ABUSE TRACKER

NORTHERN IRELAND
Nes Letter

Published on 15/03/2013

LORD Bannside has greeted the election of Pope Francis with a scathing assessment of his predecessor’s reign.

Writing in today’s News Letter, Dr Paisley reflects on Pope Benedict’s tenure saying the Catholic establishment has allowed the business of running a church to come before the spiritual needs of the faithful.

“As a Protestant of the Reformed faith I would hold to the view that the Roman church elevates its governance above faith every time,” he said.

Singling out the Vatican’s handling of the multiple child abuse scandals, Dr Paisley said: “That is why, despite the outcry of abuse victims over Cardinal Brady, Cardinal Dolan (New York), and Cardinal Mahoney (San Francisco) taking part in the conclave, the business of the church came above the faith of the church.”

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SCOTLAND
Telegraph

A former trainee priest is starting legal action against Cardinal Keith O’Brien over allegations he was abused by the disgraced cleric as a teenager.

By Simon Johnson
9:35AM GMT 15 Mar 2013

He is claiming the cardinal groped and kissed him during a visit to an unnamed seminary in the 1980s when he was 19. He made clear his ordeal was not an isolated incident.

The former seminarian is the first of the cardinal’s victims to speak publicly about his experience, having known him since childhood, and said he is prepared to face the cleric in a courtroom to encourage others to come forward.

The man, who is now in his 50s and has asked to remain anonymous, told Glasgow’s Herald newspaper he had instigated legal proceedings against both the cardinal and the Catholic Church.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

Rashida Yosufzai
From: AAP
March 15, 2013

A MAN who was allegedly sexually assaulted by a former Catholic priest as a teenager says the priest’s claim he was paid by the church for evidence is “absolute rubbish” and wants the case taken up by the royal commission.

The man, who has asked not to be named, has denied a claim by former Wollongong priest John Gerard Nestor, 50, that he was paid to provide evidence in a 1997 court case alleging he was sexually assaulted by the then-priest at his home in 1991.

Mr Nestor was a priest in the Wollongong diocese in NSW when he was charged with the indecent assault of the then-14-year-old altar boy.

In the 1997 court case – in which Opposition Leader Tony Abbott acted as a character reference – the Wollongong local court was told that on the night of the alleged offence, Mr Nestor had slept alongside the altar boy and his brother.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

Melissa Iaria
From: AAP
March 15, 2013

THE Catholic Church should get rid of celibacy as a way of preventing clergy from preying on children, an inquiry has been told.

Former clinical director of the Victorian Institute of Forensic Health, Professor Paul Mullen, says celibacy has no basis in theology and is just a form of discipline in the priesthood.

Prof Mullen added the issue is a financial one for the church.

“I’ve have heard a Catholic bishop say that the reason celibacy is maintained is that they could not afford to pay priests, they couldn’t afford to pay them pensions, they couldn’t afford to pay them enough if they had a wife and children,” he told the Victorian parliamentary inquiry on Friday.

“This is entirely discipline and its main motivation is money.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
Express

By: Paul Jeeves
Published: Fri, March 15, 2013

A CATHOLIC priest accused of sexually assaulting a teenage girl has a wife, a court heard yesterday.

Finnegan, 59, confessed to the marriage during his trial at Bradford Crown Court. Finnegan, known to parishioners as Father Bill, of Castleford, West Yorkshire, was parish priest at St Clare’s, in Fagley, Bradford, when the alleged assault happened last Easter.

He denies sexually assaulting the girl, aged 17, by touching her bottom and forcefully kissing her. His barrister Jeremy Hill-Baker told the jury: “We are going to hear evidence from Father Bill and we are going to be hearing evidence from his wife, Beverley Dawson.

“No, you didn’t miss-hear me. His wife. He and Beverley Dawson secretly married abroad in September 1999.”

The court heard they had travelled to Cyprus to wed in a civil ceremony, a fact known only to close friends and family.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
KCET

[with video]

Reporter: Vince Gonzales
Producer: Karen Foshay
Associate Producer: Lata Pandya
Editor: Michael Bloecher

March 14, 2013

With the election of a new Pope, the church is eager to begin its next chapter, but the past continues to haunt the L.A. Archdiocese.

In an exclusive investigation, never before heard tapes obtained by “SoCal Connected” reveal straight talk from church officials about how to deal with sexually abusive priests. They also show Los Angeles was part of a quiet experiment to reassign those priests. We’ve also done exhaustive data analysis tracking the abusers.

TRANSCRIPT
Vince Gonzales/Reporter: This stack of yearbooks is evidence of a 30-year-friendship.

Daniel Olivas: I think back then, we were a couple of guys who wanted to do well in school, and we wanted to do something with our lives. We both wanted to go get married and have kids, which we both eventually did.

Jaime Romo/Victim of priest abuse: Dan and I stayed in touch a lot, and I just always liked him. We came from similar families.

Olivas: The parallels are kind of startling; we both attended Loyal High School; we both went to Stanford University, and then we eventually both got married within a year of each other. We are both each other’s best man.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
LA Observed

[with video]

By Kevin Roderick | March 14, 2013

“SoCal Connected” aired a story tonight by reporter Vince Gonzales and producer Karen Foshay that analyzes where Los Angeles Archdiocese priests accused of sexual abuse were assigned. The key findings:

“SoCal Connected” has done a comprehensive data analysis of thousands of pages personnel records released by the church in January.

We tracked every accused Los Angeles priest found in those files since 1932. According to our analysis, over that time, 63 percent of the parishes in Los Angeles have had at least one priest on staff who’d been accused of sexual abuse. We also found some parishes had many more, like St. Alphonsus, which had eight; and Sacred Heart of Los Angeles, which had seven. At least 15 other parishes have had five or six accused priests. And our analysis showed many abusive priests served in Latino communities.

Richard Sipe/Former priest and author: “That’s the pattern. That the poorer parishes, the Latino parishes, Latinos are much more reluctant to buck a priest…. I think the Latino community in the end is going to be very, very angry that they were used. They literally were dumped on, and I think your figures are going to show that.”

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DIXON (IL)
SaukValley.com

BY BRIDGET FLYNN
bflynn@saukvalley.com 800-798-40185, ext. 521
Created: Friday, March 15, 2013

DIXON – A Dixon priest has been removed from St. Patrick Parish and his computer use is being investigated by police, according to a letter that a church leader sent to the parish.

The investigation of Fr. John Gow was reported in a statement that Rev. Msgr. Eric R. Barr, vicar of the diocese of Rockford, sent to the local parish.

Penny Wiegert, director of communications for the diocese, did not respond Thursday to inquiries regarding Gow’s length of service in the church, his age, and which police agency is investigating.

Lee County State’s Attorney Anna Sacco-Miller said she knows of no priests who are being investigated in Lee County.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph and Argus

By Claire Armstrong, T&A Reporter

A jury was today continuing to deliberate whether a Roman Catholic priest, who has confessed he is married, sexually assaulted a 17-year-old girl.

William Finnegan, 59, is standing trial at Bradford Crown Court accused of taking hold of the girl, who cannot be named, and forcefully kissing her.

The alleged offence happened when he was parish priest at St Clare’s RC Church in Fagley, Bradford.

Finnegan denies one charge of sexual assault.

Yesterday the jury heard summing up by the prosecution, defence and the trial judge, the Recorder of Bradford, Judge Roger Thomas QC.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph

A Roman Catholic priest accused of sexually assaulting a 17-year-old girl has revealed to a court that he has been secretly married for more than 13 years.

By Telegraph reporter
7:41AM GMT 15 Mar 2013

William Finnegan, 59, told a jury that despite having taken a vow of celibacy, he got married more than a decade ago and kept it a secret from both the church and his parishioners.

Finnegan, also known as “Father Bill”, was parish priest at St Clare’s RC Church in Fagley, Bradford, West Yorkshire, when the alleged sexual assault happened.

He denies sexually assaulting the teenager on Easter Sunday last year by touching her bottom and forcefully kissing her, and is standing trial at Bradford Crown Court.

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FRANCE
Hong Kong Standard

(03-15 16:13)

A French judge had sought the testimony of the new pope over the killing of a French priest in 1976 during Argentina’s brutal dictatorship but Buenos Aires snubbed her, a lawyer said.

Judge Sylvie Caillard had wanted Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio to testify in 2011 in the investigation of French priest Gabriel Longueville but “the Argentinian authorities did not respond positively,” said Sophie Thonon, the lawyer for Longueville’s family, AFP reports.

Thonon said this was deemed necessary to cast light on whether there were any archival material on the murder.

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SCOTLAND
Scotsman

Published on Friday 15 March 2013

Cardinal Keith O’Brien is facing legal action over new allegations of sexual misconduct from a former trainee priest, who claims he was abused by him as a teenager.

The former seminarian, who had known the cardinal since childhood, is staying anonymous, but said he had decided to come forward after the allegations of inappropriate behaviour which forced Cardinal O’Brien to quit as Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh last month.

The latest allegations relate to a period in the 1980s when the man, now in his 50s, attended a senior seminary college, following four years at Aberdeen’s Blairs College for trainee priests.

He left the priesthood several months after Cardinal O’Brien, who was then rector of Blairs, allegedly groped and kissed him during a visit to the unnamed seminary.

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UNITED STATES
ABC News

By SUSAN DONALDSON JAMES

March 15, 2013

Mark Crawford was 11 when his parish priest began to sexually molest him. It continued for more than six years, and when he finally reported the man to his New Jersey bishop, his abuser was promoted to personal secretary for the diocese’s archbishop.

“I was violently abused,” said Crawford, now 51 and a supervisor for a major American airline. “He embraced himself into our family life and became more and more controlling and possessive about me. And when I began to withdraw at 12 or 13, he physically beat me and kept me very isolated from people. I became withdrawn and quite. It was a real struggle.”

Crawford said his brother was also a victim of sex abuse.

Survivors like Crawford say they hold only a faint hope that the new Argentine pope — given his humble lifestyle and passion for the poor — will bring a new accountability to pedophile priests.

Much of the criticism of the church’s handling of the sex scandals has been that offending priests were simply moved to other parishes or dioceses by bishops eager to protect the church.

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VATICAN CITY
CNBC

By: Deborah Caldwell
Senior Editor, Enterprise

As Pope Francis assumes leadership of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics, he’s got his work cut out for him on many fronts, not the least of which is the Vatican’s finances.

Last year, a sheaf of documents was leaked by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s former butler in a scandal known as the Vatileaks affair. The documents allegedly showed, for example, tens of millions of dollars in transfers to American dioceses to help pay legal settlements — estimated to have cost the American church more than $3 billion so far — surrounding the priest sex abuse scandals.

During his eight-year tenure, Benedict reportedly made progress toward reforming the Vatican Bank, replacing its president and creating a financial-intelligence committee. But by most accounts, the Vatican Bank still needs greater scrutiny and transparency.

So what is the Vatican Bank, and how is it related to the Catholic Church, and to the finances of Vatican City, a sovereign state? CNBC explains.

What is the Vatican Bank?

It’s definitely not your average bank. Officially called the Institute for the Works of Religion, the Vatican Bank is a privately held firm run by a CEO who reports to a committee of cardinals and the Pope. It offers ATMs with transactions in Latin and boasts a small castle-like headquarters protected by Swiss Guards.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
CBS Los Angeles

[with video]

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — In a 2010 deposition, Cardinal Roger Mahony explained why he never called police to investigate child sex abuse claims and that he believed in a pedophile priest who told him he had reformed.

A lawyer representing abuse victims asks, “What mistakes do you acknowledge you made?” The Cardinal replies, “Basically, I believed him.”

