ABUSE TRACKER

AUSTRALIA
Radio New Zealand

British child migrants who were sexually abused at Christian Brothers institutions are planning a silent vigil outside hearings for the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Perth next week.

Thousands of children were shipped to Australia from Britain from 1947 until 1970, often without the knowledge or consent of their parents.

They were sent to the Bindoon, Castledare, Clontarf and Tardun orphanages in Western Australia, institutions that survivors have described as being more like concentration camps than children’s homes.

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ROME
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Statement by SNAP leader Miguel Hurtado of the U.K/Spain

(outside the Vatican today in Rome) +44 7787 638245

One Polish Catholic official is a soon-to-be saint. A second one, however, is a fugitive.

When John Paul II celebrations wind down on Monday, we call on Francis to extradite Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski to Polish law enforcement authorities who want to charge him with sexually assaulting kids in the Dominican Republic.

Three months ago, The Tablet reported that “The Holy See said that Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski was a citizen of the Vatican, and that Vatican law did not allow for his extradition.”

This is hypocrisy, plain and simple.

Francis’ top aides claim that they only handle clergy sex crimes that happen on the soil of the tiny Vatican city/state itself. They said this to a United Nations panel in January. They’ll say it again to a similar UN panel next month.

Both can’t be true. The Vatican says

–it will deal with clergy sex crimes that happened in the Caribbean, but

–it can only deal with clergy sex crimes that happened in a tiny portion of Rome.

So Francis should either turn over the fugitive archbishop to secular authorities or reverse his silly claim that he can’t deal with in charge of the church across the globe.

NOTE – ANOTHER UPCOMING SNAP EVENT IN EUROPE

A few SNAP members from several nations will be in Geneva from April 30 through May 7 for a hearing on May 5 and 6 before the United Nations Committee Against Torture, which will consider whether Vatican officials are violating or complying with an international treaty regarding torture.

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MALTA/AUSTRALIA
Times of Malta

Maltese child migrants who were raped, tortured and emotionally abused at four Christian Brother’s homes in Western Australia will be among those giving evidence in an inquiry staring tomorrow, the Herald Sun reported.

The newspaper said that many of those giving evidence were sent to Australia from the UK and Malta after the war for what was supposed to be a better life.

310 Maltese were sent to Australia as child migrants between 1950 and 1965 as part of a scheme promising parents a better future for their children.

It later emerged they were forced to work in institutions and many were not educated. A number of them suffered physical and sexual abuse.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse will be looking specifically into the experiences of former residents sent to Castledare, Clontarf, Bindoon and Tardun orphanages from the late 1940s up until the 1960s.

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AUSTRALIA
The Observer

27th Apr 2014

THE Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is launching a national public awareness campaign today calling for survivors of child sexual abuse to come forward to share their stories.

Royal Commission chief executive officer Janette Dines said that while more than 1400 people had spoken with a Royal Commissioner, there may be many more who were yet to make contact.

“A recent telephone survey found that while there is widespread community awareness of the Royal Commission, many people are still unsure about what the Royal Commission can look into,” Ms Dines said.

“This campaign is designed to encourage all Australians to find out more about the work of the Royal Commission and how survivors can share their story of child sexual abuse.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Centre Daily Times

HOLLIDAYSBURG — The Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown has suspended efforts to resolve claims related to allegations of sexual molestation involving Franciscan friar Stephen Baker.

More than 80 people came forward with allegations against Baker, and more than 40 individuals have filed lawsuits in Cambria and Blair counties, The Tribune-Democrat of Johnstown has reported.

Most of the alleged victims are males who attended Bishop McCort High School in Johnstown.

The Tribune-Democrat has reported that Baker has been linked to claims stretching back four decades in Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Michigan and Ohio.

The state Attorney General’s Office took over the local case in January.

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UNITED STATES
CBS News

Becky Ianni, director of the Survivors’ Network of those Abused by Priests, says John Paul II did nothing during his time as pope to protect children from abuse

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UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

As I continue reading about the preparations for tomorrow’s canonization of Popes John XXIII and John Paul II, I keep thinking — I’ll be honest — This is leadership? I’m not referring specifically to the two popes as I ask that question.

I’m referring quite specifically to the legacy of the John Paul II era in my church: This is leadership? How can I possibly read the following stories and not ask that question — how can I read these stories and fail to ask what the saint-to-be did to my church as he set into place top pastoral leaders who are offering the church the kind of leadership that is critically dissected (and with very good reason) in the following articles?

1. At Wild Reed, Michael Bayly calls on St. Paul-Minneapolis archbishop John Nienstedt to resign, after Nienstedt’s recent deposition was published and showed him to be either “astoundingly inept” (Michael’s words) in handling abuse cases in his archdiocese, or mystifyingly oblivious. Over and over, Nienstedt testified that he just didn’t know, couldn’t remember, was fuzzy about the details of this or that.

But as Michael points out, all the while that Nienstedt claims he was just not informed about or aware of salient facts wildly important to those concerned about young people who were being or who might be sexually molested by priests under his episcopal charge, there was this going on — he was leading his flock in the following quite specific way:

From the very start of his tenure as archbishop (in fact, even well before he was appointed coadjutor archbishop) John Nienstedt has been obsessed with demonizing consensual sexual relationships between same-sex couples and working to ensure that such relationships are in no way legally acknowledged or recognized. In terms of the latter, he has failed completely. The anti-gay “marriage amendment,” which he tirelessly championed, was defeated and, shortly after, both the Minnesota House and Senate passed marriage equality legislation. Same-sex couples now have the same civil right to marry as opposite-sex couples. During the often contentious marriage amendment “battle,” many Minnesota Catholics opposed Nienstedt’s anti-gay activism. In 2013 they celebrated the victory of marriage equality in the civil sphere.

Here’s the crux of the matter: The time and energy that Nienstedt expended on demonizing gay relationships and attempting to deny such relationships legal recognition in civil law, could and should have been focused instead on creating a local church reflective of gospel values, including confronting and dealing with the many issues relating to clergy sex abuse within the archdiocese; issues, which Nienstedt openly admits in his deposition, he was “out of the loop” about (emphasis in original).

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UNITED STATES
Sun Journal

Marty McIntyre
Columns & Analysis | Sunday, April 27, 2014

I don’t get it.

In 2002, the issue of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church by Catholic priests came to light in America. Much of the abuse had been of children between the ages of 11-14, and had occurred decades earlier.

Worse, the Church knew about many of these allegations and had simply moved the offender to a different parish in a different part of the country. These revelations sparked enormous outrage worldwide, and resulted in well over 3,000 civil lawsuits against the offenders and the Catholic Church.

Beginning in 1991 with the Tailhook Scandal, we learned that sexual assault is a common occurrence in the nation’s military. We learned that an estimated 19,000 sexual assaults occur in the military each year, and that 15 percent of female veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are suffering from “military sexual trauma” (the Department of Defense term for the impact of sexual assault that occurred within military service).

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Jade Macmillan

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse will begin two weeks of hearings in Western Australia on Monday.

The focus will be on four institutions run by the Christian Brothers: the Bindoon Farm School, St Mary’s Agricultural School, St Vincent’s Orphanage Clontarf and Castledare Junior Orphanage.

John Hennessey, who migrated to Australia as a child, is one of a number of men set to give evidence.

Mr Hennessey was 10 years old when he was taken from his orphanage in Bristol, England, in the mid-1940s and sent to Western Australia.

He says the commission will open old wounds.

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NORTH CAROLINA
The Independent Tribune

Posted: Saturday, April 26, 2014

Staff reports

CONCORD, N.C. — A former Concord youth pastor who spent years overseas after indecent liberties charges were filed against him has been indicted by a grand jury.

Robert Bradley Price was indicted on April 14 on three counts of taking indecent liberties with a child. He has been out on bond since October.

Price is accused of committing sexual acts upon the bodies of two males who were less than 16 years old at the time of the acts, according to arrest warrants. One of the indictments stems from an out-of-county case.

The Cabarrus charges stem from incidents that allegedly occurred in 2009 and 2011 and involve two alleged victims, a Concord police official said in October.

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VATICAN CITY
The Malay Mail

VATICAN CITY, April 27 — Pope John Paul II, who was declared a saint today along with John XXIII, was a charismatic leader who helped topple communism but was criticised for failing to tackle the scourge of child sex abuse by priests.

The first non-Italian pope since the Renaissance, and the first from eastern Europe, Polish Karol Wojtyla was hugely popular, eschewing the pomp that surrounded his predecessors and seeking contact with ordinary people.

During a papacy that lasted nearly 27 years, John Paul II travelled far and wide, often greeted by massive crowds as he championed peace, denounced human rights abuses and deplored the decadence of the modern world.

Some of the most memorable moments of his papacy were his attempted assassination in St Peter’s Square, his call on mobsters to repent and a meeting in which he kissed people with AIDS at the height of the devastating epidemic.

John Paul II also sponsored ultra-conservative Catholic movements like Opus Dei and the Legion of Christ in an effort to counter rising secularism in the West and win new followers, particularly in the developing world. …

Dogged by a rising wave of scandals of paedophile priests, the pope, at the behest of US bishops, approved new measures to punish clergymen committing sexual abuses but only after a long silence.

His refusal to denounce Marcial Maciel, the founder of the Legion of Christ and a serial sexual predator who abused male seminarians and fathered at least three children despite his vows of chastity, drew criticism.

But the Vatican has brushed off the accusations, with spokesman Federico Lombardi saying there was “no personal implication” of the pope in the scandal.

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ROME
Boston Globe

By John L. Allen Jr. and Inés San Martin | GLOBE STAFF | GLOBE CORRESPONDENT APRIL 26, 2014

Although the late Pope John Paul II was a revered figure around the world, his elevation as a saint by Pope Francis has drawn fire from critics who charge that the Polish pontiff turned a blind eye to the sexual abuse scandals in the Catholic Church.

Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley of Boston, who’s long been on the front lines of dealing with the fallout from the abuse crisis, believes that a younger John Paul II would have been more vigorous in tackling the problem.

“There were mistakes during his pontificate on this issue, but I don’t think they were made out of malice,” O’Malley told the Globe.

“I like to think that if he had been younger when [the abuse crisis] exploded, he would have come to Boston and dealt with it,” O’Malley said. By the time the scandals erupted, he argued, John Paul II’s “health was deteriorating, and he obviously did not have a full grasp of what was happening in the church.”

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ROME
Boston Globe

By John L. Allen Jr. | GLOBE STAFF APRIL 27, 2014

ROME — Oct. 11, 1962, brought a beautiful moonlit night to Rome. Pope John XXIII was in an ebullient mood because of that morning’s launch of the Second Vatican Council, a gathering conceived by the pontiff in which bishops from around the world would throw open the windows of the Catholic Church to the modern world.

The first pope of television’s Golden Age, “Good Pope John” had a roly-poly, grandfatherly persona and seemingly inexhaustible cheer that won fans everywhere, though the changes he set in motion also stirred up critics, then and now. That night, the pope looked out over St. Peter’s Square at the vast crowd praying for the council, and made some off-the-cuff remarks that passed into history as his “Sermon on the Moon.”

A son of sharecroppers, he marveled at how a “simple brother” like him had become the father of the Church, which is what “pope” means. He mused that even the moon wanted to be part of the scene that night, and he ended with a line that is burned into Italian national consciousness much as “four score and seven years” is for Americans. …

Advocates for victims of clerical sexual abuse also charge that John Paul II turned a blind eye to the church’s scandals, citing his support for Marcial Maciel Degollado, the now-deceased Mexican priest who founded the Legionaries of Christ and who was later acknowledged to have committed a wide range of abuse and misconduct, and the fact that John Paul welcomed Boston’s Cardinal Bernard Law to Rome after he resigned in disgrace in 2002.

Canonizing John Paul “sends precisely the most harmful signal to Catholic employees across the globe — that no matter how much you endanger kids, you’ll be honored by the church,” asserted a statement from the Survivor’s Network of those Abused by Priests, the largest advocacy group in the United States.

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VATICAN CITY
Aljazeera

Aaron D’Souza

“Santo subito!” (“Sainthood now!”) chanted the millions of Catholics mourning at the funeral of Pope John Paul II in 2005.

When Pope Francis carries out a historic double canonisation of two popes this Sunday – Pope John XIII and Pope John Paul II – Francis will be acting upon the will of millions of Catholics and non-Catholics around the world. It is exciting and, for many, a long time coming.

Given the massive popular devotion to Pope John Paul II, his sanctity and holiness have never been in doubt among Catholics. It is only natural, then, that John Paul II’s successor, Benedict XVI, waived the requirement to wait five years after death before starting the process of Pope John Paul II’s canonisation. The shouts of “Santo subito!” reverberating around Rome at the time of his death were enough to confirm what the faithful wanted.

Many would admit that the Church, like so many other institutions such as Hollywood and the BBC, just didn’t get the sexual abuse that was going on in the 60s and 70s. Yet while the abuse happened then, the pain continues now. This is something that is recognised by the Church, and shown by the action the Church has taken in the past decade.

However, it must be remembered that John Paul II only became pope in 1978, after most of the abuse happened. It took two decades for the Church really to understand how widespread the problem was. By this time, John Paul II was getting old, debilitated by Parkinson’s disease which would affect the later years of his life. When he did find out he was appalled; it was beyond his understanding. In 2001 he asked Cardinal Ratzinger, who four years later would become Pope Benedict XVI, to deal with the problem in a decisive way.

