ABUSE TRACKER

MARYLAND
WBAL

Friday, March 01, 2013
Phil Yacuboski

Police in Baltimore County have arrested a 67-year-old Fullerton man and charged with him with having child pornography.

William Steven Albaugh, of the unit block of Treadway Court, was arrested Friday morning just before 8 o’clock. Albaugh is the deacon of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in 8400-block of Belair Road in Nottingham.

He’s charged with one count of possession of child pornography and was released on $75,000 bond.

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MARYLAND
WMAR

NOTTINGHAM, Md. (WMAR) –

Baltimore County Police have arrested and charged a deacon with possession of child pornography.

William Steven Albaugh, 66, was a deacon at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Nottingham. Albaugh was arrested at his home in the unit block of Treadway Court at about 7:45 a.m.

Albaugh is charged with one count of possession of child pornography and was released on a $75,000 bond.

Detectives began to investigate the deacon last month when Verizon Online notified the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that one of their subscribers had stored images on the online ‘cloud’ storage system.

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UNITED STATES
The Garden of Roses: Stories of Abuse and Healing

Virginia Jones

Friday, March 1, 2013

I saw the blurb on Abuse Tracker from Bill Donohue about an opinion piece in the New York Times criticizing the author, Paul Elie, as another Catholic malcontent.

My first thought was, We are all Gods hands on this earth. Maybe the malcontents are actually God speaking to Church leadership and telling them they need to shape up.

My second reactions is that sometimes we don’t recognize the help God sends to us.

I am reminded of the story of a man who was stranded during a flood. Before he was stranded, a policeman came to his door and told him to evacuate.

The man said, “God will take care of me.”

The flood waters rose to his doorstep and then into his house.

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MARYLAND
NBC Washington

A 67-year-old Fullerton, Md. man – who also serves as a church deacon – has been charged with possession of child pornography, Baltimore County police said.

William Steven Albaugh of Treadway Court was arrested at his home at about 7:45 a.m. and charged with one count of possession of child pornography. He was released on $75,000 bond.

Police said detectives were alerted by Verizon Online, who told the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that one of its subscribers had stored images of child pornography on Verizon’s online cloud storage system.

Police said a further investigation found that Albaugh saved images of child pornography on his Verizon Online account as well as on thumb drives.

Albaugh is the deacon of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Nottingham, Md., police said. There is no evidence that children at the church were victims.

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FIJI
The Fiji Times

Repeka Nasiko
Saturday, March 02, 2013

A CATHOLIC priest accused of rape and multiple allegations of sex related crimes was yesterday placed in police custody for his own safety.

The Magistrates Court in Tavua was told that Father Nemesio Kolikoli, 50, should be held in protective custody as tension was high in Vatukoula, where he served as parish priest.

State prosecutors told Magistrate Samuela Qica the clergy would be harmed if he was released back into the community because of the tension created by his alleged acts.

Father Kolikoli was charged with one count of rape and three counts of indecent assault following a complaint lodged by a 21-year-old on February 24.

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ROME
Voice of America

Reuters

March 01, 2013

ROME — Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana is not “running” for pope but he clearly has supporters who think enough of him that they have plastered posters with his picture around Rome.

“Vote Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson at the conclave!,” was written in bold on posters above a photograph of the cardinal, a favorite among bookmakers to succeed Benedict, who on Thursday became the first pope in six centuries to resign.

The posters were plastered over banners that had been used for candidates in Italian elections earlier this week.

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CANADA
CBC News

Ottawa police have laid six additional counts of gross indecency and indecent assault against a retired Roman Catholic priest already facing charges related to the alleged sexual assault of a boy in the early 1970s.

Jacques Faucher of Gatineau, Que., was charged and appeared in court via video on Friday to face the additional charges.

Faucher, 76, was already facing one count each of gross indecency and indecent assault on a male in relation to incidents alleged to have occurred in Ottawa between 1971 and 1973. The complainant in that instance was seven years old in 1971, police said.

The new charges come after police asked anyone with information about the incident or other incidents to contact them.

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CANADA
CFRA

Alison Sandor and Sarah Anderson
Friday, March 1, 2013

A 76-year-old retired priest charged with sex crimes against children is now facing additional charges.

Ottawa Police have charged Jacques Faucher with six accounts of gross indecency and indecent assault.

Faucher, was already charged with one count each of gross indecency and indecent assault in allegations of sexual abuse that date back to the early 1970’s.

In November, Ottawa police began investigating a series of alleged incidents involving a retired priest and a seven-year-old boy. The incidents allegedly occurred in Ottawa between 1971 and 1973.

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CANADA
CBC News

Ottawa police have laid six additional counts of gross indecency and indecent assault against a retired Roman Catholic priest already facing charges related to the alleged sexual assault of a boy in the early 1970s.

Jacques Faucher of Gatineau, Que., was charged and appeared in court via video on Friday to face the additional charges.

Faucher, 76, was already facing one count each of gross indecency and indecent assault on a male in relation to incidents alleged to have occurred in Ottawa between 1971 and 1973. The complainant in that instance was seven years old in 1971, police said.

The new charges come after police asked anyone with information about the incident or other incidents to contact them.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

The media nonsense has already gotten out of hand, especially on TV. Uninformed pundits, aided by opportunistic so-called “experts”, are already reporting the Vatican power struggles as if it were the Papal Kentucky Derby. The important matter is not the horserace; it is the Vatican structure. If that is not addressed by the Cardinals seriously now, the Pope who makes the “Winner’s Circle” will surely rule as a Papal Loser. It is just common sense.

Within a short period recently, (1) the ex-Pope, Joseph Ratzinger, left all the Cardinals his “final” marching signals, (2) his oldest colleague, Hans Kung, gave his informative assessment and a final warning , (3) a senior German diplomat, solely on a personal basis and not in any official capacity, indicated perceptively that the deteriorating situation in the Catholic Church was adversely affecting desirable cooperation among Christian denominations and benefiting indirectly some militant Islamic factions, and (4) a major human rights group filed a comprehensive report with the well regarded UN Committee on the Rights of the Child on the Vatican’s worldwide cover-up of priest rape of children supporting the Committee’s pending summons to the Vatican to account shortly. The Vatican is subject by international treaty to the Committee’s juridiction and has for over a decade failed to comply fully with its treaty oligations

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

by Jessica Mador, Minnesota Public Radio
February 28, 2013

ST. PAUL, Minn. — A bill that would eliminate the statute of limitations for childhood victims of sexual abuse to sue their abusers got its first hearing Thursday.

The Minnesota Child Victims Act would eliminate the requirement that victims file civil suits within six years of becoming an adult. Supporters of the measure say it can take decades for people who were sexually abused as children to come forward.

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved the bill on a vote of 5-3, and sent it to the full Senate. The House Civil Law Committee will take up the bill next Wednesday.

Grace Keliher from the Minnesota School Boards Association said the association supports strengthening penalties against abusers. But the proposal as it is written would make it difficult for school districts to defend against claims of past abuse in cases where detailed records may not have been kept, she said.

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UNITED STATES
Rockland County Times

Posted March 1st, 2013

BY DIANE DIMOND

I don’t pretend to know why Pope Benedict XVI became the first pope to resign in almost 600 years. But I’m going to bet it had something to do with the constant drumbeat of scandal that marked his eight-year reign.

Before he became pope, he was Joseph Ratzinger, a German cardinal. You may not know, however, that he had long been in charge of the Vatican office to which all reports about sexually misbehaving priests were directed. In other words, for years, every single complaint about sexual abuse by a priest crossed the desk of Cardinal Ratzinger.

Agreed, he was just one man within the vast Vatican framework. But he was at the top. He was the man within the organization who was in a position to know about every accusation and what action (if any) had been taken to learn the truth about allegations of sexual abuse.

The information about priests with multiple complaints against them was at Ratzinger’s fingertips. He could easily have looked up information about all those priests who had been transferred from parish to parish — and the children who claimed they, too, had been abused.

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VATICAN CITY
Rome Reports

[with video]

March 1, 2013. (Romereports.com) In his first hours as Pope Emeritus, Benedict XVI was very serene and calm. After saying farewell from his balcony, he had dinner, prayed and took a walk. According to the Vatican’s spokesman, he also slept quite well.

“I spoke with Benedict XVI’s secretary over the phone, and he told me the Pope was very calm, relaxed and had slept very well. He told me this with a very friendly tone of voice, which gives me the impression that it has been a time of peace for him,” said father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican’s spokesman.

With the Pope’s resignations all heads of Vatican Departments temporarily lose their posts.
Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who is also the so called chamberlain is responsible for the management and day to day affairs of the Holy See until a new Pope is elected.

Through a letter, all nunciatures have been officially informed about Benedict XVI’s resignation. His Papal apartment was sealed as was the elevator that leads to it.
Also, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Dean of the Cardinals, sent an official letter to every cardinal summoning them to Rome, as soon as possible to elect the next Pope.

The next meeting will be held on Monday March 4th at 9: 30 a.m.

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WILMINGTON (DE)
The Dialog

By Joseph Ryan
Dialog editor

Bishop Malooly has approved a three-year capital campaign called “Sustaining Hope for the Future” to address the current and future financial needs of the Diocese of Wilmington.

The campaign, to begin during the next few weeks, will focus on four areas — reinforcing the diocesan lay employees’ pension plan that is under a court directive to be funded with an additional $10 million by the end of 2017, securing priests’ retirement fund, strengthening diocesan ministries and sustaining current and future parish needs.

“I need to get the diocese back on an even keel and out of debt,” Bishop Malooly said Feb. 25 in announcing the campaign.

The major fundraising project was spurred by the diocesan bankruptcy settlement in February 2011 (finalized in September 2011) in which the diocese paid $77.4 million to settle 150 claims of survivors of sexual abuse by priests, as well as honoring claims of pensioners and other creditors.

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WILMINGTON (DE)
The Republic

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
March 01, 2013

DOVER, Delaware — The Catholic Diocese of Wilmington is embarking on a major fundraising campaign, 18 months after emerging from bankruptcy.

The diocese on Friday announced a three-year campaign to raise funds for pensions, ministries and parish needs.