The him being referred to was Michael Baker, a former priest convicted of molesting two young boys and accused of harming at least 21 others over a three-decade period.

“I believed him all along — that he was making progress, that he was going to the therapist. There were no new offenses. And I just believed that he, he really intended to reform, and we found out later that he lived a huge lie all those years,” said Mahony.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Big Trial

Thursday, March 14, 2013

By Ralph Cipriano
for Bigtrial.net

If the 2011 Grand Jury report on sex abuse in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia was a term paper, the district attorney would have gotten a failing grade for sloppy work habits and more than 20 factual errors.

It’s too bad they’re not taking questions down at the D.A.’s office right now, because the public has a right to know what went wrong with this grand jury report. But the spokesperson for the D.A.’s office has refused to answer questions all week.

The factual errors in the grand jury report are contradicted by grand jury testimony, trial testimony, and the results of the district attorney’s own investigation.

It’s a shameful work product. Somebody screwed up.

Let’s take a look at what the grand jury report said. It’s posted online, so readers can check it out for themselves.

Let’s start with the biggest mistake. Eleven times in the grand jury report, the district attorney said that Father James J. Brennan raped 14-year-old Mark Bukowski back in 1996. This excerpt is from pages 11 and 12 of the grand jury report:

Father Brennan, who was now shirtless, insisted that Mark remove his gym shorts and climb into bed with him in only his underwear, which Mark did. Mark attempted to sleep on his side, with his back to Father Brennan, because he was afraid to look at the priest. As Mark lay in that position, Father Brennan hugged him from behind, resting his chin on Mark’s shoulder and pulling the boy closer to him.

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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

Friday 15 March 2013

EXCLUSIVE: Cardinal Keith O’Brien is facing legal action stemming from new allegations of sexual misconduct, with a former trainee priest claiming he was abused by the disgraced cleric as a teenager.

The former seminarian, who had known the cardinal since childhood and is the first to speak publicly of his experience, said he had only broken a 30-year silence after recent revelations about the former archbishop’s sexual behaviour made it clear his ordeal was not an isolated episode.

The allegation relates to a period in the 1980s when the man attended a senior seminary college, following four years at Aberdeen’s Blairs College for trainee priests.

He left the priesthood several months after Cardinal O’Brien, who was then rector of Blairs, allegedly groped and kissed him during a visit to the unnamed seminary.

Speaking exclusively to The Herald, the former seminarian, who is now in his 50s and has asked to remain anonymous, said he had instigated legal proceedings against both the cardinal and the Catholic Church.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
WISN

[with video]

MILWAUKEE —The choice of Pope Francis is not only the turning of a page in history, but for victims of clergy sex abuse, it offers an opportunity.

Among those who would like to speak to the new pope is a group that advocates for the victims of clergy sex abuse.

WISN 12 News reporter Nick Bohr caught-up with Milwaukee’s co-founder of the Survivor’s Network of Those Abused by Priests, Peter Isely, as he left for Chicago to announce the group is sending a letter to the new pope asking to meet.

“We have a pope who has apparently invoked as his spiritual guide and shelter Francis of Assisi. I was assaulted by a Franciscan priest. So it’s personally very important to me,” Isely said.

Isely was sexually abused as a 13-year-old student at St. Lawrence Seminary in Fond du Lac and has championed church reform for two decades.

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TEXAS
WFAA

by JOBIN PANICKER
WFAA

PLANO — Chris Tynes of Plano says he is on a quest for answers.

He calls himself a long-time member at Prestonwood Baptist Church and said he once taught Sunday School classes at the church. He recently discovered that a former music minister, John Langworthy, admitted to sexual misconduct with young boys while at Prestonwood Baptist more than 20 years ago.

News 8 first uncovered the admission in 2011. Church officials were surprised to see Tynes writing about it last week on the church’s Facebook page.

“I’m just trying to find an answer, or at least something,” Tynes said.

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UNITED STATES
Washington Post

By Eugene Robinson

They are impolite questions, but they must be asked: What did Jorge Mario Bergoglio know, and when did he know it, about Argentina’s brutal “Dirty War” against suspected leftists, in which thousands were tortured and killed? More important, what did the newly chosen Pope Francis do?

When a military junta seized power in Argentina in 1976, Bergoglio — elected Wednesday by the College of Cardinals as the first Latin American to become pope — was the head of the Jesuit order in the country. His elevation to the papacy occasioned great joy and national pride in his homeland — but also, for some, brought back memories of Argentina’s darkest and most desperate days.

In other South American countries that suffered under military rule during the 1970s, the Catholic Church served as a focal point of resistance. In Chile, for example, the church crusaded for human rights and pressed the government of Gen. Augusto Pinochet to account for the many activists who “disappeared” into custody, often never to be seen again.

The dictatorship in Argentina was the most savage of all. At least 10,000, and perhaps as many as 30,000, people suspected of leftist involvement were killed. Victims would be snatched from their homes or places of work, interrogated under torture for weeks or months, and then executed. Some were dispatched by being drugged, loaded into aircraft and shoved out into the wide Rio de la Plata or the Atlantic Ocean to drown.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

The Cardinals who elected Pope Francis had been selected either by ex-Pope Benedict, or by John Paul II with the ex-Pope’s and/or Cardinal Sodano’s input. The Cardinals have for years promoted and protected an unaccountable organization run primarily for their personal benefit, it appears. Some, perhaps even many, of them are now likely facing an imminent legal seige for alleged crimes of child endangerment and/or financial misdeeds, including possibly even Joseph Ratzinger. Meanwhile, Vatican Cardinals are trying hard to keep secret a dossier reportedly of Vatican officials’ financial and sexual misconduct.

Pope Francis, a seemingly amiable, humble and frugal Italian/Argentinian Jesuit, had been made Cardinal in 2001 by John Paul II, who at the time suffered from Parkinson’s Disease and relied often on Cardinal Sodano and/or Ratzinger. The new Pope had been the young head of the Jesuits under an Argentine military dictatorship in the late 1970′s, when Sodano also had been papal ambassador under nearby Chile’s Pinochet dictatorship.

Given this history, have the Cardinals just secretly elected, as “hyped”, a real “Francis of Assisi” type as Pope? Will that likely lead to reform of a troubled Church? Will Cardinals and Bishops now be called to account for their misdeeds? Or was he elected mainly because the Ratzinger/Scola bloc offset the Sodano/Sherer bloc and Francis seemed to be an acceptable interim compromise not tainted by the secret Vatican scandal dossier, who might also provide cover for a few more years while the media obsesses over his personal attributes? Some in the mindless media are already interviewing Pope Francis’ childhood sweetheart, which perhaps may be intended to distance him from some of the reported gay sex stories involving others in the hierarchy.

The media apparently will have an opportunity to direct questions to Pope Francis and hopefully will ask him some of the questions suggested below. Unlike Ratzinger’s practice, Pope Francis may at least directly brief Fr. Lombardi, a fellow Jesuit and Vatican press officer. Hopefully, the media will not spend too much of the limited time rehashing the Pope’s actions as a young provincial over three decades ago in Argentina’s Dirty War. The subject has been gone over at length for years by Argentine journalists and activists with conflicting and inconclusive results. While it is a serious subject, the Pope will still stay Pope no matter what is now said about the Dirty War. The media needs to focus now on the current scandals facing the Catholic Church and on how Pope Francis plans to address them.

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ARGENTINA
Los Angeles Times

By Andres D’Alessandro and Chris Kraul, Los Angeles Times
March 14, 2013

BUENOS AIRES — The man who is now Pope Francis was a young Jesuit leader, not long out of seminary, when Argentina’s military junta unleashed a reign of terror that became known as the “dirty war.” That was more than 30 years ago, but the reaction to the naming of the first Argentine pope shows that the wounds have not yet healed.

Many Argentines were still stunned Thursday that Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the archbishop of Buenos Aires, had become the first pope from the Americas. But the joy was somewhat tempered by a public debate over Bergoglio’s actions, or inactions, from 1976 to 1983, when 30,000 dissidents were killed or “disappeared,” among them an estimated 150 priests.

At the time, Bergoglio was a Jesuit “provincial,” in charge of the religious men’s order, and then rector at a seminary, leadership positions that would not have given him the political clout later afforded by his post as archbishop. Still, critics in Argentina have started revisiting old allegations, including the claim that Bergoglio did not protect two Jesuit priests, Orlando Yorio and Francisco Jalics, who were seized and tortured by military authorities in May 1976.

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UNITED STATES
Plasma MSN

Clergy sex abuse victims have “cautious optimism” that Pope Francis, as an outsider to the Vatican with an eye to social justice, will take action against sexual abuse within the Catholic Church. So says Becky Ianni of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests and a victim of an abusive priest during her childhood.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC – Lateline

Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Broadcast: 14/03/2013

Reporter: Kerry Brewster

The soon to be released documentary “Silence in the House of God: Mea Maxima Culpa” focuses on a predatory priest Father Lawrence Murphy, who systematically abused up to 200 deaf boys growing up in the 1960s in the U.S. City of Milwaukee.

Transcript

TONY JONES, PRESENTER: The psychology of priestly abuse and how some offending priests seek to reconcile evil against holiness is at the heart of a controversial new documentary that explores the first-known protest against clerical sexual abuse in the United States.

Silence in the House of God: Mea Maxima Culpa tells the story of four deaf men who were abused as children in the 1960s and sought to expose that abuse, encountering cover-up all the way to the Vatican. It opens next week in Australia.

Shortly we’ll talk to the Oscar-winning director, Alex Gibney. First this report from Kerry Brewster.

KERRY BREWSTER, REPORTER: Oscar award-winning Alex Gibney makes films that scrutinise institutions he considers irredeemingly corrupt.

His latest, Silence in the House of God: Mea Maxima Culpa, takes on sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. He focuses on predatory priest Father Lawrence Murphy who systematically abused up to 200 deaf boys growing up in the 1960s at St John’s School for the Deaf in the US city of Milwaukie.

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ROME
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy

Leaders of 2 groups appeal to pope about worst Jesuit abuse cases
First Jesuit pope has unique opportunity and obligation
Pope Francis must make Jesuits “clean house,” groups say Jesuit provincials must disclose names of known abusers, as 25 bishops have done
Jesuits operate schools and colleges worldwide; access to children deepens the problem

WHAT
At a news conference, a Catholic researcher and a US clergy sex abuse victim will:

— release a list of the four worst public Jesuit abuse cases worldwide;
— give an overview of how the order has responded to the crisis so far;
— explain why it is crucial that the new Pope push the Jesuits to reform

WHEN
TODAY, Friday, March 15 at 1:30 p.m.

WHERE
Orange Hotel, 86 Via Crescenzio 00193, Roma +39.06.6868969

WHO
Two leaders of the US-based groups:

–Anne Barrett Doyle of Boston, a Catholic mom who is the co-director of the international watchdog group BishopAccountability.org

–David Clohessy of St. Louis, an abuse victim who is the director of an international support called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAPnetwork.org)

WHY
As the first Jesuit pope, Francis has a historic opportunity to make the Jesuits finally address their massive problem of child sexual abuse.

The Jesuits are the largest Catholic religious order in the world, and their high schools and universities are elite institutions in the educational systems of many countries. They also have a massive missionary presence in the developing world.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Change.org

Petition von
Sigrid Grabmeier & Wir Sind Kirche

Die katholische Kirche ist an einem möglichen Wendpunkt in ihrer Geschichte. Sie hat in einem kritischen Augenblick, sowohl in der Kirche wie auch in der Welt, einen neuen Papst gewählt.

