ABUSE TRACKER

UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph & Argus

By Jenny Loweth, T&A Reporter.

A Roman Catholic priest who sexually assaulted a teenage girl was today jailed for six months.

The Recorder of Bradford, Judge Roger Thomas QC, told William Finnegan, known to his parishioners as “Father Bill”, he committed a gross breach of trust when he groped and kissed the 17-year-old in his church in April last year.

Finnegan, 60, who was parish priest at St Clare’s in Fagley, Bradford, was found guilty by a jury at Bradford Crown Court last month.

During the trial it was heard that Finnegan was secretly married.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

April 11, 2013

Rachel Browne
Social Affairs Reporter

Australia’s inaugural National Children’s Commissioner, Megan Mitchell, has used her first major public speech to warn that there is a heavy toll for not listening to children, and to urge Australians to learn from past tragedies.

Speaking at the Child Aware Approaches conference in Melbourne on Thursday, she said young people need to have greater involvement in decisions which affect their lives.

“We must learn from the mistakes of the past, when children’s voices were ignored with devastating consequences,” she said at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre.

“The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse will, I am sure, uncover stories where children’s voices were unheard, and even when heard, were deliberately not taken into account.

“We need to make sure our attitudes and our systems respect the child’s voice. This is one of the essential ways that we can help children to be safe, to realise their potential, and to live full and happy lives.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Daily Telegraph

EXCLUSIVE by Janet Fife-Yeomans
The Daily Telegraph
April 12, 2013

UP to 100,000 people will make claims for compensation in the wake of the royal commission into institutionalised abuse, according to a leading lawyer.

They are pinning their hopes on the commission recommending that a “redress fund” be set up, into which institutions at blame would pay commensurate sums of money.

Lawyer Peter Kelso said the Catholic Church may be forced to sell some of its multi-million dollars worth of land and property holdings to pay its fair share of a fund.

While the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse will not be able to make awards of compensation, its terms of reference call on it to find ways so that victims can get redress from institutions.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

Jehovah’s Witnesses say it is not their responsibility to report child sex abuse to police unless mandatory reporting legislation is in place.

A Victorian inquiry on Thursday heard that when a Jehovah’s Witness leader hears allegations of abuse they are directed immediately to contact the society’s legal department to check their obligations under state law.

Jehovah’s Witness legal counsel Rachel van Witsen said elders were not expected to know their legal obligations.

“This is done to ensure elders fully comply with any legal requirements that may be applicable in the state in which they reside,” she said.

“In Victoria if there was mandatory reporting the immediate advice would be to report that immediately.”

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PENNSYLVANIA
Patch

By Richard Cook

The Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh recently sent a letter to parishioners at a Wilkinsburg church warning of abuse allegations against a former priest who also once served at a West View parish.

According to KDKA, the accused priest and the alleged victim have both passed away, but the man in his 40s revealed the abuse to his family months before he died.

KDKA reports the man claimed Rev. John Wellinger abused him between 1981 and 1985 when Wellinger served as an assistant pastor at St. James Parish in Wilkinsburg. The abuse started when the alleged victim was 10.

Local church officials confirmed that Wellinger once served at St. Athanasius Church in West View, but referred all other questions to the diocese.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
News Letter

PARISHIONERS in Loughinisland yesterday told of their “shock and sadness” after their 78-year-old former priest pleaded guilty to fraud earlier this week.

Fr Conleth Byrne, now retired, informed police he paid around £145,000 of parish funds to Marie Hanna from Ballycastle over a 19-month period out of “charity” after she begged him for financial help, a court was told.

He pleaded guilty to fraud by abuse of position just before his trial was due to begin at Downpatrick Crown Court on Tuesday.

The court heard that Byrne had been a priest in Loughinisland in Co Down when Ms Hanna, who is in her 50s, called at the parochial house in September 2007 and claimed to be in “dire need” of financial assistance.

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UNITED STATES
Watch Keep

[I’ve asked Amy to let me write a guest post. I had one condition: she had to let me post it without any input, editing, or contribution on her part. She agreed; every word below is mine.]

I’ve told our story many times over the last two years. How nearly thirty years ago John Langworthy molested several boys in his hometown of Clinton, Mississippi. How he moved from Clinton to Dallas, attended seminary, worked at Prestonwood Baptist Church and befriended my wife’s family. For years at Prestonwood, he molested several more minors. I’ve told how Prestonwood’s leadership discovered the behavior, fired him, but did not report him to the police. About how Langworthy quickly moved back to Clinton, got jobs at a school and a church. And finally how my wife looked him up two years ago, learned he had been working with youth, and reported his past crimes to the authorities and the media.

Thanks in small part to Amy and to several brave victims, John Langworthy has been convicted for child molesting in Mississippi. He still hasn’t faced justice for the more recent abuse he committed in Texas.

Every time I tell this story, people tell me how disgusting Langworthy’s crimes are, and tell me to keep supporting Amy. Many have told her “thank you”, “keep it up” and “good job.” But sadly, these feelings are not universal. My wife has also received insults, baseless accusations, legal threats, and even been disowned by her parents for reporting a child molester and calling on Prestonwood to do the same.

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AUSTRALIA
Eureka Street

Fatima Measham April 11, 2013

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has begun, with its first sitting held in Melbourne last week. Expectations are high; relief runs deep. Both commissioners and victims will be treading a harrowing path together in the coming months and years. It is bound to be a national catharsis.

The six commissioners expect to receive more than 5000 submissions. Orders have already been served on the Catholic Church, its insurer, the Salvation Army and the NSW Director of Public Prosecutions. The Commission foresees that it will miss the 2015 deadline for a full report, due to the monumental scope.

Though it will not be prosecuting criminal cases, it has established links with state and territory police. There is also a focus on policy corrections for institutions which are found to have failed in their duty of care. The prosecutorial and legal outcomes from the commission will be significant. But other wounds bear considering.

The Catholic Church is placed uniquely among institutions under scrutiny. The trust that laypeople hold in priests and other vowed religious is not the same trust held in teachers, doctors and coaches. It is sourced from the stories that feed their faith.

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UNITED STATES
Washington Post

By Kristen Howerton

Published: April 10

A recent lawsuit filed in October against church officials working for Sovereign Grace Ministries (SGM) raises many ethical questions about clergy and their duty to report sexual abuse within the church. SGM is a church network with member churches throughout the world and has engaged in partnerships with many prominent figures in the Reformed movement, including John MacArthur, Mark Dever, and John Piper.

The lawsuit, filed by several women against SGM, alleges that church officials discouraged abuse victims from contacting the police, and instead conducted their own justice process, including forcing victims to meet with the men who assaulted them for “forgiveness.” The suit was originally filed by three women, but more plaintiffs have since been added, including plaintiffs that allege that some of the church officials were perpetrating the abuse as well.

Unfortunately this isn’t the only sexual abuse case involving SGM. In February, a former leader at Maryland’s Covenant Life Church that formerly served as SGM’s flagship church was indicted on accusations of molesting four boys between 1985 and 1990. The church withdrew their association with SGM in December.

SGM released a statement in which they suggested that courts should be prohibited from reviewing confidential advice given during pastoral counseling sessions, claiming it would impinge on the church’s First Amendment rights. “We are saddened that lawyers are now, in essence, seeking to violate those rights by asking judges and juries, years after such pastoral assistance was sought, to dictate what sort of biblical counsel they think should have been provided,” the statement said.

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TENNESSEE
Tennessean

A former public middle school principal charged with a string of sexual abuse was sentenced to three months in prison and 12 years of probation for abuse that occurred four years ago.

The man, Ronald B. Anderson, 34, allegedly met the victims, who were teenage boys, at his church.

Anderson, former principal at Kennedy Middle School in Antioch, was convicted in January by a Davidson County jury of four counts of sexual battery by an authority figure.

Police arrested Anderson in March 2009 after prosecutors charged him with sexually abusing two teenage boys, whom he took under his wing at the Royal Life International Church in Madison. Anderson had given them rides, treated them to dinner and become a mentor of sorts, according to court testimony.

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AUSTRALIA
Brimbank & North West Weekly

By Barney Zwartz
April 11, 2013

The Salvation Army has had 473 complaints about abuse in its Victorian children’s home and has spent nearly $20 million settling them.

But while its representatives could give no explanation of how predators got away with it for so long, it denied there had been a culture of abuse.

The Salvation Army had almost no records of children in the homes, but had not tried to hide, shred or dispose of them, Captain Malcolm Roberts told the Victorian inquiry into how the churches handled child sexual abuse.

The last homes closed in the 1980s, and the church dealt with some 35,000 children, he said.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

by Colman McCarthy | Apr. 10, 2013

Should we come back? Now that it’s a pope named Francis who is being hailed as “a history-making pontiff,” “a man who knows how to govern” and a leader from “outside the walls of Rome,” is it a moment for those of us who were Catholic-raised and Catholic-educated to rejoin the church after having taken a powder years ago?

It was a strong tailwind of reasons that helped blow us out the door: revulsion at the child abuse scandals, the hierarchy’s shielding of pedophile priests, the cruelty of church policy on gays and lesbians, the Vatican’s clamping down on American nuns, the attacks on priests who support women’s ordination, a calcified Eurocentric Roman bureaucracy that rules by fiat and not consensus. Then, too, a final turn-off: doctrinal rigidity. Rome has spoken; that’s it, people. No discussion allowed.

What’s to be learned soon enough about Pope Francis is whether he will be a tinkerer or an overhauler. The former is one who hauls his car to the local gas station and explains to the mechanic that the brakes are worn, the tires are flat, the radiator is not holding water, the oil leaks, the lower control arms are broken, the steering wheel can’t turn, the headlights are out, the carburetor is shot, the doors won’t lock and the wipers don’t wipe. The car owner tells the mechanic to just squirt a bit of Havoline Supreme on the engine and the old girl will run fine.

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MALTA
Times of Malta

Wednesday, April 10, 2013 by
Juan Ameen

The Curia has denied a claim that it abandoned 11 victims of priest abuse, saying they had been contacted by the Missionary Society of St Paul and invited to approach it for help.