It is likely that if he were alive today, John Paul II would still be leading the clean-up, since throughout his pontificate he was not afraid of apologising publicly for historic wrongdoings by the Catholic Church.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

At times, Pope Francis is like a riddle—tough to figure out. He appears charming, yet authoritarian; self-confident, yet imprudent; and purposeful, yet unpredictable. His opportunistic apologists fawn over him, while a thirsty 24/7 media world cannot get enough of his free publicity punch. He volunteered at 77 years old to fix a child abuse and financial mess for frightened cardinals concerned about saving their necks. Many Catholics, on the other hand, welcomed him hoping he would grab some cardinals’ necks. He mainly smiled his way through his first year, while keeping his cards close. Now he has been forced to show his hand finally, with three papal saints in the works and two UN Committees on his back.

Criticism continues about whether popes should be declared saints with the canonizations of Popes John XXIII and John Paul II. John XXIII apparently steered 2,000+ bishops at the Second Vatican Council away from addressing the child abuse scandal in the 1960′s. John Paul II and Benedict XVI steered them away from the scandal from the 1970′s until last year.

Desperate efforts were made this week by John Paul II’s Opus Dei former spokesman and by the pope’s opportunistic biographer, George Weigel, to air brush over the Polish pope’s extensive knowledge for years of the priest child abuse epidemic. Francis met with Weigel recently and also met with him several months before he was selected to be pope. Coincidence? Perhaps. Again why? These apologists’ efforts were recently blown away by Fr. Thomas Doyle, who had direct knowledge of what the pope knew and when he knew it, as shown here

[National Catholic Reporter]

Now an Italian magazine has predicted the contraception ban author, Paul VI, will be beatified in 2014, paving the way for his sainthood, as reported here

[National Catholic Reporter]

According to the magazine , a miracle in California has been attributed to Paul VI. In a magazine preview, the article said Francis’ Congregation for the Causes of Saints would meet in a week to confirm the miracle attributed to Paul VI. Once the miracle is confirmed, Pope Francis will then likely proclaim Paul VI’s beatification in October at the end of the Synod on the Family, the magazine predicted. So much for the fair consideration of reversing the contraception ban by the 150 childless Synod Bishops.

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VATICAN CITY
The Daily Beast

Barbie Latza Nadeau

VATICAN CITY — This Sunday, Rome, a city of nearly 3 million mostly sane people, will tilt into complete chaos as two dead popes are elevated to sainthood in the presence of two live popes at a lavish ceremony in St. Peter’s square. A fleck of skin, a vial of blood and three miracles will be the central features of the double-barreled canonization ceremony, which is expected to last about two hours and draw as many as a million people to an area with a capacity for 250,000.

The event is the first of its kind. Two popes have never been canonized together, not to mention the odd fact that two popes have never actually been alive together, making the event a sort of quadruple pope-a-palooza. Reigning Pope Francis will preside over the ceremony, and retired Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI is expected to make an appearance as well. Karol Wojtyla from Poland, who was Pope John Paul II from 1978 to 2005, and Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli from Italy, who was Pope John XXIII from 1958 to 1963, will then be bona fide saints, making them easier to pray to, among other things, and, according to Catholic teachings, offering a guarantee that they are both securely in heaven, should anyone have been concerned.

John Paul II is interred in the crypt under St. Peter’s basilica, and John XXIII, whose body is somewhat odd and eerily completely preserved in a glass coffin, is in the upper church in a side apse. After the ceremony, revelers are expected to pray at their tombs. When parsed down into cold hard facts, the half-day event, which will cost the city of Rome around $7 million, may sound a little frivolous, but just ask any of those who have made the trip and they’ll try to convince you that what may seem like a leap of faith is actually part of being a believer. “Sometimes when everyone around you believes in something, it rubs off on you,” Johann Schulz from Germany told The Daily Beast in St. Peter’s Square on Friday. “I think a lot of us who came here for this need to believe in miracles and saints. Otherwise things look pretty grim.” …

Despite the palpable buzz in Rome, not everyone is looking forward to Sunday’s love fest for the two popes. Survivors of sexual abuse by Catholic priests held their own briefing in Rome on Friday, against a backdrop of the photos of young children who were sexually abused during the time John Paul II was pontiff. “We were abused because John Paul II didn’t act,” Nicky Davis, a spokesperson for the Survivors Network of Those Abused By Priests known as SNAP told reporters. “We don’t’ believe it is saintly behavior to allow child abuse to continue for 27 years.”

The group, which has 18,000 members from 79 countries, says canonizing John Paul II is like “pouring salt into an open wound.” They say there is ample proof and documentation that John Paul II turned a blind eye to hundreds, if not thousands, of reports of abusive priests, and chose not to act. “We will never know what it was like not being raped,” said Barbara Blaine, president of SNAP, and for that reason alone, John Paul II should not be elevated to sainthood. The group will hold a candlelight vigil ahead of the canonization “for all those who lost their innocence during John Paul II’s reign.”

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ROME
All Voices

A young man was killed in the Italian village of Cevo near Brescia Thursday, when a giant crucifix of Pope John Paul II, fell on top of him.

The huge 98-foot high wooden and concrete cross, built in honor of the late Pope after he visited the Alpine village in 1998, fell on 21-year-old student Marco Gusmini, during a ceremony, crushing him to death. Another man who was injured in the freak accident had to be hospitalized, ITV News reported.
This tragedy comes only days before Sunday’s historic twin canonization of Pope John Paul II and Pope John XXII in St. Peter’s Square and the ceremony is not without its controversy.

While many agree that the late pope was destined for sainthood and think he deserves this noted recognition nine years after his death, some do not agree. Critics say only one pope, St. Anthony of Padua who was graced with sainthood one year after his death centuries ago in 1231—received the honor faster than John Paul II. …

Critics are accusing Pope Francis of rushing the ceremony to distract as well as lift the heavy child sexual abuse cloud shrouding the church. It may also be an attempt to infuse new faith by providing fresh icons for followers.

One such outspoken critic is Barbara Blaine, president of The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, who thinks the late pope’s inaction and slow response to victims of child sexual abuse by priests should prevent him from becoming a candidate for sainthood.

“John Paul II had the opportunity to stop violence and refused to do so,” Blaine reportedly told NBC News in St. Peter’s Square Friday. “He was more interested in the reputation of church officials than in the protection of children.”

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ROME
WPVI

By SARAH BLOOMQUIST

ROME – April 25, 2014 (WPVI) — About 50 Catholics from the Delaware Valley have traveled to Rome as part of a trip organized by the Philadelphia Archdiocese.

It’s the trip of a lifetime to see two popes named saints: Pope John Paul II and Pope John XXIII. Two living popes will be in attendance for the canonizations – Pope Francis will conduct the mass with Pope Benedict XVI at his side.

“It’s just the thrill of a lifetime to be here, to be present, to feel the energy and the grace of the day. It’s just wonderful,” said Sister Alexa Meany, South Philadelphia. …

However, not everyone is celebrating Pope John Paul’s impending sainthood. Barbara Blaine is president of SNAP- Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

She and others believe Pope John Paul could have done much more to uncover and prevent abuse by priests.

“Covering up and enabling sexual predators is not saintly behavior,” said Blaine

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VATICAN CITY
Newstalk (Ireland)

The double canonisation on Sunday will be presided over by Pope Francis in St Peter’s Square of the two men he believes revitalised the Church while giving it purpose and direction.

The current pontiff described John Paul II and John XXIII as “wonderful” and “brave men”, and bent years of tradition by allowing them to be celebrated on the same day.

A candidate for sainthood would normally have to pass a rigorous test which begins at least five years after their death and includes the verification of two miracles.

John Paul II had his canonisation fast-tracked (as he did for Mother Theresa during his pontificate) while John XXIII candidacy was pushed through without having to clear the hurdle of a second confirmed miracle. …

There has been criticism that the swift canonisation of John Paul II ignores criticism that he failed to tackle the growing problem of priest sex abuse, especially in the United States.

The Vatican says an “information gap” between church officials in America and the Vatican was behind the speed of the response, which meant he was not “living the crisis in real time”.

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ROME
WWNO

This Sunday, Pope Francis will elevate two former popes to sainthood: Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul II.

While Pope John XXIII is remembered as an icon of the progressive wing of the Catholic Church, Pope John Paul II is remembered for upholding orthodoxy and doctrine.

Millions of pilgrims are expected to descend upon Rome for the joint canonization, which occurs just one week after the ceremonies of Holy Week.

NPR’s Senior European Correspondent Sylvia Poggioli joins Here & Now’s Robin Young from Rome to discuss this weekend’s canonization and the disparate legacies of these two popes. …

YOUNG: Well Barbara Blain(ph) of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, the group SNAP, she told the Boston Globe that they think it’s sinful for the pope to be made a saint so soon because of the sex abuse scandal. So does the church respond to comments like that?

POGGIOLI: Well, there have been many critics of the canonization of John Paul, as you said about the speed and also for his record on those issues. His defenders say that aides may have kept the information from him. Others believe that John Paul may have believed the charges were a plot and a slander against the church similar to those by communist authorities in Poland, and that may be the reason he simply did not attribute the necessary attention to the sex abuse scandals.

YOUNG: Well, that debate will continue even after this weekend’s ceremonies. Let’s move to Pope John XXIII. He served from 1958 the ’63, an icon of the progressive wing of the church. He launched the reforming Second Vatican Council, opening the church to the modern world. But in this case, Pope Francis waived the required second miracle for his canonization.

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ROME
Irish Times

Patsy McGarry

Sat, Apr 26, 2014

The mood was festive in St Peter’s Square at the Vatican today as thousands of people from around the world began to gather for tomorrow morning’s canonisation of Popes John XXIII and John Paul II.
There are very many Polish here but also large contingents from South America, particularly from Brazil and Argentina. And this reporter spotted one Irish tricolour but on investigation it was discovered that the owner “had gone for a walk.”

Groups of young people lay out in the sun, many on mats on which they planned to sleep overnight in order to hold their spot in the Square for tomorrow’s events.

Earlier, it was confirmed that retired Pope Benedict XVI will attend the ceremonies, where he will sit with the cardinals and bishops to the left of the sanctuary. …

The US-based Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) staged a candle-lit vigil on the rooftop of a hotel near the Vatican in protest at the canonisation of Pope John Paul II, which they have described as “irresponsible and hurtful”.

The group said he “must have known” about the multiple sexual abuse allegations against Legionaries of Christ founder Fr Marcial Maciel Degollado.

Instead of disciplining or defrocking Fr Maciel, Pope John Paul II held a “highly publicised special ceremony celebrating the anniversary of Maciel’s ordination.”

Holding candles, signs and childhood photos, the clergy sex abuse victims stood in their rooftop vigil with St Peter’s Basilica in the background. They also read aloud an open letter – in French, German, Spanish and English – to victims, witnesses, and whistleblowers, urging them to keep speaking up and reporting crimes, “even though complicit Catholic officials (including Pope John Paul II) keep getting honored and promoted”.

They called for “every single incident or suspicion of clergy sex crimes and cover ups” to be reported to “secular officials, not church officials” to “boldly but compassionately keep reaching out and offering help to every single person who they know of or fear was sexually assaulted by clergy”.

They also made special reference to the “dozens of victims of the world’s most notorious predator priest – Fr Marcial Maciel – whose extensive crimes and misdeeds were ignored and hidden during Pope John Paul’s long papacy.”

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INDIA
Deccan Herald

The police on Thursday registered a case of rape against a Catholic priest in Ollur, Thrissur district, based on a complaint filed by the parents of a minor girl.

According to the police, Fr Raju Kokkan, parish priest at St Paul’s Church in Thaikattussery, had undressed the 10-year-old girl and photographed her private parts when she visited him in church on April 8, 11 and 24.

The police said the priest abused the girl for the first time when she was at the parish in connection with her holy communion. The priest is learnt to have taken the girl into his room in the parish by promising her new clothes for the event. The girl told her parents about the incident only on Thursday. N K Surendran, Ollur Circle Inspector, told Deccan Herald that the 44-year-old priest has been booked under Section 376 of the IPC and Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act.

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UNITED STATES
Gawker

Kehla Backman

I thought I’d never see my cult leader again.

And then a month ago, he showed up on my bedroom television. His name is Victor Barnard, and he was on the local news because two women in Pine County, Minn., near where I grew up as a member of his Fellowship church, had accused him of sexual abuse.

He had allegedly chosen a group of adolescent girls—the daughters of church members—to live alone in the church headquarters, where he sexually abused them with their parents’ permission. The women said he dressed like Jesus and called them “maidens.” He’d been accused before of sleeping with his married female followers, but this was the first time his child sexual abuse was being spotlighted. An investigation was open against him, but nothing had gone forward.

But the news report brought survivors out of the woodwork. Follow-up stories were aired, and Victor Barnard was, last week, officially charged with 59 counts of sexual misconduct. He’s now on the run from authorities—maybe being smuggled between the homes of his remaining followers.

I never had a sliver of hope that he would be brought to justice and made to answer for the horrific things he’s done to those girls, it’s hard to even now, it just seems too good to be true.

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VATICAN CITY
New York Post

Associated Press

VATICAN CITY — Retired pontiff Benedict XVI will help Pope Francis celebrate the sainthood ceremony Sunday for John Paul II and John XXIII, setting the stage for an unprecedented occurrence of two living popes canonizing two of their predecessors. About 1 million pilgrims are expected at the event and many were flooding into Rome on Saturday.

Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi told reporters on Saturday that Benedict will be in St. Peter’s Square for the canonization of John and John Paul. He said Benedict and many cardinals will “concelebrate” the Mass with Francis.

Benedict resigned from the papacy a year ago, and since has largely dedicated himself to prayer in a monastery on the Vatican grounds. Sunday’s appearance will be his highest-profile one since he retired. Francis, who lives elsewhere in Vatican City, in a guesthouse, has been quite welcoming to his predecessor, occasionally paying a call on Benedict. It was Francis who sought to include Benedict in Sunday’s ceremony, expected to draw hundreds of thousands of tourists and pilgrims.

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ROME
Daily Mail (UK)

‘We don’t believe it’s saintly behaviour’: Abuse victims attack John Paul II’s failure to stamp out Catholic paedophiles, as one million gather to see him canonised alongside John XXIII

Abuse victims of Catholic priests have said that former Pope John Paul II does not deserve to be made a saint because of his failure to bring perpetrators to justice during his reign.

John Paul, who was head of the Catholic church from 1978 until his death in 2005, ‘enabled wrongdoing’ and was more interested in protecting the Church’s reputation than helping victims, according to campaigners.

The former pontiff is due to be canonised tomorrow alongside John XXIII, who was Pope from 1958-1963 in an unprecedented ceremony expected to be watched by around one million Catholics.

Barbara Blaine, the president of the Survivors’ Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), spoke out against John Paul today.

Mrs Blaine told the Daily Telegraph: ‘It’s time for the Vatican to stop honouring those who enabled wrongdoing. Thousands of victims were abused because John Paul refused to read the reports he was receiving.’

Nicky Davis, a 50-year-old from Australia who was abused, said: ‘We don’t believe it’s saintly behaviour to allow sex abuse to continue for a 27-year reign. He could have used his enormous power to save children but instead he decided to save the reputation of the Church.’

The organisation also published an open letter on their website to other abuse victims. It said: ‘At best, [John Paul] turned a blind eye to clergy sexual crimes and cover-ups. At worst, he perpetuated and approved them.

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ROME
NBC News

BY ALASTAIR JAMIESON AND CLAUDIO LAVANGA

ROME — He has railed against the “tyranny” of global capitalism and the “idolatry of money” but even Pope Francis needs a little corporate coin sometimes – as proven by the list of sponsors for Sunday’s canonizations.

An oil and gas giant, several banks and Switzerland-based food megacorp Nestle are among more than a dozen financial backers of the Rome event.

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ROME
Irish Times

Paddy Agnew

Sat, Apr 26, 2014

Sainthood is all very well but at the end of this historic Roman weekend who is going to pick up the tab? The man asking that very practical question on the weekend of the canonisations of Popes John XXIII and John Paul II is none other than the Mayor of Rome, Ignazio Marino.

“It’s only obvious that the organisation of a worldwide event like this has a cost. Just think of the figures – four million bottles of water distributed, 10,000 hours of overtime for the various police authorities including 2,000 Roman police and 2,600 members of the Civil Protection service…”, said the Mayor.

Mr Marino, a US-trained liver transplant specialist who returned to Italy to “make a contribution” to his own country, has put a price on this historic weekend.

“My calculations say that it will cost around €7 million,” he said. “This situation has already occurred in Rome, on the occasion of the funeral of John Paul II, and I have written to the prime minister (Matteo Renzi)…to argue that this has to be considered as a national and international event and that therefore Rome and Romans cannot bear all the costs.”

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

Royal Commission to hear boys as young as five were abused for decades at Christian Brothers homes

EMILY MOULTON LEGAL AFFAIRS REPORTER PERTHNOW APRIL 26, 2014

BOYS as young as five were raped, tortured and emotionally abused for decades at four Christian Brother’s homes in WA, a national inquiry into child sex abuse will hear on Monday.

And many of those children were sent to Australia from the UK and Malta after the war for what was supposed to be a better life.

Janette Dines, chief executive of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse, revealed the harrowing details ahead of the first WA public hearing which will start on Monday.

She said the commission would this week be looking specifically into the experiences of those former residents who were sent to Castledare, Clontarf, Bindoon and Tardun orphanages from the late 1940s up until the 1960s.

“Some of these men were sent to the residences as child migrants from the UK and Malta, while others were wards of the state,” she said.

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UNITED STATES
skipshea

This weekend Pope Francis will canonize two previous Pope’s as saints. John XXIII and John Paul II. John XXIII will become a saint even though his second miracle has not yet been verified. When you’re a pope, isn’t one enough?

John Paul II is also getting fast tracked with the five year waiting period waived by Pope Benedict XVI because… Well, I don’t honestly know why. JPII is dead. He isn’t going anywhere soon.

Or maybe Benedict and Francis wanted to dictate how history will see the man. As Pope for 27 years he was beloved by many. Except Sinead O’Connor. Maybe she was on to something.

During his 27 year tenure, the Catholic Church sexual abuse of children scandal was exposed by the Boston Globe. After they read about it in the Boston Phoenix a year earlier.

How did the future Saint react? Well, he didn’t. Or almost didn’t.

Let’s back up to the other new saint, John XXIII. In 1962 a letter bearing his tamp went to every bishop in the world directing them to cover up clergy sexual abuse. I’m guessing that wasn’t the second miracle they were looking for.

Fast forward to 2001 when the then Cardinal Ratzinger sent a letter to every bishop in the world giving the similar instructions that John XXIII did in 1962. Ratzinger was then the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith – formerly known as the Inquisition – and only took orders and directives from one man. The other new Saint John Paul II.

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INDIA
India Today

A catholic priest is on the run since the police registered a case against him on Friday for raping a nine-year-old girl, who was attending church classes for receiving first Holy Communion.

The girl’s parents alleged that she was sexually assaulted several times in April and Fr Raju Kokken, 40, Vicar of the St. Pauls Church at Thaikkattussery in Thrissur, shot nude pictures of her in his mobile phone. Following the complaint and after internal inquiry, Thrissur Arch Diocese had ousted the priest from the Church.

According to Ollur Police, the girl was lured by the priest with promise of free robes for the Holy Communion and the Vicar raped the girl thrice in April in his office room. The girl, who hails from a poor family, was forced to go naked before him when the Vicar asked her to remove her clothes in the pretext of checking whether the Holy Communion dress suits her or not. The girl told police that she was sexually assaulted thrice by the priest afterwards. The girl said that the priest took her naked photographs in his mobile phone.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Glaube Aktuell

[Summary: The We Are Church organization has criticized the canonization of Pope John Paul II.]

Kritische Anmerkungen der Internationalen Bewegung „Wir sind Kirche“ zur Heiligsprechung von Papst Johannes Paul II.

26.4.2014

(München/wsk) – „Das gesamte System der Heiligsprechungen ist fragwürdig geworden und bedarf der Demokratisierung“, sagt Dr. Martha Heizer, Vorsitzende der Internationalen Bewegung „Wir sind Kirche“. „Die Reform der Heiligsprechungsverfahren sollte anderen aktuellen Reformen einhergehen, die Papst Franziskus in den Bereichen der Leitung, der Transparenz und der Finanzen angestoßen hat. Diese Reformen sind von wesentlicher Bedeutung für die Kirche, damit sie auch künftig „Licht für die Welt“ sein kann.“

„Wir sind Kirche“ ist der Meinung, dass Heiligsprechungsverfahren mehr in demokratischer Form durchgeführt und weniger für die Ziele vatikanischer Politik instrumentalisiert werden sollen. Die Heiligsprechung zweier Päpste – verbunden mit der Tatsache, dass die meisten der in der neueren Kirchengeschichte verstorbenen Päpste auf dem Weg zur „Ehre der Altäre“ sind – verklärt den Absolutheits- und Unfehlbarkeitsanspruch des Papsttums zuungunsten des restlichen Volkes Gottes.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Sol

[Summary: Some priests in the Limburg diocese have asked former Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz van Elst to give up part of his retirement salary to be used for charitable purposes.]

Limburg. Der abberufene Limburger Bischof Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst soll nach Ansicht einer Gruppe von Pfarrern auf einen Teil seines derzeitigen Ruhestandgehalts verzichten.

Die Priester des «Hofheimer Kreises» sandten einen Brief mit ihrer Forderung vergangene Woche an das Limburger Bistum – bisher allerdings ohne Reaktion, wie Pfarrer Werner Otto, einer der Sprecher des Kreises, am Freitag sagte.

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NIEDERLANDE
Watson

Ein niederländischer Hilfsbischof hat in den 50er bis 70er Jahren mehrere Jungen sexuell missbraucht. Das Erzbistum Utrecht bestätigte am Freitag entsprechende Medienberichte. Vier Opfer des römisch-katholischen Geistlichen Jan Niënhaus seien entschädigt worden. Der Hilfsbischof starb im Jahre 2000.

Bereits 2012 war der Klage der vier Männer von der kirchlichen Kommission zu sexuellem Missbrauch stattgegeben worden. Das Erzbistum hatte dies jedoch nicht veröffentlicht. Im Februar hatte die römisch-katholische Kirche in den Niederlanden eingestanden, dass ein weiterer Bischof sich des sexuellen Missbrauchs schuldig gemacht hatte.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Kleine Zeitung

[Summary: Norbert Denef was sexually abused at age 16 by a priest in his home town of Delitzsch. He opposes the canonization of Pope John Paul II. Denef said the pope was responsible for the concealment and denial of sexual violence during his tenure as pope.]

DELITZSCH. Bis zum 16. Lebensjahr wurde Norbert Denef in seiner Heimatstadt Delitzsch von einem Priester sexuell missbraucht. Der Katholik wandte sich Hilfe suchend an Papst Johannes Paul II. Der antwortete in einem persönlichen Brief, er werde Denef in sein Gebet aufnehmen. 2010 gründete der gebürtige Sachse das Netzwerk der Opfer sexualisierter Gewalt netzwerkB und kritisiert die am Sonntag in Rom stattfindende Heiligsprechung Karol Wojtylas. “Johannes Paul II. war in seiner Amtszeit verantwortlich für das Verschweigen,

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DEUTSCHLAND
netzwerkB

[Summary: Norbert Denef, a victim of clergy sexual abuse, said the canonization of Pope John Paul II is like rubbing salt into the wounds,]

Norbert Denef wurde von einem Priester missbraucht und kritisiert die Heiligsprechung von Johannes Paul II.

Herr Denef, mit welchem Gefühl blicken Sie auf die Heiligsprechung von Johannes Paul II. am Sonntag auf dem Petersplatz in Rom?

Denef: Das tut einfach weh. Das ist wie Salz in tiefen Wunden, die immer noch offen sind. Mein Fall beweist, dass Johannes Paul II. hauptverantwortlich für das Vertuschen und Verschweigen vieler Verbrechen ist.

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CANADA
Sylvia’s Site

In case you missed my note elsewhere, Bishop David Monroe, the current Bishop of Kamloops, BC, is being summoned for examination for discovery in May of this year. The discovery is in relation to a lawsuit filed December 2012 alleging sex abuse by Father Damian Cooper.

Monroe was Rector at Holy Rosary Cathedral in the mid 80s when the newly ordained Father Damien Cooper was serving as an assistant. According to media reports it was during his time at the cathedral that Cooper started counseling 16-year-old Kathleen Taylor – he eventually began taking her to motels.

Kathleen disclosed the abuse to the Vancouver Archdiocese in 1994. According to a diocesan spokesman, Cooper was “removed from ministry,” but …Cooper then surfaced and served in the Diocese of Rockville, Centre, Long Island, New York.

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VATICAN CITY
John Thavis

The double canonization Sunday of two popes, John XXIII and John Paul II, is a first in church history, and it’s prompted a debate among commentators: Has the church rushed too fast to declare John Paul a saint, especially in view of his record on clerical sex abuse cases? Is the addition of John XXIII to the canonization roster merely a political balancing act by Pope Francis? And should popes be canonized at all – is it really possible for the church to make a dispassionate judgment on the holiness of men who sat on the throne of Peter and were called “Your Holiness” in life?

The record-setting speed of John Paul II’s canonization does, indeed, raise some questions. The “Santo subito!” (Sainthood now!) banners in St. Peter’s Square at the funeral of the Polish pope reflected the sentiments of many faithful who thought his deep spirituality, evangelizing energy and strong defense of human rights made him a saint for our times.

Yet what pushed his cause through so quickly was support at the highest levels of the hierarchy. At that same funeral, the man who would be elected as John Paul’s successor, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, told the faithful: “We can be sure that our beloved pope is standing today at the window of the Father’s house, that he sees us and blesses us.” In effect, that’s like declaring someone a saint – all that was left was to make it official. And to speed things up, Pope Benedict waived the normal five-year waiting period to begin the sainthood process.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Democrat

Kathy Mellott
kmellott@tribdem.com

EBENSBURG — Efforts to resolve claims made by alleged victims of abuse by Brother Stephen Baker have been put on hold pending the outcome of a criminal investigation currently underway by the office of the state attorney general.

In a brief statement the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown announced late Friday that the negotiations have been halted.

“It would be inappropriate for the diocese to proceed with the civil matters while the attorney general’s office investigation is active,” Tony DeGol, diocese secretary of communications, wrote in an email.

Baker, a Francisician friar, worked at Bishop McCort Catholic High School from 1992 until about 2001 as a religion teacher and part of the athletic department.

