A digest of links to media coverage of clergy abuse. For recent coverage listed in this blog, read the full article in the newspaper or other media source by clicking “Read original article.” For earlier coverage, click the title to read the original article.
DEUTSCHLAND
NDR
Panorama 3 – 23.04.2013 21:15 Uhr
Offen und schonungslos gegenüber sich selbst wollte die katholische Kirche Missbrauchsfälle aufklären. Doch bis heute leiden die Opfer unter dem Schweigen der Kirche.
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DEUTSCHLAND
MissBiT
NDR: “Das heißt, Sie haben persönlich mit Leuten gesprochen, die Ihnen bestätigt haben, dass in den Kirchenarchiven geschreddert worden ist?” Prof. Dr. Schüller: “Das kann ich bestätigen, ja.”
Professor Dr. Schüller war lange Kirchenanwalt im Bistum Limburg. Nur mit Hilfe der Akten konnte er einzelne Missbrauchsfälle aufarbeiten.
Prof. Dr. Schüller: “Sie sind deswegen so wichtig, weil, wenn der Bestand vollständig erhalten ist, man sehr genau rekonstruieren kann, wie auf eine Anzeige reagiert wurde und welche Maßnahmen ergriffen wurden. Und dann kann man das abgleichen. Insofern ist das sehr gut um zu rekonstruieren, ob man vertuschend oder sachgerecht damit umgegangen ist.”
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DEUTSCHLAND
Helmut Jacob
Derzeit erstellt der WDR Bonn eine Serie mit ehemaligen Heimkindern, die während ihres Heimaufenthaltes in den Jahren von 1960 bis 1975 schwer misshandelt und sexuell missbraucht wurden. Durch die Weigerung der Pressesprecherin des Franz Sales Hauses, Valeska Ehlert, dem WDR zu gestatten auf dem Gelände des Heimes zu drehen, liegt die Vermutung nahe, dass die Einrichtung an einer Aufklärung der schweren Verwürfe nicht interessiert ist.
Alle ehemaligen Heimkinder und Betroffene von Kinder- und Jugendheimen in Deutschland sind eingeladen am Montag, den 22. April, gegen 11.15 Uhr vor dem Franz Sales Haus, Essen, (Haupteingang), Steelerstraße 261 durch ihre Anwesenheit Solidarität zu zeigen und die Filmaufnahmen zu unterstützen.
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SERBIEN
Die Presse
Von Selbstbereicherung über Verherrlichung von Kriegsverbrechen bis zu Kindesmissbrauch: Bischöfe der serbisch-orthodoxen Kirche im Zwielicht.
Alter schützt offenbar auch betagte Kirchenfürsten nicht vor fatalen Fehltritten: Seit Tagen berichten serbische und bosnische Medien über anzügliche Videoaufnahmen des sogenannten „Teufelsbischofs“, Vasilije Kačavenda: Sie sollen den 74-jährigen, optisch ziemlich streng wirkenden Bischof des serbisch-orthodoxen Bistums von Zvornik-Tuzla in Bosnien beim Austausch intimer Zärtlichkeiten mit vermutlich Minderjährigen zeigen.
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UNITED KINGDOM
Chichester People
The Bishop of Chichester has this month apologised to a child abuse victim in the US
In a letter of apology to a victim, who now lives in the US, Dr Martin Warner, the Bishop of Chichester who took up the post last year, said there had been “deception and cover-up” at his diocese and conceded there had been an “ineptitude and irresponsible lack of professionalism.”
Former choirboy Gary Johnson, who has waved his anonymity, and his older brother, both from Eastbourne, were abused by Roy Cotton, who worked for the Diocese of Chichester, during the 1970s and 1980s.
The diocese is embroiled in a number of historical clerical sex abuse claims and its child protection policies are the subject of an official inquiry set up by the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams.
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UNITED KINGDOM
The Portsmouth News
THE Bishop of Chichester has said there has been ‘deception and cover-up’ which has been at the centre of historic clerical sex scandals.
In a personal letter of apology to a child abuse victim, Dr Martin Warner conceded there has been ‘ineptitude and irresponsible lack of professionalism’ at the Diocese of Chichester in West Sussex.
The diocese has faced historic child abuse claims, and its child protection policies are the subject of an official inquiry set up in 2011 by the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams.
Dr Warner wrote the letter earlier this month to a victim who suffered abuse as a boy in the 1970s and 1980s at the hands of paedophile Anglican clergyman Roy Cotton, who died in 2006.
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MISSOURI
The Kansas City Star
April 22
By TONY RIZZO
The Kansas City Star
Catholic school administrators placed science teacher Jeremy J. Way, 42, on administrative leave as soon as they learned Shawnee police were investigating him for an alleged sex crime, officials said Monday.
Way, who teaches at St. James Academy in Lenexa and coaches the school’s Science Olympiad team, was charged Friday with criminal sodomy and electronic solicitation of a child older than 14 but younger than 16, court records show. The incident involving a 14-year-old boy allegedly happened between Oct. 1 and Feb. 18, according to the Johnson County criminal complaint.
Way, who lives in Shawnee, posted a $100,000 bond and was released from custody pending his first court appearance on April 30. He declined to comment when reached by phone Sunday .
Shawnee police notified school officials of the investigation Thursday, according to a spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas. School officials were told that the incident did not involve a student, the spokeswoman said.
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IRELAND
Irish Independent
[Diocese of Galway, Kilmacduagh and Kilfenora]
By Caroline Crawford– 24 April 2013
THREE priests against whom allegations were made remain in ministry in the Galway diocese.
Galway Bishop, Martin Drennan said the three men where not removed from ministry because the concerns expressed were “not of a sufficient nature” to warrant their removal from ministry.
“The HSE and the gardai advised us that what was being done was sufficient in terms of monitoring,” he told Galway Bay fm.
The review of the Diocese of Galway, Kilmacduagh and Kilfenora covers files from 1975 up to 2010. It was carried out in January of this year and took three months to complete.
It revealed that allegations were made against 14 priests between the dates covered. The dioceses had reviewed 38 allegations over that period. No priests have been named in the report.
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IRELAND
Galway Bay FM
A report on the diocese of Galway, Kilmacduagh and Kilfenora has now been published.
The 28 page document issued by the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church examines seven standards.
It’s based on case material made available by Bishop Martin Drennan along with interviews with key personnel who contribute to safeguarding within the diocese.
Galway Bay fm news notes the report references practice under the leadership of Bishop Drennan, Bishop McLoughlin and Bishop Casey. …
It notes that three priests against whom an allegation has been made are still in ministry.
It also records that one priest has been convicted of having committed an offence against a child or young person in the period since January 1975.
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IRELAND
Highland Radio
The border diocese of Clogher has been singled out for failing to prevent child abuse in the past.
The National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church criticised the former bishop.
The Diocese consists of County Monaghan, much of County Fermanagh with parts of Counties Tyrone, and Donegal.
The reviewers said it was clear that in the past – opportunities to intervene and prevent abuse were consistently missed.
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IRELAND
Breaking News
A former bishop has been criticised for unsatisfactory responses to child abuse allegations and risky behaviour of priests.
A watchdog review of the Diocese of Clogher, which straddles the border between the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland, found opportunities to prevent attacks in the past were consistently missed when concerns were raised.
The National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland said, however, that a line should be drawn between how the diocese used to do its business and the rules in place today.
Bishop Joseph Duffy led the diocese for about 30 years until his retirement in 2010.
The report into Clogher is one of seven being released today by the watchdog.
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IRELAND
BBC News
Opportunities for the Catholic Church to step in and tackle child abuse in the Clogher diocese were consistently missed, according to a report.
The church’s National Board for Safeguarding Children has published its report as part of the ongoing audits of dioceses across Ireland.
It said claims were made against 13 priests in the diocese over almost four decades.
Two of the priests were subsequently jailed.
The report said that under the current Bishop of Clogher, Dr Liam McDaid, the issue of safeguarding children is effectively prioritised in the diocese.
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IRELAND
Impartial Reporter
Sarah Saunderson
Published 24 Apr 2013
An audit into the practices undertaken to safeguard children in the Clogher Diocese is to be launched this morning in Monaghan.
The Catholic Bishop of Clogher, the Very Rev. Bishop Liam MacDaid, will address a press conference on the report later this morning.
The Clogher report — which is expected to detail any incidence of allegations against priests in the diocese from the mid-70s — is part of the third tranche of similar reports by the National Board for the Safeguarding of Children in the Catholic Church (NBSCCI).
It comes after seven Safeguarding Review Reports reports were published for dioceses and religious congregations last September.
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IRELAND
Galway Bay FM
[Diocese of Galway, Kilmacduagh and Kilfenora]
April 24, 2013
Bishop Drennan says report shows good safeguarding of children in Galway Diocese
The Bishop of Galway Martin Drennan says a report to be officially published later today shows good safeguarding practice in the diocese and is a very significant day for the church.
The report is one of six nationwide to be issued by the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church.
It examines files from 1975 to 2010 and has been three months in the making with the main field work completed in January.
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IRELAND
RTE News
Retired bishop of Clogher Joseph Duffy consistently missed opportunities to prevent clergy from sexually abusing children, according to the Catholic Church’s watchdog.
The National Board for Safeguarding Children has published audits of several dioceses.
It states that in one particular case in Clogher, there was an unacceptable delay in taking action against a priest and removing him from all ministry following receipt of a credible allegation.
Another priest suspected of multiple abuse was transferred to another parish and eventually was sent overseas for therapeutic help.
Eventually, he was extradited to the Republic from the United States but died before he could be brought before the courts.
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UNITED STATES
The Legal Examiner
Mike Bryant
There is an easy answer and that is “yes”. Jeff Anderson took a look at this topic over at his must read blog based on a CNN Interview:
There are seven concrete measures the future pope can and must implement to bring about change within the clerical culture on child sexual abuse. First, disclose the names of all the clerics credibly accused and known to the Vatican worldwide along with the country, state, and parish or school where the offenses were allegedly committed. More than a dozen bishops have already created such lists and made them public.
