ABUSE TRACKER

UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

The US right wing media appear to have initiated attention to the anticipated 2016 USA national election alliance of the Vatican and Jeb Bush. This apparently will be a “reunion” for the Bush family and longtime Vatican power, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, and his clique. This seems evident in Jeb’s recent interview (with even a smiling Sodano-Jeb photo) by the National Review Online, “On the 20th Anniversary of His Conversion, Jeb Bush Talks Pope Francis and How to Win on Social Issues“, here,

[National Review]

Of course, the winning “social” issues include a “get out the fundamentalist vote” discussion of abortion and other “life” issues, with no mention in the interview of the epidemic of priest sexual abuse of children. Apparently, no reporter dares to ask a potential US presidential candidate for his/her views on clerical sex abuse of children. For shame!

This major issue was instead relegated recently to a safer plea at First Things, a US neo-conservative outlet, in an article, “Pope Francis and Zero Tolerance“. Likely concerned about the Vatican Revolution erupting among Catholics, as indicated by the near riot at Chilean Bishop Barros’ recent installation, see here , the First Things author raises the alarm on the politically tricky priest child abuse scandal and cover up, which obviously could undercut Pope Francis’ effort to draw out fundamentalist US Latino voters for right wing Republican candidates. Of course, Jeb Bush spoke in this “softball interview” about his grandchildren, but, God forbid, could not be asked about the priest child abuse scandal or the Chilean revolt, it appears.

Jeb did note, apparently in an appeal to fundamentalist Catholic voters, that the media may be missing the whole story when Pope Francis gets into “specifics.” Jeb predicts that there might “turn out to be a real disappointment” for people, who expect “big changes” in terms of Catholic doctrine, apparently including with respect to the contraception ban. Jeb added, “But you have to say what you believe as well,” surmising apparently that in the case of Francis, the media, in search of sound bites, may have glossed over some of the pope’s more inconvenient underlying beliefs. And of course Jeb gratuitously asked questions that appeal to fundamentalist voters like, “Do you think a 13-year-old should have an abortion without a parent’s consent, or being notified?”

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

MAINE
WCSH

[Letter Regarding Early Notice of Vallely Abuse – BishopAccountability.org]

[with video]

Sarah Delage, WCSH

PORTLAND, Maine (NEWS CENTER) — A recently revealed letter may prove that a Maine priest was sexually abusing children as far back as the 1950s.

The letter discusses abuse by Father James Vallely, who is now deceased. It came to light during legal discovery in a recently settled sexual abuse case.

Robert Hoatson, founder of the organization Road to Recovery, held a press conference in front of the Portland Catholic Diocese headquarters Tuesday. He gave out copies of the letter, which was written by a retired priest to a Diocese official. It describes a conversation between another priest and a bishop about five boys who had reported being abused at St. John’s Church in Bangor. According to the letter, Vallely was transferred shortley after that conversation. Hoatson said the transfer occurred in 1956. He said this is yet another example of the church concealing abuse over the years.

“How could six Bishops, six Catholic bishops encompassing the state of Maine allow a pedophile to travel throughout the state of Maine and sexually abused children for many, many decades?” Hoatson asked.

This is not the first time Vallely has faced these kinds of accusations. He was identified by the church in 2005 as one of eight deceased priests who were accused of abuse in the last few decades. Two brothers sued the church in 2013, saying Vallely abused them when they were altar boys in Portland in the 1970s.

Bishop Robert Deeley released a statement about the letter. He said the church respects the privacy of victims, even they choose to go public.

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CALIFORNIA
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on April 7, 2015

This morning I spoke with KFI 640 AM’s Bill Carroll about my new book, child sex abuse and cover-up, and why we are seeing more female teachers being arrested for sexually abusing boys.

It was a great conversation—covering everything from internet safety to the importance of civil and

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MAINE
Bangor Daily News

By Darren Fishell, BDN Staff
Posted April 07, 2015

PORTLAND, Maine — Robert Hoatson spent Tuesday morning walking in front of the Catholic diocese building at 510 Ocean Ave., carrying a sign that said “Reaching out to abuse victims.”

The national advocate for people sexually abused by Catholic clergy and a Boston attorney have alleged a letter uncovered through a lawsuit shows that Catholic Church leaders in Maine knew abuses by the Rev. James Vallely — who is now deceased — began earlier than previously admitted.

“It’s just another indication that the church still has not come clean and we’re calling on them to finally — let’s have the absolute truth,” Hoatson said. “Release all the documents about every priest that you’ve ever had an allegation against and let the victims heal.”

Hoatson, a former priest, said he has counseled more than 3,000 sexual abuse victims through the New Jersey-based nonprofit group Road to Recovery Inc., which he founded in 2005.

He said he hoped his trip from New Jersey to Portland would cause more people who were sexually abused by Vallely to come forward. The church previously acknowledged there were credible abuse allegations against Vallely that extended back to 1977.

A 2005 letter from the Rev. Richard P. Rice uncovered through a now-settled lawsuit filed in 2013 by two former altar servers at a South Berwick parish suggests that church leaders knew Vallely sexually abused boys before 1956, according to Boston attorney Mitchell Garabedian.

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ITALIA
Corriere del Mezzogiorno

«Orge tra sacerdoti su Internet» E l’arcivescovo rimuove il parroco

di Nazareno Dinoi

TARANTO — Tremano le stanze della curia tarantina per un esposto, presentato al Tribunale ecclesiastico regionale della Puglia, che scopre il velo su presunte attività sessuali di alcuni sacerdoti. Autore della denuncia è un trentaduenne del Nord Italia, molto vicino agli ambienti della Chiesa, che ha deciso di raccontare il suo rapporto sessuale con un parroco, conosciuto su Facebook, di un’importante chiesa di Taranto. La notizia, pubblicata dal Corriere del Mezzogiorno, ha già avuto una conseguenza pratica: l’arcivescovo di Taranto, Filippo Santoro, ha rimosso dalle sue funzioni il sacerdote coinvolto. L’ufficialità è arrivata da una nota emessa dalla Curia di Taranto nella serata del lunedì in Albis dopo «i fatti apparsi sulla stampa sulla condotta moralmente riprovevole e assolutamente non compatibile con il ministero presbiterale di un parroco dell’arcidiocesi di Taranto». Nel comunicato la Curia sottolinea che «il sacerdote interessato, che non appartiene al clero di Taranto, bensì a un ordine religioso, è stato rimosso da monsignor Filippo Santoro dalla cura parrocchiale, non appena lo stesso arcivescovo insieme ad alcuni curiali, ha appurato l’attendibilità dei fatti». Dalla Curia evidenziano anche che «nella documentazione acquisita dal tribunale ecclesiastico al momento non c’è traccia alcuna del coinvolgimento in diocesi di altri sacerdoti».

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VATICAN CITY
The Times (UK)

Philip Willan Rome

The Catholic church in Italy has become embroiled in a scandal, with one priest suspended last night for alleged involvement in gay orgies and another under investigation on suspicion of murdering a parishioner.

A 50-year-old priest from the southern diocese of Taranto was accused of engaging in sex with other priests, using the internet to find new partners and engaging in online sexual encounters, according to the newspaper Corriere del Mezzogiorno.

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MAINE
WGME

PORTLAND (WGME) — There are new allegations of a cover-up by the Diocese of Portland but the bishop says the church is protecting the privacy of the sexual abuse victims.

Former Priest Robert Hoatson has been an outspoken critic of the Catholic Church’s documented history of covering up sexual abuse of minors by members of the clergy. He co-founded Road to Recovery to help those victims.

Hoatson claims a 2005 letter from a retired priest shows that past bishops at the Diocese of Portland knew Father James Vallely had sexually abused at least five boys at a Bangor church in 1956 but did nothing to stop him.

“We have documents now that prove that the church covered up, and continues to cover up, child sex abuse. Since 1956 at least, the Diocese of Portland has had information about Father Vallely’s sexual abuse of children. This is another example of the Catholic Church’s efforts to keep things secret,” Hoatson said.

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CALIFORNIA
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on April 7, 2015

So printing a brochure is what passes as “help[ing] the healing process.”

This past Sunday, the Orange County Register published a front page story on Orange Bishop Kevin Vann. The focus of the article was a profile of the new-ish bishop and his views on the meaning of Easter. But what the article actually said was far more pernicious.

This is what got me:

‘The bishop also doesn’t shrink away from the molestation scandals. English, Spanish and Vietnamese leaflets sit in the administration building’s lobby detailing the diocese’s pledge, “To do everything possible to help the healing process of the victims of sexual abuse.”’

What? Really? You’ve got to be kidding me

I can tell you this: a brochure never helped a survivor heal.

As we reach the 10-year anniversary of the 2005 settlement with 97 child sex abuse victims and the subsequent release of documents that outlined the scope and scale of the cover-up, we can argue that Vann’s actions have only exacerbated the pain and frustration of survivors, who want nothing more than for wrong-doers to be punished.

Some examples:

* In the time that Vann has been Bishop, he has never asked for any kind of formal or informal meetings with survivors. He has also not proactively reached out for any kind of communication.

* Msgr. John Urell—who was shown in documents and depositions to be the major facilitator of child sexual abuse and the person in charge of transferring, covering-up for, and protecting dozens of sexually abusing clerics and employees—is still an active and influential priest in the Diocese of Orange. He has never been reprimanded for what he did.

* The administrators of Mater Dei High School (Patrick Murphy and Frances Claire) have retained their positions, although it has been shown that they allowed abusers like Jeff Andrade to return to campus (after he admitted to sexually abusing students).

* Administrators at Santa Margarita High School who personally covered up for numerous predator priests and teachers at Mater Dei still retain their positions as high-ranking officials at Santa Margarita High School.

I anticipate the response of the Register was “Well, this is old news.” But I will tell you this: it is not old news to victims. It is not old news to their families. And it most certainly should not be old news to Vann, who should be using his tenure to push out abusers and their enablers, instead of shrugging his shoulders and depending on media fatigue to give him a cover for doing NOTHING.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Philadelphia Magazine

By Joel Mathis | April 7, 2015

A new bill in the Pennsylvania Senate would give childhood victims of sexual abuse until the age of 50 to file a civil lawsuit against their abuser.

Sen. Rob Teplitz, a Democrat who serves Perry and Dauphin counties, introduced the bill Monday, saying it addressed one of the few remaining issues left over from the state’s Task Force on Child Protection that made recommendations in the aftermath of the Jerry Sandusky scandal at Penn State. The current statute of limitations gives childhood victims of abuse until the age of 30 to file a civil claim; the statute of limitations for criminal charges in such cases is already age 50.

That rule is “arbitrary and archaic” Teplitz said in a sponsorship memorandum.

The Task Force on Child Protection, though, quite explicitly declined to recommend an extended statute of limitations. Its findings did otherwise lead to 23 new laws passed by the Pennsylvania Legislature.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

The Catholic Church is reviewing how it dealt with the transfer of a priest who was found to have indecent videos of teenage boys.

Anthony McSweeney, 68, was last month jailed after he was found guilty of indecent assault between 1979 and 1981.

In 1998, he was found to have pornographic videos while at St Peter’s Catholic Church in Essex.
Bishop of East Anglia Alan Hopes is reviewing how McSweeney was allowed to move to St George’s, Norwich.

Southwark Crown Court heard how McSweeney and his friend John Stingemore, who died before the trial, assaulted a 15-year-old boy.

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NROTHERN IRELAND
Channel 4 News

A former army intelligence officer says he alerted MI5 to abuse at Kincora boys’ home, but was told to stop digging. It is not the first time MI5 has been accused of covering up child abuse.

Channel 4 News brought Kincora victim Richard Kerr face to face with Brian Gemmell, who worked as an army intelligence officer in Belfast in the 1970s. Mr Gemmell said he put in an official report about Kincora to a senior MI5 officer, but to his astonishment he claims he was ordered to stop digging and forget about it.

Speaking to Mr Kerr, he said: “That’s the thing that hits me – that if I really pushed the thing through in 75-76, you could have been rescued. I’m sorry.” Channel 4 News has contacted MI5 via the Home Office and is awaiting a response to Mr Gemmell’s claims.

Mr Gemmell said he believed what happened at Kincora decades ago should be brought within the scope of the over-arching, judge-led inquiry Home Secretary Theresa May set up “to consider the extent to which state and non-state institutions have failed in their duty of care to protect children from sexual abuse and exploitation”.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
The Guardian

Henry McDonald Ireland correspondent
Tuesday 7 April 2015

The next home secretary must include the Kincora boys’ home scandal in the Westminster paedophile inquiry, according to a leading politician in east Belfast, where the abuse took place.

Naomi Long, who is deputy leader of the Alliance party and battling to retain her Belfast East seat in the general election, also called on Tuesday for victims of the Ulster loyalist paedophile ring to report their claims that Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) officers threatened boys for speaking out about the abuse to Northern Ireland’s police ombudsman.

There have been persistent claims from boys abused at Kincora and human rights organisations that military intelligence and the RUC knew about the rape of children in care but used the information to blackmail the paedophiles, forcing them to spy on fellow loyalists.

The Alliance MP’s call comes as a victim of abuse at Kincora speaks out on Tuesday night’s Channel 4 News alleging that he was taken from the east Belfast home to London where he was molested by members of a VIP paedophile ring.

