ABUSE TRACKER

DEUTSCHLAND
kathweb

Deutsche Bischofskonferenz wirft Studienautor Pfeiffer am Dienstag vor, den gerichtlichen Vergleich fälschlicherweise einseitig als Erfolg darzustellen

12.03.2013

Bonn, 12.03.2013 (KAP) Im Streit um die kirchliche Missbrauchsstudie haben der Kriminologe Christian Pfeiffer und die Deutsche Bischofskonferenz (DBK) einen Vergleichsvorschlag des Landgerichts Hannover akzeptiert. Danach muss die Bischofskonferenz auf ihrer Themenseite zum Thema Missbrauch (www.dbk.de/themen/thema-sexueller-missbrauch) die Darstellung des Konflikts an zwei Stellen ändern, wie beide Seiten am Dienstag in Hannover und Bonn mitteilten. Das berichtet die deutsche katholische Nachrichtenagentur KNA.

Zuvor hatte Pfeiffer eine einstweilige Verfügung beantragt, dass die Bischofskonferenz bestimmte Behauptungen unterlässt. Gegenstand des Streits ist unter anderem die Behauptung Pfeiffers, die Bischöfe hätten die Erstveröffentlichung von Forschungsergebnissen verhindern oder zensieren wollen.

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VATICAN CITY
Slate

By Josh Voorhees

Posted Tuesday, March 12, 2013
The conclave today is holding its first of what will likely be several votes this week to select the next pope. By now you probably know the drill: If someone receives support from two-thirds of this year’s voting cardinals (or 77 of the 115), the Catholic church will have a new pope and we’ll see white smoke billow out from the chimney at the Vatican. If no individual garners the necessary support, we’ll see black smoke, and the cardinals will return again tomorrow to try again until they have settled on their man. (Most are predicting we won’t see white smoke until Thursday.)

You can follow along with CBS News’s Vatican Smoke Cam below, or, for those who prefer reading to watching, you can check out the Guardian’s cleverly simple http://www.istherewhitesmoke.com/.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph

By Stephen Hough

‘The Church is perfect, the spotless Bride of Christ; it is individual members who sin’, so traditional Catholic theology would tell us. From this viewpoint arises the imperative to protect the Church at all costs, and from this attitude has arisen so much of the scandal in recent years: bishops doing all they could to safeguard the reputation of the Church whilst leaving vulnerable children in danger. When Vatican II used the phrase ‘The People of God’ in the document Lumen Gentium in 1964 – suggesting a community before a structure, a living vineyard before the chateau which gave it its name – it marked an important sea change. People need protection not an institution, even one considered to be of divine origin. And all of this becomes painfully clear when it comes to child abuse: nothing should come before the welfare of the vulnerable individual. But vulnerability is not limited to such an extreme situation.

I wrote a post recently on this blog about ‘The O’Brien Moment’, suggesting that this moment of disgrace and embarrassment for Cardinal Keith O’Brien has the potential for great power. The Cardinal was once a defenceless child, growing up in a Church and a society which regarded homosexuality as sinful at best and criminal at worst. I can’t judge if the Cardinal is actually gay but there have obviously been times in his life when he was flooded with powerful same-sex attractions. The deeply imbedded reflex for human beings to find other human beings sexually attractive is the same for all, whether straight or gay; and such attraction is not unrelated to the desire to give and receive love and protection from another. Used well it is one of the noblest things we can experience. A sordid fumble in the dark is not evil as such (as long as it’s between two consenting adults) but is rather a misplaced reflex of a deep-seated desire to give and receive affection – a branch that needs training not pruning.

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CALFORNIA
Fox 40

by Cecilio Padilla
Web Producer

YUBA CITY—

A priest visiting from Colombia has been arrested in Yuba City on charges of sexual battery and molestation of a minor.

Rev. Julio Cesar Guarin-Sosa, 43, was ministering at St. Anne’s Parish in Lodi. He had provided a letter of good standing from his Colombian diocese.

According to the Sutter County Sheriff’s website, Guarin-Sosa was arrested on Sunday.

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CALIFORNIA
CBS Sacramento

YUBA CITY (CBS13) – A visiting priest from Colombia has been arrested on suspicion of sexual battery and molestation of a minor in Yuba City, according to the Diocese of Stockton.

Rev. Julio Guarin-Sosa has been helping out at St. Anne’s Parish in Lodi. The Diocese says Father Guarin had a letter of good standing from his diocese in Colombia before he came to the U.S.

As a result of his arrest and the charges against him, the Diocese of Stockton has revoked Guarin’s permission to provide ministry in their churches. His Diocese in Colombia has also been informed.

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CALIFORNIA
Sacramento Bee

A Catholic priest has been arrested on suspicion of child molestation, according to a press release from the Diocese of Stockton.

The Rev. Julio Guarin-Sosa, a visiting priest from Columbia, was arrested on suspicion of sexual battery and molestation of a minor in Yuba City. He is being held in the Sutter County Jail and is scheduled to be arraigned today.

Guarin-Sosa had been helping out at St. Anne’s parish in Lodi. Stockton Bishop Stephen E. Blaire had required, and was provided a letter, attesting to Guarin-Sosa’s good standing prior to the priest’s ministry work at St. Anne’s.

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CALIFORNIA
News 10

Paul Janes

YUBA CITY, Calif. – A priest visiting from Colombia is scheduled to be arraigned on Tuesday after being arrested in Yuba City on Sunday.

According to the Yuba City Police Department, Rev. Julio Guarin-Sosa was arrested on charges of molestation of a minor, sexual battery and illegal entry while providing ministry at St. Anne’s church.

Bishop Blaire of the Stockton Diocese said Rev. Julio Guarin-Sosa received a letter of good standing from his diocese in Colombia prior to providing ministry at St. Anne’s.

“As a result of the charges, Father Guarin’s permission to exercise ministry in the Diocese of Stockton has been revoked,” said Blaire.

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IRELAND
Herald

Declan Brennan– 12 March 2013

THE victim of a priest’s abuse says he cannot bring himself to forgive the Church and refuses to have his children baptised.

Former priest Patrick McCabe (77) pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to three counts of indecently assaulting the 13-year-old boy on two locations in Dublin between January 1 and September 31, 1979.

The court heard that the abuse took place in the parochial house of Dublin’s Pro-Cathedral during the Papal visit.

rosary

McCabe, formerly of Alameda, California, USA, has being in custody since being extradited here in 2011.

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ROME
Raw Story

By Eric W. Dolan
Monday, March 11, 2013

An apartment building in Rome currently occupied by Cardinal Ivan Dias is also home to the biggest gay sauna in Europe.

The Italian newspaper La Repubblica reported that Cardinal Ivan Dias is living just one floor above the Europa Multiclub Sauna and Gym, which contains a king Turkish bath, Finnish sauna, giant whirlpool, waterfall whirlpool and other attractions for its gay patrons.

The socially-conservative Cardinal, who previously served as Archbishop of Bombay, has described homosexuality as an “unnatural tendency” and a disease of the soul.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Voice

This week, as the conclave to elect the next Pope of the Roman Catholic Church begins, people from around the globe continue to wonder and ask “Who will be elected as the next Pope”?

As this question has been asked over and over again for the past several weeks, Survivors of clergy abuse from around the world continue to wait, as well.

We are not waiting to find out who will be elected as the next Pope. We are waiting for the world to join us and finally start asking the right questions.

The question of who the next pope will be pales in comparison to the question of what the next pope will do. While former Pope Benedict officially called the sexual abuse by clergy of children a “crime”, he failed to remove those who committed those crimes, and those who harbored those criminals.

In order protect future generations of children from abuse, and in order to repair the damage done to yesterday and today’s generation of clergy abuse survivors from around the world, we need to stop asking “Who will the next Pope?” … we need to begin asking “What will the next Pope do”.?

Will the next Pope, remove from ministry the priests who abused children?

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 12 March 2013 (VIS) – Beginning with the Conclave in 2005, in order to better distinguish the colour of the “fumate” (smoke signalling the election or non-election of a pontiff), a secondary apparatus is used to generate the smoke in addition to the traditional stove in which the Cardinal electors’ ballots are burned. This device stands next to the ballot-burning stove and has a compartment where, according to the results of the vote, different coloured-smoke generating compounds can be mixed. The result is requested by means of an electronic control panel and lasts for several minutes while the ballots are burning in the other stove.

For a black “fumata” the chemical compound is made of potassium perchlorate, anthracene, and sulphur. The white “fumata” is a mixture of potassium chlorate, lactose, and rosin. The rosin is a natural amber resin obtained from conifers. Prior to 2005 the black smoke was obtained by using smoke black or pitch and the white smoke by using wet straw.

The stove-pipes of the stove and the smoke-producing device join up and exit the roof of the Sistine Chapel as one pipe leading to the chimney installed on the ridge of the roof, which is visible from St. Peter’s Square. To improve the airflow the pipe is pre-heated by electrical resistance and it also has a backup fan.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 12 March 2013 (VIS) – This afternoon, 115 cardinals will enter the Conclave to elect Pope emeritus Benedict XVI’s successor. The two Cardinal electors who are not participating are Cardinal Julius Riyadi Darmaatmadja, S.J., archbishop emeritus of Jakarta, Indonesia, for health reasons and Cardinal Keith O’Brien, ex-archbishop of Edinburgh, Scotland, for personal reasons.

Categorizing the cardinals from area of origin, the 60 European cardinals come from: Italy: 28. Germany: 6. Spain: 5. Poland: 4. France: 4. Austria: 1. Belgium: 1. Switzerland: 1. Portugal: 2. Netherlands: 1. Ireland: 1. Czech Republic: 1. Bosnia-Herzegovina: 1. Hungary: 1. Lithuania: 1. Croatia:1. and Slovenia: 1.

The 14 Northern American cardinals come from: the United States: 11. and Canada: 3.

The 19 Latin American cardinals are from: Brazil: 5. Mexico: 3. Argentina: 2. Colombia: 1. Chile: 1. Venezuela: 1. the Dominican Republic: 1. Cuba: 1. Honduras: 1. Peru: 1. Bolivia: 1. and Ecuador: 1.

The 11 African cardinals come from: Nigeria: 2. Tanzania: 1. South Africa: 1. Ghana: 1. Sudan: 1. Kenya: 1. Senegal: 1. Egypt: 1. Guinea: 1. and the Democratic Republic of the Congo: 1

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican information Service

Vatican City, 12 March 2013 (VIS) – This morning little later than usual in the Vatican. At 7:00am the first faithful starting arriving at St. Peter’s on foot. The 115 Cardinal electors were already within the City State’s walls. Each one carried his small suitcase and took the functional but austere room that had been assigned to, not chosen by, them at the Domus Sanctae Marthae. The largest one remains vacant. The one they choose as Pope, the 266th successor of Peter, will live and work there until the papal apartments are made ready for him.

In St. Peter’s Square, in front of the Basilica’s facade, an enormous platform has been erected for the world’s major broadcasters. Permanently accredited correspondents work from their desks within the Holy See’s Press Office in Via della Conciliazione. Nearby, another building has been wired for all the media that is arriving for the occasion: the Media Centre, which currently occupies the spacious lobby of the Paul VI Hall. So far, more than 5,600 journalists have been accredited for the occasion. The terrace on the Charlemagne Wing of Bernini’s colonnade around St. Peter’s Square has also been taken over by journalists. On the ground and in the most varied places you will find many who are connected through social networks, the “digital continent”, linking the entire world. They are all focused on the spot that Vatican Television has aimed a fixed camera at: the chimney atop the Sistine Chapel where a black or white puff of smoke will emerge.

