ABUSE TRACKER

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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ROME
Christian Science Monitor

Until recently, American candidates faced unease about US hegemony. With the end of the cold war and decline in American power, a couple of US cardinals are getting serious attention.

By Nick Squires | Christian Science Monitor

What are the prospects of an American being elected pope when 115 cardinals from around the world solemnly enter the frescoed splendor of the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel on Tuesday to begin the voting process known as the conclave?

Until recently, the received wisdom was that the Roman Catholic Church would never accept a pontiff from the world’s only superpower on the grounds that the United States already had quite enough temporal power.

There has also been concern that having an American pope could give the impression that the Vatican had embraced a pro-Washington bias, hindering the Catholic Church’s efforts to engage in tangled international issues such as the Israel-Palestinian conflict, the spread of militant Islam and poverty alleviation.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 11 March 2013 (VIS) – Following is a brief chronology of Conclaves in recent centuries along with interesting facts that occurred during each.

In the entire history of the Church, the longest papal election—taking place in Viterbo, Italy in 1268 and ending with the election of Gregory X—lasted for two years. It was as a result of this instance that the modern incarnation of the papal Conclave was instituted.

In modern history, the longest Conclave was that of 1740, which ended with the election of Benedict XVI. It lasted from 18 February until 17 August, 181 days. Fifty-one cardinals participated in the final ballot, four cardinals having died during the proceedings.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 11 March 2013 (VIS) – The “logistics” of the procedures carried out in a Conclave are not established on the basis of personal opinion nor are they subject to passing fads or improvisation. The liturgical tradition—established after the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council—notes with great precision the norms and rites that are to be followed. These are found in the Book of Rites of the Conclave.

The first aspect that the book highlights is the importance of the Conclave, as it involves the election of the Roman Pontiff. Then, focusing on the Mass that precedes the Cardinal electors’ entrance into Conclave, it dedicates an entire chapter to explaining the rites and rubrics of this Eucharistic celebration.

The Second Chapter describes the most significant moments of the ceremony of entry into Conclave, with the specific oath that the cardinals swear. The process of voting and the scrutiny of the votes is also subject to a precise order to be followed exactly as are the preceding and following rituals and the moment of the chosen cardinal’s acceptance as Roman Pontiff and his proclamation.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 11 March 2013 (VIS) – Today, the Office of Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff announced that this afternoon at 5:30pm in the Pauline Chapel of the Apostolic Palace, the officers and assistants of the Conclave process will take the oath of secrecy.

All those involved in the care of the coming Conclave, both ecclesiastic and secular persons, have received prior approval from the Cardinal Camerlengo and the three Cardinal Assistants as established in No. 46 of the Apostolic Constitution “Universi Dominici Gregis”. The following will take the oath prescribed in No. 48 of that document:

– The Secretary of the College of Cardinals
– The master of the Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff
– The masters of pontifical ceremonies

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 11 March 2013 (VIS) – In this morning’s 10th and final General Congregation 152 Cardinals were in attendance. Three new members for the Particular Congregation were picked by lot to assist the Cardinal Camerlengo for the next three days in the lesser affairs of the proceedings. The Cardinal assistants chosen were: from the Order of Bishops, Cardinal Antonios Naguib, patriarch emeritus of Alexandria, Egypt; from the Order of Priests, Cardinal Marc Ouellet, P.S.S., prefect of the Congregation for Bishops; and from the Order of Deacons, Cardinal Francesco Monterisi, archpriest emeritus of the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside-the-Walls.

“Twenty-eight cardinals spoke today,” Fr. Federico Lombardi, S.J., director of the Holy See Press Office reported, “bringing the total number of interventions given during the course of the 10 General Congregations to 161. There was a wide participation, even if some other cardinals would have liked to participate or to speak again. It was, however, decided not to have another Congregation this afternoon in light of the move to the Domus Sanctae Marthae and the preparations for the Conclave.”

This morning, among other topics, the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR) was discussed. “Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, as president of the Commission of Cardinals for oversight of the IOR, presented the current operations of that commission to those present along with the process for adopting the norms of transparency that it has established. Naturally, much was also said about the expectations and hopes for the future Holy Father.”

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VATICAN CITY
Washington Post

Who’s up, who’s down: Cardinals hold final talks amid debate over manager or pastoral pope

By Associated Press

Updated: Monday, March 11

VATICAN CITY — On the eve of their conclave to select a new pope, cardinals held their final debate Monday over whether the Catholic Church needs a manager to clean up the Vatican or a pastor to inspire the faithful at a time of crisis.

The countdown underway, speculation has gone into overdrive about who’s ahead in the papal campaign.

Will cardinals choose Cardinal Angelo Scola, the archbishop of Milan, an Italian with serious intellectual and managerial chops who hasn’t been tainted by the scandals of the Vatican bureaucracy?