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UNITED STATES
Hamilton and Griffin on Rights

“Openness and transparency.” Apparently, the public relations professionals who advise Catholic officials have insisted that this is the winning phrase, the mantra that if repeated relentlessly, will restore the laity’s trust in the church hierarchy, the trust that’s been violated time and time again by the church’s on-going clergy child sex abuse and cover up crisis.

For decades now, when clergy sex crimes and cover ups are uncovered, bishops and others in the church hierarchy respond by pledging to turn over a new leaf and to start dealing with such reports with “openness and transparency.”

The phrase is found often in official written church abuse policies. And it’s used by church officials in interview after interview after interview. (Sometimes, members of the Catholic hierarchy go so far as to claim they’re now the ‘best’ institution when dealing with abuse cases.)

This promise, however, seem mostly to be honored in the breach. Consider these recent cases:

–For a full year, Mobile Alabama Archbishop Thomas Rodi hid allegations that Fr. Johnny S. Savoie was accused of molesting a youngster. The allegations only surfaced because of separate civil lawsuits charging parochial school staff with tolerating bullying.

Now, Rodi is going even farther and using parishioner donations to pay lawyers to try to keep a continued lid on the child sex allegations.

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MAINE
BishopAccountability.org

[with copy of the handwritten original letter]

By Rev. Richard P. Rice
July 19, 2005

This is a transcription of a handwritten letter obtained by attorney Mitchell Garabedian in Vallely discovery and partially quoted in Bangor priest abused boys in 1950s, according to letter, by Judy Harrison, Bangor Daily News (4/7/15). The article tentatively identifies the letter’s addressee as the Rev. Marc Caron, co-chancellor of the diocese at the time the letter was written. Bishop Daniel J. Feeney, who is discussed in the letter, was coadjutor bishop 1952-1955 and bishop 1955-1969. The letter refers to “Sunday’s article.” Vallely was discussed in Substantial Evidence Led to Naming Nine Priests, Diocese Says, by John Richardson, Portland Press Herald, which appeared on Sunday (7/17/05). It is not clear whether Rice is referring to this specific article. See also documents released by the Maine Attorney General in 2005 1 2. Rice’s phrase “when the news first broke in 1993” refers to revelations covered in the national press. See, for example, 3 Say Ex-Priest Abused Them, Orlando Sentinel (3/5/93).

ST. MARY’S CHURCH
144 Lincoln Street
Bath, Maine 04530-2198
(207) 443-3423

[Date stamped] JUL 20 2005

July 19, 2005

Dear Marc: Some peace I hope!

Seeing Sunday’s article once again reminded me of something that I feel I should share with you.

When the first news broke in 1993 re James Vallely, I wrote a letter to him with prayer and encouragement. He responded with gratitude but also saying: “if such a memorable event occurred (between him and a youth), he would remember. He had no memory of such an action.

Sometime later, Fr. Dick Harvey and I were together. I commented upon Jim’s letter. Dick said: “Dick (only he called me that) Jim is in denial.” He then paused and finally said: Dick there were 1, 2, 3, 4, no, 5 boys who had confided to Dick of their abuse at St. Johns. He then told me, when Bishop Feeney arrived for confirmation, Dick asked him to walk with him on York St. and told him about this. Within a very brief time, Jim Vallely was transferred. I do not know the years, but such a transfer would indicate the time.

I write this to you so that if any young men from St. Johns at that period were in touch with the Diocese, this conversation with Dick Harvey might help validate their truthfulness and need.

Prayerful good wishes and healing for us all.

Richard P. Rice

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MAINE
Portland Press Herald

He says the disclosure opens the door to victims previously barred by Maine’s statute of limitations.

BY DAVID SHARPTHE ASSOCIATED PRESS

A lawyer says a newly revealed letter indicating Roman Catholic Church officials knew a Maine priest was allegedly abusing children in 1956 opens the door to lawsuits by additional victims.

Boston lawyer Mitchell Garabedian said the 2005 letter referring to abuse allegations against the Rev. James Vallely shows then-Bishop Daniel Feeney knew about Vallely’s abuse earlier than previously stated. He says that disclosure opens the door to victims who previously were shut out by Maine’s statute of limitations to file lawsuits.

Garabedian, who already settled one fraudulent concealment case, said he’s representing five of Vallely’s victims from the 1960s and 1970s. Vallely died in 1997.

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UNITED STATES
Thomas P. Doyle

[note: This does not connect to a web site.]

By Kieran Tapsell
Adelaide, NSW, Australia
ATF Press, 2014

Reviewed by Thomas P. Doyle, J.C.D., C.A.D.C.

In the years since the revelation of rampant sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clerics first became public, a number of clerics and canon lawyers have claimed that if the Church had only followed its own canon law system the problem could have been avoided. The most prominent has been Cardinal Raymond Burke, former prefect of the Apostolic Signatura and now Patron of the Sovereign Order of Malta. In 2012 Cardinal Burke addressed a canon law convention in Kenya and said that the church has a “carefully articulated process by which to investigate accusations of sex abuse.” He went on to say that the discipline of canon law was not followed, hence the on-going problem of clergy sex abuse.

Burke’s assertion and those of the others who have made similar claims are far removed from the reality of canon law’s role in the Church’s abysmal failure to deal with the epidemic of sexual misbehavior. On the other side of the of the reality divide there have been bishops who actually tried to deal with priest-perpetrators according to the Church’s rules and found themselves stymied and stone-walled by a confusing and contradictory array of canonical regulations.

Kieran Tapsell, an Australian legal scholar with an extraordinary grasp of canon law, its spirit, sources and labyrinthine mechanisms, has written the most comprehensive, insightful and accurate exposition of the canonical landscape yet to be produced. He takes a careful look at all of the strands of canon law and comes up with a thorough description of some of the key points of contention including a) the nature and extent of the obligation to maintain secrecy, b) the origin and effect of the two versions of the Vatican decree on procedures, Crimen sollicitationis, c) the question of reporting cases of sexual abuse to civil law enforcement, and d) the canonical barriers to effectively moving against priests who violate minors.

This is not a dry, academic treatise but a highly readable and engaging account of one of the most important and relevant aspects of the clergy abuse debacle. The author not only goes through the bewildering canonical swamp but brings his conclusions to life with real examples. This is not only a commentary on canon law but an invaluable historical source for his description of the Church’s response through history is comprehensive, including all the major events and ecclesiastical pronouncements.

Potiphar’s Wife is a foundational source about clergy sexual abuse. It is one of handful of books of the several hundred that have been written, that is essential to a comprehensive and accurate understanding of what is surely a highly complex, multi-faceted historical phenomenon.

The author and his publisher both told me that there had been a number of criticisms of the book by canon lawyers in Australia. I have searched high and low and found nothing in writing. There was a positive review from a moral theology professor at Catholic University of America that was pulled from the internet because, as its author explained to Mr. Tapsell, he had received emails from canonists criticizing it. Yet no one has stepped forward to engage him in debate except Dr. Ian Waters, a canonist from the archdiocese of Melbourne. Waters responded in his private capacity to a speech by Kieran Tapsell in Melbourne. A copy of Dr. Waters’ speech and Kieran Tapsell’s response to it can be found at http://www.awrsipe.com/Miscl/Ian-Waters-Speech-with-Commentary5.pdf

One common comment made by some defenders of the hierarchy is that very few bishops received copies of Crimen sollicitationis in either iteration, 1922 or 1962, and that consequently it was largely irrelevant and unused. I have had the occasion to review several thousand files of clerics accused of sexual molestation of minors over the past 27 years. These cases have been from throughout the U.S. and from Canada, Ireland, Great Britain, Italy, Mexico and Colombia. I have found a number of documents that were clearly part of the penal process mandated by Crimen. It would be close to impossible to determine how often this procedure was used, in all or in part, but is has been used.

Potiphar’s Wife is highly readable, not a dry, impersonal treatise as one would usually expect from a canon law book. It is engaging, at times shocking and infuriating and in sum, an essential and not just a valuable contribution to understanding the byzantine and all too often contradictory response of the Catholic hierarchy and the Vatican to the most destructive force the Church has seen since the middle ages.

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UNITED KINGDOM
ITV News

PENNY MARSHALL SOCIAL AFFAIRS EDITOR

An investigation by ITV News has discovered dozens of new allegations of historical child sex abuse within the Church of England have been made in the last few months.

This increase in survivors coming forward may reveal a new found confidence from those who have been sexually abused to seek redress and help.

They may also reflect the church’s own efforts to reach out now to the survivors they have wronged in the past. In all likelihood, they are a combination of both.

The survivors’ group MACSAS says these figures are the tip of the iceberg and warn that they expect many more will make contact. They do not know how many of these new cases have contacted the police.

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UNITED KINGDOM
ITV News

As an ITV News investigation discovers dozens of new historical allegations of child sexual abuse within the Church of England have been made in the last few months, one survivor speaks out.

I was groomed and sadistically abused by a senior establishment figure in the Church of England as a teenager in the mid-1970s.

I didn’t only reach out for help – but reached up for it by telling quite senior people in the church – including bishops. None of whom apparently kept any record.

I told in the region of 40 Church of England priests across nearly four decades – and finally got help to report it to the police and the Bishop of Durham last summer.

In the current hierarchy there are a handful of senior figures, including two bishops and others – who knew my story at one time, but seem to have all walked away and forgotten.

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UNITED STATES
Brent Detwiler

Monday, March 30, 2015

Two years ago a “hush fund” masquerading as a benevolence fund was deceptively set up by Mark Prater (Executive Director for SGM), Paul Buckley (Chairman of the SGM Board), and Tommy Hill (Director of Finance & Administration for SGM) in order to surreptitiously meet the demands of a SGM pastor whose son was sexually abused by the son of another SGM pastor in the same church.

The fund came about because the father of the victim was thinking about joining the sex abuse lawsuit against SGM if SGM did not agree to reforms and if he did not receive restitution monies from SGM for harms done. Insurance lawyers told SGM leaders they would lose their liability coverage if payouts were made thereby arguably admitting fault. Instead, SGM lawyer Chip Grange suggested a plan whereby monies be raised for the victim’s family as “a collection and private gift to help him avoid eviction.” This plan was approved by C.J. Mahaney and the SGM Board of Directors and implemented by Mark Prater.

As a result many SGM pastors who knew the pastor and father of the victim were contacted and asked to give benevolence to the family. Prater, Buckley, Hill and the Board deceived these pastors into giving personal and church monies to a benevolence fund that effectively functioned as a hush fund. The pastors had no idea what was really going on behind the scenes. They were intentionally deceived in the matter.

People inside and outside of SGM must come to grips with the corruption that characterizes the leadership of SGM starting with C.J. Mahaney. He was the President of SGM when this hush fund was set up. No one should be supporting or following any of these men. As I’ve demonstrated countless times, you cannot believe anything they tell you.

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VATICAN CITY
International Business Times

By Kay Aviles on April 07 2015

Pope Francis is sweeping off clean the Vatican bank, which for many years has been cloaked with controversy for allegedly providing a safe haven to Italian individuals who laundered money and evaded taxes. On Wednesday, the Holy See’s signed tax treaty with the government of Italy — which obliges parties to share financial and tax information — seeks to regulate Vatican bank’s banking secrecy.

The Institute for Works of Religion, or IOR, Vatican bank’s official designation, began its operations as a safe place to store Catholic Church’s vast fortune. In fact, it has been dubbed as the world’s most secret bank. IOR has been a subject of criticism for its violations of its mission when the bank permitted illegitimate accounts enabling illicit transactions across Europe.

In 2010, reforms were already introduced to make the bank compliant with the international standards on financial transparency and on money laundering. Moreover, in 2013, in an effort to enforce transparency and carry out the bank’s reform process, around 3,000 bank accounts were blocked and 400 accounts were closed. Pope Francis, according to Voice of America, believed that in order for the church to have credibility, the Vatican finances should be transparent and reforms must continue.

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MINNESOTA
WDAY

[with video]

Crookston, MN (WDAY TV) – The Crookston Diocese under fire after its Bishop is accused of withholding the names of priests involved in sex abuse cases.

A survivor’s network of people abused by priests alleges Bishop Michael Hoeppner left out two priests from a list of offenders released in January 2014.

Rick Boyd was convicted in 1984 for possessing large amounts of child pornography.

Jerry Foley admitted to sexual misconduct in the 1970s and 80s.

David Clohessy/Executive Director SNAP, “These two should have been the first two on the list, because Father Foley admitted sexual misdeeds and Father Boyd was convicted of sexual misdeeds, so these should have been the easiest and the first predator priests who’s names the bishop disclosed.”

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By Noel Baker
Senior Reporter

Irish Catholic bishops have come out against confidentiality agreements in cases where a priest has fathered a child, according to correspondence between it and newly formed organisation Coping International.

Coping International, which is seeking to support the children and ex-partners of priests in different countries around the world, including Ireland, had written to the Irish Bishops’ Conference regarding the confidentiality agreements — querying if such agreements were ethical.

It based its comments on the UN’s Children’s Rights Commission and its concluding observations on the second periodic report of the Holy See, in which the UN body said: “The committee is concerned about the situation of children fathered by Catholic priests, who, in many cases, are not aware of the identity of their fathers.

