ABUSE TRACKER

BELGIE
Klokk

NAMEN (RKnieuws.net) – Priester Mar­cel Col­ignon (70), die beschuldigd wordt van sek­sueel mis­bruik van min­der­jari­gen, is op 1 juni overleden in de abdij van Rochefort waar hij sinds enkele maan­den verbleef. De priester werd gedag­vaard om op 18 juni voor de recht­bank in Dinant te ver­schi­j­nen maar doro zijn over­li­j­den gaat de recht­szaak niet meer door.

Mgr. Van­cot­tem (foto), biss­chop van Namen, liet inmid­dels weten bereid te zijn elke per­soon te ont­van­gen die wil dat hij het statuut van slachtof­fer kri­jgt. Het bis­dom is ook bereid morele schade­v­er­goed­ing te betalen aan de slachtof­fers. Priester Col­ig­nob ver­greep zich aan een twintig­tal jon­geren. De feiten wer­den gepleegd tussen 1968 en 2011.

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SCHWEIZ
Blick

FISCHINGEN (TG) – TG – Die Beratungsstelle für Landesgeschichte (BLG) sucht Zeitzeugen im «Fall Fischingen», wie das Kloster Fischingen am Samstag mitteilte. Die BLG wolle möglichst viele Interviews führen, um ein abgerundetes Bild der Vergangenheit liefern zu können.

Das Kloster Fischingen lässt Missbrauchsvorwürfe gegen einen Pater und ehemaligen Lehrer des 1976 aufgehobenen Kinderheims St. Iddazell durch die Beratungsstelle für Landesgeschichte AG in Zug überprüfen.

Ehemalige Schüler der Sekundarschule des Kinderheims St. Iddazell hatten im vergangenen Sommer ihrem früheren Lehrer sexuellen Missbrauch und Körperstrafen vorgeworfen. Die Vorfälle liegen rund 40 Jahre zurück. Der beschuldigte Pater, der heute noch im Kloster Fischingen lebt, weist die Vorwürfe zurück.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

DECLAN BRENNAN – 08 JUNE 2013

A FORMER priest who is serving 16 years for the rape and abuse of schoolboys has had 15 months added to his sentence for abusing two other boys in the ’70s and ’80s.

Tony Walsh, who was known as the ‘Singing Priest’, is also due to have the entirety of his sentence reviewed by the Court of Criminal Appeal next month.

Walsh (59), formerly of North Circular Road, Dublin, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to two counts of indecent assault on January 1 and April 4, 1979. The victims were aged between 10 and 11.

Judge Martin Nolan said that Walsh had worked his way into the confidence of the families of the two victims with “cold- blooded intent”. He said the sexual assaults were aggressive and incredibly frightening for the children involved.

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NEW JERSEY
The Star-Ledger

By Mark Mueller/The Star-Ledger
on June 07, 2013

Two weeks after forcing out his top deputy to quell a lingering scandal, Newark Archbishop John J. Myers announced a replacement Thursday, promoting the country’s first Brazilian-born bishop to the post of vicar general.

The Most Rev. Edgar M. da Cunha, an auxiliary bishop and regional bishop for Essex County since 2003, will serve as Myers’ second-in-command in the archdiocese, home to 1.3 million Roman Catholics in Bergen, Essex, Hudson and Union counties. da Cunha, 59, has served in the archdiocese for more than three decades.

He replaces Monsignor John Doran, who resigned under pressure from Myers late last month. The archbishop cited “operational failures” and breaches of protocol in Doran’s supervision of the Rev. Michael Fugee, who attended youth retreats and heard confessions from minors in violation of a lifetime ban on ministry to children.

In a statement Thursday, Myers made no reference to the scandal, which has spawned calls for his resignation from elected leaders, rank-and-file Catholics and advocates for victims of clergy sex abuse.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

June 8, 2013

Barney Zwartz
Religion editor, The Age.

The Catholic Church has revised its figures on clergy sexual abuse victims in Victoria, now saying it has identified 849 victims and 269 offenders.

The church submitted the new figures on Thursday afternoon to the Victorian inquiry into how the churches handled clergy sexual abuse, replacing the statistics in its original submission, Facing the Truth. That cited 618 victims.

The offenders include 98 priests, 114 brothers, nine nuns and 42 laypeople of whom two are female. There are two seminarians and four are unknown.

Church spokesman Shane Mackinlay said the revised figures were the result of collating all five submissions to the inquiry by church ”entities”: the Melbourne and Ballarat dioceses, the Christian Brothers, and the Salesian and St John of God orders.

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NEW JERSEY
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: A Newark parish priest, Nickas was known as a progressive who served the poor and homeless. He founded several shelters, a childrens’ center, a day care and an alternative high school. In the 2000s two men came forward separately with accusations that Nickas sexually abused them as young boys in the 1970s. One of the men said he was abused for two years, beginning when he was an 8 year-old altar boy, and that Nickas plied him with altar wine and threatened to harm his family if he told. The other accuser said his abuse occurred while he lived at one of Nickas’ homeless shelters, and included incidents in a car while Nickas cruised the streets in search of young male prostitutes. The Archdiocesan Review Board deemed the accusations to be not credible, yet the archdiocese settled with one of the accusers in May 2013.

Ordained: 1966
Incardinated: Newark archdiocese
Retired: 2005
Died: Oct. 9, 2008

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MASSACHUSETTS
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: McCarthy was a priest of the diocese of Fall River MA, ordained in 1945. He served in parishes throughout the diocese and was involved with Catholic Charities until going on Sick Leave for two years in the early 1970s. In 1972 McCarthy was assigned as a nursing home chaplain, then to a parish for a year, before going on Sick Leave again in 1974. He is last indexed in the Official Catholic Directory in 1978, still on Sick Leave. McCarthy was named in 2002 by the Bristol MA District Attorney among priests of the Fall River diocese against whom there were accusations of sex crimes. McCarthy had four accusations against him. McCarthy died in November 2005 in Missouri. According to his obituary, he relocated to the St. Louis area in the early 1970s, where he founded a counseling center in Clayton and presided at mass in parishes throughout the region.

Ordained: 1945
Died: November 2005

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TEXAS
Watch Keep

A pastor at our church of almost 18 years, Houston’s First Baptist Church, has told me and my husband this week that it’s for the best that we step down from serving there, teaching in the youth ministry, since we don’t see what I’m doing is a problem, like he does: my efforts to shine the light of truth and spread awareness about the horrific problem of child sexual within Southern Baptist churches and the silence from SBC leaders. Up until this blog post, I have never mentioned our church or any of the HFBC pastors on my blog.

I have never talked to this pastor, Doug Bischoff before, not in person, not on the phone, not via email. Last Friday, he left me a message, but I was out of town. Then, Monday, I didn’t get a chance to call him back, being my 18th wedding anniversary, etc…and he left me another message late that afternoon, in a little put-out sounding tone of voice, in my opinion, saying, “trying to reach you, don’t know if you’re out of town or what.” So about 5:00 Monday evening I called him back and pointed out I had been out of town and about to go out to dinner for our anniversary, but wanted to see what he needed, and then he proceeds to, after saying he wouldn’t take much of my time, take offense at my blog. He started out telling me he had called a friend of mine whom I teach with at church, to that which I was shocked, asking why he would call and discuss the issues he has regarding me and my blog with her BEFORE talking to me? He made the excuse that he couldn’t reach me, so he called her. What was so urgent? This, apparently:

I saw your blog.
I’m confused. You don’t see it as a problem? [speaking out about child sexual abuse by Baptist clergy, about Baptist churches that cover up such abuse, about silence from SBC leaders about this abuse, about the vocal support of another evangelical pastor C.J. Mahaney accused in a lawsuit by 11 plaintiffs of covering up child sex abuse, and planning an awareness event next week at the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in Houston]

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HOUSTON (TX)
Associated Baptist Press

“It’s not a problem for me to point out these issues with Catholic churches or Penn State, just don’t point the finger at my own Southern Baptist Convention,” SNAP representative Amy Smith says of pastors at First Baptist Church in Houston.

By Bob Allen

A woman who advocates on behalf victims of clergy sex abuse says she was sidelined by her Houston mega-church for planning an awareness event at next week’s Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting.

Amy Smith, Houston representative of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, has been active for years in trying to expose what she believes is a systemic problem of abuse and cover-up in Southern Baptists’ free-wheeling polity in which each congregation hires and fires its own ministers.

Because of that, she was surprised on returning home after a few days out of town to find phone messages from a pastor she does not know from First Baptist Church in Houston who urgently desired to talk to her.

Smith said Doug Bischoff, “next generation” minister at the church she and her husband have attended for 18 years, took offense at her May 23 blog post announcing an “awareness event” outside the George R. Brown Convention Center when the SBC convenes its 2013 annual meeting June 11-12 in Houston.

Since she and her husband “don’t see what I am doing as a problem,” Smith said, they were told “that it’s for the best if we step down” from teaching in the church’s youth ministry. Asked how he found her blog, Bischoff reportedly told her husband that his boss, Pastor Gregg Matte, showed it to him.

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SAN DIEGO (CA)
National Catholic Reporter

Michael Sean Winters | Jun. 7, 2013 Distinctly Catholic

Over the weekend, most of the bishops in the United States will head to San Diego for their annual summer meeting. It is not really a meeting and is styled as a retreat, and some bishops do not attend. It is not a full plenary. Nonetheless, this will be the first time most of the bishops will be together since the election of Pope Francis and the first opportunity for the USCCB administrative committee to meet this year: Their March meeting was canceled because of the conclave.

The bishops undoubtedly will use their time together to reflect upon their public witness in the light of the election of Pope Francis. While the new pontiff has made few formal changes and has not issued much in the way of official speeches, he has definitely set an agenda for the church, calling it to be less self-referential and less bound to the sacristy, and encouraged the church to go out to the peripheries, to the margins, to engage people and to love them. He has acknowledged that sometimes going to life’s margins to encounter the poor means the risk of making mistakes, but he has bluntly said this is a risk worth taking. If the church remains self-referential, it becomes “sick” and incapable of preaching the Gospel.

I would submit that this has not been the public witness most commonly seen among the U.S. hierarchs in recent years, especially in the last two when they have defined themselves primarily in reference to the ongoing struggle over the controversial HHS mandate. Their posture has been defensive, to say the least, and angry; at times, even bitter.

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UNITED STATES
New York Times – Sunday Book Review

MORTAL SINS
Sex, Crime, and the Era of Catholic Scandal
By Michael D’Antonio
400 pp. Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press. $26.99.

