ABUSE TRACKER

UNITED STATES
AFP

WASHINGTON — A US man who sued the Vatican after years of alleged sexual abuse at the hands of a Roman Catholic priest plans to appeal a court ruling dismissing the case, his attorney said Tuesday.

The lawsuit in the western US city of Portland, Oregon was the first in a priest abuse case to directly name the Vatican as a defendant.

The plaintiff alleged that while he was a teenager, the priest raped him repeatedly — abuse he said went on for a decade — and that the Catholic church bears ultimate responsibility for those crimes.

But the alleged victim’s attorney Jeff Anderson told AFP in a telephone interview that the judge dismissed the case Monday, ruling that the Vatican did not employ the cleric.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Vatican Insider

The archdiocese of Chicago broke the news that Cardinal George has cancer and said his doctors will work out a plan of treatment with him

Gerard O’Connell
Rome

Cardinal Francis George has cancer, for the second time. He is planning a course of medical treatment after doctors found cancerous cells in his kidney and liver, the Archdiocese of Chicago announced last Friday.

A brief statement released by the archdiocese on August 17 said the cardinal had learned the results of the tests on that same day following an examination two days earlier at the city’s Loyola University Medical Center.

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PORTLAND (OR)
Vatican Insider

The U.S. District Court in Portland clears the Vatican of any responsibility for a priest who was pronounced guilty of acts of paedophilia during the 1960s

ANDREA TORNIELLI
Vatican City

On Monday, 20 August in Portland (Oregon), U.S. District Court judge, Michael Mosman, ruled that the Holy See “cannot be considered an employer” of members of the clergy and consequently cannot be held responsible in civil proceedings for sexual abuse committed by priests. Therefore each case should be judged individually and being a priest does not automatically mean the person in question should be treated in the same way as a company employee. In this specific case, the judge ruled that there was a total absence of any “employment relationship” between the Holy See and the priest who committed the abuse.

Legal proceedings ended with a “no jurisdiction” ruling. Attorney Jeff Anderson, who represents a number of sexual abuse victims in the United States, has nevertheless announced that there will be an appeal which the Holy See’s lawyer, Jeffrey Lena, described as “very hard to win”.

The case reached court ten years ago, in 2002, when the Holy See was charged with responsibility for the acts of Fr. Andrew Ronan, a priest belonging to the Servite Order (OSM), who in 1965 abused a 17-year-old boy. Archive documents revealed that Fr. Ronan abused other children in Chicago and Benburg, Ireland over a period of 15 years but that these episodes were kept secret by the Order and that the Holy See had been informed of all this only when Ronan asked to be defrocked. Ronan’s superiors had decided to transfer him – first from Benburg to Chicago and then from there to Portland – without notifying either the Order’s local representative or the Bishop of Portland of what had happened previously.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Barbara Dorris on August 20, 2012

Just because Bishop Finn claims he didn’t see all this evidence, it’s supposed to be suppressed?

If Bishop Finn didn’t personally see all this proof, we suspect that’s because he told his staff he wanted ‘distance’ from child sex crimes and clergy sexual misdeeds. And we strongly suspect he was told about almost all of this evidence, but chose to not look at some of it.

Every single piece of evidence that’s kept out of court will make it harder to convict Bishop Finn. We hope prosecutors prevail and Finn loses on these motions.

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OREGON
Kipa

Portland, 21.8.12 (Kipa) Der Vatikan hat in den USA einen gerichtlichen Sieg in der Frage der Haftung für pädophile Priester errungen. Nach dem Urteil eines Distriktgerichts in Portland ist der Heilige Stuhl nicht als Arbeitgeber aller katholischer Geistlicher anzusehen. Somit könne er bei Sexualstraftaten von Klerikern nicht mit Entschädigungen zur Rechenschaft gezogen werden, entschied Richter Michael Mosman am Montag (Ortszeit) laut Medienberichten. Klägeranwalt Jeff Anderson kündigte Berufung an.

Mit dem Urteil im Bundesstaat Oregon endet vorläufig der letzte Prozess in den USA um eine Haftungspflicht der katholischen Kirchenleitung im Vatikan. Ähnliche Klagen in Kentucky und Wisconsin waren in den vergangenen Jahren fallengelassen worden.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

In a radical, and nationally unprecedented, change to its 120-year-old education system, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia is handing over management of its secondary and special education schools to an independent foundation.

The recently-incorporated Faith in the Future Foundation aims to not only maintain but also grow a Catholic school system hit hard by declining enrollments, deficits and closings. It will manage 17 high schools and four special education schools, according to the terms of a five-year contract recently signed by Archbishop Charles J. Chaput.

It will be the first independently-managed Catholic school system in the country. …

Although the archdiocese will still own the schools and their assets, the foundation will cover their operating deficits.

The archdiocese has spent more than $11 million during the past 16 months responding to a 2011 Philadelphia grand jury report on clergy sex abuse, and projects a $6 million deficit in its operating budget for the 2012-2013 fiscal year. However, Hanway said those difficulties did not drive the decision to privatize management of these schools.

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UNITED STATES
Stop Baptist Predators

Thanks to BaptistPlanet, these two eye-opening studies were recently brought to my attention.

1. In Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment, a study examined “associations between self-reported religious affiliations and official offense histories among 111 incarcerated adult male sexual offenders. Four categories of religiosity were devised according to self-reported continuities and discontinuities in life-course religious affiliations: atheists, dropouts, converts, and stayers. . . . Stayers (those who maintained religious involvement from childhood to adulthood) had more sexual offense convictions, more victims, and younger victims, than other groups. Results challenge assumptions that religious involvement should, as with other crime, serve to deter sexual offending behavior.”

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HAWAII
Damon Tucker: Hawaii News and Island Information

Posted on August 20, 2012 by Damon

Holding signs and photos of themselves when they were abused, child sex abuse victims will announce that a long-time Hilo Catholic priest, Fr. George DeCosta, has been accused of molesting two boys, but continues to work for a church group that teaches music to teenagers.

They will also beg Honolulu Bishop Clarence Silva to: disclose why the priest was forced to retire, insist that the music group oust him immediately, personally visit every parish, school and facility where he worked reaching out to others he may have hurt.

Where:
Outside of Malia Puka O Kalani Church, 326 Desha Ave in Hilo

When:
Tuesday, August 21, at 11 am

Who:
One to two members of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAPNetwork.org), the nation’s largest support group for men and women sexually abused as children in religious and institutional organizations, including a California woman who is the group’s Western Regional Director

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PENNSYLVANIA
Williamsport Sun-Gazette

August 21, 2012

By CHERYL R. CLARKE (cclarke@sungazette.com) , Williamsport Sun-Gazette

WELLSBORO – Thomas Shoback, the former Blossburg Roman Catholic priest accused of repeatedly sexually assaulting a former altar boy during 1990s, was scheduled to be in Tioga County Court Monday but waived his formal arraignment.

A date for the next court proceeding has not yet been set, said court administrator Nancy Clemens.

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PORTLAND (OR)
ABA Journal

Posted Aug 21, 2012
By Debra Cassens Weiss

A federal judge in Portland, Ore., has ruled for the Vatican in one of the first cases seeking to hold it liable for alleged molestation by a priest.

U.S. District Judge Michael Mosman ruled the Vatican didn’t employ the priest and dismissed it as a defendant, the Oregonian reports. The priest, the Rev. Andrew Ronan, was transferred from Ireland to Chicago and then Portland.

The suit claimed Ronan molested a teen in 1965 and 1966. His religious order remains as a defendant.

Jeffrey Anderson, the lawyer for the plaintiff, said he would appeal to the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The appeals court ruled in 2005 that sovereign immunity didn’t protect the Vatican.

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OREGON
KPTV

[with video]

By Natalie Brand

PORTLAND, OR, (KPTV) –
A judge ruled the Woodburn priest accused of sexually abusing a 12-year-old boy will be held without bail pending trial.

Father Angel Perez, who served at St. Luke Catholic Church, was indicted by a grand jury on charges of sex abuse in the first degree, using a child in display of sexual conduct, furnishing liquor to a minor, tampering with physical evidence and DUII.

A number of parishioners attended the hearing Monday in support of the priest. One church member told FOX 12 the St. Luke community is heartbroken and remains in disbelief over the allegations.

Woodburn police say Perez is accused of abusing a boy who was sleeping over at the priest’s home following a community church event. According to court documents, the boy told investigators he woke up to a flash, possibly from a cell phone camera, and saw the priest touching him, as well as touching himself. …

The national Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests released a statement, which read in part, “We’re grateful that Fr. Perez is being kept locked up and away from kids.”

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
Examiner

By The Associated Press

Kansas City, MO —

Defense attorneys argue that evidence used to convict a Catholic priest of child pornography shouldn’t be allowed to try the diocese and the bishop who leads it.

The effort to have eight pieces of evidence excluded was made in a pretrial motion.

The Rev. Shawn Ratigan pleaded guilty earlier this month to federal charges of producing child pornography. His case led authorities to charge Bishop Robert Finn and the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph with failure to report suspected child abuse. Finn has pleaded not guilty.

A trial in the case is scheduled to start Sept. 24 in Jackson County Circuit Court.

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NEW JERSEY
Asbury Park Press

Written by
Michael Symons

TRENTON — State senators might vote next month on a bill that eliminates the statute of limitations for suing in childhood sexual abuse cases, after the plan couldn’t muster the needed support Monday.

The proposal would apply retroactively and could allow victims to seek monetary damages from entities such as the Catholic Church and nonprofits that negligently employed abusers.

Seven of the 40 senators were absent from Monday’s rare summer voting session, and bill sponsor Sen. Joseph Vitale, D-Middlesex, said the bill didn’t appear to have support from 21 of the senators present. He’ll try again in September, when senators — including four Democrats Vitale hopes will back the bill — are back from vacation.

State law has already been changed to eliminate immunity from civil lawsuits related to child sexual abuse for charitable organizations. The new proposal would retroactively allow lawsuits for past incidents, which are currently subject to a two-year statute of limitations.

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IOWA
KCCI

ADEL, Iowa –
The former pastor of a Pella church took the witness stand Monday afternoon in his sexual abuse and exploitation trial.

Prosecutors said Patrick Edouard used his position of power at Covenant Reform Church to coerce four women members into having sexual relations with him.

Edouard is charged with three counts of third-degree sexual abuse, and four counts of sexual exploitation by a counselor, therapist, school employee or clergy.

In a matter of fact tone, Edouard told jurors Monday that each of the four affairs he had was consensual.

Edouard’s wife Grace also took the stand as a witness for the defense. She testified that she had no idea her husband was having sexual relations with other women until he told her in December of 2010.

