ABUSE TRACKER

DEUTSCHLAND
kath-kommentar

Die sog. Sexuelle Revolution hat den Sex mit Minderjährigen befördert, auch in der katholischen Kirche. Als Daniel Cohn Bendit für den Theodor-Heuss-Preis ausersehen wurde, kam bisher verborgenes Urgestein der grünen Bewegung an die Oberfläche: Der Deckel bleibt zu. Die Akten im Archiv der Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung der Grünen bleiben bis 2022 unter Verschluss. Nicht so deutlich wie die Grünen insgesamt hat sich Cohn Bendit von der Idee losgesagt, dass frühe sexuelle Erfahrungen für Minderjährige und auch Kinder förderlich seien. Eine „einvernehmliche sexuelle Beziehung zwischen Erwachsenen und jungen Menschen“ sollte straffrei bleiben und damit die einschlägigen Paragrafen 174 und 176 des Strafrechts geändert werden.

Die sexuelle Revolution war offensichtlich ein Kanal für solche Gruppierungen gewesen, über die Grüne Partei den Kindesmissbrauch hoffähig zu machen. Zumindest konnte es diese Forderung bis ins Wahlprogramm der Grünen in NRW schaffen. Es waren also nicht einzelne, sondern eine größere Gruppe von Delegierten, die Erwachsenen den ungehinderten Zugang zum sexuellen Verkehr mit Kindern eröffnen wollten. Auch die vom Direktor der Odenwaldschule eingeleitete Sexualisierung fällt in diese Zeit. Da die Bildungsreformen wesentlich im Geist der Odenwaldschule geprägt waren, muss heute konstatiert werden, dass das, was heute als Missbrauch von Kindern angeprangert wird, eine einflussreiche Strömung in der Bundesrepublik war.

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SCOTLAND
The Independent

KEVIN RAWLINSON FRIDAY 03 MAY 2013

The disgraced former leader of the Catholic church in Britain, Cardinal Keith O’Brien, has broken his silence to speak of the “difficult time” he has faced since his “humbling” admission of inappropriate behaviour with four priests and a seminarian.

Cardinal O’Brien, who has now returned to his homeland of Scotland after some time away from the media spotlight in Ireland, said he has received plenty of support and “forgiveness” from within the community after it emerged that he had been in a longstanding relationship with a man despite being an outspoken critic of homosexuality.

Not everyone has been able to forgive him, however, with one of his alleged victims saying he needs to do more to deal with his concerns before indulging in his “nice little retirement plan”.

The man who still technically remains Britain’s most senior Catholic was forced to retire by Pope Benedict XVI earlier this year after admitting he was guilty of sexual misconduct.

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NEW JERSEY
Public Catholic

May 3, 2013 By Rebecca Hamilton

Frank Weathers, who blogs at Why I am Catholic, has the story.

Father Fugee, the convicted child molester, has resigned. Archbishop Myers, who put him back with kids after his conviction, has accepted his resignation.

Tra-la-la-la.

Rather than go through another trial, prosecutors required Father Fugee to undergo counseling – which I assume they thought would make him all better – then they required him to sign a document promising he wouldn’t be around children anymore.

You may remember Father Fugee. He’s the New Jersey priest who pled guilty to child sexual abuse and whose conviction was subsequently vacated on a technicality by an appellate court.
Archbishop Myers is the New Jersey archbishop who also signed the document promising that Father Fugee wouldn’t be around children. It sounds like the prosecutors tossed this child molestor back into the same place where he had committed his original crimes on the basis that he had promised them he wouldn’t do it again.

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NEW JERSEY
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

POSTED BY BARBARA DORRIS ON MAY 03, 2013

Suddenly, Archbishop Myers’ PR man does an abrupt 180, twice. He now claims Fr. Fugee was around kids without Myers’ permission. And he now admits an agreement with prosecutors has been broken.

It’s both odd and disconcerting that these radically different claims surface a week into this controversy. That alone makes us highly skeptical. Frankly, we don’t believe Fr. Fugee somehow “went rogue” and began acting like a “free agent,” ignoring his archbishop and going on trips with kids and hearing their confessions without permission.

Today’s Star Ledger reports that “Since the disclosure, (Myers’ PR man) Goodness has argued that Fugee did not violate the agreement (with prosecutors).” But last night, he said Fr. Fugee engaged in activities” that “are in conflict with (that agreement).”

More troubling is that Myers’ PR man now claims Fr. Fugee “did not seek permission from the archdiocese before participating in youth activities.” Again, we just don’t believe this. If this were the case, why didn’t Myers claim this right away. Why isn’t he firing church employees who helped Fr. Fugee gain access to more kids?

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AUSTRALIA
ABC – PM

A Roman Catholic order has admitted it hired a private investigator to tail a victim of the notorious paedophile, Brother Robert Best. The Christian Brothers order has detailed to Victoria’s parliamentary inquiry into child abuse just how far it went to support its members who stood accused of child sex assaults. It spent nearly $1 million defending Best, one of Australia’s most prolific paedophiles, and hundreds of thousands more defending other brothers charged with abuse.

Transcript

TIM PALMER: A Roman Catholic order has admitted it hired a private investigator to tail a victim of the notorious paedophile, Brother Robert Best.

The Christian Brothers order has detailed to Victoria’s parliamentary inquiry into child abuse just how far it went to support its members who stood accused of child sex assaults. It spent nearly a million dollars defending Best, one of Australia’s most prolific paedophiles and it spent hundreds of thousands more defending other brothers similarly charged with abuse.

At times the evidence prompted incredulous laughter and derision from the public gallery and there were also tears, as Madeleine Morris reports.

JULIAN MCDONALD: On behalf of all Christian Brothers in this country I want to acknowledge that children entrusted to our care have indeed been abused in some cases even brutalised by some of our number.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

[with video]

The Christian Brothers have told Victoria’s child abuse inquiry the extraordinary level of child sexual abuse in Ballarat in the early 1970s was an accident of history but the Catholic order apologised unreservedly for what it described as ‘the crimes of a few’.

Transcript

EMMA ALBERICI, PRESENTER: The Christian Brothers have told Victoria’s child abuse inquiry that the extraordinary level of sexual abuse, child sexual abuse perpetuated by members of their order in Ballarat in the 1970s was an quote and “accident of history”. After admitting they once hired a private investigator to spy on a victim of abuse, the Catholic order apologised unreservedly for what it described the crimes of a few.

Hamish Fitzsimmons reports.

HAMISH FITZSIMMONS, REPORTER: It was a statement many in the gallery needed to hear.

JULIAN MCDONALD, PROVINCE LEADER, CHRISTIAN BROTHERS: It is true that there was some mistakes made and they’ve had devastating consequences on victims. I cannot defend the and I will not try to defend the indefensible.

HAMISH FITZSIMMONS: The leaders of the Christian Brothers in the region faced pointed questioning from the members of the parliamentary inquiry about how the rape children by a number of clergy in Ballarat in the 1970s when unchecked.

GEORGIE CROZIER MP, CHAIRWOMAN, VIC PARLIAMENT INQUIRY: Could you explain to the committee why this extraordinary state of affairs was allowed to occur?

JULIAN MCDONALD: I have no adequate explanation for that madam chair. It is certainly an accident of history. It was a terrible, terrible situation. The lives of young people were devastated by those who offended at St Alipius’s school in Ballarat. That’s of great shame to us and a terrible, terrible thing to happen to the victims.

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AUSTRALIA
Brisbane Times

Barney Zwartz
Religion editor, The Age.

The Christian Brothers Catholic order spent more than $1 million defending serial paedophile Robert Best, the order has told a Victorian inquiry into how churches handled child sexual abuse.

The order also paid $10,000 to a private investigator to spy on a victim of abuser Ted Dowlan. It paid for legal advice to protect Dowlan’s assets in civil lawsuits and gave him $125,000 when he left the order.

Any institution is as sick as its secrets, and there was a culture that kept things secret.

But brothers appearing on behalf of the order denied there were cultural problems within it.

The order apologised for the ”repulsive” and ”inexcusable” betrayal by the abusers and said most of the offenders had themselves been abused earlier.

”I cannot defend and will not try to defend the indefensible,” said Brother Julian McDonald, deputy leader of the order in Australia and the region.

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NEW JERSEY
Waiting for Godot to Leave

Friday, May 3, 2013

One of the ways I don’t-make-money is as a freelance writer (eg., this blog). So I’ve taken it upon myself to write a speech for Bishop Myers on the scandal involving Father Fugee. Heck, I’d even give it to him for free. Here goes. Archbishop Myers stands at a podium and says …

Fellow Catholics and all others who have been following this story –

I am going to do what Jesus Christ wants me to do and what the saints and those aspiring to sanctity have always done. I am going to repent. And I am going to do so publicly, both as a way of bringing humility into my life, and also as a lesson to all of you. “Be imitators of me as I am of Christ,” as St. Paul said (1 Cor. 11:1). As a bishop, that is my primary role, in fact my only role: I am to imitate Christ for your sakes.

It is a job I have not been very good at. I’m afraid almost every single one of my brother bishops can say that; indeed almost every single one of you, my listeners, can say that. So since we’re all steeped in sin, and since we all have such a desperate need of a savior, let me begin.

Over ten years ago, one of the priests of this diocese got in legal trouble for doing something that caused a lot of damage. This priest had some psychological problems, as all abusers do. For one thing, he freely admitted that he had homosexual desires – and while it’s not politically correct in this day and age to call these desires what they are (perversions), and while the Church has always recognized that every sinner is perverse and corrupt in his heart (not just those who commit sodomy), it is nevertheless a disorder of love and affect to seek sexual fulfillment in any way other than through marriage and a family. My Church is the only institution that will continue to be bold enough to say that, even in the face of the coming and present persecution. So we begin with the fact that this priest has a problem, and it’s one that many people wrestle with.

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NEW JERSEY
CBS New York

NEWARK, N.J. (CBSNewYork/AP) – The New Jersey priest who attended youth retreats and heard confessions from youngsters in defiance of a lifetime ban has resigned.

The Rev. Michael Fugee submitted his request and it was promptly accepted by Newark Archbishop John Myers on Thursday evening.

