ABUSE TRACKER

NEW JERSEY
Patch

Posted by Noah Cohen (Editor), July 2, 2013

The trial of a 65-year-old Teaneck rabbi accused of molesting two teen boys is set to begin in January after the alleged abuser was reportedly hospitalized earlier this month, according to the county prosecutor’s office.

Rabbi Uzi Rivlin is scheduled to appear in court Jan. 13, 2014, a Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office spokeswoman said. Rivlin suffered a stroke and was in a medically-induced coma at Holy Name Medical Center, his attorney said at a hearing last month, NorthJersey.com reported. A doctor at the hospital reportedly confirmed Rivlin was unable to walk and talk, forcing the trial to be delayed.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
CBS 58

[with video]

by Laura Rodriguez
Story Created: Jul 2, 2013

MILWAUKEE– Moments after the Archdiocese of Milwaukee released its history of clergy sexual abuse, the attention seemed to zero in on the former archbishop rather than the current archbishop.

“That’s the big picture about Cardinal Dolan, but today it’s about that letter. That in our opinion is a smoking gun,” said Peter Isely, SNAP Midwest Director.

According to the documents released on the archdiocese website, in 2007, Archbishop Dolan letter sent a letter to the Vatican to request the transfer of about $57 million from a cemetery fund into a trust.

“To protect the fund is due diligence, in terms of leadership, to make sure that that is established the way it is,” said Archbishop Listecki.

In the letter, Dolan writes: “I foresee improved protection from any legal claim.”

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki warned Catholic parishioners to “prepare to be shocked” by revelations in a trove of documents released Monday related to the church’s sex abuse scandal.

He was right. The details in thousands of pages of depositions, personnel files and letters are profoundly disturbing.

Equally disturbing is something else the documents reveal: a pattern of willful neglect stretching across decades within church hierarchy.

Church officials moved accused priests from one parish to another, often accompanied by cordial letters; they failed time after time to notify authorities; they maintained what even bishops describe in depositions as a culture of silence; they paid priests to leave the priesthood; and they moved money, apparently, to protect it from the claims of victims.

Even now, we wonder if the hierarchy really gets it: In his letter last week, Listecki wrote that “the arc of understanding sexual abuse of a minor” had evolved over the years. Really? Does he mean that church officials once did not consider abuse of a child to be criminal activity that needed to be dealt with directly and firmly? That sounds like an excuse, though Listecki probably did not mean for it to be.

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BOSTON (MA)
Boston College Chronicle

By SEAN SMITH | CHRONICLE EDITOR
Published: July 2, 2013

Last week’s announcement by the Irish government that it will compensate survivors of Ireland’s notorious Magdalene Laundries seemed to conclude one of the country’s most controversial and wrenching scandals.

But a Boston College faculty member who researched the scandal and later became an advocate for the “Magdalenes” says real closure is likely to prove elusive for the women who endured abuse and exploitation in the Catholic Church-run asylums — and that the tragedy’s larger lessons may likewise be lost.

“The compensation scheme offers much that will make a significant impact on the lives of these women and their families,” said Associate Professor of English James Smith. “That is very, very important and should not be discounted. However, this is not, and cannot be, closure — that can only come when the truth is revealed about both the government’s and the Church’s role in the scandal.”

Under the terms of the compensation plan announced on June 26, Magdalene survivors would receive tax-free ex-gratia payments — the amount determined by the how much time the individual was confined — state-funded retirement pensions and free medical care at state facilities. In addition, a dedicated Department of Justice unit will ensure survivors’ easy access to services and supports.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
National Catholic Reporter

Brian Roewe | Jul. 2, 2013

Archbishop Rembert George Weakland of Milwaukee first heard of sexual abuse allegations related to Fr. William J. Effinger during the summer of 1979.

Fourteen years later, Effinger was charged with sexually assaulting a teenage boy in the late 1980s at his home in Sheboygan, Wis. He would eventually end up in prison while close to 10 others would allege the priest abused them as children during his 30-plus years in ministry.

Retrospectively, the Effinger case would become a turning point in the evolution of how Weakland, who served as Milwaukee archbishop from 1977 to 2002, viewed the sexual abuse of minors by clergy.

In an October 2011 deposition, released among the 6,000 pages of documents made public by the archdiocese Monday, Weakland told victims’ attorney Jeff Anderson he immediately sent Effinger for “psychiatric or psychological treatment” upon learning of the accusations. That decision, Weakland said, followed the general practice in place when a case came to the archbishop’s attention and spoke to the way he and others viewed sexual abuse at the time: that with treatment, a priest could be cured and returned to ministry.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
National Catholic Reporter

Marie Rohde | Jul. 2, 2013

MILWAUKEE Publicity surrounding the 1993 release of an earlier deposition of then-Archbishop Rembert George Weakland served as the impetus for survivors of sex abuse to unite, a movement that has dogged the Milwaukee archdiocese for 20 years.

Milwaukee lawyer Robert Elliott questioned Weakland under oath as part of a lawsuit brought by victims of Fr. William J. Effinger, a priest with a history of abuse who was eventually convicted and sent to prison, where he died.

At the request of lawyers for the church, Weakland’s sworn statement and others were sealed. Elliott released some of the information in a 1993 brief filed with the court. Using portions of Weakland’s response to questions, Elliott said the archbishop and other church officials were aware of the problems.

After the story appeared in the Milwaukee Journal, Weakland sent letters to parish priests and other leaders in the archdiocese denying the report, which said the archdiocese did not have a policy that required allegations to be reported to civil authorities and that it had no program to educate school and parish personnel of allegations of misconduct. Many priests read his letter at weekend Masses.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
National Catholic Reporter

[Archbishop Weakland deposition]

[exhibits]

Kate Simmons | Jul. 2, 2013

In the 1980s, the bishops of the Milwaukee archdiocese dealt with priests who sexually abused minors in much the same way they handled those who were alcoholics or even those who had credit problems: They assumed the issue could be resolved through therapy or similar means, former Archbishop Rembert George Weakland said in a 2011 deposition released this week.

“We were probably all of us naive in thinking that it was a question of willpower and a question of self-discipline,” Weakland said. “I handled cases [in the 1980s] thinking, hoping, praying that it would be the last one I would have to deal with.”

He said the bishops viewed pedophilia as an “affliction” and, following practices used with other issues, did not consider it necessary to alert parishioners to previous instances of sexual misconduct.

“There are a lot of things that when you make an assignment you don’t disclose,” Weakland said in the deposition. “If they had alcohol problems in the past, if they had credit problems with their checking accounts … I don’t think one makes a list of the foibles and the problems that way so it would not have been customary to make that kind of a profile of a priest.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

DAN BOX From: The Australian July 03, 2013

A PEDOPHILE Catholic priest groomed at least one of his victims during confession, using deliberately suggestive questions to encourage the schoolgirl to talk about sex.

Witness statements tendered to a NSW government inquiry into church child abuse, as well as the text of a letter sent by Father Denis McAlinden, reveal how he systematically groomed girls as young as four.

In one statement, a victim told police she was 11 years old when McAlinden befriended her through her school choir and started taking her in his car for drives in the NSW Hunter Valley.

“When we were stopped, Father McAlinden took my underpants off from under my dress, which I think was my school uniform as I had been at school,” her statement said. The priest then raped the girl.

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WASHINGTON
Yakima Herald

The Associated Press

SPOKANE, Wash.- A man who says he was abused as a child by a priest has filed a lawsuit against the Catholic dioceses of Yakima and Spokane.

The lawsuit filed in Spokane County Superior Court Tuesday contends that beginning in 1961, Father Joseph Sondergeld sexually abused the victim at the Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Roslyn, Washington.

The victim was nine years old when the abuse began.

The lawsuit contends the Spokane Diocese knew Sondergeld’s past abuse of children and failed to report him to the authorities. The Spokane Diocese instead transferred Sondergeld to the Yakima Diocese.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
I Should Be Laughing

After years of listening to the Catholic Church sing their Deny, Deny, Deny song, this week a box of files was released by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Milwaukee that shows that back in 2007, anti-gay Cardinal Timothy Dolan, then the archbishop there, requested permission from the Vatican to move nearly $57 million into a cemetery trust fund to protect the assets from victims of pedophile priests who were demanding compensation.

Let’s get that queer: Dolan asked the Vatican for permission to hide money in case monies were awarded victims of child rapists.

Still Cardinal Timmy, now the archbishop of New York, denied that he tried to hide funds, and, again, reiterated his denial in a statement just this week that these were “old and discredited attacks.” But, the files contain the actual letter, written by Dolan in 2007, to the Vatican in which he explains that by transferring the assets, “I foresee an improved protection of these funds from any legal claim and liability.”

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
News 8000

MILWAUKEE (AP) –
The U.S. Attorney’s office in Milwaukee confirms that it received a letter from an activist group requesting an investigation into how the Milwaukee archdiocese moved money around ahead of its bankruptcy filing.

U.S. Attorney spokesman Dean Puschnig confirmed receipt of the letter Tuesday. But he says he can’t confirm or deny the existence of any investigation.

The letter was from the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. Spokesman Peter Isely says a 2007 letter released Monday shows evidence of bankruptcy fraud.

In the letter, then-Archbishop Timothy Dolan asked the Vatican for permission to move $57 million into a cemetery fund. Isely suggests that Dolan wanted to protect the money from creditors.

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AUSTRALIA
Courier Mail

IAN WALKER THE DAILY TELEGRAPH JULY 03, 2013

A FORMER member of the Catholic Church was arrested and charged over alleged historical sexual assaults dating back to the 1970s.

Police arrested the 70-year-old man in Wentworth Falls after receiving information relating to alleged child sexual assault offences committed during the 1970s and 1980s.

The man was former member of the Catholic Church police said.

He was taken to Springwood Police Station where he was charged with five counts of indecent assault on a male.

The man was given conditional bail and will appear in Penrith Local Court on the 29th of July.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

New South Wales police have charged a former Catholic priest with indecent assault offences against children dating back to the 1970s.

Police arrested the 70-year-old man at his home at Wentworth Falls in the Blue Mountains at about 3:00pm (AEST) yesterday.

He was targeted as part of Strike Force Nemesis, a team investigating child sex offences allegedly committed in the state’s south coast and Sydney’s western suburbs.

The former priest has been charged with five counts of indecent assault on a male.

Inspector Maureen Deegan says the victims were all children.

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VATICAN CITY
Chiesa

Not only the resignation of its highest-ranking operational directors, but also the revelations about the new “prelate” appointed by Francis. Having been made aware of them, the pope could revoke his appointment soon

by Sandro Magister

ROME, July 3, 2013 – Since the first of this month, the Institute for Works of Religion, IOR, has been at the center of a twofold storm.

Twofold because it is made up not only of the sensational resignations of the director general and of the vice-director of the controversial Vatican “bank,” Paolo Cipriani and Massimo Tulli, but also of another scandal near the point of exploding, concerning the “prelate” of the IOR, Monsignor Battista Ricca, just appointed by Pope Francis.

As for the resignation of the two highest-ranking operational directors of the IOR, the statement that gave the news on the evening of Monday, July 1 says that “after many years of service both have decided that this action would be in the best interests of the Institute itself and of the Holy See.”

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Jeff Anderson & Associates

JEFFREY R. ANDERSON

Archbishop of Milwaukee, Jerome Listecki, is arguing the Hierarchy’s choices to protect priests first and children second should be viewed under the arc of understanding.

“The arc of understanding sexual abuse of a minor progressed from being seen as a moral failing and sin that needed personal resolve and spiritual direction; to a psychological deficiency that required therapy and could be cured; to issues of addiction requiring more extensive therapy and restrictions on ministry; to recognition of the long-term effects of abuse and the need to hold the perpetrator accountable for this criminal activity.”

When you look at the history of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee you see an Ark filled with understanding regarding the causes, identification and suppression of the scandal of childhood sexual abuse by the clergy.

Here are a few highlights to consider.

1939 – Father Clement Hageman is admitted to the Alexian Brothers Hospital “to do penance, and give proof of his sincerity to do penance for that which I was forced to dismiss him from the Diocese.”

1947 – The Bishops open the Saint John Vianney Institute in the East and the Servants of the Paraclete in the West to care for problem priests.

1952 – Father Gerald Fitzgerald sP, founder of the Servants of the Paraclete, flew to Rome for a personal audience with Pope Pius XII.