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NEW JERSEY
The Record

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

BY MICHAEL LINHORST
STATE HOUSE BUREAU
The Record

A Senate vote on a bill to eliminate the statute of limitations for childhood sexual assault victims to sue their abusers was postponed Monday when one of its sponsors decided there were not enough votes to support it.

With six senators missing during Monday’s session, which was held in the middle of the Senate’s summer break, Sen. Joseph Vitale said he was worried the bill would not have garnered the 21 needed to pass.

“When I polled the members — and I polled both sides of the aisle — I didn’t quite get to 21,” said Vitale. He plans to put it back on the Senate’s agenda in September, he said.

Vitale blamed the Catholic Church for rallying opposition to the bill, which would eliminate the state’s statute of limitations and would allow victims to sue organizations that are out of their reach under current law.

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OREGON
The Daily News

A Woodburn, Ore., priest accused of sexually abusing a 12-year-old boy has been indicted on eight counts and ordered held without bail.

The Rev. Angel Armando Perez was arrested last week on accusations including sexual abuse, furnishing alcohol to a minor and drunken driving. The boy ran from the parish priest’s house during a sleepover, saying he awoke to find the 46-year-old Perez fondling him and apparently taking a cell phone photo. Police say Perez told investigators he was drunk and didn’t remember what happened.

Besides the initial counts, the grand jury indictment returned Monday charges Perez with giving the boy alcohol on four separate occasions and accuses the priest of evidence tampering. Marion County Deputy District Attorney Katie Suver said investigators believe Perez deleted a photo from his phone.

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PORTLAND (OR)
NBC News

By NBC News staff and wire reports

CHICAGO — A U.S. federal judge in Oregon on Monday dismissed a clergy sexual abuse case that was the first to try to hold the Vatican responsible for moving an offending priest into unsuspecting parishes, lawyers in the case said.

U.S. District Court Judge Michael Mosman in Portland, Oregon, ruled the Holy See in Rome could not be shown to be the “employer” of the late Father Andrew Ronan, who abused children in Chicago and later in Portland.

Church officials in Chicago knew that Ronan, who ultimately left the priesthood and died in 1992, had a history of sexual abuse, but he continued to abuse after he was transferred to Oregon, court documents showed. …

“There is no fact in the record on which to base an employment relationship,” Jeffrey Luna, a lawyer for the Vatican in the United States, said in summarizing the judge’s ruling.

The Oregonian newspaper quoted Luna as saying the ruling was “quite significant … because the Holy See has patiently and cooperatively worked with the American judicial process to arrive at this day.”

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UNITED STATES
Atheist Revolution

One of the most common objections encountered by atheists who report on child rape by clergy is that it is not fair to focus on clergy since this offense occurs in many other groups. They have a valid point in that clergy are certainly not the only group to engage in this despicable behavior; however, we typically retort that the involvement of religion is relevant. Certain aspects of religious doctrine may facilitate abuse. Abuse by a member of clergy involves a deep betrayal of trust, contributes to the low rates of reporting such crimes, is more likely to be concealed in systematic ways, etc.

But what if there was actually evidence from scientific studies that religiosity was associated with increased dangerousness among sex offenders, that clergy were more likely to get away with sex crimes than other groups of offenders, and that clergy used more force when committing their crimes than other sex offenders? With such evidence, it would be difficult to argue that religion was irrelevant.

As Stop Baptist Predators recently reported, this evidence exists. Male clergy accused of sex crimes were found to be more dangerous in some important ways than matched non-clergy offenders (Langevin, Curnoe, & Bain, 2000). And religiosity was positively associated with the number of convictions for sex crimes and the number of victims among convicted male sex offenders (Eshuys & Smallbone, 2006). It was also inversely related to the age of the victims (i.e., more religious offenders tended to victimize younger children).

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PORTLAND (OR)
The Associated Press

By NIGEL DUARA, Associated Press

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The Vatican won a major victory Monday in an Oregon federal courtroom, where a judge ruled that the Holy See is not the employer of molester priests.

The decision by U.S. District Court Judge Michael Mosman ends a six-year question in the decade-old case and could shield the Vatican from possible monetary damages.

The original lawsuit was filed in 2002 by a Seattle-area man who said the Rev. Andrew Ronan repeatedly molested him in the late 1960s.

The plaintiffs tried to show that Ronan and all priests are employees of the Vatican, which is therefore liable for their actions. …

After the ruling, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, director David Clohessy said in a statement that the Vatican wants “to have their cake and eat it too” by varying their definition of the church, sometimes calling it a top-down hierarchical institution and other times asserting that only locals have control over their employees.

“It’s a shame that, once again, top Catholic officials successfully exploit legal technicalities to keep clergy sex crimes and cover ups covered up,” Clohessy said. “The truth is that the Vatican oversees the church worldwide, insisting on secrecy in child sex cases and stopping or delaying the defrocking of pedophile priests.”

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OREGON
KOIN

SALEM, Ore. — A local Catholic pastor accused of sex abuse has been denied bail.

On Monday Father Angel Perez — who was expecting a release hearing — learned he’ll stay in jail until his trial. He’s expected to have a preliminary hearing Wednesday, followed by an arraignment Aug. 27.

Perez is listed as a pastor of Saint Luke Catholic Church in Woodburn, Ore.; he is accused of sexually abusing a boy from a church party.

What’s happened so far?

The 46-year-old pleaded “not guilty” in Marion County Court Aug. 14 to one count each of first-degree sex abuse, using a child in display of sexually explicit conduct and furnishing alcohol to a minor.

The charges come after a 12-year-old boy told police that Perez touched and took pictures of him during a sleep-over at Perez’s home. The boy says he ran away from the house to get help from his family.

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OREGON
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Barbara Blaine on August 20, 2012

We’re grateful that Fr. Perez is being kept locked up and away from kids. He’s clearly a flight risk.

Kids are safest when pedophiles are behind bars. And kids are even safer when every single person who saw, suspected or suffered a predator’s crimes comes forward. So we beg each person with knowledge of or suspicions about Fr. Perez’ crimes to contact police and prosecutors immediately. We can’t be complacent and assume justice will be done. We must all do our part to make sure justice is done.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
The Kansas City Star

By TONY RIZZO
The Kansas City Star

Evidence that led to a Catholic priest’s child pornography conviction should not be allowed in the trial of the diocese and the bishop who supervised him, defense attorneys argue in a pretrial motion.

Bishop Robert Finn and the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph are scheduled for trial starting Sept. 24 in Jackson County on misdemeanor charges of failing to report suspected child abuse by the Rev. Shawn Ratigan.

In their pre-trial motion, attorneys for Finn and the diocese ask a judge to exclude eight pieces of evidence they believe prosecutors intend to introduce at trial, including the contents of Ratigan’s computer hard-drive that was turned over to the diocese in December 2010 and to police in May 2011.

The defense maintains that neither Finn nor another high diocesan official saw or reviewed the hard-drive’s contents. They also seek the exclusion of images found in Ratigan’s possession about the time of his arrest. Again, they maintain that those items were never seen by the bishop or other diocesan officials.

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PORTLAND (OR)
The Oregonian

By Aimee Green, The Oregonian

A federal judge has dismissed the Vatican from a lawsuit filed by a former Portland teenager who says he was sexually abused by a pedophile priest who was transferred from Ireland to Chicago and then Portland in an effort to sweep his past under the rug.

In a downtown Portland hearing Monday morning, U.S. District Judge Michael Mosman said the Vatican cannot be held financially liable for abuse allegedly suffered by a Portland victim, identified by the pseudonym John V. Doe, at the hands of Rev. Andrew Ronan in 1965 and 1966. Mosman ruled that’s because the Vatican wasn’t Ronan’s employer and didn’t have control over Ronan — or at least, there weren’t facts to prove that.

“It’s clearly a disappointment, but we’re definitely not discouraged,” said Jeff Anderson, the Minnesota attorney who is representing Doe.

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PORTLAND (OR)
Catholic Sentinel

Catholic priests aren’t employed by the Vatican and so the Holy See is not financially liable for priest misdeeds, a federal judge in Portland ruled today.

The entire church leadership, from Pope Benedict and bishops across the nation, have called for better protection for children and worked to make that happen. But bishops have also tried to explain church strcuture to courts, explaining that dioceses are themselves churches, not subsidiaries of the Holy See.

U.S. District Court Judge Michael Mosman got the point. His decision ends an ongoing quest from sex abuse victims and their lawyers to seek monetary damages from the Vatican.

“There are no facts to create a true employment relationship between Ronan and the Holy See,” Mosman said in his ruling.

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PORTLAND (OR)
Time

By Associated Press | August 20, 2012

(PORTLAND, Ore.) — The Vatican has won a major victory in an Oregon federal courtroom, where a judge ruled the Holy See is not the employer of molester priests.

The ruling Monday by U.S. District Court Judge Michael Mosman ends a six-year question in the decade-old case and could shield the Vatican from possible monetary damages.

The original lawsuit was filed in 2002 by a Seattle-area man who claimed the Rev. Andrew Ronan repeatedly molested him in the late 1960s.

Mosman made a previous decision strictly on legal theory and determined that if all the facts in the case were true, the Vatican would indeed be Ronan’s employer.

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OREGON
The Oregonian

By Maxine Bernstein, The Oregonian

SALEM — A Marion County judge on Monday ordered a Woodburn priest, who is accused of sexually abusing a 12-year-old boy at his home last week, remain in custody without bail.

Judge Audrey Broyles found “clear and convincing” evidence that the Rev. Angel Armando Perez, the parish priest at St. Luke Catholic Church in Woodburn, would pose a risk to the victim in the case and the general public if he was released pending trial.

Broyles said Perez’s position as an ordained priest in a small community gives him a unique position of trust and power.

“He abused that power,” the judge said. “Clearly he had, he has and would have access to children – directly or indirectly.”

Perez appeared behind a glass partition. He wore dark blue jail shirt and pants, and mostly looked down during the 20-minute hearing.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Saarbrucker Zeitung

St. Wendel/München. Hat Klaus Leist als Dechant in Völklingen an Drohbriefen gegen den damaligen Köllerbacher Pfarrer Guido Ittmann mitgewirkt und so Mitschuld an dessen Flucht zu Ostern 2011 aus seiner Kirchengemeinde? Christoph Lerg hält diese Behauptung des mittlerweile im Bistum Paderborn tätigen Pastors für abwegig. Der Anwalt aus München vertritt den seit Jahresbeginn in St. Wendel eingesetzten katholischen Geistlichen Leist. “Warum sollte mein Mandant ein Interesse haben, Herrn Ittmann zu verjagen?” Als Beweis führt er an, dass die betroffene Kirchengemeinde Herz Jesu “bis heute keinen neuen Pfarrer” habe.