Officials said the campaign is designed to meet the needs created by a $77 million bankruptcy settlement with survivors of sexual abuse by pedophile priests. The diocese said the settlement drained its reserves and requires it to add $10 million to its lay employees’ pension plan by the end of 2017.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

by John L. Allen Jr. | Mar. 1, 2013 All Things Catholic

Now that the papacy of Benedict XVI is over and the sede vacante has begun, the period before the white smoke rises over the Sistine Chapel will be filled with commentary and speculation about the looming conclave, much of it based on time-honored conventional wisdom about how these things work.

Here are three common bromides you’re likely to hear over and over again in coming days:

“He who enters as pope exits as a cardinal.” The idea is that too much attention before the fact can hurt more than it helps, and that the actual results of conclaves are always a surprise compared to what people had expected.

“You follow a fat pope with a thin one.” The gist is that after a particular style has had its day for a while, cardinals will be in the mood for something different, so they’ll elect a pope who contrasts with the previous one.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Birmingham Mail

Maureen Messent

Were I a simpleton believing shock headlines and doom-laden news bulletins, I’d get the idea the Roman Catholic Church ‘is in crisis’ and has been shattered by the resignation of Cardinal Keith O’Brien.

That isn’t the case. What we are seeing here is an epidemic of selective media indignation.

Indeed, this is an excuse for wheeling out the old adage of events turning out all for the best.

The church isn’t in crisis, simply realising that great change has been forced on it.

Had the Pope not been resigning, it is likely that the cumbrous and slow-moving Vatican would not have moved against O’Brien for months.

Then, after his retirement, a few months would have elapsed, at which stage, out of the blue, the Vatican, with O’Brien now safely retired, would have told us that accusations of inappropriate behaviour had been made against him.

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NEW ZEALAND
New Zealand Herald

Yesterday was Pope Benedict’s last day in office, but the words customarily used to announce that we have a new Pope, “Habemus Papam”, are likely to be a long time in coming. For much has changed in a short space of time.

The forced resignation this week of Cardinal Keith O’Brien as Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh demonstrates the intensity of the events through which the Catholic Church is passing. The College of Cardinals that will shortly assemble to make the choice has a difficult task.

One characteristic of the papacy that will be hard to maintain is the dogma of papal infallibility. The Vatican Council of 1870 defined it in the following terms: the Pope is “possessed of infallibility” when “he defines … a doctrine concerning faith and morals to be held by the whole Church”. Once the Pope has spoken, the Vatican Council agreed, his definitions “are irreformable of themselves”.

But the resignation of the Pope, an unprecedented act in modern times, makes the notion of infallibility look distinctly odd. Does it mean that Pope Benedict was possessed of infallibility yesterday but not now since he has begun his retirement? No wonder the Church delayed many centuries before clothing the idea in legal form.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Gay Star News

01 March 2013 | By Joe Morgan

Another priest has accused Cardinal Keith O’Brien of initiating ‘inappropriate behavior’.

It is the fifth such allegation to be made public against the former leader of the Catholic Church in Scotland, after O’Brien resigned on Monday (25 February).

The complaint is said to have given other men confidence to come forward with allegations against the cardinal, the Times (£) reports.

The priest wrote directly to Rome late last year because he felt he could not trust the church hierarchy in Scotland to handle the matter.

His allegation was taken seriously, and O’Brien was allowed to resign a month earlier than he had already planned.

Other allegations of ‘acts’, made by three other priests and a former priest was revealed six days ago by The Observer newspaper, and date back over 33 years.

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UNITED STATES
The New York Times

By PAUL ELIE

Published: February 28, 2013

The conventional wisdom has it that Benedict’s resignation sharply reduced the aura of the papal office, showed a tender realism about old age, and made clear that even ancient Catholic practices could be changed. That is all true, but the event’s significance is more visceral than that. It has caught the mood of the church, especially in North America.

Resignation: that’s what American Catholics are feeling about our faith. We are resigned to the fact that so much in the Roman Catholic Church is broken and won’t be fixed anytime soon.

So if the pope can resign, we can, too. We should give up Catholicism en masse, if only for a time.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic League

Bill Donohue speaks to the latest New York Times hit on the Church:

Counting both blogs and op-ed articles, today’s op-ed piece by Paul Elie is the 11th condemnatory article on the Catholic Church to have been published by the New York Times in the past 19 days.

As with so many Catholic malcontents, Elie’s parochialism allows him to think that his unhappiness is shared by everyone. “Resignation,” he says, is “what American Catholics are feeling about our faith.” He should speak for himself—most of us do not share his Commonweal affliction.

Elie has long been predicting that the Church is teetering. Two decades ago he was lamenting the fate of pro-abortion Catholic women, arguing that their voice needs to be heard. In 1994, after maintaining that the laity were in “deep dissent” over such issues, he appeared positively dazed over the success of a best-selling book by Pope John Paul II.

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DEUTSCHLAND
BR

[Video]

Der Skandal um sexuellen Missbrauch in Einrichtungen der katholischen Kirche ist mittlerweile drei Jahre alt. Was ist aus den hehren Aufklärungszielen der bayerischen Kirche geworden?

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OSTERREICH
HPD

WIEN. (hpd) Das vielfach beschworene katholische Österreich präsentiert sich heute als besonders kulturkatholisch. Gleichzeitig hat es vor wenigen Tagen eine herbe Niederlage eingesteckt, die das Land gar nicht mehr so katholisch aussehen lassen wie es manche gerne hätten. Eine angesehene katholische Einrichtung wurde vom Nationalrat vor die Tür gesetzt.

Um 20 Uhr wird die katholische Kirche bis in den letzten bewohnten Winkels des Landes ihre Präsenz zeigen. Oder besser hören lassen. Alle Kirchenglocken werden läuten, wenn die letzte Minute der Amtszeit Joseph Ratzingers im Vatikan verstrichen ist. Sogar die Pummerin, die außer an hohen Feiertagen nur bei außergewöhnlichen, im Regelfall tragischen, Ereignissen zum Einsatz kommt. Wenn ein Bundespräsident zu Grabe getragen wird, etwa.

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BRASILIEN
Merkur (Deutschland)

Der Missbrauchsfall soll sich in Niteroi in der Nähe von Rio de Janeiro zugetragen haben. Der Priester ist vorerst suspendiert.

Eine 19-jährige Frau wirft dem Geistlichen nach Polizeiangaben vor, sie seit ihrem 13. Lebensjahr missbraucht zu haben. Vergangenes Jahr habe sie nach eigenen Angaben gemeinsam mit einer 15-jährigen Freundin auf Video festgehalten, wie der Priester mit beiden Geschlechtsverkehr gehabt habe. Dieser soll zudem die damals siebenjährige Schwester der Frau vor drei Jahren unsittlich berührt haben.

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OSTERREICH
Betroffenen Gagen Kirchenprivilegien

(Wien, 28.2.13, PUR) “Wir weinen Papst Ratzinger sicher keine Träne nach. Er war die Zentral-Figur der Vertuschung von sexuellem Missbrauch“, sagt Sepp Rothwangl von der Plattform Betroffener kirchlicher Gewalt. Insbesondere in seiner langjährigen Funktion als Chef der vatikanischen Glaubenskongregation hat Ratzinger die weltweite Vertuschung der Missbrauchsfälle organisiert. U.a. mit einem Schreiben 2001, in dem er unter Androhung der schwersten Strafe, die die kath. Kirche aussprechen kann, angeordnet hat, dass alle Unterlagen zu Missbrauchsfällen nach Rom zu senden sind. Somit sind weltweit kaum Unterlagen zu diesen Fällen in den örtlichen Diözesen mehr vorhanden und die Täter können daher kaum rechtlich verfolgt werden. “Ratzinger ist eine Schande für die Kirche“, so Rothwangl weiter. “Und es ist eine Schande für die Politik weltweit, die diesen Papst so lange akzeptiert und respektiert hat, anstatt ihn für seine Vertuschung zur Verantwortung zu ziehen.“

Will Ratzinger durch Einbunkern im Vatikan einer Bestrafung entgehen?
Aus diesem Grund ist gegen Ratzinger beim Internationalen Strafgerichtshof (ICC) ein Verfahren anhängig, das von der weltweit aktiven Betroffenen-Organisation SNAP 2011 unter österreichischer Beteiligung eingebracht wurde. “Sein Rücktritt vereinfacht die Ermittlungen, da nun seine Immunität als Staatsoberhaupt aufgehoben ist“, erklärt SNAP-Chefin Barbara Blaine. Sepp Rothwangl ergänzt: “Herr Ratzinger soll jetzt Anstand zeigen und sich vor dem ICC verantworten und sich nicht im Vatikan einbunkern um der Strafverfolgung beim ICC und in den USA zu entgehen. Und Kardinal Schönborn soll jetzt gleich seinen Aufenthalt im Vatikan nutzen um die österr Missbrauchs- Geheimdokumente ausheben zu lassen und diese den Betroffenen sowie der heimischen Justiz zu übergeben.“

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 1 March 2013 (VIS) – The director of the Holy See Press Office, Fr. Federico Lombardi, S.J., related some information regarding the Sede Vacante and the first hours of Benedict XVI after having left the pontificate in a press conference this afternoon.

Fr. Lombardi spoke this morning with Benedict XVI’s personal secretary, Archbishop Georg Ganswein, prefect of the Papal Household, who told him that, yesterday, His Holiness, who was very calm and serene, had watched several news programs and expressed his appreciation for the work of the journalists as well as for the participation of those who had assisted in his departure from the Vatican and his arrival at Castel Gandolfo. After a brief walk through the Apostolic Palace he went to bed and slept very well.

Today, as always, His Holiness celebrated Mass at 7:00am and then prayed the Liturgy of the Hours. In the afternoon he has another walk planned at 4:00pm, through the gardens of the Castel Gandolfo Apostolic Palace, to pray the rosary. Benedict XVI brought with him various books on theology, history, and spirituality. At the moment he is reading from a book by the Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar.