1962 – Father Gerald Fitzgerald sP tells Pope John XXIII on April 11th, “On the other hand, when a priest has fallen into repeated sins which are considered, generally speaking, as abnormal (abuse of nature) such as homosexuality and most especially abuse of children, we feel strongly that such unfortunate priests should be given the alternative of a retired life within the protection of monastery walls or complete laicization.”

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

[WTMJ-AM interview]

By Annysa Johnson of the Journal Sentinel

Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki on Tuesday defended his predecessor’s transfer of $57 million off the Roman Catholic archdiocese’s books and into a special cemetery trust, saying Archbishop Timothy Dolan, now cardinal of New York, was simply ensuring that the funds would be used for their intended purpose.

“The cemetery funds have always been seen as an asset in trust, and Cardinal Dolan perpetuated that,” Listecki told WTMJ-AM on Tuesday.

A document released Monday as part of the bankruptcy shows Dolan sought Vatican approval for the transfer in June 2007, saying it would help protect the funds “from any legal claim or liability.”

Victims and their attorneys have called the move a fraudulent transfer that is illegal under U.S. bankruptcy code, which prohibits moving assets in a way that benefits one class of creditors over another. Dolan and the archciocese deny that the transfer was unlawful.

The letter was written just weeks before a Wisconsin Supreme Court decision that allowed sex abuse victims to sue religious institutions for their actions in response to sexual abuse allegations under the state’s fraud statute.

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UNITED STATES
Religion News Service

David Gibson | Jul 2, 2013

(RNS) Before convening its second annual meeting last month, a fledgling organization of U.S. priests that wants to reform the Catholic Church was tweaked by critics as the last gasp of a dying liberal Catholicism.

But when the members the Association of U.S. Catholic Priests gathered in Seattle on June 24, they wound up adopting fewer than half of the proposals on their agenda and voted down the most controversial item: a call for the church to examine opening the priesthood to women and married men.

The Rev. Dave Cooper, a priest from Milwaukee who heads the 1,000-member AUSCP, said Tuesday (July 2) that the middle course charted by the 140 delegates reflected a goal of promoting dialogue, not laying down markers for a confrontation with the hierarchy.

“We realized that if we hope to dialogue with bishops we have to find bridges to do that,” Cooper said. If the group had adopted the resolution on ordaining women priests – a ban that the Vatican has said is not open for discussion – “it would have become an obstacle, a barrier, rather than a bridge.”

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CALFORNIA
Sacramento Bee

The prosecution’s expert witness testified Tuesday that the Rev. Uriel Ojeda had no expectation of confidentiality when he allegedly made admissions to a church official and a private investigator that he molested an underage parish girl.

A priest who was acting as a representative of Bishop Jaime Soto and an investigator for a law firm that represents the Catholic Diocese of Sacramento were both acting in “external” and not spiritual capacities when they confronted Ojeda two years ago about the sexual abuse allegations, according to the testimony of Monsignor Steven Callahan.

“The topic is not the priest’s spiritual life, but information that would have come to the bishop … and his responsibilities to act and report it to the civil authorities,” Callahan, the judicial vicar for the San Diego diocese, testified in Sacramento Superior Court.

The conversation Ojeda had with the bishop’s representative, Father Timothy Nondorf, and the private investigator, Joseph Sheehan, who was working on contract with the law firm of Sweeney & Greene, “had nothing to do with spiritual growth and development and everything to do with an allegation brought to diocesan authorities that they needed to take action on,” Callahan testified.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Catholic League

Bill Donohue comments on the reaction by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel to the public disclosure of Cardinal Timothy Dolan’s deposition regarding his tenure as the Milwaukee Archbishop:

Many of the bishops in the Catholic Church have made public the names of suspected sexual offenders. By contrast, there is not a single institution, secular or religious, that has done likewise. To be sure, this brazen honesty has persuaded fair-minded people to applaud such efforts, but others, less kind, see this as an opportunity to exploit. For example, today’s Journal Sentinel features the pictures of 45 priests who at one time or another had substantiated allegations made against them. This is pure hype: it was Archbishop Dolan who posted the names of these priests 9 years ago. Where are the pictures of alleged sex offenders in non-Catholic communities? Where is the same level of scrutiny?

Today’s Journal Sentinel says the bishops’ conference adopted a charter in 2002 that addresses the sexual abuse of minors. “How effective that charter has been is a matter of some debate.” Nonsense. There is no debate: in the past six years, the average number of credible allegations made against over 40,000 priests is exactly 7.0. If the Journal Sentinel knows of any institution with a comparable record, it should say so. Its comment about a 2011 grand jury report in Philadelphia failed to mention the 20-plus errors that have been found, to say nothing about the veracity of the principal accuser: he is a congenital liar, school dropout, thief and drug addict.

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OHIO
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

A Cincinnati priest is pleading not guilty to abusing a 10-year-old boy and is seeking to exploit a legal technicality, claiming that the charges against him have been filed too late.

Fr. Robert Poandl is accused of molesting a boy in 1991. He belongs to a religious order called the Glenmary Home Missioners

We believe that all victims are entitled to a fair legal process regardless of when the abuse occurred. It takes courage and often many years for victims to report crimes that are committed against them at a young age.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By JASON GORDON July 2, 2013

THERE were tip-offs to paedophiles, accusations that senior police had deceived, even the discovery of gay porn in the presbytery of a Catholic priest.

The only thing missing in yesterday’s hearing of the Special Commission of Inquiry in Newcastle was reliable evidence that the Church had hindered, obstructed or failed to co-operate with police investigations.

It was a long day in the stand for Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox, the man who accused the Catholic Church of hindering police investigations. It was equally long for counsel assisting the commission, Julia Lonergan, who spent the entire day questioning Mr Fox.

Ms Lonergan had Mr Fox under extreme fire throughout the morning session. The court had heard evidence that, in 2002, former Maitland-Newcastle Bishop Michael Malone had tipped off paedophile priest Jim Fletcher about a police investigation into claims he sexually abused a child, and that the bishop also revealed to Fletcher the name of his accuser.

Both claims were first revealed by Newcastle Herald journalist Joanne McCarthy three years ago.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Salon

BY MARY ELIZABETH WILLIAMS

Someday, we may reach the point where there are no more horrific sexual abuses within the Catholic Church to be uncovered, when there will be nothing left to say about the conspiracy of silence and the longstanding policy of protecting child molesters. Today is not that day. Already this week, on two continents, new revelations about how Catholic officials protected abusers and its own financial interests have revealed more about the depth and malevolence of the church’s self-interest.

As Reuters reports, 6,000 pages of court documents — spanning eight decades of cases — released Monday in Milwaukee “showed in great detail” the ways in which the archdiocese routinely reassigned priests accused of sex abuse to new parishes — while cleverly protecting millions of dollars of church funds from lawsuits. Included in the documents are requests from Archbishop Timothy Dolan to the Vatican to transfer $57 million to a trust fund to protect it from, in his words, “any legal claim and liability.” The transfer was approved a month later. On Monday, Dolan insisted that his request has been misinterpreted, saying the transfer was a “perpetual care fund.” The documents also show that Dolan did take action to notify the Vatican of abuses by Reverend John O’Brien – and that it took six years for the man to be stripped of his priesthood. The AP reports that to date the diocese has already spent “$30.5m on litigation, therapy and assistance for victims and other costs related to clergy sex abuse.”

But Dolan’s shabby track record isn’t all the newly released records reveal. They show the personnel files for 42 of the 45 priests “with verified abuse claims against them,” including one who is under police investigation now. The records also show how the diocese moved one priest, Raymond Adamsky, to eleven parishes over 22 after the first time a family accused him of abusing their daughter. And they show how the diocese routinely laicized priests accused of sex abuse, removing them of their duties but still providing them with benefits and sometimes substantial payments. Milwaukee’s current Archbishop Jerome Listecki has said that the documents reveal that “22 priests were reassigned to parish work after allegations of abuse,” and that “eight of them abused again.”

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INDIA
UCAN India

Chennai:
An Indian Catholic priest, who allegedly molested two teenage girls in the US nine years ago, continues to be in a New Delhi jail with his lawyer denying reports that the priest will be soon moved to the US.

Pappa Mohan, lawyer of Father Joseph Palanivel Jeyapaul, told ucanews.com that some Indian media wrongly reported on July 1 that the priest will be extradited to the US soon, as his bail plea was rejected last week.

“That was misrepresentation of facts. Our challenge against extradition will continue in the court of extradition in New Delhi. There is no prima facie evidence against the accused priest,” Mohan said July 1.

Police in Tamil Nadu arrested Father Jeyapaul in 2012 at the request of Interpol. The 58-year old priest from Ootcamund diocese is accused of molesting a 14-year-old girl while he was working in a parish in Crookston diocese in the state of Minnesota in 2004. He is now housed in New Delhi’s Tihar jail.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
The Dish

[Cardinal Dolan deposition]

[deposition exhibits]

Andrew Sullivan

You know where this man is coming from when he dismissed the organization SNAP – Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests – as having “no credibility“. The records from his old diocese in Milwaukee show he authorized pay-offs to child-rapist priests to encourage them to leave the ministry. (In the Catholic hierarchy, you don’t report rapists to the police; you eventually offer them financial incentives to leave.) Nonetheless, at the time, Dolan insisted that these charges were “false, preposterous and unjust,” whatever the records or even the spokesman for his old diocese said. Now, in another piece of stellar reporting, Laurie Goodstein adds more context to this man’s record:

Files released by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Milwaukee on Monday reveal that in 2007, Cardinal Timothy F. Dolan, then the archbishop there, requested permission from the Vatican to move nearly $57 million into a cemetery trust fund to protect the assets from victims of clergy sexual abuse who were demanding compensation.

Cardinal Dolan, now the archbishop of New York, has emphatically denied seeking to shield church funds as the archbishop of Milwaukee from 2002 to 2009. He reiterated in a statement Monday that these were “old and discredited attacks.”

However, the files contain a 2007 letter to the Vatican in which he explains that by transferring the assets, “I foresee an improved protection of these funds from any legal claim and liability.” The Vatican approved the request in five weeks, the files show.

So, twice now, we have been forced to choose between his words and our lyin’ eyes, when it comes to questions of how he handled and cosseted child-rapists under his jurisdiction in Milwaukee. We now know he deliberately sequestered church assets so he could argue he had no more funds to compensate those raped by his subordinates. He was once again putting the institutional church’s interests above those of the raped. And he seems to be able to lie about all of it – in the face of massive evidence – with nary a flicker of hesitation.

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NEW YORK
Christian Post

[Cardinal Dolan deposition]

[deposition exhibits]

By Stoyan Zaimov , Christian Post Reporter
July 2, 2013|1:59 pm

NEW YORK – Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York has responded to depositions released by the Archdiocese of Milwaukee that share details of how priests, including Dolan, handled several cases relating to child abuse by clergy.

“Responding to victim-survivors, taking action against priest-abusers, and working to implement policies to protect children, were some of the most difficult, challenging, and moving events of the 6 ½ years that I served as Archbishop of Milwaukee,” said Dolan, who currently serves as president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

“One of the principles that guided me during that time was the need for transparency and openness, which is why I not only welcomed the deposition as a chance to go on-the-record with how we responded to the clergy sexual abuse crisis during my years in Milwaukee, but also encouraged that it be released.”

The deposition discloses a 2003 case, among others, where the Milwaukee archdiocese asked the Vatican to remove a priest who had been found to have repeatedly abused children. The priest received counseling and alcohol abuse treatment and was eventually ordered to stop dressing as a priest and told not to attend seminary buildings.

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AUSTRALIA
Maitland Mercury

By ELLE WATSON July 3, 2013

Paedophile priest James Fletcher destroyed a collection of homosexual pornography hidden inside his Lochinvar presbytery when he was under police investigation for the repeated sexual abuse of a young boy.

The church member who helped Fletcher move documents, that included the pornographic magazines and videos, tipped off Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox, who was leading the Maitland investigation in 2003.

Chief Inspector Fox told the special commission of inquiry the information “gave weight” to the investigation and linked Fletcher’s “interest in this sort of activity” to the “most ugly” homosexual abuse suffered by the child.

The detective said he did not believe another member of the church who claimed ownership of the material after Fletcher denied it was his.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Esquire

By Charles P. Pierce

And boom, as Saint Jerome once put it, goes the dynamite.