Or has Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the Capuchin monk from Boston who has charmed the Italian media worked the same magic on fellow cardinals?

Most cardinals already knew Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet since he heads a powerful Vatican office. But maybe over the past week they’ve gotten a chance to hear him sing — he has a fabulous voice and is known for belting out French folk songs.

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AFRICA
San Francisco Chronicle

March 11 (Bloomberg) — Ugandan property broker Joseph Nsubuga has a message for those who think choosing an African pope would lead the Catholic church to become more flexible on such divisive social issues as abortion or homosexuality: Think again.

“An African pope would fight the homosexuality vice which has infiltrated our society,” the father of six said as he exited Sunday mass in the Kampala suburb of Kiwatule on Feb. 17. “The Pope would fight abortions and contraceptives since they are condemned by the faith.”

Africa is the fastest-growing region for a church with 1.2 billion members worldwide. The number of baptized Catholics on the continent more than tripled between 1980 and 2010 to 185.6 million, offsetting a decline in the flock in Europe and slower growth in the U.S. The shifting Catholic demographics and the African faithful’s conservative social values have helped make Ghana’s Cardinal Peter Turkson one of the favorite’s to succeed Benedict XVI at oddsmakers William Hill Plc and Paddy Power Plc.

“The church is doing well here because Africans are notoriously religious,” Emmanuel Abbey-Quaye, assistant secretary general of the Ghana Catholic Bishops’ Conference, said in a Feb. 11 interview in the capital, Accra. “Africans have strong cultural values which, in consonance with the church, frown on many issues including homosexuality.”

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UNITED STATES
Huffington Post

Michael D’Antonio

Like the victims of authoritarian states who remain devoted to their countrymen, many Catholics who were sexually abused as children by priests remain fiercely loyal to their faith and their fellow believers, who actually constitute the church. For them, Pope Benedict’s resignation and the conclave that will convene to name his successor, spark hope for a Catholic Spring that might bring the Vatican into the modern world.

To understand this hope, it helps to consider the recent report on American Catholics by the New York Times, which showed a steep increase in dissatisfaction with the way the church has handled the sweeping sexual abuse scandal that began 30 years ago. Three-quarters approved of Benedict’s resignation and a solid majority prays for the next pope to be more liberal on issues like birth control, the ordination of women, and marriage for priests. Sixty-two percent favored gay marriage, which is truly anathema for institutional Catholicism.

Beyond the opinions of lay people, the hope for a Catholic Spring is inspired by the same powerful forces — social media and the spread of democratic ideals — that have supported various Arab Spring movements and continually fuel the transformation of Chinese society. Here the media, both the conventional press and new web-based social tools, are speeding the pace of change by distributing information worldwide in real time and enabling the mobilization of great masses of people who never before possessed the means to organize in this way.

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CALIFORNIA
National Catholic Reporter

by Emeritus Archbishop John R. Quinn | Mar. 11, 2013

The eyes of the world are focused on Rome. The big question is who will be the next Pope. As they approach the election, reports indicate that the Cardinals are deeply concerned about scandals in the Church. But they are also concerned about two other things: about papal government and about reform.

Media reports, dealing with reform, tend to focus on clerical celibacy and on the ordination of women and on the reform of the Curia understood as putting it back in order. These are important topics but it would be a mistake to stop there. We know that there were reform movements during the period before the Reformation. Most of them failed, not so much for lack of holiness or the lack of worthy objectives, but because they failed to ask the deeper questions. They did not go far enough.

Today, if we want to deal seriously with the legacy of Vatican II and issues of reform we must have the courage to consider the deeper questions. This is not possible unless the paramount issue of the exercise of the papal office is addressed.

The papacy and the reform of the Roman Curia were taken off the agenda of the sixteenth century Council of Trent. Rome feared that discussion of the papacy or of reforming the Curia could reignite the controversy about whether a council was superior to the Pope. Vatican Council II balanced and corrected the teaching of the 19th century Vatican Council I and clearly located the papal office within the College of Bishops.

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CALIFORNIA
National Catholic Reporter

Full text of Emeritus Archbishop John Quinn’s Stanford address

by Thomas C. Fox | Mar. 10, 2013

Stanford, Calif. —
With the world’s cardinals set to choose a new pope, Emeritus Archbishop of San Francisco John Quinn on Saturday called for major church governance reforms, including changes in the papacy itself.

“Media reports dealing with reform tend to focus on clerical celibacy and on the ordination of women and on the reform of the [Roman] Curia. … These are important topics, but it would be a mistake to stop there,” Quinn said.

“Today, if we want to deal seriously with the legacy of Vatican II and issues of reform we must have the courage to consider the deeper questions. This is not possible unless the paramount issue of the exercise of the papal office is addressed.”

