ABUSE TRACKER

ROME
The Australian

PHILIP WILLAN
The Times
July 5, 2017

Vatican police broke up a homosexual orgy last month in an apartment belonging to the Con­gregation for the Doctrine of the Faith — the department charged with, among other things, tackling clerical sexual abuse.

The occupant of the apartment is alleged to be the secretary of cardinal Francesco Coccopa­l­merio, head of the Pontifical Council for Legislative texts and a key adviser to the Pope.

Cardinal Coccopalmerio is said to have recommended his aide for promotion to bishop, but those plans are likely to be disrupted by news of the orgy and by a period spent recovering from a drug overdose in a Rome hospital and another in an Italian monastery.

The allegations about the orgy were published by the newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano.

The incident is symptomatic of a difficult period for the Pope. Four years into his papacy his reforms should be at full throttle; instead, the Catholic Church appears racked by conflict and scandal.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Catholic Herald

by Fr Alexander Lucie-Smith
posted Monday, 3 Jul 2017

The Pope is making clear there is now only one centre of power at the Vatican

There is an incident in the greatest film ever made, The Godfather, where a body turns up, and someone correctly says that it is a way of sending a message. It is a phrase that comes to mind in the wake of the removal of Cardinal Gerhard Müller: this is an act that constitutes a message. But what exactly?

The Pope has told Cardinal Müller that from now on all heads of dicastery will serve five years only. So, that is the first message, directed to other Vatican chiefs – watch out, your time is short, and you can and will be removed at the end of your term. No longer will heads of dicastery stay in post for decades, as did, for example, Cardinal Ratzinger. From now on, expect to be moved around like pieces on a chessboard, because in the Vatican there is only one centre of power that counts, and it is not yours.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) has traditionally been regarded as “la suprema”. Once upon a time, everything that emerged from the Vatican had to be passed first by the CDF. By dismissing the head of the most important department of the Vatican, the Pope is reminding everyone who is really supreme.

The demotion affects not only Cardinal Müller but the entire CDF, for the entire department is being cut down to size. Indeed, as has been apparent in this papacy so far, the CDF is not what it was, but has been repeatedly sidelined.

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UNITED STATES
Fox News

By Stephanie Nolasco Published July 03, 2017

“The Keepers” has prompted numerous calls for the Baltimore Archdiocese to release a dead priest’s files.

The Baltimore Sun reported Saturday that the seven-part documentary exploring the priest’s alleged abuse led more to 11,000 signatures on an online petition. Archdiocese spokesman Sean Caine said state law bars the release of much of the confidential information.

“The Keepers” tells the story of the unsolved death of Catholic nun Sister Cathy Cesnik, whose body was discovered in January 1970 two months after her sudden disappearance. The popular nun taught English and drama at Archbishop Keough High School in Baltimore.

Viewers learned how several former Catholic schoolgirls alleged to have endure sexual abuse at their school and how Cesnik promised to helped them, until she ended up dead.

The priest at the center of the show, A. Joseph Maskell, denied abuse allegations and was never charged before his 2001 death. However, the archdiocese has since paid $472,000 in settlements to alleged victims.

Filmmaker Ryan White told Fox News in June he thinks the world will eventually find out who killed Sister Cathy.

“I hope we do,” he said. “I don’t think it’s too late to find out. I probably began the project thinking it was too late to find out, but I don’t believe that now… I believe her family deserves justice. And part of that is being able to name who killed Sister Cathy.”

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ROME
The Tablet (UK)

04 July 2017 | by Daniele Palmer

Archbishop Ladaria and the then CDF prefect are alleged to have asked the superiors of an Italian priest found guilty of abuse to stay silent

Reports have emerged that the new prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith (CDF) covered up a case of sexual abuse of minors when he was secretary of the same Vatican dicastery in 2012.

Archbishop Luis Ladaria Ferrer, the Spanish Jesuit chosen by Francis to take Cardinal Muller’s place as head of the CDF, and the CDF’s then-prefect, the American Cardinal William Levada, asked the superiors of an Italian parish priest who was found guilty of abusing children by the Holy See, to stay silent and not divulge any information to the public, the Italian daily newspaper, La Repubblica, reports.

Fr. Gianna Trotta, a priest with the Italian diocese of Foggia, was charged and found guilty of multiple cases of sexual abuse of minors by an internal Vatican legal procedure in 2012.

Archbishop Ladaria and Cardinal Levada, both chosen by Benedict XVI to run the CDF, wrote a letter “advising” the priest’s superiors to not let out any news of the abuses lest it create “a scandal amongst the faithful.”

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GUAM
Pacific News Center

By Janela Carrera – July 4, 2017

The former Guam priest has been named as a defendant in 41 of the lawsuits filed against the Archdiocese of Agana so far.

Guam – Former Guam Priest Father Louis Brouillard has been named once again in a church sex abuse lawsuit, marking the 78th lawsuit to be filed against the Archdiocese of Agana.

The lawsuit was filed by a man with the initials R.P. who’s now 53 years old. The case dates back to the 1970s when R.P. was around the age of 10. R.P. says he participated in a jamboree summer camp for the Boy Scouts which is an event held to recruit boys to join the organization.

According to R.P., the jamboree that year was held at Ipan Public Beach and he and his cousin were set up in a tent. Brouillard went inside the boys’ tent and had the boys masturbate him, according to the complaint. At the time, Brouillard was a Scout Master and also a priest with the diocese.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Steven Morris
Monday 3 July 2017

In 2008 the former children’s home Haut de la Garenne on Jersey became a focus of global attention when police discovered what they believed to be fragments of a human skull.

The building, at that time a youth hostel, was dubbed “the house of horror” as scores of other bone fragments were unearthed and lurid reports surfaced that shackles, restraints, “punishment rooms” and a bath stained with blood had been found. The fear was that children, perhaps many, had been tortured and killed and their remains concealed.

To some degree, it was a false alarm. Towards the end of the year police said they did not believe any murders had taken place at Haut de la Garenne. Of the 170 bone fragments found, analysis showed only three could be human and they probably dated back centuries.

However, the investigation, codenamed Operation Rectangle, did unearth a terrible scandal. It brought to light a catalogue of abuse – sexual, physical and psychological – at Haut de la Garenne and other Jersey children’s homes stretching back to the end of the second world war. …

The serial abuser Jimmy Savile was among those accused of attacks at Haut de la Garenne and at a home on the island run by French Catholic nuns, the Sacre Coeur orphanage. Wilfred Krichefski, a Jersey senator and TV executive, now dead, was also named as an alleged abuser.

Physical and psychological abuse ranged from having mouths washed out with carbolic soap to being beaten with stinging nettles, the inquiry heard. Some of the abuse was carried out by older children with the blessing of staff.

One man said senior boys used a generator to administer electric shocks to younger children and threw darts at them. A girl is said to have been punished by having to spend a night in a room with the body of a dead nun.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By Conall Ó Fátharta
Irish Examiner Reporter

Magdalene campaigners have questioned why a State apology was given to laundry survivors when the Government denies the State has any liability in the matter.

In a submission to the UN Committee Against Torture, the Justice for Magdalenes Research (JFMR) group pointed to contradictory statements made by the then taoiseach, Enda Kenny, and the Department of Justice on the issue of State liability.

In his apology in 2013, Mr Kenny clearly acknowledged the role of the State in the women’s “ordeal”, while the McAleese report found State involvement in a range of areas — most notably that over one quarter of all recorded admissions to Magdalene laundries were made or facilitated by State actors.

Despite this, the assistant secretary to the justice minister wrote to the Office of the Ombudsman last year to inform it of the department’s view that it has not seen any legal advice or factual evidence “that would give rise to the belief that the State has any legal liability”.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

Timna Jacks

The most powerful rabbi in Australia’s most secretive ultra-Orthodox Jewish community has taken the extraordinary step of intervening in the appointment of controversial rabbi Meir Shlomo Kluwgant as principal of Adass Israel School.

In a rare move from the leader who scarcely weighs in on high-profile issues, Rabbi Avrohom Zvi Beck has released a letter to community members calling for more consultation on the appointment.

“I think it appropriate that we should consult with the members of our community on this matter,” wrote the rabbi in a letter sent out days after Rabbi Kluwgant was given the role.

“Let a general meeting be arranged, and may the Lord bring us success in the endeavour.”

Rabbi Beck is the most senior figure in the deeply hierarchical community, with oversight over every element of the community, including the school.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Helen Davidson
Tuesday 4 July 2017

The former most senior rabbi in Australia, who resigned after appearing at the royal commission, has been appointed principal of a Melbourne school at the centre of abuse allegations in 2008.

Abuse survivors and their advocates are outraged at the announcement of Rabbi Meir Shlomo Kluwgant as the new head of the Adass Israel school, and have called for the school to reconsider.

The Victorian education minister, James Merlino, also weighed in, telling Guardian Australia: “I understand the concern of many in the community about this appointment and it’s incumbent on the school to fully explain this decision.”

In a letter to staff, the secretary of the Adass board, Abe Weiszberger, said Kluwgant would “work collaboratively” with the current principal, Dr Israel Herszberg, before taking over next year.

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AUSTRALIA
Pedestrian TV

We all knew that Andrew Bolt’s inevitable column about the sexual abuse charges against Cardinal George Pell was going to be a doozy, but we didn’t expect that he was going to fuck up basic details so, so hard.

The Herald Sun today has issued an apology for Bolt’s column in defence of Pell yesterday, in which he made… a big doozy of an error. Bolt attributed comments to Victoria Police Detective-Sergeant Kevin Carson which were actually said by abuse survivor Andrew Collins.

The comments in question – “the world will be watching this” and that the decision would be an “important step along the way” – were attributed by Bolt to the detective-sergeant as a way of arguing that institutional forces were already biased against Pell and that the entire trial was automatically fishy.

That argument kinda loses weight when they were actually said by a sexual abuse survivor and not a member of the police force. In fact, as the apology outlines, Carson explicitly has said that he will not comment on the trial as he does not want to jeopardise it or any future trial.

Memo to Bolt: if you’re going to wage a deadshit culture war, at least get your basic facts right.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail

By Rebecca Camber and Emily Kent Smith for the Daily Mail

An investigation into sexual assault claims against the top lawyer at the Government’s child abuse inquiry was dismissed as a ‘whitewash’ yesterday after key evidence was kept secret.

The review was ordered last year after Ben Emmerson QC was accused in a BBC Newsnight programme of groping a member of staff at the headquarters of Britain’s biggest public inquiry.

Mr Emmerson, who quit the inquiry last September, was cleared of wrongdoing three months later following a secret probe commissioned by Matrix Chambers, the law firm he co-founded.

Stung by criticism of a cover-up, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse then launched its own review, hiring Mark Sutton QC to look at ‘the events surrounding the resignation’ of Mr Emmerson from the £100million probe.

Yesterday – after a seven-month investigation thought to have cost hundreds of thousands of pounds – Mr Sutton announced that he couldn’t say if the allegations against the top human rights barrister were true or false.

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ROMA
L’Espresso

Two days ago Luis Ladaria Ferrer was appointed by Pope Francis as new prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith instead of the German Gerhard Muller who the pope considered too shy in the fight against pedophilia. But the new head of the former Holy Office in 2012 ordered silence in the case of an abusive priest to avoid “scandal” in the church.]

Due giorni fa Ladaria è stato nominato da papa Francesco prefetto della Congregazione della Fede. Al posto del tedesco Muller, considerato da Bergoglio troppo timido nella lotta alla pedofilia. Ma il nuovo capo dell’ex Sant’Uffizio nel 2012, davanti a un sacerdote maniaco appena spretato, in un decreto ordinò il silenzio «per evitare scandalo tra i fedeli». Così l’orco violentò indisturbato altri bambini. L’esclusiva Espresso-Repubblica

DI EMILIANO FITTIPALDI E GIULIANO FOSCHINI

Nel marzo del 2012 il cardinale Luis Ladaria Ferrer, promosso sabato da papa Francesco nuovo prefetto della Congregazione della dottrina della Fede, ha coperto, senza denunciarlo, un prete pedofilo che era stato ridotto in stato laicale per abusi sessuali. Di più. Ha ordinato, nero su bianco, che la condanna canonica passasse sotto silenzio. Don Gianni Trotta, grazie all’acquiescenza del Vaticano e dei vertici della curia locale, ha così potuto continuare indisturbato a violentare minorenni: dopo essere stato costretto a lasciare la tonaca è infatti diventato allenatore di una squadra di calcio giovanile, e in due anni ha molestato indisturbato una decina di bambini vicino Foggia.