Die von Ittmann gegen Leist eingereichten Asservate hält der Advokat für fragwürdig. Es handle sich um etwa zehn Schriftstücke. “Ich stelle in Abrede, dass darunter Drohbriefe sind.” Aber: “Zwei bis drei davon enthalten eklatante Beleidigungen, da gibt es nichts zu beschönigen.” Er ist sicher, dass die Briefe keine Abwehr darauf sind, dass Ittmann mutmaßlich sexuelle Übergriffe auf Kinder durch Pater und Pfarrangehörige anzeigte. Es gehe “nicht um die Vertuschung von sexuellen Missbrauchs, sondern dass Gemeindeangehörige stinksauer auf Ittmanns Verhalten waren”. Dies betreffe unpopuläre Entscheidungen zur Kirchenstruktur, die, vom Bistum Trier gefordert, Ittmann habe umsetzen müssen. Die Art, wie er dies tat, habe die Briefe verursacht. “Es gab einen Riss durch die Gemeinde.”

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DEUTSCHLAND
SWR

Ein katholischer Priester im Ruhestand muss sich vorerst mit einer Kürzung seiner Bezüge um 20 Prozent wegen Missbrauchs von Minderjährigen in den 1960er Jahren abfinden. Das Verwaltungsgericht Stuttgart lehnte seinen Eilantrag gegen diese Entscheidung der Diözese Rottenburg-Stuttgart am Montag ab.

Die Diözese war Missbrauchsvorwürfen nachgegangen, hatte dem Priester einen Verweis erteilt und am 22. Juni 2011 verfügt, dass ein Fünftel der Bezüge vom 1. August 2011 an für drei Jahre an einen Fonds fließen sollte. Diesen Verweis hielt sie für zulässig, auch wenn die Taten selbst wegen Verjährung nicht mehr kirchenstrafrechtlich verfolgt werden könnten.

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OSTERREICH
kathweb

Heuer wandten sich bisher 133 Personen an Unabhängige Opferschutzanwaltschaft

20.08.2012

Wien, 20.08.2012 (KAP) Die im April 2010 von Kardinal Christoph Schönborn ins Leben gerufene “Unabhängige Opferschutzanwaltschaft” unter Leitung von Waltraud Klasnic hat ihre Tätigkeit verlängert. Der Wunsch des Kardinals sei, dass die Kommission noch weitere drei Jahre im Amt bleibe, wurde Klasnic am Wochenende von der “Austria Presse Agentur” (APA) zitiert. Seit 31. Mai 2011 sind die Diözesanen Ombudsstellen wieder Erstanlaufstellen für mutmaßliche Opfer. Die “Klasnic-Kommission” ist aber weiterhin für die Entscheidungen über finanzielle Hilfen zuständig. Das “große Paket” an Fällen sei mittlerweile abgearbeitet, Meldungen träfen aber nach wie vor ein, hieß es. So hätten sich heuer bisher 133 Personen an die Einrichtung gewandt.

Insgesamt gab es bis Mitte August 1.333 Meldungen an die Opferschutzanwaltschaft. 242 davon wurden laut APA bereits nach dem neuen Modus über die Ombudsstellen abgewickelt. Von Gewalt bzw. Missbrauch im kirchlichen Umfeld waren 1.206 betroffen, rund drei Viertel der Meldungen betrafen Männer. Für 810 der Meldungen konnten bisher Entscheidungen getroffen werden, weiter gab es 733 Kommissionsbeschlüsse, darunter 19 ablehnende.

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DEUTSCHLAND
netzwerkB

Am kommenden Samstag, 25. August 2012, geht es los, ich breche zu meiner mehrtägigen Wanderung von Wuppertal nach Köln zum Dom auf, um Menschen für die Unterzeichnung der Petition zur Abschaffung der Verjährungsfristen zu gewinnen.

Meine Planungen neigen sich dem Ende entgegen:

am Freitag, dem 24.8., besuche ich einen Freund in Essen-Werden, wo ich nächtigen werde. Samstag morgens fahre ich dann mit der Bahn nach Wuppertal-Barmen. Die Wanderung werde ich voraussichtlich zwischen 09 und 10 Uhr vormittags vom Vorplatz des Wuppertaler Rathauses (Johannes-Rau-Platz 1) beginnen.

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DEUTSCHLAND
MissBiT

Pfarrer Ittmann: “Was ist der größte Schaden, den man der Kirche zufügen kann?! Das ist sicherlich nicht, wenn durch ein Erdbeben in Rom der Vatikan zusammenstürzt: Der größte Schaden unserer Kirche ist, dass allein in den letzten 50 Jahren Hunderttausende von Kindern durch Kirchenangestellte weltweit gefoltert und vergewaltigt wurden.“

Eigentlich soll es die Aufgabe von Bischof Stephan Ackermann sein, sexuellen Missbrauch in der katholischen Kirche aufzuklären. Er ist der Missbrauchsbeauftragte der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz. Doch ausgerechnet in seinem Bistum Trier werden immer mehr Fälle bekannt, die Fragen aufwerfen. So auch jetzt in der saarländischen Gemeinde Köllerbach: Vor zwei Jahren hatte dort der Pfarrer Guido Ittmann Missbrauchsfälle in seiner Pfarrei angezeigt und darauf Drohbriefe bekommen. Nun haben Ermittlungen der Polizei brisante Fingerabdrücke zu Tage gefördert, wie SWR-Reporter Erwin Kohla berichtet.

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DEUTSCHLAND
MissBiT

“Stephan Ackermann, der Missbrauchsbeauftragte der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz hat in dieser Woche auf dem Arbeitsamt vorgesprochen. Er wollte mal wissen, wie es ist, wenn man sich arbeitslos meldet. Ein Bischof „übt das Leben“ könnte man da ironisch sagen oder – etwas zynischer – die Frage stellen, ob der Bischof von Trier vielleicht schon selbst mit seiner Abberufung rechnet. Denn ausgerechnet in seinem eigenen Bistum läuft die Aufarbeitung von Missbrauchsfällen alles andere als rund – wir haben es gerade eben im Beitrag gehört. Was ist da los im Bistum Trier?

Jörg Vins aus unserer SWR-Redaktion „Religion, Kirche und Gesellschaft“ kommentiert:

„Seit Wochen gibt es keine Ruhe im Bistum Trier. Missbrauchsfälle wurden zwar angezeigt, aber nach wie vor vertuscht. Der Anzeiger wurde für „psychisch gestört“ erklärt und anonym schriftlich bedroht.

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NEW JERSEY
NJ.com

By Matt Friedman/Statehouse Bureau

TRENTON — A bill to give victims of childhood sexual abuse unlimited time to file suit against their abusers and the institutions harbored them stalled in the state Senate today, after its sponsor couldn’t round up enough votes to pass it.

The bill (S1651) would lift the statute of limitations for civil suits for sexual abuse for both the perpetrators themselves and institutions that committed “any negligent act that results in the commission of sexual assault, the commission of any other crime of a sexual nature or sexual abuse.”

State Sen. Joseph Vitale (D-Middlesex), its sponsor, said he wasn’t sure the votes were there to pass it today in part because four of the Senate’s 24 Democrats were absent. He plans to try again in September.

Under current law, victims have two years to file suit from the point they realized the abuse damaged them.

Mark Crawford director of the New Jersey Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), has been pushing for the legislation.

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NEW JERSEY
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Mark Crawford on August 20, 2012

New Jersey state senators are expected to vote today on a measure that would give child sex abuse victims more time to pursue civil lawsuits against child molesters and those who employ them.

The measure, S1651, eliminates the civil statute of limitations for child sexual abuse. New Jersey eliminated the criminal statute of limitations for child sexual abuse in 1996.

This bill will not only change the law prospectively but would allow past cases as well.

“It also expands the category of those who can be held liable, putting all institutions on notice that they too could be held responsible for knowingly recycling predators and putting children in harm’s way.” said Mark Crawford, NJ Director,

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IOWA
KCCI

ADEL, Iowa –
The former pastor of a Pella church took the witness stand Monday afternoon in his sexual abuse and exploitation trial.

Prosecutors said Patrick Edouard used his position of power at Covenant Reform Church to coerce four women members into having sexual relations with him.

Edouard is charged with three counts of third-degree sexual abuse, and four counts of sexual exploitation by a counselor, therapist, school employee or clergy.

He took the stand Monday afternoon after the prosecution completed its case and turned over testimony to the defense.

Monday morning, the state called an elder of the church to the stand.

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UNITED STATES
Jeff Anderson & Associates

Judge dismisses historic child sexual abuse case involving Vatican’s role in clergy abuse cover-up

Attorney says appeal is definite

Statement of Jeff Anderson re: John V. Doe v. Holy See

(Portland, Oregon)“We are saddened and disappointed that after ten years in the federal courts, United States District of Oregon Judge Michael W. Mosman dismissed the historic lawsuit (John V. Doe v. Holy See) brought by clergy abuse victim John V. Doe against the Vatican for its role in the cover-up and secrecy of the clergy abuse crisis in America.

However, be assured that we will be appealing this decision to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Along with courageous survivor John V. Doe, we have been there before, and prevailed, and we expect to prevail again.*

In making his ruling Judge Mosman’s thoughtful remarks from the bench clearly expressed his difficulty in deciding the case as he referred to the case as very troubling and a close call. But he ultimately decided that under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) there was insufficient evidence to decide that the Vatican has both directional and operational control over priests in the United States. The Judge also acknowledged that there would likely be an appeal of his decision.

Indeed, I can confirm that there will be an appeal. We believe that under further scrutiny the courts will find that Vatican protocols and practice make it clear that obedience to Rome required the secrecy, and concealment practiced by priests and bishops as the clergy abuse crisis unfolded in the United States.

Finally, it is with renewed vigor that we must, and will, carry on this fight for transparency and accountability on behalf of John V. Doe and every single survivor of sexual abuse by a priest in this country and across the globe.”

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OREGON
KGW

SALEM — A Woodburn priest facing sex abuse charges is being held without bail after a judge called him a threat to children.

Father Angel Perez was being held without bail in the Marion County Jail after a release hearing Monday.

Police arrested him last week after a boy staying with Perez said he was fondled. He said he had run away from Perez to find help.

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BUFFALO (NY)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on August 20, 2012

A former Buffalo area Catholic priest’s name appears on a list of priests ‘guilty of sexual misconduct,’ according to yesterday’s Philadelphia Inquirer. The Rev. Ted Podson taught at the Buffalo-area Devon Prep school before leaving the school when he accused of sexually assaulting a child. He was named on a list that was compiled in 1994 by recently-convicted Msgr. William Lynn.

A support group for clergy sex abuse victims is urging Buffalo Catholic officials – including Bishop Richard Malone – to reach out to anyone in the area who may have seen, suspected or suffered the cleric’s crimes.