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UNITED STATES
NewsHounds

With its large stable of conservative Catholic hosts and its support for the teachings of the conservative Catholic bishops, it does seem like Fox News is a media arm for the Catholic Church. Nobody embodies Roger Ailes love for the Magesterium than Ailes’ *”surrogate,” Fox VP, John Moody, a devout pro-life Catholic conservative, whose views appear to suffuse Fox’s religious content. Because he is **concerned about what he perceives as anti-Christian bias in the mainstream media, he obviously wants to put a positive spin on Christian issues, such as when he and official Fox “news” anchor and fellow Catholic, Martha MacCallum gushed about Pope Benedict without a mention of the Catholic pedophilia scandal. This morning, during a lovefest for the two Popes who will be canonized, the sexual abuse crisis was not only framed as a euphemism, but the victims were trashed. Mirabile Dictu?

During the interview, MacCallum (a Cardinal Dolan pal as is Roger Ailes) and Moody were positively orgasmic about the canonizations. While Moody spoke positively of the liberal Pope John XIII, he focused mainly on Pope John-Paul II who, as he noted, represented the conservative wing of the church which for Fox and its viewers is the only game in town. Unlike on other news networks, which mention the reality that JP II didn’t adequately address the sexual abuse crisis, nothing was said about the pedophilia scandal that is still a hot issue in the church which has yet to defrock a bishop. The criticism of JP II seems to center around his ignoring the degeneracy of Father Marcial Maciel who, while head of the Legion of Christ, sexually abused a number of victims, was addicted to drugs, and who fathered several children. Fox recruited Fr. Jonathan Morris when he had a very high position in the Roman headquarters of the Legion. He has since left the order and now has a cushy assignment at Columbia U. JP II also appointed Boston’s Cardinal Law, who presided over a network of pedophile priests in Boston, to a Vatican position safe from extradition to the US.

But at one point during the conversation, MacCallum said this: “Obviously there’s a lot of cynicism out there, a lot of recent history that needs to be dealt with the Catholic Church so a lot of people look at these two individuals and they say what makes them a saint.” (Translation – “recent history” is the sexual abuse scandal about which people are cynical.” No shit, Sherlock!) Not only did Moody defend JP II but he appeared to attack the victims of the “recent history.” He gushed about how the popes “lived their lives the way God wants us to live our lives.” Then came the coup de grace: “Neither of them was perfect, none of us is, a lot of the criticism, a lot of the backbiting comes from bitter people who just couldn’t make it as Catholics, therefore they can take a shot that neither of these men can fight back.”

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ROME
Press TV (Iran)

[with video]

Multinational victims of the Catholic Church sex abuse have held a candle-lit vigil at the Vatican in protest against upcoming canonization of Pope John Paul II.

The vigil by the Survivors’ Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) was held in Vatican City on Friday.

SNAP members from all over the world traveled to the Vatican and lit candles and displayed pictures of children who had suffered abuse from Catholic priests.

The vigil was held in protest against Pope John Paul II being declared a saint, which is scheduled for Sunday.

On April 11, Pope Francis issued an apology for child sexual abuse scandals that have rocked the Catholic Church recently.

The pontiff issued the apology during a meeting with a children’s rights group known as the International Catholic Child Bureau. It can be considered as his first official apology for the sex abuse scandals.

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AUSTRALIA
Queensland Times

Geoff Egan 25th Apr 2014

A FORMER pastor, who fled the law for seven years, has been found guilty of maintaining a sexual relationship with his daughter’s 12-year-old best friend and indecent treatment of children.

An Ipswich jury found the 51-year-old man, who cannot be named to protect the identity of his victims, guilty of maintaining an unlawful sexual relationship with a child, and four counts of indecently treating a child under 16 in care.

In 2005 the man, after an affair with the girl’s mother ended, began abusing the then 12-year-old girl. He bought his daughter and the girl sex toys and lingerie which he forced them to wear around the house.

He would show the girl and his daughter pornography, and sexually abused the girl over a period of months.

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FLORIDA
Associated Baptist Press

By Bob Allen

A judge in Florida has changed probation terms for a preacher who is a registered sex offender to allow the former Southern Baptist pastor to minister to children in his church.

Darrell Gilyard, 52, began preaching at Christ Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Fla., shortly after his release from prison in December 2011 for sex crimes against two minor girls at his previous church. It made international news when the church barred children from worship, because Gilyard’s probation prohibited him from having contact with minors.

Recently, according to Jacksonville television station WJXT, a judge agreed to modify the probation so Gilyard can “minister to children under the age of 18 as long as the children are supervised by an adult other than the defendant.”

Gilyard pleaded guilty in 2009 to lewd or lascivious conduct and molestation involving two girls younger than 16. His 2007 resignation after 15 years as pastor of Jacksonville’s Shiloh Metropolitan Baptist Church, a 7,000-member predominantly African-American congregation, marked the fifth pastorate he lost due to allegations of sexual misconduct.

A native of Palatka, Fla., Gilyard rose to fame in the Southern Baptist Convention in the late 1980s under the mentorship of former SBC presidents Jerry Vines and Paige Patterson. Jerry Falwell’s pulpit gave Gilyard a platform to share on national television his dramatic testimony of growing up a homeless orphan who lived under a bridge, a story that was later discredited.

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INDIANA
The Star Press

HARTFORD CITY — If Joseph Pennington — the former Hartford City youth pastor convicted of having a sexual relationship with 15-year-old congregation member — hoped to rehabilitate his image, this probably won’t help.

The Indiana Court of Appeals this week rejected Pennington’s appeal of the eight-year prison term he received last September from Blackford Circuit Court Judge Dean Young.

In rejecting the 33-year-old Pennington’s argument that his sentence was “inappropriate in light of the nature of his offense and his character,” the appeals court referred in part to allegations that were never aired during public court proceedings.

Pennington’s case was not resolved through a trial, but by his guilty plea to sexual misconduct with a minor, a Class B felony that carried a standard 10-year sentence.

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INDIANA
Newsbug

HARTFORD CITY, Ind. (AP) — The Indiana Court of Appeals has rejected a bid for early release by a former youth pastor convicted of having a sexual relationship with a teenage congregation member.

Thirty-three-year-old Joseph Pennington was sentenced to eight years in prison last year after he pleaded guilty to sexual misconduct with a minor.

The Hartford City man had asked the state appeals court to reduce his sentence, release him from prison and place him on electronic home detention for six years.

But The Star Press reports (http://tspne.ws/1kc1Sj5 ) the court rejected Pennington’s argument that his sentence was “inappropriate.”

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ILLINOIS
Daily Journal

Posted: Friday, April 25, 2014

A little more than a week ago a story came out that a Catholic priest from Chicago had been returned to active ministry after the Cook County Sheriff’s Department concluded there’s no evidence he sexually abused a minor nearly 20 years ago.

His name is the Rev. Michael O’Connell.

To probably all of you reading this column, his name has no meaning. To myself and my family, he’s Father Mike. Let me tell you about him.

In 2004, Linda and I wanted to get married in a Catholic church. We both were widowers and because we would be uniting our families to live in her Mokena home, we went to the local Catholic church to secure a wedding date. The pastor said we had to be a member of the parish for a year before we could get married.

We both were upset when my soon-to-be mother-in-law suggested her church, Our Lady of the Woods in Orland Park. While it’s about a 20 to 25 minute drive from Mokena, we went to visit the pastor, Father Mike O’Connell.

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CALIFORNIA
Monterey Herald

By John Sammon
jwsammon@sbcglobal.net

POSTED: 04/25/2014

MONTEREY >> Bill Ditewig, a deacon at the Diocese of Monterey, has been invited to Vatican City to participate in the canonization” of Pope John Paul II and Pope John XXIII.

“These two popes were very special men,” Ditewig said. “In my own case, Pope John XXIII had a great influence on me.”

The ceremony will be held Sunday and an overflow crowd of more than 1 million spectators is expected in St. Peter’s Square. …

He said that although the church has faced recent charges of child sexual abuse, the public should also understand the great good the church does.

“Evil exists, as with any human element,” Ditewig said. “We look at the positive side without ignoring the bad. The church is involved in charity work, provides food and shelter, counseling and outreach. When there’s a disaster we’re usually first on the ground. Much of this work is done by volunteers, lay people and clergy.”

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Patsy McGarry

Sat, Apr 26, 2014

The confirmation by the Taoiseach last night that he will be in Rome for the canonisation is the strongest indication yet of a determination by the Coalition to repair relations between Ireland and the Vatican which reached an all-time low in 2011.

That year, following four statutory reports into the sexual and physical abuse of children, as well as their neglect by Catholic clergy, and the cover-up of it all by senior church figures, Taoiseach Enda Kenny denounced the Vatican in trenchant terms in a speech to the Dáil on July 20th, 2011.

He criticised the Vatican’s handling of the Irish church’s sex abuse crisis, saying: “Far from listening to evidence of humiliation and betrayal with St Benedict’s ‘ear of the heart’ . . . the Vatican’s reaction was to parse and analyse it with the gimlet eye of a canon lawyer.”

His speech followed the Cloyne report, on the handling of clerical child sex abuse allegations in that diocese, which had been published a week earlier. It followed the Murphy and Ryan reports in 2009, and the Ferns report in 2005.

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OREGON
Catholic Sentinel

The family of the boy who was molested in 2012 by Father Angel Perez, a priest who was serving in Woodburn, is suing the Archdiocese of Portland and the parish in Woodburn for $8.5 million, the Oregonian reports.

Father Perez is serving a six-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to first-degree sexual abuse, driving intoxicated and furnishing alcohol to a minor. Originally from Mexico, he may be deported after he serves his sentence at Two Rivers Correctional Institute in Umatilla.

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OREGON
KOIN

[with video]

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Archdioces in Oregon perform background checks on priests, just like many employers do, but it isn’t enough to keep predators out of the system.

Friday, Scappoose, Ore. priest Michael Patrick appeared in court on charges related to an incident where he allegedly tried to lure a teenage girl into his car April 12 and last week, former Corvallis priest Stanley Brittain was arrested on child abuse and child pornography charges.

Priests are run through background checks, but if they have not previously offended, they are cleared.

Portland Catholic Archdiocese Director of Child and Victim Assistance Cathy Shannon said the church is trying to be more vigilant in screening people who could pose a threat to parishioners.

“[We perform] criminal background check on all employees, all volunteers who work with minors,and all of our clergy.”

Prospective priests are run through the sex-offender registry and must pass an in-depth interview process.

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
KDKA

Harold Hayes

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — A former Catholic priest convicted of possessing child pornography was sentenced to jail in court on Friday.

“He’s very ill,” said defense attorney John Knorr. “It very well may turn out to be a life sentence.”

That’s how David Dzermejko’s lawyer reacted to the three-year federal prison sentence imposed on his client after being convicted of possessing child pornography.

He was removed from priestly duties, which included pastorates in Charleroi and Ross Township.

The present case involved 100 to 300 child pornography images, but a longstanding dispute within the church about prior allegations surfaced in this case as well.

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SOUTH CAROLINA
The Post and Courier

Adam Parker
Posted: Friday, April 25, 2014

The Catholic Diocese of Charleston is trying to stick its insurance companies with the bill for millions of dollars in claims paid to nearly 150 people whose lives were damaged by sexually abusive priests – three times the number of victims that was initially reported.

The diocese filed a civil lawsuit in late February demanding that its insurance and indemnity companies reimburse the church for numerous victim payouts it made in connection with a 2007 class-action settlement worth up to $12 million, according to documents obtained by The Post and Courier.

Tucked away in the lawsuit is a list of 148 victims – most called by the pseudonym John or Jane Doe – the type of abuse they endured, the years that abuse occurred, and the individual settlement amounts they received. Those payouts ranged from $13,000 to $425,000, with a total of $11.2 million going to those named on the list.

This is the first time such information has been made public, and it provides a clearer picture of the scope of the sexual abuse crisis that occurred in the diocese over three decades between 1950 and 1980.

Some 79 people – 72 men and seven women – received payments after alleging direct abuse by pedophile priests and other diocesan officials during this time period, according to court documents.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune

April 27, 2014

There is no public “short list” for who will succeed Cardinal Francis George at the helm of the Chicago Archdiocese, and the process appears to be in the early stages. But here are some possible candidates cited by experts:

New Orleans Archbishop Gregory Aymond

Aymond is the first New Orleans native to lead that archdiocese. In addition to serving on a number of national bishops committees, he once led the Committee for the Protection of Children and Young People. “He’s made consistently good impressions as a good pastor and a capable administrator,” said the Rev. Robert Schreiter, a professor at Catholic Theological Union who knew Aymond when he served as rector of the seminary in New Orleans. “He takes the flock into consideration.”

San Antonio Archbishop Gustavo Garcia-Siller

Born in Mexico and the eldest of 15 children, Garcia-Siller came to the U.S. in 1980 with the Missionaries of the Holy Spirit. He became a U.S. citizen in 1998 and, after serving for four years as major superior of his religious order, became an auxiliary bishop in Chicago in 2003. “It would be not unreasonable to wonder whether or not, given the importance of the Latino presence in the Catholic Church in the U.S., it might be the time to see a Latino clergyman put in charge of Chicago,” said Michael Budde, chair of Catholic Studies at DePaul University.