Fugee remains a priest but no longer can say Mass, perform sacramental work or represent himself as an active member of the clergy, archdiocese spokesman Jim Goodness told The Star-Ledger of Newark.

The 52-year-old was convicted in 2003 of fondling a teenage boy, however, that verdict was vacated because of judicial error.

Fugee entered into an agreement with the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office to avoid retrial on the abuse conviction after the groping incident six years ago. The agreement required Fugee never again to have unsupervised contact with children under the age of 18.

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NEW JERSEY
National Catholic Reporter

Brian Roewe | May. 3, 2013

The Newark, N.J., priest accused of violating negotiated agreement to stay away from children has decided to leave his archdiocesan positions and active ministry.

Fr. Michael Fugee submitted his resignation to Archbishop John J. Myers Thursday afternoon, according to the Newark Star-Ledger. The newspaper reported he will relinquish authority to say Mass, perform sacraments and represent himself as a priest. It is unclear whether Myers will seek laicization of the priest through the Vatican.

The scandal around Fugee emerged over the weekend, when the Star-Ledger first reported that he had attended youth events, such as retreats and weekend trips, and heard confessions for minors, a seeming violation of the memorandum of understanding he signed in order to avoid a retrial on charges of aggravated criminal sexual assault.

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SCOTLAND
Scottish Catholic Observer

This week’s editorial

Speculation in the secular media this week about the timing of much-needed, and long awaited, Vatican appointments to the Scottish hierarchy falls into the ‘smoke’ and ‘fire’ category—if enough hot air is blown as smoke then there must be a fire somewhere, correct? Not quite.

The facts are these: Two Scottish dioceses (Dunkeld and Paisley) were without bishops prior to Cardinal Keith O’Brien’s resignation as Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh in February, and another two bishops reached the retirement age of 75 in the last 12 months. In the second half of the 20th century Scotland had one of the youngest Episcopal hierarchies in Europe, and, until the most recent appointments, we had one of the oldest and most experienced.

Five of Scotland’s eight dioceses are now without permanent Vatican-appointed leaders and we pray Pope Francis will make Scotland—‘special daughter of the see of Rome’ (Clement III, 1188)—an urgent priority. However, getting the appointments ‘right’ must be the overriding factor.

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NEDERLAND
Katholiek Nieuwsblad

Bij het Meldpunt Seksueel Misbruik RKK zijn in de eerste drie maanden van dit jaar beduidend meer meldingen binnengekomen dan de voorgaande twee jaren.

Dat blijkt uit cijfers die het Meldpunt vrijdag heeft gepubliceerd.
In totaal zijn er in 120 meldingen binnengekomen, met name in februari en maart, rond de publicatie van vervolgonderzoek door Wim Deetman en het daarop volgende zitting van de Kamercommissie.
Na het piekjaar 2010, toen in totaal bijna 2700 meldingen binnenkwamen, kwam het aantal meldingen in 2011 uit op 330 en in 2012 op 304.

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ROME
National Catholic Reporter

Joshua J. McElwee | May. 3, 2013

ROME Pope Francis is scheduled to have a private audience next week with the leadership group representing international women’s congregations meeting in Rome for their triennial assembly, the group announced Friday.

About 800 of nearly 2,000 members of the International Union of Superiors General (UISG) are meeting in Rome through Wednesday. They will meet privately with Pope Francis before his regular Wednesday general audience.

Leaders of the sisters’ group, which announced the meeting with the pope at a pre-assembly meeting Friday, could not recall the last time a pope had met with their general membership.

Pope Benedict XVI canceled an audience scheduled for the group during their last assembly, held in Rome in May 2010, because of preparations for his visit to Portugal the same month.

Pope Francis’ decision to meet with the group is “a sign of hope, of interest for women religious,” said Sr. Maria Theresa Hoernemann, a native German who serves on the sisters’ group’s executive board.

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IRELAND
Association of Catholic Priests

A member of the organising team of the ‘Support Group for Priests and Religious Out of Ministry’ sent this update (as of April 2013):

“We would like to assure you that the Support Group is alive, well and thriving.

We have met six times so far. The average attendance has been nine per meeting and altogether 13 people have attended since the first meeting. The format is relaxed and unstructured. Each participant in the meetings takes responsiblity for shaping a helpful process.

The final format of the meetings will emerge as we live the process. We find the meetings very helpful and supportive. Some, who have felt quite isolated, find an anchor and life in the meetings.

The Support Group itself is supervised and supported by an Advisory Board made up of high-profile and professional people involved in child protection and counselling. The Advisory Board has provided a facilitator for the first three meetings of the Support Group. A member of the Support Group attends the Advisory Board meetings to report back to the Board and get advice and support on any issues around the well-being of the Support Group. The Advisory Board has written to each Bishop, to CORI, the ACP and the IMU outlining the existence and purpose of the Support Group. They maintain a dialogue with the Church leadership on any issue or concern around the Support Group.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

POSTED BY DAVID CLOHESSY ON MAY 02, 2013

The 65-year-old bishop of Harrisburg, Joseph McFadden died unexpectedly this morning. Our sympathies are with his family and his loved ones. Although we do not rejoice in the death of anyone, we hope the Pope takes this opportunity to appoint a new bishop who will prove to take a tough stand against clergy sex abuse.

We also hope the next bishop will post the names of credibly accused predators on the diocese website. Anyone who saw, suspects, or was abused is encouraged to come forward, tell police and start healing.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Fox 43

[with video]

It is with deep sadness that we inform you of the death of Bishop Joseph P. McFadden. He died unexpectedly while attending a meeting of the Catholic Bishops of Pennsylvania being held in Philadelphia.

While staying at a rectory he awoke feeling ill and was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead at approximately 7:40 a.m. A cause of death has not yet been announced.

The governance of the Diocese of Harrisburg passed to the College of Consultors upon his death. They will have eight days to elect an Administrator who will be in charge of the day to day operation of the Diocese until a new Bishop is appointed by the Holy Father.

Bishop McFadden was the tenth Bishop of Harrisburg. He was appointed on June 22, 2010 by then Pope Benedict XVI. He was installed as Bishop of Harrisburg on August 18, 2010 in St. Patrick Cathedral, Harrisburg.

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MISSOURI
Westport News

ST. LOUIS (AP) — A new lawsuit blames a St. Louis man’s suicide on sexual and emotional abuse by a Roman Catholic priest at Kenrick Glennon Seminary in suburban St. Louis.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch (http://bit.ly/157nF6E ) reports that the parents of a man from Florissant who committed suicide in 2009 filed the suit Thursday against the St. Louis Archdiocese. A spokeswoman for the archdiocese declined comment.

The suit claims that Bryan Kuchar molested the plaintiffs’ son when the boy was 12 to 14 years old, between 1999 and 2002. Kuchar was suspended by the archdiocese in 2002 and defrocked in 2006. In 2003, Kuchar was found guilty of molesting a 14-year-old boy eight years earlier, and sentenced to three years in jail.

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NEW JERSEY
WABC

NEWARK — The New Jersey priest who attended youth retreats and heard confessions from youngsters in defiance of a lifetime ban has resigned.

The Rev. Michael Fugee submitted his request and it was promptly accepted by Newark Archbishop John Myers on Thursday evening.

Archdiocese spokesman Jim Goodness tells The Star-Ledger of Newark Fugee remains a priest but no longer can say Mass, perform sacramental work or represent himself as an active member of the clergy.

The 52-year-old was convicted in 2003 of fondling a teenage boy. However, that verdict was vacated because of judicial error.

Fugee entered a program to avoid retrial and agreed to never again work with children.

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IRELAND
Pink News

by Joseph Patrick McCormick
3 May 2013

Parishioners at the new parish of a priest who projected gay porn during a meeting with parents at a Northern Ireland school, are “wary” over his upcoming arrival.

Back in 2012, Very Reverend Martin McVeigh was due to project a powerpoint presentation to a group of parents at St Mary’s Primary School. Instead of instructions for their child’s first Holy Communion, however, parents were confronted with 16 images of gay porn.

Father McVeigh is to cross the border to Ireland, and take up the new post post in County Louth, following last year’s controversy. The former Priest of Pomeroy in County Tyrone, announced his decision, after official investigations into the incident proved inconclusive.

The 62-year-old always denied knowing the origin of the images, and admitted “complicating” the issue by destroying the memory stick the night of the incident. The laptop was also stolen before it could be examined.

He will serve at Clogherhead, just north of Drogheda, a parish neighbouring Termonfeckin, where he served in the 1980s.

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MISSOURI
Law Enforcement Today

by Jean Reynolds

Sometimes the best weapon against crime is a good police report. In St. Louis, a four-year-old police report may help keep a priest accused of sexual abuse from returning to active ministry.

Father Kevin Hederman was suspended from the priesthood in 2009, when he was sued for allegedly abusing a St. Louis teenager. It now seems that the Vatican has cleared Father Hederman of the charges.

SNAP—Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests—is worried about the Vatican’s decision, and it is asking the archbishop of the Roman Catholic diocese of St. Louis not to overturn Father Hederman’s suspension.

This is a sad case—but it is also a useful reminder of the importance of good police reporting. The police report is objective and thorough. It includes several word-for-word statements from Father Hederman himself that raise warning flags about his sexual impulses.

If you’re looking for a model of an effective report, read this one, which is available online. Still, I can’t resist making one comment about a pet peeve of mine: The persistent misuse of “advise” in this report. In the sentence below (quoted from Father Hederman’s police report), notice that “advise” is used in two ways: to tell (incorrect) and to counsel (correct). (When you mean “tell,” say so!)

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis has appointed Fr Michael Charles Barber, sj, as the bishop of Oakland, California. Friday’s appointment reduces the vacant sees in the United States from 10 to nine.

Bishop-elect Barber succeeds Archbishop Salvatore Joseph Cordileone, who was appointed to San Francisco in July 2012. Archbishop Alex J. Brunett, archbishop-emeritus of Seattle, has been serving as the apostolic administrator since last October.

At the moment of his appointment, Bishop-elect Barber was serving as the director of spiritual formation at Saint John’s Seminary in Brighton in the Archdiocese of Boston.