Quinn, who spoke as part of a daylong symposium, “The Legacy of Vatican II: Personal Reflections,” at Stanford University, called for major decentralization of Vatican and papal authority. He said this could be achieved through the creation of regional bishops’ conferences and synods of bishops with decision-making authority.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

The Holy See Press Office on Monday held its last briefing before the Conclave. The briefing happened after the 10th and final General Congregation of the Cardinals, in which 152 Cardinals participated. The head of the Holy See Press Office Father Federico Lombardi, SJ, confirmed the Cardinals heard a report on the Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR), more commonly known as the Vatican Bank. The Cardinals also spoke about their expectations and hopes for the new Pope.

They also chose the three assistants, from each class of Cardinals, who will help during the first days of the Conclave: Cardinal Antonios Naguib for the Cardinal-Bishops, Cardinal Marc Ouellet for the Cardinal-Priests, and Cardinal Francesco Monterisi for the Cardinal-Deacons.

The press officer said, judging by previous conclaves, if a ballot is held on Tuesday, the first smoke would probably not be seen until around 8pm.

Reporters were also reminded of a small change after a Pope is elected: Before appearing on the Central Loggia, he will pray, by himself, in the Pauline Chapel.

It was confirmed that Archbishop Georg Gänswein, the personal secretary of Pope-emeritus Benedict XVI, will proceed with the Cardinals before the Conclave, in his role as Prefect of the Pontifical Household.

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ROME
Gazzetta del Sud

Rome, March 11 – Activists are persisting in their call for the removal of an Italian cardinal from the conclave to elect a pope this week over allegations of covering up priest sex abuse. Francesco Zanardi, the head of victims group L’Abuso, appeared alongside the leaders of the US-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) at a hotel in Rome this weekend, accusing Cardinal Domenico Calcagno of systematically covering up cases of pedophilia at the diocese of Savona in northern Italy where he previously served as bishop. “Don’t attend the conclave,” said Zanardi.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic Free Press

As we wait for the election of a new pope we will hear from people on the ground in Rome and here at home to give us a sense of the anticipation. Today, Donato Infante III, a diocesan seminarian in Rome, explores the legacy of the various popes. The conclave to elect a new pope begins Tuesday.

Submissions for blog should be sent to editor@catholicfreepress.org

The Legacy of Pope Benedict, Part I
Monday, March 11

By Donato Infante

There are certain events, moments, or decisions that go down in history as defining a pontificate. For example, when people think of Pope Leo XIII, what comes to mind is the publication of Rerum Novarum, an encyclical that established Catholic social doctrine as a branch of theology in many ways moved the papacy away from the old model that had existed during the time of the Papal States to what we are familiar with now, the papacy as the world’s conscience. He is also known for inaugurating the great renaissance in the philosophy and theology of Saint Thomas Aquinas. Blessed John XXIII is remembered for having called the Second Vatican Council. Venerable Pope Paul VI is known for the publication of the controversial encyclical Humanae Vitae, upholding the Church’st2,000-year-old teaching on the sinfulness of using artificial contraception and the immortality of abortion.

A picture of the late pope Blessed John Paul II is seen on a rosary case at a souvenir stall near St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican March 10. A group of 115 cardinals is expected to enter the Sistine Chapel March 12 for the conclave to elect the next pope. (CNS photo/Eric Gaillard, Reuters)

The pontificate of Blessed John Paul II is still very close in memory, and so many such happenings come to mind. As time goes on, some of these will probably seem less significant than others, but now, eight years after his death, people associate with him the fall of communism, the reform of seminary life with the publication of Pastores Dabo Vobis, many world travels, the creation of World Youth Day, and his final witness that life, even amidst great suffering, is worth living.

What will the legacy of Pope Benedict XVI be? Over the next few days, while we wait for the start of the conclave and the election of the new pope, I will be writing about the four things that come to mind which seem to me the main contributions that Pope Benedict made during his pontificate and for which he will be remembered in history. The first of these is that Pope Benedict became a leader in handling the sexual abuse crisis. The leader of the Catholic Church acknowledge the horrendous acts that had been committed by priests and personally met with victims on his international trips in the United States, Malta, Australia, Germany, and the United Kingdom.

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UNITED STATES
Huffington Post

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

Whoever the new Pope will be, he will have the chance to address the 900 pound gorilla staring down the Catholic Church, namely the constant sexual abuse scandals. I am a Jew who wishes to see the Catholic Church flourish. I count myself fortunate to have met Pope Benedict prior to his resignation and remember his humility, graciousness, and warmth. As I travel the world I am awed by the global network of schools, orphanages, and hospitals run by the Catholic Church. No other world body even comes close.

