ABUSE TRACKER

CONNECTICUT
Greenwich Time

Michael P. Mayko

Updated 6:03 pm, Saturday, February 2, 2013

HARTFORD — He was the man who would “hold down the fort” for the drug operation while “Monsignor Meth” was vacationing in London.

He was also a guy who worked in a sex and leather fetish shop.

And on Jan. 2, the day before the Bridgeport Diocese’s former Monsignor Kenneth Wallin was to leave on the two-week vacation, the suspended Roman Catholic priest took one of his best customers to the apartment across the hall and introduced him to Kenneth “Lyme” Devries.

Wallin even told the customer he was paying the rent on Devries’ apartment.

The customer, however, was an undercover cop, according to court documents and arrest affidavits. The next day, his friends would show up at both Wallin’s and Devries’ apartments on Waterbury’s Golden Hill Street not as unsavory customers, but arresting officers.

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

Virginia Jones

A friend of mine, who I will call Emily, lost her job when she was in her fifties. It is hard to a job when you are a fifty plus year old woman. Emily struggled with despair and hopelessness. Her friend recommended that she visit a psychic she knew, suggesting the psychic might be able to give her some insight and comfort. The friend gave her reason why. She had gone to see the psychic herself. She was sexually abused by her father, but she had not disclosed this fact in public. The psychic instructed her sit with her in stillness and quiet while she meditated. After a while the psychic began speaking.

She said, “I see your father. He is in hell. He has hurt many people. I see him sitting in a chair. He is surrounded by mirrors. In every mirror he sees the pain he caused in other people.”

So personnel files were made public and it was revealed that Cardinal Mahoney tried strenuously to silence abuse victims and keep abusive priests in ministry. Why am I not surprised? Probably if personnel files for accused abusers across the country and the world were released, we’d see a similar pattern and many cardinals, archbishops and bishops would be relieved of their remaining duties.

Doubtless many people would like to see Roger Mahoney go to prison, but prison is expensive. I’d rather spend the money on therapy and drug and alcohol treatment for survivors of abuse. I think the better solution would be to surround Roger Mahoney with real life mirrors of the abuse he facilitated.

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CALIFORNIA
San Bernardino Sun

Posted: 02/02/2013

The horror, the sordidness of the awful abuse of children by figures of spiritual authority is not much assuaged by current Archbishop Jose Gomez relieving Cardinal Mahony of “all public duties” after mounting evidence showed he shielded pedophile priests from law enforcement.

So Mahony won’t be overseeing the Sacrament of Confirmation at Our Lady of the Angels anytime soon. But he is not only still a priest who can perform Mass – he is still one of the 120 cardinals who form the leadership of a church with more than 1.1 billion adherents worldwide, in a line going back to St. Peter.

Given what we now know about Mahony’s active efforts to protect known and suspected sexual abusers in clerical collars, this removal of him from public life is not only not enough – it’s no punishment at all.

And this crime deserves punishment. That was made clear by the heartbreaking letters that were made public last week.

Go to any one of over 100 of them posted last week at la-archdiocese.org. The very first one in this alphabetical order was written by a anonymous parishioner molested as a child at a Colorado Roman Catholic Church summer camp by the Rev. Leonard Abercrombie, who later worked in Los Angeles.

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GERMANY
Vatican Insider

The Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith launches an attack from the columns of German daily “Die Welt”: North America and Europe are involved in a “concerted campaign” to discredit the Catholic Church

Alessandro Alviani
Berlin

The Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Mgr. Gerhard Ludwig Müller, has launched a biting attack of the mood toward the Catholic Church in the U.S. and Europe, comparing it to an anti-Jewish “pogrom” in German weekly Die Welt. “The campaigns which are specifically targeted at discrediting the Catholic Church in the U.S. and Europe have led to clerics in some sectors being publicly insulted in a vulgar way,” the former bishop of Regensburg said. “An artificially instigated anger is building, occasionally echoing the sentiment of the pogroms against Jews in Europe,” he added. Attacks against the Church are launched on many blogs and on television. The instruments adopted in these attacks “recall the struggles of totalitarian ideologies against Christianity.”

In his interview with Die Welt, the cardinal also criticises the process of dialogue that is currently underway between bishops and lay people in dioceses across Germany. The fact that there is dialogue is a positive thing but essential questions must be dealt with instead of “dredging up the same problems every time.” The problems Müller was referring to are for example, the requests by the laity for the priesthood to be opened up to women: this “is not possible,” not because women are worth less than men, but because “it is in the nature of the Sacrament of Order for Christ to be represented within it as husband in relation to wife.”

The rejection of same-sex unions is just as clear-cut: “It is impossible for the Catholic Church to accept a relationship between people of the same sex, as such relations cannot in any way be considered equivalent to marriage,” Müller stated. He also shut the door on the potential abolition of celibacy: “Priestly celibacy corresponds to the example and word of Jesus and has found unique expression through the spiritual experience of the Latin Church.” There is no sign, he added, of the Church wanting to change this, starting with certain mistaken ideas, as if practicing one’ sexuality in or outside marriage were a natural necessity.”

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Seth H. Langson

It is evident why the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles fought for years against the release of their once-confidential “personnel” files. Approximately twelve thousand (12,000) pages were posted Thursday night to the Archdiocese’s website. Of course you cannot just click on to the files to read them. First you have to go the a page where the Archdiocese defends itself.

They “boast” that there were only 12,000 pages of secret documents and not the 30,000 that had previously reported by some news organizations. You can read the files here: http://clergyfiles.la-archdiocese.org/listing.html.

Both the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times have excellent articles, which of course, were written before they had time to study all of the files released. The documents they studied showed that the Archdiocese of Los Angeles leadership had taken affirmative action to protect priests who were sex abusers and to see that they were not prosecuted.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Mike Hunter · February 02, 2013

Call me a hopeless optimist, but I think the developments in LA put more pressure on the Vatican to take action against Bishop Finn in Kansas City.

Don’t misunderstand me: Mahony’s so-called ‘restrictions’ and Curry’s so-called ‘resignation’ are ineffectual symbolism and hollow gestures. Both retain their titles (Cardinal and Bishop, respectively). Both have ever-so-slightly lighter workloads. Both keep their salaries, health insurance, dental coverage, car allowances, and all the rest.

Both will be a little bit less visible. (That, however, may be advantageous for them, given how horrifically they’ve treated hundreds of victims and hundreds of thousands of Catholics.)

Still, something has been done in LA. In contrast, nothing has been done in KC.

One can argue “Mahony and Curry have been deceptive for much longer than Finn.” True, but Finn’s deception – in the Fr. Shawn Ratigan case and others – is far more recent.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Saturday, February 02, 2013

By Michael Clifford

TONY Flannery must have committed some terrible crimes. He is a Redemptorist priest of nearly 50 years standing, who says he is being threatened with ex-communication from the church he has served all his adult life.

Ex-communication is generally reserved for the most grievous of crimes. There are men who have murdered with the most callous intent, yet remain within the fold. There are men who have abused children and managed to avoid being cast out into the spiritual wilderness where the ex-communicated go mad. Yes, indeed, only those sinners who are deigned to be irredeemable, or display a level of evil which suggests they might be possessed, are ejected from the institution’s loving fold.

What grievous crime has this Flannery man committed against his fellow human beings, or even Jesus Christ, through the good offices in the Vatican? Flannery’s crime is to raise questions for discussion within the fold. He has, over the years, asked whether the church’s teachings on contraception are realistic. He has wondered aloud whether there will ever be a position for women priests within the church. On occasion, he has referenced the rather harsh view the Vatican takes towards homosexuality these days.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
LA Observed

By Kevin Roderick | February 2, 2013

The two top editors of the Los Angeles Times sent the staff a memo on Friday afternoon giving kudos to the team that scurried to cover Thursday’s late-breaking release of sexual abuse files by the Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Reporter Harriet Ryan is their star of the story.

Subject: FW: Message from Davan Maharaj and Marc Duvoisin

To the staff:

Harriet Ryan was celebrating her birthday with her husband and daughter at a Mexican cantina on Fourth Street last night when her smart phone buzzed with a news alert:

The Los Angeles archdiocese, way ahead of schedule, had just made public a huge trove of long-secret files on priest abuse of children.

And Archbishop Jose Gomez, expressing disgust at the “evil” conduct described in the files, had stripped his predecessor, Cardinal Roger Mahony, of all public duties with the church.

Harriet did what any working mother would do while enjoying a rare night out with her family: She left the restaurant and headed straight for the newsroom.

There, she found Victoria Kim in a controlled frenzy of reporting, putting out calls and downloading the just-released files. Over the next few hours, Harriet and Vic, with help from a band of devoted colleagues, pulled together a remarkably complete, authoritative and flowing account of this latest astonishing turn in the church molestation scandal.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on February 2, 2013

Think of it this way:

Mahony’s punishment is tantamount to Archbishop Gomez taking away Mahony’s key to the Executive Washroom. Now this “prince of the church” has to use the public restroom like the rest of us mere (moral and ethical) peasants.

But hopefully, the damage to Mahony’s credibility will be permanent. In fact, I think he would look quite dashing in jailhouse orange.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on February 2, 2013

It looks as if the LA Archdiocese (in their rush to dump more than 12,000 pages of files after 5 years of legal haggling) has published the contact info for many of their accused clerics.

Did they mean to do this?

Redactions have been an issue for the Archdiocese, who is now getting pounded for redacting the names of low-level priests who covered up abuse. They also “FORGOT” to redact the names of a number of victims. I won’t tell you where those are, out of respect for those victims.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Arquidiócesis de Los Ángeles

Las preguntas de los fieles y algunos miembros de los medios de comunicación indican que sería útil que yo aclarara la situación del Cardenal Roger Mahony y del Obispo Thomas Curry.

El Cardenal Mahony, como arzobispo emérito, y el obispo Curry, como obispo auxiliar, siguen siendo obispos con facultades en la Arquidiócesis de Los Ángeles, con plenos derechos para celebrar los Sacramentos de la Iglesia y servir a los fieles sin restricción.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles

Questions from the faithful and some members of the news media indicate that it would be helpful for me to clarify the status of Cardinal Roger Mahony and Bishop Thomas Curry.

Cardinal Mahony, as Archbishop Emeritus, and Bishop Curry, as Auxiliary Bishop, remain bishops in good standing in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, with full rights to celebrate the Holy Sacraments of the Church and to minister to the faithful without restriction.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Vatican Insider

[What Archbishop Gomez said.]

[What Cardinal Mahony said.]

After his shocking removal, Cardinal Roger Mahony accuses his successor, Jose Gomez, and asks “Why now?”

Alessandro Speciale
Vatican City

A day after he was controversially stripped of all public duties, the former Archbishop of Los Angeles, Cardinal Roger Mahony, has responded to his successor Mgr. José H. Gomez, who decided on the cardinal’s removal last Thursday, in light of the umpteenth case of child molestation in the U.S. Catholic Church.

Gomez’s decision to remove Mahony, who was Archbishop of Los Angeles between 1985 and 2011, has very few precedents in as far as cardinals’ dismissals go. One case that comes to mind is that of the Cardinal of Vienna, Hermann Groer who was accused of child molestation. The Opus Dei prelate has ordered for the cardinal to be stripped of all public duties following the release of confidential church files, containing documents that show how Mahony and other leaders of the nation’s largest Catholic diocese tried to protect as many as 124 priests accused of molesting children, over a long period of time.

Gomez’s move was accompanied by a letter to faithful, in which he admits: “I find these files to be brutal and painful reading.” “The behaviour described in these files is terribly sad and evil. There is no excuse, no explaining away what happened to these children. The priests involved had the duty to be their spiritual fathers and they failed.”

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Wall Street Journal

By JENNIFER LEVITZ

The thicket of personnel files released Thursday night by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles showed that several of its priests accused of sexual abuse were sent to New Mexico in the mid-1980s for psychological treatment.