Atlanta Archbishop Wilton Gregory

As bishop of the downstate Belleville diocese and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2002, Gregory oversaw the creation of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People in the wake of the clergy sex abuse scandal. Last month he announced he would move out of a recently renovated $2.2 million mansion in Atlanta after parishioners complained it flouted the austerity modeled by Pope Francis. Mark Bosco, a theology professor at Loyola University Chicago, believes Gregory’s public apology for the lapse in judgment bodes well. “I thought it was humbling and actually kind of a positive move … to give up the bishop’s residence,” Bosco said. “It showed he’s very sensitive to what’s going on in the church at this point in time.”

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MEXICO
Tengri News

Many Mexicans have mixed emotions about seeing the late pope John Paul II become a saint: they loved the man but feel he covered up sexual abuses by priests, AFP reports.

In the Latin American country with the most Catholics after Brazil, most Mexicans “will welcome the canonization, but not all of them, because his pontificate had a dark side,” said sociologist Bernardo Barranco, who specializes in religious issues.

He added: “I do not think everyone will forgive him for having covered up” the pedophilia that went on to rock the church with scandal in recent years.

In his first overseas trip in 1979, John Paul visited Mexico, where 80 percent of the population of 118 million is Catholic.

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MINNESOTA
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis

Updated April 24, 2014
Deposition of Archbishop John Nienstedt

On April 2, 2014, Archbishop John Nienstedt gave his deposition in the case of Doe #1, which is a civil lawsuit against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, the Diocese of Winona, and Thomas Adamson.

We offer the deposition in its entirety, as part of our renewed commitment to transparency. As you will notice, the Archbishop answered every question asked. The court pre-determined the length of the four hour deposition, and the Archbishop continued to answer questions past the time allotted. There was not a single question asked about Thomas Adamson and the allegations of abuse of Doe #1 in 1976-1977.

* You will see a searchable PDF of the deposition below (under Related Content).
* You will also see links to the entire video of the deposition (in three chapters) posted below, allowing you to see the questions and answers in context. …

Deposition of Father Kevin McDonough

On April 16, Father Kevin McDonough was deposed in the Doe 1 case in St. Paul. The case is a civil lawsuit against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, the Diocese of Winona, and Thomas Adamson for allegations of abuse between 1976 and 1977.

We offer the deposition in its entirety as part of our renewed commitment to transparency and disclosure. As you will notice, Fr. McDonough answered every question asked. The court pre-determined the length of the six hour deposition.

* You will see a searchable PDF of the deposition below (in related content).
* You will also see links to the entire video of the deposition (in four chapters and multiple segments) posted below, allowing you to see the questions and answers in context.

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MINNESOTA
dotCommonweal

Grant Gallicho April 25, 2014

In sworn testimony released yesterday, Fr. Kevin McDonough, former vicar general and abuse-prevention czar of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis disputed Archbishop John Nienstedt’s claim that McDonough had advised him not to keep written records of conversations about accused priests because they might be discovered in litigation. Having served three archbishops, two as vicar general for nearly twenty years and Nienstedt as “delegate for safe environment,” few know more about how the Twin Cities diocese handled clergy accused of sexual misconduct. (More from MPR here, full video here.)

During the six-and-a-half-hour interview–which ended abruptly after lawyers disagreed about the allotted time–McDonough acknowledged what most observers of the crisis already knew: for many years, archdiocesan practice was not to routinely laicize abusers. Nor did it, as a matter of policy, report all accusations to the police. But McDonough also provided his version of the events surrounding several controversial cases, including that of Fr. Curtis Wehmeyer, now jailed for molesting children, and that of Fr. John Shelley, whose computer was found to contain “borderline illegal” pornographic images (a county attorney did not press charges).

The release of McDonough’s deposition comes two days after Nienstedt’s was made public. Their court-ordered testimony was taken in connection with a lawsuit by a plaintiff who claims he was abused by a priest in the 1970s. The suit alleges that the archdiocese, along with the Diocese of Winona, created a public nuisance by hiding information about accused priests.

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COLOMBIA
MDZ

[Summary: A 77-year-old priest from Pasto in Colombia was sent to prisons today for allegedly sexually abusing his 16-year-old daughter. The abuse has occurred during the last seven years.The girl and mother lived in several parishes where the priest worked. He presented them to the community as his sister and nieces.]

Un sacerdote católico fue enviado hoy a prisión en la ciudad colombiana de Pasto en el marco de un proceso penal por supuestos abusos sexuales contra una hija suya.

El cura, de 77 años, fue denunciado por una joven de 16 años que aseguró que es su hija y que durante los últimos siete años ha sido sometida a abusos sexuales.

La joven relató a la Fiscalía que vivió con su madre y una hermana en varias parroquias del departamento de Nariño donde trabajó el sacerdote. Éste las presentaba ante la comunidad como su hermana y sus sobrinas.

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UNITED STATES
Daily Caller

Religious people can be so delightfully blasphemous when they’re angry.

Which was the case this week after Brett Decker, a conservative Catholic who works for the White House Writers Group and was previously editorial page editor for The Washington Times, wrote an op-ed piece this week that was published in USA Today. The gist of Decker’s story is that Pope Francis should not be canonizing two of his predecessors, John Paul II and John XXIII on account of what Decker deems was their failure to address global clergy sex abuse.

An excerpt: “Canonizing pontiffs from the era of abuse is not only tone deaf but also exposes a continuing, stubborn refusal to acknowledge the institutional coverup that occurred for decades and that those at the highest levels — including popes — didn’t do enough to prevent the crimes, enabling the crisis to continue.”

At least seven people wrote Decker and told him to “go to hell.”

For instance, MariaTM supportively promised, “I will pray for your burning soul.”

And Amanda kept things real simple: “Go to hell lowlife.”

One simple text just said: “hater.”

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
New Hampshire Union Leader

By MARK HAYWARD
New Hampshire Union Leader

MANCHESTER — Luke Parkin, the man involved in an “inappropriate adult relationship” with the Rev. Msgr. Ed Arsenault III, is a gay recording artist/composor with 70 albums to his credit, according to Internet websites.

In interviews with music sites and gay-oriented sites, Parkin talks about his music, growing up gay and his dating habits. He never mentions romantic interests by name.

“Dating is fun when it’s not called ‘dating,'” he tells Chicago.GoPride.com in an interview. He said he’d favor a man who looks like Tom Brady, writes like Proust and can preach self-reliance like Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Assistant New Hampshire Attorney General Jane Young on Wednesday said the investigation into Arsenault’s thefts of funds from the Manchester Catholic diocese and Catholic Medical Center found that the priest spent much of the stolen funds on Parkin.

Young called the relationship between the two consensual. …

The Diocese said the attorney general’s investigation found that between 2007 and early 2009, Arsenault billed the Diocese for numerous expenses related to the relationship:

• $2,500 for a cell phone.

• $3,200 for a trip to Santa Fe, New York and San Francisco, which included a $159 breakfast at the Four Seasons in San Francisco.

• Forty-eight nights at an extended stay hotel in Amesbury, Mass. Arsenault initially told Diocesan investigators the hotel was for a “homeless international priest,” the Diocese said.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
Catholic Culture

The romantic partner of a prominent New Hampshire priest who faces jail time for defrauding his diocese is a male recording artist, the Manchester Union Leader has disclosed.

Msgr. Edward Arsenault, a former chancellor of the Manchester diocese and head of the St. Luke Institute, reportedly spent tens of thousands of dollars on Luke Parkin, a young composer and performer. Prosecutors in New Hampshire said that early reports that the priest had been blackmailed were inaccurate, and that the spending was consensual.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Thomas P. Doyle | Apr. 25, 2014

COMMENTARY
Sitting on a bookshelf in my office is a red leather-bound copy of the Code of Canon Law. This isn’t just any copy of the church’s rulebook. It was signed by Pope John Paul II for me at the request of my former boss, the late Cardinal Pio Laghi. It is dated 6-6-1983 in the late pope’s own hand. I was definitely a fan in those days.

On Sunday after John Paul is promoted to sainthood, it will become a second-class relic. I will not venerate it, nor will I join the cheering crowds.

The past 30 years have led me to the opinion that his sainthood is a profound insult to the countless victims of sexual assault by Catholic clergy the world over. It is an insult to the decent, well-intentioned men and women who were persecuted by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith during his reign, and it is an insult to the memory of Pope John XXIII, who has the misfortune being a canonization classmate.

This soon-to-be relic is a symbol of the shame and the failure of the book’s content, the collection of church rules, and of the pope who autographed it. People more eloquent than I have publicly stated the many reasons why this is so. I won’t repeat their words here. However, I believe it is important to clarify some of the bizarre statements John Paul’s two main cheerleaders have been making.

George Weigel claimed there was an information gap between the United States and the Holy See in 2002. This is nonsense. There was no gap then, and there was no gap in 1984, when the abuse issue boiled to the surface of public awareness. I was working at the Vatican embassy in 1984 and have firsthand experience of the transmission of information to the Vatican.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

April 25, 2014 5:09 PM

By Rich Lord / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The Rev. David F. Dzermejko, whose priestly activities were suspended following the emergence of abuse allegations in 2009, was sentenced today to three years in prison for possession of child pornography.

The sentence by U.S. District Judge Nora Barry Fischer — which was slightly below the prison terms recommended by federal guidelines — came after a two-hour hearing featuring the emotional testimony of an alleged victim’s brother, and a denial by Dzermejko of any personal abuse of children.

“Your honor, I stand before you with deep remorse and a sincere regret for any crime I have committed and I throw myself at the mercy of this court,” Dzermejko said, shaking visibly.

After his release from prison, Dzermejko faces 12 years of probation. He also forfeited his laptop, personal computer, cell phone and a storage device.

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CANADA
Yahoo! News

By Steve Mertl | Daily Brew

With almost $2 billion earmarked to compensate survivors of Canada’s native residential schools, we shouldn’t be surprised that some vultures would swoop in and try to take a bite.

Thousands of First Nations people became eligible for payments under the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement for their experiences ranging from being deprived of their language and culture on up to physical and sexual abuse.

But a court is being told that many of the claimants allegedly have been strong-armed into handing over a large chunk of the money to lawyers and companies set up to help them fill out the complex forms needed to apply for part of the $1.9-billion settlement pool.

The charges do an end run around the court-mandated maximum fee that lawyers can levy for working on the most complex cases. The Globe and Mail reports the most that can be charged is 30 per cent of the settlement, supposedly including help with forms. The federal government pays up to 15 per cent of that fee, with the claimant responsible for the rest.

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UNITED STATES
POPE FRANCIS the CON-Christ.

Paris Arrow

Updated April 25, 2014

SNAP – Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests – are victims of pedophile priests founded in the USA but are now all over the world especially in Europe and Australia. They held a rooftop candlelight vigil in Rome just before Pope John Paul II canonization. We can’t wait to see their photos with St. Peter’s as backdrop. The group honors ‘the wounded, not the complicit’. Below are links to their ‘open letter’ to victims & whistleblowers urging their ‘persistence’ in the battle against the Vatican cover-ups of pedophile priests. Pope Francis is hiding the police most wanted Papal pedophile Nuncio from the Dominican Republic, read more here Abolition of Vatican Concordat in Dominican Republic and bring pedophile Papal Nuncio and other pedophile Polish priests to justice http://popecrimes.blogspot.ca/2013/10/abolish-vatican-concordat-in-dominican.html .

SNAP urges all who saw, suspected or suffered crimes & cover ups to ‘speak up now’ ! WE wish them best of luck as they fight the goliath Vatican Titanic Mammon Beast!

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, April 25, 2014

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

A commission investigating the sexual abuse scandal in the Dutch Catholic Church have confirmed that a second bishop is guilty of abusing children. We are grateful for this revelation, but worried this wasn’t revealed when it was first confirmed.

[Reuters]

Johannes Nienhaus, who died in 2000, was the auxiliary bishop from 1982 to 1999 in the archdiocese of Utrecht. The commission confirmed that Nienhaus abused minors two years ago, yet church officials only made it public this week.

We are disappointed that yet again Catholic officials are not open and honest about clergy sex crimes. They show time and time again their callousness and willingness to put their reputations before the safety of children and the healing of victims.

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CIUDAD DEL VATICANO
El Universal (Mexico)

El ex portavoz papal, Joaquín Navarro-Valls, recordó que la investigación canónica de las denuncias contra Maciel por abusos sexuales a menores comenzó todavía cuando Karol Wojtyla estaba vivo

Juan Pablo II fue informado de las pesquisas hechas por la Congregación para la Doctrina de la Fe contra el fundador de los Legionarios de Cristo, Marcial Maciel, iniciadas al final de su pontificado, reveló hoy Joaquín Navarro-Valls.

En un encuentro con periodistas, en la sala de prensa del Vaticano, el ex portavoz papal recordó que la investigación canónica de las denuncias contra Maciel por abusos sexuales a menores comenzó todavía cuando Karol Wojtyla estaba vivo.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic Culture

Joaquin Navarro-Valls, who served as director of the Vatican press office under Pope John Paul II, told reporters in Rome that the Polish Pontiff acted decisively once he realized the depth of the sex-abuse problem.

Countering criticism that John Paul II failed to discipline abusers, Navarro-Valls said: “The way of addressing the pedophilia crisis started very clearly in his pontificate.” He added that the investigation that eventually led to disciplinary action against the late Father Marcial Maciel began while John Paul II was Pope.

The former papal spokesman conceded that John Paul II did not immediately recognize the severity of the problem when reports first emerged. “I don’t think anyone did,” he said. But when reports from the US in 2002 revealed the scope of the problem, the Pope acted promptly, he recalled, summoning the leaders of the American hierarchy to Rome to discuss the problem.