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, half of which was the blog’s first alma mater in the biz, has done us all an estimable service to putting online all the documents that were jacked out of the Archdiocese there as part of the bankruptcy proceedings resulting from thousands of cases of sexual abuse by priests of said Archdiocese. Needless to say, nobody comes out looking very good. In fact, the Roman Catholic Church comes out of them looking very much like an organization that should be disbanded and fed piecemeal — hierarchy first — into a woodchipper. One guy molested 50 people in 11 parishes before anything happened to him, and not very much did. The sheer magnitude of the criminality is stunning, and this is one archdiocese, and not the biggest one, either.

I would call your attention, though, to the documents and exhibits concerning the time spent in Milwaukee by Dolan Of New York, who has been one of the prime mouthpieces of the phony “religious liberty” argument by which HMC presumes to deny to its Presbyterian cleaning ladies their ladyparts medicine as required by the Affordable Care Act. Dolan is also one of those happy-priest nuisances who thinks he looks cute in a Yankees cap. In Milwaukee, it turns out, he was pretty much Winston Wolf.

Four years before the Archdiocese of Milwaukee filed for bankruptcy, then-Archbishop Timothy Dolan sought Vatican approval to move nearly $57 million in cemetery funds off the archdiocese’s books and into a trust to help protect them “from any legal claim or liability,” according to documents made public Monday.

Read more: Bad Day For Milwaukee Archdiocese – Boom Goes The Dynamite – Esquire
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OHIO
Bluefield Daily Telegraph

July 2, 2013

Associated Press

CINCINNATI — An Ohio priest accused of taking a 10-year-old boy to West Virginia for sex more than two decades ago says the government waited too long to file charges and he wants the case dismissed.

Robert Poandl (POHN’-duhl), of the Cincinnati-based Glenmary Home Missioners, has pleaded not guilty to sexually abusing the boy while the two visited a church in Spencer, W.Va., in 1991.

Poandl is out of jail on the condition that he has no contact with children. A jury trial is scheduled for Aug. 26.

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UNITED STATES
Wonkette

We’ve been thinking a lot about how to streamline our workload, synergize our growth goals, lifehack a four-hour work week, and generally figure out ways to be even more lazy. One of the proactive methodologies we’re considering is creating a one-touch macro so we can efficiently deploy a post every time the Catholic Church does something incredibly awful related to the pedophile priest scandal. We could save literally MINUTES by having pre-written and recycled this post because all we really need to point out is that they are being horrible again. Today’s particular flavor of horrible: moving assets around so that they could insulate themselves from legal claims from victims:

Files released by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Milwaukee on Monday reveal that in 2007, Cardinal Timothy F. Dolan, then the archbishop there, requested permission from the Vatican to move nearly $57 million into a cemetery trust fund to protect the assets from victims of clergy sexual abuse who were demanding compensation….

[T]he files contain a 2007 letter to the Vatican in which he explains that by transferring the assets, “I foresee an improved protection of these funds from any legal claim and liability.” The Vatican approved the request in five weeks, the files show.
Hiding your money in trust funds does indeed improve your protection of those delicious monies. Doing so to dick over victims is just what Jesus said to do in First Corinthiananans, right?! NOPE NOT RIGHT.

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ROME
Boston Herald

By:
Associated Press

ROME — Italian news reports say prosecutors have wrapped up their money-laundering investigation into the Vatican bank and are focusing on the institute’s two recently resigned managers.

Paolo Cipriani and Massimo Tulli stepped down late Monday from the Institute for Religious Works.
Cipriani was placed under investigation in 2010 for alleged violations of Italy’s anti-money laundering laws along with the bank’s then-president, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, stemming from a routine transaction involving an IOR account at an Italian bank. Italian financial police also seized the 23 million euros ($30 million).

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VATICAN CITY
Bloomberg Businessweek

By Carol Matlack

It sounds like a thriller plot: A Vatican cleric, a spy, and a financier accused of conspiring to smuggle 20 million euros ($26 million) out of Switzerland aboard a private jet. In fact, it’s the latest scandal to hit the Vatican bank, prompting Pope Francis to make sweeping management changes.

The Holy See removed the bank’s longtime director and deputy director on July 1, three days after Monsignor Nunzio Scarano and two other men were arrested in connection with the alleged smuggling scheme. Scarano has denied the allegations.

Since his installation in March, the pope also has appointed a trusted aide to help supervise the bank while naming a special commission to investigate charges of corruption and money laundering that have dogged the institution for decades. The bank also is to start publishing its financial accounts for the first time. Now the Vatican has even reached across the Atlantic for help, recruiting Washington, D.C.-based Promontory Financial Group to conduct a forensic review and screen the bank’s client relationships. The effort will be led by Elizabeth McCaul, a former New York state banking supervisor based in Promontory’s New York City office, and Rafaele Cosimo, an expert in bank governance and operations who works for Promontory in Europe.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Telegraph (UK)

America’s most senior Roman Catholic cleric obtained permission from the Vatican to move $57 million (£38 million) of church funds into a trust to shield it from sexual abuse victims seeking compensation.

By Jon Swaine, New York
02 Jul 2013

Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the President of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, told Vatican officials in a 2007 letter that the transfer offered “improved protection of these funds from any legal claim”.

Cardinal Dolan, who is now the Archbishop of New York, has been credited with helping to root out a serious sexual abuse scandal in his previous archdiocese of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

However, he has long insisted that he never deliberately sought to protect church funds from victims of abuse by clergy in the archdiocese, which he led as Archbishop between 2002 and 2009.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
National Catholic Reporter

Marie Rohde | Jul. 2, 2013

MILWAUKEE Cardinal Timothy Dolan says it isn’t so, but advocates for victims of clergy sex abuse say they can now prove what they suspected: Dolan shifted almost $57 million into a cemetery trust fund to protect the money from lawsuits brought by victims.

In 2007, when Dolan was archbishop of Milwaukee, he wrote the Vatican’s Congregation for Clergy seeking permission for a “transfer of assets from the patrimony of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee to a separate juridic person, an autonomous pious foundation known as The Archdiocese of Milwaukee Catholic Cemetery Perpetual Care Trust.”

The reason for the transfer: “I foresee an improved protection of these funds from any legal claim and liability,” Dolan wrote in the letter, one of many documents the Milwaukee archdiocese released Monday.

Dolan’s letter to the Vatican provided the ” ‘smoking gun’ proving he committed federal bankruptcy fraud,” said a statement released Monday by the Milwaukee chapter of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

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IRELAND
The Journal

THE Court of Criminal Appeal has reserved judgment in the case of former priest Tony Walsh, who is appealing against separate sentences imposed for the rape and sexual abuse of young boys.

Walsh (59), formerly of North Circular Road, Dublin, who was known as the ‘Singing Priest’ for his role in a travelling all-priest vocal group before he was defrocked, is serving a 16-year sentence imposed on him in 2010 for the rape and abuse of three schoolboys.

Last month, Walsh had 15 months added to this sentence for abusing two other boys.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

Paedophile priest told boy (7) he could get dead grandfather into heaven if he performed sex act

2 JULY 2013

A paedophile priest told a distraught seven-year-old boy that he could get his dead grandfather into heaven if he performed a sex act on him, a court has heard.

Belfast Crown Court heard that the boy was quite distressed about his grandfather being in purgatory but that 55-year-old James Martin Donaghy told the child “he could get him into haven if he helped him” and performed a sex act.

Last month just before his trial was due to begin Donaghy, originally from Lady Wallace Drive in Lisburn but now languishing in Magilligan prison, pleaded guilty to four charges of indecently assaulting the boy and one of common assault against the schoolboy on dates between January and May 1989.

Following a lengthy trial at the end of 2011, Donaghy was convicted of a total of 17 sex offences including indecent assault and committing acts of gross indecency against all three victims.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

Yesterday, the archdiocese of Milwaukee, previously headed by the current president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Cardinal Timothy Dolan, released a trove of documents having to do with how the archdiocese has handled (and covered up) cases of sexual abuse of minors. The story is told by Laurie Goodstein for New York Times, Marie Rohde (and also here) in National Catholic Reporter, Karen Herzog for the Journal-Sentinel (Milwaukee), and by M.L. Johnson in the Star Tribune (Minneapolis/Milwaukee).

On behalf of the National Survivor Advocates Coalition, Kris Ward writes:

Cardinal Timothy Dolan’s letter to the Vatican asking permission to transfer $57 million from the cemetery fund to a trust fund as the archdiocese moved toward filing for bankruptcy included the then Archbishop Dolan persuasive phrase for his request, “By transferring these assets to the Trust, I foresee an improved protection of these funds from any legal claim and liability.” Within a month the Vatican agreed.

As late into the crisis as 2007 when the letter was written Dolan assumed the letter would never be read beyond the chancery building and the stone castle walls of the Vatican.

And then she concludes:

Improved protection. That’s got some ring to it.

For Bishop Accountability, Terence McKiernan states:

The documents provide additional evidence that, contrary to Cardinal Dolan’s repeated denials, he concluded settlements with numerous offending priests, paying them bounties if they would agree to request laicization for sexually abusing children. The archive also contains an important 2007 exchange of letters between Dolan and the Vatican on the eve of the bankruptcy filing, in which Dolan asked permission to shelter $56.9 million, envisioning “an improved protection of these funds from any legal claim and liability.” The revelations about these actions, and Dolan’s denials, raise the question whether he is fit to lead the USCCB and the Archdiocese of New York. Documents also demonstrate that requests for laicization, which had been handled slowly by Cardinal Josef Ratzinger, continued to be processed at a snail’s pace, and that children continued to be endangered thereby, after Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI.

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UNITED STATES
Spiritual Politics

Mark Silk | Jul 2, 2013

Yesterday brought big developments in two ongoing sexual abuse stories: the resignation of Rabbi Norman Lamm as chancellor of Yeshiva University and the revelation that Cardinal Timothy Dolan shielded a pile of cash from legal claims when he was archbishop of Milwaukee.

Lamm’s resignation came six months after the Jewish Forward reported that in late ’70s and early ’80s two senior staff members who had abused students at Yeshiva’s high school for boys were permitted by Lamm to resign and take jobs at other Jewish schools. “If it was an open-and-shut case, I just let [the staff member] go quietly,” Lamm told the Forward. “It was not our intention or position to destroy a person without further inquiry.”

Not that anyone was admitting that the resignation had anything to do with the cover-up. To the contrary, the official version was that it had been arranged for Lamm to step down three years ago. Who knew?

Still and all, in a letter to the Yeshiva community, he did repent for what he had done: “True character requires of me the courage to admit that, despite my best intentions then, I now recognize that I was wrong.” And indirectly, he acknowledged that he is in fact paying a price for what he did: “You submit to momentary compassion in according individuals the benefit of the doubt by not fully recognizing what is before you, and in the process you lose the Promised Land.”

So, despite giving himself too much credit for good intentions, and permitting himself some Mosaic self-aggrandizement (no Promised Land), Lamm did the right thing.

Meanwhile, the release of thousands of pages of documents on the handling of abuse cases by the archdiocese of Milwaukee revealed that in 2007 Archbishop Dolan obtained the permission of the Vatican to transfer a nearly $57-million cemetery fund off the archdiocesan books and into a special trust. Dolan’s request came just a few weeks before the Wisconsin Supreme Court issued a ruling that allowed victims of sex abuse to sue the archdiocese. Seventeen days after the ruling, the Vatican approved the request.

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HOUSTON (TX)
KTRK

HOUSTON (KTRK) — A Houston church pastor was behind bars Monday evening, accused molesting two young girls.

Ricardo Pena faces two counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child.

Pena is the pastor at Doverside Baptist Church in north Houston.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Nicholas P. Cafardi | Jul. 2, 2013

COMMENTARY

In the last few days, Pope Francis created, in a handwritten document, a five-person group to review the operations of the Vatican bank, whose real name is the Istituto per le Opere di Religione, or IOR for short. That group will have its hands full because, you see, Italian authorities arrested Msgr. Nunzio Scarano, a Vatican official, and charged him with attempting to use the Vatican bank as part of a scheme to avoid Italian fiscal control laws. He is currently a guest of the Italian government in Rome’s Regina Coeli (Queen of Heaven) prison.

Scarano is in jail because of a reported scheme to use an Italian government jet to bring 20 million euros, owned by some friends of his, from Switzerland into Italy. (One wonders what kind of friends they were who did not want Italian authorities to know about the importation of this money.) Scarano’s alleged accomplice, an Italian secret service agent named Giovanni Maria Zito, is also in jail.