La storia di Trotta è stata raccontata da “Repubblica” lo scorso febbraio, ma solo oggi vengono alla luce le responsabilità dirette di Ladaria. È lui che il 16 marzo 2016 firma il decreto in latino, nel quale invitava i superiori del pedofilo a stare zitti e muti per non «generare scandalo tra i fedeli». Una nuova spina per papa Francesco, che – dopo l’incriminazione formale del suo (ormai ex) braccio destro George Pell per presunti abusi su alcuni adolescenti australiani – ha deciso di nominare Ladaria come successore di Gerhard Ludwig Muller, il cardinale tedesco licenziato in tronco anche perché giudicato poco incisivo nella lotta alla pedofilia. Un paradosso.

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ITALIA
Giornale di Sicilia

[PALERMO. He was sentenced for pedophilia and he was sentenced to prison. And now Fr. Paolo Turturro, 67, is back free. He lives in the village in the countryside of Baucina, and is celebrated in the churches of the diocese. The church, in fact, as the newspaper of Sicily remembers the news, never suspended hime despite a definitive three-year sentence.]

PALERMO. E’ stato condannato per pedofilia ed ha scontato la pena in carcere. Ed ora don Paolo Turturro, 67 anni, è tornato libero. Vive al Borgo della pace fondato nelle campagne di Baucina (Pa), e celebra messa nelle chiese della diocesi. La Chiesa, infatti, come ricorda il Giornale di Sicilia che riporta la notizia, non lo ha mai sospeso a divinis, malgrado una condanna definitiva a tre anni.

Era parroco della chiesa di Santa Lucia al Borgo Vecchio. E proprio durante lo svolgimento del suo ministero Turturro è finito al centro di una vicenda di abusi sessuali nei confronti di minori. La Cassazione ha confermato la condanna: fu accusato da due ragazzini che sostennero di essere stati abusati dal prete: uno con un bacio intimo, l’ altro con una violenza vera e propria.

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UNITED STATES
Crux

John L. Allen Jr. and Ines San Martin

Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York said he wants to “stick with” his old friend Cardinal George Pell of Australia, who’s facing criminal charges of sexual abuse. He also said the Catholic Church needs to be more aggressive in speaking out about anti-Christian persecution – and suggested that Pope Francis may have a unique capacity to call out offenders.

ORLANDO, Florida – Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, a longtime friend of Australian Cardinal George Pell who’s now facing a criminal indictment for sexual abuse, said “I don’t want to believe” the charges and that Pell’s determination to cooperate with the judicial process and acknowledge he’s not above the law “only shows the mettle of a great man.”

“He’s the kind of man about whom I would find such reports to be completely contrary to everything he stands for,” Dolan said.

“I feel terribly sad for my good friend Cardinal George Pell, sad for him and sad with him. I want to be very supportive, because I have immense admiration for him,” Dolan said. “I admire him, and I want to stick with him.”

Dolan spoke to Crux in Orlando, Florida, during the “Convocation of Catholic Leaders,” a summit of more than 3,000 bishops, priests and religious, and laity to discuss the future of evangelization efforts in American Catholicism.

His faith in Pell, Dolan stressed, should not come at the expense of concern for abuse victims.
“We’ve got to cooperate with the civil authorities, as Cardinal Pell is doing here,” Dolan said.

“Never again must a victim-survivor feel that if he or she comes forward that they won’t be believed.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Christian Today

Harry Farley JOURNALIST 04 July 2017

The son of former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey has attacked the Church of England for its lack of sympathy for his father after he was found to have ‘colluded’ with predatory paedophile former bishop Peter Ball.

Andrew Carey, a campaigner and PR strategist, says he is ‘angry and dismayed’ at the way his father George had been treated, branding it a ‘sin against the holy spirit’.

Lord Carey resigned from an honorary position in the CofE after a damning report heavily criticised the Church’s response to abuse carried out by the disgraced Peter Ball.

Carey, Archbishop from 1991 to 2002, was singled out for particular condemnation in the report by Dame Moira Gibb. In particular he was head of the CofE when Ball’s abuse of a young man, Neil Todd, first came to light in 1993. Todd went on to commit suicide in 2012.

Ball was cautioned for gross indecency in 1993 after Lord Carey was among several influential friends who spoke in his defence.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

Joanne McCarthy
4 Jul 2017

FORMER Newcastle Anglican Bishop Roger Herft ran up a legal bill of nearly $500,000 defending himself during a devastating royal commission public hearing into child sex allegations in the Hunter region – but Newcastle diocese is only paying $5000 of it.

Perth Anglican priests and parishioners are reportedly furious that the Western Australian church has paid the bill after Newcastle Anglican diocese insurers declined to pay the former Perth archbishop’s legal expenses.

The rejection of liability in May came as a shock to many in Perth, media accounts in Western Australia have said.

In a statement released by the Perth diocese a spokesperson indicated it also came as a surprise to the diocese.

“Diocesan leaders were working on the assumption that most of the legal expenses relating to preparing for and attending the various public hearings… would be recovered through a claim on the Diocese of Newcastle’s insurers,” the spokesperson said.

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NEW YORK
WIVB

[with video]

By Marissa Perlman, News 4 Reporter
Published: July 3, 2017

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) – We’re learning more about a case of potential sexual abuse involving a 6-year-old boy on a Buffalo Public School bus in December of 2015.

We first told you about this case last year. The mother of the boy claims her son was forced to perform a sex act on a 12- year-old- boy.

State Supreme Court papers show the family is holding the bus company. First Student, the Diocese of Buffalo, the Buffalo Public School District, three employees at the school, and the bus driver and bus aid, all responsible for what happened on that school bus.

Last week, the Diocese of Buffalo and Our Lady of Black Rock school made a motion to dismiss the case. That motion was denied in full by Supreme Court Justice Tracey Bannister.

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AUSTRALIA
Western Advocate

MURRAY NICHOLLS
4 Jul 2017

BATHURST’S Anglican diocese is preparing a new list of potential asset sales as it braces for multi-million dollar compensation payouts to past victims of sexual abuse.

Bishop Ian Palmer wrote to parishioners at the weekend asking them to identify assets within their communities that could be sold to help raise the expected $2 million compensation bill.

It comes just a year after the diocese was forced into a fire sale of assets – including Bathurst’s All Saints’ College – to help repay a $40 million debt to the Commonwealth Bank.

Bishop Palmer said in the letter to parishioners that the Royal Commission Into Institutional Responses To Child Sexual Abuse had highlighted the damage to victims of historical cases of abuse by members of the clergy.

He said the Bathurst diocese had already paid out more than $1 million in compensation over the past 18 months.

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AUSTRALIA
No Place for Sheep

June 30

Yesterday came the momentous news that Victoria Police have charged Cardinal George Pell with multiple allegations of the crime of sexual abuse of children, following their investigation of complaints made by multiple accusers.

The matter is now sub judice, which means there can be no commentary on the charges and allegations, and no predictions of verdict. Sub judice does not forbid all commentary, and the above link is a guide to what may and may not be published. Please read the first couple of pages before leaving inflammatory comments that might be in contempt.

There is also an interim suppression order on the details of the charges, requested by Pell’s lawyers.

My thoughts are with those complainants who now face an arduous courtroom experience, during which our adversarial legal system will permit Pell’s lawyers to tear them to shreds. Already there has been much commentary from Murdoch hacks that the charges against Pell have been instigated by a vengeful and incompetent police force hell-bent on conducting a witch hunt. In other words, as far as Paul Kelly, Miranda Devine, Andrew Bolt, Gerard Henderson and the other usual suspects are concerned, the complainants are liars and it is necessary to question police integrity. How this commentary is not flagrant abuse of the sub judice rule, I have yet to ascertain.

Much media coverage to date has focused on Pell’s right to justice. However, the complainants also have the right to justice. It is indicative of an almost entirely unexamined societal attitude that, particularly in sexual matters, the rights of the accused are likely to be the subject of greatest concern, while the complainants are, in the very essence of our law, obliged to prove they are not liars.

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AUSTRALIA
No Place for Sheep

July 2

I’m somewhat baffled by the insistence of George Pell’s more vocal and public supporters that he is being unfairly treated. He has, they assert, been subjected to years of suspicion and innuendo and this, they argue, makes a fair trial impossible. Their opinion: he is the victim of a witch hunt and should not have been charged. The ludicrous conclusion of this argument is that nobody should be charged with anything if there’s been public commentary prior to those charges being laid.

I would like to see some proof of this claim of inevitable prejudice due to Pell’s profile, though I doubt there’s relevant data. What is interesting is that whilst Pell himself has welcomed the opportunity to at last defend himself in court, his Australian supporters seem hell-bent on declaring the process already poisoned. Obviously they aren’t respecting Pell’s desire for his day in court. So what are they doing?

Amanda Vanstone, former ambassador to Rome and Pell admirer, wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald in May: how would you like to throw out your own right to a fair assessment of whether you should be charged in the first place together with the right to a fair trial if you are charged? Vanstone goes on to further question the integrity of the Victorian DPP (to whom she was presumably referring in the phrase “fair assessment of whether you should be charged in the first place”) and Victoria Police, and to rail against latte sippers in cafes who she claims deny Pell the presumption of innocence. Vanstone’s descriptions of those calling for Pell to be held to account include “a baying crowd” and a “lynch mob from the dark ages.” Inevitably, she includes victims and alleged victims of sexual abuse by priests in her derogatory commentary.

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AUSTRALIA
Bendigo Advertiser

Tom Cowie
4 Jul 2017

A former Catholic priest in central Victoria has been charged with more than 30 historical child sexual abuse offences.

Taskforce Sano detectives are investigating the accusations against former Kyneton priest Peter Waters, which are alleged to have occurred between 1973 and 1986.

The offences included indecent assault on males aged 12 to 19 and carnal knowledge of a girl aged 10 to 16 years old.

Mr Waters, 72, was parish priest at Kyneton during the 1990s.

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AUSTRALIA
Triple M

Accusations have been made against a 72 year old former Catholic priest who worked in Kyneton in the 90s.

Detectives with the Sano Taskforce have charged Peter Waters with over 30 offences, all of them historical child sexual abuse offences.

The allegations stem from 1973 to 1986, according to The Age.

The alleged incidents happened before the man worked in Kyneton as a Catholic priest.

Boys aged between 12 to 19 and girls between the ages of 10 to 16 years old are reported to be victims.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse

3 July

Mark Sutton QC has today (July 3) issued a public statement on his report into the Inquiry’s safeguarding and dignity at work procedures. You can find it here on the Old Square Chambers website.

Inquiry Chair Alexis Jay has issued this statement in response:

“I acknowledge the findings of Mark Sutton QC’s independent report into the Inquiry’s safeguarding and dignity at work procedures. In particular, I note his conclusions that the Inquiry’s response was appropriate and proportionate and that there is no foundation whatsoever to the suggestion that we were reluctant to challenge misconduct or abuse of power.

“I hope this report gives reassurance to victims, survivors and all those interested in our vital work that the issues around the former leading counsel’s departure were handled appropriately by the Inquiry.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

By Danny Shaw
Home affairs correspondent, BBC News

Concerns about the senior barrister on the independent child abuse inquiry had been raised a year before he resigned.

A report says two members of staff “took exception” to Ben Emmerson QC’s interactions with them in 2015, though neither accused him of improper conduct or made a formal complaint.

He quit in September 2016 after another worker claimed he had groped her in a lift.

In December, he was cleared of sexual assault and harassment.

The independent report calls the inquiry’s response “appropriate and proportionate”.

Mark Sutton QC, who led the review, said the inquiry had been confronted with a “set of circumstances with complicating features” that had not been mentioned in the media coverage of the events.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Kitty Holland

Caranua, the independent statutory body tasked with providing services to survivors of institutional abuse, “re-abuses” survivors by being “hostile, rude, aggressive and abusive”, the United Nations will be told on Tuesday.

Many regret applying to Caranua for services, while psychologists report having to counsel abuse survivors following their experiences with the agency, a group advocating for survivors says.

Reclaiming Self, a voluntary group of psychologists, solicitors and advocates, makes the submission to the United Nations Committee Against Torture (CAT), which is being published by Independents4Change TDs Catherine Connolly and Clare Daly.

Ireland appears before the Geneva-based UN CAT for questioning on compliance with the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment, at the end of the month.

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John Menadue – Pearls and Irritations

Posted on 30 June 2017 by John Menadue

Pope Francis has rightly been acclaimed for his stand on climate change, poverty, inequality and refugees, but on these issues he can only encourage others to act. When it comes to the role of the laity in Church governance and the cover up of child sexual abuse, Pope Francis’ rhetoric does not match his actions. He will never have the moral authority of a Nelson Mandela while he refuses to initiate changes to canon law that would bring them into line.

Bruce Duncan’s article sets out Pope Francis’ very positive scorecard on issues such as climate change, poverty, inequality, violence and refugees, for which he has rightly been acclaimed.

However, Pope Francis personally can do little about them. He can only encourage others to act. On the other hand, there are two issues about which he can do something within his own Church, namely the role of the laity in Church governance and the cover up of child sexual abuse, where his scorecard reveals that he has badly failed.