The MSSP, under whose care the men lived at St Joseph’s Home in Santa Venera about 20 years ago, contacted the victims in writing in October 2011, a spokesman for the Curia said.

This was immediately after the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith published its decision about their cases.

“In fact, a number of those involved approached the society and are still receiving help,” the spokesman added.

Lawrence Grech, one of the victims, had told The Times he had expected to be approached by the Therapeutic Evaluation Board, which was set up by the Church last October and tasked with directing victims of clerical sexual abuse to therapy. None of the 11 men had been approached, he claimed.

The spokesman said that the Church had “more than once” publicly invited past victims to come forward.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Berger’s Beat

. . . Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Michael D’Antonio will discuss his new book at 6:30 p.m., April 18 at Left Bank Books downtown. Titled “Mortal Sins: Sex Crimes and the Era of Catholic Scandal.” He has written biographies of famous chocolatier Milton Hershey and ex-boxer and self-taught PGA golfer Esteban Toledo. The event will benefit SNAP. . .

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CHILE
Bio Bio

Miércoles 10 abril 2013

Publicado por Alberto Gonzalez

El Arzobispado de Santiago informó este miércoles acerca del destino de los bienes de la disuelta Unión Sacerdotal del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús, que encabezó el sancionado sacerdote Fernando Karadima, condenado por abusos sexuales.

A través de un comunicado, la entidad religiosa anunció la creación de una Fundación cuyos principales objetivos serán la prevención de abusos sexuales de menores y acoger eventuales víctimas.

Lo anterior, como una forma de “proteger y fortalecer el vínculo pastoral entre sacerdotes y fieles”.

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CHILE
La Nacion

El Arzobispado de Santiago anunció este miércoles la creación de una fundación destinada a prevenir abusos sexuales contra menores, la cual se financiará con los bienes de la ex Unión Sacerdotal del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús.

Este disuelto grupo fue creado y encabezado por el sacerdote condenado por el Vaticano por este tipo de abusos, Fernando Karadima.

Mediante un comunicado, el arzobispado explicó que atendiendo al dictamen de la Contraloría que establece que los bienes de la disuelta Unión Sacerdotal pasarán a la Arquidiócesis de Santiago, resolvieron destinar esos bienes “a fines de apostolado que incluyen la prevención de abusos sexuales de menores y el acompañamiento sicológico y espiritual de quienes pudieran resultar, lamentablemente, víctimas de esos nefastos delitos”.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

by Cindy Wooden,Catholic News Service | Apr. 10, 2013

Vatican City —
A major European regulator will conduct an expanded evaluation of the Vatican’s latest efforts to prevent money laundering and the funding of terrorism.

Moneyval, the monitoring Committee of the Council of Europe, agreed Tuesday to expand its next scheduled review of Vatican policies and procedures. The decision came in response to a request from the Vatican.

“With this initiative, the Holy See wishes to provide a more complete overview of the measures taken over the last year to further strengthen its institutional structure in the area of preventing money laundering and the financing of terrorism,” Vatican Radio reported.

The agreement on the scope of the December 2013 report, the radio said, confirms the Vatican’s “commitment to constructive dialogue with Moneyval.”

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VATICAN CITY
AsiaOne

Wednesday, Apr 10, 2013

VATICAN CITY – The Vatican said Wednesday the next report by the Council of Europe on its efforts to bring its laws into line with international rules against money laundering is due out in December.

The progress report by the Moneyval monitoring committee will also look at the Vatican’s implementation of all recommendations, not just the “key recommendations” in its July 2012 report.

The Vatican last year promised to redouble its efforts to reform its scandal-plagued bank and overhaul financial legislation following an Italian inquiry into alleged money laundering.

In that report, the Vatican scored satisfactory ratings in nine out of 16 key recommendations and unsatisfactory ratings in the remaining seven.

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VATICAN CITY
Telegraph (UK)

The Vatican has volunteered to widen the terms under which it is assessed for financial transparency, following a critical report by European money laundering watchdog Moneyval.

By Andrew Trotman, and agencies
5:37PM BST 10 Apr 2013

The Holy See is seeking to shake off a reputation for murky finances after a year in which documents alleging corruption in its business dealings were leaked by Pope Benedict’s butler, and the head of its bank was ousted in a row over transparency.

In a July 2012 report Moneyval, a department of the Council of Europe, criticised the Holy See for non-compliance with global financial transparency norms and gave it negative grades in seven out of 16 so-called “core” and “key” recommendations.

Under Moneyval rules, the Holy See has until July 4 to comply with all “core” recommendations, for example fully establishing the source and legality of funds and reporting suspicious transactions.

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VATICAN CITY
Bloomberg

By Chiara Vasarri – Apr 10, 2013

The Holy See said it’s continuing efforts to prevent money laundering and improve financial transparency as the Council of Europe presses for compliance with international standards.

In a report issued in July, Moneyval, the Council of Europe’s monitoring body for money laundering and terrorism financing, said the Vatican was making progress in complying with international standards on financial transparency, though it still needed to improve supervision of transactions. That report stressed the importance of independent supervision of the Vatican bank, which is formally called the Institute for the Works of Religion, or IOR.

The Holy See’s next progress report will be presented in December, according to today’s statement posted on the Vatican Radio website. “With this initiative, the Holy See wishes to provide a more complete overview of the measures taken over the last year to further strengthen its institutional structure in the area of preventing money laundering and the financing of terrorism,” the Vatican said.

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IOWA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on April 10, 2013

An Iowa Catholic archbishop has announced his resignation “for health reasons” just two weeks prior to his scheduled deposition in a clergy sex abuse and cover up case.

He’s Jerome Hanus who has headed the Archdiocese of Dubuque, IA and will soon live again in the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph.

From 1977 to 1987, Jerome Hanus was abbot at Conception Abbey in Conception, MO (Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph). In a videotaped interview and a signed confession from 2011, Bede Parry admitted that Abbot Jerome Hanus knew about Parry’s previous sexual misconduct yet still placed Parry in a position of authority with the Conception Abbey Boy Choir where Parry reoffended with at least five choir participants.

With this resignation, Hanus has become to first high-ranking church official to step down during Pope Francis’ new regime.

[BishopAccountability.org]

“It’s extremely rare for a standing Archbishop to be desposed, and even moreso when that official has been named as an enabler by a predator priest himself,” said said David Clohessy, SNAP Director. “The consequences from this deposition could be huge.”

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AUSTRIA
Global Post

Austrian prosecutors on Tuesday charged a 79-year-old former priest of sexually abusing 15 students at a Benedictine monastery between 1973 and 1993.

The monastery, which runs a boarding school, is in the town of Kremsmuenster in northern Austria, the prosecutor’s office in nearby Steyr said.

The former priest also faces a charge of illegally possessing a weapon, it said, adding that he faces up to 15 years in prison. The Austrian Catholic Church, under Vienna Archbishop Christoph Schoenborn, set up a commission in 2000 to conduct independent investigations into allegations of sexual and other abuses committed by members of the Church. As of April 2012 the commission had probed more than 700 cases, some dating back to the 1960s.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Augsburger Allgemeine

Internat und Gymnasium reagieren auf die Vorwürfe und wollen den Fall aufklären. Von Dominik Mai

Ein Missbrauchsfall hat das Kloster St. Stephan und das angrenzende Gymnasium erschüttert. Der Komponist Wilfried Hiller hatte in einem Interview mit unserer Zeitung schwere Vorwürfe gegen zwei Patres des Internats erhoben – einer von ihnen habe ihn in den 50er Jahren mehrfach sexuell missbraucht, der andere körperlich gezüchtigt. Erst am Wochenende war dies bekannt geworden.

Den Direktor des Gymnasiums, Franz Lettner, haben die Vorwürfe überrascht: „Derzeit kann ich zu dem Fall keine Stellung nehmen, weil ich die Details nicht kenne und es um Dinge geht, die nicht in der Schule passiert sind“, sagt Lettner. Vielmehr hätten sich die Vorfälle im Internat ereignet, dessen Träger das Kloster ist und das somit nicht zum Gymnasium gehört.

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OSTERREICH
Die Presse

Es ist der erste Prozess gegen einen hohen Geistlichen seit mehreren Jahren. Dem ehemaligen Internatsleiter drohen bis zu 15 Jahre Haft.

Die Staatsanwaltschaft Steyr hat wie erwartet Anklage gegen einen ehemaligen Pater des Stiftes Kremsmünster (Bezirk Kirchdorf) u.a. wegen schweren sexuellen Missbrauchs erhoben. Dem heute 79-Jährigen wird angelastet, von September 1973 bis Juni 1993 an insgesamt 15 Zöglingen “Handlungen unterschiedlicher Intensität” vorgenommen zu haben. Ihm drohen bis zu 15 Jahre Haft, teilte die Staatsanwaltschaft am Dienstag mit.

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OSTERREICH
ORF

Seit über drei Jahren sind die Missbrauchsvorwürfe gegen Ordensmänner des Stiftes Kremsmünster in Oberösterreich öffentlich bekannt. Ein mittlerweile ausgetretener Pater wird nun angeklagt.

Der 79-Jährige ist der erste höhere Geistliche, der sich im Zug der Missbrauchs-Affäre in der römisch-katholischen Kirche vor einem weltlichen Richter verantworten muss. Im Folgenden eine Chronologie der Ereignisse:

Chronologie
1950er-Jahre – Es kommt zu Missbrauchsfällen, die erst im Laufe der aktuellen Affäre an den jetzigen Abt herangetragen werden. Die Vorwürfe richten sich gegen drei bereits verstorbene Patres.

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AUSTRALIA
Aljazeera

In late 2012, Australia was rocked by fresh allegations of Catholic clergy child sex abuse by whistleblower, New South Wales Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox.

Fox has pursued allegations of child sex abuse by Catholic clergy for more than a decade, and he claims that as his investigations continued, a frightening picture emerged of a widespread cover-up by the Catholic Church of the child sex crimes committed by its clergy.