But much of that is being eclipsed, be it fairly or otherwise, by the seemingly never-ending sexual scandals that bedevil the Church. Even in the brief interregnum between the announcement of Benedict’s resignation and its taking effect, we witnessed the sudden resignation of the leader of all Britain’s Catholics who confessed to a thirty-year history of abuse.

The Jewish community is likewise not averse to sexual scandal and in the New York area we recently witnessed the tragic story of a Rabbi found guilty of abusing a girl and being sentenced to 130 years in prison. This followed several other stories of Rabbis or religious Jewish teachers being found guilty of abuse of both boys and/or girls.
of

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DEUTSCHLAND
Sudwest Presse

In einer fundamentalistischen Freikirche sollen Kinder jahrelang sexuell missbraucht worden sein. Alle Fälle aus der Spätregen-Mission in Beilstein, die erst jetzt bekannt wurden, sind offenbar verjährt.

Autor: HANS GEORG FRANK | 11.03.2013

Martin Illig (61) ist als Vorsitzender der Spätregen-Mission in Beilstein bei Heilbronn erst im November 2012 angetreten. Schon bald wurde er mit schlimmen Vorwürfen konfrontiert. Als Chef der zuvor stark abgeschotteten Sekte hatte er Transparenz versprochen. Nun muss er beweisen, wie ernst es ihm mit der Offenheit ist. In der Glaubensgemeinschaft soll es mehrere Fälle des sexuellen Missbrauchs von Kindern, hauptsächlich Buben, gegeben haben. Erst jetzt, rund 40 Jahre nach den angeblichen Verbrechen, melden sich traumatisierte Opfer zu Wort.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Kleine Zeitung

“Die Beichte”, Felix Mitterers Theaterstück über sexuellen Missbrauch in der Kirche, darf nicht in einer niederbayerischen Kapelle aufgeführt werden. Vor einem Jahr habe der Pfarrer der Gemeinde Eggenfelden noch die Zusage für die Kapelle St. Anna gegeben, sagte am Montag der Betriebsdirektor des Theaters an der Rott, Uwe Lohr. Knapp vier Wochen vor der Premiere kam jetzt der Rückzieher.

“Die zuständigen Kirchengremien haben nun einstimmig erklärt, dass ein geweihter Raum nicht der richtige Ort für dieses Stück ist.” Die “Passauer Neue Presse” hatte am Samstag über den Fall berichtet.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Die Tagespost

Von Regina Einig

Gäbe es ein Ranking für kirchliche Institutionen, die das Übel von sexuellem Missbrauch und Gewalt gegenüber Minderjährigen glaubwürdig aufarbeiten, so käme Kloster Ettal einer der vorderen Plätze zu. Seit drei Jahren stellt sich der Konvent ohne Selbstschonung einem dunklen Kapitel seiner Geschichte. Die Einsicht, dass Entschädigungszahlungen und Therapien das Geschehene nicht ungeschehen machen, hatte in Ettal sichtbare Konsequenzen. Deutlich wurde das an der Art und Weise, wie sich der Konvent beispielsweise in der Fastenzeit mit den Fehlern der Vergangenheit auseinandersetzte und an der internen Kommunikation im Kloster arbeitete.

Die Benediktinermönche in Ettal sind heute weit davon entfernt, einen Schlussstrich unter die Vergangenheit zu ziehen. Kloster, Schule und Internat sind nach dem Jahr 2010 nicht mehr wie vorher. Auch die in dieser Woche vorgestellte Studie (Seite 5) wurde vom Kloster in Auftrag gegeben und bezahlt. Die guten Früchte der Aufarbeitung sind nicht zu übersehen. Der Ettaler Opferverein hat das nicht verschwiegen und billigt dem Kloster zu, was katholischen Institutionen öffentlich in der Regel bewusst oder unbewusst verweigert wird: Anerkennung für ihre Aufklärungsarbeit in puncto sexueller Missbrauch.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Eckiger Tisch

Für einen glaubwürdigen Neuanfang und eine wirksame Prävention von sexuellem Missbrauch sind eine breite Diskussion der Ursachen und eine Erneuerung der Hierarchie der Katholischen Kirche notwendig, die an der Verheimlichung und Vertuschung mitgewirkt hat. Dazu gehört unbedingt eine Öffnung der Akten des Vatikans zu sexuellem Missbrauch für unabhängige Untersuchungen.

In Rom trifft sich dieser Tage ein Kreis von 115 Männern, um den neuen Bischof von Rom zu bestimmen, der für die katholische Weltkirche mit ihren über 1,2 Milliarden Mitgliedern, 400.000 Priestern und fast 5000 Bischöfen den Petrusdienst erfüllen soll und der dabei den Anspruch erhebt, in der Weltgemeinschaft ein Brückenbauer zu sein.

