ABUSE TRACKER

ARGENTINA
Miami Herald

By Daniel Politi
McClatchy Newspapers

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — A Jesuit priest whose kidnapping by the Argentine military in 1976 has raised the issue of what role newly named Pope Francis played in that country’s so-called “dirty war” said Friday that he was “reconciled to the events” and wished the pope well, but he did not explicitly absolve the pope of involvement in his detention.

In a statement posted on a website in Germany, where the Rev. Francisco Jalics now lives, Jalics recounted the details of his detention, saying he was held for five months, blindfolded and shackled. At the time, the pope, then the Rev. Jorge Mario Bergoglio, was Jalics’ Jesuit superior.

“I’m unable to comment on the role of Father Bergoglio in this matter,” the statement said.

Jalics’ comments were posted on the same day the Vatican angrily denounced news coverage linking Pope Francis to the dirty war, calling the reports a campaign that “is well-known and dates back to many years ago.”

The Vatican said the campaign is being pushed “by a publication that carries out sometimes slanderous and defamatory campaigns,” an apparent reference to Pagina 12, an Argentine newspaper whose editor, Horacio Verbitsky, has written critically of Pope Francis’ role in the dirty war.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

by Thomas C. Fox | Mar. 15, 2013

60 Minutes will air a segment March 17th on the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s controversial doctrinal assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious.

CBS describes the upcoming segment this way: “One of the pressing problems newly elected Pope Francis may want to address is the disillusionment among American nuns. Many were shocked last year when the group that represents most of them was reprimanded by the Vatican, which said the nuns’ liberal ideas were undermining the Church. Bob Simon reports. Tanya Simon and Andrew Metz are the producers.”

The segment, nine months in the making, comes at a time of considerable uncertainty in the church, including LCWR. Pope Francis only been pope for a few days, with his attitudes toward the U.S. women religious uncertain. Also Achbishop Gerhard Müller, CDF prefect, submitted his resignation last month, as canon law required when now Pope Benedict resigned.

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
Tribune-Review

By Tribune-Review Staff

Italian media is describing Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington as the “pope-maker” of this week’s conclave that elected the first non-European pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church.

Wuerl, 72, a Pittsburgh native and the city’s bishop for 18 years before being named Washington’s cardinal in 2006, could not be reached for comment. The reports about Wuerl’s role in the conclave could not be independently confirmed by the Tribune-Review.

La Repubblica, Italy’s largest-circulation daily newspaper, reported Friday that Wuerl led a coalition of American cardinals and those from other countries in supporting the candidacy of Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, 76, of Argentina.

Bergoglio was elected the 266th pope of the Roman Catholic Church on Wednesday and took the name of Francis.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
LA Weekly

By Dennis Romero
Fri., Mar. 15 2013

The L.A. Archdiocese not only knew about pedophile priests, but strategized about how to shuffle them around.

KCET’s “SoCal Connected” at 5:30 tonight will air its exclusive investigation into the scandal that has clouded the legacy of ex-Cardinal Roger Mahony. The station obtained exclusive, 1996 audio of Father Stephen Rosetti speaking about how to deal with these creeps:

Yeah.

KCET also discovered that many of L.A.’s alleged pedophile priests — our archdiocese had the most, 260, in the nation — worked in the city’s Latino neighborhoods.

For the church, out town became, KCET says, the home of the “‘L.A. Model,’ a program that quietly put sexual abusive priests in desk jobs around the dioceses and even helped them find outside employment.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Times

Russell Jenkins

The mother of a teenage girl who was sexually assaulted by a Roman Catholic priest expressed astonishment yesterday that they had known nothing of his secret life as a married man.

Father William Finnegan, 59, had confessed that he had been secretly married to a middle-aged mother of two, and enjoyed a full sex life, in a last ditch attempt to evade conviction.

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UNITED STATES
TheMediaReport

It seems that the mission of bludgeoning the Catholic Church for abuse episodes from a half century ago is not as thriving as it used to be.

Few major media outlets have overplayed and exaggerated the abuse narrative more than the Washington Post. So it was big news when even the Post was recently forced to take notice that the abuse story is now so old that professional Church-bashing groups such as SNAP and Voice of the Faithful (VOTF) are dying and fading away, as they are comprised of an ever dwindling number of cranky codgers.

According to the recent Post article:
■Attendance at recent VOTF events has “plummeted, as have donations”;
■Bill Casey, a VOTF board member, admits, “The average age is gray-haired folks. And they’re 10 years grayer”*;
■Terry McKiernan, the crotchety but frequently quoted “head” of BishopAccountability.org, admits that the abuse story has now become so long in the tooth that his people have “run of out steam”; and
■”Many of the groups that appeared during the early and mid-2000s have shrunk or disappeared.”

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ARGENTINA
National Catholic Register

by ESTEFANIA AGUIRRE/CNA/EWTN NEWS
03/15/2013 Comment

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis told the apostolic nuncio to Argentina to ask his countrymen not to travel to Italy for the ceremony that will begin his pontificate.

“Tell the bishops and the faithful to make an offering and an act of solidarity to the poor with the money instead,” said the Vatican’s press office director, Father Federico Lombardi.

Father Lombardi spoke March 15 with the nuncio, Archbishop Emil Paul Tscherrig, who confirmed that Pope Francis had telephoned him on the night of his election.

“But those who know him find this very normal, since it is his style,” said Father Lombardi at the Vatican’s media center.

“I don’t think he forbade it, he just said it wasn’t necessary for people to come to his installation Mass,” he added.

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VATICAN CITY
Staten Island Advance

By Religion News Service
on March 15, 2013

VATICAN CITY — Last Sunday night, the Rev. Thomas Rosica was walking through the Piazza Navona in Rome’s historic center when he bumped into Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, who he has known for years. Bergoglio was walking alone, wearing a simple black cassock and he stopped and grabbed Rosica’s hands.

“I want you to pray for me,” the Argentine cardinal told Rosica, a Canadian priest who was assisting as a Vatican spokesman during the papal interregnum. Rosica asked him if he was nervous. “A little bit,” Bergoglio confessed.

He had reason to be worried. Two days later, on Tuesday evening, he and 114 other cardinals entered the conclave to elect a successor to Benedict XVI; a little more than 24 hours and five ballots after that, Bergoglio emerged on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica as Pope Francis.

It was a surprising outcome, and even if Bergoglio suspected something was up, few others did, including many of the cardinals in the Sistine Chapel with him.

“I think it all came together in an extraordinary fashion,” Chicago Cardinal Francis George told the Chicago Tribune.

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VATICAN CITY
680 News

The Canadian Press Mar 15, 2013

VATICAN CITY – Italian media reports say Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet, who was considered a front-runner for the papacy, nearly became pope.

According to Italian news outlet Il Solo 24 Ore, Ouellet was tied with Italian Cardinal Angelo Scola in early voting at the Sistine Chapel, with Argentinian Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio in third place.

The report says Scola was later unable to gain further support after many cardinals decided against choosing a Vatican insider to lead the Roman Catholic Church.

Ouellet then reportedly convinced his fellow cardinals to throw their support behind Bergoglio, who eventually became Pope Francis on Wednesday.

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UNITED STATES
WWLT

Associated Press

Posted on March 15, 2013

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Most Roman Catholics are rejoicing at the election of Pope Francis, but alleged victims of clergy abuse in the U.S. are demanding swift and bold actions from the new Jesuit pontiff: Defrock all molester priests and the cardinals who covered up for them, formally apologize, and release all confidential church files.

Adding to their distrust are several multimillion dollar settlements the Jesuits paid out in recent years, including $166 million to more than 450 Native Alaskan and Native American abuse victims in 2011 for molestation at Jesuit-run schools across the Pacific Northwest. The settlement bankrupted the Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus. The order also paid $14 million to settle nine California cases.

“I would like to see this pope stand up and say to those cardinals, ‘You need to square this away and change everything that was covered up,’ ” said Ken Smolka, a 70-year-old retired actor who claimed in a lawsuit he was abused as a teen by a Jesuit priest. “You need to get them on their knees, and let them spend the rest of their lives on their knees praying for the victims.”

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CANADA
Hamilton Spectator

More than 10 months since a Hamilton priest facing a sexual assault charge was allowed to return to his native Brazil, the Ministry of the Attorney General is not commenting on the status of the investigation into the controversial deal.

Ministry spokesperson Brendan Crawley would only say “there is nothing new to report at this time.”

He did not respond directly to questions about the status of the investigation, whether the ministry has taken any action or the status of the assistant Crown attorney in question, Carey Lee.

Reverend Jose Silva was permitted to leave Canada in early May 2012 in a deal struck between Lee and Silva’s defence lawyer, Dean Paquette.

Silva, a former guest priest at St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church, was facing a charge of sexual assault following a complaint by an 18-year-old musician. As part of the deal, a countrywide warrant would be issued for his arrest should he return to Canada.

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UNITED STATES
Wall Street Journal

By PEGGY NOONAN

I’ll tell you how it looks: like one big unexpected gift for the church and the world.

Everything about Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s election was a surprise—his age, the name he took, his mien as he was presented to the world. He was plainly dressed, a simple white cassock, no regalia, no finery. He stood there on the balcony like a straight soft pillar and looked out at the crowd. There were no grand gestures, not even, at first, a smile. He looked tentative, even overwhelmed. I thought, as I watched, “My God—he’s shy.”

Then the telling moment about the prayer. Before he gave a blessing he asked for a blessing: He asked the crowd to pray for him. He bent his head down and the raucous, cheering square suddenly became silent, as everyone prayed. I thought, “My God—he’s humble.”

I wasn’t sure what to make of it and said so to a friend, a member of another faith who wants the best for the church because to him that’s like wanting the best for the world. He was already loving what he was seeing. He asked what was giving me pause. I said I don’t know, the curia is full of tough fellows, the pope has to be strong.

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ITALIA
TGCOM24

L’incontro durante la visita alla basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore. Il Pontefice avrebbe espresso la volontà di non voler più vedere l’alto prelato, al centro dello scandalo pedofilia

08:24 – Incontro imbarazzante, ieri, per papa Francesco durante la visita a Santa Maria Maggiore. Il nuovo pontefice ha incrociato il cardinale Bernard Law, in pensione, accusato di aver coperto i preti pedofili nella diocesi di Boston, non prendendo le adeguate misure. “Non voglio che frequenti questa basilica”, avrebbe detto il Papa. Il portavoce della Santa Sede ha cercato di minimizzare l’accaduto.

Secondo quanto racconta Il Fatto quotidiano, infatti, la presenza del cardinale 82enne è stata discreta e sarebbe stata una sua volontà incontrare il nuovo Pontefice. Che però non avrebbe gradito più di tanto. Papa Francesco avrebbe intenzione di allontanare l’alto prelato, coinvolto nello scandalo pedofilia in Nord America, costringendolo a una vita di clausura.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic League

Bill Donohue comments on some of the issues that are gripping the critics of Pope Francis:

Pope Francis has captured the goodwill, indeed the love, of millions around the globe, and the response is hardly confined to Catholic circles. However, his critics are emerging, though none with any luck.

Sex is always a good subject for Catholic haters. Their goal—sex without consequences (kids and diseases)—is threatened when religious leaders counsel the virtue of restraint. Similarly, we have the lament of people like Mary Johnson, a former nun, who told the MSNBC audience how “marginalized” gay and lesbian Catholics are. Catholic-bashing lawyer Marci Hamilton chimed in, commenting about the “sex abuse scandal that has scandalized the church over the past decade.” Any high school fact checker knows better: the timeline of the homosexual scandal was the mid-60s to the mid-80s.