“The committee is also concerned that the mothers may obtain a plan for regular payment from the Church until the child is financially independent only if they sign a confidentiality agreement not to disclose any information about the child’s father or the plan.”

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IRELAND
The Irish News

THE religious order of serial paedophile Fr Brendan Smyth is quitting its Co Cavan abbey.

The Norbertine Fathers are departing Kilnacrott Abbey near Ballyjamesduff.

The five remaining priests held their last Mass at the abbey on Easter Sunday.

First put on the market in 2007, with an asking price of €3m, it was initially thought the abbey and its
44 acres would be transformed into a 60-bed residential nursing home after being reportedly sold for €900,000 in 2011.

However, that sale fell through and the property eventually sold in 2012 for €610,000 to a controversial lay religious group known as Direction For Our Times, which is run by Chicago native Kathryn Ann Clarke, otherwise known as ‘Anne a lay apostle’.

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OSTERREICH
Steiermark

Bei einem Gottesdienst am Ostermontag hat der Dechant in der Pfarrkirche Leoben-Donawitz angekündigt, seine Kirchenämter niederzulegen. Der 45-Jährige begründete seine Entscheidung damit, dass er heiraten werde. Er sei erleichtert, sagte er nun im Interview mit dem ORF Steiermark.

Der Gottesdienst am Montag in der Pfarrkirche Leoben-Donawitz nahm eine alles andere als alltägliche Wendung, als Dechant Maximilian Tödtling seine Heiratsabsichten bekanntgab.

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AUSTRIA
The Local

An Austrian priest gave his congregation a surprise during a church service on Easter Monday in Donawitz, Styria, when he announced that he was giving up the priesthood to marry a woman he’d
Maximilian Tödtling (45) told his parishioners that he would quit in September and asked them to understand why he had chosen to leave.

Tödtling has been in charge of the parish of Leoben-West for eight years, and according to a report in the Kronen Zeitung newspaper is very popular.

By the end of August he will have given up all his church duties and will apply to the Pope for laicization – whereby his status as a member of the clergy will be removed.

Tödtling said that he was in a relationship with a woman called Nora who works for a Catholic charity that takes care of the poor and homeless.

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CANADA
CTV

The Canadian Press
Published Monday, April 6, 2015

A commissioner on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission wants mandatory education about residential schools for students across Canada.

Marie Wilson was in Saskatoon last week to speak about the legacy the commission will leave behind when it wraps up with closing events in Ottawa at the end of May.

Wilson says she hopes the commission will inspire jurisdictions across Canada to include residential school history as a required course to graduate high school.

The commission has collected testimony from residential school survivors to create an official record of the abuse they suffered, and will submit a final report to Ottawa.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

BY LIAM CLARKE – 07 APRIL 2015

In emotional scenes, Richard Kerr – a former Kincora resident who was sexually abused at the boys’ home – has received an apology from the military intelligence officer who tried to expose the abuse.

Brian Gemmell’s words represent the first time Mr Kerr has ever received an apology from the authorities who failed him.

Mr Gemmell was warned off revealing the paedophile activity at the east Belfast home by Ian Cameron, a senior MI5 officer, who told him this was not a matter for the intelligence services or the army to be concerned with. Now Mr Gemmell believes it was part of a cover-up of sex abuse by top people. He suspects that the intelligence services used such dark secrets as a way to control abusers who were politically influential. As a captain, Mr Gemmell put in an official report about Kincora to a senior MI5 officer. But to his astonishment he claims he was ordered to stop digging and forget about it. He now feels that he should have exposed it, whatever the consequences for his army career.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Belfast Telegraph

BY LIAM CLARKE – 07 APRIL 2015

Richard Kerr is still scared. He has been warned of Establishment feathers being ruffled. Living in Texas, he feels safe enough on the other side of the Atlantic, but is nervous of returning here again.

He last travelled here from his US home in February for a legal battle to demand that Kincora is investigated as part of a UK-wide public inquiry. This probe would have greater powers to get to the truth than Sir Anthony Hart’s Historical Institutional Abuse inquiry in Banbridge. Judgment in the case is still reserved.

“I’m still in some fear,” he says tonight on Channel 4. “I need to know that I can have faith in our government. But right now, when they’re not willing to bring Kincora into Westminster, the message that sends to me is that there’s some kind of cover-up.”

Mr Kerr pointed out that people like Ian Paisley senior have been accused of sexual misconduct on the internet – yet to Mr Kerr’s knowledge, the former DUP leader was never involved in abuse, and two intelligence officers who have spoken out concur.

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MONTANA
Montana Standard

HELENA — An approved plan to exit bankruptcy doesn’t mean the Roman Catholic Diocese of Helena is on solid financial footing just yet, according to Chief Financial Officer Jim Carney.

“It’s going to be a long, slow road to recovery,” he said.

The Diocese of Helena, which oversees more than 60 parishes and 35 missions across western Montana, has been weighed down by debt said to be nearly double its assets since allegations of sexual abuse began to surface years ago. In January 2014, the diocese filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, making it one of nearly a dozen dioceses to do so over the last decade.

A federal bankruptcy judge approved the diocese’s plan in early March to compensate more than 360 alleged sexual abuse victims.

The diocese paid $2.6 million; its insurance company paid $14.4 million; and the Ursuline Sisters of the Western Province, who were also part of the lawsuit, paid $4.45 million.

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MAINE
Bangor Daily News

[Letter Regarding Early Notice of Vallely Abuse – BishopAccountability.org]

By Judy Harrison, BDN Staff
Posted April 06, 2015

PORTLAND, Maine — A 2005 letter from a retired priest to an official at the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland shows that Maine’s bishop knew that a priest was sexually abusing boys at a Bangor church in 1956, according to an advocate for victims and an attorney.

The late Bishop Daniel J. Feeney knew that the Rev. James Vallely , now deceased, abused children at St. John Catholic Church in Bangor before 1956, according to Robert M. Hoatson, president of Road to Recovery Inc., a New Jersey-based nonprofit charity that assists victims of sexual abuse and their families.

Efforts to reach the diocese for comment late Monday afternoon were unsuccessful.

The handwritten letter, dated July 20, 2005, was written on stationery for St. Mary’s School in Bath. It was signed by the Rev. Richard P. Rice and is addressed to “Marc.”

Marc is believed to be the Rev. Marc Caron, who was co-chancellor of the diocese in 2005, according to Hoatson. Rice is retired but continues to say Mass in All Saints Parish, which includes churches in Bath and the Boothbay Peninsula, according to information posted on the parish website.

Efforts to reach Rice on Monday night were unsuccessful.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Belfast Telegraph

Kincora child sex abuse victim Richard Kerr: I was molested by powerful people at Dolphin Square and Elm Guest House in London

07 APRIL 2015

Kincora child sex abuse victim Richard Kerr has claimed he was molested by “very powerful people” at several key locations connected to an alleged VIP paedophile ring.

Mr Kerr, who was a victim of abuse at Kincora Boys’ Home in Belfast, has claimed he was also attacked at the Dolphin Square luxury apartment complex and Elm Guest House, both in London.

It is thought to be the first time that the three places have been linked in relation to claims of historic sex abuse by influential Westminster figures.

Mr Kerr was abused at Kincora in the 1970s and claims he and two other boys were hand-picked to be trafficked to London in 1977 and sexually abused by men.

Both of the other men have since taken their own lives, Mr Kerr told Channel 4 News.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mal

I was trafficked by Westminster sex abuse ring: Victim claims he was attacked in children’s home, gay brothel and luxury London flats

By SAM MARSDEN FOR THE DAILY MAIL

Vulnerable boys were trafficked from a children’s home before being abused by ‘very powerful’ figures in a Westminster paedophile ring, a victim has claimed.

Richard Kerr, 53, said he was one of three youngsters who were taken from the home in Belfast to London in the 1970s.

Once in the capital, they were allegedly molested by politicians and other Establishment figures at Dolphin Square and Elm Guest House – which are now under investigation by Scotland Yard.

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ARGENTINA
Clarin

[The priest Justo Ilarraz, charged with sexual abuse of seminarians who were under his tutelage between 1984 and 1992, today refused to undergo psychiatric and psychological examination.]

El sacerdote Justo Ilarraz, imputado por abuso sexual a seminaristas que estuvieron bajo su tutela entre 1984 y 1992, se negó hoy a someterse a pericias psiquiátricas y psicológicas.

Fue durante una audiencia celebrada esta mañana en los Tribunales de Paraná y que fuera dispuesta por la titular del Juzgado de Transición Número 2, Paola Pintos, quien está a cargo del expediente caratulado “Ilarraz, Justo Jose s/Promoción a la corrupcion agravada”.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Yorkshire Evening Post

Tony Gardner

A CHURCH helper had more than 3,000 vile images of children being sexually abused on computers at his West Yorkshire home, a court heard.

A court heard the discovery was made after computer equipment was seized from Nigel Holleran’s home on Walton Lane, Sandal, Wakefield, in May last year.

Leeds Crown Court was told Holleran contacted police officers and told them he “wanted to get things of his chest”.

He then admitted that he had been viewing abusive images of children for around five years.

Holleran, 57, later told a probation officer that he believed the children in the images, some as young as nine, had consented to the abuse they were being subjected to and had been paid for appearing in the images.

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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

Tuesday 7 April 2015

The high profile peace campaigner and former priest Monsignor Bruce Kent has called for alleged victims of disgraced Cardinal Keith O’Brien to cease their “anonymous allegations.”

Mgr Kent, 86, became friends with the former leader of the Catholic Church in St Andrews and Edinburgh, through his work with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND).

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MICHIGAN
Michigan Radio

[with audio]

1968 was a very tense and pivotal year in Detroit’s history. The city was putting itself back together again after the riots in July of ’67.

That was the year 38-year-old priest Thomas Gumbleton became a Catholic bishop, and set about working to unite black and white parishes in the Detroit Archdiocese.

Today, after a lifetime of fighting for peace, justice and equality, Bishop Thomas Gumbleton is 85. And his life is now a film. American Prophet written, produced and directed by his parishioner Jasmine Rivera.

Rivera grew attending Bishop Gumbleton’s parish and says she didn’t truly understand how incredible his story was until she was older.

The film retraces the origins of when he became a bishop in 1968. …

Along with his fight for racial equality and social justice, the bishop has also spoken out about sexual abuse within the church. He himself is a survivor of sexual abuse inflicted by a professor at the seminary where he studied, and he avoided discussing his experience for 40 years.

“I never said anything about it to anybody until just a few years ago when the opportunity came along to help the survivors to get legislation that would open up the statute of limitations,” the bishop says.

Bishop Gumbleton says he’s been frustrated by the church’s response to the sexual abuse scandal. He says the church hierarchy listened to the advice of their lawyers first, rather than fulfilling their duties to their parishioners.

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NEW YORK
The Daily News

ALBION — Former pastor Roy Harriger was sentenced Monday to 15 years in prison for repeatedly sexually assaulting two of his grandchildren in 2001 and 2002.

A jury found Harriger guilty Jan. 26 of two counts of first-degree course of sexual conduct against a child. The jury found him not guilty of a third count against another grandchild.

Orleans County Judge James Punch imposed Monday’s sentence. Harriger, 71, had faced up to 25 years in prison.

All three victims testified that Harriger sexually assaulted them. Two of the victims, a brother and a sister, are now adults and testified that Harriger abused them in 2001 and 2002.

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NEW YORK
WKBW

ALBION, N.Y. (WKBW) – A 70-year-old pastor convicted of molesting his own grandchildren will spend the next 15 years behind bars.

Roy Harriger was convicted in January of two of three counts of coercive criminal sexual conduct against a child. He could have faced up to 25 years in prison, but was sentenced Monday to 15 years behind bars – seven-and-a-half years for each count.

He will also have 20 years post release supervision.

Jurors deliberated Harriger’s fate over two days. As the verdict was read, there were gasps, deep breaths, tears and even a cheer inside Orleans County Court. Harriger had no comment as he walked out of the courtroom that day.

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NEW YORK
TWC News

By Breanna Fuss
Monday, April 6, 2015

ALBION, N.Y. — A former pastor in Orleans County was sentenced Monday to 15 years in prison for sexually abusing children.

Roy Harriger, 72, was found guilty in January of sexual conduct against a child. In court, Harriger steadfastly denied everything.

The investigation into Harriger began a year and a half ago; however, it’s alleged he sexually abused at least 15 children over the course of 40 years.

Harriger was a pastor at Ash Wood Wesleyan Church in Lyndonville and at Community Fellowship Church in the Niagara County town of Hartland. The incidents he was convicted of occurred between 2000 and 2001.

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NEW YORK
Rochester Homepage

Albion, NY (WROC)- An Orleans County pastor, who was convicted of sexual abuse, will spend the next 15 years behind bars. Roy Harriger, 71, was convicted on two counts of sexual conduct for molesting two of his grandchildren, but they weren’t the only victims. More than 15 people signed affidavits saying Harriger molested them as well.

Until Harriger’s arrest, he continued preaching at the Community Fellowship Church in Johnson Creek.

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TEXAS
Big Country Homepage

Bethany Blaine

More details have been released about the arrest of a former Abilene church worker who is charged with sexual assault of a child.

According to an arrest report, a victim came forward saying they were sexually abused by 43-year-old Jeff Forrest back in September of 1993.

