Barros (and here, here, and here), who has been accused of helping shield a fellow priest abusing minors, in bishop of Osorno, Chile. As Kristi’s editorial notes, it’s obvious that, despite widespread outrage at this appointment both in the diocese itself and in many quarters of the Catholic church, notably among survivors, “it borders on the near impossible that Bishop Barros’ appointment will be rescinded.”

This is true in part, she suggests, because the involvement of the influential and powerful Cardinal Angelo Sodano in the story of Barros’s appointment cannot be discounted. As she points out, Cardinal O’Malley knows this perfectly well.

And so enter O’Malley “the fixer,” through whom members of the papal abuse advisory commission have had to go to approach the pope himself: the NSAC News editorial sums O’Malley and his role vis-a-vis the abuse commission members’ concerns in the following way:

He has finely honed the skill of the appearance of action and empathy.

If you enjoy theater, Cardinal O’Malley’s performance that builds yet another protective tent for hierarchs while continuing to disguise him as a champion of reform is stellar.

Kristi explains what she means with these remarks suggesting that O’Malley has been disguised in a theatrical way as the champion of reform while he’s actually helping to build a protective tent for hierarchs, by noting that the outcome of O’Malley’s meeting with Pope Francis to relay to him the concerns of abuse survivors about Barros’s appointment was the following: Vatican press spokesman Father Federico Lombardi then announced that a “precise and reliable legal text” will be assessed, detailing the duties and responsibilities of bishops and religious superiors vis-a-vis priests abusing minors— something that, as she notes, O’Malley had already discussed at a recent meeting of the pope’s kitchen cabinet, the Council of Nine.

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

CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Sun-Times

The day after Cardinal Francis George stepped down as leader of Chicago’s 2.3 million Catholics was a Sunday and Eleanor Franczak, a parishioner at St. Michael’s Church in Orland Park, summed the cardinal’s tenure this way: “He was one of us. He wasn’t any better or worse, just a normal person.”

It was an assessment that Cardinal George, who died Friday morning at home after a nine-year struggle with cancer, would have wholeheartedly endorsed. When he learned that Pope John Paul II had named him as the successor to Chicago’s popular Cardinal Bernardin, the unassuming priest asked in surprise, “Are you sure the Holy Father has considered all the options?”

But that modesty concealed a man who was an accomplished scholar, a skilled writer, and an unyielding defender of the faith. …

George presided over the archdiocese during a difficult period for the church, marked by church closings and the never-ending sex abuse scandal, leading with dignity and efficiency and an emphasis on core Catholic values.

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

UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

by Dan StockmanDawn Cherie Araujo

Catholic women religious and observers reacted with notable – but muted – relief to Thursday’s news that Vatican oversight of their largest leadership group had ended two years earlier than expected.

The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) has accepted a final report of the doctrinal assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), officials said, ending the controversial investigation of the group that represents 80 percent of the roughly 50,000 women religious in the United States.

The Vatican congregation asked its own officials and LCWR not to speak to the media on the topic for 30 days, leaving much of the response to outside observers.

Former LCWR president Benedictine Sr. Joan Chittister was one of the few who would speak on the record. She called the agreement very civil.

“The document on the LCWR seems to me to be pretty even-handed. It’s not attacking anybody. It’s not contentious, and it’s civil,” said Chittister, who is a best-selling author and well-known international lecturer on topics of justice, peace, human rights, women’s issues and contemporary spirituality in the church and in society. (She is also a contributor to National Catholic Reporter and GSR.)

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

CHICAGO (IL)
CBS Chicago

CHICAGO (CBS) — After fighting a long battle with cancer, Francis Cardinal George has died, multiple sources reported on Friday afternoon.

Archbishop Blase Cupich, George’s successor, confirmed the cardinal died at 10:45 a.m. Friday at his official residence.

“A man of peace, tenacity and courage has been called home to the Lord,” Cupich said Friday afternoon.

George had battled three bouts with cancer, his most recent diagnosis coming last year.

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

CHICAGO (IL)
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago

[Espanol]

[Polski]

[biography]

[videos]

A man of peace, tenacity and courage has been called home to the Lord. Our beloved Cardinal George passed away today at 10:45 a.m. at the Residence.

Cardinal George’s life’s journey began and ended in Chicago. He was a man of great courage who overcame many obstacles to become a priest. When he joined the priesthood he did not seek a comfortable position, instead he joined a missionary order, the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, and served the people of God in challenging circumstances – in Africa, Asia and all around the world.

A proud Chicagoan, he became a leader of his order and again traveled far from home, not letting his physical limitations moderate his zeal for bringing the promise of Christ’s love where it was needed most. When he was ordained a bishop, he served faithfully, first in Yakima, where he learned Spanish to be closer to his people. He then served in Portland, where he asked the people to continue to teach him how to be a good bishop. In return, he promised to help them become good missionaries.

Cardinal George was a respected leader among the bishops of the United States. When, for example, the church struggled with the grave sin of clerical sexual abuse, he stood strong among his fellow bishops and insisted that zero tolerance was the only course consistent with our beliefs

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

CHICAGO (IL)
National Catholic Reporter

Catholic News Service | Apr. 17, 2015

CHICAGO Cardinal Francis E. George, the retired archbishop of Chicago who was the first native Chicagoan to head the archdiocese, died Friday at his residence after nearly 10 years battling cancer. He was 78.

His successor in Chicago, Archbishop Blase Cupich, called George “a man of peace, tenacity and courage” in a statement he read at a news conference held outside Holy Name Cathedral to announce the death.

Cupich singled out George for overcoming many obstacles to become a priest and “not letting his physical limitations moderate his zeal for bringing the promise of Christ’s love where it was needed most.”

A childhood bout with polio had left the prelate with a weakened leg and a pronounced limp throughout his life. …

Cupich in his statement also noted that when the U.S. church “struggled with the grave sin of clerical sexual abuse, [George] stood strong among his fellow bishops and insisted that zero tolerance was the only course consistent with our beliefs.”

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

CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune

By Manya Brachear Pashman
Chicago Tribune

Cardinal Francis George, the first Chicago native to serve as the local archbishop and a man who during that 17-year tenure became the intellectual leader of the American church, died Friday morning at his home after a years long struggle with cancer. He was 78.

“A man of peace, tenacity and courage has been called home to the Lord,” George’s successor, Archbishop Blase Cupich, said during a brief announcement Friday afternoon.

He said George died at 10:45 a.m. at his home.

Cupich remembered George as “always choosing the church over his own comfort, and the people over his own needs. …

He also became a point person between the U.S. and the Vatican on the abuse scandal and matters such as liturgy of the Mass, playing a key role in revisions that brought the English translation closer to the original Latin.

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

CHICAGO (IL)
WLS

CHICAGO (WLS) — Francis Eugene Cardinal George, Archbishop Emeritus of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago, died at his residence at 10:45 a.m. Friday after a long battle with cancer. He was 78.

“A man of peace, tenacity, and courage has been called home,” said Archbishop Blase Cupich at Holy Name Cathedral in the Gold Coast Friday afternoon. “Let us heed his example and be a little more brave, a little more steadfast and a lot more loving. This is the surest way to honor his life and celebrate his return to the presence of God.”

Priests were first informed of his death by the Chicago Archdiocese.

“Today we mourn the loss of an incredible leader, guiding spirit and loyal friend. Cardinal George had compassion for all,” Monsignor Boland, Catholic Charities CEO, said in a statement. “You saw this compassion in his eyes as he visited with the poor and most vulnerable in our communities.” …

Yet, even as his successor was taking the helm of the Chicago Archdiocese, Archbishop Blase Cupich made sure the Cardinal Received credit for laying the foundation against clerical sexual abuse.

“We would not have had zero tolerance when it comes to child protection, if it were not for this man here,” said Archbishop Cupich at his appointment announcement, referring to Cardinal George. “He was the one who made it happen,” he continued.

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

CHICAGO (IL)
WBEZ

April 17, 2015
By: Lynette Kalsnes

Chicago’s Cardinal Francis George, who stepped down from his post last year to fight cancer for the third time, died on Friday. He was 78.

George was the leader of 2.2 million Roman Catholics in Lake and Cook Counties for more than 17 years. He retired in November 2014 due to his health.

When asked at the time about his legacy, George told WBEZ:

“I just hope people remember I tried to be a good bishop. It is administrative. You have to take care of the institutions that protect the mission. What I discover now in many letters is truly touching because people write and tell me, ‘You don’t remember me, but 10 years ago or five years ago, I was transformed (or helped anyway spiritually) by something you said or you did.’ And when I hear that, I realize the Holy Spirit is making use of me to make his people holy. And that’s all the legacy I want. It’s an unknown legacy. It has to be because it’s invisible. But if you touch people, your work lasts forever.”

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

CHICAGO (IL)
WHTC

By Mary Wisniewski

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Cardinal Francis George, Archbishop of Chicago from 1997 until 2014, has died at the age of 78 after a long battle with cancer, the Chicago Tribune and other media reported on Friday.

Known for his intellectualism and strong defense of church dogma – including sometimes controversial statements against gay marriage – George halted his treatment for bladder cancer early in 2015 and was hospitalized for tests in March.

Pope Francis accepted his resignation in September 2014 and appointed then-Bishop Blase J. Cupich of Spokane, Washington, to succeed him as head of the nation’s third-largest archdiocese.

The Archdiocese of Chicago did not immediately confirm the reports that Cardinal George had died, but Archbishop Cupich was scheduled to give a news conference at 2 p.m. (3 p.m. EDT).

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

CHICAGO (IL)
Crux

By John L. Allen Jr.
Associate editor April 17, 2015

During an era under Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, when Catholicism was trying to swim against an increasingly secular tide in the Western world, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago was the American prelate trusted by those two popes, almost above all others, to spearhead that project in the United States.

George, who stepped down in November 2014, died at 10:45 a.m. Friday at his residence in Chicago of a cancer that originated in his bladder but spread to other parts of his body, rendering treatment ineffective. He was 78.

He had been on home care since April 3 after being hospitalized for hydration and pain management issues, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Widely acknowledged as the most intellectually gifted senior US prelate of his generation, George was once dubbed the “American Ratzinger.”

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

AUSTRALIA
The Courier-Mail

MICHAEL MADIGAN THE COURIER-MAIL APRIL 18, 2015

IT WAS Sister Emile who would clean him up and ensure he had a nappy for the bleeding after he would return, yet again, from being raped by the priest after the evening Mass.

The spirit of Sister Emile, whoever she was, flared briefly this week in the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse at Rockhampton.

It was the one point of light amid the medieval darkness that appears to have enveloped St Joseph’s Orphanage at Neerkol for much of the 20th century.

“Sister Regis” and “Sister Marcia’’ were given credence for being “nice’’ to children who were allegedly routinely slapped, flogged, starved, sodomised and ridiculed by nuns who would place dunce caps on their heads in this Christian refuge for orphans west of Rockhampton, now looming in the public mind as a charnel house of depravity.

But it was Sister Emile alone who honoured her vows of service to the poor and vulnerable, even if she wasn’t brave enough to stick her neck out and end the serial rape of young David Owen.

Millions of women have taken those solemn vows since Catherine McAuley, still on the Vatican’s slow track to sainthood, established the holy order of the Sisters of Mercy in Dublin in 1831.

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

WASHINGTON
The Spokesman-Review

John Stucke The Spokesman-Review

The Rev. Joseph Weitensteiner, the former director of the Morning Star Boys Ranch, has been reinstated into the active Catholic ministry after sex abuse claims against him were denied by a retired federal judge hired to rule on the credibility of the cases.

Referred to as Father Joe by a Catholic community that admired his decades-long service to troubled boys, the allegations against him were shocking. However, Weitensteiner never wavered in his insistence that while he may have been a tough disciplinarian, he never molested boys entrusted to his care.

As the number of people who said they were abused by Weitensteiner or his staff at the boys ranch grew, former Spokane Bishop William Skylstad removed him from ministry in 2006.

The Morning Star allegations were made in lawsuits that paralleled the bankruptcy of the Spokane Catholic Diocese. The Diocese case included more than two dozen clergy, 180 potential victims and ultimately cost more than $50 million to resolve.

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

INDIA
Kaumudi

KOCHI: Kerala High Court has sought the stand of the government on the anticipatory bail submitted by Fr Edwin Figarez in connection with a case in which a 16-year-old girl was sexually abused by the church priest.