The importation scheme fell apart when the fellow in Switzerland who owed the money to Scarano’s “friends” failed to pay it, and Zito still demanded his 400,000 euro (about $525,000) “commission” for arranging the transport. Scarano evidently used his personal account at IOR to give Zito a 200,000 euro check as a down payment then reported the check as stolen, at which point things really fell apart.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
National Survivor Advocates Coalition

[the documents – Jeff Anderson & Associates]

[the documents – Milwaukee archdiocese]

EDITORIAL

Cardinal Timothy Dolan’s letter to the Vatican asking permission to transfer $57 million from the cemetery fund to a trust fund as the archdiocese moved toward filing for bankruptcy included the then Archbishop Dolan persuasive phrase for his request, “By transferring these assets to the Trust, I foresee an improved protection of these funds from any legal claim and liability.” Within a month the Vatican agreed.

As late into the crisis as 2007 when the letter was written Dolan assumed the letter would never be read beyond the chancery building and the stone castle walls of the Vatican.

Seems dead men can indeed tell tales when there is persistent, courageous and dedicated work by sexual abuse victims to get to the truth. SNAP leaders in Milwaukee, Peter Isley and John Pilmaier who have worked diligently on this issue cannot be over commended for their dedication, persistence and courage.

The truth is in the documents.

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WISCONSIN
Journal Times

Documents reveal details of former Racine County priests’ misconduct

[Michael Benham]

[Michael Benham]

[Benham timeline]

[Jerome Lanser]

[Jerome Lanser]

[Jerome Lanser]

[Lanser timeline]

[Eugene Kreuzer]

[Kreuzer timeline]

[Daniel Budzynski]

[Daniel Budzynski]

[Daniel Budzynski]

[Budzynski timeline]

[Raymond Adamsky]

[Raymond Adamski]

[Adamski timeline]

[Oswald Krusing]

[Krusing timeline]

ALISON BAUTER alison.bauter@journaltimes.com

MILWAUKEE — Thousands of documents released Monday detail allegations against 42 Milwaukee Archdiocese priests accused of sexually assaulting minors, including at least six who allegedly molested children in Racine County parishes.

In many instances, the priests have admitted to all or some of the charges, and several cases resulted in settlements with the church and received no media coverage at the time.

Former Milwaukee Archbishop Timothy Dolan made 45 names public in 2004, identifying each with substantiated allegations of sexually abusing one or more minors; documents released Monday as part of the regional archdiocese’s bankruptcy process detailed 42 of those cases.

Six former Racine County parish leaders on the list allegedly abused minors while serving here.

A series of letters from then-Archbishop Dolan detail his efforts to de-frock Michael Benham, formerly an associate pastor at St. John Nepomuk Parish in Racine, who admittedly repeatedly sexually abused an 11-year-old there in the mid-1970s. The church stripped Benham of his title in 2009.

As was the case with many of the 42 priests, the documents detail

Benham’s struggle with alcoholism. In several of those cases the alcohol abuse reportedly intersects with instances of same-sex child abuse, as with Jerome Lanser, formerly of Racine’s Sacred Heart Catholic Church, where a police report states he sexually abused an eight- or nine-year-old boy from 1975 to 1976.

Children at St. John the Baptist in rural Union Grove reportedly feared former Pastor Eugene Kreuzer during his two-decade career there, which included multiple alleged abuses of teenage boys.

Daniel Budzynski, formerly of Caledonia’s St. Louis Catholic Church, references an “unfortunate incident” with a young boy during a church retreat, which Budzynski in a 2001 letter identified as “horsing around.” He transferred parishes shortly thereafter, and over the years allegedly abused multiple boys between age 7 and 16.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Your Local Guardian

A catholic priest, arrested on suspicion of sexually assaulting a teenage boy, will face no further action, police have said.

Canon Francis Moran of St Andrew’s Roman Catholic Church in Brook Road, Thornton Heath, was arrested last September and withdrew from his role at the church following his arrest.

Parishioners were informed of the allegation when they were read a statement during a Sunday Mass.

The 52-year-old answered bail at a south London police station last week and was told no further action would be taken against him.

The Archdiocese of Southwark have yet to confirm whether he will return to his role as parish priest at St Andrew’s.

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IRELAND
The Journal

The Catholic Church and the Irish State were both responsible for incarcerating women in the Magdalene Laundries – and so both must pay, writes Anne Ferris TD.

IN APRIL 1955, a Scottish writer researching a book about Ireland talked his way into the Magdalene Laundry in Galway. First he had to obtain the permission of the Bishop of Galway, Dr Michael John Browne, the same man who a decade later would refer to the RTE broadcaster Gay Byrne as “a purveyor of filth” for the sin of discussing the colour of a lady’s nightgown on the Late Late Show.

True to form, Bishop Browne warned the Scotsman “if you write anything wrong it will come back on you” adding as a condition of entry to the laundry that anything intended to be published about the visit would have to be approved in advance by the Mother Superior of the Sisters of Mercy.

The Scotsman, Dr Halliday Sutherland, agreed to abide by the bishop’s stipulation and was granted rare access to a Magdalene laundry. His subsequent account is worked into a single chapter in his 1956 book ‘Irish Journey’. To what extent it was censored by the Mother Superior, we will never know.

An ‘agreed’ year of unpaid domestic service

The day before he visited the laundry in Galway, Dr Sutherland visited the Mother and Baby home in Tuam. He noted that the accepted practice was that unmarried mothers in the Tuam home ‘agreed’ to provide a year of unpaid domestic service to the nuns, and that in addition to this servitude, the home received State support, via Galway County Council, to the tune of £1 per child or mother per week.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

President Ernst von Freyberg to assume General Director duties ad interim

VATICAN INSIDER STAFF
VATICAN CITY

IOR-Director Comm. Paolo Cipriani and Deputy Director Dott. Massimo Tulli have offered their resignations from their current positions. After many years of service both have decided that this decision would be in the best interest of the Institute and the Holy See. The Oversight Council and the Commission of Cardinals have accepted their resignations and asked President Ernst von Freyberg to assume the functions of the General Director ad interim with immediate effect. The Vatican regulator AIF has been informed accordingly. The Special Commission appointed on June 26 2013 has acknowledged the decision.

Ernst von Freyberg will be supported by Rolando Marranci as acting Deputy Director and Antonio Montaresi in the newly created position as acting Chief Risk Officer with the remit of overseeing compliance and special projects. Previously Rolando Marranci served as Chief Operating Officer at a leading Italian bank in London. Antonio Montaresi has served as Chief Risk and Chief Compliance Officer with various banks in the US.

“In the name of the Oversight Council I thank Mr. Cipriani and Mr. Tulli for their personal dedication over the past years,” said President Ernst von Freyberg. “I welcome Rolando Marranci and Antonio Montaresi as outstanding professionals,” he said. “Since 2010 the IOR and its management have been working hard to bring structures and processes in line with international standards for anti-money laundering. While we are grateful for what has been achieved, it is clear today that we need new leadership to increase the pace of this transformation process. Our progress is in no small measure due to the continued support from the governing bodies of the Institute and its personnel.”

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
WTMJ

[with audio]

By Jaclyn Brandt

MILWAUKEE – Archbishop Listecki agreed to talk about the thousands of pages of documents recently released regarding the sex abuse scandal in the Milwaukee Archdiocese.

He began by confronting the idea that Cardinal Dolan (then archbishop of Milwaukee) transferred funds to an account that would be protected by bankruptcy.

“Of course it was a proper transfer,” he said. “Those funds continue to be set aside for the perpetual care of the cemeteries. My sense is all Cardinal Dolan was doing is being diligent as a leader.”

Archbishop Listecki explained that the release of documents was an attempt to help the victims.

“One of the things immediately is we made the documents available in response to the attorneys representing the claimants in the bankruptcy,” Listecki explained. “Their sense was to help the individuals understand what the archdiocese knew when it knew and how it responded to various aspects.”

The archdiocese said they are attempting to move forward, while understanding the problems of their past to help heal, and make sure they can stop it in the future.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Vatican City, 2 July 2013 (VIS) – A communique was issued in English by the Holy See Press Office late yesterday afternoon, the full text of which is given below:

“IOR-Director Comm. Paolo Cipriani and Deputy Director Dott. Massimo Tulli have offered their resignations from their current positions. After many years of service both have decided that this decision would be in the best interest of the Institute and the Holy See. The Oversight Council and the Commission of Cardinals have accepted their resignations and asked President Ernst von Freyberg to assume the functions of the General Director ad interim with immediate effect. The Vatican regulator AIF has been informed accordingly. The Special Commission appointed on June 26 2013 has acknowledged the decision.

“Ernst von Freyberg will be supported by Rolando Marranci as acting Deputy Director and Antonio Montaresi in the newly created position as acting Chief Risk Officer with the remit of overseeing compliance and special projects. Previously Rolando Marranci served as Chief Operating Officer at a leading Italian bank in London. Antonio Montaresi has served as Chief Risk and Chief Compliance Officer with various banks in the US.

“’In the name of the Oversight Council I thank Mr. Cipriani and Mr. Tulli for their personal dedication over the past years,’ said President Ernst von Freyberg. ‘I welcome Rolando Marranci and Antonio Montaresi as outstanding professionals,’ he said. ‘Since 2010 the IOR and its management have been working hard to bring structures and processes in line with international standards for anti-money laundering. While we are grateful for what has been achieved, it is clear today that we need new leadership to increase the pace of this transformation process. Our progress is in no small measure due to the continued support from the governing bodies of the Institute and its personnel.’

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NEW ZEALAND
NZ Catholic

Tuesday Jul, 2013

by MICHAEL OTTO

WELLINGTON — Media publicity around state and federal inquiries into child abuse in Australia have prompted several adults to contact the Catholic Church’s National Office for Professional Standards in New Zealand.

Professional standards office national director Bill Kilgallon told NZ Catholic that a number of people currently living in Australia, who grew up in New Zealand, “have felt able to come forward and tell their story”.

These people are aged between 40 and 60 years and the abuse happened during their childhoods in New Zealand, he said.

Mr Kilgallon, who, in the 1990s, led independent inquiries into allegations of abuse in residential care provided by a local authority in the United Kingdom, is encouraged that these people have come forward.

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Daily Review

The Jerry Sandusky case and another involving the Rev. Charles Englehardt in Philadelphia exposed not only the crimes they committed against children, but the inadequacies in state laws meant to detect and deter that conduct.

Last week the state House Children and Youth Committee approved a package of six bills that should help to better protect children. For example, the bills would broaden the definition of abuse to allow earlier intervention by authorities and minimize harm to children, expand requirements to report abuse, require background checks for more people who work with children, and so on.

The bills are derived from recommendations by legislative commission that was created following the Sandusky arrest and prosecution.

Even though the bills merit adoption, they are not comprehensive. They do not address another key issue that was exposed by the Sandusky case. Even though several state agencies had some information about Mr. Sandusky’s conduct, that they did not act under the authority that they had under existing law.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Tri County Record

On Thursday, June 20,the House of Representatives voted to approve Rep. David Maloney’s (R-Berks) child protection legislation, moving it to the Senate for further consideration.

As a member of the House Children and Youth Committee, Maloney developed House Bill 434 from concerns he has had for years about the different legal standard between teachers and other professionals in the requirements to alert police to potential child abuse. The recent Jerry Sandusky child abuse scandal has highlighted the need for such legislation.

“This bill would apply the same standards for reporting suspected child abuse to school employees as those that exist for other employees of other workplaces,” Maloney said. “So, when a school employee suspects another school employee of abusing a student, the standard for substantiating abuse, the reporting requirements and procedures, and the investigative response is the same as it is elsewhere.”

Coincidentally, the Task Force on Child Protection the General Assembly created last year to review Pennsylvania’s child protection laws has recommended just such a law to prevent the lack of reporting abuse that occurred at Penn State University when Sandusky was an assistant football coach there. To date, the House has passed and sent to the Senate more than a dozen pieces of legislation based on the task force’s recommendations.

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COLORADO
Gazette

By Lance Benzel Published: July 1, 2013

The father of a former altar boy who says a Colorado Springs priest molested him questioned his son’s veracity in court Monday, calling him “untruthful” and telling a jury: “I don’t always believe him.”

The father’s frank and potentially damaging assessment of the now 18-year-old accuser’s credibilty came as attorneys for the Rev. Charles Robert “Bob” Manning, 78, began their defense in a case pitting one man’s word against the other’s.