Second, publicly disclose all of the documents within the Vatican’s archives that pertain to reports of child sex abuse, the Vatican’s response to it, and the hierarchy’s role in the abuse. The church must begin to make amends to survivors, and exposing the secrets and concealment contained in such documents is a critical step.
Third, revise church canon law and Vatican protocols so that no secrecy surrounds child sex abuse. Secrecy is toxic, and in it, child abuse flourishes. Fourth, require each bishop and church official to report clergy accused of sexual abuse of minors to law enforcement.
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IRELAND
National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church
NBSCCCI Media Statement on the Third Tranche of Safeguarding Reviews
Clear evidence of steady progress
The Third Tranche of the Reviews of Safeguarding practice across the Catholic Church were released today by the seven Church authorities involved. They were the dioceses of Killalla, Elphin, Wexford and Lismore, Galway, Clogher, and Ferns. They also included the Society of Missions to Africa. This brings the total of Church authorities reviewed to date by this process to 20.
“It is gratifying to report clear evidence of steady progress in developing robust safeguarding structures in all these authorities,” said Ian Elliott the CEO of the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland (NBSCCCI).
“The overall picture is a very positive one with the vast majority of the criteria used to assess performance against the Review standards as being fully met.”
He went on to state that this was very encouraging progress and represented a significant improvement on past performance.
“In particular, I want to thank and congratulate the army of volunteers who regularly give their time to supporting the safeguarding of children in the Church. Their efforts have been nothing short of heroic”, said Elliott.
Downloads
Diocese of Galway, Kilmacduagh and Kilfenora
Society of African Missions (SMA)
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IRELAND
Irish Independent
Cormac McQuinn– 24 April 2013
A REVIEW of child safeguarding practices in a Catholic Diocese notorious for sex abuse by priests has found that it is now complying with standards required for the protection of children and procedures for reporting abuse.
However, the review also revealed that allegations of abuse have been made against three more priests in the Diocese, who weren’t included in the damning 2005 Ferns Report into child abuse at the Co Wexford-based Diocese.
Church-funded watchdog, The National Body for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland (NBSCCCI), found that the Diocese of Ferns was fully compliant with six out of seven standards for protecting children.
And it found that the Diocese was mostly compliant with guidelines for the management of child abuse allegations.
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WISCONSIN
WISN
[with video]
BROOKFIELD, Wis. —Milwaukee’s archbishop delivered a mass of atonement Monday night at St. John Vianney, focusing on the victims of clergy sex abuse.
This was the first time Archbishop Jerome Listecki has spoken on removing the Rev. Bob Marsicek from his duties last month.
Listecki delivered his fourth Mass of atonement recognizing the church needs to bring reconciliation for priest sex abuse. He said the church’s change in policy is working.
“There is no one operating in the archdiocese today with a substantiated allegation of child sex abuse. There just isn’t,” Listecki said.
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MALTA/AUSTRALIA
Times of Malta
A Maltese has quit the priesthood in Victoria, Australia, claiming the Victorian Archdiocese is continuing to hide child abuse cases.
Victor Buhagiar, a priest for 25 years, told Today Tonight that it had become impossible to continue after he found out the Church was deleting records relating to child sexual abuse.
During one meeting, he said, he heard the Archbishop telling the secretary to turn off the recorder.
“As soon as the recording was turned off, the Archbishop started talking about the sex abuse situation.
“I suspect the recorder was turned off to minimise the possibility of investigators finding evidence that can be useful to the inquiry, or to the Royal Commission; to create like a black hole, an empty space that when the investigators try to see how the situation evolved during the last 10 years or so, they seem to find nothing.”
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SOUTH CAROLINA
WYFF
GREENWOOD, S.C. —Greenwood County deputies say a man who said he was inappropriately touched by priest 15 years ago has decided not to pursue charges because he thinks the Catholic church’s punishment will be enough.
An incident report obtained says the victim told investigators he met the priest while he was a student at St. Joseph’s High School in Greenville.
Deputies said the man told them the suspect rubbed him and only focused on sins related to sex during confession. The man also told investigators the priest spent the night with him on occasion.
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CANADA
CBC News
Bishop Fred Henry testified in a Calgary courtroom Tuesday in support of a priest who is suing an Indian man for defamation.
Father Antonio Rodrigues, a parish priest at St. Bernadette’s Church in southeast Calgary, has accused a man in India of spreading allegations that the priest molested a 13-year-old girl.
Ten years ago, the girl who made the accusation in India recanted her statement, telling local police she had lied. The case was dropped.
The priest now alleges a personal battle has led to a lawyer overseas, named Aires Rodrigues, continuing to spread the story in internet postings and emails to Calgary school and church officials.
Antonio Rodrigues is seeking $600,000 in damages. The two men share the same last name but are not related.
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UNITED STATES
BishopAccountability.org
Summary of Case: O’Liddy was a priest of the Missouri Province of the Society of Jesus, ordained in 1990. He took a leave of absence in February 1999 and, in August of that year, was caught sending lewd photos to a 14 year-old girl. Investigators posed as the girl and arranged for a rendezvous with O’Liddy. He was arrested when he showed up and charged with attempted sexual assault of a minor. O’Liddy pleaded guilty and was sentenced to ten years’ probation and 200 hours of community service. He left the priesthood after his sentencing.
Ordained: 1990
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SOUTH CAROLINA
Index-Journal
By SCOTT J. BRYAN
An alleged victim of sexual misconduct of a minor by a Catholic priest will not pursue criminal charges, a Greenwood County Sheriff’s Office report released Monday indicated.
The report, filed by the GCSO’s investigations unit, said the 32-year-old Simpsonville victim, who now lives in New York, signed a criminal investigation waiver, indicating “he did not want to further pursue the investigation.”
GCSO investigator Kenny Downing said any adult can sign a waiver not to pursue charges. Minors cannot; they must have a parent or guardian’s signature.
The allegation stemmed from a meeting the GCSO had with Diocese of Charleston investigator Paul Buceti, who met with investigators March 8.
On March 10, the Diocese of Charleston issued a release stating Father Hayden Vaverek was placed on administrative leave and had his priestly faculties withdrawn after “an allegation of sexual misconduct of a minor dating back more than 15 years.”
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SOUTH CAROLINA
The Item
Associated Press
Greenwood County deputies say a man who said he was inappropriately touched by priest 15 years ago has decided not to pursue charges because he thinks the Catholic church’s punishment will be enough.
An incident report obtained by The Index-Journal of Greenwood ( http://bit.ly/17Vap42) said the victim told investigators he met the priest while he was a student at St. Joseph’s High School in Greenville.
Deputies say the victim told them the suspect rubbed him and only focused on sins related to sex during confession. The victim also told investigators the priest spent the night with him on occasion.
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AUSTRALIA
Sunbury & Macedon Ranges Weekly
By DAN OAKES, The Age
April 23, 2013,
THE former principal of a Catholic school in Sunbury has been charged with child-sex offences stretching back almost 40 years after police negotiated the man’s return from Rome with the Catholic Church.
Police have hailed the arrest of Father Julian Fox as ‘‘a breakthrough in co-operation between the Victoria Police and the Catholic Church’’.
The 67-year-old went to the police crime command headquarters at St Kilda Road and was charged with 10 offences, including buggery, indecent assault and common-law assault, allegedly committed in Sunbury and Ferntree Gully between 1976 and 1985.
Police said they had been negotiating with the Church since July over the priest’s return. He has been bailed to appear in the Melbourne Magistrates Court on Friday.
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CALIFORNIA
The Valley Catholic
Dear Friends,
As we observe “Child Abuse Prevention Month,” we are reminded, as with so many other annual observances, that what we observe is never only for a day, or even a month or a year. Just as in May and June we celebrate Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, hopefully not neglecting our parents for the rest of the year, so during April, we highlight our constant vigilance and commitment to the protection of our children, indeed of all children.
Awareness is key to these efforts, for each of us must be prepared to recognize signs of abuse, of neglect, and of bullying wherever children are present: at home, at school and at play. Our Office for the Protection of Children and Vulnerable Adults is constantly offering training for adults and children to do all that we can to ensure a safe environment, especially for the most vulnerable. We are partners with other agencies that are willing to share their resources as we work collaboratively to prevent all forms of abuse.
Each of you who are reading this letter can be an agent for good in this commitment that we share. I encourage you and your families in all of our parishes and schools to learn more about the signs of abuse – whether physical or emotional – and never to be afraid of coming forward to the proper authorities so that, in the words of the Lord, “not one hair on their heads” will be harmed.
As we celebrate the Resurrection of the Lord in this Easter Season, may each of us redouble our efforts in awareness and prevention of child abuse, knowing that God wants for us only what is good. Please know that you are all in my prayers.
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UNITED STATES
U.S. Catholic
By Bryan Cones
It should be fairly obvious that there have been few “white hats” in the bishops’ response to the sex abuse crisis, but as time goes by, one bishop, retired Roger Mahony of Los Angeles, seems to have no hat at all. Today’s story at the National Catholic Reporter, detailing Mahony’s rejection of the original forms issued by the John Jay researchers, notes that Mahony objected that the John Jay researchers had no understanding of “ecclesiastical culture”–by which he must have meant the deference expected by local bishops in running “their” dioceses.
We can hope that Mahony’s objections, lodged 10 years ago, would not be repeated by current bishops, but recent news about a Joliet priest who had credible accusations of inappropriate behavior with a minor as early as 1986 but was not removed from ministry for a further 20 years, gives one pause. The claim made by Joliet diocesan spokesman James Dwyer that then-Bishop Joseph Imesch “did sit down with [the priest] and tell him sternly, ‘This is wrong. You can’t do stuff like this,'” is a sign of how out of touch the bishop had become. (The priest in question, William Virture [!!!], had taken a 10-year-old to an abandoned quarry, along with two six packs of beer; when police arrived, he fled, only to be arrested but released after the boy’s mother had said she had given permission for Virtue to take the boy swimming. I’m glad the bishop was “stern” in his warning.)
