ABUSE TRACKER

NEW ULM (MN)
The Journal

May 2, 2012

By Josh Moniz – Staff Writer, The Journal

NEW ULM – In Minneapolis, Winona and New Ulm, members of the Minnesota branch of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) staged protests Tuesday to demand more information about the sexual abuse by Catholic priests in Minnesota by releasing a list of 130 clerics accused of misconduct.

At each location, SNAP members presented May Day baskets stuffed with the list of accused clerics to ranking church officials, if they were willing to meet with them. Otherwise, the baskets were hung on doors.

The New Ulm Diocese was not a primary focus of the event. But, it was included as an overall effort to gain information from dioceses because priest connected to abuse had been part of the diocese more than 25 years ago. Cyril Denn, a North Mankato resident, was the only SNAP member to attend the New Ulm event. Denn suffered sexual abuse while at St. John’s Prep in Collegeville.

The protest was intended to bring out information about sexual abuse by priests for two reasons: first, to put pressure on the diocese to identify church officials not yet cited for misconduct. Second, it was more squarely aimed to bring to light clergy already accused of misconduct to encourage their victims to come forward and receive help.

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

PATSY McGARRY

Fine Gael general secretary Tom Curran is to chair a session of a day-long conference in Dublin next Monday organised by the Association of Catholic Priests.

Redemptorist priest Fr Tony Flannery, a member of the association’s leadership team and brother of Fine Gael strategist Frank Flannery, was censured last March by the Vatican because of his views on contraception, celibacy and the ordination of women.

He was also advised to withdraw from the association. Fr Flannery was advised by Rome to spend six weeks in a monastery, and while there to “pray and reflect” on his situation and begin “to think with the church” (sentire com ecclesia).

He and colleague Fr Gerard Moloney, who is editor of the Redemptorists’ Reality magazine, have been banned by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on account of their liberal views.

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CALIFORNIA
OpEd News

By
Joey Piscitelli

STOCKTON, CA.

The Diocese of Stockton’s latest lawsuit nightmare may very well be the straw that breaks the Cardinal’s back. Cardinal Mahony of Los Angeles California to be precise.

A new allegation and lawsuit has surfaced this week in San Joaquin Superior Court naming convicted serial molester Fr. Oliver O’Grady once again as the child sex abuser of a victim who is now 25 — and this accusation falls well within the statute of limitations for child abuse cases. The allegation is a potential atomic bomb that may cause the Stockton Diocese to implode. O’Grady was previously convicted in 1993 for lewd and lascivious acts of child abuse.

O’Grady is in jail in Ireland right now, serving a three year sentence for a conviction of possession of child pornography. The prosecution in Ireland followed on the heels of numerous lawsuit settlements that were paid by the Stockton Diocese for O’Grady’s admitted molestation spree that spanned decades in California.

The new Superior Court lawsuit filed by attorney Joe George of Sacramento states the victim was 4 to 5 years old when he was molested by O’Grady in 1992 when O’Grady was in ministry at Saint Andrew’s Parish in San Andreas and at Saint Anthony’s.

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MINNESOTA
Winona Daily News

By Jerome Christenson jchristenson@winonadailynews.com

She stood alone under a cloudy sky to speak for the victims and for herself.

“I am a victim of rape by a priest,” Megan Peterson said.

She was 14, she said, when she was first raped by the Rev. Joseph Jeyapaul, her parish priest in Greenbush, Minn. The abuse went on for 10 months, she said, until Jeyapaul fled to his native India. Charges were filed against Jeyapaul and extradition proceedings have begun. Peterson and the Diocese of Crookston reached a civil settlement last summer.

Peterson, now 22 and a student at Winona State University, was at the Pastoral Center of the Diocese of Winona Tuesday afternoon to tell her story and ask the bishop and diocesan officials to work for and with people sexually exploited and abused by Catholic clergy and religious. She was there as part of a May Day visit by members of SNAP — Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests — to the headquarters of Roman Catholic dioceses across Minnesota.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC – 7.30

[with video]

Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Broadcast: 01/05/2012
Reporter: Tim Palmer

Following a series of 7.30 stories on the Church’s response to complaints of sexual abuse, a Sydney priest with connections to the NSW Attorney General has handed himself in to police to face charges of abuse dating from the 1970s and ’80s.

Transcript
CHRIS UHLMANN, PRESENTER: A Sydney priest who is a close associate of the NSW Attorney General has been arrested and charged with sexually abusing three girls and a boy over 15 years in the 1970s and 80s. The police investigation of Father Finian Egan followed allegations raised in a series of stories on this program. They examined the Church’s response to the initial complaints, and the lengthy holdup in the criminal investigation, during which NSW Attorney General Greg Smith apparently dismissed one of the alleged victims as “money hungry”. Tim Palmer reports.

TIM PALMER, REPORTER: After decades, this was a defining moment for two of the women who have alleged Father Finian Egan turned their lives upside down by sexually assaulting them as children.

KELLIE ROCHE, ABUSE VICTIM: It’s a relief. For me it’s like… it’s finally… it’s something’s happening. Something legal is starting.

TIM PALMER: It was the Catholic Church that first investigated a series of allegations against Finian Egan made by Nikki Wells and Kellie Roche, who claimed he’d attacked them when they were at school or a fellowship at a north-west Sydney church.

ABUSE VICTIM: Even when I left that school and went to another high school we still attended the church.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites researcher

(This article was last updated
on 2 May 2012.)

On 1 May 2012, New South Wales police charged Catholic priest Father Finian Egan with alleged sexual abuse of four children in the Sydney region in the 1970s and ’80s.

Father Egan, who is aged 77 in 2012, belongs to the Broken Bay diocese, which covers parishes to the north of Sydney Harbour (including on the NSW central coast). He is listed as a priest in the latest edition of the annual Australian Catholic Directory, published in mid 2011.

Father Egan, who maintains his innocence, was charged with 16 counts of indecent assault and one count of rape, relating to alleged assaults while he was a priest in Sydney and the NSW central coast.

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LOVELAND (CO)
Coloradoan

A former Loveland church volunteer and toy store owner promised an iPad upgrade, and trips to Disneyland and Elitch Gardens before sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl, the victim said in court.

“You are the most disgusting person I ever met in my life,” she said while standing at the lectern, sobbing softly. “You are really screwed up, and someone had to stop you.”

Robert Ernest Kirchhoff, 54, of Loveland was sentenced to two years in jail and 10 years to life of in-tensive sex-offender probation for grabbing the girl by the wrist and sexually assaulting her for 20 minutes in late January. He had been babysitting the girl as she was at his home to visit his 12-year-old daughter the night of Jan. 27.

8th Judicial District Judge Julie Field gave him the maximum sentence under a plea agreement that the victim’s family said they supported. She said Kirchhoff’s “profound grooming behavior” and posses-sion of child pornography, along with his history of domestic violence, were taken into account.

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NEW ZEALAND
The Northern Advocate

Mike Barrington | Wednesday, May 2, 2012

A Northland bishop has suspended an Anglican Church deacon after what the bishop says are false claims about a child sex abuser.

Deacon Tapu Laulu pulled 18 children out of a church camp after spotting a man that he had been told was a child sex abuser.

However, the man – who is known to Paihia-based Bishop of Tai Tokerau, the Rt Rev Te Kitohi Pikaahu – has never been charged or convicted of the alleged offence.

Bishop Pikaahu – has claimed the alleged sexual offending was based on a 16-year-old rumour concerning two people who were teenagers at the time.

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IRELAND
9 News (Australia)

20:51 AEDT Wed May 2 2012

Shawn Pogatchnik

The leader of Ireland’s four million Catholics, Cardinal Sean Brady, faced renewed pressure to resign on Wednesday after a BBC documentary accused him of helping to cover up child abuse committed by a notorious pedophile priest in the 1970s.

Brady already has admitted he took written testimony in 1975 from two abused teenage boys and gave the report to his bishop, not the police.

The revelations became public after victims sued Brady and the church for damages and won confidential settlements.

One of those now-adult children, Brendan Boland, told the BBC he also alerted Brady to five other children being abused by the same priest, but Brady didn’t tell their parents of the danger.

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NEW ULM (MN)
KEYC

[with video]

By Joel Runck, News Reporter

NEW ULM, Minn. –
More Disclosure. That’s what the Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests (SNAP) is requesting.

With a bag stuffed with papers, Cy Denn of SNAP, made his way into the diocese headquarters in New Ulm.

Once inside, Denn presented the names of individuals who are accused of misconduct.

“What we’re trying to do is not only get their name out there but…to find out how many more people have suffered some type of abuse,” Denn said.

The list presented by SNAP denotes 130 current and former clerical members. One of those names is Reverend Douglas Schleisman of New Ulm.

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MONTANA
Helena Independent Record

By SANJAY TALWANI Independent Record | Posted: Wednesday, May 2, 2012

One of two major sex abuse lawsuits against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Helena grew Tuesday with the addition of 18 plaintiffs, bringing the total to 76 alleged victims in that case.

Vito de la Cruz, a lawyer for the plaintiffs with the Yakima, Wash.-based Tamaki Law Firm, said more plaintiffs are still to come.

The 40-page amended complaint filed in District Court in Helena outlines many specific abusive acts, including fondling, forced sodomy and an offer of cash for sex, committed by both male and female clergy on boys and girls in Helena and several other locations, from the 1940s into the 1970s.

The complaint identifies several former clergy by name. De la Cruz said allegations still to come may include more recent alleged incidents.

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

GERRY MORIARTY and CHARLIE TAYLOR

The Vatican’s senior sex crimes prosecutor has today defended Cardinal Sean Brady’s handling of allegations of clerical sex abuse.

Monsignor Charles Scicluna said the current primate had no case to answer over renewed allegations of mishandling information given to him in 1975 about serial sex abuser Fr Brendan Smyth.

The allegations were made in a BBC This World documentary, The Shame of the Catholic Church, broadcast on BBC Northern Ireland last night.