Precisely at 10:00am, with St. Peter’s Basilica beautifully lit, the “pro eligendo Romano Pontifice” Mass began. Presided by the Italian Cardinal Angelo Sodano, dean of the College of Cardinals, the over one hundred cardinals gathered concelebrated, Cardinal electors as well as those over 80, representing all of the populated continents of the globe. The celebration was open to all the faithful who wished to attend as well as members of the diplomatic corps of the 179 countries with which the Holy See maintains ties. Each held the Mass booklet, either collected at the entrance or downloaded from the Vatican website.

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CALIFORNIA
National Catholic Reporter

by Dan Morris-Young | Mar. 11, 2013

The Ides of March has taken on new meaning in the Santa Rosa, Calif., diocese, where teachers and administrators have until March 15 to sign a letter of intent to renew their contracts for the 2013-2014 school year. The contracts now include an addendum requiring they agree they are “a ministerial agent of the bishop” and that they reject “modern errors” that “gravely offend human dignity,” including “but not limited to” contraception, abortion, same-sex marriage and euthanasia.

The roughly 400-word addendum requires all teachers and administrators — Catholic and non-Catholic — to “agree that it is my duty, to the best of my ability, to believe, teach/administer and live in accord with what the Catholic Church holds and professes.”

Written by Santa Rosa Bishop Robert Vasa and added at his direction, the addendum is titled “Bearing Witness.” In press reports, Vasa and Catholic school superintendent John Collins have described it as expansion and clarification of the standard faith and morals clause of the teacher contract.

“Bearing Witness” states teachers must live their lives “in conformity with the 10 Commandments” and Catholic teachers must “acknowledge” that attending Mass every Sunday and on holy days of obligation is “an especially important form of my duty to give witness to my faith.”

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VATICAN CITY
Cardinal Roger Mahony Blogs LA

We have concluded our tenth and last General Congregation for the Cardinals, and we now await our move to Casa Santa Martha on Tuesday morning.

At 10:00 AM we will concelebrate a special Mass for the Election of the Pope in St. Peter’s Basilica.

May I commend to your daily prayer the Mass Prayer which we will all pray on Tuesday morning:

O God, eternal shepherd,
who govern your flock with unfailing care,
grant in your boundless fatherly love
a Pastor and Successor to Peter for your Church
who will please you by his holiness
and to us show watchful care.
Through Christ our Lord.

On Tuesday evening the Cardinal Electors will enter in solemn Procession the Sistine Chapel, chanting as we go the Litany of the Saints. There will be a spiritual reflection offered, and we will proceed to the necessary oaths. On Tuesday evening we will have our first secret ballot vote for the next Pope.

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VATICAN CITY
John Thavis

People often imagine a conclave as a political convention in red robes, where cardinals may pray to the Holy Spirit but do their real business in back-room maneuvers.

Judging from my conversations with cardinals over the last two weeks, the “campaigning” aspect of a conclave is exaggerated in popular imagination. But that doesn’t mean the cardinals don’t talk, lobby and carefully calculate the chances of their favorite candidate.

From the moment it begins this evening, you could probably divide the conclave into “praying” and “politicking” moments.

The praying takes place in the Sistine Chapel, where the voting procedure is so formal and so solemn that the cardinals don’t even talk to each other. There’s a reason the cardinals will file into the chapel in choir dress – they are, in a sense, participating in a liturgy.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

This afternoon the Master of the Papal Ceremonies, Msgr. Guido Marini will pronounce the “Extra-Omnes” phrase, ordering all cardinals other than the cardinal electors to leave the Sistine Chapel. The first voting session will ensue

Vatican Insider staff
Vatican City

LIVE BROADCAST

As Vatican Radio reports, at 16:15 (CET) the 115 cardinal electors will “gather in the Pauline Chapel for a moment of collection and prayer and from there they will process in order of precedence through the Sala Regia to the Sistine Chapel invoking the Holy Spirit.” The procession will begin at 16:30, with the Cross and the Book of Gospels carried at the front.

After chanting the Veni Creator, cardinals will swear an oath to observe the rules of Conclave which include maintaining fidelity to the election of the Pope, maintaining secrecy and never supporting or favouring interference.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

by Dennis Coday,Joshua J. McElwee | Mar. 12, 2013

Rome —
If the 115 cardinal electors were hoping to receive marching orders in the final hours before they enter the conclave and begin to elect a new pope, they must have been disappointed in the homily at Tuesday morning’s Mass.

Following Pope John Paul II’s death in 2005, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s extended homily claiming modern society had allowed a “dictatorship of relativism” was thought to have sealed his case for election as Pope Benedict XVI.

Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the dean of the cardinals, had the chance to deliver a similar homily Tuesday as the final advice the church’s cardinals would receive publicly before sealing themselves off from the world Tuesday afternoon, but delivered instead a ferverino to charity and unity.

In a 10-minute address, Sodano did not mention church governance or the scandals among the Roman Curia that have been in the spotlight in the weeks following Pope Benedict’s resignation Feb. 28.

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AUSTRALIA
NEWS.com.au

Catholic priest appears in Beenleigh court on child sex charges related to offences at southeast Queensland schools

THE Catholic Church says it is paying retirement benefits to a priest facing 57 charges of sexually abusing more than 10 children in southeast Queensland schools.

The man worked in the schools in the 1970s and ’80s.

The retired priest, who cannot be named, remains in the official directory of the Catholic Church of Australia.

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ROME
GlobalPost

Italian archbishop Angelo Scola is favourite to be the next pope ahead of Ghana’s Peter Turkson and Odilo Scherer of Brazil, bookmakers said Tuesday as cardinals prepared to choose the new pontiff.

Bookmakers were also taking bets on the official name that the successor to Benedict XVI will take, with Leo, Peter and Gregory the favourites.

Irish bookmaker Paddy Power and Britain’s William Hill said Scola’s chances had improved dramatically and both gave the Milan archbishop odds of 9/4 to be the next pope.

The likelihood of a first African pope diminished meanwhile as the once highly favoured Cardinal Turkson dropped down the betting rankings, while Cardinal Scherer leapt up the table.

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VATICAN CITY
CTV (Canada)

The Associated Press
Published Tuesday, Mar. 12, 2013

VATICAN CITY — The conclave to elect a new pope begins Tuesday at the Vatican. The voting process follows a set ritual every day until the Catholic Church has a new leader. Here is an approximate schedule. Local time listed first.

Tuesday
• 10 a.m.-11:45 a.m. (5 a.m.-6:45 a.m. EDT; 0900-1045 GMT): Cardinals attend Mass in St Peter’s Basilica, then return to their Vatican hotel.
• 3:45 p.m. (10:45 a.m. EDT; 1445 GMT): Cardinals travel from their hotel to the Apostolic Palace.
• 4:30 p.m. (11:30 a.m. EDT; 1530 GMT): Procession from the Pauline Chapel into the Sistine Chapel.
• 4:45 p.m.-8 p.m. (11:45 a.m.-3 p.m. EDT; 1545-1900 GMT): Each cardinal takes an oath, most likely followed by the first vote. If the vote yields a new pope, white smoke will emerge from the chimney; if not the smoke will be black.
• 8 p.m. (3 p.m. EDT; 1900 GMT): Cardinals pray in the Sistine Chapel.
• 8:30 p.m. (3:30 p.m. EDT; 1930 GMT): Cardinals return to their hotel.

Wednesday and onward
• 7:45 a.m. (2:45 a.m. EDT; 0645 GMT): Cardinals travel to the Pauline Chapel.
• 8:15 a.m. (3:15 a.m. EDT; 0715 GMT): Mass in the Pauline Chapel.
• 9:30 a.m. (4:30 a.m. EDT; 0830 GMT): Prayer in the Sistine Chapel, voting starts.
• 12:30 p.m. (7:30 a.m. EDT; 1130 GMT): Cardinals retire to their hotel for lunch.
• 4 p.m. (11 a.m. EDT; 1500 GMT): Cardinals return to the Sistine Chapel.
• 4:50 p.m. (11:50 a.m. EDT; 1540 GMT): Voting in the Sistine Chapel.
• 7:15 p.m. (2:15 p.m. EDT; 1815 GMT): Prayer in the Sistine Chapel.
• 7:30 p.m. (2:30 p.m. EDT; 1830 GMT): Cardinals return to their hotel.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph & Argus

By Claire Armstrong, T&A Reporter

A Roman Catholic priest in Bradford told a teenage girl he loved her before forcing a kiss on her and touching her bottom, a jury heard.

William Finnegan, 59, is standing trial at Bradford Crown Court accused of sexually assaulting a 17-year-old girl, who cannot be named.

Opening the case for the prosecution, Richard Walters said: “The defendant grabbed [the girl], pulled her towards him, placed a hand on her bottom and proceeded to kiss her forcefully and passionately with an open mouth.

“Two days later he visited her home address and told her he had sexual feelings towards her.”

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ROME
International Business Times

By Ewan Palmer

March 12, 2013

The Catholic Church is facing further controversy over reports that it has spent €23m (£20m) for a share of an apartment block in Rome that also houses Europe’s biggest gay sauna.

As cardinals gathered for the conclave to select a new pope, the Vatican faced fresh embarrassment after it emerged that it had paid for up to 20 apartments for priests in the building in 2008. It is believed Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Pope Benedict’s former right-hand man, was behind the purchase.

The huge stone building also contains the Europa Multiclub Sauna and Gym, which claims on its website to be “the number one gay sauna in Italy”.

Cardinal Ivan Dias, the head of the Congregation for Evangelisation of Peoples, stays in a 12-room apartment on the first floor of the building, just above the entrance to the sauna.

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ROME
Daily Mail (UK)

Vatican in a sweat (again): Catholic Church left red-faced as it emerges priests share apartment block with Europe’s largest GAY SAUNA

By Simon Tomlinson
PUBLISHED:05:58 EST, 12 March 2013

It is already reeling from claims Pope Benedict XVI resigned because of a gay cabal in the Vatican.

Now, as the College of Cardinals prepares to elect his successor later today, the scandal-hit Catholic Church has broken into another sweat, this time over news several priests share an apartment block with Europe’s largest homosexual sauna.

The Holy See owns 19 apartments in the block in Rome after buying a £21million share of the building in 2008.

Next-door neighbours: The website of Europe’s largest gay sauna, Europa Multiclub, which is housed in an apartment part-owned by the Holy See

Several of the flats house priests, notably Cardinal Ivan Dias, the so-called ‘prince of the church’ whose 12-room apartment at 2 Via Carducci is located just yards from the Europa Multiclub.

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CANADA
Montreal Gazette

By PRESSE CANADIENNE/THE GAZETTE March 12, 2013

MONTREAL — Father Daniel Moreau was released on bail — with conditions — Monday afternoon by a judge in Sorel-Tracy.

Charged with seven counts of production, possession and distribution of child pornography, the Roman Catholic priest and long-time scouting leader had been jailed since his arrest Thursday morning at his living quarters at Saint-Gabriel-Lalement church, about 100 kilometres northeast of Montreal.

Moreau, 55, was handcuffed and taken away by the Sûreté du Québec after officers equipped with a search warrant began to examine his computer equipment, at the request of a police force from outside Quebec.

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VATICAN CITY
CBC News

Bursts of pink smoke filled the air in Rome today as Catholic women staged a protest calling for women’s equality in the church, while top Roman Catholic cardinals readied to elect the religion’s next pope.

The Women’s Ordination Conference, which has been lobbying the church for more than three decades to ordain women, staged the colourful protest at Piazza Garibaldi in Rome and in five locations across the United States, including Washington and San Francisco.