The complaint regarding the incident was lodged on April 1 by the mother of the ninth standard student. The complaint was filed against Lourde Matha Latin Catholics priest under Kottapuram Catholics church. After the complaint was lodged, the priest had gone into hiding and he later moved a plea for anticipatory bail even as the probe was going on against him.

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

UNITED STATES
National Survivor Advocates Coalition

Editorial

The National Survivor Advocates Coalition (NSAC) applauds the efforts of the two survivors on the papal commission regarding sexual abuse, Marie Collins of Ireland and Peter Saunders of the United Kingdom along with the two other commission members who supported their efforts to raise the issue at the Vatican of the unacceptability — to put it mildly — of Bishop Barros’ appointment and installation as the head of the Diocese of Osorno, Chile.

Survivors in Chile accuse Bishop Juan de la Cruz Barros Madrid of covering up for the Rev. Fernando Karadima whom the Vatican convicted of abuse in 20011. Three Chilean survivors accuse Barros of witnessing their abuse by Karadima

While we applaud the actions of the commission members, we are appalled that they are the people who had to initiate the action to speak with the commission chair, Cardinal Sean O’Malley and through him seek to get the attention of Pope Francis.

Cardinal O’Malley, who not only is president of the papal sexual abuse comission but is a member of the Pope’s kitchen cabinet, formally known as the Council of Nine, gets a newspaper and has access to radio, television, and Internet – and as a blogging Cardinal he certainly knows how to use the technology of communications.

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

CANADA
Mississauga News

By Roger Belgrave
PEEL— A U.S.-based advocacy group for survivors of abuse has blasted Peel’s Catholic school board for its limited disclosure or outright silence when staff members are facing allegations of criminal wrongdoing, such as child sexual abuse.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) is calling on Toronto Cardinal Thomas Collins to discipline top administrators at the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board for the ongoing practice.

This condemnation and demand for public admonishment from south of the border comes after it was learned local school board officials kept quiet about the sexual abuse allegations recently lodged against a priest who had worked in administrative offices and schools since 2008.

Accusations against Father James Roth surfaced last January when the victim reported the allegations.

Roth, who worked as a priest-in-residence with the board, was a member of the Oblates of St. Francis De Sales order based in Ohio. He was on assignment with the Archdiocese of Toronto and worked with the local school board as well as parishes in Mississauga.

The 61-year-old was removed from ministry after the allegations were reported to the Oblates and he was recalled to the U.S.

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

WEST VIRGINIA
The Raw Story

West Virginia judge orders victims to pay half of sex abuser’s legal fees in Mormon Church cover-up suit

TRAVIS GETTYS
17 APR 2015

West Virginia judge ordered sex abuse victims to pay half the attorney costs for the Mormon Church in a civil suit alleging that church officials covered up previous claims against their abuser.

Naturally, the victims and their families don’t wish to help the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints defend itself against their claims – so they have asked an appeals court to vacate the Berkeley County Circuit Court judge’s order, reported The Journal-News.

Christopher Michael Jensen, of Martinsburg, was convicted in February 2013 of one count of first-degree sexual assault and two counts of sexual abuse by a custodian, and he was sentenced to up to 75 years in prison.

The 23-year-old Jensen, who is the son of two local Mormon leaders, sexually abused two boys who were ages 3 and 4 at the time while babysitting them in 2007.

Twelve children and their families filed a lawsuit in October 2013 against the church and several local officials, including Jensen’s parents – a high priest and relief society president.

The suit claims church leaders continued to recommend Jensen as a babysitter despite the sex abuse claims lodged against him dating back to 2007.

The victims also claim church leaders tried to silence them and witnesses and failed to report the claims against Jensen to authorities, as required by law.

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

UNITED STATES
Religion News Service – Rhymes with Religion

Boz Tchividjian | Apr 17, 2015

A couple of years ago, I had the distinct honor of meeting an individual who has literally committed his life to serving the abused and exposing the abusers. David Clohessy is the executive director of SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) and has been an influential force in confronting the horrors of child sexual abuse within the Catholic Church and other faith communities. He recently contacted me about a very disturbing situation coming out of a civil lawsuit in West Virginia involving a convicted sex offender. We all need to take a minute to become informed about this disturbing case so that we can use our collective voices to bring an end to such judicial decisions that further traumatize victims. – Boz
_____________________________________________________________________________

Imagine a courthouse with two exits. One is used by 95% of those who leave the building. The other is reserved for those who say they were sexually violated as children and have filed civil lawsuits.

At the abuse victims’ exit, cashiers collect funds for two court-appointed lawyers, one who decide disputes about discovery, and the other who represents the convicted child molester. Victims must pay half of the fees for both lawyers.

That’s no misprint. That’s no exaggeration.

In one child sexual abuse cover up case in West Virginia, this bizarre, hurtful and blatantly unfair situation is already happening. And it could spread across the state unless a West Virginia appeals court judge sides with vulnerable kids and wounded adults. He will have a chance to do so on April 22nd in Charleston, West Virginia.

Please notice that I’m not using words like “accused” and “accusers.” That’s because the child molester in this case, Christopher Michael Jensen, has been convicted and was sentenced in 2013 to up to 75 years in prison for sexually violating two boys -ages three and four.

That same year, families of 12 children who reported being abused by Jensen filed a civil suit against the Mormon church. It accuses Mormon officials of “sending emissaries from Salt Lake City to West Virginia to instruct witnesses not to talk with attorneys representing the children suing the church”. The suit also alleges these same church officials of trying “to intimidate the families (by) directing fellow church members to try to convince them to abandon their claims ‘lest they run afoul of church teachings regarding forgiveness,’” according to a newspaper story and the suit.

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

ARGENTINA
Tucuman Noticias

El Arzobispado de Mendoza deberá indemnizar a un joven quiso sumarse a la vida sacerdotal y que, en pleno cursado del seminario, fue abusado por un sacerdote en San Martín. Así lo definió la Suprema Corte de Justicia de Mendoza al convalidar en un fallo lo decidido el año pasado en la Cámara de Apelaciones, y rechazar un recurso de Casación presentado por la jerarquía católica.

Iván González fue abusado por el sacerdote Jorge Luis Morello en 2001 tras una convivencia formativa que se había iniciado en 1998. No quiso que interviniera la justicia penal. Por ello, sólo lo denunció ante las autoridades de la Iglesia. Pero en lugar de actuar en defensa de la víctima en forma inmediata, se esgrimió el Derecho canónico y se actuó en base a sus procedimientos.

González, “que al momento de ser abusado tenía 19 años y era, por lo tanto, menor de edad” (se consideraba menor de edad a quienes tenían menos de 21 años), fue acompañado por el abogado Carlos Lombardi quien reclamó la inconstitucionalidad del abordaje mediante los códigos internos de la Iglesia. Buscó ayuda en el Arzobispado y buscó interiorizarse del avance de las investigaciones, pero ésta fue mantenida en estricto secreto y no se le otorgó una respuesta, a pesar de haber sido la víctima de un sacerdote. La defensa de González reclamó informes a las autoridades religiosas y lo rechazó sin fundamentos. Fue cuando el abogado de la Iglesia, Luis Horacio Cuervo, presentó una carilla en la que negó que su defendido tenga responsabilidad en el hecho denunciado, negó la existencia de abuso sexual y el daño, y también que la justicia pueda inferir en los procedimientos internos de la Iglesia Católica.

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

ARGENTINA
El Sol

[Condemn the Church to silence on a complaint of sexual abuse. The Supreme Court ordered the Archbishop to pay 30,000 pesos for not providing information to a young woman who accused a priest for having humiliated for 4 years.]

Tras varias idas, vueltas y reveses en la Justicia local, el Arzobispado de Mendoza deberá indemnizar a un joven que aseguró haber sido abusado sexualmente por un sacerdote. Si bien en el expediente civil que llegó hasta la Suprema Corte de Justicia no se pudo determinar si se cometieron las vejaciones, si se condenó a la institución religiosa por no investigar los hechos.

Iván Rubén González denunció que durante 1998 y 2001 fue abusado sexualmente en reiteradas ocasiones por el clérigo Jorge Luis Morello en una parroquia ubicada en San Martín. En marzo del último año, presentó un escrito al arzobispo para que inicie una investigación interna y se apliquen las normas “eclesiásticas y canónicas”.

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

AUSTRALIA
Perth Now

MICHAEL MADIGAN THE COURIER-MAIL APRIL 17, 2015

A RETIRED senior Queensland cleric has admitted the Catholic Church failed victims of sexual abuse in the Rockhampton diocese.

Bishop Brian Heenan made significant admissions during a day on the witness stand at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses into Child Sexual Abuse in Rockhampton.

Bishop Heenan, in charge of the diocese during the ’90s as the scandal erupted, admitted he put the Catholic Church’s reputation before his duty to listen to victims — including those abused at the notorious Neerkol orphanage.

He admitted to Counsel Assisting Sophie David, SC, that he allowed pedophile priest Reg Durham to continue working with children when he knew he had sexually abused a child.

Bishop Heenan also accepted a proposition at the core of the Commission’s terms of reference: that the Church failed to respond adequately to abuse charges.

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

AUSTRALIA
The Canberra Times

April 17, 2015

David Ellery
Reporter for The Canberra Times.

Canberra’s Marist Brothers community is to be disbanded by the middle of the year following the deaths of two members in the past 18 months and the appointment of a third to head a new community in Western Sydney.

Marist Brothers have lived and worked in the ACT since the late 1960s when Marist College Canberra was established.

A spokesman for the order said the decision to close the community would not affect the running of the college which now operates with lay teachers and a lay principal.

“The Marist Brothers stress this decision (to close the community and relocate the remaining brothers) is entirely unrelated to the sad events that were the subject of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse),” the spokesman said.

“This brings to an end nearly half a century of the brothers’ presence in Canberra.

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

DEUTSCHLAND
Zeit

[Many priests are dissatisfied with celibacy. Depressing result for the Catholic Church: An in-house study shows that many priests would not opt ​​again for a life without a partner.]

Deutsche Priester sind nach einer neuen Studie mit dem ihnen auferlegten Zölibat unzufrieden. Ein Drittel der Priester gab an, dass sich der Zölibat belastend auf ihren Dienst auswirkt. Ein Viertel würde sich, wäre ein Neustart möglich, nicht noch einmal für ein zölibatäres Leben entscheiden. Ein weiteres Viertel ist unentschlossen.

Dies ergab eine innerkirchliche Untersuchung der Wissenschaftler-Gruppe unter Leitung des Jesuiten Eckhard Frick. Die Studie basiert auf den Antworten von 8.600 Seelsorgern, 4.200 von ihnen arbeiteten als Priester. Als besonders belastend empfindet die Mehrheit der männlichen Geistlichen demnach den Verzicht auf Sexualität, Intimität und eigene Kinder.

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

VATIKAN
Katholisch

Missbrauch | 16.04.2015 – Vatikanstadt

Der Bostoner Kardinal Sean Patrick O’Malley drängt darauf, Bischöfe stärker zur Verantwortung zu ziehen, die die Aufarbeitung des sexuellen Missbrauchs in der katholischen Kirche blockieren. Wie der britische “Catholic Herold” und das us-amerikanische Internetportal “Crux” übereinstimmend berichten, hat der Vorsitzende der päpstlichen Kinderschutzkommission das Thema im K9-Rat angesprochen.

Das Gremium zur Vorbereitung einer Kurienreform hatte sich von Montag bis Mittwoch zu Beratungen im Vatikan getroffen. O’Malley habe darauf gedrungen, konkrete Prozeduren zu schaffen, um Bischöfe zur Rechenschaft zu ziehen, die ihrer Verantwortung zum Jugendschutz nicht nachkämen. Es müsse klare Kriterien zur Bewertung und Sanktionierung von bischöflichem Amtsmissbrauchs geben. Kardinal O’Malley ist der us-amerikanische Vertreter im K9-Rat.

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

VATIKAN
Blick

[The Vatican is preparing stricter rules for dealing with bishops.]

Der Vatikan bereitet strengere Regeln für den Umgang mit Bischöfen vor. Sie sollen Kindesmissbrauch durch Priester nicht mehr vertuschen können.

Sein Vorhaben diskutierte Papst Franziskus gestern mit Kardinälen in seinem Beraterstab. Demnach beanstandeten die Kardinäle, dass die bisherigen Regeln «nicht genügen klar» seien. Dies teilte Vatikansprecher Federico Lombardi am späten Abend bei einer Pressekonferenz mit.