Yesterday at 8:00, Archbishop Giovanni Angelo Becciu, substitute of the Secretariat of State sent a letter to all the diplomatic representatives to the Holy See informing them that, during the period of the Sede Vacante, all matters will be dealt with by the substitute and by the dean of the College of Cardinals, Cardinal Angelo Sodano.

Moreover, this morning, the papal apartments in St. John Lateran were sealed.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

by John L. Allen Jr. | Mar. 1, 2013

Rome —
We now know that the first meeting of the General Congregation, which brings together all the cardinals during the run-up to the conclave, is set for 9:30 a.m. Monday in Rome. In a break with practice from the last time around, the cardinals will also go back into the General Congregation on Monday afternoon.

The sessions will be held in the Vatican’s synod hall, where meetings of synods of bishops take place. Among other things, it’s among the few Vatican venues properly equipped to provide simultaneous translation.

(Another is the Vatican Press Office, but it’s probably unlikely the cardinals would choose to do the heavy lifting in full public view.)

As a reminder, all the cardinals are eligible to participate in the General Congregation meetings, not just the 115 under 80 who will actually cast ballots in the conclave. At the moment, there are a total of 207 cardinals, after the death Thursday of French Cardinal Jean Marcel Honoré at 92. Not all 207, however, will participate in the General Congregations; we’ll know Monday how many actually showed up.

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UNITED STATES
National Survivor Advocates Coalition

Editorial

We have a simple question for the Vatican today: why is it briefing the news media on what Pope Emeritus Benedict did after 8 PM last night and what he’s going to do today?

The Vatican has felt some compuction to let the world know that the Pope Emeritus watched television, slept, said a rosary – and brought a heavy tome of a theology book with him from his previous palace.

The Benedict XVI papacy is over – and the Pope Emeritus said he was withdrawing.

The Vatican should leave it where the Pope Emeritus left it right before he turned from the window of the Castle Gandolfo balcony and slipped from view –“Thank you and good night.”

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IRELAND
RTE News

The victims of a former Christian Brother, who indecently assaulted them when they were schoolboys in the 1980s, have said the trial was all about being believed.

The three men, now in their late 30s and early 40s, welcomed Edward Bryan’s conviction and the five-year prison sentence imposed on him at Cork Circuit Criminal Court today.

Judge Seán Ó Donnabháin said the 59-year-old, with an address at Martinvilla, Athboy Road, Trim in Co Meath, had not shown a shred of remorse, which the judge found alarming.

It was the third time the former Christian Brother at the North Monastery School in Cork City had stood trial on the indecent assault charges.

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IRELAND
TV 3

A former Christian Brother who indecently assaulted three boys at the North Monastery school in Cork has been sentenced to five years in prison.

Edward Bryan was found guilty on eight charges of indecent assault in the 1980s. The 59-year-old former principal and basketball coach abused the boys during one-on-one training sessions in the school gym.

The victims now in their 30s gave emotional evidence in court this morning – they said Bryan “zeroed in on them and preyed on them.”

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

A former Christian brother has been sentenced to five years in jail after he was found guilty of indecently assaulting three boys at the North Monastery School in Cork in the 1980s.

Passing sentence the judge said Br Edward Bryan had not shown a shred of remorse.

Last week a jury at Cork Circuit Criminal Court found him guilty on seven counts of indecently assaulting the three boys between 1984 and 1990.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

BARRY ROCHE, Southern Correspondent

A former Christian Brother had shown not a shred of remorse for his victims, a judge today as he jailed the man for five years for indecently assaulting three boys in the North Monastery Secondary School in Cork in the 1980s.

Judge Seán Ó Donnabháin noted Edward Bryan (59) formerly Br Bryan, of Martinvilla, Athboy Road, Trim, Co Meath had been convicted following the most careful, prolongued and exhaustive consideration of the evidence by a jury at Cork Circuit Criminal Court.

He said there were several aggravating factors to the case including the fact that there were multiple victims, that the victims were all young boys at the time while he was an adult and a teacher in a position of trust and the fact that the abuse went on over a prolonged period.

Bryan, who became deputy director of Oberstown juvenile detention centre after he left the Christian Brothers, was convicted of one count in June 2012, retried in October 2012 only for the trial to collapse and then convicted of seven more counts following another second retrial.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Ralph Riegel– 01 March 2013

A FORMER Christian Brother was jailed for five years today for putting three boys through “hell” in a five year campaign of sexual abuse.

Edward Bryan (59) was jailed as Judge Sean O’Donnabhain warned Cork Circuit Criminal Court that the former cleric hadn’t shown one shred of remorse for what he had put the boys through in the 1980s.

Bryan of Athboy Road, Trim, Co Meath had vehemently denied indecently assaulting the boys at the North Monastery secondary school in Cork in the late 1980s.

Mr Bryan denied a total of 11 counts which related to various dates between 1987 and 1990.
– See more at: http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/former-christian-brother-jailed-for-five-years-for-sexual-abuse-of-three-boys-29103615.html#sthash.d9DYFjZz.dpuf

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PENNSYLVANIA
Catholics4Change

March 1, 2013 by Susan Matthews

ONE CALL TO SAVE CHILDREN FROM SEXUAL ABUSE– please call PA Rep. Ron Marsico TODAY and tell him to place House Bills 237 and 238 on the agenda for the March 12 Judiciary Committee! CALL 717-652-3721.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 1 March 2013 (VIS) – Today, the first day of the Sede Vacante, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, dean of the College of Cardinals, has begun to summon the cardinals to the first of the General Congregations, as provided for by the Apostolic Constitution “Universi Dominici Gregis”.

This first General Congregation will take place on Monday, 4 March, at 9:30am in the Synod of Bishops Hall. A second General Congregation is also scheduled for 5:00pm in the same place.

Following is the text of the letter:

“As prescribed in the Apostolic Constitution “Universi Dominici Gregis” of 22 February 1996 at No. 19, analogous to the case of the death of the Supreme Pontiff, I have the duty to officially communicate to Your Eminence the news of the vacancy of the Apostolic See from the renunciation presented by Pope Benedict XVI effective from yesterday evening, 28 February, at 8:00pm in Rome.”

“On communicating this to you I fulfil my duty of summoning Your Eminence to the first of the General Congregations of the College of Cardinals, to be held on Monday, 4 March, at 9:30am in the Synod of Bishops Room in the Paul VI Hall.”

“The General Congregations will then continue normally until the complete number of Cardinal electors is gathered and the College of Cardinals decides the date for those Cardinal electors to enter into Conclave on the basis of what the recent Motu Proprio of 22 February established regarding modifications in the norms relating to the election of the Roman Pontiff.”

“On my part, I am pleased to take this opportunity to send you my fraternal greetings.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Big Trial

Friday, March 1, 2013

By Ralph Cipriano
For Bigtrial.net

In July 2012, Michael J. McGovern was preparing for the upcoming trial of his client, Father Charles Engelhardt, on charges that he had raped a former 10-year-old altar boy.

The phone rang. A high-ranking official at the district attorney’s office was on the line, wanting to know why McGovern was refusing to even discuss a plea deal on a case scheduled to go to trial in early September 2012.

I’ve got a problem, McGovern recalled saying. My client’s been a priest since 1967. If he even pleads no contest to a misdemeanor, such as corrupting the morals of a minor, and just gets probation, he can’t be a priest anymore. And that’s the only thing that matters to him. He also happens to be completely innocent.

The response he got surprised him, McGovern said. The high-ranking official on the other end of the line said, well there’s a split opinion over here [in the district attorney’s office] about whether the complainant is credible.

“He’s incredible,” McGovern recalled telling the official about the former altar boy identified in the 2011 grand jury report as “Billy Doe.” “He’s a lying sack of shit.”

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UNITED STATES
Fox News Radio

[with audio]

While many will be paying close attention to the selection of the next Pope, there may be no group here in the U.S. more interested in what happens than victims of priest sex abuse.

FOX News Radio’s Jessica Rosenthal reports in our ongoing series:

Victims of priest sex abuse in California say ideally the next Pope…

(Miller) “Whoever it’s going to be must continue to expose child molesting clerics and more importantly cooperate with law enforcement.”

But Esther Miller who was abused by a priest in the ’70′s doesn’t believe that’ll happen. Neither does abuse victim Joelle Casteix…

(Casteix) “These continued scandals in their eyes do not show a need for the protection of children, but instead a need to cover up the wrongdoings of the past and the present.”

She points to the long fought legal battle, years after the church settled abuse claims here in LA, that finally resulted in the release of court documents. They showed how Cardinal Roger Mahony covered up abuse by transferring and moving priests around.

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IRELAND
Highland Radio

01 Mar 2013

A man who was sexually abused at school by a Catholic priest in 1976 has told a court that his parents felt powerless but responsible for sending him into a lion’s den.

76 year old Patrick McCabe, who is a subject of the Murphy Report, pleaded guilty to indecently assaulting the then 13 year old boy in a car in Kildare.

The court heard former priest Patrick McCabe molested the 13 year old boy on a visit to his school in January 1976 when he introduced himself as a friend of the family.

When interviewed by Gardai in California in 2007 prior to his extradition the 76 year old said the young teenager was handsome and had matched up with his ‘fetish’.

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

Minnesota is an outlier, compared with other states, when it comes to giving victims of child sexual abuse only until they reach age 24 — six years after becoming an adult — to file a civil lawsuit.

But under a proposal before the Legislature, they could file a lawsuit at any time, no matter how long ago the abuse occurred. Under the Minnesota Child Victims Act, Minnesota would remain an outlier — but 180 degrees the other way, as the only state to give victims the right to pursue civil lawsuits without a time restriction.

Measures seeking to give victims more time to bring civil suits have gone before state lawmakers repeatedly since a Supreme Court ruling in 1996 interpreted the six-year time limit.

Thoughtful people on both sides make compelling points about the proposal. They deserve attention from lawmakers and citizens who want to do right by victims and yet consider what’s at stake for institutions that include churches, schools or youth organizations.

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VATICAN CITY
Worldcrunch

By Andrea Tornielli
LA STAMPA/Worldcrunch

VATICAN CITY – One of the cardinals getting ready to enter the upcoming conclave knows that he himself is not papabile — that is, his is not one of the names being considered as a possible next pope.