Fox repeated those claims publicly, and also accused the Catholic Church of deliberately obstructing police investigations, destroying evidence, and protecting paedophile priests, sparking calls for a national inquiry.

At the same time as Fox’s investigation, The Newcastle Herald’s senior journalist Joanne McCarthy, had also picked up the scent of a wider conspiracy by senior church officials to conceal sex abuse by its clergy.

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OHIO
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on April 10, 2013

An accused predator priest from the Diocese of Cleveland has just passed away. Despite promises from church officials to be “open and transparent” about accused clerics, as best as we can tell not one church official in Cleveland told parishioners or the public about the passing of Fr. Joseph Lang.

Fr. Lang was accused in 1987 of raping a young boy while he worked at St. Philomena Parish in Cleveland. He allegedly admitted his guilt when he was sent for treatment. In 2002, the Vatican permanently removed him from active ministry and sent him to “live a life of prayer and penance.”

[BishopAccountability.org]

Being honest about the death of a credibly accused predator priest matters for several reasons:

First, it’s comforting when victims know that their perpetrator can no longer hurt any other kids. But that doesn’t happen (or happens years later) if the predator’s death is kept secret.

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CHILE
Terra

Iglesia destina bienes de grupo de Karadima para prevención de abusos sexuales a menores

El Arzobispado de Santiago anunció este miércoles la creación de una fundación destinada a prevenir abusos sexuales contra menores, aprovechando los bienes de la ex Unión Sacerdotal del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús, instancia que fue creada y encabezada por el sacerdote condenado por el Vaticano por este tipo de abusos, Fernando Karadima.

Mediante un comunicado, el arzobispado explicó que atendiendo al dictamen de la Contraloría que establece que los bienes de la disuelta Unión Sacerdotal pasarán a la Arquidiócesis de Santiago, resolvieron destinar esos bienes “a fines de apostolado que incluyen la prevención de abusos sexuales de menores y el acompañamiento sicológico y espiritual de quienes pudieran resultar, lamentablemente, víctimas de esos nefastos delitos”.

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Morning Call

April 09, 2013|By Steve Esack, Call Harrisburg Bureau

HARRISBURG — A computer system that does not track child abuse complaints among counties. Hospital lawyers who keep doctors from sharing medical information on children they suspect are abuse victims. Low pay and high burnout for young, inexperienced social workers.

Those are three main reasons the training and laws governing how and when child abuse claims are handled need to be overhauled, according to Senate testimony Tuesday by members of the Pennsylvania Task Force on Child Protection.

“Child abuse is an extremely real problem in this commonwealth as it apparently is in our society and our nation,” said the panel’s chairman, Bucks County District Attorney David W. Heckler.

The Legislature started the 11-member task force to examine the state’s patchwork of child protection laws after Jerry Sandusky, the former Penn State assistant football coach, was arrested in 2011 on charges of sexually abusing children. In November, the task force called for rewriting Pennsylvania’s child protection laws to streamline the reporting process, create new statutes and increase penalties for crimes such as possession of child pornography.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Eastbourne Herald

Published on 10/04/2013

A retired Eastbourne priest has gone on trial accused of multiple counts of sexual abuse at a children’s home in the 1960s.

Canon Gordon Rideout, 74, is alleged to have committed 30 indecent assaults and two attempted rapes when he was assistant curate at St Mary’s Church, Southgate.

The complainants, ten woman and four men, were child residents of a Crawley children’s home at the time of the alleged assaults.

Mr Rideout, of Filching Close, Polegate, is also accused of one indecent assault in Essex, and a further three against two victims in Hampshire.

He denied all 37 counts at Lewes Crown Court on Monday (April 8).

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MALTA
Times of Malta

The Curia has denied that it abandoned the victims of priest abuse, saying they had been contacted by the Missionary Society of St Paul and invited to approach it for help.

The MSSP, under whose care the men lived at St Joseph’s Home 20 years ago, wrote to the victims in October 2011, a spokesman said.

“In fact, a number of those involved approached the society and are receiving help ,” the spokesman added.

Lawrence Grech, one of the victims, had told The Times he had expected to be approached by the Therapeutic Evaluation Board, which was set up by the Church last October and tasked with directing victims of clerical sexual abuse to therapy .

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CANADA
Winnipeg Free Press

By: Ian Hitchen

BRANDON — An Anglican priest, who is the son of a Brandon bishop, is accused of charging more than $190,000 in personal expenses to a church credit card.

Noah James Bernard Njegovan, 30, appeared in Brandon court for the first time on Monday. His next court date is set for May 9.

He is charged with fraud over $5,000. The charge has not been proven in court.

Father Shane Bengry said members of the Anglican Diocese of Brandon have been notified of the accusations.

“We wanted to be as transparent as possible to our congregations… We tried to keep people abreast of what was going on,” said Bengry.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Crawley News

A former Crawley priest carried out a string of sex attacks at a children’s home, a court has heard.

Canon Gordon Rideout, 74, is accused of abusing more than a dozen girls and boys at the home over a four-year period.

He is also accused of indecently assaulting a boy at a home in Essex, and two girls in Hampshire.

The retired Church Of England priest denies 35 counts of indecent assault on 17 children as young as five, and two counts of attempted rape, between January 1962 and January 1973.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Patch

By Larissa Dudkiewicz

The Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh recently sent a letter to parishioners at a Wilkinsburg church warning of abuse allegations against a former priest who also once served at a West View parish.

According to KDKA, the accused priest and the alleged victim have both passed away, but the man in his 40s revealed the abuse to his family months before he died.

KDKA reports the man claimed Rev. John Wellinger abused him between 1981 and 1985 when Wellinger served as an assistant pastor at St. James Parish in Wilkinsburg. The abuse started when the alleged victim was 10.

Local church officials confirmed that Wellinger once served at St. Athanasius Church in West View, but referred all other questions to the diocese.

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PENNSYLVANIA
PhillyBurbs

Some might argue that it’s better late than never. But for the family of Bristol Borough’s Daniel Neill, who took his own life in 2009, the removal of an allegedly abusive Catholic priest from the ministry comes as little consolation for the loss they’ve sustained and the grief they’ve endured. In short, it’s too little, too late.

How would you feel? Fact is, the defrocking of Rev. Joseph Gallagher comes seven years after the 78-year-old now former priest retired.

It was more than 30 years ago that Neill, then just 10 years old, reported to the principal at St. Mark Parish school that he had been sexually molested by Gallagher. According to a 2011 wrongful death suit filed by Neill’s family, the principal called the then altar boy “a liar and threatened … that his family would be disgraced if he persisted in making his report of sexual abuse.”

And so the child kept the allegations under wraps until 2007 — for nearly three decades — before again reaching out to the church. This was after the pedophile priest scandal erupted, including revelations that the Archdiocese of Philadelphia not only covered up the crimes but transferred accused priests from one parish to another in an effort to silence victims and protect the priests.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Irish Independent

Dedorah McAleese– 10 April 2013

A PRIEST who “naively” gave almost £150,000 (€175,000) of parish funds to a woman he believed to be destitute has pleaded guilty to fraud.

Fr Conleth Byrne (78) told police he paid the money to Marie Hanna from Ballycastle, Co Antrim, over a 19-month period out of “charity” after she begged him for financial help, a court was told.

The retired parish priest pleaded guilty yesterday to fraud by abuse of position just before his trial was due to begin at Downpatrick Crown Court.

Fr Byrne was a priest in Loughinisland, Co Down, when Ms Hanna, who is in her 50s, called at the parochial house in September 2007 and claimed to be in “dire need” of financial assistance, the court heard.

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OHIO
The Plain Dealer

LANG JOSEPH J. LANG, age 73. Beloved son of the late Joseph C. and Maleda (Cummings) Lang; loving brother of James P. Lang; devoted uncle of Andrew M. and Benjamin M. Lang; cherished cousin to three generations and caring friend to all. Entered eternal rest Tuesday, April 2, 2013. Services and burial will be at the convenience of the family. ‘No one ever died of Laughter.’

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PENNSYLVANIA
Patriot-News

By Charles Thompson | cthompson@pennlive.com

The chair of the Pennsylvania Senate’s Public Heath and Welfare Committee said she wants to see a package of bills designed to strengthen protections for children from all forms of abuse moved to Gov. Corbett’s desk by the end of the year.But Sen. Pat Vance, R-Cumberland County, cautioned it may take that much time to ensure the legislature is making the child protection system as strong as possible in Pennsylvania in the wake of sensational cases like the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal.

“I think we’ve learned a lot,” Vance said after a hearing today on the findings of a blue-ribbon task force empaneled last year to recommend changes. “But have we learned enough to legislate intelligently? That is the question.”

But task force leaders were clear enough about their must-dos.

They continued to hone in on the need for Pennsylvania to broaden its current definitions of child abuse so state reporting systems catch more of the cases that are investigated, and information on the families involved is accessible to those who need it.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WESA

By Mary Wilson and WESA Staff

A state Senate Republican is making a concerted push for the cautious approach when it comes to child protection legislation.

House lawmakers are poised to advance a number of proposals intended to make children safer in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky abuse case.

But at a joint committee hearing this week, GOP state Sen. Bob Mensch of Montgomery County said he’s taking to heart advice from others not to rush anything that could add to the burden of local child welfare offices.

“This is the first step, not the last step,” he said.

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AUSTRALIA
J-Wire

April 10, 2013 by J-Wire Staff

Sydney Yeshiva say they have no connection with the Los Angeles welfare organisation reported to be sheltering a Los Angeles resident once associated with the Bondi community and alleged to be a paedophile .

Media reports that the “self-confessed” paedophile is being protected by the the LA-based Jewish Family Service of Los Angeles and that board members were aware of the situation as recently as 2011. The incidents said to have taken place in Sydney occurred in the 1980s.