Speaking on RTÉ Morning Ireland earlier today, Minister for Justice Alan Shatter described the cases detailed in last night’s programme were “tragic and disturbing incidents.”

He said the programme highlighted the need for reforms such as those currently being introduced by the Government such as the Withholding of Information Bill, which was published last week.

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AUSTRALIA/IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Luke Byrne

Wednesday May 02 2012

A RETIRED Irish priest was yesterday rushed to hospital after he was charged by police in Australia with a raft of child-sex offences.

Fr Finian Egan (right) left a Sydney police station by ambulance after being questioned and subsequently charged with 17 offences dating back to the 1970s.

The 77-year-old cleric was charged with 16 counts of indecent assault and one count of rape over a 15-year period.

The charges relate to the alleged sexual abuse of four different children — three girls and a boy — between 1972 and 1987 while he was serving as a priest to parishes in Sydney and the Central Coast.

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AUSTRALIA
SBS

Greg Smith says he would never disparage an alleged sex assault victim, but he’s avoiding apologising over comments related to the case of Finian Egan.

NSW Attorney-General Greg Smith has declined to apologise to the alleged abuse victim of a retired Catholic priest after accusing her of “trying to get $1 million from the church”.

Father Finian Egan, 77, was on Tuesday charged with a raft of child sexual offences dating back to the 1970s.

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IRELAND
TV3

New allegations have been made about Cardinal Sean Brady’s role in a child sexual abuse inquiry in 1975.

In a BBC documentary, a man who was abused by paedophile priest Fr. Brendan Smyth as a child, claimed he told a church inquiry about other children who were at risk, but the allegations were not acted on.

The programme claimed that the parents of the children at the centre of the new allegations were never informed that they were at risk.

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IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

By Greg Harkin
Wednesday, 2 May 2012

Even 15 years after his death, the malign shadow of Fr Brendan Smyth still haunts the Catholic Church

Cardinal Sean Brady has insisted that he would not resign after fresh claims about his role in the cover-up of abuse by serial paedophile cleric Brendan Smyth.

Documents suggest that he was an investigator into paedophile priest Fr Brendan Smyth — and not a just a note taker.

The BBC allegations also include claims Cardinal Brady and the Church failed to pass on any warnings to other victims of Smyth, despite accepting the evidence of a victim.

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IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

By John Mulgrew
Wednesday, 2 May 2012

Cardinal Sean Brady has been Primate of All Ireland since 1996 and in the last few years he has been forced to deal with the damaging fallout from two reports into clerical abuse within the Catholic Church in Ireland.

Two major reports into child sex abuse were published — the Ryan report, which looked at abuse within Catholic institution, and the Murphy report which examined a massive abuse cover-up in the Dublin diocese.

In 2010 it emerged that Cardinal Brady had been present when children signed vows of silence over allegations of abuse made against paedophile priest Father Brendan Smyth in 1975.

He had previously apologised for his role in mishandling the case of the serial child abuser.

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IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

By Fergus Black
Wednesday, 2 May 2012

Leering chillingly into the camera lens, the face is that of perhaps the country’s best-known and most notorious of paedophile priests.

The fallout from the controversy surrounding the case of serial sexual predator Fr Brendan Smyth continues to resound almost 15 years after his death.

A member of the Norbertine Order, Smyth’s litany of abuse going back to the 1940s led to the collapse of a government and the exposure of widespread clerical child sex abuse in the Catholic Church.

Born in Belfast in 1927, Smyth joined the Norbertines in 1945, but decades would pass before his hidden life as one of the most notorious Irish clerical sex abusers was to be revealed.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Greg Harkin and Independent.ie reporters

Wednesday May 02 2012

CARDINAL Sean Brady is expected to release a full statement later today after refusing to resign over fresh claims about his role in the cover-up of abuse by serial paedophile cleric Brendan Smyth.

Previously unseen documents suggest that he was an investigator into paedophile priest Fr Brendan Smyth — and not a just a note taker.

Brendan Boland, from Co Louth, a victim of serial abuser Brendan Smyth, when he was just 12, told how information about his evil deeds was not passed onto parents of other victims by the inquiry team and two boys continued to be abused after the inquiry.

The allegations are made in a BBC documentary which also revealed that a hand-written note for a church inquiry into Smyth in 1975, at which the then Fr Brady was present, puts him in an investigative role.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Lyndsey Telford

Wednesday May 02 2012

THE Vatican’s chief investigator has insisted that Ireland’s most senior cleric has no case to answer over renewed allegations of mishandling of allegations against the paedophile Brendan Smyth.

Monsignor Charles J Scicluna (pictured) defended Cardinal Sean Brady’s role in secret interviews with a 14-year-old victim in 1975 in which he was told it was likely the late priest was abusing five other named children.

The Vatican cleric, from the Holy See’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, claimed the Primate of All-Ireland had fulfilled his duties by referring information on child abuse to his seniors.

Three years ago when explosive allegations about Cardinal Brady’s role in the canon inquiry into Smyth emerged he said he would resign if he found his actions or failings had led to another child being abused.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

by Ken Briggs on May. 01, 2012 NCR Today

The grudge hardened in 1971 when the superiors of women’s religious communities decided to re-name themselves the Leadership Conference of Women Religious.

The flash point was the word “leadership.” The Vatican protested it’s use, the superiors overrode the objections and Rome’s campaign against “radical feminism” became a fixture in Holy See strategy.

“Leadership” signified a breaking loose from the pre-Vatican II assumption that male clerics had the final say on everything about sisters’ existence. They were insisting on a degree of autonomy based on “Perfectae Caritatis,” the instructions given them by Vatican II.

The ink had barely dried on the document as the head of the Italian bishops was warning the sisters not to take this freedom too far. That would be abusing official authority. Eventually this bacame a full fledged attack on renewal as a mindless fling with worldliness, individualism and apostacy.

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ROME
The Irish Times

PADDY AGNEW

POPE BENEDICT XVI has long made it clear he believes Europe’s traditionally Christian countries need a major spiritual “dig-out” to ward off both growing secularisation and the “eclipse of the sense of God”. Two years after he created the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelisation, however, one is tempted to ask whether he means new evangelisation or new inquisition.

Irish public opinion is much concerned by revelations that Irish priests such as Fr Tony Flannery and Fr Brian D’Arcy have been “silenced” by the Holy See over the last two years. Yet, there a lot of people getting their knuckles rapped by the Holy See – from US nuns to Austrian priests to teachers at Catholic schools and even Holy See functionaries.

Earlier this month, Emily Herx, a literature teacher at the St Vincent De Paul Catholic School in Fort Wayne-South Bend, Indiana, claimed she had been sacked from the school last year because she had undergone in vitro fertilisation (IVF). She claimed, in a lawsuit, that the school’s church leader, Fr John Kuzmich, had told her she was a “grave, immoral sinner” who would cause a “scandal” if people learned she had undergone IVF, while local bishop Kevin Rhoades had told her “IVF is an intrinsic evil”.

In a statement that stirs echoes of the Eileen Flynn affair in New Ross in the late 1980s, the Fort Wayne diocese publicly asserted its right as a religious employer “to make religious-based decisions consistent with its religious standards”.

Closer to home, Pope Benedict, during his traditional Maunday Thursday “Chrism” Mass at Easter, sharply rebuked more than 300 Austrian priests who had issued a “call to disobedience” on key tenets in church teaching, including regarding women’s ordination.

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IRELAND/AUSTRALIA
The Irish Times

PÁDRAIG COLLINS in Sydney

A RETIRED Irish priest has been charged with the rape and indecent assault of children in Sydney and the New South Wales Central Coast between 1972 and 1987.

Fr Finian Egan turned himself in at a police station in the northwestern Sydney suburb of Ryde yesterday morning, accompanied by a lawyer. The 77-year-old was subsequently charged with 17 offences relating to alleged assaults on four children.

The charges include one count of rape and two of indecent assault over an alleged attack on a then 17-year-old girl in 1972. Fr Egan has also been charged with committing indecent assaults on a 14-year-old boy and girls aged 11 and 16.

Two of his alleged victims hugged each other as the priest hobbled into the police station on a walking stick.

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MONTANA
Beartooth NBC

By Kristin Price

18 plaintiffs were added today, to a sexual abuse lawsuit against the Diocese of Helena and the Ursuline Sisters of the Western Province, bringing the total number of plaintiffs to 78.

In March, lawyers representing both sides in the case agreed to hold mediation to resolve the lawsuit. The plaintiffs’ attorney who filed the amendment today says mediation required some changes be made to the lawsuit.

The plaintiffs’ attorney, Vito de la Cruz, says, “There’s an agreement with the diocese and us to file the second amended complaint to remove some of their claims that we had raised initially and also to add additional plaintiffs.”

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

A SPOKESMAN for Cardinal Seán Brady said before the BBC programme was broadcast that he had not seen it, but wanted to make the following points.

The text is slightly edited:

* It is critical to note Cardinal Brady’s comment in 2009, that he would resign if by his action children were put at risk, was specifically in response to a question about if he was a bishop with overall responsibility for dealing with allegations . . . but . . . in 1975, he was a priest who was asked by his own bishop to record evidence . . . Fr Brady had no authority over Brendan Smyth . . . It would be disingenuous to report the 2009 quote in any other way.

* Even today, in the State’s own guidelines for responding to allegations of abuse against children, it is the “Designated Person” in the organisation who has responsibility for reporting the matter to the civil authorities, not the person who first receives or notes the details of the allegation, as Fr Brady did in 1975.

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

PATSY McGARRY

How Church’s handling of clerical child abuse led to court cases decades later

1973 Norbertine priest Fr Brendan Smyth began his abuse of schoolboy Brendan Boland (12). It continued for two years.

Early 1975 Brendan Boland spoke to a priest in his home town of Dundalk about his abuse by Smyth. It was reported to church authorities. The bishop of Kilmore, Francis McKiernan, received reports of another allegation of abuse by Smyth involving a boy in Ballyjamesduff, Co Cavan.