By JANET REITMAN
Published: June 7, 2013

It’s hard to say anything original about the sexual abuse scandals that have rocked the Roman Catholic Church over the past 30 years. Hundreds of books and articles have dealt with the subject, which has also spurred an entire genre of daytime talk show — the secular confessional. By now, the basic outline of the story has become depressingly familiar: a needy, socially isolated boy (sometimes girl) falls victim to a charming, manipulative priest while church elders either turn a blind eye or quietly ship the offender to a different parish. Afterward, it’s business as usual.
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Michael D’Antonio’s exhaustively researched, if meandering, new book, “Mortal Sins,” adds a new dimension to the story, concentrating on the arduous legal battle to bring the church to account. In this new telling, the heroes are not just the survivors of the abuse but also the lawyers and advocates who have gone to bat for them. This is perhaps the most comprehensive narrative of the abuse debacle to date, and D’Antonio, a former Newsday reporter and the author or co-author of more than a dozen books, had access to key players, as well as a trove of previously unseen church files and court documents. The glut of information D’Antonio presents is overwhelming, but the story he tells — about the culture of secrecy inside one of the world’s largest religious organizations — is damning.

D’Antonio begins in 1984, with the Rev. Thomas Doyle, an expert in canon law assigned to the Vatican’s embassy in Washington. Doyle, a gun-loving conservative, begins investigating complaints against members of the clergy after receiving a report that Gilbert Gauthe, a priest from Lafayette, La., had molested several boys. The parents had filed a lawsuit, and Doyle immediately recognizes the situation for what it is: a scandal that could open the floodgates to many more pedophilia cases and destroy the church. But Doyle’s superiors meet his warnings with a shrug. They are less concerned, as D’Antonio tellingly points out, with the fate of a few isolated priests and their victims than they are with finding a Latin American priest who is bishop material: apparently, too many churchmen in that part of the world had children.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

DECLAN BRENNAN – 07 JUNE 2013

A former priest who is serving a 16 year sentence for the rape and abuse of school boys has had 15 months added to this sentence for abusing two other boys in the 70s and 80s.

Tony Walsh, who was known as the “Singing Priest”, is due to have the entirety of his sentence reviewed by the Court of Criminal Appeal next month.

Walsh (59) formerly of North Circular Road, Dublin, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to two counts of indecent assault on January 01 and April 4, 1979. The victims were aged between ten and 11.

Judge Martin Nolan said that Walsh had worked his way into the confidence of the families of the two victims with “cold blooded intent”. He said the sexual assaults were aggressive and incredibly frightening for the children involved.

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ILLINOIS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

POSTED BY BARBARA DORRIS ON JUNE 07, 2013

We’re worried about the safety of kids now that Fr. “Alex” Flores walks free. We suspect he’ll “vanish” before he can be deported.

We also believe he could easily face more child sex charges and be convicted and imprisoned again. And we believe that Joliet Catholic officials could make this happen, if only they would find the courage to use their resources to seek out more people who may have seen, suspected or suffered Fr. Flores’ crimes.

Instead, we predict church officials will now do what they’ve long done in pedophile priest cases – little or nothing.

Joliet’s bishops – both Bishop Daniel Conlon and his predecessor, Bishop Peter Sartain – have been among the most complicit in the US. One would hope they might be interested in rehabilitating their sullied reputations and take action now to protect other from Fr. Flores for that reason alone. But again, we predict both prelates will stay silent.

We beg every Joliet area Catholic – current or former church staff or member – to search his or her conscience. We beg them to summon the strength it takes to speak up about known or suspected child sex crimes. We beg them to call police or prosecutors, so that those who commit or conceal heinous crimes against kids might face justice.

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HOUSTON (TX)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

POSTED BY DAVID CLOHESSY ON JUNE 07, 2013

Victims ask to speak at SBC convention in Houston
Group deplores “rallying around” alleged predators
It wants Baptist church officials to train their staff and flocks
SNAP: “There’s a right way & a wrong way to act when ministers are accused”

Clergy sex abuse victims are asking to speak to thousands of Baptists next week in Houston about how church staff and members respond when allegations of clergy sex crimes and cover ups surface.

Leaders of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, are writing officials with the Southern Baptist Convention hoping for a chance to address their annual convention which begins this weekend. SNAP leaders say that congregants and clergy often “immediately and publicly rally for an accused child molester instead of keeping an open mind and urging anyone with information to come forward.” Then, SNAP contends, “Victims, witnesses and whistleblowers are frightened or depressed and stay silent. And as a result, all too often, those who commit and conceal child sex crimes walk free, remain hidden, and hurt others.”

The group cites three congregations at which it says church employees or board members publicly rallied or are rallying behind accused wrongdoers: Prestonwood Baptist Church in Texas, Sovereign Grace Ministries in Maryland, and The Richmond Outreach Center in Virginia.

“Many Baptist pastors offer their staff and their flocks absolutely no training on how to act when church folks are accused of abuse,” said Amy Smith, Houston SNAP Director. “Even worse, many times ministers themselves take insensitive or hurtful actions, by backing the accused and intimidating the accusers.”

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UNITED STATES
America

June 17, 2013

Nicholas P. Cafardi

Mortal Sins
Michael D’Antonio
Thomas Dunne Books. 416p $26.99

When I began to read this intriguing book about the crisis of sexual abuse of children that corrupted the Catholic church in the United States in the second half of the 20th century, I could not imagine why the author, Michael D’Antonio, began it with an account of the fall of papal Rome to Italian national troops at the battle of Porta Pia in 1878. That seemed an odd place and time to start a book about the American church in the late 1900s and early 2000s. But by the end of the book, the realization dawned: D’Antonio was simply implying that the sexual abuse crisis and the church’s mishandling of it is the second fall of papal Rome. The first, with the end of the papal states, deprived the church of its earthly authority. The second deprived the church of its moral credibility.

That is really too bad, because the end of the 20th century was, as others have said, shaping up to be the Catholic moment, that point in history when the church’s vocabulary and wealth of thought on issues like social and economic justice, just war, the protection of life and so many other issues confronting humankind would set the terms of civil society’s debate of those issues and, in the best result, provide the means of analysis as well. Alas, that did not happen. The Catholic moment was never to be, and the reasons for that are exposed by the stories told in Mortal Sins.

I say stories, plural, because D’Antonio’s book is an artful stringing together of a number of accounts, beginning in 1984, when the sexual abuse crisis first broke with the case of the Rev. Gilbert Gauthe, a serial molester of children in the Diocese of Lafayette, La., and ending with the conviction in 2012 of Msgr. William Lynn, former secretary for clergy of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, on a charge of child endangerment. These episodes are appropriate book ends because they emphasize two of the major themes: the horrible abuse perpetrated by the church’s ordained ministers and the utter mishandling of these abusers by so many chancery officials, from clergy personnel directors to diocesan bishops.

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NEW YORK
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

POSTED BY DAVID CLOHESSY ON JUNE 07, 2013

These thugs belong behind bars. Shame on them for trying to intimidate a sex crime victim and help a predator stay out of jail.

Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Danny Chun had a chance to send a strong signal to those who obstruct justice. But he blew it. We hope he feels guilt the next time he hears or reads about another person who actively tries to prevent the prosecution of a predator. And we hope he levies tougher punishment next time on those who try to silence crime victims.

There are two silver linings here. First is the courage of Nechemya Weberman’s victim and her husband Hershy Deutsch. Both of them are heroes.

Second is the wisdom and determination of Brooklyn prosecutors who fought hard for jail time for the Bergers. We applaud them for trying to get the maximum penalty for these mean-spirited men.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Magazine

Mari Steed was two years old when she was adopted from Ireland by a Flourtown family. Years later, her search for her birth mother turned up the Magdalene Laundries’ horrifying legacy, and Steed wants justice—along with an apology from the Catholic church.

By Ronnie Polaneczky
June 2013

Mari Steed’s fingers trembled as she tapped commands on her laptop.

The unprecedented apology was about to be streamed online, projected onto a big screen in the conference room of the Philadelphia World Affairs Council. As the group’s director of technology and new media, Steed had set up numerous live feeds before. But her hands had never shaken.

Today was personal. Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny was going to use a session of Parliament to issue an apology, acknowledging what Mari Steed had known for years: that for nearly a century, the Irish government had participated in the imprisonment and abuse of thousands of women whose only crime was that they’d been orphaned, or abandoned by their families, or gotten pregnant outside of marriage. They were known as the Magdalenes. And Mari’s birth mother had been one of them.

The government had long touted a party line about the Magdalenes: They had voluntarily entered the institutions where they’d been treated like slaves, had willingly relinquished their children. But now, the Irish government could no longer deny the disgrace it had abetted.

And so today, Ireland’s prime minister would officially apologize to the surviving women—all of them elderly. And Mari would begin to make peace with the country that had betrayed the child she had been and the mother who had borne her. The conference-room screen flickered to life. Mari leaned in to watch, her co-workers gripping her hands in support.

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PHILIPPINES
Gulf News

By Barbara Mae Dacanay, Bureau Chief
Published: June 7, 2013

Manila: Catholic priests will be treated like ordinary citizens and the amount of wine they serve during Sunday Mass won’t count as an alibi when they are caught in drink driving cases, a local paper reported.

“It’s practically impossible that a priest will get drunk because of celebrating Mass with mompo [wine used as sacrament],” retired archbishop Oscar Cruz told the Bulletin.

“The mompo that we use during Mass every Sunday is not made of pure grape juice. Its alcohol content is only 12 per cent. The amount of wine that a priest pours into the chalice is just about two or three tablespoons. And water is added to it,” Cruz said.

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OSTERREICH
der Standard

Abt will Hochwasserhilfe damit unterstützen, Kläger einen Verein gegen sexuelle Gewalt an Minderjährigen

Kremsmünster/Steyr – Nachdem eine Zivilklage im Zusammenhang mit der Missbrauchsaffäre gegen das oberösterreichische Stift Kremsmünster abgewiesen worden ist, diskutieren die Parteien nun darüber, was mit den Verfahrenskosten passieren soll. Die Kläger, die über 9.000 Euro an das Kloster zahlen müssen, wollen das Geld dem Verein Selbstlaut gegen sexueller Gewalt an Kindern und Jugendlichen spenden. Der Abt würde das Geld aber lieber der Hochwasserhilfe der Caritas zukommen lassen.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Merkur

Würzburg – Judenwitze, rechte Musik, Nazi-Rituale: Das wird Studenten aus dem Würzburger Priesterseminar vorgeworfen. Tatsächlich scheint es rechtes Gedankengut in den christlichen Reihen zu geben.

Studenten aus dem Würzburger Priesterseminar sollen bei gemeinsamen Treffen Judenwitze erzählt, rechtsradikale Musik gespielt und an Nazirituale angelehnte Zeremonien gefeiert haben. Seminarleiter Herbert Baumann bestätigte am Mittwoch in Würzburg entsprechende Vorwürfe. „Dass zumindest einmal im kleinen Kreis ein KZ-Witz erzählt wurde, ist offensichtlich wahr“, sagte er. Darüber hinausgehende Vorwürfe könne er „nicht verifizieren“.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Die Welt

Im Streit über die Pädophilie-Vorwürfe gegen die Grünen schlägt der Publizist Götz Aly jetzt zurück. Allerdings macht er sich dabei 75 Jahre alte Argumente von Joseph Goebbels zu eigen. Von Sven Felix Kellerhoff

Der Entlastungangriff musste kommen – das war klar, seit intensiv über die höchst fragwürdige Nähe der Grünen zu pädophilen Gruppen in den 1980er-Jahren gestritten wurde. Spannend war allein, wer ihn vortragen würde und mit welcher Stoßrichtung.