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NETHERLANDS
Onderzoekrk.nl

Deetman recommends special mediation for victims of violence against women in the Roman Catholic Church

THE HAGUE, 11 March 2013 – Special mediation by professional mediators should be provided for female victims of (excessive) violence within the Roman Catholic Church to offer them healing, acknowledgement and reparation, in combination with financial compensation. Drs. W.J. (Wim) Deetman recommends that the Catholic Church should facilitate this mediation to show its concern about the violence that has been reported by victims. Deetman makes the recommendation in the final report of the follow-up inquiry conducted under his chairmanship into the abuse of and violence against girls within the Catholic Church.

The findings of this independent inquiry, which was carried out between August 2012 and the beginning of 2013, do not provide sufficient basis for a sharply defined, clearcut definition of (excessive) violence that can be used widely and with retrospective effect. In the absence of a clear definition of (excessive) violence, the existing complaints procedure cannot be applied. Deetman recommends that complaints of violence should therefore be handled through this programme of special mediation.

This inquiry was a follow-up to the Commission’s earlier inquiry, also under Deetman’s chairmanship, into sexual abuse of minors (boys and girls) in the Catholic Church. The original Commission of Inquiry’s final report was published at the end of 2011. The research organisation that carried out this follow-up study focused not only on sexual abuse, but also on (excessive) physical and psychological violence against female minors within the Catholic Church in the Netherlands since 1945. Both inquiries were commissioned by the Conference of Bishops and the Conference of Religious in the Netherlands (KNR).

Research questions and sources

The main objectives of the follow-up to the earlier enquiry were:
 to provide more insight into the nature, seriousness, circumstances and impact of sexual abuse and (excessive) physical and psychological violence against underage women within the Roman Catholic Church, as well as accountability for it;

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Peter Isely on March 11, 2013

Dozens of deaf men were abused as kids by a priest. As adults, they were betrayed by Cardinal Angelo Sodano and other Catholic officials who ignored their pleas for help. We grieve for these once-helpless children and struggling adults as Sodano prepares to lead a special liturgy tomorrow as the conclave begins.

Sodano is a dramatic symbol of almost everything that is wrong with the Catholic hierarchy, especially when it comes to addressing and stopping the sexual assault of children by clergy and the cover up these crimes. We hope he’ll have the decency to let someone else lead the conclave’s opening mass tomorrow. If he doesn’t, we hope his colleagues will persuade him to step down.

Sodano has the distinction of occupying during the past 23 years the two senior most positions of power after the Pope, at one time simultaneously, of Vatican Secretary of State and Dean of the College of Cardinals, where he either enabled or ignored clergy child sex crime worldwide.

It was Sodano, according to knowledgeable sources, who blocked the investigation of the notorious Austrian pedophile Cardinal Hermann Groer.

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ROME
John Thavis

As we approach the start of Conclave 2013, it’s instructive to take a look back on Conclave 2005 – especially given the possibility that a protagonist of that election could return as a papabile this time around.

The vote tallies in the 2005 conclave were leaked five months later in an anonymous cardinal’s diary, which formed the basis of an article published by the Italian journal Limes. The author, Lucio Brunelli, is a respected journalist who has covered the Vatican for decades, so his account – which has since been supported by others – deserves attention.

According to the diary, Cardinal Ratzinger led off the first ballot by obtaining 47 votes. Behind him were Argentine Cardinal Jorge Maria Bergoglio with 10 votes, Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini of Milan with 9 votes and a handful of other candidates with lower numbers.

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ROME
National Catholic Reporter

by John L. Allen Jr. | Mar. 11, 2013

ROME – John Allen is offering a profile each day of one of the most frequently touted papabili, or men who could be pope. The old saying in Rome is that he who enters a conclave as pope exits as a cardinal, meaning there’s no guarantee one of these men actually will be chosen. They are, however, the leading names drawing buzz in Rome these days, ensuring they will be in the spotlight as the conclave draws near. The profiles of these men also suggest the issues and the qualities other cardinals see as desirable heading into the election.

Read all of John Allen’s papabile of the day stories here.

Attentive readers will notice a subtle shift in the headline today, from papabile, singular, to papabili, plural. That’s because I’m treating three papal candidates in this piece, not just one. We’re going to examine the prospects of the three Americans generally considered the most plausible contenders: Cardinals Timothy Dolan of New York, Sean O’Malley of Boston and Donald Wuerl of Washington.

I’m assuming my readers don’t need a whole lot of biographical background on these three figures. What’s critical is to understand why each might become pope, and why they might not. In this last installment of the “Papabile of the Day” series, that’s precisely what we’ll explore.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Tony Flannery

Mon, Mar 11, 2013

When Pope Benedict spoke of the face of the Catholic Church being “disfigured”, and when he used the word “filth” about aspects of church life, maybe he was partly referring to the Vatican itself. The next pope will have a major task ahead of him, not just with the universal church, but with reforming the Roman curia.