March 1975 Fr Seán Brady was asked by Bishop McKiernan to conduct a canonical inquiry into the two allegations involving Smyth. The then Fr Brady was a 35-year-old teacher at St Patrick’s College, Cavan, and part-time secretary to Bishop McKiernan. Brady also held a doctorate in canon law.

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

GERRY MORIARTY, Northern Editor

A VICTIM of late paedophile priest Brendan Smyth has stated he gave information to a Catholic Church inquiry team that included Fr Seán Brady – now Cardinal Brady – about how Smyth had abused other children.

Brendan Boland (51), from Co Louth, said this information was not passed on to the parents of these children, two of whom continued to be abused by the serial child sex abuser.

Smyth continued to abuse one particular Belfast boy a year after Mr Boland had given information about this abuse to a church inquiry, it was claimed last night. Three priests, including canonical lawyer Fr Brady – now the Catholic primate, Cardinal Brady – conducted that 1975 inquiry.

Details of this abuse and how such details were not passed on to the children’s parents or to gardaí are contained in a BBC’s This World documentary, The Shame of the Catholic Church, broadcast last night on BBC Northern Ireland. It is to be rebroadcast tonight on BBC 2.

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IRELAND
BBC News

By Andy Martin
BBC News

Cardinal Brady became the Catholic Primate of all-Ireland in 1996, but the appointment that may define his career was made 21 years earlier.

As a Bishop’s secretary in 1975, he was tasked with investigating a complaint of sexual abuse made against a fellow priest, the man who would later be exposed as Ireland’s most prolific paedophile, Fr Brendan Smyth.

The manner in which he handled that internal church inquiry has come under intense scrutiny in a BBC ‘This World’ investigation.

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IRELAND
BBC News

A BBC investigation has uncovered fresh revelations about the role of the Catholic primate of all-Ireland, Cardinal Sean Brady, in the failure to protect children from child abuse.

The BBC’s This World programme revealed he had the names and addresses of children who were being abused or were at risk of abuse by paedophile priest Brendan Smyth but failed to ensure they were being protected.

The investigation centres on a secret church inquiry in 1975 when a 14-year-old was questioned about abuse.

In 1975, Cardinal Brady was a priest and teacher in County Cavan in the Republic of Ireland, when he was sent by his bishop to investigate a claim of child sexual abuse by a fellow priest.

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WORCESTER (MA)
Telegram & Gazette

By Gary V. Murray TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
gmurray@telegram.com

WORCESTER — A woman testified in court today that she was physically abused and sexually assaulted by her church pastor during counseling sessions aimed at treating her eating disorder.

The 45-year-old alleged victim was the first witness called by Assistant District Attorney Cheryl R. Riddle during The Very Rev. Charles Michael Abdelahad’s jury-waived Central District Court trial on charges of indecent assault and battery, five counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, and four counts of assault and battery.

Rev. Abdelahad, 55, of 14 Bryant Ave., Shrewsbury, the longtime pastor of St. George Antiochian Orthodox Cathedral at 30 Anna St., is on a voluntary leave of absence from his position at the church, according to his lawyer, James G. Reardon Jr.

The complaining witness testified that she first met Rev. Abdelahad in 1987, after a suicide attempt left her comatose in a hospital’s intensive care unit, and the young priest came to administer the sacrament of Holy Unction.

She said she and Rev. Abdelahad formed a relationship, but lost touch for several years after she moved back in with her family in Connecticut.

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UNITED STATES
TheMediaReport

Dave Pierre

The New York Times has shown yet again that the abuse of children does not really bother them unless it involves the Catholic Church. But if there were still any doubts, the Times has made it perfectly clear that the decades-old abuse of minors by Catholic priests is simply a tool with which it can bludgeon the Catholic Church because it does not conform to its left-wing liking.

It was only a week ago when a New York Times editorial fretted about the Catholic Church’s efforts to align the dissident leadership of a conference of left-wing nuns with Church doctrine, and the paper predictably used the scandals as a useful cudgel to promote “progressive” dissent.

Now Times’ opinion writers Maureen Dowd and Nicholas D. Kristof have double-upped on the Grey Lady’s predictable tactic with similar Church-bashing columns running just a week later in the same Sunday issue together on the same day.

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MINNESOTA
BishopAccountability.org – Assignment Record

Summary of Case: A parish priest of the St. Paul and Minneapolis archdiocese ordained in 1962, Stitts died in 1985 at age 50. He was named in lawsuits in 1995 and again in 2010 as having sexually abused at least a dozen boys in the 1960s and 1970s. The archdiocese was alleged to have known of Stitts’ sexual of abuse of children as early as 1970, but took no action to discipline him or to prevent further abuse by him. Archdiocesan officials deniend hiding information about Stitts.

Ordained: 1962
Incardinated: St. Paul and Minneapolis
Died: Oct. 13, 1985

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UNITED STATES
Toy Soldier

Often times people want to help others but do not know how. This cannot be any truer than when it comes to helping abused men and boys. The resources sometimes are not apparent and are often difficult to find. Sometimes the resources are hidden or even barred by other groups who wish to polarize the issue. The intent here is to provide those who wish to help male victims with the opportunity to do so. Every month I will post a new link to an organization that provides services for male victims. As the list grows, I will create a page where all the links can be found.

Please remember that you do no have to empty your wallets to help. Even a small donation can go a long way. And for those on the other side of the issue, it would go a long way to demonstrating real concern for all victims if you donated as well.

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

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
National Catholic Reporter

by Brian Roewe on May. 01, 2012 NCR Today

The trial of two priests alleged in a conspiracy of covering up cases of priest sex abuse in the Philadelphia archdiocese has opened its sixth week to hearing prior grand jury testimony from each of the defendants.

Today, prosecutors from the Philadelphia district attorney’s office presented the grand jury testimony of William J. Lynn, in relation to former priest Sylvester Wiejata.

Lynn was the secretary of clergy in the archdiocese from 1992-2004, during which time he reviewed allegations against Wiejeta of inappropriate touching of a teen girl and sexual advances toward young women, as well as an affair with a married woman.

Wiejeta was defrocked in 2002, six years after his ordination.

From the Philadelphia Inquirer:
In August 2000, Lynn told the grand jury, he received an anonymous call from a woman, who said she knew of Wiejata history because she had an affair with him. She said that she came home and discovered Wiejata there fondling and kissing her 13-year-old daughter.

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

by Elizabeth Dunbar, Minnesota Public Radio
May 1, 2012

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Minnesota members of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests on Tuesday released a list of 130 clerics accused of sexual abuse in the state.

The group delivered the list in May Day baskets to the Archdiocese of Minneapolis and St. Paul, the Diocese of Winona and the Diocese of New Ulm.

Bob Schwiderski, the group’s director, said most of the people on the list have already been accused through police reports, court documents or media reports.

“There’s been a decision made to bring those names out for the benefit of those still suffering in silence and with a hope that the religious leaders in the Catholic Church in this state realize how important it is to reach out to those same people,” Schwiderski said.

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

VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Service

By Carol Glatz
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Ten years after a historic papal response to clerical sex abuse, the Vatican urged priests to strive for greater holiness in their own lives so that they might effectively minister to others and reverse the tide of atheism.

In its annual letter to priests for 2012, the Vatican’s Congregation for Clergy focused on Blessed John Paul II’s 2002 Holy Thursday letter to clergy, in which the late pope responded to the growing revelations and scandal of sexual abuse of minors by priests.

The congregation’s letter also gave priests a guideline for examining their consciences concerning everything from how they celebrate Mass to how well they are living a pure, humble and generous life detached from consumerism.

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MINNESOTA
BishopAccountability.org – Assignment Record

Summary of Case: Stevens pleaded guilty in 1987 to sexual misconduct with a minor. He resided at a St. Paul, MN parish from 1988-2002 and worked on the archdiocese’s computer services team. He was removed from ministry in June 2002, after the U.S. Bishops drafted the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.

Ordained: 1980
Incardinated: St. Paul-Minneapolis

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By Joseph A. Slobodzian
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

Young and darkly handsome, Sylvester Wiejata had an eye for the ladies, especially married ones.

Problem was, Wiejata was a priest.

This morning a Philadelphia Common Pleas Court jury listened to the grand jury testimony of Msgr. William J. Lynn as he tried to explain his alleged failure to act as Wiejata’s sexual overtures went from married women to single women in their 20s and, ultimately in August 2000, allegations that he had fondled the 13-year-old daughter of a woman with whom he had an affair.

As secretary for clergy from 1992 to 2004, Lynn, 61, was the Archdiocesan official responsible for investigating allegations of sexual abuse by priests. Charged with endangering the welfare of children. He is the first Catholic church official to be criminally prosecuted in a landmark trial focusing on the sexual abuse of children by some priests in the Philadelphia archdiocese.

Lynn had denied the charge that his alleged inaction enabled deviate priests to continue preying on children and his lawyers have argued that he was the first church official here to move against priests against whom there were years of record allegations of sexual misconduct.

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POLAND
WSN

A priest in Poland, found guilty of having sex with a disabled 19-year-old girl who was entrusted in his care, has been sentenced to four years in prison.

This is the first time a priest has been caught and sentenced in Poland, though there have been few incidents in the past where priests were asked to resign.

Bialystok’s District Court found that between July 2010 and February 2011 the priest had sexual intercourse with her as many as eight times, a media report said.

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ROME
Business Insider

Sanya Khetani|April 30, 2012

In the most recent scandal involving the Vatican, the Church allegedly accepted a sum of one billion lire (about $660,000) in 1990 to bury the remains of mobster Enrico de Pedis in a basilica, next to various popes and cardinals, The Independent reports.

The paper cites a source from ANSA.it (though the report appears to be offline) who says that “despite initial reluctance” the then vicar-general of Rome, Cardinal Ugo Poletti, “in the face of such a conspicuous sum, gave his blessing” to the arrangement, despite the fact that de Pedis had been the head of the notorious Magliana gang. The money was reportedly used on missions and to restore the Basilica. The Vatican has refused to comment.