He was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, on July 13, 1954. He entered the Company of Jesus in 1973, after having attended Saint Pius X Preparatory School at Galt, California.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and history at Gonzaga University in 1978, completed his theological studies at Regis College at the University of Toronto in 1985, and obtained an ecclesiastical licence in dogmatic theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University in 1989.

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OAKLAND (CA)
Fort Mills Times

NOTE TIME VALUE: Reverend Michael Barber, SJ will be available at a news conference on Friday, May 3, beginning at 10AM at the Cathedral of Christ the Light. Media should enter through the main conference center entrance at 2121 Harrison Street, Oakland.

OAKLAND, Calif. —
Pope Francis has named Reverend Michael Barber, SJ, 58, as the Fifth Bishop of Oakland. Fr. Barber until now has been Director of Spiritual Formation at St. John’s Seminary, Archdiocese of Boston. His installation as Bishop of Oakland will take place at 11:00AM on May 25 at Oakland’s Cathedral of Christ the Light.

On July 27, 2012, Oakland’s Bishop Salvatore Cordileone was appointed Archbishop of San Francisco and was installed in that office on October 4, 2012. At that time Pope Benedict appointed retired Archbishop Alex Brunett to act as Apostolic Administrator in Oakland, to manage day-to-day business of the Diocese until a new bishop was named.

Archbishop Brunett will introduce Fr. Barber at a news conference on Friday, May 3, at 10AM at the Cathedral of Christ the Light. Media should enter through the main conference center entrance at 2121 Harrison Street, Oakland.

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OAKLAND (CA)
Catholic World Report

May 03, 2013
By Catherine Harmon

This morning the Vatican announced that Pope Francis has appointed Father Michael Barber, SJ the new bishop of Oakland, California. He succeeds Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, who took over as head of the Archdiocese of San Francisco last October.

Father Barber currently serves as director of spiritual formation at St. John’s Seminary in Brighton, Massachusetts. From Catholic News Agency:

The bishop-designate entered the Jesuits in 1973 and was ordained a priest in 1985.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and history at Gonzaga University in 1978, completed his theological studies at Regis College at the University of Toronto in 1985, and obtained an ecclesiastical license in dogmatic theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University in 1989.

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FLORIDA
WPBF

Stephen Budd: Teacher accused in candy-for-sex enticement due in court

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. —A bond hearing is scheduled Friday for a West Palm Beach teacher accused of sexually assaulting fourth graders.

Stephen Budd was arrested last month.

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OAKLAND (CA)
Whispers in the Loggia

In an exceedingly rare appointment of its kind, Pope Francis has named Michael Barber SJ, 58 – a California Jesuit currently serving as a spiritual director at Boston’s St John’s Seminary – as bishop of Oakland.

Rare… Francis… Jesuit… Boston… “Super-Cardinal”…

Hmm.

At the helm of the roughly 600,000-member NorCal church, the bishop-elect succeeds Salvatore Cordileone, who was sent across the Bay to lead the more prestigious – yet less populous – archdiocese of San Francisco last July.

For purposes of context, the last time a simple priest was named to a Stateside post of this size came at a similarly early point in the last pontificate, when Msgr Kevin Vann – then a pastor in Springfield, Illinois – was tapped in May 2005 as coadjutor of Fort Worth, then a 400,000-member fold, which nearly doubled in size over the subsequent decade due to migration, birthrates and, well, just being Texas church. Yet while Vann was intended to have a period of apprenticeship under Bishop Joseph Delaney, the long-reigning prelate died the day before his successor’s ordination, suddenly placing the provided ordinary-in-waiting on the cathedra with no prep. (In his last top-tier appointment on the Stateside bench, B16 named Vann to the 1.3 million-member diocese of Orange last September, and Fort Worth remains vacant.)

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 3 May 2013 (VIS) – Today the Holy Father appointed Fr. Michael Charles Barber, S.J., as bishop of Oakland (area 3,798, population 2,589,322, Catholics 555,000, priests 374, permanent deacons 108, religious 944), California, USA. The bishop-elect was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA in 1954 and was ordained a priest in 1985. Since ordination he has served in several missionary, academic, and pastoral roles, most recently as Director of Spiritual Formation at St. John’s Seminary in Boston, Massachusetts.

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NEW JERSEY
The Record

FRIDAY MAY 3, 2013

BY JOHN REITMEYER, HERB JACKSON AND CHARLES STILE
STAFF WRITERS
THE RECORD

A day after their leading candidate for governor said the Newark archbishop should resign amid a priest child abuse scandal, fellow Democrats remained divided on the issue — with many not saying anything at all.

It’s a marked change from a month ago, when top Democrats clamored in near unison for resignations at Rutgers University following the physical and verbal abuse of basketball players by a coach.

And it could represent the fear of potential backlash from Catholic voters with all 120 seats in the Democratic-controlled Legislature on the November ballot this year, or a sign that state Sen. Barbara Buono — who has clashed with party leaders in the past — does not yet have their full support.

Buono, a Democrat from Middlesex County who is challenging Governor Christie this year, said Newark Archbishop John J. Myers should step down, questioning his ability to lead after word that a priest seemingly broke his legally binding agreement with Bergen County prosecutors to never again be unsupervised with children, minister to children or work with children so long as he remained a priest.

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SCOTLAND
The Times

Mike Wade

Last updated at 12:01AM, May 3 2013

Cardinal Keith O’Brien was last night compared to Fred Goodwin, the disgraced banker, by Catholic critics after he appeared to shrug off the scandal surrounding him and seek a return to a normal life.

Shock has turned to disbelief and anger within the Church hierarchy after the cardinal confirmed his intention to move to a church property in Dunbar, where he apparently hopes to live out a quiet retirement.

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MISSOURI
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Parents of man who committed suicide over alleged abuse sue St. Louis Archdiocese

By Tim Townsend ttownsend@post-dispatch.com 314-340-82215

The parents of a man from Florissant who committed suicide in 2009 sued the St. Louis Archdiocese Thursday claiming their son’s death was the result of sexual and emotional abuse by a Roman Catholic priest at Kenrick Glennon Seminary in Shrewsbury.

The lawsuit filed in St. Louis County Circuit Court says Bryan Kuchar, who was suspended by the archdiocese in 2002 and defrocked by the Vatican in 2006, molested the plaintiffs’ son at the seminary’s overnight camp between 1999 and 2002. The boy — known in court documents as John Doe SON — was between 12 and 14 at the time.

In 2003 Kuchar was found guilty of molesting a 14-year-old boy eight years earlier, when the priest was serving at Assumption Catholic Church in south St. Louis County. He was sentenced to three consecutive one-year terms in the St. Louis County Jail.

A spokeswoman for the archdiocese, Angela Shelton, said officials there had “not been served a copy of this lawsuit involving Kuchar, and we do not comment on pending litigation.”

David Clohessy, director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, said there had been perhaps “a couple dozen” lawsuits across the country over the last decade in which the plaintiffs blamed a loved one’s suicide on clergy sexual abuse.

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NEW JERSEY
National Catholic Reporter

Brian Roewe | May. 3, 2013

MENDHAM, N.J. Calls have come for the resignation of Newark, N.J., Archbishop John J. Myers after a late-April investigative story revealed an archdiocesan priest had violated the terms of a court-ordered agreement to stay away from children.

In the past several years, Fr. Michael Fugee has attended youth group activities, including retreats and overnight trips, and heard confessions of young people, according to an April 28 story in the Newark Star-Ledger. Those actions appear in violation of a memorandum of understanding signed by Fugee and his lawyer, archdiocesan vicar general Msgr. John Doran and the Bergen County prosecutor — restricting the priest from “any unsupervised contact with or to supervise or minister to any child/minor under the age of 18 or work in any position in which children are involved.”

The prosecutor’s office has begun an active investigation into Fugee’s case and has contacted the archdiocese as part of it.

“Things are being looked into, and we’re working with the prosecutor’s office and that’s about all I can say at this point,” James Goodness, director of communications for the archdiocese, told NCR May 1. He also confirmed there has been no change in Fugee’s ministerial state as of press time.

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AUSTRALIA
The Courier

By FIONA HENDERSON May 3, 2013

THE Christian Brothers paid $1 million to defend paedophile Brother Robert Best.

A further $500,000 was spent on legal fees for other shamed brothers, including Edward Dowlan and Stephen Farrell who, along with Best, taught at Ballarat East’s St Alipius school in the 1970s.

The parliamentary inquiry into institutionalised child sex abuse also heard the Christian Brothers paid a private investigator to look into at least one victim’s “bizarre behaviour” to use in Best’s defence.

In front of a packed gallery at Parliament House, Christian Brothers Oceania Province deputy province leader Brother Julian McDonald said Best, who is still a Christian Brother, was often visited in Ararat jail.

“You don’t just add further to the judgement,” Brother McDonald said.

“Family members should visit another family member in jail. He is still a brother.”

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

[with video]

By Peta Carlyon

The Christian Brothers of the Catholic Church have apologised to victims for what it calls an “indefensible” record on child sexual abuse.

Leaders of the order’s Oceania chapter have given evidence to the Victorian parliamentary inquiry into child abuse.

Victims and their supporters scoffed and shook their heads as the order ran through its history of dealing with abuse, including several paedophiles at the St Alipius Catholic School in Ballarat in the 1970s.

The order admitted it spent $980,000 on the most recent court case of Brother Robert Best, who remains in the congregation despite more than 20 convictions, while it had spent $1.5 million in total on all offenders.

The order’s Brother Julian McDonald has made an official apology on behalf of the church.

“Far too many Christian Brothers have betrayed the sacred trust placed in them and sunk to the depths of abusing children is a matter of great shame for us,” he said.

“It’s diametrically opposed to all that we proclaim and for which we stand.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

May 3, 2013

Barney Zwartz

The Christian Brothers Catholic order spent more than $1 million defending serial paedophile Robert Best, the order has told the Victorian inquiry into how the churches handled child sexual abuse.

The order also paid $10,000 to a private investigator to spy on a victim of another abuser, Ted Dowlan.

It paid for legal advice to protect Dowlan’s assets from being paid to victims in civil lawsuits, and gave him $125,000 when he left the order.