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UNITED STATES
Fox News Latino

By Andrew O’Reilly
Published April 25, 2014

To some Latinos, he is the most beloved pontiff of the 20th century because he used his powerful pulpit to support immigrants and oppressed war-torn nations.

But others take a darker view, criticizing him for his failure to respond aggressively to one of the worst crisis in the recent history of the church – the sexual abuse scandal – and for failing to back grass roots movements in Latin America fighting repression.

The canonization on Sunday of Pope John Paul II, the magnetic Catholic leader who sparked impassioned feelings, has stirred an array of reactions among Catholics in the United States.

Elected to the papacy in 1978, Pope John Paul II was the longest serving leader of the Roman Catholic Church in the 20th century and earned a canonization quicker than any other pontiff, leading many in the church to ardently defend him against attacks by some scholars and critics.

“That is going to be the judgment of history looking at his papacy with a longer lens,” the Rev. David Garcia, the director of the Old Spanish Missions at the Archdiocese of San Antonio told Fox News Latino of the late pope’s legacy. “We’re still too close to this issue.”

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UNITED STATES
POPE FRANCIS the CON-Christ.

Paris Arrow

Updated April 25, 2014

The Opus Dei should go live in Mars and there live their “pure Catholic Church” fantasy life and pray their robotic midday Angelus and Rosaries and read their John Paul II mile long theology books and eat their fake Eucharist clone flesh-of-Christ with the Martians who for sure can clone God as well!

The Vatican Titanic is sunken deep in the ocean of moral bankruptcy and no matter how much Hollywood fantasy and fiction strategy the Opus Dei Beast PR Deceits Team employs, their new saint Satanas John Paul II will not be able to savage it.

The Opus Dei run out of Opus Dei popes, RATzinger was the worse actor. So they chose the Jesuit Pope Francis and with his podgy ass is doing the duck dance of wibble wobble as stupid robot Catholics follow his every papal fart and yell as Francis-Maniacs at St. Peter’s Square.

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NEDERLAND
Volkskrant

De inmiddels overleden bisschop Jan Niënhaus (Johannes Bernardus Niënhaus) heeft zeker vier jongens seksueel misbruikt. Dat was in de jaren 50 tot 70, toen hij werkte in Schalkwijk, Amersfoort en Apeldoorn.

Niënhaus werd geboren op 9 september 1929 in het Gelderse plaatsje Gendt. Hij ging als geestelijke aan de slag in 1955 en in de jaren 80 werd de geestelijke hulpbisschop bij het aartsbisdom Utrecht. Hij was daarmee de tweede man binnen het aartsbisdom. Hij was onder meer verantwoordelijk voor onderwijs, jongeren en vorming namens de bisschoppenconferentie.

Het schoolbestuur Mgr. Niënhausstichting wijzigde twee jaar geleden zijn naam naar Fidarda, vanwege klachten over het gedrag van de bisschop. Indertijd sprak de stichting in een biografie op de website over ‘de bezieling van de bisschop, aanstekelijk voor andere mensen omdat hij hen op een open, uitnodigende wijze tegemoet trad. Niënhaus was geen man van grote theologische woorden, maar van verhalen waaruit een grote evangelische wijsheid sprak. Hij sprak de taal van het hart. Daardoor wist hij mensen te raken, zoals hij zich op zijn beurt liet raken door het leven van andere mensen.”

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NETHERLANDS
Reuters

Fri Apr 25, 2014 2:08pm EDT

* Archdiocese says abuse commission confirmed complaints
* Amsterdam newspaper uncovered story
* Few bishops have been named as abusers themselves

By Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor

PARIS (Reuters) – The Dutch Catholic Church, in the second such embarrassing admission this month, announced on Friday that a bishop who died in 2000 had been found guilty of sexually abusing boys decades ago.

Utrecht archdiocese, where Johannes Nienhaus was auxiliary bishop from 1982 to 1999, said a commission investigating the scandals that have shaken the Catholic Church in many countries in the past decade had confirmed four complaints against him.

Earlier this month, Roermond diocese said its late bishop Johannes Gijsen had sexually abused two boys, also decades ago.

The Utrecht announcement came two days before the late Pope John Paul II, whom critics accuse of failing to investigate the clerical sex abuse scandal as evidence of it piled up in the later years of his pontificate, is to be declared a saint.

The Amsterdam daily De Volkskrant, which uncovered the story, said the abuse took place from the mid-1950s to the early 1970s when Nienhaus was chaplain and later rector of a junior seminary in Apeldoorn.

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WASHINGTON
The Columbian

By Paris Achen, Columbian courts reporter
Published: April 25, 2014

A Catholic priest appeared today in Clark County Superior Court on suspicion of luring a 14-year-old girl as she was walking home from school through Vancouver’s Image neighborhood.

Michael T. Patrick, 57, of Vancouver was arrested April 2 at Los Angeles International Airport when he re-entered the United States after a trip to Australia. He was then extradited to Clark County.

Judge Robert Lewis released Patrick today and ordered him to check into Clark County Jail’s supervised release program.

Patrick is scheduled to be arraigned May 6 on one charge of felony luring.

He is the pastor of the St. Wenceslaus Parish in Scappoose, Ore., but keeps a residence in Vancouver.

His home is in the Image neighborhood, according to Clark County property records.

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ROME
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Victims hold rooftop candlelight vigil in Rome – details of the second SNAP event in Rome earlier today, April 25 2014

Victims plead with Vatican officials – details of the first SNAP event in Rome earlier today, April 25 2014

–Here are some SNAP statements re JPII sainthood:

Open letter to victims, witnesses & whistleblowers on eve of JPII sainthood from SNAP (April 25, 2014)

Rome- Papal PR man desperately defends sainthood (April 25, 2014)

Papal sainthood encourages wrongdoing, says Austrian victim (April 25, 2014)

SNAP blasts beatification of Pope John Paul II (April 2011)

SNAP responds to Pope John Paul II’s canonization (October 2013)

Rome- Victims upset about papal sainthood (March 2014)

NOTE – UPCOMING SNAP EVENT IN EUROPE

A few SNAP members from several nations will be in Geneva from April 30 through May 7 for a hearing on May 5 and 6 before the United Nations Committee Against Torture, which will consider whether Vatican officials are violating or complying with an international treaty regarding torture.

[Center for Constitutional Rights]

[SNAP]

[Center for Constitutional Rights]

For details about the two Rome events, please contact:

–SNAP staff: Barbara Blaine (in Rome), European cell +39 366 1160224, U.S. cell +1 312 399 4747, Rome hotel- +39 06 598591; SNAPblaine@gmail.com, Miguel Hurtado (in Rome) +44 7787 638245, Nicky Davis (in Rome) European cell +39 388 9068750, nicky@nickydavis.com.au, David Clohessy (in Missouri) +1 314 645 5915 home, +1 314 566 9790 cell, SNAPclohessy@aol.com or Barbara Dorris (in Missouri) +1 314 503 0003 cell, SNAPdorris@gmail.com or the SNAP office in Chicago at +1 312 455 1499, chicagoffice@snapnetwork.org or SNAPadmin@snapnetwork.org

There are also dozens of local SNAP volunteer leaders on our website.

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ARIZONA
Catholic Sun

Promise to protect. Pledge to heal.

The first statement serves as the foundation for the Church’s efforts in educating the community in its mission to prevent child abuse. The second underscores the work being done to reach out to survivors of abuse and to alleviate their pain.

The Diocese of Phoenix’s Safe Environment Training Office and the Office of Child and Youth Protection work tirelessly to meet these commitments.

“I believe it’s everybody’s responsibility to be the eyes and ears of the community and be a part of our ‘Catholic block watch’,” said Melanie Takinen, director of Safe Environment Training for the Phoenix Diocese.

Prevention efforts locally involved training over 30,000 minors during the last academic year. Nearly 19,500 volunteers and another 3,061 priests, deacons, teachers and other employees also completed training.

Over the past decade, the Office of Child and Youth Protection has assisted more than 200 individuals and families who have been directly affected by sexual abuse, whether the abuse took place in the Diocese of Phoenix or not, according to a report published in 2012 to mark the 10th anniversary of the “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People,” a landmark document established by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2002 for addressing allegations of sexual abuse of minors by those in the Church.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

Secret report handed to Christian Brothers bosses in Rome reveals ‘sex underworld’ in some Australian orphanages

JANET FIFE-YEOMANS THE DAILY TELEGRAPH APRIL 26, 2014

A SECRET report handed to Christian Brothers bosses in Rome ­revealed a “sex underworld” in some of the order’s Australian ­orphanages, with some monks raping up to 50 boys each.

The report, prepared in the early 1990s by the order’s official historian, contained damning evidence the order’s hierarchy in Australia knew decades earlier about the widespread abuse, but hid it.

“As long as outsiders do not ­become aware, we may hope for better times after the war,” the principal of the Christian Brothers in Western Australia, Brother PA Conlon, wrote in 1941, according to the report.

In 1935, Brother Conlon had written to another brother about the possibility of “scandals”.

The report, which has never been made public in full, has been ­obtained by the child sex abuse royal commission. The commission is sitting in Perth next week to investigate the handling of abuse by the Christian Brothers at its four notorious ­orphanages in Western Australia.

Despite knowing of the abuse, which stretched back at least to 1920, the order negotiated with Catholic rescue societies in the UK and Malta for thousands of child ­migrants to be shipped to Australia.

Among the homes were Castledare, St Vincent’s, St Mary’s Agricultural School and Bindoon Farm School, all which will be investigated by the royal commission.

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UNITED STATES
AlterNet

April 15, 2014 |

My step-father began having problems getting erections when I was a senior in high school. How did I find out about this? He told me that he was using me to get an erection so that he could have sex with my mother.

We were very religious people. We attended a Fundamentalist Baptist Church so sexually conservative I was not even allowed to wear jeans. But still, he would sit me down and discuss what he had been thinking on those nights when he pressed my body against his and stroked my hair, the curve of my hip and the area between my collar bone and breasts until his penis was hard against my thigh.

In those incredibly awkward and galling conversations he reassured me repeatedly that he would never do anything to compromise my virginity. Using the tone of a person explaining something perfectly logical that should be obvious to anyone with the IQ of a mollusk, he explained that my mother had gained weight and it was killing his boners. I was young, slender and attractive and he saw nothing terribly wrong with using my body to kick-start the old engine and thoughts of me to keep it humming along.

What baffled me then but makes perfect sense to me now is why he thought that I would be reassured by his repeated promises that he would not cross the arbitrary line of virginity. He had no real plans to stop using me as his fluffer. But my virginity, which he had pledged to protect and to keep safe for my future husband, was off-limits. As time went by and his fluff-sessions became more lurid, I feared the line of technical virginity would be like the Maginot Line, more an illusion of safety than an actual defense.

But he kept his promise. And now I understand why. The emphasis placed on virginity by the Purity Culture allowed my step-father to minimize his non-vaginal sexual abuse of my body.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Service

By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The man who served as Blessed John Paul II’s spokesman and media adviser told reporters that the late pope did not initially understand the gravity of the clerical sexual abuse crisis, but once he did he immediately took strong steps to deal with it.

Joaquin Navarro-Valls, who served as papal spokesman into the first months of Pope Benedict XVI’s papacy, also said the church’s canonical process against Father Marcial Maciel Degollado, founder of the Legionaries of Christ, began under Pope John Paul, but was not concluded until after his death, so the late pope could not have known for sure the allegations were true.

Meeting reporters at the Vatican April 25, both Navarro-Valls and George Weigel, a biographer of Pope John Paul, were asked about the pope’s knowledge of and reaction to the clerical sexual abuse crisis.

Navarro-Valls told reporters that when the abuse crisis became public, “I don’t think he understood” how serious it was, “but I don’t think anyone did.”

Calling clerical sexual abuse a “cancer,” Navarro-Valls said it became known publicly “in a geographically limited area, the United States, and with isolated cases,” many of which were reported around 2000, but “had taken place 20 or 30 years earlier.”

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VATICAN CITY
Daily Herald

By Associated Press

VATICAN CITY — Pope John Paul II’s biographer and longtime spokesman sought Friday to defend his record on sex abuse against evidence that he didn’t grasp the scale of the scandal until very late in his papacy.

John Paul’s record and his support for the founder of the Legion of Christ religious order, a notorious pedophile, have come under fresh scrutiny in the run-up to the pontiff’s canonization Sunday, the fastest in modern times.

Spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls and official biographer George Weigel pointed to John Paul’s decision in April 2002 — the year the scandal exploded publicly in the U.S. — to summon U.S. cardinals to Rome as evidence he acted decisively once he learned about the problem.

“I think there was an information gap between the United States and the Holy See in the first months of 2002 so that the pope was not living this crisis in real time as we were in the USA,” Weigel told a Vatican news conference. “Once he became fully informed in April of that year, he acted decisively to deal with these problems.”

Yet U.S. bishops had been petitioning the Holy See for faster ways to defrock pedophile priests since the late 1980s. Then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger had asked the Vatican legal office for ways to accelerate the process for the universal church in 1988 because he too was seeing cases piling up.

Ratzinger, who for a quarter century met regularly with John Paul as his chief doctrine czar, finally wrested control of all abuse cases in 2001, making sure his office reviewed them individually to tell bishops how to proceed.

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WASHINGTON/OREGON
KOIN

VANCOUVER, Wash. (KOIN 6) – An Oregon priest accused of trying to lure a girl into his car last month is expected to be in court for the first time Friday.