The organization’s members and allies gathered in the morning carrying signs and canisters filled with pink smoke, which they released into the air.

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ROME
The Moynihan Letters

March 11, 2013 by Robert Moynihan, PhD.

Today started with a bit of sun, then turned rainier toward mid-afternoon. There was even a bit of lightning, and thunder, but nothing like the lightning which struck St. Peter’s Dome one month ago. In the evening, it was cool and drizzly.

It was on February 11 that Pope Benedict announced his renunciation of the papal office — exactly one month ago.

(Left, a photo of the lightning bolt that struck St. Peter’s dome on February 11 at about 6 p.m., about 6 hours and 20 minutes after Benedict announced he would step down from the papal throne)

The time to the opening of the Conclave to elect his successor is now less than 40 hours, just a day and a half…

Most observers now are focused on who will become the next Pope. If I were asked right now who I think the next Pope will be, I would say I simply do not know.

What does seem clear is that there is occurring a very silent, hidden battle to determine how closely the next pontificate follows the line of Ratzinger — the line of transparency — or how much it draws back from that line. That is what is being determined right now.

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VATICAN CITY
Washington Post

By Anthony Faiola,
Published: March 11

VATICAN CITY — Papal conclaves historically created mystical figures, men transformed by divine authority into heirs of Saint Peter. But as 115 cardinals begin deliberations Tuesday to pick the next pope, observers say any successor to Benedict XVI is set to step into an office demystified by scandal and early retirement.

In other words, the magic might be gone from being pope.

The College of Cardinals held a general meeting Monday morning, but did not set a start date for the conclave that will decide who succeeds Pope Benedict XVI. It will ultimately come down to the 115 Cardinal electors who choose the new pope, so we’re taking a look at the numbers behind the voting in Vatican City.

For the most devout, the figure of the pope spoke with a nearly preternatural voice, vesting him with a transcending influence when, for instance, John Paul II called for the end of communism in the former Eastern bloc. But more than at any other point in recent history, Vatican watchers say the papacy has been brought back down to earth by Benedict’s unprecedented decision to step down and revelations of financial corruption in the Vatican and clergy sexual misconduct.

All of this could lead to a possible transformation for both the office of pope and the Roman Catholic church he leads.

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BOSTON (MA)
Boston Herald

By
Margery Eagan / Boston Herald

I’m no fan of the Catholic hierarchy. Still, I have to admit, I’ve been swept up in Sean-for-Pope frenzy.

“It’s easy to get giddy about our own cardinal,” said one of Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley’s toughest critics,­ Terry McKiernan. He’s co-founder with Anne Barrett Doyle of BishopAccountability.­org, an encyclopedic website detailing all that bishops and cardinals have not done to fix the abuse crisis.

McKiernan’s admission made me feel less like a sappy hometown pushover.

Besides, of all the prelates entering today’s papal conclave, our own Cardinal Sean, as he calls himself on his not very sprightly blog, may be the least offensive of an offensive, ethically challenged crew, particularly regarding abuse.

And the church, many of us believe, has reached the point when it has to fix the abuse mess or its other­ agendas are doomed. From this perspective, O’Malley has a clear advantage. He’s cleaned up clergy sex abuse in Fall River, Palm Beach, Fla., and Boston. And he’s been thoroughly vetted. No deep dark secrets are likely to emerge later.

“He’s been forced to confront all of this,” McKiernan said. “A sort of accountability has been forced upon him.”

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VATICAN CITY
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Associated Press

VATICAN CITY • The moment Cardinal Albino Luciani learned his colleagues had elected him pope, he responded: “May God forgive you for what you’ve done.” The remark, by the man who became Pope John Paul I, was seen as an expression of humility — but also a commentary on the mammoth task ahead.

There is no job like that of pope. He is the CEO of a global enterprise, head of state, a moral voice in the world and, in the eyes of Roman Catholics, Christ’s representative on Earth. And the man who emerges as pontiff from the conclave starting today has a particularly crushing to-do list. Here are some of the challenges awaiting him:

The next pope will have to restore discipline to the scandal-plagued central administration of the church. Benedict XVI, the former pope, commissioned a report on the Vatican bureaucracy, or Curia, that will be shown only to his successor. Benedict’s butler had leaked the pope’s private papers revealing feuding, corruption and cronyism at the highest levels of administration. The secretive Vatican bank recently ousted a president for incompetence and is under pressure for greater financial transparency. Bishops in several countries say nonresponsive Vatican officials are hampering local churches. The Curia decides everything from bishop appointments and liturgy, to parish closings and discipline for abusive priests.

The Vatican remains under pressure to reveal more about its past role in the church’s failures to protect children worldwide. The issue erupted ahead of the conclave, when victims from the U.S., Chile and Mexico pressured cardinals to recuse themselves because they had shielded priests from prosecution.

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VATICAN CITY
Corvallis Gazette-Times

By Henry Chu, Los Angeles Times

VATICAN CITY — The timing said it all.

A smiling Pope Benedict XVI had just wrapped up an official visit to Portugal in May 2010, during which he praised Catholic organizations striving to protect families based on “the indissoluble marriage between a man and a woman.”

But barely 72 hours after the pontiff flew home, the president of Portugal declared that he would sign a bill allowing gay and lesbian couples to wed. With Spain having granted such rights five years earlier, the move turned the entire Iberian Peninsula, historically a Catholic stronghold, into an unlikely hitching post for homosexuals.

“That shows the importance of the pope’s views, of the Catholic Church’s views, on same-sex marriage in terms of domestic politics,” Paulo Corte-Real, a gay-rights activist and economics professor, recalled wryly.

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ROME
The Globe and Mail (Canada)

ERIC REGULY
ROME — The Globe and Mail

Africa gives the Vatican bragging rights.

It is the one significant part of the Catholic world that is on the rise, with near explosive growth. The question is whether Africa’s enthusiastic response to the missionary church should be rewarded with the election of an African pope.

The idea certainly resonated with Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI, in 2004, when he told German TV that “we are ready for a black pope” and called Africa the “spiritual lung of the world.” He said much the same in 2009 when he visited Cameroon and Angola (he went to Benin in 2011).

But the 115 elector cardinals, whose conclave to elect a replacement for Pope Benedict begins Tuesday afternoon, may not be ready for an African pope just yet, given the fact that the Latin American church is much larger. About 40 per cent of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics are Latin Americans – Brazil and Mexico having the biggest Catholic populations.

“It would certainly be encouraging for the [next] pope to be non-European,” said Father Norman Tanner, professor of church history at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, noting the church’s decline in Europe and North America.

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ROME
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy

Victims blast international movement of predator priests
Group wants Interpol to go after child molesting clerics
SNAP gives list of 32 who have moved to/from 18 nations
Over last 10 years, at least 6 from the US have come to Rome
Group: “Church officials should take accused priests’ passports”
And they must stop letting child molesting clerics change their names, SNAP says

WHAT:
Holding signs and childhood photos at a news conference, US clergy sex abuse victims will
— hand out a list of 32 alleged predator priests who have moved or been sent abroad,
— publicly push Interpol, for the 1st time, to help pursue those who face criminal charges, and
— discuss 6 priests – from Australia and the US – who face abuse allegations and were sent to work/ live in/or near the Vatican over the past decade. (One was reportedly still living in Rome last year.)

The victims will also prod Catholic officials to stop
–sending child molesting clerics to other nations, and
–letting predator priests legally change their names (to avoid being caught), and start
–taking the passports of priests once they are accused so they can’t flee to other countries, and
–aggressively help law enforcement apprehend fugitive predator priests

WHEN:
TODAY, —-Tuesday, March 12 at 1:15 pm

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

WHO:
Two clergy sex abuse victims who are leaders of the US-based international support group SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAPnetwork.org)

WHY:
A 2004 investigation by the Dallas Morning News found more than 200 priests, accused of sexual abuse, who sought refuge in foreign countries. Nearly 100 cases involved clergy who escaped or were sent elsewhere to elude law enforcement. SNAP suspects this practice will increase in the future.

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ROME
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Victims name 3 more “problematic papal candidates”
SNAP: “While not as bad as Dirty Dozen, they’re worrisome”
Two are considered “long shots,” but one is leading contender

An international self-help group for clergy sex abuse victims is raising concerns about three more high-ranking Catholic cardinals who have been publicly named as possible “picks” for the new pope.

Leaders of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAPNetwork.org) say they’re worried about how three prelates might deal with abuse and cover up if they become the next pontiff: Cardinal Odilo Pedro Scherer of Brazil, Parisian Cardinal André Vingt-Trois, and Congolese Cardinal Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya.

“These three don’t seem as problematic as the 12 we criticized last week,” said Barbara Dorris, SNAP’s outreach director. “But what we’ve learned since then really makes us doubt they would be effective at protecting kids. And we feel it’s our obligation to share what we know about these powerful figures so we might just prevent one more child from getting assaulted by one more priest and later feel betrayed one more time by an influential church official.”

“Our goal is to prevent more pain and deter more reckless, callous and deceitful behavior by bishops,” said Clohessy. “If one distraught parent in France, Brazil or the Congo is considering reporting their child’s abuse to these prelates, and sees this list, and decides to report to law enforcement instead, we think everyone will be well served.”

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VATICAN CITY
Voice of America

[with video]

Jerome Socolovsky

March 11, 2013

VATICAN — Roman Catholic cardinals on Tuesday begin a conclave at the Vatican. One of the issues as they cast ballots for the next pope will be the ongoing controversy over clerical sex abuse. Some victims of that abuse say the church has tried to avoid responsibility, and they’re skeptical that the next pope will make major changes.

“This is a picture of me, right before my abuse. I was around eignt or nine when the abuse started,” says Becky Ianni, who remembers herself as a normal, happy child.

Continuing to refer to the photo she said, “and then this is me, during my abuse. And you can see I cut my hair. He used to touch my hair. He basically – he would rape me with his hands. He at one point in the vestry of the church stood behind me and rubbed his hands up and down my school uniform. And I remember after that point I would start wearing a sweater all the time, and that was my protection.”

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CANADA
Vancouver Sun

By Douglas Todd, Vancouver Sun March 12, 2013

A strong majority of North America Roman Catholics want a more “liberal” pope and seek an end to Vatican bans on artificial contraception, married priests and female ordination, according to an Angus Reid Public Opinion poll released Monday.

Vancouver-based pollster Mario Canseco, a practising Catholic like his boss, Angus Reid, said the cross-border poll points to clear ways the cardinal who will be elected pope this week could bring wayward Catholics back to the fold.

Canseco, who attended Catholic educational institutions for 17 years in Mexico and Spain, said he was personally “pleasantly surprised” with the findings – because the yearning for Vatican reform is widespread among both Catholics who attend church once a week and those who show up less frequently.

Sixty per cent of Canadian Catholics who go to mass at least every week want a more “liberal” pontiff. That figure swells to 69 per cent among Canadian Catholics who attend church less often.

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ITALIA
Corriere della Sera

[con video]

Parla un fedelissimo di Benedetto XVI, Monsignor Scicluna, ex pubblico accusatore dei preti sospettati di abusi, che tre mesi fa è stato trasferito a Malta su proposta del Cardinal Bertone – Angela Camuso

«Un vescovo non può aver paura davanti a chi aggredisce il suo gregge». Lo dichiara Monsignor Charles Scicluna, l’ex promotore di giustizia della Santa Sede, garante della linea della trasparenza nella lotta contro la pedofilia propugnata da Ratzinger.