Forrest was the victim’s after-school daycare teacher, court documents state.

The victim reported that alleged abuse continued until their 8th grade year of school.

Records say that after several years of keeping the abuse secret, the victim finally admitted the abuse to their father in 2011.

According to court documents, the victim’s father then confronted Forrest, forcing him to tell his wife about the abuse.

Forrest’s wife then reported the sexual abuse to Child Protective Services.

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AUSTRALIA
Failed Messiah

In Sydney, Despite Horrific Child Sex Abuse Scandal, It’s Business As Usual For Chabad – And For A Local Politician

After the Australian Royal Commission hearings into widespread coverups of child sex abuse in Chabad institutions, including those Chabad institutions that Rabbi Pinchus Feldman heads in Sydney, exposed horrific behavior by Chabad rabbis – including Feldman himself – one might think politicians would be loathe to be seen with Feldman and the other Chabad rabbis – but you would be wrong.

After the Australian Royal Commission hearings into widespread coverups of child sex abuse in Chabad institutions, including those Chabad institutions that Rabbi Pinchus Feldman heads in Sydney, exposed horrific behavior by Chabad rabbis – including Feldman himself – one might think politicians would be loathe to be seen with Feldman and the other Chabad rabbis (some of whom may be indicted after the Royal Commission releases its official findings in May).

But if you thought that, you would be wrong.

If you thought politicians were anything more than their caricature as craven, self-serving, power- and money-hungry creatures, think again. Because here is a PR photo released by Rabbi Pinchus Feldman Chabad organization based in Sydney, Australia. The caption is his own. Note the smiling, beaming face of the Parliamentary Secretary for Justice for the Australian state of New South Wales (the state Sydney is in, like Los Angeles is in California):

Rabbi Pinchus Feldman OAM, Regional Director of Chabad NSW, sells the Chametz to The Hon. David Clarke MLC, NSW Parliamentary Secretary for Justice, in the presence of Rabbi Eli Feldman, Vice President of the Rabbinical Council of NSW. (Caption and photo as published by Shturem.org.)

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OREGON
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Monday, April 6

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

A Catholic priest has lost his wrongful dismissal case against his bishop. This outcome helps explain why Catholic officials continue to endanger kids, move predators, and conceal evidence in clergy sex abuse and cover up cases.

[Bend Bulletin]

Fr. James Radloff lost his complaint with the state Bureau of Labor and Industries in September, which charged that Baker Bishop Liam Cary had engaged in unlawful conduct when he was dismissed. The ruling wasn’t based on the facts. It was based on the “ministerial exception” which essentially says that religious employees can’t take legal action against their church superiors.

So in essence Catholic employees are serfs and their bishops are lords, immune to being scrutinized or second-guessed by secular officials. That means that church workers are largely powerless even when their bishops are corrupt.

And that’s why clergy sex crimes and cover ups keep happening in the church – because bishops continue to have nearly unlimited power to demote, discipline, defrock and denounce their employees, especially those employees who ‘blow the whistle’ on clerics who commit or conceal sexual violence against kids.

The remedy: Anyone who sees, suspects or suffers clergy sex crimes or cover ups should contact police, prosecutors, journalists, and groups like ours, and fight very hard to expose the truth, even if they are denied their day in court. And secular authorities should fight very hard to expose, prosecute and convict church officials who protect predators and endanger kids, even though the legal obstacles they may face are considerable.

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CALIFORNIA
Orange County Register

BY DAVID WHITING / STAFF COLUMNIST

Bishop Kevin Vann, dressed in black priest’s clothing and sometimes called the Shepherd of Orange, walks through the Christ Cathedral campus discussing the meaning of Easter.

I can’t help but notice Vann is wearing cowboy boots. Could these be the bishop’s famous Our Lady of Guadalupe boots?

Vann grins. He spent the morning in San Juan Capistrano blessing the annual Portola horseback ride. The bishop who still sees himself as a simple parish priest lifts a pant leg.

Blue, yellow and red stitching appears.

Then Vann does something unexpected. He whips off a boot.

It turns out there are layers of meaning in that leather. …

The bishop also doesn’t shrink away from the molestation scandals. English, Spanish and Vietnamese leaflets sit in the administration building’s lobby detailing the diocese’s pledge, “To do everything possible to help the healing process of the victims of sexual abuse.”

So what’s all this have to do with Easter? As a lapsed Catholic – and it’s impossible not to re-evaluate one’s relationship to the church when talking to someone like Vann – I would suggest everything.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

Pope Francis and the Vatican recently made, and then compounded, a major blunder in Chile that seriously undermines the pope’s own already teetering sex abuse commission and his aimless Family Synod upcoming in several months. The Vatican, and an exhausted pope, are now desperately trying to change the subject to worldwide violent attacks by senseless terrorists, to Francis’ upcoming futile Family Synod and to pointless papal trips— anything but the subject of continuing senseless violent sexual attacks on children by priests too often protected by unaccountable bishops.

It is too late for such papal spin. This mistake will even likely lead to some protests during the pope’s upcoming visit to the USA and UN, as well as undercut some of his influence among US Latino voters for next year’s US Republican presidential candidate, likely Spanish speaker, Jeb Bush. This Bush is Catholic, has a Mexican wife and also has close ties to the neo-con Catholic establishment.

Yes, it is too late for the pope to try to spin past this mistake. By bypassing his own abuse commission as Francis just did, few will now take serious either his own illusory commission’s relevance or his futile Family Synod, that absurdly lacks family participants, especially women, as full participants. This Chilean bishop mistake, and the Vatican’s cowardly confirmation of it, are the last straws for many Catholics, especially parents, as should have been clear by the unprecedented near riot at Barros’ installation, see here .

Clearly, the outcry against Pope Francis’s appointment to Osorno of Chilean Bishop Juan Barros, long associated with a notorious child abusing priest, has placed the pope’s already declining credibility, especially concerning his “zero tolerance” policy against sexual abuse, into further question, even among traditionally adamant papal supporters. This includes the US neo-conservative journal, “First Things”, a prime outlet often of key Catholic neo–cons like George Weigel. Mr. Weigel, who had been close to Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, reportedly has also had unusual access to Pope Francis, both currently as pope as well as when he was cardinal.

A usually supportive advocate of the dominant modern “infallible” papacy, William Doino, Jr., has indicated in First Things, fairly, correctly and pointedly, that the Vatican’s explanation of its Barros mistake is hardly persuasive. See “Pope Francis and Zero Tolerance“, where Doino perceptively criticizes the Vatican, here,

[First Things]

The Pope’s decision to appoint Barros as bishop of Osorno—even as Barros has been accused of covering up sexual abuse, and of being an eyewitness to the abuse—has been a source of consternation, not least among members of Francis’s own anti-abuse Commission, as Doino correctly points out.

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IRELAND
Yahoo! News

The names of five more children who died at the Bethany Home have been added to a memorial stone in Mount Jerome Cemetery.

That brings to 227 the number of children who were discovered to have been buried in unmarked graves in the Harolds Cross cemetery.

The news was announced by Bethany Home survivor and campaigner Derek Leinster, who said that the names were discovered in records.

Protestant home

Located on Dublin’s Orwell Road, the home was for unmarried mothers and was run by an evangelical Protestant group.

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MINNESOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Monday, April 6, 2015

For more information: David Clohessy ( 314-566-9790 cell, SNAPclohessy@aol.com, davidgclohessy@gmail.com ), Barbara Dorris ( 314-503-0003 cell, bdorris@SNAPnetwork.org ), Verne Wagner 218-340-1277, lwagsmn@yahoo.com

Victims blast Crookston bishop
He’s hiding the name of two predators
One is a now-defrocked priest who was convicted of child porn
The other admitted sexual misdeeds & was sent to Twin Cities
But neither were mentioned when diocese released accused priests

A support group for clergy sex abuse victims is blasting Crookston’s Catholic bishop for ignoring two diocesan priests who are “credibly accused” abusers when he released the names of abusive clerics weeks ago.

In January, Bishop Michael J. Hoeppner acknowledged that six northwestern Minnesota priests have faced “credible” allegations of child sexual abuse or crimes and disclosed their names.

[BishopAccountability.org]

But he neglected to name Fr. Rick Boyd, who was convicted in 1984 of “possessing hundreds of items, including about 20 magazines, plus photos and albums, of teenage boys younger than 18 engaged in sex,” in what one source called “the “largest collection of child pornography uncovered in the upper Midwest.” And he made no mention of Fr. Gerald K. “Jerry” Foley, who admitted to sexual misconduct in the 1970s and 1980s with women in his pastoral care, including one who was ‘as young as 17.’

[Daily Beast]

[BishopAccountability.org]

Yet Boyd worked in ministry until 2003, a year after the so-called “one-strike” policy was adopted by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. And Foley, despite his admitted sexual misconduct, was transferred in 1985 from the Diocese of Crookston to the Archdiocese of St Paul and Minneapolis, where he was a chaplain at St Joseph Hospital in St Paul until about 2004.

SNAP discovered the Hoeppner’s omission of Boyd last week when a prominent Twin Cities Catholic whistleblower alluded to the case on her blog but did not name Boyd specifically. The whistleblower, Dr. Jennifer Haselberger, worked for the Crookston Diocese from 2006-2008, directing its “Safe Environment Program.” A canon lawyer, she also worked for the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis and the Diocese of Fargo.

On her blog last week, Haselberger wrote of “a situation of which I was a part in 2005 and 2006, and which led to the ex officio dismissal of a priest for crimes involving sexual abuse of a minor.” She says the priest

–“was removed from ministry in 2005 as a result of charges to which he had previously pleaded guilty in civil court,”

–“was, at the time of his removal he was a ‘person of interest’ to the FBI because of an ongoing investigation into his more recent conduct,”

–“was sent to Saint Luke’s Institute (in Maryland) for an evaluation,”

–was deemed “a fairly high risk for reoffending,” and

–was urged to undergo “an extended period of inpatient therapy.”

But Haselberger writes that the cleric rejected that recommendation and “seemingly disappeared.”

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OREGON
Bend Bulletin

By Scott Hammers / The Bulletin
Published Apr 6, 2015

An employment complaint filed by a former Roman Catholic priest against the Diocese of Baker and Bishop Liam Cary has been dismissed.

James Radloff filed his complaint with the state Bureau of Labor and Industries in September, alleging Bishop Cary and the diocese had engaged in unlawful conduct when he was dismissed from his position with Bend’s St. Francis of Assisi parish in October 2013. Radloff claimed he and Cary had been at odds since months earlier, when he raised concerns over the bishop’s handling of a confession with a teenage boy.

Early last year, Radloff voluntarily left the Roman Catholic Church to start a new church in Bend, the Holy Communion Evangelical Catholic Church, a sect that borrows heavily from the ritual and doctrine of the Roman Catholics.

Radloff’s complaint detailed 29 allegations of mistreatment by Cary and the diocese, with Radloff claiming he was evicted from parish housing on four days’ notice and forbidden from traveling within the diocese, which covers nearly two-thirds of Oregon.

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SLOVAKIA
Celebtricity

Sister Ludovita stabs a 7-year-old schoolboy during R.E. lesson.

The Nun wanted to teach the class about Jesus, when she proceeded to stab the young boy in the arm with a needle. Leaving the whole class and the boy in shock.

Apparently she took the needle out of her handbag and rammed it into the poor boys arm. To show how Jesus suffered, and that the little boy would also suffer if he behaved badly.

The 7-year-old’s mum was horrified.

When Adam got home he had a wound on the back of his hand and when I asked him what had happened he told me the nun had done it. I was completely shocked. I mean, what on earth was she thinking?

And with Easter coming I began to worry about what she would do next – crucify one of the students or hammer a nail into their hands?

The school has responded to the mothers concern.

We strongly disapprove of this sort of teaching method. When I contacted the Sister she told me that the class had been learning about Jesus Christ and personal sin. She added that the children had been invited to voluntarily experience mild pain so they could empathise with the theme.

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CALIFORNIA
Stockton Record

By Jennie Rodriguez-Moore
Record Staff Writer

Posted Apr. 6, 2015

STOCKTON — Just outside the San Joaquin County Superior Court on Weber Avenue sits the historical Stockton Hotel.

“Have you seen the original ‘All the King’s Men?’ ” Judge Bob McNatt said of the 1949 film that won three Academy Awards. “It was filmed right there (at the hotel).”

For a juror, listening to hours of testimony in a courtroom can get stressful, maybe downright mind-numbing. But McNatt knows how to break up the tension and monotony by occasionally sharing bits of history in his courtroom.

He is known to be quite the trivia buff, just one of his many qualities that will be missed in Department 42 of the Stockton court branch.

McNatt, whose most infamous cases include the child sex abuse civil lawsuits involving then-priests Oliver O’Grady and Michael Kelley, officially retires on June 1. He has, however, already cleared out and technically is on vacation.

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UNITED STATES
First Things

by William Doino Jr.
4 . 6 . 15

he outcry against Pope Francis’s appointment of Chilean Bishop Juan Barros, who was long associated with a child abusing priest-to the Diocese of Osorno, has placed the pope’s “zero tolerance” policy against sexual abuse into question.

As Pope, Francis has taken many decisive actions against sexual abuse. He created a special Vatican Commission to combat it, in all its forms, and soon thereafter met with a group of victims, expressing his pain over their suffering:

I feel the gaze of Jesus, and I ask for the grace to weep, the grace for the Church to weep and make reparation for her sons and daughters who betrayed their mission, who abused innocent persons.