Gleichzeitig befindet sich die römisch-katholische Kirche in einer tiefen Krise, nicht nur in Rom selbst, sondern weltweit. Die Missbrauchsskandale und ihr Vertuschen ließen Millionen Menschen an der Glaubwürdigkeit der katholischen Kirche zweifeln. Unschuldige, insbesondere Kinder, wurden durch Priester und Ordensleute zu Opfern gemacht und mussten erleben, wie die Täter durch die Kirchenleitung geschützt und vor der Verfolgung durch die Justiz abgeschirmt wurden.

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VATICAN CITY
Voice of America

VOA News

March 15, 2013

Pope Francis is set to hold an audience Friday with the College of Cardinals who elected him, in his first days as the head of the Roman Catholic Church.

Before his formal installation as pope on Tuesday, Pope Francis, a native of Argentina and the world’s first Latin American pope, is also expected to meet with journalists Saturday. On Sunday he will appear at the window of the papal apartment to recite the Angelus prayer with crowds of worshipers in St. Peter’s Square below.

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ARGENTINA
NDTV

Associated Press | Updated: March 15, 2013

Buenos Aires: For more than a billion Roman Catholics worldwide, he’s Pope Francis. For Argentina’s poorest citizens, crowded in “misery villages” throughout the capital, he’s proudly known as one of their own, a true “slum pope.”

Villa 21-24 is a slum so dangerous that most outsiders don’t dare enter, but residents say Jorge Mario Bergoglio often showed up unannounced to share laughs and sips of mate, the traditional Argentine herbal tea shared by groups using a common straw.

People here recall how the Buenos Aires archbishop would arrive on a bus and walk through the mud to reach their little chapel; how he sponsored marathons and carpentry classes, consoled single mothers and washed the feet of recovering drug addicts; how he became one of them.

“Four years ago, I was at my worst and I needed help. When the Mass started he knelt down and washed my feet. It hit me hard. It was such a beautiful experience,” said Cristian Marcelo Reynoso, 27, a garbage collector trying to kick a cocaine addiction through the church’s rehab program.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Times Colonist (Canada)

Gillian Flaccus / The Associated Press
March 15, 2013

LOS ANGELES, Calif. – The election of a new pope could help heal the wounds left by a Roman Catholic sex abuse crisis that has savaged the church’s reputation worldwide. For alleged victims, much depends on whether Pope Francis disciplines the priests and the hierarchy that protected them.

Some hope the Jesuit pontiff’s well-known humility and social benevolence will lead to an era of greater transparency and renewed faith. A greater number, however, are calling on the new Roman Catholic leader to defrock U.S. cardinals who covered up for pedophile priests, formally apologize and order the release of all confidential church files from every diocese.

Adding to their distrust are several multimillion dollar settlements the Jesuits paid out in recent years, including $166 million to more than 450 Native Alaskan and Native American abuse victims in 2011 for molestation at Jesuit-run schools across the Pacific Northwest. The settlement bankrupted the Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus.

It’s unclear how much direct experience Pope Francis, an Argentine cardinal, has had dealing with sexually abusive clergy in Latin America, where the scope of the abuse scandal has been more muted. When the scandal broke, however, he made it harder for people to become priests and now 60 per cent are eliminated, his authorized biographer, Sergio Rubin, told the AP.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Der Pilger

Im Juni 2011 trafen sich die „Initiative Ehemaliger Johanneum Homburg“ und der Orden der Hiltruper Missionare unter der Federführung des Mediators Professor Dr. Bernhard Haupert zum ersten Mal, um in Sachen Missbrauchsfälle am Homburger Gymnasium Johanneum eine Verständigungsebene herzustellen. Vor zwei Wochen erklärte der Professor für Soziologie an der Katholischen Hochschule Mainz die Mediationsgespräche für gescheitert.

Ursprünglich war für den 2. März ein weiteres Mediationsgespräch geplant. Doch bereits im Vorfeld wurde deutlich, dass weder der Orden noch die Opfer von ihren Positionen abrücken. Die Initiative fordert von den Hiltruper Missionaren nach wie vor die Anerkennung höherer Täter- und Opferzahlen, das Eingeständnis, dass der Orden von den Übergriffen einzelner Patres gewusst hat und daraus folgend die Übernahme der institutionellen Verantwortung, und nicht zuletzt individuelle Entschädigungsleistungen, orientiert an den Bedürfnissen der einzelnen Opfer.

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ROM
Der Standard (Osterreich)

Papstwahl 2005: Es hätte schlimmer kommen können

Papst Benedikt XVI. ist stockkonservativ. Aber es hätte schlimmer kommen können. Laut La Stampa, der in Sachen Vatikan verlässlichsten Tageszeitung, erwuchs 2005 dem damals obersten Glaubenshüter der katholischen Kirche ein auch politisch ultrarechter Kardinal aus Argentinien als ernstzunehmender Konkurrent.

Laut Mitschrift eines italienischen Kardinals sei Ratzingers Anhängerschaft zwar auf über siebzig Wähler angewachsen, zu wenig jedoch für die erforderliche Zweidrittelmehrheit. Vierzig Stimmen hatte nämlich Jorge Mario Bergoglio, heute 75-jähriger Erzbischof von Buenos Aires, erreicht. Auch seine Fangemeinde wuchs – erst nach intensiven Beratungen soll der Südamerikaner “verzichtet” haben. Ratzinger war dann nach 26 Stunden gewählt.

Nachträglich betrachtet hat der katholische Teil der Welt mit der Wahl Ratzingers vielleicht ziemliches Glück gehabt. Der Jesuit Bergoglio unterscheidet sich theologisch kaum von Benedikt. Politisch jedoch ist er fragwürdig: Er tolerierte die argentinische Militärdiktatur und fand nie auch nur ein Wort der Kritik an der Ermordung tausender Regimegegner. Dass so ein Mann unter den Kardinälen auf 40 Stimmen kam, ist eigentlich ein Alarmzeichen. 115 Kardinäle waren damals wahlberechtigt – 40 keine klaren Verteidiger der Menschenrechte.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Frankfurter Rundschau

Der Bundestag beschließt längere Verjährungsfristen. Betroffenenverbände kritisieren die “rein kosmetische Veränderung”.

Jetzt ging es doch ganz schnell. Zwanzig Monate lang lag das Gesetz zur Verbesserung des Opferschutzes auf Eis. Am Donnerstag beschloss der Bundestag mit den Stimmen der schwarz-gelben Koalition, die Rechte von Opfern sexuellen Missbrauchs zu stärken. Der Rechtsausschuss hatte sich erst am Vortag nach monatelangem Streit auf eine Linie verständigt. Damit werden jetzt unter anderem die Empfehlungen des Runden Tischs vom November 2011 umgesetzt.

Bundesfamilienministerin Kristina Schröder (CDU) hatte am Mittwoch bereits zugesichert, dass der Bund mit seinem Anteil in Höhe von fünfzig Millionen Euro den versprochenen Hilfefonds für Missbrauchsopfer im Mai startet. Ursprünglich sollte der Fonds bereits zu Ostern 2012 zur Verfügung stehen. Die Länder, die ebenfalls fünfzig Millionen Euro beisteuern sollen, lehnen dies aber nach wie vor ab. Nur Bayern hat sich bislang dazu bereiterklärt, seinen Anteil in den Fonds einzuzahlen, macht dies aber von der Zusage der anderen Länder abhängig.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Anwalt

Der Bundestag hat viele Verbesserungen für Opfer sexuellen Missbrauchs beschlossen. Insbesondere Missbrauchsopfer im Kindes- und Jugendalter erhalten mehr Rechte.

Weitere Vermeidung mehrfacher Vernehmungen

Gerade für Kinder und Jugendliche, die sexuell missbraucht wurden, sind Vernehmungen eine extreme Belastung. Durch sie müssen sie sich die körperlichen und seelischen Qualen immer wieder vor Augen führen. Aus diesem Grund war schon bisher die Verwertung von Bild- und Tonaufzeichnungen von Vernehmungen im Prozess bei nicht erwachsenen Opfern möglich. Nun ist das auch dann noch möglich, wenn sie inzwischen volljährig geworden sind. Denn oft ist es so, dass die traumatischen Erlebnisse bis weit ins Erwachsenenalter hinein wirken. Zur Rechtssicherheit soll die Vernehmung dabei möglichst ein Richter durchführen. Insgesamt müssen außerdem alle durch eine Tat verletzten Zeugen künftig bei ihrer Vernehmung Gelegenheit haben, darüber zu reden, welche Auswirkungen die Tat auf ihr Leben hatte.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Sueddeutsche

Der neue Papst steht einer großen Baustelle vor. Sigrid Grabmeier von “Wir sind Kirche” fordert von Franziskus Offenheit im Umgang mit Fehlern, Kritikfähigkeit – und eine neue Sexualethik.

Von Johanna Bruckner
Missbrauchsskandale, Vatileaks-Affäre, sinkende Mitgliederzahlen: Jorge Mario Bergoglio ist zum Oberhaupt einer Kirche gewählt worden, die in der Krise steckt. Die Katholiken setzen große Hoffnungen in ihn – richten aber auch klare Erwartungen an ihr neues Oberhaupt. Sigrid Grabmeier von der Reformbewegung “Wir sind Kirche” erzählt im SZ.de-Gespräch, was sie jetzt vom Papst fordert – und warum sie ihm eine lange Amtszeit wünscht.

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ILLINOIS
Patch

By Amanda Luevano

In addition to the thousands of pages to be released detailing decades of abuse at the hands of Catholic priests in the Joliet Diocese, the organization Tuesday also released an updated list of credibly accused abusers.

The list includes the founding pastor of Divine Savior Parish in Downers Grove, the Rev. Donald Pock. The accusations were brought to light in 2002—two years before his death, according to the diocese.

He served as pastor of Divine Savior from 1968 until 1975. Divine Savior’s website states that Pock left due to ill health, but a 2006 report by Sun-Times Media claimed he was removed from the parish and sent for counseling after allegations of sexual abuse.

Pock was then appointed associate pastor at St. Patrick Parish in Joliet, and became pastor of St. Joseph in Manteno in 1978. In 1987, he became pastor of St. Peter Parish in Itasca, according to his obituary.

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ARGENTINA
The Guardian (UK)

Jonathan Watts in Buenos Aires
The Guardian, Thursday 14 March 2013

Pope Francis is known in his native Argentina as a man of austere habits, long pregnant pauses in conversation and a reticence about discussing himself. For supporters, this is proof of his humility, which was further underlined for them in his first address as pope to the masses in St Peter’s Square, where he eschewed the usual jewelled crucifix in favour of a simple wooden cross.

For critics, however – and there are many in his home country – it may have more to do with allegations that he and the Roman Catholic church were guilty of the sin of omission – and perhaps worse – during the brutal military dictatorship from 1976 to 1983.

Those dark years cast the longest shadow over the elevation of Jorge Bergoglio, the former archbishop of Buenos Aires, as the new Vicar of Christ, and continues to divide a nation.

While Argentina rang with celebratory church bells at the news of the first Latin American pope, some were seized by doubt and confusion. “I can’t believe it, I don’t know what to do, I’m in so much anguish and so enraged,” wrote Graciela Yorio in an email published in the Argentine press on Thursday morning.

In 1976, her brother, Orlando Yorio, along with another Jesuit priest, Francisco Jalics, were seized by navy troops in the slums of Buenos Aires and held and tortured for five months at the ESMA camp, a navy base in the capital where 5,000 people were murdered by the military junta.

The two priests served under Bergoglio, who is accused in some quarters of abandoning them to the military after they became involved in leftist social movements.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

Argentina’s best-known investigative reporter, Horacio Verbitsky, accuses the pontiff, who is also known as Jorge Mario Bergoglio, of allowing two priests who served under him to be kidnapped. The pope, as well as some human rights activists, disputes that account, contending he actually tried to get them freed.

