ABUSE TRACKER

NEW JERSEY
WABC

PASSAIC, N.J. (WABC) — A New Jersey priest has been arrested on charges of having sexual contact with a 14-year old female parishioner.

Father Jose Lopez of of St. Mary’s Assumption Church in Passaic is charged with Luring a Child, Endangering the Welfare of a Child, and Criminal Sexual Contact.

Authorities say Father Lopez lured the girl to his private living quarters in the rectory at St. Mary’s Church.

The alleged victim clamed that Lopez directed her to his couch, and began to counsel her about some personal problems she was having.

She went on to say that Lopez put her on his lap, kissed her and began to engage in sexual contact with her.

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AUSTRALIA
Brisbane Times

July 26, 2013

Natasha Wallace

Priests should be jailed for concealing evidence of sex abuse because they are effectively aiding and abetting a crime, a child protection campaigner has said.

The executive director of advocacy group Bravehearts, Hetty Johnston, was responding to testimony by high-ranking Catholic priest Father Brian Lucas that he did not take notes while interviewing about 35 priests from 1990-1996 who were accused of sex abuse, nor did he refer the matters to police. ”He should be jailed. That just aids and abets offenders to continue to offend and it is just as bad a crime, in my view, than committing the crimes itself,” Ms Johnston said.

”The person didn’t only not do their job but their moral obligation. It is absolutely the most appalling, atrocious response.”

Father Brian is the general secretary of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, which oversees the National Committee for Professional Standards responsible for procedures in dealing with abuse complaints. Retired psychologist Stephen Paull, who has 25 years of experience in child protection in the NSW education department, said it was ”absolutely grossly negligent” both legally and morally not to take notes at such meetings.

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AUSTRALIA
Brisbane Times

To people unschooled in legal and canonical niceties, mounting evidence about the Catholic Church’s approach to child abuse surely beggars belief.

Australians will soon need to decide whether they still trust the church to do what is best to protect children or whether new laws are needed to ensure police and other investigators become involved whenever there is potential risk.

By placing so much weight on protecting its own reputation and respecting the privacy of victims, the church looks increasingly out of step with community expectations.

Those concerns have been raised by evidence to commission of inquiry into Hunter region paedophile priests from Brian Lucas, general secretary of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference since 2002, qualified lawyer and ordained priest.

During six years from about 1990, Lucas’s work with the Archdiocese of Sydney included dealing with about 35 priests accused of sex crimes.

Lucas admitted he had never taken notes during the meetings, in some instances ”so that a subsequent legal process that would compel production of them cannot be successful”.

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ROME
Chicago Tribune

Massimiliano Di Giorgio
Reuters
July 25, 2013

ROME (Reuters) – A Catholic prelate at the center of a suspected money-smuggling operation denied stealing and laundering cash in a letter he sent to Pope Francis from his jail cell which his lawyers released on Thursday.

Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, who is the target of two Italian criminal investigations, also said in the letter he tried to fight abusive activities by lay superiors in the Vatican’s financial administration, which Francis wants to reform.

Scarano worked for years as a senior accountant at the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See, or APSA. Through APSA, he had access to the Vatican bank, where he had at least two accounts.

Though not directly implicated in the money smuggling investigation, the Vatican bank has faced growing criticism for its persistent failure to meet international transparency standards.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Register

NEWS ANALYSIS: Msgr. Battista Ricca is accused of homosexual scandal, but papal spokesman Father Federico Lombardi calls the allegations ‘not credible.’

by EDWARD PENTIN 07/24/2013

VATICAN CITY — Conflicting reports surround allegations that a priest, appointed last month as an interim prelate of the institution colloquially known as the Vatican Bank, has ties with a “gay lobby” operating within the Holy See.

On July 3, respected Vatican analyst Sandro Magister alleged that Msgr. Battista Ricca had a relationship with another man — the “intimacy” of which was “so open as to scandalize numerous bishops, priests and laity” of Uruguay, where he served in the nunciature from 1999 to 2004.

Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi July 19 rejected the allegations as “not credible.”

Pope Francis appointed Msgr. Ricca, a 57-year-old Vatican diplomat, temporary prelate of the Vatican Bank — officially known as the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR) — on June 15 in a bid to help reform the scandal-ridden institution. Until now, Msgr. Ricca had served as director of the Domus Sanctae Marthae, the residence where the Pope currently lives.

Magister claims the Italian clergyman’s alleged dark past was hidden from the Holy Father in a bid to embarrass the Pope and hinder reform of the IOR, which is trying to meet international anti-fraud regulations.

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ITALY/VATICAN CITY
Reuters

Thu Jul 25, 2013

* Signing could be a matter of days -sources
* Italy wants access to more Vatican bank data
* More steps needed for normalisation of banking relations
* Italy-based banks de facto banned from dealing with IOR

By Lisa Jucca and Massimiliano Di Giorgio

ROME, July 25 (Reuters) – Italy and the Vatican are about to reach a deal allowing for the first time regular exchange of financial information between the two states to combat money laundering, several sources with direct knowledge of the situation told Reuters.

The Vatican is pushing to reform its bank, the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR), whose reputation has been tarnished by three decades of scandals. Such a pact would mark a first significant step towards normalising banking relations with Italy.

The deal will take the form of a memorandum of understanding between the Vatican’s Financial Information Authority (AIF) and its Italian equivalent, the Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF).

The Vatican has already signed similar pacts with other jurisdictions, notably the United States, but the deal with Italy would be significant due to the large number of Vatican transactions going through the country.

Pope Francis has made cleaning up the Holy See a goal of his papacy. However, two of the sources, who declined to be named, said the Vatican must prove its willingness to cooperate with Italian authorities before the Bank of Italy can lift a de facto ban on transactions between the IOR and Italian-based banks.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

DAN BOX From: The Australian July 26, 2013

A SENIOR Catholic cleric was aware of evidence suggesting two priests acquitted of child abuse offences in court were in fact guilty of such crimes.

The men were among dozens of alleged pedophile priests interviewed by Brian Lucas, the general-secretary of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, who did not report them to police.

Instead, Father Lucas told the NSW special commission of inquiry into church child abuse that he followed a “secret and discreet” policy of dealing with the men and would “take my chances” with the law as a result.

“I can think of one particular priest I interviewed who absolutely denied anything. He subsequently was charged, he was convicted by the jury, his conviction was overturned by the Court of Criminal Appeal and no retrial,” Father Lucas said.

“I did understand that there had been other families who had made representations to the bishop, with which I was not involved at all, suggesting he would have been guilty.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

July 26, 2013

Barney Zwartz
Religion editor, The Age.

Of more than 2000 complaints by clergy child-sex abuse victims in Victoria, only one has ever made it through the civil court process to a verdict, a researcher will tell a human rights conference on Friday. And that case failed.

The researcher and victims advocate, Judy Courtin, also says that more than half the victims associated with the secondary victims she interviewed are now prematurely dead, either through suicide or substance abuse.

She says the civil law’s statute of limitations and especially the Ellis defence – by which the Catholic Church successfully argued it was not an entity that could be sued – has deterred lawyers so that ”victims are stymied … a clear breach of a fundamental human right”.

Criminal proceedings are not much more successful, with about four victims in every 1000 finding their abuser convicted, she says.

Ms Courtin is addressing a high-profile human rights conference held by Monash University’s Castan Centre. Other speakers include Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, feminist Eva Cox, Pakistani lawyer Shahzad Akbar, and Refugee Immigration Legal Centre director David Manne.

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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

Thursday 25 July 2013
The announcement of Monsignor Leo Cushley as Archbishop-elect of St Andrews and Edinburgh is good news, both for the Archdiocese and for the Scottish Catholic Church.

The relative speed with which the matter of an appointment has been resolved is an indication of the seriousness with which Rome views the situation in Scotland.

Four of the eight dioceses have been vacant, and the fall of Cardinal O’Brien left bishops, clergy and laity shocked and shamed at the disgrace brought upon the Church. This was all the greater for the prominence that Archbishop O’Brien had enjoyed, following in a course previously laid out by Cardinal Winning.

Each in turn was described as leader of the Catholic Church in Scotland, but there is no such position and neither Archbishop Tartaglia nor Archbishop-to-be Cushley will agree to be described as such. Rome has forgone the services of one of its few native English-speaking clergy, no less than the head of the English section of the Secretariat of State.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By IAN KIRKWOOD July 25, 2013

COUNSEL for a victim of paedophile priest Denis McAlinden has asked why the only thing a senior Catholic cleric says he can remember about the matter is the one thing that would mean he did not have to go to police at the time.

Maria Gerace, counsel for various church victims including one known as ‘‘AJ’’, was cross-examining Father Brian Lucas, the general secretary of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference and a major figure in forming the church’s response to priestly child sexual abuse from the late 1980s.

After almost two days of giving his evidence in chief before senior counsel assisting, Julia Lonergan, Father Lucas was asked by Ms Gerace about a number of matters from those days, including a media release issued by the Catholic welfare agency, Centacare, in March 1992.

Allowed to continue despite objections from Father Lucas’s counsel, Peter Skinner, Ms Gerace said the media release stated that priests accused of child sexual abuse would be stood down automatically from their duties and the allegations taken to civil authorities.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By IAN KIRKWOOD July 25, 2013

FATHER Brian Lucas began his second day in the witness box in Newcastle confirming he’d had to supply more documents about his involvement in dealing with paedophile priests to the Special Commission of Inquiry.

He finished the day by rejecting a suggestion from victims’ counsel Maria Gerace that his evidence was ‘‘not true’’.

Ms Gerace said the only thing Father Lucas could recall for the commission about serial paedophile the late Denis McAlinden – that his victims did not want to go to the police – was the one thing that would stop Father Lucas being charged with concealing a crime.

In between, the evidence traversed such diverse areas as the Congregation of the Servants of the Paraclete – a New Mexico-based ministry that specialises in ministering to troubled priests, including paedophiles – and the failure of a Catholic ethicist, Dr Nicholas Tonti-Filippini, to convince the Church to have paedophile allegations against priests automatically reported to police from as early as 1990.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

July 26, 2013

Catherine Armitage
Senior Writer

One of the leaders of the Catholic Church has admitted his way of dealing with claims of child sexual abuse against clergy was outside the church’s protocols of the time, that it gave priests an inducement to avoid police action and it helped the church contain any scandal.

In hindsight, it may have been better not to have done it his way, Father Brian Lucas said at the state government inquiry into alleged church and police cover-ups of paedophile priest activity in the Hunter Valley.

On his second day in the witness stand, the general secretary of the Australian Catholic Bishop’s conference, a barrister with particular legal expertise in issues of child protection and church confidentiality, came in for a grilling over the way he handled complaints against priests in the first half of the 1990s.

The credibility of his complete lack of recall of a crucial meeting with the disgraced serial child abuser Denis McAlinden in 1993 was repeatedly called into question.

