ABUSE TRACKER

IRELAND
Association of Catholic Priests

Brendan’s Hoban writes of the shame and humiliation he felt after attending Tony Flannery’s press conference on 20 January. (First published in the Western People)

When I watched Fr Tony Flannery at his press conference in Dublin, a week last Sunday, telling his side of the story I have to admit that I felt a mixture of emotions: sadness; frustration; anger, regret, sympathy. Returning that evening on the train, as I tried to unpack how I felt, these emotions had coalesced into humiliation and shame.

Here was a man who had given his whole life to the Catholic Church. He entered the Redemptorists at 17; ten years later he was ordained; and between then and his 66th birthday he has preached missions all over Ireland, written articles, published books and served the Church to the best of his ability for almost 40 years. Here he was explaining the stand-off in which he found himself with the Vatican authorities.

A year ago a few extracts from his writings were sent to Rome. As a result he was ‘silenced’, asked to carry out a number of religious exercises and to respond to the charges against him. He did all of that and the cardinal in charge of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), William Levada, commented that his declaration of faith was ‘very fine.’ It seemed as if everyone was happy, Flannery’s declaration would be published and that was that.

It looked as if Flannery would be returned to ministry within a matter of weeks. That was June. By September, Levada had retired and a new head of the CDF, Archbishop Gerhard Muller, added a number of other points to the document, specifically a statement that he accepted that the Catholic Chuch could never ordain women and that he declare his acceptance of all Catholic moral teachings.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Democrat

Kathy Mellott kmellott@tribdem.com

JOHNSTOWN — The criminal investigation into allegations that a priest with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johns­town molested boys while at churches in Cambria County has been turned over to the state Attorney General’s Office.

Cambria County District Attorney Kelly Callihan said her office requested that the state take over the investigation of the Rev. George Koharchik.

“We had a conflict of interest in the DA’s office,” she said. “We referred it to the AG’s office, and they’ve accepted it.”

While Callihan did not provide specifics, she said that a member of the district attorney’s staff had attended one of the Cambria County churches where Koharchik served for a number of years.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By JOANNE McCARTHY
Jan. 29, 2013

THE second Australian Catholic priest charged with concealing child sex crimes “procured and aided” a Newcastle media executive to indecently assault a young male in the 1980s, police allege.

Father Lewis Fenton, 81, of Eleebana, is alleged to have been an accessory before the fact in the indecent assault of a young male at Nelson Bay between 1982 and 1984 by Francis Andrew Tully.

Tully was employed by the Post group of newspapers, owned by the Newcastle Herald. He worked as a salesman from the Bolton Street building in Newcastle.

Tully, 55 at the time of the offences, was jailed for two years in 1986 after pleading guilty to three child sex charges. He died in the 1990s.

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UNITED STATES
Failed Messiah

Another hasidic untrained and unlicensed therapist/counselor, Chabad’s Rabbi Manis Friedman, claims child sexual abuse does not damage its victims, and that not saying the rabbinic prayer to be said after eating a piece of cake is worse than something – abuse – that happened to you as a child. Victims suffer, he claims, only from the feeling that they are damaged goods. They should realize that we are all damaged goods, abused or not, he claims, and then equates the damage of child sexual abuse with the damage other people experience as children from uncaring teachers or teachers who belittled them. Friedman completely misunderstands (or is unsympathetic to) the deep psychological pain child sexual abuse causes – to the extent that even pre-verbal infants who are sexually abused can have psychological issues throughout their lives from that sexual abuse.

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ISRAEL
The Jerusalem Post

By SAM SOKOL

01/28/2013

High-profile cover-ups of sexual abuse and molestation by communal rabbis and activists have not been limited to England and the US, but take place frequently in Israel, alleged David Morris, director of Magen, a Beit Shemesh-based community child protection organization.

Magen, which works to encourage parents of sexually abused children to file reports with social services and the police, has been banned in some synagogues due to what Morris believes to be “a deepset culture of non-reporting and cover-up.”