Seit Dienstag ist die Frage beantwortet: Der Publizist Götz Aly hat in seiner Kolumne in der “Berliner Zeitung” die Ablenkungsoffensive eröffnet, und er zielt auf die katholische Kirche: Die “Sittlichkeitsprozesse” gegen Geistliche in den Jahren 1936/37 würden “heute gern als Kirchenverfolgung abgebucht, die geistlichen Täter zu Opfern geadelt”. Es sei Zeit, solchen “Beschönigungen ein Ende zu setzen”.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Berliner Zeitung

Mit dem Verweis auf eine rigide Sexualmoral wurden wiederholt sexuelle vergehen an Minderjährigen bagatellisiert. Die katholische Kirche verhält sich zu ihrer eigenen Geschichte bis heute eher abwiegelnd und in einem merkwürdigen Ton.

Die Kolumne „Pädophilie I“ handelte von Onkel Otto, der im Dritten Reich und danach wegen seiner Homosexualität strafrechtlich verfolgt wurde, in seinem erotischen Treiben jedoch die Grenzen zwischen Erwachsenen und Minderjährigen missachtete. Deshalb kann Otto nicht einfach als nationalsozialistisch verfolgte Unschuld gelten. Ein Leser vermutete, meinem Onkel sei „übel mitgespielt“ worden. Ja, er war mehrfach wegen Homosexualität im Gefängnis, aber das ist nur ein Teil der Wahrheit. Das Problem liegt darin, dass unter Hinweis auf eine rigide Sexualmoral oder auf Verfolgung in der NS-Zeit sexuelle Vergehen an Minderjährigen als nebensächlich bagatellisiert werden. Das haben Aktivisten der Achtundsechziger getan, der Schwulenbewegung, der Grünen – aber auch katholische Geistliche. Von letzteren soll heute die Rede sein.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Friday, June 07, 2013

The Catholic Church has come under fire on several fronts for not supporting priests against whom false allegations of abuse are made.

By Donal Hickey

Kerry priest Fr Liam O’Brien, who received a High Court apology this week from a woman in her 50s, said that if false allegations had been dealt with properly and promptly, it could have saved him “years of suffering and significant legal costs”.

His solicitor Robert Dore said Fr O’Brien’s civil challenge did “great service” to the body of priests. But Mr Dore said the Killorglin curate, very vulnerable at the time of the allegations, was “deeply, deeply, disappointed” at the lack of support from the Church.

The Association of Catholic Priests (ACP) also claimed priests remained an easy target, with a considerable number of false allegations being made against individual clergy. Spokesman Fr Tony Flannery said colleagues were delighted Fr O’Brien’s “long nightmare was over”, but added: “For us in the ACP, this case highlights two matters of great concern: the reality of false allegations against priests and the absence, in most cases including this one, of any real support from Church authorities for a priest who finds himself in this terrible situation.”

Mr Dore said Fr O’Brien found himself in a very vulnerable position and sought the support of his Church.

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OHIO
Star-Beacon

By SHELLEY TERRY – sterry@starbeacon.com
Staff Writer

ASHTABULA — The Rev. Raymond Thomas says he’s not ignoring the talk and turmoil in the Catholic community caused by Sunday’s advertisement in the Star Beacon.

He will address the issues during this weekend’s homily, he said.

Thomas would not elaborate.

The anonymous, full-page, paid advertisement disagreed with the future plans of Our Lady of Peace Parish — all a result of the merger of the city’s Catholic churches and a mission.

The ad, directed to the parishioners of Our Lady of Peace Parish, from “concerned Our Lady of Peace Parishioners, read (among other things), “You will be asked to pay for renovating the former Mt. Carmel School building into parish offices at a cost of $1.3 million. There is already a school building used for parish offices. Why move?”

The ad made eight additional points, including:

* Objections to selling the Mother of Sorrows school building without consultation of the parish at large, and that there’s “a bid to buy one of the churches” when the parishioners were told that churches would not be closed at this time;

* Objections to remodeling the rectory kitchen when the building is relatively new, and

* Objections to expanding Mt. Carmel worship site when there already exists a very large church that doesn’t need expansion.

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.

CANADA
CBC News

A dark chapter in Canadian history is being remembered in Red Deer today as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission public hearings looking at the impact of residential schools got underway.

The national commission was established in 2008 to record stories, educate and help with healing.

An eagle feather and box of tissues were passed around a sharing circle in the Red Deer College gym during the start of the two-day event.

Residential school survivors talked about the loneliness and physical labour. They remembered being forbidden to speak their language and going without shoes.

“We’ve gone through so much and now we need to move on. It takes each and every one of us to start that process,” said Adeline Sampson-Harvey, who travelled from Hobbema to take part.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

BY OREN YANIV / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

THURSDAY, JUNE 6, 2013
Three Brooklyn brothers admitted they tried to bully the boyfriend of a Hasidic sex abuse victim before an explosive trial but received no jail time from the judge Thursday.

Jacob, Joseph and Hertzka Berger ripped the kosher certificate off the wall at a restaurant owned by Hershy Deutsch, the now-husband of the star witness against the influential Hasidic counselor Nechemya Weberman.

Although prosecutors insisted they should get at least 30 days in jail for misdemeanor coercion, Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Danny Chun allowed the trio to plead guilty and get conditional discharge.

They only have to stay out of trouble for one year, with Jacob Berger, who also pleaded to felony mischief, required to pay a $500 fine.

“It’s over,” said his lawyer Michael Cibella. He added prosecutors “took a hardline stance of jail only” because of the high-profile nature of the case.

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NEW YORK
Failed Messiah

Hasidic Brothers Who Extorted Boyfriend Of Weberman Sex Abuse Victim Get No-Jail Sentences From Brooklyn Judge

Shmarya Rosenberg • Failedmessiah.com

Three Satmar hasidic brothers from Brooklyn admitted yesterday that they tried to extort the boyfriend of a teenage girl who was sexually abused by Nechemya Weberman, an unlicensed Satmar therapist, from the time she was 12-years-old until she turned 16, the Daily News reported.

The three hasidic thugs – Jacob, Joseph and Hertzka Berger – were allowed to plead guilty to misdemeanor coercion.

Prosecutors – who say they objected to the plea deals – asked Justice Danny Chun for at least a 30-day sentence in the city jail for each of the brothers.

But this is Brooklyn. Chun refused.

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STOCKTON (CA)
The Record

By Jennie Rodriguez-Moore
Record Staff Writer
June 07, 2013

STOCKTON – Bishop Stephen Blaire said Thursday that, despite a potential bankruptcy by the Diocese of Stockton, churches and schools under its umbrella would not be financially impacted.

Bankruptcy could be the next chapter for the church because of child sex abuse scandals, a move more than half a dozen dioceses across the country have made after being hit by lawsuits from victims seeking billions of dollars.

The Diocese of Stockton, based in a city that is facing its own financial problems as the largest U.S. city to file for bankruptcy, said the organization is considering relief from the federal court.

Confirmation of the potential to file for bankruptcy follows a lawsuit settlement for $1.75 million with a victim of defrocked priest Oliver O’Grady, whose pedophilia was chronicled in the documentary “Deliver Us From Evil,” and who was convicted in San Joaquin County in the 1990s.

Half of the settlement from this lawsuit will come from an insurance company, and the diocese is responsible for the other half, but Blaire said the organization has few resources left to settle other pending claims.

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CALIFORNIA
Lodi News-Sentinel

By Ross Farrow/News-Sentinel Staff Writer

This week’s $1.75 million settlement with a former parishioner who says he was sexually abused by defrocked priest Oliver O’Grady has Stockton Diocese officials seriously considering bankruptcy.

“No decision has been made,” Sister Terry Davis said on Thursday. “But our reserve funds have been virtually depleted, and we have four more cases coming at us.”

It will be three to five months before Bishop Stephen Blaire and other diocese leaders decide whether to file for bankruptcy, Davis said. The diocese’s reserves are now less than $1 million, she added.

The diocese and a man who was reportedly sexually abused by O’Grady in the 1980s agreed to the settlement on Monday, according to a press release from the diocese. The diocese will pay the victim $875,000 of the settlement amount, with the remainder to come from the diocese’s insurance, Davis said.

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CALIFORNIA
KCRA via YouTube

Published on Jun 6, 2013
Leaders of the Catholic Diocese of Stockton said they may have to file for bankruptcy, due to years of lawsuits and multimillion-dollar settlements with sexual-abuse victims — which are depleting the diocese’s reserves.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Beauftragler

Rörig: „Bei der strafrechtlichen Verjährung ist das neue Opferschutzgesetz (StORMG) keine Antwort auf berechtigte Opferinteressen. Betroffene sind oft erst in ihrer Lebensmitte in der Lage, strafrechtlich gegen die Täter vorzugehen.“ Forschungsergebnisse der Humboldt Universität Berlin bestätigen dringenden Reformbedarf im Strafrecht.

Berlin, 6. Juni 2013. Das vierte und vorerst letzte Hearing der Veranstaltungsreihe „Dialog Kindesmissbrauch“, das heute in Berlin zum Thema „Verlängerung der strafrechtlichen Verfolgbarkeit – Erwartungen und Risiken“ stattfindet, bietet Betroffenen, Fachwelt und Politik erstmals eine öffentliche Plattform, über ihre Positionen zu einer Veränderung der strafrechtlichen Verjährungsfristen zu diskutieren.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Badische Zeitung

Freiburger Hochschule hat frühere Zustände in kirchlichen Behinderteneinrichtungen untersucht.

FREIBURG (epd). Sie wohnten in kasernenartigen Gebäuden, schliefen in riesigen, abgeschlossenen Gruppenräumen, die medizinische und personelle Betreuung und Versorgung war schlecht: Heimbewohner von Behinderteneinrichtungen wie etwa der Johannes-Diakonie in Mosbach lebten in den 1950er und 1960er Jahren in heute kaum mehr vorstellbaren Verhältnissen. Dass es dabei auch zu Gewalt, Übergriffen und Exzessen kam, hat nun eine Untersuchung des Sozialwissenschaftlichen Frauen-Forschungsinstitutes an der Evangelischen Hochschule Freiburg ergeben.

Das Ausmaß sei “sehr üppig” gewesen, sagt Professorin Cornelia Helfferich. “Körperliche, psychische und sexuelle Gewalt gab es ebenso wie Fixierung oder die Verabreichung von Psychopharmaka”, sagt Helfferich. Ursächlich dafür seien unter anderem die geringe Zahl und mangelnde Ausbildung der Mitarbeitenden gewesen. Außerdem seien in der Nachkriegszeit viele “Sozialwaisen” aufgenommen worden, die keine oder nur eine geringe Behinderung aufwiesen. Die Zahl der betreuten Menschen stieg so von ursprünglich 42 Behinderten im Jahr 1949 auf mehr als 700 im Jahr 1964. Dies habe zu einem System “von Macht, Hierarchien und rigiden Regeln” geführt.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Evangelisch

Der Missbrauchsbeauftragte der Bundesregierung, Johannes-Wilhelm Rörig, setzt sich bei der strafrechtlichen Verfolgung von Missbrauchstaten für längere Verjährungsfristen ein.