“It is more likely than not that there are other victims in the Buffalo area,” said David Clohessy of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. “We just want to find them and help them heal.”

Msgr. Lynn’s list was recently made public during his trial, but had been hidden since the list was made and shown to then Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua in Philadelphia. Of the five men on the list, four have since been publicly accused, prosecuted, or sued, and three were never named until Lynn’s trial. Those three men are Rev. Podson, Rev. Stanley Jankowski and Rev. DePaul Sobotka (both members of the Franciscan order and currently living in Wisconsin).

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AUSTRALIA
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne

The Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne, Denis Hart, today announced that the leaders of the Catholic Church in Victoria are sending a pastoral letter to all parishes and churches this weekend on the Inquiry into the Handling of Child Abuse by Religious and other Non-Government Organisations.

“In our letter we acknowledge the suffering and trauma endured by children who have been in the Church’s care, and the effect on their families.

“The letter also explains the approach of the Church to the Inquiry, speaks of the challenging and difficult period ahead for victims and their families, and the need to learn from past failures to ensure we do everything in our power to protect children,” Archbishop Hart said.

“Mistakes were made and we apologise to victims and their families for these failures.
“The Church has learnt from these failures and our response has changed. We are focused on the needs of those who have been abused and have taken action to prevent future abuse. We have also changed how we deal with offenders.

“Since 1996, we have introduced procedures to protect children and vulnerable persons against sexual abuse. These have been refined as we have learned how to support victims better, and we will consider further changes in the light of recommendations of the Parliamentary Inquiry,” he said.

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AUSTRALIA
Roman Catholic Diocese of Ballarat

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ

Over the last thirty years our society has become increasingly aware of the extent of sexual abuse of
children, and of its terrible consequences. We know that the impact of abuse on children and their families can be devastating and lasting. The January 2012 Report on Protecting Victoria’s Vulnerable Children (the Cummins Report) indicates the extent to which the abuse and neglect of children is a significant community issue and concern.

The suffering and trauma endured by some children who have been in the Church’s care, and the effect on their family members, is a matter of continuing shame and dismay to all Catholics.

Let us be very clear. The sexual abuse of a child was, is and always will be a crime, and is contrary to all we believe in.

We know that parents especially feel an intense betrayal of trust, that even one child could have been
so grievously hurt by people whose call it is to serve others. The Church has apologised for these failures. Today we renew this apology to victims and their families.

We are deeply sorry.

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AUSTRALIA
Roman Catholic Diocese of Ballarat

The Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne, Denis Hart, announced today (21/8/2012) that the leaders of the Catholic Church in Victoria are sending a Pastoral letter to all parishes and churches this weekend on the Inquiry into the Handling of Child Abuse by Religious and other Non-Government Organisations.

The Archbishop said that the Pastoral Letter acknowledges the suffering and trauma endured by children who have been in the Church’s care, and the effect on their families. Archbishop Hart said, “The letter also explains the approach of the Church to the Inquiry, speaks of the challenging and difficult period ahead for victims and their families, and the need to learn from past failures to ensure we do everything in our power to protect children.”

The Archbishop said that mistakes were made and “we apologise to victims and their families for these failures.” He said, “The Church has learnt from these failures and our response has changed. We are focused on the needs of those who have been abused and have taken action to prevent future abuse. We have also changed how we deal with offenders.”

PASTORAL LETTER ON THE VICTORIAN GOVERNMENT INQUIRY INTO THE HANDLING OF CHILD ABUSE BY RELIGIOUS AND OTHER NON-GOVERNMENT ORGANISATIONS. READ HERE

MEDIA RELEASE: Catholic Church Issues Pastoral Letter On Parliamentary Inquiry. READ HERE

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

August 21, 2012

Barney Zwartz

STATE Catholic leaders have warned parishioners that they will hear disturbing reports about the church’s past failure to respond to child sexual abuse by clergy during the parliamentary inquiry into the handling of abuse complaints.

In a pastoral letter to be sent to every Catholic church in Victoria this weekend, the leaders say the church needs to learn from these failures, and again apologise to victims of abuse and their families.

The letter is signed by the four Victorian diocesan bishops – Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart, Ballarat Bishop Peter Connors, Sale Bishop Christopher Prowse and Sandhurst Bishop Leslie Tomlinson – plus Sister Annette Cunliffe and Sister Helen Toohey, presidents of the national and state religious orders. ”The suffering and trauma endured by some children who have been in the Church’s care … is a matter of continuing shame and dismay to all Catholics,” the letter says.

”Let us be very clear. The sexual abuse of a child was, is and always will be a crime, and is contrary to all we believe in.”

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

August 21, 2012

Daniel Fogarty
AAP

Victoria’s most senior Catholics have apologised for the sexual abuse of children under the church’s care and say they will continue to take decisive action to protect children.

In a letter to parishioners, the church says it is “deeply sorry” for the suffering and trauma endured by children and the betrayal of trust.

The letter acknowledges that the impact of abuse on children and their families “can be devastating and lasting”.

It also acknowledges the abuse and suffering is a matter of continuing shame for Catholics.

The letter, which is a statement on the Victorian parliamentary inquiry on child abuse, is signed by Archbishop of Melbourne Denis Hart, Diocese of Ballarat Bishop Peter Connors, Diocese of Sale Bishop Christopher Prowse and Diocese of Sandhurst Bishop Leslie Tomlinson.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Paltalk News Network

By JONATHAN WOLFMAN

The other week I wrote here of several, first-of-their-kind criminal prosecutions of churchmen, leaders who perpetuated child abuse.

I raised up the behavior of Kansas City’s Bishop Finn who allowed a known sexually deviant priest to molest his way through that diocese. Bishop Finn reassigned a pedophile priest to a facility in which the priest would have regular contact with kids. . I spoke, too, of Philadelphia’s Monsignor William Lynn who two weeks back became the first priest-administrator in the United States church hierarchy to serve prison time, in his case for shredding archival evidence thereby actively shielding well over 30 pedophile priests.

Word has it that, now that the monsignor’s case has been lost, the Philadelphia Archdiocese has dramatically cut back the support it had provided for Lynn’s defense. Even as Lynn is appealing his six-year term, his legal team, four lawyers prior to his conviction, has been halved and the remaining two will now have to continue to represent the convicted monsignor – for howver long they remain in the picture – largely pro bono.

Any wagers on how long those lawyers and the church will support Lynn?

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OREGON
The Oregonian

WOODBURN — The mother of the 12-year-old boy who bolted from the home where he was allegedly abused by his parish priest told the Statesman-Journal she is proud of her son.

The Salem newspaper interviewed the woman last week. She said she taught her children what to do if they were ever touched inappropriately.

“She taught all of us what’s right and what’s wrong and to tell her if something happened,” said the boy’s brother, who translated for his mother.

The mother said she was shocked by the alleged incident and is proud of her son.

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OREGON
KGM

[with video]

Posted on August 20, 2012

SALEM — A Woodburn priest facing sex abuse charges is returning to court.

Father Angel Perez was being held without bail in the Marion County Jail, and a release hearing was scheduled for Monday.

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CANADA
The Chronicle-Herald

YARMOUTH — An 83-year-old former Roman Catholic priest who sexually abused boys when he was younger used a doctor’s note to say he could not travel to Yarmouth on Friday to be sentenced.

Albert LeBlanc, now married and living in Bouctouche, N.B., pleaded guilty in May to six counts of indecent assault. His guilty plea came at the beginning of what was expected to have been a weeklong trial in Yarmouth.

LeBlanc faced 50 counts but pleaded guilty to six charges, each of which related to a different male victim.

In Yarmouth provincial court Friday, Judge Jim Burrill said the court received a note from LeBlanc’s doctor concerning his medical condition.

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CALIFORNIA
Marine Corps Times

By Gidget Fuentes – Staff writer
Posted : Monday Aug 20, 2012

A San Diego judge has granted a temporary restraining order to an enlisted sailor who alleges a Navy chaplain tried to rape him.

The sailor, whose identity Marine Corps Times is withholding because he is an alleged victim, is expected to be a key witness in the government’s case against Lt. Cmdr. Steven E. Hicks, a Catholic priest at Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms, Calif. Hicks was removed from his assignment earlier this year amid an investigation into alleged misconduct, including claims of sexual harassment, indecent conduct, assault and fraternization, a combat center spokesman said June 22.

Hicks has been charged under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, but Marine officials at Twentynine Palms have refused requests for a copy of his charge sheet, which details the allegations against him.

Marine Corps Times has made numerous unsuccessful attempts to contact Hicks.

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KOREA
The Hankyoreh

New book describes a life of enduring father’s abuse, and the hope of drawing attention to social ill

By Lee You-jin, staff reporter

‘When light hits a teardrop, it twinkles’, wrote Eun Su-yeon (a pseudonym) in an essay released on Aug. 15. It is the first writing by a victim of sexual violence by relatives published in Korea. The writer was sexually abused for 9 years from when she was in 5th grade of elementary school. The perpetrator was her own father, who was a pastor. When she was in 6th grade, she had to have an abortion.

When Eun was a freshman in university, she was dragged to a motel by her father. She managed to escape to a police station after pleading with the motel owner that she had been kidnapped.

Her father was arrested. He served seven years in prison and was released. In the past, under South Korean law, for a case of sexual abuse to move forward, the alleged victim had to make a formal accusation. That law has been changed and it is now possible to punish the offender without victim’s accusation.

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PHOENIX (AZ)
KTAR

By Associated Press
Originally published: Aug 19, 2012

PHOENIX — The Roman Catholic office overseeing parishes in Maricopa, Coconino, Yavapai and La Paz counties has missed its own deadline to publish a report detailing sexual abuse by priests.

The Diocese of Phoenix promised to publish a comprehensive list of abusive clergy and a financial accounting by June 14. The Arizona Republic reports that diocese officials are refusing to discuss why they missed their own deadline.

The report is supposed to detail the church abuse scandal in Phoenix, where more than two dozen priests were either arrested or accused of sexual misconduct. The scandal erupted in 2002 with the release of diocesan files in Boston and is believed to have cost about $3.3 billion in settlements and verdicts nationwide.

Diocese officials say the report is now expected to be published in the fall edition of the diocese-produced “Catholic Sun” newspaper.

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NEW JERSEY
Philadelphia Inquirer

By Barbara Boyer
Inquirer Staff Writer

Lisa Shanahan says she was molested at age 10 by a priest at St. Anthony of Padua Church in Hammonton and has kept quiet about it for decades, alone in her suffering.

She decided to break her silence after learning there were two victims before her.

Now 43, Shanahan has sued the Camden diocese, demanding it reveal why the now-defrocked priest, Thomas Harkins, was permitted to stay in ministry even after the church hierarchy learned of his alleged abuse and, she claims, sent him for therapy.