Perhaps for this reason he has taken the time to lay out to La Stampa, in a letter written with an old-fashioned silver fountain pen, what he believes is the ideal profile for the successor to Pope Benedict XVI. Other cardinals have spoken to us in confidence, and a few have even spoken in public, about the man they will be seeking when the conclave begins later this month. While an ideal picture begins to come into focus, so too does the challenge of finding one man to meet all the requirements.

“What we want in a new pope is someone who isn’t too old and has good physical stamina, which is what Benedict XVI indicated to us in his own statement of resignation,” wrote the anonymous Cardinal. “That he is not too young has been repeated by many of my fellow cardinals so that we avoid another reign of 30 years. (a reference to John Paul II’s 27-year reign) That we need a pontiff able to reform the Curia (Vatican government) is something many think; that the faithful expect a shepherd pope who is able to bring forth a positive message is something we all know.

This time, age and physical strength are likely to weigh in. Just like they were important in the second conclave in 1978 after the sudden death of Pope John Paul I, when the cardinals chose a 58-year-old cardinal as his successor: Karol Wojtyla. As he announced that he would be stepping down, Benedict XVI said: “In today’s world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the bark of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary.”

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

by Joshua J. McElwee | Mar. 1, 2013

Rome —
While the Vatican confirmed Friday that the members of the college of cardinals will begin meeting Monday following the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, it remains unclear when they will enter the secret meeting where they will elect the pope’s successor.

Speaking during a press conference, Basilian Fr. Thomas Rosica, who was providing English translation during the event, warned “not to expect the date of the conclave on Monday.”

Before setting the date, Rosica said, the cardinals need to determine “the rhythm of the sessions.”

“In the course of next week will be able to announce the beginning date of the conclave,” Rosica said.

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SCOTLAND
Daily Record

Joan Burnie

NO doubt by resigning, Cardinal O’Brien has done the right thing, at least by his church.

And, anyway, it had zilch to do with those unfortunate allegations over the weekend.

Nothing whatsoever. Just a happy, or possibly, unhappy coincidence.

As if we ever thought anything else.

But whether the Catholic Church – and indeed throughout his time in office, the Cardinal has done itself any favours with its strident obsession with sex and peripheral issues, such as gay marriage, is debatable.

I’m not religious but I have long thought that if the hierarchy had concentrated more on matters of social injustice instead of a downright unhealthy, if publicity-generating, interest in what consenting adults do with each other in private, they might be more respected.

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Irish Central

Editorial

Published Friday, March 1, 2013

The intrigue around the papal conclave reached new heights this week when Irish-born Cardinal Keith O’Brien of Scotland abruptly resigned after allegations of inappropriate behavior made by four priests against him surfaced.

The priests apparently were determined that O’Brien would not vote at the conclave, and made representations to the British-based papal nuncio even though the incidents occurred 30 years ago in some cases.

The Pope acted with alacrity and essentially forced O’Brien to reign.

Still unanswered is whether Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles will vote in the conclave, as his refusal to prosecute pedophile priests in his archdiocese led to horrific consequences.

There are also simmering questions about Irish Cardinal Sean Brady, who covered up the dreadful Father Brendan Smyth scandals, and even about Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, who was examined by lawyers last week on events in Milwaukee when he was archbishop there.

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FIJI
FBC News

Fri Mar 01, 2013

A priest has appeared before a packed Tavua Magistrates Court this afternoon on sex-related charges.

Tavua Police Prosecution Office told FBC News, Father Nemesio Kolikoli appeared before Magistrate Samuela Qica.

Father Kolikoli is charged with one count of Rape and a count of Indecent Assault.

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SCOTLAND
Scotsman

Published on Friday 1 March 2013

THE Vatican knew of allegations against Cardinal Keith O’Brien five months ago, it was claimed today.

Reports said a priest lodged a complaint in October about “inappropriate behaviour” by the former Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh in 2001.

The priest is said to have written directly to Rome because he did not think he could trust the church hierarchy in Scotland to handle the matter.

His claim is said to have been taken seriously and led to the Vatican contacting Cardinal O’Brien and a “deal” being brokered by Cardinal Marc Ouellet of Montreal for the departure of the leader of Scotland’s Catholics.

Cardinal O’Brien quit as archbishop on Monday following revelations at the weekend about allegations from three other priests and one former priest of inappropriate behaviour dating back to the 1980s. The cardinal contests the allegations.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Pink News

by Scott Roberts
1 March 2013

It has emerged that a fifth claim of “inappropriate behaviour” towards a male priest has been made against Cardinal Keith O’Brien.

The 74-year-old, who denied the first set of allegations last weekend, resigned as leader of the Scottish Catholic Church on Monday.

He was due to retire this month but the resignation was brought forward.

The allegations surfaced last Saturday one day after Cardinal O’Brien told the BBC that male priests within the Catholic Church should be able to marry female partners.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

Barney Zwartz
Religion editor, The Age

The great baroque builder Bernini produced many masterpieces in Rome, but none exceeds the twin colonnades that sweep from St Peter’s Basilica around most of St Peter’s Square, designed to be a pair of great arms in a gesture of embrace to the world.

Today half of one of the arms has an ugly grey cover protecting restoration work, making it look wounded and weakened. As a metaphor for the Catholic Church, this too is apt. The church has just entered the interregnum, as the period between popes is called, with many leaders and commentators saying it is in crisis, making the choice of the next Pope, the 266th, more vital than usual.

Benedict XVI himself spoke of the ”turbulent waters and rough winds” he experienced during his papacy in his final public address on Wednesday, and was unusually trenchant in other recent speeches, excoriating the divisions that ”disfigure” the church. Before his election he denounced ”filth in the church”, an apparent reference to clergy sex abuse.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Australian Times

By Thomas Jones on 28 February, 2013

He will still wear the white robes, still be addressed as ‘Your Holiness’ and still live in the Vatican city-State, with a view of the dome of St Peter’s Basilica. But when his retirement becomes official later today Pope Benedict XVI will lose one important entitlement.

As Head of State, Pope Benedict has absolute immunity from legal action. When he becomes ‘Emeritus Pope’ that immunity will wither away, leaving him open to potential legal action.

UK-based Australian human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson predicts “that some victims of priests whom he (Pope Benedict) has refused to defrock, and who have gone on to commit crimes against those victims, may seek to sue him for damages for negligence.”

Mr Robertson made the comments in relation to Pope Benedict’s response to cases of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

March 2, 2013

Jane Lee

MANY Christian Brothers still refuse to believe convicted paedophile Robert Best is guilty, a brother has told a state inquiry.

The disgraced Catholic brother was convicted in 2011 and jailed for 14 years and nine months for sex crimes against 11 boys at schools in Ballarat, Box Hill and Geelong.

Best was ordered to serve 11 years and three months in jail before he would be eligible for parole.

Brother Barry Coldrey told the parliamentary inquiry into the handling of child abuse that he was not a spokesman for any religion. But he said he believed that a culture of denial still pervaded the Christian Brothers order in Australia. ”Even at this minute there are many brothers who refuse to believe Robert Best is guilty despite overwhelming evidence,” he said.

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VATICAN CITY
Chiesa

by Sandro Magister

ROME, March 1, 2012 – The chair of Peter is empty. Joseph Ratzinger has left it with a clean break, and has left the future governance of the Church to a successor who is unknown to him, just as he is still unknown to the very cardinals who will elect him.

One cannot recall, in the last century, a previous conclave so much in the dark and so vulnerable to external and internal pressure.

But today it is the “fourth power,” that of the media, that is granting no truce to the cardinals called to conclave.

One of them has already fallen, the Scottish Keith Michael Patrick O’Brien. In one of his last acts as pope Benedict XVI expedited his resignation as archbishop of Edinburg, and he himself has announced that he will not go to Rome for the election of the new pontiff.

Another is former archbishop of Los Angeles Roger Mahony, censured by his own successor, José Horacio Gómez.

A third is former archbishop of Brussels Godfried Danneels.

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VATICAN CITY
NPR

[with audio]

by Sylvia Poggioli

February 28, 2013

Today is the last day of the papacy of Pope Benedict XVI. Just two weeks ago, the German-born pope stunned the world by announcing he would be the first pope to resign in 600 years. After eight years on the throne of St. Peter, Benedict leaves behind a church in crisis.

Since the announcement, bulletins issued by the Vatican have ranged from the lofty — how Benedict will retire to a life dedicated to prayer and study — to the mundane, such as the details of packing the pope’s personal belongings and what he’ll leave behind.

In a sign that even the Vatican was totally unprepared for the resignation, it took two weeks to decide Benedict’s new title and what he would wear.

And while the cardinals publicly praise Benedict for his courageous act, privately many are reassessing his legacy. …

David Clohessy, executive director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused By Priests (SNAP), says Benedict has been credited for meeting with and apologizing to victims, and issuing new guidelines on handling cases, but he has not sanctioned one bishop for covering up abuse cases.

“Pope Benedict came into office knowing more about abuse than any other Catholic official on the planet, and I think many victims and many Catholics had some real hope that he would clean house, and he clearly didn’t,” Clohessy says.

The sex abuse cloud will hang over the conclave to elect the new pope. As will a confidential report on last year’s embarrassing leaks of private papers that revealed corruption and turf battles within the Vatican. Benedict has left the report for his successor’s eyes only, but many cardinals are already asking to be briefed on its contents.

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ROME
The Daily Beast

Jul 27, 2010

For residents of Rome, the sight of courting priests is hardly an anomaly. But a recent exposé is rocking the Catholic Church.

In the basement dining room of Le Mani In Pasta, a trattoria in central Rome, a young, glossy-eyed couple stare at each other across a table for two. They smile and blush over a private joke. There is no handholding or kissing, but they are clearly more than friends, even though they are both wearing dark shirts and the telltale white clerical collar.