Francis has defrocked abusive clergymen, disciplined Catholic prelates believed to have covered up for them, and stripped an abusive Cardinal of all his authority. The Pope has also personally intervened in other abuse cases, ordering investigations and encouraging the public authorities to take strong action against evildoers.

Given these welcome acts, the Pope’s decision to appoint Barros as bishop of Osorno—even as Barros has been accused of covering up sexual abuse, and of being an eyewitness to the abuse—has been a source of consternation, not least among members of Francis’s own anti-abuse Commission.

Barros was a long-time colleague and supporter of Rev. Fernando Karadima, a notorious abuser in Argentina. After Karadima was first accused of sexual abuse, Barros publicly defended his friend and mentor, and reportedly “tried to discredit the victims—even after the Vatican ruled against him [Karadima]” in 2011. The Chilean Bishops Conference subsequently ordered Barros, and three other bishops who had defended Karadima, to apologize.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Telegraph

KATE CRAWFORD MOSMAN DAILY APRIL 06, 2015

A FORMER Riverview teacher has written a disturbing play about sexual abuse at a Catholic boys’ school.

Playwright Melvyn Morrow of Mosman says the play has proved “tragically timely’’ in the light of the exposure recently of allegations that a former teacher at Riverview abused a boy more than 30 years ago.

Riverview principal Paul Hine contacted about 6500 former students after the allegation emerged, asking them to come forward if they knew of any similar allegations.

Morrow admits some audience members could be outraged by his play, Vice, which challenges assumptions about sexual abuse in schools.

It opens at the King Street Theatre in Newtown on April 21.

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VATICAN CITY
KCEN

(WFAA) VATICAN CITY — Tens of thousands gathered in St. Peter’s Square for Easter Mass in a cold, pouring rain Sunday to hear Pope Francis call for an end to global violence and the persecution of Christians by extremist groups.

Francis also expressed support for the Iran nuclear deal reached in Lausanne, Switzerland, saying he hoped it would be “a definitive step toward a more secure and fraternal world.”

Ominous gray clouds poured rain on crowds that started to gather hours before the pope’s traditional Easter “Urbi et Orbi” — Latin for “To the city and the world” — blessing.

The unseasonably cool weather kept crowds smaller than at previous major events Francis attended in recent months, but the enthusiasm that follows the pope wherever he goes was evident. …

Even those critical of the Vatican had praise for the pope’s message Sunday. Alvaro Romano, 23, a Rome native who was part of a small student group protesting the Vatican’s handling of sex abuse in the church, said the pope’s message of peace resonated with him.

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

The Royal Commission will hold a public hearing in Rockhampton commencing on Tuesday 14 April 2015 at 10:00am AEST.

The public hearing will inquire into the experiences of a number of men and women who were resident at St Joseph’s Orphanage, Neerkol operated by the Sisters of Mercy between 1940 and 1975.

Please note that the audio on the webcast may be frequently cut to protect the identify of people who have been granted a pseudonym in this hearing.

Live streaming times
The public hearing will be streamed live via this website between 10am and 4pm (AEST).

Join us on Twitter and Facebook for regular updates.

Please be aware that the content of the public hearings can be distressing for viewers. Visit support services to find services near you, or for immediate support call the Royal Commission on 1800 099 340 or Lifeline on 13 11 14.

Location
The Rockhampton Court House, Virgil Power Building, 46 East Street, Rockhampton.

The scope and purpose of the public hearing is to inquire into:

1. The experiences of a number of men and women who were resident at St Joseph’s Orphanage, Neerkol operated by the Sisters of Mercy between 1940 and 1975;

2. The responses of:
a. the Sisters of Mercy
b. the Catholic Diocese of Rockhampton, and
c. the Queensland state government
to complaints made by former residents of St Joseph’s Orphanage, Neerkol of child sexual abuse by workers, priests and nuns at the Orphanage between 1993 and present.

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OSTERREICH
OOE@orf

[New allegations have been made against the ex-priest at Kremsmunster monastery.]

Gegen den rechtskräftig wegen sexuellen Missbrauchs zu zwölf Jahren verurteilten Ex-Pater des Stiftes Kremsmünster sind neue Vorwürfe aufgetaucht. Ein mutmaßliches Opfer wirft ihm in der Zeitung „Österreich“ vor, sich in Kärnten an ihm vergangen zu haben.

Die Vorfälle seien in der Anstalt des pädophilen und wegen Mordes verurteilten, mittlerweile verstorbenen Kinderpsychiaters Franz Wurst geschehen, so das Opfer. “Der Pater hat mich im Alter von sechs Jahren in der Anstalt von Dr. Wurst in Klagenfurt sexuell missbraucht.

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ESPANA
Vega Media Press

[A new victim of pedophilia, a new spot on the face of the Spanish Church, a new case of sexual abuse of a minor in the times of “zero tolerance” of Pope Francis. According to the complaint in the police court Cieza (Murcia), Ignacio (fictitious name) suffered “serious and continuous abuse and sexual assault” by the sexton of the parish of Our Lady of the Assumption when he was 12 and was altar boy. Today he is 28, still retains faith, but feels mistreated in his own religious house.]

En la denuncia, a la que ha tenido acceso la web Religion Digital, se cuenta que los abusos y agresiones, que comenzaron en 1999 y continuaron hasta 2003, se cometieron “bajo engaño y posición dominante” del sacristán, que “premiaba o castigaba a los niños, según fueran o no complacientes con sus aberraciones sexuales”.

El abusado detalla algunos de los abusos sexuales que sufrió: “Tocamientos, masturbaciones, eyaculaciones en el cuerpo, rozamientos desnudos, fotografías desnudas, etc, todo ello con el empleo de la fuerza por parte del sacristán”. A cambio, les daba “regalos y dinero” o les ofrecía “puestos de relevancia en el altar e invitaciones a su casa de la playa”.

Un sacristán, FJRP, con mando en plaza, como empleado contratado por la parroquia. Y es que, según relata la denuncia, “era el verdadero administrador de la parroquia, ya que él manejaba la economía de la misma, disponía de los cepillos y dirigía los grupos de laicos”. Mientras tanto, el párroco, AMC, “sólo participaba en los actos litúrgicos, dejando todo el movimiento de la parroquia en manos del sacristán”.

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SLOVAKIA
Irish Mirror

5 April 2015 By Sam Webb

Sister Ludovita had been giving RE classes when she told pupil Adam Celko, 7, to come to the front of the class

An over-zealous nun stabbed a schoolboy in the hand with a needle to show him how Jesus suffered.

Sister Ludovita, 30, had been giving RE classes at a school in the town of Kysucke Nove Mesto in northern Slovakia when she told unsuspecting pupil Adam Celko, 7, to come to the front of the class.

She then took a needle out of her handbag and rammed it into the boy’s hand in front of the horrified class, telling him that this was how Jesus suffered – and he would too if he behaved badly.

The boy’s outraged mum Helena, 30, said: “When Adam got home he had a wound on the back of his hand and when I asked him what had happened he told me the nun had done it.

“I was completely shocked. I mean, what on earth was she thinking?

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

Editorial

What a kick in the guts the federal government administered to the survivors of institutional child sexual abuse when it bluntly opposed the establishment of a national redress scheme.

Over months of hearings and in many submissions, survivors and their representatives made clear to the royal commission they strongly supported a national approach as the one most likely to deliver justice, fairness and consistency.

And yet, despite bipartisan support for the establishment of the commission and its terms of reference suggesting all governments accept the need for effective redress, the Abbott government rejected their “ideal” model at the first opportunity.

Perhaps it is looking at examples such as the Irish Residential Institutions Redress Board. At its inception in 2002, the board was expected to deliver €200 million ($282.5 million) to 2000 survivors of abuse of all forms, be half funded by Catholic religious orders and take up to five years. At the start of 2014, 16,000 survivors had received €1.6 billion, mostly from state coffers.

The royal commission’s actuarial modelling estimates that 65,000 Australians might seek redress, but warns it’s impossible to predict numbers with any certainty. It estimates a scheme with an average payment of $65,000 would total $4.3 billion over 10 years, with government paying $1.9 billion.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Daniel Boffey Policy editor

Saturday 4 April 2015

The home secretary, Theresa May, has come under renewed criticism over the independent inquiry into child sex abuse as controversy rages over the issue of survivors being appointed to its advisory panel.

Michael Mansfield QC has lent his name to a campaign to force a U-turn on the proposed membership criteria. At one stage Mansfield was considered as a possible head of the inquiry.

More than 200 survivors, whistleblowers and child protection professionals have expressed dismay at the declaration by the inquiry’s new head, Lowell Goddard, that survivors lack sufficient objectivity to be full quasi-judicial members. In an open letter to May, they point out British law does not bar child abuse victims from acting as judges or jurors on abuse cases. They say stigmatisation of survivors for lacking objectivity, before the inquiry has even started work, could doom the inquiry to failure.

The last inquiry into child sex abuse was scrapped by May following a series of scandals, including links between two chosen heads and those publicly accused of being involved in abuse.

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WASHINGTON
Bellingham Herald

BY LISA PEMBERTON
Staff writer
April 5, 2015

The steep decline in the number of monks at Saint Martin’s Abbey isn’t unusual for Roman Catholic monasteries.

“If you take a look at Catholic consecrated life across the United States, many congregations would say their numbers are down,” Owen Cummings of Mount Angel Seminary near Salem, Oregon, said.

Last year, there were 38,275 Catholic priests in the United States, more than 20,000 fewer than in 1965, according the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, a Georgetown University-affiliated organization that studies trends in the Catholic Church.

The decline in “religious priests” — those who live in a priestly community such as a monastery — took an even sharper dive, falling to 12,010 from 22,707 in the same time frame.

Meantime, the number of “religious brothers,” which includes unordained monks, dropped to 4,318 from 12,271, according to the center.

Part of the decline in consecrated life stems from rules changed during Vatican II in the early 1960s, Cummings said. The new rules allowed lay people to perform some church duties that previously were exclusive to priests, nuns and monks.

Other theories for the decline include a fall in birth rates, a society more based on consumerism and the church dropping its ban on letting girls help priests during Mass in the early 1980s.

Some believe also it is tied to the sex and child abuse scandals that have rocked the church and led to congregation declines over the past three decades.

It continues to be a difficult situation for the church that has touched Saint Martin’s. Four men sued in 2008, alleging they were abused as boys during the 1950s by Father Leonard Feeney, who died in 1980.

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ILLINOIS
Daily Herald

Barbara Vitello

A Roman Catholic priest facing child pornography charges pleaded not guilty Friday, according to Cook County prosecutors.

Clovis Vilchez-Parra, 34, an associate pastor at Mission San Juan Diego in Arlington Heights, was charged in February with possession of child pornography and reproduction of child pornography following a joint undercover investigation by the Cook County Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force and the Palatine, Bartlett and Chicago police departments. Prosecutors say the task force was investigating individuals searching for and downloading images of child exploitation.

In the wake of Vilchez-Parra’s arrest, Chicago Archdiocese officials removed him from ministry pending the outcome of the case.

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ILLINOIS
Newsburg

ROLLING MEADOWS, Ill. (AP) — A Catholic priest from suburban Chicago has pleaded not guilty to child pornography charges.

Thirty-four-year-old Clovis Vilchez-Parra is an associate pastor at Mission San Juan Diego in Arlington Heights.

He was charged in February with felony possession and reproduction of child pornography
The (Arlington Heights) Daily Herald reports (http://bit.ly/1avGZiO ) that he entered the plea Friday.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Mail on Sunday

63 police inquiries, 2,100 victims… the child abuse dossier that shames Britain after horrific explosion of historic sex cases since Savile

By MARTIN BECKFORD FOR THE MAIL ON SUNDAY

The unprecedented scale of current police investigations into historic child abuse can be revealed for the first time today, as senior officers warn of the challenge of investigating alleged crimes that go back decades.

An investigation by The Mail on Sunday has revealed that:

* Forces around Britain are carrying out more than 60 major investigations into sex attacks and beatings in schools, children’s homes and churches dating back to the 1950s.

* More than 2,000 people have come forward in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal to say they were abused at institutions or by public figures, including prominent politicians.

* A staggering 1,200 of the alleged victims were inmates of just one institution, a northern borstal once visited by the late Home Secretary Leon Brittan and praised for its ‘short, sharp shock’ regime. He himself is now at the centre of a number of abuse claims.

* The first chairman of the troubled Government inquiry into historic abuse has warned of the ‘vast task’ of investigating the spiralling allegations.

The cases are putting police forces – already struggling to deal with 20 per cent budget cuts at the same time as an explosion in online crimes and a heightened terrorism threat – under huge strain as the operations are complex and evidence is difficult to find.

The investigations could expand further when victims give their testimony to the long-delayed public inquiry into historic abuse, which will finally begin in earnest next week as judge Lowell Goddard arrives from New Zealand.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

Almost 2,500 bishops a half century ago, acting as a general council, the Catholic Church’s highest authority for almost 2,000 years, confirmed overwhelmingly in 1965 that the Church consists of all Catholics as the “People of God”. All were supposed to be entitled to have some say on important Church matters, as they often did in the earliest Church. Of course, this turned out to be a ruse.