The Vatileaks gave us insight into a dysfunctional system. We got a glimpse of a structure that was riddled with power struggles, infighting and jealousies. Even if only part of what was revealed is true, it still amounts to a major clean-up task for the new pope.

My concern is an older scandal, which continues to reveal new and more astonishing features. I am referring to the story of the founder of the Legionaries of Christ, Marcial Maciel Degollado. For those who don’t know, this man founded a large and conservative religious order, and also a lay institute, Regnum Christi. He was a great friend of John Paul II, and of one of the most powerful people in the Vatican, Cardinal Angelo Sodano.

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FRANCE
IOL

March 11 2013

AFP

Paris – Putting the blame for paedophilia on the Roman Catholic Church is a way of avoiding the issue, a top French cardinal says.

“There is a kind of opinion that is an easy way of ridding (society) of the issue of paedophilia by putting it on the Church,” Andre Vingt-Trois, the archbishop of Paris, told AFP in an interview.

“We shouldn’t be duped. It’s easy because that prevents asking the question within society itself,” said Vingt-Trois, 70, one of the 115 cardinals set to elect the next pope in a conclave starting on Tuesday.

“Paedophilia is not solely a Church problem. Eighty percent of victims of paedophilia are in families, and we don’t talk about that,” he said, rejecting what he called a “fascination” over the issue in connection with the Church.

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UNITED STATES
Mother Jones

By Kiera Butler

Mon Mar. 11, 2013

“Even on a good day, I get discouraged thinking about the election of a new pope,” laments Maureen Fiedler, a nun and blogger at the progressive Catholic newspaper National Catholic Reporter. “They all look like a Vatican version of the tea party movement.”

On Tuesday, three weeks after Pope Benedict XVI announced his resignation on February 28, the world’s cardinals will begin their conclave to choose a new pope. The past few decades have been rough ones for a church struggling with the widespread sex abuse scandal and an ever-worsening shortage of clergy. But with 1.16 billion members worldwide, the Church is still massive—and it’s actually in a perfect position to help save the planet, should it choose to do so.

The flock is increasingly centered in the developing world, where people are most likely to bear the brunt of environmental destruction and climate change. The church has a strong tradition of social justice work, including the United States’ Catholic Worker movement and Latin America’s liberation theology. Indeed, National Catholic Reporter notes that even the notoriously socially conservative Benedict XVI famously delivered a World Day of Peace speech called “If You Want to Cultivate Peace, Protect Creation,” and named pollution among the world’s “social sins.”

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ROME
National Catholic Reporter

by John L. Allen Jr. | Mar. 11, 2013

Rome —
Eight years ago, when the cardinals of the world gathered to elect a successor to Pope John Paul II, their watchword was “continuity.” Buoyed by the massive outpouring of grief and affection for the late pope that washed through the streets of Rome, they felt they had just witnessed the end of a massively successful pontificate, and they wanted to keep the momentum going.

The man who was the intellectual architect of John Paul’s papacy, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, therefore seemed an obvious choice.

This time around, there’s another voting issue that seems equally front and center, although it may not lead quite as directly to a specific candidate. In a word, the driving issue this time appears to be “governance.”

Time and again, both publicly and privately, cardinals have said that whatever other qualities the next pope may possess, he has to be someone who can remedy the perceived breakdowns in business management in the Vatican over the last eight years.

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ROME
National Catholic Reporter

by Joshua J. McElwee,Dennis Coday | Mar. 11, 2013

Rome —
As a few night owls strolled through the crisp Roman evening Feb. 28, they were illuminated by one less reflection of lights. Behind the northern side of the square’s iconic colonnades, the apostolic palace was dark.

In a small but tell-tale sign of the transition facing the church, the lights of the pope’s apartment had been turned off.

Hours before, as Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation took effect at exactly 8 p.m. local time, the doors to the apartment had been ceremonially sealed with ribbon and wax, not to be broken before the election of a new pontiff by the church’s cardinals.

It was a dramatic change in scenery. And in the days before and after, change has been the watchword of the former pope, the cardinals who have taken up the role of shepherding the church, and analysts speculating on what happens next for the central command of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics.

Following a series of scandals — reports that gay Roman priests are overly influenced by their lovers, the resignation of a cardinal accused of sexual impropriety, and the continuing effects of last year’s trial of the papal valet for leaking Vatican documents — each has said the church needs to go through some sort of spiritual change or transformation.