06.06.2013 | EPD

Rörig forderte am Donnerstag in Berlin, die Verjährungsfrist solle nicht vor dem 30. Lebensjahr beginnen. Betroffene seien oft erst in ihrer Lebensmitte in der Lage, strafrechtlich gegen die Täter vorzugehen, sagte er bei einem Experten-Hearing, auf dem über Chancen und Risiken verlängerter Strafverfolgungsmöglichkeiten debattiert wurde.

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DEUTSCHLAND
General-Anzeiger

BONN. Das Collegium Josephinum Bonn (CoJoBo) verliert einen langjährigen Seelsorger. Der Pater, der wegen des umstrittenen Einsatzes von Zäpfchen bei erkrankten Schülern in die Schlagzeilen geraten war, kehrt nicht mehr an das Jungen-Gymnasium zurück.

Das teilte Johannes Römelt mit, der Provinzial des katholischen Redemptoristenordens, der Schulträger ist. In einem Brief an die Schulgemeinde betont Römelt, dass der Pater durch die mittlerweile eingestellten Ermittlungen der Staatsanwaltschaft vollständig rehabilitiert sei.

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MISSOURI
Courthouse News Service

By JOE HARRIS

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (CN) – Two years after state prosecutors dropped lurid charges against a woman’s ex-husband and family, she claims in court that the Mormon church covered up clerical sexual abuse of children and shamed the victims.

Jane Doe and her present husband sued the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, its Bishops Paul Tonga and Grant Bench, Stake President Gordon Goodman, Minister and Elder Burrell Edward Mohler Jr. (Jane Doe’s ex-husband), Mohler’s father Burrell E. Mohler Sr. (a pastor in the RLDS/COC Church), and the Community of Christ Church (RLDS/COC).

Doe claims in Jackson County Court that she and her children were sexually abused by the Mohlers.

The Mohlers were arrested in November 2009 on charges of sexual abuse and child endangerment. Prosecutors dropped the charges in 2011, according to the Kansas City Star.

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TROY (MI)
Click on Detroit

[with video]

Author: Bisi Onile-Ere, Local 4 Reporter

TROY, Mich. –
Spokesmen for a church in Troy have spoken out on an investigation into a possible sexual assault of a child at the church’s preschool program.

Two weeks ago, a parent filed a report with police alleging their child was abused at the St. Augustine’s Lutheran Church preschool in Troy.

On Thursday, church spokesmen confirmed the person accused was a volunteer.

Church spokesman Richard Gady said the allegations stemmed from an incident several years ago.

“It’s important to get the message out that we are protecting the children involved, the parents involved in our preschool, and we are using this opportunity to disclose this to you with whatever information we can honestly give you,” Gady said.

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TROY (MI)
Detroit Free Press

By Ann Zaniewski
Detroit Free Press Staff

Leaders at St. Augustine Lutheran Church in Troy have identified a former volunteer as the subject of an ongoing child sexual assault investigation.

The allegation involves a child who attended the church’s preschool. Police launched an investigation after being contacted by a parent May 22, said Troy Police Capt. Robert Redmond.

At a news conference Thursday outside the church on Livernois, Richard Gady, a member of the preschool’s board of directors, said the person named as the suspect is no longer involved with the school. Church officials identified the person as a volunteer, not an employee.

“We ended the person’s involvement immediately upon hearing of this complaint,” Gady said.

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MINNESOTA
Isanti County News

By Rachel Kytonen on June 6, 2013

“The side effects of what Ryan did have great impact on me, my family, my former place of employment and my close community. On a personal level, as a result of the abuse, I have struggled with not being able to look at my body and have felt great detachment, and at times, shame and hate for my body. The pain and anger of being used and abused at such an intimate and personal level through spiritual means have been quite overwhelming to try to deal with emotionally.”

Those words were read by Isanti County Victim Services advocate Cheryl Terhaar during the June 5 sentencing for former pastor Ryan Jay Muehlhauser.

Muehlhauser, 55, of Cambridge, had been an Isanti County pastor serving the community for more than 20 years when he was charged in November 2012 with eight counts of felony, fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct with two adult males seeking spiritual counsel.

Muehlhauser pleaded guilty to two of those counts Feb. 28. Under the plea agreement, Muehlhauser will serve 160 days in Isanti County Jail, remain on supervised probation for 10 years and register as a predatory offender. The other six counts were dismissed. Under state sentencing guidelines, a prison sentence can’t be ordered for fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Northern Echo

Abuse victims move a step closer to compensation payments from the Middlesbrough Catholic diocese

By Graeme Hetherington

VICTIMS awaiting compensation for abuse suffered at a Catholic children’s home have moved a step closer to reaching resolution.

In one of the largest abuse cases the country has seen, more than 170 men are seeking compensation following claims of physical and sexual abuse at St William’s Children’s Home in Market Weighton, East Yorkshire, between 1958 and 1992.

As part of an investigation into the claims, James Carragher, former principal of St William’s, was jailed in 2004 for 14 years for a series of sex crimes against young boys.

St William’s – a home for boys aged ten to 16 with behavioural issues – was owned by the Roman Catholic diocese of Middlesbrough but employed a number staff from the De La Salle Brotherhood, including Carragher.

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CALIFORNIA
News 10

The Diocese of Stockton has reached a $1.75 million settlement with a man who said he was sexually abused by a priest who spoke openly in a 2006 documentary about molesting children

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IRELAND
Newstalk

A former priest who received a 16 year prison sentence for the sexual abuse of 9 boys in the 70s and 80s has admitted abusing 2 other boys.

Tony Walsh, formerly of North Circular Road will be sentenced for those offences today.

Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard how Walsh, who was known as the ‘Singing Priest’, featured in the 2009 Murphy report into clerical sex abuse.

He pleaded guilty to 2 counts of indecent assault on January 1st and April 4th 1979.

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CALIFORNIA
Manteca Bulletin

By Rose Albano-Risso
City Editor ralbanorisso@mantecabulletin.com 209-249-3536
POSTED June 7, 2013 .

STOCKTON – The Diocese of Stockton has reached a negotiated settlement with attorneys for a man who was a victim of sexual abuse in the 1980s by defrocked Catholic priest Oliver O’Grady.

The announcement was made on Monday by Sr. Terry Davis, director of communications for the diocese.

Under the agreement, the victim who was not named will receive $1.75 million. The case will be dismissed. The Diocese is to pay $875,000 of the settlement amount, with the remaining portion to be paid through insurance proceeds.

Bishop Stephen E. Blaire, in a statement issued along with the announcement of the settlement, stated, “It is our hope that this settlement will help the victim continue to find healing for the suffering he endured. We have tried to find resolutions to these cases that will provide some measure of solace for victims. We continue to follow strict measures to ensure that we are protecting the young and the vulnerable.”

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IRELAND
The Association of Catholic Priests

The Association of Catholic Priests is delighted that Fr. Liam O’Brien’s name has been cleared, and that his long nightmare is over.

We wish to sincerely thank the great work done by solicitor, Robert Dore, and our legal team, in this case.

For us in the ACP this case hightlights two matters of great concern.

1. The reality of false allegations against priests. We have known of this for some time. Priests are now an easy target, and there are a considerable number of false allegations being made against individuals.

2. The absence, in most cases including this one, of any real support from Church authorities for a priest who find himself in this terrible situation.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Clearing of name of Kerry priest falsely accused raises ‘matters of great concern’

Patsy McGarry

Fri, Jun 7, 2013

The clearing of the name of Kerry priest Fr Liam O’Brien who was falsely accused by a woman of abuse, has highlighted “two matters of great concern,” the leadership of the Association of Catholic Priests (ACP) has said.

The association said there are a considerable number of false allegations being made against individuals.

“We have known of this for some time. Priests are now an easy target, and there are a considerable number of false allegations being made against individuals,” they said.

And there was “the absence, in most cases including this one, of any real support from church authorities for a priest who finds himself in this terrible situation.”

Apology

On Wednesday, Eileen Culloty apologised at the High Court in Dublin to Fr O’Brien whom she had falsely accused of abusing her.

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By Emily Gurnon
egurnon@pioneerpress.com
Posted: 06/06/2013

The Minnesota Supreme Court on Thursday took up the question of whether a St. Paul priest’s criminal-sexual-conduct conviction was based on “excessive religious evidence,” and should thus be overturned, as a lower court had ruled.

Christopher Wenthe became sexually involved with a 21-year-old penitent while he served at Nativity of Our Lord parish in St. Paul. The relationship lasted from November 2003, when he was 39, until February 2005, according to testimony at his Ramsey County trial.

The woman testified that she told Wenthe about her struggles with an eating disorder and prior sexual abuse. He agreed to serve as her confessor. She said Wenthe exploited her vulnerability and her trust in him as a priest.

Wenthe’s attorney countered at trial that the relationship was a “mutual affection that went awry” and that the woman was a willing participant.

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NEW JERSEY
The Record

THURSDAY JUNE 6, 2013
BY ABBOTT KOLOFF
STAFF WRITER

The Most Rev. Edgar M. da Cunha was named the new vicar general of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark on Thursday, less than two weeks after his predecessor stepped down over his oversight of a former Wyckoff priest who allegedly violated an agreement with law enforcement by working with children.

Archbishop John J. Myers said in a letter made public on May 24 that Monsignor John E. Doran resigned from the position after an independent law firm’s investigation found certain protocols had been followed in the oversight of the Rev. Michael Fugee. The vicar general is second in command in the archdiocese.

Fugee, who confessed to groping a 13-year-old boy, was arrested last month for allegedly violating a memorandum of understanding with the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office that barred him from ever working with children. Authorities said he heard confession from children on at least seven occasions, twice in Rochelle Park and once in Paramus. Doran had signed the agreement on behalf of the archdiocese.

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AUSTRALIA
Canberra Times

June 7, 2013

Christopher Knaus
Police reporter for The Canberra Times.

A Canberra Catholic priest has denied allegations he committed historical acts of indecency on a child in the 1990s.

Father Edward Evans, 83, appeared in the ACT Magistrates Court for the first time on Friday, and was charged with three acts of indecency stretching between 1994 and 1997.

The elderly priest, who worked as a chaplain for the German community, is accused of indecently touching a girl three times, twice when she was between 11 and 12, and a third time when she was 13.

Father Evans pleaded not guilty to all charges in a brief court appearance before Magistrate Bernadette Boss.

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CALIFORNIA
NBC Bay Area

By Chris Roberts | Thursday, Jun 6, 2013

Will Lynch admits he punched the priest he accused of molesting him as a child decades ago. And now he’s launching another campaign against child molesters.

A political campaign.

Lynch claims that he and his younger brother were abused by Rev. Jerold Lindner on a “religious camping trip” 35 years ago, when the pair were 7 and 4 years old, respectively, according to the San Jose Mercury News.