Popes are absolute monarchs when it comes to canon law. They have no Houses of Parliament to restrict them, and no Supreme or High Courts to set aside their laws. Their only “constitution” is Scripture and Tradition.

Pope Francis may feel restrained by Scripture and Tradition from having women priests. But there are three other significant positions in Church governance which have no sacramental or liturgical role, and which canon law says cannot be filled by lay people.

Bishops have supreme legislative, executive and judicial power within their own dioceses with canon law being their only restriction. Canon law permits the delegation of executive power to vicars general and episcopal vicars, and judicial power to judicial vicars, but Canons 478 and 1420 require all of them to be priests.

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GUAM
The Guam Daily Post

Mindy Aguon | The Guam Daily Post

A 53-year-old man has come forward as the latest clergy sex abuse victim alleging he was sexually abused by former Guam priest Louis Brouillard during a Boy Scout outing in the early 1970s.

R.P., whose initials were used to protect his identity, filed a civil complaint against the Archdiocese of Agana and the Boy Scouts of America in the District Court of Guam yesterday.

In addition to having been a priest, Brouillard was a scoutmaster with the Boy Scouts. He has been accused by 46 individuals who allege they were sexually abused by him during his time in Guam.

Overnight Boy Scouts jamboree

In the lawsuit, R.P. alleges he met Brouillard at an overnight Boy Scout jamboree at the Ipan public beach when he was 10. The jamboree was held to recruit young boys to join the Boy Scouts, court documents state.

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ITALIA
Newnotizie

[A priest has fallen into temptation by his domestic worker of Romanian origins.What the priest did not know is that she was in league with a partner, also a Romanian, to extort money from the priest, filming everything with a hidden camera and then blackmail him.]

Un sacerdote è caduto in tentazione con la sua collaboratrice domestica di origini romene, appartandosi con lei in un casolare per fare del sesso.

Ciò che il sacerdote non sapeva è che la donna era in combutta con il suo compagno, anch’egli romeno, per estorcere denaro al sacerdote filmando il tutto con una telecamera nascosta per poi ricattarlo.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph

Olivia Rudgard, religious affairs correspondent
3 JULY 2017

The son of former Archishop of Canterbury George Carey has attacked Church of England bishops for failing to support his father, who he said is the victim of “changing attitudes”.

Last month the Gibb report into sexual abuse by paedophile bishop Peter Ball found that Carey was among church figures who had “colluded” with the disgraced bishop.

Following the publication of the report he was asked to step down from his role as an honorary assistant bishop in the diocese of Oxford.

His son Andrew Carey, a Christian campaigner and writer, said in his column in the Church of England newspaper that he was “angry and dismayed” at what had happened to his father.

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UNITED STATES
Popesugar

July 3, 2017 by QUINN KEANEY

The mystery of who killed Sister Cathy Cesnik might remain unsolved, but there’s no denying that The Keepers has brought investigators one step closer to figuring out what really happened. In addition to inspiring internet sleuths to come up with a few intriguing theories about the 1969 murder, the Netflix documentary has also prompted the creation of a Change.org petition demanding transparency from the Archdiocese of Baltimore. The petition, which now has over 12,000 signatures, specifically asks for the release of their files on A. Joseph Maskell, the priest at the heart of the murder investigation.

Although Father Maskell denied accusations that he had anything to do with Cesnik’s murder up until his death in 2001, the former teacher at Baltimore’s Archbishop Keogh High School is widely believed to have orchestrated the crime. Cesnik, an English teacher at the school, figured out that Maskell (along with another priest at Keogh) was sexually abusing a number of female students and was likely going to bring the information to the authorities. She was murdered under mysterious circumstances before that could ever happen, but the ongoing investigation into her death points at Maskell’s involvement.

The petition’s Change.org page asks the Baltimore Archdiocese to release whatever files they have on Father Maskell. “The release of these documents will restore public trust in the Archdiocese, and confirm the Archdiocese statements regarding their handling of the sexual abuse claims,” the petition’s description reads. “This petition requests that the Archdiocese of Baltimore release their files regarding A. Joseph Maskell, who is now deceased, in an effort to thoroughly investigate all avenues that may have led to the murder of Cathy Cesnik in 1969.”

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ROME
Commonweal

By Robert Mickens
July 3, 2017

Cardinal George Pell’s time at the Vatican is over.

You can bet the Holy See’s huge financial and real estate assets that, de facto, he is finished as Prefect of the Secretariat of the Economy, the office that monitors those vast resources.

Pope Francis granted Pell an extended “leave” from his Vatican post this past Wednesday so the cardinal could return to his native Australia and face “multiple charges in respect of historic sexual abuse.”

The cardinal must appear before Melbourne Magistrates Court on July 26 when it is expected that the exact nature of the abuse charges will be made public.

Accusations against the cardinal have circulated for many years but they have never stuck. Pell has always insisted on his innocence and this past week vowed to clear his name in what he’s called a “relentless character assassination.” Evidently, he’s hired Melbourne barrister Robert Richter, known as a “standout celebrity criminal advocate,” to defend him.

This will likely require a long and drawn-out courtroom battle that will last at least a year or more. And that’s far too long for a major Vatican office to be left without its head.

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UNITED STATES
NPR

July 3, 2017

Heard on Morning Edition

A close aide to Pope Francis has been charged with sexually abusing children. Steve Inskeep talks to Thomas Doyle, a former Catholic priest and now a columnist for the National Catholic Reporter.

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AUSTRALIA
Manny Waks

​Joint Statement by Tzedek and Manny Waks
3/7/2017

The recent announcement by the Adass Israel School of the appointment of Rabbi Meir Shlomo Kluwgant as Principal has stirred up emotion and trauma for victims/survivors of child sexual abuse and their families and stunned many within the community.

Manny Waks and Tzedek wish to put an end to unfortunate disagreements which have arisen between us in the wake of this announcement and which risk distracting from the real issue at hand.

While we may have different ways of going about things and may not always agree, we wish to make clear that we are united in our view that the welfare of victims/survivors of child sexual abuse and the safety of children in our community comes before all else and in that context, the appointment by Adass of Rabbi Meir Shlomo Kluwgant is unacceptable at this time. We will continue striving toward an outcome that is safe for everyone.

We will continue to work towards ensuring the best outcomes for victims/survivors of child sexual abuse and the safety of children in our community.
​
The Board of the school have agreed to work with Tzedek in striving toward an outcome that is safe and healing for everyone.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Mail

By Max Margan and Hannah Moore For Daily Mail Australia

A disgraced rabbi who admitted to criticising victims of sexual abuse has been appointed principal of a school which allegedly covered up sex crimes.

Meir Shlomo Kluwgant resigned as Australia’s most senior rabbi in 2015 after admitting to calling the father of a child abuse victim a ‘lunatic’ who ‘neglected his own children’.

Kluwgant will now head Melbourne’s Adass Israel School, which has been previously accused of helping a former principal flee to Israel amid allegations she sexually assaulted students, a letter allegedly distributed to staff and published online shows.

‘We are pleased to advise that we have appointed Rabbi Meir Shlomo Kluwgant to assume Dr Herszberg’s role. They will be working together collaboratively for the remainder of the year, to ensure a smooth transition,’ the letter reads.

It tells staff the controversial Rabbi was chosen after a ‘global recruitment process’, and with ‘the full support of the Board and Executive’.

Former principal Malka Leifer allegedly abused at least eight girls while she was principal of the Elsternwick school between 2003 and 2008.

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ROME
Associated Press

BY NICOLE WINFIELD AND MARIA CHENG
ASSOCIATED PRESS

ROME (AP) — When doctors and nurses at the Vatican’s showcase children’s hospital complained in 2014 that corners were being cut and medical protocols ignored, the Vatican responded by ordering up a secret in-house investigation. The diagnosis: The original mission of “the pope’s hospital” had been lost and was “today more aimed at profit than on caring for children.”

Three years later, an Associated Press investigation found that Bambino Gesu (Baby Jesus) Pediatric Hospital did indeed shift its focus in ways big and small under its past administration, which governed from 2008 to 2015. As the hospital expanded services and tried to make a money-losing Vatican enterprise turn a profit, children sometimes paid the price.

Among the AP’s findings:

– Overcrowding and poor hygiene contributed to deadly infection, including one 21-month superbug outbreak in the cancer ward that killed eight children.

– To save money, disposable equipment and other materials were at times used improperly, with a one-time order of cheap needles breaking when injected into tiny veins.

– Doctors were so pressured to maximize operating-room turnover that patients were sometimes brought out of anesthesia too quickly.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

Andrew Bolt, Herald Sun
July 2, 2017

The media commentary suggests there’s little chance Cardinal George Pell can get a fair trial.

Over the past few days we’ve been told it was “important” Pell was last week charged with historical sexual offences.

People in Pell’s home town had been “hurt” and “the world will be watching”.

A report in The Age even claimed this seemed “the inevitable last act in the drama of a man who authored his own tragedy”.

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AUSTRALIA
Echo Net Daily

MELBOURNE [AAP]

Supporters of George Pell have reportedly set up a fund to help the cardinal fight multiple, historical sexual abuse charges.

Details of the fund emerged after the Catholic Church said it would not pay Cardinal Pell’s legal fees after Victoria Police charged the Vatican’s 76-year-old finance chief on summons last Thursday.

News Corp Australia reports that a bank account has been set up for donations to help Cardinal Pell when he returns to Melbourne from Rome to fight the charges.

John Roskam, the head of the Institute of Public Affairs conservative think tank, said he had been given bank account details for people wanting to assist Cardinal Pell with his legal bills.

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AUSTRALIA
The New York Times

The Roman Catholic Church won’t be footing the bill for Cardinal George Pell’s defense against sex offenses, Sydney’s archbishop, Anthony Fisher, confirmed in a statement last week.

Some Australian Catholics have taken up the mantle, setting up a fund for those who want to support Cardinal Pell in his legal battle. John Roskam, the executive director of the Institute of Public Affairs, a conservative think tank, told News Corporation of the fund’s existence, which the think tank confirmed to The New York Times in an interview Monday morning. Evan Mulholland, media and communications manager at the think tank, said that Mr. Roskam had called the archdiocese on behalf of a friend and was given details about the fund. “A lot of our members have called up and asked how they can contribute,” he said.

Has the church paid legal fees in the past for priests? The church’s decision to not pay Cardinal Pell’s legal fees may reflect changing policies on how it deals with fallout. According to reports by Australia’s Royal Commission Into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, church orders in Australia like the Marist Brothers and Christian Brothers have paid tens of millions in legal fees and settlements on behalf of their priests.

Notably, the Christian Brothers have continued to fund the defense of Brother Robert Charles Best, spending more than $1.5 million, according to the commission’s findings. He was convicted of sexual offenses against 11 children and sentenced to 10 years in prison this year.

In 2003, The Times reported that the Catholic archdiocese of Boston agreed to settle almost 550 lawsuits for 85 million United States dollars, largely paid for by insurance policies and the sale of church property.

Other churches have also paid for legal defenses: The West Australian recently reported that the Anglican Church covered Archbishop Roger Herft’s legal fees when he was called to testify to the commission about child sexual abuse.

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AUSTRALIA/ROME
Sky News

Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce has discussed the charges against Cardinal George Pell at a meeting in the Vatican.

During a European trade talks tour, Mr Joyce sat down with Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin just days after its Australian treasurer was charged with historic sexual offences.

‘Quite obviously we raised that issue,’ he told ABC radio on Monday after the meeting.

Mr Joyce insisted allegations until proven are merely allegations.

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AUSTRALIA
Red Flag

TOM BRAMBLE
03 JULY 2017

“A fine human being … One of the greatest churchmen that Australia has seen.” That was Tony Abbott on the ABC’s Lateline in 2004 when asked his opinion of cardinal George Pell.

Abbott has not been Pell’s only conservative defender. Every part of the right wing establishment has at one time or another gone in to bat for Australia’s leading Catholic representative. Such support from the heart of the establishment explains Pell’s rapid rise to the third most senior position in the Roman Catholic world.

It’s no secret why the Liberal Party has been so fond of him. If the Church of England was once described as the British Conservative party at prayer, George Pell has been the unofficial spiritual representative of the Australian Liberals.

Pell has been a steadfast supporter of virtually every socially reactionary cause. In response to reports of boys in Catholic schools driven to suicide by homophobia, he said, “Homosexuality is a much greater health hazard than smoking”. He told delegates to the World Youth Day in 2002 that “abortion is a worse moral scandal than priests sexually abusing young people”, and he is adamantly opposed to contraception and to sex outside marriage. He has denounced concern about climate change as “a symptom of pagan emptiness” and the Greens as “anti-Christian”.

Views such as these cemented Pell’s position as a right wing warrior and won him favour among conservative politicians. He was regularly consulted by the likes of Tony Abbott and reciprocated in kind, telling a Fairfax journalist in 2012 that the two of them have been friends for years: “I admire him as a very decent and competent fellow”.