“This is a time of thirst” for the church, Vienna Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, considered a long-shot possibility to be pope, told NCR in a brief interview March 4.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

by NCR Editorial Staff | Mar. 11, 2013

Editorial

In the opening days of the general congregations, the series of meetings the College of Cardinals convene in the lead-up to the conclave that will choose the next pope, an idea was floated in the Italian press about a way to clean up the governance issues that have plagued the Vatican under Pope Benedict XVI’s reign. The idea was to elect one of the over-80-year-old cardinals as pope. Such a pope, a curial old hand, would have a clear understanding of how the Curia actual works and could rein it in. The candidate would have to be somebody tough enough to crack down on uncooperative dicasteries and end rivalries. Somebody with clear thinking and a firm hand — that’s what’s needed. The idea — like many floated in the Italian media these days — didn’t get much traction.

We have also heard people longing for a return of someone like Archbishop Giovanni Benelli, a legendary substitute (assistant) secretary of state under Pope Paul VI. This guy knew how to run a tight ship. With Benelli in charge, everyone knew his job and his place and the work of the Vatican got done. A TIME magazine profile of him from 1969 describes how he prepared and organized newspaper clippings and reports and arranged them on the breakfast table every morning for Paul VI. He arranged papal audiences and appointments with similar efficiency. Though only an archbishop and only the No. 2 man in his office, he could make cardinals tremble in fear if they tried to circumvent or cross him. A new Benelli would turn this place around, they say.

A third idea has emerged in the last day or so. The new pope needs to be a modern CEO who would update church systems with modern management practices, understand finances and have a command of modern communication technologies. The idea is to shuffle a few MBAs among the theology degrees.

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ITALY
Huffington Post

Paul Schwarzman

There is strong circumstantial evidence that Niccolò Machiavelli – history’s most cunning writer about power – may have plotted to obliterate the Roman Catholic Church and its governing Cardinals to purge it of the corruption of that epoch. The repercussions of those events definitively changed the mission of the Church to what it is today.

Machiavelli may have precipitated the Sack Of Rome in 1527, in which tens of thousands of Romans were butchered. Ironically — in a brilliant strategic PR shift by the Church government — the horrors of the Sack allowed the Church to survive and thrive. Now, with Pope Benedict XVI’s possible repudiation of his election by the Cardinals, he may have seeded doubt to their claim to be the infallible voice of God, and with it, shaken their pillar in the Church. In his actions, the Pope may have achieved the very goal of Machiavelli 500 years later.

Let’s consider the background history of how we arrived here.

Machiavelli was a Florentine diplomat and author of The Prince that became the handbook for despots from Napoleon through Hitler to Mao. It specifies how to apply acts of cruelty to achieve and maintain power at any cost. It is a page-turner, with Machiavelli serving as eye witness to Cesare Borgia — the son of Pope Alexander VI and role model for The Prince — who galloped with death squads and proudly garroted a general in the diplomat’s presence.

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CANADA
Digital Journal

By Arthur Weinreb
Mar 11, 2013

Montreal – A Quebec victims group would like to see Marc Cardinal Ouellet succeed Pope Benedict as the next head of the Catholic Church. But the reasons for their support are not exactly complimentary to the 68-year-old cleric.

A small rally was held yesterday outside a Montreal church. Some protesters wore white paper hats similar to mitres worn by Bishops saying, “Vote for Ouellet.” At the rally, the Quebec Association of Victims announced their support for the Quebec cardinal to become the next pontiff. The group was, and is, critical of Ouellet for not doing enough to help those who were victimized by the church.

Since Pope Benedict announced his resignation last month, Ouellet’s name has been included in a list of serious contenders to succeed Benedict. In supporting the cardinal, the group does not believe he is necessarily the best candidate for the job.

The group believes if Ouellet becomes the next pope, international attention will be focused on Quebec and this will put the abuse suffered by their 3,500 members in the international spotlight.

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TEXAS
Houston Press

By Casey Michel
Mon., Mar. 11 2013

Martin Villanueva didn’t mind the first time his tires were punctured. He knew how to repair the drill-holes — take a nail, take a bit of adhesive, and call it good. He was frustrated, sure. But these things happen. Random day, random car.

Then, it happened again. Nails, adhesive, frustration. And it happened again, and again, and again. And Villanueva’s nail stock ran low, and his budget ran lower, new tires purchased after every few punctures.

And a pattern, beginning nearly three years ago in Edinburg, began to grow. The holes, this automotive stigmata, came only when Villanueva’s car was sitting in the parking lot of a new church he was visiting. They came only when he skipped out on his traditional place of Catholic worship, Edinburg’s Holy Family Church, and settled into another pew on Sunday mornings.

The whole time, Villanueva suspected. The location, and timing — it all pointed to one individual. It all pointed to a jilted love. It all pointed to a friend-cum-vagrant, a priest, Eusebio Martinez, who believed that he and Villanueva should maintain more than a simple pastor-parishioner relationship.