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Thursday, March 14, 2013

Juan Gonzalez

Even as millions rejoice at the first Catholic pontiff from Latin America, troubling questions persist over the role Pope Francis played during Argentina’s notorious Dirty War.

In 1976, right-wing military leaders overthrew that country’s elected government and installed Gen. Jorge Rafael Videla as dictator. Coup leaders then launched a campaign of secret kidnappings, torture and murder of suspected leftists and opposition figures. Estimates of the dead range up to 30,000.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio, then head of that country’s Jesuit order, has long been accused by Argentina’s best-known investigative reporter, Horacio Verbitsky, of being complicit in the military’s kidnapping and torture of two priests who served under him.

Verbitsky’s claim is rejected by some human rights leaders, including Adolfo Perez Esquivel, who won the 1980 Nobel Peace Prize for documenting the junta’s atrocities.

“Perhaps he (Bergoglio) didn’t have the courage of other priests, but he never collaborated with the dictatorship,” Esquivel said.

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NEW YORK
The Jewish Daily Forward

By Paul Berger

Published March 14, 2013

A top rabbinic dean of Yeshiva University has warned rabbis about the dangers of reporting child sex abuse allegations to the police because it could result in a Jew being jailed with a black inmate, or as he put it, “a schvartze,” who might want to kill him.

Rabbi Hershel Schachter, one of the most respected faculty members of the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, also said that children can lie and ruin an innocent man’s life.

“It could be that the whole thing is a bubbe-mayse [tall tale],” Schachter said.

Schachter said Jewish communities should establish panels of rabbis who are also psychologists to first hear such allegations and decide if law authorities should be informed.

Schachter, whose taped remarks were posted on the Failed Messiah website, said a student at Yeshiva University’s high school in Manhattan confided in him years ago that he had been abused.

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ROME
CNN

According to veteran Vatican journalist Marco Politi, the initial traction in the papal vote was not for then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio.

“But from the first leaks we understand that there was a strong candidate,” Politi told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Thursday. “The Italian Archbishop of Milan, Scola, who entered the conclave with the strong determination of his supporters to make him Pope But in the first ballots he couldn’t provoke an ‘avalanche effect’ to get more and more votes.”

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ARGENTINA
CNN

By Mariano Castillo, CNN

updated 6:38 PM EDT, Thu March 14, 2013

(CNN) — Pope Francis is being painted as a humble and simple man, but his past is tinged with controversy surrounding topics as sensitive as gay marriage and political atrocities.

Questions linger about Francis’ actions during the nation’s dark days: the so-called Dirty War, when Argentina was ruled by dictators. The gay marriage issue came to the forefront during Francis’ political fight with Argentina’s president.

The conservative pontiff may hold firm on some issues, experts say, but he may be flexible on others.

“If you think that (Francis) isn’t going to change anything, you’re wrong,” said Gustavo Girard, a retired doctor who knew Francis during his early years in the priesthood. “But is he going to approve of gay marriage tomorrow? No.”

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VATICAN CITY
Gazzetta del Sud

14/03/2013

Disgraced Boston archbishop ‘entered discreetly’

Vatican City, March 14 – The Vatican confirmed that disgraced American Cardinal Bernard Law was in attendance at Santa Maria Maggiore (St Mary Major) Basilica in Rome on Thursday when Pope Francis came there to pray. “Bernard Law entered very discreetly, he entered through one of the side chapels,” said spokesman Father Federico Lombardi. Law, the former archbishop of Boston, resigned in 2002 when unsealed court records revealed he had moved pedophile priests among church assignments without notifying parishioners. In 2004, Pope John Paul II appointed him archpriest of Saint Mary Major.

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ARGENTINA
Twinsburg Bulletin

MICHAEL WARREN Associated Press Published: March 14, 2013

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — It’s beyond dispute that Jorge Mario Bergoglio, like most other Argentines, failed to openly confront the 1976-1983 military junta as it kidnapped and killed thousands of people in a “dirty war” to eliminate leftist opponents.

But human rights activists differ on how much responsibility Pope Francis personally deserves for the Argentine church’s dark history of supporting the murderous dictatorship.

The new pope’s authorized biographer, Sergio Rubin, argues that this was a failure of the Roman Catholic Church in general, and that it’s unfair to label Bergoglio, then a thirtysomething leader of Argentina’s Jesuits, with the collective guilt that many Argentines of his generation still wrestle with.

“In some way many of us Argentines ended up being accomplices,” at a time when anyone who spoke out could be targeted, Rubin recalled in an interview with The Associated Press just before the papal conclave.

Some leading Argentine human rights activists agree that Bergoglio, now 76, doesn’t deserve to be lumped together with other church figures who were closely aligned with the dictatorship.

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UNITED STATES
Metro

By Aidan Radnedge Thursday 14 Mar 2013

A Catholic priest accused of sexually assaulting a teenage girl revealed in court he had been secretly married for more than a decade.

William Finnegan claims he could not have attacked the 17-year-old because he was enjoying a healthy sex life with his wife – in flagrant disregard of his vow of celibacy.

The 59-year-old says he kept his marriage a secret from his superiors but accepts he will now be thrown out of the church and lose his livelihood even if found not guilty.

His lawyer told the court the priest married Beverley Dawson overseas in September 1999.

Jeremy Hill-Baker said: ‘So deeply in love was he that he was prepared to ignore the Catholic Church’s ban on marriage, a secret which has been kept from almost everyone until now.’

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UNITED STATES
South China Morning Post

Victims of clergy sexual abuse urged newly-elected Pope Francis to reform the Catholic Church and declare “zero tolerance” for sex crimes as his first official act.

“St Francis was the greatest reformer in the history of the church, Pope Francis must do the same,” the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, or Snap, said in a statement.

US-based Snap warned that millions of children remained at risk from paedophile priests because the Church had not yet reversed long-standing policies of covering up reports of sexual abuse by transferring priests to unsuspecting parishes.

Insisting that the Jesuit order from which he hailed had a “troubled” track record on paedophilia, Snap said Francis “has both an enormous opportunity and duty to help prevent heinous assaults against kids by this crucial and relatively secretive segment of the Catholic clergy”.

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NORTH CAROLINA
Charlotte Observer

Fort Mill doctor says he was sexually abused as a child

By Elizabeth Leland
eleland@charlotteobserver.com

Posted: Thursday, Mar. 14, 2013

Dr. Jason Peck, a psychiatrist and sleep expert, is doing what not so long ago would have been unthinkable for a man who claims he was sexually abused as a child:

Peck is speaking out.

So much stigma is attached to child molestation that men who bring charges often don’t want anyone to know their names. “From the day it happened, I’ve tried very hard to push away the dark, terrifying, and sickening memories fearing what would happen to me or my family if I spoke out,” said Peck, now 45. …

For a man to speak out candidly would have been unthinkable not that long ago, said psychologist Mary Gail Frawley-O’Dea, co-director of Presbyterian Psychological Services and a nationally-recognized authority on sexual abuse. Women began talking openly about sexual abuse during the women’s movement of the 1970s. But Frawley-O’Dea said it took the sex scandals surrounding the Catholic church and Penn State for men to feel comfortable stepping forward.

“It liberated more men to feel that this is something that happens and they can talk about it,” Frawley-O’Dea said. She said that as many as one-third of all women worldwide and 20 to 25 percent of all men are sexually abused before age 18.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
AFP

LOS ANGELES — The Catholic Church has an opportunity to begin to excise the “cancer” of sex abuse under its new pope, a US victim who just won a $1 million settlement and his lawyer said Thursday.

Michael Duran, who says he was raped repeatedly by a Californian priest in the mid-1980s, urged Pope Francis to defrock Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony, one of those who chose the new pontiff, for allegedly covering up abuse.

He is one of four victims who received a combined $10 million from the Catholic archdiocese announced earlier this week, after the papal conclave started but before Wednesday’s historic election of a new pope.

“I think this is a great opportunity for the Catholic Church to make amends to all the victims, and really implement some real procedures and some structure in the hierarchy to protect children worldwide,” he told AFP.

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ARGENTINA
The Independent (UK)

‘The Pope fancied me – and he said if I wasn’t keen he’d become a priest,’ former sweetheart says

David Usborne
Buenos Aires
Thursday 14 March

“I froze in front of the television. I couldn’t believe that Jorge was the Pope!” confessed the 77-year-old lady with white hair and spectacles outside her home at 555 Membranilla Street in the Flores district of Buenos Aires last night. She had one more little admission – about a man who is now pontiff and a love letter from long, long ago.

It was 1948 or 1949 – Amalia Damonte can’t be entirely sure – when the young son of Italian immigrants slipped a letter in her hand declaring his undying love for her. She does know that he was 12 years old at the time and that she spurned his advances in part because her parents didn’t think that much of him.

“He wrote me a letter telling me that one day he would like to marry me,” she said standing outside the same house that she grew up in, just four doors from down what used to be the childhood home of Jorge Bergoglio at number 531, where he lived with his mother and railway-worker father. (It has since been knocked down.) “He said that if I didn’t say yes, he would have to become a priest. Luckily for him, I said no!”

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DEUTSCHLAND
Kolner Stadt-Anzeiger

Kaum im Amt, erreichen Papst Franziskus auch Forderungen von Opfern sexuellen Missbrauchs in der katholischen Kirche. Betroffene aus den USA und aus Deutschland verweisen auf Missbrauchsfälle im Jesuitenorden, dem Franziskus angehört.

Köln.
Opfer von sexuellem Missbrauch innerhalb der katholischen Kirche haben den neuen Papst Franziskus zu Reformen aufgefordert. „Der Heilige Franziskus war der größte Reformer der Kirche in der Geschichte, Papst Franziskus muss dasselbe tun“, forderte die US-Organisation Netzwerk der Überlebenden von Missbrauch durch Priester (SNAP) in einer am Mittwoch (Ortszeit) veröffentlichten Erklärung. Der Argentinier Jorge Mario Bergoglio, der am Mittwoch im Konklave zum Papst gewählt wurde, hat seinen Namen zu Ehren des Heiligen Franz von Assisi gewählt, der ein Leben in Bescheidenheit führte.

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UNITED STATES
Democracy Now!

During the military dictatorship in Argentina, the new pope openly criticized liberation theology’s combination of religious teachings and calls for social justice. His social conservative streak continued when he was elevated to cardinal in Argentina. In 2010, he called the Argentine government’s legalization of gay marriage “an attempt to destroy God’s plan” and opposed adoption by gay couples. We discuss Pope Francis’ social conservatism with Ernesto Semán, a historian at New York University and former reporter for two Argentine newspapers, and with Argentine journalist Horacio Verbitsky. [includes rush transcript]

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: Our guests are Horacio Verbitsky, an Argentine investigative journalist for the newspaper Página/12, or Page/12. He has reported extensively on the church’s involvement in Argentina with the military junta that once ruled Argentina, specifically on the role of Father Bergoglio, who is now Father—who is now Pope Francis. Among his books, The Silence: From Paul VI to Bergoglio: The Secret Relations Between the Church and the ESMA. ESMA refers to the former Navy school that was turned into a detention center where people were tortured. Verbitsky also heads the Center for Legal and Social Studies, an Argentine human rights organization. You can also go to our website at democracynow.org, where we broadcast from Buenos Aires several years ago, talking about these issues, including the children who were taken from dissidents who were then killed and handed to military families to be raised, which we’ll talk about.

Ernesto Semán is with us, as well. Semán, the historian at New York University, former reporter for the Argentine newspapers Página/12 and Clarín, where he reported on politics and human rights, as well as Father Bergoglio.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Los Angeles Times

A man who will receive part of a $10-million settlement from the Archdiocese of Los Angeles for abuse by a former priest on Thursday called on the new pope to punish church leaders who had covered up molestation of children.