A fine anno scorso Scicluna è stato trasferito a Malta, con l’incarico di vescovo ausiliario, si sospetta per accontentare chi, dentro la Curia e all’insaputa del Papa, non aveva gradito le sue prese di posizione, più volte critiche nei confronti della Conferenza Episcopale Italiana che secondo Scicluna non faceva abbastanza per obbligare i vescovi informati alla denuncia.

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ITALY
Malta Today

Source: Corriere dell Sera – click here for original story.

[with audio]

[LISTEN] Auxiliary Bishop Mgr Charles Scicluna says Pope Benedict XVI ‘decapitated himself to get rid of people he could not trust.’

Matthew Vella

The Catholic Church’s former prosecutor of priests accused of child sex abuse, believes that Pope Benedict XVI “anticipated his death” in a bid to remove the Vatican’s chief antagonists.

Mgr Charles Scicluna, whose high-profile role as promoter of justice in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, came to an end in 2012 when he was transferred to Malta to be auxiliary bishop, was speaking to Italy’s Corriere della Sera in what sounds like a candid audio recording with the journalist.

It is not clear whether the recording was an off-the-record conversation.

“To me it seems that he wants to give space to a person that can take the situation in hand in a way that he cannot presently ensure for the Church,” Scicluna is heard telling the journalist when asked about the investigations into paedophilia inside Catholic churches.

When asked whether there were people around Benedict that could not fully trust, Scicluna replies:

“If he goes, these people will also go. Maybe, not being able to decapitate everyone, he chose to go himself… it will be the next pope to handle the matter.”

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SCOTLAND
National Secular Society

Posted: Tue, 12 Mar 2013

By Alistair McBay, NSS spokesperson for Scotland

It seems there is no end to the woes of the Catholic Church in Scotland in the wake of Cardinal O’Brien’s abrupt departure.

The latest reports in the media examine the Scottish Catholic Church’s record on dealing with historic allegations of child sex abuse by clergy, with one former investigator hired by the Church in the mid-1990s now considering a formal request to the police to investigate the Church’s handling of abuse cases.

The revelations confirm the now all too familiar pattern of protecting the Church’s reputation first and foremost – allegations not taken seriously enough or simply dismissed, offending priests quietly moved to another parish where they could offend again, and the Church continuing to refer to the cover-up with euphemisms like “errors” in handling cases.

The Church’s first line of defence is to claim that it had tackled the problem when it introduced formal guidelines in 1999 for the protection of children. But it was only five years earlier that O’Brien’s predecessor Cardinal Winning had enraged lay Catholics by stating that it was up to the victims of abuse to go to the police, not the Church authorities. A spokesman for the Royal Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children observed at the time that the Church in Scotland had “dealt with this issue in a shabby, damaging and incompetent way.” There is now emergent evidence that Cardinal Winning’s view was the one that still retained currency after 1999.

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VATICAN CITY
BBC News

Gavin Hewitt

In the cardinals’ last meeting before the Conclave, there was tension and division.

It was a reminder – if any was needed – that the choice of pope is not just about selecting the spiritual leader of the Roman Catholic Church. It is also about power.

During Monday afternoon one of the most powerful brokers in the Vatican hierarchy returned to the sensitive subject of the Vatican Bank. Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone is not just the Vatican’s secretary of state, he is one of the most influential figures in the Roman Curia, the bureaucracy. He had taken exception to some of the criticism of the running of the bank.

The bank has been the source of scandal with concerns about money-laundering. Last week one of the Brazilian cardinals, Joao Braz de Aviz, criticised the management of the Vatican finances and his comments got in the papers. Cardinal Bertone accused him of leaking his criticisms. Not only did the Brazilian cardinal deny this but other cardinals applauded him.

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone is seen here with Pope Benedict XVI (background)
What these exchanges laid bare was that the Curia is at the heart of the decision as to who will be the next pope.

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UNITED STATES
Detroit Free Press

David Bauder
Associated Press Television Writer

NEW YORK — White smoke or black smoke? Maybe it’s easier just to wait for a text message that a new pope has been elected.

A Catholic organization has set up a website, www.popealarm.com, that lets people register to receive a text or email notification when a pope has been selected.

While the process of selecting a new pope is as old as the ages, there are enough changes to the media to make the last papal conclave — in 2005 — seem like ancient history.

The text service was set up by the Fellowship of Catholic University Students, or FOCUS, and had proven so popular with more than 40,000 respondents that the popealarm website said Monday it was accepting no new registrants. The site hopes to increase its capacity before the cardinals begin voting, said Jeremy Rivera, spokesman for the Christian campus ministry.

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VATICAN CITY
ABC News

[with video]

By MATTHEW JAFFE (@matthewbjaffe)

VATICAN CITY March 12, 2013

A new pope could be elected today as the 115 Roman Catholic cardinals enter the Sistine Chapel for the conclave that will select the next pontiff.

The first vote is set to take place this evening in Rome (afternoon ET), although it is unlikely that on the first ballot any candidate earns the two-thirds majority needed for election. If no pope is elected on this evening’s vote, the 115 cardinal electors will resume the conclave Wednesday.

This morning the cardinals celebrated a mass in a packed St. Peter’s Basilica with a homily from Cardinal Angelo Sodano, dean of the college of cardinals.

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VATICAN CITY
NEWS.com.au

[with live feed]

CARDINALS heard a final appeal for unity before sequestering themselves in the Sistine Chapel for the conclave to elect the next pope, as they celebrated Mass amid divisions and uncertainty over who will lead the 1.2 billion-strong Catholic Church and tend to its many problems.

A Gregorian chant wafting through St Peter’s Basilica, the 115 cardinal electors filed in wearing bright red vestments, many looking grim as if the burden of the imminent vote was weighing on them.

A few hundred people braved thunderstorms and pouring rain to watch the mass on giant TV screens in St Peter’s Square. A handful knelt in prayer, eyes clenched and hands clasped.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic Culture

At their final meeting before the opening of the papal conclave tomorrow, the College of Cardinals heard a “brief report” on the Vatican bank.

Father Federico Lombardi, the director of the Vatican press office, told reporters on March 11 that Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone spoke about the bank, the Institute for Religious Works (IOR), apparently to answer lingering questions from cardinals. The IOR has been struggling to meet European standards for transparency in banking, and questions about its administration have merged with other questions about efficiency and accountability at the Vatican.

Father Lombardi indicated that the discussion of the IOR took only a portion of the Monday session. Although he did not provide details about the other issues discussed, he said: “Naturally, much was also said about the expectations and hopes for the future Holy Father.”

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ROME
Deredactie

De kardinalen uit de Verenigde Staten hebben zojuist hun residentie in Rome verlaten en zijn met de bus onderweg naar het Vaticaan, waar ze in conclaaf gaan tot de nieuwe paus bekendgemaakt kan worden. Bij hun vertrek kregen ze aanmoedigend applaus. (ruwe beelden Reuters – 12/03/13)

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Josh Halliday and Haroon Siddique
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 12 March 2013

Jimmy Savile’s celebrity status contributed to the police’s failure to prevent him sexually abusing hundreds of young people over five decades when they could have stopped him in the 1960s, the compiler of a highly critical report by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) has said.

The watchdog’s inquiry into the police’s handling of Savile revealed that the disgraced DJ, who died in October 2011, could have been stopped as early as 1964 but police mishandled evidence and dismissed victims.

Drusilla Sharpling, from HMIC, said police appeared to be reluctant to investigate Savile because of his high public profile.

“It is clear that because of several Savile’s celebrity status and the power, maybe people do look for that extra piece of evidence, behaving with an extra sense of caution, because of the power he wielded,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Tuesday.

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GROSSBRITANIEN
Zeit

Die Polizei wusste schon in den sechziger Jahren von Missbrauchsvorwürfen gegen BBC-Moderator Savile. Seine Popularität schützte ihn damals vor weiteren Ermittlungen.

Die britische Polizei hat im Fall Jimmy Savile versagt. Zu diesem Schluss kommt die polizeiliche Aufsichtsbehörde HMIC, die den Missbrauchsskandal um den inzwischen verstorbenen BBC-Moderator und das damit zusammenhängende etwaige Versagen der Sicherheitsbehörden untersucht hat.

Laut einem Bericht des Guardian, der sich auf den Abschlussreport der Kontrolleure bezieht, gab es schon in den frühen sechziger Jahren Hinweise darauf, dass Savile Kinder und Jugendliche missbraucht haben soll. Betroffene hätten sich an die Behörden gewandt, wurden aber von Polizisten abgewiesen. Dadurch, so konstatiert der HMIC, sei Savile fünf Jahrzehnte lang unbehelligt geblieben.

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ROM
Spiegel

Von Barbara Hans

Aufklärer oder Vertuscher: Bei der Wahl des neuen Papstes ist ein Thema von besonderer Bedeutung, der Umgang mit sexuellem Missbrauch. Der Skandal brachte die Kirche in Misskredit, die Kardinäle in Rom schwanken zwischen Offenheit und Leugnung. Wer vertritt welche Position?

Das Thema bestimmte die Agenda, bevor es überhaupt richtig losgegangen war in Rom. Der schottische Kardinal Keith O’Brien hätte eigentlich gemeinsam mit 115 anderen Kardinälen in der Sixtinischen Kapelle das neue Kirchenoberhaupt wählen sollen, doch dann holte ihn die Vergangenheit ein. Genauer gesagt: einige “unangemessene” Annäherungsversuche, die Geistliche nun, Jahre später, publik gemacht hatten.

Sex und Zölibat vertragen sich nicht gut, zumindest dann nicht, wenn sie öffentlich werden. O’Brien trat zurück und die Kirche sprach wieder einmal über ihren Umgang mit der Sexualmoral und die Verfehlungen von Geistlichen, die ihre Macht und Untergebene missbrauchten. Vor dem Konklave hatte die Kirche erneut ein Glaubwürdigkeitsproblem, weil einer ihrer obersten Würdenträger Moral mit Doppelmoral verwechselte.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Zeit

Benedikt XVI. wird sich nach seinem Rücktritt nicht zur Ruhe setzen, sondern im Vatikan weiter mitregieren, sagt der Theologe Küng. Dafür gebe es viele Anzeichen.

Benedikt XVI. wird auch nach seinem Rücktritt auf wichtige Entscheidungen im Vatikan Einfluss nehmen – darin ist sich der kritische katholische Theologe Hans Küng sicher. Benedikt habe alle Weichen gestellt, um seine Machtposition zu sichern, sagte der Tübinger Professor. Für den neuen Papst sei dies eine große Bürde. Er werde “in jedem Fall gehindert sein durch diesen Schattenpapst”.

Benedikt XVI. hatte sich am 28. Februar im Vatikan von den Kardinälen verabschiedet und sich zu seinem Nachfolger geäußert: “Unter Euch ist auch der künftige Papst, dem ich meinen bedingungslosen Gehorsam und Ehrfurcht verspreche”, sagte er, bevor er in seine Sommerresidenz Castel Gandolfo flog. In einigen Monaten will er in ein ehemaliges Kloster in den Vatikanischen Gärten ziehen.

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ROME
Huffington Post

Deborah Jacobs

All eyes are on the Vatican as more than 100 cardinals from around the world gather this week to select a new pope. Their choice will reflect a collective sense of priorities for the Catholic Church, as much as it will the qualities of the man selected.

Top church officials, including the Archbishops of Washington and New York, have publicly listed their priority concerns for the next pontiff: secularism, religious persecution, Christianity in the cross hairs of “fanatics,” the institution of marriage, and meeting the growing financial needs of churches in developing countries.