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

CALIFORNIA
American Thinker

By Matt C. Abbott

The libertine left’s bullying of Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco continues (in fairness, the moral climate there isn’t any worse than here in Chicago).

From Catholic World News:

More than 100 prominent Catholics signed a full-page advertisement in the San Francisco Chronicle urging Pope Francis to replace Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone.

The paid advertisement charged that Archbishop Cordileone has created ‘an atmosphere of division and intolerance’ in the city, and his policies seem ‘closer to persecution than evangelization.’….

The complaint against Archbishop Cordileone focused on his effort to ensure that Catholic-school teachers do not undermine the teachings of the Church.

The archdiocese’s official response is a good one:

The advertisement is a misrepresentation of Catholic teaching, a misrepresentation of the nature of the teacher contract, and a misrepresentation of the spirit of the archbishop. The greatest misrepresentation of all is that the signers presume to speak for ‘the Catholic Community of San Francisco.’ They do not.

The archdiocese has met with a broad range of stakeholders. Together, we have engaged in a constructive dialogue on all of the issues raised in this ad. We welcome the chance to continue that discussion.

Of course, the left’s idea of dialogue is “Agree with us or else!” Leftists talk about promoting dialogue and tolerance, but we know their true colors by their actions.

An interesting side note:

A priest gave a homily in recent weeks in which he talked about an incident that occurred when he was in San Francisco some time ago. The priest, wearing his clerical garb, was simply walking on the sidewalk when a man starting yelling angrily at him from across the street.

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

CALIFORNIA
San Francisco Appeal

Amid continuing controversy over proposed additions to the faculty handbook for Bay Area-based Catholic schools, a group of prominent Bay Area Catholics has called on Pope Francis to remove San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone.

In a letter to the pope, the letter’s signatories, which includes prominent San Francisco business leaders, teachers and attorneys, wrote, “Upon threat of losing their jobs, he coerces educators and staff in our Catholic high schools to accept a morality code which violates individual consciences as well as California labor laws.”

At issue is proposed language for the faculty handbook warning that homosexual relations and other sexual activities outside of marriage are “gravely evil.”

If adopted for the 2015-16 school year, the handbook would specify, “all extra-marital sexual relationships are gravely evil and that these include adultery, masturbation, fornication, the viewing of pornography and homosexual relations.”

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

CALIFORNIA
Box Turtle Bulletin

Timothy Kincaid
April 16th, 2015

Salvatore Cordileone is a bit of a superstar in the anti-gay community. He is considered to be the father of California’s Proposition 8, the man who shepherded its drafting, organized the funding for signature gathering, and championed it within the Catholic Church. He is also a on the board of the ex-gay Catholic group, Courage, and chairman of the U.S. Catholic Bishops Conference’s Ad Hoc Committee for the Defense of Marriage.

Cordileone’s anti-gay activism served him well under former Pope Benedict the Malevolent. He quickly rose from auxiliary bishop of San Diego (2002) to Bishop of Oakland (2009) and then, in a deliberate slap to gay Catholics, to Archbishop of San Francisco (2012).

In his new exalted position, Cordileone has been quick to display his contempt to those who are more welcoming in their theological approach. Among his first acts was to snub the gay-friendly Episcopal bishop of Northern California at his installation. He quickly followed by demanding that teachers at the area’s Catholic schools be held to the strictest “morality” clauses, recruited a priest who then banned girls from serving at the altar, and spent more than a little time advocating for his anti-equality obsession.

But this has not sat well with some San Francisco’s Catholic community. They don’t like the Archbishop’s heavy-handed ideology and don’t find it to be an approach that appeals to local Catholics or which promises appeal among the younger faithful. The students and parents of some Catholic schools have held protests against the Archbishop and his policies were mocked at a local Irish Catholic event where he gave benediction.

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

UNITED STATES
GlobalPost

Jason Berry
Apr 16, 2015

The Vatican’s controversial takeover of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious — which represents 53,000 nuns, America’s largest group of sisters — halted in Rome today, ending a four year standoff.

The nuns won.

Both sides have agreed not to give interviews for 30 days, according to an LCWR spokeswoman.

What a difference a papacy makes.

In a photograph circulated by the Vatican City newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, four sisters sit smiling across from Pope Francis, none wearing habits. The pope also smiles, but made no statement and is not quoted in the documents released by the LCWR, and Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the office that polices theologians and church officials on doctrinal disputes.

“Pope Francis met with them for fifty minutes,” FutureChurch co-founder Sister Christine Schenk told GroundTruth. “We’ve never had the leadership meet in a private office with the pope. That is a very significant valuing of the leadership and the role of women in the church. On balance, there are tremendous positives from this resolution.”

Under Pope Benedict, the CDF announced in 2012 that Seattle Archbishop Peter Sartain would function as LCWR overseer, approving their literature and vetting conference speakers. It was strikingly blunt, scolding the women superiors for “radical, feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith.” …

“A broad range of Catholic foundations privately expressed to bishops and cardinals their utter dismay and strong opposition to this wholly unnecessary investigation of women religious,” a prominent philanthropist who spoke on background told GroundTruth earlier this year.

A number of foundations offered assistance, either materially or in advisory capacities, to mother superiors whose communities were selling assets to manage long-term elder care as their numbers declined.

The Conrad N. Hilton Foundation — which has provided major support to National Catholic Reporter for its Global Sisters Report coverage — also awarded $2.5 million to the National Religious Retirement Office, which assists religious communities in America in bridging the gap in retirement fund shortfalls.

Meanwhile, Cardinal Levada, Archbishop Sartain and Toledo Bishop Leonard Blair — a key investigator of LCWR — had all been tarnished with media coverage of their giving soft-glove treatment to clergy sex abusers. Levada had the dubious distinction, while San Francisco prelate, of being the only bishop in America to be successfully sued by a priest who claimed whistle-blower status after Levada removed him from his parish for reporting his pastor to police for alleged advances on a youth.

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

SPAIN
The Olive Press

Rituals began in 2012 when Valladolid exorcist, Jesus Hernandez Sahagun, was contacted by the girl’s parents who were convinced she was ‘possessed by the devil’.

Dramatic ceremonies which allegedly involved the girl being tied up with crucifixes placed on her head left the girl injured and, on one occasion, she attempted suicide.

Hernandez, who has performed over 200 exorcisms in the past four years, was defended by the Archbishop of Burgos who insisted the suicide attempt was not connected.

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

IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Friday, April 17, 2015

Liam Heylin

The jury in the case of a former Christian Brother who denied charges of indecently assaulting a primary school boy in the 1970s reached verdicts of not guilty yesterday after two-and-a-half hours of deliberation.

Louis Morgan, aged 66, of Glenmarian Rd, Portlaoise, denied four counts of indecent assault.

The jury gave their verdicts of not guilty on all four charges of indecently assaulting a boy, aged 8/9, in the mid-1970s at the Christian Brothers primary school on Blarney St, Cork.

In his charging of the jury, Judge David Riordan had referred to a witness who said he had been sexually assaulted by the same defendant when he was a boy in the same school.

“This evidence is not corroborative. He did not give evidence that he saw any of the acts complained of by (the complainant)… It was not produced to blacken the character of the accused. You are not to draw an inference,” the judge said.

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

CALIFORNIA
Catholic World Report

Catherine Harmon

The latest installment of the drama currently unfolding in the Archdiocese of San Francisco saw two groups of local Catholics make known their very different opinions of Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone’s leadership, and in no uncertain terms.

“Archbishop Cordileone has fostered an atmosphere of division and intolerance,” declares a full-page advertisement in today’s edition of the San Francisco Chronicle. “The Archdiocese of San Francisco is threatened by Archbishop Cordileone’s single-issue agenda and cannot survive, let alone thrive and grow under his supervision.”

“Our courageous archbishop has made news nationwide for his effort to keep San Francisco’s Catholic schools Catholic,” states a grassroots organization formed to support Cordileone and his efforts. “For properly fulfilling his responsibilities he has come under targeted, coordinated attacks from activists, politicians and the media.”

While Archbishop Cordileone’s vocal defense of Catholic moral teaching—particularly the Church’s view of marriage and family—has made him unpopular with his city’s liberal politicians for a while now, the current furor among the faithful in San Francisco was ignited by the announcement in early February that contracts and employee handbooks for four archdiocesan high schools would include clauses detailing Catholic teaching on sexual morality.

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

CALIFORNIA
Marin Independent Journal

By Janis Mara, Marin Independent Journal
POSTED: 04/16/15

Prominent Catholics with Marin ties who signed a full-page Chronicle ad running Thursday asking Pope Francis to replace San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone said they stand behind their decision.

The open letter cited morality clauses Cordileone proposed for a teacher handbook requiring teachers to “affirm and believe” that sex outside marriage and masturbation are “gravely evil,” among other actions.

The open letter stated that the Archdiocese of San Francisco is threatened by Cordileone’s “single-issue agenda and cannot survive, let alone thrive and grow under his supervision” and that San Francisco deserves a leader focused on service and diversity.

“We are really disappointed that the archbishop is extremely conservative and not flexible to meet the needs of the Catholic population he is serving,” said Suzanne Swift of Tiburon, a former member of the board of directors of Catholic Charities CYO of the Archdiocese. She and her husband Brian, also a former board member, were two more than 100 people who signed the letter.

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

VATICAN CITY
Headlines from the Catholic World

Vatican City, Apr 17, 2015 / 12:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Already two years into the reform process of the Roman Curia, progress might seem slow. But cardinals on the Pope’s advisory council say efforts – which may soon include new “super” congregations – are moving forward at a normal pace.

“Reform will take time,” stressed Honduran Cardinal Oscar Rodríguez Maradiaga April 15.

Cardinal Maradiaga is part of the nine-member Council of Cardinal Advisors instituted by Pope Francis shortly after his election, to aid him in governing the Church and to reform the Roman Curia.

The Curia is currently ordered by “Pastor bonus,” the apostolic constitution issued by Bl. John Paul II in 1988 which regulates and defines the charges, duties and composition of the offices of the Vatican administration. The Council of Cardinals is now working to prepare a new constitution to govern the body.

Cardinal Maradiaga noted that “Pastor bonus” took several years to implement. “We cannot suppose (a new constitution) is going to be accomplished in short time.”

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

AUSTRALIA
The Morning Bulletin

12.30PM: THE commission has heard when criminal action went ahead against Fr Durham, Fr Heenan wrote a letter of reference about his priest’s character.

Fr Heenan believed it was his duty to write a character reference despite the allegations against Fr Durham.

He said in his reference: “he (Fr Durham) has had a unique life as a citizen of this district, priest to many parish communities, chaplain to service personnel and inspiring friend to young and old alike. I ask that the incredible amount of good he has done will be weighed against the failing that have also been part of his life”.

12.10PM: IT took five years, after he was made aware of sexual allegations against his parish priests, for Father Heenan to make a formal apology to the victims of sexual abuse at Neerkol.

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

AUSTRALIA
Brisbane Times

April 17, 2015

Miranda Forster

A retired Catholic bishop says he deeply regrets dismissing allegations of child sexual abuse against members of his clergy and admits he put the reputation of the church first.

Former head of the central Queensland diocese of Rockhampton Brian Heenan has told a royal commission his response to multiple allegations of child sexual abuse against priests at the Neerkol orphanage was inappropriate and wrong.

Historical allegations of widespread physical and sexual abuse by priests and nuns at the orphanage began emerging in 1993.

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

OREGON
The Oregonian

By Rick Bella | The Oregonian/OregonLive
on April 16, 2015

Women who waited 18 years to accuse their former pastor of sexual abuse got their day in court Thursday.

One by one, five women who grew up in the communal North Clackamas Bible Community told a Multnomah County jury that Pastor Mike Sperou regularly took advantage of them in the 1980s and 1990s, when they were as young as 4.

Jessica Watson, now a Southeast Portland photographer, testified that she once fell asleep on Sperou’s bed after the two had watched a movie on his big-screen television, then woke up to him rubbing against her.

Afterward, he inserted his finger into her vagina, said Watson, now 33.

“He talked to me, telling me things like, ‘Doesn’t that feel good?’ ”

In an unusual turn of events, Watson is not the alleged victim in Sperou’s criminal case. Instead, Judge Cheryl A. Albrecht is allowing her and five other women to tell their own tales of abuse — in addition to Shannon Clark, the alleged victim in the case. However, the jury is to consider the six women’s testimony only to decide whether Sperou may have touched Clark accidentally or if it was part of a pattern.