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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News
The Bishop of Chichester has admitted to a former choirboy, abused as a child by an Anglican priest in East Sussex, that there was a cover-up.
Gary Johnson and his older brother, from Eastbourne, were abused by Roy Cotton, who worked for the Diocese of Chichester, in the 1970s and 1980s.
In a private letter of apology to Mr Johnson, Dr Martin Warner wrote: “There has been deception and cover-up here.”
Welcoming the letter, Mr Johnson said: “I’ve been taken seriously at last.”
He said: “It’s given me some semblance of humanity. I’ve been validated, and I’ve been met at a level where I don’t feel like a victim or a survivor.
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CANADA
CTV
[with video]
Michael Franklin, CTV Calgary
Published Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Bishop Fred Henry attended court on Tuesday, adamantly defending one of his parish priests against allegations of child molestation proven false almost ten years ago.
Henry testified in the defamation case by a Catholic priest against a lawyer from India who has been posting articles online claiming that he is a danger to children.
Father Newton Rodrigues was working in India at the time he was accused of molesting a 13-year-old girl.
Bishop Fred Henry was in court on Tuesday to testify in support of Catholic priest who is fighting a defamation case involving charges that were proven false ten years ago.
There was an ensuing investigation by the church and by authorities but was eventually exonerated of the charges
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NEDERLAND
RTV Oost
Misbruikte slachtoffers van een oud-pastoor in Albergen zijn boos op Kardinaal Eijk.
Hoewel de geestelijk leider van de Katholieke kerk vorig jaar september beloofde om de slachtoffers snel schadeloos te stellen, hebben zij nog steeds geen vergoeding gehad. De advocate van de slachtoffers uit Albergen heeft begrip voor de onvrede, maar volgens haar wil de kerk alle slachtoffers in héél Nederland ineens betalen en duurt het daarom zo lang.
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DEUTSCHLAND
NDR
von Eva Lodde & Brid Roesner
Die ersten Kindheitserinnerungen von Mario Baltes haben nichts Unbeschwertes: Es sind Erinnerungen an Schläge, an dunkle Keller, an versalzenes Essen.
Er wächst in einem Kinderheim in Eschweiler auf. Geführt von Nonnen. Und schließlich, als er fünf Jahre alt ist, wird es noch schlimmer. Der Missbrauch fängt an: “Die Nonne hatte oben im ersten Stock ein Zimmer. An beiden Seiten Türen, die zu den Schlafsälen hingingen. (…) Die Nonne hat dann freie Auswahl gehabt. (…) Teilweise sogar zwei oder drei Jungs gleichzeitig, die dabei waren und sie alle anfassen mussten oder sie hat sie dann nach und nach geholt.”
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NEDERLAND
RTV Oost
Hij schudt meewarig z’n hoofd: “Tsjongejonge…wat een bende.” Het zonlicht dringt fel door in de woonkeuken van Albergenaar Frank Oude Geerdink. Hij neemt een slok van z’n koffie. Ondanks beloftes van de kerkleiding, nu zo’n half jaar geleden, wachten hij en vijf andere voormalige slachtoffers van een vroegere pastoor, op genoegdoening.
Oude Geerdink: “Ik hoor het Kardinaal Eijk nog zeggen in september vorig jaar tijdens een persoonlijk onderhoud in een lokale horecagelegenheid: Jullie worden snel schadeloos gesteld.” Inmiddels zijn zeven maanden verstreken en is er veel correspondentie over en weer. Maar er is nog geen geld.
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INDIANA
Today’s Catholic News
By Ann Carey
The Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend has several important committees and/or boards that assist Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades in keeping the diocese running smoothly. One of the most crucial boards is one that many people don’t know much about because it conducts its business quietly in order to safeguard the privacy of the people and issues it handles.
In 2005, the U.S. Bishops approved a “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People” that directed the establishment of a National Review Board as well as review boards at the diocesan level. The diocesan level review board is charged with advising the local bishop in his assessment of allegations of sexual abuse of minors by a priest or deacon of the diocese and in his determinations of suitability for ministry. It also reviews diocesan policies for dealing with sexual abuse of minors.
The Review Board for this diocese meets twice a year. Bishop Rhoades also consults board members in between regular meeting when appropriate. As the national charter directs, the diocese’s Review Board is made up mostly of lay people who have a variety of expertise (see sidebar).
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UNITED STATES
BishopAccountability.org
Summary of Case: A Jesuit priest of the Maryland Province, Bonacci was accused in April 2011 of having improperly touched a minor in Maryland between 1973-1982. A second person emerged with a similar accusation during the Province’s investigation of the first case.
Bonacci was permanently removed from ministry in June 2011 and was said to be living in a monitored Jesuit residence.
Ordained: 1973
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PORTUGAL
DN Portugal
O arquivamento pelo Ministério Público (MP) de denúncias sobre alegados casos de pedofilia na Igreja Católica “liberta” as instituições e os sacerdotes visados “de graves acusações”, disse hoje à Lusa o porta-voz da Conferência Episcopal Portuguesa (CEP).
As declarações do padre Manuel Morujão, que secretaria a CEP, entidade que integra os bispos católicos portugueses, surgem após o anúncio do MP de arquivar acusações feitas pela ex-provedora da Casa Pia, Catalina Pestana, e que envolviam pelo menos cinco sacerdotes da Diocese de Lisboa.
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DEUTSCHLAND
Evangelisch
In der evangelischen Kirche in Hamburg ist ein neuer Fall von sexuellem Missbrauch an einem Kind bekannt geworden.
Er soll sich schon vor fast 20 Jahren in der evangelischen Thomasgemeinde in Hausbruch ereignet haben, bestätigte Remmer Koch, Sprecher des Kirchenkreises Hamburg-Ost, am Dienstag dem epd. In Verdacht steht ein ehemaliger ehrenamtlicher Leiter des Posaunenchores der Gemeinde. Er soll mindestens einen Jungen missbraucht haben.
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DEUTSCHLAND
paperblog
Das Volksbegehren gegen Kirchenprivilegien ist gescheitert. Laut vorläufigem Endergebnis erreichte es 56.660 Unterschriften, wie das Innenministerium in der Nacht mitteilte. Um erfolgreich zu sein, hätte es 100.000 gebraucht. An dieser Hürde scheiterte auch das parallel laufende Volksbegehren „Demokratie jetzt“.
„Wir waren am Anfang eine Gruppe von vielleicht zehn Leuten und so gut wie keinem Budget. Am Ende haben wir 56.660 Menschen in diesem Land angesprochen. Das ist doch etwas. Und unsere Anliegen, nämlich dass Staat und Kirche getrennt gehören, werden jetzt breit diskutiert.“. Andreas Rathmanner vom Organisationsbüro bringt die Stimmung in seiner Ansprache bei der „Wahlparty“ des Volksbegehrens Montagnacht vermutlich am besten auf den Punkt. Viele Unterstützer haben sich mehr erhofft. Mehr erwartet hat fast niemand
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NEW YORK
New York Post
By JULIA MARSH and AMBER SUTHERLAND
Last Updated: 7:54 AM, April 23, 2013
A Manhattan man haunted by the repeated sexual abuse he says he endured as a 13-year-old student at the elite Horace Mann School spoke publicly about the violations for the first time yesterday.
“The effects of that abuse on my life have been profound,” Ron Klepper, 48, said. “School was no longer a safe place to learn, but turned into a frightening place where a predator lurked.”
Klepper joined attorney Gloria Allred and five other victims at a press conference to call on the state Legislature to pass a bill to allow them to bring civil lawsuits against the Bronx prep school.
The victims, now in their 40s and 50s, want lawmakers to approve the Child Victims Act bill, sponsored by Assemblywoman Margaret Markey (D-Queens).
It would provide a one-year window in the statute of limitations that now prevents adults who were sexually abused as kids from filing claims after they turn 23.
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VATICAN CITY
news.va
(Vatican Radio) “It is very important to preserve the prerogatives of the Successor of St Peter, the Pope and Bishop of Rome. He decides. We are there to help and be useful if we can, but we are nothing more than that”: these are the words of Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney Australia who is also a member of the select advisory group of prelates recently created by the Holy Father.
On Monday, following a private meeting with Pope Francis, Cardinal Pell visited Vatican Radio to talk about this appointment and about his new book entitled ‘Contemplating Christ with Luke’, a series of homilies on the figure of Christ according to the Gospel of St. Luke. Emer McCarthy asked Cardinal Pell to tell us more about the group of 8 Cardinals called to advise the Pope on questions of Church governance and reform of the Roman Curia:
“I can tell you what we are not. We are not a cabinet, the Pope does not answer to us. We are not a policy making group we are not an executive group. We are there as advisors to the Holy Father. Now, how that will work I am not quite sure. It might be that he will say ‘at these meetings we will be talking about these themes, in the interim you can get yourselves organized’. Or he just my say, ‘we’ll have half a day out of the three days where you can suggest what we can talk about’.
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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter
by Thomas C. Fox | Apr. 23, 2013
After meeting with Pope Francis yesterday, one of the eight cardinals who will be advising him on questions of church governance and reform of the Roman Curia, spoke on Vatican radio:
Australian Cardinal Francis Pell, considered by many the most conservative of the eight advisors, said, “I can tell you what we are not. We are not a cabinet, the Pope does not answer to us. We are not a policy making group we are not an executive group. We are there as advisors to the Holy Father. Now, how that will work I am not quite sure.
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NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News
A 43-year-old priest has been appointed as the new temporary leader of the Catholic Church in Derry.
Fr Francis Bradley will run the Derry Diocese until a new bishop is appointed by Pope Francis.
The diocese has been without a bishop since Dr Séamus Hegarty retired in November 2011 due to ill health.
Fr Bradley takes over from Monsignor Eamon Martin who was ordained coadjutor Archbishop of Armagh on Sunday.