Father Michael Patrick was arrested April 12 and charged with luring based on a March 10 incident.

Patrick is scheduled to be in Clark County Court at 9 a.m.

Vancouver investigators say the Scappoose priest was driving beside a teenage girl while repeatedly asking to give her a ride.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

AAP

EHSSAN VEISZADEH
April 25, 2014

Abuse victims have slammed moves to make John Paul II a saint, accusing him of covering up sex crimes perpetrated by clergy from the Catholic Church for decades.

The late pontiff will on Sunday be canonised at a historic Vatican ceremony, with some 800,000 pilgrims expected in Rome.

But Sydney resident Nicky Davis, who was abused over a six-year period from the age of 12, says honouring John Paul II with the sainthood would be totally inappropriate.

Ms Davis is in Rome with other advocates from the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) to protest against the canonisation.

“How can you call a man a saint who didn’t take any action – and he had 27 years to do it,” she told AAP on Friday.

“He had the most powerful position in the world and he still didn’t act, with knowledge that large numbers of children were being raped by his priests.”

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

Joshua J. McElwee | Apr. 25, 2014

The select group of eight cardinals advising Pope Francis on reforming the governance of the Catholic church are set to meet with him for the fourth time, following the canonization ceremonies for Popes John XXIII and John Paul II.

While it remains unknown just what the prelates are expecting to discuss in their April 28-30 meeting, the group has previously spent significant time studying the Vatican’s finances.

Following their last meeting, held in February, Francis announced a sweeping reorganization of the church’s financial structures — creating a new central office for financial matters called the Secretariat for the Economy. Sydney Cardinal George Pell, a member of the Council of Cardinals, was appointed to lead the office.

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ROME
The Tablet (UK)

25 April 2014 14:03 by James Macintyre

Pope John Paul II’s handling of clerical sexual abuse continued to be a cause of controversy in Rome just 48 hours before his canonisation was due to take place.

In response to a question on Pope John Paul II’s handling of the abuse question at a Vatican briefing on Friday, George Weigel, the late Pope’s biographer, stressed that John Paul II “was a great reformer of the Catholic priesthood” which was “in its worst condition since the sixteenth century.”

He admitted there had been an “information gap” between the United States and the Holy See in 2002 so that the Pope was “living this crisis in real time as we were in the U.S.”

Weigel added: “But once he became fully informed in April of that year, he acted decisively to deal with those problems,” he said.

Joaquin Navarro-Valls, Vatican spokesman during the time of Pope John Paul II, said at first the Polish Pope did not understand the “cancer” of clerical sexual abuse.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, April 25, 2014

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

At this late stage, it’s pathetic that Pope John Paul II’s longtime spokesman still tries to defend his horrific record on sexual violence against kids and church cover ups of predators.

As best we can tell, in 27 years as pope, he took one step: in 2002, he met with a few U.S. cardinals about it. What came out of that event? A photo op for the church hierarchy that gave the misleading impression that things were changing.

US prelates were already drafting a first-ever national abuse policy before sitting down with John Paul. And once it was finalized, the pope and his staff severely weakened an already weak policy.

Reasonable people can speculate forever on why John Paul did virtually nothing about this crisis. But no reasonable person can cite even one practical step he took to prevent, slow, stop or expose it.

Some say, in the words of the Associated Press, that “he grasped the scale of the scandal only late in his papacy.” So? Even late in his tenure, John Paul took no effective steps whatsoever to protect one child, expose one predator, punish one bishop or deter one cover up.

Spokesman Joaquin Navarro Valls claims (again according to the AP ) that “John Paul found it difficult to accept that priests might abuse children because of the ‘purity of his thought.'” That’s both insulting and laughable.

One does not rise to the very top of the world’s oldest, largest and most powerful monarchy by being naive. By all accounts, John Paul was a very shrewd man. He was not ignorant about this scandal.

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UNITED STATES
Crusade Against Clergy Abuse

Rev. Thomas Doyle, J.C.D., C.A.D.C.

1. Sexual abuse by Catholic clergy became the subject of widespread publicly in 1984 with the celebrated case of Father Gilbert Gauthe in Lafayette, Louisiana. This led to numerous revelations of similar cases of abuse around the United States and in other countries as well. At the outset of the present era the crisis was erroneously referred to as a “pedophilia problem.” Experience has shown that only 20% of clergy perpetrators are true pedophiles while the majority are classified as ephebophiles since their victims are younger adolescents. The publicity generated from the abuse cases involving minor victims has also provoked revelations of widespread clergy sexual abuse of vulnerable adults, mostly women. In any event, the age and gender of the victim are irrelevant since the sexual encounter constitutes abusive behavior by a trusted clergyman perpetrated on one with less emotional strength and spiritual power than the priest and one who is in a vulnerable position from which he or she cannot mount an adequate defense.

2. Although clergy sexual abuse has been well documented from the earliest years of the Catholic Church the present era is unique. The victims of clergy abuse had first turned to the Church authorities for help, expecting that the Church’s legal system, known as Canon Law, would provide processes whereby victims would be justly treated and perpetrators properly dealt with and prevented from a continued ministry. Instead, Church officials routinely responded to victims by intimidating them in hopes of obtaining their silence. They also manipulated, stonewalled, deceived and threatened victims. Beginning in 1985, frustrated victims of clergy sexual abuse began to approach the civil courts for relief when the legal system of their own church failed to act. Thus, for the first time in Church history the victims of the clergy turned to the secular legal system for relief. While it is historically true that the civil courts had seen clergy sex cases prior to 1984 , there were virtually no instances where the Catholic laity had sued a bishop for civil damages resulting from clergy sex abuse. As the cases rapidly increased in courts throughout the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom and Ireland, the defendant dioceses and religious orders mounted a variety of defenses. Among these has been the recurring claim that this was a phenomenon new to the late 20th century. Furthermore many claimed that they had no way of predicting that clergy would sexually abuse since such an outbreak had never happened before. A variation on this claim sought to shift blame to the medical community, claiming that psychiatrists and psychologists admitted they knew little of pedophilia and related sexual disorders and therefore were not able to properly diagnose the disorder or to provide competent prognoses for future behavior.

3. The Catholic Church was officially recognized by Emperor Constantine in the early 4th century. With this recognition the religious leaders, soon to be known as the “clergy” gradually evolved into a separate, privileged class, the most exalted members of which were the bishops. Although celibacy did not become a universally mandated state for clerics of the western Church until the 12th century (2nd Lateran Council, 1139) various church leaders began to advocate it by the 4th century. The earliest recorded church legislation is from the council of Elvira (Spain, 306 AD). Half of the canons passed dealt with sexual behavior of one kind or another and included penalties assessed for clerics who committed adultery or fornication. Though it did not make specific mention of homosexual activities by the clergy, this early Council reflected the church’s official attitude toward same-sex relationships: men who had sex with young boys were deprived of communion even on their deathbed.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

Joshua J. McElwee | Apr. 25, 2014

VATICAN CITY
Days before Pope John Paul II will be made a saint in an unprecedented ceremony attended by hundreds of thousands, focus at the Vatican on Friday morning remained on his record in handling the clergy sexual abuse crisis, specifically the serial abuser Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado.

Responding to questions at a briefing on John Paul II’s time leading the Catholic church from 1978 to 2005, former Vatican spokesman Joaquín Navarro-Valls said the pope did not immediately understand the gravity of the sexual abuse crisis.

“I don’t think Pope John Paul understood” the “cancer” of clergy sexual abuse immediately, said Navarro-Valls, adding: “I don’t think anyone did.”

But, the former spokesman said, once John Paul II became aware of the scope of the accusations being made against clergy, especially around the time of reporting on the Boston archdiocese in 2002, he “immediately” began taking action.

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ROME
Telegraph (UK)

Victims of clerical sexual abuse campaign against canonisation of Pope John Paul II

By Nick Squires, Rome 25 Apr 2014

Pope John Paul II should not be made a saint this weekend because of his abject failure to bring to justice sexually abusive priests and the bishops who covered up their crimes, victims of clerical sex abuse said today.

The late Polish pontiff could have prevented “thousands” of children from being raped by pedophile priests but instead chose to ignore the scandal in the interests of protecting the image of the Catholic Church, victims from three continents said on the eve of his canonization.

Up to a million Catholic faithful from around the world are expected to pour into St Peter’s Square on Sunday to see Pope Francis canonize not only Pope John Paul II but also Pope John XXIII, an Italian pontiff who reigned in the 1960s.

But campaigners say that John Paul’s refusal to tackle the sex abuse crisis that exploded during his papacy means he is not worthy of sainthood.

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MICHIGAN
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release on Friday, April 25, 2014

For more info: Melanie Sakoda ( 925-708-6175 cell, melanie.sakdoa@gmail.com ), Cappy Larson ( cappy@rlarson.com ) David Clohessy ( 314-566-9790, SNAPclohessy@aol.com )

Church officials oust deacon about abuse
But they keep allegations secret for months
Victims group blast “irresponsible behavior”

A support group for clergy sex abuse victims has written again to a Michigan archbishop in response to his letter about a registered sex offender who had been serving as a subdeacon. They want him to help them make sure the wider community knows about the man’s record and the possible danger that he poses and they also want to know why abuse reports were not immediately reported to law enforcement.

Members of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, sent a letter earlier today to Archbishop Nathaniel Popp (517-522-4800), the leader of the Romanian Episcopate of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA). They thanked him for responding to their letter asking if Robert A. Mitchell was still serving as a subdeacon. The group was relieved to know that he had been removed and that steps were taken to ensure that no other convicted child molester will be given a leadership role in OCA.

However they express concern that the archbishop has not used every avenue available to warn the community about this dangerous predator. The group reported receiving a disturbing email from Father Moses Berry stating that officials in Michigan kept secret the reason Mitchell was no longer active in the Church.

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UNITED STATES
National Survivor Advocates Coalition

COMMENTARY

We have questions for the participants, the faithful, and the observers of Sunday’s double hitter canonization scheduled to elevate to sainthood Pope John Paul II and Pope John XXIII.

Here they are:

The Vatican says there are no documents that show Pope John Paul II was involved in the case of the Legion of Christ founder Father Marciel Maciel In the two decades plus of a standing Saturday appointment with Pope John Paul II, why didn’t Pope Benedict XVI when he was Prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith tell Pope John Paul:

a) about Maciel?

b) about the myriad cases of sexual abuse funneling into the Congregation?

1. Will some one lean over, shout out, text him, email him and/or hold up a sign at the ceremony and ask him?

2. Why did Pope John Paul’s longtime aide Cardinal Stanislaus Dziwisz who now talks openly about the “rumors going around” about Maciel tell Pope John Paul?

3. Will some one lean over, shout out, text him, email him and/or hold up a sign at the ceremony and ask him?

4. Why didn’t the Prefect of the Congregation for Religious (congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life after a name change) Archbishop Piergiorgio Silvano Nesti tell him? The courageous former Legionnaires, including Juan Vaca, sent their filing to the Congregation in 1999 when Nesti was the Prefect. Why didn’t subsequent Prefects tell him? Does any one believe that Prefects don’t go through previous Prefects files? Especially the juicy ones?

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UNITED STATES
MilleLacs Messenger

Posted: Friday, April 25, 2014
by Eunice Boeringa

Sexual abuse in churches is a threat that many of us would like to ignore. Sexual abuse is upsetting enough, but the thought that it occurs in the church is horrifying. As I read the recent Messenger article about the Crosiers and their dealing with sexual abuse I was saddened for all the men who have served their community with dedication and love. Since sexual abuse in the church hit the headlines, both Catholics and Protestants have struggled with this issue.

It seems to me there are three areas which need to be addressed. First of all, when abuse has occurred, there must be an open acknowledgement of the crime and apologies must be made. No one can blame everyone in an organization for the sexual misconduct of a particular member of the organization. What can be expected is the organization will take sexual abuse seriously and will handle complaints in an honest and open manner. Secrecy and silence are tools of perpetrators. Frank and open discussion of the problem and how to eliminate it is needed. The Crosiers have made a valiant effort to be forthcoming about the problem. Their statement of apology should help to bring some measure of healing to the victims of abuse and reassurance to those who look to them for spiritual leadership.

Second, steps must be taken to protect children from predators. It was good to read the Crosiers have instituted reporting policies and prevention policies. These steps should be implemented by everyone who works with children. Police background checks are essential for any organization. Policies that forbid one-on-one contact with children are also important. Windows on doors or open doors help to eliminate the possibility of secrecy. Parents should insist that such policies be implemented. But apologies and new protective policies are limited in their ability to bring healing.

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VATICAN CITY
Fox News

Published April 25, 2014
Associated Press

VATICAN CITY – Pope John Paul II’s biographer and longtime spokesman are trying to defend his record on sex abuse against evidence that he grasped the scale of the scandal only late in his papacy.

They argue that John Paul’s decision in 2002 — 14 years after his election as pontiff — to summon U.S. cardinals to Rome shows he acted decisively once he learned about the problem.

Yet U.S. bishops had petitioned the Holy See for faster ways to defrock pedophile priests since the late 1980s. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — later Pope Benedict XVI — asked the Vatican legal office for similar permissions to accelerate the process in 1988.

Spokesman Joaquin Navarro Valls said John Paul found it difficult to accept that priests might abuse children because of the “purity of his thought.”