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AUSTRALIA
The Advertiser

Stephen Pallaras, The Advertiser

VICTORIAN police and the Director of Public Prosecutions have decided there is sufficient evidence against Cardinal George Pell to charge him with multiple sexual offences. Even before charges were laid, there was considerable discussion that a fair hearing would be impossible.

This speculation continues, with the Vatican’s chief diplomat, Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, due to raise concerns Pell cannot receive a fair trial with Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce, who is in Rome on trade talks.

The claim that a fair trial is impossible has been based on two propositions.

First, that Pell is so well known that a jury could not determine the question of his guilt or innocence without bias or prejudice. Secondly, that so much prejudicial material has been made public it would poison the jurors’ minds and make a fair trial impossible.

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UNITED STATES
Fox News

By John Moody
Published July 02, 2017

There are two ways of looking at the Roman Catholic Church under the rule of Pope Francis: an increasingly tolerant, inclusive, mercy-based charity, or a spectator blood-sport between ideological rivals who will reconcile their differences. Under the second scenario, Francis just scored what might be a knockout punch.

By removing Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Francis neutralized one of the few princes of the church whose job it was to call out the pope for his seemingly endless appetite for doctrinal change. Müller, who was installed in his job by Francis’s predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, represented the conservative wing of the church that has looked askance at the current pontiff’s disregard for centuries-old tradition and restrictions.

Making matters even worse, Francis replaced Müller with Archbishop Luis Ladaria, who like Francis is a Jesuit. That reduces the likelihood that the pope will meet opposition from the one office in the church with the duty to interpret Catholic magisterium – that is, spreading doctrinal teaching to the church’s billion plus adherents.

Ever since Francis assumed the Throne of Peter in 2013, he and Müller seemed to be on a collision course. Soon after becoming pope, Francis floated the idea of letting divorced Catholics who had remarried outside the church receive Holy Communion. In his role as chief interpreter of church doctrine, Müller let the pope know that was a non-starter.

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SOUTH AFRICA
Daily Maverick

Things got tough in Rome last week. First, on Thursday, Australian police in the state of Victoria announced that they have filed sex abuse charges against Cardinal George Pell. Pell was moved from Sydney to Rome by Pope Francis in 2014 to spearhead his reform of the Vatican’s financial system. Then, on Saturday, to the dismay of many conservative Catholics, Pope Francis decided not to renew the appointment of the church’s chief doctrinal official. German Cardinal, Gerhard Ludwig Müller, was appointed by Pope Benedict XVI to head up that office just before he decided to quit in 2013. Both moves have implications for Pope Francis’ project of reform.

BY RUSSELL POLLITT.

George Pell is no stranger to controversy. He is known to be ambitious, bombastic, overbearing and combative. Pell could be accused of many things; being timid is not one of them. When Pell was an auxiliary bishop in Melbourne, he was appointed to be an adviser to the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) who was the Church’s chief doctrinal enforcer. Pell was very much of the mindset of Ratzinger and Pope John Paul II. Theologically conservative and authoritarian, he supported many of the moves by John Paul II to wind back the reforms of the church’s Second Vatican Council in the 1960s.

To his admirers Pell is solid, orthodox (whatever that means in contemporary Catholicism) and courageous. His supporters believe that he is a man who dares to stand on the side of truth in a world of moral relativism. When he was Archbishop of Melbourne, and later Sydney, he provided an energetic and strident voice attempting to restore clerical authority and the orthodox Catholic voice on social issues. Pell was seen, by some, as the one who would “rescue” the church from progressives and restore it to “orthodoxy”.

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ITALIA
La Repubblica

[Archbishop accused of abuse cover-up – The Times]

Nel 2012 a Foggia don Gianni Trotta fu cacciato per abusi ma nessuno lo seppe Perché l’arcivescovo Ladaria ordinò il silenzio. E le molestie proseguirono.

Un’esclusiva Espresso- Repubblica

di EMILIANO FITTIPALDI e GIULIANO FOSCHINI

Nel marzo del 2012 l’arcivescovo Luis Ladaria Ferrer, che sabato è stato promosso da Papa Francesco nuovo prefetto della Congregazione per la Dottrina della Fede, ha coperto, senza denunciarlo, un prete pedofilo che era stato ridotto allo stato laicale per abusi sessuali. Di più. Ha ordinato, nero su bianco, che la condanna canonica passasse sotto silenzio. Don Gianni Trotta, grazie all’acquiescenza del Vaticano e della curia locale, ha così potuto continuare indisturbato a violentare minorenni: dopo essere stato costretto a lasciare la tonaca è infatti diventato allenatore di una squadra di calcio giovanile, e in due anni ha molestato una decina di bambini vicino a Foggia.

La storia di Trotta è stata raccontata lo scorso febbraio da Repubblica che oggi, insieme a L’Espresso, è in grado di ricostruire le responsabilità dirette di Ladaria. È lui che il 16 marzo 2016 firma il decreto in latino, nel quale invitava i superiori del pedofilo a stare zitti e muti per non «generare scandalo tra i fedeli». Una nuova spina per Papa Francesco, che — dopo l’incriminazione formale del suo (ormai ex) braccio destro George Pell per presunti abusi su alcuni adolescenti australiani — ha deciso di nominare Ladaria come successore di Gerhard Ludwig Müller, il cardinale tedesco licenziato in tronco anche perché giudicato poco incisivo nella lotta alla pedofilia. Un paradosso.

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AUSTRALIA
The West Australian

Nick Butterly
Sunday, 2 July 2017

Anglican priests in Perth are demanding answers after it was revealed the Church spent almost $500,000 on legal fees to defend Archbishop Roger Herft at the royal commission into child sexual abuse.

Priests attending a retreat in Margaret River late last month were shocked after being told insurance was unlikely to cover Archbishop Herft’s legal bills as had been expected.

Instead, clergy were informed the Archbishop’s bills totalling $474,000 had already been paid by the Church’s head office without formal authorisation.

In a statement, the Anglican Diocese of Perth said it was “generally known” and reported through the budget that significant funds were being spent to support the Archbishop.

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UNITED STATES
First Things

by Julia Yost
7 . 3 . 17

Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of George Pell
Louise Milligan
Melbourne, 277 pages, $11.21

George Cardinal Pell was charged last week with multiple counts of sexual abuse of children. He currently resides in Rome, tasked with cleaning up the Vatican finances. This week he will fly to his native Australia, where he vows to fight all charges. His successor in the see of Sydney, Archbishop Anthony Fisher, advises letting the justice system take its course.

Australian civil authorities have yet to announce the number and nature of the offenses with which Pell is charged. But allegations against Pell have been accumulating for years. He stands publicly accused of complicity in a sex abuse coverup in the diocese of Ballarat in the 1970s and early 1980s; complicity in a sex abuse coverup in the archdiocese of Melbourne in the late 1980s and 1990s; and various counts of child molestation, assault, and indecent exposure, from 1961 through 1997.

In recent decades, child sex abuse cases have notably arisen from, and elicited, public hysteria. They have created poor conditions for the operation of the justice system. Ludicrous prosecutions and unjust convictions have resulted, far too numerous to count as the cost of doing business. In Australia, public hysteria concerning Pell is already extreme. Here is Louise Milligan’s florid book, written “from the complainants’ point of view.” Its publication was advanced from July to May, presumably to influence the deliberations of the civil authorities. Once Pell had been charged, its publisher removed it from local bookshops to avoid influencing the deliberations of jury members. But its claims have already been broadcast throughout the Australian media. Archbishop Fisher’s repose in the justice system may prove mistaken.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

Shannon Deery, Herald Sun
July 3, 2017

A CONTROVERSIAL rabbi caught intimidating and vilifying victims of child sexual abuse will now head a Melbourne school accused of covering up the sex crimes of a fugitive principal.

In a move that has devastated victims of sexual abuse, Meir Shlomo Kluwgant has been appointed as principal of the Adass Israel School in Elsternwick.

In 2008 the school’s committee helped principal Malka Leifer flee Melbourne after she was publicly accused of sexually assaulting students.

Kluwgant was forced to resign as Australia’s top rabbi amid a humiliating scandal in the wake of the child abuse royal commission’s probe into the notorious Yeshivah College in 2015.

He was also stripped of or forced to resign from positions with Jewish Care Victoria, the Rabbinical Council of Victoria, Victoria Police and the Victoria Police Multi-Faith Council.

Critics of Kluwgant’s appointment say it is evidence that Adass is not serious about tackling the scourge of abuse.

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ROME
The Times (UK)

[Non denunciò il prete pedofilo: quell’ombra nel passato del nuovo capo del Sant’Uffizio – La Repubblica]

Philip Willan, Rome
July 3 2017
The Times

The Pope’s battle to reform the Catholic Church risks a serious setback as allegations emerge that his choice for leader of the Vatican’s doctrinal watchdog failed to report a serial sex abuser, allowing the defrocked priest to commit new crimes.

On Saturday the Vatican announced that Luis Ladaria Ferrer, a Spanish Jesuit, would lead the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. He succeeds Cardinal Gerhard Müller of Germany, who was denied another five-year term because he was perceived to be dragging his feet on action against paedophile priests, and is thought to oppose the Pope’s compassionate approach to sexual morality.

Archbishop Ladaria wrote to the bishop of Foggia in 2012 instructing him not to divulge the reasons why Father Gianni Trotta had been stripped of his priesthood “so as to avoid scandal”, according to claims published today in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica and the online edition of L’Espresso magazine. The letter, written in Latin, was allegedly signed by William Joseph Levada, the American cardinal who was then head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and by Archbishop Ladaria, his deputy.

The congregation received complaints against Trotta in 2009 and three years later found him guilty of sexually abusing minors, demoting him from the priesthood but failing to inform the Italian authorities.

Church officials are not obliged to report allegations of abuse by priests to the judicial authorities, under a 1929 treaty between Italy and the Vatican, but the letter said that the local bishop could publicise the accusations “if there is a danger of minors being abused”.

Trotta continued to present himself as a priest and became the coach of a youth football team, where he is alleged to have abused about a dozen boys aged 11 and 12. “If the congregation and Ladaria had informed the police, these children would have been safe,” said Emiliano Fittipaldi, the L’Espresso journalist who published details of the letter. “He concealed serious crimes from the Italian police until a few years ago. He allowed dangerous people to remain at large. This is Ladaria, there is a shadow over him from the very beginning of his new appointment.”

Trotta was sentenced to eight years imprisonment in 2015 for sexual violence against an 11-year-old boy and for the production and distribution of child pornography. He faces further charges of abusing another 11 children.

Greg Burke, a Vatican spokesman, said yesterday that he had no comment on the allegations.

Controversy about Archbishop Ladaria’s appointment comes as the Church faces mounting conservative opposition to the Pope’s reforms, with hardliners accusing him of heresy. Plans to reform Vatican finances are also in disarray as Cardinal George Pell, their architect, prepares to return to Australia to face sex offence charges.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Heney Standard

THE former Archbishop of Canterbury cancelled an engagement in Wargrave following revelations that he failed to report child sex abuse in the Nineties.

Lord Carey, 81, who stepped down from his latest role in the Church of England on Monday following a review of the case, was due to speak at a service at St Mary’s Church on Sunday to mark the end of the Wargrave Village Festival.

But last week, he visited Wargrave vicar Rev John Cook to say he would not be coming after all.

Lord Carey served as archbishop from 1991 to 2002 and was more recently honorary assistant bishop in the Diocese of Oxford.

He was asked to resign by the current Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby after being criticised in a review of the church’s handling of abuse carried out by Bishop Peter Ball. The review by Dame Moira Gibb said Lord Carey had failed to pass information on Ball, who was jailed in 2015, to the police in 1992.

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GUAM
KUAM

By Krystal Paco

Another former altar boy shares his story of sexual abuse.

53-year-old R.P. was an altar boy at Talofofo Parish when he alleges he was sexually molested by Father Louis Brouillard in the early 1970s.

Although he wasn’t a boy scout, R.P. and his cousin were interested in joining so they attended a jamboree at Ipan Public Beach.

The boys shared a tent that night when they were approached by Brouillard who was a scoutmaster. Brouillard came into the tent and lied down with the boys before exposing his penis. Although the boys laughed, the priest then forced both R.P. and his cousin to touch and masturbate him.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Sueddeutsche Zeitung

[This fight is overlaid by sexual abuse in the Catholic church. Scandal is a crude understatement. For decades, priests in many countries have abused innumerable young people, including many children, and have often destroyed their lives.A number of bishops and cardinals have ignored or even protected these wolves in the shepherd fur in order to preserve the image of the church and to allow the perpetrators a new beginning. These church leaders have been complicit in the suffering of the victims and have shaken the credibility of the church.]