But the brothers appearing on behalf of the order denied there were cultural problems within it.

It apologised for the “repulsive” and “inexcusable” betrayal by the abusers, and said most of the offenders had themselves been abused earlier.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC – The World Today

[with audio]

The Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse has been told the first alleged instance of abuse by a Christian Brother in Victoria was in 1934, but it wasn’t reported until 65 years later. The inquiry has been hearing testimony this morning from the Christian Brothers religious order. It ran some of the institutions where abuse was reported in Victoria, including St Alipius Primary School in Ballarat, and St Vincent’s orphanage.

Transcript

ASHLEY HALL: The Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse has heard that the first alleged instance of abuse in that state by a Christian Brother was in 1934, though it wasn’t reported for 65 years.

The inquiry has been hearing this morning from the Christian Brothers religious order.

The order ran some of the institutions where abuse has been reported including at St Alipius Primary School in Ballarat and at St Vincent’s orphanage.

Madeleine Morris has been monitoring the inquiry and she joins us now from Melbourne.

Madeleine, much of the questioning this morning related to whether the Christian Brothers had covered up for a number of paedophile brothers who worked in its institutions in Victoria. Just remind us, first of all, about who some of those brothers were.

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AUSTRALIA
Brisbane Times

May 3, 2013

Patrick Caruana and Daniel Fogarty
AAP

The Christian Brothers say it was an “accident of history” that four pedophiles taught at a small Victorian school at the same time.

The Catholic order denies having a culture which encouraged pedophilia, despite confirming more than 200 cases of abuse in Victoria and that four of their members abused children at Ballarat’s St Alipius primary school in the 1970s.

The order’s deputy province leader, Brother Julian McDonald, said he had no explanation for why the pedophiles emerged at the same place.

“It’s certainly an accident of history,” he told a Victorian parliamentary inquiry on Friday.

“Was there a culture that encouraged that? I don’t believe there is evidence that there was.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

Four paedophiles in same parish an accident of history, Christian Brothers tell parliamentary inquiry

A CATHOLIC order at the centre of Victoria’s child abuse inquiry says the existence of a cluster of paedophile priests in Ballarat at the same time was “an accident of history”.

At least four Christian Brothers at Ballarat’s St Alipius Parish School in the early 1970s were child sex offenders, as was parish priest Gerald Ridsdale.

But the order’s deputy province leader Brother Julian McDonald told the parliamentary inquiry there was nothing to suggest a cultural problem.

“I have no explanation for that … It’s certainly an accident of history. Was there a culture that encouraged that? I don’t believe there is evidence that there was.”

The inquiry heard six brothers had been jailed, four of whom remain in the order.

Brother McDonald said a further six, none of whom now had any contact with children, had been investigated by police without conviction.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

THE Christian Brothers admit they were aware of abuse complaints against two brothers at Ballarat in Victoria but failed to tell police.

The Catholic order had at least four confirmed pedophiles working in Ballarat in the 1970s, deputy province leader Brother Julian McDonald told a Victorian parliamentary inquiry.

He had no explanation for why so many pedophiles served in the Ballarat parish at the same time.

“It’s certainly an accident of history,” Brother McDonald said.

“Was there a culture that encouraged that? I don’t believe there is evidence that there was.”

But Brother McDonald admitted the order’s failure to alert police was because leaders in those days saw offending as a “moral failure”, and abusers were merely reprimanded.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Heute

Missbrauch auch in evangelischen Heimen

Lange Zeit musste sich fast nur die katholische Kirche für Missbrauch in Kinderheimen verantworten. Aber auch in evangelischen Heimen wurden Kinder schikaniert, geschlagen und sexuell missbraucht. Die Uni Bochum arbeitete die Fälle in einer Studie auf.

Trotz erster positiver Schritte gegen sexuellen Missbrauch fehlt nach den Worten des Missbrauchsbeauftragten Johannes-Wilhelm Rörig eine umfassende, wirkungsvolle Ächtung des Verbrechens. Notwendig sei auch der Ausbau des Hilfesystems, sagte Rörig am Donnerstag auf dem 34. Deutschen Evangelischen Kirchentag in Hamburg. “Da liegt noch ganz viel Arbeit vor uns.” Eine Aufklärung über sexuellen Missbrauch ist nach Auffassung der früheren Missbrauchsbeauftragten Christine Bergmann nur mit eigener emotionaler Beteiligung möglich. Um Kinder zu schützen, müsse man das Leid an sich herankommen lassen.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

SHANNON DEERY From: Herald Sun May 03, 2013

Frank Klep at the Magistrates Court. Picture: John Hart Source: Herald Sun
FIVE new complainants have accused a former Salesian college principal of assaulting them, a court has heard.

Frank Klep, 69, was charged with multiple counts of indecent assault allegedly committed between 1974 and 1984 earlier this year.

At a Melbourne Magistrates Court committal hearing today the court heard five new alleged victims had made allegations of indecent assault by Mr Klep to police.

It is alleged the former Rupertswood College sexually assaulted students during the 1970s and 1980s at the school and another school in Chadstone.

The Salesians have previously denied allegations they moved Mr Klep to Samoa after investigations into sex assault allegations began.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

May 3, 2013

Belinda Merhab
AAP

More complainants have come forward alleging they were sexually abused by two accused pedophile priests, a Melbourne court has heard.

Former Rupertswood College principal Frank Gerard Klep, 69, of Burwood, appeared for a committal mention on Friday over six charges of indecently assaulting a male at Sunbury and Chadstone in 1974.

The hearing was adjourned to May 31 after the Melbourne Magistrates Court was told another five complainants had come forward with allegations against Klep.

Eleven fresh charges have also been laid against former Eltham parish priest Wilfred James Baker.

The 76-year-old, who appeared in court clutching a walking frame, is now facing 25 charges after several new complainants came forward.

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NEW JERSEY
San Francisco Chronicle

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — The New Jersey priest who attended youth retreats and heard confessions from youngsters in defiance of a lifetime ban has resigned.

The Rev. Michael Fugee submitted his request and it was promptly accepted by Newark Archbishop John Myers on Thursday evening.

Archdiocese spokesman Jim Goodness tells The Star-Ledger of Newark (http://bit.ly/10wiDrZ ) Fugee remains a priest but no longer can say Mass, perform sacramental work or represent himself as an active member of the clergy.

The 52-year-old was convicted in 2003 of fondling a teenage boy. However, that verdict was vacated because of judicial error.

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NEW JERSEY
Asbury Park Press

Editorial

It’s time for Newark Archbishop John J. Myers to step down. He has turned a blind eye to legally binding agreements that forbid the Rev. Michael Fugee, who was convicted of groping a teenage boy, from working with children.

Myers has shown an appalling lack of judgment and willful misreading of a binding agreement Fugee entered into with the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office six years ago. The agreement said he would not work in any position involving children, would have no affiliation with youth groups or attend youth retreats, and would not hear the confessions of minors.

Fugee agreed to the deal to avoid being retried on charges that he fondled the genitals of a 14-year-old boy during wrestling matches on two occasions.

And yet, despite the clear order, he has been working with children, attending weekend youth retreats in Marlboro and at Lake Hopatcong, according to The Star-Ledger. Fugee also has traveled with members of the youth group of St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church in Colts Neck on an annual pilgrimage to Canada. At all three locations, he reportedly heard confessions from minors behind closed doors.

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SOUTH CAROLINA
Greenville Online

Written by
E. Richard Walton
Staff Writer

A 58-year-old Greenville man faces five new charges in a sex case involving children while he was employed at a local church authorities said.

Timothy Lee Anders, of 6 Concord St., had already faced 31 charges in a sex abuse case that was revealed earlier this week, said Lt. Mike Hildebrand, a spokesman for the Greenville County Sheriff’s Office.

The new case against Anders charges him with criminal sexual conduct with a female under age 11, according to warrants. The charges are both first-degree and second-degree charges, according to warrants.

The several depicted acts were alleged to have occurred at the victim’s house or other places between April, 1984 and April, 1988, according to the warrants.

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VIRGINIA
WAVY

CHESAPEAKE, Va. (WAVY) – A youth leader at a Suffolk church charged last year with sexual assault has been identified as 18-year-old Jemell Joe.

Joe is facing allegations of sodomy and aggravated sexual assault. Police said one victim came forward to police about the abuse, and several others followed. Joe was arrested in December 2012.

The alleged abuse took place while the victims were in the care of Joe at Suffolk’s Gates of Heaven Church.

He is currently behind bars at Western Tidewater Jail, where he has been denied bond.

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AUSTRALIA
Radio Australia

The Christian Brothers of the Catholic Church have apologised to victims for what it calls an “indefensible” record on child sexual abuse.

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AUSTRALIA
Canberra Times

May 3, 2013

Opinion

Wokkapedia

Admit nothing. The phrase, dead and colourless, was the match that ignited a slow burn of anger and indignation.

The words were mentioned in hearings this week at the Victorian inquiry into child sexual abuse by churches. The speaker was the Bishop of Ballarat, Paul Bird. He was asked by committee member Andrea Coote about a document from 20 years ago by Australian bishops in which the priorities for churches in child abuse matters were to avoid scandal, protect the priest, concede nothing and, after all that, treat the victim as secondary. Bishop Bird replied: “We were listening to insurers and lawyers, who said ‘admit nothing’.”

Things had now changed. The diocese had settled 107 of 166 claims.

Also at the hearing, committee member David O’Brien asked former Ballarat Bishop Peter Connors:

Was there a persistent disregard for victims?

Yes.

Peter Rush, the CEO of Catholic Church Insurance, told the inquiry that “admit nothing” had been the strategy – “wrongly” – in advising officials. It was the “way insurers ran liability”. It had ceased doing so from the mid-’90s.

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AUSTRALIA
Health Canal

Young girls are just as likely as young boys to be sexually abused by a member of the clergy, a new QUT study has shown.

The report, ‘They Did Not Believe Me’: Adult Survivors’ Perspectives of Child Sexual Abuse by Personnel in Christian Institutions, is the first of its kind in Australia relying on personal experiences rather than church data.

Dr Jodi Death from QUT’s Crime and Justice Research Centre said the results, published yesterday, contradicted previous studies showing young boys were more likely to be sexually assaulted in the church.