He filed suit claiming that Lindner raped him and made him have oral sex with his brother — and decades later, as an adult, was acquitted of assault after he punched Lindner — and now wants to have the state eliminate the statute of limitations for filing charges against alleged perpetrators of sexual abuse, the newspaper reported.

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ILLINOIS
NBC Chicago

A Diocese of Joliet priest who sexually abused a boy for five years was released on parole Thursday.

Alejandro Flores, 40, served around 80 percent of the 4-year sentence he agreed to in a 2010 plea deal.

Flores must now register as a sex offender, according to the Joliet Herald-News.
The priest had befriended the boy’s family while assigned to St. Mary’s Catholic Church in West Chicago.

Flores was ordained in 2009. In January, when the boy’s mother alerted the Joliet archdiocese to the alleged abuse, Flores was removed from the parish. Two days later, he leaped from the balcony of a Joliet church in a suicide attempt, according to church officials.

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TEXAS
Statesman

By Cyndi Wright
Austin Community Newspapers Staff

According to the Catholic Diocese of Austin, Ascension Catholic Church pastor Rafael Padilla-Valdes will not celebrate Mass this weekend after an incident in San Antonio on May 29.

Padilla-Valdes, 42, was allegedly the victim of an assault after he was found in a motel on Roosevelt Avenue near I-10 and I-37 by an officer who responded to a 911 call, according to the San Antonio Police Department.

In the police report, the responding officer noted that Padilla-Valdes was standing in his room with the door open, wearing only underwear, with what appeared to be swelling and abrasions to his face and arms. The officer also noted in the report that he saw condoms and beer in the room and that Padilla-Valdes appeared to be under the influence of alcohol and drugs.

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ILLINOIS
Greenwich Times

PONTIAC, Ill. (AP) — A Chicago-area Roman Catholic priest who was sentenced to prison for abusing a boy has been released on parole.

The Herald-News in Joliet reports (http://bit.ly/1883wig) that 40-year-old Alejandro Flores was released on Thursday. Flores pleaded guilty in 2010 to felony criminal sexual abuse. He served about 80 percent of his four-year prison sentence. Flores now must register as a sex offender.

Prosecutors say the priest abused the 12 or 13-year-old boy while working at St. Mary’s Church in West Chicago.

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NEW JERSEY
National Catholic Reporter

Brian Roewe | Jun. 6, 2013

The archbishop of Newark, N.J., named a new vicar general Thursday, filling a position made vacant in the wake of the Fr. Michael Fugee scandal.

Archbishop John J. Myers appointed Auxiliary Bishop Edgar da Cunha to the post, according to an archdiocesan press release.

“Bishop da Cunha’s long history with the Archdiocese of Newark, both as a priest and pastor serving in urban parishes, and with his work in the fields of Evangelization and the New Energies Parish Transition Project, have given him a full understanding of the breadth and depth of the Archdiocese, its clergy and its people,” Myers said in the release.

“Since his ordination as an Auxiliary Bishop in 2003, I have benefited from his expertise and counsel over the years, and look forward to his serving as my Vicar General,” he said.

Da Cunha replaces Msgr. John Doran, who resigned May 24 as part of a number of administrative changes in the archdiocese since the re-emergence of the case of Fr. Michael Fugee, who was alleged to have violated a court order banning him from ministry with children, in late April.

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VIRGINIA
CBS 6

[with video]

June 5, 2013, by Nick Dutton and Sandra Jones

RICHMOND, Va. (WTVR) – A community leader is worried that a Richmond mega church that has lost four of its five pastors may not be able to continue its mission.

Jeff Davis Neighborhood Civic Association’s Charles Willis, who has worked closely with the church and Pastor Geronimo Aguilar, fears the Richmond Outreach Center’s mission of serving the needy may be too difficult.

This after Aguilar, known as Pastor G, is accused of sexually abusing two young sisters in the mid 1990s in Texas prior to founding the ROC in 2003.

“It’s a sad day in Richmond,” said Willis. “The ROC has been a ROC within the Richmond community and that ROC has been shattered.”

As civic association president, Willis worked closely with Aguilar on prayer vigils and programs involving Citizens Against Crime.

Willis calls him a spiritual leader who looked out for underprivileged and troubled kids.

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VIRGINIA/TEXAS
Fort Worth Star-Telegram

BY BILL MILLER
wmiller@star-telegram.com

FORT WORTH — The Richmond, Va., minister accused of sexually assaulting two girls in the 1990s in Fort Worth has resigned as senior pastor along with three members of his staff, church officials said Wednesday.

The Rev. Geronimo Aguilar, 43, who was senior pastor of Richmond Outreach Center, or ROC, is free on $200,000 bail. He was briefly jailed last week in Tarrant County.

Wednesday evening, the ROC board of directors issued a statement announcing that they had accepted Aguilar’s resignation “upon mutually agreeable terms.”

Other resignations were accepted from Jason Helmlinger, executive pastor; Andrew Delgado, children’s pastor; and Matthew Aguilar, assistant pastor and brother of Geronimo Aguilar.

“We wish the best for the pastors and their families,” the board said in its statement. “The Richmond Outreach Center remains focused on serving those in need and we will never stray from this mission.”

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RICHMOND (VA)
Richmond Outreach Center

June 06, 2013
To the Greatest Church in the Whole World,

The past twelve years at The ROC have been an amazing journey. God took an unlikely crew from the West Coast, planted us in a warehouse that was a little larger than our current lobby, and grew us into one of the fastest-growing churches in America. In the last twelve years, we have:

* Helped hundreds of men and women overcome drug and alcohol addictions and become productive, hard-working citizens through our Discipleship Homes,
* Shared the life-changing love of Jesus Christ with thousands of children ages 5-12 through our weekly Kids Service, giving more than 351,150 rides to Kids Service through our Whosoever Kids Bus Ministry, and
* Won more than 150,000 souls to the Lord.

My heart’s desire was to establish a soulwinning church that embraced the principles of love, grace, mercy, and forgiveness; and that’s what we have been able to do. And this unorthodox church, which was founded on what many thought to be an impossible and unrealistic vision, has positively impacted Richmond more than any other church in our city’s history. God has used The ROC to transform our city. And through all of this, never has a pastor been loved as much as your pastor.

As you all know, my family and I have been facing difficult trials and persecution. This has taken a toll on me and my family, as well as those close to me. Unfortunately, during this difficult season, the focus has been taken off of Jesus and put on me, and that is not what The ROC is all about.

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VIRGINIA
CBS 6

[with video]

June 6, 2013, by Scott Wise and Jake Burns

RICHMOND, Va. (WTVR) – One day after the Richmond Outreach Center (ROC) announced the resignation of Pastor Geronimo Aguilar and three other pastors, Aguilar posted a statement on the church’s website.

“The past twelve years at The ROC have been an amazing journey. God took an unlikely crew from the West Coast, planted us in a warehouse that was a little larger than our current lobby, and grew us into one of the fastest-growing churches in America,” Aguilar wrote. [Click here to read the entire statement]
Aguilar, who is currently out on bond, was recently charged with seven felony charges in Fort Worth, Texas based on allegations that he sexually abused two young girls in the mid-90s.

“As you all know, my family and I have been facing difficult trials and persecution,” Aguilar wrote. “Although we will not be at The ROC, Samantha [his wife] and I are not leaving Richmond, and we hope to continue the many relationships we have built with you all. I would ask that you pray for me and my family, as we don’t know what God has in store for us, next.”

According to a Texas arrest warrant, the parents of Aguilar’s alleged victims followed the pastor from California to Texas to join him at New Beginnings church. The warrant indicated the parents allowed Aguilar to live in their home because “he was their trusted spiritual leader.”

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VIRGINIA
Christianity Today

(UPDATED) Mass resignation after more details emerge on sex abuse allegations against Richmond Outreach Center founder Geronimo Aguilar.

Melissa Steffan

Update (June 6): Local news sources report that four of the five pastors at Richmond Outreach Center (ROC) have resigned from their positions. The resignations came one day after the release of more details regarding the sex abuse case against ROC founding pastor Geronimo Aguilar, which has “shattered” the church.

The church announced the resignations Wednesday evening, stating that Aguilar and the others had been released “upon mutually agreeable terms.” According to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, “Other resignations were accepted from Jason Helmlinger, executive pastor; Andrew Delgado, children’s pastor; and Matthew Aguilar, assistant pastor and brother of Geronimo Aguilar.”

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VIRGINIA
RichmondTimes-Dispatch

BY LOUIS LLOVIO
Richmond Times-Dispatch

RICHMOND — The former senior pastor of the Richmond Outreach Center said he made the decision to leave the church he founded in 2001 because the sexual assault charges he faces in Texas have become a distraction to ROC’s ministry.

Geronimo Aguilar, in his first public statements since being arrested last month for the sexual assault of two young girls in Texas, also said he would remain in Richmond while free on bond.

“As you all know, my family and I have been facing difficult trials and persecution. This has taken a toll on me and my family, as well as those close to me. Unfortunately, during this difficult season, the focus has been taken off of Jesus and put on me, and that is not what The ROC is all about,” Aguilar wrote in a letter to church members posted on the ROC’s website today.

Aguilar, who had been on paid leave, said he made the decision last week “after much prayer and wise counsel from a dear friend.”

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VIRGINIA
Christian Post

By Leonardo Blair , CP Reporter
June 6, 2013

A swirling controversy over the criminal past and alleged sexual proclivities of the founding pastor of Virginia’s Richmond Outreach Center (ROC) megachurch, Geronimo Aguilar, came to a head on Wednesday when the church’s board announced that it had accepted the resignation of four of its five pastors.

“The Richmond Outreach Center held a Board meeting this evening, June 5, 2013. Upon mutually agreeable terms, we hereby announce that we have accepted the resignations of Pastor Geronimo Aguilar, Pastor Jason Helmlinger, Pastor Andrew Delgado and Pastor Matthew Aguilar,” noted the board in a terse statement posted to its website.

“We wish the best for the pastors and their families. The Richmond Outreach Center remains focused on those in need and we will never stray from this mission,” it added.
Pastor Aguilar, affectionately known as “Pastor G” was extradited to Texas late last month where he is currently facing seven felony charges including aggravated sexual assault of two sisters under age 14, according to an ABC 8News report. These assaults are said to have taken place before Pastor G founded the ROC ministry in 2003. If convicted of the charges he could spend the rest of his life in prison.

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FLORIDA
Vatican Crimes

THURSDAY, JUNE 6, 2013

A prominent South Florida priest has taken a temporary leave of absence as allegations of sexual misconduct against him are investigated, Archdiocese of Miami spokeswoman Mary Ross Agosta said Monday.

A civil complaint was filed against Father Daniel Kubala of Miami’s St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church and Parish last month. In the complaint, the unnamed plaintiff alleges Kubala made two unwanted sexual advances towards the plaintiff, identified as “John Doe,” back in April.

An adult male worker at the church has made the accusations, Ross Agosta said in a statement.