Manning, who retired from St. Gabriel the Archangel Catholic Church in Colorado Springs in the wake of the allegations against him, has pleaded not guilty to sexual assault on a child, which his attorneys have dismissed as fabrications by the former altar server.

Whether the father’s testimony helped shape the jury’s thinking may soon be clear: Deliberations are expected to begin Tuesday or Wednesday.

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VATIKAN
Zeit

Nach der Festnahme des Geistlichen Scarano wegen Korruptionsverdachts haben der Direktor des Geldinstituts, Paolo Cipriani, und sein Vize ihren Rücktritt eingereicht.

Die skandalumwitterte Vatikanbank kommt nicht zur Ruhe: Im Zuge von Korruptionsermittlungen haben zwei Chefs der Vatikanbank ihre Posten geräumt. Der Direktor der Vatikanbank, Paolo Cipriani, und dessen Stellvertreter Massimo Tulli sind von ihren Ämtern zurückgetreten. Der Verwaltungsrat und die Kardinalskommission an der Spitze der Bank hätten die Entscheidung akzeptiert, teilte der Vatikan mit. Der deutsche Präsident der Vatikanbank, Ernst von Freyberg, werde die Aufgaben zunächst übergangsweise mitübernehmen.

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OSTERREICH
Die Presse

1324 Personen haben sich bisher bei der Klasnic-Kommission der katholischen Kirche gemeldet.

1324 Personen haben sich nach neuestem Stand von Montag an die durch Kardinal Christoph Schönborn eingerichtete Opferschutz-Kommission gewendet. Dies erfuhr DiePresse.com am Montag. 1150 wurden als Opfer von (sexueller) Gewalt, begangen durch Priester, Ordensleute oder Laienmitarbeiter der katholischen Kirche anerkannt. Sie erhielten oder erhalten Entschädigungszahlungen.

In 22 Fällen entschied die hochrangig besetzte Kommission unter der Führung der früheren steirischen Landeshauptfrau Waltraud Klasnic negativ. Damit sind derzeit noch 152 Fälle offen – unter ihnen auch einige besonders schwierige.

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AUSTRALIEN
Kipa/Apic

Newcastle, 1.7.13 (Kipa) Der australische Bischof William Wright hat sich für das Versagen seiner Diözese Maitland-Newcastle in einigen Fällen sexuellen Missbrauchs an Kindern “bedingungslos” entschuldigt.

“Ich gestehe, dass bei der Anzeige von Fällen die Kirchenbehörden manchmal versagt haben, die missbrauchten Kindern und ihren Familien effektiv zu unterstützen oder auch sicherzustellen, dass in Zukunft andere Kinder vor Missbrauch von diesen Tätern geschützt werden”, zitieren australische Medien aus der Aussage des katholischen Bischofs vor einem Untersuchungsausschuss. Wright erklärte demnach, er habe seine Bistumsmitarbeiter zur “vollen Zusammenarbeit” mit dem Gremium angewiesen.

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VATICAN CITY
Boston Globe

By Nicole Winfield | ASSOCIATED PRESS JULY 02, 2013

ROME — The director of the embattled Vatican bank and his deputy resigned Monday, the latest heads to roll in a broadening finance scandal that has landed one Vatican monsignor in prison and added urgency to Pope Francis’s reform efforts.

The Vatican said Paolo Cipriani and his deputy, Massimo Tulli, stepped down ‘‘in the best interest of the institute and the Holy See.’’ The speed with which they resigned, however, indicated the decision was not entirely theirs.

Cipriani, along with the bank’s then-president, was placed under investigation by Rome prosecutors in 2010 for alleged violations of Italy’s antimoney laundering rules after financial police seized $30 million from a Vatican account at a Rome bank. Neither has been charged and the money was eventually ordered released.

But the bank, known as the Institute for Religious Works, has remained in the news amid fresh concerns it has been used as an offshore tax haven.

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VATICAN CITY
Bloomberg Businessweek

By Alessandra Migliaccio
July 02, 2013

The director and deputy director of the Vatican bank resigned yesterday as a series of investigations lead to a renewal of the Church’s financial structures.

Paolo Cipriani and his deputy Massimo Tulli stepped down “in the best interest of the institute and the Holy See,” the Vatican said in a statement late yesterday. Ernst von Freyberg, the bank’s president appointed last February, will take over as interim director general and a new position of chief risk officer will be created. “It is clear today that we need new leadership to increase the pace of this transformation process,” von Freyberg said in the statement.

The resignations come three days after senior Vatican cleric Monsignor Nunzio Scarano was arrested by Italian authorities along with an Italian secret service agent and a financial broker as part of a corruption investigation. The three are accused of plotting to bring 20 million euros ($26 million) into Italy from Switzerland in a private jet, according Rome prosecutor Nello Rossi. Scarano has denied the accusations.

The Vatican bank, known as the Institute for the Works of Religion, or IOR, is increasingly in the spotlight of investigations as Pope Francis works to bring it in line with international standards. Last week, the pope named a commission to oversee the operations of the Vatican bank after Moneyval, the Council of Europe’s monitoring body for money laundering and terrorism financing, called for independent supervision of the bank.

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VATICAN CITY
AFP

By Francoise Kadri (AFP)

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis’s bid to take the scandal-dogged Vatican bank in hand has stepped up a gear, experts said Tuesday, with the ousting of top management from the institution following the launch of a special papal probe.

Officially, Paolo Cipriani and Massimo Tulli, director and deputy director of the bank, handed in their resignations on Monday “in the best interest of the institute and the Holy See”.

The bank’s president, Ernst von Freyberg, put their decision down to a need for “new leadership to increase the pace” of bringing the institution “in line with international standards against money laundering.”

Religious and judicial specialists on Tuesday said the Vatican had forcibly shed two long-serving chiefs who survived the unceremonious eviction in May 2012 of the former head, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, purportedly for poor management but amid reports of money-laundering.

Their expulsion was deemed opportune by the Vatican, according to Fiorenza Sarzanini in the Corriere della Sera daily, because Cipriani and Tulli are of interest in an inquiry launched by Rome prosecutors in 2010 into money-laundering.

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VATICAN CITY
Daily Mail (UK)

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
PUBLISHED: 06:30 EST, 2 July 2013

The director of the embattled Vatican bank and his deputy have resigned over a financial scandal which has already landed one monsignor in prison.

Paolo Cipriani and his deputy, Massimo Tulli, stepped down ‘in the best interest of the institute and the Holy See’, The Vatican has said.

The speed with which they resigned, however, indicated that the decision was not entirely theirs.
But the bank, known as the Institute for Religious Works, or IOR, has remained under the watchful eye of prosecutors amid fresh concerns it has been used as an offshore tax haven.

It was the latest turmoil to hit the IOR, which has long been the source of scandal for the Holy See.
Last year, the bank’s board ousted its then-president, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, for incompetence and erratic behavior.

Yesterday’s resignations and nominations of interim administrators represented a final overthrow of the bank’s old guard management and coincided with its efforts to comply with international regulations to fight money-laundering and terror financing.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
WTOP

M.L. JOHNSON
Associated Press

MILWAUKEE (AP) — As more victims of clergy sex abuse came forward, then-Milwaukee Archbishop Timothy Dolan oversaw a plan to pay some abusers to leave the priesthood after writing to Vatican officials with increasing frustration and concern, warning them about the potential for scandal if they did not defrock problem priests, according to documents released Monday.

Dolan’s correspondence with Vatican officials and priests accused of sexual abuse was included in about 6,000 pages of documents the Archdiocese of Milwaukee released Monday as part of a deal reached in federal bankruptcy court with clergy sex abuse victims suing it for fraud. Victims say the archdiocese transferred problem priests to new churches without warning parishioners and covered up priests’ crimes for decades. …

Peter Isely, Midwest director for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said he would ask the U.S. attorney’s office in Milwaukee to look into the possibility of bankruptcy fraud. However, Marquette University law professor Ralph Anzivino, a bankruptcy specialist, said no criminal charges could be filed unless the bankruptcy judge determined the transfer amounts to fraud.

The documents also show that Dolan repeatedly wrote to Vatican officials, pleading with them to dismiss priests accused of abuse but often was left waiting for years for a response. One of those cases involved John C. Wagner, who was accused of making advances to students at the University of Wisconsin-Sheboygan when he was in campus ministry in the 1980s. Dolan’s predecessor, Archbishop Rembert Weakland, tried in the 1990s to get Wagner to voluntarily leave the priesthood but Wagner refused.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Wisconsin Public Radio

[with audio]

By CHUCK QUIRMBACH

The Catholic Archdiocese of Milwaukee released thousands of documents related to decades of clergy members sexually abusing children today.

Critics say the items show a pattern of cowardice among the clerics.

The documents have been released as part of the bankruptcy case involving the Milwaukee archdiocese. Attorneys for abuse victims note the documents include a letter from former Milwaukee archbishop and now New York cardinal Tim Dolan, asking the Vatican for permission to move $57 million into a cemetery fund, and away from any potential victims’ claims. Other letters deal with efforts to conceal details about abusive priests.

Victims lawyer Jeffery Anderson calls it cowardice:

Anderson: “Cowardice among the clerics at the time … contrasted to the courage of the survivors, who at great risk disclosed the secret, shared it, and demanded exposure and closure.”

Peter Isely of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests says Archbishop Dolan’s efforts to move the money into the cemetery fund amounts to fraud.

Isely: “He should be under federal investigation. We’ll be emailing a letter today to the federal prosecutor of the Eastern District [of Wisconsin], asking him to investigate this fraudulent transfer and conveyance.”

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RICHMOND (VA)
WRIC

[with video]

RICHMOND, VA – After resigning amid multiple felony charges in Texas, Geronimo Aguilar, the founding pastor of The Richmond Outreach Center, will receive six months severance from the Richmond-based church and will continue to live in the church’s parsonage.

The ROC Board made the announcement Tuesday, saying Aguilar would receive six months of severance pay and would be allowed to reside in the parsonage with his family for six months.

Aguilar, known as “Pastor G,” and three other pastors’ resignations were accepted by the ROC’s board of directors last week, according to a release on the church’s website.

Aguilar is facing multiple felony charges in Texas in two alleged cases of child sex abuse.

Also resigning is executive pastor Jason Helmlinger, who is facing a misdemeanor charge of threatening a former ROC pastor who spoke to 8News about the allegations against Aguilar. Two others also resigned Wednesday: Pastor G’s brother Matthew Aguilar and Pastor Andrew Delgado, neither of whom are facing any charges.

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CONNECTICUT
CT Post

Michael P. Mayko
Updated 1:02 am, Tuesday, July 2, 2013

HARTFORD — Two dozen Haitian boys will each receive $500,000 in a settlement on their claims of sexual abuse at the hands of Douglas Perlitz while enrolled in Project Pierre Toussaint, a residential trade school in Cap-Haitien.

“This settlement will be a life-changing event for them,” said Mitchell Garabedian, a Boston lawyer who headed the legal team representing the boys. “It will allow them to feed themselves and their families, buy clothes, sleep with a roof over their heads and obtain medical treatment.”

Garabedian said arrangements have been made to provide financial counseling, but the money will be distributed immediately in a lump sum.

The payments are part of a $12 million settlement reached Friday with Fairfield University; the Rev. Paul Carrier, a former university chaplain and officer of the Haiti Fund, the now defunct fund-raising arm of Project Pierre Toussaint; the Society of Jesus of New England, the Jesuit order to which Carrier belonged; the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta, American Association, USA, of which Carrier was Magistral chaplain; and Hope Carter, a member of the board of directors of the Haiti Fund, a New Canaan philanthropist and Malta member.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

July 2, 2013

Barney Zwartz
Religion editor, The Age.

The Catholic Church in Melbourne put the lives of clergy sexual abuse victims at risk, including telling one suicidal victim to ring back in four days, according to evidence to the Victorian inquiry into how the churches handled abuse.

Another victim who was told his statement to Melbourne Response independent commissioner Peter O’Callaghan, QC, was completely confidential then found it used by the church to try to discredit the victim during the trial of his civil damages claim.

Many clients have been significantly further damaged as a result of going through a church process.