From 1990 it was Father Brian’s role to interview NSW priests accused of child sexual abuse. He has asserted the most effective way of protecting children’s safety was to persuade offending priests to leave the ministry so they would not have intimate access to families.

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VATICAN CITY
Chiesa

Statement of the nuncio in Montevideo. Confirmations and new background on the case of the prelate of the IOR. But another storm is already approaching. On a strange appointment (photo) at the newly created commission for the reorganization of the Vatican administrations

by Sandro Magister

ROME, July 25, 2013 – It is enough these days to enter the offices of the Institute for Works of Religion to understand how flimsy the argument is that has been advanced in defense of Monsignor Battista Ricca, the prelate of the IOR whose scandalous past has been revealed by L’Espresso:

> The Prelate of the Gay Lobby

Three floors below the window of the pope’s Angelus, in two rooms facing the colonnade of Saint Peter’s Square, across large monitors scroll movements of money, past and present, of the clients of the IOR, before the eyes of auditors hunting for suspicious operations. The team is led by Antonio Montaresi, with solid experience in the United States, the new Chief Risk Officer of the controversial Vatican “bank.”

Every operation of dubious regularity is brought to the attention of the Financial Information Authority directed by René Brülhart, vice-president of the international network of the Financial Intelligence Unit, which in turn informs its sister authorities in the countries involved and if necessary the Vatican magistracy.

“Bad management”: this is how the president of the IOR, Ernst von Freyberg, dismisses the conduct of the previous director, Paolo Cipriani, who was forced to resign together with his deputy last July 1.

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CANADA
Sudbury Star

Rallies are planned in seven Canadian cities Thursday — including Sudbury — in light of revelations the federal govern-ment starved and experimented on malnourished aboriginal children in residential schools in the 1940s.

“Canadians from many backgrounds have been shocked and hurt by these recent revelations and this is an opportunity to talk, reflect and do something about it,” co-organizer Wab Kinew said in a press release.

A University of Guelph report found 1,300 native children and adults were test subjects in nutritional experiments conducted by the government. Meal plans were altered to provide insufficient vitamins and minerals, and subjects were sometimes denied dental care to test the efficacy of supplements.

These revelations have sparked worry Canada may be covering up other past abuses.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC Gippsland

By Celine Foenander

How hard will it be for people who grew up in orphanages and homes to make a submission to the Royal Commission?

Longford resident Ray Shingles says it will be tough but he plans on sharing his story.

“This is a big thing with the Royal Commission, this is our last gasp for them to get it right and I think they will get it right,” he says.

“I have a voice and in my community of Forgotten Australians, I will always have a voice and I will always barrack for the underprivileged in the Forgotten Australians.”

The Forgotten Australians, people who spent time in homes, orphanages and out of home care will be among those preparing submissions to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

Thursday 25 July 2013

Gerry Braiden
Senior reporter

THE new Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh has pledged that all complaints from clergy and parishioners over the fallout of the Cardinal Keith O’Brien scandal will be fully investigated.

Monsignor Leo Cushley, who was yesterday unveiled as Cardinal O’Brien’s successor following the enforced resignation, said he would “work hard to get this business sorted out”, adding it was crucial any investigation had to be open and transparent.

Mgr Cushley, 52, is currently head of the English-language section of the Vatican’s Secretariat of State and has been a close collaborator of both Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis.

Cardinal O’Brien resigned as Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh five months ago after admitting decades of sexual behaviour with other clerics and was exiled by the Vatican from Scotland in May. He remains a cardinal.

Asked of his intentions to ­investigate the scandal, Mgr Cushley said: “If there is an investigation it won’t be up to me. It will depend on the Holy See.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By IAN KIRKWOOD July 25, 2013

FATHER Brian Lucas has finished giving his evidence in chief to the special commission of inquiry with a determined defence of the practices he used to deal with Denis McAlinden and other paedophile priests.

Father Lucas, the Canberra-based general secretary of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference since 2002, was previously with the Catholic Church’s Archdiocese of Sydney and a key player in the Australian church’s formulation of early policies dealing with child sexual abuse by clergy.

As he did on Wednesday, Father Lucas defended his decision not to tell the police about McAlinden on the grounds that the victims who had come to him for help were adamant that they did not want the police involved.

In the commission’s pre-lunch session on Thursday, Father Lucas said this created a significant dilemma that was only solved in 1996 when the church began working more closely with police and developed a protocol to tell the civil authorities about allegations made against clergy without necessarily naming the victims.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

DAN BOX From: The Australian July 25, 2013

A SENIOR Catholic cleric may have been aware of evidence suggesting two priests acquitted of child abuse offences in court were in fact guilty of such crimes, an inquiry has heard.

Giving evidence to the NSW Special Commission of Inquiry into church child abuse, Brian Lucas also said he had not reported the men to police as many of their alleged victims did not want authorities involved.

Reverend Lucas said the men were among dozens of pedophile priests he personally interviewed during the early 1990s.

“I can think of one particular priest I interviewed who absolutely denied anything. He subsequently was charged, he was convicted by the jury, his conviction was overturned by the Court of Criminal Appeal and no retrial.

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SCOTLAND
Evening Times

Stef Lach
Senior Reporter

SCOTLAND’S 
newest archbishop has the personal skills that will help him fill a difficult role, according to people who worked with him when he was a young priest.

Airdrie man Monsignor Leo Cushley was 
appointed Archbishop of St Andrews & Edinburgh by the Roman Catholic Church, 
replacing Cardinal Keith O’Brien, who left the post this year after admitting inappropriate sexual conduct.

In taking over from Cardinal O’Brien, Mgr Cushley, 52, is stepping into the role at a difficult time for the Catholic Church in Scotland.

People who knew him as a chaplain at three Lanarkshire schools in the 1980s and 1990s – St Aidan’s High in Wishaw, Our Lady’s High in Motherwell and St Margaret’s High in Airdrie – describe him as, “highly intelligent, kind and thoughtful, just decent” and add that “he can be very witty.”

Liz Leydon, editor of the Scottish Catholic Observer, said: “That personal touch bodes well for what lies 
ahead for the archbishop-elect.

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NEW YORK
Jersey Journal

By Rev. Alexander Santora/For the Jersey Journal
on July 25, 2013

Walking through Manhattan’s Washington Square Park on a hot July evening has the feel of an urban circus. Adults and children cool off in the fountain’s sprays, musicians entertain, and food vendors do a brisk business.

As I am about to exit, I notice the New York University Catholic Center’s modern looking building on the left but I’m headed to the historic Judson Memorial Church to hear an Austrian Catholic priest, Rev. Helmut Schuller, kick off a 15-city U.S. tour. I am not sure why the sponsors selected Judson instead of any Catholic setting; the Archbishops of Boston and Philadephia did ban Schuller from any Catholic property. That only boosted attendance on July 16 and required additional chairs to seat the 400 plus audience.

Schuller is a mild-mannered 60-year-old, who is every bit involved in the life of the Vienna, Austria Archdiocese. He was their Vicar General, the second highest position in the chancery, and still pastors the same parish he did when he had that job. He serves on their priests’ council and writes a weekly column for their archdiocesan newspaper.

So why all the hubbub?

Schuller organized 400 priests out of some 2,500 in the entire country to issue calls for reform back in 2006. The Austrian Priests’ Initiative addressed the “increasing shortage of priests forcing many Austrian parishes to close.”

But it also advocated for reform in the celebration of the sacraments, welcoming remarried Catholics to communion, ordination of women and married men and homosexual unions – none of which is approved by the universal church.

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INDIA
Hindustan Times

Two persons, including a priest and a pastor, were arrested on Tuesday night for allegedly sexually abusing a minor girl, an inmate of an orphanage, for the last three years.

Subsequently, their bail pleas were rejected and they were remanded in jail custody for 14 days.

Police said that the girl was rescued on Tuesday night with the help of an NGO.

The accused, identified as Father George Samuel (52) and Pastor Johnson ED (39), who have two children each, also used to take regular Bible classes at the orphanage.

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CHILE
Terra

La fiscalía de la zona oriente pidió formalizar por el presunto delito de abuso sexual al al sacerdote de los Legionarios de Cristo John O’Reilly.

La solicitud la realizó al Cuarto Juzgado de Garantía la fiscal de la zona oriente Lorena Parra, de acuerdo a lo señalado a Terra desde el Ministerio Público.

La petición fue presentada ayer y la audiencia se realizará el 27 de agosto próximo.

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CHILE
El Dinamo

24 de julio de 2013

El sacerdote fue suspendido el 25 de julio del año pasado de sus labores tras las denuncias, aunque el religioso se declaró inocente y aseguró que las afirmaciones en su contra constituyen “un lamentable error”.

La Justicia anunció hoy que procesará el próximo 27 de agosto al sacerdote de los Legionarios de Cristo John O’Reilly por denuncias de abuso sexual que pesan en su contra.

Según fuentes judiciales, O’Reilly deberá comparecer ante el Cuarto Juzgado de garantía de Santiago, por la formalización en un caso que afectó a una menor de seis años en el Colegio Cumbres de la capital, mientras se evalúa una segunda denuncia.

El sacerdote, legionario de Cristo de origen irlandés, declaró en diciembre pasado en el marco de la investigación de este caso, oportunidad en que alegó completa inocencia.

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AUSTRALIA
My Daily News

BANORA Point whistleblower Fiona Barnett will be Bravehearts’ local representative at the organisation’s annual White Balloon Day activities on September 6.

Ms Barnett last month appeared before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse to testify about the activities of a teacher she says was responsible for the abuse of at least 20 local children in the 1980s and 1990s.

She said she was then approached by Bravehearts to represent the group locally at its fundraising event that will involve hundreds of schools, day care centres, businesses, councils, sporting clubs, community groups and organisations around Australia.

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CANADA
APTN

By Jorge Barrera
APTN National News
The nutritional experiments conducted in First Nation communities and in Indian residential schools were not the only example where Canada’s Indigenous population faced treatment as “guinea pigs,” academic research shows.

First Nation infants were used for Saskatchewan trials of a tuberculosis vaccine that was mired in controversy at the time of the experiment in the 1930s.

The subject of nutritional experiments exploded last week after reports surfaced on a study by University of Guelph food historian Ian Mosby. The study found that experiments were conducted in six residential schools and communities in northern Ontario, northern Manitoba, British Columbia, Alberta and Nova Scotia between 1942 and 1952.

Previous and ongoing academic research shows, however, that the nutritional experiments were part of a wider pattern in the medical and scientific community’s approach to Indigenous people at the time which included experimentation and the persistence of certain types of surgeries that were no longer conducted on non-Indigenous people.

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CANADA
rabble.ca

BY KRYSTALLINE KRAUS | JULY 24, 2013

On Thursday July 25, 2013, First Nations activists across Canada are calling for the Federal government to release all documents pertaining to our history of residential schools immediately.
Nation-wide prayers are encouraged across Canada from 12:00 pm noon to 1:00 pm.

“If Canada made the apology, they need to honour it,” the call out explains.