The Servants of Paraclete treatment center in Jemez Springs, N.M., about 60 miles north of Albuquerque, served clergy who had problems such as alcoholism, emotional disorders, or, increasingly from the 1970s on, priests who had been accused of sexual abuse, said Thomas Plante, a psychology professor at Santa Clara University in California who researches sex-offending clergy.

Priests would stay for months in the New Mexico mountain retreat undergoing psychological evaluations and spiritual counseling at the center, known as Foundation House and run by the Servants of Paraclete, according to the personnel file of Michael Baker, a priest who was treated there. The Servants of Paraclete, a Missouri-based religious order founded in 1947, treats Roman Catholic priests who are “facing particular challenges in their vocations and lives,” according to the order’s website.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Diary of a Wimpy Catholic

February 2, 2013 By Max Lindenman

In the summer of 1945, following a three-week trial, a jury convicted Maréchal Philippe Pétain of treason and sentenced him to death. The verdict excited controversy. Though, in four years as France’s chief of state, he had created a generally repressive regime and collaborated with Hitler, there was plenty to be said in Pétain’s favor. During the First World War, he had led French forces in resisting the Germans at Verdun. In the war that followed, he justified seeking peace with Germany with a kind of patriotic realism. The duty of the government, Pétain argued, was not to flee to England, but “to remain in the country, or it could not longer be regarded as the government.”

In Cardinal Roger Mahony’s record as Los Angeles archbishop, it’s possible to see a broadly comparable mixture of good and evil, prescience and stupidity. On the credit side, Mahony presided over the archdiocese in the years when it doubled in size, becoming the largest in the nation. He blazed a trail in reaching out to Latinos, and he did it in a spirit of charity — Rocco Palmo has called the relationship a “love story.”

But Mahony’s record on curbing priestly sex abuse is abysmal. As memos exchanged by the future cardinal and Msgr. Thomas Curry reveal, Mahony effectively shielded three abusive priests from civil authorities. Each of the three priests faced multiple allegations from victims as young as 12. Mahony recognized that some of those allegations amounted to first-degree felonies. Yet when Curry’s plans to keep them out of the courts (and out of the papers) showed an ingenuity that verged on cunning, Mahony approved. After Fr. Michael Baker admitted privately to abusing young boys, Mahony wrote of Curry’s advice, that the information be concealed from psychiatrists, “sounds good — please proceed!”

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
National Catholic Reporter

by NCR Editorial Staff | Feb. 2, 2013

To those familiar with the protocols of the Catholic hierarchy, the news was stunning. The archbishop of Los Angeles publicly rebuked his predecessor, a cardinal, for his failures in dealing with the priest sex abuse scandal.

The action by Archbishop Jose Gomez, relieving Cardinal Roger Mahony of “any administrative or public duties,” was remarkable on two levels.

First, it broke with the unspoken but nearly ironclad rule of the culture of Catholic hierarchy that bishops do not publicly criticize other bishops. That courtesy extended even to the most egregious examples of ecclesial malfeasance – the deliberate and persistent hiding of criminal activities by priests. No one to this point had uttered a word against a predecessor, not in New York or Connecticut, not in Philadelphia or Milwaukee, not in Seattle or Santa Fe. There were “mistakes made,” they would say, and offer vacuous apologies. For whatever reasons yet unknown, Gomez broke the code.

Second, the language Gomez used was blunt and unqualified. The behavior he found in the files, he said, was “evil.” The acts themselves and the handling of these matters, as the files revealed, showed more than mistakes made, they showed a “terrible failure.”

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

You must step-up now, President Obama, as leaders in Australia, Ireland and elsewhere have. Enough of the “We must protect kids” sound bites. Many from around the world are seeking your help and signing the petition linked below. There is a national crisis and it is your duty to address it effectively and promptly.

A foreign nation, Vatican City, with its clerical “army” has invaded the USA. Many of its “troops”, rogue priests, have sexually assaulted over 100,000 children in the USA by its own experts’ estimates. Its “commanders”, in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Boston, Kansas City, New York, Chicago, Milwaukee, Manchester, St. Louis, Bridgeport, Baltimore, Washington, DC and many other U.S. cities, have reportedly covered up “crimes against humanity” and overwhelmed local defenses by dominating local political leaders and prosecutors.

The casualties, innocent child victims of sexual assaults, are left on the clerical battlefield for underfunded government agencies to try to assist at taxpayer expense. Its commanders, including Cardinals Mahony, Law, Rigali, Dolan, O’Malley, Wuerl and George, and Bishops Gomez, Bransfield, Finn, Lori, Murphy, Listecki and Chaput, clearly have gotten, and still get, their orders straight from Rome.

This week’s firing of Cardinal Mahony by his junior officer, Archbishop Gomez, obviously at the Pope’s direction, just confirms this. Gomez’ gratuitous negative remarks clearly help to undercut Mahony’s legal defense, in my judgment as an experienced lawyer. Mahony is clearly being singled out by the Vatican’s Opus Dei-types likely for his earlier slights to Mother Angelica and the EWTN clique and similar traditionalist forces. The imminent battle among voting Cardinals over papal succession has just begun in Los Angeles. Are other voting Cardinals paying attention? Which of them will get picked off next? Please see my relevant remarks at http://wp.me/P2YEZ3-gW . …

[Click here for the petition.]

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Los Angeles Times

More disturbing stories of priests’ molestations of children — and questionable actions by church leaders — emerged in 12,000 pages of once-confidential personnel files.

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles posted the documents on its website Thursday night, an hour after a Los Angeles judge ended 5-1/2 years of legal wrangling over the release of the files with an order compelling the church to make the documents public within three weeks.

Victims, their lawyers, reporters and other members of the public spent hours Friday poring through records that stretched back to the 1940s and provided details about the scope of abuse in church ranks never before seen.

The archdiocese of Los Angeles learned in the late 1970s that one of its priests had sexually assaulted a 16-year-old boy so violently that he was left bleeding and “in a state of shock.” The priest said he was too drunk to remember what happened and officials took no further action.

But two decades later, word reached Cardinal Roger M. Mahony that the same priest was molesting again and improperly performing the sacrament of confession on his victim. The archdiocese sprang to action: It dispatched investigators, interviewed a raft of witnesses and discussed the harshest of all church penalties — not for the abuse but for the violation of church law.

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UNITED STATES
The Legal Examiner

Posted by Joe Saunders
February 02, 2013

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles protected priest child molesters from police by moving them out of state at the direction of Cardinal Mahony for decades. Over twelve thousand pages of documents released as a result of civil lawsuits document Cardinal Mahoney’s efforts to mislead law enforcement and parents who suspected that children were being abused and raped.

California has laws that require mental health therapists to report child abuse to authorities. Cardinal Mahony knew that and moved priests suspected of abuse to other states for treatment so that the priests were not at risk of prosecution.

I have seen this same tactic used in Florida and in many other states. For example, the Salesian Order of Catholic priests moved Father Terry O’Donnell from the Tampa campus of Mary Help of Christians School in 2003 in the middle of the school year after the Hillsborough Sheriffs Department began an investigation of O’Donnell based upon reports by parents and students.

The Sheriffs Office discontinued the investigation because Father Terry O’Donnell had been moved out of State and was unavailable for an interview. Another priest at Mary Help of Christians School in Tampa told investigators from the sheriffs office that there was no reason not to believe the reports of abuse by the students. Nevertheless, administrators of the Salesian Order moved Father Terry out ot state to avoid prosection by Florida law enforcement. Don Bosco, the founder of the Salesian Order of priests would never have condoned the criminal behavior of the administrators of Mary Help of Christians.

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CALIFORNIA
KTLA

[with video]

by Christina Pascucci
KTLA 5 Reporter

NORTH HOLLYWOOD (KTLA) – In the wake of revelations that Cardinal Roger Mahony protected priests accused of sex crimes, a group of alleged abuse victims and their families are gathering to demand more action.

A mass is planned for 5 p.m. Saturday (Feb. 2) at St. Charles Catholic Church in North Hollywood, when families’ grievances and calls for action will be heard.

Some of the victims’ families are asking for prosecution of Cardinal Mahony.

“I think he should go to jail,” the father of one alleged victim told KTLA News. “He knew what was going on.”

On Thursday (Jan. 31), Mahony was stripped of his public duties by Catholic Archbishop Jose Gomez. The move was unprecedented in the history of the American Catholic Church.

The action came following the release of court documents which revealed that Cardinal Mahony covered up allegations of extensive sex abuse of young children in the 1980′s.

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IRELAND
Association of Catholic Priests

We want to join the ACP in support of Father Tony Flannery in the hope that his many years of dedicated faithful priestly ministry might be respected in the discussion with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

We are concerned about similar penalties imposed upon American priests such as Fr. Roy Bourgeois and Fr. Bill Brennan, S.J. Not all of our members may agree with the statements of these priests, but they deserve to be treated more compassionately by Vatican officials. The fact that their penalties are more severe than those imposed upon bishops and priests involved in the recent paedophilia scandals certainly raises questions of fairness and justice.

We stand in solidarity with our brother priests in the sense of “Presbyterium Ordinis” from Vatican II and “Pastores Dabo Vobis” from Blessed Pope John Paul II, and we assure them of our prayerful support and remembrance in our Masses.

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IRELAND
Association of Catholic Priests

ACP Meeting with Archbishop Diarmuid Martin and members of the Dublin Diocesan Council of Priests

Tuesday 29 January 2013, 2.30 – 4.15pm

Attendance:
Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, Gareth Byrne (chair of Council), Séamus Ahearne OSA, Peter O’Reilly, Ciaran McDermott (members of Council).
Brendan Hoban, PJ Madden, Tim Murphy, Arthur O’Neill, Gerry O’Hanlon SJ, Pádraig McCarthy (members of ACP).
Séamus Ahearne and Peter O’Reilly are also members of ACP.
Apologies from Auxiliary Bishops Éamonn Walsh and Ray Field.

The context of the meeting:
The ACP sought a meeting with the Episcopal Conference; the Conference proposed that a better way would be for meetings with the Councils of Priests in each diocese.

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin welcomed all, and welcomed the opportunity for listening, with respect for difference, out of a shared love for the Church.

Gareth Byrne chaired the meeting, which opened with prayer.
The prepared agenda:
1. Vocations
2. Procedures for dealing with allegations against priests.
3. Impending new translation of Lectionary.
4. Pastoral implications of the current economic situation.
5. Role of priests in appointment of bishops.
6. Renewal of the Church in the Year of Faith.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Zeit

Die Katholische Kirche von L.A. hat in einem einmaligen Vorgang Tausende Dokumente über sexuellen Missbrauch veröffentlicht. Sie belegen das Ausmaß der Vertuschung.

Die katholische Kirche von Los Angeles hat Tausende Akten über mutmaßlichen sexuellen Missbrauch durch Priester der Erzdiözese im Internet veröffentlicht. Die Dokumente belegen, wie die Diözese über Jahre ihre Priester vor den Anschuldigungen schützte und strafrechtliche Ermittlungen zu verhindern suchte.

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BAKERSFIELD (CA)
Bakersfield Now

[with video]

By Jose Gaspar, Eyewitness News
Published: Feb 1, 2013

BAKERSFIELD, Calif.—George Santillan was just 10 years old at the time when he says, a priest at St. John’s Catholic Church in Wasco began to molest him and his younger brother, Howard.

“He would take me in the back and do all kinds of things,” said George Santillan. “I was really confused, I didn’t know what I should do,” said the now retired Santillan.

In a lawsuit filed by the Santillan brothers against the Diocese of Fresno, the brothers claim the alleged abuse was at the hands of Father Anthony Hardegen and lasted between 1959 and 1973.

A judge in Los Angeles recently ordered the Los Angeles Archdiocese to release thousands of pages of files related to sex abuse cases in which children were allegedly molested by numerous priests. The files are a disturbing read and reveal that church leaders, including Cardinal Roger Mahoney never reported suspected cases to police.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Sun-Times

A woman is suing the Chicago Archdiocese for at least $300,000, claiming a priest who performed services at a west suburban church “coerced” her into a sexual relationship.