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AUSTRALIA
lewisblayse.net

Hi,

As I said in yesterday’s post, for me, this is a time for reflection, regrouping, and thinking for me. As well as for sorting out a number of pressing problems.

Something I have wanted to do for years but haven’t, however, is to get in touch with more people whose parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, spouses, or other relatives have been through the Homes or other forms of institutional ‘care’ in Australia. Largely, as a way of trying to understand things better.

From my searches, it doesn’t look like a group exists solely for kids / grandkids / etc. of institutional ‘care’ survivors to meet and talk with each other. I feel that we have much that we could do to support each other, learn from each other, and help arrive at our own personal goals in relation to our loved ones, whatever these goals may be. I’ve recently joined a number of groups of Forgotten Australians and similar groups on facebook and elsewhere and have been touched by being accepted into these groups. It’s helpful to listen to what people have to say about where things are at. I strongly encourage people who want to learn more about the issues to ask to join such groups. Just as I encourage people to undertake their own research: there is a wealth of information on the Internet nowadays.

Since my father died, I’ve been approached by quite a few people looking to find information about their formerly institutionalised parents, when they’ve passed away. Some people have also approached me to ask about what support services are available to help them care for their parents who are still living. I’ve generally pointed people towards the various support organisations that now exist and of which I’m aware. Mostly, it seems people are searching for historical records and wanting to piece together missing elements in the stories of their families’ lives. Underlying this, however, I suspect there are many who are searching for broader answers to questions they may have about why things happened the way they did.

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MINNESOTA
MinnPost

By Brian Lambert | 04/24/14

There appears to be a serious crack in the clerical fraternity … . Madeleine Baran of MPR reports, “[A] longtime official for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis disputed Archbishop John Nienstedt’s sworn testimony on the clergy abuse scandal. Nienstedt had testified April 2 that the Rev. Kevin McDonough told him not to write down sensitive information about abusive priests because the information could become public in a lawsuit. Nienstedt also said McDonough provided vague information on past cases and led him to believe that the archdiocese was safe for children. … ‘He and I would have never been in a position for much casual conversation,’ McDonough said. ‘Archbishop Nienstedt managed largely by memo.’”

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Article by: JEAN HOPFENSPERGER and CHAO XIONG , Star Tribune Updated: April 24, 2014

Former vicar general testified that he often destroyed notes from his meetings on priests’ sex misconduct.

The point person on clergy sex abuse for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis acknowledged that church practice allowed priests who sexually abused children to remain in the priesthood, usually in jobs where they would be less likely to have contact with children.

In a court-ordered deposition made public Thursday, the Rev. Kevin McDonough also said priests suspected of abusing children were not automatically reported to police, as required by law.

McDonough’s 320 pages of testimony provided new insights into the church’s response to child sex abuse allegations and capped a remarkable week of legal wrangling that included the release of the deposition of Archbishop John Nienstedt.

McDonough served as the second-highest-ranking local official in the Catholic Church for nearly two decades and under two archbishops. Under Nienstedt, he became the “delegate for safe environment,” overseeing child abuse prevention efforts until stepping down last year, shortly before news reports named him as a key decisionmaker in several abuse cases.

In his nearly seven-hour deposition, taken April 6, McDonough explained how the church had handled sex abusers over the years.

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INDIA
UCA News

ucanews.com reporter, Thiruvananthapuram
India
April 25, 2014

Police in Kerala are looking for a 44-year-old Catholic priest who is accused of raping a 10-year-old girl three times.

The girl’s parents on Thursday filed a complaint against Father Raju Kokken of St. Paul’s Parish in Kerala. According to the complaint, the victim was sexually assaulted on April 8, 11 and 24.

The Thrissur district police charged the priest with rape. They also charged him under the information and technology act for digitally recording the sexual act.

City police commissioner P. Prakash told ucanews.com that police have started a manhunt for the priest, who went missing after the victim lodged the complaint.

Police have recorded the victim’s statement in which she alleged that the priest molested her while she was changing into a dress the priest purchased for the girl’s first Communion. The priest also recorded the sexual act on a mobile phone, police said.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

Pope Francis has been described as one who nods agreeably to others he meets with, then does whatever he wants regardless of others’ viewpoints— authoritarian, yes, purposeful, surely, but fallible also. What remains to be seen is whether he is also courageous. The key moral challenge Francis faces as pope is to restore Catholics’ trust in leaders who too often risked children inexcusably for years. If a pope cannot be trusted to protect children and to demand that his bishops be held accountable for failing to do so , what can he be trusted with?

Ominously, Francis has generally avoided this challenge for over a year. He now has recently failed to meet it on several occasions; most noticeably by unnecessarily jamming through the sainthood of Popes John XXIII and John Paul II. Both these popes risked children’s safety continually and shamefully. Francis could have indicated his seriousness about holding bishops accountable by holding these two popes accountable to a thorough and independent review of their record. But instead he rushed to their sainthood on a superficial and biased investigation by papal subordinates. Why?

John XXIII apparently steered 2,000+ bishops at the Second Vatican Council away from addressing the child abuse scandal in the 1960′s. John Paul II and Benedict XVI steered them away from the scandal from the 1970′s until last year. Francis seemingly continues this cover-up and now honors popes who earlier dishonored children. Again why?

Stark examples of the cover-up that continues under Pope Francis are well indicated by two recent video depositions worlds apart—Cardinal Pell in Australia, here

[ABC News]

and former Vicar General of the Minneapolis Archdiocese (USA), Fr. Kevin McDonough, here

[Minnesota Public Radio]

Cardinal Pell’s full testimony disclosed a pathetic, if not cruel, example of approaching survivors of priest child abusers as legal claimants to be crushed by the Cardinal’s lawyers. Yet, Francis just promoted him to the No. 3 at the Vatican.

Fr. McDonough, brother of President Obama’s Chief of Staff, Denis McDonough, has refused to meet to discuss abuse cases he oversaw with police or even with his Archbishop’s own task force, yet he continues to serve as a Catholic pastor in good standing. Francis’ message to bishops in Australia and the USA is the same as the message being sent worldwide with these two canonizations—protecting suspected predator priests is not viewed negatively by the Vatican and the hierarchy will not be held accountable.

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WIEN (NY)
Initiative Gegen Kirchen-Privilegien

[Summary: The United Nations report that criticized the Vatican’s response to child sexual abuse in the Catholic church is now available in German.]

(Wien, NY, 24.4.14, PUR) Der UN-Bericht vom vergangenen Jänner ist nun erstmals auf deutsch verfügbar, und wurde von den Vereinten Nationen auch freigegeben. Der Bericht kritisiert mit großer Schärfe den Umgang des Vatikans mit Kinderrechten, insbesondere mit sexuellem Missbrauch durch Priester. Die UNO mahnt Papst Franziskus, eine Kommission zur Prüfung der Vorwürfe sexueller Gewalt zu schaffen. Anlass des Berichts war die Frage, ob der Vatikan die von ihm ratifizierte UN-Kinderrechtskonvention auch einhalte.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Badische Zeitung

[Summary: Matthias Katsch, spokesman for the Round Table, said he is glad the bishops are attempting a new study of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church but disagrees with the way the study has been prepared.]

FREIBURG. Die katholische Kirche wagt erneut den Versuch, Missbrauchsfälle innerhalb der Kirche wissenschaftlich aufzuarbeiten. Sebastian Kaiser sprach mit Matthias Katsch, Sprecher der Betroffenen-Initiative Eckiger Tisch, über die neue Studie, Missbrauchsfälle in der katholischen Kirche und die Entschädigung von Opfern.

BZ: Herr Katsch, wie erfolgversprechend ist der nunmehr zweite Versuch der katholischen Kirche, die Missbrauchsfälle in ihren Reihen wissenschaftlich aufzuarbeiten?

Katsch: Ich versuche, das alles differenziert zu sehen. Auf der einen Seite ist es gut, dass die Kirche diesen Versuch unternimmt und nach dem ersten Rückschlag nun einen weiteren Versuch wagt. Andererseits glaube ich, dass die Art und Weise, wie man das vorbereitet hat, Kritik verdient. Um es klar zu sagen: Die Kirche hat sich ein Jahr lang ins stille Kämmerlein zurückgezogen und die Betroffenen wieder einmal nicht miteinbezogen.

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ROME
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Friday, April 25, 2014

Statement by SNAP leader David D’Bonnabel of Austria

We are leaders in an international support group called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. We are from the U.K., Austria, Australia and the U.S.

Our mission and our calling is to protect the vulnerable, heal the wounded, expose the truth and deter future sexual violence in institutions and the cover up of that violence.

We are in Rome now, specifically, to

–denounce Vatican officials for making Pope John Paul II a saint,
–beg Pope Francis and other church supervisors to stop honoring those who commit and conceal child sex crimes,
–urge the Catholic hierarchy to teach its flock and staff how to act properly when clergy sex abuse reports surface, and
–offer hope and reassurance to the millions of people – victim witnesses, whistleblowers, parishioners and church employees – who feel hurt, betrayed, depressed and hopeless because callous Catholic officials continue to praise and promote those who conceal horrific clergy sex crimes.

Our basic message can be summed up in four words: Rewarding wrongdoing encourages wrongdoing.

That is what is happening now – in Rome and across the world. And that is what has happened in the church for ages – complicit and corrupt bishops, cardinals, priests, nuns, brothers and other clerics who deny, ignore, minimize and enable cruel sexual violence against innocent children and vulnerable adults are elevated, not expunged, from their positions of power and prestige.

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UNITED STATES
What They Knew

The Saint and the Sinner

We have given Francis over a year… but with a Jesuit Pope what can you expect?

It’s a busy time at the Vatican, with many patrons clamoring to ride the latest public relations wave of sainthood…

Patron derives from the Latin patronus, or one who gives benefits to his clients. What greater benefit could there be than to overpower your victims with the pomp, splendor and majesty of Rome, and in particular the Vatican? Why not impress upon the young victim your power, both earthly and empyreal, by taking him to meet the Pope, the Vicar of Christ? Surely these men can control your future in this world and the next? But one has to question the wisdom of allowing a known child sex abuser a Papal audience, allowing him to travel with you across continents and celebrating with you the most holy of sacraments. And would a Pope who allowed all of this possess the exceptional degree of holiness sufficient to be recognized as a saint?

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

British child migrants who suffered sexual abuse at Christian Brothers institutions in Western Australia are planning a silent vigil outside hearings for the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Perth next week.

Thousands of children – some aged only three – were from 1947 shipped to Australia from Britain, often without their parents’ knowledge or consent.

They were sent to institutions that survivors have described as being more like concentration camps than children’s homes.

While inspections by a British government committee blacklisted many of the institutions in 1956, children continued to be deported until 1970.

The fortnight of hearings will be the first time the British abuse survivors, who were placed at the Bindoon, Castledare, Clontarf and Tardun orphanages, will give public testimony to the royal commission.

Norman Johnston, sent to Clontarf in 1950 at age eight, said he hoped the investigation provided answers as to how the children were taken from their beds and trafficked to Australia and why they were exposed to such cruel treatment once here.

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ROME
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Victims hold rooftop candlelight vigil in Rome
Event is just before Pope John Paul II is named a saint
With St. Peter’s as backdrop, group honors ‘the wounded, not the complicit’
They’ll also read an ‘open letter’ to victims & whistleblowers urging ‘persistence
Group urges all who saw, suspected or suffered crimes & cover ups to ‘speak up now’

WHAT
Holding candles, signs and childhood photos, clergy sex abuse victims from four or five countries will

stand in a small rooftop vigil with St. Peter’s Basilica in the background. They will also read aloud an open letter – in French, German, Spanish and English – to victims, witnesses, and whistleblowers, urging them to

– keep speaking up and reporting crimes, even though complicit Catholic officials (including Pope John Paul II) keep getting honored and promoted,
– report every single incident or suspicion of clergy sex crimes and cover ups to secular officials, not church officials, and
– boldly but compassionately keep reaching out and offering help to every single person who they know of or fear was sexually assaulted by clergy.

They will especially remember and honor dozens of victims of the world’s most notorious predator priest – Fr. Marcial Maciel – whose extensive crimes and misdeeds were ignored and hidden during Pope John Paul’s long papacy.

WHEN
Friday, April 25 from 8 p.m.-10 p. m. (Rome time/Central European time)

WHERE
On the rooftop of the Hotel Orange (4-5 stories up), Via Crescenzio, 86, 00193 Roma, Italy; +39 06 686 8969 (near the Vatican)

WHO
Four-five clergy sex abuse victims from Spain, Austria, Australia, and the U.S. who are leaders in an international support group called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAPnetwork.org)

WHY
SNAP leaders worry about clergy sex abuse victims feeling disheartened and current and former Catholics feeling betrayed by what they call the “irresponsible and hurtful” canonization of Pope John Paul II and the continued practice of top church officials ignoring or rewarding those who conceal child sex offenses.

The victims will describe their own experiences of healing themselves, exposing predators, protecting kids and achieving justice, to offer hope to others who have been victimized and hurt but are still struggling in shame, silence, self-blame and hopelessness. (A copy of their ‘open letter’ will be posted late Friday afternoon, Rome time, on the SNAP website.)

SNAP believes that the pontiff “must have known” about the multiple sexual abuse allegations against Legionaries of Christ founder Fr Marcial Maciel Degollado. Instead of disciplining or defrocking Fr. Maciel, Pope John Paul II held a highly publicized special ceremony celebrating the anniversary of Maciel’s ordination.

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.