In 2008, the Federal government under Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, made a rare public apology to First Nations, Metis and Inuit for their treatment under the residential school system.

Residential schools – funded by the Canadian government and administered by Christian churches — operated here quite soon after settlers began migrating to Turtle Island.

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ILLINOIS
WIFR

[with video]

ROCKFORD (WIFR) — A former church employee is now in jail, accused of taking advantage of a young girl.

That girl is just 13 years old. The Winnebago County Sheriff’s Department says the man who molested her, Charles Tucker, is now behind bars. He’s charged with child molestation and child pornography. Tucker worked at North Love Baptist Church when the alleged abuse happened and when he was arrested, but the pastor says Tucker no longer works for the church. Investigators won’t say whether the girl was taken advantage of at the church or somewhere else.

Tucker’s neighbors say they were shocked to learn an accused sexual predator lived right down the street.

“I feel surprised and I feel concerned having small children living in this neighborhood. I would like to be aware of this information and I would like to see our neighborhood notified in some way shape or form so that we can just be a little more cautious,” Wendy Seerup, said.

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SCOTLAND
Scotsman

by VICTORIA RAIMES
Published on the 23 June 2013

THE VATICAN has finally agreed to demands to launch a formal inquiry into Cardinal Keith O’Brien following allegations of sexual misconduct, it has been reported.

The church is set to undergo a high level inspection – known as an apostolic visitation – in response to the claims made against Britain’s most senior Catholic cleric, who resigned from the diocese of Edinburgh and St Andrews in February.

Archbishop Antonio Mennini is understood to have revealed the inspection when he met with a former priest, known only as Lenny, who accused the cardinal of making sexual advances towards him when he was a seminarian.

The alleged victim said: “The archbishop told me the holy see had decided there would be an investigation into all the allegations. Anyone affected would be able to give evidence. If it is judged that there is sufficient evidence, then it would go to another, deeper process in Rome.

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MEXICO
e-Consulta

La canonización del fallecido Papa Juan Pablo II debe detenerse, pues es un personaje vinculado a la red mundial de pederastia, y se encuentra en investigación, afirmó el ex sacerdote Alberto Athie.

“Pedimos que la santificación de Juan Pablo II se detenga, que se esperen a los veredictos y a las recomendaciones que se lleven a cabo, y veamos que hay quienes fueron responsables de qué y ya sobre eso veamos una valoración si su vida fue una virtuosa y valiosa al extremo”, dijo Athie en entrevista en Noticias MVS Primera Emisión.

Esto, como respuesta a que el Comité de Naciones Unidas para los Derechos de los Niños solicitó esta semana al Vaticano revelar la información sobre casos de pedofilia que involucran al clero católico.

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MEXICO
El Pais (Espana)

Organizaciones de víctimas de abusos sexuales de México han elevado la voz para exigir a Francisco que paralice el proceso de canonización de Juan Pablo II mientras se investigan los casos de abusos sexuales de la Iglesia. Tras la petición está la solicitud del Comité sobre los Derechos del Niño de la ONU, que este mes de julio ha requerido al Vaticano “información detallada” sobre todos los casos de abusos a menores.

Es la primera vez en la historia que un organismo internacional cuestiona a la Santa Sede. El Papa, de visita estos días en Brasil, tendrá que enfrentar un caso que mermó la credibilidad de su antecesor antes del 1 de noviembre, fecha impuesta por la ONU para presentar una respuesta a sus duras preguntas. “El Papa tiene una oportunidad histórica y única de entregar toda la documentación y de demostrar que no está dispuesto a que esto siga sucediendo”, dice al teléfono el exsacerdote mexicano Alberto Athié.

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MEXICO
Latin Times

By Megan Taros, Jul 24, 2013

The UN Convention On The Rights Of The Child have backed a Mexican sexual abuse victims group that formed in response to the impending canonization of late Pope John Paul II. This is the first time a group has formed to challenge the Vatican when it comes to a person’s sainthood. The current Pope Francis will now see a case that gives him a chance to reveal pressing questions about the Catholic Church’s history with child sexual abuse. He has until Nov. 1 to come forward with any and all evidence pertinent to the case.

“The Pope has a unique and historic opportunity to deliver all the documentation and demonstrate that it is willing to move forward,” Alberto Athié, a former Mexican priest, said.

Athié, like many others, left the priesthood after the molestation allegations began surfacing. The Vatican refused to hear the cases in both Mexico and Rome. Another who is opposed to the canonization of John Paul, Joaquín Aguilar of the Clergy Abuse Survivors Network, believes Pope Francis must make an effort to investigate the cases so all involved can be properly punished. He criticized late John Paul’s failure in doing so.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

July 25, 2013

Catherine Armitage
Senior Writer

There is “not much more you can do” to prevent children being abused by paedophile priests once you’ve removed the ministers from office, a Catholic Church priest has told a NSW government inquiry.

But Father Brian Lucas agreed his system of managing accused priests was a failure of risk management and did not comply with the church’s protocols at the time.

In the five or six years from 1990 when his role was to deal with sexual abuse allegations against the church in NSW, some of those accused did admit their guilt to him, he said. But he did not pass the admissions on to police because he “never felt able to do that”.

Father Lucas, who is also a lawyer with expertise in child protection, was being grilled at the inquiry into the alleged church cover-up of paedophile priest activity in the Hunter Valley.

His insistence that defrocking paedophile priests was the best approach in the early 1990s is under challenge from counsel assisting the inquiry Julia Lonergan, SC. Also under challenge is the credibility of his assertion of a total absence of memory about his dealings with paedophile priest Father McAlinden.

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CANADA
CBC News

Two former students of a Catholic school in Burns Lake, B.C., have filed notices of civil claims in B.C. Supreme Court, alleging sexual abuse at the hands of former VANOC CEO John Furlong, who taught at the school in the 1960s.

The lawsuits filed by Grace Jessie West, 53, and Beverly Mary Abraham, 55, name Furlong, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vancouver, the Roman Catholic Prince George Diocese and the Catholic Independent Schools Diocese of Prince George.

The story first broke last fall when journalist Laura Robinson wrote a story for the Georgia Straight newspaper alleging Furlong had mistreated native students while he was a teacher at a Catholic school in Burns Lake in the late 1960s.

Furlong has vehemently denied the accusations made in the newspaper story and launched a lawsuit against Robinson and the Georgia Straight newspaper.

Allegations of sexual touching

In the lawsuits filed on Wednesday in Vancouver, the two women allege Furlong abused them sexually, physically and verbally during and after gym classes at the Catholic school while he was a teacher there in 1969 and 1970.

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CANADA
The Globe and Mail

SUNNY DHILLON
VANCOUVER — The Globe and Mail
Published Wednesday, Jul. 24 2013

Two women who allege they were physically and sexually abused by former Vancouver Olympics CEO John Furlong when he was a physical education teacher decades ago have filed lawsuits against him.

Beverly Mary Abraham and Grace Jessie West filed their notices of civil claim Wednesday in B.C. Supreme Court.

Mr. Furlong has not filed a response and the allegations have not been proven. He has denied any wrongdoing.

Mr. Furlong’s lawyer did not return phone and e-mail messages Wednesday seeking comment.

Communications firm TwentyTen Group issued a statement saying Mr. Furlong and his counsel would not comment because the matter is before the courts.

Allegations that Mr. Furlong abused several aboriginal students when he was a physical education teacher in Burns Lake, B.C., more than 40 years ago first surfaced in September in the alternative weekly newspaper the Georgia Straight. Mr. Furlong filed a lawsuit against the newspaper, as well as the article’s author, in November.

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CANADA
The Province

BY KIM NURSALL, THE CANADIAN PRESS JULY 24, 2013

VANCOUVER – Two women who allege the former head of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics sexually molested them at least a dozen times when he was a teacher decades ago in Burns Lake, B.C., launched separate lawsuits Wednesday in B.C. Supreme Court, documents show.

In one statement of claim, Beverly Abraham, now 55, alleges Furlong would ask her to stay late after class before molesting her in the gym, the equipment room and a mechanical closet.

Abraham, who was 11 at the time, said in the statement that Furlong also emotionally and psychologically manipulated her, calling her his “beautiful Indian girl” and saying it was not wrong for him to touch her.

Grace West, 53, filed a separate statement of claim, alleging that almost every week Furlong would touch her breasts and vagina while stroking himself. West’s claim also states Furlong would kick her almost every day, calling her “dirty Indian” and “squaw.”

Abraham does not state that Furlong physically abused her. Rather she claims he would request that the school’s nuns force her to kneel and the nuns would strike her open palms repeatedly.

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CANADA
Global News

[with video]

Two Burns Lake women are suing former VANOC CEO John Furlong for physical abuse, sexual touching and defamation.

Beverly Mary Abraham is alleging she was 11-years old when Furlong sexually molested her 12 times from November of 1969 to May of 1970.

The court documents state Abraham attended Immaculata Roman Catholic Elementary school in Burns Lake in 1969 and 1971.

Furlong was a teacher at the school in 1969 and 1970.

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CANADA
Vancouver Sun

BY KELLY SINOSKI, VANCOUVER SUN JULY 25, 2013

Two former students of a Burns Lake Catholic elementary school have filed notices of civil claim in B.C. Supreme Court, alleging they were physically and sexually abused by former Vanoc CEO John Furlong when he taught at the school in 1969-70.

Beverly Mary Abraham and Grace Jessie West claim the abuse occurred after gym class at Immaculata elementary school where Furlong was a physical education teacher.

The women also allege the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vancouver, Roman Catholic Prince George Diocese and Catholic School Diocese of Prince George are “vicariously liable” for the abuse because they did nothing to stop it.

In their claims, which have yet to be proven in court, both women allege they were sexually abused by Furlong in the school gym, the equipment room and a mechanical closet, usually after the physical education class had ended. Furlong could not be reached for comment through his lawyer or the public relations firm that represents him, TwentyTen Group.

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SCOTLAND
Scotsman

TO STEP into the shoes of disgraced Cardinal Keith O’Brien, after a difficult year for the Catholic Church in Scotland, must be a daunting task.

So this newspaper wishes Monsignor Leo Cushley, the new Catholic Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, good fortune in taking up his new post at a difficult time.

Little is known of Mgr Cushley, but initial reports suggest he holds orthodox views on the key doctrinal issues facing the Catholic church. This is perhaps unsurprising. The new archbishop may, however, be wise to take a somewhat more nuanced view of his role in the life of the nation than has been evidenced in recent years from senior Catholic clergy in Scotland.

The 52-year-old from Lanarkshire is reputed to be one of the Vatican’s most gifted diplomats. That may be useful, because what the Church in Scotland needs now is a tone that is, in the broadest sense of the word, diplomatic.

The need for a new approach rests not on the saga of O’Brien’s fall from grace – although senior Church figures have acknowledged that having a cardinal condemn homosexuality while being guilty himself of homosexual indiscretions leaves the Church open to the charge of hypocrisy.