For residents of Rome, the sight of courting priests is hardly an anomaly. The phenomenon is a well-known secret here, and one that was largely ignored until last weekend, when the Italian weekly magazine Panorama published a shocking exposé called “Le Notti Brave Dei Preti Gay,” or “Good Nights Out for Gay Priests.” Investigative journalist Carmelo Abbate spent 20 days undercover posing as the boyfriend of a man who ran in gay clerical circles, secretly videotaping the sexual escapades of three Rome-based priests. Abbate caught the priests on hidden camera dirty dancing at private parties and engaging in sex acts with male escorts on church property. He also caught them emerging from dark bedrooms in time to celebrate mass. In one postcoital scene, “Father Carlo” parades around seminaked, wearing only his clerical vestments. Abbate’s “date” even had sex with one of the priests to corroborate the story. “This is not about homosexuality,” Abbate, who is not gay, told NEWSWEEK. “This is about private vices and public virtues. This is about serious hypocrisy in the Catholic Church.”

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VIRGINIA
WAVY

Rachel West

CHESAPEAKE, Va. (WAVY) – A Chesapeake pastor is facing a felony charge, accused of internet crimes involving a child.

Kelly O’Sullivan with the Chesapeake Police Department told WAVY.com the Chesapeake Police Internet Crimes Against Children unit began an investigation into Haden Conrad of the 1200 block of Orville Avenue.

Thursday, officers served several search warrants at both his home and place of business in the 1200 block of Chesapeake Avenue, O’Sullivan added. Police took a computer from each location.

Conrad, 32, was charged with computer solicitation of a child under 15, a class 5 felony.

Friends and neighbors told WAVY.com Conrad is married with two foster children, who were taken away from the couple.

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VIRGINIA
Daily Press

By Tyra M. Vaughn 757-247-7870

CHESAPEAKE—

A 32-year-old Chesapeake man was arrested and charged Wednesday with soliciting a child using computer, police said.

Haden Conrad, of the 1200 block of Orville Avenue, was charged with computer solicitation of a child under the age of 15, said Kelly O’Sullivan, a Chesapeake police spokeswoman, in a news release. As of Thursday morning, Conrad remained in custody at the Chesapeake City Jail.

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VIRGINIA
WTKR

[with video]

Chesapeake, VA. – Chesapeake police have arrested a pastor and former police chaplain for computer solicitation of a child, officials tell NewsChannel 3.

According to Chesapeake Officer Kelly O’Sullivan, the Chesapeake Police Internet Crimes Against Children unit conducted an investigation involving 32-year-old Haden Conrad, of the 1200 block of Orville Avenue.

One of the places investigators searched was a church on Chesapeake Avenue.

The website for ‘Chesapeake Avenue United Methodist Church’ lists Haden Conrad as its pastor. He’s been there since 2011.

Until yesterday, Conrad was a Chaplain for the Chesapeake Police Department.

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CANADA
National Post

Chris Purdy, Canadian Press

EDMONTON — Former Stephen Harper strategist Tom Flanagan has been widely and swiftly condemned for suggesting that people shouldn’t be jailed for looking at child pornography.

The remarks will end the distinguished career of the University of Calgary political science professor on a sour note as the university announced his resignation.

“Comments made by Tom Flanagan in Lethbridge yesterday absolutely do not represent the views of the University of Calgary. In the university’s view, child pornography is not a victimless crime,” University of Calgary president Elizabeth Cannon said in a statement.

She said Flanagan was already on leave and would remain so until his retirement on June 30, 2013. Flanagan had submitted his retirement papers in January but the university had not announced it.

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CHILE
Cooperativa

El arzobispo de Santiago, Ricardo Ezzati, respaldó a su antecesor, el cardenal Francisco Javier Errázuriz, tras las críticas realizadas por el The New York Times por haber fallado en el combate contra los casos de abusos sexuales cometidos por religiosos.

La publicación incluyó a Errázuriz entre los cardenales que dirimirán al próximo Papa, pese a su actuación en el caso Karadima, donde presuntamente desatendió las denuncias de las víctimas.

“Lo que yo le puedo decir es que el juicio al padre Fernando Karadima ha sido posible en la Congregación Para la Doctrina de la Fe gracias a que se han entregado los documentos”, dijo Ezzati a 24 Horas.

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CHILE
El Observatodo

Por Andrés Miranda

Hace un par de días el periódico estadounidense, The New York Times puso al cardenal chileno, Francisco Javier Errázuriz como uno de los cuestionados para el Cónclave debido al encubrimiento que habría incurrido al no recibir a las victimas de los abusos sexuales del sacerdote Fernando Karadima.

El periodista, Juan Carlos Cruz fue uno de los primeros en denunciar a Karadima y es uno de los principales críticos del Cardenal Errázuriz, que ya está en Roma para participar en el Cónclave para la elección del próximo Papa. Cruz, conversó con El Observatodo, y manifestó su esperanza en este proceso, eso sí, cuestionó al igual que The New York Times la participación del purpurado chileno en el proceso eleccionario del sucesor de Benedicto XVI.

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CHILE
info Catolica

(Cooperativa) Mons Ezzati aseguró que «el juicio al padre Fernando Karadima ha sido posible en la Congregación Para la Doctrina de la Fe gracias a que se han entregado los documentos».

El arzobispo de Santiago, S.E.R. Ricardo Ezzati añadió que respeta «la postura de cada persona, pero que no sólo basta con lanzar una denuncia, las denuncias tienen que ser probadas».

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VATICAN CITY
Stuff

He quotes Amy Winehouse and, unlike Benedict XVI, actually taps out his tweets himself.

Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi is an erudite scholar with a modern touch – and that is seen by some as just the combination the Catholic Church needs to revive a church beset by scandal and a shrinking flock.

Benedict’s culture minister at the Vatican, Ravasi consistently makes the short lists of closely watched candidates to be the next pope.

He is one of the favorites among Catholics who long to see a return to the tradition of Italian popes.

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UNITED STATES
San Francisco Chronicle

Flavia Krause-Jackson, Bloomberg News

Friday, March 1, 2013

March 1 (Bloomberg) — Pope Benedict XVI’s life began in a picturesque Bavarian hamlet near Adolf Hitler’s birthplace. He will see out his days at a small Vatican monastery called “The Mother of the Church.”

Joseph Ratzinger, who at age 5 told his father he wanted to be a cardinal, will leave a mixed legacy after becoming the first Roman Catholic pontiff in 600 years to relinquish power, religious scholars from Rome to the U.S. said. The pope left the Vatican by helicopter for the papal summer residence in Castel Gandolfo. His pontificate came to an end at 8 p.m. in Rome yesterday, when his Swiss guards were replaced by Vatican police at the palace and the Holy See’s flag was lowered.

While celebrated for theological tracts including books on the life of Jesus Christ, Benedict’s leadership of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics was also scarred by scandals involving priestly child abuse and leaked papal documents. His parting gift to the next pontiff is a secret file on the case called “Vatileaks,” which Italian media say divulges a network of sex and graft in the church. The reports “don’t correspond to reality,” according to the Holy See.

“He leaves a church in crisis in various ways: from internal governance, to low morale, the sexual abuse, the loss of young people, all the older ones that have left, the evangelicals encroaching and secularists all over,” said historian R. Scott Appleby, director of the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

Editorial

A PUFF of white smoke emerging from the chimney above the Sistine Chapel will announce the election of a new pope.

But it might also signal surrender. Better a cannon shot to declare a war within the ranks of the Catholic Church that can be won only by a warrior pope.

The successor to Benedict XVI must be a fiercer pope to remind its clergy they once followed a fiercer God.

While the church is slow to accept more modern challenges of homosexuality, abortion, even contraception, it is sexual abuse, particularly the abuse of children, that should bring down a wrath instead of a whimper.

Pope Benedict recognised this abuse as an “evil” but did not lead his bishops to strike it down. In his private safe, under lock and key, waiting for his successor to make a judgment, is a dossier said to contain even more startling and profane revelations than have been levelled at some of the most senior figures in the church.

What is already known of the church’s cover-ups requires more than a confession and more than a penance in restoring what has been taken from the lives of its victims. It demands a purge of those the church has protected by keeping secret their sins.

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VATICAN CITY
CNN

[with video]

By Laura Smith-Spark and Hada Messia, CNN
updated 7:10 AM EST, Fri March 1, 2013

Rome (CNN) — With the dust still settling from Benedict XVI’s historic resignation as pope, the focus in Rome turns to the future Friday as Roman Catholic cardinals prepare to meet to discuss a timetable for picking the new pontiff.

A letter issued by the dean of the College of Cardinals on Friday calls the cardinals to come together Monday morning for the first in a series of meetings, known as general congregations.

There will be a second session Monday afternoon, according to the letter from Cardinal Angelo Sodano.

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VATICAN CITY
CNN

[with video]

The events that will lead to the election of a new pope are starting to take shape.

The Catholic Church’s cardinals will start general congregations – meetings that precede a conclave to elect a new pope – on Monday at 9:30 a.m. at the Vatican (3:30 a.m. ET), with a second session set for later that day, according to a letter issued Friday by the dean of the College of Cardinals.

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CANADA
CBC News

Loreen Pindera CBC News

A Roman Catholic scholar visiting Montreal from Australia is laying her bets on Quebec’s Cardinal Marc Ouellet to succeed Benedict XVI as pope.

Tracey Rowland, the author of a book on Pope Benedict’s theological writing and Dean of Melbourne’s John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family, said Ouellet’s breadth of experience makes him an ideal candidate to replace the retired pope.

Early in his priesthood, Ouellet spent several years working in Colombia and among his six languages, he speaks fluent Spanish — apparently with a Colombian accent.

Rowland said that experience in the developing world, combined with Ouellet’s status as a Canadian — not to mention, a French Canadian — put him ahead of any cardinal from the U.S.

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CANADA
CBC News

A provocative cardinal hailing from Quebec could be the next leader of the Roman Catholic Church after pope emeritus Benedict XVI officially stepped down Thursday.

Considered by some to be a favourite for the position, Cardinal Marc Ouellet is one of three Canadians who will participate in a conclave to select the next pope.

The Le Motte, Que., native’s current role at the Vatican has him overseeing the appointment of bishops. He is also an active member of several Roman Catholic commissions and committees.

But Ouellet’s rise through the church’s ranks has not been without controversy. In 2010, his comment that abortion was a “moral crime,” even in the case of rape, drew heavy criticism.