The plaintiff, listed as Jane Doe, was a member of the St. Francis Xavier Parish in west suburban LaGrange when the priest “coerced” her into sexual acts in 2003, according to the lawsuit filed Friday in Cook County Circuit Court.

The suit claims the plaintiff and the priest, who is also a licensed clinical psychologist, had a close relationship that included counseling for her depression.

The plaintiff alleges the priest took advantage of her “emotional dependence” and engaged in an ongoing sexual relationship with her.

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INDIA
Zee News

Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala): The CBI special court here on Saturday ordered a re-investigation into the 2004 Kaviyoor sex scandal case allegedly involving politicians.

The case related to the suicide of a five-member family of a temple priest following the alleged sexual abuse of a teenage girl member of the family.

Judge P S T Moosath ordered the CBI to probe the alleged role of politicians while allowing a petition filed by Unnikrishnan Namboothri, paternal uncle of the 15-year old victim.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
The Journal (Ireland)

RETIRED ROMAN CATHOLIC Cardinal Roger Mahony has defended his tattered legacy in a sharply worded letter to his successor, one day after Archbishop Jose Gomez stripped him of his administrative duties and bowed to a court order to release thousands of pages of confidential files on sexually abusive priests.

In a letter posted on his personal blog, Mahony challenged Gomez for publicly shaming him and said he developed policies to safeguard children after taking over in 1985, despite being unequipped to deal with the molester priests he inherited.

Mahony had apologised two weeks ago after another release of similar files showed he and other top aides worked behind the scenes to protect the church from the growing scandal, keep offending clerics out of state and prevent public disclosure of sex crimes committed by priests.

Gomez was well aware when he took over in 2011 of the steps Mahony had taken to develop better clergy sex abuse policies and never questioned his leadership until Thursday, Mahony wrote.

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UNITED STATES
Pope Crimes & Vatican Evils…

Paris Arrow

Americans need not pay millions of dollars for one idle Catholic ambassador to attend one pompous Pope’s Mass on Christmas…and for the rest of the year, he sits in the lap of luxury in his villa in Rome and eats Italian pasta with his idle Catholic embassy staff. The USA should follow the lead of Ireland who shut down its Vatican embassy in Rome last year, read here , Ireland leads nations to close Vatican Embassy…beginning the end of the Holy See! Vatican Bank cannot buy souls of SECULAR government officials

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UNITED STATES
Pope Crimes & Vatican Evils…

Updated February 1, 2013

Paris Arrow

Judge Elias’ final ruling on Thursday ordered all secret LA Archdiocese files to be released by February 22. In his letter of defeat, Archbishop Gomez relieved Cardinal Emeritus Mahony of “public duties” (relieve? he’s retired, for Christ’s sake!) And the media is prancing to Vatican Pied Piper Gomez’ tune, except for the LA Times and the Associated Press.

The world must never forget that Cardinal Mahony fought for five years to keep these LA files secret… and that Archbishop Gomez tried to keep them secret up until last Wednesday, January 30, 2013. That’s only 48 hours ago.

Cardinal Mahony is not-above-the-law and he should be prosecuted immediately before he flees the country at the invite of Benedict XVI – just like his criminal pal, Cardinal Bernard Law who fled to Rome at the invite of John Paul II,

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TULSA (OK)
Huffington Post

TULSA, Okla. — A judge has entered a not-guilty plea on behalf of a former janitor charged with making a lewd proposal to a 14-year-old girl at a megachurch in Tulsa.

Israel Castillo said nothing during his arraignment Friday morning. A judge entered the plea on his behalf and scheduled an Aug. 19 trial date.

Castillo claims he did not know the girl was underage when he allegedly sent explicit Facebook messages to her. Prosecutors say Castillo had known the girl for at least two years and met her in person.

If convicted, Castillo could face 20 years in prison.

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BALTIMORE (MD)
ABC 2

[with video]

BALTIMORE (WMAR) –

The principal of Mount Saint Joseph High School has resigned after admitting to inappropriate communication with a student.

According to the school, Principal Barry Fitzpatrick’s resignation was accepted Monday. “Mount Saint Joseph High School requires our faculty and administrator to have only appropriate communications with our students,” said President George Andrews in a statement.

The school recently discovered communications from Fitzpatrick that he acknowledged were inappropriate.

Assistant Principal David Norton the Director of Studies will serve as Acting Principal.

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BALTIMORE (MD)
WBAL

Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Ashley Michelle Williams and WBAL-TV

School officials say a principal of a Baltimore high school has resigned.

School officials of Mount Saint Joseph High School issued a statement Wednesday informing parents that Principal Barry Fitzpatrick had resigned after admitting to having inappropriate communications with a student.

Statement from Mount Saint Joseph President George Andrews Regarding The Resignation of Former Principal Barry Fitzpatrick:

“Yesterday afternoon, I accepted former Principal Barry Fitzpatrick’s resignation, Mount Saint Joseph High School requires our faculty and administration to have only appropriate communication from our students. We recently discovered communications from Mr. Fitzpatrick that he acknowledged were inappropriate, and we accepted his resignation. As required by law, we have reported these communications to the proper authorities.

Assistant Principal David Norton, our Director of Studies, will serve as Acting Principal.

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BALTIMORE (MD)
Daily Mail (United Kingdom)

Principal of all-boys Catholic school forced out after ‘inappropriate’ communication with students

A principal of an all-boys Catholic high school has resigned after school officials discovered ‘inappropriate’ communication between him and at least one of his students.

Barry Fitzpatrick, who has served as principal of Mount St. Joseph High School in Baltimore for the past 18 years, is now under police investigation after this week’s startling discovery.

In a letter to students’ parents on Wednesday the school announced they had accepted his resignation on Tuesday and had contacted the ‘proper authorities.’

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BALTIMORE (MD)
Patch

By Sean Welsh

January 30, 2013

UPDATED (1:55 p.m.)—The principal at a Baltimore City private high school has resigned amid allegations of inappropriate communications with students.

According to Mount St. Joseph’s website, Barry Fitzpatrick has stepped down from his post at the West Baltimore all-boys school.

The following message, from Mount St. Joseph President George Andrews, was posted on the school’s website Wednesday.

Yesterday afternoon, I accepted former Principal Barry Fitzpatrick’s resignation. Mount Saint Joseph High School requires our faculty and administrators to have only appropriate communications with our students. We recently discovered communications from Mr. Fitzpatrick that he acknowledged were inappropriate, and we accepted his resignation. As required by law, we have reported these communications to the proper authorities.

Assistant Principal David Norton, our Director of Studies, will serve as Acting Principal.

Our students mean everything to us. That was immediately clear to me the day I first arrived at the Mount in 1987. As such, we have the highest expectations for our faculty and administrators. And when these standards are not met, we have a responsibility to our boys and their families to take action.

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BALTIMORE (MD)
The Baltimore Sun

By Ian Duncan, The Baltimore Sun
8:04 p.m. EST, January 30, 2013

Barry Fitzpatrick, the principal of Mount St. Joseph High School, resigned Tuesday after officials there discovered “inappropriate” communications with students, the school said in a letter to parents.

The school did not detail the content or the type of communications but said the “proper authorities” had been notified, school president George E. Andrews Jr. wrote in the letter obtained by The Baltimore Sun.

Baltimore police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said he could neither confirm nor deny an investigation.

Fitzpatrick could not immediately be reached for comment Wednesday.

Mount St. Joseph, a private all-boys school known for its athletics, has had a turbulent couple of years. In December 2011, its longtime president, Brother James Kelly, died of prostate cancer.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
The American Conservative

By Rod Dreher • February 1, 2013

A reader sends in this posting today from the personal weblog of Cardinal Roger Mahony, in which the retired archbishop of Los Angeles responds to current Archbishop Jose Gomez’s removing him from public duties (though Mahony will still be allowed to celebrate public mass). You will recall that Gomez took his action after church files became public this week, revealing that Mahony and his second in command conspired to hide child-molesting priests from law enforcement. From Mahony’s blog:

Nothing in my own background or education equipped me to deal with this grave problem. In two years [1962—1964] spent in graduate school earning a Master’s Degree in Social Work, no textbook and no lecture ever referred to the sexual abuse of children. While there was some information dealing with child neglect, sexual abuse was never discussed.

Shortly after I was installed on September 5, 1985 I took steps to create an Office of the Vicar for the Clergy so that all our efforts in helping our priests could be located in one place. In the summer of 1986 I invited an attorney-friend from Stockton to address our priests during our annual retreat at St. John’s Seminary on the topic of the sexual abuse of minors. Towards the end of 1986 work began with the Council of Priests to develop policies and procedures to guide all of us in dealing with allegations of sexual misconduct. Those underwent much review across the Archdiocese, and were adopted in 1989.

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CALIFORNIA
KEYT

[with video]

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. –
A major shakeup in the Los Angeles Archdiocese of the Catholic Church includes the regional bishop of Santa Barbara.

The church released roughly 12,000 pages of personnel files of priests accused of sex abuse crimes against children, including personnel files of more than 100 clergy members accused of protecting those priests.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Emilie Elias made clear that the names of the hierarchy members cannot be blacked out. The judge gave the church a February 22nd deadline, however, the church released the files Thursday.

Within hours, Archbishop Jose Gomez stripped retired Cardinal Roger Mahony of all public and administrative duties. Mahony’s former top aide, Thomas Curry, stepped down as Bishop of Santa Barbara.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
KPCC

Lisa Brenner and Gillian Flaccus/AP | February 1st, 2013

UPDATE 3:40 p.m. The public rebuke of retired Cardinal Roger Mahony for failing to take swift action against abusive priests adds tarnish to a career already overshadowed by the church sex abuse scandal but does little to change his role in the larger church.

Mahony can still act as a priest, keep his rank as cardinal and remain on a critical Vatican panel that elects the next pope.

While Archbishop Jose Gomez’s decision to strip Mahony of his administrative and public duties was unprecedented in the American Roman Catholic Church, it was another attempt by the church to accept responsibility for the abuse scandal that has engulfed it.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Voice of the Faithful

February 1, 2013

NEWTON, Mass. – Voice of the Faithful® sees some slight, long overdue justice in the recent removal of retired Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony from public ministry for abetting clergy sexual abuse, a first in the decades-long scandal. Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez announced Mahony’s censure in a letter Jan. 31 in which he stated that, effective immediately, Mahony “would no longer have any administrative or public duties.”

Gomez also stated in his letter that he had accepted the resignation of Santa Barbara Bishop Thomas J. Curry, who as a monsignor under Mahony had discussed with him how to hide molestation of children by priests from parishioners, police and the public.

VOTF has long stressed that Church discipline of hierarchy involved in the clergy sexual scandal is absolutely necessary to show that the Church will not tolerate child sex abuse. Holding bishops accountable also is a crucial step towards renewal and healing. Although Gomez’s action appears little more than a slap on the wrist for Mahony, the move, which is likely unprecedented in Church history, does signal a move in the right direction.

But more is needed. “All secret files must be released,” said Mark Mullaney, VOTF president, “and made public before we gain closure on this deplorable piece of our Catholic fabric, which not only was stained repeatedly by abusive priests, but also—and worse—was covered up by a complicit hierarchy.”

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BELLEVILLE (IL)
News-Democrat

By GEORGE PAWLACZYK — News-Democrat

BELLEVILLE — Raymond Kownacki, whose history of years of sexually abusing children was brought out in testimony during a 2008 civil trial that ended with a $5 million judgment against the Diocese of Belleville, has been booted from the priesthood by Pope Benedict XVI.

According to a Jan. 25 “Official Statement” from Belleville Bishop Edward K. Braxton, Benedict’s decree “means that Mr. Kownacki is no longer a member of the clerical state and has been dispensed ‘pro bono Ecclesiae,’ — for the good of the church.”

Diocese spokesman the Rev. John Myler could not be reached for comment. Braxton does not comment to local media.