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SCOTLAND
The Guardian

Press Association
The Guardian, Wednesday 24 July 2013

The Catholic church can recover from “the battering” it has taken in recent months, according to Monsignor Leo Cushley, who is to succeed disgraced Cardinal Keith O’Brien as the archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh.

The priests and people are “anxious to move on” from the scandal involving Cardinal O’Brien, who left the post earlier this year after admitting inappropriate sexual conduct, Mgr Cushley said.

He said he would take stock of what happened within the governance of the archdiocese when he is ordained on 21 September.

The 52-year-old also expressed surprise at being appointed archbishop, given his background as part of the Vatican’s diplomatic team, although he described the challenges of his new role as “comparatively easy” compared with previous situations he has faced.

“I am humbled that our Holy Father, Pope Francis, has nominated me for such an important task here in our ancient capital. I know it’s a delicate moment and that there is a lot to be done but, with God’s grace and the kind support of the clergy and people of Edinburgh, I will work cheerfully and willingly with all the energy I can muster,” he said.

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SCOTLAND
The Times

Mike Wade
Published at 12:02AM, July 25 2013

The Archbishop-elect of St Andrews and Edinburgh has said he will back a Vatican inquiry into the sex scandal surrounding Cardinal Keith O’Brien, emphasising his determination “to sort this business out”.

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SCOTLAND
The Sun

By ANNABELLE LOVE

THE Pope’s aide chosen to replace shamed Cardinal Keith O’Brien as Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh said yesterday the Catholic Church can recover from its recent “battering”.

Airdrie-born Monsignor Leo Cushley, 52, said he was “humbled” that Pope Francis had chosen him.
The hillwalking U2 fan said: “I know it’s a delicate moment and that there is a lot to be done.
“I will work cheerfully and willingly with all the energy I can muster.”

He added: “I think the Church has taken a bit of battering. I think that is fair.

“But also I think the fundamentals are good and they are right.

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MICHIGAN
Advisor & Source Newspapers

By DAVE PHILLIPS

A 62-year-old former priest from Novi has pleaded guilty to distributing child pornography and possession of child pornography, federal officials announced Wednesday.

Timothy Murray “used peer-to-peer software to trade child pornography with others,” including an undercover Department of Homeland Security agent, according to a press release from the office of U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade.

Agents recovered at least seven devices from Murray’s home. Those devices contained more than 650 movies and 450 images of child pornography, the release states.

“Murray had previously served as a Catholic priest within the Archdiocese of Detroit before being removed from public ministry when substantiated allegations of Murray’s prior sexual abuse of a young boy came to light,” the release states.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

One of the country’s most senior Catholic Church officials says the bishop of a diocese does not need to know about a paedophile priest’s admissions of guilt.

In the 1990s father Brian Lucas had a special role, to “seduce paedophile priests” to resign.

Father Lucas is a qualified lawyer and general secretary of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference and is giving evidence at the inquiry into claims the church covered up abuse by two priests, including Denis McAlinden.

The commission’s heard McAlinden confessed in 1993 to the abuse of children but father Lucas said he did not need to tell the Maitland-Newcastle bishop.

He said the bishop “didn’t need to know the names of the victims to fulfil his child protections obligations”; he “only needed to know the outcome of the meeting” that the paedophile priest had resigned and should never work for the Church again.

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SCOTLAND
Scotsman

by CHRIS MARSHALL AND STEPHEN MCGINTY
Published on the 24 July 2013

A VATICAN career diplomat ­appointed to be the new archbishop of St Andrews and ­Edinburgh has promised a ­period of “reconciliation and healing” following the scandal surrounding his disgraced predecessor.

Monsignor Leo Cushley said the standing of the Catholic Church in Scotland had taken a “battering” when Cardinal Keith O’Brien resigned after admitting inappropriate behaviour with a number of priests.

Mgr Cushley, a Scot who has worked all over the world in the Vatican’s diplomatic corps, said Catholics in Scotland had been left “upset and dismayed” at what had happened. But he said the task facing him was “comparatively easy” when compared to missions he had carried out for the Church in Africa.

The 52-year-old, who was born in ­Airdrie, has been a priest of Motherwell diocese for 28 years, but has not worked in Scotland since 1993.

He will be ordained at St Mary’s ­Cathedral in Edinburgh on 21 September. His appointment comes after revelations emerged earlier this year about inappropriate relationships Cardinal O’Brien had with priests and seminarians.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By IAN KIRKWOOD July 24, 2013

Inquiry archive

Transcripts of inquiry

A SENIOR priest at the heart of the Catholic Church’s efforts to deal with paedophile priests has admitted to not taking notes of his investigations so as not to leave a paper trail.

Father Brian Lucas, general secretary of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, yesterday gave evidence to the Special Commission of Inquiry in Newcastle.

Father Lucas has been identified in earlier evidence as being involved in attempts to discipline paedophile priest Denis McAlinden, who died in a church-run facility in Western Australia in 2005.

Although he acknowledged evidence at the inquiry that McAlinden had confessed to him personally during an interview in the 1990s, Father Lucas said he had no recollection of that meeting.

Father Lucas said repeatedly that he did not report McAlinden to the police because the victims who had come forward did not want this to happen.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Jamie Manson | Jul. 24, 2013 Grace on the Margins

Much has been written about Austrian priest and reformer Helmut Schüller since he opened his 15-city U.S. tour, called “The Catholic Tipping Point,” in New York last week.

Schüller has been making news in the Roman Catholic church reform movement since 2006, when he and a group of fellow priests organized the Austrian Priests’ Initiative. In 2011, they made global headlines when they launched the “Call for Disobedience,” an appeal to the Vatican to address the shortage of priests and other predicaments facing the institutional church.

The Austrian Priests’ Initiative is concerned that the dwindling number of clergy is impacting the quality of pastoral care offered to baptized Catholics. Their “Call for Disobedience” suggests reforms such as the ordination of women and married men to address this unfolding crisis.

What makes Schüller an intriguing figure among reformers is that he is not simply an upstart parish priest. He spent years as a hierarchical insider, filling the very public roles of president of Caritas Austria and vicar general under Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schönborn. He has the rare insight of one who has served both in the hierarchy and in the parish. Rarer still, he has risked his position and privilege to be in full, outspoken solidarity with lay Catholic reformers.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
A Ram in the Thicket

By Ryan A. MacDonald

I grew up in the sprawling metropolis of New York City. My parents, being somewhat refined folks, took me to all of the city’s great cultural institutions, all within walking distance or a subway ride of home. During summer trips to a friend’s Lake Winnipesaukee, New Hampshire home, however, all that hard won culture was cast off at a Weir’s Beach arcade where I excelled at a game called “Whack-a-Mole.” Armed with a heavy padded mallet, there was something cathartic about clobbering those moles popping up in rapid succession. In the summer of 1994, I was hands down the “Whack-a-Mole”champ of Weir’s Beach.

I was completely insulated back then, of course, from something happening in another corner of New Hampshire that year. As I played “Whack-a-Mole,” Catholic priest Gordon MacRae, today winding up nineteen years in prison, was fighting for his life and freedom in Cheshire County Superior Court sixty miles away in Keene, NH. Having studied in depth that debacle of a trial and all that preceded it, I know I’ve lost my “Whack-a-Mole” title to some folks in the “Live Free or Die” state.

As I prepare to publish this article, I have just learned that a pending habeas corpus appeal in the Father MacRae case was denied by Superior Court Judge Larry Smukler without a hearing on its new evidence or merits. This will bring about further appeals and additional media scrutiny of this case. The latest in a series of articles on the MacRae case by Wall Street Journal investigative writer, Dorothy Rabinowitz, drew international attention to this injustice. At WSJ.com, “The Trials of FatherMacRae” (May 11, 2013) was the most viewed and most emailed article of that week. At last count, it generated over 32,000 links and was cited in whole or in part in hundreds of other venues.

Among the more than 150 comments posted at the article’s on-line version, a few were from New Hampshire resident, Ms. Carolyn Disco, an outspoken critic of the Diocese of Manchester and of Father MacRae (who, by the way she has never met, seen, or spoken with). In posted comments at WSJ and other sites over recent years, Ms. Disco has played a skillful game of “Whack-a-Mole,” knocking down any and every exculpatory fact to vie for points in the one-sided propaganda game that fueled MacRae’s trial, sent him to prison, and keeps him there today. A few years ago, Carolyn Disco was honored by SNAP, the Survivor’s Network of those Abused by Priests, for her outspoken pursuit of New Hampshire’s accused priests.

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MICHIGAN
My Fox Detroit

DETROIT, Mich. (AP) –
A Detroit-area man removed from the priesthood nine years ago has pleaded guilty to two federal child pornography charges.

The U.S. attorney’s office announced Wednesday that Timothy Murray made the pleas to one count of distributing child pornography and one count of possessing child pornography.

Prosecutors say the 62-year-old Novi resident used peer-to-peer software to trade child pornography with others, including an undercover Department of Homeland Security investigator.

A search warrant executed at Murray’s home recovered at least seven different computer devices containing child porn. Murray’s collection included more than 650 movies and 450 images.

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AUSTRALIA
Maitland Mercury

By ELLE WATSON July 25, 2013

The priest who extracted a confession from paedophile Denis McAlinden has admitted he advised other clergy not to take notes of criminal admissions because it could be used as evidence in legal proceedings.

Father Brian Lucas, the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference general secretary, yesterday gave a number of reasons it would be counter productive to create a permanent record of conversations with accused priests.

He told the special commission of inquiry into alleged Hunter clergy sexual abuse cover-up: “If you’re sitting in front of him taking notes he isn’t going to say anything, that’s my experience.”

Senior counsel assisting the commission Julia Lonergan SC put it to Father Lucas the real reason he was adverse to taking notes was because he knew it could be used in legal proceedings against the offending priests.

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MICHIGAN
Detroit Free Press

Emma Ockerman
Free Press Special Writer

Timothy Murray, a non-practicing Catholic priest with the Archdiocese of Detroit, pleaded guilty today in federal court in Detroit to one count of distributing child pornography and one count of possession of child pornography.

Murray, 62, of Novi, was removed from public ministry in 2004 after he was accused of touching a 13-year-old boy’s genitalia. Then, he was not charged due to the length of time passed since the alleged abuse and the report of the allegation.

After a federal investigation conducted on Murray last year on suspicion of possession of child pornography, he was found to be trading child pornography with others, including an undercover Homeland Security special agent. That prompted a search warrant to be executed in Murray’s home.

The warrant uncovered at least seven different computer devices containing child pornography, with a collection that included 650 movies and over 450 images, U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade’s office said in a press release. According to court documents, Murray told investigators that he viewed pornography weekly, and preferred 13-year-old males.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)/AUSTRALIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, July 24

Statement by Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, Outreach Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314 862 7688 home, 314 503 0003 cell, SNAPdorris@gmail.com)

A Jewish teacher who worked and abused in St. Louis and Australia has been sentenced to three years in jail but could be freed in about three months.