Washington Post opinion writer Eugene Robinson wants to know “what did the newly chosen Pope Francis do” about the right-wing dictatorship in Argentina’s “Dirty War”? We have an answer from Adolfo Perez Esquivel, the 1980 Nobel Peace Prize winner: he said the pope “was no accomplice of the dictatorship.” Indeed, he firmly concluded, “He can’t be accused of that.” Others have written books praising the pope for his yeoman efforts in undermining the junta.

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GERMANY
Expatica

A Jesuit priest whose arrest and torture by Argentina’s military junta in the 1970s sparked criticism of Pope Francis said Friday he had come to terms with the events and wished the newly elected pontiff well.

Amid allegations that Jorge Mario Bergoglio, then archbishop of Buenos Aires, betrayed him to the military regime, Father Francisco Jalics said in a statement he had spoken to Bergoglio years after his release.

“Afterwards we celebrated mass publicly together and we embraced solemnly. I am reconciled with the events and, for my part, consider them finished,” said Jalics, who has lived in Germany since 1978.

“I wish Pope Francis God’s rich blessing for his office,” he added.

Jalics and another young Jesuit, Orlando Yorio, who were both working in a slum in Buenos Aires, were taken to a notorious torture centre by the brutal right-wing junta in 1976. They were freed after five months.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Yorkshire Post

Published on Friday 15 March 2013

A WEST Yorkshire priest who revealed in court that he has been secretly married for more than a decade was today warned he may go to jail for sexually assaulting a teenage girl.

William Finnegan, 59, known to his parishioners as Father Bill, denied forcefully kissing the 17-year-old and touching her bottom, but was found guilty by jurors at Bradford Crown Court.

During his trial, Finnegan, who was parish priest at St Mary’s Roman Catholic Church in Fagley, Bradford at the time of the assault – revealed to the court and to his diocese that he shirked his vow of celibacy by secretly marrying Beverley Dawson in 1999.

He wed the previously married mother of two in Cyprus after meeting her at his former parish in Castleford, West Yorkshire, jurors heard.

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CALIFORNIA
Orange County Weekly

By Gustavo Arellano
Fri., Mar. 15 2013

KCET-TV Channel 28’s SoCal Connected devoted a segment yesterday to the travesty that is the Archdiocese of Los Angeles sex-abuse scandal, specifically on their program of dumping pedo-priests in predominantly Latino parishes. But it also included a small aside to bring in the story of OC’s worst-ever pedo-priest: Eleuterio Ramos.

The hook was the experience of Weekly friend-of-the-show Daniel A. Olivas, who made national news last month with his beautifully written op-ed for the New York Times on his childhood priest and how he escaped his molesting ways.

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CALIFORNIA
Orange County Weekly

By Gustavo Arellano
Fri., Mar. 15 2013

Here at OC’s afflict-er of the comfortable, we rarely give a damn about anything that happens outside of the county because the rest of the country can pound sand. But I do want to take just this post to acknowledge a pioneer in pedo-priest profiles: the Boston Phoenix, which announced yesterday that it was shutting down next week after 47 years.

I’ll be honest: I rarely read the Phoenix, given that I really don’t care for Boston (the Celtics will do that to you, although Bobby Orr was GANGSTA). But I did revere them for their bravery more than a decade ago of breaking open the Catholic Church sex-abuse scandal long before its rival, the Boston Globe, made it into a national story.

Specifically, it was reporter Kristen Lombardi (who served a stint at our sister paper, the Village Voice) who did the stories no one else wanted to do at the time. Her 2001 story on Boston-area monster John Geoghan beat the Globe’s story on the pedo-priest by nearly a year. She would continue to monitor the situation vigorously until moving on to the Voice.

Has the national media ever given Lombardi’s and the Phoenix’s work any credit? No. Instead, all the accolades went to the Globe–even a decade later, Phoenix staffers have to beg for even a scrap of attention, which is a damn shame.

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UNITED STATES
CNN

SNAP Western Regional Dir. Joelle Casteix on what Pope Francis’s election means for handling child sex abuse in church.

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ROME
Boston Herald

By
Sabina Castelfranco

ROME — To the dismay of church sex abuse victims, Pope Francis made his first stop yesterday at the church where Boston’s disgraced Cardinal Bernard Law was assigned as archpriest after the scandal 
engulfed the worldwide Catholic community.

Francis prayed at St. Mary Major Basilica at 8 a.m. and Law was in attendance, the Vatican confirmed to the Herald.

“It’s a complete slap in the face to Boston victims and Boston Catholics,” said Joelle Casteix, a member of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, or SNAP..

“Hopefully this is not a harbinger of what’s to come of the papacy of Francis,” Casteix said.

“It hurts the victims,” added fellow SNAP member Becky Ianni. “Law shouldn’t have any honors in Rome. How are the victims going to see this?”

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ROME
National Catholic Reporter

by John L. Allen Jr. | Mar. 15, 2013 All Things Catholic

Although 76-year-old Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires was the one who stepped out onto the balcony overlooking St. Peter’s Square clad in white Wednesday night, there’s a good argument that the real winner of the 2013 conclave wasn’t in Rome, and wasn’t even alive to see the result.

In effect, the landslide winner was actually St. Francis of Assisi.

The case for the 2013 papal election as a tribute to the most iconic saint in Catholic tradition rests on three points.

The O’Malley boom

The biggest surprise of the pre-conclave period was the emergence of Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston as a crowd favorite. As I said during CNN’s broadcast of the Mass Pro Eligendo Romano Pontifice, if the custom of papal election by popular acclamation were still around, it’s entirely possible O’Malley might be the one sitting on the Throne of Peter.

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NEDERLAND
Volkskrant

In het rapport ‘Seksueel misbruik van en geweld tegen meisjes in de Rooms Katholieke kerk’ van de commissie-Deetman zijn niet alle meldingen correct opgenomen. Dat vindt het Vrouwenplatform Kerkelijk Kindermisbruik. Het VPKK kreeg over 21 in het rapport beschreven gevallen klachten over de juistheid, liet de organisatie vrijdag weten. .

Het platform ontving klachten over onder meer een foute weergave van jaartallen en locaties. Ook zouden sommige meldingen niet zijn opgenomen in het eindrapport.

Het rapport van de commissie-Deetman verscheen maandag.

‘Laat ik voorop stellen dat het rapport goed is opgebouwd, maar een goede beschrijving van de meldingen in het rapport is onmisbaar voor de eerste stap van erkenning en herstel. Er is in sommige gevallen niet goed naar gekeken’, aldus Annemie Knibbe van het VPKK. Het platform zegt 70 vrouwen te vertegenwoordigen.

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DEUTSCHLAND
dradio

Vor drei Jahren wurden die Missbrauchsfälle im saarländischen Internat Johanneum bekannt

Von Tonia Koch

Jahrelang hatte es Missbrauch an den Schülern im Johanneum, einer katholischen Privatschule, gegeben. Die Opfer kämpfen noch immer um Anerkennung und Gerechtigkeit, doch die Schule sperrt sich. Nun ist auch eine Mediation gescheitert.

Vier Tage tagten die deutschen Bischöfe Mitte Februar in Trier. Und in diesen 4 Tagen versuchten die Vertreter von Opferinitiativen sexuellen Missbrauchs mit den Bischöfen ins Gespräch zu kommen. Doch eine Geste in Richtung der Opfer blieb aus. Der Vorsitzende der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz, der Freiburger Erzbischof Robert Zollitsch, begründete die bischöfliche Zurückhaltung.

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GROSSBRITANNIEN
HNA

London – Ein katholischer Priester ist wegen sexueller Nötigung verurteilt worden. Vor Gericht hatte er ein Geständnis abgelegt – aber nicht das, was die Richter erwartet hatten.

Einem englischen Gericht offenbarte der Geistliche, er führe seit mehr als zehn Jahren eine geheime Ehe. Der Anwalt des 59-Jährigen, Jeremy Hill-Baker, erklärte nach einem Bericht der Lokalzeitung „The Bradford Telegraph and Argus“ den Geschworenen im Prozess in Bradford bei Leeds, sein Mandant missachte sein Zölibatsversprechen wegen seiner tiefen Liebe zu seiner Frau. Mit diesem Argument wollte er offenbar der Anklage wegen sexueller Nötigung einer Minderjährigen den Wind aus den Segeln nehmen.

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VATIKAN
Radio Vatikan – Laudetur Jesus Christus

Veröffentlicht am 15. März 2013

Die Militärjunta in Argentinien: Plötzlich ist sie wieder auf der Tagesordnung. Nachdem der BR meinte, einen Jesuiten um Papstkritiker erklären zu müssen und ihm das Gefühl unterstellte, vom damaligen Provinzialoberen verraten worden zu sein – was der BR dann tunlichst zu belegen unterlässt – veröffentlicht dieser Pater nun eine Stellungnahme. Es ist Franz Jalics SJ, ungarischer Nationalität und derzeit als Exerzitienbegleiter in Deutschland tätig.

Die Erklärung im Wortlaut:

Seit 1957 lebte ich in Buenos Aires. Im Jahre 1974, vom inneren Wunsch bewegt das Evangelium zu leben und auf die schreckliche Armut aufmerksam zu machen, und mit der Erlaubnis von Erzbischof Aramburu und den damaligen Provinzial P. Jorge Mario Bergoglio bin ich gemeinsam mit einen Mitbruder in eine „Favela“, ein Elendsviertel der Stadt, gezogen. Von dort aus haben wir unsere Lehrtätigkeit an der Universität fortgesetzt.

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UNITED STATES
Spiritual Politics

Mark Silk | Mar 15, 2013

There is widespread agreement that dealing with the abuse scandal needs to be a top priority for Pope Francis. And so far as I can tell, Pope Francis has never done or said anything about a particular case or the situation in general that has received public notice. Astonishingly enough, he seems to be a virtual tabula rasa when it comes to the biggest crisis to hit the Catholic Church since the Reformation.

The explanation may have to do with the fact that the scandal has touched Argentina very little. The only case of note occurred in 2002 when Archbishop Edgardo Storni of Santa Fe resigned after a book accused him of abusing at least 47 young seminarians. (The Vatican had investigated Storni in 1994 and found insufficient evidence to discipline him.) An Argentine writer talked with then Archbishop Bergoglio about Storni’s situation at the time of his resignation recalls him saying, “The justice will take care of him.” The Argentine episcopate was then paying for the lawyers who represented Storni.

If Francis wants to make as much of a mark by his handling of the abuse scandal as he has by his simple lifestyle, he’s got a ready-made opportunity. Last September, Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas City was convicted of a criminal misdemeanor for failing to report one of his priests for possible sexual abuse of children. Thus far, neither the Vatican nor the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has so much as issued a statement on the matter.

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VATICAN CITY
Reuters

By Philip Pullella

March 15, 2013

The Vatican on Friday strongly denied accusations by some critics in Argentina that Pope Francis stayed silent during systematic human rights abuses by the former military dictatorship.

Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi told reporters the accusations: “Must be clearly and firmly denied.” He added that, “They reveal anti-clerical left-wing elements that are used to attack the Church”.

Critics of Jorge Bergoglio, the former Archbishop of Buenos Aires, allege he failed to protect priests who challenged the dictatorship earlier in his career, during the 1976-1983 “dirty war”, and that he has said too little about the complicity of the Church during military rule.

The allegations centre around a time before Bergoglio became a bishop, when he was leader of the Jesuits in Argentina. Two priests kidnapped by the military government alleged Bergoglio did not protect them.