Conspicuously absent from this list is the cancer of child sexual abuse. Nothing has cost the modern-day Catholic Church more followers, credibility and trust than its repeated decisions to sacrifice the safety of innocent children in deference to its own reputation. Church leaders have been disturbingly quiet about the new pope’s imperative to root out child sexual abuse within its institution and the vile cover-ups perpetrated by those in leadership.

After an initial round of media appearances by American cardinals in the lead-up to the conclave (including some who spoke more forthrightly about addressing child sex abuse), the Vatican pulled the plug on further press interviews and news conferences. Indeed, silence has been the Church’s long-standing practice for which sexual abuse victims continue to pay a devastatingly high price.

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PHILIPPINES
Digital Journal

By Leo Reyes
Mar 11, 2013

One of the major issues confronting the Catholic church is the involvement of religious leaders or priests in various forms of sexual abuse being committed on church members and other workers in the institutions under the Catholic church hierarchy.

In the ongoing selection process leading to the proclamation of the a new Pope following the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI last February 28, two of the more than 100 Cardinals who are candidates to the papacy, were reported to be “clean” from scandals of sexually-abusive priests, according a report by telegraph.co.uk

The report quoted a statement by the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), saying “the vast majority of cardinals are tainted by having ignored cases of predatory priests or by having actively covered them up and impeded efforts by police and prosecutors to bring the offenders to justice.”

“The only two “papabili” or papal contenders who have a credible record on sex abuse scandals are Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle of the Philippines and Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn of Austri,” the statement added.

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NETHERLANDS
Press TV (Iran)

Thousands of Dutch girls have suffered sexual and physical abuse by Roman Catholic Church officials since 1945, a report says.

An independent investigative commission, funded by the Dutch Bishop’s Conference and mandated by the government, reported on Monday that the girls were molested by members of the clergy in their homes or in churches.

According to the report, they suffered physical abuse and intimidation at the hands of nuns at young women’s homes.

The committee said around 40 percent of the girls interviewed in the study, led by former Hague mayor Wim Deetman, had been raped by priests or deacons.

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UNITED STATES
Washington Post

By Lisa Fullam,
Published: March 11

Here in the papal interregnum, rumors fly about a shady cabal of Vatican officials who may—or may not—be subject to blackmail for sexual misbehavior. UK Cardinal Keith O’Brien resigns and admits to sexual misconduct. The church is reeling from a clergy sex abuse scandal that continues to unfold worldwide. America’s Catholic bishops continue to raise objection to HHS’ policy that requires employers to cover birth control.

It seems like every media mention of the Catholic Church involves sex, sexual abuse, or cover-ups of sexual abusers.

Yet most Catholics seem underwhelmed by church teaching on sex: the vast majority of Catholics reject or simply ignore church teaching against contraception. In vitro fertilization, even fertilization of a woman’s ova with her husband’s sperm, is forbidden by church teaching, yet Catholics pursue those procedures nonetheless. Catholic leaders fiercely oppose gay marriage and talk of homosexuality as “intrinsically disordered,” but now most Catholics now support marriage equality and say same-sex relationships are not always sinful. Catholics cohabitate before marriage, and far fewer Catholics are getting married in the church: there were 8.6 marriages per 1,000 U.S. Catholics in 1972 to 2.6 marriages per 1,000 Catholics in 2010 And it’s not just a lay issue: a 2002 LA Times poll found that only one-third of priests “’do not waver’ from their vow of celibacy, while 47 percent described celibacy as ‘an ongoing journey’ and 14 percent said they ‘do not always succeed in following’ it.” The report also found that two percent of priests admit they are not celibate.

Is it time for a new Catholic conversation about sex?

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UNITED STATES
San Francisco Chroncile

By Brian Cahill

Updated 6:13 pm, Monday, March 11, 2013

Amid the fanfare, panoply, rumors and leaks of the upcoming papal election, a New York Times/CBS poll tells us that 7 out of 10 American Catholics believe their bishops are out of touch. While the poll gives high marks to parish priests, it’s clear that the bishops’ failure of accountability in the child sexual abuse scandal and the weakness of their arguments regarding celibacy, the ordination of women, birth control and same-sex marriage have resulted in a significant loss of moral authority.

Just a few examples support the poll findings:

Cardinal Roger Mahony, in Rome to vote for a new pope, is trying to tweet his way through the unfolding evidence of his role in the child abuse scandal, telling us that only special training would have equipped him to know what to do when he was told that children were being molested by some of his priests.

Cardinal William Levada, in defending Mahony’s right to vote in the conclave, declared that “there are some victims groups for whom enough is never enough.”

Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, who told us after California voters approved Proposition 8, which restricted the definition of marriage to opposite-sex couples, that we should respect the will of the voters, has changed his tune. A week after the 2012 election, in which voters in four states affirmed same-sex marriage, he complained, “People don’t understand what marriage is.” Recently, Cordileone told a London newspaper that “legislating for the right for people of the same sex to marry is like legalizing male breast feeding.”

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Los Angeles Times

By Harriet Ryan and Victoria Kim, Los Angeles Times
March 12, 2013

Ray Boucher walked out of a downtown Los Angeles courthouse six years ago the envy of the legal field. As the lead attorney in the landmark $660-million sexual-abuse settlement with the Catholic archdiocese, he had won long-denied justice for hundreds of victims and made himself and other attorneys very rich. Flanked by grateful clients, he faced a crush of cameras with the confidence of a man who had achieved a new level of professional acclaim and personal wealth.

These days Boucher returns frequently to that same courthouse. He walks alone up the steps where reporters once mobbed him, rides the elevator past the courtroom where a judge praised his tireless work for victims and trudges into his divorce trial. The site of his greatest glory, he says, has become a place he dreads.

Boucher’s wife left him in 2007, shortly after the clergy settlement was announced. What followed has been a divorce fight epic even by L.A. standards. For the last five years, the former couple has clawed at each other over money. The jaw-dropping cost of the court battle — $8 million in legal bills and growing, by Boucher’s estimation — drove him to file for bankruptcy last year.

“There was just nothing left. Everything was gone,” he said.

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ROME
SBS (Australia)

[with videos]

From sexual abuse to corruption, the Church has faced one problem after another in recent years, but the cardinals are divided over how to deal with them.

Catholic Cardinals will begin meeting tonight to elect a new Pope, and the scandals engulfing the church are likely to be weighing on their minds.

With allegations of sexual abuse and corruption, the Church has faced one problem after another in recent years, but the cardinals are divided over how to deal with them.

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CANADA
CBC News

Saskatoon’s Catholic churches will be making some changes in the next few months in order to prevent sexual abuse or misconduct.

The new policy, which was approved by the Saskatoon diocese last year and is being implemented over the next few months, means there’ll be fewer cases where vulnerable people will be left alone with a single priest, employee or volunteer.

For example, visits with children, the elderly, and people with mental and physical disabilities will be done in pairs.

The “Covenant of Care and Sexual Abuse and Misconduct Protocol” is meant to protect vulnerable people from sexual assault or misconduct but also to protect people from false accusations.

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NETHERLANDS
The Globe and Mail (Canada)

AMSTERDAM — The Associated Press

A commission investigating abuse of children linked to Dutch Roman Catholic institutions says girls were sexually abused by members of the clergy in their homes and in church, while they suffered physical abuse and intimidation at the hands of nuns at homes for young women.

The report follows a previous study focused on boys, which found boys were especially vulnerable to sexual abuse in boarding schools.

The commission, led by former Hague mayor Wim Deetman, was funded by the Catholic church. In preliminary conclusions in December 2011 it estimated that up to 20,000 children were molested at Catholic boarding schools between 1945 and 2010, and “several tens of thousands” faced abuse of some kind.

Monday’s follow-up study focused more on Catholic girls and young women, who in addition to boarding schools were often sent to homes for unwed mothers run by nuns if they became pregnant without being married.

“In cases of physical violence without sexual abuse, both new and previous complaints point toward primarily female perpetrators, mostly nuns who worked as educators or caregivers,” Deetman wrote in his conclusions.

“In heavy cases of sexual abuse, the perpetrators were primarily male.”

The commission has already turned over to police only the handful of abuse cases it has uncovered that it thinks may be prosecutable. It recommends mediation for the rest.

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AUSTRALIA
Gold Coast Bulletin News

A 77-year-old man believed to be a retired Catholic priest is facing almost 60 charges of sexually abusing children in Queensland, including on the Gold Coast.

The man is accused of indecently dealing with children in Brisbane, Logan and on the Gold Coast between 1977 and 1988.

The man, from Boronia Heights, is charged with 57 counts of indecent treatment of children and one count of common assault.

His case was mentioned in the Beenleigh Magistrates Court this morning, but the man was not required to appear. The matter was adjourned until May 13.

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ROME
CBS Boston

ROME (CBS) – The next pope will have to address a sex abuse crisis that in parts of the world is only now coming to light. It’s one reason Cardinal Sean O’Malley’s name is now so often on the “short list.”

But as Lisa Hughes explains from Rome, a national victims’ support group says the Archbishop of Boston is the wrong choice.

David Clohessy was just a little boy when he says his parish priest abused him and his three siblings. Now, as director of the Survivor’s Network of those Abused by Priests or “SNAP”, he’s working to protect children from predators.

“Even now within the church, they’re exposed and they’re suspended after the fourth allegation or the fourteenth allegation not the first,” says Clohessy.

Clohessy says they are not hopeful that a new pope will help change things. In fact, he’s worried excitement about the new pope, the hope he’ll take a hard line against abusers, will make people complacent.

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AUSTRALIA
WA Today

March 12, 2013

Geoffrey Robertson

As the world awaits the white smoke, it is time to ask how the next Supreme Leader of the Catholic Church can meet its most urgent challenge – stopping its priests sexually molesting small boys. There have been, on a realistic estimate, more than 100,000 such victims since 1981 when Joseph Ratzinger became head of the Vatican office that 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 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 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, the US and Europe, that the Vatican has conspired to thwart prosecutors and protect clerical criminals.

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AUSTRALIA
Adelaide Now

BRISBANE’S Catholic archdiocese has reaffirmed what it says is its intolerance of sexual abuse after a retired Catholic priest was charged on 60 counts of sexually abusing children in Queensland.

The archdiocese says while it could not comment on the specific case in any way, in view of the upcoming royal commission into child sexual abuse, it would repeat the church’s stance on the issue.

“Any person raising allegations of abuse against church personnel is strongly encouraged to contact the police,” the brief statement reads.

The 77-year-old priest, who cannot be named and whose address is given as Logan, south of Brisbane, is accused of indecently dealing with children in the Brisbane, Logan and Gold Coast areas between 1977 and 1988.

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VATICAN CITY
CBS News

[with video]

By Mark Phillips

(CBS News) ROME – All roads lead to Rome, and the road to the papacy starts here.

First thing tomorrow, the cardinals who will choose the next pope will gather at St. Peter’s Basilica to celebrate mass together. …

The Vatican is more than the world’s largest religious institution — it’s a business. It is also a business in trouble. Behind great ecclesiastical pageants, like former Pope Benedict’s farewell, there are back-room financial scandals at Vatican Inc.

In an old stone tower, in Vatican City, is the Vatican Bank.

The church’s various departments, its priests and employees keep accounts here; secret accounts, hidden from the prying eyes international regulators. An Italian court investigating the bank found documents showing some accounts had been used for money-laundering and other illegal — and for the church, highly embarrassing — activities.

Vatican watchers, like Marco Politi, have studied the court documents that verified the bank’s transactions have not always been kosher.

“There was money of the mafia who was recycled through the channels of the Vatican Bank, and also bribe money to political parties in Italy went through the Vatican Bank,” Politi said.