Michael Duran, one of four men who settled with the church over claims that they were abused by former cleric Michael Baker, said there should be consequences for Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, who had learned of Baker’s abuses in the 1980s but allowed him to remain in ministry.

“I hope the new pope defrocks the cardinal,” Duran said at a news conference outside a downtown L.A. courthouse.

Baker, a convicted pedophile, has been accused of harming at least 23 boys during his three decades in the priesthood. Mahony has said he was most “troubled” by the case of Baker, whom he allowed to remain in the church after the man personally confessed to the former archbishop in 1986 that he had molested two boys.

Duran will receive nearly $1 million for what he described as repeated “rape” dating from the 1980s. As his wife stood beside him, he said he believed he was one of the two children Baker was speaking of when he confided to Mahony.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

The Guardian, Thursday 14 March 2013

A Roman Catholic priest accused of sexually assaulting a 17-year-old girl told a court on Thursday that he is secretly married.

William Finnegan, 59, who is currently standing trial, revealed to the jury – and at the same time to his diocese – that, despite having taken a vow of celibacy, he married more than a decade ago and kept it a secret from the church and his parishioners.

Finnegan was parish priest at St Clare’s RC Church in Bradford when the alleged sexual assault happened last Easter.

His barrister, Jeremy Hill-Baker, told the jury at Bradford crown court: “You may be thinking that he is only human, that Father Bill, as a Catholic priest, has taken a vow of celibacy, condemning himself to a single and lonely life filled with perhaps an underlying sexual frustration because … it is not a natural state for a human to be in.”

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ARGENTINA
Gazzetta del Sud

(By Martino Rigacci) Buenos Aires, March 14 – They were little more than children when he, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the future Pope Francis, delivered a love letter with a drawing of a little white house in which he would have liked to live with her. He wrote, “If I don’t marry you, I will make myself a priest”. How things actually went is now known to the world, but his girlfriend at the time, Amalia – today white-haired – recalled the episode in interviews with Argentine journalists. “I hope he always remains what he is, never abandons that path, and that he always remembers Argentina,” she told journalists, amused by so much interest.

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IRELAND
Global Post

Victims of child abuse in Catholic-run institutions in Ireland on Thursday called on newly elected Pope Francis to ensure that clergy who covered up the abuse are held accountable.

“We want proper accountability. Even to this day, we are fighting cases in the redress board, the High Court and the Supreme Court,” Tom Hayes of the Alliance Victims Support Group told AFP.

Hayes, who was abused by members of the Christian Brothers at Glin industrial school in County Limerick as a young boy, said the new pope must make it a priority to bring to justice clergy who abused children or covered it up.

“We genuinely would like to think that a Jesuit would be strong enough to meet our concerns, but we feel that he may become too embroiled in the long standing system run within Rome that may have frustrated Pope Benedict,” he said.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail

Roman Catholic priest accused of sexually assaulting teenage girl has a secret wife after marrying abroad

By Richard Hartley-parkinson

A Roman Catholic priest has revealed that he is actually married at a trial in which he is accused of sexually abusing a teenager.

Bradford Crown Court heard from lawyers acting for Father William Finnegan, 59, that he had confessed that he is married to a woman called Beverley Dawson.

His lawyer said that he fled to Cyprus in 1999 and married Miss Dawson, keeping the marriage secret from all but their closest friends and family.

He is currently facing charges that he assaulted a 17-year-old girl at St Clare’s RC Church in Fagley, Bradford, where he was parish priest, last Easter.

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UNITED STATES
Democracy Now!

[with video]

While praised for his work with the poor, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio — now Pope Francis — has long been dogged by accusations of his role during Argentina’s military dictatorship. We speak to Horacio Verbitsky, a leading Argentine journalist who exposed Francis’ connection to the abduction of two Jesuit priests. Verbitsky is an investigative journalist for the newspaper Página/12, or Page/12, and head of the Center for Legal and Social Studies, an Argentine human rights organization. [includes rush transcript]

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: For more on the new pope, we turn now to one of Argentina’s leading investigative journalists, Horacio Verbitsky, who has written extensively about the career of Cardinal Bergoglio and his actions during the military dictatorship that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983. During that time, up to 30,000 people were kidnapped and killed. A 2005 lawsuit accused Jorge Bergoglio of being connected to the 1976 kidnappings of two Jesuit priests, Orlando Yorio and Francisco Jalics. The lawsuit was filed after the publication of Verbitsky’s book, The Silence: From Paul VI to Bergoglio: The Secret Relations Between the Church and the ESMA. ESMA refers to the former navy school that was turned into a detention center where people were tortured by the military dictatorship. The new pope has denied the charges. He twice invoked his right under Argentine law to refuse to appear in open court to testify about the allegations. When he eventually did testify in 2010, human rights activists characterized his answers as evasive.

AMY GOODMAN: Horacio Verbitsky joins us on the phone now from his home in Buenos Aires, an investigative journalist for the newspaper Página/12; Page/12, it’s called in English. He is also head of the Center for Legal and Social Studies, an Argentine human rights organization.

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FRANCE
Liberation

Par AFP

Une juge française avait demandé en 2011 l’audition du cardinal Bergoglio, élu pape mercredi, dans le cadre d’une enquête sur le meurtre en 1976 d’un curé français sous la dictature argentine, mais Buenos Aires n’a jamais répondu favorablement, a affirmé jeudi une avocate.

Sylvia Caillard, magistrate au Tribunal de grande instance de Paris, avait adressé une commission rogatoire internationale à Buenos Aires pour que le cardinal soit entendu comme témoin dans l’enquête sur le meurtre d’un curé français, Gabriel Longueville, au début de la dictature argentine en 1976, a expliqué à l’AFP Me Sophie Thonon, avocate de la famille du prêtre français.

«Les autorités argentines n’ont jamais répondu positivement à la commission rogatoire relative à M. Bergoglio», a-t-elle précisé.

A l’époque, Me Thonon avait jugé cette audition nécessaire afin que l’archevêque de Buenos Aires éclaire la magistrate sur l’existence éventuelle d’archives sur cette affaire.

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FRANCE
DNA

Le père Gabriel Longueville a disparu en 1976 en Argentine. Dans le cadre de cette affaire, une juge française a demandé en 2011 l’audition du cardinal Bergoglio. En vain.

Une juge française avait demandé en 2011 l’audition du cardinal Bergoglio, élu pape mercredi, dans le cadre d’une enquête sur le meurtre d’un curé français, originaire de l’Ardèche, sous la dictature argentine, mais Buenos Aires n’a jamais répondu favorablement, a indiqué hier une avocate.

Sylvia Caillard, magistrate au Tribunal de grande instance (TGI) de Paris, avait adressé une commission rogatoire internationale à Buenos Aires pour que le cardinal soit entendu comme témoin dans l’enquête sur le meurtre du curé français Gabriel Longueville au début de la dictature argentine en 1976, a expliqué à l’AFP Me Sophie Thonon, avocate de la famille du prêtre français. «Les autorités argentines n’ont jamais répondu positivement à la commission rogatoire relative à M. Bergoglio», a-t-elle précisé.

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FRANCE
Expatica

A French judge had sought the testimony of the new pope over the killing of a French priest in 1976 during Argentina’s brutal dictatorship but Buenos Aires snubbed her, a lawyer said Thursday.

Judge Sylvie Caillard had wanted Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio to testify in 2011 in the investigation of French priest Gabriel Longueville but “the Argentinian authorities did not respond positively,” said Sophie Thonon, the lawyer for Longueville’s family.

Thonon said this was deemed necessary to cast light on whether there were any archival material on the murder.

“This pope is certainly not a great figure in the defence of human rights,” Thonon said.

“On the contrary, he is suspected of not having denounced the crimes of the dictatorship and not having demanded explanations and therefore covered up these acts by his silence.”

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THAILAND
Bangkok Post

As the world absorbs the news of the appointment of the new pope, it is time to ask how the next Supreme Leader of the Catholic Church can meet its most urgent challenge, of stopping its priests sexually molesting small boys.

There have been, on a realistic estimate, over 100,000 such victims since 1981, when Joseph Ratzinger became head of the Vatican office which declined to defrock paedophiles and instead approved their removal to other parishes and other countries.

These widespread and systematic sexual assaults can collectively be described as a crime against humanity. The church cannot atone just by paying compensation. Unless the new pope installs a policy that minimises danger to children, he, like pope Benedict, will become complicit in ongoing but avoidable abuse.

First, and most obviously, there must be zero tolerance for paedophile priests. They must be automatically defrocked as soon as their bishop learns of their crime. There must be no delay, and certainly no appeal to the Vatican _ it was there that Rev Ratzinger’s preference for avoiding scandal permitted so many paedophiles to be forgiven, and then to re-offend. There is ample evidence now, from Ireland, America and Europe, that the Vatican has conspired to thwart prosecutors and protect clerical criminals.

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NEW ZEALAND
Newstalk ZB

A former Catholic priest in Christchurch who admitted stealing hundreds of thousands of church money, has successfully appealed his jail sentence.

John Fitzmaurice was jailed for two years in February, after admitting eight charges of dishonestly using documents and obtaining money by deception.

He committed more than 700 dishonest transactions amounting to $149,000.

The 57-year-old appealed the sentence on a number of grounds including his remorse, his depression and pathological gambling disorder and the period of offending which was five-and-a-half years.

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CANADA
CBC – Current

In Buenos Aires the faithful were jubilant over one of their own, the first Pope from Latin America known for his humility and austerity… a man who rode the bus, who even as Cardinal chose to live in a spare apartment rather than the appointed opulent official church residence. Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s transition to Pope Francis the First comes at a time of tenacious difficulties in the Roman Catholic Church … thus far he remains untouched by the sexual abuse scandal but he may yet be haunted by his ties to another unsavory chapter of Church history concerning Argentina’s Dirty War. Today, we’re asking about the many facets of the man whose own religious journey has intersected with political turmoil.

Retired Argentinian Ambassador, Luis Mendiola

Jorge Mario Bergoglio originally studied as a chemist. But it was some remarkable Alchemy that transformed the former archbishop of Buenos Aires into the first Pope from the New World. And the man who will oversee the Catholic church as Pope Francis has more challenging transmutations ahead.

Outrage over the sexual abuse scandals that plague the Church has driven many Catholics away. His orthodox views on abortion, same-sex marriage, and contraception would seem unlikely to attract many 21st century converts. And Argentina’s own relationship with the Catholic Church from the time of its Dirty War remains controversial.

All daunting issues to tackle, but our next guest thinks Pope Francis is up for the job. Luis Mendiola is a retired Argentinian ambassador. In the 1980s, he served as councillor of the Argentinean Embassy to the Holy See in Rome. Today he joined us from Buenos Aires.

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CANADA
International Busines Times

Pope Francis I gets early reminder of urgency of tackling numerous scandals facing Vatican

By Umberto Bacchi

March 14, 2013

A Canadian judge has jailed a retired priest for sexual abuse of altar boys in an early reminder for the new Pope, Francis I, of the plethora of Vatican scandals he will need to tackle to restore the reputation of the Church.

The supreme court of Newfoundland and Labrador, eastern Canada, sentenced George Smith, 75, after he pleaded guilty to 41 charges of sexual assault, indecent assault and common assault committed over a 20-year period from 1969.

Thirteen men accused him of abusing them while he was a parish priest in western Newfoundland.

Smith lured his victims, some of whom were altar boys who helped him at Sunday mass, to his home for an overnight stay. He offered them money or the chance to drive his car.