“There has never been a concrete or credible accusation in his regard. Argentinian justice interrogated him once … but he was never charged with anything,” Lombardi said.

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VATICAN CITY
The Guardian

Lizzy Davies in Vatican City
guardian.co.uk, Friday 15 March 2013

The Vatican has hit out at what it calls an “anti-clerical, leftwing” campaign against the newly elected Pope Francis, strongly rejecting accusations concerning his actions during Argentina’s brutal military dictatorship.

In a statement delivered at a press briefing on Friday, Federico Lombardi, the pope’s spokesman, said the allegations against Jorge Bergoglio, who until Wednesday was simply the archbishop of Buenos Aires, “must be clearly and firmly denied”.

“There has never been a concrete or credible accusation in his regard. Argentinian justice interrogated him once … but he was never charged with anything,” he added. “He documented his denials of the accusations against him. There are also many declarations that show how Bergoglio tried to protect many people in his time during the military dictatorship. His role is very clearly noted.”

The Roman Catholic church has been widely criticised for failing to stand up to the junta that ruled Argentina between 1976 and 1983. Some critics have gone further in their attacks on Bergoglio, claiming he failed to protect two Jesuit priests serving under him who were abducted and tortured for five months at a navy base.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Giles Tremlett in Madrid
guardian.co.uk, Friday 15 March 2013

In his own words, Pope Francis comes over as a clever, thoughtful and skilful mixture of social conservative and radical progressive who preaches zero tolerance of pederast priests but whose own behaviour during the terror of Argentina’s military juntas remains decidedly blurred.

In his latest book, On Earth and Heaven, the man then known as Jorge Bergoglio, discusses the divine and the mundane with the prominent Jewish rabbi Abraham Skorka in a series of conversations published in 2010.

Bergoglio appears as a man with a profound social conscience, expressing admiration of some atheist socialists and professing a genuine belief in interfaith dialogue – to the extent that some radical Catholics accuse him of heresy.

He is critical of those who covered up the paedophile scandal that has done so much damage to the church he now leads.

“The idea that celibacy produces paedophiles can be forgotten,” he says. “If a priest is a paedophile, he is so before he becomes a priest. But when this happens you must never look away. You cannot be in a position of power and use it to destroy the life of another person.”

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VATICAN CITY
BBC News

The Vatican has denied that Pope Francis failed to speak out against human rights abuses during military rule in his native Argentina.

“There has never been a credible, concrete accusation against him,” said Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi, adding he had never been charged.

The spokesman blamed the accusations on “anti-clerical left-wing elements that are used to attack the Church”.

Jorge Bergoglio, now Pope Francis, led Argentina’s Jesuits under the junta.

Correspondents say that like other Latin American churchmen of the time, he had to contend, on the one hand, with a repressive right-wing regime and, on the other, a wing of his Church leaning towards political activism on the left.

One allegation concerns the abduction in 1976 of two Jesuits by Argentina’s military government, suspicious of their work among slum-dwellers.

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VATICAN CITY
Los Angeles Times

By Tom Kington
March 15, 2013

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican on Friday denied that Pope Francis acquiesced to Argentina’s brutal military regime in the 1970s and ’80s, saying the accusations are part of a “defamatory” campaign.

Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who was elected pope on Wednesday, has been accused in some quarters of failing to protect two Jesuit priests who challenged the country’s regime, leading to their kidnapping and torture by military officials in 1976.

Those claims were made a decade ago but have received renewed attention since Bergoglio was appointed the leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics, the first Latin American to occupy St. Peter’s chair.

“This campaign against Bergoglio is well known,” Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi said in a news conference. “It was promoted by a publication which specializes in campaigns which are sometimes slanderous and defamatory. The anti-clerical nature of this campaign and other accusations against Bergoglio is well known and evident.”

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NEW YORK
JTA

(JTA) — Rabbi Hershel Schachter, a dean at Yeshiva University, has warned against reporting uncorroborated sex abuse allegations to police.

Schachter was recorded at a rabbinical conference in February in London warning that false allegations could lead to arrests and imprisonment with a “shvartze” — a dergatory Yiddish term for a black person. The recording was posted on FailedMessiah.com and the voice was said to be Schachter’s.

Schachter did not respond to inquiries from the Forward newspaper, which has been running stories since December about allegations of abuse by former faculty members at Y.U.’s high school for boys. The alleged incidents took place decades ago.

“Before you go to the police and before you got to family services, every community should have a board…to investigate whether there’s any raglayim la’davar [substance] or not,” Schachter says, according to the recording. He also says that reporting people who are guilty of sex offenses does not contstitute mesirah, or betrayal — the traditional Jewish prohibition against informing on a fellow Jew to the secular authorities.

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NEW YORK
The Jewish Daily Forward

By Larry Cohler-Esses

The lede, as we call it in the journalism biz, sat there silently on the computer screen, like an IED waiting to explode:

“…or as he put it, ‘a schvartze,’” it said at the end.

The phrase reported accurately the word Rabbi Hershel Schachter used to describe the reason he resisted the idea of rabbis reporting cases of child sexual abuse within the Jewish community to the police. It was not, he said, that reporting such cases — after some rabbis judge them genuine — violated Talmudic strictures against turning a Jew over to secular authorities. But even if the accused Jew is guilty, said Schachter, he could end up in jail with a black man — “a schvartze.”

Forward staff reporter Paul Berger and I knew what kind of outrage would ensue once Forward web editor Dave Goldiner pressed the button sending this story out into the Internet. And we’d already been arguing over the wording of that lede sentence for something like an hour. It was getting late. We both had to go home. But in its compression of the full quotation given in the story, this lede was missing something, and I couldn’t put my finger on what.

As a college student in the early 1970’s, I had lived for a year in Mississippi working for civil rights organizations. I learned a lot about racism then. I knew it came in many different flavors, even there. While arguing with Paul, I thought about how a few years before I arrived in Jackson, there were gargantuan battles there over the integration of municipal swimming pools. This was the fear of black people as contagion.

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UNITED STATES
Natonal Catholic Reporter

by Brian McNaught | Mar. 15, 2013

Whether or not Pope Benedict XVI resigned because of a gay-related scandal in the Vatican, there is no doubt that gay sexual scandals among the clergy today are causing the average Catholic, and the average gay man, a great deal of sadness.

The head of the Scottish Catholic church, Cardinal Keith O’Brien, resigned amid allegations he was physically inappropriate with four priests. Msgr. Kevin Wallin is in a Connecticut jail, accused of dealing crystal meth from the rectory, which he allegedly did to pay for his sex and drug addictions.

When I read about O’Brien, I had much less sympathy for him than I did for Wallin because the cardinal was publicly anti-gay. Such hypocrisy makes me angry and ill. But the story of Wallin made me very sad because, if true, he represents to me the disturbing syndrome of self-destruction I see among so many smart, talented, good-hearted gay men inside and outside of the Catholic church. And in Kevin Wallin’s tragic fall from grace, I see myself had I made different choices in life than I did.

Had I pursued the path to the seminary, I suspect I would have been a very popular priest. I care deeply about the well-being of others. I’m funny, love people, am young at heart, am spiritual, independent, a good speaker and a minister at the core of my being. I’d also have been a closeted gay man whose guilt and fear about sex would have made me a prime candidate for acting out inappropriately — not with children, but with other men. Because I have a compulsive personality, I’d become addicted to drugs if someone introduced me to them in the context of sex. I would have had sex and taken drugs in the attempt to leave no stone unturned in my search for self-understanding and affirmation. Without the intervention of wise, strong, loving friends, I would have ended up looking in the mirror wondering in horror and shame what had happened to the sweet young man who entered the seminary because he wanted to live a life of loving service.

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ROME
John Thavis

A new pontificate is judged chiefly on gestures, words and decisions.

Through his gestures, Pope Francis has already won the hearts of many inside and outside the church. Wearing his old black shoes, riding the bus and paying his pensione bill immediately announced a new and simpler style of papacy.

In a world that communicates largely in images, this is no small matter. “Jesus was born in a manger” is sometimes heard sarcastically by visitors to the Vatican’s rather opulent chambers, and a pope who dials down the extravagance will have a positive reception.

On Thursday, we heard some of the first words from Pope Francis, in a homily to the cardinals who elected him the 266th pontiff. The words were challenging, and gave a clue to the kind of “reforms” Francis may have in mind. (It was interesting that the pope set aside a draft text prepared in advance for this occasion, and preferred to speak off-the-cuff.)

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

by Michael Sean Winters | Mar. 15, 2013

In this morning’s Washington Post, Eugene Robinson discusses Pope Francis’ involvement with the Argentine junta, the crimes of which were legion. Robinson quotes a human rights activist to the effect that then-Father Bergoglio did not rise to the occasion and confront the junta. He cites another book that makes a similar claim. Robinson finishes by asking Francis to atone.

Me thinks it is Robinson who needs to mark this essay down for his next trip to the confessional. In the news pages of the same morning paper, an Argentine human rights activist, Adolfo Perez Esquival, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for his work, is quoted as saying, “There were bishops who were complicit in the dictatorship. But not Bergoglio.” I suppose this comment would have obstructed Robinson’s narrative so he left it out, but surely he should be willing to introduce evidence that would require him to qualify his sweeping claim for atonement.

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ROME
Vatican Insider

Vatican Insider takes a trip to the Church, dear to Ignatius of Loyola, where the meetings which strengthened Bergoglio’s candidacy were held

GIACOMO GALEAZZI
Vatican City

Saint Ignatius of Loyola celebrated his first mass here, on Christmas night in 1538. A stop at Saint Mary Major has always been a must during the Jesuit Bergoglio’s travels to the eternal city. Deeply devoted to the patroness of Rome (the Salus Populi Romani), he began his pontificate from the basilica which houses a relic of the Manger in Bethlehem and Bernini’s tomb. “He is very fond of this church, he came often as a cardinal,” says Fr. Elio Monteleone, one of the confessors in the West’s oldest Marian Sanctuary.

Yesterday morning, the newly elected Pope said to confessors: “Souls need you to be merciful; pray for me.” A Marian Pope like Wojtyla, who consecrated his pontificate to the Virgin Mary (Totus tuus), Francis, who had just appeared in Saint Peter’s dressed in white, announced the first appointment in his calendar: prayer to Mary. Tradition has it that it was the Virgin Mary herself who inspired the construction of her residence on the Esquiline Hill. Arriving shortly after 8:00 AM, the Pope was accompanied by the archpriest and former Nuncio in Latin America, Santos Abril y Castelló, and by Cardinal Vicar Agostino Vallini. He was welcomed by the chapter of the basilica, the priests, the lay employees, Archpriest Emeritus Bernard Law and the prefect of the Pontifical Household, Georg Gaenswein.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

A candidacy that grew in the meetings between cardinals. Very few votes for the favourite Scola

Andrea Tornielli
Vatican City

Jorge Mario Bergoglio has never much loved curial meetings and in recent years he has come to Rome as little as possible. In the two weeks preceding the start of the Conclave he did not participate in any meeting that was related to his potential nomination to the papacy. How is it possible that in just five ballots he reached, and apparently easily surpassed, the quorum of 77 votes necessary for the election? The outcome of the previous conclave, during which, according to the diary published by Italian magazine Limes, Bergoglio obtained about 40 votes, was not decisive. Indeed, being in the running but with unsuccessful results in the 2005 election from which Benedict XVI was elected could have represented a handicap rather than an aid.