The evidence of law firm Lewis Holdway, which has represented 200 victims over 17 years, was one of 10 submissions published under parliamentary privilege on the inquiry’s website late on Monday.
Lewis Holdway says another life put at risk was a child in real danger from a paedophile priest, whose mother was told she had to wait until she got a letter from Mr O’Callaghan.
Advertisement

It says some parishes – including Ballarat, Healesville and Doveton – that had a succession of paedophile priests need special support that they have not received, and asks the inquiry to investigate claims that a paedophile ring of priests may have operated in some parishes.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
New York Magazine

By Margaret Hartmann

When Cardinal Timothy Dolan was archbishop of Milwaukee from 2002 to 2009, he was either trying to get abusive priests away from children as quickly as possible, attempting to protect the church from a growing sex abuse scandal, or some combination of the two. On Monday, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Milwaukee released 6,000 pages of documents as part of a deal reached in federal bankruptcy court with victims of sexual abuse, who are suing the archdiocese for fraud. The documents offer new details on payments Dolan offered to departing pedophile priests, and reveal that Dolan moved nearly $57 million into a cemetery trust to help protect the funds “from any legal claim or liability.” What the documents say about how Dolan handled the scandal he inherited is still open to interpretation.

Dolan certainly doesn’t come out looking great, but did repeatedly urge the Vatican to defrock priests who sexually abused children, only to be met with years of silence in some instances. The Wall Street Journal reports that in one case, Dolan’s bosses wanted to suspend an admitted sex offender for just ten years, but he pushed for him to be defrocked, arguing that if word ever got out, “our credibility would be seriously damaged.” The Vatican barred the priest from ministry indefinitely.

Dolan also approved payments of up to $20,000 for some alleged abusers who agreed to leave quietly. Critics call this a payoff, but the church claims the money was necessary to help the priests transition into secular life. Dolan defended the practice again in a blog post on Monday, writing, “like it or not, bishops do have a canon law obligation to provide basic support like health care and room and board for their priests until they have finally moved on.”

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
New York Daily News

[John O’Brien]

[John O’Brien]

[John O’Brien]

[timeline]

[the documents – Jeff Anderson & Associates]

[the documents – Milwaukee archdiocese]

The Vatican took a month to give then-Milwaukee Archbishop Timothy Dolan the go-ahead in 2007 to move $57 million into a trust in anticipation of an avalanche of sexual abuse lawsuits against the Milwaukee Archdiocese. But it took six years for Dolan to get the Vatican to defrock an out-of-control priest who had been convicted of sexually assaulting a teen boy.

BY STEPHEN REX BROWN / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
TUESDAY, JULY 2, 2013

When then-Milwaukee Archbishop Timothy Dolan sounded the alarm on abusive priests, the Roman Catholic Church dragged its feet — but when Dolan needed to protect tens of millions of dollars, the church acted without hesitation, bombshell documents revealed Monday.

The Vatican took only a month to give Dolan the go-ahead in 2007 to move $57 million into a trust in anticipation of an avalanche of sexual abuse lawsuits against the Milwaukee Archdiocese, which Dolan ran from 2002 to 2009.

But it took six years for Dolan to get the Vatican to defrock an out-of-control priest who had been convicted of sexually assaulting a 17-year-old boy.

The stunning revelations were contained in 6,000 pages of documents released Monday by the Archdiocese of Milwaukee as part of its bankruptcy proceeding.

In 2003, Dolan — now the cardinal in New York and arguably the face of the Catholic Church in America — wrote Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, who would go on to become Pope Benedict XVI, notifying him of the Rev. John O’Brien’s criminal conviction.

“After only a few visits they began to hug each other at the end of their time together,” Dolan wrote of O’Brien and the teen victim. “Shortly thereafter, in the basement of the church building, Father O’Brien and the boy had explicit sexual contact.”

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WISCONSIN
Duluth News Tribune

[Oswald Krusing]

[timeline]

Thousands of documents released by the Archdiocese of Milwaukee on Monday include a long-ago report of an accused priest granted a temporary assignment in Washburn only to reoffend in his new location, a lawyer reviewing the files told the News Tribune and Superior Telegram.

By: Staff report, Duluth News Tribune and Associated Press

Thousands of documents released by the Archdiocese of Milwaukee on Monday include a long-ago report of an accused priest granted a temporary assignment in Washburn only to reoffend in his new location, a lawyer reviewing the files told the News Tribune and Superior Telegram.

“If he is willing to come to Superior to work for a time until he has readjusted himself to the life of a diocesan priest, I shall be happy to receive him,” Bishop William O’Connor of the Diocese of Superior wrote to Milwaukee Archbishop Moses Kiley about the Rev. Oswald Krusing in November 1942.

Mike Finnegan, a lawyer with Jeff Anderson and Associates in Minneapolis, said the letters between O’Connor and Kiley suggest the obfuscation used by bishops when writing about abuse.

“In English, it’s saying that they need to keep him away from the Archdiocese of Milwaukee for some time period,” he said. “We know (there was) one person that contacted the archdiocese in 1996 who reported being abused by Krusing in Superior in the 1940s. They moved him up there on another group of unsuspecting parishioners and kids, where he abused a child after he was up there for a very short amount of time.”

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CALIFORNIA
Sacramento Bee

By Andy Furillo
afurillo@sacbee.com
Published: Tuesday, Jul. 2, 2013

Speaking publicly for the first time since his arrest in 2011 on suspicion of child molestation, the Rev. Uriel Ojeda testified Monday that he thought it would all be kept confidential when he spoke to church officials and a private investigator about the misconduct accusations that had been lodged against him.

Ojeda testified in a Sacramento Superior Court hearing to determine if prosecutors can use in trial the statements he allegedly made to the secretary for Bishop Jaime Soto and a private investigator for the law firm that represents the Catholic Diocese of Sacramento.

“It never crossed my mind,” Ojeda, 33, testified when asked if his comments to the Rev. Tim Nondorf, formerly on Soto’s administrative staff, and Joseph Sheehan, the investigator for the law firm of Sweeney & Greene, might be turned over to police.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Catholic Herald (UK)

By MARYANGELA LAYMAN ROMAN on Tuesday, 2 July 2013

An American archbishop has said that he decided to release almost 7,000 pages of documents related to clerical abuse in the hope of bringing healing to the victims and their families.

Archbishop Jerome Listecki of Milwaukee made the comments in an email entitled “Love One Another”, a communiqué to priests and others involved in ministry in his archdiocese. He sent the message six days before the archdiocese posted the documents on its website, Archmil.org, yesterday.

“My hope in voluntarily making these documents public is that they will aid abuse survivors, families and others in understanding the past, reviewing the present and allowing the church in southeastern Wisconsin to continue moving forward”, he wrote.

Among the documents released are depositions of retired Archbishop Rembert Weakland of Milwaukee, Milwaukee Auxiliary Bishop Richard Sklba and Cardinal Timothy Dolan taken in Chapter 11 proceedings. Cardinal Dolan, now New York’s archbishop, headed the Milwaukee archdiocese from 2002 to 2009.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
NBC News

By Brendan O’Brien and Geoffrey Davidian, Reuters

Roman Catholic Church officials in Milwaukee vigorously shielded pedophile priests and protected church funds from lawsuits during a decades-long sex abuse scandal, according to hundreds of newly released documents.

The documents include letters and deposition testimony from Cardinal and Archbishop of New York Timothy Dolan who, during his time as archbishop of Milwaukee from 2002 to 2009, appealed to Vatican on numerous occasions to help address the ongoing fallout from the scandal.

The 6,000 pages of documents related to eight decades of abuse cases showed in great detail the Milwaukee archdiocese regularly reassigned priests who were accused of sexual molestation to new parishes and Dolan himself asking the Vatican permission to transfer $57 million to a trust fund to protect it against court action.

In 2011, the Milwaukee archdiocese filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, citing the financial drain of settling sexual-abuse claims and acknowledging missteps by the church in dealing with pedophile priests.

The judge overseeing the archdiocese’s bankruptcy ordered the documents to be released.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
KPLR

[with video]

(KTVI) – Thousand of documents have been released by the Milwaukee Archdiocese detailing their response to decades of allegations of priest sex abuse.

St. Louis native, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, was Archbishop their from 2002 to 2009. But some church critics are now calling Dolan a criminal. They say he conspired with the Vatican to transfer $57 million from Archdiocese coffers to a new and also pay priest accused of sexual misconduct to leave the church.

Read documents released by the Milwaukee Archdiocese

Cardinal Dolan responded to some of these accusations in a statement released by the Archdiocese of New York saying:

“The accusations that priest were paid off and the he established the fund to shield church assets from lawsuits are ‘discredited attacks.’”

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AUSTRALIA
The West Australian

AAP

Pornographic homosexual magazines and videos were found in the presbytery of a Hunter Valley Catholic priest later convicted of sexually assaulting a boy, a police whistleblower has told a special NSW commission of inquiry.

Detective chief inspector Peter Fox says a member of the Branxton Lochinvar parish told him he came across the material when he helped Fr James Fletcher move items from Branxton to Lochinvar in early 2003.

In the course of investigating child sexual abuse allegations against Fr Fletcher, Det Insp Fox asked him later that year about the magazines and videos.

“He said they belonged to a priest who had previously lived in the presbytery,” Det Insp Fox told the commission on Tuesday.

“Pornography is not illegal but it’s highly unusual that a member of the clergy have this type of material.”

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
SNAP Wisconsin

Dolan’s defense of fraudulent transfer in Milwaukee Bankruptcy is “Malarkey”

Statement by Peter Isely, SNAP Midwest Director (Milwaukee)
CONTACT: 414.429.7259

A letter that surfaced today in the Milwaukee Federal Bankruptcy Court proves that Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York transferred millions of dollars into a bogus Trust to prevent assets of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee from being accessed by survivors of clergy sexual abuse.

In a written response Dolan claims that he was forced to set up the Trust by Wisconsin state law. In a favorite word of Cardinal Dolan: “Malarkey”.

No such ridiculous requirement is found in Wisconsin law.

As today’s letter shows, the decision to establish the bogus trust was the decision of Cardinal Dolan. Under Federal Bankruptcy law it’s called “Fraudulent Conveyance” or “Transfer” and is illegal and punishable by fines, prison time, or both.

In fact, as the New York Times reported today, Dolan used his favorite word when first confronted with his fraud trust scheme in February of 2011. At the time he told the press that charges that he hid money was “terribly irresponsible, malarkey, and ridiculous and groundless gossip.”

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
SNAP Wisconsin

Bishop Sklba’s never ending excuses

21 years ago, article shows, treatment experts already discredited archdiocese claims about priest sex offender treatment

Statement by John Pilmaier, SNAP Wisconsin Director
CONTACT: 414.336.8575

With today’s devastating document release of thousands of pages of abuse related files, the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, and especially Bishop Richard Sklba—who was called by former Archbishop Weakland his “go to guy” on all sexual abuse cases—is making the preposterous claim that his actions of leaving and putting pedophile clergy in parishes and schools was done “in the context of the time.” Sklba specifically enjoys offloading his criminal responsibility for being Weakland’s second man to treatment “experts” who “advised” him at the time.

But in an open letter to Weakland in 1992 from the Division IV of the Wisconsin Psychological Association, the committee of state experts that work with sex offenders (read the full 1992 story below) clearly shows this is utterly false.

“Since the early 1970s, there has been a general recognition among psychologists that pedophilia is a treatable mental illness, but that offenders should not be placed in environments where they could continue to abuse children,” the head of the APA group wrote at the time. What Weakland and Sklba were doing was “like giving an alcoholic a job in a bar.”

Exactly.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By JASON GORDON July 2, 2013

SERIOUS doubts have been cast over allegations that former Maitland-Newcastle bishop Michael Malone allegedly tipped off a priest that he was being investigated over claims of child sex abuse and told him who the complainant was.

Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox made the claim before the Special Commission of Inquiry in Newcastle on Tuesday morning, but his recollection of the event has been heavily questioned.

Under examination by counsel assisting the inquiry, Julia Lonergan SC, Fox was asked about a complaint he received in 2002 from a victim, known only as AH.

Fox told the inquiry that AH was “very distraught” when she called him. She allegedly told Fox that Bishop Malone had spoken to Father James Fletcher, disclosed AH’s real name to him and told him that she had made a complaint to police about his sexual abuse of her.

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AUSTRALIA
Maitland Mercury

By ELLE WATSON July 2, 2013

Whistleblower Peter Fox considered charging a senior member of the Catholic clergy who forewarned paedophile priest James Fletcher police were investigating a sexual abuse complaint against him, a Special Commission of Inquiry heard this morning.

The inquiry, that is examining whether the Maitland-Newcastle diocese helped or hindered police investigations, heard Bishop Michael Malone met with Fletcher in 2002 and told him a woman had made a complaint against him.