Kownacki, 78, who resides in a nursing home in St. Louis County, is the second priest from the diocese to be removed from the priesthood following allegations of sexual abuse of minors. In 2007, Benedict removed Robert J. Vonnahmen, a former priest who was alleged by a diocesan review panel to have abused boys at a church-run camp in the 1970s.

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POLEN
Presseurop

„Tausende von Polen wurden vermutlich von pädophilen Priestern missbraucht“, schreibt Ekke Overbeck, ein niederländischer Korrespondent in Polen, in seinem Buch „Lękajcie się“ (dt: Fürchtet euch“) ed. Czarna Owca 2013.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Morgenweb

Samstag, 02.02.2013

Speyer/Mainz/Trier. Die Bistümer Mainz, Speyer und Trier haben mehrere Hunderttausend Euro an die Opfer sexuellen Missbrauchs in der katholischen Kirche gezahlt. Insgesamt sind in den drei Bistümern bislang 648 000 Euro ausgeschüttet worden, wie eine Umfrage der Nachrichtenagentur dpa ergab. Das Bistum Limburg, das sich ebenfalls über Teile von Rheinland-Pfalz erstreckt, zahlte nach eigenen Angaben 91 000 Euro.

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VATIKAN
Deutschlandfunk

Katholische Kirche beklagt “feindseliges” Weltbild

Erst der Missbrauchsskandal, jetzt die “Pille danach”: Der Chef der Glaubenskongregation im Vatikan, Gerhard Ludwig Müller, hat eine aufkommende “Pogromstimmung” gegen die katholische Kirche kritisiert. Der Humanistische Verband Deutschlands kritisierte die Äußerung als Tatsachenverdrehung auf Kosten der Opfer.

Nachdem die Aufarbeitung des jahrzehntelangen sexuellen Missbrauchs von Minderjährigen durch katholische Geistliche auf Eis gelegt wurde, streitet die katholische Kirche in Deutschland nun über die “Pille danach” an Vergewaltigungsopfer. Der Kölner Erzbischof, Kardinal Joachim Meisner, bezeichnete die Verabreichung des Medikaments als vertretbar. Einige der 435 deutschen Krankenhäuser in katholischer Trägerschaft wollen ihm folgen.

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DEUTSCHLAND
explizit

explizit.net hat bei Professor Dr. Christian Pfeiffer vom Kriminologischen Forschungsinstitut Niedersachsen e.V. zu den Einwänden gegen sein Forschungsprojekt nachgefragt. Im Kommentar zur Aufkündigung der Zusammenarbeit durch die Deutsch Bischofskonferenz waren kritische Stimmen gegen Forschungsansatz und bisherige Forschungsarbeit zu Wort gekommen. Im Folgenden gibt Prof. Pfeiffer Antworten zur Durchführbarkeit, der forschungsethischen Frage und früheren Forschungsprojekten.

Hier die Antworten von Professor Pfeiffer auf vier Fragen:

explizit.net: War es beabsichtigt, dass Opfer, die aus den Personalakten erkennbar werden, für eine Befragung angeschrieben werden sollten? Wie ist das ethisch zu verantworten, Menschen, die evtl. traumatisiert sind, noch einmal mit den Vorfällen, die auch Jahre zurückliegen, zu konfrontieren?

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DEUTSCHLAND
WDR

Sexueller Missbrauch in der römisch-katholischen Kirche

Seit Mitte der 90er Jahre hat das Thema sexueller Missbrauch durch Priester, Ordensleute und angestellte Erzieher weltweit große Aufmerksamkeit erlangt. Bis dahin war es ein Tabuthema. Viele Opfer fühlten sich dadurch ermutigt, ihre traumatischen Erlebnisse öffentlich zu machen. Die meisten von ihnen wurden in katholisch geführten Kinderheimen missbraucht. Die Verantwortlichen schafften es, ihren Opfern glaubhaft einzutrichtern, sie seien böse und schlecht. Deshalb fühlten sich die Kinder schuldig, auch am Missbrauch. Weil es keine Bezugspersonen gab, konnten sich die Kinder niemanden anvertrauen. Sie mussten die Geschehnisse alleine verarbeiten, was vielen nur durch Verdrängung gelang.

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NEBRASKA
The Independent

Associated Press

A former minister already sentenced for sexual assault in Iowa has been given a 30-year sentence in Nebraska.

Fifty-seven-year-old Efrain Umana had pleaded no contest and was convicted of sexually assaulting a minor in Omaha. Court records say he was sentenced on Thursday.

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MINNESOTA
WKBN

by: Adam Ferrise – Online News Manager

A Minnesota man who was awarded a $50,000 settlement in 2005 from the Third Order Regular Franciscans after he told religious officials in St. Paul, Minn., that he was abused by Brother Stephen Baker said Friday he experienced anger and relief when he heard Baker committed suicide Saturday by stabbing himself in the heart.

Douglas Larson, 49, of St. Cloud, Minn., said Friday in a phone interview that he felt he found closure when Baker committed suicide. Victims of sexual abuse are normally unnamed, but Larson said his name should be used because he has nothing to hide and did nothing wrong.

“This is a chapter in my book that is closed,” said Larson, who is battling diminishing eyesight that forced him to retire from his structural drafting career. “He can’t do anything to me or anybody else.”

St. Paul, Minn. attorney Jeff Andersen, a clergy sexual abuse expert civil litigator who said he’s won clergy sex abuse cases in nine states, including for Larson against Baker, confirmed the settlement.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

By Chris Kilpatrick
Saturday, 2 February 2013

Devastated victims of clerical abuse have called for a public inquiry into clerical abuse to be expedited after a priest walked free from court despite being convicted of sexually abusing a teenage girl.

Terrence Rafferty, the former adminstrator of Newry Cathedral and parish priest of Donaghmore, Co Down, escaped a custodial sentence at Craigavon Crown Court on Thursday.

The 50-year-old, with an address at Chestnut Grove in Newry, was sentenced to 100 hours’ community service having previously pleaded guilty to four counts of indecent assault.

The priest was also given a three-year probation order and banned from working with children or vulnerable adults for 10 years.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Boston Globe

[Click here for the files – Los Angeles Archdiocese]

By Jennifer Medina and Laurie Goodstein
| New York Times
February 02, 2013

LOS ANGELES — The church files are filled with outrage, pain, and confusion. There are handwritten notes from distraught mothers, accounts of furious phone calls from brothers, and perplexed inquiries from police following up on allegations of priests sexually abusing children.

Over four decades, particularly under Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, parishioners in the nation’s largest Roman Catholic archdiocese repeatedly tried to alert church authorities about abusive priests in their midst, trusting that the church would respond appropriately.

But the internal personnel files on 124 priests released by the archdiocese under court order on Thursday reveal a very different response: how church officials initially disbelieved them and grew increasingly alarmed over the years, only as multiple victims of the same priest came forward and reported similar experiences. Even then, in some cases, priests were shuttled out of state or out of the country to avoid criminal investigations.

A sampling of the 12,000 pages suggests that Mahony and other top church officials dealt with the accusations of abuse regularly and intimately throughout the last several decades.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Los Angeles Times

February 2, 2013

As Cardinal Roger M. Mahony defended his handling of the priest abuse scandal on Friday, some activists said Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez’s decision to relieve him of all public duties doesn’t go far enough.

Mahony posted the letter, addressed to Gomez, on his blog Friday afternoon. In the letter, he outlined the steps his administration had taken to address the priest abuse scandal and to create policies to prevent further such abuse.

Addressing Gomez, Mahony wrote: “When you were formally received as our archbishop on May 26, 2010, you began to become aware of all that had been done here over the years for the protection of children and youth. You became our official archbishop on March 1, 2011, and you were personally involved with the compliance audit of 2012 — again, in which we were deemed to be in full compliance.

DOCUMENT: Read Mahony’s letter …

[Updated at 3:17 p.m.: Gomez issued another statement Friday afternoon: It read: “Questions from the faithful and some members of the news media indicate that it would be helpful for me to clarify the status of Cardinal Roger Mahony and Bishop Thomas Curry.

Cardinal Mahony, as Archbishop Emeritus, and Bishop Curry, as Auxiliary Bishop, remain bishops in good standing in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, with full rights to celebrate the Holy Sacraments of the Church and to minister to the faithful without restriction.”]

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
The Irish Sun

By JOHN BRESLIN

AN Irish bishop has quit after being accused of protecting evil priests who molested children.

Top cleric Thomas Curry, of Cavan, resigned from his post in Santa Barbara, California, on foot of thousands of files detailing horrific abuse of kids.

Curry, 70, could face criminal charges as prosecutors in Los Angeles confirmed they are reviewing the documents. His former boss Cardinal Roger Mahony, 76, was sacked and stripped of all public and administrative duties.

Both churchmen are accused of sending pervert priests out of state to avoid police scrutiny.

Mahony and Curry also tried to keep clerics sent away to a Church-run paedophile treatment centre from revealing their deeds to private therapists. The counsellors would have been obligated to report the alleged crimes to the police

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Wall Street Journal

By ALEXANDRA BERZON

In 1992, Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony ordered immediate administrative leave for a priest who was accused of molesting a boy in 1976, but officials supported the priest for years and apparently didn’t report the case to authorities, despite being told that the priest had confessed to sexual relations with boys, according to documents released Thursday night by the archdiocese.

The priest had been interviewed by church officials and initially denied the allegations, but officials wrote to Cardinal Mahony that they believed the accuser’s story.

“Administrative leave at once is indicated in this case—complainant’s allegations are too serious,” Cardinal Mahony wrote in December 1992. The priest, John Dawson, was sent to a series of treatment centers and later admitted to sexual relations with boys, according to treatment providers. Cardinal Mahony later said he would never be allowed back into ministry.

Mr. Dawson, who has been removed from the priesthood, lives in Albuquerque, but couldn’t be reached at two numbers listed as his in church documents, or at two other numbers.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
U.S. Catholic.

By Scott Alessi

When the Archdiocese of Los Angeles was required by a court of law to hand over internal documents related to past cases of sexual abuse by priests, it was pretty clear why the archdiocese never wanted them to see the light of day. The documents show that the archdiocese, and specifically now retired archbishop Cardinal Roger Mahony, deliberately covered up the sexual abuse of children and sheltered priests who were guilty of abusing children from legal action.

Sadly, with all we’ve learned about how the church for years hid these atrocious crimes, that part wasn’t surprising. But this part is: Current Archbishop Jose Gomez issued a public statement that Cardinal Mahony, his predecessor, would be removed from all involvement in archdiocesan administration and would no longer be active in public ministry. Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Curry, who also was implicated in past cover ups of abuse while working under Mahony, has tendered his resignation from archdiocesan administration as well. (In another surprise, Mahony has issued a public response that attempts to save face by indicating how he cleaned up the archdiocese’s handling of abuse cases in more recent years.)

It is worth reading Gomez’s statement, and I think he deserves to be commended for taking this stance. It is rare to see bishops condemn one of their own, and taking public action against Mahony is a bold move that shows Gomez isn’t taking the matter lightly. It is a positive and necessary step for a church that has a long way to go to repair its reputation on this issue and to prove that the sins of the past will never be repeated.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Los Angeles Times

By Victoria Kim, Ashley Powers and Harriet Ryan, Los Angeles Times
February 1, 2013

The archdiocese of Los Angeles learned in the late 1970s that one of its priests had sexually assaulted a 16-year-old boy so violently that he was left bleeding and “in a state of shock.” The priest said he was too drunk to remember what happened and officials took no further action.

But two decades later, word reached Cardinal Roger M. Mahony that the same priest was molesting again and improperly performing the sacrament of confession on his victim. The archdiocese sprang to action: It dispatched investigators, interviewed a raft of witnesses and discussed the harshest of all church penalties—not for the abuse but for the violation of church law.

“Given the seriousness of this abuse of the sacrament of penance … it is your responsibility to formally declare the existence of the excommunication and then refer the matter to Rome,” one cleric told Mahony in a memo.