We should not forget that after that Conclave the authority of the Archbishop of Buenos Aires increased even more. For example, during the CELAM meeting in Aparecida and in the Synods of bishops. The brief and heartfelt speech that Bergoglio gave in the course of General congregations struck a particular chord with cardinals, as he spoke about the face of God’s mercy. While the real and media nominations of Cardinal Angelo Scola, Archbishop of Milan, of Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet, and of the Archbishop of São Paulo, Odilo Scherer were growing, Bergoglio’s was also growing away from the spotlight. Several cardinals from various continents, such as Africa and Asia, had decided to vote for him from the very beginning. Surprisingly, even some Italian curials chose him immediately as a candidate.

The primaries of the Conclave, on Tuesday evening, March 12th, showed the solidity of his candidacy, which was significant from the onset in terms of votes. While Scola’s appeared less solid than expected. “Regardless of what has been said, Cardinal Scola did not achieve the consensus,” said the President of the Brazilian Bishops’ Conference, Raymundo Damasceno, interviewed by Globo.com.

Ouellet and Scherer’s nominations also appeared downsized. The vote at the end of the first day of the Conclave indicated that Bergoglio activated the “Ratzinger effect”, namely that the Argentine cardinal earned votes progressively until the white smoke on Wednesday evening. He eventually gained Ouellet, Scherer and finally Scola’s votes. “South American cardinals,” added Cardinal Damasceno, “have greatly appreciated the value of Bergoglio, so it is clear that he managed to garner such strong support.”

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SCOTLAND
Daily Record

CARDINAL Keith O’Brien is facing legal action over a new allegation of abuse dating back to the 1980s.

A former seminarian, who has not been named, has spoken out after the recent spate of allegations.

Solicitor Cameron Fyfe confirmed that he has been instructed by the man to make a claim for compensation against Cardinal O’Brien.

Earlier this month, Cardinal O’Brien issued a sweeping apology and admitted his sexual conduct had at times “fallen below the standards expected of me”.

The cardinal, who was Britain’s most senior Catholic cleric, stepped down from his post as archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh a day after three priests and a former priest made allegations of “inappropriate” behaviour against him.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 15 March 2013 (VIS) – At this afternoon’s press conference, Fr. Federico Lombardi, S.J., director of the Holy See Press Office read a statement responding to allegations made against Cardinal Bergoglio in Argentina. It states:

“The campaign against Bergoglio is well-known and dates back to many years ago. It has been made by a publication that carries out sometimes slanderous and defamatory campaigns. The anticlerical cast of this campaign and of other accusations against Bergoglio is well-known and obvious.”

“The charges refer to the time before Jorge Mario Bergoglio became bishop [of Buenos Aires], when he was Provincial Superior of the Jesuits in Argentina and accuse him of not having protected two priests who were kidnapped.”

“This was never a concrete or credible accusation in his regard. He was questioned by an Argentinian court as someone aware of the situation but never as a defendant. He has, in documented form, denied any accusations.”

“Instead, there have been many declarations demonstrating how much Bergoglio did to protect many persons at the time of the military dictatorship. Bergoglio’s role, once he became bishop, in promoting a request for forgiveness of the Church in Argentina for not having done enough at the time of the dictatorship is also well-known.”

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VATICAN CITY
Washington Post

By Jason Horowitz

VATICAN CITY — After an early-morning jaunt outside the Vatican walls reinforced the first impression of him as an unpretentious pontiff, Pope Francis hinted Thursday that he might reign with little patience for scandal by preaching integrity to a college of cardinals that has been racked by intrigue.

Amid reports about the machinations by which he was elected and anticipation about how he would govern a dysfunctional church court, Francis delivered a short but strong homily in plain Italian to the men who elected him on Thursday, arguing against stagnancy by saying that “our life is a journey, and if we stop, things don’t go well.”

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AUSTRALIA
News 24

Sydney – Australia’s most senior Catholic cleric on Friday spoke out about controversy over the role of Pope Francis under Argentina’s military junta, calling it “a smear and lie”.

Argentine cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s election as the new pontiff has revived examination of the part he played during the dark days of his homeland’s “Dirty War”, when he was a leading member of the Jesuits.

Some accuse him and his country’s Church of having been too close to the brutal right-wing junta in power between 1976 and 1983.

But Sydney Archbishop George Pell, one of the men who took part in the conclave to elect the new pope, said it was old slander.

Asked by ABC radio whether the pope should make a statement to address the concerns, Pell replied: “No, not at all.

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VATICAN CITY
Washington Post

By Associated Press
Updated: Friday, March 15

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican is lashing out at “defamatory” and “anti-clerical left-wing” forces seeking to discredit Pope Francis over his actions during Argentina’s 1976-1983 military junta.

The Vatican says no credible accusation had ever stuck against the new pope.

While the former Jorge Mario Bergoglio, like most other Argentines, failed to openly confront the murderous dictatorship, human rights activists differ on how much responsibility he personally deserves.

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GERMANY
The Times (UK)

David Charter
Berlin

A priest held for months by the Argentine military junta, after allegedly being betrayed by the man who would become Pope, today said that he was “reconciled to the events” and considered the matter closed.

Father Franz Jalics, a Hungarian-born priest living at a retreat in Bavaria, southern Germany, said that he met Jorge Bergoglio years after his detention and the pair “hugged solemnly” after celebrating Mass together in Argentina.

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UNITED STATES
Huffington Post

Marci Hamilton

When the Roman Catholic Cardinals gathered for their secret Vatican conclave to choose Jorge Cardinal Bergoglio of Argentina as the new pope, it was impossible not to be reminded of the global sex abuse scandal that has scandalized the church over the past decade. Secrets have long kept child predators in the priesthood in business, and the current process of selecting the spiritual leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics underscores the inherent lack of transparency in the institution.

But at the very same time as the cardinals sat clandestinely in Rome worrying about leaks, survivors of childhood sex abuse and visionary legislators across the country like Marge Markey have been demanding bright sunshine here in the United States.

For the fifth consecutive year, Markey, the Assemblywoman from Queens, NY has introduced the Child Victims Act, a bill that would eliminate the arbitrary civil and criminal statutes of limitation for child sex abuse and offer survivors a one-year window to file suit even if their SOLs have expired. Earlier versions of the bill have passed four times in the General Assembly, but each time it has been blocked by the Senate, seemingly in deference to the Church.

To be sure, American bishops continue to fight to keep their secrets by handsomely paying millions to lobbyists to block child sex abuse SOL reform and lawyers to institute delaying tactics in bankruptcies like the one pending in Milwaukee and other more ordinary lawsuits.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Patriot-News

By Ivey DeJesus | idejesus@pennlive.com
on March 15, 2013

One of the country’s leading church and state scholars is challenging state Rep. Ron Marsico’s claims that suspending the statute of limitation in order to allow victims of child sex abuse to file charges against their predators is unconstitutional.

Marci A. Hamilton, a 20-year professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University, argues that two amendments pertaining to the statutes of limitations and attached to House Bill 342 are constitutional and sound public policy.

In a report to the General Assembly, Hamilton argues that: “In reality, while the United States Supreme Court has closed the door on retroactive criminal legislation, it has found retroactive civil legislation to be constitutionally permissible.”

Under the U.S. Constitution, Hamilton argues, retroactive civil legislation is constitutional if the legislative intent is clear and the change is procedural.

Hamilton said efforts over the past eight years to reform the law have been fueled by false and outdated arguments.

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KENYA
Afrique en Ligue

Nairobi, Kenya – African priests have welcomed the choice of Pope Francis saying he would bring new vibrancy to the evangelization of the Gospel and institute broad reforms within the church.

The new Pontiff, elected against the backdrop of a series of graft allegations and the leakage of key documents within the Vatican, comes to the scene amid growing threats from paganism in Africa and the sexuality challenges facing the Church.

Religious experts say Pope Francis’ choice of name, in itself, is not only a sign of his readiness to confront those challenges through the ministry of the word of God, but also an expression of his readiness to open up the Church towards greater scrutiny.

‘He is a pure breath of fresh air,’ said the Reverend Father Dominic Wamugunda, the Chaplain of the Nairobi University.

Father Mario Porto, a Comboni Missionaries priest ministering in the cattle rustling-prone West Pokot region in Northern Kenya, said the new Pope must also work towards linking the evangelization of the world by implementing a series of measures.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph and Argus

By Claire Armstrong, T&A Reporter.

A Roman Catholic priest in Bradford has been found guilty of sexually assaulting a teenage girl.

William Finnegan, 59, had revealed in his trial that he had secretly got married in 1999, despite having taken a vow of celibacy.

He was standing trial accused of forcefully kissing a girl, 17, and touching her bottom on Easter Sunday last year while he was serving as a priest at St Clare’s RC Church in Fagley.

The jury of nine women and three men today found him guilty, by a majority of 11 to one.

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GERMANY
ABC News

By DAVID RISING Associated Press

BERLIN March 15, 2013 (AP)

A Jesuit priest whose kidnapping by the Argentine military junta decades ago led to strong criticism of the newly elected pope said Friday that he and the pontiff have reconciled.

The Rev. Francisco Jalics, who now lives in a monastery in southern Germany, said in a statement that he had talked with the Rev. Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who was named Pope Francis on Wednesday, long after the 1976 kidnapping of himself and fellow slum priest Orlando Yorio.

Bergoglio has said he told the priests to give up their slum work for their own safety, and they refused. Yorio, who is now dead, later accused Bergoglio of effectively delivering them to the death squads by declining to publicly endorse their work.

“It was only years later that we had the opportunity to talk with Father Bergoglio … to discuss the events,” Jalics said Friday in his first known comments about the kidnapping, which occurred when the new pope was the leader of Argentina’s Jesuits.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Nes Letter

Published on 15/03/2013

LORD Bannside has greeted the election of Pope Francis with a scathing assessment of his predecessor’s reign.

Writing in today’s News Letter, Dr Paisley reflects on Pope Benedict’s tenure saying the Catholic establishment has allowed the business of running a church to come before the spiritual needs of the faithful.

“As a Protestant of the Reformed faith I would hold to the view that the Roman church elevates its governance above faith every time,” he said.

Singling out the Vatican’s handling of the multiple child abuse scandals, Dr Paisley said: “That is why, despite the outcry of abuse victims over Cardinal Brady, Cardinal Dolan (New York), and Cardinal Mahoney (San Francisco) taking part in the conclave, the business of the church came above the faith of the church.”

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SCOTLAND
Telegraph

A former trainee priest is starting legal action against Cardinal Keith O’Brien over allegations he was abused by the disgraced cleric as a teenager.

By Simon Johnson
9:35AM GMT 15 Mar 2013

He is claiming the cardinal groped and kissed him during a visit to an unnamed seminary in the 1980s when he was 19. He made clear his ordeal was not an isolated incident.

The former seminarian is the first of the cardinal’s victims to speak publicly about his experience, having known him since childhood, and said he is prepared to face the cleric in a courtroom to encourage others to come forward.

The man, who is now in his 50s and has asked to remain anonymous, told Glasgow’s Herald newspaper he had instigated legal proceedings against both the cardinal and the Catholic Church.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

Rashida Yosufzai
From: AAP
March 15, 2013

A MAN who was allegedly sexually assaulted by a former Catholic priest as a teenager says the priest’s claim he was paid by the church for evidence is “absolute rubbish” and wants the case taken up by the royal commission.

The man, who has asked not to be named, has denied a claim by former Wollongong priest John Gerard Nestor, 50, that he was paid to provide evidence in a 1997 court case alleging he was sexually assaulted by the then-priest at his home in 1991.

Mr Nestor was a priest in the Wollongong diocese in NSW when he was charged with the indecent assault of the then-14-year-old altar boy.