David Kramer, 52, is a former Yeshivah College teacher. He pleaded guilty to two counts of child molestation in St. Louis in 2008 and was sentenced to a seven-year prison term.

This week in Australia, Kramer pled guilty to charges of molesting four boys there.

We urge Jewish officials – in Missouri and Australia – to do more. Kramer very likely hurt other kids. He could face other charges. And if he doesn’t, he could walk free soon and assault more children.

It’s not enough for religious figures to sit back and do little or nothing while victims, police and prosecutors work overtime to try to keep kids safe from criminals like Kramer. Every single person who saw, suspected or suffered Kramer’s crimes must find the courage to speak up now. And every single Jewish employee or synagogue member who has knowledge or suspicions of wrongdoing here must do likewise.

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VIRGINIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: July 24, 2013

Statement by Becky Ianni Washington, DC/Virginia SNAP Director, SNAPVirginia@cox.net, 703-801-6044

A former pastor from Virginia has been charged with 12 counts of aggravated sexual battery on children less than 13 years of age taking place between January 2011 to September 2012.

Amongst the charges is the accusation that James Richard Daley, currently the pastor of the Beth Eden Lutheran Church in Luray, had inappropriately touched a female child. The wife of the predator, Margaret Daley—who also ran a day care out of their home—is being charged with failure to report child abuse and keeping a child in a dangerous environment.

We urge the leaders of Beth Eden Lutheran Church to inform their flock and community of this man’s crimes and ask that anyone with more information about Daley to come forward in order to insure he is kept in jail, safely away from children.

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CALIFORNIA
TheMediaReport

Making the news recently is California Senate Bill 131, which seeks to open up a one year “window” in 2014 allowing anyone over the age of 26 to sue the Catholic Church for damages stemming from clergy sex abuse. Suits would be allowed even if the alleged activity took place many decades ago and even if the accused abuser is long ago deceased, thus making it nearly impossible for the Church to effectively defend itself in court.

Sound familiar? It should. California enacted the exact same measure a decade ago, which led to the Catholic Church in California paying out $1.2 billion in settlements because of the “window” year of 2003 determined by the state legislature.

Indeed, it was implicit a decade ago that California’s temporary lifting of the statute of limitations was a one-time event that would give people who were abused decades ago a unique opportunity to come forward and collect damages. Yet cash-hungry contingency lawyers are at it again for a second round.

Yet a recent article about SB 131 in the Los Angeles Times by Ashley Powers, like other media coverage about the unfair bill, makes no mention at all of the Church-suing contingency lawyers who stand to score humongous settlements yet again if SB 131 passes.

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NEW JERSEY
Spiritual Politics

Mark Silk | Jul 24, 2013

Imagine two teachers at a private school who are good friends, and one is fired by the headmaster as the result of credible accusations that he molested a teenage boy 25 years ago. The dismissed teacher relocates to his beach house where his friend also goes to live when he is not in residence on campus.

A decade after the dismissal, the house is damaged in a storm and the headmaster gives permission for the man to come live on campus with his friend. The rest of the school is not told anything about the man’s past. When the story comes out, the friend is forced to resign.

This is a secularized version of the story reported in the Newark Star Ledger by Mark Mueller on Sunday, about two priests of the Catholic Archdiocese of Newark, Robert Chabak and Thomas Iwanowski. The headmaster? Archbishop John J. Myers, of course.

Myers’ spokesman, Jim Goodness, explained to Mueller that the decision to let Chabak stay at Iwanowski’s rectory was made “out of a sense of compassion.” As for Iwanowski, his comment to Mueller was, “He lived in the rectory and went to Mass every day. He didn’t do anything else. I don’t see the problem with that.”

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MICHIGAN
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: July 24, 2013

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

A Detroit priest is expected to plead guilty to child porn charges today. For the safety of kids, we hope he’s jailed for a long time.

We also hope that Detroit Catholic officials will use their vast resources to reach out to anyone else who may have been hurt by Fr. Timothy Murray. It’s not enough for the archbishop to passively sit back doing nothing while the burden of keeping this criminal away from kids falls on victims, police and prosecutors. Archbishop Vigneron has tremendous power. He should use it to seek out and help every single person who was assaulted or exploited by Fr. Murray. He should use it to gather every bit of evidence law enforcement officials need to keep Fr. Murray behind bars for years. And he should use it to lobby Michigan lawmakers to reform the state’s archaic, predator-friendly statute of limitations that prevents most child molesters from ever being prosecuted.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, July 24

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

A page one New York Times story today documents troubling mistreatment of children at private institutions in Utah, California, Florida, South Carolina, Montana, Louisiana, Mexico, Jamaica, Costa Rica, the Czech Republic, and elsewhere.

It’s immoral to outsource the safety of kids to private companies and institutions without any real oversight.

The Times reports that “there are no federal laws governing (these) schools” and “private boarding schools are not regularly inspected and are not required to be licensed or accredited” and there’s “little governmental control because the schools are regulated as religious institutions.”

Hasn’t the horrific, decades-long abuse and cover up in the Catholic church taught our society anything about the dangers of letting religious institutions deal with predators and children without regulation?

The Times also reports that

–“a 2011 Congressional bill that would have banned physical abuse and the withholding of food at such schools died in committee after it was opposed by lawmakers reluctant to impose new federal standards on a matter often regulated by states.

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AUSTRALIA
Canberra Times

July 25, 2013

Catherine Armitage
Senior Writer

Father Brian Lucas agreed that studying law taught the discipline of good note-taking.

But despite being a non-practising barrister with a fistful of law qualifications, the senior figure within the Catholic Church on Wednesday told an inquiry into sexual abuse he never made notes when dealing with about 35 priests accused of sex crimes.

The inquiry also heard that Father Brian wrote advice for clergy that it was a good idea not to take notes during interviews with accused priests to avoid the material being exposed during any ”subsequent legal process”.

Asked repeatedly about his own practice of not taking notes, Father Brian insisted it could be ”unproductive” because the priest would stop speaking with him.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

DAN BOX From: The Australian July 25, 2013

ONE of the country’s most powerful Catholics, Brian Lucas, does not remember his private meeting with pedophile priest Denis McAlinden.

But then, Father Lucas met dozens of pedophile priests during the early 1990s, convincing them to resign their positions, but taking no notes of the conversations and not reporting their crimes to the police.

“One had to, in some sense, seduce them to resign,” the general secretary of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference yesterday told the NSW special commission of inquiry into church child abuse.

Working closely with the current chancellor of the Archdiocese of Sydney, John Usher, Father Lucas said he met about 35 alleged pedophiles from across NSW over about six years.

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SCOTLAND
Daily Record

MONSIGNOR Cushley was appointed by the Catholic Church this morning and replaces Cardinal Keith O’Brien who left the post earlier this year after admitting inappropriate sexual conduct.

THE Catholic Church can recover from “the battering” it has taken in recent months, according to Monsignor Leo Cushley, who is to succeed disgraced Cardinal Keith O’Brien as the Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh.

The priests and people are “anxious to move on” from the scandal involving Cardinal O’Brien, who left the post earlier this year after admitting inappropriate sexual conduct, Mgr Cushley said.

He said he would take stock of what happened within the governance of the archdiocese when he is ordained on September 21.

The 52-year-old also expressed surprise at being appointed Archbishop, given his background as part of the Vatican’s diplomatic team, although he described the challenges of his new role as “comparatively easy” compared with previous situations he has faced.

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HAWAII
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

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

For immediate release: July 24, 2013

A predator priest has just been released on parole.

Fr. Mark Matson, a Catholic priest of the Colorado-based Theatine Fathers order, was tried and convicted in 2000 in Hawaii for sexual assaulting a 13-year-old boy. Matson was sentenced to 20 years.

[Star-Bulletin]

This week, he was freed. (See official notice below.)

We believe Catholic officials, in Hawaii, California, Texas and Colorado, should use their vast resources – parish bulletins, church websites, diocesan newspapers and pulpit announcements – to warn families about him.

In addition to his Hawaii conviction, Matson has been accused of abusing boys in Colorado and California. Furthermore, a Colorado man filed a civil suit against Matson for sexual molesting and assaulting him at 13 years old at St. Andrew’s Seminary in the 1970s. (Miami attorney Adam Horowitz represented the victim.)

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UNITED STATES
Berlin Daily Sun

By FRANK BRUNI

The men were spiritual leaders, held up before the children around them as wise and righteous and right. So they had special access to those kids. Special sway.

And when they exploited it by sexually abusing the children, according to civil and criminal cases from different places and periods, they were protected by their lofty stations and by the caretakers of their faith. The children’s accusations were met with skepticism. The community of the faithful either couldn’t believe what had happened or didn’t want it exposed to public view: why give outsiders a fresh cause to be critical? So the unpleasantness was hushed.

This is not a column about the Catholic Church.

This is a column about Orthodox Jews, who have recently had similar misdeeds exposed, similar cover-ups revealed.

And I’m writing it, yes, because the Catholic Church over the last two decades has absorbed the bulk of journalistic attention, my own included, in terms of child sexual abuse. There are compelling reasons that’s been so: Catholicism has more than one billion nominal adherents worldwide; endows its clerics with a degree of mysticism that many other denominations don’t; and is just centralized enough for scattered cover-ups to coalesce into something more like a conspiracy. The pattern of criminality and evasion has been staggering.

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AUSTRALIA
lewisblayse.net

When the NSW government enquiry into child sexual abuse and its cover-up in the Newcastle-Maitland Catholic church diocese heard evidence from Fr. Fletcher victim, “AH”, a strange thing happened. The assembled public, media representatives, lawyers and enquiry officials flooded the court with their tears. When he had finished his statement (see full transcript below), all media reported that the hearing chamber “erupted in spontaneous applause”.

Indeed, as he was about to leave the witness box, Commissioner Cunneen told him that “You must always remember, no shame attaches to you. Your courage has placed the shame squarely where it belongs.”

AH did not go into details of the abuse he had suffered, as it was detailed in his mother’s book. What he did go into was the effects the abuse had on him and his family. It was these effects, from an obviously impressive young man, that triggered the tears from those present.

The effects were what are becoming recognized as the standard for the victims of these pathetic priests and include alcohol use, relationship breakdowns, depression, business-failure and suicide attempts. As “AH” put it so well, “I actually thought I was just stuffing up my life until I realized I was a typical victim.”

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AUSTRALIA
lewisblayse.net

Fr. Brian Lucas has admitted to the NSW inquiry into Catholic Church cover-ups of child sexual abuse within the Newcastle-Maitland diocese that he did not take notes during meetings to ensure they could not be used later in court.

The meetings were of a committee established by the Bishop to review allegations against local priests. Lucas is a frequent media spokesman for the Sydney Archdiocese, headed by Cardinal George Pell. The name of the third member of the committee is the subject of a suppression order.