Rabbi Eli Feldman told J-Wire that nothing had changed since the Yeshiva’s last statement in which they said they were co-operating fully with police. “As this an issue currently under investigation, we are following police instructions and making no comments. Today’s revelations may throw a new angle on the story, but the it refers to a matter already under investigation and in the hands of the authorities with whom we are fully co-operating. We have no connection with this Californian organisation.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Star

CHURCH leaders and social services have been condemned for a ‘cover-up’ of a vicar’s sex attacks on a teenage girl in Sheffield.

John Yallop’s 16-year-old victim was sent to him for counselling after losing her mother, father and grandmother all within seven months in the late 1980s.

But the Burngreave vicar forced her to perform a sex act on him, and exposed himself to her in his own home and car over two months.

On two occasions, he groped the orphan at St Peter’s Church, Ellesmere – where he had conducted the funeral of her late mother.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

An ex-vicar who sexually assaulted a teenage girl he was counselling after the deaths of her parents has been jailed for three years.

John Yallop, 65, of Accrington, Lancashire, molested the 16-year-old while he was a priest in Ellesmere, Sheffield, 25 years ago.

He made the girl perform sex acts and touched her inappropriately.

Yallop was sentenced at Sheffield Crown Court on Monday after he admitted six counts of indecent assault.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail

By Chris Brooke

A judge has condemned the Church of England and social services for a cover-up that allowed a vicar who sexually abused a teenage orphan to escape justice for 26 years.

John Yallop, a married father of four, had been offering bereavement counselling to the 16-year-old girl just months after she lost her entire family.

He admitted the abuse, which took place over two months, when confronted by a social worker.

But instead of reporting him to police, the Bishop of Sheffield and social services chiefs hushed up the scandal and Yallop, then 40, was allowed to leave his job and move away from the area to restart his life.

The victim, now aged 42, has suffered depression and suicidal thoughts ever since.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Yorkshire Post

By Martin Slack
Published on 10/04/2013

A FORMER bishop accused of covering up a sex abuse case involving a vulnerable orphan and a vicar has rejected a judge’s criticism and said remarks about his involvement were “unjust”.

The Rt Rev David Lunn, now 83 and retired, was the Bishop of Sheffield in 1987 when vicar John Yallop was found to be abusing a 16-year-old girl, but the crime did not come to light until last year.

Yallop, now 65, has been jailed for three years, but Judge Simon Lawler QC, who heard the case, said social workers and “church elders” involved at the time should “reproach themselves”.

Speaking at his home in Wetwang, East Yorkshire, yesterday, Bishop Lunn told the Yorkshire Post: “I think the judge’s remarks were unjust, but I can understand why he made them.

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AUSTRALIA
Advertiser

By Ben Chenoweth
April 9, 2013

CHILD abuse victim John Hennessey has likened the start of last week’s royal commission proceedings to the demolition of the Berlin Wall.

The Ingleburn resident — a former deputy mayor of Campbelltown — has campaigned for years to see those who inflicted, ignored and covered up the abuse exposed.

Last Wednesday proceedings in the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse began in Melbourne. More than 5000 victims are expected to testify.

“There has been a lot of suffering and hidden pain because nobody would believe us,” Mr Hennessey said.

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UNITED STATES
The Jewish Daily Forward

Editorial

Horace Mann. Poly Prep. Deerfield Academy. The scourge of sexual abuse has not bypassed some of the nation’s most exclusive names in education, as each of these schools now must confront charges of inappropriate, perhaps illegal, certainly immoral behavior by some of their teachers. Each case is different, of course, but the stories contain a striking similarity: a treasured institution unwilling to listen to its students and alumni until it was forced to publicly.

Some believe the same is true for Yeshiva University. Ever since December, when the Forward first published stories of allegations that two rabbis at Y.U.’s High School for Boys in Mahattan sexually, physically and emotionally abused students, the university has faced calls for greater transparency and accountability from within its own community.

First Shmuel Herzfeld, a Y.U. graduate who serves as rabbi of The National Synagogue in Washington D.C., pleaded with his alma mater to institute a “truly independent” investigation of the abuse charges and the university’s role in — by its own admission — allowing the alleged abusers to leave quietly for other positions in Jewish education.

Though Y.U.’s Board of Trustees appointed the respected Manhattan law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell to conduct an investigation and promised “unfettered access” to all documents and personnel, the school has not been clear about whether the full report will be made public. “We expect the findings of the investigation will be communicated to the public following completion of the investigation,” was the last statement, issued January 16.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Rhein-Zeitung

Trier – Diesen Gang zum Briefkasten wird S. nicht vergessen: Per Anwaltsschreiben hat ihm ein ehemaliger Kaplan und Priester, der in den 1960er und 1970er Jahren in der Eifel und in Trier tätig war und zig Kinder missbraucht haben soll, mit einer Unterlassungsklage gedroht.

Der ehemalige Geistliche wehrt sich gegen „Behauptungen, (…) im Rahmen seiner kirchlichen Tätigkeit Kindesmissbrauch begangen zu haben“, heißt es in dem Anwaltsschreiben.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Rhein-Zeitung

Trier – Liegt es an der harten Hand des katholischen Missbrauchsbeauftragten Stephan Ackermann oder der seines obersten Richters Georg Holkenbrink? Oder ist die Zahl der Missbrauchspriester im Bistum Trier höher als in anderen Diözesen? Seit Februar 2010 wurden im Bistum Trier gegen 21 der insgesamt 700 Priester sogenannte kirchenrechtliche Voruntersuchungen eingeleitet, sagte jetzt Bischofssprecher André Uzulis auf Anfrage des Trierischen Volksfreund. Dabei geht es um eine mögliche Bestrafung der Geistlichen durch die katholische Kirche.

Nach Angaben von Uzulis sind elf Verfahren „seitens des Bistums abgeschlossen“. Über eine Bestrafung wurde nur in einem Fall etwas bekannt. Ein emeritierter Theologieprofessor war im vergangenen Jahr aus dem Klerikerstand entlassen worden. Der 72-jährige Trierer Geistliche hatte sich zwischen 1966 und 1980 an fünf minderjährigen Jungen vergangen, in zwei Fällen über einen längeren Zeitraum. Unter den Opfern war auch der Neffe des Priesters.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

A retired Anglican priest accused of 37 sex attacks against children used to wander a children’s home unaccompanied and visit the dormitories, Lewes Crown Court has heard.

Canon Gordon Rideout, 74, Polegate, East Sussex, denies 35 indecent assaults and two attempted rapes.

Thirty two of the charges relate to his time as an assistant curate in Crawley, when he would visit a West Sussex home.

He is accused of abusing boys and girls there between 1962 and 1973.

Prosecuting, Philip Bennetts QC said: “It would appear from the evidence that he would wander the house and indeed the grounds unaccompanied, and he would visit children when they were sick and alone in bed.”

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AUSTRALIA
Australian Psychological Society

HIDDEN TRUTHS REVEALED: Handling secrets from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse IMPLICATIONS FOR PSYCHOLOGISTS

Presenters

Mark Fabro, Mark Griffin MAPS, Danielle Mutsuo, Gerard Webster MAPS

Description

More than 5,000 people are expected to share their experiences with the Royal Commission, it is estimated. Examining the role of psychologists in the wake of the Commission is the aim of this workshop.
A panel of speakers will address various aspects of this topic, including three psychologists specialising in this area from both survivor and perpetrator perspectives. An overview of current evidence in relation to the aetiology of sexual offending (particularly within the Catholic context), evidence-based treatment approaches and outcome and case studies will be considered. The CUBIT program for sex offenders in Department of Corrective Services will be discussed and a psychologist who has been working with the survivors of abuse for over twenty years will present. Another speaker, who experienced abuse from the clergy will share some of his story and discuss his involvement in the organisation, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.
Workshop participants will be invited to engage in a case study discussion to consider legal, ethical and clinical perspectives which will be followed by a response from the panel.

Overview of Day
9.00 – 9.15 Registration
9.15 – 9.30 Introduction to Training and Terms of Reference of Royal Commission
9.30 – 10.15 Mark Fabro – SNAP Member (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests)
10.15 – 11.00 Mark Griffin
11.00 – 11.20 Morning Tea
11.20 – 12.05 Danielle Mutsuo
12.05 – 12.50 Gerard Webster
12.50 – 1.45 Lunch
1.45 – 2.45 Small group case study discussion
2.45 – 3.30 Themes and issues from small groups presented
3.30 – 4.00 Afternoon tea
4.00 – 5.00 Panel response to issues and questions

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UNITED STATES
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on April 9, 2013

On April 5, The Wall Street Journal reported that:

As the church’s most powerful official in Argentina, [Pope Francis] didn’t comply with a Vatican call to create guidelines for handling sexual-abuse allegations in the country.

But then, in the next paragraph:

On Friday, Pope Francis met with Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, who heads the office in charge of leading the Vatican’s global crackdown on abusive priests and instructed him to continue the Vatican’s strategy for fighting sex abuse. The pope urged him to “act decisively with regard to cases of sexual abuse, pushing above all the measures to protect minors,” the Vatican said. Swift detection, Vatican officials have said, is crucial to stopping abusive priests.

So I ask: Why is it so important for Pope Francis to crack down on abusive priests NOW, when it wasn’t such a big deal three weeks ago, when he was still Cardinal Archbishop of Buenos Aires?

How can he possibly implement a program on a global level when he couldn’t even draw up simple guidelines to prevent abuse in his own country … on time?

Yesterday, he couldn’t do his homework. Today, he’s the principal of the school. Only one conclusion comes to mind – and it’s not terribly optimistic.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
UTV

A former Loughinisland parish priest has admitted defrauding the diocese of up to £145,000 — to give to a woman in “dire need”.

Details of the extraordinary case involving 78 year-old Father Conleth Byrne, who also gave the woman thousands of pounds of his own money, were revealed following his last-minute guilty plea at Downpatrick Crown Court on Tuesday afternoon as his trial was about to begin.

Father Byrne, now retired to Bethlehem Abbey, Portglenone, had previously denied the charge of fraud by abuse of position, which involved giving 50 year-old Marie Hanna, from the Ballycastle area, up to £145,617 between January 2008 and October 2009.

The exact amount is to be confirmed at sentencing next month.