In the 1997 court case – in which Opposition Leader Tony Abbott acted as a character reference – the Wollongong local court was told that on the night of the alleged offence, Mr Nestor had slept alongside the altar boy and his brother.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

Melissa Iaria
From: AAP
March 15, 2013

THE Catholic Church should get rid of celibacy as a way of preventing clergy from preying on children, an inquiry has been told.

Former clinical director of the Victorian Institute of Forensic Health, Professor Paul Mullen, says celibacy has no basis in theology and is just a form of discipline in the priesthood.

Prof Mullen added the issue is a financial one for the church.

“I’ve have heard a Catholic bishop say that the reason celibacy is maintained is that they could not afford to pay priests, they couldn’t afford to pay them pensions, they couldn’t afford to pay them enough if they had a wife and children,” he told the Victorian parliamentary inquiry on Friday.

“This is entirely discipline and its main motivation is money.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
Express

By: Paul Jeeves
Published: Fri, March 15, 2013

A CATHOLIC priest accused of sexually assaulting a teenage girl has a wife, a court heard yesterday.

Finnegan, 59, confessed to the marriage during his trial at Bradford Crown Court. Finnegan, known to parishioners as Father Bill, of Castleford, West Yorkshire, was parish priest at St Clare’s, in Fagley, Bradford, when the alleged assault happened last Easter.

He denies sexually assaulting the girl, aged 17, by touching her bottom and forcefully kissing her. His barrister Jeremy Hill-Baker told the jury: “We are going to hear evidence from Father Bill and we are going to be hearing evidence from his wife, Beverley Dawson.

“No, you didn’t miss-hear me. His wife. He and Beverley Dawson secretly married abroad in September 1999.”

The court heard they had travelled to Cyprus to wed in a civil ceremony, a fact known only to close friends and family.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
KCET

[with video]

Reporter: Vince Gonzales
Producer: Karen Foshay
Associate Producer: Lata Pandya
Editor: Michael Bloecher

March 14, 2013

With the election of a new Pope, the church is eager to begin its next chapter, but the past continues to haunt the L.A. Archdiocese.

In an exclusive investigation, never before heard tapes obtained by “SoCal Connected” reveal straight talk from church officials about how to deal with sexually abusive priests. They also show Los Angeles was part of a quiet experiment to reassign those priests. We’ve also done exhaustive data analysis tracking the abusers.

TRANSCRIPT
Vince Gonzales/Reporter: This stack of yearbooks is evidence of a 30-year-friendship.

Daniel Olivas: I think back then, we were a couple of guys who wanted to do well in school, and we wanted to do something with our lives. We both wanted to go get married and have kids, which we both eventually did.

Jaime Romo/Victim of priest abuse: Dan and I stayed in touch a lot, and I just always liked him. We came from similar families.

Olivas: The parallels are kind of startling; we both attended Loyal High School; we both went to Stanford University, and then we eventually both got married within a year of each other. We are both each other’s best man.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
LA Observed

[with video]

By Kevin Roderick | March 14, 2013

“SoCal Connected” aired a story tonight by reporter Vince Gonzales and producer Karen Foshay that analyzes where Los Angeles Archdiocese priests accused of sexual abuse were assigned. The key findings:

“SoCal Connected” has done a comprehensive data analysis of thousands of pages personnel records released by the church in January.

We tracked every accused Los Angeles priest found in those files since 1932. According to our analysis, over that time, 63 percent of the parishes in Los Angeles have had at least one priest on staff who’d been accused of sexual abuse. We also found some parishes had many more, like St. Alphonsus, which had eight; and Sacred Heart of Los Angeles, which had seven. At least 15 other parishes have had five or six accused priests. And our analysis showed many abusive priests served in Latino communities.

Richard Sipe/Former priest and author: “That’s the pattern. That the poorer parishes, the Latino parishes, Latinos are much more reluctant to buck a priest…. I think the Latino community in the end is going to be very, very angry that they were used. They literally were dumped on, and I think your figures are going to show that.”

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DIXON (IL)
SaukValley.com

BY BRIDGET FLYNN
bflynn@saukvalley.com 800-798-40185, ext. 521
Created: Friday, March 15, 2013

DIXON – A Dixon priest has been removed from St. Patrick Parish and his computer use is being investigated by police, according to a letter that a church leader sent to the parish.

The investigation of Fr. John Gow was reported in a statement that Rev. Msgr. Eric R. Barr, vicar of the diocese of Rockford, sent to the local parish.

Penny Wiegert, director of communications for the diocese, did not respond Thursday to inquiries regarding Gow’s length of service in the church, his age, and which police agency is investigating.

Lee County State’s Attorney Anna Sacco-Miller said she knows of no priests who are being investigated in Lee County.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph and Argus

By Claire Armstrong, T&A Reporter

A jury was today continuing to deliberate whether a Roman Catholic priest, who has confessed he is married, sexually assaulted a 17-year-old girl.

William Finnegan, 59, is standing trial at Bradford Crown Court accused of taking hold of the girl, who cannot be named, and forcefully kissing her.

The alleged offence happened when he was parish priest at St Clare’s RC Church in Fagley, Bradford.

Finnegan denies one charge of sexual assault.

Yesterday the jury heard summing up by the prosecution, defence and the trial judge, the Recorder of Bradford, Judge Roger Thomas QC.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph

A Roman Catholic priest accused of sexually assaulting a 17-year-old girl has revealed to a court that he has been secretly married for more than 13 years.

By Telegraph reporter
7:41AM GMT 15 Mar 2013

William Finnegan, 59, told a jury that despite having taken a vow of celibacy, he got married more than a decade ago and kept it a secret from both the church and his parishioners.

Finnegan, also known as “Father Bill”, was parish priest at St Clare’s RC Church in Fagley, Bradford, West Yorkshire, when the alleged sexual assault happened.

He denies sexually assaulting the teenager on Easter Sunday last year by touching her bottom and forcefully kissing her, and is standing trial at Bradford Crown Court.

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FRANCE
Hong Kong Standard

(03-15 16:13)

A French judge had sought the testimony of the new pope over the killing of a French priest in 1976 during Argentina’s brutal dictatorship but Buenos Aires snubbed her, a lawyer said.

Judge Sylvie Caillard had wanted Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio to testify in 2011 in the investigation of French priest Gabriel Longueville but “the Argentinian authorities did not respond positively,” said Sophie Thonon, the lawyer for Longueville’s family, AFP reports.

Thonon said this was deemed necessary to cast light on whether there were any archival material on the murder.

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SCOTLAND
Scotsman

Published on Friday 15 March 2013

Cardinal Keith O’Brien is facing legal action over new allegations of sexual misconduct from a former trainee priest, who claims he was abused by him as a teenager.

The former seminarian, who had known the cardinal since childhood, is staying anonymous, but said he had decided to come forward after the allegations of inappropriate behaviour which forced Cardinal O’Brien to quit as Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh last month.

The latest allegations relate to a period in the 1980s when the man, now in his 50s, attended a senior seminary college, following four years at Aberdeen’s Blairs College for trainee priests.

He left the priesthood several months after Cardinal O’Brien, who was then rector of Blairs, allegedly groped and kissed him during a visit to the unnamed seminary.

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UNITED STATES
ABC News

By SUSAN DONALDSON JAMES

March 15, 2013

Mark Crawford was 11 when his parish priest began to sexually molest him. It continued for more than six years, and when he finally reported the man to his New Jersey bishop, his abuser was promoted to personal secretary for the diocese’s archbishop.

“I was violently abused,” said Crawford, now 51 and a supervisor for a major American airline. “He embraced himself into our family life and became more and more controlling and possessive about me. And when I began to withdraw at 12 or 13, he physically beat me and kept me very isolated from people. I became withdrawn and quite. It was a real struggle.”

Crawford said his brother was also a victim of sex abuse.

Survivors like Crawford say they hold only a faint hope that the new Argentine pope — given his humble lifestyle and passion for the poor — will bring a new accountability to pedophile priests.

Much of the criticism of the church’s handling of the sex scandals has been that offending priests were simply moved to other parishes or dioceses by bishops eager to protect the church.

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VATICAN CITY
CNBC

By: Deborah Caldwell
Senior Editor, Enterprise

As Pope Francis assumes leadership of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics, he’s got his work cut out for him on many fronts, not the least of which is the Vatican’s finances.

Last year, a sheaf of documents was leaked by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s former butler in a scandal known as the Vatileaks affair. The documents allegedly showed, for example, tens of millions of dollars in transfers to American dioceses to help pay legal settlements — estimated to have cost the American church more than $3 billion so far — surrounding the priest sex abuse scandals.

During his eight-year tenure, Benedict reportedly made progress toward reforming the Vatican Bank, replacing its president and creating a financial-intelligence committee. But by most accounts, the Vatican Bank still needs greater scrutiny and transparency.

So what is the Vatican Bank, and how is it related to the Catholic Church, and to the finances of Vatican City, a sovereign state? CNBC explains.

What is the Vatican Bank?

It’s definitely not your average bank. Officially called the Institute for the Works of Religion, the Vatican Bank is a privately held firm run by a CEO who reports to a committee of cardinals and the Pope. It offers ATMs with transactions in Latin and boasts a small castle-like headquarters protected by Swiss Guards.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
CBS Los Angeles

[with video]

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — In a 2010 deposition, Cardinal Roger Mahony explained why he never called police to investigate child sex abuse claims and that he believed in a pedophile priest who told him he had reformed.

A lawyer representing abuse victims asks, “What mistakes do you acknowledge you made?” The Cardinal replies, “Basically, I believed him.”

The him being referred to was Michael Baker, a former priest convicted of molesting two young boys and accused of harming at least 21 others over a three-decade period.

“I believed him all along — that he was making progress, that he was going to the therapist. There were no new offenses. And I just believed that he, he really intended to reform, and we found out later that he lived a huge lie all those years,” said Mahony.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Big Trial

Thursday, March 14, 2013

By Ralph Cipriano
for Bigtrial.net

If the 2011 Grand Jury report on sex abuse in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia was a term paper, the district attorney would have gotten a failing grade for sloppy work habits and more than 20 factual errors.

It’s too bad they’re not taking questions down at the D.A.’s office right now, because the public has a right to know what went wrong with this grand jury report. But the spokesperson for the D.A.’s office has refused to answer questions all week.

The factual errors in the grand jury report are contradicted by grand jury testimony, trial testimony, and the results of the district attorney’s own investigation.

It’s a shameful work product. Somebody screwed up.

Let’s take a look at what the grand jury report said. It’s posted online, so readers can check it out for themselves.

Let’s start with the biggest mistake. Eleven times in the grand jury report, the district attorney said that Father James J. Brennan raped 14-year-old Mark Bukowski back in 1996. This excerpt is from pages 11 and 12 of the grand jury report:

Father Brennan, who was now shirtless, insisted that Mark remove his gym shorts and climb into bed with him in only his underwear, which Mark did. Mark attempted to sleep on his side, with his back to Father Brennan, because he was afraid to look at the priest. As Mark lay in that position, Father Brennan hugged him from behind, resting his chin on Mark’s shoulder and pulling the boy closer to him.

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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

Friday 15 March 2013

EXCLUSIVE: Cardinal Keith O’Brien is facing legal action stemming from new allegations of sexual misconduct, with a former trainee priest claiming he was abused by the disgraced cleric as a teenager.

The former seminarian, who had known the cardinal since childhood and is the first to speak publicly of his experience, said he had only broken a 30-year silence after recent revelations about the former archbishop’s sexual behaviour made it clear his ordeal was not an isolated episode.