Lucas, who is also a lawyer, said it was a “serious and well understood dilemma” within church legal circles that clergy risked being charged with the crime of misprision of a felony (covering up a crime) if they did not go to police with victims’ complaints. He said he was prepared to take this risk when priests admitted their crimes to him.

One of the Australian Catholic Church’s most prominent and senior figures, Lucas admitted he also advised other clergy it was a good idea not to take notes of interviews with priests accused of sexual abuse so they “couldn’t be successfully used in legal action.”

Clearly, Lucas is defying the law. His close association with Cardinal Pell demands a reply from Pell, who remains on holiday in his palatial, $30 million apartments in Rome. Pell should be called before the enquiry to clarify this matter, but of course that is unlikely since the enquiry officials would probably think he was far too important to be called before them to answer the obvious questions.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

[with video]

One of Australia’s most senior Catholics, Father Brian Lucas, has told the Cunneen Inquiry into the sexual abuse cover up, that he convinced 35 paedophile priests to resign from the church rather than reporting them to the police.

Transcript

TONY JONES, PRESENTER: A senior Catholic Church official has admitted he was willing to risk breaking the law by failing to report cases of clergy sex abuse to police.

Father Brian Lucas told the Special Commission of Inquiry into church sex abuse in Maitland-Newcastle that he’d never betray the trust of a victim if they didn’t want to go to police about abuse allegations.

Father Lucas said he’d been tasked with seducing alleged paedophile priests to resign, but took no notes of their confessions.

Emma Renwick reports.

EMMA RENWICK, REPORTER: As a lawyer, a priest and former media advisor, Father Brian Lucas is careful with his words.

Father Lucas was at the forefront of the Catholic Church’s process of dealing with paedophile priests in the 1980s and ’90s. His special role was convincing them to leave the ministry.

Today Father Lucas told the special inquiry into the cover up of child sexual abuse, “… one had to seduce them into agreeing to resign …”.

EMMA RENWICK: Later, Counsel Assisting asked, “How many of these matters have you dealt with?”

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 24 July 2013 (VIS) – Today, the Holy Father:

– appointed Msgr. Leo Cushley as metropolitan archbishop of Saint. Andrews and Edinburgh (area 5,504, population 1,533,000, Catholics 115,900, priests 120, permanent deacons 4, religious 145), Scotland. The bishop-elect was born in Wester Moffat, Scotland in 1961 and was ordained a priest in 1985. He holds a licentiate in liturgy from the Pontifical Atheneum of St. Anselm and a doctorate in canon law from the Gregorian Pontifical University. He has served in a number of pastoral roles, including parish vicar of the cathedral “Our Lady of Good Aid” in Motherwell, chaplain of Our Lady’s High School, parish vicar of St. Serf’s, Airdrie, and chaplain of St. Margaret’s High School in Airdrie, Glasgow, and parish vicar at St. Aidan’s in Wishaw. He collaborated in the English section at the Secretariat of State before admission to the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy in Rome. He entered the diplomatic service of the Holy See in 1997, serving in the Apostolic Nunciatures in Egypt, Burundi, Portugal, New York (United Nations) and South Africa. He is currently nunciature counsellor in the Section for General Affairs of the Secretariat of State.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

[with video]

Evidence to a NSW inquiry has reveled senior clergy failed to act against a paedophile priest despite evidence they knew he’d been abusing girls for decades, and a warning this story contains graphic language.

Transcript

LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: More damning evidence of the Catholic Church’s failure to report serial child sex abusers has emerged at an inquiry in New South Wales.

The focus of today’s hearing was Father Denis McAlinden, a veteran paedophile who abused dozens of children.

In the witness box was one of the Church’s most senior office holders, Father Brian Lucas, currently the general secretary of the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference. He’s played an integral role in the Church’s handling of paedophile priests and survivors have slammed him for failing to report offenders like McAlinden to the police.

Adam Harvey reports, and a warning: this story contains explicit language and sexual references.

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SCOTLAND
Scotsman

by STEPHEN McGINTY
Published on the
24 July

MONSIGNOR Leo Cushley has been named new Archbishop of St Andrews & Edinburgh, replacing Cardinal Keith O’Brien who resigned in disgrace after admitting inappropriate behaviour with a number of priests.

• Cardinal Keith O’Brien’s successor named
• New Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh comes to role from Vatica’s foreign office

Monsignor Cushley, a priest from the Motherwell diocese, is currently working in the Vatican with its secretariat of state, the Vatican’s foreign office.

Cushley has been involved in the visits by heads of state to the Holy See, and was also present on the visit of Pope Benedict XVI to the UK in 2010.

Cushley is believed to have been chosen on account of his “outsider” status and skills in diplomacy and conflict resolution, following service in troublespots during the civil wars in Burundi and Rwanda. He is also known to be a trusted aide and confidante of Pope Francis.

The new Archbishop will today deliver his first message to the Archdiocese which has been shocked by the scandal surrounding Cardinal O’Brien who was revealed to have had a number of inappropriate relationships with priests and seminarians.

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SCOTLAND
Motherwell Times

By Mike McQuaid
Published on 24/07/2013

A priest from Uddingston has been chosen to succeed the disgraced Cardinal Keith O’Brien as Archbishop of Edinburgh and St Andrews.

Monsignor Leo Cushley (52) had been head of the English language section at the Vatican, a post he held for four years.

He was the official English translator for Pope Benedict, who stepped down earlier this year.

And when the newly-elected Pope Francis addressed cardinals for the first time in March, Mgr Cushley acted as his personal secretary.

Mgr Cushley, a former pupil at St John’s School in Uddingston, was ordained a priest in 1985. He served as a curate at Motherwell Cathedral and chaplain at St Aidan’s High School in Wishaw before moving to the Vatican’s diplomatic corps.

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SCOTLAND
The Tablet

Mgr Leo Cushley is to become the next archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, succeeding Cardinal Keith O’Brien who resigned in February amid revelations of sexual misconduct, the Vatican announced this morning.

Glasgow-born Mgr Cushley, 52, was ordained in 1985 and spent eight years as an assistant priest serving in the Diocese of Motherwell before he was called to Rome to be trained as a diplomat at the prestigious Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy.

His first posting in 1997 was to the troubled central African nation of Burundi. In 2001 he was sent to Portugal and in 2004 he moved to work at the Vatican’s diplomatic mission at the United Nations for three years. After a posting at the nunciature in South Africa he was asked back to work in the Vatican, where he has been head of the English-speaking section of the Secretariat of State.

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SCOTLAND
Edinburgh News

Pope Francis today appointed Monsignor Leo Cushley as the new Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh.

He will take over the governance of the Archdiocese from Archbishop Philip Tartaglia who has been Apostolic Administrator following the resignation of Cardinal Keith O’Brien, who was the most senior Catholic cleric in Britain.

Mgr Cushley, 52, is presently Head of the English-language section of the Vatican’s Secretariat of State and has been a close collaborator of

both Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis. In his capacity as Prelate of the Anticamera Mgr Cushley has been regularly involved in the visits of Heads of State and other important guests to the Holy See.

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SCOTLAND
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Andrews & Edinburgh

on Wednesday 24th July 2013

It is with great joy and gratitude that the priests and people of the Archdiocese received the news that Pope Francis has today nominated Monsignor Leo William Cushley as the 8th Archbishop and Metropolitan of St Andrews and Edinburgh.

Commenting on the news, Bishop Stephen Robson, the auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese, said ‘after months of prayer by the priests and people of the Archdiocese, we are so delighted to learn that God has given us Monsignor Cushley as our new chief pastor. We will now continue to be close to him in prayer in these coming months as he prepares for his ordination and to take on this great task which the Lord has entrusted to him.’

Monsignor Cushley was born at Wester Moffat, Lanarkshire in 1961. He attended Holy Cross High School, Hamilton and the National Minor Seminary of St Mary’s College, Blairs. He was a student at the Pontifical Scots College, the Pontifical Gregorian University and the Pontifical Liturgical Institute of Sant’ Anselmo. On 7th July 1985 he was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Motherwell at St John the Baptist Church, Uddingston by the Right Reverend Joseph Devine, Bishop of Motherwell. After ordination he was appointed curate at Our Lady of Good Aid Cathedral, Motherwell and then at St Serf’s, Airdrie in 1988.

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SCOTLAND
Edinburgh Guide

By Barnaby Miln – Posted on 24 July 2013

Pope Francis has appointed Monsignor Leo Cushley as Roman Catholic Archbishop of St. Andrews & Edinburgh.

The new Archbishop will take over the governance of the Archdiocese from Archbishop Philip Tartaglia who has been Apostolic Administrator following the resignation of Cardinal Keith O’Brien, who was Archbishop from August 1985 until March 2013.

Mgr Cushley is presently Head of the English-language section of the Vatican’s Secretariat of State and has been a close collaborator of both Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis. In his capacity as Prelate of the Anticamera Mgr Cushley has been regularly involved in the visits of Heads of State and other important guests to the Holy See. Recently he has assisted as Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, the Archbishop of Canterbury and many other high profile visitors called upon the Pope.

As Head of the English section of the Secretariat of State it was his task to accompany the Holy Father to English-speaking countries. During 2010 he accompanied Pope Benedict to Malta and Cyprus as well as the United Kingdom. During that visit, at Bellahouston, Mgr Cushley had the pleasure of presenting his family to Pope Benedict.

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SCOTLAND
East Kilbride News

Jul 24 2013
Monsignor Leo Cushley has been appointed Archbishop of St Andrews & Edinburgh by the Roman Catholic Church, replacing Cardinal Keith O’Brien who left the post earlier this year after admitting inappropriate sexual conduct.

Mgr Cushley, 52, is currently head of the English language section of the Vatican’s Secretariat of State and returns to Scotland where he was born and ordained a priest in Uddingston, South Lanarkshire, in 1985.

He will be ordained as archbishop in St Mary’s Cathedral, Edinburgh, on September 21.

He said: “I am humbled that our Holy Father Pope Francis has nominated me for such an important task here in our ancient capital. I know it’s a delicate moment and that there is a lot to be done but, with God’s grace and the kind support of the clergy and people of Edinburgh, I will work cheerfully and willingly with all the energy I can muster.”

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SCOTLAND
The Guardian

Severin Carrell, Scotland correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 24 July 2013

A senior Vatican official has been appointed to replace the disgraced Scottish cardinal Keith O’Brien as archbishop of Edinburgh and St Andrews.

Monsignor Leo Cushley, 52, a close and influential adviser to Pope Benedict and his successor Pope Francis, is based in Rome as head of the English language section of the Vatican’s civil service, functioning as a senior career diplomat for the Holy See.

The appointment to succeed O’Brien, five months after he resigned in disgrace after the Observer revealed allegations of sexual impropriety, has come sooner than commentators had expected, suggesting the Vatican is keen to draw a line under the affair.

In a statement to mark his appointment, Cushley alluded to the O’Brien crisis by acknowledging it was a “delicate” time for the Scottish church, and warned he would need months to get to grips with his new post and the damage caused by the scandal.