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UNITED STATES
Slate

By Matthew Yglesias
Posted Thursday, March 14, 2013

Pope Francis is not just the spiritual leader of one of the world’s major religions: He’s also the head of what’s probably the wealthiest institution in the entire world. The Catholic Church’s global spending matches the annual revenues of the planet’s largest firms, and its assets—huge amounts of real estate, the Cathedral of Notre Dame, Vatican City, some of the world’s greatest art—surely exceed those of any corporation by an order of magnitude.

But it turns out to be surprisingly difficult to understand exactly how rich the church is. That’s in part because church finances are complicated. But it’s also because, in the United States at least, churches in general are exempted from the financial reporting and disclosure requirements that otherwise apply to nonprofit groups. And it turns out, that exemption may have undesirable consequences.

The main thing we know about Catholic Church finance is that in cash flow terms, the United States is by far the most important branch. America is a rich country with a large population of Catholics. What’s more, America’s Catholic population is a religious minority. That’s meant that, rather than using political clout to influence the shape of mainstream government institutions, as in an overwhelmingly Catholic country such as Brazil, the Catholic Church in the United States has created a parallel state: a vast web of schools, hospitals, universities, and charities that serve millions of clients.

Our best window into the overall financial picture of American Catholicism comes from a 2012 investigation by the Economist, which offered a rough-and-ready estimate of $170 billion in annual spending, of which almost $150 billion is associated with church-affiliated hospitals and institutions of higher education. The operating budget for ordinary parishes, at around $11 billion a year, is a relatively small share, and Catholic Charities is a smaller share still.

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ROME
Boston Globe

Pope Francis spends first hours as leader of Catholic Church in prayer; has brief meeting with Cardinal Bernard Law

By Lisa Wangsness and David Filipov, Globe Staff

ROME — With the humility and quiet humor that have become his calling card, Pope Francis, in his first day as pontiff, made several visits to important shrines in Rome and checked out of his residence, making sure to pay the bill.

Shortly after 8 a.m., the pope went to Saint Mary Major Basilica where he sat in silent prayer and also prayed at the main altar where what is believed to be the relics of the manger where Jesus Christ was born are kept.

Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi today confirmed that during his visit to Saint Mary Major, Francis “discreetly’’ greeted Cardinal Bernard F. Law, who was the archpriest of the basilica before he retired from that post.

Law stepped down in 2003 as the archbishop of Boston after failing to remove sexual predator priests from their pastoral posts in the archdiocese.

Francis, a Jesuit, also stopped at an altar where the founder of his religious order, Saint Ignatius of Loyola once celebrated Mass.

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ROME
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on March 14, 2013

A support group for clergy sex abuse victims is writing Pope Francis seeking a meeting to discuss how to stop and prevent current and future child sex crimes and cover ups. (Copy of letter is below.)

Over the past decade, leaders of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, have rarely tried to meet with Catholic officials, saying such efforts over the group’s first 15 years were largely “frustrating and fruitless.” Instead, the group has focused its advocacy work largely on secular officials to reform laws and prosecute those who have committed or covered child sex crimes.

But SNAP has expanded into more nations over the past few years, and “we now better understand just how helpless and fearful so many survivors across the world feel, especially in developing countries and countries where this crisis remains largely unspoken,” said SNAP Midwest Director Peter Isely of Milwaukee. “So despite years of unproductive talks with the church hierarchy, we feel driven, for the safety of at risk children, to try again with this new pontiff.”

“Your predecessor met a few times with a few carefully chosen victims in tightly choreographed settings, as he visited nations where this crisis had reached a fever pitch,” Said SNAP’s letter. “We seek a different kind of meeting – one in which our respective organizations – yours, huge and struggling, and ours, small and struggling – can perhaps begin to work together to safeguard children.”

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ROME
KABC

ROME (KABC) — Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony, who faced criticism for taking part in the conclave, addressed the controversy Thursday.

In an interview with Eyewitness News Anchor David Ono, Mahony said he had to take part in the conclave because he had been asked to go and he wanted to give the Los Angeles region a voice in the process.

“Dozens of cardinals came up to me and thanked me and said, ‘You know, you in the United States had to learn from your mistakes,’ and we have. And we now have, I think, an archdiocese that is safe as it can possibly be with human beings against the abuse of others,” said Mahony.

The cardinal admittedly played a huge role in a child abuse cover-up. The church recently released thousands of pages of documents showing how much he covered up for pedophile priests.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Market Watch

press release

March 14, 2013

Manly & Stewart announce the settlement of cases alleging that former Father Michael Baker sexually abused four boys on multiple occasions, dating back to the 1970s. It was alleged that Cardinal Roger Mahony knew of Father Baker’s criminal behavior and allowed him to continue to serve as a priest.

LOS ANGELES, March 14, 2013 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ — Attorneys representing four victims of former priest Michael Baker announced a $9,990,000 settlement of cases against the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, Cardinal Roger Mahony and former priest Michael Baker. The settlements in each of the four cases range from $995,000 to $4,000,000.

“The settlement of these cases against former priest Michael Baker is symbolic of the sex abuse scandals that rocked the Los Angeles Archdiocese under Cardinal Roger Mahony,” said victims attorney John Manly. “We presented evidence that Cardinal Mahony and the Archdiocese of Los Angeles knew of Father Baker’s sexual abuse of children and concealed his identity from law enforcement and the public. Instead, they intentionally sent him to minister and teach in low-income and primarily Hispanic parishes and schools, because of their lack of knowledge of our laws and customs, their reluctance to contact law enforcement and their devotion to the Roman Catholic Church. The settlement in these cases sends a clear message – never again!”

Michael Duran, one of the victims, appeared at the news conference. “I trusted Father Baker. He was my priest and I thought he was my friend,” said Mr. Duran. “Now we know that I was but one of his many victims. Rather than protect us, Cardinal Mahony and the Church protected our abuser.”

About John Manly and Manly & Stewart: The founding partner at Manly & Stewart in Irvine, California, John Manly was named one of California’s “Top 100 Attorneys” by the Los Angeles Daily Journal and is California’s preeminent attorney representing victims of sexual abuse. Over the past decade, John and his legal team have been heavily involved in the most significant sexual abuse actions litigated across the nation, assisting in the recovery of more than a billion dollars–through trial and settlement–on behalf of sexual abuse victims.

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NEW YORK
Wall Street Journal

By SOPHIA HOLLANDER and JENNIFER MALONEY

Cardinal Timothy Dolan emerged this week from the conclave that elected Pope Francis with what some described as rock-star status in the Roman Catholic church. But now he will need to summon all of his diplomatic and managerial skills to navigate escalating challenges facing the New York archdiocese.

His unexpected emergence as a contender for the papacy “gives him a kind of boost that is quite remarkable,” said Terrence Tilley, chairman of the theology department at Fordham University in New York. “He becomes more of an influential person, a kingmaker in clerical and Vatican circles.”

Although some cardinals sniffed at the prelate’s informal style, he received effusive coverage in the Italian press, gave disarming interviews to media outlets such CNN and was mobbed when he appeared in a local parish before the conclave. He said he wants to rebrand Roman Catholicism as a joyful experience that can appeal to a new generation.

But Cardinal Dolan now confronts an array of organizational, political and legal challenges to his role among the leaders of American Catholicism, including questions over how he handled the priest sexual abuse scandal while archbishop of Milwaukee.

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UNITED STATES
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on March 14, 2013 i

I’m not good at predictions. If I were, I’d be in Vegas and this blog would be a money-generating machine. Despite this failing, I’ve been asked a lot by the media what I think of the new pope, his record, what I expect to see in the next few months.

So I made a “to-do list” for the pope’s first week. Then, if any of it comes true, it’ll be like Christmas in March.

Pope Francis I’s to-do list:
•Strip Cardinal Mahony of his title and force him to live a life of silence, poverty, prayer and penance in a mental health facility that treats victims of child sexual abuse,
•Require Pope Emeritus Benedict to sit in a video recorded deposition and tell what he knows about child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church,
•Mandate that bishops worldwide cease legal and verbal (that means you, Cardinal Dolan) battles with survivors and survivors groups,
•Turn over all secret personal files globally to law enforcement and the media, and
•Turn over to law enforcement all accused clerics currently in hiding in the Vatican and other countries.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 14 March 2013 (VIS) – During the course of this afternoon’s press conference, Fr. Federico Lombardi, S.J., director of the Holy See Press Office, repeated the information for the upcoming papal events after this afternoon’s Mass in the Sistine Chapel with the Cardinal electors.

On Friday, 15 March, at 11:00am in the Clementine Hall he will meet with the full College of Cardinals, electors and non-electors, in the Clementine Hall of the Apostolic Palace. As the Holy See Press Office spokesman noted, this will be a familial gathering, with the Pope personally greeting each of the cardinals.

On Saturday at 11:00am in the Paul VI Hall, the Pope will hold an audience with accredited journalists (permanent and temporary) and those who work in the media.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 14 March 2013 (VIS) – It was no secret. Like one who has no cares that everyone knows what he intended to do, at 8:24pm last night in his first public appearance he stated: “Tomorrow I am going to pray to the Virgin, for the safekeeping of all of Rome.” Then at 8:05 this morning, leaving the Vatican for the first time as pontiff, the newly elected Pope took one of the Gendarmerie’s simple service cars to the papal basilica of St. Mary Major, the oldest and largest church dedicated to the Virgin in Rome. It is also one of the four largest in Rome and claims the King of Spain as its proto-canon. The new pontiff of the Catholic Church chose to enter through one of the basilica’s side doors.

Upon entering the basilica the Pope headed toward the venerated icon of Our Lady “Salus Populi Romani” (Protectress of the Roman People) accompanied by, among others, Cardinal Santos Abril y Castello, archpriest of the basilica and Cardinal Agostino Vallini, vicar general of the Diocese of Rome.

The Holy Father, after leaving the Virgin a bouquet of flowers on the altar, prayed silently for about 10 minutes before the main altar that is directly above the crypt containing relics of the crib or manger of the Nativity of Jesus. He also visited the basilica’s Sistine Chapel, which is where St. Ignatius of Loyola celebrated his first Mass after being ordained a priest. He waited several months, until Christmas Eve 1538, to say his first Mass. “It is a very significant place in Jesuit spirituality,” Fr. Federico Lombardi, S.J., director of the Holy See Press Office, noted. Finally, the new Roman Pontiff also stopped to pray before the tomb of St. Pius V, which is also in that chapel.

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UNITED STATES
Verdict

Marcia A. Hamilton

The new Roman Catholic Pope, formerly Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, chose the name Francis. It is the first time a Pope has chosen that name, and it is instructive to examine the Francis he intended. For many in the survivors’ movement, there is an understandable yearning that it is St. Francis of Assisi, but that seems unlikely to me. Pope Francis is a proud Jesuit, is known as a gifted evangelizer, and is the first Pope from outside of Europe, all of which would make it far more likely that he is choosing the name and path of the great Jesuit missionary, St. Francis Xavier.

Xavier was known for his extraordinary travels in the 16th Century to multiple countries, and for his proselytizing. Here is how the Catholic Encyclopedia summarizes his accomplishments:

It is truly a matter of wonder that one man in the short space of ten years (6 May, 1542 – 2 December, 1552) could have visited so many countries, traversed so many seas, preached the Gospel to so many nations, and converted so many infidels. The incomparable apostolic zeal which animated him, and the stupendous miracles which God wrought through him, explain this marvel, which has no equal elsewhere. The list of the principal miracles may be found in the Bull of canonization. St. Francis Xavier is considered the greatest missionary since the time of the Apostles, and the zeal he displayed, the wonderful miracles he performed, and the great number of souls he brought to the light of true Faith, entitle him to this distinction.