Detective Chief Inspector Fox said the former Bishop gave the priest the victim’s name.

“I was far from satisfied with what he [Bishop Michael Malone] had told me, I was still contemplating whether he had overstepped the mark and committed an offence,” Inspector Fox told the inquiry.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Dan Cox

An inquiry into child sexual abuse in the New South Wales Hunter Valley’s Catholic Church has heard “potential evidence was destroyed” when a paedophile priest was warned about abuse allegations against him.

The second stage of the inquiry is investigating claims by senior New South Wales policeman Peter Fox that the church covered-up allegations of of abuse by two priests, James Fletcher and Dennis McAlinden.

In giving evidence today, Detective Chief Inspector Fox told the court that in 2005 the then Maitland-Newcastle Bishop Michael Malone told Fletcher that someone had been to police complaining they had been sexually abused by him.

Peter Fox said the victim’s mother was most distraught that Fletcher had been told the name of the complainant.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

DAN BOX From: The Australian July 02, 2013

THE detective at the centre of a state government inquiry into church child abuse has given conflicting evidence under oath about claims that a former Catholic bishop told a pedophile priest he was under police investigation.

Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox told the NSW Special Commission of Inquiry this morning the Newcastle Bishop Michael Malone tipped off the priest, Jim Fletcher, and potential evidence was destroyed as a result.

“It seemed a fully deliberate action by going out and telling Father Fletcher there was an investigation and who the victim was … I did not see why he felt the need to expose those things to Fletcher at the time,” he said.

Detective Fox initially claimed to have recorded his conversation with Bishop Malone in writing within days of the 2002 meeting, a claim which was repeated in his police statement used during Fletcher’s trial.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Fox 6

[with video]

[Bishop Sklba deposition]

[deposition exhibits]

July 1, 2013, by Jeremy Ross

MILWAUKEE (WITI) — Years ago, FOX6 News showed you the video deposition of Archbishop Rembert Weakland as it relates to clergy sex abuse cases within the Milwaukee Archdiocese. Now, we’re learning more about Weakland’s right-hand man.

The deposition of Bishop Richard Sklba was released on Monday, July 1st. Now retired, Sklba is a Vicar — or higher-ranking clergy member — at times, representing other priests.

Bishop Sklba was a priest for nearly 52 years. He knew much about the laws of church leadership. But when asked about some of the training outside of Scripture, he was at times, less knowledgeable.

In 2011 court documents, Sklba was asked if there was training to detect sexual abuse. His answers were not forthcoming. When asked if there was training for priests to manage their sexual lives so they would not engage in sexual abuse, Sklba found the tone offensive.

Eventually, Sklba admitted it was practice to report abuse to civil authorities only if the victim who reported it was under the age of 18. Further, he said if an adult came to him with a concern, he would suggest they go to civil authorities, adding it was not within his range of experience to do otherwise.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By Annysa Johnson of the Journal Sentinel

Four years before the Archdiocese of Milwaukee filed for bankruptcy, then-Archbishop Timothy Dolan — now cardinal of New York — sought Vatican approval to move nearly $57 million in cemetery funds off the archdiocese’s books and into a special trust to help protect them “from any legal claim or liability.”

During his tenure in Milwaukee, Dolan also pleaded repeatedly with the Vatican to “laicize,” or defrock, sexually abusive priests, a process that often took years.

One case dragged on for five years, even though the priest was convicted and had sought his own dismissal. At one point a Vatican official told Dolan he could not turn the case over to Pope Benedict XVI without “an admission of guilt and a sincere expression of remorse.”

How Dolan — now considered one of the world’s most influential Catholic prelates — and his predecessors responded to the sexual abuse crisis in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee is laid out in thousands of pages of documents made public today as part of the archdiocese’s bankruptcy.

Included in the documents were letters showing that the archdiocese paid abusive priests — usually $20,000 — to accept laicization. Critics have characterized this as a payoff or bonus to abusers. However, the church has described it as a charity payment intended to ease the priest’s transition into secular life.

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NEW YORK
NY1

By: Jon Weinstein

Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York says he worked to end a clergy sex abuse scandal and removed abusive priests when he was the leader of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, but critics say thousands of pages of material released by the archdiocese on Monday prove the exact opposite. NY1’s Jon Weinstein filed the following report.

Thousands of pages of depositions, documents and letters have been released, revealing how Cardinal Timothy Dolan handled the fallout from a sexual abuse scandal when he was the top Catholic Church official in Milwaukee.

Before dozens of claims of abuse by priests led the Archdiocese to file for bankruptcy, then-Archbishop Dolan sought permission from the Vatican to move $57 million meant for cemetery care into a newly created trust separate from the archdiocese’s general funds.

In a 2007 letter seeking permission from the Vatican, which he ultimately got, Dolan writes, “By transferring these assets to the Trust, I foresee an improved protection of these funds from any legal claim and liability.”

“We see very clearly in the letter that the primary concern was with the legal claims that they were facing, and growing number of legal claims by victims of sexual abuse,” said Pam Spees of the Center for Constitutional Rights.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
KOTA

[the documents – Jeff Anderson & Associates]

[the documents – Milwaukee archdiocese]

By The Associated Press

MILWAUKEE (AP) – The Archdiocese of Milwaukee has released thousands of pages of documents related to clergy sex abuse as part of a deal reached in federal bankruptcy court between the archdiocese and abuse victims suing it for fraud. Here is a look at what is in the documents:

WHAT’S IN THE DOCUMENTS?

The approximately 6,000 pages of documents released by the Milwaukee archdiocese include personnel files for 42 priests with substantiated allegations of sexual abuse against them, along with depositions of church leaders including New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the former archbishop of Milwaukee, and other records. The documents show that archdiocese officials struggled to deal with problem priests, sending them to treatment and then reassigning them to new parishes where no one would know their histories, before eventually concluding the best route was to remove them from the priesthood.

WHY DID THE ARCHDIOCESE OF MILWAUKEE DECIDE TO RELEASE THEM?

The archdiocese released the files as part of a deal with victims suing it in federal bankruptcy court for fraud. Jerry Topczewski, chief of staff for Archbishop Jerome Listecki, said the archdiocese had been reluctant to release the files because of privacy concerns for the victims, those reporting crimes, officials handling the cases and others. But he said the archdiocese eventually realized that unless it made the records public, some victims would not agree to a bankruptcy settlement.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
International Business Times

By Treye Green
on July 01 2013

Cardinal Timothy F. Dolan is challenging claims that during his time as archbishop of Milwaukee he moved close to $57 million in church funds to protect the archdioscese from clergy sexual abuse victims who were asking to be compensated.

In a statement released Monday, Dolan — who is now the cardinal archbishop of New York, the preeminent post in the U.S. church — has denied attempting to keep the funds from sexual abuse victims. This follows the release of files by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Milwaukee which show that he asked the Vatican for permission to move the more than $57 million into a cemetery trust fund reports, the New York Times.

The communications office of the Archdiocese of New York stated Monday:

“Unfortunately, we have already seen how the release of these documents will cause some to raise old and discredited attacks — like priest-abusers having been ‘paid’ to apply for laicization, (like it or not, bishops do have a canon law obligation to provide basic support like health care and room and board for their priests until they have finally moved on) or that establishing a perpetual care fund from money belonging to cemeteries and designated for that purpose — as required by state law and mandated by the archdiocesan finance council — was an attempt to shield it from the bankruptcy proceedings. While certain groups can be counted upon to take certain statements and events out of context, the documents released show plainly that the bishops have been faithful to the promises made over a decade ago: permanent removal from ministry of any priest who abused a minor; complete cooperation with law enforcement officials; and strict, child-safety requirements.”

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By Karen Herzog of the Journal Sentinel July 1, 2013

It took nearly 40 years from the first time Milwaukee priest Daniel Budzynski sexually abused a child until he was finally, firmly told by former Archbishop Timothy Dolan not to wear his collar in public, or present himself as a priest.

Budzynski, who told authorities that he was sexually abused as a child, was linked in 1994 to the sexual abuse of some 50 individuals at 11 different parishes between 1965 and 1994 — many of which he admitted to and described in detail.

When the first allegation from a victim surfaced in August 1973, then-Archbishop William Cousins told Budzynski to take a leave of absence because remaining in the parish could induce publicity that should be avoided.

In 1982, officials sent Budzynski to a residential treatment facility for alcohol abuse and psycho-sexual problems. But once he completed the program, he continued to offend.

His case is detailed in correspondence and internal files released Monday as part of Archdiocesan bankruptcy proceedings. The Budzynski case illustrates the church’s practice of transferring documented predators from parish to parish over decades while the abuse continued and officials worried about the financial liability if victims came forward.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Fox 6

[with video]

July 1, 2013, by Bryan Polcyn

MILWAUKEE – Father Daniel Budzynski is accused of molesting more than 40 young boys over 31 years, while the Milwaukee Archdiocese shuffled him around to a dozen local parishes. For all those years, the church never told parishioners or the public what it knew.

Timeline of events
Supporting documents
Deposition

Budzynski eventually told some of his victims that he’s sorry. And according a handwritten letter he sent to one victim, he’s asked God to forgive him, too. But when the Fox 6 Investigators called on Monday, Budzynski was in no mood to discuss it.

Bryan Polcyn/FOX 6 Investigators: “Can you explain why you continued to move from parish to parish after all of those years of sexual abuse?”

Daniel Budzynksi/Former Priest: “I tell you I have nothing to say about it.”

According to documents released by the Archdiocese, Budzynski’s molestation began at St. Helen’s parish in 1956. It continued at St. Hedwig’s in 1962. In 1966, Budzynski petitioned the church to become a guidance counselor at St. Paul’s parish, because he was “especially interested in helping boys.”

He later admitted to molesting 17 of them, including an alter boy who says Budzynski “made sure to bless us after every mass,” a reference to regular sexual assaults.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)/ ST. PAUL (MN)
Star Tribune

[the documents – Jeff Anderson & Associates]

[the documents – Milwaukee archdiocese]

Article by: ROSE FRENCH , Star Tribune Updated: July 1, 2013

The Archdiocese of Milwaukee released 6,000 pages of documents related to clergy sex abuse on Monday, including the personnel files of more than three dozen priests and the depositions of church leaders such as New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan, former Milwaukee archbishop.

The documents were made public as part of a deal reached in federal bankruptcy court between the archdiocese and the hundreds of victims suing it for fraud — a majority of whom are represented by prominent St. Paul attorney Jeff Anderson.

During a news conference held at Anderson’s law offices Monday, he stood in front of the reams of church documents and accused bishops and Vatican leaders of refusing to respond quickly enough in addressing reported abuse. Victims accuse the archdiocese of transferring problem priests to new churches without warning parishioners and covering up priests’ crimes for decades.

“We see a sense of cowardice among the clerics at the top that contrasts with the courage of the [abuse] survivors who … disclosed the secret … and demanded exposure and closure,” Anderson said. “These survivors chose to stand up against them.”

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
WTMJ

[with video]

By Steve Chamraz

MILWAUKEE — Details buried in thousands of pages of once-secret church files do not come as a surprise to John Pilmaier.

Rather, they reinforce the things Pilmaier came to believe about the Archdiocese of Milwaukee after he come forward as a victim of sexual abuse.

“For a faith institution to lie to the people they’ve hurt the most is really atrocious,” Pilmaier said in an interview Monday evening. “The documents are, really, as close to the truth as we are ever gonna get.”

Pilmaier was one of nearly 20 boys abused by Father David Hanser. As the documents in Hanser’s file show, it was abuse documented by the Archdiocese over decades.

The file also documents how church leaders continued to let Hanser move from position to position — even after abuse came to light.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
NBC 26

[with video]

By Alex Hagan

Dozens of priests, hundreds of victims. New documents just released by the Milwaukee Archdiocese name more than forty priests accused of molesting minors. It’s all part of a deal between the church and sex abuse victims suing for fraud.

The names of all 45 offending priests including 15 spending time in Fond Du Lac and Sheboygan, now available to anyone on the Diocese’s website.

People in Green Bay say it’s a step forward for the Catholic Church.

“I think the church has been hiding a lot of things and i wish they hadn’t,” says Charlie Hagen of Green Bay.

“Alleviate the mysteriousness that people think surrounds the Catholic church,” says Jaena Manson of Green Bay.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
CBS 58

by Michele McCormack
Story Created: Jul 1, 2013

MILWAUKEE-Online documents show that back in 2007 Dolan asked for and received permission from the Vatican to move 57 million dollars into a trust fund.