The case of Father Jose Ugarte is one of several instances detailed in newly released records in which archdiocese officials displayed outrage over a priest’s ecclesiastical missteps while doing little for the victims of his sexual abuse.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
KPCC

Los Angeles

Vanessa Romo and Evelyn Larrubia | February 1st, 2013

Reaction was fast and fierce to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles’ release of files relating to its handling of allegations of abuse against 127 priests. The release was part of a settlement five years ago of a class action civil case regarding sexual abuse by clergy.

A victim’s group held a press conference Friday outside the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, calling for further investigation. Lawyers representing alleged victims of abuse decried the manner in which the files were released. Twitter feeds lit up. And Catholics struggled with the revelations that church leaders tried to hide abuse from law enforcement authorities.

“It doesn’t decrease my faith. As a matter of fact, it shows me God’s mercy and love,” said one woman as she walked into mass at St. Charles Borromeo Church in North Hollywood. “These are men, they have harmed a lot of children but they need prayer. More prayer than anyone.”

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
KTVN

By MICHAEL R. BLOOD and CHRISTINA HOAG
Associated Press
LOS ANGELES (AP) – The Archdiocese of Los Angeles released 12,000 pages of personnel files on sexually abusive priests that Archbishop Jose Gomez described as “brutal and painful reading.” While many of the names of the abusers and accusations against them were known, the files reveal previously undisclosed details of how the church transferred priests out of state, sent them to therapists who wouldn’t report crimes and suppressed information from reaching the public. Lawyers for the archdiocese and priests who objected to the records being released did not return phone calls or an email seeking comment. Among the revelations in the trove of documents:

A WARNING NOT HEEDED

It’s well documented in the records that the Rev. Richard Henry had a problem. As far back as March 1988, then-Archbishop Roger Mahony was warned in a confidential memo that the priest’s behavior around young boys – long embraces, rubbing noses, leading them to the privacy of his room – was unsettling to those who witnessed it. Nuns and priests confirmed a pattern: “None of the people we talked to accused him of anything illegal, but all of them feared that other adults seeing this would do so,” the memo concluded. In October that year, Henry was ordered in a letter from a superior, then-Monsignor Thomas Curry, to “not be alone with minors.” The documents taper off in mid-1989. In August 1991, Mahony is notified that Henry is under investigation for child molestation. A detective asks for a list of altar boys at the church but Father Timothy Dyer tells Mahony in a memo, “I have declined to have anyone give him such a list.” Henry served prison time for abusing several boys.

STAY AWAY

The church records show the archdiocese maneuvered behind the scenes to avoid a possible lawsuit against a priest over abuse allegations in Los Angeles. In 2007, five former altar boys from Tucson, Ariz., were awarded $1.5 million each as part of the archdiocese’s $660 million clergy-abuse settlement. The five said they were abused by the Rev. Kevin Barmasse, who was sent to Arizona during the 1980s after he’d been accused of child molestation in Los Angeles. The records show Monsignor Thomas Curry told Mahony in a Nov. 10, 1989, confidential memo that “the young boy involved is now about eighteen, so Kevin should certainly not return for another two years by which time the period for filing law suits will have passed.” Later that month, Mahony advised Barmasse to stay away from Los Angeles. “Your presence in this area … would greatly increase the possibility of a suit against you,” Mahony wrote. Barmasse was never criminally prosecuted.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
LA Observed

By Kevin Roderick | February 1, 2013

There are a couple of things that I think will be remembered about the open letter to Archbishop Jose Gomez that Cardinal Roger Mahony posted today on his personal blog. Neither will help Mahony regain his reputation, I suspect. Mahony bills his blog entry as a reply to Gomez’s statement yesterday expressing remorse for the sexual abuse that occured in the Los Angeles Archdiocese and stripping Mahony of any further public or administrative duties. In his entry, Mahony calls out the archbiship for not saying something sooner:

When you were formally received as our Archbishop on May 26, 2010, you began to become aware of all that had been done here over the years for the protection of children and youth. You became our official Archbishop on March 1, 2011 and you were personally involved with the Compliance Audit of 2012—again, in which we were deemed to be in full compliance.

Not once over these past years did you ever raise any questions about our policies, practices, or procedures in dealing with the problem of clergy sexual misconduct involving minors.

That certainly doesn’t sound very contrite. The National Catholic Reporter notes the unusual nature of this thinly veiled, and unnecessary, swipe at Gomez. “Typically seen as shying away from public criticisms of their peers, Catholic bishops rarely issue public responses to one another’s actions,” the NCR wrote today.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Irish Times

Cardinal Roger Mahony, who retired less than two years ago as the leader of America’s largest Catholic archdiocese, has been removed from all public duties by his successor, Archbishop José Gomez, as the church complies with a court order to release thousands of pages of internal documents that show how the cardinal shielded priests who sexually abused children.

The documents, released as part of a record $660 million settlement in 2007 with the victims of abuse, are the strongest evidence so far that top officials for years purposely tried to conceal abuse from law enforcement officials.

The files, which go from the 1940s to the present, are the latest in a series of revelations that suggest that the church continued to manoeuvre against law enforcement officials even after the extent of the abuse crisis emerged.

Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Curry, who was the vicar for clergy and one of the cardinal’s deputies and adviser on sexual abuse, also stepped down as Bishop of Santa Barbara.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
LA Weekly

By Dennis Romero
Fri., Feb. 1 2013

A day after retired Cardinal and L.A. Archbishop Emeritus Roger Mahony was stripped of his official church duties by his successor, José Gomez, Mahony fired off a letter to the current archbishop defending his actions in the L.A. Archdiocese sex-abuse scandal.

Documents released by the church as part of a 2007 global settlement over abuse allegations indicate that Mahony went along with a plan to transfer accused priests out of state to keep them away from authorities:

Today Mahony said his actions were “standard across the country for all Arch/Dioceses” and that Gomez never before questioned his record:

Not once over these past years did you ever raise any questions about our policies, practices, or procedures in dealing with the problem of clergy sexual misconduct involving minors.
I have stated time and time again that I made mistakes, especially in the mid-1980s. I apologized for those mistakes, and committed myself to make certain that the Archdiocese was safe for everyone.

Unfortunately, I cannot return now to the 1980s and reverse actions and decisions made then. But when I retired as the active Archbishop, I handed over to you an Archdiocese that was second to none in protecting children and youth.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
AFP

LOS ANGELES — A US Catholic cardinal stripped of his duties said Friday he didn’t know how to handle sex abuse claims, as he had not learned about it at college — drawing withering criticism from victims.

Retired Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony wrote on his blog that he was not taught about child sexual abuse, a day after was relieved of all administrative and public duties” by the current archbishop of LA.

On Thursday the LA archdiocese also released files on more than 100 clerics, as required under a 2007 lawsuit deal over alleged sex abuse.

“Nothing in my own background or education equipped me to deal with this grave problem,” Mahony wrote, in an open letter to LA Archbishop Jose Gomez, who succeeded Mahony in 2011.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
DFW Catholic

Los Angeles, Calif., Feb 1, 2013 / 05:22 pm (CNA).- Archbishop José Gomez’s decision to relieve Cardinal Roger Mahony and Bishop Thomas Curry of their duties in the L.A. archdiocese is being welcomed as “the best possible thing he could have done.”

“The archbishop has in one stroke, opened up the doors and let in the sunlight,” historian and author Charles Coulombe told CNA Feb. 1. “It is an enormously difficult task he has taken on…it would have been the case no matter what he did.”

“However, he handled it brilliantly, wisely, pastorally, truthfully, honestly, openly,” he reflected. “Very, very different than what we’re used to here in Los Angeles.”

“I can’t overemphasize how grateful I am that the Holy Father gave us this man.”

On Jan. 31, Archbishop Gomez announced that with the release of personnel files of priests accused decades ago of sexual abuse, his predecessor, the retired Cardinal Mahony, and his one-time vicar for clergy, Bishop Curry, would no longer have official duties in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
God Discussion

By Al Stefanelli
On February 1, 2013

On 22 January 2013, The God Discussion reported on retired Cardinal Roger Mahony being implicated in his role for how the church handled these cases over a period of decades.

Confidential files reveal that Mahoney was troubled by the abuse, but there were also significant delays in cases, as well as willful ignorance to information he received in psychological reports that pointed to additional victims.

In one the issues regarding the Cardinal, Mahoney made personal notes in 1991 on the file of priest named Reverend Lynn Caffoe, who was suspected of sequestering young boys in his room, recording their crotches on videotape, then running up charges for phone sex while the boy was in his presence.

In a letter Mahoney wrote to Pope Benedict XVI, who at the time was the Vatical Cardinal, he said of Caffoe,

“He is a fugitive from justice. A check of the Social Security index discloses no report of his demise, so presumably he is alive somewhere.”

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IRELAND
Irish Times

JOANNE HUNT

Legal proceedings have begun against an Irish missionary priest alleged to have abused an African student at a Spiritan-run school in Sierra Leone.

Elvis Kuteh alleges the priest abused him in the late 1970s when he was a pupil of a school run by the Holy Ghost Fathers, now the Spiritans.

Mr Kuteh, who is in his 40s, now lives in the UK. His solicitor, Michael E Hanahoe and Co, has 12 months in which to serve the summons on the defendant.

If the case proceeds, this will be the first time an African will have abuse allegations against an Irish missionary priest heard in Ireland.

Abuse campaigner Mark Vincent Healy, who is supporting Mr Kuteh’s case, said the case was being brought under the Brussels Convention.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
KABC

[with video]

Carlos Granda

LOS ANGELES (KABC) — Cardinal Roger Mahony is speaking out after being stripped of all public duties, while victims are speaking out about the release of the clergy abuse files.

On Thursday, Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez said in a statement that Mahony no longer had any administrative or public duties. Mahony said in a letter posted on his blog, “Nothing in my own background or education equipped me to deal with this grave problem.”

Documents released two weeks ago showed that in the 1980s, Mahony and others tried to hide some of the sexual abuse cases.

“While there was some information dealing with child neglect, sexual abuse was never discussed,” Mahony said. “Unfortunately, I cannot return now to the 1980s and reverse actions and decisions made then. But when I retired as the active Archbishop, I handed over to you an Archdiocese that was second to none in protecting children and youth.”

Esther Miller was 16 when she says Father Michael Nocita first sexually abused her. She says she attempted suicide the following year.

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UNITED STATES
San Francisco Chronicle

David Wiegand

Published 4:35 pm, Friday, February 1, 2013

Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God: Documentary. 9 p.m. Monday HBO.

What did the Vatican know and when did it know it?

That’s the first question posed in Oscar winner Alex Gibney’s new documentary, “Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God,” airing Monday on HBO. The second question is when did the church start covering it up?

While we have become aware of multiple cases of priests molesting children in recent years, the church received its first abuse complaint against a Spanish priest in the fourth century. In more recent times, Gibney contends, the Vatican knew about pedophilic priests for decades and engaged in a campaign to sweep the matter under the rug.

What was once seen as primarily an American issue is now viewed, sadly, as universal. Ever since the Boston Globe reported extensively in 2002 on the magnitude of the problem and the church’s elaborate and highly effective campaign to cover it up, we have been given a steady stream of reminders in the media of what the church is doing to defend itself, how much it is costing the church to settle various legal cases and, most of all, how many lives have been affected.

Gibney gets to the big picture, but his real focus is what sets “Mea Culpa” apart from other films about pedophile priests: A group of men who, as deaf students at St. John’s School in Milwaukee, were routinely molested by a deceptively genial priest named the Rev. Lawrence Murphy in the 1950s and ’60s. It is estimated that he molested more than 200 children at the school before persistent complaints by the former students prompted the church to do what it did too often with pedophile priests: move them away in the hope the complaints would stop.

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CALIFORNIA
Pasadena Star-News

THE horror, the sordidness of the awful abuse of children by figures of spiritual authority is not much assuaged by current Archbishop Jose Gomez relieving Cardinal Mahony of “all public duties” after mounting evidence showed he shielded pedophile priests from law enforcement.

So Mahony won’t be overseeing the Sacrament of Confirmation at Our Lady of the Angels anytime soon. But he is not only still a priest who can perform Mass – he is still one of the 120 cardinals who form the leadership of a church with more than 1.1 billion adherents worldwide, in a line going back to St. Peter.