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CANADA
National Post

Tristin Hopper | Mar 1, 2013

Cardinal Marc Ouellet, the Canadian considered a contender for the papacy, was instrumental in brokering the recent resignation of U.K. Cardinal Keith O’Brien, according to Britain’s The Times.

Cardinal O’Brien, the U.K.’s highest-ranking clergyman, stepped down on Monday after first one priest — and then four others — stepped forward to accuse him of making sexual advances. In a statement, Cardinal O’Brien said he would skip the upcoming conclave to select a new pope, saying that he did not want to attract undue media attention while in Rome.

According to a Thursday report in The Times, one of the priests took his complaint directly to the Vatican fearing that it would not be taken seriously by Scottish officials.

“His allegation was taken seriously … and in a deal brokered by Cardinal Marc Ouellet of Montreal, Cardinal O’Brien resigned,” it reads.

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UNITED STATES
Washington Post

By Michelle Boorstein

Friday, March 1

The last time a pope was picked, Ann Hagan Webb was one of the best-known faces of the demand for church reform. After surviving sexual abuse for years by her childhood priest, the Massachusetts therapist’s life in the mid-2000s was consumed by rallying at parishes around New England and tracking priest court cases.

Today, as cardinals gather in Rome to select the next pope, the 60-year-old catches updates on the news — and feels ambivalent even about that. “I shouldn’t watch, but I do.”

Webb now limits her activism to working with clients — some Catholic, some not — who suffered child sexual abuse. Her choice is emblematic of a community of survivors who have largely given up on changing the church.

“I went from trying to change the church to accepting the fact that they won’t [change], and anyone that’s still in the church has blinders on,” she said this week. “At this point, my opinion is they are corrupt to the core and there’s not a single cardinal we can find who would be a good pope because there’s no such animal.” …

Terry McKiernan, head of the largest research database on clergy and abuse, said of the survivor community: “For a lot of people, it’s not a community anymore…. I think a lot of people who were involved in the early days, they’ve run out of steam.”

Survivors who are confronting the topic now face a very different culture than even a decade ago, when victims were accused of lying and scandals in other places such as Penn State and the Boy Scouts hadn’t surfaced. Fixing religious institutions isn’t as central to a society that has less faith in them.

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NEDERLAND
Volkskrant

Een erkend slachtoffer van seksueel misbruik stapt naar de rechter om de kerk aan te klagen voor zware mishandeling. De 59-jarige man wil ook erkenning en compensatie krijgen voor het fysiek geweld dat hem als tiener jarenlang is aangedaan door meerdere priesters op een Limburgs internaat. .

‘Ik ben één keer oraal verkracht, maar kreeg bijna dagelijks klappen en trappen. Ik ben vijf keer letterlijk het ziekenhuis in geslagen. Maar over de mishandeling geeft de congregatie niet thuis’, zegt hij in een interview met de Volkskrant.

Getuigenverhoor
Het is voor het eerst dat een misbruikslachtoffer een rechtszaak begint over mishandeling. Zijn advocaat Martin de Witte heeft een verzoek tot een voorlopig getuigenverhoor voor de Bredase rechtbank gedaan, dat op 11 maart wordt behandeld. Als de rechtbank het verzoek inwilligt, zal onder anderen ook Wim Deetman als getuige worden opgeroepen. Deetman was voorzitter van de onderzoekscommissie die seksueel misbruik in de katholieke kerk onderzocht.

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NEDERLAND
KNR

‘S-HERTOGENBOSCH – Naar aanleiding van uitspraken van de voorzitter van de Klachtencommissie, mr. Wiel Stevens, over klagers wier klacht bij gebrek aan steunbewijs ongegrond verklaard wordt, is aan de KNR een aantal vragen voorgelegd. Eén van deze vragen luidde of de KNR deze slachtoffers ‘in de kou’ laat staan. Ons antwoord bleek in de media niet goed overgekomen te zijn, vandaar dat we het hier nog eens willen herhalen en toelichten.

De KNR laat geen mensen in de kou staan. Dat is de reden waarom hogere oversten vanaf het begin gezegd hebben, met de bisschoppen, dat verjaring niet telt. Waar slachtoffers bij de burgerlijke rechter nul op het request zouden ontvangen, krijgen bij de procedures van de Klachtencommissie alle klachten, hoe oud of verjaard ook, een kans. En waar slachtoffers bij de burgerlijke rechters een hoge bewijslast opgelegd zouden krijgen, is deze bij de procedures voor de Klachtencommissies teruggebracht tot het aannemelijk maken van de klacht. Het kan desondanks zijn dat klachten in de ogen van de Klachtencommissie niet aannemelijk zijn – om welke reden dan ook. Het idee dat er werkelijke slachtoffers zijn van seksueel misbruik wier klacht ongegrond wordt verklaard, is in de ogen van de KNR onverdraaglijk. Juist daarom is de Klachtencommissie de opdracht gegeven de lat van de aannemelijkheid zo laag mogelijk te leggen.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Washington Examiner

Scott McCabe
Staff Writer – Crime

A Maryland man has been indicted for failing to register as a sex offender while working as a music director at three D.C. churches.

Gary Darrell Mabry, 33, is a talented pipe organist, but he also had three prior convictions in D.C. and Prince George’s County for sex abuse of children and has spent six years in prison for those crimes.

Now, he’s back behind bars, facing three counts of failing to register as a sex offender. At his arraignment Wednesday in D.C. Superior Court, Mabry pleaded not guilty. He remains in custody awaiting a detention hearing.

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UNITED STATES
Washington Post

No, a nun won’t be pope — but there could be female cardinals, without changing any church law

Posted by Melinda Henneberger

No, the next pope will not be a nun — yet there could well be major changes in the role of women in the church, even without any changes in current church law. Though it’s not widely known, nothing precludes women from serving as cardinal-electors, even though they can’t be ordained as priests. So the new pontiff could easily appoint female cardinals — and send the message that women really are important leaders in the church.

No, the next pope won’t be making any big announcements, either — not on Day One or Day 1,001 — about changes in the church’s position on priestly celibacy, or heaven knows, abortion. Yet before he left St. Peter’s on Wednesday, Benedict XVI himself made clear that change is a constant, even in the Eternal City, when he referred to the church as a “living body,” always in flux.

In fact, important changes have already happened, just recently. Though the news was overshadowed by Benedict’s retirement, German bishops have cautiously voiced approval of the use of the morning-after pill in cases of rape.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

There is little sympathy for victims of sexual abuse within the Christian Brothers, a member of the order has told a Victorian parliamentary inquiry.

In fact, the order has developed a culture of denial, historian Barry Coldrey says.

‘At the moment, the mood is sullen, angry and certainly little sympathy is expressed for victims,’ Dr Coldrey told the inquiry into sexual abuse within religious organisations in Melbourne on Friday.

‘No one ever won an election in the Christian Brothers by expressing sympathy for victims.’

Dr Coldrey said there were members who refused to accept the guilt of Brother Robert Best, who was convicted of abusing 11 boys over a 20-year period.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

By Patrick Caruana, AAP
Updated March 1, 2013

Many Christian brothers refuse to accept that one of their ranks is guilty of the child sex crimes for which he was convicted, a Victorian inquiry has been told.

Members of the order also lack sympathy for sex abuse victims, Christian brother and researcher Dr Barry Coldrey told the parliamentary inquiry into sexual abuse within religious organisations.

Dr Coldrey said some brothers had not accepted that Robert Best, who was convicted over the abuse of 11 boys over a 20-year period, was a pedophile.

“Even at this moment there are many brothers who refuse to believe that Robert Best is guilty,” he told the inquiry in Melbourne on Friday.

He said some would still visit Best in prison.

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ROME
GMA News (Philippines)

By NAOMI O’LEARY, Reuters
March 1, 2013

ROME – On the final day of Pope Benedict’s papacy, a victim support group asked the United Nations to censure the Vatican for failing to protect children from sexual abuse by Roman Catholic clergy.

Speaking at a press conference meters from the walls of the Vatican City on Thursday, the head of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) said his group had made a formal submission to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.

“It’s a long submission of 30 pages based on government reports by five different nations,” David Clohessy told reporters, surrounded by photographs of children he said were members of his organization, at the age they were abused.

“We hope that the UN speaks out very forcefully and says that the Vatican is in violation of the treaty that it agreed to honor.”

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CASPER (WO)
Star-Tribune

Posing as a youth group leader, James David Jaure was able to gain the girls’ trust, witnesses told police. He was always at the group meetings on Wednesday nights, talking and counseling the children.

In reality, Jaure was the Highland Park Church janitor with a criminal record. In 2004, the now-28-year-old, also known by the last name “Juare,” was convicted of third-degree sexual assault of a minor in Cheyenne. He is now living in Evansville.

Upon learning this information, parents and other youth workers at the church expressed concern about Jaure’s Wednesday night presence and his particular interest in the young girls.

On Feb. 7, a father reported Jaure to Casper police. His daughter told a forensic interviewer she had been sexually assaulted by Jaure in the church’s basement.

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UNITED STATES
The Daily Campus

By Brandon Bub, Michael Dearman

Emails: bbub@smu.edu, mdearman@smu.edu
Institutional reform necessary within Catholic Church

It is no secret that the Catholic Church is either directly or indirectly responsible for some of the worst atrocities perpetrated by a single institution in history. The Spanish Inquisition, the Crusades and witch hunts throughout the medieval era are just a few “incidents” that left tens of thousands of people dead.

However, I do not want to make this a “Let’s talk about how horrible the Church is” column. I might not be a Catholic anymore, but I come from a family of them and I feel like I have a vested interest in the state of the institution. I do not want to treat the Church as some monolithic entity that has consistently sought to oppress heretics, minorities and nonbelievers. The Church is linked to unspeakable crimes, but such crimes are committed by individuals, and I do not want to absolve these individuals of guilt by attributing it to something larger than them.