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CANADA
Winnipeg Free Press

By: Don Marks

I will never forget the first time I heard about the horror of Indian residential schools. It was 1982 and I had been commissioned to write a play for the World Assembly of First Nations. A musical combining traditional native song and dance with contemporary rock, jazz, blues, classical and operatic styles, the play was to cover 500 years of history of First Nations in North America.

My script had to be checked by elders throughout Saskatchewan, and when I told them the play was going to be presented at the magnificent mainstream Saskatchewan Centre of the Arts, many of them told me this might be a fine opportunity to finally tell the world about their experiences at “boarding school.”

I had never heard about this sad chapter in Canada’s history and some of the stories went way beyond what we have since learned about physical and sexual abuse, cultural genocide and the latest revelation that entire communities were used as “laboratories” with people as guinea pigs for experiments about malnutrition.

My first reaction was one of horror, then shame, then guilt, even though I knew full well I would never be a part of such atrocities and I would never support such terrible behaviour. I was pretty sure I would do everything I could to expose such a wrong and try to get it stopped and prevent it from happening in the future.

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CANADA
Montreal Gazette

BY MICHAEL WOODS, POSTMEDIA NEWS JULY 23, 2013

OTTAWA — Grassroots indigenous activists are calling on the Harper government to honour the 2008 Indian residential schools apology, part of the ongoing fallout from news that aboriginal adults and children were unwitting subjects of nutritional experiments run by government bureaucrats in the 1940s and 1950s.

News of the experiments has provoked mass outrage and also led to renewed scrutiny of what critics see as the government’s lack of cooperation with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s (TRC) efforts to compile a historical record of Indian residential schools.

The experiments, which involved intentionally depriving 1,300 aboriginal people — including children in several residential schools — of important vitamins and leaving them malnourished between 1942 and 1952, were detailed in a research paper by University of Guelph food historian Ian Mosby.

The news provoked horror among non-aboriginal Canadians, and outrage coupled with a sad sense of familiarity among indigenous peoples whose relatives have told them of such horrors that took place at the government-funded, church-run residential schools.

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AUSTRALIA
J-Wire

July 24, 2013 by J-Wire Staff

53-yr-old convicted paedophile Rabbi David Kramer has been sentenced to a maximum of three years and four months for sexually abusing students at Melbourne’s Yeshiva Centre but will possibly be a free man in three months’ time given the time he has spent in detention…and one of his victims has made a statement.

Kramer had been a teacher at Melbourne’s Yeshivah Centre. Kramer was sentenced to a non-parole period of 18 months imprisonment but he has already served 457 days in pre-sentence detention.
Prior to the sentencing, one of the US-based victims requested to (belatedly) submit a Victim Impact Statement. We are thankful that the judge agreed to this request. The victim requested that Tzedek CEO Manny Waks read the statement on his behalf, which he did with great difficulty.

Tzedek CEO Manny Waks issued the following statement :

“Today is another important milestone for the Australian Jewish community. Justice has finally been served.

“We must acknowledge and thank the courageous victims in standing up to these heinous crimes that were committed against them when they were most vulnerable – as innocent children.

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AUSTRALIA
Australian

Melbourne’s Yeshivah College apologises for ‘protecting’ teacher jailed for sexual assault

A MELBOURNE Jewish school has apologised for not telling police of allegations against a teacher jailed today for sexually assaulting schoolboys.

David Kramer, 53, was today sentenced to three years and four months in prison for groping four boys through their clothing between 1990 and 1992 while a teacher at Yeshivah College.

Angry parents accused Yeshivah College of protecting Kramer by sending him to Israel after it was alerted to allegations against him, and today demanded an apology.

Following today’s sentencing, college principal Rabbi Yehoshua Smukler issued an “unreserved apology for any historical wrongs”.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

July 24, 2013

Stephen Cauchi

A Jewish teacher who molested four boys at Melbourne’s Yeshivah College over 20 years ago has been sentenced to three years and four months in jail.

But David Kramer, 52, could be out of jail in 100 days. He was sentenced to a non-parole period of 18 months but has already served 457 days in pre-sentence detention.

Kramer was sentenced in Melbourne’s County Court by Judge Michael Bourke on five counts of indecent assault and one of indecent acts against a child under 16.

Outside the court, Jewish child sexual abuse survivor and advocate Manny Waks said the sentence was “a little bit lower than we anticipated but justice has been served.”

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

July 24, 2013

Joel Cresswell
AAP

A Melbourne Jewish school has apologised for covering up the sexual abuse of students by a teacher.

David Kramer, 53, has been jailed for three years and four months for fondling four schoolboys between 1990 and 1992 while a teacher at Yeshivah College.

The St Kilda school did not alert police and sent Kramer to Israel when confronted by angry parents in 1993.

Yeshivah principal Rabbi Yehoshua Smukler unreservedly apologised for the “historical wrongs” after Kramer’s sentencing on Wednesday.

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“Yeshivah sincerely regrets and unreservedly apologises for not informing the police at the time the allegations arose,” Rabbi Smukler said in a statement.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

A former teacher at a Jewish primary school in Melbourne has been sentenced to three years and four months in jail for sexually assaulting four students.

David Kramer, 52, pleaded guilty to five charges of indecent assault and one of an indecent act with a child under 16.

The offences were committed against four boys aged between 10 and 11 at the Yeshivah College in St Kilda East between 1989 and 1992.

In his sentencing remarks the Victorian County Court judge revealed the college received complaints about Kramer’s offending at the time but no report was made to police.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Telegraph

SHANNON DEERY HERALD SUN JULY 24, 2013

A JEWISH teacher who committed “unforgivable” crimes on four students at an orthodox Melbourne school has been jailed for a maximum of three years and four months.

But father of 11 Rabbi David Kramer could walk free from prison after just three months because of time already served in pre-sentence detention.

The 53-year-old paedophile is believed to be the first member of a Jewish institution in Australia to have admitted – and been sentenced for – child sex crimes.

The sentence was welcomed by victims, who said while it was lower than they had hoped, justice had been served.

Kramer pleaded guilty to molesting four boys while teaching at Yeshiva College in the early 1990s before fleeing to the US, where he was jailed for further offending.

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NEW JERSEY
Patch

Posted by Devin McGinley (Editor), July 22, 2013

Prosecutors voiced concerns about the proximity to children of Michael Fugee, the pastor accused more than a decade ago of groping a Wyckoff teenager, long before he was arrested in May for allegedly violating a court order to cease his work with minors, according to records obtained by Northjersey.com

Fugee was imprisoned in 2003 on charges of sexual misconduct, but his conviction was overturned due to a judicial error in 2006. Prosecutors opted not to retry Fugee, instead allowing him to return to the church under an agreement between the court, the priest and the Archdiocese of Newark that he concede to a lifelong ban on ministering to children.

Fugee now faces charges that he violated the order on seven occasions by hearing confessions from minors around the state, and according to a report by Northjersey.com prosecutors were concerned as early as 2009, the year Fugee began working again under the auspices of the church, that the supervision of the priest by the archdiocese was inadequate.

In a brief filed in 2010, which blocked an attempt by Fugee to expunge his conviction and seal evidence pertaining to the case, prosecutors told the court that “Fugee and the Archdiocese recently teetered on a potential violation of his agreed to restrictions” with a 2009 assignment to St. Michael’s Hospital in Newark.

In that instance, prosecutors wrote, authorities had been alerted to the potential violation only through news reports. Fugee’s alleged contact with children this year was again brought to light by news reports that the priest had accompanied youth retreats at various central New Jersey churches.

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NEW JERSEY
The Record

TUESDAY, JULY 23, 2013
BY JEFF GREEN
STAFF WRITER
THE RECORD

Parishioners of an Oradell church were never told that a suspected child sex offender was allowed to live in the rectory, yet a Newark Archdiocese spokesman said the public was never at risk.

But public outcry about this incident, and two others involving a disgraced Wyckoff cleric, have underscored potential conflicts between church operations and the public’s right to know when troubled priests are in their midst.

The archdiocese’s mind-set, a Catholic church expert says, “flies in the face” of developments in criminal law — where sex offenders are required to register with authorities and to live certain distances from schools and child-care centers.

The Rev. Robert Chabak was stripped of priestly duties after church officials, investigating a complaint, found “sufficient evidence” that he abused a teenage boy in the 1970s. While he “vehemently denied” the accusations, he chose to resign in 2004 when the archdiocese planned to take action under church law, said Jim Goodness, a spokesman for the archdiocese. The statute of limitations had expired and Chabak was not criminally charged.

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AUSTRALIA
Maitland Mercury

By ELLE WATSON July 24, 2013

The priest who extracted a confession from paedohpile Denis McAlinden agreed it was his “published view” not to take notes of criminal admissions because it could be used as evidence in legal procedures.

During a morning of cross-examination at the Special Commission of Inquiry, Father Brian Lucas, the general secretary of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, gave a number of reasons why it would be counter-productive to create a “permanent record” of conversations with accused priests.

“If you’re sitting in front of him taking notes he isn’t going to say anything – that’s my experience,” said Father Lucas who went on to explain that evidence also could be inadmissible.

Senior counsel assisting the commission Julia Lonergan SC put it to Father Lucas the real reason he was adverse to taking notes is because he knew it could be used in legal procedures against the offending priests.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By IAN KIRKWOOD July 24, 2013

A SENIOR cleric has blamed his counterparts in the Philippines for letting disgraced paedophile Denis McAlinden act as a priest in a school with thousands of children.

Father Brian Lucas, general secretary of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, told the Special Commission of Inquiry sitting in Newcastle yesterday that he was absolutely disgusted that any bishop would allow someone in McAlinden’s position to work in the diocese.

Asked whether he knew the church this end had told the Philippinos about McAlinden’s offences, he said there was no need to because McAlinden should not have been able to work without the proper documents.

He said he was appalled the Philippino bishops would have been ‘‘so fundamentally careless’’ in not following the fundamentals of church policy.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

DAN BOX From: The Australian July 24, 2013

ONE of the most senior officials in the Catholic church personally interviewed dozens of alleged pedophile priests, many of whom admitted their crimes, but took no notes as they might have been used in legal action, an inquiry has heard.

Brian Lucas, the general secretary of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, told the NSW special commission of inquiry into church child abuse that his role was to “seduce them to resign.”

One of the priests Father Lucas interviewed, Denis McAlinden, was subsequently subject to an arrest warrant issued by NSW Police, but died before being charged, the inquiry has heard. Another is currently before the courts, charged with child sex abuse.

Giving evidence this morning, Father Lucas said McAlinden had admitted abusing children and he had been prepared to risk committing an offence himself by not reporting this to police.

Counsel assisting the inquiry, Julia Lonergan, asked Father Lucas if he did not take notes during these meetings as “you didn’t want it to have to be disclosed in any subsequent legal process?”