Given what we now know about Mahony’s active efforts to protect known and suspected sexual abusers in clerical collars, this removal of him from public life is not only not enough – it’s no punishment at all.

And this crime deserves punishment. That was made clear by the heartbreaking letters that were made public last week.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Los Angeles Times

Cardinal Roger M. Mahony responded Friday to Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez’s decision to relieve him of all public duties over his mishandling of clergy sex abuse of children, saying he did all he could to protect children.

Mahony posted the letter, addressed to Gomez, on his blog Friday afternoon. In the letter, he outlined the steps his administration had taken to address the priest abuse scandal and to create policies to prevent further such abuse.

Addressing Gomez, Mahony wrote: “When you were formally received as our archbishop on May 26, 2010, you began to become aware of all that had been done here over the years for the protection of children and youth. You became our official archbishop on March 1, 2011 and you were personally involved with the compliance audit of 2012 — again, in which we were deemed to be in full compliance.

DOCUMENT: Read Mahony’s letter

“Not once over these past years did you ever raise any questions about our policies, practices, or procedures in dealing with the problem of clergy sexual misconduct involving minors,” Mahony added.

Mahony also reminded Gomez: “I have stated time and time again that I made mistakes, especially in the mid-1980s. I apologized for those mistakes, and committed myself to make certain that the archdiocese was safe for everyone.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
WSAU

Friday, February 01, 2013

By Brandon Lowrey

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The Catholic Church is withholding documents that could shed more light on sexual abuse by priests, a victims’ group said on Friday, a day after the Los Angeles archdiocese released 12,000 pages of files on clergy accused of molesting children.

Representatives for the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, also said they were not content with the punishments of two top clergymen linked to efforts to conceal the abuse from authorities, calling the move “window dressing.”

After years of legal battles, the archdiocese made public 124 personnel files on Thursday that were part of a 2007 civil court settlement with more than 500 child sex abuse victims in the biggest such agreement of its kind in the country.

Victims’ groups said they believed that the archdiocese was still sitting on more files that could implicate priests and other officials.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Barbara Dorris on February 01, 2013

Vindictive victims, greedy lawyers, salacious reporters, inept therapists, unfair laws – these are among the many targets of Cardinal Roger Mahony’s favorite hobby – blaming others for his archdiocese’s on-going clergy sex crimes and cover up crisis.

Today, he’s added another culprit: his allegedly poor education.

According to the National Catholic Reporter, Mahony writes on his personal blog that “Nothing in my own background or education equipped me to deal with this grave problem. In graduate school earning a Master’s Degree in Social Work, no textbook and no lecture ever referred to the sexual abuse of children.”

[Click here for the story.]

This may well be Mahony’s wildest claim yet. Even grade school drop outs know that laws prohibit child sex crimes and that when we know about or suspect child sex crimes, we are supposed to call the police. Period.

When Mahony was in school, there was probably no mention of gang rape or identity theft or child porn either. So because Mahony took no course in these crimes, it’s OK if he enables and conceals them?

Just in case this “poor education” excuse doesn’t fly, Mahony tosses out a few of his old favorites again, taking yet another swipe at the often-Catholic therapists he picked and paid to allegedly “evaluate” pedophile priests (and who often seemed to give Mahony the ‘diagnosis’ that coincidently seemed to be advantageous to him).

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
KTAR

[HISTORICAL EVOLUTION of DEALING with the SEXUAL ABUSE OF MINORS – Cardinal Mahony Blogs LA]

LOS ANGELES (AP) – The public rebuke of retired Cardinal Roger Mahony for failing to take swift action against abusive priests adds tarnish to a career already overshadowed by the church sex abuse scandal but does little to change his role in the larger church.

Mahony can still act as a priest, keep his rank as cardinal and remain on a critical Vatican panel that elects the next pope.

While Archbishop Jose Gomez’s decision to strip Mahony of his administrative and public duties was unprecedented in the American Roman Catholic Church, it was another attempt by the church to accept responsibility for the abuse scandal that has engulfed it.

Victims were quick to point out that Mahony’s new, paired-down local standing was in stark contrast to his continued position among the prelates at the Vatican.

The decision “is little more than window dressing. Cardinal Mahony is still a very powerful prelate,” Joelle Casteix, the Western regional director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, said at a Friday news conference outside the Los Angeles cathedral. “He’s a very powerful man in Rome and still a very powerful man in Los Angeles.”

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
10 News

LOS ANGELES – One day after the release of personnel files of priests accused of sexual misconduct, victims of clergy abuse will push the Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles Friday to continue investigating the problem.

The diocese on Thursday released files on more than 100 clergy members, and Archbishop Jose Gomez said his predecessor — former Archbishop Roger Mahony — will “no longer have any administrative or public duties.” Meanwhile, Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Curry, Mahony’s former top adviser on sex-abuse issues, stepped down as Santa Barbara’s regional bishop.

“We suggest that Bishop Gomez do more from here and not treat what happened yesterday as the end of the line on this,” Joelle Casteix of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, told City News Service. “We want him to help support more police investigations into sexual abuse. For us, this is the beginning, not the end.”

Casteix and other SNAP members and their supporters held news conference outside the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels to discuss the issue, insisting that it was only through legal action and continued pressure by victims that the church finally took action.

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CALIFORNIA
San Gabriel Valley Tribune

By Dana Bartholomew and Barbara Jones, Staff Writers
dailynews.com
Posted: 02/01/2013

NORTH HOLLYWOOD — He had gone to school there. Launched his rise to cardinal there. And after a lingering clergy sex abuse scandal, retired to live there.

So parishioners at St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church expressed both pain and hope early Friday after retired Cardinal Roger Mahony was publicly rebuked by his successor.

“It’s OK, so far. It’s all good,” said Josephine Leong, 67, of Studio City, after a 7:30 a.m. Mass at the North Hollywood parish. “He’s retired anyway, so it doesn’t matter.

“I hope everything will be healed by the grace of God.”

The release last week of personnel files from the Los Angeles Archdiocese had already revealed that Mahony and a top aide had conspired decades ago to shield 14 pedophile priests from the law.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Article by: JOY POWELL , Star Tribune
Updated: February 1, 2013

The Rev. Curtis Wehmeyer admitted to all counts related to his criminal sexual conduct involving two boys and possessing child pornography.

A Catholic priest who pleaded guilty to 20 counts related to child sex abuse and child pornography was sentenced on Friday to five years in prison.

Curtis Wehmeyer, 48, of Minneapolis, was taken into custody at the Ramsey County Law Enforcement Center in St. Paul after his sentencing Friday afternoon.

The criminal sexual conduct involving two brothers, then ages 14 and 12, more than two years ago in a camper parked at Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church in St. Paul, where he lived and worked as the parish pastor.

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BELLEVILLE (IL)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on February 01, 2013

The Catholic hierarchy has finally defrocked Belleville’s most notorious predator priest, Fr. Raymond Kownacki.

Kownacki abused and impregnated a teen, tried to perform an abortion, and assaulted dozens of kids.

Still, it took Catholic officials almost 20 years to defrock him after he’d already been permanently ousted from ministry. These facts clearly show how little Belleville and Vatican staffers care about vulnerable kids and wounded adults.

Starting tomorrow, Bishop Edward Braxton should personally go to each parish where Kownacki worked, begging victims, witnesses and whistleblowers to call police, get help expose wrongdoing and start healing.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Cardinal Roger Mahony Blogs LA

Friends in Christ,

This morning I sent this letter to Archbishop Jose H. Gomez giving the history and context of what we have been through since the mid-1980s. There is nothing confidential in my letter. I have been encouraged by others to publish it, so I am do so on my personal Blog. I hope you find it useful.

+ + + + +

February 1, 2013

Dear Archbishop Gomez:

In this letter I wish to outline briefly how the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and I responded to the evolving scandal of clergy sexual misconduct, especially involving minors.

Nothing in my own background or education equipped me to deal with this grave problem. In two years [1962—1964] spent in graduate school earning a Master’s Degree in Social Work, no textbook and no lecture ever referred to the sexual abuse of children. While there was some information dealing with child neglect, sexual abuse was never discussed.

Shortly after I was installed on September 5, 1985 I took steps to create an Office of the Vicar for the Clergy so that all our efforts in helping our priests could be located in one place. In the summer of 1986 I invited an attorney-friend from Stockton to address our priests during our annual retreat at St. John’s Seminary on the topic of the sexual abuse of minors. Towards the end of 1986 work began with the Council of Priests to develop policies and procedures to guide all of us in dealing with allegations of sexual misconduct. Those underwent much review across the Archdiocese, and were adopted in 1989.

During these intervening years a small number of cases did arise. I sought advice from several other Bishops across the country, including Cardinal John O’Connor of New York, Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago, and then Bishop Adam Maida of Green Bay. I consulted with our Episcopal Conference frequently. All the advice was to remove priests from active ministry if there was reasonable suspicion that abuse had occurred, and then refer them to one of the several residential treatment centers across the country for evaluation and recommendation.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
National Catholic Reporter

by Joshua J. McElwee | Feb. 1, 2013 NCR Today

Cardinal Roger Mahony, the retired archbishop of Los Angeles who was barred from public ministry by his successor over his handling of sex abuse, has issued a rare public response to the action.

Writing an open letter to Archbishop Jose Gomez, the archdiocese’s current leader, Mahony states that during his leadership the archdiocese became “second to none in protecting children and youth.”

“When you were formally received as our Archbishop on May 26, 2010, you began to become aware of all that had been done here over the years for the protection of children and youth,” Mahony writes to Gomez in the letter, which Mahony has made available on his personal blog.

“You became our official Archbishop on March 1, 2011 and you were personally involved with the Compliance Audit of 2012—again, in which we were deemed to be in full compliance,” Mahony continues.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Los Angeles Times

February 1, 2013

Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez’s decision to relieve Cardinal Roger M. Mahony of all public duties over his mishandling of clergy sex abuse of children decades ago does not go far enough, some abuse victim advocates said Friday.

David Clohessy, director of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said the massive volume of files on abuse that the archdiocese released Thursday evening “reveals the horrors in black and white that victims have known for so long.”

But Clohessy and other church critics said they believe Gomez’s action does not go far enough, noting Mahony remains a cardinal in good standing in the church.

“Cardinal Mahony remains a man of power within the church despite all that he has done,” Clohessy said.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
National Catholic Reporter

by Tom Roberts | Feb. 1, 2013

Friday’s announcement that a retired Los Angeles cardinal and an auxiliary bishop have been disciplined because of their roles in covering up priests’ sexual abuse of children is a step in the right direction, says a lawyer long involved in representing victims — but, he adds, the discipline is only a step, not an ending.

Attorney Tony DeMarco said Friday the discipline was forced by the court-ordered release of documents that detailed the conduct of church leaders, and a careful reading of those documents will show that some leaders who put children at risk “are still in place.”

The release of approximately 12,000 pages of documents detailing the sexual abuse of children by priests and cover-up by archdiocesan officials was a long-fought victory for DeMarco, who pursued release of the documents, which the archdiocese fought to keep sealed for 10 years. He has represented more than 400 victims of abuse, some of whom were part of Los Angeles cases.

An agreement by the archdiocese to release the documents was part of a 2007 settlement of 508 cases for $660 million. But immediately, the archdiocese took legal steps to block the release, a process that was complicated and delayed when a retired judge who was hired to review the documents recused himself from the process.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Miami Herald

By GILLIAN FLACCUS
Associated Press

LOS ANGELES — A clergy abuse victim group is not satisfied with actions taken by the Roman Catholic archbishop of Los Angeles against Cardinal Roger Mahony after the release of files showing his role in trying to protect the church from molestation scandals.

Archbishop Jose Gomez late Thursday announced that his predecessor, Mahony, will no longer have any administrative or public duties.

Standing Friday in front of the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, a regional director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests called that “window dressing.”