Nevertheless, as evidence has grown to illustrate the systemic nature of sexual abuse (and subsequent cover-ups of that abuse), it becomes clear that institutional reform is necessary. Priests who abuse children or other members of their congregation should rightly be defrocked and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

The same ought to be true of clergy members who know of such abuse and willingly cover it up: much like how Joe Paterno and members of Penn State who covered up Jerry Sandusky’s abuse were dismissed from the university, so too should priests who try to protect the reputations of colleagues by moving them to other parishes to prevent crimes from being found be stripped of their Holy Orders.

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UNITED STATES
Wicked Local Cape Cod

By Shayne Looper
GateHouse News Service

Posted Feb 28, 2013

I am neither a Catholic nor the son of a Catholic (to misquote the prophet Amos), and I disagree with Rome on a wide array of ecclesiastical and theological issues. Yet here I am, rising to the defense of the Catholic Church in the face of media attacks that seem to me to be patently unjust.

The journalist Sheila Liaugminas attributes the recent spate of biased stories about Pope Benedict XVI and the Catholic Church to “lazy journalism and tendentious reporting.” She is being charitable. The slanted stories and offensive editorials are motivated by something darker: by a disrespect for the Church in general, for Catholics in particular and for conservative beliefs, in toto.

Consider the Feb. 15 Newsweek article by Tim Parks titled “Benedict’s Act of Grace” and subtitled “John Paul II left the church a mess.” There is a sense of disdain throughout the article. Rather than using papal names, the author repeatedly refers to John Paul II as Wojtyła and Gregory XVI as Ratzinger. He chooses inflammatory adjectives to describe the pontiffs: “reactionary,” “arch-conservative,” “interminably glamorous” (John Paul II) and “unimpressive” (Benedict XVI).

Michael Moynihan’s Newsweek column, “Good Riddance, Benedict! Why the pope was a moral failure,” is, if possible, even more disrespectful. The lead calls Benedict “the failed pontiff” and the article characterizes the 85-year-old ailing pope’s retirement as an abandonment of his post.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

The Catholic Church’s processes of dealing with sex abuse victims often makes mental and emotional wounds worse, a psychologist has told a Victorian parliamentary inquiry.

Dr Joseph Poznanski told the inquiry into sex abuse within religious and other organisations that victims often came to him expressing despair and helplessness after dealing with the church’s compensation process.

He said the church’s psychiatric assessments would downplay the effect of sexual abuse on victims.

“In the majority of cases this is more like salt to festering wound,” he told the inquiry in Melbourne on Friday.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Democrat

Kathy Mellott kmellott@tribdem.com

— Notification of two additional civil lawsuits on behalf of former students at Bishop McCort Catholic High School who allege they were sexually molested by the late Brother Stephen Baker were filed in Blair County court on Thursday.

Altoona attorney Richard Serbin filed the notice, the first step in the civil action, to be served on Franciscan Friars of the Third Order Regular; Province of the Immaculate Conception; The Very Most Rev. Father Robert D’Aversa, T.O.R.; Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown; former Bishop Joseph V. Adamec; and Bishop McCort Catholic High School.

Adamec was named because, while he is now retired, he was in charge of the diocese during the time when Baker was working at Bishop McCort, which was at that time a diocesan high school.

In 2008 the school became independent of the diocese.

D’Aversa was leader of the Province of the Immaculate Conception order during the years Baker worked for the diocese at Bishop McCort, Serbin said.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune Chronicle

March 1, 2013

By PHIL RAY Special to the Tribune Chronicle , Tribune Chronicle | TribToday.com

HOLLIDAYSBURG, Pa. – An Altoona, Pa., attorney has filed two additional notices of lawsuit against officials of the Roman Catholic Church and Bishop McCort Catholic High School in Johnstown, Pa., stemming from sexual abuse allegations against the late Brother Stephen Baker.

Attorney Richard M. Serbin filed the summons in the Blair County Courthouse.

The victims were identified as John Doe 78 and John Doe 79, pseudonyms for McCort students allegedly abused by Baker when he served as an instructor at the school in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Serbin filed three John Doe summons on Monday. He said Thursday he was still reviewing case files and that other notices of lawsuit, called summons, would probably be filed.

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CALIFORNIA
Annenberg TV News

[with video]

By Dawn Megli

Rita Milla has been litigation with the church over abuse allegations for more than two decades.A Los Angeles woman and alleged priest sex abuse survivor spoke out Thursday on the changes she wants to see in the Catholic Church. Rita Milla appeared with Attorney Gloria Allred to discuss the lawsuit she filed against the LA Archdioses and Catholic priests, calling for change in the Catholic Church.

Milla claimed she was abused by seven different priests over a four-year period at several Los Angeles-area churches in the 1980’s. When she eventually became pregnant, she says the men sent her to live with some of their relatives in the Philippines to hide her pregnancy. According to Milla, her parents were told she was studying abroad at the time. When she returned with an infant daughter, the priests offered no assistance. Milla sued for $21 million in 1984, according to the Los Angeles Times.

At Thursday’s press conference Allred provided a statement on the lawsuit which said, “In 1984 we filed a lawsuit on behalf of Rita against the LA Archdiocese and the seven Catholic priests who had abused her. On the day that we filed this lawsuit all seven priests suddenly disappeared from their parishes making it difficult or impossible to serve them with the lawsuit.”

While the LA Archdiocese said they would help find the missing priests, the Church aided in the cover-up and an obstruction of justice, said Allred.

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UNITED STATES
CTV (Canada)

CTVNews.ca Staff
Published Thursday, Feb. 28, 2013

As Benedict XVI’s papacy ended Thursday with crowds of well-wishers at the Vatican showing their support, clerical sex abuse victims continued to call for action against child predators within the Church, disappointed in what they see as a failure by the pontiff to take real action.

The U.S.-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, announced on the same day that it has submitted a report to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, blasting the Vatican’s handling of the “ongoing worldwide sex abuse crisis in the Catholic Church.”

The Vatican has pledged to report to the UN on its efforts to protect children from abuse and sexual violence.

But SNAP said little has been done to address the problem.

The group teamed up with the Center for Constitutional Rights, a non-profit legal group,to produce its submission to the UN, which outlines how Church policies and practices have enabled priests to take advantage of children.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

STEPHEN COLLINS

The Government has rejected a call by Fianna Fáil to reinstate a full-time Irish ambassador to the Vatican to coincide with the election of a new pope.

Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore said last night there were no plans to revisit the issue, and he described as “inappropriate” any attempt to politicise Pope Benedict XVI’s decision to retire.

Fianna Fáil whip Seán Ó Fearghaíl said the election of a new pope in the coming weeks would be the perfect opportunity to appoint a full-time ambassador once again to this important role in Rome.

“Ireland has always had an ambassador in this important post, and now that the Government are saying the economic picture is improving there is no need for any further delay in my view,” said Mr Ó Fearghaíl.

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SCOTLAND
Scotsman

By RHIANNON WILLIAMS
Published on Friday 1 March 2013

THE archbishop who is temporarily replacing Cardinal Keith O’Brien spoke of the “pain and dismay” he shares with worshippers, as he took Mass for the first time since being appointed.

Archbishop Philip Tartaglia told those gathered at St Mary’s Cathedral in Edinburgh yesterday that he understood the archdiocese was in a “state of shock for the loss of its shepherd” following the cardinal’s resignation.

The Pope appointed the Archbishop of Glasgow to govern the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh until a permanent replacement is chosen.

Benedict XVI, who stepped down yesterday after nearly eight years as pope, named him apostolic administrator after Cardinal O’Brien resigned from the post on Monday amid allegations, which he contests, of inappropriate behaviour towards fellow priests.

Archbishop Tartaglia told the congregation: “I am glad to be with you today, even if I wished, very much wished, that the circumstances were other than they are. I want first of all to say that I appreciate that this archdiocese is in a state of shock for the loss of its shepherd.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Times

Mike Wade

The resignation of Cardinal Keith O’Brien was triggered by a claim of inappropriate behaviour towards a priest in 2001, that was lodged with the Vatican in October.

Details of the accusation emerged for the first time last night. It is the fifth such allegation to be made public but the first, historically, to have been made by a priest or former priest against the former leader of the Catholic Church in Scotland.

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OHIO/PENNSYLVANIA
WYTV

Attorneys from Boston and Johnstown, Pa. are teaming up in at least one lawsuit against Catholic religious leaders accused of allowing Brother Stephen Baker access to hundreds of children at schools across the Midwest that he allegedly molested.

Boston attorney Mitchell Garabedian, who successfully negotiated high-five figure settlements for 11 former students that were molested at Warren’s John F. Kennedy High School and St. Mary’s Middle School, and Johnstown attorney Richard Serbin, who has filed two other lawsuits on behalf of Bishop McCort students that were allegedly molested by Baker, filed another lawsuit Thursday in Blair County Court.

Serbin filed a second lawsuit Thursday on behalf of another alleged victim. Earlier in the week, he filed a lawsuit for three other victims.

A Greensburg, Pa. attorney, Susan Williams, has filed two lawsuits for seven total clients.

Serbin said on Tuesday he expects the number of clients and lawsuits to grow. He has a number of clients that have alleged abuse and is in the process of investigating their claims.

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FIJI
Radio New Zealand

Posted at 23:02 on 28 February, 2013 UTC

Fiji police say they have questioned a Catholic priest who is suspected of having committed several rapes.

A police spokesperson, Naina Ragigia, has told the Fiji Times that the priest is the prime suspect in a series of alleged rapes.

She said a complaint was lodged last week and since then other victims have come forward.

The Archbishop elect Father Peter Loy Chong says he is aware of the incident and has spoken to the priest concerned.

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MINNESOTA
KSTP

His name and his abuse had been hidden for decades.

“I was John Doe 76C,” the now-45 year-old recalled.

Then Jim Keenan lifted the veil of anonymity and went public.

And lost.

“It just felt empty. It was over,” Keenan thought.

He was a 13 year-old Apple Valley alter boy when, he said, his parish priest abused him. The abuse continued for two years, Kennan alleges.

When Keenan was 38, he sued the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the Diocese of Winona, which ultimately led to his name being revealed publicly. But last year, the Minnesota Supreme Court threw out the case, deciding the statute of limitations had long since expired.