The way that many Israeli religious communities prefer to handle such issues, he claims, is instead “dealing with child abuse within the community,” via “parents, professionals and community leaders.”

Morris’s comments come on the heels of an announcement by England’s Channel 4 that the station will be airing an investigative special entitled “Britain’s Hidden Child Abuse” on Wednesday, featuring an audio recording of prominent local Rabbi Ephraim Padwa telling a community member wearing a wire that he should not report being abused to law enforcement.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
TheMediaReport

By his very own admission, Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, the former archbishop of Los Angeles, tragically mishandled cases of abusive priests from decades past. As a result, many innocent youth were grievously harmed by criminal clerics. The devastation to victims has truly been immeasurable – a fact which Mahony himself has acknowledged many times.

However, a recent high-profile article in the Los Angeles Times about recently released court documents from the Archdiocese of Los Angeles only tells part of the story about how Cardinal Mahony dealt with abusive clerics during his tenure there.

The Cardinal’s early work to combat abuse

What may surprise most people is that Cardinal Mahony – who, incidentally, was himself falsely accused twice of abuse – has a notable history of trying to take a proactive approach to the problem of clergy abuse.

Mahony became archbishop of Los Angeles in September of 1985, and he was soon addressing the issue of sex abuse. By June 1989, Mahony published the archdiocese’s first formal written policies and guidelines for dealing with abusive clerics. In this respect, he was certainly ahead of many of his peers in the Catholic Church and many other organizations who oversee children.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Youngstown Vindicator

Published: 1/28/13

JOHNSTOWN, PA. — Brother Stephen Baker, the Franciscan friar accused of committing sex offenses against students at Warren John F. Kennedy and Johnstown, Pa., Bishop McCort Catholic high schools, left a suicide note saying: “I’m sorry for what I did to the church.”

The note was found near his body in his room at the St. Bernadine Monastery in Newry, Pa., Saturday morning after Baker stabbed himself in the chest.

Baker was dead at the scene, and his death was ruled a suicide.

Officials also found other letters in sealed envelopes in the room, and those letters are being given to the people whose names are on them, said Patty Ross, Blair County coroner.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

There has been one papal election in three decades. The next Pope could reign for decades. Current voting Cardinals were selected almost entirely either by Benedict XVI or by John Paul II while Benedict served as his key advisor. Benedict, with his Cardinal appointments, increased substantially the overall voting percentage held by Vatican based Cardinals. Significantly, he also eliminated in 2007 the majority vote “deadlock breaking” vote provision that John Paul II had introduced in 1996. This now effectively gives a one-third minority of voting Cardinals a veto over a papal election candidate, enhancing the power of the Vatican Cardinals’ voting bloc. It also helps explain, to me at least, how Benedict got sufficient Cardinals’ votes to be elected Pope in 2005.

Significantly, however, it also gives other minority voting blocs of Cardinals an opportunity to block an election until a candidate is proposed that is acceptable to them. For more explanation, please see my statement, “Is the Pope Panicking Over Sex Scandals, or Political Polls, or Both?” at http://wp.me/P2YEZ3-gg .

It seems evident, and even understandable, that Benedict is preparing for his successor, including with his Cardinal and other appointments, such as the new conservative head of the Vatican’s doctrinal commission and pro-cleric chief canon law prosecutor. Benedict has established with the Catechism and the new Liturgy his personal view of doctrine and ritual as the “law of the land”.

By beatifying John Paul II, Benedict has put a “mystical” aura on their joint program to entrench even deeper the Vatican clique’s dominant control of future doctrine and discipline, most evident currently in the ruthless inquisition of Fr. Tony Flannery and the priests union in Ireland. It seemed unthinkable that the Vatican could sink the Catholic Church’s reputation much lower in Ireland, but the tone-deaf Vatican clique has managed to do so.

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FLORIDA
Miami Herald

BY DANIEL CHANG
dchang@MiamiHerald.com

Judgment day came Monday for the Rev. Neil Doherty, a retired South Florida priest accused by several men of sexually abusing them in their youth, when a Broward judge sentenced Doherty to 15 years in state prison for the repeated sexual assault of a child in the mid- to late-1990s.