“When I met when him, I was building a house for him,” Villanueva told Hair Balls on Friday. A relationship developed, and flowered. It grew far quicker than Villanueva would have preferred. “He wanted me to be real close, wanted to be a real good friend. And then he wanted to be in control of myself.”

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MASSACHUSETTS
My Fox Boston

IPSWICH, Mass. (MyFoxBoston.com) – There are more abuse allegations against a Roman Catholic priest who is already accused of abusing a young boy in Ipswich.

The Salem News says Rev. Richard McCormack has been indicted on additional counts of child sex abuse.

Last year, McCormack was charged with abusing a young boy in the early 1980s. That’s when McCormack worked at the Salesian Brothers’ Sacred Heart retreat center and seminary in Ipswich. FOX 25 covered that story.

A second victim has reportedly now come forward to prosecutors after McCormack’s arrest. He claims he was abused between 1981 and 1983 when he was 9 years old.

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ROMA
La Repubblica

Lo strano affare del palazzo del cardinale che in un giorno raddoppiò il suo prezzo

Roma, pagato 9 milioni e rivenduto a Propaganda Fide per 20. Imbarazzo in Vaticano perché negli stessi locali c’è la sauna gay più famosa d’Italia. E grazie a Tremonti la Chiesa non paga un euro di tasse. L’acquisto voluto fortemente dal Segretario di Stato Bertone di CARLO BONINI

ROMA – Al civico 2 di via Carducci, nel cuore della città umbertina, a un centinaio di metri dal ministero dell’Economia, un palazzo nobiliare dall’elegante atrio e dalle grandi finestre tiene insieme, tra le stesse mura, la Congregazione per l’Evangelizzazione dei Popoli (Propaganda Fide) e la più grande sauna gay d’Italia.

Non solo. Custodisce i segreti di una singolare operazione immobiliare costata al Vaticano 23 milioni di euro, caldeggiata dal cardinale e Segretario di Stato Tarcisio Bertone, conclusa con grande soddisfazione e importanti plusvalenze da una società di Busto Arsizio, ma con nessun vantaggio fiscale per le casse dello Stato che, a questo complesso immobiliare acquistato dalla Congregazione ha riconosciuto l’extraterritorialità e dunque l’intangibilità e la totale esenzione fiscale che i Patti Lateranensi assicurano ai luoghi di culto.

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NEDERLAND
NRC

door Joep Dohmen

De Rooms-Katholieke Kerk moet vrouwen die als kind vaak ernstig mishandeld zijn in katholieke tehuizen, erkennen en smartegeld betalen. Dat adviseert Wim Deetman in een vandaag gepubliceerd vervolgonderzoek rond het misbruikschandaal in de Kerk.

In de bestaande klachtenprocedure krijgen alleen slachtoffers van seksueel misbruik erkenning en compensatie. Deetman stelt voor vrouwelijke geweldsslachtoffers te helpen via een speciale bemiddeling door mediators. Over mannelijke geweldsslachtoffers zegt hij niets.

Vervolgonderzoek commissie-Deetman

Het vervolgonderzoek bouwt voort op het onderzoek van de commissie-Deetman, naar seksueel misbruik van jongens en meisjes in de katholieke kerk. Daaruit bleek dat “enkele tienduizenden” kinderen, vooral jongens, sinds 1945 slachtoffer waren. Voor hen kwam er een klachten- en compensatieregeling. Op verzoek van de Tweede Kamer keek Deetman daarna nog specifiek naar het seksueel misbruik van meisjes en jonge vrouwen, en naar schrijnende gevallen van geweld.

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NEDERLAND
Kerknieuws

De commissie-Deetman heeft drie gevallen van seksueel misbruik binnen de Rooms-Katholieke Kerk gemeld aan het Openbaar Ministerie (OM). De gevallen zijn verjaard, maar omdat de gemelde mishandelingen zo ernstig waren, zijn ze toch aan het OM doorgegeven.

Dat meldde de commissie-Deetman maandag, op basis van vervolgonderzoek naar seksueel, fysiek en geestelijk misbruik van meisjes binnen de kerk.

De commissie onder leiding van Wim Deetman deed eerder al onderzoek naar seksueel misbruik binnen de kerk. Uit dat onderzoek bleek dat door falend toezicht tussen de 10.000 en 20.000 kinderen misbruikt konden worden in katholieke instellingen en internaten. Voor dit vervolgonderzoek kwamen 181 nieuwe meldingen binnen van minderjarige slachtoffers over seksueel misbruik, al dan niet in gecombineerd met geweld. 79 meldingen werden verder onderzocht. Ook 71 oude meldingen, uit het vorige onderzoek, werden meegenomen.

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