“Past studies, which have relied on the church’s data, have shown that boys are represented in about 80 per cent of sexual abuse cases, but we saw an almost even split (49 percent male and 51 per cent female),” Dr Death said.

“It may be because traditionally women and girls had a lesser position and voice in the church so the abuse against girls is less likely to be recorded.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

The organisations in charge of compensating Victorian Catholics abused by clergy have denied trying to buy the silence of victims and say they have nothing to hide.

Between them the Melbourne Response and Towards Healing have dealt with more than 700 sexual abuse complaints and say they have the interests of victims at heart.

The organisations admitted at a Victorian parliamentary inquiry on Friday there have been mistakes, but said their job was to make recompense by compensating victims.

Melbourne Response compensation panel chairman David Curtain QC said he was for victims, not against them.

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TEXAS
The Dallas Morning News

By MEGAN GRAY Denton Record-Chronicle mgray@dentonrc.com

The lead pastor at the Church of Corinth has posted bond and is free after spending hours behind bars on suspicion of having sexually abused a girl.

The Rev. Jeffrey Dale Williams, 47, faces a charge of attempted sexual performance of a child, a third-degree felony. According to the arrest affidavit, he tried to persuade a girl, whose age has not been disclosed, to take off her clothes. He was arrested Wednesday.

On Thursday, the church said in a statement that “we have no knowledge of nor any reason to suspect any inappropriate behavior. We intend to and will fully investigate the allegations, and we will fully cooperate with the authorities.”

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CANADA
CBC News

The financially-troubled Diocese of Moncton could soon face even more problems with several lawsuits in the works, says an Ontario lawyer.

Robert Talach says he has about 15 clients who don’t want to go through the church’s compensation process.

At least one lawsuit has already been filed, but the litigation could drag on for years, he said.

“I mean, there’ll be disclosures the rest of this year, the rest of this decade,” said Talach.

“It’s an individual consideration when a person comes forward,” he said.

“You know, a victim who may only be in their 20s or early-30s now is probably not prepared to speak about this … to anybody.”

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CANADA
CTV

[with video]

Kevin Bissett, THE CANADIAN PRESS
Published Thursday, May 2, 2013

MONCTON, N.B. — The archbishop of a Roman Catholic diocese in New Brunswick says he has been forced to sell assets and reduce staff in order to cover the costs of about $5 million in compensation to people who allege they were sexually abused by priests.
The number of employees within the Moncton Catholic diocese will be cut to 14 from 20 and the diocese will sell its office and a vacant piece of land, both in Dieppe, Archbishop Valery Vienneau said Thursday.

Vienneau said the office, which costs about $60,000 per year to operate, will be appraised and the diocese will seek a fair market price for it.

“We’re not going to sell it at a sacrifice price,” Vienneau said.

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UNITED STATES
Public Catholic

May 2, 2013 By Rebecca Hamilton

“Whoever harms one of these little ones that believes in me, it would be better for him that a millstone were hung about his neck and he was cast into the sea.”

I support the bishops.

How many times, over how many issues, have I said that?

I support them whenever and however they teach and preach the Gospel of Christ. I support them in their battles against secularism and the social dissolution around us. I support them in their efforts to evangelize this great Church and inspire the people of God to stand up and speak out for Jesus.
I support the bishops.

Except when I don’t.

When a bishop stops preaching Christ and Him crucified and starts parsing legalities in order to get around rules he wrote himself and which he gave us his word he would keep, I take a look at him. When a bishop does this in order to excuse another violation of the promises to stop endangering children by placing them in the care of priests who are known child abusers, I don’t follow him.

A case in point is Archbishop Myers of New Jersey. Archbishop Myers has evidently placed a priest who is a convicted child abuser in a position where he will be in extensive contact with children.

Let me repeat that: Archbishop Myers put a convicted child abuser in ministry to children.

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DELAWARE
The News Journal

Written by
BETH MILLER
The News Journal

CLAYTON — It was a summer Sunday in 2002 and Paul Mast had a message that required special delivery. It wasn’t a song, though this tenor could have done that. It wasn’t a sermon or a liturgy or a prayer or anything that would arrive in formal wrapping.

It was a lament, a heart cry, a burden of the soul – and he would not smother it.

So after celebrating Mass with the congregation in Ocean City, Md., the soft-spoken priest – who grew up in Clayton and had served the Catholic Diocese of Wilmington for three decades – sat down for the closing prayer.

That posture was unusual enough, but more surprising to those in the pews were the words that came next – and the weeping that accompanied them.

“If anyone here has ever been sexually abused by a priest, I sincerely apologize to you,” Mast said. “If you are the parents or grandparents of someone who was abused, I sincerely apologize to you. I need to tell you that so that you know I am hurting, too.”

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NEW JERSEY
The Record

BY JEFF GREEN
STAFF WRITER
THE RECORD

The Rev. Michael Fugee, the Catholic priest who allegedly groped a Wyckoff boy a decade ago and who has been at the heart of a raging controversy that has engulfed the Newark Archdiocese, has resigned from the ministry, the archdiocese said Thursday.

Fugee, 52, wrote a letter to Archbishop John J. Myers on Thursday afternoon announcing his resignation from his two positions within the archdiocese. Jim Goodness, Myers’ spokesman, said the archbishop accepted the resignation.

“He is no longer active as a priest, that’s effective today,” Goodness said of Fugee.

Fugee, whose 2003 conviction on a charge of aggravated criminal sexual contact was overturned by an appeals court, was recently revealed to have attended several youth group retreats in apparent violation of an pre-trial agreement with prosecutors barring his work with children.

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NEW JERSEY
National Catholic Reporter

Michael Sean Winters | May. 1, 2013 Distinctly Catholic

When will the Holy See devise a means of dealing with bishops who ignore the Dallas Charter, that they created themselves and promised to abide by? Perhaps now.

At Morning Briefing, NCR links to a report in the Asbury Park Press, that Bishop David O’Connell of Trenton was not given any heads up by Newark Archbishop John Myers that a priest who had been convicted of child molestation was coming to the Trenton diocese and would be working around children. Nor did Fugee tell anyone. If Abp Myers wishes to ignore the Dallas Charter, shame on him. But, he certainly has no right to spread his indifference into neighboring dioceses, so that the stench of complicity spreads. If I were the Bishop of Trenton – and I think we can all agree that it is a good thing I am not! – I would be furious at Abp Myers. The average person in the pew does know about the procedures by which a priest can or should move between dioceses. People who think their children are in danger are not likely to paint their anger in narrow strokes. And, these kinds of incidents will continue until Rome comes up with a means on punishing bishops like Myers who have violated the Dallas Charter so that the whole bench gets the lesson: You pledged your word that you would enforce the Dallas Charter. If you decline to do so, you should be removed from your see.

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NEW JERSEY
The Star-Ledger

By Mark Mueller/The Star-Ledger

on May 02, 2013 at 8:54 PM, updated May 02, 2013 at 9:09 PM

The Roman Catholic priest at the center of a public furor enveloping Newark Archbishop John J. Myers has been removed from ministry, a spokesman for the archdiocese said tonight.

The Rev. Michael Fugee, who attended youth retreats and heard confessions from minors in defiance of a lifetime ban on such behavior, submitted his request to leave ministry today afternoon, said the spokesman, Jim Goodness. Myers promptly accepted Fugee’s request, Goodness said.

Fugee, 52, will remain a priest — only the Vatican may grant a leave from that role — but will no longer have authority to represent himself as a priest, say Mass or perform any Sacramental work, Goodness said.

Asked if Myers had requested that Fugee step aside, Goodness said, “I only know that he offered to leave ministry and the archbishop accepted.”

Under the terms of a 2007 agreement with the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office, Fugee is not permitted to have unsupervised contact with children, minister to children or hold any position in which children are involved.

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IRELAND
Church Times

by Gregg Ryan, Ireland Correspondent

Posted: 03 May 2013

THE Ven. Leslie Stevenson, who was to have been consecrated this week as Bishop of Meath & Kildare, in the Irish Republic, withdrew on Sunday after a press campaign against him.

His decision to step aside followed two newspaper articles. One in the Dublin-based Sunday Business Post noted that he would be the first divorced bishop in the history of the Church of Ireland, and that he had had a relationship after his first marriage failed.

The second appeared last Friday in the Belfast-based Nationalist daily Irish News, which suggested that Archdeacon Stevenson’s consecration was in doubt. It named the woman with whom he had had a relationship, who is now a serving priest in the diocese of Connor.

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CALIFORNIA
EGP

By City News Service

A settlement has been reached in a lawsuit by a young man who alleged he was sexually abused by the former pastor of a Lutheran church in Bell Gardens.

Attorneys for the unidentified plaintiff filed a notice of settlement April 26 with Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michelle Rosenblatt. Iglesia Luterana de San Pedro y Pablo and the Pacific Southwest District of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod are the defendants. Last summer, the judge tossed all claims against a third entity, the Lutheran Church- Missouri Synod, finding that its leadership had no knowledge of the actions of the former pastor, Franklynn Brundige.

The terms of the resolution were not divulged in the plaintiffs’ court papers.

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SCOTLAND
Paisley Daily Express

May 2 2013 by Lynn Jolly, Paisley Daily Express

A woman yesterday claimed she was dragged into a detention room at an approved school run by nuns and left there without food or drink for two days.

At Paisley Sheriff Court, 58-year-old Barbara Young claimed that one of the nuns who put her in the locked room was Mother Martin.

Miss Young was giving evidence at the trial of Anne Kenny, 79, known as Mother Rosaria, and Agnes Reville, 77, known as Mother Martin, who deny assaulting girls at Dalbeath Approved School in Bishopton, Renfrewshire, in the 1970s.

Prosecutor Douglas Hamilton asked Miss Young, who was sent to Dalbeath in 1971: “What did Mother Martin do to you?”

She replied: “I couldn’t say it was just her, there were others. I was pulled into a room. She just dragged me and her nails cut into me.”

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SCOTLAND
Scotsman

By STEPHEN MCGINTY
Published on 03/05/2013

CARDINAL Keith O’Brien has admitted the scandal that saw him driven from office has been a “difficult” and “humbling experience”.