The allegation relates to a period in the 1980s when the man attended a senior seminary college, following four years at Aberdeen’s Blairs College for trainee priests.

He left the priesthood several months after Cardinal O’Brien, who was then rector of Blairs, allegedly groped and kissed him during a visit to the unnamed seminary.

Speaking exclusively to The Herald, the former seminarian, who is now in his 50s and has asked to remain anonymous, said he had instigated legal proceedings against both the cardinal and the Catholic Church.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
WISN

[with video]

MILWAUKEE —The choice of Pope Francis is not only the turning of a page in history, but for victims of clergy sex abuse, it offers an opportunity.

Among those who would like to speak to the new pope is a group that advocates for the victims of clergy sex abuse.

WISN 12 News reporter Nick Bohr caught-up with Milwaukee’s co-founder of the Survivor’s Network of Those Abused by Priests, Peter Isely, as he left for Chicago to announce the group is sending a letter to the new pope asking to meet.

“We have a pope who has apparently invoked as his spiritual guide and shelter Francis of Assisi. I was assaulted by a Franciscan priest. So it’s personally very important to me,” Isely said.

Isely was sexually abused as a 13-year-old student at St. Lawrence Seminary in Fond du Lac and has championed church reform for two decades.

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TEXAS
WFAA

by JOBIN PANICKER
WFAA

PLANO — Chris Tynes of Plano says he is on a quest for answers.

He calls himself a long-time member at Prestonwood Baptist Church and said he once taught Sunday School classes at the church. He recently discovered that a former music minister, John Langworthy, admitted to sexual misconduct with young boys while at Prestonwood Baptist more than 20 years ago.

News 8 first uncovered the admission in 2011. Church officials were surprised to see Tynes writing about it last week on the church’s Facebook page.

“I’m just trying to find an answer, or at least something,” Tynes said.

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UNITED STATES
Washington Post

By Eugene Robinson

They are impolite questions, but they must be asked: What did Jorge Mario Bergoglio know, and when did he know it, about Argentina’s brutal “Dirty War” against suspected leftists, in which thousands were tortured and killed? More important, what did the newly chosen Pope Francis do?

When a military junta seized power in Argentina in 1976, Bergoglio — elected Wednesday by the College of Cardinals as the first Latin American to become pope — was the head of the Jesuit order in the country. His elevation to the papacy occasioned great joy and national pride in his homeland — but also, for some, brought back memories of Argentina’s darkest and most desperate days.

In other South American countries that suffered under military rule during the 1970s, the Catholic Church served as a focal point of resistance. In Chile, for example, the church crusaded for human rights and pressed the government of Gen. Augusto Pinochet to account for the many activists who “disappeared” into custody, often never to be seen again.

The dictatorship in Argentina was the most savage of all. At least 10,000, and perhaps as many as 30,000, people suspected of leftist involvement were killed. Victims would be snatched from their homes or places of work, interrogated under torture for weeks or months, and then executed. Some were dispatched by being drugged, loaded into aircraft and shoved out into the wide Rio de la Plata or the Atlantic Ocean to drown.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

The Cardinals who elected Pope Francis had been selected either by ex-Pope Benedict, or by John Paul II with the ex-Pope’s and/or Cardinal Sodano’s input. The Cardinals have for years promoted and protected an unaccountable organization run primarily for their personal benefit, it appears. Some, perhaps even many, of them are now likely facing an imminent legal seige for alleged crimes of child endangerment and/or financial misdeeds, including possibly even Joseph Ratzinger. Meanwhile, Vatican Cardinals are trying hard to keep secret a dossier reportedly of Vatican officials’ financial and sexual misconduct.

Pope Francis, a seemingly amiable, humble and frugal Italian/Argentinian Jesuit, had been made Cardinal in 2001 by John Paul II, who at the time suffered from Parkinson’s Disease and relied often on Cardinal Sodano and/or Ratzinger. The new Pope had been the young head of the Jesuits under an Argentine military dictatorship in the late 1970′s, when Sodano also had been papal ambassador under nearby Chile’s Pinochet dictatorship.

Given this history, have the Cardinals just secretly elected, as “hyped”, a real “Francis of Assisi” type as Pope? Will that likely lead to reform of a troubled Church? Will Cardinals and Bishops now be called to account for their misdeeds? Or was he elected mainly because the Ratzinger/Scola bloc offset the Sodano/Sherer bloc and Francis seemed to be an acceptable interim compromise not tainted by the secret Vatican scandal dossier, who might also provide cover for a few more years while the media obsesses over his personal attributes? Some in the mindless media are already interviewing Pope Francis’ childhood sweetheart, which perhaps may be intended to distance him from some of the reported gay sex stories involving others in the hierarchy.

The media apparently will have an opportunity to direct questions to Pope Francis and hopefully will ask him some of the questions suggested below. Unlike Ratzinger’s practice, Pope Francis may at least directly brief Fr. Lombardi, a fellow Jesuit and Vatican press officer. Hopefully, the media will not spend too much of the limited time rehashing the Pope’s actions as a young provincial over three decades ago in Argentina’s Dirty War. The subject has been gone over at length for years by Argentine journalists and activists with conflicting and inconclusive results. While it is a serious subject, the Pope will still stay Pope no matter what is now said about the Dirty War. The media needs to focus now on the current scandals facing the Catholic Church and on how Pope Francis plans to address them.

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ARGENTINA
Los Angeles Times

By Andres D’Alessandro and Chris Kraul, Los Angeles Times
March 14, 2013

BUENOS AIRES — The man who is now Pope Francis was a young Jesuit leader, not long out of seminary, when Argentina’s military junta unleashed a reign of terror that became known as the “dirty war.” That was more than 30 years ago, but the reaction to the naming of the first Argentine pope shows that the wounds have not yet healed.

Many Argentines were still stunned Thursday that Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the archbishop of Buenos Aires, had become the first pope from the Americas. But the joy was somewhat tempered by a public debate over Bergoglio’s actions, or inactions, from 1976 to 1983, when 30,000 dissidents were killed or “disappeared,” among them an estimated 150 priests.

At the time, Bergoglio was a Jesuit “provincial,” in charge of the religious men’s order, and then rector at a seminary, leadership positions that would not have given him the political clout later afforded by his post as archbishop. Still, critics in Argentina have started revisiting old allegations, including the claim that Bergoglio did not protect two Jesuit priests, Orlando Yorio and Francisco Jalics, who were seized and tortured by military authorities in May 1976.

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UNITED STATES
Plasma MSN

Clergy sex abuse victims have “cautious optimism” that Pope Francis, as an outsider to the Vatican with an eye to social justice, will take action against sexual abuse within the Catholic Church. So says Becky Ianni of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests and a victim of an abusive priest during her childhood.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC – Lateline

Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Broadcast: 14/03/2013

Reporter: Kerry Brewster

The soon to be released documentary “Silence in the House of God: Mea Maxima Culpa” focuses on a predatory priest Father Lawrence Murphy, who systematically abused up to 200 deaf boys growing up in the 1960s in the U.S. City of Milwaukee.

Transcript

TONY JONES, PRESENTER: The psychology of priestly abuse and how some offending priests seek to reconcile evil against holiness is at the heart of a controversial new documentary that explores the first-known protest against clerical sexual abuse in the United States.

Silence in the House of God: Mea Maxima Culpa tells the story of four deaf men who were abused as children in the 1960s and sought to expose that abuse, encountering cover-up all the way to the Vatican. It opens next week in Australia.

Shortly we’ll talk to the Oscar-winning director, Alex Gibney. First this report from Kerry Brewster.

KERRY BREWSTER, REPORTER: Oscar award-winning Alex Gibney makes films that scrutinise institutions he considers irredeemingly corrupt.

His latest, Silence in the House of God: Mea Maxima Culpa, takes on sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. He focuses on predatory priest Father Lawrence Murphy who systematically abused up to 200 deaf boys growing up in the 1960s at St John’s School for the Deaf in the US city of Milwaukie.

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ROME
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy

Leaders of 2 groups appeal to pope about worst Jesuit abuse cases
First Jesuit pope has unique opportunity and obligation
Pope Francis must make Jesuits “clean house,” groups say Jesuit provincials must disclose names of known abusers, as 25 bishops have done
Jesuits operate schools and colleges worldwide; access to children deepens the problem

WHAT
At a news conference, a Catholic researcher and a US clergy sex abuse victim will:

— release a list of the four worst public Jesuit abuse cases worldwide;
— give an overview of how the order has responded to the crisis so far;
— explain why it is crucial that the new Pope push the Jesuits to reform

WHEN
TODAY, Friday, March 15 at 1:30 p.m.

WHERE
Orange Hotel, 86 Via Crescenzio 00193, Roma +39.06.6868969

WHO
Two leaders of the US-based groups:

–Anne Barrett Doyle of Boston, a Catholic mom who is the co-director of the international watchdog group BishopAccountability.org

–David Clohessy of St. Louis, an abuse victim who is the director of an international support called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAPnetwork.org)

WHY
As the first Jesuit pope, Francis has a historic opportunity to make the Jesuits finally address their massive problem of child sexual abuse.

The Jesuits are the largest Catholic religious order in the world, and their high schools and universities are elite institutions in the educational systems of many countries. They also have a massive missionary presence in the developing world.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Change.org

Petition von
Sigrid Grabmeier & Wir Sind Kirche

Die katholische Kirche ist an einem möglichen Wendpunkt in ihrer Geschichte. Sie hat in einem kritischen Augenblick, sowohl in der Kirche wie auch in der Welt, einen neuen Papst gewählt.

Gleichzeitig befindet sich die römisch-katholische Kirche in einer tiefen Krise, nicht nur in Rom selbst, sondern weltweit. Die Missbrauchsskandale und ihr Vertuschen ließen Millionen Menschen an der Glaubwürdigkeit der katholischen Kirche zweifeln. Unschuldige, insbesondere Kinder, wurden durch Priester und Ordensleute zu Opfern gemacht und mussten erleben, wie die Täter durch die Kirchenleitung geschützt und vor der Verfolgung durch die Justiz abgeschirmt wurden.

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VATICAN CITY
Voice of America

VOA News

March 15, 2013

Pope Francis is set to hold an audience Friday with the College of Cardinals who elected him, in his first days as the head of the Roman Catholic Church.

Before his formal installation as pope on Tuesday, Pope Francis, a native of Argentina and the world’s first Latin American pope, is also expected to meet with journalists Saturday. On Sunday he will appear at the window of the papal apartment to recite the Angelus prayer with crowds of worshipers in St. Peter’s Square below.

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ARGENTINA
NDTV

Associated Press | Updated: March 15, 2013

Buenos Aires: For more than a billion Roman Catholics worldwide, he’s Pope Francis. For Argentina’s poorest citizens, crowded in “misery villages” throughout the capital, he’s proudly known as one of their own, a true “slum pope.”

Villa 21-24 is a slum so dangerous that most outsiders don’t dare enter, but residents say Jorge Mario Bergoglio often showed up unannounced to share laughs and sips of mate, the traditional Argentine herbal tea shared by groups using a common straw.

People here recall how the Buenos Aires archbishop would arrive on a bus and walk through the mud to reach their little chapel; how he sponsored marathons and carpentry classes, consoled single mothers and washed the feet of recovering drug addicts; how he became one of them.