“They sacrificed me,” says Shanahan, a business executive living in North Carolina.

Though the suit she filed in May is active, it appears vulnerable to dismissal as the diocese argues it was filed past the state’s statute of limitations.

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SCHWEIZ
Tagblatt

Missbrauchsvorwurf gegen einen ehemaligen Lehrer im Kloster Fischingen: Der Anwalt des Opfers fordert eine unabhängige Ombudsstelle, die den Fall untersuchen soll. Andere Ehemalige setzen sich für den beschuldigten Pater ein und schicken einen Bericht an die Bischofskonferenz.

IDA SANDL

Es ist der gleiche Lehrer, es sind zum Teil sogar die gleichen Schuljahre – doch die Erinnerungen könnten unterschiedlicher nicht sein. Für den Österreicher Walter Nowak war der Benediktinermönch Pater St. ein Sadist, der ihn gequält, missbraucht und sein Leben zerstört hat. Für den Gymnasial- und Berufsschullehrer Martin Borer aus Uster ist Pater St. ein begnadeter Pädagoge, geduldig, selbst schwierigen Schülern gegenüber.

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DEUTSCHLAND
SWR

Sonntagmorgen vom Sonntag, 19.8.

Eigentlich soll es die Aufgabe von Bischof Stephan Ackermann sein, sexuellen Missbrauch innerhalb der katholischen Kirche aufzuklären. Damit hat die Deutsche Bischofskonferenz den Trierer Bischof im Jahr 2010 beauftragt. Doch ausgerechnet im Bistum von Stephan Ackermann werden immer wieder Fälle bekannt, die Fragen aufwerfen.

Mantel des Schweigens

Als Pfarrer Guido Ittmann vor zwei Jahren von mehreren Missbrauchsfällen in seiner Pfarrei hörte, erstattete er Anzeige. Jahrelang waren Kinder in der saarländischen Gemeinde Köllerbach von Priestern und einem Laien missbraucht worden. Doch die Taten sind alle verjährt, die Täter blieben aber teilweise im Amt. Das haben SWR-Recherchen ergeben. Um Aufklärung sollte sich im Auftrag von Bischof Ackermann der zuständige Dekan von Völklingen kümmern. Doch anstatt innerhalb der Gemeinde Frieden herzustellen, geriet der Gesandte des Bischofs regelmäßig mit Pfarrer Ittmannn in Streit. Zudem tat er die Missbräuche als unbewiesene Gerüchte ab. Eine Reaktion von Bischof Ackermann soll es in dieser Sache nicht gegeben haben.

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WISCONSIN
SNAP Wisconsin

Wisconsin priests identified as “guilty of sexual misconduct with a minor” in landmark Philadelphia clergy sex abuse case

Statement by John Pilmaier, SNAP Wisconsin Director
CONTACT: 414.336.8575

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that two religious order priests from Wisconsin appear on a list compiled by Monsignor William Lynn, the former secretary for clergy in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, as having been identified as “guilty of sexual misconduct with a minor”. Lynn became the highest ranking official of the Catholic Church to be tried and found guilty of endangering the welfare of children in a landmark case for his role in providing known sex offending clergy continued access to children. Lynn was sentenced in July to three to six years in prison.

The Wisconsin priests who appear on the list of sex offending clerics drafted by Lynn in 1994 and later ordered shredded by former Cardinal Archbishop of Philadelphia Anthony Bevilacqua belong to a Milwaukee area religious order, the Franciscan Friars of the Assumption BVM Province. The clerics are Fr. Stanley Janowski and Fr. DePaul Sobotka who each taught at Archbishop Ryan High School in Northeast Philadelphia. Janowski was once vice principal of the school and the Franciscan’s acknowledged paying a settlement to one of his accusers.

The Franciscan Friars of the Assumption BVM Province are based in Franklin Wisconsin and have a presence throughout the state, including at parishes, hospitals, and universities. In the Milwaukee area they are affiliated with St. Francis Seminary, Cardinal Stritch University, and Sacred Heart School of Theology.

The appearance of two Wisconsin priests on a list of clergy sex offenders in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia illustrates a continuing danger to children that church officials, including Archbishop Jerome Listecki, refuses to address. The Archdiocese of Milwaukee’s selective list of 44 sex offending clerics does not include priests, nuns, and brothers who belong to the multitude of religious orders who work in the archdiocese. According to Milwaukee church officials over half of all clergy affiliated with the diocese belong to religious orders.

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UNITED STATES
Tom Rastrelli

Confessions of an Ex-Priest: How Catholic Seminary Forms Victims of Sexual Abuse and Perpetrators to Forgive

On Sunday night around midnight, in the small town of Woodburn, Ore., a 12-year-old boy ran down a street screaming for help. A man dressed only in his underwear pursued him. The boy saw a group of people standing in a driveway and screamed, “Help me, a guy is chasing me.” The bystanders drove the boy to his sister’s home, where he explained, “Father Angel touched me in my privates.”

This sounds like a scene out of a film, but this is not fiction. This is information taken from the Woodburn police department’s probable cause statement.

On Monday, Rev. Angel Armando Perez was arrested. He faces allegations of first-degree sexual abuse, furnishing alcohol to a minor, using a child in display of sexually explicit conduct, and driving under the influence.

Like me, Father Perez was ordained in 2002, when the Catholic hierarchy’s cover-up of sexual abuse was on the front page of nearly every U.S. publication. We received the same seminary “formation,” which is the word used to describe the intellectual, psychological and spiritual overhaul that men undergo as they are “formed” into healthy, celibate and obedient priests.

When we were ordained 10 years ago, new priests were under a great deal of pressure. The people in the pews needed hope that our generation would change the duplicitous and corrupt clerical culture that had been unmasked. We had been “formed” to say all the right things. …

I marched up into the sanctuary and gazed at the upturned faces. They were the real Church, full of longing, willingness and trust. They deserved something more than what scandalous priests and bishops had shat upon them. My voice thundered through the speakers: “No matter what you’re hearing in the press — there’s a lot of misinformation out there. Go to the source. Call seminary faculties. Talk to seminarians. The good men are still in the seminaries. And we are radically committed — radically meaning we’re gonna give our all to our vows, to our promises, and we are going to be the best priests that we can be. And live the mystery that we celebrate, which is the Lord’s cross. We will turn over our weaknesses to the Lord so that he can make them into strengths.”

The crowd leapt to their feet. My bones reverberated with an electric buzz that could only be the Holy Spirit. The foundation of St. Stephen’s had never rumbled with such hope.

Over my shoulder, the priest, who had sexually assaulted me in the confessional during college and exploited me for two years after, clapped away. During the Mass, he’d said the homily. I hadn’t wanted him anywhere near the celebration, but his absence would have raised questions. An unwritten tradition held that the pastor of the parish “honor” his priestly protégé by preaching at the special Mass. My Franciscan counselor had encouraged me to let my perpetrator preach, as an exercise in forgiveness and letting go.

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August 20, 2012

Rory Callinan

A SENIOR Catholic official has been called on to stand aside from the board of a Canberra secondary school after revelations he did not report a paedophile priest to law enforcement.

Father Jim Littleton, who sits on the board of Daramalan College, failed to alert police to child abuse allegations involving Melbourne parish priest Peter Chalk in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

The Age has uncovered evidence that police conducted a secret bugging operation of a meeting between Chalk’s victims and Father Brian Gallagher from Chalk’s order, the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart (MSC) in 1994.

During the meeting victims learnt that Father Littleton and other senior figures in the order were aware of the abuse allegations for years but did not tell the police.

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AUSTRALIA
Vatican Insider

The instances took place between 1960 and 1990, involving ten priests and more than 100 victims

Vatican Insider staff
Rome

A Catholic diocese in Australia is negotiating compensations that add up to 13.5 million euros and are to be paid out to more than 100 victims of acts of paedophilia that took place between 1960 and 1990. According to today’s issue of The Australian the diocese of Maitland-Newcastle, north of Sydney, negotiated out of court settlements with at least 78 of the alleged victims. Another 25 cases have been nearly settled. However it seems that the total number of victims might be even higher.

The compensations are linked to acts of sexual abuse at the hands of at least 10 priests and teachers employed by the Church and include the highest compensation ever negotiated in Australia, up to approximately 1.7 million euros. In the terms of the settlement, that have been negotiated through law firm, the Church does not admit responsibility for the acts of abuse, even though many of the victims see the compensation as a form of recognition for what they suffered. “ The Church usually requests a waiver form that prevents the victim from making further claims for the same acts of abuse and a clause that forbids arguing over the terms of the agreement”, said one of the negotiating lawyers.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Sunday Mercury

Aug 19 2012 by Mike Lockley, Sunday Mercury

BIRMINGHAM’S first youth mayor, who openly criticised the quest for justice by victims of Britain’s most evil perverted priest, last night admitted: I’m so sorry – I was so wrong.

In an emotional phone call to the Sunday Mercury Patrick Mullins confessed he himself was among scores of vulnerable orphans abused by predatory paedophile Father Eric Taylor.

Patrick, who moved to Perth, Western Australia, 40 years ago, said: “That man didn’t believe in God, he only believed in little boys. That is all he believed in.

“The judge called him a disgrace to the cloth. That is an understatement. He was Britain’s worst ever paedophile”

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BELGIE
RKnieuws

MALONNE (RKnieuws.net) – Het clarissenklooster in Malonne (Namen) dat de ex-vrouw en medeplichtige van Marc Dutroux onderdak wil verlenen, is in het vizier van Justitie geraakt. De zusters worden ervan verdacht Michelle Martin zwart te willen laten werken. Dat meldt het Katholiek Nieuwsblad onder aanhaling van de Brusselse krant Le Soir.

Martin zou volgens mediaberichten als tegenprestatie voor de kost en inwoning twintig uur per week in het klooster moeten werken. Het gaat dan om werk in de tuin, strijken of levensmiddelenpakketten inpakken. Dat roept vragen op, vindt een onderzoeker van de gemeente Namen. Volgens Claude Dedoyard moet iedere arbeid worden aangemeld. De situatie in het klooster zal worden onderzocht zodra Martin er ingetrokken is.

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AUSTRALIA
The Sunday Telegraph

[document from the archdiocese]

August 19, 2012

Cardinal George Pell

Last week the Sydney Archdiocese published a short document outlining what the Church does in Sydney to provide safety for children and how it now deals with allegations of sexual abuse of minors.

Sydney Archdiocese is committed to working within the Australia-wide protocol “Towards Healing” which was introduced in 1996 to tighten up procedures in the light of earlier mistakes.

Church leaders, like myself, have apologised many times to victims and families; and we mean it. These crimes, with their tragic toll on victims and their families, have brought shame and disgrace on the Church. This document outlines what we do today to avoid past errors.