As happened in 1789 with the short sighted French king, bishops and nobles, and the general populace, before the French Revolution, when the Second Vatican Council bishops left town, the Vatican bureaucracy and their carefully selected and elected papal monarchs generally disregarded the will of the People of God. Three years later in 1968, Pope Paul VI even rejected the will of his own birth control commission comprised of the People of God. Robert Blair Kaiser, a former Jesuit seminarian and top reporter for a half century, who just passed away on Holy Thursday, had vividly described this Vatican ruse in his classic book, republished as an e-book, that he made available as a free download as part of his permanent legacy.

Catholics seeking essential reforms now appear to have three choices: (1) accept this Synod, (2) leave the Church or (3) stay, resist and join the Vatican Revolution that just began in Chile. As to the first option, the Vatican since at least 1965 has operated, and still operates, as if it alone is the Church on all important matters. The Synod in October will be just more of the same, from most indications — just another ruse as discussed below.

The Synod agenda and participants were secretively “cherry picked” by the Vatican. For example, no families and certainly no women will vote on family matters. Moreover, the fundamental issue of bishop accountability, especially for their protection of priest child rapists, is absent from the agenda, see BishopAccountability.org . The reversal of the cruel contraception ban and Christian respect and acceptance of married gay Catholics have already, in effect, been rejected overwhelmingly at the initial Synod last October, it appears. Only the “money subsidy issue”, communion for divorced and remarried Catholics, appears to be up for any further discussion.

As to the second option, tens of millions of Catholics have already left the Church completely, while hundreds of millions more have reduced their participation and/or donations. As to the third option, a “Vatican Revolution”, Catholics are increasingly resisting and pushing back, some perhaps even violently. In Chile, Catholics recently protested vigorously in church, some even shoving their bishops. Significantly, one of the leaders of the ongoing Chilean opposition, top US communications executive, Juan Carlos Cruz, lives in Philadelphia. He may reasonably be expected with many others to greet the pope with similar peaceful protests when the pope visits Philadelphia this summer.

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MINNESOTA
Canonical Consultation

04/04/2015

Jennifer Haselberger

Less than three months after Pope Francis decried the costs attached to Catholic declarations of nullity of marriage, stating, ‘How I wish all marriage proceedings were free of charge!’, the Diocese of Pittsburgh announced that it was waiving all fees associated with processing requests for annulments.

The change, which was implemented immediately on Wednesday, was meant to encourage more Catholics to take advantage of the process. According to Bishop David Zubik, ‘For people who have not taken advantage of it in the past, either because of financial reasons or out of principle, my hope is that now this opens the door for them to give it some consideration.’

Here in the W.D.O.E, however, we are moving in the opposite direction. At a recent meeting of the Presbyteral Council our Judicial Vicar, Father Timothy Cloutier, instead floated the idea of the Tribunal receiving its $600 fee upfront, at the time the initial paperwork is filed. Under this scheme parishes would issue a check for $600 to be sent with the application to the Tribunal, and then parishes (rather than the Tribunal) would play the role of bill collector and receive the payments from their parishioners.

There is nothing that pastors like more than paying money to a bankrupt Chancery, unless it is trying to collect hard-to-justify administrative fees from their flock. Still, I am sure that the Tribunal is becoming desperate. One can imagine the reluctance of the faithful to write a check to the Archdiocese, and especially to the Tribunal, which has had its own role in the sexual abuse scandal. This reluctance is no doubt increased by the fact that, as the Star Tribune reported in November of 2014, ‘the chances of getting an annulment from the Twin Cities archdiocese are among the lowest in the nation, and the waits are among the highest.’

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UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

On this Holy Saturday, a statement by Anne Barrett Doyle of Bishop Accountability to add to the ones about the revolt in the Chilean church over the episcopal appointment of Juan Barros that I cited on Thursday:

A Vatican spokesperson’s dismissive statement today defending Pope Francis’s appointment of Chilean bishop Juan de la Cruz Barros Madrid deepens the crisis of credibility that the pope is facing. What’s at stake here is nothing less than papal accountability. Francis has pledged to discipline bishops who fail to protect children, and the Chilean public, along with members of his own abuse commission, are determined to hold him to his promise.

Today’s statement is a disingenuous attempt to shift blame for this decision from the pope to the Congregation for Bishops. Pope Francis made the appointment and must own it. He should begin by explaining his deliberate choice to ignore multiple victims’ testimony that Barros witnessed their sexual abuse by Karadima. Concepción archbishop Fernando Chomalí Garib, who discussed Barros with Francis in person last month, told the New York Times that the pope knew about these serious allegations. “The pope told me he had analyzed the situation in detail and found no reason” to rescind the appointment, Chomalí Garib said.

This response evokes not the compassion and honesty of Pope Francis but the coldness and dismissiveness of Cardinal Bergoglio. As Buenos Aires archbishop, he ignored repeated requests by anguished victims for intervention in their cases. While his colleagues in the US and Europe issued apologies, implemented reforms, and met with victims, he stayed largely silent on the issue of clergy sex abuse, except to issue an implausible denial that he had ever handled an abusive priest.

His only known action was to commission a behind-the-scenes report to Argentine Supreme Court judges that impugned the credibility of victims of a criminally convicted priest – an action eerily consistent with the disregard the Pope has shown survivors’ witness in the Barros/Karadima case.

To regain public trust in his reforms, Pope Francis must explain why he chose Barros despite the victims’ testimony, and he must immediately rescind the appointment. Barros must be suspended from ministry while his alleged wrongdoing is investigated.

And here’s Peter Isely of SNAP Wisconsin commenting on Facebook:

I guess the tomb really is empty. It wasn’t that long ago that the Milwaukee Cathedral was standing room only on Palm Sunday. But you can sure see the impact of five years of bankruptcy, financial fraud, and tens of millions of dollars spent on fighting survivors in this embarrassing news footage from FOX 6 on Palm Sunday. Looks like a few more tumbled in after the opening bell, but not many. Some years ago, [Cardinal Timothy] Dolan [former archbishop of Milwaukee and then head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops] stopped publishing archdiocesan yearly church attendance figures because the numbers were plummeting under our “rock star” archbishop and the facts contradicted the myth that he was bringing Catholics back to the pews or rounding up new ones (and having a rock star Pope hasn’t reversed any of this either). Probably the single most significant indicator of the health and future of any organization is the percentage of members who identify themselves as strongly committed to its mission and practice. The Pew Research Center on Religion and Public Life has been tracking this number in the Catholic Church for almost four decades. That percentage is now the lowest it has ever been, with about only a quarter of Catholics considering themselves having a “strong” Catholic identity, down some 15 percentage points since the sexual abuse crisis began emerging into public awareness.

Interestingly, Protestant religious identity strength has been concomitantly rising, with over half (or double the Catholic figure) saying they have a strong religious identity. Maybe the weakness of Catholic identity helps explain why the church hierarchy has been so successful at keeping many of the key elements of the sexual abuse cover up in tact: Catholics simply don’t care enough about their church (as an organization at least) to hold their leaders accountable. In Mark’s Gospel, which has no actual resurrection account, when Mary and Mary Magdalene come to the tomb there is a young man who comically chides them about who they are looking for because the tomb is obviously empty? Maybe those are some of the same questions that need to be asked at the Cathedral over the next few days.

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UNITED STATES
OMG!

by David Timbs

If clericalism looms large in today’s church, it has had centuries to grow strong. David Timbs traces the roots of clericalism back to the end of the Apostolic age, at the end of the first century C.E. “By the early second century, “overseers” were assuming the role of apostle and began to exert authority over who would preside…” Modern clericalism gained traction at the Council of Trent, but Timbs highlghts today’s excesses in the power and prestige of the priesthood. “The Sacrament of Orders has assumed a de facto importance in Christian existence superior to that of Baptism. The consequent damage done to the dignity of Baptism cannot be underestimated. The ministry of Sacrificial Ritualism has been elevated to a status superior to the wider and more fundamental calls to discipleship, service and proclamation entrusted to all the Baptised.”

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UNITED STATES
Council on Foreign Relations

Description

Thomas J. Reese, senior analyst with the National Catholic Reporter, discusses Pope Francis’s work to date and his agenda for 2015, as part of CFR’s Religion and Foreign Policy Conference Call series.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Oddly enough, two sentences from a Republican politician about discrimination help explain why Pope Francis’ latest choice for bishop is generating such distress and dispute.

Many in the US are wondering why debates over Religious Freedom and Restoration laws, which have quietly passed with little upset in more than 20 states, have suddenly become so heated.

The mystery was explained succinctly by Governor Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas two days ago: “This is a bill that in ordinary times would not be controversial. But these are not ordinary times.”

Hutchinson was referring to the dramatic and speedy shift in public opinion against discrimination against the LGBT community. (The clearest evidence of this sea change: In 1988, just 11 percent of US citizens backed legalizing same-sex marriage. Now, it’s up to 56 percent, an almost ten percent jump in the last two years.)

[Religion News Service]

Now look abroad and consider the unprecedented protests – literal and figurative – against Bishop Juan Barros Madrid, who was just picked by the pope to head a diocese in Chile.

I could be dead wrong, but I think the situations are analogous. I suspect journalist John Allen may be right about Francis being at “a tipping” point in the continuing crisis of clergy sexual violence and deceit.

Some Catholics – in Chile and elsewhere – seem to finally be fed up by church officials who keep concealing abuse while pledging “openness,” keep promising reform but delivering cover ups, keep saying “zero tolerance” while tolerating tons of hurtful and immoral behavior by bishops.

This “emotional whiplash” inflicted on Catholics by their church’s hierarchy takes a toll. Often, that toll is reflected in diminishing church attendance and participation. Sometimes, like in Chile recently, it’s reflected in protests.

And I believe that toll will increase as the gap between how Francis talks about abuse and what Francis does about abuse increases.

Some conervative US politicians are starting to understand that their support erodes when they practice discrimination. But few Catholic officials seem to understand that their suppor erodes when they practice hypocracy.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites researcher (article posted on 3 April 2015)

Catholic priest David Edwin Rapson used computer games, soft drinks, alcohol and cigarettes to lure boys (as young as 12) into his office at a Catholic boarding school before he sexually abused them, a Melbourne court has been told. After two years of hearings which finished on 31 March 2015, Rapson (now aged 61) was convicted of serious child-sex crimes. Now he is locked up, awaiting his sentence.

Rapson, who was the school’s vice-principal at one stage, also gave some of his victims a drink of drug-laced chocolate-milk or lemonade to make them sleepy before he sexually abused them, the court was told.

However, if boys complained about Rapson’s abuse, they tended to merely tell Rapson’s colleagues and friends in the priesthood, some of whom might be offenders themselves. And the church does not arrest any priests or Brothers — only the police do this.

It was some of the victims, not the church authorities, who finally brought Rapson to justice.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites researcher

The Catholic Church harboured Father David Edwin Rapson for two decades, thus endangering boys in Catholic schools in Victoria, Tasmania and New South Wales.

Rapson was born on 30 July 1953. He was recruited in the early 1970s as a trainee Catholic priest in Melbourne in a Catholic religious order, called the Salesians of Don Bosco. This is an Australia-wide order and subsequently Rapson ministered in Victoria, New South Wales and Tasmania.

The Salesian religious order was founded by “Saint” John Bosco in 1859 in Italy. Operating world-wide, the Salesians expanded to Australia in 1923. The order began developing several Australian schools for boys – notably in Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania. It also developed Boys Town (a home for troubled youths) in Engadine, south of Sydney.

In Melbourne (where they have their Australian headquarters), the Salesians operated three schools:
* Salesian College “Rupertswood”, at Sunbury in Melbourne’s outer north-west;
* Salesian College, Chadstone, in Mebourne’s south-east; and
* St Joseph’s College, Ferntree Gully, in Melbourne’s east.

In addition to these schools, the Salesians also had a residential training centre near Melbourne for their recruits into the priesthood. This centre (originally known as “Auxilium College”) is in a rural setting at Lysterfield (30 kilometres south-east of Melbourne). Nowadays, with the decline in the number of priests, the Lysterfield property is known as the Salesian Retreat Centre, used for Catholic schools for “spiritual retreats”. The centre has overnight accommodation for several dozen visitors. There have been complaints about students being sexually abused while visiting this Lysterfield property.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Wicked Local Scituate

By Jessica Trufant
The Patriot Ledger

Posted Apr. 2, 2015

DEDHAM – A lawsuit brought against parishioners occupying the closed St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Church in Scituate is scheduled to go to a bench trial May 5 after a Norfolk County Superior Court judge denied their requests for a jury trial and more time to develop a defense.

At a pretrial hearing Thursday morning, Judge Edward Leibensperger denied an emergency motion by Mary Elizabeth Carmody, a lawyer representing the parishioners, seeking a delay in the case for discovery.

“Discovery is absolutely necessary under these facts. …We haven’t had the opportunity to flesh out the case,” Carmody said. “There’s no emergency here. It’s been ongoing for more than 10 years.”

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston filed a civil suit against the Friends of St. Frances after the parishioners failed to meet a March 9 deadline for leaving the church. The parishioners filed a counterclaim, and have vowed to bring their fight to the state’s highest court.