“Four years ago, I was at my worst and I needed help. When the Mass started he knelt down and washed my feet. It hit me hard. It was such a beautiful experience,” said Cristian Marcelo Reynoso, 27, a garbage collector trying to kick a cocaine addiction through the church’s rehab program.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Times Colonist (Canada)

Gillian Flaccus / The Associated Press
March 15, 2013

LOS ANGELES, Calif. – The election of a new pope could help heal the wounds left by a Roman Catholic sex abuse crisis that has savaged the church’s reputation worldwide. For alleged victims, much depends on whether Pope Francis disciplines the priests and the hierarchy that protected them.

Some hope the Jesuit pontiff’s well-known humility and social benevolence will lead to an era of greater transparency and renewed faith. A greater number, however, are calling on the new Roman Catholic leader to defrock U.S. cardinals who covered up for pedophile priests, formally apologize and order the release of all confidential church files from every diocese.

Adding to their distrust are several multimillion dollar settlements the Jesuits paid out in recent years, including $166 million to more than 450 Native Alaskan and Native American abuse victims in 2011 for molestation at Jesuit-run schools across the Pacific Northwest. The settlement bankrupted the Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus.

It’s unclear how much direct experience Pope Francis, an Argentine cardinal, has had dealing with sexually abusive clergy in Latin America, where the scope of the abuse scandal has been more muted. When the scandal broke, however, he made it harder for people to become priests and now 60 per cent are eliminated, his authorized biographer, Sergio Rubin, told the AP.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Der Pilger

Im Juni 2011 trafen sich die „Initiative Ehemaliger Johanneum Homburg“ und der Orden der Hiltruper Missionare unter der Federführung des Mediators Professor Dr. Bernhard Haupert zum ersten Mal, um in Sachen Missbrauchsfälle am Homburger Gymnasium Johanneum eine Verständigungsebene herzustellen. Vor zwei Wochen erklärte der Professor für Soziologie an der Katholischen Hochschule Mainz die Mediationsgespräche für gescheitert.

Ursprünglich war für den 2. März ein weiteres Mediationsgespräch geplant. Doch bereits im Vorfeld wurde deutlich, dass weder der Orden noch die Opfer von ihren Positionen abrücken. Die Initiative fordert von den Hiltruper Missionaren nach wie vor die Anerkennung höherer Täter- und Opferzahlen, das Eingeständnis, dass der Orden von den Übergriffen einzelner Patres gewusst hat und daraus folgend die Übernahme der institutionellen Verantwortung, und nicht zuletzt individuelle Entschädigungsleistungen, orientiert an den Bedürfnissen der einzelnen Opfer.

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ROM
Der Standard (Osterreich)

Papstwahl 2005: Es hätte schlimmer kommen können

Papst Benedikt XVI. ist stockkonservativ. Aber es hätte schlimmer kommen können. Laut La Stampa, der in Sachen Vatikan verlässlichsten Tageszeitung, erwuchs 2005 dem damals obersten Glaubenshüter der katholischen Kirche ein auch politisch ultrarechter Kardinal aus Argentinien als ernstzunehmender Konkurrent.

Laut Mitschrift eines italienischen Kardinals sei Ratzingers Anhängerschaft zwar auf über siebzig Wähler angewachsen, zu wenig jedoch für die erforderliche Zweidrittelmehrheit. Vierzig Stimmen hatte nämlich Jorge Mario Bergoglio, heute 75-jähriger Erzbischof von Buenos Aires, erreicht. Auch seine Fangemeinde wuchs – erst nach intensiven Beratungen soll der Südamerikaner “verzichtet” haben. Ratzinger war dann nach 26 Stunden gewählt.

Nachträglich betrachtet hat der katholische Teil der Welt mit der Wahl Ratzingers vielleicht ziemliches Glück gehabt. Der Jesuit Bergoglio unterscheidet sich theologisch kaum von Benedikt. Politisch jedoch ist er fragwürdig: Er tolerierte die argentinische Militärdiktatur und fand nie auch nur ein Wort der Kritik an der Ermordung tausender Regimegegner. Dass so ein Mann unter den Kardinälen auf 40 Stimmen kam, ist eigentlich ein Alarmzeichen. 115 Kardinäle waren damals wahlberechtigt – 40 keine klaren Verteidiger der Menschenrechte.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Frankfurter Rundschau

Der Bundestag beschließt längere Verjährungsfristen. Betroffenenverbände kritisieren die “rein kosmetische Veränderung”.

Jetzt ging es doch ganz schnell. Zwanzig Monate lang lag das Gesetz zur Verbesserung des Opferschutzes auf Eis. Am Donnerstag beschloss der Bundestag mit den Stimmen der schwarz-gelben Koalition, die Rechte von Opfern sexuellen Missbrauchs zu stärken. Der Rechtsausschuss hatte sich erst am Vortag nach monatelangem Streit auf eine Linie verständigt. Damit werden jetzt unter anderem die Empfehlungen des Runden Tischs vom November 2011 umgesetzt.

Bundesfamilienministerin Kristina Schröder (CDU) hatte am Mittwoch bereits zugesichert, dass der Bund mit seinem Anteil in Höhe von fünfzig Millionen Euro den versprochenen Hilfefonds für Missbrauchsopfer im Mai startet. Ursprünglich sollte der Fonds bereits zu Ostern 2012 zur Verfügung stehen. Die Länder, die ebenfalls fünfzig Millionen Euro beisteuern sollen, lehnen dies aber nach wie vor ab. Nur Bayern hat sich bislang dazu bereiterklärt, seinen Anteil in den Fonds einzuzahlen, macht dies aber von der Zusage der anderen Länder abhängig.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Anwalt

Der Bundestag hat viele Verbesserungen für Opfer sexuellen Missbrauchs beschlossen. Insbesondere Missbrauchsopfer im Kindes- und Jugendalter erhalten mehr Rechte.

Weitere Vermeidung mehrfacher Vernehmungen

Gerade für Kinder und Jugendliche, die sexuell missbraucht wurden, sind Vernehmungen eine extreme Belastung. Durch sie müssen sie sich die körperlichen und seelischen Qualen immer wieder vor Augen führen. Aus diesem Grund war schon bisher die Verwertung von Bild- und Tonaufzeichnungen von Vernehmungen im Prozess bei nicht erwachsenen Opfern möglich. Nun ist das auch dann noch möglich, wenn sie inzwischen volljährig geworden sind. Denn oft ist es so, dass die traumatischen Erlebnisse bis weit ins Erwachsenenalter hinein wirken. Zur Rechtssicherheit soll die Vernehmung dabei möglichst ein Richter durchführen. Insgesamt müssen außerdem alle durch eine Tat verletzten Zeugen künftig bei ihrer Vernehmung Gelegenheit haben, darüber zu reden, welche Auswirkungen die Tat auf ihr Leben hatte.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Sueddeutsche

Der neue Papst steht einer großen Baustelle vor. Sigrid Grabmeier von “Wir sind Kirche” fordert von Franziskus Offenheit im Umgang mit Fehlern, Kritikfähigkeit – und eine neue Sexualethik.

Von Johanna Bruckner
Missbrauchsskandale, Vatileaks-Affäre, sinkende Mitgliederzahlen: Jorge Mario Bergoglio ist zum Oberhaupt einer Kirche gewählt worden, die in der Krise steckt. Die Katholiken setzen große Hoffnungen in ihn – richten aber auch klare Erwartungen an ihr neues Oberhaupt. Sigrid Grabmeier von der Reformbewegung “Wir sind Kirche” erzählt im SZ.de-Gespräch, was sie jetzt vom Papst fordert – und warum sie ihm eine lange Amtszeit wünscht.

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ILLINOIS
Patch

By Amanda Luevano

In addition to the thousands of pages to be released detailing decades of abuse at the hands of Catholic priests in the Joliet Diocese, the organization Tuesday also released an updated list of credibly accused abusers.

The list includes the founding pastor of Divine Savior Parish in Downers Grove, the Rev. Donald Pock. The accusations were brought to light in 2002—two years before his death, according to the diocese.

He served as pastor of Divine Savior from 1968 until 1975. Divine Savior’s website states that Pock left due to ill health, but a 2006 report by Sun-Times Media claimed he was removed from the parish and sent for counseling after allegations of sexual abuse.

Pock was then appointed associate pastor at St. Patrick Parish in Joliet, and became pastor of St. Joseph in Manteno in 1978. In 1987, he became pastor of St. Peter Parish in Itasca, according to his obituary.

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ARGENTINA
The Guardian (UK)

Jonathan Watts in Buenos Aires
The Guardian, Thursday 14 March 2013

Pope Francis is known in his native Argentina as a man of austere habits, long pregnant pauses in conversation and a reticence about discussing himself. For supporters, this is proof of his humility, which was further underlined for them in his first address as pope to the masses in St Peter’s Square, where he eschewed the usual jewelled crucifix in favour of a simple wooden cross.

For critics, however – and there are many in his home country – it may have more to do with allegations that he and the Roman Catholic church were guilty of the sin of omission – and perhaps worse – during the brutal military dictatorship from 1976 to 1983.

Those dark years cast the longest shadow over the elevation of Jorge Bergoglio, the former archbishop of Buenos Aires, as the new Vicar of Christ, and continues to divide a nation.

While Argentina rang with celebratory church bells at the news of the first Latin American pope, some were seized by doubt and confusion. “I can’t believe it, I don’t know what to do, I’m in so much anguish and so enraged,” wrote Graciela Yorio in an email published in the Argentine press on Thursday morning.

In 1976, her brother, Orlando Yorio, along with another Jesuit priest, Francisco Jalics, were seized by navy troops in the slums of Buenos Aires and held and tortured for five months at the ESMA camp, a navy base in the capital where 5,000 people were murdered by the military junta.

The two priests served under Bergoglio, who is accused in some quarters of abandoning them to the military after they became involved in leftist social movements.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

Argentina’s best-known investigative reporter, Horacio Verbitsky, accuses the pontiff, who is also known as Jorge Mario Bergoglio, of allowing two priests who served under him to be kidnapped. The pope, as well as some human rights activists, disputes that account, contending he actually tried to get them freed.

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Thursday, March 14, 2013

Juan Gonzalez

Even as millions rejoice at the first Catholic pontiff from Latin America, troubling questions persist over the role Pope Francis played during Argentina’s notorious Dirty War.

In 1976, right-wing military leaders overthrew that country’s elected government and installed Gen. Jorge Rafael Videla as dictator. Coup leaders then launched a campaign of secret kidnappings, torture and murder of suspected leftists and opposition figures. Estimates of the dead range up to 30,000.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio, then head of that country’s Jesuit order, has long been accused by Argentina’s best-known investigative reporter, Horacio Verbitsky, of being complicit in the military’s kidnapping and torture of two priests who served under him.

Verbitsky’s claim is rejected by some human rights leaders, including Adolfo Perez Esquivel, who won the 1980 Nobel Peace Prize for documenting the junta’s atrocities.

“Perhaps he (Bergoglio) didn’t have the courage of other priests, but he never collaborated with the dictatorship,” Esquivel said.

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NEW YORK
The Jewish Daily Forward

By Paul Berger

Published March 14, 2013

A top rabbinic dean of Yeshiva University has warned rabbis about the dangers of reporting child sex abuse allegations to the police because it could result in a Jew being jailed with a black inmate, or as he put it, “a schvartze,” who might want to kill him.

Rabbi Hershel Schachter, one of the most respected faculty members of the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, also said that children can lie and ruin an innocent man’s life.

“It could be that the whole thing is a bubbe-mayse [tall tale],” Schachter said.

Schachter said Jewish communities should establish panels of rabbis who are also psychologists to first hear such allegations and decide if law authorities should be informed.

Schachter, whose taped remarks were posted on the Failed Messiah website, said a student at Yeshiva University’s high school in Manhattan confided in him years ago that he had been abused.