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ROME
National Catholic Reporter

By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Rome

When Pope John Paul II used to address seminarians studying in the Eternal City, he would often urge them to “learn Rome.” By that, he meant that just moving around the city, and especially spending time in its estimated 300 churches, can offer an education in Catholicism.

Today is the one-year anniversary of John Paul’s beatification, and it’s also the occasion for a reminder that the late pope’s tip about “learning Rome” is truer than he probably intended. A recent brouhaha over the burial of a mob boss in the Basilica of Sant’Apollinare illustrates that Rome’s churches often do, indeed, have much to teach about Catholicism – warts and all.

The scandal centers on the late Enrico De Pedis, a.k.a “Renatino,” who was among the bosses of the Banda della Magliana, the “Magliana Gang,” named after a Rome neighborhood, which was the city’s most notorious organized crime outfit in the 1970s and 1980s. After being gunned down near the Piazza de Fiori in 1990, De Pedis was buried in a crypt within the Basilica of Sant’Apollinare (albeit in what the church’s pastor describes as basically a “closet,” in an unconsecrated area not open to the public).

From the beginning, it always seemed incongruous that a mob boss should end up buried in the kind of space typically reserved for cardinals, Catholic nobles, and other ecclesial dignitaries. That was perhaps especially so in the early 1990s, in an era in which the anti-mafia activism of courageous Catholic priests such as Fr. Pino Puglisi in Sicily put them at grave risk (Puglisi was assassinated in 1993). Critics wondered how the church could back Puglisi with one hand, and open its doors to De Pedis with the other.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

Nicky Phillips, Nick Ralston May 02, 2012

A SYDNEY Catholic priest who revealed he has been married for a year has been removed from his post by church officials.

Father Kevin Lee, a priest at Padre Pio parish in Glenmore Park, told Channel Seven last night he married his wife, whom he met in the Philippines, in secret last year.

”I’ve fallen in love and I’ve got married and it’s outside of most people’s awareness,” he said. ”But I’m sure people within the church could have had a suspicion.”

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

May. 01, 2012
By An NCR Editorial

Publication of the annual audit of dioceses and eparchies to determine how they are complying with the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People is intended to assure the Catholic faithful and the wider society that church leaders remain vigilant in their efforts to combat sex abuse of children by priests and other ministers.

On several levels, the audits, the ninth of which was just released, achieve that purpose. Church leaders are paying more attention than ever before to the protection of children. No other institution in this country has spent as much time or money establishing requirements for education of both children and adults around the topic of sex abuse. The effort has become a model for the church in some other parts of the world and could well become a model for other denominations, not to mention civil entities, such as school systems.

The encouraging news is that the number of reported incidents is diminishing. Some of that certainly is because of the programs put in place since 2002. One might logically conclude that it’s also the result of fewer priests and a much different relationship that has evolved between laypeople and priests because of the scandal. Of the 704 allegations of sexual abuse by members of the clergy during the audit period, only 21 involved “current minors.” The rest were “historical allegations” first reported in 2011, but occurring in the past and “often decades ago.” Of the 21 current accusations, the audit states, seven were found to be credible, three were found to be false, three were still under investigation, three were “unable to be determined,” and five were considered boundary violations, not abuse.

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AUSTRALIA
The Daily Telegraph

Andrew Clennell and Clementine Cuneo
The Daily Telegraph
May 02, 2012

ATTORNEY-General Greg Smith told charity worker Father Chris Riley an alleged paedophile priest’s child abuse victim was making allegations because she was “trying to get $1 million”, Father Riley said yesterday.

Father Finian Egan, a close friend of Mr Smith who he mentioned in his maiden speech speech in 2007, saying “at St Gerard’s Father Finian Egan charmed us with his Irish wit and his pastoral devotion to his flock”, was charged yesterday with rape and other sexual assault offences relating to four minors dating back 40 years.

Youth worker Father Riley wrote in an email to one of Father Egan’s alleged victims, Nikki Wells, on July 17 last year, that: “I was with Greg Smith the other day and I raised you (sic) case with him. He commented that ‘you were just trying to get $1m from the church’.”

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BOSTON (MA)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on April 30, 2012

It is disconcerting that, in the case of Rev. Mendicoa, the Archdiocese of Boston has made nothing public except that the claim was “unsubstantiated.” How was this determination made? Who were the witnesses? What criteria were used? Because it provides no answers to these questions, the Archdiocese’s statement really means nothing. A statement this cryptic and a process this mysterious neither exonerates the priest nor reassures the public.

If Mendicoa was truly innocent, we suspect that he would not have to seek permission to perform priestly functions. The fact that Mendicoa is still restricted in ministry, even though he has been taken off of administrative leave, is telling. We urge Boston church officials to make known what has actually been found out in this case instead of using vague terms and odd punishments. A decade ago these officials pledged to be open and honest about clergy sex crimes and allegations. We would appreciate some of that honesty in this case.

Finally, we believe that often in these cases, “where there’s a will, there’s a way.” In other words, we feel that Cardinal O’Malley has ample resources he could use to really seek out others with knowledge or suspicions about this case. Instead, he seems to have taken the ‘bare minimum’ approach, which is a disservice to everyone involved.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

[with video]

A Catholic priest from Glenmore Park claims many priests lead a double life as he revealed his own clandestine marriage, a 7News exclusive has exposed.

Father Kevin Lee, a priest for 20 years, has admitted to 7News that he has found love and wedded.

In a controversial claim, Lee says that many Catholic priests pursue relationships and argues compulsory celibacy within the faith should be reconsidered.

“I’ve fallen in love and I’ve got married and it’s outside of most people’s awareness,”

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POLAND
Deccan Herald (India)

Warsaw, May 1, 2012 (IANS)

A priest in Poland, found guilty of having sex with a disabled 19-year-old girl who was entrusted in his care, has been sentenced to four years in prison.

This is the first time a priest has been caught and sentenced in Poland, though there have been few incidents in the past where priests were asked to resign.

Bialystok’s District Court found that between July 2010 and February 2011 the priest had sexual intercourse with her as many as eight times, a media report said.

The incident came to light when the girl became pregnant last year and.reported the matter to the police. The girl gave birth to a baby a few months ago but the name of the father of the child has not been mentioned anywhere on the documents, reports said.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

[with video]

Posted May 01, 2012

Following a series of 7.30 stories on the Church’s response to complaints of sexual abuse, a Sydney priest with connections to the NSW Attorney General has handed himself in to police to face charges of abuse dating from the 1970s and ’80s.

Tim Palmer
Source: 7.30 | Duration: 6min

Transcript

CHRIS UHLMANN, PRESENTER: A Sydney priest who is a close associate of the NSW Attorney General has been arrested and charged with sexually abusing three girls and a boy over 15 years in the 1970s and 80s. The police investigation of Father Finian Egan followed allegations raised in a series of stories on this program. They examined the Church’s response to the initial complaints, and the lengthy holdup in the criminal investigation, during which NSW Attorney General Greg Smith apparently dismissed one of the alleged victims as “money hungry”. Tim Palmer reports.

TIM PALMER, REPORTER: After decades, this was a defining moment for two of the women who have alleged Father Finian Egan turned their lives upside down by sexually assaulting them as children.

KELLIE ROCHE, ABUSE VICTIM: It’s a relief. For me it’s like… it’s finally… it’s something’s happening. Something legal is starting.

TIM PALMER: It was the Catholic Church that first investigated a series of allegations against Finian Egan made by Nikki Wells and Kellie Roche, who claimed he’d attacked them when they were at school or a fellowship at a north-west Sydney church.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Gay Osterreich

Da es für einen Präfekten durchaus anstrengend sein kann, den Kopf eines Knaben zwischen die Beine zu klemmen und ihn mit dem erigierten Penis zu schlagen, kann es schon zu Stöhnlauten kommen. Sexueller Missbrauch im strafrechtlichen Sinn sei das jedoch nicht, meint zumindest der Rechtsanwalt des Bistums Regensburg.

Bereits vor zwei Jahren wurde bekannt, dass auch im weltberühmten Knabenchor ‘Regensburger Domspatzen’ in den Jahren 1958 bis 1973 zu sexuellem Missbrauch gekommen sein soll. Zwei ehemals leitende Geistliche sollen darin verwickelt gewesen, die Taten sind jedoch bereits verjährt. Trotzdem hat die Deutsche Bischofskonferenz zugesagt, den Opfern (sämtlicher Missbrauchsfälle durch katholische Geistliche) eine genaue Prüfung der Vorfälle und – im Falle eines berechtigten Anspruches – eine Entschädigung zugesagt.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Erzbistum Bamberg

Erzbistum untersagt weiterhin alle seelsorglichen Tätigkeiten

Bamberg. (bbk) Das Gericht des Erzbistums München hat einen 67-jährigen Bamberger Diözesanpriester wegen sexueller Übergriffe auf Minderjährige während seiner Tätigkeit im damaligen Ottonianum Bamberg (1978 bis 1984) in sechs „jeweils minderschweren Fällen“ schuldig gesprochen. Es bestätigte die vorläufige Versetzung in den Ruhestand und das Verbot jeder seelsorglichen Tätigkeit. Das Gericht verhängte als Strafe die dauernde Versetzung in den Ruhestand; außerdem darf der Geistliche den Titel „Domkapitular em.“ nicht führen.

Den Prozess hat das Offizialat München im Auftrag der römischen Glaubenskongregation geführt. Die staatsanwaltschaftlichen Ermittlungen wurden im Januar 2009 wegen Verjährung eingestellt. Das Erzbistum Bamberg veranlasste die Klärung der Vorwürfe durch ein kirchliches Gericht.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CNN

By Sarah Hoye, CNN

Philadelphia (CNN) — One of the two Philadelphia priests on trial in a landmark child sexual abuse and conspiracy case admitted in 2008 that he allowed a 14-year-old to view pornography and sleep in the same bed with him during an overnight visit in 1996, according to testimony given to church investigators.