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IOWA
Quad-City Times
Steven Martens smartens@qctimes.com
The Diocese of Davenport has temporarily removed two priests from their ministries after allegations surfaced that they inappropriately touched minors.
The Rev. Robert Harness, pastor at Holy Family Church, Davenport, and the Rev. John Stack, chaplain at Mercy Medical Center, Clinton, have been removed from their positions while an investigation is conducted, according to a news release Monday from Bishop Martin Amos.
The allegations have been reported to the Scott County Attorney’s Office in compliance with a memorandum of understanding between the diocese and the county attorney.
Scott County Attorney Mike Walton said Monday the office will review the cases, according to the terms of the agreement.
“The diocese reports any and all allegations of sexual abuse to the county attorney’s office,” Walton said in a statement. This is done without screening or investigation by the diocese regarding truth of the allegations.
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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter
by Mary Gail Frawley-O’Dea | Apr. 23, 2013
In less than a month, we have seen Pope Francis alter a dizzying array of traditional papal accessories: his home, his shoes, what he sits on, what he wears, how he travels, and more. In addition, he has generated hope with gestures that are possible harbingers of change. His Holy Thursday visit to a prison included unprecedented acts of humility, inclusiveness and unconditional love: He washed the feet of women, a Muslim and an atheist. Vice President Joe Biden received Communion at the Vatican. It all is destabilizing in the best sense of that experience.
As Francis embarks on a papacy seemingly beautifully rooted in Gospel values, however, a dangerous cloud envelops the Vatican. Composed of the precipitates of grotesque abuse of power, and suffering that rivals that of Good Friday, the cloud of unresolved and inadequately addressed ecclesiastical cover-up of the sexual abuse of tens of thousands of innocents across the world threatens the ultimate legitimacy of even this new pope. Two truths are rumbling within that cloud.
The first truth is that Francis must once and for all embody justice and mercy for sexual abuse victims. This soul-searing crisis never has been about the priests who abuse and always has been about the ecclesiastics who protected them while lying to the people of God, including victims. Bishops and cardinals who protected abusive priests at the expense of children and then spent millions defending the indefensible and who remain still in office must be called to account in some meaningful way.
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WISCONSIN
Fox 6
[with video]
April 22, 2013, by Chip Brewster
MILWAUKEE (WITI) — The Milwaukee Archdiocese’s “Mass of Atonement” has become an annual event during which the church seeks forgiveness for clergy who have sexually abused children.
This year’s Mass, held on Monday, April 22nd, came on the heels of the most recent scandal involving a Wauwatosa priest allegedly touching children.
Earlier this month, Father Robert Marsicek was removed from his post at St. Pius X and the Wauwatosa Catholic School inside. He had been accused of inappropriately touching a young girl. However, this is not the first time such allegations against the man have arisen.
“We are imperfect human beings,” Archbishop Jerome Listecki said. …
“We want to know who’s responsible for this priest and other priests that are being left in ministry. This has always been our concern,” Peter Isley with SNAP said.
SNAP is the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests. While Isley says acknowledging the crimes committed within the church is a good first step, it is simply not enough — pointing to the Marsicek case.
A police report shows a teacher came forward after seeing Father Marsicek touch a young girl in what the teacher considered an inappropriate way. As the investigation continued, the report details other similar complaints that were never investigated by police.
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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune
Article by: CHAO XIONG , Star Tribune
Updated: April 22, 2013
The Golden Valley man placed ads on Craigslist. He also claims he was abused as a child by a priest.
A Golden Valley man allegedly solicited sex with minors on Craigslist, where his ad said he accompanied his high school son’s baseball team to Florida, where “some hanky-panky went on.”
Stephen J. Schulz, 55, was charged Monday in Ramsey County District Court with one count of solicitation of a child for sexual conduct via the Internet. He was arrested April 19 after exchanging e-mails with a police officer who was posing as a 15-year-old boy.
According to the complaint: An investigator with the Minnesota Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force was looking at personal ads on Craigslist that appeared to target minors. One ad by someone claiming to be a 45-year-old “discreet” man from the west metro area referred to his high school-aged son. The man talked about the Florida baseball trip, and indicated that he was looking for oral sex. …
Schulz told police he was sexually abused by a priest as a child, and was a plaintiff in a suit brought by a local attorney against the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. The attorney’s office would not confirm or deny whether Schulz was a plaintiff.
Peter Isely, Milwaukee-based Midwest director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, said he was unfamiliar with Schulz.
“What I want people to know is that people who are abused sexually as children, the vast, vast majority do not grow up to commit abuse themselves,” Isely said. “This is one of those myths that has made it difficult for victims to come forward.”
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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter
by Tom Roberts | Apr. 23, 2013
In 2003, with the country newly focused on the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic church, a senior U.S. church leader attempted behind the scenes to head off the investigation of the crisis by researchers at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, disparaging the institution and its researchers as inadequate.
Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony, in a strongly worded letter to then-Bishop Wilton Gregory, at the time president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, complained at length about the forms that John Jay researchers produced. He described them as “designed by people who apparently have no understanding of the Roman Catholic Church, ecclesiastical culture, hierarchical structure, or the language of the Roman Catholic Church.”
The previously unpublished letters that circulated among Mahony, Gregory, former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating, Justice Anne Burke and others provide a behind-the-scenes view of some of the tensions in the air the year after the U.S. bishops formulated their Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People during their June 2002 meeting in Dallas. Public outrage had forced the bishops to take a dramatic step to deal with the scandal of sexual abuse of children by priests and the cover-up of the abuse by scores of bishops across the United States.
The letters are part of Burke’s archives, held by DePaul University in Chicago. Burke, a member of the Illinois Supreme Court, initially served as vice chairperson of the National Review Board for the Protection of Children and Young People, established under the charter. She later took over as chairperson when Keating resigned. The correspondence provides a window into the high-stakes tensions of that period, as questions swirled regarding the board’s independence and whether bishops would cooperate with or undermine investigations.
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AUSTRALIA
The Age
April 23, 2013
Barney Zwartz
Religion editor, The Age.
Some child sex abusers might still be among Uniting Church clergy because of poor record keeping and failure to investigate cases, the church conceded on Monday.
The Victorian inquiry into how the churches handled sex abuse instructed the church to investigate previous cases.
In other evidence, church spokesmen said it had no records of victims seeking compensation before 1998 because of inadequate record-keeping and that since then it had paid $2 million to 63 victims from the 1940s to 1986 but had not reported any cases to the police.
There have been seven cases of child abuse since 1998, all of which were reported to the police, the inquiry heard.
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AUSTRALIA
The Australian
STUART RINTOUL AND PIA AKERMAN
From:The Australian
April 23, 2013
THE Uniting Church has told a Victorian child abuse inquiry that it has paid about $2 million in compensation to abuse victims arising from 63 complaints in Victoria and Tasmania dating back to the 1940s.
But the Victorian parliamentary inquiry heard that the most recent allegation involving the “criminal abuse of children” was made in September last year, among seven more recent cases.
The church’s legal adviser, Philip Battye, said many of the historic abuse cases involved the Tally Ho Methodist boys home, which closed in 1986, but many of the home’s records had been lost or destroyed.
Mr Battye said of the 63 cases spanning the 1940s to the late 80s, a “smaller rather than larger” number had been referred to police, only one involved clergy and two-thirds of the alleged perpetrators were not church employees but people involved with church homes.
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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald
By JOANNE McCARTHY
April 22, 2013
AUSTRALIA’S first commission of inquiry into child sex abuse in the Catholic Church will be held at Newcastle Supreme Court from May 6.
The NSW inquiry, which precedes and runs separately from the broader federal royal commission into child sex abuse, expects to hear some evidence without the public or media being present, the commission confirmed during a short hearing in Sydney on Monday.
Commissioner Margaret Cunneen will rule on hearing in-camera testimony from some witnesses to avoid prejudicing any potential future criminal proceedings, the hearing was told.
The NSW commission of inquiry will consider police investigations of the late Hunter paedophile priests Denis McAlinden and Jim Fletcher from May 6 to 17, and Church handling of allegations involving the priests from June 24 to July 12.
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AUSTRALIA
7 News
April 23, 2013, 6:18 pm Kristy Wettenhall Today Tonight
The Royal Commission into child sexual abuse has recently began and a priest has accused the Victorian Archdiocese of a cover-up.
It’s the Royal Commission thousands of child sex abuse victims have wanted for decades – a chance to finally expose the truth through investigating institutions like the Catholic Church.
But one man fears criminal clergy will carry on undetected, claiming the Victorian Archdiocese is determined to keep its sordid secrets buried.
Victor Buhagiar has recently quit his post as a Catholic priest, walking away from the faith after 12 years leading parishes across Victoria.
Buhagiar claims it has became impossible to continue after he found out the Church was deleting records relating to child sexual abuse.
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UNITED STATES/NICARAGUA
Washington Post
Ex-Beauvoir teacher Eric Toth, wanted on child pornography charges, is found abroad
By Allison Klein
Updated: Monday, April 22
Eric Justin Toth, the former D.C. elementary school teacher and accused child pornographer who replaced Osama bin Laden on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list, has been found in Nicaragua, according to sources familiar with the case.
Toth had been on the run for almost five years. He fled after officials at Washington National Cathedral’s exclusive Beauvoir elementary school found explicit photos of a student on a camera assigned to him, authorities said.
Toth, 31, was taken into custody Saturday night in Nicaragua, but as of Monday afternoon he had not been extradited to the United States, said the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because Toth was not yet in the country.
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IRELAND
Irish Independent
David Young– 21 April 2013
THE cleric set to become the next head of the Catholic Church in Ireland has pledged to work to heal the wounds of those who have lost trust in the institution.
Eamon Martin delivered a call for renewal in the church as he was ordained into an interim post ahead of eventually succeeding current Primate of All Ireland Cardinal Sean Brady.
The Derry-born former teacher today became Coadjutor Archbishop of Armagh and will act as an assistant to Cardinal Brady for at least another two years.