With dark financial clouds hanging over the Vatican, the European Union insisted the bank open its accounts to public scrutiny. When it was too slow, tourists felt the pinch. When European bankers suspended the Vatican’s credit card facilities, visitors couldn’t use plastic to buy Sistine Chapel tickets.

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ROME
Herald Sun

AS cardinals prepare for the conclave to elect the next pope, the victims of sex abuse by clergymen are trying to ensure the vote doesn’t go to anyone they accuse of helping cover up the scandal.

The Catholic hierarchy had a final day of talks in Rome on Monday before going into lockdown in the Sistine Chapel for the vote, after former pontiff Benedict XVI’s shock resignation – the first for 700 years.

The endless scandals over sexual abuse by pedophile priests and cover-ups by superiors will be a factor in the debate, and victims’ groups have been campaigning in the Vatican and at home to try to make it a deciding one.

“If the Church elects a new Pope that has a poor record of dealing with abuse, that will be a sign that nothing has changed,” said James Salt, director of victims’ pressure-group Catholics United.

The group has launched an appeal calling for “all Cardinals tarnished by scandal to recuse themselves from upcoming Papal conclave,” eliminating themselves not just as candidates, but as electors.

Members of the US group SNAP – Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests – have travelled to Rome where they have been active ahead of the conclave.

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UNITED STATES
ABC News

By Gary Langer

Mar 11, 2013

A record number of American Catholics disapprove of the church’s handling of its sexual abuse scandals, underscoring the challenges facing the next pope as he seeks to restore confidence and trust in the church’s leadership.

More broadly, Catholics in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll say the church, while relevant, also is out of touch with their views. Majorities differ with doctrine on issues such as ordaining women and allowing priests to marry, as well as on some central social issues.

See PDF with full results, charts and tables here.

In clearly its greatest difficulty, an overwhelming 78 percent of Catholics now disapprove of how the church has handled the issue of sexual abuse of children by priests, and two-thirds disapprove strongly – the highest and strongest disapproval since the scandals erupted more than a decade ago, up sharply since U.S. church leaders sought to address the issue in 2004.

Sixty percent of Catholics, more generally, describe the church as “out of touch” with the views of Catholics in America, and by 54-38 percent Catholics urge a new direction by the next pope, away from traditional policies and toward new approaches that better reflect “the attitudes and lifestyles of Catholics today.” Less-frequent churchgoers, in particular, seek change – but even among those who attend Mass frequently, more than half call the church out of touch.

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AUSTRALIA
Big Pond News

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

An elderly man believed to be a Catholic priest will face a Queensland court on child sex abuse charges dating back to the 1970s.

The 77-year-old is accused of indecently dealing with children in the Brisbane, Logan and Gold Coast areas between 1977 and 1988, police said.

The man, from Boronia Heights, has been charged with 57 counts of indecent treatment of children and one count of common assault.

He will appear in the Beenleigh Magistrates Court on Tuesday.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Big Trial

Monday, March 11, 2013

By Ralph Cipriano
for Bigtrial.net

On Jan. 28, 2010, Detective Andrew Snyder drove up to Graterford Prison in Northeast Philadelphia to spring “Billy Doe” out of jail, and drive him down to the district attorney’s office in Center City for questioning.

When Detective Snyder and Billy Doe got to the D.A.’s office, Billy’s parents were waiting for him. And, according to what Billy Doe told the grand jury, so was Assistant District Attorney Mariana Sorensen. Detective Snyder recorded what happened next on four pages of typed notes. Here’s Snyder’s first two sentences:

Picked up [Billy Doe] from Graterford Prison. [Billy Doe’s] parents … were present during the interview.

On Jan. 28, 2010, Billy Doe, the man who claimed he was raped by two priests and a Catholic school teacher, was 21 years old. He was not under 18, so there was no reason for his parents to sit in on the interview. The longstanding practice at the district attorney’s office, and the Philadelphia Police Department, is to interview an adult complainant by himself; the parents typically would have been interviewed separately. The interviews are usually conducted in a Q. and A. format and recorded on an “Investigation Interview Record.” In cop lingo, the Investigation Interview Record is known in the D.A.’s office and the Philadelphia Police Department as a “483,” because of the form number on the bottom of the page.

When the detective is through asking questions, the subject of the interview is asked to read over the questions and answers on the 483, make corrections, and finally, sign the document.

Did the district attorney’s office bend the rules to let Billy’s father, a Philadelphia police sergeant, and his mother sit in on the D.A.’s interview with their son? It sure looks like it. Also, why was there was no official Investigation Interview Record done in the traditional Q. and A. format with either Billy Doe or his parents?

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

January 21, 2013, 6:18 pm Georgia Main Today Tonight

Just two months after the announcement of a Royal Commission into child sexual abuse, the Catholic Church is reeling from scandal once again.

This time a former Sydney priest has been exposed for a long-term sexual relationship with a vulnerable parishioner.

Father Tom Knowles is preaching again after sexually preying on a disabled woman.

For fourteen years Jennifer Herrick endured a secret sexual relationship with the priest. Father Knowles was the Herrick’s trusted family priest at their local church in Sydney.

Herrick was a shy nineteen-year-old with bilateral congenital hip dysplasia – a condition causing her to walk with a highly abnormal gait.

“I had such low self-esteem because of the way I walked, that I kind of made allowances for him because he was a priest. The rules were the rules and I thought ‘I guess he’s human, he has his needs’ and somehow he’d picked me. Now I know he sure did pick me,” she said.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Elise Worthington

A retired Catholic priest is due to appear in court, south of Brisbane, charged with over 50 historical child-sex offences.

Detectives from the Child and Sexual Crimes Unit have charged the 77-year-old following an investigation that began last year into the alleged indecent treatment of children between 1977 and 1988.

Police say the offences were allegedly committed in the Brisbane, Logan and Gold Coast areas.

The man has been charged with 57 counts of indecent treatment of children and one count of common assault and is due to appear in the Beenleigh Magistrates Court today.

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ISRAEL
JTA

(JTA) — An Israeli rabbi who fled to the United States amid sexual abuse allegations reportedly will return to Israel.

Army Radio reported Monday that the 70-year-old rabbi, who was not named but was identified as being from a “very well known hasidic movement,” agreed to return to Israel in the coming days and face his accusers. Attorney Jacob Weinroth traveled to the U.S. to persuade the rabbi, according to the station.

Army Radio received several testimonies of abuse by unidentified individuals described as the rabbi’s followers.

The report said the affair exploded after one of the rabbi’s followers said he saw the rabbi naked with a woman during what was supposed to be “a purification session.” Police learned of the affair after other followers threatened the man to keep quiet about what he said he witnessed.

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VATICAN CITY
The New York Times

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN and ELISABETTA POVOLEDO

Published: March 10, 2013

VATICAN CITY — The cardinals who enter the papal conclave on Tuesday will walk into the Sistine Chapel in a single file, but beneath the orderly display, they are split into competing lineups and power blocs that will determine which man among them emerges as pope.

The main divide pits the cardinals who work in the Vatican, the Romans, against the reformers, the cardinals who want the next pope to tackle what they see as the Vatican’s corruption, inefficiency and reluctance to share power and information with bishops from around the world.

But the factions in this conclave do not break along geographical lines, and in fact, they have produced alliances that are surprisingly counterintuitive: the Romans’ top preference appears to be a Brazilian, and the reformers are said to be pushing for an Italian.

This conclave is far more unpredictable and suspenseful than the last because the church landscape has shifted in the last eight years. The next pontiff must unite an increasingly globalized church paralyzed by scandal and mismanagement under the spotlight in a fast-moving media age. And among the cardinals, there is no obvious single successor to Pope Benedict XVI, who rattled the church by resigning last month at age 85.

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ROME
The Independent (UK)

As cardinals gather to elect Pope, Catholic officials break into a sweat over news that priests share €23m building with huge gay sauna

Michael Day
MILAN

Monday 11 March 2013

A day ahead of the papal conclave, faces at the scandal-struck Vatican were even redder than usual after it emerged that the Holy See had purchased a €23 million (£21 million) share of a Rome apartment block that houses Europe’s biggest gay sauna.

The senior Vatican figure sweating the most due to the unlikely proximity of the gay Europa Multiclub is probably Cardinal Ivan Dias, the head of the Congregation for Evangelisation of Peoples, who is due to participate in tomorrow’s election at the Sistine Chapel.

This 76-year-old “prince of the church” enjoys a 12-room apartment on the first-floor of the imposing palazzo, at 2 Via Carducci, just yards from the ground floor entrance to the steamy flesh pot. There are 18 other Vatican apartments in the block, many of which house priests.

The Holy See is still reeling from allegations that the previous pontiff, Benedict XVI, had quit in reaction to the presence of a gay cabal in the curia.

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ROME
Liberation (France)

Par AFP

Des Etats-Unis, du Mexique ou de Belgique, les victimes de prêtres pédophiles se sont invitées au conclave en appelant à privilégier certains cardinaux contre d’autres à ne pas élire pour, selon elles, avoir couvert ou minimisé le scandale des abus sexuels dans l’église.

«Si l’église élit un nouveau pape dont le bilan est maigre dans la lutte contre les prêtres pédophiles, cela voudra dire que rien n’a changé», affirme à l’AFP James Salt, directeur de l’association Catholics United, qui a appelé «tous les cardinaux entâchés par le scandale à se récuser du conclave».

Présente et très active depuis quelques jours à Rome, l’association américaine de victimes Snap a publié une liste de «12 salopards», dont des +papabili+ en vue comme le Canadien Marc Ouellet ou l’Italien Angelo Scola, qu’elle enjoint le conclave de ne pas élire, pour leur passivité, selon elle.

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NEW ORLEANS (LA)
Fox 8

New Orleans, La. – The FBI New Orleans Violent Crime Task Force arrests a suspect wanted in Jackson County, Missouri for multiple counts of child molestation and forcible sodomy.

A spokesperson for the FBI New Orleans office says the arrest was made in coordination with the Kansas City FBI, stemming from information provided by the Missouri-based field office.

A warrant was issued out of Jackson County, Missouri for 48 year-old George Spencer on February 25th charging him with multiple counts of Child Molestation and Forcible Sodomy of a Child.

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NEW ORLEANS (LA)
WWLT

NEW ORLEANS – The FBI New Orleans Violent Task Force arrested a 48-year-old man who had been wanted on charges of child molestation and forcible sodomy of a child in Kansas City.

George Spencer, 48, worked as an associate pastor at the Greater Works CME Church in Kansas City. Law enforcement in Kansas City allege that he attacked a young girl.

A warrant was issued for Spencer late last month charging multiple counts of child molestation and forcible rape of a child.

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NEW ORLEANS (LA)
The Advocate

March 11, 2013

New Orleans — The FBI reported Monday that it tracked down a Kansas City pastor wanted for child molestation and child sodomy to an eastern New Orleans home this weekend.

George Spencer, 48, was arrested Friday in connection with an arrest warrant from Missouri. Spencer, who is a convicted rapist from a 1998 incident, is accused of raping another girl in February while working as an associate pastor at the Greater Works CME Church in Kansas City. Authorities did not release information on what Spencer was doing in New Orleans, or whether he was involved in any local churches.

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LOUISIANA
The Times-Picayune

By Stephen Babcock, NOLA Media Group | The Times-Picayune
on March 11, 2013

The FBI has arrested a former Missouri pastor wanted on child sexual abuse charges in New Orleans. George Spencer, 48, was arrested Friday on several charges of forcible sodomy of a child and child molestation by the FBI New Orleans Violent Task Force.