Doherty, 69, appeared frail as he stood hunched and shackled before Circuit Judge Kenneth Gillespie, who announced that he had delivered “the maximum sentence I can impose’’ under the terms of a plea bargain that the disgraced Catholic priest accepted earlier this month in Broward Circuit Court.

Doherty did not speak as Gillespie told him he also would have to register as a sex offender.

But Doherty did have to face two of his accusers, who were not the victims in the criminal case but testified in open court about the traumatic sexual abuse that Doherty had visited upon them decades ago.

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WASHINGTON
Federal Way Mirror

By ANDY HOBBS
Federal Way Mirror Editor
January 28, 2013 ·

It happened right under the mother’s nose: a youth minister at church was molesting her 3-year-old daughter.

The youth minister, age 23 at the time, worked well with children and seemed destined for a career in that capacity.

The mother shrugged off rumors about the minister’s past conviction as a sex offender. After all, the church was supposed to be a safe and forgiving place of acceptance, and the youth minister was popular in the church family. He gained the mother’s trust as he helped around the house, played with the girl and mentored her older son.

“He was so good with the kids,” said the mother, a local resident whose name is being withheld to protect her privacy.

A red flag surfaced when she came home one day and noticed the daughter was less excited about her mother’s return and more interested in the minister leaving. She spotted more odd behavior, including the minister’s eagerness to spend time with her daughter. She asked serious questions that led to the revelation of abuse.

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BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe

The Catholic Archdiocese of Boston has named a new director of the office that provides counseling and other services available to clergy sexual abuse survivors, their families, and their parishes. Vivian Soper, who has been regional director for Catholic Charities of Boston since 2003, will direct the Office of Pastoral Support and Outreach, the archdiocese said Monday. “I am humbled and blessed to have the opportunity to be part of this important ministry of the church,” Soper said. As director, Soper will also oversee the Office of Child Advocacy and the Office of Background Screening, a spokesman for the archdiocese said.

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BOSTON (MA)
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston

Braintree, MA (January 28, 2012) – The Archdiocese of Boston announced today that Vivian Soper has been appointed Director of the Office of Pastoral Support and Outreach (OPSO). She succeeds Barbara Thorp, the long-time director of the office, who concluded her service to the Archdiocese in September 2012. Ms. Soper will begin her new role in mid February 2013.

OPSO is dedicated to providing pastoral and outreach services to survivors of clergy sexual abuse and their families as well as parishes and all those impacted.

Most Reverend Robert P. Deeley, J.C.D., Auxiliary Bishop of Boston, Vicar General and Moderator of the Curia said, “We are grateful that Vivian has agreed to lead the Office of Pastoral Support and Outreach in the work of serving survivors of clergy sexual abuse and their families. This important work of helping survivors heal is a commitment of the Church and we are fortunate that we are able to have someone of Vivian’s substantial gifts and background available to oversee this ministry. I also want to express my appreciation to Rev. J. Bryan Hehir, Secretary for Health and Social Services, for conducting a careful search process and for the members of the search committee who treated this responsibility with sincerity and great care for all impacted by sexual

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MISSOURI
Courthouse News Service

By JOE HARRIS

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (CN) – The president of the Missouri State Board of Education, a Baptist pastor, resigned Friday, three days after a woman filed a lurid lawsuit against him, claiming he sexually abused her while she was a child and he was her pastor.

Jane Doe DL sued the Rev. Stanley Arnold Archie and the Christian Fellowship Baptist Church on Tuesday, Jan. 23, in Jackson County Court.

Archie sent a letter of resignation to Gov. Jay Nixon on Friday. Archie had been a member of the board since 2006 and began his term as president this month.

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BOSTON (MA)
The Patriot Ledger

Posted Jan 28, 2013

By Lane Lambert

BRAINTREE —

The Boston Archdiocese has appointed a Weymouth woman to be the new director of the office that provides counseling to survivors of clergy sexual abuse and their families.