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

NEW JERSEY
Courier-Post

Jim Walsh, Courier-Post April 16, 2015

FRANKLIN – A local pastor is accused of sexually assaulting a 21-year-old woman.

James E. Simmons Jr., 64, turned himself in to Franklin police on Wednesday, following an investigation into the alleged offense. The woman claimed the abuse began when she was 17 and continued for several years, police said.

Simmons, a pastor at New Life in Christ Ministries of Franklinville, was held on $150,000 cash bail.

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

PENNSYLVANIA
Lebanon Daily News

By Chris Sholly
chrissholly@ldnews.com @cgsholly on Twitter

Mark Rozzi has become an advocate of sexual assault victims

A Berks County state representative shared his personal story Thursday as a victim of sexual abuse.

As a result of his experience, Rep. Mark Rozzi, D-Berks, said he has been an advocate for victims, pushing legislation to reform statute of limitations laws and to better prevent sexual abuse.

Rozzi was the keynote speaker at the Sexual Assault Resource and Counseling Center’s annual dinner at the Lebanon Country Club.

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

GUAM
Marianas Variety

17 Apr 2015 By Junhan B. Todiño – junhan@mvariety.com – Variety News Staff

HAGÅTÑA — Officials of the Survivor Network of those Abused by Priests or SNAP is calling on Catholic church officials to be more transparent.

Director David Clohessy, said Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez’s recent reexamination of molestation accusations made against Rev. John Wadeson is part of a growing trend.

“I​t seems to be happening more and more. It’s happened in dozens of Catholic abuse and cover-up cases. We have very little faith in these secretive, cleric-dominated church “investigations” or “examinations” into child sex abuse reports,” Clohessy said.

Instead, Clohessy said the examinations should be done by independent, experienced and unbiased professionals in law enforcement, “not by self-interested, biased amateurs in church offices.”

Clohessy said more transparency is needed to uncover possible predators and bishops should use parish bulletins, websites and pulpit announcements to call on victims or witnesses to contact police and prosecutors in cases of abuse.

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

AUSTRALIA
SBS

Source: AAP
17 APR 2015

A retired Catholic bishop described a pedophile priest as having a “unique gift with youth” in a character reference for the man’s court sentence.

Former head of the Catholic diocese of Rockhampton in Queensland Brian Heenan told a royal commission on Friday he regretted parts of the 1999 reference letter in support of the disgraced former member of his clergy, Reginald Durham.

Durham, who is now deceased, was allowed to continue teaching religion to primary school children for more than two years after several people came forward with claims he’d abused them as chaplain at the Neerkol orphanage in the 1960s and 1970s.

But he wasn’t forced to resign as a church employee until he was formally charged in 1997, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse heard on Friday.

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

AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By William Rollo and Marlina Whop

The retired Rockhampton bishop allowed a priest to stay on at a parish even though he knew he was a paedophile, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has heard.

Bishop Brian Heenan also admitted at one point he tried to protect the reputation of the Catholic Church rather than consider the victims of sexual abuse.

Bishop Heenan was cross-examined over the Church’s responses to the abuse allegations at St Joseph’s Orphanage at Neerkol, west of Rockhampton, from the 1940s to the 1970s.

He allowed one of the main offenders, Father Reg Durham, to continue working for the Catholic Church for three years despite a woman alleging in 1994 he sexually abused her since she was a child.

Father Durham was the administrator for the parish of Neerkol and had resided in the presbytery.

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

UNITED STATES
PopeCrimes& Vatican Evils.

Paris Arrow

It usually takes a month and a half for the Vatican to accept an envoy’s credentials but its prolonged silence usually means a rejection. French President François Hollande has appointed – last January – his chief of protocol and a senior diplomat Laurent Stefanini to the Holy See. But since Laurent Stefanini is openly gay, the media is now exposing Pope Francis’ refusal to accept Stefanini because of his open homosexuality. At the same time, the Vatican is reeling with scandals in Italy because of infamous gay Italian priests and by the way, have idiots Catholics forgotten the Vatican Gay Lobby that caused the downfall resignation of Benedict XVI-RATzinger – and the Vatican’s poster gay Cardinal O’Brien of Scotland?

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

AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

Retired Rockhampton bishop Brian Heenan knew about at least one sexually abusive priest in his parish

RETIRED Rockhampton Bishop Brian Heenan knew about at least one sexually abusive priest who had worked in his parish as early as 1994.

But he had no training on how to handle child sex abuse allegations when he was made Bishop in 1991.

Bishop Heenan has appeared as a witness at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Rockhampton, answering questions on the Church’s responses to the abuse allegations at St Joseph’s Orphanage at Neerkol west of the city.

Counsel Assisting Sophie David, SC, asked Bishop Heenan whether, prior to becoming Bishop in 1991, he had any training in how to handle allegations of child sexual abuse related to the church.

“No specific training, no,’’ he said.

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

AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Australian Associated Press
Thursday 16 April 2015

A retired Catholic bishop has admitted that he failed to protect Queensland children from a priest who was later convicted of child sexual offences.

The former bishop of the Rockhampton diocese, Brian Heenan, conceded at the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse that his response to multiple allegations of historical child sexual offences against members of his clergy was inappropriate and inadequate.

Heenan was head of the Rockhampton diocese when former residents of the notorious Neerkol orphanage came forward in the 1990s with claims they had been sexually abused by priests.

One of those at the centre of the allegations, Reginald Durham, was allowed to continue working in an administrative role in church, including alongside primary school students.

Durham was later convicted of indecently dealing with a child resident of the Neerkol orphanage.

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

MINNESOTA
Fox 9

by Paul Blume

(KMSP) –
A U.S. bankruptcy judge in Minneapolis put a firm August 3 deadline on victims and others owed money by the St. Paul-Minneapolis Archdiocese to file their claims.

Today’s news comes as the archdiocese tries to reorganize financially.

Jeff Anderson, attorney for 175 clergy abuse victims, says, “We are going to engage in the most rigorous and vigorous effort to reach those survivors to let them know, there is time and there is a chance. The doors are open to come forward.”

In January, the archdiocese filed for bankruptcy protection, overwhelmed by the number of lawsuits and financial damages sought by victims.

The parties at that time vowed to work through the complex issues without the acrimony and bitter fighting that has erupted with other church battles across the country.

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

CALIFORNIA
SFist

“Holy Father, please provide us with a leader true to our values and your namesake,” begins the text of a full page ad in today’s edition of the Chronicle imploring Pope Francis to “Please replace Archbishop Cordileone.”

Signed by 100 local catholic leaders including alumni of San Francisco Catholic schools, church volunteers, and former board members of Catholic Charities, the open letter is the latest indictment of the gay-hating, drunk driving Archbishop and his move to include “morality clauses” in the contracts of teachers and staff at Catholic high schools.

To recap, Cordileone has instructed the almost 500 employees of archdiocese high schools to “affirm and believe” that actions like “homosexual relations,” birth control, and masturbation are “gravely… intrinsically” evil. In other words, it’s a ban on teachers engaging in any of the “behaviors” themselves or expressing — let’s call them “more nuanced” views in their classrooms.

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

LOUISIANA
KATC

By Tina Macias

A retired priest is being investigated over decades-old allegations of sexual abuse during his time in Lafayette Parish, according to the Youngsville Police Department.

Roy Lee Touchet, 65, of New Jersey is accusing Gerard Smit, 91, of Newark, Delaware, of abusing him in the 1960s when Touchet was an alter boy. The Youngsville Police Department is in the beginning stages of the investigation, said Chief Rickey Boudreaux.

Smit worked for St. Anne in Youngsville and St. Joseph in Milton in the early 1960s. He’s listed as a former assistant pastor of St. Anne on the St. Joseph website.

In 2006, he was among several priests named by the Diocese of Wilmington as a priest with “substantiated allegations of sexual abuse, molestation and rape of minors” on the Diocese of Wilmington website. It’s noted that his allegations came while working in another diocese.

Smit served in Wilmington from 1987-1996, but spent the majority of his career in South Louisiana, working for the Diocese of Lafayette and a new Diocese that was carved out of the Diocese of Lafayette in 1980 — the Diocese of Lake Charles.

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

AUSTRALIA
The Morning Bulletin

ALTHOUGH he will never quite get justice, Allan Allaway wants to see the State Government take some responsibility for the misconduct at Neerkol Orphanage.

“If it wasn’t for those so-called authorities at the State Children’s Department (at the time), there wouldn’t be any physical or sexual abuse at Neerkol,” he said.

“Some of those authorities who were supposed to be doing their jobs were never fired over these incidents (of alleged sexual and physical abuse).”

Today the Royal Commission panel will hear responses from the former Bishop of Rockhampton Brian Heenan and Sister Berneice Loch, from the Sisters of Mercy.

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

AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By William Rollo and Marlina Whop

A retired bishop who dismissed child sex abuse claims made by former residents at a Rockhampton orphanage says he regrets not reading a book written by a victim.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, which began hearings on Tuesday in the central Queensland city, was told that for more than three decades, children at St Joseph’s Neerkol Orphanage were raped, molested and beaten.

It heard victims describe abuse carried out by a groundsman and a group of priests.

The inquiry has heard the Sisters of Mercy who ran the orphanage not only overlooked the abuse but were complicit in it being carried out during a period stretching from the 1940s to the1970s.

One witness says she was raped when she was 14 by a worker at the orphanage in 1965, another was sexually abused by a priest and forced to drink her own urine to stay hydrated.

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

AUSTRALIA
The Morning Bulletin

10AM: BRIAN Heenan has stated he did not read a book published by a Neerkol Orphanage resident, detailing the sexual abuse at the institution, because he didn’t want to believe it.

The Royal Commission has heard prior to the former Rockhampton Bishop moving to the region in 1991, he did not have any training in respect of allegations of sexual assault.

“Sadly sex abuse was rising at the time and there was no adequate preparation until the reality began to dawn,” he said.

Mr Heenan was ordained in 1962. He assisted other priests in the archdiocese in Brisbane before becoming the parish priest of Zillmere.

He has told the Royal Commission one of the alleged assailants of sexual abuse at Neerkol Orphanage, Father Reginald Durham (deceased), retired in 1993.

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

CALIFORNIA
National Catholic Reporter

SAN FRANCISCO The signees of an open letter to Pope Francis in today’s San Francisco Chronicle are the “bedrock of the archdiocese,” said one of them at a press conference this morning.

The full-page ad asking the pope to replace Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone “was intended to speak for itself,” said Michael Kelly, president of Walkup Melodia Kelly & Schoenberger, a prominent law firm in San Francisco. But when the archdiocese released a statement Wednesday that the 112 Catholics whose names appeared on the ad do not speak for the Catholic community, the signees announced a press conference Thursday morning in the city’s financial district.

The signees, Kelly said, “are the hardworking men and women, moms and dads of the archdiocese.” Noting that many of them have received awards from the archdiocese, he added, “The notion that the signees of this document are a fringe group … is complete folly and balderdash.” He added that since the ad appeared, dozens more Catholics have contacted him in support.

The ad, which ran in the main section of the paper and reportedly cost in the tens of thousands of dollars, is titled “A Respectful Appeal to Pope Francis from the Catholic Community of San Francisco.”

“Holy Father,” it reads. “Please Replace Archbishop Cordileone.” It goes on to list complaints with Cordileone, including a morality code required for high school teachers, isolation from the community and use of the words “gravely evil” to describe the behavior of parishioners.

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

NEW JERSEY
Asbury Park press

Shannon Mullen, Asbury Park Press April 16, 2015

TRENTON – The jury in the federal conspiracy and kidnapping trial of three rabbis – including Rabbi Mendel Epstein, of Lakewood – and a fourth defendant, Epstein’s son and alleged enforcer, deliberated throughout the day Thursday without reaching a verdict.

The panel of six men and six women are scheduled to resume deliberations Monday.

Epstein, 69, is the alleged mastermind behind a series of assaults on men who refused to grant their wives divorces in accordance with Jewish law. He could face life in prison if convicted of kidnapping.

Some of the men testified during the trial that they were hooded, handcuffed, beaten, stomped and shocked into submission with a stun gun or cattle prod.