The chief of staff for current Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki said the money mentioned was always set aside in a separate fund for cemetery care and moving it to a trust just formalized the that.

Dolan, who is president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the nation’s most prominent Roman Catholic official, has not been accused of transferring problem priests, after taking over control of the Milwaukee church in 2002 at that point many victims had already gone public.

Back in 2003 roughly a year after becoming leader of the Milwaukee church Dolan warned then Cardinal Ratzinger back who would later become pope..

“as victims organize and become more public, the potential for true scandal is very real.”

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
WBAY

[with video]

[the documents – Jeff Anderson & Associates]

[the documents – Milwaukee archdiocese]

By Tony Ullrich

Milwaukee –
The Catholic Archdiocese of Milwaukee released thousands of pages of documents Monday, publicly revealing how it handled sexual abuse allegations.

It released the documents — 40,000 pages spanning several decades — as part of a deal between the archdiocese and sex abuse victims who are suing it for fraud.

The archdiocese admits the items in the documents reveal “terrible things that happened to children” and it was ill-equipped to respond to the offenders and victims and their families.

The documents include depositions of church leaders and priests’ personnel files.

A Minnesota attorney representing some of the 575 sexual abuse survivors held a news conference Monday calling the revelations “shocking and sickening.”

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Wall Street Journal

By Ben Kesling, Jennifer Maloney

Cardinal Timothy Dolan, when head of the Milwaukee Archdiocese, urged the Vatican to defrock priests who sexually abused children, while also placing some $57 million of church funds in a trust that protected them from being tapped by victims through lawsuits, documents released Monday show.

The documents were part of a trove of thousands of pages released under the archdiocese’s 2011 bankruptcy case, including case files on dozens of alleged pedophile priests and depositions of senior church leaders.

In 2008, Vatican authorities recommended the imposition of a 10-year precept, or suspension, on Thomas Trepanier, a self-admitted offender. Then-Archbishop Dolan asked the Vatican to instead defrock the priest.

“If word got out that the Holy See had left the door open for a reconsideration of Father Trepanier’s case in 10 years our credibility would be seriously damaged,” he wrote in a letter to Rome. The Vatican ended up restricting the priest from ministry indefinitely.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
CTV (Canada)

The Associated Press
Published Monday, July 1, 2013

MILWAUKEE — The cardinal of the Archdiocese of New York, in his former job, warned the future Pope Benedict XVI that “the potential for true scandal is very real” over sex abuse claims, according to documents released Monday.

Former Milwaukee Archbishop Timothy Dolan — now president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the nation’s most prominent Roman Catholic official — sought to push problem priests out of the priesthood after people began coming forward with abuse claims in the early 2000s.

Dolan wrote to then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future pope, in July 2003 asking to dismiss Daniel Budzynski. Abuse allegations against Budzynski stretched back to the 1970s, and Dolan told Ratzinger that “as victims organize and become more public, the potential for true scandal is very real.”

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Chicago Tribune

Brendan O’Brien and Geoffrey Davidian
Reuters
10:28 p.m. CDT, July 1, 2013

MILWAUKEE (Reuters) – Roman Catholic Church officials in Milwaukee vigorously shielded pedophile priests and protected church funds from lawsuits during a decades-long sex abuse scandal, according to hundreds of documents released on Monday.

The documents include letters and deposition testimony from Cardinal and Archbishop of New York Timothy Dolan who, during his time as archbishop of Milwaukee from 2002 to 2009, appealed to Vatican on numerous occasions to help address the ongoing fallout from the scandal.

The 6,000 pages of documents related to eight decades of abuse cases showed in great detail the Milwaukee archdiocese regularly reassigned priests who were accused of sexual molestation to new parishes and Dolan himself asking the Vatican permission to transfer $57 million to a trust fund to protect it against court action.

In 2011, the Milwaukee archdiocese filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, citing the financial drain of settling sexual-abuse claims and acknowledging missteps by the church in dealing with pedophile priests.

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OSTERREICH
der Standard

MARKUS ROHRHOFER, 1. Juli 2013

Am Landesgericht Steyr ist der Strafprozess gegen den ehemaligen Konviktsdirektor des Benediktinerstiftes Kremsmünster gestartet. Die Staatsanwaltschaft erhebt schwere Vorwürfe, Pater A. schweigt – noch

Linz – “Ich sag’ jetzt gar nix dazu” – unmittelbar vor der Verhandlung ist Pater A. gewohnt schweigsam. Behäbig schlurft der 79-jährige Ex-Ordensmann dann – gestützt auf einen Gehstock – in den großen Schwurgerichtssaal des Landesgerichtes Steyr und nimmt vor Richter Wolf-Dieter Graf auf der Anklagebank Platz. Es ist der Auftakt zu einem mit Spannung erwarteten Prozess. Erstmals muss sich seit gestern, Montag, ein hochrangiger Geistlicher im Zusammenhang mit den Missbrauchsfällen in kirchlichen Einrichtungen vor einem weltlichen Strafgericht verantworten.

Vogelfreie Zöglinge

Ruhig und gefasst verfolgt Pater A. die Ausführungen von Staatsanwältin Dagmar Geroldinger. Die Anklage wirft dem mittlerweile laisierten, ehemaligen Konviktsdirektors des Stiftes Kremsmünster Angriffe gegen die körperliche und sexuelle Integrität von 24 seiner ehemaligen Schüler vor. Neben sexuellen Übergriffen soll es Schläge, teils mit einer Ochsenpeitsche, Tritte, “Stereowatschen”, das Ausreißen von Haaren oder das “Vogelfrei-Erklären” gegeben haben. Bei Letzterem seien die Mitschüler dazu ermuntert worden, den Betreffenden zu drangsalieren, ohne Konsequenzen befürchten zu müssen.

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VATICAN CITY
The Guardian (UK)

John Hooper in Rome
The Guardian, Monday 1 July 2013

Sweeping changes at the top of the Vatican’s scandal-ridden bank were announced on Monday night following the arrest of a senior church official in the latest of a string of scandals to have hit the institution.

The bank’s recently appointed president, Ernst von Freyberg, said its two top officials – the director and deputy director – had both resigned. He thanked them for their “personal dedication” but added: “It is clear today that we need new leadership.”

The departures came three days after the arrest of an official in another Vatican financial department, Monsignor Nunzio Scarano. The Italian authorities said he was a suspect in two inquiries involving alleged corruption and money laundering respectively.

Transactions made through Scarano’s accounts at the Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR) – popularly known as the Vatican bank – are central to both investigations. The IOR, which does not lend money and is thus not technically a bank, was set up in 1942 to handle the deposits mainly of church organisations and individual clerics. But accounts are known to have been opened for outsiders and the IOR has repeatedly been at the heart of financial scandals, often involving alleged money-laundering.

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CALIFORNIA
The Record Searchlight

SACRAMENTO — With jury selection expected to begin mid-month, a suspended Redding priest charged with seven felony counts of child molestation was back today in Sacramento County Superior Court for a pre-trial defense motion to try to block statements he allegedly made to a Sacramento diocese official and a private investigator.

The Rev. Uriel Ojeda, 33, who was arrested Nov. 30, 2011, is accused of lewd and lascivious acts with a teenage girl over a two-year span — starting when she was 14 — in Sacramento and Shasta counties, according to the criminal complaint.

Ojeda, who is free of jail custody on $70,000 bail, was the assistant pastor at Our Lady of Mercy Church in Redding at the time of his arrest.

The Sacramento Bee reported today that Ojeda took the witness stand and said he thought he believed his statements to church officials were confidential.

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NEW YORK
WPIX

[with video]

by Mary Murphy
Reporter

NEW YORK (PIX11) – Timothy Cardinal Dolan lashed out at critics Monday who claimed he moved nearly $57 million dollars in church money into a trust, when he was Archbishop of Milwaukee, so it wouldn’t be vulnerable to lawsuits filed by Catholics who said they were abused by Milwaukee priests.

The Archdiocese of Milwaukee released more than six thousand documents Monday, part of a deal it reached in federal court with lawyers representing 570 people who have lawsuits pending against the Catholic Church there.

Dolan was appointed by the Vatican to clean up the Archdiocese in 2002, after the Church’s sexual abuse crisis among the clergy exploded in the United States, and then, around the world.

SEE THE MILWAUKEE PRIEST SEX ABUSE FILES

One of the documents released Monday was a letter written by then-Archbishop Dolan to the Vatican in 2007, seeking permission to transfer money from a cemetery fund into a trust. In the letter, dated June 4, 2007, Dolan wrote, “By transferring these assets to the trust, I foresee an improved protection of these funds from any legal claim and liability.” The Vatican approved the transfer, during a time when hundreds of lawsuits were being filed against the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. The Archdiocese filed for bankruptcy protection in 2011, two years after Timothy Dolan left Milwaukee, appointed in 2009 as Archbishop of New York.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
WTMJ

[with video]

By Lacey Crisp with Jay Sorgi

MILWAUKEE – As Milwaukee’s Archdiocese releases 6,000-plus pages of documents about abuse by its priests, Catholics and a group which represents abuse victims are sounding off.

“This is a shocking and stunning document, how they have concealed and moved not only predator priests, but all the money,” said Peter Isely of SNAP, or Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests.

SNAP urges all Catholics to read all 6,000 pages.

“I think every Catholic in this Archdiocese should read this carefully because what it’s going to show is that they’ve been lied to,” said John Pilmaier, SNAP Wisconsin Director.

Jeffrey Anderson is an attorney who represents most of the 500-plus victims who have filed sex abuse claims against the church.

“In order for the future to be safe, it is there and our view the past has to be known. It has to be disclosed. It has to be exposed,” said Anderson.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
WCCO

MILWAUKEE, Wis. (WCCO) — Attorneys said 6,000 pages of secret church documents reveal in detail the Vatican’s role in child sex abuse cases.

St. Paul-based attorney Jeff Anderson said the letters show an elaborate abuse cover-up in Milwaukee from the 1950s through today.

Attorneys said the Catholic Church covered up the actions of priests, preventing parishioners from knowing their history.

On Monday, the Milwaukee Archdiocese released the personnel files of 42 priests with verified claims of abuse against them — and the depositions from top church officials.

This information has been made public through a deal between the Catholic Church and sex abuse victims.

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ST. PAUL (MN)
Fox 6

July 1, 2013, by Jenna Sachs

ST. PAUL, Minn. (WITI) — On a day when thousands of pages of documents were released, detailing the role of the Milwaukee Archdiocese in sex abuse cases involving clergy, the group largely responsible for the release of information responded: Minnesota lawyers representing hundreds of Milwaukee’s clergy sex abuse victims.

The Minnesota attorneys on Monday, July 1st applauded the courage of clergy sex abuse survivors, people they hope are feeling a sense of relief and hope after the release of these secret documents.

“They have each done something to contribute to the protection of kids in the future,” Jeff Anderson said.

Anderson is the St. Paul attorney who represents many of the victims of sex abuse by priests who served in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. Anderson says many of the victims called Monday their day of triumph.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By JASON GORDON July 2, 2013

A SENIOR police officer has told an inquiry that paedophile priest Denis McAlinden boasted of beating child sex abuse charges a decade before he was confronted with new ones.

Detective Inspector Mark Watters was the first witness called before the Special Commission of Inquiry’s second stage of hearings in Newcastle yesterday.

Inspector Watters told of his efforts to find the wanted priest and have him extradited back to the Hunter to face charges of sexually abusing children as young as four.

He told the inquiry that in 2005 he located McAlinden in Western Australia through information that had come to him via an employee of the Maitland-Newcastle Catholic diocese.

He was told by Western Australia police that McAlinden had advanced cancer and only had a short time to live.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By BILL WRIGHT July 2, 2013

Bill Wright is Bishop of the Maitland-Newcastle diocese of the Catholic Church. This is an edited transcript of his submission to the Special Commission of Inquiry.

AS Bishop of Maitland-Newcastle I wish to make an unreserved apology on behalf of the diocese to all those who have suffered as a result of acts or omissions by members of this diocese in relation to the matters before this Special Commission of Inquiry.

My apology must begin with an acknowledgment of the wrongs done.

I acknowledge that two men, Denis McAlinden and James Fletcher, now deceased but once priests of the diocese, repeatedly committed acts of sexual abuse of children.

I acknowledge that the children sometimes suffered further hurt when they were not believed because the offender was a priest.

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