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WISCONSIN
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Steve Geier on February 28, 2013

Very sadly, today, Benedict XVI finished his time as Pope without ever once apologizing for his involvement in covering up the crimes of Fr. Lawrence Murphy, who sexually assaulted me and over 200 other students when we were youngsters at St. John’s boarding school for the deaf, operated by the Archdiocese of Milwaukee.

We pleaded with Benedict, when he was Cardinal Ratzinger and the head of the powerful head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Faith (CDF) to remove Murphy from the priesthood so he could harm no other children. The Pope had at his desk thousands of pages of direct criminal evidence and testimony that Murphy had destroyed and was likely destroying the lives of so many young deaf children. We wanted the Pope turn Murphy over to criminal authorities, and alert the deaf community and the public about this dangerous man.

The Pope never doubted Murphy’s guilt. Yet, he allowed him to remain in ministry in good standing as a priest, Murphy’s secrets kept safe by the church. As one final gesture, when Murphy died in 1997, we begged Cardinal Ratzinger and officials of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee to not allow Murphy to be buried as a priest. That, we felt, was the least the church could do, given all the harm that Murphy had caused us. Instead, the Vatican and the Archdiocese of Milwaukee one more time ignored our pleas, and Murphy was buried in his full priestly vestments his today. Murphy’s grave stone today still identifies him as a priest.

Fr. Murphy may have stolen our bodies, but it was Pope Benedict who stole our voice.

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VATICAN CITY
Cardinal Roger Mahony Blogs LA

It is now 8:01 PM on Thursday, February 28, 2013, and history has just been made: the Church has a Sede Vacante/Vacant See of Peter, but we still have a Pope Emeritus living.

Bells pealed all over Rome continuously from about 4:55 PM to 5:15 PM, the window of time for the Pope’s helicopter to depart the Vatican and fly to Castel Gondolfo in the mountains outside Rome. It was Rome’s final tribute to a Pope whom Catholics and the world came to admire and cherish.

A Sede Vacante, but no Funeral Rites to be performed; no lying in state; no major Funeral Mass in St. Peter’s Square. So different than the last 600 years.

Tomorrow morning, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Dean of the College of Cardinals will send a special letter to all the Cardinals of the world informing them officially that the See of Peter is now vacant, that no one is holding the Keys of Peter. Because of the advance notice by Pope Benedict, most of the Cardinals of the world are already here in Rome.

Most likely our first gathering, or General Congregation, will be on Monday, March 4. Since the proceedings of those General Congregations are secret, except for official announcements, I will not be able to post new Blogs nor Tweet on the confidential issues and discussions.

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FIJI
The Fiji Times

Margaret Wise And Felix Chaudhary
Friday, March 01, 2013

SCANDAL is threatening the Catholic Church in Fiji as police confirmed the questioning of a priest in connection to allegations of rape by multiple victims.

It all began when a complaint of an alleged rape incident was lodged at a police station in the Western Division last Saturday.

Police said investigations established there were more than one victim and since then “other victims have come forward”.

“I can confirm that a Catholic priest has been questioned and is the prime suspect in a series of alleged rape cases,” said Naina Ragigia, the west media police spokeswoman.

“After the initial report was received on Saturday and after investigations had begun, it was established that there were more than just one victim. Other victims have come forward and investigations are continuing before charges are laid.”

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VATICAN CITY
PolicyMic

Kiki Van Son

Benedict the XVI is officially no longer pope. While he cited poor health and a demanding schedule as the main reason, this hasn’t stopped competing explanations from entering the fray. While allegations that the pope was involved in some sort of gay cover-up, or is even gay himself, many are overlooking a little-remembered incident that occurred last March, when suspicious financial activity surrounding the Vatican’s account No. 1365, opened in 2009 with JPMorgan Chase, caused the global bank’s branch in Milan to shut it down.

The account was operating as a sweep account, which facilitates an automatic flow of money at the end of each business day from cash accounts to investment accounts, where the money accrues higher interest. The account was primarily being swept to Vatican accounts in Germany. However, an estimated $1.5 billion had been processed in the short amount of time that the account had been opened, according to Italy’s leading financial newspaper II Sole 24 Ore.

Speculation over money-laundering led JPMorgan Chase to question bankers at the Vatican who ultimately failed to provide an explanation. The Vatican has been under scrutiny for its lack of financial transparency since JPMorgan Chase’s decision to close the account, but no further comment has been made by either party.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

Within a few hour period, (1) the ex-Pope, Joseph Ratzinger, left all the Cardinals his “final” marching signals, (2) his oldest colleague, Hans Kung, gave his informative assessment and a final warning , and (3) a major human rights group filed a comprehensive report with the well regarded UN Committee on the Rights of the Child on the Vatican’s worldwide cover-up of priest rape of children supporting the Committee’s pending summons to the Vatican to account shortly. The Vatican is subject by international treaty to the Committee’s juridiction and has for over a decade failed to comply fully with its treaty oligations.

Today’s final signals to Cardinals are set forth in Cardinal Mahony’s unexpected report accessible by clicking on at:

[Cardinal Roger Mahony Blogs LA]

Hans Kung’s brief and perceptive assessment of the current papal election situation is accessible by clicking on at:

[The New York Times]

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BOSTON (MA)
WCVB

BOSTON —Local Catholics and victims of the church sex abuse scandal are speaking out Thursday, and some say Cardinal Sean O’Malley should be the next pope.

Bernie McDaid, a clergy sex abuse victim from Peabody, was one of the few victims to meet with Pope Benedict XVI. He believes the crisis played a huge role in the pope’s decision.

“Change is here, folks, whether you like it or not. It’s here,” McDaid said.

Now, McDaid is looking past his differences with O’Malley, saying he understands the gravity of sexual abuse and has truly listened to the victims.

“Sean O’Malley should the next pope and very well could,” he said.

He said unless the church hears the voices of victims, “I believe the church is doomed.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
National Secular Society

Posted: Thu, 28 Feb 2013

The Supreme Court has this week refused to hear a case from the Catholic Church that it could not be held responsible for abuse committed by one of its priests because he was not an ’employee’. This means the Catholic Church can now be financially liable for child abuse by priests working under its control.

The case arose when a Portsmouth woman brought a civil action against the Church after claiming she was abused by a priest at a children’s home run by the Church.

The woman, identified in court as Miss E, was seven years old when she was admitted to the Firs Children’ Home in 1970. She alleges she was sexually abused by Father Wilfred Baldwin, a priest of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portsmouth, who died in 2006.

In November 2011, High Court judge Mr Justice Alistair MacDuffs ruled that the church is legally responsible for sexual abuse committed by its priests. This week’s ruling by the Supreme Court has now confirmed that decision.

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MEXICO
Aljazeera

[with video]

Nearly 90 million Mexicans profess to being Catholic and will be closely watching who is chosen to lead the Church.

Catholics in the country who allege they were sexually abused by members of the clergy, say they are still waiting for the Vatican to acknowledge their suffering.

Millions of Mexicans and people throughout Latin America have abandoned the church in the past decade.

Many are demanding a change in the Church’s attutude towards sexual-abuse victims when the new pope succeeds Benedict XVI.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

[the court decision]

Owen Bowcott, Legal affairs correspondent
The Guardian, Thursday 28 February 2013

The Catholic church could facing spiralling compensation costs after an attempt to avoid liability for abuses committed by priests and nuns was dismissed by the UK supreme court.

The decision will have implications for a wide range of organisations by expanding the principle of “vicarious liability” to other churches, local authorities, charities that rely on volunteers, as well as Scouts and Guides. Lawyers said it could even affect claims involving Jimmy Savile’s abusive past.

The refusal by the UK’s highest court even to hear the church’s challenge that clerics are not “akin to employees” marks the end of a potential legal escape route from responsibility for compensation.

Lawyers for the trustees of Portsmouth Roman Catholic Diocesan Trust had appealed against a decision in the court of appeal that they had a duty to compensate a young girl for alleged beatings inflicted by a nun and sexual abuse perpetrated by a priest as long ago as the 1970s – if the facts of the abuse were established.

But in a statement issued this week, the supreme court said it had refused permission to appeal “because the application does not raise an arguable point of law of general public importance”. It believes the issue has now been settled.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic League

Bill Donohue comments on an op-ed by Hans Küng in today’s New York Times:

Yesterday, I took on the unfair reporting by the Times on the pope [click here for my Newsmax piece]. Today, I will address one of Benedict’s most virulent critics, Hans Küng, an embittered ex-Catholic theologian.

Küng says the pope “irritated the Protestant churches, Jews, Muslims, the Indians of Latin America, women, reform-minded theologians and all pro-reform Catholics.” He blames the pope (when he was Cardinal Ratzinger) for covering up the sexual abuse of minors, and cites “Vatileaks” as a problem. He also says the two major scandals of his tenure were giving “recognition” to the “Society of St. Pius X, which is bitterly opposed to the Second Vatican Council, as well as of a Holocaust denier, Bishop Richard Williamson.”

It is true some Protestant churches were angry after the pope welcomed Anglicans into the Church; Küng fails to mention they lobbied hard to join. Jews have warmly embraced the pope, though some were unhappy when the Latin Mass was being promoted. However, as Rabbi Brad Hirschfield recently said, “It is unfair to complain about a text, which has its own parallels in Jewish liturgy….” Yes, there were Muslims who misunderstood the pope’s 2006 speech when he warned against severing the link between faith and reason; rioting and murder followed, unwittingly proving his point. In 2007, the pope didn’t win the plaudits of some Indians in Brazil when he criticized “the utopia of going back to breathe life into the pre-Columbus religions,” but he won points for being honest. Catholic women have embraced the pope, save for those who share the dissident views of the “reformers.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

A woman who claims she was sexually abused by a priest is set to sue the Roman Catholic Church after it was refused a last chance to reverse a ruling holding it responsible.

The church argued it could not be held liable as no formal employment relationship with its clergy existed.

It lost a High Court case in 2011 and has now been refused permission to take the appeal to the Supreme Court.

The woman said she was abused a priest of the Portsmouth Diocese.

Lawyers for the claimant, who is set to pursue a civil case, said it was the first time a court had been asked to rule on whether the “relationship between a Catholic priest and his bishop is akin to an employment relationship”.

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