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ILLINOIS
Naperville Sun

By Brian Stanley bstanley@stmedianetwork.com June 6, 2013

PONTIAC — A Diocese of Joliet priest who sexually abused a boy for five years was released on parole Thursday.

Alejandro Flores, 40, was behind bars for roughly 80-percent of the 4-year sentence he received under a plea deal in 2010. He is now required to register as a sex offender.

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CALIFORNIA
U-T San Diego

By The Associated Press

STOCKTON, Calif. — A Northern California Roman Catholic diocese has reached a $1.75 million settlement with a man who said he was sexually abused by a priest who spoke openly in a 2006 documentary about molesting children.

The Diocese of Stockton disclosed the settlement on Wednesday.

The alleged victim said he was 11 or 12 years old when he was abused by Oliver O’Grady in Stockton in the 1980s.

In his lawsuit filed in 2009, he said his younger brother and sister were also abused by O’Grady. Those cases were settled for $2 million.

O’Grady talked about abusing more than 20 children in the Academy Award-nominated documentary, “Deliver Us From Evil.”

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NEW JERSEY
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

POSTED BY DAVID CLOHESSY ON JUNE 06, 2013

According to trusted Catholic blogger Rocco Palmo (“Whispers in the Loggia”), Newark Archbishop John Myers has named Auxiliary Bishop Edgar da Cunha as the archdiocese’s new vicar general.

For a decade, da Cunha has been Myers’ right hand man. Da Cunha has been silent while Myers has repeatedly endangered kids, broken church policies, deceived parishioners and the public about predator priests.

So how can giving da Cunha more responsibility make any sense or change whatsoever?

Myers could have brought in an untarnished outsider. Instead, he promotes a tarnished insider. This is “circling the wagons,” not solving the crisis.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Tom Doyle’s bibliography

Tom Doyle is a Dominican priest who has been involved in the clergy sex abuse crisis since 1984. He has offered survivors and their families support and has served as an expert witness in criminal and civil cases. He has also done expert and consultant work with grand juries in the U.S., with the three investigative commissions in Ireland and with the Cornwall Commission in Canada.

The Catholic Labyrinth: Power, Apathy, and a Passion for Reform in the American Church, by Peter McDonough (Oxford University Press, USA July 15, 2013) 978-0199751181. Read review

Sexual abuse scandals, declining attendance, a meltdown in the number of priests and nuns, the closing of many parishes and parochial schools–all have shaken American Catholicism. Yet conservatives have increasingly dominated the church hierarchy.

In The Catholic Labyrinth, Peter McDonough tells a tale of multiple struggles that animate various groups–the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, Voice of the Faithful, and the Leadership Roundtable chief among them–pushing to modernize the church. One contest pits reformers against those who back age-old standards of sexual behavior and gender roles. Another area of contention, involving efforts to maintain the church’s far-flung operations in education, social services, and healthcare, raises constitutional issues about the separation of church and state. Once a sidebar to this debate, the bishops’ campaign to control the terms of employment and access to contraceptives in church-sponsored ministries has fueled conflict further.

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UNITED STATES
TheMediaReport

In all of 2012, there were exactly six credible abuse allegations made against Catholic priests by current minors in all of 2012 (out of some 40,000 active priests), and the “fewest allegations and victims” ever were tabulated since statistics began to be compiled.

In fact, in a body of 77 million people, contemporaneous accusations of abuse against Catholic clergy in the United States are extremely rare, recently averaging 8 allegations merely deemed “credible” each year.

Yet a new group being trumpeted by the New York Times, “Catholic Whistleblowers,” is trying to dupe the public into believing that abuse is somehow still rampant in the Church today.

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UNITED STATES
Gay Soup

The fact that an Ohio jury reached a decision in a civil case against the Archdiocese of Cincinnati is likely to have far reaching consequences. In some ways, the consequences could be similar to those that occurred with the various cases involving pedophile priests in that some people who have been fired from their jobs within Catholic Church run organizations for supposedly breaking their contracts may find themselves capable of suing.

The Ohio Jury awarded damaged to Christa Dias. At one time, she was employed by two different Catholic schools to teach only computer sciences, and believed that the contract that she signed while working there did not require her to absolutely follow Catholic Church teachings on certain subjects like homosexuality and artificial insemination.

Dias was fired after she got pregnant through artificial insemination. At the time, the archdiocese thought that she was single. The reality is that she has a partner. Currently, she and her partner are unable to get married in most states including Ohio, and where they live now, Georgia. The two women and their daughter moved to Atlanta following Dias’ firing.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) noted the inconsistencies and hypocrisy in how Dias was treated compared to how clergy who commit not only an egregious breach of their vows, but of the law in most nations, are treated.

According to SNAP, it comes down to “One standard for clergy, another for laity.” Or put another way “do as I say, not as I do.”

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JOHNSTOWN (PA)
The Republic

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
June 06, 2013

JOHNSTOWN, Pennsylvania — The former principal of Bishop McCort Catholic High School says he’s left the Johnstown school.

Ken Salem announced the decision Wednesday, the Johnstown Tribune-Democrat (http://bit.ly/11uwio1 ) reports. He had been on paid leave since March 1 and had been at the school for nearly two decades.

Some area residents who objected when Salem was put on leave without explanation also lamented his departure.

Rob Eckenrod says the resignation is “a sad day” and that school leaders “unjustly” allowed Salem’s reputation to be tarnished by a separate scandal.

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VIRGINIA/TEXAS
NBC 12

By Ray Daudani

RICHMOND, VA (WWBT) –
A Richmond pastor facing child sexual abuse charges in Texas is speaking out about his recent resignation from his Southside megachurch.

Geronimo “Pastor G” Aguilar published a statement to his congregation on the Richmond Outreach Center’s website Thursday morning, a day after the ROC’s board of directors accepted his resignation along with that of four others.

In the statement, Aguilar says he decided to step down last week due to the criminal charges “taking the focus off of Jesus” and instead putting it on him. He asks his congregation to pray for him and his family, tells them “no person will ever love you like your pastor has” and thanks the ROC’s staff and leadership team.

The ROC’s Board of Directors announced Wednesday evening the acceptance of the resignations from Aguilar, Pastor Jason Helmlinger, Pastor Andrew Delgado and Pastor Matthew Aguilar.

The board says the terms were “mutually agreeable” and wished “the best for the pastors and their families.”

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WORCESTER (MA)
Catholic Free Press

By Tanya Connor

The Catholic Church has led the way in addressing sexual abuse of minors, the incoming chairman of the National Review Board said.

Francesco C. Cesareo, president of Assumption College (in Worcester, Mass.) and a Review Board member for one year, is to succeed Al Notzon III as chairman on Sunday, at the conclusion of the board’s June meeting. Since the board meets four times a year, the first meeting President Cesareo will oversee as chairman will be in September.

His appointment by Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, raises the visibility of the college and the Worcester Diocese, he said, and he expressed hope that it would be a positive reflection on both. His three-year term as chairman is a contribution the college is making to the life of the Church, he said.

His plans are to do what the NRB was set up to do. He said the USCCB established this lay board in 2002 to collaborate with the bishops in preventing sexual abuse of minors in the United States by people working for the Church – now and in the future.

The board does this by making sure that the bishops’ Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People is being implemented, he said.

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FLORIDA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

POSTED BY DAVID CLOHESSY ON JUNE 06, 2013

An overseas missionary from the Sanford FL-based New Tribes Mission (NTM) has been arrested on child porn and child sex abuse charges. Now, it’s crucial that NTM uses its vast resources to reach out to others who may have seen, suspected or suffered his crimes.

Given NTM’s disturbing track record on children’s safety, church officials must take aggressive steps to help law enforcement convict Warren Scott Kennell.

If they do little or nothing, it will be clear that little or nothing in this troubling organization is changing.

NTM claims 3,300 “missionaries” across the globe, making it the second largest Christian missionary organization in the world. (http://www.ntm.org/)

In the 1980s and 1990s, at a Christian boarding school in Senegal, “child abuse was widespread and routine” and “much of this behavior was criminal.” These are among the stunning conclusions found in a hard-hitting, 68 page investigative report about NTM released 2.5 years ago.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Croydon Guardian

By Hannah Williamson

A catholic priest arrested after being accused of sexually assaulting a teenage boy has been re-bailed by police.

Francis Moran of St Andrew’s Roman Catholic Church in Brook Road, Thornton Heath, was questioned and bailed by police last September.

Parishioners were informed of the allegation when they were read a statement during a Sunday Mass.

The parish priest, who joined the church in 2004, has been re-bailed until the end of June.

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IRELAND
Sunday World

A former priest who received a 16-year prison sentence for the sexual abuse of nine boys in the 70s and 80s has admitted abusing two other boys.

Tony Walsh (59) pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to two counts of indecent assault on January 01 and April 4, 1979. The victims were aged between ten and 11.

Walsh, formerly of North Circular Road, Dublin, was known as the “Singing Priest” and featured in the 2009 Murphy Report. Judge Martin Nolan adjourned sentencing until tomorrow.

Garda John Barrett told Vincent Heneghan BL, prosecuting, that the first victim was aged 11 when Walsh caught him eating sweets outside the church before taking Holy Communion.

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CALIFORNIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

POSTED BY DAVID CLOHESSY ON JUNE 06, 2013

Stockton’s Catholic bishop is threatening to seek bankruptcy protection. Shame on him.

[The Record]

It’s a selfish cop-out when Catholic institutions misuse the Chapter 11 process to protect their secrets and deny child sex abuse victims a chance to expose predators in court. Make no mistake about it: that’s the real motivation here. It’s a lack of courage, not a lack of funds. It’s to protect reputations, not assets.

When bishops seek bankruptcy protection, all lawsuits, depositions, discovery and trials come to a screeching halt. The court plays no role in exposing wrongdoers or preventing wrongdoing. It just divides up money. So Catholics and citizens learn nothing about who is committing and concealing clergy child sex crimes.

This isn’t about protecting church assets. It’s about protecting the power and reputations of powerful church officials who desperately want to keep their complicity in child sex cases under wraps.

We hope every single man, woman and child who is being or has been molested by Stockton Catholic employees – past and present – will step forward, call police and protect others. And we hope every single person who saw or suspected crimes by Stockton Catholic employees will do the same.

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ROME
Catholic News Agency

By Estefania Aguirre

Rome, Italy, Jun 6, 2013 / 06:35 am (CNA/EWTN News).- An expert on dealing with sexual abuse cases within the Church says prevention guidelines being developed with Vatican oversight should vary from country to country.

“We’ve realized learning habits and how people respond to some questionnaires and comply to rules varies from country to country,” said Father Hans Zollner, a German Jesuit who heads the Gregorian University’s Centre for Child Protection.

“It is most interesting and most inspiring to see this across the different cultures,” Fr. Zollner told CNA June 5.

He explained that some guidelines should apply to all countries equally, since “sexual abuse is sexual abuse, no matter what.”

“But in the Philippines, for example, there is the ‘culture of touch.’”