In an agreed statement of facts between the prosecution and defence, prosecuting lawyer Laura Ives said the payments were made in cash, obtained mostly through the cashing of cheques from the parish account, and followed a period where Father Byrne gave the woman around £45,000 of his own money.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Darlington & Stockton Times

Catholic church suffering “institutional paranoia” over abuse allegations, claims former pupil of suspended Darlington priest

By Joe Willis, Regional Chief Reporter

A FORMER Catholic school pupil taught by a priest suspended from his parish for almost a decade says the case highlights the church’s “institutional paranoia” over abuse allegations.

Blogger Ed Devlin was taught by Father Michael Higginbottom at St Joseph’s College, near Wigan, in the early 1980s.

He said he never had a problem with the priest and never witnessed any inappropriate behaviour towards pupils from staff while at the school.

“He was an excellent teacher although very strict, but he never enforced physically punishments or needed more than the odd acerbic put-down – certainly nothing that could merit complaint,” he said.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Robert Booth
The Guardian, Tuesday 9 April 2013

More than a dozen children at a Barnardo’s home in Sussex were victims of sexual abuse by a Church of England priest, a court heard on Tuesday.

Boys and girls aged five to 18 were subjected to indecent assaults during the 1960s in the dormitories, outbuildings and grounds of Ifield Hall near Crawley by Canon Gordon Rideout, it was claimed. Some were severely beaten by orphanage staff when they complained, as part of “a brutal regime where children were taught to behave by beatings”.

Rideout, now 73 and retired from the diocese of Chichester, was then an assistant curate at the nearby St Mary’s church in Southgate, where the children attended Sunday services.

A jury at Lewes crown court heard that Rideout faces charges of 37 separate sexual offences against 17 children between 1962 and 1973 at Ifield, at another Barnardo’s home at Barkingside in Essex, and at the Middle Wallop army base in Hampshire where he served as forces chaplain.

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MALTA
Times of Malta

Eleven men who were sexually abused by priests when they were boys have not heard from a thera­peutic board set up by the Church six months ago to help such victims.

Lawrence Grech, one of the victims, said he expected to be approached by the board set up for the very purpose of offering therapeutic help to abuse victims.

He added that “over the coming days” he and the other victims will be formally filing the court case against the Church requesting compensation for damages suffered at the hands of its priests.

In October, the Church announced the setting up of the Therapeutic Evaluation Board tasked with directing victims of sexual abuse by clerics to therapy.

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FRANCE
The New York Times

By MAÏA de la BAUME

Published: April 7, 2013

SAINT-VALLIER, France — In Togo, the Rev. Rodolphe Folly used to conduct exuberant Sunday services for a hundred believers of all ages, who sang local gospel music and went up to him to offer what they had.

In this quiet town in Burgundy, he preaches to a more somber audience of about 40 gray-haired retirees in an unadorned 19th-century church that can accommodate up to 600 people.

“In my country, we applaud, we acclaim, we shout,” said Father Folly, a Roman Catholic priest who spoke in the living room of his modern, modest house. “Here, even when I ask people to shake hands, they say no.”

Father Folly, 45, has settled in this town of about 9,000 residents, assigned to replace an aging priest. He has brought his jovial smile and good heart to a place where religious practice is weak, as it is in many other areas of France. He is part of a battalion of priests who have come to France from abroad — from places like Benin, Burkina-Faso, Cameroon but also Vietnam and Poland — who now represent about 10 percent of France’s declining clerical ranks.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Volksfreund

Ehemaliger Trierer Bistumspriester droht Missbrauchsopfer

Ein ehemaliger Trierer Bistumspriester, der in den 1960er Jahren mehrere Messdiener missbraucht haben soll, droht nun einem seiner Opfer mit rechtlichen Schritten. Kommt es wegen der sexuellen Übergriffe doch noch zu einem Prozess?

Anfang Juli 2010 schildern in einem Trierer Pfarrsaal drei Männer Mitte 50, was ihnen vier Jahrzehnte zuvor in genau dieser Pfarrei widerfahren ist: Über Jahre hinweg wurden die damals minderjährigen Messdiener demnach von einem offenbar pädophilen Kaplan missbraucht. Wie ihnen erging es Ende der 60er Jahre nach deren Angaben mindestens 14 weiteren Jungs – in Trier und in der Vulkaneifel, wo der Kaplan zuvor eingesetzt war.

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OSTERREICH
kathweb

Staatsanwaltschaft Steyr belastet früheren Internatsleiter – Stift will sich “der Vergangenheit stellen” und aktiv an der Aufarbeitung von Missbrauchsfällen beteiligen

09.04.2013

Linz, 09.04.2013 (KAP) Das Stift Kremsmünster hat das am Dienstag angekündigte Gerichtsverfahren gegen einen des Missbrauchs verdächtigen Ex-Pater begrüßt. Die Staatsanwaltschaft Steyr hatte bekanntgegeben, dass gegen August Mandorfer, der früher als Pater Alfons der Benediktiner-Gemeinschaft von Kremsmünster angehörte, Anklage erhoben wurde. “Dass nach drei Jahren die Untersuchungen abgeschlossen sind und durch das zuständige Gericht Vorfälle früherer Jahrzehnte geklärt werden”, begrüßte das Stift in einer Stellungnahme ausdrücklich.

Die Staatsanwaltschaft legt dem heute 79-jährigen Ex-Geistlichen schweren sexuellen Missbrauch, Unzucht mit Unmündigen, Nötigung, den Missbrauchs eines Autoritätsverhältnisses sowie das Quälen oder Vernachlässigen unmündiger, jüngerer oder wehrloser Personen zur Last. Zudem wird ihm der fahrlässige Besitz einer verbotenen Waffe, nämlich einer Pumpgun, vorgeworfen.

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AUSTRIA
USA Today

VIENNA (AP) — Austrian authorities have charged a defrocked priest with sexually abusing 15 children as head of a Catholic boarding school.

They say Alfons August Mandorfer is also accused of torturing and neglecting young boys under his care between 1973 and 1993, when he was director of the school run by a monastery in the Upper Austrian town of Kremsmuenster.

But spokesman Andreas Pechatschek of the regional public prosecutor’s office says most of the charges against the 79-year old are based on suspicion of “numerous crimes of a sexual nature.”

Mandorfer was dismissed as a priest after several former pupils accused him several years ago of abuse.

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on April 09, 2013

At least 33 Pittsburgh priests are publicly accused child molesters. For the third time, the bishop is writing a letter letting a few hundred of his 700,000 members about one of them.

And he’s writing it only to parishioners at one of the eight churches where the predator – Fr. John Wellinger – worked.

And Bishop Zubik’s public relations man refuses to disclose or even confirm all the parishes where Fr. Wellinger worked.

The question is: why won’t Zubik warn all of his flock about these 33 child molesting clerics and write letters to ALL the places where they worked?

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VATICAN CITY
Huffington Post

By Simon McCormack Posted: 04/08/2013

Someone in Vatican City had better get to confession.

Torrent Freak has unearthed the download history from an IP address in the Pope’s place of residence and some of the movies are of the porn persuasion.

For a full list of the dirty downloads, go to Torrent Freak.

Rev. Debra Haffner of the Religious Institute told The Huffington Post she’s “not surprised” at the Vatican City findings.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Lancashire Telegraph

By Wendy Barlow, Court reporter

A 27-YEAR-OLD man, said by a judge to ‘pose a real risk to children’, has been jailed for 10 years for sexually abusing two girls.

Richard Simcock, who told the authorities he has since studied for the Mormon priesthood, repeatedly tried to rape one frightened victim and committed indecent acts on the other.

He was said to have pinned down the girl he attempted to rape as she tried to stop him.

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CANADA
CTV

CTV Windsor
Published Tuesday, April 9, 2013

A St. Anne’s priest is facing theft charges after a financial audit of the parishes’ accounts yielded over $180,000 in irregularities, according to Essex County OPP.

Provincial police have completed a lengthy theft investigation dating back to 2002.

Officials from Ste. Anne’s Parish in Tecumseh notified the OPP in August of 2011 regarding an internal theft that occurred between 2002 and 2010.

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ROME
The Tablet (UK)

9 April 2013

An Italian priest has been arrested for embezzling more than €4 million from a Rome clinic owned by his religious order and forcing the facility into bankruptcy after accumulating some €600 million of debt.

Fr Franco Decaminada, 68, was placed under house arrest on 4 April for misappropriating funds from the Istituto Dermatologico dell’Immacolota (IDI), of which he was the executive director from 2004-11. The clinic was founded in 1925 by his order, the Congregation of the Sons of the Immaculate Conception.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Pottstown Mercury

WILKINSBURG (AP) — The Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh has alerted parishioners in one suburban parish of sex abuse allegations against a now-dead priest.

The diocese says the letter was sent to members of St. James Church in Wilkinsburg, and involved an allegation church officials received from the brother of a man — who is also now dead — that he was abused by the Rev. John Wellinger.

Wellinger was the assistant pastor of the church from 1981 to 1985 when the alleged abuse took place. The diocese is alerting parishioners so that anyone who may have also been abused by Wellinger at that parish, or others he served at in the diocese, can receive counseling and other help from the diocese.

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UNITED STATES
National Survivor Advocates Coalition

Pope Francis, who gave orders to the head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith to act decisively” against priests who rape and sodomize children and minors drug his feet, the Wall Street Journal reports, when it came to complying with the Vatican’s request for national conferences of bishops to set up policies to combat abuse.

We are providing the Wall Street Journal’s story to our readers today. It’s a Wall Street Journal subscriber only story and we are providing it because of the importance, we believe, it carries and its great impact on survivors, survivor advocates, Catholics in the pew, Catholics out of the pew, and men and women of goodwill.

Here is the link (you may have to copy and paste into your browser):

[Wall Street Journal]

The Argentinian Bishops Conference was headed by Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio. Twenty-five percent of bishops conference worldwide have not complied with the Vatican’s request. Most of the non-compliers are in Africa.