Towards Healing was reviewed in 1999-2000 and 2008-09 and we are open to constructive suggestions for further improvement.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

Posted: Sun, Aug. 19, 2012

By John P. Martin
Inquirer Staff Writer

At first glance, the photo seems heartwarming: a man in his 60s, wearing a Santa suit and a grin as he wraps his arms around a boy.

In a different light, the image is unsettling. The man in costume is the Rev. Ted Podson, a former teacher at Devon Prep, an all-boys school on the Main Line.

Podson left the school in 1993 after allegedly sexually assaulting a boy. He was not publicly identified, charged, or barred from ministry.

Instead, Podson resurfaced as a parish pastor in Texas. In 2002, as the clergy sex-abuse scandal erupted, he again pulled up stakes, moving halfway around the world.

Now 64, Podson lives on a remote Philippines island, promoting himself as a mentor and renting an apartment he shares with teens. The Santa photo was taken last year.

The landmark sex-abuse trial that unfolded this spring exposed how the Archdiocese of Philadelphia failed to remove suspected pedophile priests. Lost in the spotlight were similar claims about other area priests, like Podson.

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OREGON
The Oregonian

By Nancy Haught, The Oregonian

The sound of men chanting early Friday morning drifted across the grounds of Mount Angel Abbey, where monks gathered for morning Mass as they have on this hilltop near Silverton for 130 years.

Mount Angel Seminary, housed in a half-dozen buildings clustered around the abbey, was waiting. Today, new students will arrive as Oregon’s only Catholic seminary grapples with a dark accusation about a prominent alumnus: the Rev. Angel Armando Perez, the pastor at St. Luke Parish in Woodburn, who now faces a charge of sex abuse involving a child.

The seminary, which has trained 80 percent of the 150 current and retired parish priests in western Oregon, has drastically altered the way it accepts and trains candidates for the priesthood since Perez was ordained near the height of the Catholic Church priest abuse scandal a decade ago.

People at Mount Angel, which enrolls about 200 students annually, say they have wracked their brains in the past week over whether they did all they could when preparing Perez for the priesthood. But they also say that they have gone to great lengths to ensure new priests emerging from the seminary are on solid ground, both spiritually and psychologically.

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CANADA
Indian Country Today Media Network

By David P. Ball
August 18, 2012

A historic class action lawsuit by people who attended Indian Residential Schools as “day scholars” has begun to spread across Canada, bringing the total to 76 bands alleging widespread abuse.

Only a day after British Columbia’s Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc and Sechelt First Nations filed their case against the federal government on behalf of survivors and their descendents who were excluded from full compensation under a 2006 abuse settlement, the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations (FSIN) added its name to the lawsuit.

“The Indian Day Scholar survivors suffered the same injustices as the Indian Residential School survivors,” said FSIN Vice Chief Dutch Lerat in a statement. “Many of them suffered abuse and a loss of language and culture. We estimate there are more than 4,000 Indian Day Scholar survivors in Saskatchewan waiting for past wrongs to be righted.”

Representing 74 First Nations in the prairie province, the Saskatchewan group’s addition suggests that many more could join the case against Canada’s nearly 160 Residential Schools, which operated from the 1870s through 1996.

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BELGIEN
domradio

Belgische Ordensschwestern haben den erneuten Missbrauchs-Vorwurf gegen den ehemaligen Bischof von Brügge, Roger Vangheluwe, infrage gestellt. Die Schwestern hatten in den 90er Jahren in Lokern/Westflandern ein Kinderheim geleitet, in dem es zu dem Missbrauch gekommen sein soll. Wie der Anwalt des Ordens am Donnerstagabend in Brüssel mitteilte, handelt es sich den Schwestern zufolge um “unberechtigte Vorwürfe”. Anfang der Woche war bekannt geworden, dass ein heute 30-jähriger Mann den ehemaligen Bischof Vangheluwe angezeigt hatte, weil er von ihm in dem Kinderheim vor mehr als zwanzig Jahren missbraucht worden sei. Auch die Schwestern hätten von dem Missbrauch gewusst und nicht eingegriffen. Der Kläger sitzt Medienberichten zufolge zur Zeit im Gefängnis. Der ehemalige Bischof von Brügge, Roger Vangheluwe, hatte im April 2011 in einem umstrittenen TV-Interview den Missbrauch eines anfangs fünf Jahre alten Neffen zwischen 1973 und 1986 sowie den Missbrauch eines zweiten Neffen eingeräumt.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Welt

Der Missbrauchsbericht für das Erzbistum München und Freising darf nach Ansicht der Reformbewegung “Wir sind Kirche” für die katholischen Kirche kein Schlusspunkt sein. Die aufgedeckten Vertuschungsmechanismen müssten auch bundesweit aufgearbeitet werden, forderte “Wir sind Kirche”-Sprecher Christian Weisner. Der Münchner Erzbischof und Kardinal Reinhard Marx versprach, dass aus dem Bericht die nötigen Konsequenzen gezogen würden. Eine neue Kultur des Hinsehens sei nötig. Bayerns Justizministerin Beate Merk (CSU) lobte den kirchlichen Aufklärungswillen.

In einer bundesweit bisher einzigartigen Studie hatte die Münchner Rechtsanwältin Marion Westpfahl als unabhängige Gutachterin im Auftrag des Erzbistums untersucht, welche innerkirchlichen Strukturen sexuelle und andere körperliche Übergriffe über sechs Jahrzehnte überhaupt ermöglicht hatten. Die nun erfolgte Prüfung von 13 000 Akten der Jahre 1945 bis 2009 ergab, dass mindestens 159 Priester, von denen 26 wegen Sexualdelikten verurteilt wurden, und 96 katholische Religionslehrer in Fälle sexuellen Missbrauchs verstrickt waren, so Westpfahl.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Konradsblatt

16.08.2012 –
Da sage jemand, ein Apostolischer Nuntius könnte nicht auch mal ganz offen heikle Punkte der innerkirchlichen Lage in Deutschland öffentlich ansprechen. Erzbischof Jean-Claude Perisset, der Vertreter des Papstes in Deutschland, ein gebürtiger Westschweizer, macht in einem Interview mit Aussagen von sich reden, die man gerne schon mal früher gelesen hätte.

Angesprochen wird er in dem Interview auf folgenden Vorgang: Der Leiter des Kriminologischen Forschungsinstituts in Hannover, Christian Pfeiffer, geht im Auftrag der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz in einem großangelegten Forschungsunternehmen den Ursachen des sexuellen Missbrauchs durch Priester und Ordensleute nach. Dazu stellen ihm die betreffenden Bistümer Personalakten zur Verfügung. Ein konservatives „Netzwerk katholischer Priester” hat dies scharf kritisiert. Die Untersuchung setze die Mehrheit der Priester, Diakone und Ordensleute einem „Generalverdacht” im Hinblick auf sexuellen Missbrauch aus, wird argumentiert. Die Bistümer hätten nicht das Recht, Dritten Einsicht in die diözesanen Personakten zu gewähren. Nicht zuletzt über Rom will man die Angelegenheit stoppen.

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BELGIQUE
Le Soir

Eva Kavian, Écrivain et malonnoise.

Le 11 août 2012

Sœur Christine,

Si je vous écris cette lettre aujourd’hui, ce n’est ni dans la colère, ni dans la joie. J’ai voulu me joindre à une des manifestations, et je ne me suis pas reconnue dans la colère et les discours ambiants. Une ou dix manifestations, cela ne changera rien. Cette lettre est ma petite manifestation personnelle. Vous avez dit oui, les gens disent non. Vous avez le choix, ils ne l’ont pas. Ils ont juste celui de signifier leur désaccord. Je vous écris pour vous signifier mon désaccord quant à l’accueil de Michelle Martin dans le village où je suis née et dans lequel je vis.

C’est la deuxième fois que notre justice lui accorde une liberté conditionnelle pour des faits similaires, ni vous ni la justice n’avez les moyens de garantir qu’il n’y aura pas de récidive. Mais, outre la crainte de récidive, c’est sur les effets de la crainte de récidive sur les comportements des malonnois que je souhaite attirer votre attention.

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DEUTSCHLAND
MissBiT

Sonntagmorgen am Sonntag, 19.8. | 6.00 Uhr | SWR1
Eigentlich soll es die Aufgabe von Bischof Stephan Ackermann sein, sexuellen Missbrauch innerhalb der katholischen Kirche aufzuklären. Damit hat die Deutsche Bischofskonferenz den Trierer Bischof im Jahr 2010 beauftragt. Doch ausgerechnet im Bistum von Stephan Ackermann werden immer wieder Fälle bekannt, die Fragen aufwerfen.

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CALIFORNIA
KTLA

[with video]

KTLA News

August 17, 2012
JOSHUA TREE (KTLA) — A teacher and church volunteer from Joshua Tree is accused of sexual encounters with several young boys over the past 30 years.

Investigators say Caleb Hesse met the majority of the victims during overnight outings with a youth group at the Evangelical Free Church in Yucca Valley.

Hesse has volunteered with the group since the early 1980’s.

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KANSAS
KJCK

August 17

Junction City Police Chief Tim Brown is confirming the arrest of Jordan Young, 25, Junction City for a second time this week.

Young, who had been serving as Music Director for the Faith Tabernacle Apostolic Church, was arrested by police Friday on suspicion of aggravated criminal sodomy, aggravated indecent liberties with a child, and sexual solicitation of a child. He was arrested at the Geary County Detention Center where he has been incarcerated since Monday after being arrested by police on suspicion of aggravated indecent liberties with a child, attempted criminal sodomy, and solicitation of a child.

On what led to the second arrest Police Chief Tim Brown stated authorities had continued their investigation.” We thought it was appropriate and in consultation with the county attorney’s office we went ahead and effected the arrest on him this ( Friday ) afternoon at the jail.”

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KANSAS
WIBW

JUNCTION CITY, Kan. (WIBW) — A Junction City man has been arrested for alleged sex crimes involving children.

Jordan Young, 25, was taken into custody at the Junction City Police Department at 11:30 AM on Monday, August 13, 2012.

According to Junction City Police Chief Tim Brown, Young was arrested for Aggravated Indecent Liberties With a Child, Attempted Criminal Sodomy and Solicitation of a Child.

Chief Brown would not comment further on Young’s arrest.

Last week, Brown confirmed to WIBW that his department is investigating information they received about a local church. He says Young arrest stems from this investigation that is still underway.

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KANSAS
KAKE

Reporter: KAKE News
Email Address: news@kake.com

Monday, August 13, 2012

A Junction City man has been arrested for alleged sex crimes involving children. Jordan Young, 25, was arrested by Junction City police late Monday morning.