“It means that if you don’t touch children, hugging and kissing them, there is something wrong and pathological,” Fr. Zollner said.

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VIRGINIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

POSTED BY DAVID CLOHESSY ON JUNE 06, 2013

Group asks ROC: “Let us speak”
They want to address congregation
Victim’s organization holds candlelight vigil
SNAP also urges victims to contact prosecutor

A support group for clergy sex abuse is asking to speak at a troubled Richmond church and urging anyone who may have seen, suspected or suffered crimes by two ministers to contact local prosecutors, especially if they’re reluctant to speak with the police.

Leaders of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, are writing the board of the Richmond Outreach Center about Pastor Geronimo Scott Aguilar and Pastor Jason Helmlinger, both of whom recently stepped down from their positions at the ROC.

Aguilar was arrest on May 21 on charges of molesting two girls. Then, days later, Helmlinger was arrested and charged after he made a threatening and obscene phone call to a man who said he’d seen allegedly inappropriate behavior between Aguilar and some church wives.

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JOHNSTOWN (PA)
The Tribune-Democrat

For The Tribune-Democrat

JOHNSTOWN — Editor’s note: The following was submitted to The Tribune-Democrat by the Bishop McCort Catholic High School Board of Trustees by Matt Beynon, a school spokesman. Board members, according to the school’s website, are: Bishop Mark Bartchak, Mark Pasquerilla, Jack Buchan, Mike Price, Lou Mihalko, Nicholas Antonazzo, Paul Helsel, Dan Hummel, Richard Kastelic, Joe Martella, Thomas McAneny, the Rev. David Peles, Linda Thomson and trustee emeritus Msgr. Thomas Mabon.

Until January 2013, the Bishop McCort Catholic High School Board of Trustees guided the school’s leadership team on many positive ventures, with our goal being to ensure that Bishop McCort is one of the area’s best educational facilities and spiritual institutions.

But in January, this board was placed in a totally different situation – making choices none of us ever imagined, with the ultimate goal of saving Bishop McCort.

The stories we have learned of those who may have been violated by Brother Stephen Baker are sickening and heartbreaking. The pain and emotional scars that the victims carry are beyond what many of us can ever imagine. These victims must be embraced by our entire school family and community.

But faced with such horror, some in our community have understandably chosen to deny these acts could have occurred, lashing out at members of this board or, in some sad instances, the victims themselves. The facts the alleged victims, their counsel, and – to a certain extent – this board know may never be revealed to the public at large.

While the unavailability of such information is rare in an age when private matters are splashed over the Internet or the ticker at the bottom of a cable news channel, the unavailability of the information in this case does not mean it does not exist or that it is not true. Such denial and the division that it causes are but one more casualty of the type of abuse perpetrated by Brother Baker and only adds to the pain which the victims and the community suffer. The time has come for the community to accept that it may never know that which it does not know, and begin the healing process. To do any less is to harm those who have already been victimized and undermine the future of Bishop McCort.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph & Argus

A former Bradford vicar has pleaded guilty to sexually abusing a teenage boy over a three-year period in the 1990s.

Peter Hedge yesterday admitted eight offences of indecent assault on a male, indecency with a child and a serious sexual offence, all involving one boy when he was aged 13 to 15.

He was remanded in custody at Bradford Crown Court to a date to be fixed.

Hedge, 50, who was vicar of Holy Trinity Church, Queensbury, spent many years working on the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway.

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OHIO
Catholic News Agency

By Kevin J. Jones

Cincinnati, Ohio, Jun 6, 2013 / 06:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Although the Archdiocese of Cincinnati has been ordered to pay $171,000 to a school teacher fired for undergoing artificial insemination, a spokesman says it has no intention to end morality requirements.

“For the archdiocese, this case has always been about an employee violating a legally enforceable contract that she signed,” communications director Dan Andriacco said June 5.

“We also believe that we have a First Amendment right to give Catholic school parents what they expect – an environment that reflects Catholic moral teaching,” he added. “Our schools are Catholic schools and the work that our school employees do is an extension of that ministry.”

Andriacco told CNA the archdiocese believes the lawsuit filed by former computer teacher Christa Dias should have fallen under the “ministerial exception” to employment law and “should never have gone to trial.”

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SCHWEIZ
Schwyzer Zeitung

EINSIEDELN In der katholischen Kirche in der Schweiz hat die Zahl der Meldungen zu sexuellen Übergriffen im vergangenen Jahr markant abgenommen. 2012 wurden den Bistümern 9 Opfer und 9 Täter aus der Zeit von 1960 bis 2012 neu gemeldet. Im Vorjahr waren es 23 Opfer und 24 Täter.

Vier der Opfer sind Kinder und Jugendliche zwischen 12 und 16 Jahren, die übrigen Meldungen würden Vergehen gegen Erwachsene betreffen, heisst es in einer Mitteilung der Schweizerischen Bischofskonferenz (SBK) vom Donnerstag.

Nähere Angaben zu den Fällen machte die SBK nicht. Die Statistik wurde von einem Fachgremium der Bischofskonferenz, der Kommission «Sexuelle Übergriffe in der Pastoral», erstellt.

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VATIKAN
Zenit

Vatikanstadt, 6. Juni 2013 (ZENIT.org)

In einem Interview mit Radio Vaticana am vergangenen Dienstag, den 4. Juni 2013, mit dem deutschen Jesuiten Hans Zollner, Vizerektor der Päpstlichen Universität Gregoriana in Rom, berichtete der Leiter der Fakultät für Psychologie von seinem Treffen mit Papst Franziskus, bei dem er den Heiligen Vater über die Präventionsarbeit des Internationalen Zentrums für Kinderschutz der Universität informierte. Der Papst appellierte an die Mitarbeiter, im Kampf gegen sexuellen Missbrauch nicht nachzulassen und „mit Geduld und Beharrlichkeit“ weiterzumachen.

Bei einem Treffen mit dem Präfekten der Kongregation für Glaubenslehre, Gerhard Ludwig Müller, am 6. April, hatte sich Papst Franziskus zum ersten Mal zu dem Thema geäußert, indem er die Kongregation aufforderte, sie solle nach den von Benedikt XVI. gegebenen Vorgaben damit fortfahren, Schritte zum Schutz der Minderjährigen zu ergreifen und sexuellen Missbrauch zu ahnden. So hat die Glaubenskongregation die Bischofskonferenzen weltweit dazu aufgefordert, Regelwerke im Umgang mit sexuellem Missbrauch zu entwickeln, die den Schutz der Kinder gewährleisten. Wie Zollner Radio Vaticana mitteilte, haben bisher 80% bis 85% weltweit Leitlinien der Glaubenskongregation zugesendet, wo der Prozess noch schleppend voran gehe, bemühe man sich um ein stetiges Vorantreiben.

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DEUTSCHLAND
3sat

Der Missbrauchsbeauftragte der deutschen Bundesregierung, Johannes-Wilhelm Rörig, hat sich für eine spätere Verjährung bei sexuellem Missbrauch ausgesprochen.

Das Alter, ab dem die Verjährungsfrist läuft, müsse auf mindestens 30 Jahre angehoben werden, forderte Rörig am 6. Juni 2013 in Berlin. Die “Ruhensregelung” müsse entsprechend geändert werden.

Im Gesetz zur Stärkung der Rechte von Opfern sexuellen Missbrauchs, das der Bundesrat im April verabschiedet hatte, war diese Frist vom 18. auf das 21. Lebensjahr des Betroffenen verlängert worden. Diese Veränderung sei nur ein erster Schritt in die richtige Richtung, so Rörig weiter. Notwendig sei eine umfassende Verlängerung dieser Frist. Er begründete dies damit, dass die Betroffenen lange bräuchten, bis sie über das an ihnen begangene Unrecht sprechen könnten. Häufig sei das erst in der Lebensmitte der Fall.

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Tribune-Democrat

— We’re appalled and shocked at the arrogance of the Bishop McCort Board of Trustees. It is beyond comprehension what the trustees – many of them longtime community leaders – write about the sexual scandal issue involving Brother Stephen Baker.

In a piece appearing in today’s Tribune-Democrat, the board informs our readers and others that “The time has come for the community to accept that it may never know that which it does not know, and begin the healing process. To do any less is to harm those who have already been victimized and undermine the future of Bishop McCort.”

In other words, the board has no intention of coming clean and informing the public, even you who long have supported this school with your hard-earned dollars, about what it knows or has learned about Baker’s alleged assaults on many of McCort’s students.

How insulting.

This would be much like Penn State’s administrators and trustees saying, “Forget what you have heard about Jerry Sandusky. Trust us and move on.”

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UNITED STATES
Joyful Heart Foundation

I spoke recently with a group of college men whose fraternity had been sanctioned for sexually offensive attitudes and behavior. Our discussion was part of a mandated remedy. Not surprisingly, mandated conversations often don’t lead immediately to open dialogue.

Efforts to educate men about sexual violence generally cast them in one of two roles: bystanders, either preventing or supporting sexually aggressive behavior, speech or attitudes; or as perpetrators of violence.

This time, we experimented with introducing a third role to our conversation: the reality that men are also frequently the victims of violence, including the one in six men, who have had unwanted or abusive sexual experiences in childhood.

Make no mistake. Trauma can never be an excuse for hurting others. But I’ve found that acknowledging men’s experiences of trauma can lead to startling insights about violence. And by the end of the session, these men were readily identifying ways that men’s socialized behaviors can cause real harm.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

STUART RINTOUL From: The Australian June 07, 2013

THE Catholic Church has significantly amended the number of victims abused by pedophile clergy and the number of offenders, including priests, brothers and nuns, in a new submission to a Victorian parliamentary inquiry into child abuse.

In its original submission to the Victorian child abuse inquiry, the church said it had paid compensation to 620 victims in Victoria. But after analysing documents held by various orders, the church has now admitted that at least 849 children were abused from the 1950s.

In the submission, released to the ABC yesterday before being handed to the Victorian inquiry, the church also included information on the number of offenders within its ranks. It said 269 men and women had been guilty of child sexual abuse. The majority were priests and brothers, but the figure also included nine nuns and 42 lay people.

In the submission, seen by The Australian, the church says that in its Facing the Truth admissions it reported that the Melbourne Response and Towards Healing processes had upheld the complaints of 618 victims of criminal abuse of children that took place in Victoria.

“Towards Healing and the Melbourne Response are the only processes that hold centralised records, and so their statistics were the only ones readily available for inclusion in Facing the Truth,” the church now says.

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FLORIDA
WFTV

SANFORD, Fla. — Federal agents said a local missionary admitted to molesting children and making child pornography.

Warren Scott Kennell, who claims to belong to New Tribes Mission in Sanford, was arrested at Orlando International Airport Friday.

Investigators said they found pictures of him molesting a young girl.

WFTV reporter Jeff Deal spoke with federal agents about the bust.

Investigators said Kennell admitted to molesting four children, all around the age of 12, and took pictures of them.

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FLORIDA
Orlando Sentinel

[with video]

By Amy Pavuk, Orlando Sentinel
1:51 p.m. EDT, June 5, 2013

Federal authorities say a missionary with the Sanford-based New Tribes Mission sexually abused several children and produced pornography of the acts.

Agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations began investigating Warren Scott Kennell after receiving a tip that he posted numerous photographs on a website used extensively by people trading child pornography, a criminal complaint said.

When Kennell arrived at Orlando International Airport on Friday from a flight that originated in Brazil, agents stopped him and found him in possession of three thumb drives and one external hard drive.

Kennell, who said he’s lived in Brazil for several years, initially denied touching a child inappropriately and said there would be no child pornography on his computer-related items.

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UNITED STATES
Atheist Revolution

I don’t imagine most atheists follow the Southern Baptist leadership all that closely. Why would they? But ’round these parts, it pays to know what is going on with the vast Southern Baptist majority. Maybe that’s why this story grabbed my attention.

According to Religion News Service, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) is “the public policy arm for the Southern Baptist Convention.” Since 1988, Richard Land has led the ERLC and has been responsible for their efforts to “rally social conservatives in the nation’s culture wars.” Yes, so we have Land to thank for all the damage that has brought.

The ERLC now has new leadership in the form of Russell Moore, a native of Mississippi.

“I am honored and humbled to be asked to serve Southern Baptists as ERLC president,” said Moore in a statement. “I pray for God’s grace to lead the ERLC to be a catalyst to connect the agenda of the kingdom of Christ to the cultures of local congregations for the sake of the mission of the gospel in the world.”

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VIRGINIA/TEXAS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

POSTED BY BARBARA DORRIS ON JUNE 05, 2013

Disturbing court records in Texas have been released about the Pastor Geronimo Aguilar case.

A Richmond TV station reports:

“The documents also state the girl’s parents claim they caught the pastor in the act (of sexually abusing a girl) and that the pastor admitted to it. The arrest warrants detail statements from at least half a dozen witnesses in the case.”

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Dan Morris-Young | Jun. 6, 2013

SEATTLE Reinstating general absolution in the United States, consultation in the selection process for bishops, studying the ordination of women and married men, and collegial exercise of church authority are among topics of 15 resolutions on the agenda of the second annual assembly of the fledgling Association of U.S. Catholic Priests June 24-27.

To be held at Seattle University, the gathering’s theme — “Lumen Gentium: God’s Pilgrim People” — is based on the Second Vatican Council’s 1964 document, also known as the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church.

The association was formed following an Aug. 25, 2011, meeting of 27 self-described “Vatican II priests” from 15 dioceses and 11 states at Mundelein Seminary in Illinois, notes the group’s website (www.uscatholicpriests.org).

The organization’s inaugural assembly last June drew 240 delegates from 55 dioceses to St. Leo University, northeast of Tampa, Fla. Among its actions was approval of a letter of support to the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. LCWR remains under controversial Vatican control and directives for reform.

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CHICAGO (IL)
CLTV

[with video]

by Randi Belisomo
Reporter

A funeral mass is taking place Wednesday for a prominent, Catholic priest from Chicago.

Fr. Andrew Greeley is being remembered at Christ the King Church in the city’s Beverly neighborhood. “CK,” as it’s known by parishioners, was Greeley’s first assignment as a young, assistant pastor. Francis Cardinal George is presiding over the service, while some of his former students are in attendance.

“The older you get, the more wisdom you see in his words. He spent his whole life teaching us how to give of ourselves and the last five years, he was teaching us how to receive, and how to ask with humility,” said former student Peggy Roth.

Greeley authored 120 books, and was once called the most influential American Catholic sociologist of the 20th century. He donated his book royalties to charities and to the “Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.”

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PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Democrat

Kathy Mellott
kmellott@tribdem.com

JOHNSTOWN — Ken Salem, a mainstay at Bishop McCort Catholic High School for nearly two decades who many say was the sacrificial lamb following claims of sexual abuse by a former employee, is no longer with the school.

In what was termed as a “public statement,” issued Wednesday, the former principal said he decided to “voluntarily separate from Bishop McCort.”

The statement was circulated to the media by Matt Beynon, spokesman for the school since the beginning of the year, shortly after claims surfaced by former students that they had been molested by Brother Stephen Baker.

Baker was of the Franciscan order and worked at McCort from the early 1990s through the early 2000s as a religion teacher and in the athletic department, where he worked as a trainer.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WITF

Written by Mary Wilson, Capitol Bureau Chief | Jun 5, 2013

State lawmakers are getting ready to move forward with proposals to expand the legal definition of child abuse in Pennsylvania in an effort to flag more incidents of suspected mistreatment.

The changes come at the suggestion of a task force convened last year to study child protection laws and issues.

Sean McCormack, Chief Deputy District Attorney of Dauphin County, was one of a panel of testifiers at a hearing before the Senate Aging and Youth Committee on proposed changes to the definition. At times, the session took on the feel of an essay workshop, with advocates providing line-by-line feedback on word choice in the bill.

Too often, McCormack said, the state’s definition of child abuse becomes the subject of parsing exercises by well-meaning institutions.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Mediathek rbb

Pater Klaus Mertes war es, der Anfang 2010 als Rektor des Berliner Canisius-Kollegs den Missbrauchsskandal in der katholischen Kirche ins Rollen brachte. Doch der sexuelle Missbrauch ist nur eine monströse Facette des Machtmissbrauchs in der katholischen Kirche, sagt er nun, drei Jahre später. Margarethe Steinhausen spricht mit ihm über sein neues Buch „Verlorenes Vertrauen“ und über eine Kirche der Opfer.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

Michelle Vella, 7News Adelaide, Yahoo!7
June 6, 2013

A Catholic priest named and shamed by Senator Nick Xenophon in Parliament over rape allegations is demanding an apology after being cleared.

The director of public prosecution has announced no charges will be laid against Monsignor Ian Dempsey over sex abuse allegations made by Bishop John Hepworth, dating back to the 1960s.

“Humiliating and demeaning experience and I think I’ve mentioned this before, it’s an evil act to do under parliamentary privilege because Xenophon had never talked to me,” Monsignor Dempsey said.

He says his faith guided him, but it seems he is not entirely prepared to turn the other cheek.

“I can never prove I am innocent, that’s the hurtful thing, yes,” he said.

Monsignor Dempsey now wants Nick Xenophon to apologise in parliament for naming him.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

AAP

INDEPENDENT senator Nick Xenophon is unrepentant for naming a Catholic priest linked to rape allegations, even though no criminal charges will be laid.

South Australia’s Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) on Thursday said Adelaide priest Monsignor Ian Dempsey will not face charges over claims made by a fellow seminarian.

John Hepworth, then the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC) Archbishop, first aired the allegations of sexual assault in 2007.

Four years later, Senator Xenophon raised the issue in parliament under privilege, where he also named Monsignor Dempsey, saying he had no choice because the church had taken too long to investigate the claims.

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CALIFORNIA
The Record

By Jennie Rodriguez-Moore
Record Staff Writer
June 06, 2013

STOCKTON – The Diocese of Stockton is considering filing for bankruptcy after years of paying millions of dollars to settle child sex abuse lawsuits.

“We pretty much have depleted the resource funds that we have,” said Sister Terry Davis, a spokeswoman for the diocese that oversees Catholic parishes in San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Calaveras and Tuolumne counties.

“And at this point, everything is on the table for consideration,” she said.

Talk of bankruptcy surfaced during negotiations of a lawsuit that was settled Monday for $1.75 million involving notorious defrocked priest Oliver O’Grady.

The plaintiff in the case, known as John J.S. Doe, filed suit in 2009 in Stanislaus County Superior Court. He was a victim of O’Grady in the 1980s, according to the diocese.

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MICHIGAN
Click on Detroit

[with video]

Author: Sandra Ali, Local 4 Reporter, Anchor , sali@wdiv.com
Published On: Jun 05 2013

TROY, Mich. –
Two weeks ago, a parent filed a report at the Troy Police Department alleging their child was abused by a daycare worker at St. Augustine Lutheran Church Preschool.

Troy police confirm the department is investigating allegations of criminal sexual conduct at the church-run daycare at Livernois and Wattles roads.

“I can’t comment on the victims. I’m not going to comment on a suspect. I’m just going to comment on that there is an investigation, active investigation, into a child involved sexual assault case,” said Troy Police Cpt. Bob Redmond.

Detectives say they are in the process of talking to several employees dating back several years. The Department of Human Services also notified parents about the ongoing investigation with a letter.

No one at St. Augustine’s commented when Local 4 stopped by on Wednesday.

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AUSTRALIA
Courier Mail

COURT REPORTER TESSA AKERMAN ADELAIDENOW JUNE 06, 2013

MONSIGNOR Ian Dempsey says Senator Nick Xenophon would apologise for accusing him of sex crimes if he was a man of integrity – but Mr Xenophon says it is the Catholic Church who should be sorry.

The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions will not pursue Monsignor Dempsey over alleged sex abuse against now-Bishop John Hepworth in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

It said there was insufficient evidence to convict him.

At the time the allegations were raised, Independent Senator Nick Xenophon named Monsignor Dempsey in Federal Parliament.

Today, Monsignor Dempsey told adelaidenow it was a “great joy” to have the matter cleared.

“It’s a humiliating thing to have one’s name so rubbed in the mud and your reputation, especially when it’s done nationally as Senator Xenophon did, and that’s been difficult to cope with,” he said.

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TEXAS
CBS 6

[with video]

June 5, 2013, by Tracy Sears

(WTVR) — A Fort Worth pastor says he was not aware of the sexual misconduct that allegedly took place in his church involving former ROC pastor Geronimo Aguilar.

Aguilar is accused of sexually abusing two young sisters in the mid 1990’s in Texas.

Before founding the Richmond Outreach Center in 2003, Aguilar was an outreach and youth minister for roughly a year at New Beginnings International Church in Fort Worth, Texas.

Court documents obtained by the Star-Telegram in Fort Worth say that Aguilar was asked to leave New Beginnings after a church member caught him kissing one of the girls, but the church’s senior pastor says it was a difference in theological beliefs, not sex abuse, that led to Aguilar’s departure.

Pastor Don Couch tells CBS 6, “I had no knowledge of that at all. If I had any knowledge of that, I would have immediately dealt with that situation,” Couch says. “I’m very strict with our leadership and teach very strictly that we are to lead godly lives.”

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RICHMOND (VA)
WRIC

RICHMOND – Founding pastor Geronimo Aguilar has resigned from his position at the Richmond Outreach Center amidst his on-going legal troubles in Texas.

Aguilar, known as “Pastor G,” and three other pastors’ resignations were accepted by the ROC’s board of directors Wednesday, according to a release on the church’s website.

Aguilar is facing multiple felony charges in Texas in two alleged cases of child sex abuse.

Also resigning is executive pastor Jason Helmlinger, who is facing a misdemeanor charge of threatening a former ROC pastor who spoke to 8News about the allegations against Aguilar. Two others also resigned Wednesday: Pastor G’s brother Matthew Aguilar and Pastor Andrew Delgado, neither of whom are facing any charges.

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