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CANADA
CP24

The Canadian Press
Published Tuesday, April 9,

TECUMSEH, Ont. – A priest is facing a theft charge after officials at a Windsor-area church reported money missing from parish accounts going back to 2002.

Provincial police say officials from Ste. Anne’s Parish in Tecumseh, Ont., contacted them in August 2011 to report an internal theft had occurred between 2002 and 2010.

Police say they completed a lengthy investigation and that a financial audit of the parish accounts showed more than $180,000 in irregularities.

Father Robert Couture, 49, of Windsor, is charged with one count of theft over $5,000.

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OSTERREICH
Radio Vatikan

Das Stift Kremsmünster hat das am Dienstag angekündigte Gerichtsverfahren gegen einen des Missbrauchs verdächtigen Ex-Pater begrüßt. Die Staatsanwaltschaft Steyr hatte bekanntgegeben, dass gegen August Mandorfer, der früher als Pater Alfons der Benediktiner-Gemeinschaft von Kremsmünster angehörte, Anklage erhoben wurde. „Dass nach drei Jahren die Untersuchungen abgeschlossen sind und durch das zuständige Gericht Vorfälle früherer Jahrzehnte geklärt werden“, hieß das Stift in einer Stellungnahme ausdrücklich gut. Die Staatsanwaltschaft legt dem heute 79-jährigen Ex-Geistlichen schweren sexuellen Missbrauch, Unzucht mit Unmündigen, Nötigung, den Missbrauchs eines Autoritätsverhältnisses sowie das Quälen oder Vernachlässigen unmündiger, jüngerer oder wehrloser Personen zur Last. Zudem wird ihm der fahrlässige Besitz einer verbotenen Waffe, nämlich einer Pumpgun, vorgeworfen.

Als im März 2010 einzelne Vorwürfe bekannt wurden, „haben wir jene Opfer, die sich bei uns gemeldet haben, darum ersucht, sich bei den zuständigen offiziellen kirchlichen und staatlichen Stellen zu melden“, heißt es weiter. Das Stift habe “sofort personelle Konsequenzen gezogen“ und seither die Aufarbeitung aktiv unterstützt: „Wir sind auf die uns bekannten Opfer zugegangen und haben sie zum Gespräch eingeladen.“ Im Kloster und im Stiftsgymnasium Schule seien die Vorfälle aus der Zeit, in der der nun angeklagte Ex-Geistliche Internatsleiter war, „bewusst gemacht und intern aufzuklären versucht“ worden. Die Stiftsleitung habe „uneingeschränkt mit der sogenannten Klasnic-Kommission zusammengearbeitet“. Bei der Unabhängigen Opferschutzanwaltschaft wurden insgesamt 38 Fälle gemeldet, davon 29 wegen sexuellem Missbrauch. 700.000 Euro an Entschädigungszahlungen – davon 200.000 Euro an Therapiekosten -seien insgesamt zugesprochen worden.

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OSTERREICH
Kleine Zeitung

Die Staatsanwaltschaft Steyr hat wie erwartet Anklage gegen einen ehemaligen Pater des Stiftes Kremsmünster (Bezirk Kirchdorf) u.a. wegen schweren sexuellen Missbrauchs erhoben. Dem heute 79-Jährigen wird angelastet, von September 1973 bis Juni 1993 an insgesamt 15 Zöglingen “Handlungen unterschiedlicher Intensität” vorgenommen zu haben. Ihm drohen bis zu 15 Jahre Haft.

Vom Bekanntwerden der Vorfälle in den Medien bis zur Anklage sind mehr als drei Jahre vergangen. Ursprünglich wurde in 39 Fällen ermittelt. Einige Verfahren wurden eingestellt, weil die Vorfälle verjährt oder die Beweise zu dünn waren. Übrig blieben 24 Opfer. Dem heute 79-jährigen Angeklagten wird angelastet, von September 1973 bis Juni 1993 an 15 Zöglingen “sexuelle Handlungen unterschiedlicher Intensität” vorgenommen zu haben. Die übrigen neun sind laut Staatsanwaltschaft Gewalt-, aber keine Sex-Opfer. Die Behörde wirft dem Mann zudem den fahrlässigen Besitz einer verbotenen Waffe, nämlich einer nicht registrierten Pumpgun, vor.

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SCHWEIZ
kath.ch

Ende Februar dieses Jahres erhielt der Rektor der Marienburg in Thal SG, Pater Stephan Dähler, einen eingeschriebenen Brief mit schwerwiegendem Inhalt. Ein ehemaliger Internatsschüler des Gymnasiums Marienburg bezichtigt darin einen Steyler Missionar schwerer sexueller Übergriffe.

Dieser Brief ist für uns ein riesiger Schock“, sagt Pater Hans Weibel, Provinzial der Steyler Missionare in der Schweiz. „Wir sind uns bewusst, dass sexuelle Übergriffe auf Minderjährige einen zerstörerischen Charakter gegenüber Kindern und Jugendlichen haben. Eine schonungslose Aufklärung ist unabdingbar. Wir werden alles dafür tun.“

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DEUTSCHLAND
Volksstimme

Magdeburg. Er arbeitete in der Seelsorge und sammelte nebenher auf dem Computer tausende Kinderpornobilder: Der Fall des Priesters, den das Amtsgericht Bitterfeld-Wolfen gestern zu einer Bewährungsstrafe verurteilt hat, ist nicht der erste dieser Art in Sachsen-Anhalt.

Dem Bistum Magdeburg sind aus den vergangenen 60 Jahren 13 Fälle bekannt geworden, bei denen Priester Minderjährige sexuell misshandelt oder Kinderpornos gesammelt haben sollen. Das berichtete Bistums-Sprecher Thomas Lazar der Volksstimme. Zur Rechenschaft gezogen wurde allerdings kaum jemand. Denn viele Betroffene meldeten sich erst Jahrzehnte später nach Aufrufen in den Medien. “Die meisten Beschuldigten waren dann bereits tot”, sagte er.

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AUSTRALIA/UNITED STATES
Brisbane Times

April 10, 2013

Richard Baker, Nick McKenzie

A self-confessed paedophile who sexually abused several boys in Sydney is being harboured by a leading Los Angeles Jewish welfare group.

The man, who is being investigated by NSW detectives over several sexual assaults at Bondi’s Yeshiva school in the 1980s, has been shielded from exposure and scrutiny by Jewish Family Service of Los Angeles.

The service, more than 150 years old, provides medical, housing, food, counselling, educational and family support services.

Emails obtained from US sources show that since mid-2011 its board members have been aware of the man’s sexual abuse history in Australia but have not reported him to authorities in Sydney or the US.

In an email to the man in November 2011, Debbie Fox, executive director of the Los Angeles organisation, refers to phone calls to board members about his activities in Sydney.

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PENNSYLVANIA
PhillyBurbs

Tue Apr 9, 2013.

By Jo Ciavaglia Staff writer

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia has permanently removed three more priests from its ministry, including a former assistant pastor at St. Mark Parish in Bristol accused of molesting altar boys in the early 1980s.

The defrocking of Rev. Joseph Gallagher, 78, who retired in 2006, brings no sense of victory to the family of Daniel Neill, who allegedly told diocesan officials in 2007 about abuse at the hands of Gallagher, but officials declined to act, says the attorney who represents his family in a lawsuit against the archdiocese.

Church officials contacted Neill in 2008, advising him that his allegations were deemed unsubstantiated and not credible, according to the grand jury. He took his own life 11 months later at age 38, the family said.

“Obviously they had a serious problem with this priest,” attorney Marci Hamilton said Monday. “It still took them four years to remove him from ministry. It is outrageous. The fact they removed him, for the family, it’s really much too little, too late.”

In a statement released Sunday, Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput announced that Gallagher and the Rev. Mark Gaspar, 43, were removed from public ministry in the archdiocese citing “substantial violations of The Standards of Ministerial Behaviors and Boundaries.” The nature of the accusation against Gaspar has not been reported.

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Kittanning Paper

April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month, which aims to increase public awareness of the need to ensure the safety and welfare of children. In the wake of the Sandusky child sexual abuse scandal, the House has taken up the call to strengthen Pennsylvania’s child protection laws.

Two bills recommended by the Task Force on Child Protection are scheduled for a vote by the full House next week. House Bill 90 (introduced by Rep. Rick Saccone, R-Washington/Allegheny counties) authorizes an administrative subpoena, from the attorney general or a district attorney, to obtain the IP address and the name, address and phone number of the subscriber in child sex exploitation cases. Investigators would need a search warrant issued by the court to obtain additional information or view anything on the person’s computer. The legislation basically mirrors federal law but is more restrictive.

House Bill 429 (introduced by Rep. Kathy Watson, R-Bucks County) aims to protect a person who makes a good faith report of child abuse from retaliation or discrimination in the workplace. The bill is intended to remove that potential barrier which could keep some people from reporting suspected child abuse. It is also intended to provide recourse for those who do make a good faith report and suffer consequences at work as a result.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WPXI

WILKINSBURG, Pa. —

The Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh sent out a letter Friday warning parishioners of a Wilkinsburg church of abuse accusations against a former parish priest.

The late Rev. John Wellinger served at St. James Church, and several other Pittsburgh churches, during his time as a priest in the diocese.

Friday’s letter came as Pope Francis I called for the Catholic Church to act quickly in sex-abuse cases and punish priests who harm children.

In Friday’s letter, Bishop David Zubik addressed the accusations against Wellinger by saying:

“My dear parishioners of Saint James in Wilkinsburg:

The Diocese of Pittsburgh has recently received a troubling allegation that Father John W. Wellinger, who was stationed as Parochial Vicar at Saint James Parish from June 1981 to July 1985, abused a member of the parish during that time. Father Wellinger, who died in 2011, had not served publicly as a priest since June 1995.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
U.S. Catholic

By Maryangela Layman
Roman Catholic News Service

ST. FRANCIS, Wis. (CNS) — The Archdiocese of Milwaukee announced April 3 that it will publicly release approximately 3,000 pages of documents that contain details about clergy sexual abuse and will post them to the archdiocesan website by July 1.