The 52-year-old takes up his new post after a period of unprecedented turmoil for the church in Ireland, during which its influence has been damaged by a series of clerical child abuse scandals.
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ARGENTINA
Washington Post
Argentine ex-bishop’s widow wants Pope Francis to make priestly celibacy optional
By Associated Press,
Updated: Monday, April 22
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — She uses a wheelchair and carries the weight of her 87 years, but Clelia Luro feels powerful enough to make the Roman Catholic Church pay attention to her campaign to end priestly celibacy.
This woman, whose romance with a bishop and eventual marriage became a major scandal in the 1960s, is such a close friend with Pope Francis that he called her every Sunday when he was Argentina’s leading cardinal.
Luro’s convinced that he will eventually lead the global church to end mandatory priestly celibacy, a requirement she says “the world no longer understands.” She believes this could resolve a global shortage of priests, and persuade many Catholics who are no longer practicing to recommit themselves to the church.
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IOWA
CBS 4
by Mike Colón
mcolon@cbs4qc.com
The Diocese of Davenport has announced that two of its priests have been removed from their duties while investigations into claims of abuse are conducted.
Father Robert Harness is pastor of Holy Family Catholic Church in Davenport, and Father John Stack is a Chaplin at Mercy Medical in Clinton.
Harness is accused of inappropriately touching a child in around 1990. Stack is accused of the same in the 1980s.
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IOWA
WQAD
April 22, 2013, by Shellie Nelson
Priests serving in Iowa communities of Davenport and Clinton have been suspended from ministry amid allegations that they had inappropriate contact with children.
Father Robert Harness, pastor of Holy Family Catholic Church in Davenport, is accused of inappropriately touching a minor in approximately 1990.
“The Diocese has reported this to the Scott County Attorney in compliance with the Memorandum of Understanding between the diocese and the County Attorney,” said a statement from Deacon David Montgomery, Director of Communication for the Diocese of Davenport.
Father Harness has been “temporarily removed from ministry” while the matter is investigated.
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IOWA
Quad-City Times
The Diocese of Davenport says it has temporarily suspended two priests in eastern Iowa while it investigates allegations that they improperly touched minors decades ago.
Spokesman David Montgomery said Monday the diocese received separate reports of abuse allegations last week against Father Robert Harness, the pastor of Holy Family Church in Davenport; and John Stack, the chaplain at Mercy Medical Center in Clinton.
The diocese said that Harness has been accused of inappropriately touching a minor in approximately 1990. At the time, he was a pastor at St. Mary’s in Keota.
Stack is accused of inappropriately touching minors in the 1980s. He worked from 1988 to 1990 at Holy Family.
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IOWA
Roman Catholic Diocese of Davenport
From Bishop Amos:
The Diocese of Davenport has received a report which states that Father Robert Harness, Pastor of Holy Family Catholic Church in Davenport, inappropriately touched a minor in approximately 1990. The Diocese has reported this to the Scott County Attorney in compliance with the Memorandum of Understanding between the Diocese and the County Attorney.
Father Harness has been temporarily removed from ministry while this matter is being thoroughly investigated. The Diocese will meet with the leadership of the parish to assess its immediate needs and other issues of healing that may arise.
In an unrelated report, the Diocese of Davenport has received a report which states that Father John Stack, Chaplain at Mercy Medical Clinton in Clinton, inappropriately touched minors in approximately the 1980s. The Diocese has reported this to the Scott County Attorney in compliance with the Memorandum of Understanding between the Diocese and the County Attorney.
Father Stack has been temporarily removed from ministry while this matter is being thoroughly investigated.
The list of assignments for both priests is attached.
We apologize, again, for all those who have been abused and continue to pray for them.
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IOWA
WSOC
By RYAN J. FOLEY
The Associated Press
IOWA CITY, Iowa —
Two Catholic priests in eastern Iowa have been temporarily removed from the ministry during an investigation into allegations that they sexually molested children decades ago, the Diocese of Davenport said Monday.
The diocese received separate reports of abuse allegations late last week against Father Robert Harness, the pastor of Holy Family Church in Davenport, and John Stack, the chaplain at Mercy Medical Center in Clinton, spokesman David Montgomery said.
He said the diocese turned over the reports to the Scott County Attorney’s Office, which has given church officials permission to proceed with an internal investigation into the claims.
The diocese said in a statement that Harness has been accused of inappropriately touching a minor in approximately 1990. At the time, he was a pastor at St. Mary’s in Keota. Stack is accused of inappropriately touching minors in “approximately the 1980s.” He worked at Holy Family from 1988 until 1990.
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UNITED STATES
Huffington Post
Michealene Cristini Risley
Pulitzer Prize winning writer Michael D’Antonio deserves another one. Another Pulitzer prize, that is, for his new book, “Mortal Sins: Sex, Crime and the Era of Catholic Scandal.” This work is a 343 page offering that with a flick of a switch floods light onto the dark side of the sex abuse scandals within the Catholic Church.
As D’Antonio reveals, the 2,000-year-old church, with its culture of secrecy and unlimited resources, covered-up thousands of cases of clergy abuse for over three decades. Bishops and cardinals used their influence at the highest levels of society around the world to suppress criminal investigations and deny victims both compensation and access to the truth.
The full story of the scandal is told for the first time as D’Antonio follows three major figures in the movement for victims’ rights – a lawyer named Jeffrey Anderson, a victim named Barbara Blaine, and a whistleblower priest named Rev. Thomas Doyle who sacrifices his career to the cause of children who had been raped and molested by ordained men.
In D’Antonio’s telling, Anderson and Doyle emerge as complex men who fought their own demons, including alcoholism and self doubt, to prevail in a thirty year fight. Blaine is transformed from a loyal Catholic social service worker into a fierce international advocate. Near the end of the tale she leads a group of victims from around the world to the International Criminal Court at The Hague to file lodge formal charges of crimes against humanity in a case that names the worldwide church, the pope, and Vatican officials as defendants.
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NEW YORK
PR Web
New York, NY (PRWEB) April 22, 2013
Four leaders of the international campaign against sexual abuse in the Catholic Church will address the ongoing scandal and the first thirty days of Francis I’s papacy at a public forum Tuesday, April 23 at 7 PM, Bleecker Street Theater New York City.
The event, co-sponsored by the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) and St. Martin’s Press, will be hosted by journalist writer Michael D’Antonio, author of Mortal Sins: Sex, Crime, and the Era of Catholic Scandal. Published last week, Mortal Sins has already been hailed by the Boston Globe and others as the definitive work on the greatest challenge facing the 1.2 billion-member church since the Reformation. (To date, 500 American priests have been imprisoned for abuse and $2 billion paid to victims).
Appearing with D’Antonio will be
Jeffrey Anderson, a St. Paul Minnesotan who pioneered the legal strategies followed in every lawsuit brought against the church.
Rev. Thomas Doyle. — Still a priest, Doyle called attention to the looming crisis in 1985, suffered the loss of his career, but spent a lifetime working on behalf of victims
Barbara Blaine, victim of abuse, founder of SNAP, and international advocate
Patrick Wall, former priest and Catholic monk, Wall was a “fixer” for parishes struck by scandal who went over to the other side and has investigated more than a thousand claims of abuse.
Tuesday, April 23, 2013, 7pm
Bleecker Street Theater, 45 Bleecker St, New York City.
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босна-херзоговина
Glas-Javnosti
BEOGRAD – Sinod Srpske pravoslavne crkve na današnjoj sednici prihvatio je zahtev za razrešenje vladike zvorničko tuzlanskog Vasilija. Episkop banjalučki Jefrem biće administrator do izbora novog vladike na Saboru 21. maja
Portali su juče objavili skandalozne snimke na kojima se vidi vladika Vasilije Kačavenda kako se ljubi sa nepoznatim mladićem ležeći na podu.
Ovi snimci su predočeni Svetom sinodu Srpske pravoslavne crkve još u novembru prošle godine posle čega je episkop Vasilije zatražio da se „povuče zbog bolesti”, ali se predomislio i ponovo zatražio da ostane na mestu vladike dok ne završi izgradnju crkve na Pet jezera kod Bijeljine.
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BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA
Kansas City Star
April 22
The Associated Press
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina — The Serb Orthodox Church has accepted the resignation of its bishop in Bosnia after a video posted on the Internet appeared to show him engaged in sexual activity with a young man.
Vasilije Kacavenda submitted his resignation for what he said were health reasons last year but was asked by the Church to keep the post until May.
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BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
By Daisy Sindelar
April 22, 2013
BELGRADE — The Serbian Orthodox Church has approved the resignation of a powerful cleric amid sex-scandal claims that culminated this week with the publication of a graphic video appearing to show him engaged in sexual activity with young men.
Vasilije Kacavenda, the bishop of Tuzla and Zvornik in Bosnia-Herzegovina, retreated from his clerical duties months ago as allegations mounted that he had used his position for years to stage frequent orgies and rape underage boys and girls.
But the April 22 decision by the Holy Synod to accept his resignation appears to be the first acknowledgment of the church’s growing unease with the crush of lurid accusations that seem better suited to Caligula’s court than an Orthodox diocese.
Bojan Jovanovic, a former theological student in Bijeljina, the seat of Kacavenda’s diocese, says he observed numerous orgies organized by the 74-year-old bishop and attended by fellow clerics and prominent businessmen.
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NEW JERSEY
Observer-Tribune
Posted: Monday, December 3, 2012
By PHIL GARBER, Managing Editor
MENDHAM – To Bill Crane, a lawsuit filed by the Delbarton School against his lawyer is one more tactic of intimidation in the ongoing battle by Crane and others to uncover victims who were sexually assaulted by priests at the school.
The former Mendham resident knows about the subject. He and his twin brother Tom, 46, filed a lawsuit in March alleging that they were sexually abused as youngsters by Rev. Luke Travers, a former Delbarton headmaster, and Rev. Justin Capato, a former Delbarton teacher.