The attorneys for Epstein and his co-defendants – his son, David Epstein, of Lakewood, and two other rabbis, Jay Goldstein and Benyamin Stimler – say the government over-reached in trying the men on kidnapping-related charges.

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

NEW JERSEY
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — The first full day of jury deliberations has ended without a verdict in the federal case of an Orthodox rabbi accused in New Jersey of using brutal tactics to force unwilling Jewish men to divorce their wives.

The jury began deliberations Wednesday afternoon and resumed Thursday. They asked U.S. District Judge Freda Wolfson two questions, but did not reach a verdict. Deliberations continue Monday.

Rabbi Mendel Epstein faces charges of conspiracy to commit kidnapping and attempted kidnapping with his son and two other Orthodox rabbis.

Prosecutors say the rabbi’s team used brutal methods and tools, including handcuffs and electric cattle prods, to torture the men into granting divorces.

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

NEW JERSEY
NJ.com

By MaryAnn Spoto | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on April 16, 2015 at

TRENTON — Jurors in the trial of a Lakewood rabbi accused of arranging the kidnapping and torture of husbands to extract religious divorces completed their first full day of deliberations without reaching a verdict on Thursday.

In deciding the fate of Rabbi Mendel Epstein and three others, jurors briefly interrupted their deliberations to ask two questions of U.S. District Judge Freda Wolfson in Trenton, but ultimately did not come to a conclusion.

Epstein, a prominent rabbi who specializes in divorce proceedings, is on trial along with his son, David “Ari” Epstein, and two other rabbis, Binyamin Stimler and Jay Goldstein, on conspiracy and kidnapping charges that grew out of a federal undercover sting.

A couple hours into their deliberations, jurors sent a note asking whether knowledge of someone’s confinement against his will constitutes kidnapping.

In a written reply, Wolfson told them it does not constitute kidnapping but that they should ask for clarification if they need to know how that relates to the other charges.

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

NEW YORK
Times Newsweekly

BY ROBERT POZARYCKI
rpozarycki@ridgewoodtimes.com @robbpoz

Four times since 2006, Assemblywoman Margaret Markey’s Child Victims Act — which extends the criminal and civil statute of limitations to punish sexual predators — passed the Assembly, but never made it to the state Senate floor for a vote.

The Maspeth lawmaker, however, isn’t giving up her efforts to make her bill a law.

Markey announced on April 13 a renewed effort to make the Child Victims Act a reality, which includes meeting in Albany on April 22 with colleagues and advocates of sexual abuse victims. She also secured the support of state Senator Brad Hoylman of Manhattan, who is sponsoring a companion bill in the state Senate.

The Child Victims Act amends the statute of limitations to prosecute — and for victims to sue —alleged sexual abusers. Current state law requires that victims must present criminal or civil charges within five years of their 18th birthday.

Markey’s bill would eliminate all criminal and civil statutes regarding future child sex abuse cases, meaning that victims who are abused after the act becomes law may come forward and press charges or file a lawsuit at any time after the abuse took place.

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

CALIFORNIA
Huffington Post

By Carol Kuruvilla & Antonia Blumberg

A group of Catholics in San Francisco is asking the pope to replace their archdiocese’s spiritual leader, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, with someone “true to our values.”

More than 100 Catholics signed a full-page ad in Thursday’s San Francisco Chronicle asking Pope Francis to name a new church leader more closely aligned with San Francisco’s progressive ideals. In their open letter, the petitioners argue that Cordileone has “fostered an atmosphere of division and intolerance” and “isolated himself from our community.”

The letter follows months of protests against the archdiocese’s leadership. Frustrated local Catholics have spoken out, in particular, against Cordileone’s efforts to add language to the moral guidelines laid out for teachers at Catholic high schools that reaffirms the church’s stances on same-sex marriage, artificial insemination and other controversial matters. …

James Martin, a Jesuit priest and editor at large of the Catholic magazine America, told HuffPost that although these types of grassroots campaigns have arisen before, they rarely have any influence on the Vatican.

“The decision to remove a bishop is made by the Vatican, specifically the Congregation of Bishops advising the Pope,” Martin told HuffPost in an email. “The only time that a petition might influence the Vatican is if it seems that the bishop is unable to lead the diocese because of widespread opposition. But normally these campaigns do not serve to sway the Vatican. Sometimes they may have the opposite effect, and raise sympathy for a bishop — that is, if he’s seen to being ‘attacked.'”

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

MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

Martin Moylan Apr 16, 2015

The federal judge overseeing the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis’ bankruptcy case indicated Thursday that he will shorten the window for sex abuse victims to file claims against the church.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Kressel signaled that he will concur with the archdiocese and set an Aug. 3 date for filing claims, though he said he would consider giving victims more time if needed.

August is much earlier than the filing deadline allowed under a Minnesota law that gives abuse victims until May 2016 to file lawsuits over abuse that happened long ago. The archdiocese said the earlier date could mean a quicker resolution for claims and reduced bankruptcy costs, leaving more assets available for victims.

Victims attorney Jeff Anderson argued unsuccessfully that the 2016 deadline should hold.

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

MINNESOTA
Seattle PI

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A federal bankruptcy judge has indicated he will shorten the window for clergy sex abuse victims to file claims against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Kressel signaled Thursday that he will agree with the archdiocese and set an Aug. 3 date for filing claims. However, Kressel said he would consider giving victims more time if needed.

Minnesota Public Radio News (http://bit.ly/1IjgyYm ) reports August is much earlier than the filing deadline allowed under a Minnesota law that gives abuse victims until May 2016 to file lawsuits over abuse that happened years ago. The archdiocese said the earlier date could mean a quicker resolution for claims and reduced bankruptcy costs, leaving more assets available for victims.

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

MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By Elizabeth Mohr
emohr@pioneerpress.com
POSTED: 04/16/2015

The judge handling the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis bankruptcy case said Thursday he would approve its request to set an Aug. 3 deadline for victims of clergy sexual abuse to file claims, despite a state law allowing them until May 25, 2016.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Kressel said he wasn’t convinced that allowing more time for victims to come forward would change anything.

Kressel said he wanted to keep court proceedings moving forward and said that by August most claims and the circumstances around them will likely already be known.

He noted that the deadline could be changed if needed.

“We’re not closing a window on anybody,” Kressel said. “We’re setting a date for timely filing of claims.”

He indicated he would approve the church’s request, but called for several edits to the proposed order. The revised order is expected to be submitted for his signature soon.

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

MISSOURI
Berger’s Beat

April 16, 2015 | Author: berger

The Joliet diocese has settled 14 predator priest cases for $4.1 million. Two of the clerics worked in our town. One is Fr. Fred Lenczycki, the first U.S. priest to be deemed a “sexually violent predator.” He was at two local hospital (DePaul and Deaconess) and three local parishes (St. Blaise Parish in Maryland Heights. North American Martyrs in Florissant and St. George’s in south St. Louis county). The other is Fr. Lawrence M. Gibbs, who has been called “Joliet’s most notorious” and “savage” predator priest. Ironically, in 2002, when he was first sued, Gibbs was a state social worker in St. Louis investigating abuse allegations against the elderly.

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

NEW JERSEY
South Jersey Times

By Matt Gray | South Jersey Times
on April 16, 2015

A Franklin Township pastor has been charged with sexually assaulting a teenager, township police reported.

James E. Simmons Jr., 64, is accused of assaulting the victim, now 21 years old, beginning when she was 17, according to a release issued by the police department.

The victim told police the alleged abuse continued for several years, authorities said.

Simmons, pastor at New Life in Christ Ministries in Malaga, turned himself in to police on Wednesday.

He was charged with several counts of second-degree sex assault, criminal sexual contact and endangering the welfare of a child.

Bail was set at $150,000 full cash.

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

OREGON
The Oregonian

By Rick Bella | The Oregonian/OregonLive
on April 16, 2015

Two women who grew up in Happy Valley Pastor Mike Sperou’s communal church confronted him in court for the first time Thursday, accusing him of sexually abusing them in the 1980s and 1990s.

One woman, 35-year-old Amy Robinson, said that while she was in middle school, she awoke after she was invited to spend the night with Sperou, to find his fingers in her vagina.

“He also would put my hand over his penis, over his underwear,” said Robinson, now a mother of four in Saugus, Massachusetts.

Robinson is one of seven women accusing Sperou of abuse in the cluster of homes the North Clackamas Bible Community rents in Happy Valley and Southeast Portland. However, Robinson is not the victim in Sperou’s criminal case.

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

GEORGIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, April 16, 2015

For more information: Rich Darr cell phone: 815 370 4703, rsdarr@earthlink.net

Abuse victims to hold meeting in Atlanta
“Missionary kids” were molested overseas
Their parents proselytized in developing nations
Children were put in ill-prepared boarding homes

Adults who were sexually, physically and emotionally abused overseas in Christian settings are holding an international conference this weekend (Apr 17-19) in Atlanta, GA.

The group, MK Safety Net, provides support to those who suffered while their parents were Christian missionaries in developing nations across the globe.

Their plight was detailed in an award-winning documentary film called All God’s Children.

[All God’s Children]

Led by a minister, the group will hold a service of lament, called “A Time to Mourn. A Time to Grieve.”

One of the speakers will be Boz Tchividjian, a former prosecutor who is Rev. Billy Graham’s grandson. He heads a group called GRACE, Godly Response to Abuse in Christian Environments and blogs for the Religion News Service.

Other speakers include attorneys and mental health professionals.

“It’s an amazing group of people: men and women who were taken abroad as children when their devout parents became missionaries in developing nations,” said David Clohessy of St. Louis. He’s the director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. “These youngsters lived away from their moms and dads and were often treated brutally and abused repeatedly by ‘dorm parents.’”

“As adults, in the early/mid 1990s, these brave and courageous victims began to organize, reach out, support each other and expose the horrors they endured in these isolated settings,” said Barbara Dorris of SNAP. “We know MKSafety Net has given comfort and guidance to hundreds of adults who still struggle with the life-long impact of such horrific betrayal.”

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

UNITED STATES
First Things

by Robert P. George
4 . 16 . 15

Your Holiness:

I recall with pleasure and gratitude my visit to the Vatican in November and your moving address to our Colloquium on the Complementarity of Man and Woman in Marriage. There, gathered with leaders of the world’s great religious traditions, East and West, you reaffirmed the Church’s doctrine of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife and spoke movingly of the right of every child “to grow up in a family with a father and mother.”

Here in the United States we are blessed with many bishops who join you in bearing witness to these profound and indispensable truths. Even in the face of social and economic pressure on them to yield or go silent, they boldly and joyously proclaim the Church’s teachings on marriage and chastity. None has been more fearless or ardent in upholding these beautiful and liberating teachings than Salvatore Cordileone, the Archbishop of San Francisco.

Faithful Catholics in his archdiocese and throughout our country have been edified by his labors—particularly those addressed to ensuring that the Catholic schools under his care teach and model fidelity to Catholic doctrine in all matters of faith and morals. Unsurprisingly, however, these labors have drawn the antagonism of many who despise the Church’s moral teachings, especially those concerning marriage and sexual morality.

This morning, a group of people published an open letter to you in a San Francisco newspaper urging you to remove Archbishop Cordileone from his office. They identify themselves as Catholics and plead with you to send them a new archbishop that will be true to what they describe as “our values.” But their values, unlike the values proclaimed and upheld by Archbishop Cordileone, are not the values of the Catholic faith. Their complaint against the Archbishop finally comes down to his refusal to bow down before the values of contemporary secularist sexual morality and gender ideology. For this, however, he should be applauded and encouraged, not condemned, much less ousted.

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

CALIFORNIA
New York Daily News

BY DEBORAH HASTINGS NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Thursday, April 16, 2015

Scores of Catholic leaders in the San Francisco Bay Area have signed an open letter to Pope Francis calling for the removal of controversial Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, who calls homosexual relations “gravely evil.”

In a full-page ad in the San Francisco Chronicle, more than 100 donors and church members asked the pontiff to replace Cordileone for encouraging “an atmosphere of division and intolerance.”

The signers included Brian Cahill, retired executive director of Catholic Charities, Tom Brady Sr., father of New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, and Adobe Systems chairman Charles Geschke.

The petitioners’ complaints include: the appointment of a parish pastor who banned altar girls from church services; an elementary school pamphlet that asked children if they masturbated or engaged in sodomy, and a hardline stance by the archbishop against same-sex marriage and same-sex relationships.