The former Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, who was forced by Pope Benedict XVI to retire after admitting “inappropriate behaviour” with four priests and a seminarian, said in his first interview since returning to Scotland that he was now trying to live a “good Christian life”.

O’Brien, who as a cardinal remains the most senior Catholic in Britain, has moved his belongings from his former official residence in Edinburgh to a church-owned property in Dunbar in East Lothian where he had always planned to retire. The surprise move is said to have angered the hierarchy of the Catholic Church who would have preferred him to remain outside Scotland.

It is understood that Philip Tartaglia, the Archbishop of Glasgow, acting as President of the Bishop’s Conference of Scotland, has now written to the Papal Nuncio in London informing him of the cardinal’s return and the subsequent publicity.

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SCOTLAND
The Times

Tom Farmery

May 2 2013

The cleric who until recently was the best known in Scotland has started a new life in the town of Dunbar, near Edinburgh.

Cardinal Keith O’Brien, who resigned after admitting sexual misconduct, has returned from France and Portugal to prepare for retirement to the small East Lothian fishing port.

He was seen moving possessions from his home in Edinburgh into a red sandstone property next to Our Lady of the Waves Catholic Church.

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SCOTLAND
The Scottish Sun

Cardinal Keith O’Brien: I’ve said sorry… now I’m trying to live best Christian life I can

By KEVIN DUGUID and DOUGLAS WALKER

CARDINAL Keith O’Brien vowed to be a “good Christian” as he begged forgiveness over his gay sex scandal.

The disgraced churchman — who emerged from hiding this week — confessed to The Scottish Sun he has failed to live his life according to his OWN religious teachings.

But he claimed he has been swamped by messages of support despite lurid revelations that saw him axed as the country’s top Catholic cleric after plunging the Church into crisis.

O’Brien, 75, said: “I’m just trying to do my best to live a good Christian life myself now. Many people have been helping me to go back on the right path and that’s what I have to do.

“But I haven’t always managed to live that in my own life.”

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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

Thursday 2 May 2013

Scotland’s Catholic leadership has appealed to the Vatican to take action on Cardinal Keith O’Brien after it emerged the disgraced cleric had returned to live in Scotland.

Within hours of revelations that the Cardinal had been seen publicly for the first time since the scandal surrounding his gay relationships and abuse allegations broke, senior figures in the Church called on Rome to initiate moves to keep him away from public life.

The return has also angered one former trainee priest who claims to have been abused by the Cardinal, telling The Herald of his determination to unsettle the 75-year-old churchman’s “nice little retirement plans” with legal action.

The Church fears Cardinal O’Brien’s re-emergence in Scotland could deepen the crisis brought on by the revelations, with no cleric having the authority to instruct him to either remain silent, retire to a monastery or move from Scotland.

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SCOTLAND/ROME
The Tablet (UK)

The Archbishop of Glasgow met the Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops in Rome to discuss the future of the Church in Scotland following the resignation of Cardinal Keith O’Brien.

Archbishop Philip Tartaglia met Cardinal Marc Ouellet last week in Rome and it is understood that they discussed the dioceses in Scotland – five out of eight – that need new bishops now or imminently.

It is understood that no appointments will be made until the Vatican is satisfied there are no further allegations against the cardinal, who stepped down in February after admitting that his sexual conduct had fallen below that which was expected of a “priest, bishop and cardinal”.

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SCOTLAND
STV

The Catholic Church in Scotland has appealed to the Vatican amid concerns that Cardinal Keith O’Brien’s high profile is damaging the church.

A source in the church told STV News there was “frustration and disquiet” that the Cardinal was back in the public eye after he was photographed moving into the parish house in Dunbar.

Cardinal O’Brien always intended to move to the East Lothian town when he retired as Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, but the plan was cast into doubt after several former priests made allegations of “inappropriate behaviour” against him.

The cardinal resigned the following day and later admitted his sexual conduct had “fallen below the standards expected of me as a priest, archbishop and cardinal.”

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OHIO
Pink News

by Scott Roberts
1 May 2013

A Catholic bishop in Ohio is defending the decision to fire a gay teacher.

Bishop Frederick Campbell said that maintaining the Catholic values of the institutions under his guidance explained why Carla Hale had to go.

She was dismissed from Bishop Watterson High School last month when officials found out she was gay through her mother’s obituary.

Following the death of her mother in March, Ms Hale took time off work, and during that time she wrote an obituary for her late mother in which she named her partner, Julie, as a survivor.

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OHIO
The Columbus Dispatch

By JoAnne Viviano
The Columbus Dispatch Thursday May 2, 2013

Critics of the firing of a gay Catholic-school teacher have threatened to withhold donations from a fundraiser that kicks off this weekend and pulls in millions each year for Diocese of Columbus programs.

The Bishop’s Annual Appeal aims to raise $6 million in pledges from parishes across the 23-county diocese. Last year, the appeal received pledges from more than 24,000 households, raising $6.7 million to exceed the 2012 goal by nearly 15 percent.

But some backers of Carla Hale, the physical-education teacher who was fired from Bishop Watterson High School in March, say they won’t be tossing money into Bishop Frederick Campbell’s coffers this year.

Amanda Finelli, a 2005 alumna who runs the #halestormOhio advocacy group, said she won’t donate because “money speaks to the diocese.” Goals of the group are to get Hale reinstated and to encourage the diocese to revise employment policies.

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CALIFORNIA
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on May 2, 2013

It’s not surprising that new Orange County Bishop Kevin Vann has put the Marywood Center up for sale. The 15-acre site (sitting on prime property in the swanky hills above the City of Orange) is redundant now that the ink is dry on the diocese’s purchase of the Crystal Cathedral (now Christ Cathedral) in Garden Grove.

What is surprising is one of the links on the listing. CBRE, who is representing the Diocese of Orange in the sale, has a convenient Non-Disclosure Agreement available for easy download right on the site.

Want to know the price? Better sign on the dotted line …

One would think that in these era of “transparency” and “openness” that Bishop Vann would consider his parishioners’ money public information (you know, the same money that paid for the purchase and upkeep of the property, as well as the salaries of everyone who worked there). Or that he would at least inform Orange County’s 1.2 million Catholics about the details of the sale. Catholics have earned the right to know what Vann is doing with their money.

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MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

POSTED BY BARBARA DORRIS ON MAY 02, 2013

This is an utterly heartbreaking case brought by incredibly kind but wounded parents on behalf of their child and other children who have been assaulted by priests. We are deeply moved by and grateful for their tremendous courage.

For years, these parents fought valiantly to help and save their son. They have suffered immeasurably. We hope and believe this action will bring them some measure of comfort and justice. Because they are speaking up and exposing corruption, they are helping to protect others. From this day forward, they can take some consolation in knowing that they’re doing all they can to prevent more devastating clergy sex crimes and cover ups.

Kuchar is in his 40s. He could still be charged, convicted and kept away from kids. There are, we believe, several of his victims who are young enough to still pursue criminal cases. For the safety of children, we desperately hope they will do so.

And we hope that every single current and former church employee or member who saw, suspected or suffered crimes or misdeeds – by Kuchar or other clerics – will find courage and speak up. That’s what protects kids – when adults care enough to call police and prosecutors about known or suspected child sex crimes.

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MISSOURI
TheMediaReport

[court document]

For the past several years, a regular tactic of the anti-Catholic group SNAP has been to angrily accost and hassle prayerful Catholics as they attend Mass on Sunday.

While protesting various aspects of the Church’s handling of the abuse scandals, SNAP members have provoked Sunday Mass goers to such an extent that judges have been forced to issue restraining orders and SNAP leaders have been subsequently arrested for violating such orders.

Protecting the rights of innocent Mass goers

SNAP members in the state of Missouri have also sought to disturb and disrupt the Mass, but they have been concerned about Missouri’s House of Worship Protection Act, which protects worshipers from angry disruptions such as those instigated by SNAP.

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UNITED STATES
Spiritual Politics

Mark Silk | May 2, 2013

After going to the mat to defend Kansas City Bishop Robert Finn, who was convicted of failing to report a suspected abusive priest, Catholic League president Bill Donohue has now taken up cudgels on behalf of Newark Archbishop John J. Myers, who is under scrutiny for violating a court order restricting a priest’s access to minors.

In Finn’s case, Donohue spent much of his energy attacking the Kansas City Star and, true to form, it’s the Newark Star Ledger that draws his ire this time — above all last Sunday’s editorial calling for Myers’ resignation. In his “special report,” entitled ”Star-Ledger’s War on Archbishop Myers,” Donohue argues that the newspaper’s claim that the archbishop abrogated his agreement with prosecutors regarding Fr. Michael Fugee’s is “patently false.”

He also chastises the newspaper for failing to mention that “in addition to being cleared by the civil courts, the archdiocesan review board cleared Fugee of any wrongdoing. Nor did it mention that the case was sent to Rome for review; no charges were brought against him. In other words, Fugee’s case was thrice thrown out. Also, the newspaper failed to mention that there has not been one allegation made against this priest in the past 12 years.”

Before considering whether the agreement was abrogated, let’s briefly review how the conviction of Michael Fugee happened to be thrown out.

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NEW JERSEY
The Record

THURSDAY, MAY 2, 2013
BY JEFF GREEN AND MICHAEL LINHORST
STAFF WRITERS
THE RECORD

The leading Democratic candidate for governor on Wednesday called for New Jersey’s highest-ranking Roman Catholic bishop to step down amid a growing furor over church officials’ defense of a priest who confessed to groping a Wyckoff boy.

In a clash of politics and religion, state Sen. Barbara Buono, D-Middlesex, set off a verbal battle with Governor Christie by questioning Newark Archbishop John J. Myers’ ability to lead amid revelations that a former assistant pastor was hearing one-to-one confessions during youth retreats in spite of restrictions barring him from working around children.

Although Christie said he was “disturbed” by the allegations, he called Buono’s intervention “irresponsible” and said he will talk to Myers “to find out his side of the story” before judging the archbishop’s actions. During a press conference in Camden, he accused Buono of poor leadership and for issuing her statement “purely based upon media accounts.”