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ROME
CNN

According to veteran Vatican journalist Marco Politi, the initial traction in the papal vote was not for then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio.

“But from the first leaks we understand that there was a strong candidate,” Politi told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Thursday. “The Italian Archbishop of Milan, Scola, who entered the conclave with the strong determination of his supporters to make him Pope But in the first ballots he couldn’t provoke an ‘avalanche effect’ to get more and more votes.”

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ARGENTINA
CNN

By Mariano Castillo, CNN

updated 6:38 PM EDT, Thu March 14, 2013

(CNN) — Pope Francis is being painted as a humble and simple man, but his past is tinged with controversy surrounding topics as sensitive as gay marriage and political atrocities.

Questions linger about Francis’ actions during the nation’s dark days: the so-called Dirty War, when Argentina was ruled by dictators. The gay marriage issue came to the forefront during Francis’ political fight with Argentina’s president.

The conservative pontiff may hold firm on some issues, experts say, but he may be flexible on others.

“If you think that (Francis) isn’t going to change anything, you’re wrong,” said Gustavo Girard, a retired doctor who knew Francis during his early years in the priesthood. “But is he going to approve of gay marriage tomorrow? No.”

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VATICAN CITY
Gazzetta del Sud

14/03/2013

Disgraced Boston archbishop ‘entered discreetly’

Vatican City, March 14 – The Vatican confirmed that disgraced American Cardinal Bernard Law was in attendance at Santa Maria Maggiore (St Mary Major) Basilica in Rome on Thursday when Pope Francis came there to pray. “Bernard Law entered very discreetly, he entered through one of the side chapels,” said spokesman Father Federico Lombardi. Law, the former archbishop of Boston, resigned in 2002 when unsealed court records revealed he had moved pedophile priests among church assignments without notifying parishioners. In 2004, Pope John Paul II appointed him archpriest of Saint Mary Major.

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ARGENTINA
Twinsburg Bulletin

MICHAEL WARREN Associated Press Published: March 14, 2013

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — It’s beyond dispute that Jorge Mario Bergoglio, like most other Argentines, failed to openly confront the 1976-1983 military junta as it kidnapped and killed thousands of people in a “dirty war” to eliminate leftist opponents.

But human rights activists differ on how much responsibility Pope Francis personally deserves for the Argentine church’s dark history of supporting the murderous dictatorship.

The new pope’s authorized biographer, Sergio Rubin, argues that this was a failure of the Roman Catholic Church in general, and that it’s unfair to label Bergoglio, then a thirtysomething leader of Argentina’s Jesuits, with the collective guilt that many Argentines of his generation still wrestle with.

“In some way many of us Argentines ended up being accomplices,” at a time when anyone who spoke out could be targeted, Rubin recalled in an interview with The Associated Press just before the papal conclave.

Some leading Argentine human rights activists agree that Bergoglio, now 76, doesn’t deserve to be lumped together with other church figures who were closely aligned with the dictatorship.

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UNITED STATES
Metro

By Aidan Radnedge Thursday 14 Mar 2013

A Catholic priest accused of sexually assaulting a teenage girl revealed in court he had been secretly married for more than a decade.

William Finnegan claims he could not have attacked the 17-year-old because he was enjoying a healthy sex life with his wife – in flagrant disregard of his vow of celibacy.

The 59-year-old says he kept his marriage a secret from his superiors but accepts he will now be thrown out of the church and lose his livelihood even if found not guilty.

His lawyer told the court the priest married Beverley Dawson overseas in September 1999.

Jeremy Hill-Baker said: ‘So deeply in love was he that he was prepared to ignore the Catholic Church’s ban on marriage, a secret which has been kept from almost everyone until now.’

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UNITED STATES
South China Morning Post

Victims of clergy sexual abuse urged newly-elected Pope Francis to reform the Catholic Church and declare “zero tolerance” for sex crimes as his first official act.

“St Francis was the greatest reformer in the history of the church, Pope Francis must do the same,” the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, or Snap, said in a statement.

US-based Snap warned that millions of children remained at risk from paedophile priests because the Church had not yet reversed long-standing policies of covering up reports of sexual abuse by transferring priests to unsuspecting parishes.

Insisting that the Jesuit order from which he hailed had a “troubled” track record on paedophilia, Snap said Francis “has both an enormous opportunity and duty to help prevent heinous assaults against kids by this crucial and relatively secretive segment of the Catholic clergy”.

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NORTH CAROLINA
Charlotte Observer

Fort Mill doctor says he was sexually abused as a child

By Elizabeth Leland
eleland@charlotteobserver.com

Posted: Thursday, Mar. 14, 2013

Dr. Jason Peck, a psychiatrist and sleep expert, is doing what not so long ago would have been unthinkable for a man who claims he was sexually abused as a child:

Peck is speaking out.

So much stigma is attached to child molestation that men who bring charges often don’t want anyone to know their names. “From the day it happened, I’ve tried very hard to push away the dark, terrifying, and sickening memories fearing what would happen to me or my family if I spoke out,” said Peck, now 45. …

For a man to speak out candidly would have been unthinkable not that long ago, said psychologist Mary Gail Frawley-O’Dea, co-director of Presbyterian Psychological Services and a nationally-recognized authority on sexual abuse. Women began talking openly about sexual abuse during the women’s movement of the 1970s. But Frawley-O’Dea said it took the sex scandals surrounding the Catholic church and Penn State for men to feel comfortable stepping forward.

“It liberated more men to feel that this is something that happens and they can talk about it,” Frawley-O’Dea said. She said that as many as one-third of all women worldwide and 20 to 25 percent of all men are sexually abused before age 18.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
AFP

LOS ANGELES — The Catholic Church has an opportunity to begin to excise the “cancer” of sex abuse under its new pope, a US victim who just won a $1 million settlement and his lawyer said Thursday.

Michael Duran, who says he was raped repeatedly by a Californian priest in the mid-1980s, urged Pope Francis to defrock Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony, one of those who chose the new pontiff, for allegedly covering up abuse.

He is one of four victims who received a combined $10 million from the Catholic archdiocese announced earlier this week, after the papal conclave started but before Wednesday’s historic election of a new pope.

“I think this is a great opportunity for the Catholic Church to make amends to all the victims, and really implement some real procedures and some structure in the hierarchy to protect children worldwide,” he told AFP.

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ARGENTINA
The Independent (UK)

‘The Pope fancied me – and he said if I wasn’t keen he’d become a priest,’ former sweetheart says

David Usborne
Buenos Aires
Thursday 14 March

“I froze in front of the television. I couldn’t believe that Jorge was the Pope!” confessed the 77-year-old lady with white hair and spectacles outside her home at 555 Membranilla Street in the Flores district of Buenos Aires last night. She had one more little admission – about a man who is now pontiff and a love letter from long, long ago.

It was 1948 or 1949 – Amalia Damonte can’t be entirely sure – when the young son of Italian immigrants slipped a letter in her hand declaring his undying love for her. She does know that he was 12 years old at the time and that she spurned his advances in part because her parents didn’t think that much of him.

“He wrote me a letter telling me that one day he would like to marry me,” she said standing outside the same house that she grew up in, just four doors from down what used to be the childhood home of Jorge Bergoglio at number 531, where he lived with his mother and railway-worker father. (It has since been knocked down.) “He said that if I didn’t say yes, he would have to become a priest. Luckily for him, I said no!”

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DEUTSCHLAND
Kolner Stadt-Anzeiger

Kaum im Amt, erreichen Papst Franziskus auch Forderungen von Opfern sexuellen Missbrauchs in der katholischen Kirche. Betroffene aus den USA und aus Deutschland verweisen auf Missbrauchsfälle im Jesuitenorden, dem Franziskus angehört.

Köln.
Opfer von sexuellem Missbrauch innerhalb der katholischen Kirche haben den neuen Papst Franziskus zu Reformen aufgefordert. „Der Heilige Franziskus war der größte Reformer der Kirche in der Geschichte, Papst Franziskus muss dasselbe tun“, forderte die US-Organisation Netzwerk der Überlebenden von Missbrauch durch Priester (SNAP) in einer am Mittwoch (Ortszeit) veröffentlichten Erklärung. Der Argentinier Jorge Mario Bergoglio, der am Mittwoch im Konklave zum Papst gewählt wurde, hat seinen Namen zu Ehren des Heiligen Franz von Assisi gewählt, der ein Leben in Bescheidenheit führte.

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UNITED STATES
Democracy Now!

During the military dictatorship in Argentina, the new pope openly criticized liberation theology’s combination of religious teachings and calls for social justice. His social conservative streak continued when he was elevated to cardinal in Argentina. In 2010, he called the Argentine government’s legalization of gay marriage “an attempt to destroy God’s plan” and opposed adoption by gay couples. We discuss Pope Francis’ social conservatism with Ernesto Semán, a historian at New York University and former reporter for two Argentine newspapers, and with Argentine journalist Horacio Verbitsky. [includes rush transcript]

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: Our guests are Horacio Verbitsky, an Argentine investigative journalist for the newspaper Página/12, or Page/12. He has reported extensively on the church’s involvement in Argentina with the military junta that once ruled Argentina, specifically on the role of Father Bergoglio, who is now Father—who is now Pope Francis. Among his books, The Silence: From Paul VI to Bergoglio: The Secret Relations Between the Church and the ESMA. ESMA refers to the former Navy school that was turned into a detention center where people were tortured. Verbitsky also heads the Center for Legal and Social Studies, an Argentine human rights organization. You can also go to our website at democracynow.org, where we broadcast from Buenos Aires several years ago, talking about these issues, including the children who were taken from dissidents who were then killed and handed to military families to be raised, which we’ll talk about.

Ernesto Semán is with us, as well. Semán, the historian at New York University, former reporter for the Argentine newspapers Página/12 and Clarín, where he reported on politics and human rights, as well as Father Bergoglio.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Los Angeles Times

A man who will receive part of a $10-million settlement from the Archdiocese of Los Angeles for abuse by a former priest on Thursday called on the new pope to punish church leaders who had covered up molestation of children.

Michael Duran, one of four men who settled with the church over claims that they were abused by former cleric Michael Baker, said there should be consequences for Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, who had learned of Baker’s abuses in the 1980s but allowed him to remain in ministry.

“I hope the new pope defrocks the cardinal,” Duran said at a news conference outside a downtown L.A. courthouse.

Baker, a convicted pedophile, has been accused of harming at least 23 boys during his three decades in the priesthood. Mahony has said he was most “troubled” by the case of Baker, whom he allowed to remain in the church after the man personally confessed to the former archbishop in 1986 that he had molested two boys.

Duran will receive nearly $1 million for what he described as repeated “rape” dating from the 1980s. As his wife stood beside him, he said he believed he was one of the two children Baker was speaking of when he confided to Mahony.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

The Guardian, Thursday 14 March 2013

A Roman Catholic priest accused of sexually assaulting a 17-year-old girl told a court on Thursday that he is secretly married.

William Finnegan, 59, who is currently standing trial, revealed to the jury – and at the same time to his diocese – that, despite having taken a vow of celibacy, he married more than a decade ago and kept it a secret from the church and his parishioners.

Finnegan was parish priest at St Clare’s RC Church in Bradford when the alleged sexual assault happened last Easter.

His barrister, Jeremy Hill-Baker, told the jury at Bradford crown court: “You may be thinking that he is only human, that Father Bill, as a Catholic priest, has taken a vow of celibacy, condemning himself to a single and lonely life filled with perhaps an underlying sexual frustration because … it is not a natural state for a human to be in.”

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