Joelle Casteix (KAS-tihks) says the move is only symbolic, and Mahony is still a powerful man in Rome and Los Angeles.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Wall Street Journal

By TAMARA AUDI, VAUHINI VARA and JIM CARLTON

LOS ANGELES—The 12,000 pages of personnel files released Thursday night by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles promised to shed light on the church hierarchy’s response to decades of sexual-abuse allegations, though plaintiffs’ lawyers and others said it could be days before they are able to fully explore the documents.

The documents were released after years of wrangling during which lawyers for the church repeatedly sought permission to redact the names of senior officials before making the papers public. A Los Angeles judge overruled that request and on Thursday ordered the documents released by Feb. 22. They were posted on the archdiocese’s website within hours, catching many interested parties by surprise. Victims’ lawyers said they were struggling to read through the files and search for new or revealing information.

Nationwide, the church has released thousands of pages of documents over the years relating to abuse, but lawyers and victims’ advocates said the Los Angeles documents represent a landmark release, since the archdiocese is the largest in the country. The documents include the personnel records of 124 priests and stretch back decades, cataloguing abuse allegations, correspondence and reactions from high-ranking church officials. The release was part of a $660 million civil settlement with more than 500 abuse victims in 2007.

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OREGON
The Oregonian

By Nancy Haught, The Oregonian
on February 01, 2013

The Most Rev. Alexander K. Sample, the next Catholic Archbishop of Portland, says he will be as transparent as he can about cases of sexual clergy abuse.

Sample, who spent a few days in Portland this week, returned to Michigan yesterday, where he’s been bishop of the Diocese of Marquette for the past seven years.

In a telephone interview, he talked about some of the serious challenges he’ll face as he tries to shepherd a geographical area twice the size of his diocese with more than four times as many Catholics.

People inside and outside the church are wondering about his philosophy toward accusations of clerical abuse. He also talked about his “obvious fondness for traditional liturgy,” the role of women in the church and Catholics who are critical of official church teaching.

More of his interview is coming. Here’s an excerpt:

Q: A priest of the Archdiocese of Portland is facing criminal charges related to sexual abuse. What does an archdiocese owe to a priest in that position? For example, is it appropriate for an archdiocese to give or lend an accused priest money to cover his defense?

A: I don’t think it would be appropriate for me to comment on that situation. I’m not the archbishop there yet and don’t know all the details. But I can answer from my own experience.

A lot of people in the church don’t understand the implications of what we call incardination, the attachment of a priest to a diocese. The church has certain obligations. If a priest is completely dismissed from the clerical state, the responsibility of the archdiocese ceases. But if he is removed from ministry but not dismissed from the clerical state, canon law requires that the church provide some sustenance, some decent support of living to that person. Not that we have to support them in luxury, by any means, but health insurance and a minimal stipend to live on is required. Many of these men are elderly and not able to find other employment.

This causes great concern from people used to a more secular mode, where a person is fired and you’re done with him, you have no other responsibility.

Q: The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, says you’ve “done nothing to distinguish” yourself “from the overwhelming majority of Catholic officials who continue to minimize and hide clergy sex crimes.” How could you be more transparent in regard to this issue?

It’s a very tricky minefield I have to navigate. There are competing interests at stake. First and foremost are the interests of those who have been victimized. But there are also the interests of the accused. We live in a system, in a church, where the accused has a right to defense. And, in civil cases, we have to be concerned for the patrimony of the diocese and the interests of the folks in the pews.

Sometimes the bishop is in the middle. People are angry because he hasn’t done enough for the victims or hasn’t been just to the priest. Parishioners are mad because we’ve removed their beloved pastor and the charges couldn’t possibly be true and why are they bringing it up 25 years later. And the issues of confidentiality and the right to privacy apply to victims as well.

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By Emily Gurnon
egurnon@pioneerpress.comtwincities.com
Posted: 02/01/2013

Curtis Carl Wehmeyer, the priest formerly at Blessed Sacrament in St. Paul who admitted to sexually abusing two boys and possessing child pornography, was sentenced Friday, Feb. 1, to five years in prison.

Wehmeyer, 48, of Oakdale, was removed from the parish by archdiocese officials on June 21, after the victims, who are brothers, went to the police.

He pleaded guilty Nov. 8 to all of the charges he faced: one count of second-degree criminal sexual conduct, two counts of fifth-degree criminal sexual conduct and 17 counts of possession of child porn.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
A Good Measure

February 1, 2013 By Lisa M. Hendey

The news hit in a big way last night.

It wasn’t a surprise in any way. We know it’s been brewing for years, and what came out last night in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles is simply another chapter in a tragedy that’s been unfolding before our eyes. If you’re one of the few who doesn’t know the details of Archbishop Gomez’ release of documents from the abuse scandals and his personal letter, Rocco’s got the best rundown I’ve seen. I’d encourage you to read the full letter by Archbishop Gomez and to look personally at the files released by the Archdiocese.

Catholic bloggers — and indeed anyone who calls themselves “Catholic” — are left to ponder what we can possibly add to the conversation, but more importantly how we pick up the pieces and serve the victims. For me, this tragedy hits home personally. I grew up in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and was educated in her Catholic schools. Along with reading the official statement, I spent the past hour reading the official file of a pedophile priest who served my family parish, someone who was indeed quite close to our family.

Of course this story is not a surprise to me — I’ve watched it play out over the years and end in multiple tragedies for several of the players involved. But reading the official documents, even with names redacted to protect the innocent and the victims, brought me a feeling of nausea so tangible that I had to finally close them and step away. I simply can’t fathom how the abused — those upon whom such horrible acts were perpetrated — must be feeling today. Surely there is a sense of vindication for them, and yet their tales of tragedy — opened fully for perhaps the first time and set on public display — must undoubtedly reopen terrible wounds that have been festering for such a very long time.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

LOS ANGELES (CA)
Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez’s decision to relieve his predecessor, Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, of all public duties over his mishandling of clergy sex abuse of children decades ago was met by both resignation and disbelief in churches across the region.

“I was hoping it wasn’t true,” 71-year-old Ann Gapas said outside the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels after a morning prayer Friday.

“Then I come here this morning and everything is so silent and the news vans are here. It’s so sad.”

The news of the sex scandals have been conflicting for Gapas, who stood outside the cathedral’s doors in a sweater and jeans, holding a church newsletter.

Priests “are our role models and we respect them so much,” Gapas said. “You always hope it’s not true.”

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CANADA
CJAD

Posted By: Shuyee Lee
lee@astral.com·2/1/2013

Guy Cormier shows black and white photos of himself, including one back in 1955 when he was 10 years old and in the infirmary. He said through a sign language interpreter that he was suffering from injuries after being sodomized by a priest at the Montreal Institute for the Deaf.

“You can see that I’m sad, that I’m not smiling in any of these pictures,” Cormier said while signing to the interpreter.

Cormier said it was a painful period in his youth that led to difficulties in his relationship with his future wife and life in general.

It’s allegations like this that are at the heart of a class action lawsuit that’s finally before the courts.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Los Angeles Times

Just when you think things can’t get much worse for Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, along comes a stunning rebuke from his successor, Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez.

“I find these files to be brutal and painful reading,” Gomez said of the molestation files Mahony tried desperately to keep out of the hands of police, even as known pedophiles claimed more victims. “The behavior described in these files is terribly sad and evil.”

So far, so good. But in The Times story on the decision by Gomez to distance the Archdiocese from Mahony, church spokesman and Mahony loyalist Tod Tamberg said the cardinal’s life would be largely unchanged and that he would remain “a priest in good standing.”

Excuse me?

How could he still be in good standing?

And why did it take until Thursday for the archdiocese to announce that Santa Barbara Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Curry, Mahony’s go-to man in the 1980s on molestation, has stepped down? The church has known for years what Curry’s role was in the scandal.

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CALIFORNIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on February 01, 2013

Dear California SNAP member;

As you’ve likely heard, thousands of pages of long-secret church records about child molesting clerics and their corrupt colleagues are finally surfacing in Los Angeles.

Make no mistake about it – this is a huge victory for innocent kids and wounded adults. And you deserve the credit!

Maybe you aren’t one of the 500 LA survivors who sought justice in court. Maybe you weren’t abused by an LA area priest, nun, seminarian, bishop, brother or other church employee. Maybe you aren’t a victim (but a loved one or a caring parishioner). None of this matters.

What matters is that progress is being made. This accomplishment is due to you and to every single person in California who joined SNAP or spoke up or called a radio program or wrote a letter to the editor or stopped donating to a diocese or in any way lent a hand – large or small – to our movement.

We thank you and we congratulate you.

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VATIKAN
Spiegel

[Bing Translator]

Geistliche würden öffentlich angepöbelt, im Internet und im TV Attacken gegen die katholische Kirche geritten: Der Chef der Glaubenskongregation des Vatikans, Gerhard Ludwig Müller, hat in einem Interview eine “Pogromstimmung” gegen die katholische Kirche beklagt.

Rom – Gerhard Ludwig Müller ist einer der mächtigsten Männer der katholischen Kirche. In einem Interview mit der Zeitung “Die Welt” hat er nun eine aufkommende “Pogromstimmung” gegen die katholische Kirche kritisiert. Der Präfekt der Glaubenskongregation im Vatikan verwies dabei auf “gezielte Diskreditierungskampagnen gegen die katholische Kirche in Nordamerika und auch bei uns in Europa”. Diese hätten erreicht, “dass Geistliche in manchen Bereichen schon jetzt ganz öffentlich angepöbelt werden”, sagte Erzbischof Müller.

So wachse eine künstlich erzeugte Wut, “die gelegentlich schon heute an eine Pogromstimmung erinnert”. Im Internet und auch im Fernsehen würden Attacken gegen die katholische Kirche geritten, deren Rüstzeug zurückgehe auf den Kampf der totalitären Ideologien gegen das Christentum.

Beim innerkirchlichen Dialog in Deutschland, beispielsweise zwischen Bischöfen und kritischen Laien, müsse auch über das Wesentliche geredet werden – statt die gleichen Probleme immer wieder neu aufzutischen, sagte Müller. Das geforderte sakramentale Weiheamt für Frauen beispielsweise sei unmöglich, die katholische Kirche könne auch gleichgeschlechtliche Partnerschaften nicht akzeptieren. “Solche Partnerschaften sind grundsätzlich in keiner Weise mit den Ehen gleichzustellen.”

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UNITED STATES
Washington Post

By Mathew N. Schmalz

With retired Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony now stripped of his public duties for his mishandling of the sexual abuses cases in his archdiocese, there is a temptation to be either celebratory or cynical.

It’s either an important step in the purification of Catholicism, or it’s an insufficient punishment for a terrible series of crimes.

Does it mark a new beginning for American Catholicism or has nothing really changed?

It all depends upon whether the lesson learned is about punishment or transparency.

When Archbishop Jose Gomez removed his predecessor from acting publicly as a bishop, it was obviously just. Given the extensive evidence that he hid abusers from justice himself, it would be scandalous for Cardinal Mahony to be allowed to participate in the sacraments of confirmation or ordination, which are to be performed by bishops. While Cardinal Mahony has spoken about his “index cards” with names of victims for whom he prays, many felt that his repentance and acknowledgment of responsibility did not run deep enough. If one wants evidence for a purification of the church–as Benedict XVI has called for–one might very well point to this as an important beginning.

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IRELAND
National Catholic Reporter

by John Cooney | Jan. 31, 2013

A court in Ireland is set to hear the case of an African who says an Irish missionary priest sexually abused him when he was a boy attending a Spiritan-run college in Sierra Leone, according to court documents filed late Wednesday in the High Court in Dublin.

This will be the first time an African will have abuse allegations against Irish missionary priests heard in Ireland.

Elvis Kuteh says a priest who is living in Ireland sexually abused him when he was a student at Christ the King College, an elite school in Sierra Leone run by the Spiritans, formerly the Holy Ghost Fathers. The accused priest’s name has not been made public. Kuteh has brought the lawsuit against Fr. Marc Whelan, the current provincial of the Spiritans in Ireland.