This is the profile of a man who would labor to expand the power and reach of the Church, and would travel the world to do so. By choosing St. Francis Xavier, the Pope (and likely the conclave as well) are pointing to the global reach of the Church, and the need for outreach and mission work across the globe. By contrast, St. Francis Assisi was a gentle, loving man who venerated poverty and the poverty-stricken; ministered to all beings, including the smallest animals; and was never ordained as a priest. For the survivors of clergy child sex abuse, he can be a symbol of safety and peace, and, even more importantly, someone who was not a part of the machinery of the Church. While Pope Francis has been an advocate for the poor in Argentina, he has been very much an insider, who, sadly, was part of the Argentinian Church when it apparently cooperated with the brutal national government of the 1970s.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

Pope Francis will be judged by how he deals with child sex abuse by clergy, says a senior NSW police officer who helped spark Australia’s royal commission into the issue.

Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox blew the whistle on an alleged cover-up of child abuse by priests in the Catholic diocese of Maitland-Newcastle in the Hunter region.

He said he hoped Pope Francis could change the course of the church, but if he was committed to address the child abuse problem he needed to overcome powerful factions within the Vatican.

“It’s not just the Pope we need to look at,” he told AAP on Thursday.

“We need to look at the whole hierarchy of the Catholic Church for change.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Colm O’Gorman, the founder of the One in Four organisation that supports clerical sex abuse victims in Ireland, said the emergence of Pope Francis on the balcony in St Peter’s Square had evoked “a spark of hope” in him.

“There was a humility and a humanity about it that was intriguing and encouraging,” he said.

“We don’t know enough about this man yet but one would hope we are facing into a period of more humility, more humanity and more openness – that’s what we should at least hope for.”

Describing the new pontiff’s task as “enormous”, Mr O’Gorman said that at the same time, what was required was “not complex”.

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ROME
Boston Globe

By David Filipov, Globe Staff

ROME — Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley today said he was looking forward to returning to Boston, expressing what sounded like relief that he had not been chosen pope even as he reflected on his satisfaction in having taken part in the conclave that elected Pope Francis.

“I never imagined as a child that someday I would be part of a conclave,’’ said O’Malley, who was named cardinal in 2006 and took over as leader of the Boston archdiocese in 2003.

He described the quiet humility and disarmingly approachable personality of the new pope, a native of Argentina whose given name is Jorge Mario Bergoglio.

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BOSTON (MA)
Boston Herald

By
Laurel J. Sweet / Boston Herald

Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley is “relieved” all speculation as to his papal potential is behind him with yesterday’s election of Pope Francis of Argentina, according to Bishop Robert P. Deeley, who spoke with O’Malley this morning.

“I spoke to the cardinal this morning and he is just very happy. He’s relieved, first of all, and he’s happy in the choice,” Deeley told reporters at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in the South End, where he presided over a small, multiracial Mass of Thanksgiving in honor of the pope, the 76-year-old leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics.

Deeley said the cardinal was “relieved in the sense that there was so much speculation that he would be elected pope..

“And it’s a heavy burden,” he added. “It’s a very heavy burden. I think Cardinal Sean really was anxious to come home. We’re anxious to have him home.”

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BOSTON (MA)
WWLP

Jay Lindsay, Associated Press

BOSTON (AP) – Bernie McDaid’s prediction that Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley would be the new pope turned to be wrong.

But he says the election of a man who reached out to him and other clergy sex abuse victims to arrange a secret 2008 meeting with Pope Benedict XVI would have signaled a church ready to finally reckon with its sex abuse problem.

Instead, Argentine Jorge Bergoglio is now Pope Francis and McDaid sees a church more interested in uniting its hierarchy.

“They’re putting their problems first again, instead of the real problem that’s causing the disruption, which is the child sex abuse, which they still haven’t worked through,” McDaid said.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Sueddeutsche

Der Bundestag will heute endlich Änderungen bei den Verjährungsfristen für sexuellen Missbrauch beschließen. Dennoch dürfen sich die Opfer abermals unwürdig behandelt fühlen – von der Politik in Bund und Ländern.

Ein Kommentar von Susanne Höll, Berlin
Der Bundestag wird an diesem Donnerstag endlich Änderungen bei den Verjährungsfristen für sexuellen Missbrauch beschließen. Fast zwei Jahre lang stockte dieses von Opfern lang erwartete Projekt im Rechtsausschuss.

Die Schuld dafür trägt einzig und allein die Regierungskoalition, deren Vertreter sich in rechtsdogmatischen Diskussionen ergingen. Ohne öffentliche Kritik an diesem Gebaren hätte es in dieser Legislatur womöglich überhaupt keine Entscheidung im Parlament mehr gegeben.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Zeit

Erneuerung in der Katholischen Kirche tut not – doch statt eines agilen Reformers wählten die Kardinäle nur einen Übergangspapst, kommentiert W. Thielmann.

Die Kardinäle sind alt und ängstlich geworden. Sie haben einen der ihren zum Papst gemacht, einen, der alt ist und ihre Angst versteht. Es muss etwas geschehen, aber es darf nichts passieren. So haben sie den zweiten Übergangskandidaten in Folge gewählt. Immerhin, der Vorgänger hat Franziskus einen neuen Trumpf in die Hand gegeben: Er kann zurücktreten.

Der Jesuit Jorge Mario Bergoglio, ein volksnaher, betagter Wissenschaftler, leitet nun die Katholische Kirche, einer, der schon im vergangenen Jahr, mit 75, dem Papst seinen Abschied als Erzbischof anbieten musste. So verlangte es das Kirchengesetz. Als Vorsitzender der argentinischen Bischofskonferenz bekam er schon vor zwei Jahren einen Nachfolger.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Eckiger Tisch

Dem neugewählten Papst aus Lateinamerika möchte man zurufen:

„ Öffnen Sie nicht nur die Fenster, öffnen Sie die Türen des Vatikans für unabhängige Untersuchungen. Öffnen Sie die Akten zu Missbrauch im Vatikan! Trauen Sie sich, nach den tieferen Ursachen zu fragen und sich den Konsequenzen für Ihre überkommende Sexualmoral und Ihre Organisationsformen zu stellen.

Treffen Sie sich mit Betroffenen von Missbrauch in Ihrer Kirche ohne Protokoll und ohne ängstliche Geheimhaltung.

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ROM
Tiroler Tageszeitung

Vatikanstadt/Washington (APA/AFP) – Opfer von sexuellem Missbrauch innerhalb der katholischen Kirche haben den neuen Papst Franziskus zu Reformen aufgefordert. „Der Heilige Franziskus war der größte Reformer der Kirche in der Geschichte, Papst Franziskus muss dasselbe tun“, forderte die US-Organisation Netzwerk der Überlebenden von Missbrauch durch Priester (SNAP) in einer am Mittwoch (Ortszeit) veröffentlichten Erklärung. Der Argentinier Jorge Mario Bergoglio, der am Mittwoch im Konklave zum Papst gewählt wurde, hat seinen Namen zu Ehren des Heiligen Franz von Assisi gewählt, der ein Leben in Bescheidenheit führte.

SNAP erklärte, Millionen Kinder seien bis heute gefährdet, von katholischen Priestern missbraucht zu werden, weil die Kirche ihre Politik der Vertuschung noch nicht beendet habe. Die Organisation verwies auf zahlreiche Missbrauchsfälle im Jesuitenorden, dem der neue Papst entstammt. Franziskus habe „sowohl eine große Gelegenheit als auch die Pflicht“ dabei zu helfen, sexuellen Missbrauch an Kindern durch katholische Geistliche zu verhindern.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
CBS Los Angeles

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — Attorneys for four alleged victims of sexual abuse by a defrocked Catholic priest will speak out Thursday about a nearly $10 million settlement that was reached with the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

The four male victims were awarded a total of $9.9 million Tuesday in several cases against the Archdiocese, Cardinal Roger Mahony and former priest Michael Baker. The settlements in each of the four cases range from $995,000 to $4 million.

All of the cases involve Father Baker, who reportedly molested the boys on multiple occasions, dating back to the 1970s.

“He raped me. He didn’t just touch me, he didn’t just put his hands down my pants. He raped me,” victim Michael Duran told CBS2.

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NEW JERSEY
NJ.com

By Louis C. Hochman/NJ.com
on March 14, 2013

MENDHAM — What’s fallen will rise again.

Police are continuing to search for the vandal or vandals who badly damaged a monument to child victims of sex abuse in the Catholic Church — the second time in less than two years the monument has been attacked.

The man who led a drive to create the monument, and then to replace it after a borough man allegedly took a sledgehammer to the monument in 2011, has been just as busy. Bill Crane said he’s been in touch with representatives of St. Joseph Church, where the monument is located, and he’s learned repairs will be covered by insurance.

“They’ve been nothing but positive and respectful,” Crane, who runs ProtectKidsFirst.org, said. “They reached out to be last week through an attorney and told me, ‘However Mr. Crane would like to proceed, he has our 100 percent support.'”

Crane, in his childhood, had been among the several victims of then-Catholic priest James Hanley, who was removed in 2003 after admitting in a sworn statement for a civil lawsuit he sexually abused about a dozen child parishioners in Mendham and Pompton Plains between 1968 and 1982.

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ROME
National Catholic Reporter

by Joshua J. McElwee | Mar. 14, 2013

Rome —
The election of Argentinean Jose Mario Bergoglio as pope Wednesday night is a sign of the unity of the College of Cardinals and the belief they chose the right man to carry out the needs of the new evangelization, say two of the cardinals who were in the conclave that elected Pope Francis.

“If at the fifth vote the pope is elected, that means something,” Austrian Christoph Schönborn told NCR on Thursday morning. “That means great unity, great agreement and a real move to the one we believe that is the chosen one.”

The election is a sign the cardinals “experienced the guiding of the Holy Spirit,” he said.

Bergoglio, formerly the archbishop of Buenos Aires, was elected the new bishop of Rome and leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics on Wednesday evening Rome time and took the name Francis.

His election came on the fifth ballot and second day of voting among the 115 cardinals who participated in the secret election. It was a surprisingly quick conclusion to a conclave that seemed to have no clear front-runner.

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MISSOURI
Riverfront Times

By Jessica Lussenhop
Thu., Mar. 14 2013

Yesterday afternoon, the chimney on the roof of the Sistine Chapel in Rome billowed white smoke, and the new pope emerged on the balcony in white robes: Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires. His papal name will be Francis I.

David Clohessy, the executive director of Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, is currently in Rome observing the conclave. In the weeks leading up to yesterday’s decision, the group has been very vocal about who they did not want to see become the new pontiff, their so-called “Dirty Dozen.” The list included St. Louis native Cardinal Timothy Dolan.

Daily RFT reached Clohessy by email to ask — what is SNAP’s position on Pope Francis?

SNAP’s “Dirty Dozen” were cardinals who at the very least expressed defensiveness in the media about child sex abuse scandals and at the worst allegedly participated in cover-ups. Read the full list here. The group also called for certain cardinals to be barred from the conclave for their roles in covering for pedophile priests — something the Vatican called the result of “negative prejudice.”

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UNITED STATES
Philadelphia Daily News

Ronnie Polaneczky, Daily News Columnist

Posted: Thursday, March 14, 2013

I’D FEEL MORE hopeful about newly elected Pope Francis if some of the cardinals who elected him Wednesday had excused themselves from voting.

The new pope must reckon with the ongoing fallout of the worldwide sex-abuse scandal that has shaken the Roman Catholic Church to its core. Although priests have been convicted of molesting innocents, no cardinal has even been defrocked for his part in covering up the perversions that have devastated generations of families.