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

CALIFORNIA
Boston Globe

By Michael O’Loughlin GLOBE STAFF APRIL 16, 2015

A group of San Francisco Catholics threw a Hail Mary Thursday, asking Pope Francis to fire their archbishop. Among those calling for a replacement of Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone is the father of New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady.

Tom Brady Sr. joined about 100 other Bay Area Catholics in signing a full-page advertisement in the San Francisco Chronicle Thursday, in which they ask Pope Francis to remove Cordileone as archbishop because of what they say is “an atmosphere of division and intolerance” in the archdiocese.

“Holy Father,” the ad reads, “please provide us with a leader true to our values and your namesake.”

Cordileone has been under assault from some Catholics since news broke in February that teachers in archdiocesan-run schools would be required to sign a contract that states they “accept the Church’s teaching that all extra-marital sexual relationships are gravely evil and that these include adultery, masturbation, fornication, the viewing of pornography and homosexual relations.”

Blowback was swift, with lawmakers, teachers, and now major donors voicing opposition.

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

CALIFORNIA
San Francisco Chronicle

By C.W. Nevius
April 16, 2015

Ever since he arrived in San Francisco more than two years ago, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone has courted controversy. He attended rallies against anti-same sex marriage unapologetically, imposed “morality classes” on teachers at local Catholic schools and supported the extreme views of Star of the Sea pastor Joseph Illo.

Through it all Cordileone has maintained a serene equanimity. Illo, his surrogate, said in a January interview with Catholic World Report that when there was a backlash to Illo’s decision to ban girls from becoming altar servers the Archbishop told him, “the negative press coverage was par for the course for this kind of announcement, and we expect it to just be a flash in the pan.”

It’s now clear that was a naive miscalculation. Thursday’s full page ad in The Chronicle, signed by over 100 prominent Catholics, that called on the Vatican to replace Cordileone was just the latest volley. These people aren’t going away.

It is important to note that these aren’t cliché San Francisco radical activists — who, by the way, have been conspicuous by their absence in this discussion. These are parents, teachers and families. These are everyday people galvanized to action.

It can be said that Cordileone has gotten exactly what he wanted. As Illo gleefully said in the January interview, courting controversy with extreme views serves as “a poke in the eye of the liberal culture of San Francisco.”

So if the archbishop wanted a fight — mission accomplished.

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

UNITED STATES
Slate

By Miriam Krule

At the end of last year, the Vatican ended its controversial six-year investigation into the lives and actions of American nuns with an approving report. The entire exercise was a strange waste of time that rightfully angered many Catholics: Though the report scrutinized the nuns for their commitment to social justice—referred to as their “feminist spirit” and “secular mentality”—it concluded by essentially telling them to keep doing what they’re doing to work toward “the elimination of the structural causes of poverty.”

That wasn’t the church’s only pointless nun investigation. Even after Pope Francis’ call “to create still broader opportunities for a more incisive female presence in the church,” the Vatican was still in the midst of another nun review. This one focused on the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, an umbrella group representing about 80 percent of American nuns, who were accused of indulging in “radical feminist themes” and therefore straying from Catholic doctrine.

The timeline for the review was always murky, but on Thursday morning, the Vatican abruptly announced an end to that investigation as well. Cardinal Gerhard Mueller, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and leader of this effort, did little in the way of explanation—the official joint statement speaks in the abstract, mentioning “fruitful conversation” and “substantive dialogue,” with few, if any, details. As the Jesuit priest and Slate contributor James Martin posted on Facebook:

In a press release and statement the LCWR agreed to implement some changes, mainly regarding speakers and liturgies at its annual conventions. But overall, the operations of the LCWR remains intact. Early fears of the outright elimination of the group, a wholesale Vatican takeover or a complete reordering of their statutes have proven unfounded.

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

AUSTRALIA
The Morning Bulletin

Austin King | 17th Apr 2015

IT WAS hard to obtain justice when the priest of Neerkol Orphanage, Father John Anderson, was friends with the State Children’s Department inspector, a Mr Paterson.

That’s what former resident David Owen alleged in yesterday’s Royal Commission hearing into child sex abuse at Neerkol Orphanage.

But justice, and a promise made to his mother Catherine Pearl Owen, was finally served when David Owen told his story.

Catherine gave birth to David at Kidston in north Queensland. She was just 13 years of age.

The commission heard a police officer of the town, who David knew only as Constable 3322, raped his mother when she was 12.

It was Catherine’s job each week to attend the Kidston Police Station to collect Constable 3322’s dirty laundry and take it back to her grandmother’s wash house.

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

VATICAN CITY
The New York Times

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
APRIL 16, 2015

The Vatican abruptly ended its takeover of the main leadership group of American nuns on Thursday, allowing Pope Francis to put to rest a confrontation started by his predecessor that had created an uproar among American Catholics who came to the sisters’ defense.

Four of the leaders of the American nuns’ group, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, were called to an unexpected meeting on Thursday with Pope Francis in the Vatican that lasted 50 minutes. He did not speak publicly, but the sisters said afterward in a statement that they were “deeply heartened” by Francis’ “expression of appreciation” for the lives and ministry of Catholic sisters.

The sweeping investigation of American women’s religious orders was begun under Francis’ predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, at the urging of American and some foreign prelates who accused the sisters of disobeying the bishops and departing from Catholic doctrine. It set off protests by Catholic laypeople across the country, who signed petitions and sent letters to the Vatican in defense of the sisters.

The matter has now been brought to an early conclusion by Francis, who has never spoken directly about it in public but has often talked of the important role of women in the church and the nuns and priests in religious orders. He himself is a member of the Jesuit order.

The news came in a brief report issued jointly by the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and the three American bishops who had been appointed by the Vatican three years ago to take over and overhaul the organization.

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

AUSTRALIA
9 News

A retired Catholic bishop who came under fire for once dismissing abuse allegations at a Queensland orphanage will face a royal commission.

In 1996, then-head of the Catholic diocese of Rockhampton Brian Heenan labelled claims of child abuse at the Neerkol orphanage “scurrilous” and “slanderous”.

Mr Heenan later formally apologised to former Neerkol residents on behalf of the diocese and said he regretted not acknowledging their sufferings.

The former bishop is due to appear at a public hearing of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Rockhampton on Friday.

Representatives of the Sisters of Mercy, who ran the orphanage, are also expected to be called.

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

VATICAN CITY
Crux

By John L. Allen Jr.
Associate editor April 16, 2015

Sometimes in the news business, stories run their course without the explosive ending their dramatic arc would seem to merit. Think a nasty lawsuit, for instance, which ends with an amicable settlement, or the early years of the Super Bowl when a matchup that looked like a heavyweight collision on paper ended with a blowout.

Such would appear to be the case with the conclusion announced Thursday of the Vatican’s now six-year-old investigation of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), the main umbrella group for the leaders of women’s religious orders in the United States.

The review was first communicated to the LCWR in 2009, and came to a preliminary crescendo with a tough “doctrinal assessment” in 2012 accusing the organization of various forms of dissent and error.

Purely at the level of perception, this was a made-for-Hollywood standoff between rigid male hierarchs and feisty progressive nuns. Most media outlets and a solid chunk of Catholic opinion at the grassroots, naturally, sided with the nuns.

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

CALIFORNIA
Crux

By Michael O’Loughlin
National reporter April 16, 2015

A study in contrasts is playing out in California, where the newly installed bishop of San Diego, Robert McElroy, issued a call to resist the culture wars yesterday at the same time that prominent Catholics in San Francisco, just 50 miles up the coast, were calling for the firing of his former boss, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone.

McElroy, an auxiliary bishop in San Francisco for many years, was tapped by Pope Francis last month to lead one of the nation’s largest dioceses, with more than 1 million Catholics, in the latest sign that Francis intends to leave his pastoral imprint on the American Church.

A frequent writer on social inequality and an admirer of Pope Francis, McElroy called on Catholics to step back from the culture wars rocking the country during a service right before his installation Mass yesterday.

Describing culture as “a spiritual enterprise to be cherished,” he said the Church must be a bridge builder.

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

IRELAND
Irish Times

Patsy McGarry

An international gathering of Catholic Church reform movements has called on bishops to be more pro-active in support of Pope Francis and changes he is trying to bring about in the church.

In a joint statement on Thursday the meeting of Catholic Priests’ Associations and Reform Groups called on bishops in their respective countries to “courageously and publicly” support the vision and programme of Pope Francis for the church.

“A key issue will be to devolve authority away from the Vatican to local churches. Connected to this is the need to enhance the authority of the local churches, especially parishes,” it said.

The statement followed a three-day meeting in Limerick hosted by silenced Redemptorist priest Fr Tony Flannery and the Association of Catholic Priests (ACP).

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

TEXAS
ABC 7

Friday, April 03, 2015

FREEPORT, Texas — A Freeport Sunday school teacher is accused of having a sexual relationship with a teen student.

Juan Miguel Mendoza, 35, is charged with sexual assault of a child. According to investigators, the victim, who is 17 now, said she when she was 15, began a sexual relationship with Mendoza at Iglesias Bautista Emanuel church.

They met, she said, when he was her Sunday school teacher. Investigators say Mendoza had been texting the victim since she was 13 years old.

Mendoza was arrested Thursday. Bond was set at $100,000. Mendoza is in the Freeport City Jail where he is awaiting transport to the Brazoria County Sheriff’s Department Jail.

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

CALIFORNIA
KTVU

SAN FRANCISCO (KTVU and wires) – In an open letter to Pope Francis made public Thursday, a group of angry Bay Area Catholics have asked the pontiff to replace controversial San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone.

The signers, who include alumni of San Francisco Catholic schools, parents, educators, Church volunteers and former Board Members of Catholic Charities CYO, disagree and are upset with Cordileone’s stance on traditional Catholic ideals.

They note that “morality clauses” included by Cordileone in contracts and handbooks for teachers and staff members at four San Francisco Catholic schools have caused major division in the community.

“The absolute mean-spiritedness of his required language for the Archdiocesan high school faculty handbook sets a pastoral tone that is closer to persecution than evangelization,” the letter published in the San Francisco Chronicle read. “Students, families and teachers have been deeply wounded by this language, yet the Archbishop refuses to withdraw his demands.”

While she is not among the signees, Eileen Woods, a teacher at San Francisco’s St. Cecila’s, said she was happy to see the letter sent to the Vatican.

“I was thrilled to hear they took out an ad,” she told KTVU Fox 2. “I’m appalled at what the church has done. I don’t understand. The Pope is moving in a progressive direction and archdiocese is regressive.”

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

CALIFORNIA
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco

(SAN FRANCISCO, April 15, 2015)

Regarding the paid advertisement in the San Francisco Chronicle slated for publication April 16th, the Archdiocese of San Francisco responds:

The advertisement is a misrepresentation of Catholic teaching, a misrepresentation of the nature of the teacher contract, and a misrepresentation of the spirit of the Archbishop. The greatest misrepresentation of all is that the signers presume to speak for “the Catholic Community of San Francisco.” They do not.

The Archdiocese has met with a broad range of stakeholders. Together, we have engaged in a constructive dialogue on all of the issues raised in this ad. We welcome the chance to continue that discussion.

###

For more information, please call Larry Kamer at (415) 290-7240 or email: lkamer@kamergroup.com

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

CALIFORNIA
National Catholic Reporter

[the ad]

Dan Morris-Young | Apr. 16, 2015

A powerful cross-section of Catholics in the San Francisco archdiocese is asking Pope Francis to replace Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, saying the archbishop has “fostered an atmosphere of division and intolerance.”

In an April 16 full-page advertisement in the San Francisco Chronicle, more than 100 signers say the embattled archbishop pursues “a single-issue agenda,” coercing teachers with a “morality code which violates individual consciences as well as California labor laws” and “[isolating] himself from our community” as he “relies … on a tiny group of advisors recruited from outside of our diocese and estranged from their own religious orders.”

Referring to themselves as “committed Catholics inspired by Vatican II,” signers include well-known philanthropists in the archdiocese, members of school and university boards, the former director of Catholic Charities CYO, high-profile attorneys and physicians, major figures in the business and corporate world, and officials of trusts, foundations and charitable organizations.

The archdiocese issued a press release Wednesday afternoon calling the open letter “a misrepresentation of Catholic teaching, a misrepresentation of the nature of the teacher contract, and a misrepresentation of the spirit of the Archbishop.”