Last month, Delbarton filed a lawsuit in Superior Court in Morristown claiming Crane’s lawyer, Gregory Gianforcaro of Phillipsburg, violated a confidentiality agreement by publicly disclosing terms of a 1988 settlement of a lawsuit filed by a teenager who was a victim of sexual misconduct by a monk at the school.
Neither Anthony Cacatiello, a spokesman for Delbarton nor Michael Critchley, the Delbarton lawyer, could be reached for comment.
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UNITED STATES
Catholic Life Ministries
by Robert Fontana
Popes John Paul II and Benedict VXI have been calling Catholic Christians to what they describe as a “New Evangelization:” the proclaiming of the Gospel to those people and nations who have a long history of Christianity, but have now rejected its doctrinal tenets and moral demands. The popes have in mind the people and nations of the so-called West—Europe, The United States, Canada, and Australia. They know the stories of the two Testaments, they know the outline of Christian doctrine, but for a variety of reasons, they simply no longer have faith in God.
I think the call for a New Evangelization is spot-on! It’s what I have been doing my entire adult life as a minister in the church, and it is the fundamental goal of Catholic Life Ministries: to awaken faith among men and women who have been raised within the church but live lives of practical agnosticism. Practical agnostics are people who might say they believe in God but do not participate in a faith community, do not pray, and are not guided by a desire to do God’s will. They have not entrusted their lives to the care and providence of a loving God, and for all practical purposes, they are agnostic. These are the people that the New Evangelization is meant to transform.
However, the New Evangelization is being de-railed, knocked off track, by what I call “Ecclesial Deceit.” These are the lies that the institutional church tells, and the people believe, in order to protect the status quo—and they totally contradict the integrity of the Catholic Christian witness. Cardinal Roger Mahoney of Los Angeles is guilty of “Ecclesial Deceit” on such a grand scale that his successor has suspended him from active ministry. Mahoney ought to be in jail and kicked out of the priesthood, but instead his lies are being perpetuated by the Vatican, where at the recent conclave he was a potential, however unlikely, candidate for the papacy.
How can anyone take seriously the Church’s proclamation that the Kingdom of God and of Christ is breaking into human history through the life and ministry of the Church when not one bishop who has protected pedophiles and sexual predators has been disciplined? I could get excommunicated for advocating the ordination of women to the priesthood, but if I am a Cardinal, and I protect sexual predators who have traumatized hundreds of minors and vulnerable adults and cost the church literally billions in legal fees and payouts, I get to be a candidate for the papacy, keep my pension, and participate in the Sacraments.
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UNITED STATES
Z Magazine
By Bill Berkowitz
Strategies used by the Church to cover up its worldwide sexual abuse scandal include: the Vatican’s refusal to cooperate with civil authorities; officially sanctioned priest shifting; the destruction of evidence; punishing whistleblowers and rewarding enablers; and blaming the victims.
At the end of February, the eyes of the world were on Pope Benedict XVI as he left the Vatican by helicopter to spend the final hours of what many would characterize as his scandal-dogged papacy at the papal summer retreat. According to the New York Times, “Onlookers in St. Peter’s Square cheered, church bells rang and Romans stood on rooftops to wave flags as he flew by.”
To the tens of thousands of survivors of the Roman Catholic Church’s worldwide sexual abuse scandals, there was little to cheer about.
A Philadelphia Grand Jury report put the long-lived scandal in unambiguous terms: by sexual abuse, “We mean rape. Boys who were raped… girls who were raped…. But even those victims whose physical abuse did not include actual rape—those who were subjected to fondling, to masturbation, to pornography—suffered psychological abuse that scarred their lives and sapped the faith in which they had been raised.”
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DEUTSCHLAND
diesseits
„Ich kann nicht mehr“ – Der im April 2010 gegründete Zusammenschluss von Opfern sexueller Gewalt „netzwerkB“ steht möglicherweise vor dem Aus. Anfang Juni soll über die Fortführung der Vereinsarbeit entschieden werden. Norbert Denef, Vorstandsvorsitzender und Missbrauchsbetroffener, hält mehr finanzielle Unterstützung für unverzichtbar.
Arik Platzek
Montag, 22. April 2013
Katholische Bischöfe und Politiker wird es freuen: Die im Zuge der Enthüllungen unzähliger Fälle des sexuellen Missbrauchs durch kirchliche Funktionsträger vor drei Jahren gegründete unabhängige Vereinigung für die Rechte und Belange von Betroffenen von sexualisierter Gewalt netzwerkB stellt möglicherweise noch in diesem Jahr ihre Arbeit ein.
Denn Norbert Denef, Gründer und treibende Kraft hinter dem Betrieb von netzwerkB, ist erschöpft. Die Gründe bringt er so auf den Punkt: „Niemand kann dauerhaft rund um die Uhr arbeiten, sieben Tage in der Woche und 365 Tage im Jahr.“
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DEUTSCHLAND
Helmut Jacob
Ca. 4700 Euro pro Opfer –Kniefall vor der ehemaligen Vorsitzenden des Rundes Tisches?
Unter der Überschrift „Ein Jahr Beratung für Betroffene der Heimerziehung“ teilt der Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe (LWL) in seiner Pressemitteilung vom 13.03.2013 bemerkenswertes zum Opferfonds für mißhandelte Heimkinder in den zwei Nachkriegsjahrzehnten mit:
„Seit dem 1. Januar 2012 haben sich über 850 Betroffene an die Anlaufstelle beim LWL gewandt, um Beratung und Unterstützung zu bekommen.“ Konkreter fügt der LWL an: „Über 700 Vereinbarungen hierzu seien bereits geschlossen worden, … . So hat der Fonds über 3,3 Millionen Euro für Anträge aus Westfalen gezahlt. Die Betroffenen bekommen das Geld entweder als Ersatz für fehlende Rentenversicherungszeiten ausgezahlt, wenn sie während ihrer Heimunterbringung arbeiten mußten, oder sie bekommen Sachleistungen wie spezielle Therapien finanziert.“ (1)
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DEUTSCHLAND
Freie Presse
Der ehemalige Pfarrer der Pfarrei St. Marien Oelsnitz-Stollberg-Lugau wurde 2010 mit dem Vorwurf des sexuellen Missbrauchs einer Minderjährigen konfrontiert.
Stollberg (fp). Nach drei langen Jahren jetzt die Gewissheit: Der ehemalige Pfarrer der Pfarrei St. Marien Oelsnitz-Stollberg-Lugau, Josef Reichl, ist rehabilitiert.
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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter
by NCR Editorial Staff | Apr. 22, 2013
The sister’s voice cracked with emotion as she explained her disappointment. She and the sisters in her community were “sad, so sad” when they heard the news from the Vatican April 15 that Pope Francis had “reaffirmed” the conclusions of the doctrinal assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and the program of reform ordered last year by the Congregation for the Doctrine for the Faith.
Was this the dose of cold reality — the other shoe falling — that would signal that despite all the lovely symbolism of this young papacy, over the long haul the status quo would prevail? We fully understand the sadness the sister who called NCR expressed. Women religious in the United States have been ill-treated over the last four years, targets of a humiliating and, in the end, unjust takeover of their leadership organization. The Vatican has attempted to place their fate in the hands of three men, none of whom has experienced life in a religious community. Their dioceses have only benefited from the work of sisters who increasingly are the last vestige of Catholic presence in some of the most neglected corners of our cities. They stay where others — priests and bishops among them — have fled.
We also know the LCWR leadership has spent many hours and considerable resources to convey the nature of their organization and the work and lives of the women religious so that church figures better understand why the women feel they have been so unjustly treated.
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WISCONSIN
SNAP Wisconsin
At “Mass of Atonement” Listecki must explain leaving Wauwatosa priest with years of child sex abuse reports working with children
At “Mass of Atonement” Listecki must explain leaving Wauwatosa priest with years of child sex abuse reports working with children
Group wants Listecki to “atone” by immediately placing Marsicek on church sex offender registry
Dozens of clergy known to have raped or abused children and minors still being kept secret by church officials
WHO/WHAT
Victims of clergy sexual abuse who are members of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAPnetwork.org/SNAPwisconsin.com), after displaying childhood photos and candles in a makeshift memorial, will discuss before attending a “Mass of Atonement” conducted by Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki, the recent and ongoing revelations concerning Fr. Robert Marsicek.
Marsicek, pastor of two Milwaukee area parishes and grade schools, Pius X and Mother of Good Council, was suspended from his job in March after it was learned that he was under a current child sex abuse police investigation in Wauwatosa. Marsicek, however, was already under a police investigation in California since last May for child sexual assaults that took place in the late 1980’s and early 1990s’. And in recent years, according to the Wauwatosa police report, complaints by parents and others about Marsicek were reported to Milwaukee church officials and known by both Archbishop Listecki and Archbishop—now Cardinal Archbishop of New York—Timothy Dolan.
Both Listecki and Dolan left Marsicek working with children and neither archbishop notified parents or parishioners of the complaints against Marsicek or his history in California. Survivors of Marsicek are also coming forward to SNAP and law enforcement who were sexually assaulted by him when working in the Green Bay Diocese in the 1970’s (see Marsicek’s assignment history).
SNAP has long insisted that Dolan, and now Listecki, must release the complete list of all known clergy child sex offenders who have worked or are working in the archdiocese. Approximately half of these clergy belong to religious orders assigned to the archdiocese, and are not on the current archdiocese published list. In a court agreement last month in Federal Bankruptcy Court the archdiocese is required to release the church file of any cleric who is on or at any time added to the registry.
WHERE
Outside of St. John Vianney Parish, 1755 N. Calhoun Rd, Brookfield
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AUSTRALIA
The Australian
JARED OWENS
From:The Australian
April 22, 2013
HEARINGS conducted by the NSW Cunneen sex abuse inquiry will be closed to the public iif the witnesses are expected to give evidence of criminality.
A directions hearing in Sydney was this morning told the inquiry’s “in camera” sessions would not be limited to the evidence of sex abuse victims, but also “certain other relevant witnesses” whose evidence could relate to “future criminal proceedings”.