St. Frances was among dozens of Boston-area churches pegged for closure in 2004 as part of a reconfiguration plan designed to shrink the archdiocese’s growing debt.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Australian Associated Press
Friday 3 April 2015

A fourth Melbourne church in a week has been set alight in suspicious circumstances.

Police are investigating a fire at a church on Doncaster Road in Doncaster East after witnesses saw smoke coming from it at 2.30pm on Good Friday. The blaze was contained to a small area of the building.

Detectives have not determined the exact cause of the fire, but are treating it as suspicious.

Three other churches had fires this week, and all three were connected to notorious pedophiles.

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CHILE
El Sol

[Several famous entertainers have joined a social media campaign against Bishop Juan Barros, who is accused of covering up sexual abuse. Benjamín Vicuña, Gonzalo Valenzuela and Juanita Viale were among those who joined the initiative in repudiating the Vatican’s decision to appoint Barros.]

Un gran revuelo se armó en Chile por el nombramiento del sacerdote Juan Barros como obispo de Osorno, quien fue acusado de haber encubierto los abusos sexuales en los que incurrió Fernando Karadima.

El hecho no sólo generó la molestia en los creyentes quienes protestaron en la Catedral San Mateo de Osorno, sino que también en el mundo artístico y televisivo. Uno de los denunciantes del ex párroco comenzó una campaña a través de redes sociales en contra del sacerdote con la etiqueta #FueraBarros, segùn publica el sitio Biobiochile.cl.

Benjamín Vicuña, Gonzalo Valenzuela y Juanita Viale fueron algunos de los que se sumaron a la iniciativa, repudiando la decisión del Vaticano, desde donde se desecharon las críticas y lo ratificaron como obispo de Osorno.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

A suspicious fire at a church in Doncaster East is not linked to three blazes at Melbourne Catholic churches historically connected to paedophile priests this week, police believe.

Emergency services were called to St David’s Anglican Church on Doncaster Road just after 2:30pm on Friday, after witnesses reported smoke coming from the building.

The Metropolitan Fire Brigade said the fire started in a storage room and took 10 minutes to bring under control.

Police are investigating the cause of the blaze, which was contained to a small area of the building, and keen to speak to anyone who may have seen anything suspicious in the area.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Thomas C. Fox | Apr. 3, 2015 NCR Today

Robert Blair Kaiser, journalist and inveterate church lover and critic, died at the age of 84 in a hospice center in Phoenix yesterday, on Holy Thursday, with daughter, sons, and grandchildren at his bedside.

Janet Hauter, co-chair of the American Catholic Council, a church reform group, today called Kaiser “a courageous man with the biggest heart of any (church) reformer I ever met; he was dauntless in pushing, prodding and confronting injustice in the church.”

Nearly a decade in the Jesuit order, Kaiser left to become a journalist, covering the Second Vatican Council for Time magazine, and going on to write a half dozen books about church post-conciliar life.

He became an outspoken critic of those he felt were trying to slow down or stop council’s reforms, most notably Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, and the bishops they were appointing.

He pressed for reform to the last breaths of his life, a computer on his chest while hooked up to oxygen. In recent months he was finishing a book on Dominican Father Tom Doyle, who for forty years has been one of the church’s most outspoken critics of clergy sex abuse. I worked with him, writing an epilogue for that book, “Whistle: Tom Doyle’s Steadfast Witness for Victims of Clerical Sexual Abuse,” set to be published in June.

Kaiser, lecturer and author, found every vehicle he could to fan the flames of church reform. He was the editor of Just Good Company, an online journal of religion and culture, and co-founder of takebackourchurch.org, a web community of American Catholics whose stated mission was to seek “ownership and citizenship in the people’s church envisioned at Vatican II.” The group advocated the election of local bishops and the power to dismiss them. More recently, he co-founded Catholic Church Reform International, with which American Catholic Council, another church reform group, is associated.

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VATICAN CITY
Wall Street Journal

By FRANCIS X. ROCCA
April 3, 2015

One Saturday last month, Pope Francis celebrated Mass at Ognissanti (All Saints’) Church in one of Rome’s working-class neighborhoods. Little known to tourists or art historians, Ognissanti was the site of a momentous event in the modern history of the Catholic Church: Exactly 50 years earlier, Pope Paul VI had gone there to celebrate the first papal mass in Italian rather than in the traditional Latin.

In marking that anniversary, Pope Francis made plain his view of the vernacular Mass, one of the most visible changes ushered in by the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). The practice still pains Catholic traditionalists who mourn the loss of churchwide unity that came with a common language.

Allowing Catholics to pray in their local languages “was truly a courageous act by the church to draw closer to the people of God,” Pope Francis told a crowd gathered outside. “This is important for us, to follow the Mass this way. And there is no going back…Whoever goes back is mistaken.”

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NEW YORK
The Record

APRIL 3, 2015

BY KIBRET MARKOS
STAFF WRITER | THE RECORD

A lawsuit alleging years of sexual abuse by a teacher at the Horace Mann school in the Bronx has been settled for an undisclosed amount, an attorney for the plaintiff said Friday.

The suit by Fort Lee attorney Rosemarie Arnold was the only one filed against the elite school after dozens of former students alleged that they were sexually abused by teachers and staff since the 1970s.

Most of the former students were unable to file lawsuits because of New York State’s restrictive statute of limitations, which requires alleged victims of child sex abuse to file suit by the time they turn 23.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Robert Blair Kaiser, journalist and inveterate church lover and critic, died in a Hospice center in Phoenix yesterday. Kaiser covered the Second Vatican Council for Time magazine and became recognized as commentator and lecturer on the post-Vatican II church. (Story developing.)

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PENNSYLVANIA
Catholics4Change

APRIL 3, 2015 BY SUSAN MATTHEWS

WE NEED YOU! Please come out to support the legislators who are fighting to protect your children. Statute of Limitations Reform for Child Sex Abuse Lobby Day will be held on Wed., April 15 at the state capitol in Harrisburg. There will be a rally in the East Wing Rotunda from 1:30 to 2:30 pm. We need to show our politicians we care.

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TEXAS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, April 3

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

We are grateful that the Waxahachie Police Department was making a grand jury referral for aggravated sexual abuse of a child and injury to a child in a case involving the Texas Baptist Home for Children. We hope others who may have seen, suspected or suffered abuse or cover ups by Home officials will call police and prosecutors immediately.

[WFAA]

We also praise Justin Cook for his courage and his family for standing by him through this ordeal. Few abused teens are able to summon the strength to speak up quickly and publicly when they are assaulted. Cook is a brave and resilient individual and we hope the justice system brings him healing and closure.

We hope the Ellis County District Attorney moves quickly and investigates thoroughly. And we hope that anyone who has information or suspicions about Baptist Home predators will come forward and help ensure that others are protected and that justice is done.

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UNITED STATES
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on April 3, 2015

In his Holy Thursday message, Pope Francis told priests to embrace a “good and healthy” tiredness by spending engaged time with the faithful and doing the “real work” of a priest.

From Reuters:

The faithful never leave us without something to do, unless we hide in our offices or go out in our cars wearing sun glasses. There is a good and healthy tiredness. It is the exhaustion of the priest who wears the smell of the sheep… but also smiles the smile of a father rejoicing in his children or grandchildren. (emphasis mine)

But what about the faithful in southern Chile, who are upset about the appointment of their new bishop—a man who has been accused of not only covering up abuse, but actually witnessing the sexual abuse of children?

That bishop, Juan Barros, according to the AP,

… is said by at least three victims to have witnessed the sexual molestation at the Sacred Heart of Jesus church, part of the El Bosque parish that serves an affluent neighborhood of Santiago.
Allegations are so bad (and include extensive cover-up of a serial molester priest), that Barros’ January appointment (he took office in March) has stirred international outrage. Anger is so great in Chile, that Chilean Catholics and government officials have begged Rome to rescind the appointment.

The sheep—in this case—smell a rat …

Rome has not responded.

Hear that? Pope Francis turned his back on Zero Tolerance.

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TEXAS
WFAA

Tanya Eiserer, WFAA April 2, 2015

Graphic pictures show black and blue bruises that covered Justin Cook’s body.

The 14-year-old teenager says he received those bruises at the hands of an 18-year-old who beat him, choked him and sexually assaulted him. He says the abuse happened at the Waxahachie foster home run by Texas Baptist Home for Children in 2013.

“They called me a liar and I was punished,” Cook said. “When I tried to report it, they wouldn’t believe me.”

For more than a year, Justin and his mother have been fighting to bring someone to justice for the abuse he says he suffered at the hands of another foster child.

On Wednesday, the family was notified via email that the Waxahachie Police Department was making a grand jury referral for aggravated sexual abuse of a child and injury to a child in the case. Police officials confirmed the cases were sent Thursday to the Ellis County District Attorney’s Office.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

A fourth Melbourne church in a week has been set alight in suspicious circumstances.

Police are investigating a fire at a church on Doncaster Rd in Doncaster East after witnesses saw smoke coming from it at 2.30pm on Good Friday.

The blaze was contained to a small area of the building.

Detectives have not determined the exact cause of the fire, but are treating it as suspicious.

Three other churches had fires this week, with all three connected to notorious pedophiles.

St James Church in Brighton was destroyed, while St Mary’s in St Kilda East and St Mary’s Catholic Church in Dandenong had minor damage.

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UNITED STATES
Waiting for Godot to Leave

Kevin O’Brien

A parish church in Australia is burned to ruins by arson, and its members, in general, celebrate.

“For the community here, it’s kind of the haunted house on the hill,” said one of them.

It was “hard going to this church” said another. “If the church is rebuilt after the fire, it would have served its punishment to some degree.”

These are normal Catholics saying this. Think about that for a moment. Normal suburban Catholics – the kind who, here in the States, grill in the backyard, go to the mall, watch their kids and grandkids play sports – normal suburban Catholics happy that an arsonist burned down their parish church.

Why?

Because one of its priests groomed and abused altar boys, some of whom later committed suicide.

“It’s always been a difficult building for us to drive past because there’s been so much tragedy and complicated feelings, I guess. We’ve all attended many funerals of boys that we now know were abused by [Father Ronald] Pickering … and other perpetrators in the parish – at the actual church that it occurred in.”

Meanwhile, in Chile, Pope Francis appoints as bishop of Osorno a notorious supporter of a known abuser and quasi-cult leader, this appointment causing a riot in the cathedral there. Jennifer Haselberger analyzes the situation and concludes that it would be literally impossible for the pope to appoint as bishops men who aren’t at least somewhat tainted by their participation in the Sex Scandal – either as having participated in it or as having condoned or enabled it. Haselberger saw the situation from the inside in the archdiocese of St. Paul and would, presumably, know what she’s talking about.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

With escalating stresses and strains that Pope Francis still faces at his advancing age, including the strongly reverberating bishop revolt in Chile (see here), the pope must call for a worldwide and open general council while he still can. Otherwise, he will have a failed papacy. He should make his prophetic call for a council at this joyful time of Easter, or as soon thereafter as practicable, before it is too late.

Pope John XXIII wisely, humbly and successfully did this a half century ago when faced with far fewer and less threatening crises than Francis increasingly faces. One of the heroes of the ongoing Chilean protests and revolt, top US communications executive, Juan Carlos Cruz, lives in Philadelphia. He can be expected with many others to greet the pope with similar protests when he visits the USA soon. This will undercut the pope’s “low tax, less regulation and least safety net” financial backers, in their US election efforts next year, that will depend critically on the pope’s charisma to try to swing essential US Latino voters.

The “family absent” Family Synods seem to be a futile public relations farces to preserve papal infallibility, to push baby breeding and to maximize German bishops’ subsidies. The Vatican’s own internal finances still remain untouched by independent auditors and are still under the ultimate control of a secretive and unaccountable monarch. The priest child abuse crisis is accelerating despite the pope’s dissembling rhetoric. Even the pope’s hand picked sex abuse commission lay members are regularly publicly criticizing his management mistakes. Moreover, the leading Jesuit expert on Vatican organization, Thomas Reese, has recently criticized convincingly the pope’s so-called reform of the Vatican bureaucracy. This all may have been a good try, perhaps, for the over-confident and elderly Pope Francis or just the latest Vatican ploy, but other than raising hopes briefly and preparing many Catholics to monitor closely the coming council, it has effected little of permanent value.

Please see the pertinent, “Vatican Defends Chilean Appointment“, by the informed and fair Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of BishopAccountability, an independent charitable organization that boldly documents child abuse by the Catholic Church and other religious groups, here at,

[BishopAccountability.org]

Pope Francis may be heroic, but he is also imprudent, if not rash and arrogant as well. He may have been able as a young Jesuit provincial to save most of his confreres from military thugs, but at his age he cannot alone be expected to save 5,000 bishops and their wealth — these are his top priorities, it appears from most indications. Paradoxically, worldwide bishops and cardinals are more at risk now than when Pope Francis took over the bad hand the ex-pope dealt him, as the new UK and related investigations make evident. Once again. the key management truth prevails — modern media management can cover-up crises for awhile, but it cannot resolve them. That takes transparent and independent effort over a long period of time. In the final analysis, God cannot be “sold by slogans”.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

TESS LIVINGSTONE THE AUSTRALIAN APRIL 04, 2015

Leading up to Easter, initiatives on opposite sides of the world underlined the value of effective church leadership.