The arrest was made at a home in the 4600 block of Viola Street in eastern New Orleans, according to a FBI news release.

Spencer, a resident of Jackson County, Mo., worked as an associate pastor at Greater Works CME Church in Kansas City. He allegedly assaulted a girl at the church in February, 2012, according to the news release.

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UNITED STATES
The New York Times

As 115 cardinals prepare to elect the next leader of the Roman Catholic Church, Times reporters covering the papal transition answered readers’ questions on the conclave process, the future of the church and the retirement of Pope Benedict XVI. …

Q: How likely is the Catholic Church to report priests accused of molestation to secular authorities?

LAURIE GOODSTEIN: It depends on whether the new pope is someone who understands that child sexual abuse is a crime that can damage a victim for life — and not, as some cardinals have said they believe, an accusation motivated by animus against the Catholic Church.

New policies on sexual abuse posted by the Vatican under Pope Benedict XVI in 2010 say that in countries where the law requires it, church officials should report priests who have been credibly accused of abuse to law enforcement authorities. But these policies are not binding, and the Vatican leaves it up to the bishops in each diocese to decide. While there is increasing awareness and improvement in how the church in the United States and some other countries has dealt with child sexual abuse, there are cases that have gone unreported to law enforcement.

One recent example is that of a pedophile priest in Kansas City, Mo., whose pornographic photographs of young girls were turned over to the diocese. Bishop Robert W. Finn did not alert the police about the enormity of the photographic evidence (another diocesan official eventually did), and the bishop has been convicted of a misdemeanor. The priest is now in prison, and victims advocacy groups have called for Bishop Finn to be removed from his position by the next pope. But while many abusive priests have indeed been defrocked after a legal proceeding within the church, it is the rare bishop who has been disciplined by the church for mismanaging abuse cases.

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VATICAN CITY
CBS SF Bay Area

VATICAN CITY (CBS / AP) — The Washington Post has called Cardinal William Levada of San Francisco one of the most influential people involved in the selection of the next pope. And for his part, Levada has not minced words in the days leading up to Tuesday’s conclave to replace Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.

He said the church needs to choose a younger cardinal to counter the years of a stiff Benedict who lacked the charm of predecessor Pope John Paul.

Levada is among several cardinals who have spoken candidly with the media while in Rome preparing for the conclave, to the point that the Vatican issued a news blackout late last week.

Levada retired in 2012 after spending six years as the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican’s orthodoxy watchdog, which also defrocked pedophile priests. He was archbishop in San Francisco prior to accepting the Vatican post.

He also played a key role in several church sex-abuse reforms while serving as an archbishop – and has drawn a sharp divide between gay men and pedophile priests.

“By nature homosexuality is a not a predatory activity, it is a sexual activity that the Catholic church does not condone,” he said. By contrast, he explained, pedophile priests are violating the sanctity and purity of young people.

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VATICAN CITY
NorthJersey.com

BY DAVID GIBSON
Associated Press

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Amid all of the prognosticating about who the cardinals could choose as the next pope in the conclave that starts here on Tuesday (March 12), one reliable thread has emerged: the desire to elect a pontiff who can be a pastor to the world as well as a taskmaster to the Roman Curia.

Finding such a combination in a single man, of course, may prove difficult if not impossible, which adds to the almost unprecedented level of uncertainty surrounding this papal election.

So if anything is possible, some say it might be better to reverse the prevailing wisdom — look for a pope who will talk tough to Catholics (and the world) while shepherding the Curia with a firm hand in order to better police the wayward.

The prospect might appall progressives and others who were happy to see the end of Pope Benedict XVI’s papacy, but it has enough appeal to conservatives that they are trying to make the case.

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SOUTH CAROLINA
Myrtle Beach Online

By Amanda Kelley — akelley@thesunnews.com

The Diocese of Charleston released a statement Monday following an allegation of sexual misconduct by a Charleston area priest.

Hayden Vaverek, a priest who previously served in parishes in Myrtle Beach and Garden City, is on administrative leave, said diocese spokeswoman Maria Aselage.

Authorities said someone told police Vaverek assaulted the person about 15 years ago when Vaverek was pastor at Our Lady of Lourdes in Greenwood. Aselage said no parishioners of Our Lady of Lourdes are involved in the reported sexual assault.

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ROME
CNN

[with video]

By Jonathan Wald, CNN

updated 3:14 PM EDT, Mon March 11, 2013

Rome (CNN) — A plain clothes policeman watches Francesco Zanardi. As he waits for his moment just outside the Vatican in St Peter’s Square, Zanardi’s intention is clear. So is the policeman’s.

The 42-year-old from Savona has traveled 550 kilometers [342 miles] to Rome, determined to make a delivery at the Vatican.

The policeman, however, is just as determined to stop him. Zanardi clutches a red case, emblazoned with a picture of Domenico Calcagno — one of the cardinals who will elect a new pope in the conclave this week — across it are the words, “Fuori Dal Conclave” or “Out of the Conclave.”

It’s stuffed with thousands of signed letters all claiming that Calcagno covered up the serial sex abuse of a priest in northern Italy. They want the cardinal to be disqualified from voting in the conclave. But no one is more insistent than Francesco Zanardi.

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NEDERLAND
Omroep Brabant

Auteur: Willem Jan Joachems

BREDA – In het Rapport Deetman worden diverse Brabantse nonnenkloosters genoemd. Het rapport schetst een ontluisterend beeld van sadistische nonnen die er soms niet voor terugdeinsden jonge meisjes te misbruiken.

Hoeveel ellende er was binnen de ziekenhuizen en kindertehuizen van de nonnen, dat is gissen volgens de commissie. Cijfers ontbreken. Vergeleken met de mannenkloosters lijkt er minder sprake van zwaar seksueel misbruik in zusterkloosters.

De nonnen maakten zich eerder schuldig aan psychische en lichamelijke mishandeling. Het gebeurde lang niet overal dat vrouwelijke religieuzen zich misdroegen, maar het gebeurde. Ook na al die jaren is dat schokkend om te lezen.

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NEDERLAND
Den Bosch Dichtbij

DEN BOSCH – Vandaag heeft de commissie Deetman het rapport gepresenteerd over seksueel misbruik van en geweld tegen meisjes en vrouwen in de Rooms-Katholieke Kerk. Er zijn klachten binnengekomen van seksueel misbruik in zusterkloosters in Den Bosch en Schijndel.

Precieze cijfers zijn er (nog) niet te vinden, maar er is wel een aardig beeld geschetst van de aard en vorm van het seksueel misbruik. Er kwamen klachten binnen van misbruik in het klooster Zusters van Liefde, Dochters van Maria en Joseph in Den Bosch, Zusters van de Sociëteit van Jezus, Maria, Jozef met kloosters in Den Bosch, Boxtel en Heeswijk en Moeder van Goede Bijstand in Schijndel. Daar heeft de commissie Deetman onderzoek gedaan.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Catholics4Change

BY KATHY KANE

The story of a patient from the St John Vianney Center being found on a school campus, has been making the news recently. I was the parent who discovered the patient on Bishop Shanahan’s campus back in December. I was in the parking lot and saw the man coming from around the side of the building, walk right past the front entrance and continue along the sidewalk of the school. His presence on the campus was very odd, so I followed him in my car and watched as he crossed the street and returned to St. John Vianney Center, a hospital that treats the behavioral and psychological needs of the clergy.

I am not going to get into all that has transpired with that particular incident; instead I want to focus on the broader issue of the Vianney Center allowing patients unsupervised off campus privileges. For now, I will just say that the parents of the school were only alerted after I requested that be done, and the police were alerted when I found that the school did not file a report of a patient from the facility being on the school campus. The Archdiocese has released a few statements about this situation, and although what they have said is not untrue, the statements certainly do not reflect my efforts to make sure the parents and police were alerted to the security breach.

The Vianney Center treats a variety of issues including addiction, mental health and sexual disorders. There are very few religious treatment centers left in the U.S. Odds are if a clergy member is making the news for some type of transgression they may be heading to Vianney for treatment. Such was the case of Msgr. Kevin Wallin, the priest dubbed “Msgr. Meth” who was federally indicted for operating a meth ring. He was in court last month trying to be released to Vianney. Luckily, the judge kept him in federal custody. Not so lucky for us however, are the priests who have been released on bail and then come to Vianney – facing charges for crimes such as possession of child pornography, indecent exposure and obscene conduct, to just name a few recent cases.

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NEDERLAND
BNR

Door Pieter van den Akker

11 March 2013

Bij ruim 40 procent van de seksueel misbruikte meisjes binnen de rooms-katholieke Kerk is sprake van ernstig seksueel misbruik. Dat blijkt uit onderzoek van 150 meldingen door de commissie Deetman.

De CDA-prominent deed op verzoek van de Tweede Kamer extra onderzoek naar seksueel misbruik van en geweld tegen meisjes binnen de Katholieke Kerk.

Thuis en in de parochie
Op basis van de onderzochte meldingen blijkt dat misbruik van minderjarige vrouwen meestal thuis en in de parochie gebeurde. Seksueel misbruik van jongens kwam veel vaker in instellingen voor, zo bleek uit eerder onderzoek van Deetman. Geweld tegen meisjes lijkt vooral gepleegd te zijn in instellingen zoals kindertehuizen en ziekenhuizen, schrijft Deetman.

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UNITED STATES
Washington Post

In a conclave week feature, Catholic clergy and laymen answer what they would do if they were pope. Read below for views from the Rev. James Martin, SJ , Lisa M. Hendey , Sister Julie Vieira IHM, the Rev. Dwight Longenecker and Timothy Shriver. Tell us your ideas in the comments below or tweet #ifIwerepope.

James Martin, SJ, is editor at large of America magazine and author, most recently, of “Together on Retreat,” an e-book taking readers through an interactive retreat.

Banish from your mind the idea that I have any chance to ascend to the highest office in the Catholic Church. Nor am I even supposed to want it. The founder of the Jesuit Order, St. Ignatius Loyola, asked Jesuits at the end of their training to make a formal promise not to “strive or ambition” for any high office in the church. (Ignatius didn’t like the clerical climbing he saw in the 1500s.)

But that doesn’t mean that I don’t have a few ideas about what I hope a new pope might do. So I suppose that the first thing I would do after choosing a name (I’d go with my baptismal name, since it’s the one God used to call me into the church) is to stand on the balcony overlooking St. Peter’s Square, and tell everyone that they are beloved children of God—rich and poor, young and old, man and woman, gay and straight, married and divorced, believing and agnostic and even atheist. God loves you because God created you. And the ones who feel most marginalized, I would tell the crowd in my poor Italian, are the ones to whom the church must love the most, as Jesus did.

To that end, I’d begin my pontificate by listening to those who have felt that their voices may not be heard. The poor, first of all. The church does an astonishing job in caring for the poor across the globe—it’s one of the finest things we do. But because the poor don’t have access to power, the church always needs to be particularly attentive to their needs. Who else? Sex abuse victims next. We can never stop listening to the stories of victims, and the more the pope hears from them directly—and from their families—the more the church will be to stop clerical abuse and make amends. (By the way, as a starting gesture, and a sign of penance, I would sell off some of the Vatican’s art collection to contribute to a Vatican fund for sexual abuse victims.)

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UNITED KINGDOM
Bognor Regis Observer

Published on Monday 11 March 2013

A PROBE has been launched into a convicted priest who carried on practising – without proper permission.

The Diocese of Chichester has initiated investigations into acts of worship which were led without proper permission by former priest Robert Coles, who was imprisoned last month.