Counsel assisting the inquiry, Julia Lonergan SC, said the public hearings would be held in private, “without access to them by the media or the general public”, so as “not to prejudice by pre-trial publicity any future criminal proceedings”.
Special Commissioner Margaret Cunneen is investigating the circumstances in which NSW Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox was directed to cease investigating sexual abuse at the state’s notorious Maitland-Newcastle Catholic Diocese, and whether church figures obstructed or hindered his investigations.
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AUSTRALIA
ABC News
The Anglican Diocese of Melbourne has revealed it has dealt with 46 cases of child abuse since 1955.
But the church has told the Victorian child abuse inquiry there may have been more because records were poorly kept.
The Anglican Archbishop of Melbourne, Philip Freier, says the church’s approach to complaints is much better now than in the 1950s and 60s.
“Children were frankly disbelieved; disbelieved by their parents, they were disbelieved by the adults around them when they raised complaints,” he said.
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AUSTRALIA
9 News
People confessing to child sex crimes would not be absolved of their sins by the Anglican Church until they reported the matter to police, an inquiry has been told.
Anglican Archbishop of Melbourne Philip Freier said while confessions were limited in the church, there was a risk offenders may seek the sacrament to alleviate their conscience.
But the church required confessors to report their crimes to police before they could receive absolution, he told the Victorian parliamentary inquiry into the handling of child sex abuse.
“There is a risk, and possibly a certain pathology in some offenders, where having any means to convince them that what they’ve done isn’t as bad as what they probably know it is, helps their offending behaviour,” Dr Freier said.
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UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail
By Rob Cooper
Professor Richard Dawkins has claimed that forcing a religion on children without questioning its merits is as bad as ‘child abuse’.
In typically incendiary style, the leading atheist said he was against the ‘indoctrination of religion’ and teaching it as fact.
The evolutionary scientist, speaking at the Chipping Norton Literary Festival yesterday, was repeating claims he made last year which were roundly condemned by charities and politicians.
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AUSTRALIA
The Age
April 22, 2013
Dan Oakes
Justice Editor for The Age
The former principal of a notorious Catholic school in Sunbury has been charged with child-sex offences stretching back almost 40 years after police negotiated the man’s return from Rome with the Catholic Church.
Police have hailed the arrest of Father Julian Fox as ‘‘a breakthrough in co-operation between the Victoria Police and the Catholic Church’’.
The 67-year-old went to the police crime command headquarters at St Kilda Road and was charged with 10 offences, including buggery, indecent assault and common-law assault, allegedly committed in Sunbury and Ferntree Gully between 1976 and 1985.
Police said they had been negotiating with the Church since July over the priest’s return. He has been bailed to appear in the Melbourne Magistrates Court on Friday.
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AUSTRALIA
ABC News (US)
MELBOURNE, Australia April 22, 2013 (AP)
Australian police arrested a Roman Catholic priest on pedophilia charges Monday, following months of negotiations to have him returned from the Vatican.
A police statement said the 67-year-old priest, whose name has not been made public, presented himself at Victoria state police headquarters in Melbourne on Monday.
The priest was charged with 10 counts of child abuse allegedly committed in Melbourne’s outskirts between 1976 and 1985. He was released on bail and will appear before a magistrate on Friday.
Police said they had been negotiating with the Catholic Church since July 2012 to have him returned to Australia.
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AUSTRALIA
Big Pond News
Monday, April 22, 2013
Most child sex abuse complaints brought to the Uniting Church were not referred to police, an inquiry heard.
Most child sex abuse complaints brought to the Uniting Church have not been referred to police by the church, a Victorian inquiry has heard.
Legal adviser for the church’s Synod of Victoria and Tasmania, Philip Battye, said police had been involved in only a small number of complaints.
‘It would be a smaller number rather than a larger number,’ Mr Battye told the Victorian parliamentary inquiry into the handling of child abuse allegations on Monday.
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AUSTRALIA
WA Today
April 22, 2013
Genevieve Gannon and Melissa Iaria
AAP
Two of Australia’s largest churches say it’s up to the people who were sexually abused as children to go to the police.
The Anglican and Uniting churches in Victoria have together paid more than $2.25 million in compensation to victims over the past 10 to 15 years but have only referred a small number of allegations to authorities, a Victorian inquiry has heard.
Melbourne’s Anglican Archbishop Dr Philip Freier says a culture of disbelieving children who complained of sex abuse and an unwillingness to face up to difficult and shameful things had helped the crime go undetected.
“As you look backwards you can see broadly as a culture we’ve not readily listened to children when they’ve made complaints,” Dr Freier told the parliamentary inquiry on Monday.
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AUSTRALIA
SBS
The majority of child sex abuse claims brought before two churches have not been referred to police, an inquiry has heard.
Two of Australia’s largest churches say it’s up to the people who were sexually abused as children to go to the police.
The Anglican and Uniting churches in Victoria have together paid more than $2.25 million in compensation to victims over the past 10 to 15 years but have only referred a small number of allegations to authorities, a Victorian inquiry has heard.
Melbourne’s Anglican Archbishop Dr Philip Freier says a culture of disbelieving children who complained of sex abuse and an unwillingness to face up to difficult and shameful things had helped the crime go undetected.
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AUSTRALIA
The Border Mail
By Barney Zwartz
April 22, 2013, 1 p.m.
Child sexual abuse flourished in the past because Australian culture did not readily listen to children when they made complaints and because the churches did not want to face difficult and shameful things, Melbourne Anglican Archbishop Philip Freier said on Monday.
“We’ve always had high expectations but not the necessary checks and balances,” he told the Victorian inquiry into how the churches handled sex abuse.
“Functions would be clustered unhelpfully in one person or office, and it was a small community. People knew each other.
“Children would be disbelieved by parents and the adults around them and sometimes even punished for talking about it. It was an awful thing.”
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AUSTRALIA
International Business Times
By Esther Tanquintic-Misa | April 22, 2013
If parents and adults had paid more attention in the previous years to the complaints of children that they have been sexually abused by members of a religious church or community, the burgeoning number might have already been nipped right in the bud early on.
Philip Freier, Melbourne Anglican Archbishop, told a Victorian inquiry into how the churches handled sex abuse, said it is most unfortunate children’s grievances were not being heard, at worst just plainly disregarded.
“Children were frankly disbelieved; disbelieved by their parents, they were disbelieved by the adults around them when they raised complaints,” Archbishop Freier said.
Since 1955, the Anglican Diocese of Melbourne said it has dealt with 46 cases of child abuse. But Mr Freier said the numbers could be more because records were poorly kept
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AUSTRALIA
Anglican Diocese of Melbourne
Archbishop Freier speaks of his Church’s abhorrence for abuse, re-affirms goals of State Inquiry
22/04/2013
Media release
Anglican Archbishop of Melbourne, Dr Philip Freier, today said that he welcomed the opportunity, on behalf of all Anglicans in the Diocese of Melbourne, to appear before the Parliamentary Committee inquiring into the handling of child sex abuse by religious and other non-government organisations.
In his concluding statement to the Committee today he spoke of the Church’s abhorrence for abuse, and his own experiences in dealing with both perpetrators and victims. He reiterated his apology for the pain and misery that such abuse has caused both victims and the broader community. He also spoke of the courage of those victims appearing before the Inquiry and the value of their testimony as an opportunity for organisations such as the Melbourne Diocese to better understand and continue to evolve its processes for complaint resolution. Moreover, anything that can be done to prevent abuse in the future is to be strongly affirmed and implemented.
Dr Freier acknowledged the importance of the trust and confidence of the broader community in religious organisations and welcomed the Inquiry as a way in which that confidence might begin to be restored, accepting that both the Inquiry and the Royal Commission have impacted on the wider communities’ faith in the Church.
In presenting the Diocese of Melbourne’s testimony to the Inquiry he spoke of the importance of transparent, fair and efficient processes to deal with complaints and of the importance of an organisational culture which did not tolerate abuse in any form, particularly child sexual abuse, which is the focus of the Inquiry. Assisted by the Director of Professional Standards, an independent office established by the Diocese, Dr Freier outlined the development of protocols, procedures and legislation that had occurred since 1994 and the development of the professional standards practices of the Diocese which today govern the accountability of clergy and church workers.
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AUSTRALIA
Anglican Diocese of Melbourne
22/04/2013
by Muriel Porter
Fewer than 10 clergy in the Melbourne Diocese have either lost their licences to officiate or relinquished their holy orders because of child sexual abuse allegations, the diocese’s Director of Professional Standards, Ms Claire Sargent, told the Victorian Parliament’s enquiry into how institutions have handled child sexual abuse complaints on Monday (22 April). Some others had not been appointed to roles they had sought, she said.
Her office held records of 46 complaints, the “vast majority” against clergy, since 1955, Ms Sargent added. There did not seem to be any “pattern” of abuse in Melbourne diocese, as had been the case in other dioceses, and complaints seemed to relate to “opportunistic” abuse. Ms Sargent said that records before the 1990s had been “less than adequate”, but there had been increasing documentation since 2002/2003.
A total of $268,000 has been paid in financial compensation to 10 complaints since 2003, not including the costs of counselling and other support provided by the Diocese, the hearing heard. There are currently 685 authorised clergy in the Diocese.
Ms Sargent, the Archbishop, and the Diocesan Registrar and General Manager, Mr Ken Spackman, were subjected to polite but sustained scrutiny over a two-hour period into the Diocese’s history of complaint handling, and its current approach, by the Parliamentary committee conducting the hearing.
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AUSTRALIA
Daily Telegraph
Wayne Flower
Herald Sun
April 22, 2013
A CATHOLIC priest who moved to Rome after years of allegedly committing child sex offences in Victoria has returned to face justice.
Taskforce Sano detectives arrested the priest today in relation to alleged historic child sexual abuse matters committed between 1976 and 1985 in Sunbury and Ferntree Gully.