The documents, taken from priest personnel files, files of the bishops and vicar for clergy and other sources in the archdiocese, include the depositions of retired Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert G. Weakland, as well as those of Milwaukee Auxiliary Bishop Richard J. Sklba and Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan that were taken in Chapter 11 proceedings. Cardinal Dolan, now New York’s archbishop, headed the Milwaukee Archdiocese from 2002 to 2009.

The records will be posted online at www.archmil.org/archmil/home.htm.

The announcement came a day before a scheduled hearing before Judge Susan V. Kelley in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin to discuss a motion filed by the creditors committee and attorneys Michael Finnegan and Jeffrey Anderson to lift the protective order to make public documents and depositions taken as part of the proceedings.

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
Tribune-Review

By Bill Zlatos

Published: Monday, April 8, 2013

The Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh waited six months after it received the first allegation of child sexual abuse involving one of its priests before notifying parishioners.

The Rev. Ronald Lengwin, spokesman for the diocese, said it sent a letter on Friday to parishioners of St. James Church in Wilkinsburg because it received an allegation of sexual abuse involving the late Rev. John Wellinger, parochial vicar of the church, from the brother of the late victim on March 25. Lengwin said the diocese first received an allegation from the victim’s sister in September.

“What changed is we had another person coming forth with an allegation — a brother and a sister,” Lengwin said.

Mike Manko, spokesman for the Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office, confirmed the office received the information on Wellinger in September. He said it would be inappropriate for the office to comment on how the diocese communicated with its parishioners.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Eastbourne Herald

Published on 09/04/2013

The trial of retired Eastbourne priest Canon Gordon Rideout began at Lewes Crown Court yesterday (Monday).

The 74-year-old Church of England minister has pleaded not guilty to 38 sexual offences against 18 young boys and girls, some as young as five.

Rideout lives in Filching Close, Polegate, and is currently on bail.

Thirty-six of the alleged offences are of indecent assault on 16 girls and boys aged between five years old and their mid-teens, 31 of those are alleged to have been committed at a now closed Barnardos children’s home, Ifield Hall in West Sussex and one at a Barnardos children’s home in Essex between 1961 and 1967; and four are alleged to have taken place at an army site in Hampshire against two girls under 13 between 1971 and 1973.

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OREGON
KGW

[Click here for the story.]

by KGW Staff

Posted on April 8, 2013

SALEM – Advocates for reforming the statute of limitations for childhood sex abuse crimes in Oregon took to the Capitol steps Monday before a public hearing to discuss HB 3284.

People who described themselves as adult survivors of child sex abuse rallied and held signs describing what happened to them.

Oregon has a six-year statute of limitations on most sex crimes. The law allows for a longer period of time if the victim is under the age of 18. In those cases, the crime can be prosecuted any time before the victim turns 30, or within 12 years after the crime is reported to police or social workers.

Nationwide, 33 states have eliminated the statute of limitations on some or all child sex offenses, but not Oregon. In 2011, the Oregon legislature considered eliminating the statute of limitations, but the bill died in committee.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WTAE

Parishioners at St. James Church in Wilkinsburg received a letter in the mail from the diocese informing them of the allegation, which is said to have occurred between 1981 and 1985.

Parishioner Jim Ruck said, “It’s sad and especially for people in positions of trust to abuse that trust, that’s horrendous.”

Mike Ference, a local advocate for victims of sex abuse by priests, said the alleged victim is a man in his 40s who recently died.

Ference said the man’s family came to him and told him that the alleged victim divulged detailed accounts of the abuse in the months before he died. Ference said, “The man started to talk about it and a few months later he passed away.”

The abuse, they said, began when the alleged victim was about 10 years old.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Daily Mail (UK)

Three Philadelphia priests removed …

Three Philadelphia priests removed over child sex abuse scandal after ‘victim’ killed himself when church dismissed the allegations

Three more priests were permanently removed from ministry by the Archdiocese of Philadelphia on Sunday, including one whose accuser killed himself after his allegation was dismissed by church officials.

The Revs. Joseph Gallagher and Mark Gaspar were suspended following a scathing 2011 grand jury report that ultimately led to the landmark conviction of a high-ranking archdiocese official on child endangerment charges. Two other priests and a Catholic school teacher were also convicted.

The February 2011 grand jury report prominently named Gallagher as a priest who remained in ministry despite apparently credible allegations of abuse. The grand jury said the archdiocese had found the allegation against him unsubstantiated despite the accuser’s ‘obvious credibility.’

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PENNSYLVANIA
CBS Pittsburgh

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — There are allegations that a late Wilkinsburg Catholic priest abused a parish member more than 20 years ago.

Bishop David Zubik released a statement dated April 5 alerting members of the St. James Parish in Wilkinsburg that a member claims to have been abused by Father John W. Wellinger between 1981 and 1985.

Wellinger died in 2011.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Patch

By Becky Brindle

Parishioners of St. James Church in Wilkinsburg received a letter from the Pittsburgh Catholic Diocese informing them of a sex abuse allegation that is said to have occurred between 1981 and 1985, according to WTAE.

A man in his 40s reportedly told his family of the alleged abuse months before he recently died.

The priest who is accused of abusing the man when he was about 10 years old, Rev. John J. Wellinger, died in 2011.

Bishop David Zubik wrote in the letter that any other possible victims should call the victim’s assistance hotline at 1-888-808-1235 or the state abuse hotline at 1-800-932-0313.

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UNITED STATES
John Thavis

This week brings another change of scenery and a change of pace. I’m on a book tour on the West Coast, beginning in Seattle and continuing to Portland, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Los Angeles and Denver.

This is new territory for me, in more ways than one. Here are some first impressions:

— Interest in the Vatican has once again been revived by the election of a new pope. At a book event yesterday at Elliott Bay Book Company, the Q&A period went on for quite some time, with several questions focusing on whether Pope Francis wants to change things – and if he does, whether he’ll be “allowed” to do so.

There’s a general impression out there that no matter what a new pope’s good intentions, he’s going to run up against resistance from inside the Vatican. My own take is that while that’s undoubtedly true, this pope seems to know that he’s calling the shots. If he faces opposition to some of his ideas, he won’t be a shrinking violet.

— Financial issues are key to restoring Vatican credibility. I can’t tell you how many readers and interviewers have asked about the Vatican bank and its problematic history. I’m convinced that suppressing the bank and finding a new way to move church funds around the world would send an immediate signal that Pope Francis is serious about cleaning up financial mismanagement.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

by Dennis Coday | Apr. 8, 2013 NCR Today

You may have missed this one over the weekend from the Wall Street Journal: Argentina Bishops Delayed Abuse Plan

Friday the Vatican issued a statement that Pope Francis met with Archbishop Gerhard L. Muller, prefect of the Vatican’s powerful Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the office tasked with overseeing cases of clergy accused of sexual abuse of minors. While the release states the two talked about the various responsibilities of Muller’s office, it also says the pope made a particular point of highlighting its work to counter clerical sexual abuse.

According to the Vatican, the pope told Muller “to act decisively concerning cases of sexual abuse.”

The Vatican press release about the Friday meeting between Muller and Francis noted that the Vatican has been pressing national conferences of bishops to draw up comprehensive policies for detecting abuse and helping victims. The press releas said, “The commitment of bishops conferences in formulating and implementing the necessary guidelines is so important for the witness and credibility of the church,”

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CANADA
Toronto Star

Reformist priest refused permission to speak to Toronto-area educators on Catholic property. He’s now speaking at Sheridan College.

By:Leslie Scrivener
Feature writer, Published on Mon Apr 08 2013

As Catholics around the world wait to see if Pope Francis ushers in a new era of openness, the local archdiocese has been accused of stifling free speech.

Rev. Michael Crosby, a reformist American priest who supports women’s equality and critiques church governance, was set to address a conference for Catholic educators in April.

Crosby was approved to speak at the Canadian Forum on Theology and Education, but the Archdiocese of Toronto’s chancellor for spiritual affairs pulled the plug in February. The event has now been moved to Sheridan College in the Archdiocese of Hamilton.

“If you can’t have a discussion about the basic issues, you don’t have a viable organization.”

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CHILE
Huffington Post

The Huffington Post | By Peter Finocchiaro Posted: 04/08/2013

Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s military dictatorship was responsible for the deaths of as many as 3,200 people in Chile in the 1970s, but the Vatican dismissed reports of bloodshed at the time as “communist propaganda,” according to diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks on Monday.

Pinochet came to power in 1973 as the head of a military coup against democratically elected socialist President Salvador Allende. The right-wing junta that subsequently ruled the country from 1973 to 1990 was responsible for the murders of as many as 3,200 people, as well as the arrest of tens of thousands more, many of whom were tortured.

In a 1973 diplomatic cable addressed to Henry Kissinger, then serving as the United States’ Secretary of State, high-ranking Vatican official Giovanni Benelli was quoted as relaying “his and the pope’s grave concern over successful international leftisf campaign to misconstrue completely realities of Chilean situation.” Benelli dismissed reports of massacre as “unfounded” and “possibly [the] greatest success of Communist propaganda,” while explaining away whatever violence had occurred as “unfortunately natural following coup d’etat.”

The cable was written five weeks after the coup, during the reign of Pope Paul VI, with reports already surfacing that political opponents of the regime were being arrested and killed.

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TEXAS
Associated Baptist Press

By Bob Allen

A former Southern Baptist “cowboy church” pastor was sentenced to 50 years in prison without the possibility of parole after a Texas jury found him guilty April 5 of continuous sexual abuse of a child.

According to the Corsicana Daily Sun, Mark Allen Green, 42, will not be eligible for release from prison until he is 92 years old.

Green was arrested May 31, 2012, on charges of sexual assault of a 13-year-old girl in Waxahachie, Texas. The news disrupted the Cowboy Church of Marshall County, Ala., which fired him after only a couple of months as pastor.

In September, a grand jury in Ellis County, Texas, returned a “no bill,” or refusal to indict. Another grand jury in neighboring Navarro County, however, handed down an indictment in July.