Kommentar von Stefan Ulrich

Das Wort Kardinal entspringt dem lateinischen cardo, was Dreh- und Angelpunkt bedeutet. Die Kardinäle sind Dreh- und Angelpunkte der katholischen Weltkirche, sie halten sie zusammen und in Bewegung. Besonders gilt das für die Kurienkardinäle, die vom Vatikan aus die Kirche regieren. In den vergangenen Tagen sind gleich zwei dieser Kurienkardinäle aus den Angeln gehoben worden, um im Bilde zu bleiben. Erst wurde der Finanzchef George Pell beurlaubt, dann trennte sich Papst Franziskus vom Präfekten der Glaubenskongregation, Gerhard Ludwig Müller. Die Ablösung der führenden Glaubensbrüder ist weit mehr als eine normale Regierungsumbildung: Sie ist Ausdruck eines Machtkampfs, der seit Jahren, oft im Verborgenen, im Vatikan tobt.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Sueddeutsche Zeitung

Von Matthias Drobinski

Der Rauswurf kam kurz vorm Klassentreffen. Gerhard Ludwig Müller, der es vom Abiturienten zum Kardinal und Präfekten der Glaubenskongregation gebracht hat, war am Freitag quasi schon auf dem Weg nach Mainz, um 50 Jahre Reifeprüfung zu feiern, da bat ihn Papst Franziskus noch einmal zur Privataudienz um zwölf Uhr mittags. Er eröffnete dem überraschten Kardinal, dass es nach dem Ende seiner fünfjährigen Amtszeit als oberster Glaubenswächter am 2. Juli keine weitere geben werde. Tags darauf saß Kardinal Müller in der Mainzer Kirche Sankt Stephan mit ihren berühmten Chagall-Fenstern und wirkte, so berichtete die Mainzer Allgemeine Zeitung, entspannt. Franziskus habe ihm mitgeteilt, er wolle generell die Amtszeit wichtiger Kurienmitarbeiter auf fünf Jahre begrenzen, sagte er, “und da war ich der Erste, bei dem er das umgesetzt hat”. “Differenzen zwischen mir und Papst Franziskus gab es nicht.”

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UNITED STATES
Washington Post

By Editorial Board
July 2

POPE FRANCIS, who pledged a policy of “zero tolerance” for sexually abusive clergy in the Catholic Church, has turned out to be all too tolerant. On Thursday, Australian police brought criminal charges against Cardinal George Pell, a top Vatican official and kitchen- cabinet adviser to the pope, for multiple alleged incidents of sexual assault.

The charges against Cardinal Pell, the Vatican’s finance chief and the pope’s hand-picked agent of administrative reform, shook the Holy See, notwithstanding long-standing allegations that he ignored, dismissed and excused cases of sexual misconduct during his pre-Vatican years as a priest and church official in Australia. That included the crimes of a notorious pedophile priest with whom Cardinal Pell shared a house for two years in the 1970s.

In fact, while Cardinal Pell is the rare Vatican princeling to be charged with sexual misconduct, he was one of two members of the Vatican’s nine-member Council of Cardinals alleged to have turned a blind eye to child sex abuse undertaken by priests once under his jurisdiction. The other is Cardinal Javier Errázuriz, formerly the archbishop of Santiago, Chile. Both men were elevated
Cardinal Pell, 76, who denied the sexual assault charges, was granted a leave of absence to return to Australia, where he said he would contest the charges.

Whatever the resolution to his case, the cardinal has long been notorious, even by Vatican standards, for the callousness of his attitude toward the abuse scandal that has bedeviled the church for most of this century. Speaking of one infamous priest widely known as a serial abuser in Australia in the early 1990s, when Cardinal Pell was a high-ranking church official in Melbourne, he said, “It’s a sad story and [the extent to which it was publicly known] wasn’t of much interest to me.” Peter Saunders, a highly respected survivor of sexual abuse who served on the Vatican’s commission on abuse, said Cardinal Pell was “almost sociopathic” in his indifference toward victims.

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

Jasmine Stole , jstole@guampdn.com July 3, 2017 | Updated 6:32 p.m. ChT July 3, 2017

A 53-year-old man is suing the Catholic Church and former Guam priest Louis Brouillard, alleging Brouillard sexually abused him more than 40 years ago.

The man, identified by his initials R.P. to protect his identity, was an altar boy for San Miguel Catholic Church in Talofofo from when he was 7 years old to about 13 years old.

R.P. attended an overnight event hosted by the Boy Scouts to recruit members in 1973 or 1974. He was around 10 years old at the time and he and his cousin were given a two-man tent. The event was held at Ipan beach.

Brouillard that night approached R.P.’s tent and asked if they wanted to join the Boy Scouts. He left and returned later and went inside R.P.’s tent. The priest spoke with the two boys.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
The Irish News

ALLISON MORRIS
03 July, 2017

OF the thousands of victims of Northern Ireland’s troubles few have been more badly let down than the children of murdered mother of ten Jean McConville.

At just six years-old Billy McConville and his twin brother Jim were the youngest of the family of orphans abandoned after their mother was abducted by the IRA in the mouth of Christmas 1972.

When they were eventually taken into care they were sent to children’s homes across Northern Ireland, including Nazareth Lodge and Nazareth House in Belfast and the De La Salle Boys’ Home at Rubane House in Kircubbin.

Sir Anthony Hart found child abuse was systemic at these Catholic Church run institutions, the McConville children were among the terrified young victims.

Some of the children suffered physical and mental neglect, others were also sexually abused by staff and older boys, Billy suffered among the worst possible abuse.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Kitty Holland

The continuing “denial” by Government that the State has any liability for the Magdalene laundries continues to violate survivors’ dignity, compounding their “torture”, the United Nations will be told on Monday.

In a submission to the UN Committee Against Torture (CAT), the Justice for Magdalenes (JFM) group said there had never been “an independent, thorough and effective investigation” into the experiences of women and girls in the laundries and no person or institution held accountable. It said Government had failed to deliver on key commitments made to survivors, including on the provision of services and rights, and to consult with them on a memorial.

Ireland comes before the UN Committee in Geneva at the end of the month for questioning on compliance with the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

More than 10,000 women and girls spent time in Church-run Magdalene laundries from the early 20th century, until the last was closed in 1996. Most were sent and held against their will, usually for the “crime” of being unmarried and pregnant, where they worked in laundries without pay. Many State-run bodies, hospitals and hotels had contracts with Magdalene laundries.

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NEW ZEALAND
NZ Catholic

By Michael Otto – July 3, 2017

Christchurch diocese has appointed a safeguarding coordinator, and is the first diocese in New Zealand to have such a dedicated position.

Virginia Noonan, who has an extensive background in law and a long involvement in Catholic education, started in the part-time role on May 8.

The National Office for Professional Standards has recommended that each diocese appoint a safeguarding coordinator.

Ms Noonan reports directly to the Christchurch diocese’s Bishop’s Pastoral Office director Michael Stopforth and will work with the bishop directly as needed. Mr Stopforth told NZ Catholic that the role of the safeguarding coordinator is to assist the bishop in ensuring that safeguarding guidelines approved by the New Zealand Catholic Bishops Conference and heads of religious orders are implemented in Christchurch diocese.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

Josephine Lim, Ellen Whinnett, News Corp Australia Network
July 2, 2017

THE Catholic Church will not pay legal fees for Adelaide Archbishop Philip Wilson as he prepares to face a two-week hearing this year on a charge of concealing child sex abuse.

The Catholic Archdiocese of Adelaide has confirmed that Wilson, who was charged in March 2015, was paying his own bills.

He stands accused of failing to give police information about the alleged sexual assault of a 10-year-old boy in 1971 by the now-dead paedophile priest James Fletcher in Maitland, NSW.

Wilson has pleaded not guilty to the charge.

His lawyers made three unsuccessful attempts in the Local Court, NSW Supreme Court and NSW Court of Appeal to have the charge quashed or permanently stayed.

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UNITED STATES
WABE

[with audio]

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

Has the Catholic Church made enough progress in fighting abuse by its priests? That question has renewed urgency after George Pell became the highest-ranking member of the clergy to be formally charged. Cardinal Pell of Australia is a close adviser to the pope. He’s been charged with sexual assault. He says he’s innocent. Police in Melbourne aren’t releasing the details of his accusers.

Joining us to talk about the case from Dublin and the broader questions it raises is Marie Collins. She was until recently on a papal commission dealing with the sexual abuse of children by clergy. Thanks for being with us.

MARIE COLLINS: Glad to be here.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: So please remind us of your story. How did this come to be an issue in your life?

COLLINS: Well, I was abused by a priest when I was a child. And it caused me a great deal of difficulty with my life afterwards. I had a lot of problems with anxiety and depression.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: How old were you when it happened?

COLLINS: I had just turned 13. I was in a children’s hospital. And the priest who assaulted me was the Catholic chaplain of the hospital. And he also took indecent photographs, which had a lasting effect on me.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: You were one of two sexual abuse survivors on the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors. Yet you resigned March 1. Can you tell us why?

COLLINS: I did because I accepted the appointment to the commission in the hope that the church was really beginning to show, you know, a sincere wish to change. And after three years, I resigned on some specific issues. But, basically, it was the resistance from some quarters in the Vatican to actually change.

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AUSTRALIA
The Mercury

Greg Barns, Mercury
July 2, 2017

GEORGE Pell, Australia’s most senior Catholic Church official, is a public figure. Like most public figures, he is loathed in some quarters and lauded in others.

He has been the subject of extensive media over many years, and his work has been publicised in a recent book.

Cardinal Pell is now charged in respect of what are commonly termed “historic sex abuse allegations.”

But, no matter what the media or any individual or organisation thinks of Cardinal Pell’s personal traits or the subject matter with which the charges deal, he is as entitled to the presumption of innocence in facing criminal proceedings in Victoria as any other person.

It is of fundamental importance — and the word fundamental is used advisedly — for those in the media and users of social media, irrespective of whether they are anti or pro Pell or that they have strong views about the issue of churches and sexual abuse, to respect the presumption of innocence.

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NEW YORK
The Worthy Adversary

July 2, 2017 Joelle Casteix

Sorry for the gap since Part 2. I was on vacation. Then I ended up on the news.

He’s been called The Master of Disasters, a brand unto himself, and the Compensation Czar.

Kenneth Feinberg (pictured above), the man who, with his assistant Camille Biros (read this recent New York Times article about her), is in charge of determining who is eligible for compensation in both the New York Archdiocese’s and Brooklyn Diocese’s Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Plans.

He handled compensation for the victims of 9/11, the BP Deepwater Horizon explosion, the Penn State sex abuse scandal, the Boston Marathon Bombings … the list goes on and on.

But these disasters were different. Penn State officials were subject to civil and criminal trials. BP was subject to huge civil litigation with the Deepwater Horizon explosion. One of the Boston Bombers died; the other was given the death sentence in the criminal courts.

Not only were these scandals settled in the courts before Feinberg got them, but they are also over. Done.

The Catholic Clergy Sex Abuse Scandal in the State of New York is neither. It is not over and victims have been barred from using the civil courts for justice. The scandal is not done.

It gets worse.

All of the evidence that the church has in their files will remain secret. Even from Feinberg. He has to trust Dolan is telling him the truth and giving him all of the information he needs.

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ROME
NBC News

by CLAUDIO LAVANGA and ALASTAIR JAMIESON

ROME — Pope Francis’ top financial adviser Cardinal George Pell was charged Thursday with multiple sex crimes — becoming the highest-ranking Vatican official to be charged with abuse.

The 76-year-old faces “multiple charges in respect of historic sexual offences” from multiple complainants, said police in the Australian state of Victoria, where Pell was a country priest in the 1970s.

Cardinal Pell, the Vatican’s de facto treasury minister, told reporters he had been granted leave of absence to face the allegations.

“I am looking forward finally to having my day in court,” he said. “I repeat that I am innocent of these charges. They are false. The whole idea of sexual abuse is abhorrent to me.”

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UNITED STATES
NPR

July 2, 2017

Heard on Weekend Edition Sunday

NPR’s Lulu Garcia-Navarro discusses the Catholic Church’s response to its sexual abuse scandal with Marie Collins, who recently resigned from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

July 3, 2017

SUE NEALES
Reporter – Rural/Regional Affairs
@BushReporter

A chill wind was blowing through the Victorian gold-rush town of Ballarat, as local Catholics gathered for their first Sunday mass since police laid multiple histor­ical sex charges against Cardinal George Pell.

For a community that has already­ been at the heart of the Royal Commission into Instit­utional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse — and where six Catholic priests, including notorious pedophile Gerald Ridsdale, have been convicted of dozens of sex offences — a sense of tired resignation pervaded.

At Ballarat’s imposing bluestone St Patrick’s Cathedral, where hundreds of coloured ribbon­s tied to wrought-iron fence posts are poignant reminders of the community’s support for abuse victims and survivors, Bishop Paul Bird urged the congregati­on yesterday to pray for “all those who will be involved” in court proceedings in coming months.

At the first opportunity, Bishop Bird spoke directly about the unspecified sex-abuse charges against Cardinal Pell — a Ballarat local who has risen to the top echelons of the Vatican.