Junction City Police Chief Tim Brown says Young was arrested on charges of aggravated indecent liberties with a child, attempted criminal sodomy and solicitation of a child. Officials say he is being held without bond in the Geary County Jail. Brown would not comment further on Young’s arrest, saying only that the investigation is ongoing.

Last week, Brown confirmed his department was investigating information they received about a local church. He has not yet confirmed the name of the church.

Sources say Young works at Faith Tabernacle Apostolic Church in Junction City as the minister in charge of the church’s music. Young is the son of former Faith Tabernacle pastor Edwin Young.

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KANSAS
Hays Post

Via Junction City Post

A Junction City church minister was arrested for alleged sex crimes involving children, Monday.

25-year-old Jordan Young was arrested on charges including Aggravated Indecent Liberties With a Child, Attempted Criminal Sodomy and Solicitation of a Child.

Junction City Police Chief Tim Brown is confirmed Young’s arrest and said, “These charges stem from an investigation that has been going on for about the past week and I’m not really prepared to go into it any further than just to say that at this time.”

He is reportedly being held without bond in the Geary County Jail.

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KANSAS
WIBW

JUNCTION CITY, Kan. (WIBW) — The congregation at a Junction City church has been left stunned in light of an alleged sex scandal and police investigation.

Sources say Edwin Young, the former pastor at Faith Tabernacle Apostolic Church recently and abruptly resigned. This week, his son, 25-year-old Jordan Young, the church’s music minister, was arrested by Junction City Police on suspicion of sex crimes involving children. Those close to the church say he also works in the youth ministry.

He was taken into custody at the Junction City Police Department at 11:30 AM on Monday, August 13, 2012 for Aggravated Indecent Liberties With a Child, Attempted Criminal Sodomy and Solicitation of a Child.

Nathan Dudley has taken over as pastor of the church in the midst of the controversy. He says it is a trying time for members.

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KANSAS
WIBW

JUNCTION CITY, Kan. (WIBW) — A Junction City man has been arrested for the second time this week for alleged child sex abuse.

Jordan Young, 25, was originally taken into custody at the Junction City Police Department at 11:30 AM on Monday, August 13, 2012.

Young was arrested for Aggravated Indecent Liberties With a Child, Attempted Criminal Sodomy and Solicitation of a Child. …

Jordan Young had been serving as the music minister at Faith Tabernacle Apostolic Church on Burke Drive in Junction City. Those close to the church say he also worked in the youth ministry.

He is the son of former Faith Tabernacle pastor Edwin Young, who reportedly recently and abruptly resigned.

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UTAH
The Salt Lake Tribune

By Cimaron Neugebauer
The Salt Lake Tribune

Prosecutors charged a Centerville man, who is a former LDS Church employee, on Friday with sexually abusing two children and showing them his genitals several months ago.

Timothy William Bothell, 43, was charged in 2nd District Court with two counts of first-degree felony aggravated sexual abuse of a child fstemming from incidents between Dec. 1, 2011 and Aug. 9. He was also charged with four counts of lewdness involving a child, a class A misdemeanor.

LDS church spokesman Scott Trotter said in a written statement, “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has zero tolerance for abuse of any kind. Those found guilty of these actions are subject to the demands of the law and also face Church discipline. The welfare of victims is our utmost concern and Church leaders will continue to offer counseling and other resources to help in the healing process.”

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UTAH
Deseret News

CENTERVILLE — A former LDS Church employee and leader was charged Friday with sexually abusing two children.

Timothy William Bothell, 43, was arrested Thursday and is facing two first-degree felony counts of aggravated sexual abuse of a child and four counts of lewdness involving a child, a class A misdemeanor.

The sex abuse charges are aggravated in nature because Bothell “holds a position of trust in relationship to the victims,” said Centerville Assistant Police Chief Paul Child. Bothell was serving as a member of a stake high council in Centerville at the time of his arrest, he said.

Police said Bothell, 43, last week was confronted by and admitted to his wife that he had inappropriate sexual contact with at least one child of a family friend. Bothell later contacted Child Protective Services, which then involved police.

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UTAH
Standard-Examiner

By Scott Schwebke
Standard-Examiner staff

CENTERVILLE — Police have arrested a Centerville man on child sex abuse charges.

Timothy William Bothell, 43, was arrested Thursday by a Centerville police detective and booked into Davis County Jail on two first degree felony counts of aggravated sexual abuse of a child and four counts of Class A misdemeanor charges of lewdness involving a child.

Bothell served on a local Stake High Council for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at the time of his arrest and he was also employed by the LDS Church, the Centerville Police Department said in a news release late Friday night.

There are two female victims in this case, ages 13 and 11 and both friends of the Bothel family, according to police. The alleged assaults and lewdness took place at Bothell’s home, beginning around Christmas of 2011, according to the news release.

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UNITED STATES
Ology

by Bison Messink
Sports Editor
On Aug 17, 2012

Set to premiere in September at the Toronto Film Festival, Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence In The House Of God looks to be a chilling exposé of the Catholic Church’s systematic cover up of decades of sex abuse by Rev. Lawrence Murphy (trailer video below). Murphy worked as a priest at a Catholic school for deaf boys in Wisconsin, and preyed upon hundreds of boys during his tenure there, from 1950 to 1974.

Rev. Murphy’s abuse, and the Church’s organised cover up, was written about extensively in the New York Times in 2010. As far back as the 1950s, Murphy’s victims told everyone they could think to tell about what Murphy had done to them: other priests, nuns, priests, three archbishops, two police departments and a district attorney. But the allegations were repeatedly shrugged off or not believed.

The Vatican never defrocked Murphy, even though word of his abuse travelled as far as the Vatican, and to then-future Pope Benedict. In fact, Benedict appears to be at the center of the Church’s non-action and cover ups of sexual abuse for more than a decade now. He ignored two letters sent to him in 1996, detailing Murphy’s abuse.

“From 2001 forward, every single priest sex abuse case went to [current Pope Joseph] Ratzinger. He has all the data,” says testimony in Mea Maxima Culpa’s trailer

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OREGON
The Oregonian

By Bryan Denson, The Oregonian

A high-ranking official with the Archdiocese of Portland will formally apologize to an Oregon woman later this month for the sexual abuse she endured as a child in the 1980s at the hands of a Roman Catholic priest.

Monsignor Dennis O’Donovan, the vicar general of the archdiocese, will apologize from the pulpit of St. John the Apostle Parish in Reedsport on Aug. 26, according to Portland lawyer Gilion C. Dumas, who represented the victim in a lawsuit against the diocese and the Rev. Edward Alstock.

The public apology, which O’Donovan will make on behalf of Archbishop John Vlazny, is a rarity, Dumas said.

“As far as we know,” she said, “this is the first time that they are going to make a public apology in the parish where the abuse occurred.”

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OREGON
Statesman Journal

[Woodburn police department report ]

Written by
Emily Gillespie
Statesman Journal

The mother of the 12-year-old Salem boy who allegedly was violated by his Catholic priest taught her children what to do if they ever were touched inappropriately.

“She taught all of us what’s right and what’s wrong and to tell her if something happened,” said the boy’s brother, who translated for his mother.

That’s exactly what court documents say that the boy did when he spent the night on an air mattress at Woodburn priest Angel Perez’s house Sunday night and awoke to the 46-year-old man touching his genitals and taking pictures with his cell phone.

Perez faces two charges of felony sex crimes and two misdemeanor charges of supplying the boy with alcohol and driving while intoxicated.

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PHOENIX (AZ)
Tucson Citizen

by Michael Clancy on Aug. 17, 2012, under Arizona Republic News

The Diocese of Phoenix has missed its self-imposed deadline to publish details of how many priests have been accused of sexual misconduct and the associated costs of the scandal.

The diocese, which oversees parishes in Maricopa, Coconino, Yavapai and La Paz counties, promised to publish a comprehensive list of abusive clergy and an accounting of costs associated with the scandal by June 14. That hasn’t happened, and diocese officials are refusing to talk about it.

The report as promised would detail the full scope of the church abuse scandal in Phoenix, which lost more than two dozen priests to accusations and arrests. The scandal, which erupted in 2002 with the release of diocesan files in Boston, is believed to have cost the church nationwide an estimated $3.3 billion in court settlements and verdicts to date.

The diocese more than a year ago said the report would be ready in time for the 10th anniversary of the U.S. bishops’ Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, known as the Dallas Charter. The charter was the bishops’ response to the burgeoning scandal, which caught fire earlier that year.

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NEW JERSEY
The Times of Trenton

Published: Saturday, August 18, 2012

By Mike Davis/The Times of Trenton

UPPER FREEHOLD — It took Bruce Novozinsky more than seven years and 14,000 pages of letters, memos, manuscripts and interviews to produce his book on the decades of sexual abuse allegedly covered up by the powers that be in the Roman Catholic Church.

“Purple Reign: Sexual Abuse and Abuse of Power in the Diocese of Trenton” hit stores and online in June and recently became the sixth-most purchased e-book about Christianity on Amazon.com.

“Purple Reign,” the result of what the Upper Freehold resident calls an “obsession,” chronicles his memoirs in Catholic school — and three years at the former Divine Word Seminary in Bordentown — and the sexual abuse suffered in the Diocese of Trenton through the mid- to late 20th century.

“We were all products of the 1970s, where you just kind of prayed to, obeyed and paid the church. Nobody ever questioned the politics involved,” Novozinsky said in a telephone interview earlier this week.

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UNITED STATES
Friendly Atheist

[The Economist]

August 17, 2012 By Hemant Mehta

The Economist has attempted to paint a picture of what the Catholic Church’s finances look like, especially in light of the sexual abuse scandals. I’ll admit it. I may have salivated a bit at this paragraph:

By studying court documents in bankruptcy cases, examining public records, requesting documents from local, state and federal governments, as well as talking to priests and bishops confidentially, The Economist has sought to quantify the damage.

They estimate that the church spends about $171,600,000,000 a year. Not a typo.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Aug. 17, 2012
By Joshua J. McElwee

The U.S. bishops’ committee tasked with enforcing church doctrine quietly adopted new procedures for investigating theologians a year ago, apparently unbeknownst to the theologians whose teachings and writings would be subject to the protocols.

The procedures seem to indicate that the committee is eschewing dialogue with theologians when concerns over their adherence to church doctrine are reported, instead preferring a private in-house review process.

The procedures, which are dated Aug. 19, 2011, would have been formulated and approved at a time when the bishops and their committee were being questioned about their treatment of St. Joseph Sr. Elizabeth Johnson, a distinguished theologian whose work they sharply criticized in March 2011.

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CALIFORNIA
San Bernardino Sun

By Melissa Pinion-Whitt, The (San Bernardino County) Sunsbsun.com
Posted: 08/17/2012

Prosecutors on Friday declined to file charges against a Compton pastor accused of molesting two Rialto girls, citing a lack of evidence.