Monsignor Kevin Quirk, the presiding priest over the 2008 canonical trial of Rev. James Brennan, read Brennan’s testimony into the court record on Monday. Brennan is accused of attempted rape in the 1996 incident and is currently standing trial in criminal court.

“Did I allow it happen? Yes. I take full responsibility for it,” Brennan testified in 2008, adding that the behavior was “borderline” inappropriate. Brennan denied touching the 14-year-old or exposing himself, according to the 2008 testimony that Quirk recounted for the court on Monday.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Greg Harkin

Tuesday May 01 2012

CHURCH leaders will come under renewed pressure when a BBC documentary is screened tonight outlining the widespread cover-up of clerical sex abuse here.

‘This World: The Shame of the Catholic Church’ is said to focus on Cardinal Sean Brady’s role in an ecclesiastical investigation that led to the silencing of two victims of Fr Brendan Smyth.

Victims of paedophile priests in Co Donegal will also tell how the church failed to deal with complaints which allowed one cleric to continue to abuse more victims.

The broadcaster has refused to comment on the investigation by reporter Darragh Mac Intyre but BBC sources say the documentary has “powerful testimony” from abuse victims.

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UNITED STATES
dotCommonweal

April 30, 2012

Posted by J. Peter Nixon

In its recent statement regarding the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith noted that its principal means of assessing the doctrinal fidelity of the LCWR was a review of keynote and leadership addresses at the LCWR annual assembly. Many of the documents in question are publicly available on the LCWR web site. Given the controversy, I wanted to read some of these documents myself.

What I found was not what I expected. With all the concerns the CDF raised about “radical feminism,” I assumed I would encounter many stirring denunciations of patriarchy and criticisms of the Church’s teaching that the sacrament of Holy Orders be restricted to men.

Intimations of those positions find their way into the documents here and there. At most, however, they are a minor concern. The core struggle revealed in these addresses is an emotional and spiritual one: how to live out a religious life in communities whose vision of Church—a vision that once seemed a real possibility—is increasingly a road not taken.

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UNITED STATES
GoErie

By JAMES F. DRANE
Contributing writer

How does one explain the public reprimand of American sisters, from a group of bishops and Vatican officials who failed so tragically to handle the mentally ill pedophile priests and the damage they did to innocent children and to the Church?

The American sisters targeted belong to the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which includes a majority of American nuns. They were reprimanded for questioning Church teaching on homosexuality, male only priesthood and for promoting “radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith.” They were also reprimanded for public statements that disagree with and challenge the American bishops, “who are the authentic teachers of faith and morals.”

All the above accusations and reprimands were associated with a discussion of President Barack Obama’s health-care plan.

One explanation of what is happening comes from an enduring culture inside the Vatican. Inside the Vatican, there is a particular culture, just as there is a culture inside every large industrial organization, big bank, leadership group of a Protestant Church or government agency responsible for protecting the president. Without an understanding of an inside culture, one can never explain particular unusual behaviors.

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CANADA
Vancouver Sun

By KIM PEMBERTON, Vancouver Sun
April 30, 2012

A Calgary law firm with 4,100 clients seeking compensation for abuse in residential schools is taking too long to register some of their claims, a court-ordered investigation has found.

The investigation found Blott and Company has not yet registered about 1,400 of the claims, even though a government-imposed deadline to do so before September of 2012 is looming.

The findings of the three-month long investigation, made public Monday in B.C. Supreme Court, included a recommendation that Blott and Company no longer be able to represent clients under the Independent Assessment Process for Indian residential schools survivors seeking settlement packages from the government.

The investigation also found that in some cases, Blott and Company claimants were charged “criminal interest rates” of 20 to 60 per cent for loans in anticipation of the compensation awards.

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AUSTRALIA
Northern District Times

1 May 12 @ 01:10pm by Robbie Patterson

FOMER Priest at St Gerard Majella parish Carlingford, Father Finian Egan, 77, was arrested by police this morning and charged in regards to 17 child sex allegations dating back four decades.

The West Ryde-based Catholic Priest, attended Ryde Police Station with his legal representatives at 10am.

The offences allegedly occurred between 1972 and 1987, while he was appointed as a priest to parishes in Sydney and on the Central Coast.

He worked for twenty years, (1979 to 1999) as Parish Priest in charge of St Gerard Majella parish, Carlingford.

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AUSTRALIA
NSW Police Force

Tuesday, 01 May 2012

Detectives in Sydney’s north-west have arrested and charged a Catholic priest with child sex offences dating back four decades.

The 77-year-old man attended Ryde Police Station with his legal representative about 10am today (Tuesday 1 May 2012).

He was taken into custody by detectives attached to Eastwood Local Area Command and questioned in relation to alleged sexual offences against four children.

The offences allegedly occurred between 1972 and 1987, while the man was appointed as a priest to parishes in Sydney and on the Central Coast.

He was subsequently charged with 17 offences, including:

Three charges of Indecent Assault Section 61E(1) relating to an alleged incident involving a 16-year-old girl at Carlingford in 1987;
10 charges of indecent assault Section 76 relating to an alleged incident involving a 11-year-old girl at Carlingford in 1979;
One charge of indecent assault Section 81 relation to an alleged incident involving a 14-year-old boy at The Entrance in 1973; and
Two counts of indecent assault (Section 76) and one count of rape (Section 63) relating to an alleged incident involving a 17-year-old girl at The Entrance in 1972.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC Sydney

By police reporter Sean Rubinsztein-Dunlop

Updated May 01, 2012

A retired Catholic priest at the centre of a child abuse scandal has been charged after turning himself in to police in Sydney’s north-west.

Father Finian Egan was helped out of his car by detectives as he arrived at Ryde Police Station with a lawyer at about 11:00am (AEST).

Two of his alleged victims hugged as the 77-year-old hobbled with a walking stick into the station.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

A RETIRED Catholic priest and friend of the NSW attorney general was taken to hospital after being charged with a raft of child sexual offences dating back to the 1970s.

Finian Egan, 77, left a Sydney police station in an ambulance after being questioned and charged with 17 offences today.

Attorney-General Greg Smith has been a long-time friend of Egan, who drove himself to Ryde police station this morning, where detectives escorted him inside.

He was arrested and questioned over alleged sexual offences against four children, police said in a statement.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

A CATHOLIC priest who is a friend of NSW Attorney-General Greg Smith has been arrested in relation to child sex offences.

Police said the 77-year-old priest was questioned at Ryde police station and charged in relation to alleged indecent assaults that had been renamed under the Crimes Act 1900..

The priest was the subject of a police investigation that began in 2010 following complaints he abused young girls 30 years ago.

He has maintained his innocence.

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NEDERLAND
Bert Smeets

Zaterdag via mijn advocaat het verweerschrift van de zusters Augustinessen van st. Monica ontvangen, de wereld op zijn kop!! Maar dat was te verwachten. Ook IK heb goede herinneringen aan een bepaalde zuster van deze orde. Zij was daar moeder overste en vriendin van mijn moeder, zij kende elkaar uit Utrecht (mijn geboortestad) van de Poortstraat.

Na een hoop ellende thuis was mijn moeder zo lief om haar te vragen mij op te willen nemen in hun orde voor een opleiding kinderverzorging in het klooster te Sittard, en natuurlijk dat deed zij maar al te graag.

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NEDERLAND
de Volkskrant

Kinderen in pleeggezinnen en tehuizen worden daar drie tot vier keer vaker slachtoffer van seksueel misbruik dan jongeren die thuis wonen. Uit huis geplaatste jongeren met een licht verstandelijke beperking zijn zelfs tien keer vaker slachtoffer. Tussen 2008 en 2010 kwam misbruik in de jeugdzorg ‘schokkend vaak’ voor, stellen wetenschappers van de Universiteit Leiden in een nog niet openbaar gemaakt onderzoeksrapport in opdracht van de commissie-Samson.

Seksueel misbruik is volgens de onderzoekers nog een groot taboe. De helft van de ondervraagde jongeren die slachtoffer werd van seksueel misbruik in de jeugdzorg, durfde zelfs in de anonieme vragenlijst niet te melden wie de dader is. Degenen die wel antwoordden, noemden medewerkers van de instelling als dader, maar ook pleegouders of groepsgenoten.

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NEDERLAND
Bert Smeets

Dat is te wijten aan een gebrek aan expertise, stellen deskundigen vrijdag in dagblad Spits.

Vandaag speciaal op deze dag 28 April is het kind in mij aan het woord. Vandaag 28 April op deze dag overleed mijn vader toen ik 6 jaar oud was. Hij stierf vlak voor me, hij drukte op de ivoren toets van de radio viel achterover en ging geruisloos heen. Het kind in mij is nooit gehoord, ik werd samen met mijn broertje en zusje het huis uit gedreven, de dode achterlatend, het kind in mij, zijn stem gesmoord.

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NEDERLAND
Bert Smeets

Het grijze, visieloze midden, had vandaag in Den Haag een glorieuze dag. Een overwinning met bezuinigingen die ver zullen doorsnijden in menig gezin, winkel, bedrijf, gemeenschap en de machtsverhoudingen in dit land voor de waan van de dag op zijn kop zet. De felicitaties waren voor allen die hadden meegewerkt aan deze snelle omwenteling terwijl diezelfde politici zich weken opsloten om met Brussel een geschikt akkoord te vinden applaudisseerden, en keken naar deze verrassende wederopstanding van Jezus in Kunduz kleedij, ‘hosanna hosanna’. ‘Ai’, zag je Rutte denken er waren meer opties dan de zwart-wit-gele Wilders in zijn driehoeksverhouding met Henk en Ingrid. De realiteit kan zeer snel veranderen. Snel erbij horen, allianties smeden, en kijken wie we electoraal kunnen aftroeven en buitensluiten’. Dat politici blij kunnen zijn met miljarden aan bezuinigingen, verbaast me; de wederopstanding van het midden.