“Cardinal Pell has denied all allegations and will be returning to Australia to face the charges in court; he is determined to clear his name,” Bishop Bird said.

“Court proceedings are stressful for everyone involved and there is likely to be added stress because of the publicity surrounding this case. I ask for your prayers for Cardinal Pell, and to pray for victims of crime and the community in general.”

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NEW YORK
The New York Times

By ROGER PARLOFF
JUNE 23, 2017

When the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn unveiled a program on Thursday to compensate victims of sexual abuse by its clergy, it chose a familiar name to oversee it: Kenneth R. Feinberg.

His six-person law firm has achieved national renown — and a near monopoly — in the curious business of devising ways to compensate disaster victims. He administered the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund and the payouts tied to the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill between 2010 and 2012. More than 30 years ago, he set up the compensation program for American soldiers injured by Agent Orange, the noxious Vietnam War-era defoliant.

Yet the person who actually grapples with many of the most wrenching decisions in carrying out the compensation — Who is eligible? If someone died, who gets the money? — is rarely Mr. Feinberg himself.

Instead, it is Camille Biros. “I don’t think anyone could have anticipated a career like this,” said Ms. Biros, who has worked with the Feinberg firm for nearly 40 years.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

Damien Murphy

The Archbishop of Sydney, Anthony Fisher, has come out in strong support for his embattled predecessor Cardinal George Pell, saying no one should be prejudged because of their elite social status or positions on social issues.

“The George Pell I know is a man of integrity in his dealings with others, a man of faith and high ideals, a thoroughly decent man,” he said during Mass at St Mary’s Cathedral on Sunday.

“Where complaints of abuse are made, victims should be listened to with respect and compassion and their complaints investigated and dealt with according to the law.

“No one should be prejudged because of their high profile, religious convictions or positions on social issues.”

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ROME
Breaking News (Ireland)

The former head of the Vatican’s doctrine office has denied any differences with Pope Francis as he said he is not upset about his earlier-than-expected dismissal.

Francis sacked German Cardinal Gerhard Mueller yesterday, declining to renew his five-year term.
Cardinal Mueller turns 70 in December, and the normal retirement age for bishops is 75.

In an interview with Mainzer Allgemeine Zeitung published today, Cardinal Mueller said Francis simply decided not to renew his mandate, wanting to limit terms as a rule “and I was the first where he put this into practice”.

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AUSTRALIA/VATICAN CITY
Herald Sun

Ellen Whinnett, News Corp Australia Network
July 2, 2017

DEPUTY Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce has described court proceedings against Cardinal George Pell as “all very sad”.

Mr Joyce made the comment after a meeting overnight with Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the highest-ranked Vatican figure after the Pope.

The meeting, scheduled months ago, came three days after Cardinal Pell, 76, was charged by police with multiple historic sexual offences.

Mr Joyce, himself a committed Catholic, confirmed Cardinal Pell had come up in conversation with Cardinal Parolin.

He said he could not say much about the issue because it was before the court.

“It would have been very peculiar if it had not come up,” he told News Corp.

“It’s all very sad this is happening.

“When there are suspicions people suspect the worst.

“There are lots and lots of things up in the air so I will give Cardinal Pell the same (entitlement) I would give anyone, innocent until proven guilty.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Mail

By Bryant Hevesi For Daily Mail Australia

A Sunday Mass at Melbourne’s most prominent Catholic Church was dominated by discussion about Cardinal George Pell’s historic sexual abuse charges.

About 150 parishioners were in attendance at St Patrick’s Cathedral as the Priest in Residence said the Mass was ‘being offered for Cardinal Pell on his protection’.

Reverend Aurelio Fragapane​ said Cardinal Pell continued to be in their prayers alongside the Catholic Church before asking worshippers to pray, The Age reported.

He later noted during the Mass: ‘As Jesus was unjustly condemned and accused of things – that [also] happens to us’.

‘Perhaps that is a good sign that God has chosen us and considered us worthy to be his disciples that we are able to enter into that sacrifice,’ Reverend Fragapane said.

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NEW ZEALAND
New Zealand Herald

A Dunedin man who was sexually abused by Catholic priests in New Zealand and Australia has labelled allegations against Cardinal George Pell “disgusting”.

Darryl Smith was sexually abused while attending Catholic schools in both New Zealand and Australia.

He has spoken out about the allegations made against Pell, who is accused of groping boys while he was a priest in Ballarat in the 1970s.

“I think it’s disgusting. The man hid priests for years they’ve acknowledged victims and then the Vatican takes him on to work for them, I found that quite disgusting,” Smith said.

Pell is the finance chief for Pope Francis at the Vatican, and has vehemently denied the allegations.

Smith said he wanted the Catholic Church to do more for victims of abuse.

“They need to pay more attention to what we’re saying… and sit down for a better compensation deal for us that helps us with lifetime counselling and liftetime healthcare.”

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NEBRASKA
Omaha World-Herald

By Michael O’Connor / World-Herald staff writer Jul 1, 2017

A case involving an adoption from nearly five decades ago remains alive in Douglas County District Court following a hearing Friday.

Former Omaha resident Kathleen Chafin filed a lawsuit this spring against the Archdiocese of Omaha and the Wisconsin Province of the Society of Jesus over the adoption, claiming that they engaged in an “adoption conspiracy.”

Her son was adopted by an Omaha couple in 1968.

The archdiocese and province filed motions to dismiss the initial suit, but at a hearing in June Judge Shelly Stratman gave Chafin’s attorney time to file an amended complaint to clarify the claims.

An attorney for Chafin argued in Friday’s hearing that the amended complaint has merit to move forward.

The archdiocese and the province had filed motions to dismiss the amended complaint, arguing that the claim has no merit and is barred by the statute of limitations.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

July 2, 2017

Supporters of George Pell have reportedly set up a fund to help the cardinal fight multiple, historical sexual abuse charges.

Details of the fund emerged after the Catholic Church said it would not pay Cardinal Pell’s legal fees after Victoria Police charged the Vatican’s 76-year- old finance chief on summons last Thursday.

News Corp reports that a bank account has been set up for donations to help Cardinal Pell when he returns to Melbourne from Rome to fight the charges.

John Roskam, the head of the Institute of Public Affairs conservative think tank, said he had been given bank account details for people wanting to assist Cardinal Pell with his legal bills.

“The point of this (fund) is that there are a lot of people who want to support the cardinal and want to give him the opportunity to clear his name,” Mr Roskam said.

Australia’s most senior Catholic insists he is innocent and is looking forward to fighting the charges in court.

Sydney Archbishop Anthony Fisher has said that the Sydney archdiocese will assist with Cardinal Pell’s accommodation when he returns to Australia but will not pay his legal bills.

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ROM
Spiegel

[In connection with the postsynodal papal letter “Amoris Laetitia”, Cardinal Müller criticized the pope’s position on the question of the communion for newly married divorced persons. Francis allowed them to do so in individual cases. Muller stated that no one, not even the Pope, could alter the dogmatic doctrine of the indissolubility of marriage.
On the occasion of the family code of 2014, Miiller had signed the “Letter of the 13 Cardinals”, which raised concerns about a weakening of the traditional Catholic family policy.
In May 2016, Francis announced to have the women’s authorization of the deacon’s office examined. Müller categorically dismissed a deaconess ordination, as did women in the priesthood.
The Prefect is said to have hindered the curia reform initiated by Francis against corruption and mismanagement.
In the case of Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst, Mueller lamented a campaign against the clergyman who was removed from his diocese in 2014 because of the scandal for his 31 million-euro bishop’s house. That someone would be “so degraded” was “immoral, something we had in Germany before in a very dark epoch,” said Müller. For Pope Francis, who preaches poverty, it was an affront.
As prefect of the Congregation for the Faith, Müller was responsible for the clearing-up of abuse. Pope Francis proclaimed a “zero-tolerance policy” after the great scandals of 2010. Müller spoke of “individual cases” and denounced a pogrom mood against the church.
During his time as bishop of Regensburg (2002 to 2012), the cardinal is said to have delayed the investigation of the abuse scandal at the Domspatzen. He always denied it.
A abuse in Riekofen, which was dealt with in 2010 harmed Müller’s reputation in the long term. The bishopric had kept a secret that a pastor was convicted of child abuse. After rebelling, Miiller dismissed an apology in the name of the church and said: “The responsibility for the deed is borne by the perpetrator.”
Mary Collins, a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Children and herself survivor of sexual abuse by an Irish priest, resigned her office just a few months ago. Among other things, she gave a “shameful lack of cooperation” with Cardinal Müller.]

Der Finanzchef des Vatikans lässt sein Amt wegen Missbrauchsvorwürfen ruhen, jetzt muss auch Glaubenshüter Kardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller seinen Hut nehmen. Überraschend? Wohl kaum.

Von Annette Langer

Die Aufgaben der jahrhundertealten Glaubenskongregation hat Kardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller einmal so umrissen: Das Wichtigste sei, “dass wir dem Heiligen Vater in seinem Lehramt dienen und uns um Delikte gegen den Glauben oder die Heiligkeit der Sakramente kümmern”, sagte er 2015 im Interview mit der “Zeit”.

Das klingt devot und dienstbeflissen – dennoch hat der einflussreiche Präfekt nun offenbar ausgedient. Müllers Amtszeit endet fristgerecht nach fünf Jahren, zum 2. Juli. Warum der Vatikan in Zukunft auf die Mitarbeit des 69-Jährigen verzichten wird, ist nicht bekannt.

Einige Kommentatoren nannten den Schritt überraschend – tatsächlich scheint die Verabschiedung nur eine logische Konsequenz aus den überdeutlichen politischen Differenzen zwischen Papst Franziskus und dem Mann an der Spitze der Glaubenskongregation zu sein.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Reading Eagle

By Lindsey O’Laughlin

State Rep. Mark Rozzi, a Muhlenberg Democrat, has refused to compromise on his stance that statute of limitations reform for victims of childhood sexual abuse must include a retroactive window allowing any past victims to sue their abusers, regardless of when the abuse occurred.

A recent Netflix series reminded me why I agree with him.

In case you haven’t heard the buzz, “The Keepers” is a seven-part true-crime documentary about a Baltimore pedophile Catholic priest, the children whom he victimized and the unsolved murder of a 26-year-old nun who knew too much.

Sister Catherine Cesnik was beloved by her students at Archbishop Keough High School in the late 1960s, where she taught English and drama, wrote poetry and played the guitar. It wasn’t until decades after her body was found that any connection surfaced between Cesnik and the Rev. Joseph Maskell, the priest accused of abusing at least 50 girls at Keough and at least one boy from a former parish.

That connection is Jean Wehner, a survivor of Maskell’s abuse and a captivating person of resilience.

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AUSTRALIA
The Flinders News

Aisha Gow
2 Jul 2017

As about 150 parishioners filed into St Patrick’s Cathedral, the home of the Catholic Church in Melbourne, one question was on everyone’s mind: Would the historical sex abuse charges laid against Cardinal George Pell be addressed?

In the end, the issue was tackled head on at the Sunday morning Mass.

The charges were mentioned directly, while other things were said that perhaps also carried a message about Cardinal Pell and his upcoming court battle.

Sunday’s Mass was dedicated to Cardinal Pell, who continues to assert his innocence against charges of historical sex abuse.

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UNITED STATES
The Open Tabernacle: Here Comes Everybody

Posted on July 2, 2017 by Betty Clermont

On June 29, Australian police charged Cardinal George Pell with multiple counts of historical sexual assault offences. The Vatican Press Office stated they learned this “with regret,” that Pell “chose to return to Australia in full respect for civil laws” and that Pope Francis has “appreciated” Pell’s “honesty,” “collaboration” and “energetic dedication to the reforms in the economic and administrative sector, as well as his active participation in the Council of Cardinals (C9).”

On July 1, the Vatican Press Office stated that Pope Francis “thanks Cardinal Müller at the end his quinquennial mandate as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith” and “now calls the former Secretary [of the Congregation], Archbishop Ladaria, to take on this role.”
If not stating it outright, the U.S. media is inferring that the above is about the good “liberal” pope v. two bad “conservative” cardinals. That is grossly misinterpreting these events since the pope is not a liberal.

“Pope Francis referred to detractors of Bishop Juan Barros of the Chilean city of Osorno as ‘lefties’” after “more than 1,300 church members in Osorno, along with some 30 priests from the diocese and 51 of Chile’s 120 members of Parliament” sent letters in 2015 to the pope “urging him to rescind” his appointment. Barros was accused of “covering up dozens of sexual abuse cases.” …

Cardinal George Pell

“Pell, 76, has been plagued by scandal for decades.”

Pell was ordained in 1966 and assigned to Ballarat, the town where he was born in 1941. Ballarat is in the state of Victoria and Melbourne is the capital.