Police had been negotiating with the Catholic Church over the man’s return since July last year.
The priest’s return to Victoria is seen as a major a breakthrough in co-operation between Victoria Police and the Catholic Church.
The 67-year-old man, along with his legal representative, presented himself to police at Crime Command Headquarters at St Kilda Rd.
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AUSTRALIA
7 News
ABC
A 67-year-old Catholic priest has been arrested following negotiations between Victoria Police and the Catholic Church to have him returned to Australia from Rome.
The Ascot Vale man has been charged with 10 offences relating to alleged child sexual abuse between 1976 and 1985 in Sunbury and Ferntree Gully.
He will face the Melbourne Magistrates Court on Friday.
The Victoria Police Taskforce Sano had been negotiating the man’s return with the church since July last year.
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AUSTRALIA
The Australian
Stuart Rintoul
From:The Australian
April 22, 2013
CHURCHES and community organisations had a culture that helped child sex abuse go undetected, Melbourne’s Anglican archbishop has told an inquiry.
Dr Peter Freier has told Victoria’s abuse inquiry it has records of 46 complaints against clergy and church workers and has paid out compensation of $268,000 in the past 10 years.
Dr Freier said historically there had been a culture that provided opportunities for people who wanted to breach the trust of children to do so and for children’s complaints to be ignored.
“As you look backwards you can see broadly as a culture we’ve not readily listened to children when they’ve made complaints,” Dr Freier told the inquiry.
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AUSTRALIA
International Business Times
By Esther Tanquintic-Misa | April 22, 2013
Believed to have sought the perks of an anonymous life in Rome, an Australian 67-year-old Catholic priest is bound to face 10 legal cases of sexual abuse related charges once he gets back home.
A spokeswoman from Australia’s local Victoria police said they have been negotiating for the return of the Ascot Vale man from Rome since July 2012.
It was late in 2012 when detectives were able to establish complaints against the Australian Catholic priest, gathered from complaints generated from the Victorian inquiry into child sex abuse. The child sexual abuse cases allegedly happened between 1976 and 1985 in Sunbury and Ferntree Gully.
The priest’s return to Victoria is seen as a major a breakthrough in co-operation between Victoria Police and the Catholic Church, the police spokeswoman said.
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AUSTRALIA
The Australian
PIA AKERMAN
From:The Australian
April 22, 2013
VICTORIAN Police have charged a Catholic priest with child sex offences after he returned to Melbourne from Rome.
Detectives from Taskforce Sano, which was established last year to deal with complaints arising from the Victorian inquiry into child sex abuse, arrested the 67-year-old man today in relation to alleged historic child sexual abuse matters committed between 1976 and 1985 in Sunbury and Ferntree Gully.
“Victoria Police have been negotiating with the Catholic Church since July 2012 to have the man returned from Rome,” a police spokeswoman said.
“The return of this man to Victoria is considered a breakthrough in cooperation between the Victoria Police and the Catholic Church.”
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AUSTRALIA
Daily Telegraph
Shannon Deery
Herald Sun
April 22, 20131:21PM
FORMER Catholic principal Julian Fox has been charged with child sex crimes spanning two decades.
The former Salesian College, Rupertswood, principal was charged with 10 offences this morning.
The charges came after Fr Fox returned from Rome on Friday.
Allegations have been levelled at the Salesian Order that they knowingly let Fr Fox relocate to Rome after accusations were made against him.
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AUSTRALIA
Victoria Police
Monday, 22 April 2013
Taskforce Sano detectives arrested a catholic priest today in relation to alleged historic child sexual abuse matters committed between 1976 and 1985 in Sunbury and Ferntree Gully.
Victoria Police have been negotiating with the Catholic Church since July 2012 to have the man returned from Rome.
The return of this man to Victoria is considered a break through in co-operation between the Victoria Police and the Catholic Church.
The 67-year-old man, along with his legal representative, presented himself to police at Crime Command Headquarters at 412 St Kilda Road, Melbourne.
The Ascot Vale man has been charged with 10 offences, including buggery, indecent assault and common law assault.
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AUSTRALIA
Hong King Standard
Australian police have arrested a Roman Catholic priest on pedophilia charges, following months of negotiations to have him returned from the Vatican.
A police statement said the 67-year-old priest presented himself at Victoria state police headquarters in Melbourne on Monday. His name has not been made public, AP reports.
The priest was charged with 10 counts of child abuse allegedly committed in Melbourne’s outskirts between 1976 and 1985. He was released on bail and will appear before a magistrate on Friday.
Police said they had been negotiating with the Catholic Church since July 2012 to have him returned to Australia.
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AUSTRALIA
The West Australian
AAP
April 22, 2013
A Catholic priest living in Rome has returned to Australia to be charged with sexually abusing Victorian children after months of negotiation between police and the church.
The 67-year-old man had been wanted for questioning over historical child sexual abuse allegations over the past 10 months.
But the priest and his lawyer walked into the Victoria Police crime department headquarters in Melbourne to face the allegations on Monday.
“The return of this man to Victoria is considered a breakthrough in co-operation between the Victoria Police and the Catholic Church,” a police statement said.
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IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph
By Louise Hogan– 22 April 2013
An Irish priest whose love affair rocked the Catholic Church has revealed that he feels new restrictions sent to him by the Vatican make him a “second-class citizen”.
Sean Page (54), originally from Castlerea, Co Roscommon, last year wed his partner, Clarice Young, a mother of five.
The wedding took place in a simple Church of England ceremony near his home in Rochdale, greater Manchester.
But despite leaving the Catholic Church, he still feels it is interfering with his life.
Among the conditions delivered to him in a Vatican document were to ensure any wedding celebration was “low-key”, to “absent himself” from areas where he would have been known as a priest and to undertake to not engage in teaching theology.
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VATICAN CITY
Huffington Post
Edward Jay Epstein
On June 5, 2012, financial police in Piacenza, Italy, searched the home of Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, who was the target of a money laundering investigation. Up until just a few weeks earlier, he had headed the Popes’ secretive organization for dealing with the world of Mammon, called not without irony the “Institute for Works Religious,” since it operates as an off-shore bank that is beyond the laws and regulations of Italy, the European Union, or any other authority. The raid uncovered a secret dossier that included 47 binders of Vatican documents, some of which exposed the Vatican Bank’s loopholes for laundering money, arrangements for discrete accounts, and a note instructing that these documents be delivered to a lawyer and the media if anything foul happened to Tedeschi. As it was reported in the Italian press, he had feared for his life because the some of the secret accounts serviced individuals in the Mafia and other criminal organizations.
Thirty years earlier, the body of Roberto Calvi, known as “God’s Banker” because of his work for the Vatican bank, was found hanging under Blackfriars bridge in London, a well-organized murder which was never solved. Also missing was a half-billion dollars siphoned through the Vatican bank to anonymous corporations owned by unknown parties. And no one found at that time certain documents from Calvi’s attache case, which more than a half decade later were used to attempt to blackmail the Pope for $40 million. (Only $2 million was paid to the blackmailers by the Vatican Bank before the police moved in.)
The secret at the heart of these crimes, as it is brilliantly adumbrated in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather Part III, was and remains that the Vatican is desperately short of money, and had been for more than a century. It was so impoverished after the First World War that it borrowed $100,000 from a bank to pay for the funeral of Pope Benedict XV. It had priceless art and church properties, but it could not sell them, nor did Dioceses abroad provide funds. All it had was the meager revenue from the sale of postage stamps and the annual Peter’s Pence collection boxes in churches. In light of its dire financial situation, it had no choice but to allegedly accept a settlement in 1929 with the government of Benito Mussolini, which provided it with $91.4 million in cash and bonds. That sum at prevailing interest rates did not yield enough income to pay the Vatican’s expenses, so, to get a high return, the Popes used the Vatican’s sovereign status to set up a no-hold-barred offshore bank under the guise of an “Institute For Religious Work.” As its President Archbishop Paul Marcinkus told me, after he moved to full-fledged money laundering in the Bahamas, “You can’t run the church on Hail Marys alone.” Unfortunately, in the banking scandal following the death of God’s Banker, the Vatican bank lost a large part of it capital.
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CALIFORNIA
The Press-Enterprise
The Roman Catholic Diocese of San Bernardino next month will begin including an intention for victims of sexual abuse in a monthly Mass at the diocesan pastoral center in San Bernardino.
An intention refers to when participants in a Mass are asked to say special prayers for someone and keep that person in their thoughts throughout a service. Usually, it is for someone who has passed away, diocesan spokesman John Andrews told me.
On the first Tuesday of every month, the intention of the Mass at the pastoral center will be for all victims of sexual abuse, including those abused by priests, he said.
“It’s not the end-all,” Andrews said. “It’s one more thing we can do to try to walk with them on their journey.”
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UNITED STATES
BishopAccountability.org
Summary of Case: Balfe was a Jesuit priest ordained in 1927 whose career took him to Indian missions in Alaska, Washington state and Montana. He was also assigned to several parishes and hospitals. Balfe was accused in a lawsuit settled in 2011 of having sexually abused children residing at the St. Ignatius Mission boarding school in Montana. He died in 1969.
Ordained: 1927
Died: 1969
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UNITED STATES
BishopAccountability.org
Summary of Case: Bartles was ordained a Jesuit priest in 1965. He went on to work in Kansas, Florida, Georgia, Alaska, New Orleans, Jamaica and Brazil. He died in 1993. An accusation against Bartles was revealed in the Fairbanks diocese’s bankruptcy reorganization documents in 2010.
Ordained: 1965
Died: July 28, 1993
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UNITED STATES
BishopAccountability.org
Summary of Case: Rev. Thomas J. Hidding, s.j. was accused in 2002 of having sexually abused a Florida high school student between 1980-1982, when he was a Jesuit seminarian and teacher. He was ordained in 1986, and spent his career in Louisiana and Florida. Hidding was removed from active ministry after the accusation surfaced in May 2002. He died Oct. 12, 2005.
Ordained: 1986
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