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NEDERLAND
Bert Smeets

Voor zover bekend eerste keer dat Limburgse geestelijke toegeeft weet te hebben gehad

door Annelies Hendrikx en Bjorn Thimister
HEERLEN – Voor het eerst – zover bekend – geeft een vertegenwoordiger van de rk kerk in Limburg toe dat hij wist van seksueel misbruik in een jongensinternaat.

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NEDERLAND
Bert Smeets

Na het VERSCHIJNEN VAN HET DEETMAN RAPPORT, waarin wordt gesproken over tussen de 10.000 en 20.000 SLACHTOFFERS van SEKSUEEL KINDERMISBRUIK, hebben zich slechts enkele levende daders gemeld. Hoeveel daders het precies betreft is door de commissie Deetman nooit openbaar gemaakt. Hetzelfde geldt voor de strafmaatregelen welke RKK tegen betrokkenen heeft genomen. Tot op heden ontbreekt het aan transparantie!! Datzelfde geldt voor GEWELD, PSYCHISCH LIJDEN, DE CASTRATIES, DE MEDISCHE EXPERIMENTEN EN DE AFSTANDSBABY’S.

WIJ ROEPEN DAN OOK DE TWEEDE KAMER OP EEN GRONDIG PARLEMENTAIR ONDERZOEK in te stellen. Ook het OM moet deel uitmaken van dit parlementair onderzoek.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Independent

By Ruth Whippman

Tuesday, 1 May 2012

You have to hand it to the Catholic Church. It takes a certain level of chutzpah to come through the most widespread global paedophile scandal in human history and its subsequent alleged cover-up, and still be dishing out moral guidance on ‘disordered sexual practices.’

A few days ago, it was revealed that the Catholic Education Service, the body responsible for all state-funded Catholic schools in England and Wales, had sent a letter to all of the schools in their network urging them to encourage their pupils to sign a petition against gay marriage. Critics, including the British Humanist Association, who hope to mount a legal challenge, claim that the move contravenes the Equality Act of 2010, which prohibits, amongst other things, discrimination on the grounds of sexuality.

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NETHERLANDS
Radio Netherlands

Children in foster families and youth care facilities are three to four times more often the victims of child sex abuse compared to children living with their parents.

Children with a mild mental retardation living in group homes are even ten times more often the victims of sexual abuse. National daily de Volkskrant writes that a group of scientists from the University of Leiden conclude that abuse among children in youth care was ‘shockingly common.” The study, conducted on behalf of the Samson Commission, covers the period from 2008 to 2010.

The scientists write that sexual abuse is still a major taboo. Half of the abuse victims were too afraid to name their abuser, even when the questionnaire was completely anonymous. Those who did answer named institutional workers as their abusers, but also foster parents and fellow group members.

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STOCKTON (CA)
Lodi News-Sentinel

Posted: Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Editor’s note: Father Michael Kelly sent this email to some of his supporters on April 19. Kelly fled to Ireland after being found liable in a civil sexual abuse case filed against him and the Stockton Diocese; the diocese has settled the suit for $3.75 million.

Dear Friends,

The first thing I want to tell you all is that none of you have any idea how much your support and your prayers continue to mean to me. It was those prayers and support that got me through the past four and a half nightmare years, and especially the court case and its unjust verdict. I did none of those things I was accused of.

Some people have emailed me of other allegations being brought up, I can tell you that I did none of those things, either. I will maintain my complete innocence until my last breath. God knows, and I know, that it isn’t true.

Regarding the court case: I testified for a full day and a half. I also left the details of and access to my financial resources with my attorney so that whatever is decided by the court financially, I would accept the legal responsibilities imposed on me by the court — even though I did nothing wrong.

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AUSTRALIA
The Telegraph

By Andrew Clennell and Clementine Cuneo
The Daily Telegraph
May 01, 2012

A CLOSE friend of NSW Attorney-General Greg Smith, Catholic priest Father Finian Egan, has been charged with rape and indecent assaults today in connection with alleged child sex offences.

A statement from Police released a short time ago said detectives had “arrested and charged a Catholic priest with child sex offences dating back four decades”.

“The 77-year-old man attended Ryde Police Station with his legal representative about 10am,” the statement said.

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AUSTRALIA
Banyule & Nillumbik Weekly

01 May, 2012

FEDERAL MP Rob Mitchell has called for the Baillieu government to introduce laws to compel the Catholic Church and other clergy to report allegations of child sexual abuse.

The federal MHR for McEwen has been lobbying to introduce mandatory reporting laws for clergy and religious organisations.

Under current legislation, doctors, police, nurses, midwives and teachers must report any suspected sex abuse.

Mr Mitchell said he was motivated to push for law reform after one of his constituents came to him after her son was abused by a priest – who has since been charged.

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NEBRASKA
World-Herald

By Teresa Lostroh
WORLD-HERALD BUREAU

LINCOLN — More than 100 adults who were sexually abused as children have come to Cynthia Topf for help over the past 25 years, the Omaha clinical psychologist said.

A definitive event — the death of their abuser or the birth of a child, for example — often prompts victims to seek counseling for the anger, depression and nightmares that can linger long after the abuse.

Topf works with some clients to emotionally prepare them as they seek justice in civil courts. But many victims come to her long after the opportunity for their day in court has expired.

Under current Nebraska law, child sexual assault lawsuits must be filed by the victim’s 25th birthday. Criminal child sex assault cases have no statute of limitations.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Bellingham Herald

By GARY MARX AND DAVID JACKSON – Chicago Tribune

CHICAGO -Prosecutors said Monday that they are ending their decade-long effort to extradite a former Roman Catholic priest who fled to India shortly before he was charged with 20 counts of criminal sexual assault and abuse of a 16-year-old Chicago girl.

Sleeva Raju Policetti has maintained his innocence since abruptly leaving Chicago in 2002, and in India he has waged a protracted court battle against efforts to extradite him to Chicago to face trial.

Policetti’s alleged victim initially worked with authorities, setting in motion an international extradition that required the approval of the U.S. State and Justice departments and India’s Ministry of External Affairs.

But in recent days she told Shauna Boliker, the Cook County first assistant state’s attorney, that she no longer wanted to pursue the case, effectively forcing prosecutors to drop it.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

BY JOHN P. MARTIN
Inquirer Staff Writer

THE REV. James Brennan told church investigators four years ago that he let a 14-year-old boy view online pornography and share his bed in 1996 but denied that he touched the teen or exposed himself, according to documents revealed Monday at his landmark clergy sex-abuse trial.

Brennan told his interrogators at a 2008 canonical proceeding that his decision to let the boy view the images and sleep next to him that night was “borderline” inappropriate. Still, he said he was blindsided when the young man came forward after a decade and accused him of sexual assault.

“I was just devastated,” Brennan testified, according to a transcript read to jurors.

His statements emerged as the trial against Brennan and Monsignor William Lynn began its sixth week.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Priest Abuse Trial Blog

Ralph Cipriano

There are two defendants on trial in Courtroom 304, Monsignor William J. Lynn and Father James J. Brennan.

Msgr. Lynn is charged with conspiring to endanger the welfare of children by covering up for abuser priests, and allowing them to remain in ministry; the main charge against Father Brennan is the attempted rape of a 14-year-old.

The back story at the archdiocese of Philadelphia sex abuse trial, now beginning its sixth week, is that the evidence against Msgr. Lynn continues to pile up every day, while the case against Father Brennan appears to be unraveling.

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AUSTRALIA
Macedon Ranges Weekly

NICK RALSTON, LISA DAVIES

01 May, 2012

A retired Catholic priest and a one-time close personal friend of the Attorney-General, Greg Smith, has been charged over alleged sexual abuse of four children in the 1970s and ’80s.

Father Finian Egan, 77, who maintains his innocence, arrived at Ryde police station by appointment shortly before 11am.

It is understood his legal representative was already at the station.

Mr Egan walked out of the police station and into a waiting ambulance after the charges were laid.

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

BRENDAN HOBAN

RITE AND REASON: There are a myriad of problems facing the church, not least the lack of leadership

TWO REMARKABLE statistics emerged from recent surveys. Firstly, in the census, 84 per cent of people in Ireland ticked the “Catholic” box. And secondly, in an Amárach survey on behalf of the Association of Catholic Priests, 35 per cent of Catholics said they attended Mass weekly.

After all that has happened to the Catholic Church in Ireland in the last two decades no one, I suspect, could have predicted such extraordinary results. The odds against it would have been significant. And yet here we are.

After the child abuse scandals, the failure to deal with them, the scathing reports, the inevitable condemnations, the continuing decline in vocations and church attendance and not least the growing perception that the Irish Catholic Church is in terminal decline, suddenly, extraordinarily, there are reasons for believing that belief in and commitment to the Catholic project is resilient and, numerically, still significant.

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

FINTAN O’TOOLE

We are witnessing the cruel humiliation of a generation of clergy that deserves better

THERE’S A column I would have written a few years ago, but can’t be bothered to write now. It was a reliable old standby about the latest abuse of power by the institutional Catholic Church. It would be fuelled by anger and by expectation – rage at the hierarchy’s latest folly but an implicit hope that the innate decency of Irish Catholicism would some day be allowed to blossom. There was something real at stake in this argument – the church’s hold on Irish public culture was so strong that everything it did mattered.

I thought about writing one of those columns in response to the Vatican’s censuring of five priests – Brian D’Arcy, Tony Flannery, Gerard Moloney, Seán Fagan and Owen O’Sullivan – simply for saying what most Catholics actually think about celibacy, women priests and homosexuality. But I couldn’t find either anger or hope.

All that’s left is a double dose of sadness – for a generation of idealists; for a society in need of moral leadership that is being given just one more, all too familiar dose of the most abject cynicism.