Pell’s roommate and close friend in the 1970s was Fr. Gerald Ridsdale. A 2012 police report linked the suicides and premature deaths of 34 people to Ridsdale and another Ballarat priest, Fr. Robert Best, both of whom are now both serving lengthy prison sentences. “It would appear that the organisation in charge of… Best and Ridsdale (Catholic Church) would be well and truly aware of the existence of these figures regarding these two clergy and would no doubt be aware of many other similar deaths, however have chosen to remain silent on the matter.”

While Pell served as the bishop’s vicar for education 1973-84 in Ballarat, “untold numbers of children were beaten and sexually assaulted by priests and nuns at the St. Alipius Primary School.” A February 2016 story by the Australian public broadcasting network SBS called the school “a pedophile’s paradise and a child’s nightmare.” Abuse was rampant throughout the parish in the 1970s, according to the Australian newspaper The Age, which once called Ballarat “probably the worst of Australia’s 32 dioceses for sexual abuse.” …

Cardinal Gerhard Müller

“When Müller was appointed bishop of Regensburg in 2002, he inherited the case of Fr. Peter Kramer, who had been convicted in 2000 of sexually abusing two boys … Kramer was sentenced to three years probation on July 7, 2000, on condition that he not work with children. But when Müller became bishop, Kramer was already working with children in the parish of Riekhofen, and when Kramer’s probation expired, Müller named him pastor. Müller concealed Kramer’s conviction from his parishioners.”

“Kramer was again convicted of child abuse. Müller combatively disclaimed responsibility for the children who had been abused because of his decision, and even threatened legal action against his critics. When the bishop of Fulda, Heinz J. Algermissen, affirmed the bishops’ guidelines, that a priest who has abused children must not be permitted further contact with children, Müller countered that ‘there is no space free of children and youth.’”

On April 5, 2013, Pope Francis met with Archbishop Müller, now prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), the department that has dealt with all sexual abuse cases since Pope John Paul II consolidated its role on April 30, 2001. “Various issues were discussed” in the meeting with Müller, but “in particular” the pope “recommended that the Congregation continue along the lines set by Benedict XVI” who had appointed Müller as prefect in 2012.

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NIGERIA
Information Nigeria

Tope Alabi July 2, 2017

The head of the Vatican office that handles s*x abuse cases was sacked by Pope Francis on Saturday, just days after he released another top Vatican cardinal to return home to stand trial for alleged s*xual assault.

The developments underscored how the Catholic Church’s s*x abuse crisis has caught up with Francis, threatening to tarnish his legacy over a series of questionable appointments, decisions and oversights in his four-year papacy.

Perhaps sensing a need to change course, Francis declined to renew the mandate of German Cardinal Gerhard Mueller as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican office that processes and evaluates all cases of priests accused of defiling or molesting minors.

Francis named Mueller’s deputy, Monsignor Luis Ladaria Ferrer, a Spanish Jesuit, to run the powerful office instead.

During Mueller’s five-year term, the congregation amassed a 2,000-case backlog and came under blistering criticism from Irish abuse survivor Marie Collins, who had been tapped by Francis in 2014 to advise the church on caring for abuse victims and protecting children from pedophile priests.

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UNITED STATES
Crux

John L. Allen Jr. EDITOR

It’s easy to construe the departure of German Cardinal Gerhard Müller as the Vatican’s doctrinal chief as an ideological purge, but there are several problems with that perspective, including the fact his replacement is nobody’s idea of a flaming liberal.

Given the way German Cardinal Gerhard Müller has become identified as the Vatican’s leading in-house skeptic about Pope Francis’s cautious opening to Communion for the divorced and civilly remarried in Amoris Laetitia, it was written in the stars that when and if Müller was ever replaced as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, it would be seen as a papal smackdown.

In some quarters, that’s precisely how news has been received that Francis has appointed Spanish Archbishop Luis Ladaria Ferrer, a fellow Jesuit, to take Müller’s place.

Before we get too carried away in the “night of the long knives” way of seeing things, however, there are a few points worth taking into account.

First, as of July 2, Müller reached the end of the five-year term to which he was appointed by Pope Benedict XVI in 2012. Granted, such terms can be extended at a pope’s discretion, but the point is that it’s not really as if Müller has been “fired”. His service was up, and the pope decided to name someone else.

Second, while Müller undeniably has a more restrictive take on the implications of Amoris than many others, it’s hardly as if he’s an implacable foe of the pontiff. Recall, for instance, that the German-speaking bishops at the second Synod on the Family made a commitment in their language group to achieve unanimity on their recommendations, and Müller was part of that consensus.

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FLORIDA
NFW Daily News

State Attorney: Jury also heard evidence from two earlier victims who had been subjected to the same pattern of conduct and sexual molestation when they were teenagers.

FORT WALTON BEACH — Former Abundant Life Church pastor Larry Michael Thorne is scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 24 after a jury found him guilty Thursday of sexual battery on a minor and lewd and lascivious behavior with a child.

Thorne faces up to 30 years in prison and will be designated as a sexual offender for the rest of his life. He will remain in the Okaloosa County Jail until he is sentenced.

Thorne was arrested Nov. 14, 2014, after the victim reported he had sexual contact with her on numerous occasions. The jury heard evidence that between January 2012 and November 2014 Thorne repeatedly sexually assaulted the victim starting when she was 14 years old and continuing until she was 17, according to a press release from Bill Eddins, State Attorney for the First Judicial Circuit.

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IRELAND
The Journal

A JUDGE HAS described the effects of depraved sexual attacks on fifth class boys by their teacher as a “nuclear fallout” for the victims and their families.

Judge Tom O’Donnell said he was adjourning sentencing former Christian Brother James Treacy (75) to consider “extremely profound” impact statements read into evidence today by some Treacy’s victims.

It was heard that, in one attack, after catching the boy smoking in the school toilet, Treacy gagged him with a bar of soap, anally raped him over a urinal, and burnt his privates with a cigarette.

Another victim described in chilling detail how Treacy ran a “military style” class, and would “lick” the boys ears clean if they had forgotten to wash them.

The victims claimed Treacy fondled their privates at their desks while whispering “twisted” sayings in their ears.

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UNITED STATES
Huffpost

Celia Wexler, Contributor
Journalist, feminist and nonfiction author, celiawexler.com

This week, Cardinal George Pell, a high-ranking Vatican official, was summoned to his native Australia to face criminal charges for what was termed “historical child abuse.”

The police have not disclosed any details about the abuse or when it occurred. But a recent book recounted the story of an altar boy who came forward to charge abuse in 2014. The alleged incident took place sometime between 1996 and 2001.

That would mean that at least 13 years elapsed before a victim came forward. Reportedly, he did so after the suicide of a fellow former altar boy.

We don’t know whether Pell is guilty. He has denied all allegations of abuse. But what we do know is that if the alleged victim had lived in New York, he likely would have had been denied any access to justice.

That’s because New York has some of the highest hurdles in the nation for the victims of sexual abuse that occurred when they were children. New York only gives these victims five years after turning 18 to seek civil or criminal redress.

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ROME
The New York Times

By JASON HOROWITZ
JULY 1, 2017

ROME — Pope Francis earlier this year ordered Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, the top doctrinal watchdog in the Roman Catholic Church, to fire three priests from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which is the keeper of the church’s orthodoxy and presides over investigations into sexual abuse.

Cardinal Müller, an ideological conservative often at odds with the pontiff, was vexed by the order, and, in a recent interview, said he had made a case, in vain, for the priests to stay in Rome.

“I’m not able to understand all,” Cardinal Müller said when asked why Francis sent them away. He added, “He’s the pope.”

On Saturday, it was Cardinal Mueller’s turn to leave. The Vatican announced that Francis had declined to renew the German cardinal’s mandate and had replaced him with his deputy, Archbishop Luis Ladaria, 73, a Spanish Jesuit theologian.

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MARYLAND
Star Tribune

Associated Press JULY 1, 2017

BALTIMORE — A Netflix documentary series has prompted calls for the Baltimore Archdiocese to release a dead priest’s files.

The Baltimore Sun reported Saturday that the show about the priest’s alleged abuse led to more than 11,000 signatures on an online petition. Archdiocese spokesman Sean Caine said state law bars the release of much of the confidential information.

“The Keepers” focuses on the unsolved death of a Catholic nun and abuse at then-Archbishop Keough High School. The priest at the center of the show is A. Joseph Maskell.

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VATICAN CITY
Associated Press

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Latest on the Catholic Church’s sex abuse crisis (all times local):

9 p.m.

Pope Francis sacked the head of the Vatican office that handles sex abuse cases just days after he released another top Vatican cardinal to return home to stand trial for alleged sexual assault.

The developments underscore how the Catholic Church’s sex abuse crisis has caught up with Francis, threatening to tarnish his legacy over a series of questionable appointments and decisions in his four-year papacy.

Francis on Saturday declined to renew the mandate of German Cardinal Gerhard Mueller as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican office that processes and evaluates all cases of priests accused of raping or molesting minors.

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MARYLAND
The Baltimore Sun

Alison Knezevich
The Baltimore Sun

The release of “The Keepers,” a Netflix documentary series examining the unsolved death of a Catholic nun and abuse at then-Archbishop Keough High School, has sparked calls for the Archdiocese of Baltimore to release files on the priest at the center of the story.

An online petition on change.org has more than 11,000 signatures urging church officials to make public its files on A. Joseph Maskell, who died in 2001.

The priest denied abuse allegations before his death and was never charged. Since 2011, the archdiocese has paid out $472,000 in settlements to 16 people who accused him of abuse.

“The release of these documents will restore public trust in the Archdiocese, and confirm the Archdiocese statements regarding their handling of the sexual abuse claims,” the petition states.

Jean Wehner, ‘Jane Doe’ featured in ‘The Keepers,’ discusses her now-public story
It also says such a disclosure would help to investigate “all avenues that may have led to the murder of Cathy Cesnik in 1969.”

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

Peter FitzSimons

I genuinely have no firm view as to the likely guilt or innocence of Cardinal George Pell on the grave charges of child sexual abuse levelled against him, and do not seek to pre-judge the legal process in any way.

But whatever happens in his particular case, it is worth noting the accolades coming Australia’s way for the fact that the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse begun by the Gillard government has accomplished so much in turning a much-needed spotlight onto the horrors of rampant sexual abuse by the Catholic clergy over the decades.

The charges brought against Cardinal Pell, the highest-ranked Catholic ever so charged, have brought world attention to the fact that – as pointed out by Gold Walkley-winning journalist Joanne McCarthy, whose work was responsible for it – we are the only country in the world that gone to the level of a national royal commission in examining Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

It has been inspirational for myriad other abuse survivors around the world, with, for example, the highly influential US-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) noting, its “hope that the Australian government’s long and extensive investigation into institutional abuse inspires other countries to follow in their footsteps and hold similar hearings”.

Again, I say, take a bow, Joanne McCarthy and Julia Gillard and all those who have had the courage to step up. Pell is only a tiny part of the whole story, but it is a victory for the law, and for abuse survivors worldwide, that even so powerful a priest can have those charges tested in a court of law.

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ITALIA
Rete L’Abuso

[In a letter sent by Cardinal Angelo Scola to the family of the child who was abused by Don Mauro Galli, the cardinal renewed his apologies and those of his co-workers for some choices that defines clumsy!]

In una lettera inviata dal Cardinale Angelo Scola ai familiari del minore che sarebbe stato abusato da Don Mauro Galli, il Cardinale rinnova le sue scuse e quelle dei suoi collaboratori per alcune scelte che definisce MALDESTRE!

Secondo Scola gli anni trascorsi avrebbero provocato una certa confusione nella ricostruzione dei fatti che ha arrecato ulteriori sofferenze, e in ogni caso NON INTENDEREBBE IN ALCUN MODO GIUSTIFICARE LA CORRETTEZZA DELLA REAZIONE INIZIALE DA PARTE DELL’AUTORITA’ DIOCESANA.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Allgemeine Zeitung

[“No differences with the pope”: Mainz Cardinal Müller nevertheless surprised by separation.]

Von Maike Hessedenz

MAINZ – Er sitzt in St. Stephan und lauscht Monsignore Klaus Mayer und dessen Texten zu den Chagall-Fenstern. So als sei nichts gewesen. Kardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller ist wegen seines Klassentreffen in Mainz, absolviert mit seinen ehemaligen Schulkameraden, mit denen er vor 50 Jahren Abitur am Willigis-Gymnasium gemacht hat, ein buntes Tagesprogramm.

Noch nicht einmal 24 Stunden zuvor hat er von Papst Franziskus erfahren, dass er ab Montag, 3. Juli, nicht mehr Präfekt der Glaubenskongregation sein wird. Eine Entscheidung, die er nicht erwartet habe, sagt Müller im Gespräch mit dieser Zeitung. Überraschung ja, Aufregung nicht.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Michael Sean Winters | Jul. 1, 2017 Distinctly Catholic

My colleague Josh McElwee reports this morning on the decision by Pope Francis not to reconfirm Cardinal Gerhard Muller for a second five-year term as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The Holy Father has selected the longtime #2 at the congregation, Archbishop Luis Francisco Ledaria Ferrer, S.J. to move up to the top spot.