Kuteh, who now lives in England, was unable to put the Spiritans on trial in his native Sierra Leone, according to a source familiar with the case. The case is to be heard later this year in the High Court in Dublin.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Rome Reports

[with video]

February 1, 2013. (Romereports.com) The current head of the Diocese of Los Angeles, Archbishop Jose Gomez, relieved his predecessor retired Cardinal Roger Mahony of any public duties, after the Diocese released documents detailing its “failure to protect young people” from abuse by priests.

In a letter to the Diocese, Archbishop Gomez reinforced that there was no excuse to justify the abuse, and acknowledged it as a failure. He also apologized to the victims and expressed his desire to help them heal.

The letter also states the archbishop had accepted the resignation of Auxilary Bishop Thomas Curry, who served as Vicar for Clergy under Cardinal Mahony.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
The New York Times

By JENNIFER MEDINA and LAURIE GOODSTEIN

Published: February 1, 2013

LOS ANGELES — The release of 12,000 internal personnel documents late on Thursday by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles came after six years of resistance to a settlement reached in 2007 with more than 500 victims of abuse.

The documents reveal how Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, now retired, and other church leaders kept priests accused of sexually abusing young people in ministry and failed to report them to the authorities.

To signal action, the church packaged the document release along with an announcement that Cardinal Mahony had been disciplined by his successor, Archbishop José H. Gomez, who has been in office less than two years. Archbishop Gomez released a statement saying that Cardinal Mahony will “no longer have any administrative or public duties.”

The censure amounts to a dramatic public repudiation of a cardinal who dominated Catholic life in Los Angeles for more than two decades, but may have little import other than to bolster the church’s public relations, according to church experts. The retired Cardinal Mahony has now been restrained from speaking in public, but he retains his priestly authorities and may still celebrate Mass.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
LAist

Cardinal Roger Mahony has been relieved of his public duties, following the release of church documents that document in blunt detail how he helped priests accused of molesting parishioners escape prosecution.

Archbishop of Los Angeles José H. Gomez posted a letter on the diocese website describing the recently-released church files as “brutal and painful reading.” He said that Mahony would be relieved of public duties and Mahony’s advisor on sex abuse cases at the time Bishop Thomas Curry would be stepping down from his current position as a regional bishop in Santa Barbara:

My predecessor, retired Cardinal Roger Mahony, has expressed his sorrow for his failure to fully protect young people entrusted to his care. Effective immediately, I have informed Cardinal Mahony that he will no longer have any administrative or public duties. Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Curry has also publicly apologized for his decisions while serving as Vicar for Clergy. I have accepted his request to be relieved of his responsibility as the Regional Bishop of Santa Barbara.

An archdiocese spokesman told the Los Angeles Times that Mahony’s day-to-day life as a retired priest residing at a North Hollywood parish won’t be changed. He’s still a “priest in good standing” and he will be eligible to vote for a pope until he turns 80.

But church critics still say the move to publicly censure Mahony and remove him from public duties, including confirmations, is unprecedented. Terrence McKiernan, president of bishopaccountability.org, told the TImes, “Even when Cardinal [Bernard] Law was removed in Boston, which was arguably for the same offenses, this kind of gesture was not made.”

Rev. Thomas Doyle, a canon lawyer and Dominican priest, said the Vatican would have “absolutely” been consulted on a decision like this: “This is momentous, there is no question. For something like this to happen to a cardinal…. The way they treat cardinals is as if they’re one step below God.”

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CALIFORNIA
Fort Mill Times

SAN DIEGO —

Last night, the Los Angeles Archdiocese of the Roman Catholic Church took two major actions: it released 12,000 documents relating to priests accused of child sexual abuse, and simultaneously announced Cardinal Roger Mahony had been relieved of his duties. Cardinal Mahony has been heavily criticized for his handling of sex-abuse charges against Church officials, and yesterday the Church also relieved his subordinate, Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Curry, the current Regional Bishop of Santa Barbara, of his responsibilities. As the former Vicar for Clergy, Bishop Curry served as Cardinal Mahony’s point person on claims of sex abuse within the Church.

Irwin Zalkin, an attorney with The Zalkin Law Firm who has represented numerous victims of child sexual abuse committed by Catholic priests, and has been directly involved in the efforts to obtain public release of the documents from the Los Angeles Archdiocese responded to questions today about the news from the Los Angeles Archdiocese.

Q: What do you think of Cardinal Mahony’s demotion?

A: The demotion of Cardinal Mahony is nothing more or less than a public relations ploy. He is retired and not very involved with the public anyway. This man is a criminal aider and abetter of child sexual abuse and should be criminally accountable. Criminal prosecution against him is long overdue.

Q: What’s the history of these records and why are we hearing about them now?

A: In the summer of 2007, a $660 million global settlement was reached between 508 victims of sexual abuse within the LA Archdiocese and several Catholic religious Orders. The settlement required the LA Archdiocese to release files on all priests who, over the last 50 years, had credible claims of sexual abuse made against them. While the settlement included a very clear process for identifying which records to make public, it has taken six years to get the LA Archdiocese to comply with that agreement. Finally, the world can know the whole truth about what they did to protect predator clergy members and the Church’s reputation at the expense of young innocent children.

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IRELAND
The Journal

THE HIGH COURT will hear the case of an African man who claims he was abused by an Irish priest working in an Irish-run school in Sierra Leone, TheJournal.ie has learned.

The plaintiff is suing the Spiritan congregation (formerly the Holy Ghost Fathers) for damages. The alleged abuser was a missionary working in the school. It is the first time a survivor of alleged abuse in Africa will take a case in the Irish courts.

Elvis Kuteh says that the Irish priest sexually abused him while he was a student at the King College, an elite school run by the Holy Ghost Fathers. As a result, he is taking a civil case against the Spiritans.

The Spiritans are represented in name on the court papers by Marc Whelan, as he is the current provincial of the Spiritans and the ‘public face’ of the congregation. He is NOT the priest against whom allegations of abuse have been made.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

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

A spokesperson told NCR today that the Vatican is not planning on releasing a public comment on a decision by Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles to relieve his predecessor, Cardinal Roger Mahony, of all administrative and public duties over his “failure to fully protect young people entrusted to his care.”

Gomez announced in a Thursday letter, which coincided with the release of files from Los Angeles concerning priests who committed sexual abuse, that he had also accepted a request from Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Curry to be relieved of his duties.

Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesperson, told NCR that although he has received several requests for comment from news agencies, there are no plans at this time to issue a statement. Among other things, he said, the Vatican needs time “to better understand the situation.”

As a technical matter, Gomez’s action affects only Mahony’s responsibilities in the Los Angeles archdiocese. He remains a cardinal and a voting member of three Vatican departments: the Congregation for Eastern Churches, the Council for Social Communications, and the Prefecture for the Economic Affairs of the Holy See. Mahony will turn 77 on Feb. 27, which means that should a conclave occur in the next three years, he would also be eligible to cast a vote for the next pope. (Mahony participated in the April 2005 conclave that elected Pope Benedict XVI.)

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

by NCR Editorial Staff | Feb. 1, 2013

Editorial

It would be difficult to develop a script more revelatory of the confounding priorities of the Vatican than that contained in the news of recent days. Real scandal — covering up the rape of children, compromising the church’s reputation with bizarre behavior and sexual shenanigans by its priests — is met with either silence from on high or unpersuasive explanations.

Meanwhile, advocates of open discussion about church teaching on women, celibacy, contraceptives and homosexuality — advocates who have advanced questions, not scandal — are met swiftly by the long arm of the law in the form of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

What the church finds deserving of its wrath in light of what it will tolerate to preserve the clerical culture and protect bishops is increasingly inexplicable to anyone outside that culture.

The record grows more grotesque by the week:
• Cardinal Roger Mahony’s long and expensive battle to keep secret files showing how priest sex abuse cases were handled in the Los Angeles archdiocese appears to be coming to an end. It is anticipated that soon files dealing with dozens of cases will finally be released. Mahony succeeded in diverting the spotlight from the truth of the matter long enough that it will probably be impossible for the legal system to do anything about what it finds in the documents.

A hint of what might be ahead was evident in a separate release of internal files on 14 priests and they show, according to the Los Angeles Times and The Associated Press, that the cardinal and other archdiocesan officials protected priests from prosecution, hiding at least one they knew had raped an 11-year-old boy and abused as many as 17 others.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on February 01, 2013

Headlines falsely claim that Mahony has been “banished” or “punished” or “outed.” That’s baloney. Listen to what knowledgeable Catholic staffers and journalists are saying about this.

From long time Mahony public relations flak Tod Tamberg:

“(Tamberg) said that beyond canceling his confirmation schedule, Mahony’s day-to-day life as a retired priest would be largely unchanged. He resides at a North Hollywood parish, and Tamberg said he would remain a ‘priest in good standing.’ He can continue to celebrate Mass and will be eligible to vote for pope until he turns 80 two years from now, Tamberg said.”

From noted Catholic blogger Rocco Palmo:

“While a sitting archbishop may make any request he wishes on the extent of his cardinal-predecessor’s role and public presence, it technically has no bearing on anything whatsoever. By the provisions of canon law, the universal faculties granted every member of the College, or any limitation of them in specific instances, rest solely within the competence of the Holy See. Ergo, barring an explicit papal move restricting his de iure perks, Mahony retains his seat in a Conclave to elect the next Pope until his 80th birthday in 2016, and all the other prerogatives that come with the “red hat” for life.

Likewise, Curry’s departure as regional bishop for Santa Barbara has no legal impact on his standing in active ministry – only the 70 year-old prelate’s resignation submitted to Rome, and its acceptance by the Pope, can officially end his ministry as an auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Priest Abuse Trial Blog

Saturday, June 23, 2012

Ralph Cipriano

Moments after he had been convicted of endangering the welfare of a child, Msgr. William J. Lynn bowed his head at the defense table. The issue now was whether his bail would be revoked, and the speaker was Lynn’s longtime antagonist, Assistant District Attorney Patrick Blessington.

The monsignor had just been convicted of a third-degree felony that “calls for a lengthy jail sentence,” Blessington roared. “Let’s start it today. That’s justice.”

The monsignor had his back to courtroom spectators, but everybody could see the back of his neck and his ears turning bright red.

Moments later, family members wept silently as the monsignor was led away by sheriff’s deputies. “Oh God,” one young woman sobbed. His shame was now complete. Lynn would spend the night as the newest inmate at the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility, known as CFCF, at 7901 State Road in Northeast Philadelphia.

Outside the Criminal Justice Center, Father James J. Brennan walked out into the mid-afternoon heat and was immediately surrounded by reporters and TV cameras.

“I’m very tired, I’m very grateful, I’m very blessed,” the priest said as he thanked his lawyers, William J. Brennan and Richard J. Fuschino, Jr., who basically represented the priest pro bono.

“I think we’re a little punchy,” said attorney William J. Brennan. “We’re just happy to to be out here in the sunshine with Father Brennan, and to be going home.”

Instead of jail.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Joelle Casteix on February 01, 2013

The brave and persistent survivors who fought to get these records uncovered and the truth made public deserve praise for their courage and constancy. We thank them for leading the fight to make the truth known about what Church officials in Los Angeles knew about clergy abuse, and what they did to prevent this information from being made public.

Thanks are also due to their families who supported them and the advocates who helped them. Victims of abuse often need a good support system, and these families and advocates have provided a great one. We thank them deeply for their unwavering commitment to the victim that they supported.

There are four parts here: Gomez, Mahony, Curry and the files. . .

Archbishop Gomez refuses to act decisively to prevent future cover ups. There are three problems with his alleged ‘restriction’ of his predecessor.

First, his predecessor is already retired. Second, Catholic bishops have long claimed they’d ‘restrict’ wrongdoers – like child molesting clerics. But they rarely follow through. And third, this virtually meaningless move will likely have zero impact. It won’t make a single Catholic official – now or in the future – to start acting with courage and compassion and honesty in clergy sex cases. It’s like a band aid on cancer.

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