In Sydney, Archbishop Anthony Fisher announced 100,000 Catholic school students and their teachers would pause at noon each school day to pray the Angelus, an ancient prayer recalling the events of the Annunciation, when Mary, visited by the angel Gabriel, said yes to becoming the mother of God.

As well as teaching children how to pray, the Angelus is a lesson in the Christian faith. For centuries it has been heralded by a bell, as depicted in Jean-Francois Millet’s famous painting in the Musee d’Orsay.

It was a chance, Fisher said, to pause briefly in “a wonderful act of solidarity and communion … as we reflect upon and celebrate the great mystery of God becoming one of us in the presence of Jesus”.

In Brisbane, Catholic Archbishop Mark Coleridge, a leading scripture scholar, master of 10 languages and a dynamic speaker, is playing to his strengths, delivering nine monthly lectures on Living Biblically in a Secular World. Unexpectedly, the first was so packed, with 430 attendees, mainly young people, that it generated its own exodus, from the designated room to the cathedral next door. Ninety minutes felt like 30.

In Rome, Pope Francis also has been proactive, welcoming 150 homeless people for an exclusive tour of the Vatican and the Sistine Chapel. He chatted with them and provided lunch. Similar thoughtful acts, such as the showers for the homeless near the Vatican, during the past two years have sent the Pope’s popularity soaring.

A few cracks and controversies are appearing, however. Francis is under fire from the Left and the Right over an episcopal appointment that would have produced deafening protests had it been made by Benedict XVI.

A fortnight ago, angry Catholics protested inside the cathedral at Osorno, a town of 150,000 in southern Chile, when Juan Barros, 58, was installed as bishop. Thirty priests, 1300 parishioners and 51 members of Chile’s 120-member congress had written to the Pope urging him to quash the appointment, but to no avail.

This is a tricky test case for Francis’s “zero tolerance’’ of child abuse by priests, a crime he has described as akin to “celebrating a black mass’’ and betraying “the Lord’s body’’.

Barros’s critics accuse him of witnessing and covering up the abuse of boys by one of his former mentors, the now notorious Father Fernando Karadima, in the 1980s and 90s. In 2011, the Vatican barred Karadima from saying mass in public and sentenced him to a life of “prayer and penance’’ after an investigation.

Pope Francis, as archbishop of Buenos Aires in neighbouring Argentina, would have been familiar with the controversy.

Recently, two of Karadima’s victims told CNN that Barros was in the room when they were abused, a claim the bishop denies emphatically: “I never had knowledge or imagined the serious abuses that this priest (Karadima) committed with his victims.’’

He is entitled to his good name and, arguably, career advancement. But a problem for the Pope was revealed this week when three of his hand-picked advisers on sex abuse, including two female psychiatrists, expressed “concern and incredulity’’ over the appointment. Yet again, they say, victims’ have been swept aside.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

April 3, 2015

Alana Schetzer

A church has gone up in flames on Good Friday, the fourth church fire this week.

Firefighters were called just after 2.30pm after at least one witness reported smoke coming from the building in Doncaster East.

The fire on Doncaster Road was contained to a small part of the building and extinguished. The cause has not been determined.

It is the fourth church fire that has occurred in Melbourne since Monday. St James Church in Brighton, St Mary’s in St Kilda East and St Mary’s Catholic Church in Dandenong have all experienced blazes over the past five days.

All three are connected to notorious paedophiles, including priests Kevin O’Donnell and Ronald Dennis Pickering. Police said they were treating the fires as suspicious but would not comment on whether the blazes could be linked.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

TOM MINEAR HERALD SUN APRIL 03, 2015

POLICE are investigating a fourth suspicious church fire in the week of Easter.

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ARGENTINA
Pagina 12

[Files for Rome. After 20 years, a young man decided to sue for “misconduct” by the former pastor of the Basilica of Hope. “We’re in the previous investigation, which is to be sent to the Holy See,” said the Archbishop of Santa Fe.]

Luego de 20 años, un joven decidió denunciar por “comportamientos indebidos” al ex párroco de la Basílica de Esperanza. “Estamos en la investigación previa, que es la que hay que enviar a la Santa Sede”, dijo el arzobispo de Santa Fe.

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ARGENTINA
Uno Santa Fe

I caso del muchacho que denunció al presbítero Luis Brizzio (expárroco de Esperanza) por abuso sexual ocurrido en la ciudad de Gálvez en 1994, cuando tenía 16 años tuvo esta semana un fuerte impacto en la comunidad santafesina y avizora más consternaciones. Es que lentamente, la historia vuelve a desandar uno de los caminos más escandalosos de la relación entre la Iglesia Católica y los feligreses locales, con un nuevo caso de abuso sexual en el que también estaría vinculado, como encubridor, el ya fallecido monseñor Edgardo Storni. Así lo confirmó ayer a Diario Uno el abogado mendocino, especializado en Derecho Canónico, Carlos Lombardi, quien representará al muchacho que denunció a Brizzio en la investigación canónica que se inició a principios de este año, en el Arzobispado de Santa Fe.

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CHILE
Bio Bio

[Celebrities join social media campaign against Bishop Juan Barros of Osorno]

Polémica generó el nombramiento del sacerdote Juan Barros como obispo de Osorno, quien fue acusado de haber encubierto los abusos sexuales en los que incurrió Fernando Karadima.

El hecho no sólo generó la molestia en los creyentes quienes protestaron en la Catedral San Mateo de Osorno, sino que también en el mundo artístico y televisivo.

Esto porque uno de los denunciantes del ex párroco Juan Carlos Cruz, comenzó una campaña a través de redes sociales en contra del sacerdote con la etiqueta #FueraBarros.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

April 3, 2015

Aisha Dow

There was no Good Friday service held at the blackened ruins of St James Church in Brighton, but that did not stop dozens of locals making a quiet pilgrimage to the gutted building.

On the first day of the Easter holiday, they stood behind a safety fence and gazed at the place they and generations of their family had been baptised and married.

But few were truly shocked, and some were not truly sad.

Even before the fire on Monday morning, the crimes of paedophile Ronald Pickering – who served as the church’s parish priest for 15 years – had tainted many people’s feelings towards it.

One local couple who came to see the damage spent four decades as active members of St James. But they recently stopped going because of their deep disappointment with how the Catholic Church responded to child sexual abuse.

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CONNECTICUT
Fox CT

APRIL 2, 2015, BY SAMANTHA SCHOENFELD

CLINTON–A pastor was arrested on charges of sexual assault of two woman, one of which is a teenager.

On April 2 Pastor Francisco Moran, 57, of Clinton, was arrested on two outstanding warrants after a long investigation that revealed he had unwanted sexual contact with two parishioners. He is the pastor at The Good Samaritan Church in Old Lyme.

Allegedly, Moran sexually assaulted the two victims on separate occasions in the summer of 2014 in a private home in Clinton. Both victims recently came forward, separately, to disclose the assaults to Clinton Police. Apparently, Moran had threatened them with deportation if they talked about the assaults.

The specific charges against Moran are risk of injury/impairing the morals of a minor, two counts of sexual assault in the fourth degree and two counts of coercion.

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CONNECTICUT
WTNH

By Matt Buynak, WTNH.com Staff
Published: April 2, 2015

CLINTON, Conn. (WTNH) — The pastor of an Old Lyme church sexually assaulted two parishioners, one a juvenile girl, and threatened them with deportation if they spoke of the assaults, police say.

The Pastor of The Good Samaritan Church, 57-year-old Francisco Moran of Clinton, was arrested Thursday. Police say Moran sexually assaulted the teenage girl and an adult woman at a Clinton home on separate occasions last summer.

According to Clinton police, the victims separately reported the alleged assaults recently, and an investigation was started.

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CONNECTICUT
Hartford Courant

By Nicholas Rondinone

CLINTON — A local pastor is being charged Thursday with sexually assaulting with an underage and an adult female who were members of his church, police said.

Francisco Moran, 57, of 40 West Main Street, was charged with two counts of fourth-degree sexual assault, two counts of coercion and a single count of risk of injury to a minor, police said. Moran is the pastor at The Good Samaritan Church in Old Lyme.

One of the victim was an underage teenager and the other was an adult, police said.

According to police, the sexual assaults happened on separate occasions last summer in a private residence in Clinton.

Both victims told police that Moran threatened to have them deported if they talked about the sexual assaults, police said.

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CONNECTICUT
NBC Connecticut

A Clinton pastor has been arrested on sex assault charges after having “unwanted sexual contact” with a woman and teenage girl who attend the Good Samaritan Church in Old Lyme, according to police.

According to police, Francisco Moran, 57, sexually assaulted the female parishioners on two separate occasions at a home in Clinton during the summer of 2014. He threatened to deport them if they told anyone, police said.

Both victims reported the unwanted contact to Clinton police, who launched an investigation.

Moran was arrested Thursday on two warrants charging him with two counts of fourth-degree sexual assault, two counts of coercion and one count of risk of injury to/impairing the morals of a minor.

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ILLINOIS
CI News

April 2, 2015

PEORIA, Ill. — A motion has been filed to dismiss one of the cases against a former Pekin youth pastor charged in sex crimes against children.

Nicholas Lawrence, 27, is charged with child porn in Peoria County.

He is accused of taking a photo of a naked girl under the age of 13 last May.

Lawrence’s attorney wants the porn charge thrown out because the material was found on his laptop in Tazewell County, where he lives.

If the judge approves the motion, the case will likely be re-opened in Tazewell.
A hearing on the motion is scheduled for May 22.

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UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

As a follow-up to the previous items I’ve posted (here and here) on the revolt in the Chilean Catholic church after Pope Francis chose to ignore the pleas of many Catholics that he not appoint Juan Barros bishop of Osorno, Chile, when survivors of abuse report that Barros helped cover up the sex crimes of Father Fernando Karadima, some excerpts from recent articles worth reading:

Kristine Ward for National Survivor Advocates Coalition (NSAC):

It is important to be clear here by making and letting this appointment of Bishop Barros stand Pope Francis is declaring that he is not going to take action against those who aided and abetted abusers. He is going to protect them.

We have Bishop Robert Finn of the Diocese of Kansas City- St. Joseph as a glaring example of that.
Now, Bishop Barros.

The problem of sexual abuse needs no other hand for its correction than Pope Francis’.
This appointment gives the back of it to survivors.

Barbara Dorris for Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP):

Many times, a pontiff has pledged reform but done nothing.

This time, a pontiff has pledged reform but done just the opposite.

Here’s a question worth asking: By every indication, Fr. Karadima’s accusers have been consistent and been deemed credible by multiple sources. So if they are telling the truth about child sex abuse by Fr. Karadima, why would they lie about cover up allegations against Bishop Barros?

And a better question: Why won’t Pope Francis even listen to them or insist that his aides listen to them?

Jennifer Haselberger at her Canonical Consultation blog:

[T]his is the awful truth — this is the situation in which the Church finds itself. It is simply unable to impose, as anything more than a romantic ideal, the requirement that only those with an absolutely 100 percent record of child protection can hold positions of trust in the Church.

It should not come as a surprise to Marie Collins or others on the Pontifical Commission that this is the case. It is obvious to anyone paying attention to these issues that many of those currently in the episcopacy or other important leadership positions are far from meeting the 100% test, and that fact is extremely unlikely to change anytime in the near future. If this is unacceptable to Marie Collins, both she and other like-minded members of the Pontifical Commission may want to hand in their resignations now.

Jerry Slevin at his Christian Catholicism blog:

The Chile Church rebellion, and the pope’s continuing mishandling of it, makes clear that the pope’s top priority as absolute monarch is to protect his “noble bishops” at almost any cost, even risking innocent children. For shame!! Once again, a pope foolishly refuses to admit he made a mistake in transferring this bishop, likely in part since any admission of mistakes by popes undercuts papal claims to “infallible” power, the keystone of post-1870 papal power.

Grant Gallicho at the Commonweal blog:

Some had hoped that pressure brought by members of the pope’s new sexual-abuse commission—several of whom recently expressed grave reservations about the appointment—might persuade Francis to act, or Barros to resign. After all, just last month the pope said that “everything possible must be done to rid the church of the scourge of the sexual abuse of minors and to open pathways of reconciliation and healing for those who were abused.” He even seemed to chide bishops who had used the excuse of not giving scandal to avoid addressing the issue. But yesterday the Holy See released a terse, curiously worded statement responding to the growing controversy: “Prior to the recent appointment of His Excellency Msgr. Juan de la Cruz Barros Madrid as bishop of Osorno, Chile, the Congregation for Bishops carefully examined the prelate’s candidature and did not find objective reasons to preclude the appointment.” If this is Rome’s last word on Barros, then Francis should know that his decision has imperiled not only the Diocese of Osorno, but also his own reputation as a reformer.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Why won’t Pope Francis back down on an obviously and severely hurtful move: giving Bishop Juan Barros Madrid his own diocese.

The wise whistleblower of the Twin Cities, Jennifer Haselberger, puts her finger on precisely why. In essence, she says that if every cleric who ignored, concealed and enabled clergy sex crimes were deemed ineligible for promotion, there would be as many rudderless chancery offices as there are shuttered churches. (I suspect that, in fact, there would be more. . .)

Jennifer’s post on this is well worth reading: http://canonicalconsultation.com/blog.html

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.