The fact that Cardinal Muller was sacked should not come as a surprise. Conservatives within the curia and more progressive types beyond have both long complained that the man, though very gifted intellectually, could not organize a one man parade. He couldn’t run the office. This had become increasingly apparent in the CDF’s continued wrong notes on the subject of clergy sex abuse. Those who see this as an ideological purge on account of Muller’s increasingly confused position on Amoris Laetitia haven’t been paying attention. And, it is more than a little ironic that the same arch-conservatives who are floating the narrative that Muller has been sacked because he stood athwart Francis’ supposedly heterodox agenda were the same people griping about Muller when he was appointed. (See, for example, here and here.) Then, the objection was that Muller was too sympathetic with liberation theology. Now he is the paragon of orthodoxy. These lay faithful who think they embody the papal magisterium are not exactly consistent.

The second principal takeaway is that Pope Francis is completely unafraid to do what is best for the Church. Earlier this week, the Australian authorities brought charges against another high ranking Vatican official, Cardinal George Pell, who was put on a temporary leave of absence to return to his native country and have his day in court. The official statement from the Vatican was deeply ambivalent. Some leaders might think twice before removing a second high ranking official, worried that it would suggest a chaotic situation. Not Francis. He is not someone who cares how things appear so much as how things are. Indeed, this may be the most challenging part of the reform of the curia, getting an organization designed to promote those who work there to remember that its job it to help the pope govern the universal church. Concern with how things look is characteristic of the courtier mentality of year’s past, not the missionary mentality to which the Second Vatican Council and ALL subsequent popes have called the Church.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Mail

By Khaleda Rahman For Daily Mail Australia

A special fund has been established so Australian Catholics can help pay for Cardinal George Pell’s legal fees as he fights charges of historical sexual abuse.

Victorian Police have charged the cardinal, a former Melbourne and Sydney archbishop and Ballarat priest, with multiple sex offences but the details of those offences have not been released.

Australian Catholic authorities have ruled out paying the cardinal’s legal team.

However, a litigation fund has been established for Catholics in Victoria to contribute to Pell’s legal fees, the Herald Sun has revealed.

John Roskam, the executive director of the Institute of Public Affairs, said he obtained an account number and BSB from people ‘assisting the cardinal’ and passed it onto people keen to donate.

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VATICAN CITY
America

Gerard O’Connell
July 01, 2017

Pope Francis has appointed Archbishop Luis Ladaria Ferrer, a Spanish Jesuit, as the new prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and successor to Cardinal Gerhard Müller, the Vatican announced at midday, July 1.

Pope Francis’ decision to nominate a new prefect of the C.D.F. is perhaps the most important appointment he has made to the Roman Curia after that of naming Cardinal Pietro Parolin as secretary of state.

It is destined to have far-reaching consequences, not the least of which is to ensure that the C.D.F. and its prefect are rowing with and not against the pope on key issues, including the interpretation of “Amoris Laetitia,” synodality and cooperation with the commission for the protection of minors.

At the time of his appointment, the 73-year old archbishop was Secretary of the C.D.F., that is, the number two position in the congregation. He was appointed to that role by Benedict XVI on July 9, 2008.

Today’s Vatican communique confirmed the story that had been widely circulated the previous afternoon and evening that Francis had not renewed the mandate of the German cardinal. It also announced that Archbishop Ladaria would succeed Cardinal Müller in his roles as the President of the Pontifical Commission “Ecclesia Dei,” the Pontifical Biblical Commission and the International Theological Commission.

America has learned that Pope Francis received Cardinal Müller in private audience in his library in the Vatican at noon on June 30 and informed him that he would not be reconfirmed as prefect when his five-year mandate, which was due to end on July 2, concluded. Informed sources told America that Francis offered him the possibility of re-assignment to another position in the Vatican after the summer holidays, but the German cardinal turned this down on the grounds that since he had been head of the “supreme” congregation (as the C.D.F. is called in Vatican parlance) it would be beneath his dignity to accept another post and so he preferred to go into retirement.

Sources told America that the Vatican was scheduled to announce the change at the head of the C.D.F. on Monday, July 3, but after the audience with the pope, Cardinal Müller returned to the C.D.F. and informed his colleagues that he was no longer head of the congregation. That news was quickly passed to media close to the cardinal and became public some hours later. For this reason, the Vatican decided to make the announcement at noon today.

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CALIFORNIA
Pokrov

Author: Theodore Kalmoukos
Date Published: 06/30/2017
Publication: The National Herald

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – Many congregants entering the Annunciation Cathedral in San Francisco on June 18 were surprised to see a young man standing at the door holding assigned alleging that “I was sexually abused at St. Nicholas Range in 2002.”

The 27-year-old Greek-American alleges that the was sexually abused by a Greek Orthodox priest during Confession in 2002 while attending camp at St. Nicholas Range in Dunlap, CA which is under the Greek-Orthodox Metropolis of San Francisco.

Twelve years old at the time, he was sent to confess his sins and the priest allegedly attacked him and now he is trying to find information and photographs to identify his attacker, because he wants to make sure no other boys will be molested by him.

Metropolitan Gerasimos of San Francisco verified the information. Also,he sent out a news announcement stating the following:

“The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese and the Metropolis of San Francisco take all allegations of sexual misconduct very seriously and we grieve for all those affected in such cases.

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VATICAN CITY
SBS (Australia)

Pope Francis has declined to renew the mandate of the Vatican’s conservative doctrine chief, tapping instead a deputy to lead the powerful congregation that handles sex abuse cases and guarantees Catholic orthodoxy.

In a short statement issued on Saturday, the Vatican said Francis thanked Cardinal Gerhard Mueller for his service. …

Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI selected Mueller, his fellow German, to lead the congregation in 2012.

Benedict had taken a hard line against clerical sex abuse during his time as prefect of the congregation himself, and later as Pope, defrocking hundreds of priests accused of raping and molesting children.

It was also Benedict who insisted bishops around the world send all cases of credibly accused priests to the congregation for processing, since bishops had for decades moved pedophiles around from parish to parish rather than sanction or report them to police.

During Mueller’s tenure the sex abuse caseload piled up as more and more victims came forward from Latin America, Europe and beyond.

Last year, Francis confirmed there was a 2000-case backlog and he set about naming new officials in the congregation’s discipline section to process the overload.

Mueller’s handling of the abuse portfolio came under fire from Marie Collins, an Irish survivor of abuse.

Collins resigned from Francis’ sex abuse advisory commission in March in frustration of what she said was the congregation’s “unacceptable” resistance to accepting advice on how to better respond to victims.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

Ellen Whinnett in Vatican City, News Corp Australia Network
July 1, 2017

THE Vatican will not pay George Pell’s legal fees, with the Cardinal required to foot the bill himself for a high-powered legal team as he fights historic sexual abuse charges.

News Corp Australia can confirm Cardinal Pell will not receive financial assistance from the Vatican to cover his transport from Rome to Australia later this month.

As well, he will be required to fund his own legal defence. With a legal team headed by prominent QC Robert Richter, the bill is likely to run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The Archdiocese in Sydney, where Cardinal Pell was once archbishop, will provide accommodation and “support’’ when he is in Australia.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

JOE SPAGNOLO and ELLEN WHINNETT, Herald Sun
July 1, 2017

A SPECIAL fund has been set up for Australian Catholics to donate to Cardinal George Pell’s legal fees after the Sydney archdiocese declared it would not pay for his defence.

The Sunday Herald Sun can today reveal a litigation fund has been established for Catholics in Victoria to help pay for Cardinal Pell’s legal team as he fights historical sexual abuse charges.

Institute of Public Affairs executive director John Roskam today confirmed the fund’s existence.

Mr Roskam, a Catholic, said he had obtained an account number and BSB from “people assisting the cardinal”.

He said he had passed those details on to Catholics who were keen to donate to the 76-year-old’s legal defence.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Telegraph

Miranda Devine
July 2, 2017

THE nasty triumphalism which greeted news last week that Cardinal George Pell had been charged by Victoria Police, over historical sexual abuse allegations, beggars belief.

Typical was Fairfax columnist Peter FitzSimons who called on Pell to step down “until such times as he proves innocence”.

Fitz doesn’t seem to understand that our criminal justice system is built on the presumption of ­innocence.

Not that such niceties prevented another Fairfax scribe, Barney Zwartz, to declare yesterday that Pell has “authored his own tragedy (with) his failures of empathy and compassion, his inability to look victims of abuse in the eye, his efforts to limit damage to the church”.

With Pell, the rules of fair play are out the window. All the considerable sins of the Church have been laid at his feet in this hysterical media witch-hunt.

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AUSTRALIA
Kangaroo Court of Australia

In 1997 Cardinal George Pell said to the parents of abuse victims who were whistleblowing on 5 paedophile priests: “We won’t believe any of this. It’s all gossip until it’s proven in court”. It’s one of many examples of George Pell covering up for paedophile priests over many years with some saying he was involved in the cover-ups as far back at the 1970’s. So, it no surprise that Cardinal Pell himself has been charged.

George Pell is about to see firsthand if paedophile allegations can be proven in court given the charges laid against him by the Victoria police on Thursday 29/6/17. What exactly George Pell has been charged with I don’t know other than “multiple historical sexual offences” as announced by the police as per their press release below. But there are previous claims that he sexually abused 3 boys and claims in the recently published book “Cardinal: The Rise and Fall Of George Pell” that George Pell forced 2 boys to give him oral sex in the 1990’s.

A big problem for Pell is that even if he is found not guilty of the charges other evidence might be uncovered during the trial that Pell helped cover-up the crimes of other priests. And that is exactly what is happening in Newcastle now:

“ARCHBISHOP Philip Wilson – the most senior Catholic cleric in the world to be charged with concealing the child sex offences of another priest – will face a two-week hearing in November.” (Click here to read more)

In the below video is Anthony and Christine Foster who had 2 daughters abused by a priest. They fought the church for 9 years to get compensation. Pell said to them regarding paedophile priests: “We won’t believe any of this. It’s all gossip until it’s proven in court”

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ROME
The Tablet (UK)

01 July 2017 | by Christopher Lamb

Francis thanked Müller for his work but, unusually, did not announce where the prelate, who is still six years off retirement, would serve next

Pope dismisses his doctrinal chief, Cardinal Müller, after uneasy relationship
Pope Francis has dismissed his doctrinal chief Cardinal Gerhard Müller, after what has been an uneasy relationship between them.

On Saturday the Vatican announced that the German Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith would not serve beyond a single 5-year-term and would be replaced by the congregation’s deputy, Archbishop Luis Ladaria, 73, who is a Jesuit, a member of the same religious order as the Pope.

In a statement Francis thanked Cardinal Müller for his work but, unusually, did not announce where the 69-year-old prelate, who is still six years off retirement, would serve next.

The removal of Müller marks the end of a dramatic week at the Vatican with two senior prelates out of their jobs in the space of three days. Along with the departure of the German doctrinal prefect, Vatican finance chief Cardinal George Pell announced on Thursday he is taking a leave of absence so he can return to Australia to defend himself against charges of sex abuse.

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VATICAN CITY
Reuters

By Philip Pullella | VATICAN CITY

In a major shake up of the Vatican’s administration on Saturday, Pope Francis replaced Catholicism’s top theologian, a conservative German cardinal who has been at odds with the pontiff’s vision of a more inclusive Church.

A brief Vatican statement said Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Mueller’s five-year mandate as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a key department charged with defending Catholic doctrine, would not be renewed.

Mueller, 69, who was appointed by former Pope Benedict in 2012, will be succeeded by the department’s number two, Archbishop Luis Francisco Ladaria Ferrer.

Ladaria, a 73-year-old Spaniard who, like the Argentine pope is a member of the Jesuit order, is said by those who know him to be a soft-spoken person who shuns the limelight. Mueller, by contrast, often appears in the media.

“They speak the same language and Ladaria is someone who is meek. He does not agitate the pope and does not threaten him,” said a priest who works in the Vatican and knows both Mueller and Ladaria, asking not to be named.

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CITTA’ DEL VATICANO
La Repubblica

CITTÀ DEL VATICANO – Cambio al vertice dell’ex Sant’Uffizio. Papa Francesco ha deciso di non rinnovare di altri cinque anni il mandato dell’attuale prefetto, il cardinale tedesco Gerhard Ludwig Müller. 70 anni, di linea conservatrice, Müller era stato portato a Roma da Benedetto XVI che gli affidò il compito di watchdog della fede dopo l’éra del cardinale William Joseph Levada.

Al suo posto è stato scelto l’attuale segretario della Congregazione, l’arcivescovo Luis Ladaria Ferrer. Spagnolo, gesuita, venne nominato da Benedetto XVI.

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