What’s the likelihood that these self-interested cardinals would vote for a pontiff who might remove them from the church?

I’m thinking about men like retired Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony.

For years, Mahony did all he could to keep law-enforcement officials from investigating priests who’d molested kids. In January, newly released church records so damned Mahony that his successor, Archbishop Jose Gomez, forbade him from participating in public ministry again.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Messenger

Iain Mossley

AN Ashton-on-Mersey priest is being investigated by police for child sex offences less than two months after being appointed.

The Reverend Iain Mossley, 40, who is married with three children, has been suspended by Chester Diocese.

He gave his first sermon at the Parish Church of St Martin on January 20 and was formally the priest at the Parish of St James, Leyland, where he stayed for more than four years.

Members of the congregations at St Martin’s, on Church Lane, were told of Mr Mossley’s suspension during Sunday service on March 10.

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CANADA
CBC News

A retired Roman Catholic priest was given an 11-year sentence in a western Newfoundland court on Thursday for sexually abusing children.

George Ansel Smith, 75, was sentenced in Supreme Court in Corner Brook for offences involving 13 children he assaulted between 1969 and 1989.

Smith pleaded guilty to 38 charges, including sexual assault, indecent assault and assault. The offences occurred largely in western Newfoundland, but also involved complainants in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

Smith was suspended from his duties at a Prince Edward Island parish in 2010 when charges were first laid.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Courthouse News Service

By IULIA FILIP

LOS ANGELES (CN) – Catholic bishops “facilitated the sexual molestation of children by engaging in the international trafficking of known child molesting priests,” alleged victims of clerical abuse claim in court.

The latest lawsuit alleging a decades-long conspiracy to facilitate and cover up priests’ sexual abuse of children was filed Tuesday in Superior Court, as the Catholic Church’s conclave met to elect the new pope, who was chosen on Wednesday.

The 18-page complaint names names, including former Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony, Bishop Thomas Curry, and the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, but the only defendants are Defendant Does 1 through 1,000, church officials and dioceses that allegedly participated in the shuffling of predatory priests from parish to parish, including across the U.S.-Mexico border.

The four Juan Doe plaintiffs claim they were sexually abused by a priest in Los Angeles in the 1980s.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Argus

By Ben James

A Church of England priest is accused of using his position to groom and sexually abuse young boys with the help of his organist.

Father Keith Wilkie Denford, 78, is accused of breaching the trust of the parents of two boys by molesting them over 18 months from when they were about 13.

His organist at St John the Evangelist Church in Burgess Hill, Michael Mytton, 68, is said to have assisted him.

Hove Crown Court was told yesterday (March 13) that Denford used the respectability of his cassock to get to the youngsters.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
NBC Southern California

By Jonathan Lloyd and Toni Guinyard

Thursday, Mar 14, 2013

The Archdiocese of Los Angeles issued a statement in which it apologized to priest abuse victims ahead of a news conference Thursday at which details of a civil lawsuit settlement are expected to be released.

The Archdiocense reached a $9.9 million settlement with four victims of former priest Michael Baker. The statement issued Thursday morning states Baker “deceived parishioners, therapists, church leaders and most of all, his victims.”

“The Archdiocese has expressed deep regret for the mistakes made in handling his case and has taken responsibility for the terrible harm he inflicted upon his many victims,” the statement continued. “It has been the desire of the Archdiocese to settle the civil cases of abuse and to provide support to the victims through the healing process. The Archdiocese again apologizes to all who were harmed or impacted by clergy sexual abuse or its consequences. We continue to pray earnestly for all victims and their families so that they may find emotional and spiritual healing. We also reiterate our firm commitment to the protection of our children and young people.”

The news conference regarding the civil lawsuit settlement reached with the victims is scheduled for 10 a.m. The settlements announced Tuesday range from $995,000 to $4,000,000.

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CANADA
The Telegram

By Gary Kean
The Western Star— Corner Brook

Noting that George Ansel Smith committed more sexual crimes against more victims than anyone involved in the infamous Mount Cashel orphanage abuse scandal, Justice William Goodridge gave the retired Roman Catholic priest 11 years in prison Thursday morning.

Smith, 75, had pleaded guilty to a total of 41 charges of sexual assault, indecent assault and assault, but Goodridge entered stays on three of the charges after hearing an agreed statement of facts in late February.

Thirteen victims came forward with their complaints of abuse at the hands of Smith. The offences occurred over a nearly 20-year period from 1969 to 1989 in several western Newfoundland communities including Corner Brook, St. Fintan’s, Stephenville, Cape St. George, Deer Lake and Port Saunders. Some of the assaults happened while Smith was escorting boys on trips to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.

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UNITED STATES
Virtue Online

By Gregory Venables
March 13, 2013

The Bishop of Argentina and former primate of the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone, the Most Rev. Gregory Venables, has praised the election of Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio saying the Argentine Archbishop is a devout Christian and friend to Anglicans, who has stood in solidarity with the poor against government corruption and social engineering.

In a note released after the election of the new Pope, Francis I, on March 13 Bishop Venables wrote:

“Many are asking me what Jorge Bergoglio is really like. He is much more of a Christian, Christ centered and Spirit filled, than a mere churchman. He believes the Bible as it is written. I have been with him on many occasions and he always makes me sit next to him and invariably makes me take part and often do what he as Cardinal should have done. He is consistently humble and wise, outstandingly gifted yet a common man. He is no fool and speaks out very quietly yet clearly when necessary. He called me to have breakfast with him one morning and told me very clearly that the Ordinariate was quite unnecessary and that the church needs us as Anglicans. I consider this to be an inspired appointment not because he is a close and personal friend but because of who he is In Christ. Pray for him.”

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ARGENTINA
The New York Times

By HARVEY MORRIS

LONDON — The election of an Argentine to the papacy has revived a polemic about the role of the Roman Catholic Church during his country’s so-called “dirty war” and about his own dealings with a military junta that murdered up to 30,000 citizens.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio was head of the Jesuits in Argentina between 1973 and 1979, a period that saw the worst excesses of a campaign of repression that targeted real and perceived opponents of the military dictatorship, including radical clerics.

The Argentine justice system has conducted numerous investigations into the junta’s crimes and no personal blame has been attached to Pope Francis, but the church in Argentina continues to live under the shadow of the dirty war.

As recently as last December, a provincial tribunal denounced the “complicity” of the church in the human rights violations of the dictatorship and a continued reticence on behalf of church authorities and clerics to throw light on such crimes.

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VATICAN CITY
Inquirer (Philippines)

VATICAN CITY—Newly-elected Pope Francis shunned the special chauffeur-driven “Vatican One” limousine after being picked as pontiff, the Vatican said on Thursday.

“Instead of the formal Vatican One car he preferred to take the minibus with the other cardinals,” Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said.

The new pope then dined with the cardinals in a Vatican residence where he thanked them for electing him but then quipped: “God forgive you for what you’ve done!”

The former Argentinian cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio — the first Latin American pontiff — has a reputation as a humble pastor who has shunned many of the perks associated with high office in the Catholic Church.

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VATICAN CITY
GMA News (Philippines)

VATICAN CITY – Italian bishops were so convinced that one of their own would become pope that they sent a congratulatory message to the media thanking God for the election of a prelate from Milan.

The trouble was, the new pope had already been named as Argentinean cardinal Jorge Bergoglio.

The secretary-general of the Italian conference, Monsignor Mariano Crociata, expressed “joy and thanks” to God for the election of Cardinal Angelo Scola of Milan in a statement sent to reporters at 8:23 p.m. (3:23 a.m. Phl time) on Wednesday night.

About 10 minutes earlier, Bergoglio had made his first appearance before the crowds in St. Peter’s Square.

At 9:08 p.m. (4:08 a.m. Phl time), the Italian bishops conference sent another statement thanking God for the election of the pope, but this time got the name right.

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ROME
Time

By David Von Drehle
March 14, 2013

When a shy little man in tinted eyeglasses walked onto the balcony overlooking St. Peter’s Square and bestowed his first wave as Pope Francis, journalists around the world began frantically web-surfing.

All but one.

John Allen Jr. had already written an expansive profile of the Cardinal Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Argentina, the humble Jesuit Jose Maria Bergoglio. While the rest of the journalistic pack was focused on the Italian Cardinal Scola, the Brazilian Cardinal Scherer, and the Canadian Cardinal Ouellet, the Vatican expert for the National Catholic Reporter recalled the man who finished second in the balloting the last time a pope was chosen:

The general consensus is that Bergoglio was indeed the “runner-up” last time around. He appealed to conservatives in the College of Cardinals as a man who had held the line against liberalizing currents among the Jesuits, and to moderates as a symbol of the church’s commitment to the developing world.

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VATICAN CITY
The Lawyer

14 March 2013 | By Joshua Freedman

The selection of Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio as Pope has placed the spotlight on a German lawyer appointed last month to head the embattled Vatican Bank.

Pope Benedict XVI installed Ernst von Freyberg as president of the bank as one of his last acts as pontiff following the shock announcement of his resignation earlier in February.

The appointment came after the previous president of the bank, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, was removed by its board of directors last May for dereliction of duty.

Tedeschi and director general Paolo Cipriani were investigated over allegations that they omitted data in wire transfers from an Italian account, with prosecutors seizing €23m from a Rome bank account registered amid suspicious of money laundering, according to reports.

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UNITED STATES
Spiritual Politics

Mark Silk | Mar 14, 2013

Pope Francis meets the criterion of personal holiness that so many were looking for in the new pontiff–a “servant of the servants of God” in the spirit of his namesake, St. Francis of Assisi. A staunch advocate for the poor in an age of globalization, he seems like just the man to inspire the wavering faithful in Latin America and around the world to return to the fold.

And yet, is the 76-year-old Jesuit up the challenge of putting the Church’s house in order. If he has a record dealing with sex abuse cases or making administrative reforms in the archdiocese of Buenos Aires, it has get to emerge. What we do know is that after coming in second in the last conclave, he expressed relief at not having gotten the job. “In the Curia I would die,” he said.

One way to understand what happend in the Sistine Chapel yesterday is to open your copy of Machiavelli’s Discourses on Livy to Book III, chapter 1, on the importance of institutions returning to their first principles.

The political theorist was an admirer of St. Francis, and was convinced that but for his and St. Dominic’s success in providing examples of primitive Christian values of poverty and humility, the religion would have been wiped out by the corruption of church leaders: “for by their poverty and by their example of the life of Christ, they brought it back to the minds of men where it had already been extinguished; and their new orders were so powerful, that they were the reason why the dishonesty of prelates and the heads of the religion did not ruin her.”

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

by Phyllis Zagano | Mar. 13, 2013 Just Catholic

The Catholic roulette wheel keeps spinning after the white smoke, the white cassock and the white pallium appear. Even though the new pope is at the center, cardinals in red and black still surround him. Insider horse trading and old-school thinking remain. You may think the new pope will be a surprise reformer, but you can’t win big putting chips on double zero. Only American-style roulette has that bet.

While American-style journalism has been driving the news coming from Rome, they’ll all be home soon enough, carrying their openness and their accents with them. While it might straighten out things, American-style management and transparency will be a hard sell in the new papacy. Curial machinery did, after all, stop the U.S. cardinals’ news conferences. No matter the qualifications of the latest man to climb into Peter’s chair, the Vatican bank and overall curial messes will surely take up enough time and energy to halt any reforms, even reforms requested by both sides of the marbled aisle.

Of course, the elephant in the Sistine Chapel is female, and she’s not leaving. The general consensus from the sidelines is that women in authority would have cleaned up the mess of the sex abuse scandals more quickly and cleanly than the bumbling hierarchs.

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