What we’re seeing now is the sadistic humiliation of a generation of clergy that deserves better. At a simple human level, there’s something genuinely tragic in the fate of these priests: not just those who have been silenced but all their like-minded colleagues. These were once young men and women, mostly in rural Ireland, in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. They were infused with the energy of reform and renewal. The priesthood still had glamour, and it was still tied up with familial snobbery, social prestige and institutional arrogance.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Huffington Post

By MARYCLAIRE DALE 04/30/12

PHILADELPHIA — A 47-year-old man unleashed his fury Monday at the Roman Catholic Church, staring down a church official in a Philadelphia courtroom as he described being forced as a child to engage in sex acts with a priest.

The man glared Monday at Monsignor William Lynn at the defense table and complained that only one church representative, a priest friend, had ever apologized.

“It always felt wrong. A man should not touch a child,” said the man, the ninth of 10 children in his Levittown family.

Testifying in the sixth week of a clergy abuse trial focusing on the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, the man broke down when he recalled telling his mother in 1998 about being abused by defrocked priest David Sicoli in the late 1970s.

Sicoli molested him at the priest’s shore home in Sea Isle, N.J., in the priest’s red-and-white sports car and on other occasions, the man testified. Like other accusers who have testified, the boy worked at the rectory, and his mother had hopes of him becoming a priest.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Focus

Der Missbrauchsfall im Erzbistum Bamberg sollte nach FOCUS-Informationen mit einer Schweigeerklärung vertuscht werden.

Im Herbst 2007 trafen sich der beschuldigte Domkapitular Otto M., dessen Mitarbeiter, ein Jurist und ein Psychologe in einem Nürnberger Caritashaus mit dem heute 40-jährigen Opfer Erwin S. Dieser sollte eine Verzichtserklärung unterschreiben und sich verpflichten, nie mehr solche Vorwürfe gegen M. zu erheben. Erwin S. lehnte ab, obwohl die Kirchenmänner angeblich mit einer Verleumdungsklage drohten. M. soll als Schulleiter des Knabenseminars Ottonianum in Bamberg mehrere Jungen sexuell missbraucht haben.

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DEUTSCHLAND
inFranken

Interview Der Sprecher des Priesterrates im Erzbistum Bamberg, Michael Hofmann, lehnt eine Pauschalverurteilung der Kirche ab. Er fordert eine rasche Aufarbeitung bekannt gewordener Fälle.

Dass katholische Geistliche mit Blick auf die Missbrauchsskandale oft per Generalverdacht an den Pranger gestellt werden, missfällt dem Sprecher des Priesterrats der Erzdiözese Bamberg, Michael Hofmann. Im Gespräch mit unserer Zeitung weist der Nürnberger Theologe allerdings auch darauf hin, dass angesichts der Vielzahl der Missbrauchsfälle die katholische Kirche in Deutschland ihre Hausaufgaben erst noch machen muss. Die bekannt gewordenen Fälle müssten schnell aufgearbeitet werden – im Interesse der Opfer und um verloren gegangenes Vertrauen zurückzugewinnen. Da sich die Opfer aus verständlichen Gründen oft erst sehr spät den schlimmen Erfahrungen ihrer Vergangenheit stellen können, plädiert Hofmann für eine Verlängerung der Verjährungsfristen.

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DUITSLAND
RKnieuws (Nederland)

MUNCHEN (RKnieuws.net) – De kerkelijke rechtbank van het aartsbisdom München-Freisung heeft een oud kanunnik van het kathedraal kapittel van Bamberg schuldig bevonden aan seksueel misbruik.

De 67-jarige prelaat is op rust gesteld en mag geen openbare pastorale activiteit meer uitoefenen. Ook zijn titel van kanunnik-emeritus wordt ingetrokken. Het is tot op heden de hoogste prelaat die in Duitsland door een kerkelijke rechtbank veroordeeld wordt wegens seksueel misbruik.

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AUSTRALIA
Waverley Leader

by Tim Michell

THE home of Chrissie and Anthony Foster seems like any other – filled with pictures, ornaments and memories.

But something will always be missing.

The couple’s lives changed forever when they discovered their daughters, Emma and Katie, were abused by a priest when they were in primary school.

Struggling in the aftermath, Emma later died of a medication overdose, while Katie was severely disabled in a car crash.

Mrs Foster detailed the family’s anguish in a powerful book, Hell on the Highway to Heaven.

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SANTA CLARA (CA)
Market Watch

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Apr 30, 2012 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Ten years after the scandal of child sexual abuse by priests rocked the U.S. Catholic Church to its core, has enough been done to protect children, prevent recurrence, and strengthen institutional accountability and transparency?

The mixed-bag answer to that question is the subject of an upcoming, daylong conference being held May 11 at Santa Clara University. The conference is based on findings from a new book, Sexual Abuses in the Catholic Church, A Decade of Crisis 2002-2012, published in October, 2011 by Praeger.

The conference will feature 13 of 23 authors of the Decade of Crisis book, who were all, in some way, part of the national effort to find justice and healing in the wake of the nationwide scandal.

The panelists include Karen Terry, PhD, the principal investigator for two nationally acclaimed John Jay College of Criminal Justice studies on the nature, scope, and causes of the abuse scandals; Barbara Blaine, who in 1988 founded the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP); Kathleen McChesney, PhD, former FBI executive who was the first executive director of the Office of Child and Youth Protection of the United States Conference of Bishops; and SCU Professor Thomas Plante, a consultant on priest sexual abuse who also helps screen seminarians for sexual-abuse proclivities as vice chair of the National Review Board for the U.S. Bishops’ Protection of Children and Youth office.

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ZIMBABWE
New Zimbabwe

by Staff Reporter

A PRIEST who “put the fear of God” into his maid before raping her several times over a two-year period has been jailed for 15 years.

Ruthless Edias Ncube, 35, threatened the 21-year-old woman with death if she reported the abuse to anyone as he carried out the sex attacks between October 2008 and July 2010, a Bulawayo magistrate heard.

Ncube, a graduate pastor of the Seventh Day Adventist Church, attacked the woman while his wife – a lecturer at Solusi University – was at work or attending workshops, said Goodluck Katenaire, prosecuting.

Originally from Msilahobe in Lower Gweru, Ncube’s crimes went undetected until he made the maid pregnant.

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UNITED STATES
Religion Dispatches

By Marian Ronan

Commentators offer a range of explanations for last week’s Vatican “assessment” charging a group that includes the largest number of US Catholic sisters, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) with “serious doctrinal problems” and “radical feminism.”

One frequent explanation is that the report was issued in retaliation for support given the 2009 Affordable Care Act (ACA) by Network, a Catholic social justice lobby with close ties to the LCWR. For example, in a BBC News interview several days after the release of the assessment, Sister Simone Campbell, Network’s executive director, acknowledged “a strong connection” between Network’s challenge to the US bishops over the ACA and the Vatican accusations.

No doubt there is some truth to this analysis. But it’s worth noting that the Vatican launched the investigation that culminated in this document in January 2009, more than a year before Congress passed the ACA. Given the speed with which Rome does things, it’s more than likely that while the sisters’ support for the ACA contributed to the harshness of the statement, it by no means caused it. Indeed, Pope John Paul II mandated a previous investigation of US religious in 1983, though the outcome of that process was less brutal than the current one has proven to be.

In point of fact, throughout the history of the Church, bishops and popes have struggled mightily to keep committed celibate Catholic women under control. Already in the early Christian centuries male church leaders forced virgins to describe themselves as “brides of Christ” rather than use the male martial imagery they had come to use during the Roman persecutions. The early equality between male and female desert monastics was likewise undercut when eighth century bishops began taking control of women’s monasteries and ordained monks to the priesthood for the first time (but not nuns, of course.) And as, throughout the following centuries, groups of dedicated Christian women came together—canonesses, Beguines, beatas, recluses—popes, bishops, and male theologians went to great lengths to rein them in.

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SOUTH CAROLINA
The Post and Courier

BY ALLYSON BIRD
abird@postandcourier.com

A former Goose Creek pastor who pleaded guilty to sexually abusing a child over an eight-year stretch was sentenced to 26 years in prison Friday.

James Doscher, a 63-year-old Ladson man, served as pastor of New Life Church in Goose Creek, authorities said. A witness who spoke on Doscher’s behalf in court said Doscher more recently served as a small group leader at Faith Assembly church in Summerville.

A circuit court judge sentenced him to 26 years in prison on a charge of first-degree criminal sexual conduct with a minor, 20 years on a charge of second-degree criminal sexual conduct with a minor and 15 years on a charge of committing a lewd act on a child. The sentences will run concurrently, and Doscher must serve at least 85 percent of the 26 years.

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GOOSE CREEK (SC)
Patch

By Greg Hambrick

A former Goose Creek pastor plead guilty Friday to sexually abusing a child over an eight year period.

James Doscher was sentenced to 26 years in prison for criminal sexual conduct with a minor in the 1st degree. He was also sentenced to 20 years and 15 years on related charges, but the sentencing will be served concurrently. Doscher will have to serve more than 22 years before he is eligible for release.

Assistant Solicitor Anne Williams of the Ninth Circuit Solicitor’s Special Victims Unit said the maximum sentence would have been 30 years because of the “Doscher was only subject to the sentencing ranges in law at the time of the offenses,” said Assistant Solicitor Anne Williams. “Because the crimes occurred 10 years ago, the maximum time he could have been sentenced to on the most serious charge was up to 30 years.”

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NEW YORK
Reuters

NEW YORK, April 27 (Reuters) – A Brooklyn rabbi convicted of sex abuse will get a new trial, after a New York appeals court ruled that prosecutors failed to promptly hand over a detective’s notes about an alleged bribery attempt.

The Appellate Division, Second Department, held that Rabbi Baruch Lebovits was “substantially prejudice(d)” by prosecutors’ mid-trial disclosure of a detective’s handwritten notes detailing a conversation in which the alleged sex-abuse victim said he was offered a bribe by a key defense witness in exchange for his silence.