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

VATICAN CITY
Aljazeera

The Vatican on Thursday announced an unexpected conclusion to its crackdown on the main umbrella group of U.S. nuns, ending a controversial takeover of the liberal group and signaling a major shift in tone and treatment of U.S. sisters under the social justice-minded Pope Francis.

The Vatican said it had accepted a final report on its overhaul of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) and declared that the “implementation of the mandate has been accomplished.”

In a final joint report, the congregation and the LCWR said the group’s statutes had been revised to show its focus on Christ and being faithful to church teaching. It said an advisory committee would be created to ensure manuscripts submitted for inclusion in LCWR publications are doctrinally sound. It also said speakers at LCWR events must use the “ecclesial language of faith” in their remarks.

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

VATICAN CITY
swissinfo

By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – A six-year row between activist American nuns and Vatican officials who had branded them radical feminists ended on Thursday with the nuns conceding to demands that they keep within the doctrine of the Roman Catholic church.

The clash with the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), an umbrella group representing 80 percent of U.S. nuns, became a national issue in America, with many supporters accusing the Vatican of bullying them.

The Vatican investigated the group for three years and then in 2012 issued a stinging report saying the LCWR had “serious doctrinal problems” and promoted “radical feminist themes incompatible with the (Roman) Catholic faith”.

The Vatican criticised the group for taking a soft line on issues such as birth control and homosexual activity.

Many nuns said the Vatican’s report misunderstood their intentions and undervalued their work for social justice.

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

VATICAN CITY
The New York Times

THE ASSOCIATED PRESSAPRIL 16, 2015

The Vatican unexpectedly ended its takeover of the main umbrella group of American nuns on Thursday, signaling a shift in tone and treatment under Pope Francis.

The Vatican said it had accepted a final report on its overhaul of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and declared that the “implementation of the mandate has been accomplished.”

When the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith took over the religious group in 2012, it accused the group of taking positions that undermined Catholic teaching on the priesthood and homosexuality while promoting “certain radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith.”

It envisioned a five-year overhaul to fix what it called a “grave” doctrinal crisis, fueled by concerns among American conservatives that the group had strayed from church teaching by not focusing enough on issues like abortion and euthanasia. The Vatican appointed a bishop to oversee rewriting the statutes of the religious group, which represents 80 percent of the 57,000 Roman Catholic nuns in the United States, reviewing all its plans and programs — including approving speakers — and ensuring the organization properly followed Catholic prayer and ritual.

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

CALIFORNIA
Towleroad

SF Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone has a long and continuing history of demonizing gays.

In February, we reported on a new “purity test” he had instituted for Catholic schools which threatened termination for teachers who give any statement that contradicts church doctrine, including holding a position that homosexuality is anything other than “gravely evil.”

Cordileone’s new rules even applied to sharing photos and personal opinions on social media sites like Facebook. For instance, if a teacher posted photos on Facebook of a gay son’s wedding, that would be cause for review.

Vigils have been held against the evil archbishop.

But Cordileone’s crusade against gays goes back much further.

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

CALIFORNIA
Breitbart News

On Thursday, proving that the attractions of an increasingly secular society seem more important than the tenets of traditional religion, over 100 prominent Roman Catholic donors and church members wrote an open letter to the Pope that ran as a full-page ad in the San Francisco Chronicle condemning staunch traditionalist San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone for fostering “an atmosphere of division and intolerance,” and calling on Pope Francis to replace him.

Cordileone has always championed traditional Catholic doctrine, but the letter was provoked by his request that high school teachers and staff within the Catholic schools within his diocese sign a morality clause that espouses basic Catholic doctrine. The language in the clause upset the group, as Cordileone wrote that sex outside of marriage and homosexual relations were “gravely evil.” As CBS San Francisco reported, the archdiocese felt that their mission was to make clear that Catholic schools “exist to affirm and proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ as held and taught by his Catholic Church.” The archdiocese pointed out that the statements they promulgated were taken from the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

The letter-writers called Cordileone’s efforts mean-spirited, and said his clause “sets a pastoral tone that is closer to persecution than evangelization.” The letter states that he selected a pastor for Star of the Sea parish in the Richmond District “who marginalizes women’s participation in the church” by barring girls from altar service and who gave elementary-school children a pamphlet that asked if they had engaged in masturbation, homosexual relations or had an abortion. Another complaint stated Cordileone relied on “a tiny group of advisers recruited from outside (the) diocese and estranged from their own religious orders” instead of his own priests and retired priests. A further criticism labeled Cordileone as a threat to the archdiocese because of his “single-issue agenda.”

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

VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 16 April 2015 (VIS) – The Annuarium Pontificium 2015 and the Annuarium Statisticum Ecclesiae 2013 have been issued this morning. The former reveals some new aspects of the life of the Church that have emerged between February 2014 and February 2015, and the latter illustrates the changes that took place in 2013.

The statistics referring to the year 2013, show the dynamics of the Catholic Church in the world’s 2,989 ecclesiastical circumscriptions. It may be seen that in this period one diocese and two eparchies have been elevated to the level of metropolitan sees; three new episcopal sees, three eparchies and one archiepiscopal exarchate have been erected; one territorial prelature has been elevated to a diocese, and one apostolic prefecture to an apostolic vicariate.

Since 2005, the number of Catholics worldwide has increased from 1,115 million to 1,254 million, an increase of 139 million faithful. During the last two years, the presence of baptised Catholics in the world has increased from 17.3% to 17.7%.

There has been a 34% increase in Catholics in Africa, which has experienced a population increase of 1.9% between 2005 and 2013. The increase of Catholics in Asia (3.2% in 2013, compared to 2.9% in 2005) has been higher than that of population growth in Asia. In America Catholics continue to represent 63% of a growing population. In Europe, where the population is stagnant, there has been a slight increase in the number of baptised faithful in recent years. The percentage of baptised Catholics in Oceania remains stable although in a declining population.

From 2012 to 2013 the number of bishops has increased by 40 from 5,133 to 5,173. In North America and Oceania there has been a reduction of 6 and 5 bishops respectively, in contrast to an increase of 23 in the rest of the American continent, 5 in Africa, 14 in Asia and 9 in Europe.

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

VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 16 April 2015 (VIS) – Officials of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (C.D.F.), Archbishop Peter Sartain and officers of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (L.C.W.R.) met April 16. Archbishop Sartain and L.C.W.R. officers presented a joint report (attached) on the implementation of the C.D.F. Doctrinal Assessment and Mandate of April 2012. The joint report outlines the manner in which the implementation of the Mandate has been accomplished. The Congregation accepted the joint report, marking the conclusion of the Doctrinal Assessment of L.C.W.R. Present for the April 16 meeting were His Eminence Gerhard Cardinal Muller, Archbishop Peter Sartain, Sr. Carol Zinn, S.S.J., Sr. Marcia Allen, C.S.J., Sr. Joan Marie Steadman, C.S.C., and Sr. Janet Mock, C.S.J., and other officials of CDF.

During the meeting, Archbishop Sartain and L.C.W.R. officers outlined the process undertaken by the Bishop Delegates and L.C.W.R. over the past three years, noting the spirit of cooperation among participants throughout the sensitive process. Cardinal Muller offered his thoughts on the Doctrinal Assessment as well as the Mandate and its completion. He expressed gratitude to those present for their willing participation in this important and delicate work and extended thanks to others who had participated, especially Archbishop Leonard P. Blair, Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki, and the past officers and executive directors of L.C.W.R.

Following the meeting, Cardinal Muller said: “At the conclusion of this process, the Congregation is confident that L.C.W.R. has made clear its mission to support its member Institutes by fostering a vision of religious life that is centred on the person of Jesus Christ and is rooted in the tradition of the Church. It is this vision that makes religious women and men radical witnesses to the Gospel, and, therefore, is essential for the flourishing of religious life in the Church”.

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

VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 16 April 2015 (VIS) – The director of the Holy See Press Office, Fr. Federico Lombardi, S.J., today declared that Pope Francis, accepting the invitation offered by the respective Heads of State and bishops of these countries, will make an apostolic trip to Ecuador, from 6 to 8 July, Bolivia from 8 to 10 July, and Paraguay, from 10 to 12 of the same month. The programme for the trip will be published shortly.

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

MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Article by: JEAN HOPFENSPERGER , Star Tribune Updated: April 16, 2015

Archdiocese wants all abuse claims filed by Aug. 3. Victim’s attorneys say abuse survivors should get full time allotted by law.

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis will ask a U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge Thursday morning to shorten the time frame available for victims of priest sex abuse to submit claims.

When the state Legislature temporarily lifted the statute of limitations on older abuse claims, the so-called Minnesota Child Victim’s Act set the claims deadline for May 25, 2016. The archdiocese is asking the court to shorten that window to Aug. 3, 2015.

The archdiocese argues that victims have been sufficiently notified of the opportunity to file claims against the church, because of widespread publicity surrounding the abuse lawsuits. It also notes that having an earlier cutoff date will allow it to proceed with its financial reorganization.

“Establishing bar dates for parties to file claims in this case is critical to allow the Archdiocese to proceed with a reorganization plan and avoid protracted proceedings that could deplete the Archdiocese’s assets available to pay sexual abuse claimants and other creditors,” the archdiocese wrote in court documents.

Attorneys for victims strongly opposed the move.

The request “is unprecedented in church bankruptcy cases and also unwarranted,” wrote victims’ attorney Jeff Anderson in court documents.

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

WEST VIRGINIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, April 16

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

In an outrageous perversion of justice, victims of a twice-convicted serial child molester are being forced to pay half the legal fees of two court-appointed private lawyers in a civil abuse and cover up case, thanks to stunningly callous and aggressive legal tactics by Mormon church officials.

[Journal News]

In 25 years of monitoring clergy sex abuse cases across the US, we’ve never seen anything like this.

Mormon officials have persuaded a West Virginia judge to make victims of Christopher Michael Jensen pay half the cost of a “discovery commissioner” to rule on discovery motions. And those same victims, in this same case, are being forced to pay half the cost of a second court-appointed private attorney, Kirk Bottner, who is acting as a “guardian ad litem” for Jensen, a serial predator who has been convicted for assaulting young kids in Utah and West Virginia.

How on earth can this be legal? Even if it is, it’s immoral. It’s especially immoral when purportedly spiritual figures propose, accept or benefit from this unfair and hurtful arrangement.

Our hearts go out to the families in this case. They’ve experienced three horrific betrayals – first by a child molester, then by callous Mormon officials and now by the misuse of our justice system by these Mormon officials.

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

UNITED STATES
Catholic League

Bill Donohue comments on several campaigns against Catholic schools:

We never hear of attempts by outsiders to dictate to Jews how to run their yeshivas. The same is true of the increasing number of Islamic schools: no one tells Muslims what their employment policies should be. The same is not true of Catholic schools.

* In San Francisco, outsiders have spent an enormous amount of money seeking to pressure the Archdiocese to change its prospective handbook for faculty.

* Outsiders, driven by the media, put Iowa Governor Terry Branstad on the firing line: they forced him to comment on Dowling Catholic High School’s decision not to hire an openly gay teacher; the Catholic executive exercised good sense and is not getting involved in the internal matters of this school.

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

CALIFORNIA
National Catholic Reporter

[the ad]

Michael Sean Winters | Apr. 16, 2015 Distinctly Catholic

The decision by some prominent Catholics in San Francisco to take out a full-page ad in that city’s major newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle, calling on Pope Francis to remove Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone is deeply regrettable. Full Disclosure: A couple of weeks ago, a friend in San Francisco familiar with the plan to take out the ad called and asked my advice and I encouraged her not to do so.

Why is it a mistake? The issue of the accountability of bishops is a difficult one. Most of the discussion in recent years has focused on this issue through the lens of the clergy sex abuse crisis. Bishop after bishop was seen to have mishandled charges of clergy sex abuse against members of the clergy. This was galling to be sure. Since the adoption by the U.S. Bishops of the “Dallas Charter” on child protection, which set forth the promise of the bishops not to tolerate clergy sex abuse, and the explicit means for fulfilling that promise, such dereliction of responsibility is worse than galling. This is why there has been such a clamor for the removal of Kansas City Bishop Robert Finn. It is not just that Finn violated the civil law, which he did. He violated the Dallas Charter and thus questioned the commitment of the bishops to keep their own promises. He should have resigned the day he pled guilty for failing to report an instance of clergy sex abuse. The good people of Kansas City – and the whole country and, indeed, the world – are still waiting for the Holy See to remove him.