A spokeswoman said it would conduct an ‘exhaustive investigation’ into how much Coles had continued his work as a priest at St Luke’s, in Stone Cross, East Sussex, after his retirement in December 1997.

“The Diocese has been made aware by several sources Coles assumed the role of priest on well over 100 occasions between 1997 and early 2003 without the legally required ‘Permission to Officiate’ status,” she said.

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SEATTLE (WA)
MyNorthwest.com

BY Chris Sullivan on March 11, 2013

A Catholic priest who taught at O’Dea High School in the 1970’s has been named again in sex abuse lawsuit.

Christian Brother Edward Courtney has once again been named in a lawsuit filed in King County Superior Court. A 52-year-old Seattle man claims he was abused by the priest while he was a student at O’Dea. The lawsuit claims the abuse at the school and at Brother Courtney’s mother’s house in 1975 and 1977.

Seattle attorney James Rogers represents the plaintiff identified as “T.H.” I asked him why his client didn’t come forward when Brother Courtney was being sued by several other people over the last decade.

“It takes a lot of time for a lot of people to realize their problems are caused by the abuse and to deal with it,” Rogers said. “His issues are happening now. He has a right to bring a cause of action, and that’s what he’s doing.”

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UNITED STATES
The Daily Beast

by The Daily Beast
Mar 11, 2013

Survivors of clergy sex abuse share their stories in ‘Crosses,’ by Carmine Galasso

As the Vatican’s cardinals descend upon Rome to elect a new pope, the Catholic Church is coming under heavy fire for including several “princes of the church” embroiled in child-abuse scandals, such as Roger Mahony, the former cardinal-archbishop of Los Angeles, who was ousted from office (but not from the conclave) for mishandling numerous allegations of sexual abuse at his diocese. While Mahony and others have been busy fraternizing and tweeting from the Vatican, groups such as SNAP (the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) are demanding that the Church confront its sordid history of coverups and denials.

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NIEDERLAND
Neue Zurcher Zeitung

(dpa) Tausende von Mädchen in den Niederlanden sind seit 1945 nach dem Bericht einer Untersuchungskommission von katholischen Geistlichen sexuell missbraucht und körperlich misshandelt worden. 40 Prozent dieser Mädchen wurden von Priestern oft über Jahre vergewaltigt, stellte die Kommission in ihrem am Montag in Den Haag veröffentlichten Bericht fest. Sie waren sechs bis 14 Jahre alt, als der Missbrauch und die Gewalt begann.

Die Kommission war von der katholischen Kirche eingesetzt worden und untersuchte den Missbrauch und Gewalt gegen Mädchen von 1945 bis 2010. Rund 150 Fälle hatte die Kommission untersucht. Die tatsächliche Zahl der Opfer sei nicht festzustellen, heisst es in dem Bericht. «Möglicherweise sind es Zehntausende.» Bereits 2011 hatte die Kommission eine Studie zum Missbrauch von Jungen in katholischen Einrichtungen vorgelegt. Danach waren 10 000 bis 20 000 Jungen Opfer von sexueller Gewalt gewesen.

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NIEDERLAND
news@orf

Tausende Mädchen in den Niederlanden sind seit 1945 nach dem Bericht einer Untersuchungskommission von katholischen Geistlichen sexuell missbraucht und körperlich misshandelt worden. 40 Prozent dieser Mädchen wurden von Priestern oft über Jahre vergewaltigt, stellte die Kommission in ihrem heute in Den Haag veröffentlichten Bericht fest. Sie waren sechs bis 14 Jahre alt, als der Missbrauch und die Gewalt begann.

Die Kommission war von der katholischen Kirche eingesetzt worden und untersuchte den Missbrauch und Gewalt gegen Mädchen von 1945 bis 2010. Rund 150 Fälle hatte die Kommission untersucht. Die tatsächliche Zahl der Opfer sei nicht festzustellen, heißt es in dem Bericht. „Möglicherweise sind es Zehntausende.“

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ROME
The Revealer

Who’s going to be the next pope? We know, more or less, who the cardinals are most likely to pick once the conclave gets rolling tomorrow. But there’s another question that should be asked as we watch the Vatican for white smoke: who do lay Catholics and victims of sexual abuse by the church want for pope?

There’s more than one way to dissect a papal election process of course, but as the sex abuse scandal still rightly casts a deep shadow over the church, there are two ways the new pope might try to “fix” the church: with a revised papal media presence, and with systematic reform in church leadership. According to at least some advocates, the cardinals are paying way too much attention to the former, and sweeping reform under the rug.

An advocacy group for survivors of sexual abuse named their “Dirty Dozen” of leading contenders last week. The list of papabiles names cardinals deemed unfit for the job because of their ties to the sex abuse scandal and has a fair amount of overlap with others in circulation, including one I compiled this week for Slate.

SNAP (the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests)’s executive director, David Clohessy, told me via email that some of the cardinals on the list might surprise Catholics, as they’re widely promoted as “reformers” in the church. Take, for example, Cardinal O’Malley of the United States, who has listed addressing the abuse scandal among his priorities for the next pope. But O’Malley, who is considered a “reformer” on the issue by some (including some survivors) for his “zero tolerance” stance towards child abuse in the Catholic church, has also shown “stunning” leniency toward some abusers under his watch. Many extant examples of church “reform” don’t actually address the problem, SNAP says. Clohessy says that the abuse within the church has gone on for centuries, adding, “It’s going on now. And it won’t be reversed in a few years. Because of this, SNAP advocates for victims to report abuse to “secular” authorities, indicating their lack of faith in the church’s current ability to address abuse cases internally.

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UNITED STATES
Washington Post

By Mathew N. Schmalz,
Updated: Monday, March 11

The Dolan buzz is building.

At first I thought it was part of the typical hype before a conclave. After all, if you’re in a big media market it makes sense to ask whether the local bishop is going to be pope.

Early-on editorials did emerge making a serious case for the cardinal archbishop of New York as someone who could be an effective bishop of Rome and head of the universal church. So, while it wasn’t really a buzz, there has been a consistent low frequency hum surrounding Dolan, punctuated by media-induced exclamatory pauses like “Wow!” and “Just maybe!”

Cardinal Dolan has repeatedly pushed back against speculation–sincerely, not with a false humility. But now the Italian press has really begun to push his candidacy. As the conclave approaches, he’s being seen as the anti-establishment candidate, the one who could bring the curia into line and also bring his common touch and plainspoken ways to the highly academic teachings of Benedict XVI and the mysticism of John Paul II.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Karen Polesir on March 11, 2013

Kids were hurt and crimes were concealed on Cardinal Rigali’s watch in Philadelphia. For that reason, we urge him to recuse himself from voting on the next pope.

Nothing can undo the harm that was done to hundreds of wounded Philly victims and tens of thousands of betrayed Philly Catholic families. But this simple gesture – Rigali staying away from the conclave – would at least be an overdue and welcome sign of contrition on his part. His participation will only deepen the suffering of many who have suffered enough.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

Tomorrow cardinal electors will meet in the Sistine Chapel. Milan’s archbishop is the favourite to “win”, but the race is still open

Andrea Tornielli
Vatican City

“Last time there was a figure who carried real weight; it was a man who was three or four times more influential than the rest of the cardinals. He was none other than Joseph Ratzinger. This is not the case this time. Therefore, the choice has to be made from one, two, three, four … a dozen candidates. Right now we don’t know anything, we have to wait for the results of the first ballot.” These words, spoken yesterday by the Archbishop of Lyon, Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, givean important snapshot of the situation on the eve of the Conclave, the assembly that is about to elect the 266th successor of Peter.

Obviously the cardinal would not have spoken in those terms had a strong candidate already been found; someone who is able to obtain the 77 votes necessary for becoming Pope. But his words echo those of the Archbishop of Paris, Cardinal André Vingt-Trois, who a few days ago mentioned “roughly half dozen candidates”. They also echo those of other cardinals from all over the world, who, during the informal discussions held over the last couple of days, have shown they are still open to considering alternative candidates.

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SOUTH CAROLINA
Patch

By Jonathan Allen

Update: In the wake of accusations that have surfaced alleging that Father Hayden Vaverek, a priest and administrator at St. Mary Magdalene Catholic Church in Simpsonville, engaged in alleged sexual misconduct many years ago while at another church, the Diocese of Charleston released the following statement on Sunday.

The full statement, which implies the alleged misconduct took place outside the church, reads:

“An allegation of sexual misconduct of a minor dating back more than 15 years has been made against Father Hayden Vaverek. Per diocesan policy, Father Vaverek must be placed on administrative leave and his priestly faculties withdrawn. Diocesan officials have notified law enforcement authorities about this allegation and are fully cooperating with them.

Father Vaverek served at several parishes and schools in South Carolina including those in: Greenville, Simpsonville, Anderson, Greenwood, McCormick, Myrtle Beach, Garden City, Moncks Corner, Bonneau, and Hilton Head Island. The reported allegation indicates the alleged misconduct occurred while Father Vaverek was pastor at Our Lady of Lourdes in Greenwood; however, no parishioners of that parish were involved in the reported allegation.

The Diocese of Charleston encourages all victims and those who have knowledge of any sexual misconduct to contact civil authorities in their area. To receive help and guidance from the diocese, please contact Sister Sandra Makowski at the Chancery in Charleston at (843) 853-2130 x209.

The Most Reverend Robert E. Guglielmone, Bishop of Charleston, asks everyone to pray for all victims of abuse and for their families.”

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NEDERLAND
Reformatorisch Dagblad

DEN HAAG (ANP) – Wim Deetman presenteert maandag een rapport over seksueel misbruik van en geweld tegen meisjes en vrouwen in de Rooms-Katholieke Kerk. Het onderzoek richtte zich op seksueel misbruik en fysiek en psychisch geweld van 1945 tot nu.

Een commissie onder leiding van oud-minister en voormalig burgemeester van Den Haag Deetman deed het onderzoek op verzoek van de Tweede Kamer. Eerder al onderzocht de commissie-Deetman seksueel misbruik van minderjarige mannen binnen de Rooms-Katholieke Kerk.

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UNITED STATES
Philadelphia Inquirer

Chris Freind

Posted: Monday, March 11, 2013

Thank God for small miracles. Or, in this case, huge ones.

The decision by Pope Benedict XVI to resign has given the Catholic Church an unprecedented opportunity to save itself. Whether the conclave of cardinals in Rome takes advantage of this blessing remains to be seen.

As one of the Catholic faithful, I desperately want to believe the conclave will choose wisely, and that it will:

Do whatever is necessary to rebuild the greatest, most benevolent institution the world has ever known;

Admit that its hard times – the sex-abuse scandal, corruption in the Vatican, and genuflecting at the wrong altar (that of political correctness) – are sins of its own making;

Finally learn to replace arrogance with humility, and value both forgiveness, and asking to be forgiven;

Understand the most powerful tool in the 21st century: public relations;

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CANADA
CBC

[with audio]

Hans Küng in conversation with Michael Enright.

A hundred and fifteen men have descended on Rome to choose a new pope. For the Catholic Church’s adversaries, as well as its anxious or disgruntled followers, there is hope for reform and renewal in the Church. Or maybe at the end of this month’s conclave, there will just be a new pope.

Dr. Hans Küng has long argued that profound reform is essential to the Church’s survival, and his critiques of the Church and the papacy carry more weight than most.

Dr. Küng is the last surviving theological advisor to the Second Vatican Council of 50 years ago. He is still officially “a Catholic priest in good standing,” but the Vatican stripped him of his authority to teach Catholic theology, following his critique of the doctrine of Papal Infallibility in the 1970s.

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