In response, Buono said “leadership is protecting our children from sexual predators, no matter who they are.”

Jim Goodness, Myers’ spokes¬man, said Buono’s remarks “represent a reckless rush to judgment without having a competent or thorough understanding of all of the facts.”

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CONNECTICUT
The Hartford Courant

By CHRISTINE DEMPSEY, cdempsey@courant.com
The Hartford Courant

3:52 p.m. EDT, May 2, 2013

NEW BRITAIN—
A Berlin priest who was accused of having child pornography on his computer and of engaging in sexually-charged conversations with boys pleaded guilty Thursday to possession of child pornography, obscenity and three counts of risk of injury to a minor.

The Rev. Michael Miller faces five years in prison when he is sentenced July 9 in Superior Court in New Britain.

Miller was arrested on July 12, 2011, after allegations surfaced that he had inappropriate conversations with a boy who was then 13. But Berlin police discovered more cases as their investigation progressed.

[Sample Our Free Breaking News Alert And 3 P.M. News Newsletters]

Police said a search by forensic examiners at the New Britain Police Department turned up evidence of chats via Facebook with two 16-year-old boys, a 17-year-old boy, three 15-year-old boys and the 13-year-old boy. Police said they focused their efforts on the Facebook chats with boys younger than 16.

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CONNECTICUT
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Hartford

May 2, 2013

Michael Miller’s guilty plea to possession of child pornography, publishing an obscenity, and three counts of risk of injury to a minor comes after many months of personal deliberation, reflection and prayer. During this time, Miller has received medical treatment and undergone therapy.

Two years ago, when the Berlin Police Department contacted the Archdiocese of Hartford and Miller’s Order, the Franciscan Friars Conventual, about the charges, Miller was immediately suspended from performing any priestly duties. Now that Miller has pled guilty, he will never function as a priest again.

We hope that Miller’s plea will give some solace and closure to the minors he violated — and their families. We will continue to pray for them so that they will continue to heal from this regrettable experience.

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CONNECTICUT
Patch

By Robert Mayer

St. Paul Priest Father Michael Miller pled guilty to possession of child pornography, publishing an obscenity, and three counts of risk of injury to a minor in a New Britain court today.

This plea came after 21 court continuances.

According to a New Britain court clerk, will serve at least five years in prison as part of a deal made by his attorney.
…
In a statement from the Hartford Archdiocese, Maria Zone said. “Michael Miller’s guilty plea to possession of child pornography, publishing an obscenity, and three counts of risk of injury to a minor comes after many months of personal deliberation, reflection and prayer. During this time, Miller has received medical treatment and undergone therapy.

“Two years ago, when the Berlin Police Department contacted the Archdiocese of Hartford and Miller’s Order, the Franciscan Friars Conventual, about the charges, Miller was immediately suspended from performing any priestly duties. Now that Miller has pled guilty, he will never function as a priest again. We hope that Miller’s plea will give some solace and closure to the minors he violated — and their families.

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CONNECTICUT
The Berlin Citizen

Olivia L. Lawrence
A former St. Paul Church priest, Michael Miller. plead guilty today to possession of child pornography, publishing an obscenity and three counts of risk of injury to a minor during a court appearance at New Britain Superior Court. He will no longer function as a priest, according to church officials.

Miller was first arrested on July 12, 2011. When he appeared in court later that month he plead not guilty to all charges which included inappropriate contact with more than one minor. The Archdiocese of Hartford said since that time he has received medical treatment and therapy.

A statement from the archdiocese said, “Two years ago, when the Berlin Police Department contacted the Archdiocese of Hartford and Miller’s order, the Franciscan Friars Conventual, about the charges, Miller was immediately suspended from performing any priestly duties. Now that Miller has pled guilty, he will never function as a priest again.”

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CONNECTICUT
NBC Connecticut

Michael Miller, a suspended priest from St. Paul’s Roman Catholic Church in Berlin, pleaded guilty to charges including child pornography possession on Thursday and will serve a five-year sentence as part of a plea deal.

Miller was in court on Thursday and pleaded guilty to risk of injury, obscenity and child porn charges.

His attorney said Miller is “terribly upset” about charges, but wants to get this behind him and took a plea.

Court documents stated that authorities looked through two of Miller’s computer and found numerous files showing obscene pictures of kids and child porn.

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CANADA
Global News

MONCTON, N.B. – The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Moncton says the diocese is reducing staff and selling properties to help pay about $5 million in compensation to people who allege they were sexually abused by priests.

Archbishop Valery Vienneau says the number of employees will be cut to 14 from 20.

Vienneau says the diocese will also sell its office and another piece of land, both in Dieppe.

He says the office costs about $60,000 per year to operate.

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WISCONSIN
Janesville Gazette

By NICO SAVIDGE ( Contact ) Thursday, May 2, 2013

ELKHORN–A Walworth County jury has found a former pastor not guilty of failing to report sexual assaults between young boys, clearing the Milton man of the final charges he faced.

Joseph Fultz resigned his position as pastor of the Grace Evangelical Free Church in Walworth when he was charged with five misdemeanor counts of not reporting child abuse in June 2011.

Judges dismissed charges against Fultz on two occasions, and a jury delivered not guilty verdicts April 25 on the two remaining charges.

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KENTUCKY
Harland Daily Enterprise

Joe P. Asher

The trial of Jeremy Caraway wrapped up Wednesday with the defendant being found guilty of rape.

The jury recommended a sentence of five years on each count to run concurrently, for a total of 20 years in prison. This was the maximum sentence allowed.

Caraway, 38, of Loyall, is the former pastor of Loyall Church of God. He was indicted on two counts of second-degree rape, two counts of second-degree sodomy, two counts of first-degree sexual abuse, two counts of first-degree unlawful transaction with a minor and one count of use of an electronic communications system to procure a minor for a sexual offense. He was arrested on the charges in May 2011.

The second day of testimony began in front of Judge Robert McGinnis at 9 a.m., with the defense presenting their case.

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KENTUCKY
San Francisco Chronicle

HARLAN, Ky. (AP) — A jury has found a former pastor in eastern Kentucky guilty of sex charges involving a girl younger than 14.

The Harlan Daily Enterprise (http://bit.ly/10uVPZm) reports the jury returned the verdict Wednesday against 38-year-old Jeremy Caraway.

Caraway is the former pastor of Loyall Church of God in Harlan County.

Jurors found him guilty on charges of rape, sodomy and sex abuse and recommended the maximum 20-year prison sentence.

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SCOTLAND
Lez Get Real

Posted by: Bridgette P. LaVictoire on May 2, 2013.

It is not expected that the Vatican will take any further action to punish Cardinal Keith O’Brien following his admission of sexual relationships with four priests and a seminarian. The Archbishop of St. Andrews and Edinburgh was forced to resign from his post early by Pope Benedict XVI after admitting that his “sexual conduct [had fallen below the standards expected of me as a priest, an archbishop and a cardinal.”

The Vatican is only keeping a loose “watching brief” on O’Brien’s case, and that he is not likely to be asked to give up his rank unless Pope Francis I hands over the rank to a new cleric. The senior clerics in the Vatican no longer believe that there is any need for any further investigation given that O’Brien has admitted his behavior and apologized.

Once source close to the Roman Curia stated anonymously that “When an investigation takes place people expect some kind of public result of the investigation, but there is just no way there is going to be some kind of public examination and a published report on this matter. The Church doesn’t work that way.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Age
April 30, 2013

Barney Zwartz
Religion editor, The Age.

An inquiry into sexual abuse has been told a Catholic Church spokesman made comments that were inappropriate, disingenuous and possibly in contempt of Parliament.

The deputy chairman of the inquiry, Victorian state MP Frank McGuire, criticised the church for taking an ”umbrella” approach at the inquiry but said it did not do so when discussing compensation or remedies.

”Before you’ve even come before the inquiry it looks as though the church is trying to minimise” the abuse problem, Mr McGuire said at the inquiry, held on Monday in Ballarat.

Criticising remarks by Father Shane Mackinlay that clergy sexual abuse coincided with the social and moral collapse of the 1960s and ’70s, including an attempt to lower the age of consent to 12, Mr McGuire said: ”Is the church going to try to blame society?”

Brother Tim Graham, the head of the Hospitallers, Order of St John of God, denied earlier evidence by victims group Broken Rites that there were paedophile rings in the order that gang-raped children, and that a child died after being thrown down stairs, but admitted there had been ”deplorable and indefensible” abuse of vulnerable children in homes formerly run by the order.

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LOUISIANA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

POSTED BY DAVID CLOHESSY ON MAY 02, 2013

Ex-priest Mark Broussard is seeking a reduction in his bond. His attorney was working to get confidential medical information about the victims prior to the start of the trial and Broussard’s taped police interview where he admits to fondling children thrown out.

Broussard was originally booked on 224 criminal charges, including child sex crimes and rape. He is a dangerous predator and should be kept away from children. His attorney should stop exploiting legal technicalities and we are glad that so for the judge has ruled in favor of victims.

We hope this encourages others to come forward. Anyone who saw, suspects, or suffered abuse by Broussard – or any other church official – should come forward, report to police and start healing.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC

[with video]

29/04/2013

Introduced by Caroline Jones

In a career spanning 35 years, Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox has forged a reputation as a police officer who will go out of his way to care for victims.

He rose to national prominence late last year when he defied police rules and disclosed explosive allegations that the Catholic Church had consistently covered up the crimes of paedophile priests in the Newcastle-Hunter region of NSW.

The decision to speak out occurred on the spur of the moment during an emotional public forum. Fox says he thought at the time that the consequences would be ‘fairly heavy’.

But he walked onto the public stage anyway, and addressed hundreds of abuse victims and their supporters.

Other appearances followed and within weeks, the Prime Minister announced a far reaching Royal Commission into the sexual abuse of children in institutions. Fox, along with others, is credited with helping to trigger it.Call Of Duty features exclusive footage of Peter Fox at the meeting that changed his life.

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Patriot-News

By Jan Murphy | jmurphy@pennlive.com
on May 02, 2013

The Pennsylvania Catholic Conference described Bishop Joseph McFadden as a strong advocate for legislation of interest to state’s Catholic bishops and its dioceses.