No one has charged Archbishop Cordileone with failing to live up to the Dallas Charter. The complainants who took out the full-page ad charge that he has fostered “an atmosphere of division and intolerance.” This is a grave charge indeed, but it is important, actually vital, to distinguish such a charge from the charge of violating the Dallas Charter and failing to protect children. The stain of clergy sex abuse is unique in the life of the Church in recent years. No issue has done more to wound the Church and compromise the bishops’ spiritual authority. But, if tomorrow, every bishop really did live out the promises of the Dallas Charter, and most do, there would still be bishops who are not up to the job. What is to be done about such cases?

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

VIRGINIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, April 16

Statement by Judy Jones of St. Louis, Midwest Associate Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( h: 636.433.2511, c: 314.974.5003, SNAPjudy@gmail.com )

More civil child sex abuse and cover up lawsuits involving one of the most prolific child molesting clerics in the US have settled. He’s Brother Stephen P. Baker who worked in Norfolk Virginia and four other states (Minnesota, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Ohio).

[Tribune-Democrat]

In the 1970s, he worked at two church facilities in Norfolk (in the Richmond diocese): Holy Trinity Catholic Church and School and James Barry-Robinson High School and Home for Boys.

[BishopAccountability.org]

Br. Baker’s accused of molesting more than 90 kids. We suspect that literally dozens of his Catholic colleagues and supervisors knew or suspected his crimes and ignored or hid them.

In 2005, church officials paid one Br. Baker victim $50,000 but told no one. As a result, “Baker may have had access to children through the late 2000s,” according to the independent archive group BishopAccountability.org.

We call on Richmond Bishop Francis DiLorenzo to use his vast resources – church websites, parish bulletins, pulpit announcements and news releases – to aggressively seek out others in Minnesota who were assaulted by Br. Baker. If he refuses, we call on the dozens of Virginia priests who run parishes to do this outreach.

We hope these settlements bring long-overdue and much-needed help, comfort and closures to these brave men. And we hope that they will prod others, who may have knowledge or suspicions about Baker’s crimes or his supervisors’ cover ups, to speak up.

We believe that Br. Baker abused more kids. Some of them, now adults, are likely still suffering in shame, silence and self-blame. We want them to know that they are not alone, not at fault and can get better, but only if they find the courage to break their silence and get independent help.

And we want Catholic officials in all four states to take vigorous steps to reach out to those who’ve been hurt by Br. Baker, instead of saying and doing little to acknowledge his crimes and help his victims.

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

MINNESOTA
Canonical Consultation

04/15/2015

Jennifer Haselberger

After my earlier post about the Catholic Services Appeal, I learned that the poor priests of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis were hit with a double-whammy of fundraising requests last week. Not only were they asked to put the screws into reluctant donors at their parishes, they were also asked to personally contribute to the support of the seminarians at the Saint Paul Seminary School of Divinity.

This request, which came by means of a letter from the SPS rector, Monsignor Aloysius Callaghan, provided some interesting information about seminary operations. For instance, the Monsignor wrote that the four year formation program for priests costs more than $200,000 per student, or $140 per day. Half of this, the letter states, is paid by the seminarian’s diocese, and the other half through donations to the seminary itself. Of course, I am sure what the Monsignor meant to say is that, in the case of the W.D.O.E, half is paid by contributions to the independent Catholic Services Appeal, and not the seminarian’s diocese. But I digress.

In exchange for this rather large sum, the student at the Saint Paul Seminary is ensured to receive ‘the best human, intellectual, spiritual, and pastoral formation possible’, preparing him and his peers to become ‘good shepherds and capable pastors’. Of course, this has recently been called into question, at least in the case of Saint John Vianney College Seminary, thanks to the article by Paul Blaschko in Commonweal Magazine. I will leave it to you to decide if we are getting our money’s worth from the formation program provided by SPS. From my vantage point, the seminary seems to have made little progress in separating the wheat from the chaff.

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

VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

Joshua J. McElwee | Apr. 16, 2015

VATICAN CITY A controversial three-year program of Vatican oversight of the main leadership group of U.S. Catholic sisters has come to a curt and unexpected end, with the sisters and the church’s doctrinal office announcing that the goal of the oversight “has been accomplished.”

The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has accepted a final report of the doctrinal assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, “marking the conclusion” of the oversight, the Vatican announced Thursday.

After a lengthy process that saw the saw the Vatican issue what the sisters called unsubstantiated sharp critiques of their work and life while appointing Seattle Archbishop Peter Sartain to oversee a program of reform for LCWR, Thursday’s release says the Vatican and the sisters both noted the “spirit of cooperation” of the ordeal.

The end of the mandate, the Vatican release says, came in a meeting Thursday morning between LCWR officers, Sartain, and officials of the Vatican’s doctrinal congregation. Saratin and the LCWR officers presented a joint report on the implementation of the mandate, which was approved by the doctrinal congregation.

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

VATICAN CITY
Bolletino

Following the publication of the Doctrinal Assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (April 18, 2012), the officers of LCWR and the Bishop Delegates began working in close collaboration toward the implementation of the Mandate which accompanied that document. From the beginning, our extensive conversations were marked by a spirit of prayer, love for the Church, mutual respect, and cooperation. We found our conversations to be mutually beneficial. In this Joint Final Report, we set forth the manner in which the implementation of the Mandate has been accomplished.

LCWR Statutes: The Statutes of the Conference were definitively approved for the first time by the Sacred Congregation for Religious in 1962; a revised text was subsequently approved by the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life on June 29, 1989. LCWR had initiated a review of the Statutes prior to receiving the Mandate. In response to the 2012 Mandate, a subcommittee representing LCWR and the Bishop Delegates reviewed that document, attentive to the Mandate’s request for greater clarity in expressing the mission and responsibilities of the LCWR as a Conference of Major Superiors under the ultimate direction of the Apostolic See. Through a collaborative process of mutual learning and of refining several drafts, it was agreed that “the role of the Conference as a public juridic person centered on Jesus Christ and faithful to the teachings of the Church is to undertake through its membership and in collaboration with other sisters those services which develop the life and mission of women religious in responding to the Gospel in the contemporary world” (Statutes, Section 2). At the conclusion of this drafting and refining process, the subcommittee’s work was considered ready to be submitted to the LCWR Assembly. The 2014 Assembly overwhelmingly approved the text, and it was forwarded to the Apostolic See. Following a positive review by the CDF, the revised Statutes were approved on February 6, 2015 by Decree of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.

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

VATICAN CITY
Bolletino

Officials of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), Archbishop Peter Sartain and officers of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) met April 16. Archbishop Sartain and LCWR officers presented a joint report (attached) on the implementation of the CDF Doctrinal Assessment and Mandate of April 2012. The joint report outlines the manner in which the implementation of the Mandate has been accomplished. The Congregation accepted the joint report, marking the conclusion of the Doctrinal Assessment of LCWR. Present for the April 16 meeting were His Eminence Gerhard Cardinal Müller, Archbishop Peter Sartain, Sr. Carol Zinn, SSJ, Sr. Marcia Allen, CSJ, Sr. Joan Marie Steadman, CSC, and Sr. Janet Mock, CSJ, and other officials of CDF.

During the meeting, Archbishop Sartain and LCWR officers outlined the process undertaken by the Bishop Delegates and LCWR over the past three years, noting the spirit of cooperation among participants throughout the sensitive process. Cardinal Müller offered his thoughts on the Doctrinal Assessment as well as the Mandate and its completion. He expressed gratitude to those present for their willing participation in this important and delicate work and extended thanks to others who had participated, especially Archbishop Leonard P. Blair, Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki, and the past officers and Executive Directors of LCWR.

Following the meeting, Cardinal Müller said: “At the conclusion of this process, the Congregation is confident that LCWR has made clear its mission to support its member Institutes by fostering a vision of religious life that is centered on the Person of Jesus Christ and is rooted in the Tradition of the Church. It is this vision that makes religious women and men radical witnesses to the Gospel, and, therefore, is essential for the flourishing of religious life in the Church.”

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

VATICAN CITY
Headlines from the Catholic World

Vatican City, Apr 16, 2015 / 04:15 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In a joint report marking the conclusion of a multi-year mandate for reform, members of the LCWR have agreed to the corrections called for by the Vatican, and said they will continue on the path of dialogue.

“We are pleased at the completion of the Mandate, which involved long and challenging exchanges of our understandings of and perspectives on critical matters of Religious Life and its practice,” Sr. Sharon Holland, IHM, President of LCWR, said in an April 16 press release.

Officials of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Archbishop Peter Sartain of Seattle and officers of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) met at the Vatican April 16.
Although she was unable to attend the Vatican meeting, Sr. Holland said that “we learned that what we hold in common is much greater than any of our differences.”

Cardinal Gerhard Muller, prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said in the press release that “the Congregation is confident that LCWR has made clear its mission to support its member institutes by fostering a vision of religious life that is centered on the Person of Jesus Christ and is rooted in the Tradition of the Church.”

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

CALIFORNIA
SFGate

By Matier & Ross
Wednesday, April 15, 2015

In an unprecedented move, more than 100 prominent Roman Catholic donors and church members signed a full-page ad running Thursday in The Chronicle that calls on Pope Francis to replace San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone for fostering “an atmosphere of division and intolerance.”

The plea follows months of dissent within the archdiocese over Cordileone’s emphasis on traditional, conservative church doctrine — including asking high school teachers and staffers at Catholic schools to sign a morality clause that characterizes sex outside of marriage and homosexual relations as “gravely evil.”

In their open letter to the pope, Cordileone’s critics say his morality-clause push is mean-spirited and “sets a pastoral tone that is closer to persecution than evangelization.”

The ad drew swift condemnation from the archdiocese, which said those who signed it don’t speak for San Francisco’s Catholic community.

The list of signatories includes Brian Cahill, the retired executive director of Catholic Charities, former city commissioner and Boudin Bakery executive Lou Giraudo, retired Swinerton Builders Chairman David Grubb, businessman and former political consultant Clint Reilly and his wife, Janet, San Francisco attorney Michael Kelly, and Charles Geschke, chairman of Adobe Systems and former head of the University of San Francisco Board of Trustees. Also on the list is Tom Brady Sr., father of New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady.

Among their complaints, they say Cordileone:

•Picked a pastor for Star of the Sea parish in the Richmond District “who marginalizes women’s participation in the church by banning girls from altar service” and who provided elementary-school children with a pamphlet about sexuality that asked whether they had masturbated, engaged in sodomy or undergone an abortion.

•Disregards the advice of his own priests and retired priests in favor of “a tiny group of advisers recruited from outside (the) diocese and estranged from their own religious orders.”

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

CALIFORNIA
CBS News

SAN FRANCISCO — More than 100 local leaders are calling on Pope Francis to replace San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone in an open letter in Thursday’s San Francisco Chronicle, notes CBS San Francisco.

The newspaper calls it “an unprecedented move.”

“The plea follows months of dissent within the archdiocese over Cordileone’s emphasis on traditional, conservative church doctrine,” the Chronicle reports.

Among the contentious issues — so-called “morality clauses” Cordileone has included in contracts for teachers and staff at four Catholic high schools.

“Holy Father, please provide us with a leader true to our values and your namesake,” the letter reads in part.

Signers include alumni of San Francisco Catholic schools, church volunteers and former board members of Catholic Charities. One signer is Tom Brady Sr., father of New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, the Chronicle says.

The group claims the clauses have caused division in the community.

The clauses call for teachers to abide by the church’s stance against things like sex outside of marriage and homosexuality.

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

VATIKAN
Blick

Sein Vorhaben diskutierte Papst Franziskus gestern mit Kardinälen in seinem Beraterstab. Demnach beanstandeten die Kardinäle, dass die bisherigen Regeln «nicht genügen klar» seien. Dies teilte Vatikansprecher Federico Lombardi am späten Abend bei einer Pressekonferenz mit.

Opferverbände werfen dem Vatikan vor, nicht genügend gegen Bischöfe zu unternehmen, die Kindesmissbrauch durch Geistliche ignorieren. So wurden Priester, die sich an Kindern vergingen, bisher einfach in andere Gegenden oder auf andere Posten versetzt.

Innerhalb der Kirche wird derzeit auch über die Ernennung des Chilenen Juan de la Cruz Barros zum Bischof diskutiert. Ihm wird vorgeworfen, seine schützende Hand über einen pädophilen Priester gehalten zu haben.

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