Anthony Lavon Smith, 47, of Rialto had been behind bars since Wednesday on suspicion of committing lewd and lascivious acts with a child, and other sex charges.

The San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office reviewed the case Friday.

“It’s been turned down,” said spokesman Chris Lee. “It’s pending further investigation.”

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CALIFORNIA
KABC

RIALTO, Calif. (KABC) — A San Bernardino County pastor was arrested, accused of sexually abusing two young girls.

Anthony Lavon Smith, who was arrested Tuesday, lives in Rialto but he works as a pastor at the Jericho Missionary Baptist Church in Compton.

The 47-year-old is accused of having a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl that’s been ongoing for the past six years.

During the investigation, a second female victim, who is now 29 years old, also came forward claiming she had been sexually abused by Smith when she was 15 years old.

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NEDERLAND
PZC

TERNEUZEN – Het bisdom Breda heeft Terneuzenaar Dave ten Hoor in een brief officieel excuses aangeboden voor het bij hem gepleegde seksueel misbruik door oud-pater Jan N. die in de jaren tachtig in Terneuzen werkte.

Dave, die na een verblijf in Gent in Kloosterzande woont, heeft dit vrijdag zelf bekend gemaakt. De klachtencommissie seksueel misbruik rooms-katholieke kerk heeft Dave’s klacht over seksueel misbruik deels gegrond verklaard. Het bisdom Breda heeft daarop de brief geschreven. De klachtencommissie achtte handtastelijkheden bewezen, maar verkrachting niet.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

by Heidi Schlumpf on Aug. 17, 2012 NCR Today

That’s what an in-depth, investigative piece in the Economist called the state of finances in the Catholic Church in America: an unholy mess.

It’s hard to decide what is most horrifying in this report of financial mismanagement, which looks at data made public through bankruptcy proceedings in several dioceses:
•Some dioceses have raided priests’ pension funds to pay for sexual abuse damages and other costs. Under Cardinal Bernard Law, the archdiocese of Boston contributed nothing to its clergy retirement fund between 1986 and 2002, despite receiving an estimated $70 million to $90 million in Easter and Christmas offerings that many parishioners believed would benefit retired priests.
•The same is true for parish savings. A parish in Wilmington, Del., sent $1 million to be deposited in what it thought was a separate account, but was really a pooled, general cash account for the diocese. The parish lost the money when the diocese struck a sexual-abuse settlement.
•Cardinal Dolan and other New York bishops are spending an estimated $100,000 a year to well over $1 million, sources say, on lobbying the state assembly to prevent an extension of the statute of limitations on sexual abuse, which would result in more lawsuits and more dioceses declaring bankruptcy.

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CANADA
The Chronicle-Herald

August 17, 2012 – 2:21pm By THE CANADIAN PRESS

YARMOUTH, N.S. — A sentencing hearing has been adjourned until November for a former Nova Scotia Roman Catholic priest who pleaded guilty to six counts of indecent assault involving children.

Provincial court received a letter saying that 83-year-old Albert LeBlanc was unable to travel from his home in Bouctouche, N.B., to Yarmouth where the case has been held due to medical reasons.

LeBlanc’s sentencing will now take place Nov. 23.

He pleaded guilty in May to charges involving different victims and faced a total of 50 sex-related charges involving minors, dating back to the 1960s and 1970s when he worked as a priest and later as a probation officer in Yarmouth.

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CALIFORNIA
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on August 17, 2012

Thomas Thing, a former Franciscan brother, was recently fired from his job as the student activities director at a LA college when details of two child sex abuse lawsuits against him became public.

University of the West in Rosemead also got access to more than 500 pages of Thing’s personnel file (released as a part of the litigation) which showed that Thing had a long history of troublesome behavior. He even admitted to using his “power relationship” to sexually assault a college student while he was working at USD.

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OREGON
KATU

WOODBURN, Ore. – The Woodburn priest accused of sexually abusing a 12-year-old boy now has a prominent lawyer in his corner.

Angel Perez has hired attorney Marc Blackman and the Archdiocese of Portland has made him an open-ended loan to pay for the legal fees according to The Oregonian.

Perez was arrested earlier this week after a 12-year-old boy told police that Perez had fondled him.

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YAKIMA (WA)
Yakima Herald

Posted on July 27, 2012

Robert Fontana, local leader of a group seeking to reform the Catholic Church, will receive a national award in Chicago on Sunday.

Fontana will be saluted as “Lay Person of the Year” by Survivors Network of People Abused by Priests.

SNAP Director David Clohessy said that Fontana is receiving the award for his work in the Yakima area helping victims of clergy sexual abuse.

“We want to honor you for speaking out when you saw a dangerous situation and for continuing to reach out to survivors and working to protect kids,” Clohessy said.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

August 18, 2012

Richard Baker and Rory Callinan

EXCLUSIVE

A SECRET police bugging operation caught a senior Catholic figure on tape saying it was not up to him to report a paedophile priest and encouraging a victim not to go to authorities for fear of bad publicity.

Abuse victim Peter Murphy has told The Saturday Age he was wired up by police to record a meeting between the church leader and victims as part of a 1994 investigation into Melbourne-based paedophile priest Father Peter Chalk.

Mr Murphy, who has been abused by Chalk, said the meeting was with the head of Chalk’s order, Father Brian Gallagher, and the victims to discuss what the church was doing about the allegations.

News of the existence of the secret tapes comes as the church faces serious allegations in New South Wales and Victoria of failing to help bring paedophile priests to justice and as a parliamentary inquiry into criminal abuse of children by religious orders and other organisations gets under way in Victoria.

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OREGON
Daily Astorian

Associated Press

The Archdiocese of Portland has offered an open-ended loan to the Rev. Angel Armando Perez to cover legal fees as he fights an accusation that he fondled a 12-year-old boy.

The Oregonian reports ( http://is.gd/XAQi2P) Perez has hired prominent Portland attorney Marc Blackman, who has handled a number of high-profile cases.

Woodburn police arrested Perez Monday after the 12-year-old boy ran out of a parish-owned house, telling authorities Perez had given him beer and fondled him.

The 46-year-old parish priest at St. Luke Catholic Church told investigators he was drunk and didn’t remember what happened.

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National Catholic Reporter

by John L Allen Jr on Aug. 17, 2012 All Things Catholic

Most people believe the real power in Catholicism resides with the hierarchy, and in terms of both theology and church law, that’s basically right. For instance, canon law says the pope wields “supreme, full, immediate and universal” authority, and it’s tough to get more sweeping than that.

One wonders, however, if an accountant would reach the same conclusion.

When it comes to the financial dimension of Catholic life, there are certainly some deep pockets out there. Just to offer a few examples:
•The University of Notre Dame, America’s flagship Catholic university, has an annual budget of $1.2 billion and an endowment estimated at $7.5 billion.
•The Archdiocese of Chicago last year reported cash, investments and buildings valued at $2.472 billion.
•The Knights of Columbus has more than $85 billion of life insurance in force, with $8 billion in annual sales.
•In Rome, the Institute for the Works of Religion, known popularly (if, some say, inaccurately) as the “Vatican Bank,” administers assets in excess of $6 billion.
•American Catholics drop more than $8 billion every year into the Sunday collection plate, which works out to more than $150 million a week.
•In Germany, the Catholic church netted $8.8 billion in 2010 from the national “church tax,” allowing it to remain the country’s largest private employer after Volkswagen.

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AUSTRALIA
NEWS.com.au

A LANDMARK Supreme Court challenge has thrown into doubt the Anglican Church’s disciplinary processes for dealing with rogue priests.

In a case that will impact the church across the nation, an Anglican priest accused of sexual misconduct is challenging the validity of the clergy disciplinary regime.

The head of the Anglican Church, Dr Phillip Aspinall, has asked the court to be heard in the action which could open the floodgates for civil claims by priests who have been sacked or disciplined.

The disciplinary processes for dealing with rogue priests in almost every Anglican diocese in Australia are in doubt because of a landmark court challenge to their validity.

The head of the Anglican Church in Australia, Dr Phillip Aspinall, has asked to be heard in the legal action, which could open the floodgates for civil claims against the Church by priests who have been sacked or disciplined.

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UNITED STATES
Berger’s Beat

[Earthly concerns – The Economist]

August 16, 2012 3:01 pm | Author: Jerry Berger
Cardinal Timothy Dolan, a hometown boy who now heads America’s second largest Catholic archdiocese, is also believed to be Manhattan’s largest landowner. So says The Economist in a lengthy new article analyzing the wealth of the church in the U.S. Dolan refused to answer questions from the magazine about how much he spends lobbying against legislation that might enable child sex victims to file more lawsuits. And he dodged questions about two moves he made while Milwaukee’s archbishop – transferring $35 million to a trust and $55.6 million to a fund for cemeteries. Critics say the goal was to shield church funds from clergy sex plaintiffs

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OREGON
The Oregonian

By Bryan Denson, The Oregonian

A Woodburn priest accused this week of drunkenly fondling a 12-year-old boy has hired one of Oregon’s best criminal defense lawyers to represent him.

The Archdiocese of Portland offered an open-ended loan to the Rev. Angel Armando Perez to cover the legal fees of Marc Blackman, according to archdiocese spokesman Bud Bunce.

Blackman, 65, a founder of the Ransom Blackman law firm, has spent the last 35 years in private practice, representing such high-profile criminals as:

•Andy Wiederhorn, a Portland businessman, who was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison (and fined $2 million) for filing a false tax return and paying an illegal gratuity to the head of Capital Consultants.

•Jonathan C. M. Paul, an Animal Liberation Front saboteur (and brother of Baywatch TV star Alexandra Paul), who was sentenced to a five-year prison term for burning down a horse slaughterhouse in Redmond.

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MISSOURI
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

By the Editorial Board

In the law there’s something called a “Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation.” They’re filed by a powerful individuals or organization who want to shut up their critics by burying them in legal fees and hassles.

Efforts by lawyers for Catholic priests in St. Louis and Kansas City to drag officers of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests into damage lawsuits brought by purported abuse victims are not exactly SLAPP suits. They’re worse.

SNAP and its officers, David Clohessy and Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, are not parties to the lawsuits. But because their organization provided counseling to the anonymous plaintiffs, lawyers for the priests want to go fishing through decades of SNAP records.

Incredibly, in the Kansas City case, Jackson County Circuit Court Judge Ann Mesle last year approved this Ahab-like expedition.

Even more incredibly, on Tuesday of this week the Missouri Supreme Court refused to block Judge Mesle’s order. Many states have strong anti-SLAPP laws, but Missouri’s law is narrowly drawn. The court’s ruling this week effectively gave carte blanche to powerful organizations to harass anyone trying to help the powerless.

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