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VATICAN CITY
The Telegraph (UK)

By Damian Thompson
Last updated: July 23rd, 2013

The world’s press are – understandably – focussing on Pope Francis’s visit to World Youth Day in Brazil: it is nice to see such positive coverage of a Pope who deserves it, such is the freshness and vigour he has brought to his role. But I can’t help thinking that, if Benedict XVI were in Brazil, the media would talk about celebrations “overshadowed” by the extraordinary allegations facing Mgr Battista Ricca, the man appointed by Francis to oversee reform of the Vatican Bank. (For background, read my post here.)

The are reports that Ricca, 57, who was allegedly caught stuck in a lift with a rent boy, has tendered his resignation to the Pope. We don’t know if this is true, though the level of detail about Mgr Ricca’s allegedly flamboyant gay past supplied by leading Vaticanologist Sandro Magister suggests that his position is untenable. Should Francis accept a resignation, he’d leave people wondering why his own press officer brushed off the allegations against Ricca who, as director of the Domus Santa Marta hostel where the Pope lives, often eats with the Holy Father.

The following is from a well-connected priest source. It’s partly guesswork – but the Ricca affair is so mysterious, and its possible consequences so serious, that informed speculation needs to be taken seriously, at least by those commentators trying to work out whether Pope Francis will succeed in his mission to clean up the Vatican. The emphases in bold type are mine.

The first thing is that it is truly without precedent for someone like Magister, who is no tabloid sensationalizer, to put his career on the line in this way. I think he can be trusted, and ought to be supported. He is a loyal Ratzingerian, and was before it became fashionable. He is not naive. It is quite posssible that his sources are trying to use him, but he would not play such a hand with such decisive stakes unless he believed it was necessary for the good of the Church.

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VATICAN
Cath.ch

Rattrapé par des révélations sur son homosexualité, Mgr Ricca aurait présenté sa démission au pape

Après les révélations de l’hebdomadaire italien L’Espresso sur ses activités homosexuelles, Mgr Battista Ricca, récemment nommé prélat de l’Institut pour les œuvres de religions (IOR), aurait présenté sa démission au pape François, a appris l’agence I.MEDIA à Rome.

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VATICAN CITY
Pink News

by Scott Roberts
23 July 2013

The Prelate of the Vatican bank, Monsignor Battista Ricca, who is facing claims of inappropriate sexual behaviour, has offered to resign, according to an Italian news agency.

I Media, which specialises in covering the Vatican, say Monsignor Ricca offered his resignation to Pope Francis on Saturday, but it remains unknown if it’s been accepted.

Pope Francis, who appointed Monsignor Ricca to reform the Vatican bank in June, is currently on a tour of Brazil.

Earlier this month Italian journalist Sandro Magister, from the magazine L’Espresso, claimed Monsignor Ricca provided accommodation and a job for a male companion while he was assigned as a Vatican diplomat in Uruguay between 1999 and 2001.

According to Mr Magister, when Monsignor Ricca arrived he arranged for a male friend and captain in the Swiss army to live with him in the embassy, it is said that the “intimacy” of their relationship created a scandal.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Inquiry needed to compel congregations to reveal truth about treatment of Magdalenes

James S Smith

The Sisters of Mercy, Sisters of Charity, Sisters of Our Lady of Charity, and Good Shepherd Sisters will not apologise to survivors of the Magdalene laundries. As stated on RTÉ’s The God Slot programme (8th March), the nuns claim there is nothing to apologise for – they provided refuge to women abandoned by their families, the State and Irish society.

Neither will the congregations make a financial contribution to the Government’s reparations scheme, which was founded on the tenets of restorative justice. In holding to this position, the orders expose the Achilles heel of the Government’s Magdalene policy over the past two years – a policy dependent on the congregations’ voluntary co-operation.

Co-operation voluntarily given does not compel the nuns in any legal sense. Their negative response invalidates the Government’s assertion that survivors are being afforded restorative justice. There is no justice without the nuns’ apology and/or financial reparation.

Minister for Justice Alan Shatter told the Dáil the nuns seek reconciliation with survivors. But the legal definition of reconciliation “ordinarily implies forgiveness for injuries on either or both sides”. Instead, the orders expect an amnesty for gross human rights violations.

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IRELAND
Galway Independent

Marie Madden

The treatment of the women of the Magdalene Laundries is a subject that continues to grip and horrify the nation, but one of the first true insights into the lives of these victims was written by a Galway woman and revealed to the nation in 1992.

The treatment of the women of the Magdalene Laundries is a subject that continues to grip and horrify the nation, but one of the first true insights into the lives of the survivors was written by a Galway woman and revealed to the nation in 1992.

‘Eclipsed’ by Patricia Burke Brogan tells the story of a young novice nun who is set to work in a Magdalene Laundry and is hugely troubled by her experiences. It draws on Ms Burke Brogan’s true-life experiences and aims to show the day-to-day reality of life for those interned in these religious prisons.

When first performed by Punchbag Theatre in 1992, the play drew scorn and abuse on the writer, with Ms Burke Brogan once telling me that someone had cut her picture out of the paper and drawn horns and different symbols on it before sending it to her home.

“I got up one morning and this had been thrown in the door, which was very upsetting and hard to handle. People thought I was being anti-Church but I wasn’t. Everyone blamed the sisters, but the State did nothing to intervene.”

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AUSTRALIA
Eureka Street

Andrew Hamilton | 24 July 2013

Geoffrey Robinson’s book ‘For Christ’s Sake’ features that title superimposed over the image of a person in silhouette holding up a crossCulture has become a popular word to analyse organisations whose members do bad things: football clubs whose players dismantle bars and their patrons; political parties whose members are paraded before courts; and churches in which sexual abuse has been rife.

The culture of an organisation comprises the shared attitudes, values, patterns of relationship and practices that make it more likely that members will act in particular ways. In an army unit where there is a culture of binge drinking and contempt for women, more incidents of sexual assault may well occur than in other units where these features are absent.

Bishop Geoffrey Robinson’s recent book on the culture of the Catholic Church carries on his critique of the factors that have contributed to clerical sexual abuse of children and to denial and concealment of it. The aspects of Catholic culture that he believes conducive to it include: a relationship with God dominated by fear; immaturity; compulsory clerical celibacy, an exclusively male caste standing over the church; a lonely way of life; a cult of privacy and secrecy; a compulsive need to defend the actions and attitudes of the Pope.

Together these things made it more likely that priests will be tempted to abuse children, will have the opportunity to do so, will abuse with impunity, and have their actions denied and covered up by others.

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VIRGINIA
NV Daily

By Joe Beck

A Page County grand jury Monday handed up indictments of 12 counts of aggravated sexual battery of a child less than 13 years old against the former pastor of a church in Shenandoah County.

Page County Sheriff John B. Thomas said the defendant, James Richard Daley, 70, now pastor of the Beth Eden Lutheran Church in Luray, was arrested after someone reported him to the Luray Police Department. Daley remained held without bond in the Page County Jail on Tuesday afternoon.

Daley was pastor at the Lebanon Lutheran Church in Lebanon Church for several years in the 1980s.

News of Daley’s indictments stunned John D. Cutlip, the current pastor of Lebanon Lutheran. Cutlip said he has been in sporadic contact with Daley through the years, most recently two or more years ago when they co-officiated at a wedding.

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AUSTRALIA
Blayney Chronicle

By Catherine Armitage July 24, 2013

One of the Australian Catholic Church’s most prominent and senior figures has admitted he advised other clergy it was a good idea not to take notes of interviews with priests accused of sexual abuse so they couldn’t be successfully used in legal action.

Father Brian Lucas, a frequent media spokesman for the archdiocese of Sydney and general secretary of the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference said he had dealt with about 35 accused priests around NSW from 1990 to 1995 when he was part of a team whose job was to confront them and persuade them out of the ministry.

He gave evidence to the NSW government inquiry into alleged police and church cover-ups of sexual abuse by priests in the Hunter Valley that he had persuaded more than 10 of them to leave the ministry.

He said if he had taken notes fairness would have required that he check them with the accused for accuracy. Asked whether he had ever done that he said no.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Dan Cox

A senior Catholic Church official says he was willing to risk breaking the law by not reporting child sexual abuse allegations against a Hunter Valley priest.

Father Brian Lucas is a former lawyer and the current general secretary of the Australian Catholic Bishops conference.

He is giving evidence at the New South Wales inquiry investigating claims the church covered up abuse by two Maitland-Newcastle priests, Father James Fletcher and Father Denis McAlinden.

Father Lucas has told the inquiry he did not take notes during meetings to ensure they could not be used later in court.

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MICHIGAN
Desert Sun

Written by
Patricia Montemurri
Detroit Free Press Staff Writer

There was supposed to be someone from the Archdiocese of Detroit watching Timothy Murray of Novi, a Catholic priest banned from working in the Catholic Church because of sexual misconduct.

But the archdiocese did not know what Murray was doing inside his home. And last year, federal agents investigated him for possession and distribution of child pornography.

Today in federal court, Murray is scheduled to plead guilty to child pornography charges, which could put him in prison 20-30 years. According to court documents, he was in possession of sexually explicit videos of boys ages 6-16 and had downloaded roughly 500 images of child pornography from the Internet.

Murray told investigators that he viewed porn weekly and preferred 13-year-old males, court documents reported.

Murray’s case illustrates the conundrum facing the Catholic Church: What do you do with priests accused of long-ago sexual abuse? Because technically, the former pastor of St. Edith parish in Livonia is still a Catholic priest.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian (UK)

Australian Associated Press
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 24 July 2013

A Catholic priest who encouraged paedophile clergy in NSW and the ACT to resign has admitted he never took notes during confidential meetings with them.

Father Brian Lucas on Wednesday appeared at Newcastle supreme court for a special commission of inquiry into how church leaders and police handled child sexual abuse allegations against two Hunter Valley priests, Denis McAlinden and James Fletcher.

Barrister assisting the inquiry, Julia Lonergan, asked Lucas if he thought it was unwise to take notes during the meetings in case he had to make them public in subsequent legal proceedings.

“I think that would be reasonable comment,” Lucas answered.

Lucas said after discussions with paedophile priests he reported what was said to their bishops and left it to them and their advisers to take whatever action they considered appropriate.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

A paedophile NSW priest stripped of his authority allegedly pretended to be a cleric and became a school chaplain in the Philippines.

The claim has been revealed at an inquiry examining how church leaders and police handled reports of child sexual abuse by fathers Denis McAlinden and James Fletcher in the Hunter region of NSW.

Barrister assisting the inquiry, Julia Lonergan, said Fr McAlinden wrote to Maitland-Newcastle bishop Leo Clarke in 1995 claiming to have heard “no less than 10,000 confessions” in six months working in the Philippines’ San Pablo diocese.

In the letter, Fr McAlinden said he had made admissions of “past failings” to senior NSW Catholic priest Brian Lucas but, through prayer, was no longer that way inclined.

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