“The untimely disclosure of the interview notes precluded the defense from fully and adequately preparing for cross-examination and set a trap for the defendant which had already sprung at the time the notes were finally furnished,” the court wrote in a unanimous order released last week.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
KSHB

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – A woman admitted in court Monday to plotting her husband’s murder with their former pastor.

Teresa Stone pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit first-degree murder.

Teresa Stone’s husband, Randy Stone, was found dead March 31, 2010 in his Independence insurance office.

Teresa Stone’s voice was shaky and she broke down into tears as she told the court she planned her husband’s death.

The Stones’ former pastor, David Love, pleaded guilty last year to second-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison.

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GALESBURG (IL)
WGIL

POSTED 2:53pm 4/30/12 A man claiming now to be a St. Louis resident, and also claiming to be a priest, has pleaded not guilty to charges including theft, financial exploitation of the elderly, and deceptive practices in Knox County.

The Reverend Ryan St. Anne Scott made the plea during a brief appearance in Knox County Circuit Court Monday morning.

Scott appeared with his attorney, dressed in religious garb including a cross around his neck, and also asked for a trial by jury. This, despite the fact that the Catholic Diocese of Peoria has previously labeled Scott a “fraudulent” priest.

Prosecutors accuse Scott of borrowing large sums of money from an elderly Galesburg woman between 2009 and last year, without paying her back.

Scott formerly owned the Holy Rosary Abbey Church in Galesburg.

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CALFIORNIA
Calaveras County Sheriff’s Office

Contact: Sgt Chris Hewitt
Release Date: 04/30/12
Time: 0830 hrs

(San Andreas, CA) The Calaveras County Sheriff’s Office is currently completing interviews with persons associated with the Father Kelly case. Attempts are being made to locate potential witnesses and victims, however this effort is complicated by the fact that many persons now reside out of the area.

One Detective from the Sheriff’s Office is specifically assigned to the case, and it is the intention of the Sheriff’s Office to submit a report to the District Attorney within the next 30 days.

No further information will be released pending the submission of a completed case to the Calaveras County District Attorney.

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CALIFORNIA
MyMotherLode

April 30, 2012

B.J. Hansen, MML News Director

San Andreas, CA — The Calaveras County Sheriff’s Office has released a statement regarding an investigation into Michael Kelly, a priest that previously worked in the Mother Lode.

As reported two weeks ago, the Catholic Diocese of Stockton will pay nearly $4 million to settle a lawsuit related to alleged sexual crimes that Kelly performed on an altar boy in Stockton. To read the earlier article, click here. Before working in Stockton, Kelly was a priest in Sonora, Big Oak Flat and San Andreas.

The Calaveras County Sheriff’s Office has been investigating additional allegations made against the priest. Kelly has reportedly returned to his native Ireland. If additional charges are brought against Kelly, it could potentially lead to him being extradited back to the U.S.

Sheriff Gary Kuntz has released the following statement, “The Calaveras County Sheriff’s Office is currently completing interviews with persons associated with the Father Kelly case. Attempts are being made to locate potential witnesses and victims, however this effort is complicated by the fact that many persons now reside out of the area. One Detective from the Sheriff’s Office is specifically assigned to the case, and it is the intention of the Sheriff’s Office to submit a report to the District Attorney within the next 30 days.”

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MASSACHUSETTS
Wicked Local Winchester

By Jennifer Brown Bonniwell
Wicked Local Winchester

Posted Apr 30, 2012

Winchester, MA —

The Archdiocese of Boston has completed its internal investigation of sexual abuse of a minor by former St. Mary’s of Winchester Rev. John M. Mendicoa and has determined the allegation to be unsubstantiated, the Archdiocese said Monday.

Mendicoa was placed on administrative leave in August 2011, after the Archdiocese received an allegation of sexual abuse of a child. Mendicoa is no longer on administrative leave and has now been assigned the status of senior priest, restricted, the Archdiocese said in a statement. The status is equivalent to retirement.

The allegation concerned conduct alleged to have occurred in the 1980s. Mendicoa was a pastor at St. Mary’s in Winchester from 1986 to 1994 and at St. Michael’s in Lowell from 1982 to 1986. The Archdiocese declined to say if the incident occurred in Winchester or Lowell or any further details about the victim, citing internal policy.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Intelligencer / Wheeling News-Register

April 30, 2012

PHILADELPHIA (AP) – A man accusing a priest of sexual assault dropped a separate allegation against the same priest, the judge in an internal Catholic church trial testified Monday.

Monsignor Kevin Quirk of Wheeling, a canon lawyer who presided over Brennan’s 2008 church trial, took the stand Monday in the Rev. James Brennan’s criminal priest-abuse trial in Philadelphia.

Quirk, an aide to the Most Rev. Michael J. Bransfield, bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, detailed allegations that Brennan sexually assaulted a 14-year-old during a 1996 sleepover at the priest’s apartment.

On cross-examination, Quirk said he never delved into the man’s second allegation because the accuser withdrew that complaint. That involved an accusation that Brennan abused the teen – apparently in a garden shed – when he was performing court-ordered community service at the parish.

Defense lawyer William Brennan, who is not related to his client, noted that the jury has heard about priests accused of molesting a dozen boys over many years. But James Brennan was removed quickly after the archdiocese received the complaint in 2006, because of new church guidelines on handling abuse complaints.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
KSRO

MARYCLAIRE DALE

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A 47-year-old man has unleashed his fury at the Roman Catholic church, staring down a church official in a Philadelphia courtroom as he described how a priest forced him to engage in sex acts when he was a boy.

The man glared Monday at defendant Monsignor William Lynn and broke down when he recalled telling his mother about the alleged abuse by defrocked priest David Sicoli (suh-KOL’-ee).

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By John P. Martin and Joseph A. Slobdzian
INQUIRER STAFF WRITERS

One of the priests on trial in the landmark clergy-sex abuse case acknowledged that he let a 14-year-old boy view online pornography and share his bed but denied touching the teen or exposing himself, according to statements he gave church investigators.

The Rev. James J. Brennan said he later realized his decision to let the boy view porn and sleep next to him that night in 1996 was “borderline” inappropriate. Still, he told interrogators at a canonical trial that he was blindsided when the young man came forward a decade later and accused him of sexual assault.

“I was just devastated,” Brennan testified in 2008.

His statements from that proceeding were introduced Monday as the Common Pleas Court trial against Brennan and Msgr. William J. Lynn opened its sixth week. Brennan is charged with attempting to rape the 14-year-old; Lynn, a former ranking official for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, is accused of endangerment for not removing Brennan from ministry despite signs that he might abuse minors.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CBS Philly

By Tony Hanson

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — The prosecution in the Philadelphia clergy sex abuse case today shifted its attention back to defendant James Brennan, who is accused of sexually molesting a fourteen-year-old boy in 1996 (see related stories).

Today, the jury heard statements made by Father Brennan during a 2008 church investigation of the allegations.

During questioning by one church official in 2008, Brennan denied that he had sexually assaulted his accuser. He said that nothing happened physically between them but conceded that he had made a number of regrettable decisions that night — including allowing the boy to stay overnight in the first place, giving in to the boy’s demand to watch porn on the Internet, and sleeping in the same bed the night of the alleged assault.

But in that 2008 church probe, Brennan categorically denied any physical or sexual contact. In related questioning, Brennan denied ever massaging the boy in public, although witness told church investigators that he once saw Brennan massaging the boy’s shirtless shoulders during a party at the boy’s home.

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UNITED STATES
Boston Globe

April 30, 2012|By James Carroll

The Catholic hierarchy is walling itself off ideologically, intensifying its campaign to slam shut church windows opened by the liberalizing Second Vatican Council. This month alone, the pope has rebuked the disobedience of European priests and, acting through a Vatican congregation, set in motion a severe disciplining of American nuns. The US Catholic bishops advance the pope’s agenda with their recently announced “religious liberty” campaign, timed to climax this summer — a blatant intervention in presidential politics, inevitably favoring the far right wing.

Today’s church is taking “the Benedict Option,” defined by Rod Dreher of The American Conservative as a “pioneering form of dropping out of a barbaric mainstream culture.” This approach is named after St. Benedict of Nursia, the sixth-century founder of monasticism. Joseph Ratzinger, upon his election as pope in 2005, did not take the name Benedict by accident. But the implied parallel is false: Cloistered and detached as it seems now, the monastic life was, in St. Benedict’s day, a model for forward progress.

The current Benedict’s vision seeks a purer counter-culture. Like medieval monasticism, it would preserve essentials of humane living as a dark era dawns. If this reaction leads to fewer clergy, smaller congregations, and less mainstream clout, so be it. Good riddance to the liberal “relativists,” implies this Benedict. Welcome home to the rigid “orthodox.”

If such reactionary moves further alienate majorities of Catholics, who have never seen such fervor from the pope or his bishops on behalf of children abused by priests, that is the price paid for the Benedict option. “God is not concerned so much with great numbers and with outward successes,” the pope said during Holy Week, “but achieves his victories under the humble sign of the mustard seed.”

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MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Barbara Dorris on April 30, 2012

We’re grateful that a St. Louis County judge is letting Darrell & Rhonda Pitts’ case against Rev. Billy Lee Little and the Christ Memorial Baptist Church move ahead. (Judge Steven Goldman issued his ruling this morning.) We’re always glad when victims are given their day in court, and not left helpless because of archaic or arbitrary legal technicalities.

We hope others who saw, suspected or suffered crimes or misdeeds by Little will step forward. Keeping silent endangers others, hurts victims and helps predators.

The couple represented by Ken Chackes of Clayton (872 8420, 369 3902 cell). Little (who lives in St. Charles County with his third wife) is represented by Aaron Staebell (636-272-3606, aaron@lohmarstaebell.com). The church is represented by Cynthia S. Holmes (721-7010, officecsh@aol.com). The suit was filed in December of 2011.

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