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ARIZONA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Barbara Dorris on April 08, 2013

We hope that the records request that is holding up the case against Fr. Jack Spaulding will be over soon and Mr. Pain will get the chance to have his day in court. Two and a half years is a long time to wait.

We also hope that the action taken in this case by Vatican officials will be decisive, punitive, and serve as a deterrent to future child sex crimes and cover-ups. Spaulding’s abuse of at least four kids is a horrible crime and must be treated by church officials as such. If the new pope is to live up to his words to “act with determination” in child sex crimes, he must act on Fr. Spaulding – and all other priests with credible allegations against them – immediately.

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NORTH DAKOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Barbara Dorris on April 08, 2013

As Fargo, ND prepares for a new bishop, we hope that Bishop John Folda will be a better advocate for clergy sex abuse victims than his predecessor was.

Fargo catholic officials have acted poorly in the past on clergy sex crimes. For example, in 2009, it was revealed that three monsignors, after receiving a credible accusation of abuse, refused to share the information with anyone outside the diocesan hierarchy. The diocese first heard the accusation against Fr. Gregory Patejko in 1994, and paid a settlement to the Patejko’s victim that same year. Yet it wasn’t until 15 years later that the allegation was made public, and even then only because the victim grew tired of the diocese’s silence and went to the media himself.

Catholic officials’ silence in this matter only served to help the Diocese of Fargo avoid public embarrassment, and actually worked against victims by allowing others who may have been abused by Patejko to continue suffering in silence. We don’t know how many other allegations may have been kept under wraps in the same way, but we suspect that this was not the only case.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Pennsylvania Record

April 8, 2013

By Jon Campisi

A Pennsylvania couple is suing the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, a Bucks County parish and a priest who formerly worked at the church over claims that the man sexually assaulted the wife during a retreat last year.

Malvern, Pa. attorney Daniel F. Monahan and Washington Crossing, Pa. attorney Marci A. Hamilton filed suit at Philadelphia’s Common Pleas Court April 4 against the archdiocese, the Order of St. Paul The First Hermit, the National Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa and Father Marek Lacki.

According to the complaint, the female plaintiff, who is referred to as Jane Doe in order to protect her identity due to the fact that she was a victim of an alleged act of sexual assault, first met Lacki in early March of last year when the plaintiffs volunteered to assist with events at Rachel’s Vineyard, a church-sponsored couples retreat promoted by the Pauline Fathers and hosted at the place of worship.

The Pauline Fathers is a group that works with the Archdiocese to place priests in various parishes.

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AUSTRALIA
Hume Weekly

By HELEN GRIMAUX
April 9, 2013

DISCONTENT is spreading among parishioners of the Church of the Good Shepherd at Gladstone Park after the “sudden” resignation of much-loved priest Father Victor Buhagiar at the start of this year.

A petition signed by more than 300 of the congregation has been sent to Melbourne Archbishop Dennis Hart on the eve of the Catholic Church’s very public expose before the Royal Commission into institutional responses to child sex abuse.

The petition follows several letters to Archbishop Hart from parishioners, who claim Fr Buhagiar has been forced out because of his tough stance on child abuse and his belief that there is an ongoing cover-up of illegal behaviour involving the Melbourne priesthood.

This has been denied by the archbishop.

“Father Buhagiar has claimed that he was forced to resign against his will, that he resigned in protest ‘over the way the truth is being handled’, and also that he ‘resigned quietly’ as a circuit breaker,” Archbishop Hart told The Weekly.

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VATICAN CITY
Raw Story

By Agence France-Presse
Monday, April 8, 2013

ROME — The Vatican once dismissed reports of massacres by Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet as “Communist propaganda”, according to US diplomatic and intelligence documents from the 1970s leaked on Monday.

One cable dated October 18, 1973 sent to Washington by the US embassy to the Holy See relayed a conversation with the Vatican’s then deputy Secretary of State, Giovanni Benelli, the leak by whistleblowing website WikiLeaks showed.

Benelli expressed “his and the pope’s grave concern over successful international leftist campaign to misconstrue completely realities of Chilean situation,” read the cable to then US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

“Benelli labelled exaggerated coverage of events as possibly greatest success of Communist propaganda,” it said, adding that the Italian monsignor said this showed “how Communists can influence free world media in future”. …

The cables also showed the Vatican later realised the full extent of the abuses being carried out but refused to criticise Pinochet’s regime openly and continued with normal diplomatic relations.

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AUSTRIA
Montreal Gazette

By The Associated Press
April 8, 2013

VIENNA – Reacting to criticism, an Austrian bishop says he has changed his mind and will not attend a memorial Mass for a cardinal accused of molesting young boys.

Agidius Zsifkovics, the bishop of Eisenstadt, was to participate in Monday’s Mass marking the 10th anniversary of the death of Cardinal Hans Hermann Groer. But Zsifkovics says he decided not to “after numerous encounters and discussions over the past days.”

Groer stepped down as archbishop of Vienna in 1995 after former theological students accused him of sexual abuse.

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ARGENTINA/ROME
The Wall Street Journal

By STACY MEICHTRY in Rome and JOSÉ DE CÓRDOBA in Buenos Aires

As the new leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics, Pope Francis pledged Friday to forge ahead with measures aimed at stemming sexual abuse in church ranks. But as the church’s most powerful official in Argentina, he didn’t comply with a Vatican call to create guidelines for handling sexual-abuse allegations in the country.

The delay, which hasn’t been previously reported, opens new questions about the new pope’s record of addressing the issue of sexual abuse by priests, even as the Vatican vowed anew to address the issue.

On Friday, Pope Francis met with Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, who heads the office in charge of leading the Vatican’s global crackdown on abusive priests and instructed him to continue the Vatican’s strategy for fighting sex abuse. The pope urged him to “act decisively with regard to cases of sexual abuse, pushing above all the measures to protect minors,” the Vatican said. Swift detection, Vatican officials have said, is crucial to stopping abusive priests.

The Vatican highlighted the importance of pressing national conferences of bishops to draw up comprehensive policies for detecting abuse and helping victims. “The commitment of bishops conferences in formulating and implementing the necessary guidelines is so important for the witness and credibility of the church,” the Vatican said following the meeting Friday.

Among those that haven’t met the Vatican’s deadline for the guidelines—which passed nearly a year ago—is the Argentina conference that was run by Cardinal Jorge Bergolio, who on March 13 was named Pope Francis.

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ROME
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Barbara Blaine on April 08, 2013

For the third time in less than a month, a disturbing revelation has surfaced about Pope Francis’ handling of clergy sex crimes and cover ups.

The Wall Street Journal reports that while he was Argentina’s most powerful prelate, the pope did not meet a Vatican deadline for writing an abuse policy.

This disclosure follows two other recent troubling ones: Pope Francis’ meeting with Cardinal Bernard Law hours after his election and Francis’ intervention to help free a convicted Argentinian priest.

Catholic officials have been dealing with – and ignoring, hiding and enabling – child sex crimes for decades if not centuries. So writing an abuse policy is an extraordinarily minimal move. This is the most simple, cheap and ineffective step prelates can take, in response to this horror: simply writing an abuse policy.

(In our experience, these policies are largely meaningless. Bishops continue, no matter what written policies say, to handle abuse cases however they like. But an abuse policy, even if consistently violated, is better than no policy at all. And when the Vatican orders that such polices be adopted, the least prelates can do is to adopt them.)

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UNITED KINGDOM
Petersfield Post

Published on 08/04/2013

A retired Church of England priest from East Sussex goes on trial after pleading not guilty to a string of sex attacks on 18 girls and boys dating back more than 50 years.

Canon Gordon Rideout, 74, is accused of committing 38 offences over an 11-year period between January 1962 and January 1973.

At Lewes Crown Court in October, he denied 36 counts of indecent assault and two counts of attempted rape which are alleged to have taken place in Crawley, West Sussex; Middle Wallop, Hampshire; and Barkingside, Essex.

Rideout, of Filching Close, Wannock, Polegate, was charged in June following a nine-month inquiry by Sussex Police detectives into allegations of child sex abuse in the 1960s and early 1970s.

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FARGO (ND)
In-Forum

FARGO – Pope Francis today appointed Monsignor John Thomas Folda of Nebraska to be the next bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Fargo.

The Holy See made the announcement at noon in Rome, or 5 a.m. Fargo time, according to diocese spokeswoman Tanya Watterud.

The Fargo Diocese serves more than 72,000 Catholics and 132 parishes and missions in the eastern half of North Dakota.

Folda will be the eighth bishop of Fargo, succeeding Bishop Samuel Aquila, who was named Archbishop of Denver on May 29. Bishop David Kagan of Bismarck will continue to serve as apostolic administrator for the Fargo diocese until the episcopal ordination of Folda, which is expected to take place in the second half of June.

A press conference to introduce Folda will be held at 10:30 a.m. today at the Diocese of Fargo Pastoral Center, 5201 Bishops Blvd. S.

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IOWA
Telegraph Herald

Associated Press

Jerome Hanus, archbishop of Dubuque, will retire, and his successor will be the bishop of Wichita, Kan.

The Dubuque Archdiocese says Bishop Michael Jackels of Wichita, Kan., has been appointed by Pope Francis to be the new archbishop of Dubuque. Jackels replaces Archbishop Jerome Hanus.

The Wichita diocesan website says Jackels was named the Wichita bishop in January 2005 by Pope John Paul II. Before being named to the post, Jackels worked for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome for eight years.

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IOWA
WCFCourier

The coat of arms that I created for myself when I was named a bishop shows an image of St. Michael the Archangel and a unicorn, representing the families of my mother and father.

When read from left to right, the coat of arms declares “ecce adsum” -here I am, Michael Jackels, introducing myself to the people God has called me to serve My episcopal motto “ecce adsum” also expresses my surrender to God’s will, giving the same response as Samuel the prophet and the Virgin Mary at the Annunciation.

Those same words express too my trust in God’s care, who says “here I am” to all who call on him for strength, wisdom and goodness.

So, here I am, Michael Jackels, trusting in God and ready to do God’s will.

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