In addition to his advocacy for expanding the state’s Educational Improvement Tax Credit program and the Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit program to help students pay tuition to attend Catholic schools, the conference, which is the church’s public affairs arm in Pennsylvania, noted his leadership in getting laws passed to apply the same standards to abortion clinics that ambulatory surgical facilities must heed, increased support for alternatives to abortion programs, and assist the poor.

Here is the organization’s full statement:

Bishop Joseph McFadden passed away on May 2, 2013, after three years of service as the president of the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference. The conference is the public policy agency of Pennsylvania’s bishops.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Today’s Catholic News

PHILADELPHIA (CNS) — Bishop Joseph P. McFadden of Harrisburg died May 2 in Philadelphia where he was attending a meeting of Pennsylvania’s Catholic bishops.

According to a Facebook posting from the diocese, Bishop McFadden awoke at the rectory where he was staying and felt ill. He was taken to a hospital and was pronounced dead at about 7:40 a.m.

No cause of death was immediately available. He was 65 and had been the bishop of Harrisburg for three years. He was also chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Catholic Education.

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UNITED STATES
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: A California province Jesuit ordained in 1954, Bradley was accused in a 2003 lawsuit of having sexually abused a 17 year-old girl in Fresno in the early 1960s. The girl was said to have been pregnant and had been sent by her family to Fresno to live with friends who attended St. Agnes Mission, where Bradley was serving. Bradley’s accuser said the abuse went on for five months. Bradley is not indexed in the Official Catholic Directory after 1970.

Ordained: 1954

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DEUTSCHLAND
3sat

Der Missbrauchsbeauftragte der deutschen Bundesregierung fordert eine unabhängige Kommission. Die Bundesjustizministerin lehnt den Vorstoß ab.

Die Bundesregierung sollte Anfang 2014 eine solche Kommission berufen, erklärte Beauftragter Johannes-Wilhelm Rörig am 29. April 2013. “Die Weichen hierfür könnten noch in diesem Jahr gestellt werden.” Nach Rörigs Vorstellungen soll Aufgabe der Kommission sein, Betroffene anzuhören und Missbrauch umfassend wissenschaftlich aufzuarbeiten.

Heute fand auf Rörigs Einladung ein Hearing zum derzeitigen Stand der Aufarbeitung der Missbrauchsskandale statt. Zu den geladenen Experten gehören der Jesuitenpater Klaus Mertes, durch den der Missbrauch in der katholischen Kirche öffentlich wurde, und Rörigs Vorgängerin als Missbrauchsbeauftragte, Christine Bergmann.

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AUSTRALIEN
dradio (Deutschland)

Von Andreas Stummer

Es geschah in der Kirche, in Waisenhäusern, bei den Pfadfindern: In Australien wurden seit dem Zweiten Weltkrieg Hunderttausende Kinder und Jugendliche psychisch und sexuell misshandelt. Nun soll eine Kommission das ganz Ausmaß der Vorfälle untersuchen – und das möglichst schonungslos.

Sonntag früh in der St. Aloysius Kirche von Cronulla, im Süden von Sydney. Die katholische Morgenandacht hat begonnen. Durch die schweren Bleiglasfenster des Backsteinbaus fällt gedämpftes Licht, Kerzen brennen, es riecht nach Weihrauch. In den Sitzreihen verlieren sich nur ein paar Dutzend Gläubige. Die Kirche ist halb leer.

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AUSTRALIEN
Katholisch

Die Versicherungsgesellschaft der katholischen Kirche im australischen Bundesstaat Victoria hat rund 23 Millionen Euro als Entschädigung an 600 Missbrauchsopfer ausgezahlt. Wie der Fernsehsender ABC am Dienstagabend berichtete, teilte dies die Versicherungsgesellschaft CCI vor einer staatlichen Untersuchungskommission zum Missbrauchsskandal mit.

Die CCI beteuerte, sie habe niemals Täter aus den Reihen der Kleriker gedeckt. Die Entschädigungszahlungen betrafen laut Bericht Missbrauchsfälle aus den 60er, 70er und 80er Jahren.

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CANADA
CBC

The Diocese of Moncton is shedding staff and selling off one church property in order to cover the roughly $5 million in compensation owed to victims of sexual abuse.

The diocese has been forced to deal with a series of sexual abuse controversies in the last year.

Retired Supreme Court of Canada Justice Michel Bastarache was hired to help deal with the sex abuse compensation process. It is estimated the diocese will pay out $5 million to victims of sexual abuse.

Those bills have caused the diocese to cut the number of staff to 14 from 19. As well, the diocese’s office in Dieppe, which was once the home of the bishop, is being sold because it can no longer afford to pay the annual $50,000 in operating costs.

Archbishop Valéry Vienneau said the diocese’s growing deficit and dropping church attendance factored into the decision to cut staff and sell off the property.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Big Trial

By Ralph Cipriano
for Bigtrial.net

Here are the questions from National Catholic Reporter that District Attorney Seth Williams declined to answer:

1. At the plea bargain hearing of Edward V. Avery, why didn’t the district attorney ask the former priest if he had raped Billy Doe?

2. What is the district attorney’s explanation for why he was able to charge Msgr. Lynn with endangering the welfare of a child [EWOC] when a previous district attorney, Lynne Abraham, and a previous grand jury, looked at the same state law and declared that Msgr. Lynn couldn’t be charged with EWOC?

3. Why did the district attorney deem Billy Doe a credible victim when he gave wildly varying accounts of the alleged rapes, and told a fantastic story about being raped by three different predators, without any corroborating witnesses or physical evidence? A story contradicted by Billy Doe’s mother, his older brother, and priests, nuns and teachers from St. Jerome’s?

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IRELAND
Association of Catholic Priests

We have received the following from the ACP solicitor, Robert Dore, and he has asked us to inform all the members of the ACP. The message goes as follows:

“Recently I have been consulted by a number of priests who are members of the Association.

Prior to meeting with me they have been requested by their bishops to undergo assessments, and they have all done so.

To a man the findings of these assessments have been hugely prejudicial.

It is my earnest advice that, in future, should any of your members be asked to undergo an assessment, and if they are minded to do so, they should insist on being assessed by a completely independent eminent professional, preferably a psychiatrist.”

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IRELAND
Association of Catholic Priests

On Wednesday, February 20, 2013, about 250 priests ­ members of the Association of Catholic Priests (ACP) ­ met in Athlone to discuss the challenges faced by priests in Ireland today.

During a discussion on the rights of priests, the meeting was reminded that the 1971 Synod on Justice produced the document, the Practice of Justice, which emphasised that the Catholic Church must act justly towards all its members, if it to have credibility in preaching on Justice.

The Synod document stressed that everyone has a right to suitable freedom of expression and thought and affirms that in any form of judicial procedure the accused should have the right to know his accusers and also the right to a proper defence.

Seán McDonagh proposed the following motion:

In the light of the above teaching from the Synod of Bishop in 1971, we the undersigned ask the Irish Bishops¹ Conference to meet, as soon as possible, with those Irish priests who have been censured by the Vatican in recent year.

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IRELAND
The Impartial Reporter

Sarah Saunderson • Published 2 May 2013

A victim of clerical abuse in the Clogher diocese has revealed the settlement he received would not be enough “to buy a good second hand car”.

Mr. Michael Connolly, abused by a priest in the early 1970s in Donagh, was speaking after the Diocese said it would not reveal the amount it has paid out in compensation to victims.

Bishop Liam MacDaid last week made public “The Review of Safeguarding Practice in the Diocese of Clogher”, an audit by the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church (NBSCCCI). In it, case files from 1975 to 2012 were examined. It showed there were 23 allegations about clerical sex abuse made to police authorities.

The diocese is refusing to reveal the level of compensation made to victims of abuse here. Bishop MacDaid explained: “It has been our policy that it is the perogative of the victim to give any information on settlements that have been made”.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Norwich Evening News

Thursday, May 2, 2013

A Norwich priest arrested in a child sex probe has been re-bailed.

Father Tony McSweeney was arrested in February by detectives probing allegations of child sex abuse centring on a guesthouse and a children’s home in London.

He was bailed until April and has now been bailed until July.

The 66-year-old, from St George’s Church in the north of Norwich, was arrested on suspicion of sexual offences.

Fr McSweeney, who has been a priest for 29 years, was appointed a director at Notre Dame High School in April last year but resigned after his arrest.

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LOUISIANA
NECN

May 2, 2013, 8:45 am

LAKE CHARLES, La. (AP) — State District Judge David Ritchie says prosecutors can use the recorded interview of authorities’ initial questioning of former priest Mark Broussard.

Broussard is accused of molesting young male parishioners in the late 1980s and early ’90s.

His attorney, Tom Lorenzi, asked the court to throw out the interview because he said Broussard told detectives he needed a lawyer 10 minutes and 30 seconds into the recorded portion of the interview.

Broussard was originally charged with 224 counts of child molestation, but the prosecution is taking him to trial on five counts.

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TEXAS
The Dallas Morning News

By Megan Gray Denton Record-Chronicle mgray@dentonrc.com
Published: 02 May 2013

Corinth police arrested the lead pastor of The Church of Corinth on Wednesday on sex-related charges, investigators said.

The Rev. Jeffrey Dale Williams, 47, was charged with attempted sexual performance of a child, a third-degree felony, police said.

Capt. Greg Wilkerson said the alleged incident took place at the victim’s home on March 30 and the investigation is continuing.

“We have been working on the case since April 3, and there is potential there may be more victims,” Wilkerson said.

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TEXAS
WFAA

by JOBIN PANICKER
WFAA
Posted on May 1, 2013

DENTON COUNTY — Jeffrey Dale Williams, the senior pastor at The Church of Corinth, has been accused of trying to persuade a girl under 18 to take her clothes off.

He was jailed on charges of “attempted sexual performance of a child.” Bond was set at $10,000.
Police said the alleged incident was captured on a two-hour audiotape.

“He tried to entice her to take her clothes off so he could see her naked body,” said Corinth police Capt. Greg Wilkerson.

Police said the complaint came in from a social worker at the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services on April 3, four days after the alleged act.

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