Vivian Soper will become director of the Office of Pastoral Support and Outreach in February. She’ll succeed the office’s longtime director Barbara Thorp.

The Archdiocese announced Soper’s appointment Monday afternoon.

Soper has been a Catholic Charities regional director since 2003, and has worked for the agency since 1986.

She’s the sister of Rev. Paul Soper, who’s pastor of St. Albert the Great parish in Weymouth and director of the Archciocese’s pastoral planning commission.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WJAC

By Maria Miller

JOHNSTOWN, Pa. —

6 News uncovered new details Monday in the case against a friar accused of sexually abusing students at Bishop McCort High School in the ’90s.

Brother Stephen Baker was found dead in his room at the St. Bernadine Monastery in Hollidaysburg, Blair County. Investigators ruled it a suicide.

On Monday, 6 News found out the reason why Baker was removed from Bishop McCort in 2000 in the first place. According to the Rev. Patrick Quinn, who’s a member of the Franciscan Order to which Baker belonged, an allegation against Baker surfaced in Minnesota. Once the order got wind of it, friars removed him from Bishop McCort.

Allegations involving McCort students didn’t surface until more than a decade later. In 2011, Bishop Mark Bartchak of the Altoona-Johnstown Catholic Diocese said he immediately alerted authorities. Johnstown police said Monday they were made aware of two cases, but couldn’t take action.

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CANADA
Toronto Star

The Canadian Press

MONCTON, N.B.—A former Supreme Court of Canada judge says his final report on sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests in the Moncton area will be delayed until at least March because more alleged victims have come forward.

Michel Bastarache was hired last year by the archdiocese of Moncton to conduct a reconciliation and compensation process for alleged victims of sexual abuse involving a former priest from Cap-Pele.

The confidential process has since been expanded to hear complaints about any priests from the diocese.

Bastarache said he has already approved payments to about 50 people, ranging from $15,000 to $300,000 each.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

Neil Keene
From:The Daily Telegraph
January 29, 2013

A FORMER Catholic priest who allegedly covered up child sex crimes for almost 30 years has appeared in court today for the first time.

Father Lewis Dominic Fenton, 81, appeared only briefly in Newcastle Local Court in NSW this morning after his arrest earlier this month.

Officers from Strike Force Georgiana, set up to investigate allegations of child abuse within the church, allege Fenton concealed from authorities his knowledge of another man’s sexual abuse of a child between 1982 and 1984 in the Hunter Region.

Walking with the aid of a cane and wearing gold crucifixes on his shirt collar, Fenton did not enter pleas to committing an act of indecency, being an accessory before the fact to an offence and unlawfully concealing a felony.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

ABC
Updated January 29, 2013

A retired Hunter Valley Catholic priest has faced Newcastle Local Court for the first time after being charged over the alleged cover-up of child sexual abuse.

Lewis Dominic Fenton was charged on January 4, becoming the second Australian to be charged with a child sex cover-up.

The 81-year-old is accused of concealing two alleged offences committed by another Hunter Valley man against a nine-year-old boy.

The offences are alleged to have occurred between 1982 and 1984 at Nelson Bay and Stockton.

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FLORIDA
Florida Today

FORT LAUDERDALE — A retired Roman Catholic priest accused of sexually abusing dozens of boys for decades was sentenced to 15 years in prison Monday.

Earlier this month, Father Neil Doherty pleaded no contest in a deal that reduced the sex abuse charges from capital felonies to second-degree felonies. He will also have to register as a sex offender.

The plea comes after several more alleged victims came forward and were planning to testify in the case.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Big Trial

By Ralph Cipriano
for bigtrial.net

She sealed the pre-trial hearings. She sealed the pre-trial motions.

Today, Judge Ellen Ceisler kept three out of four jury questions a secret, as she invited lawyers on both sides of the case back to her chambers for a couple of private discussions.

Since there’s a continuing gag order in the case, lawyers on both sides are precluded from talking to reporters.

The one jury question read out in public today was why did the older brother of “Billy Doe” not honor a subpoena from the defense, which set off an argument between the prosecutor and a defense lawyer.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By JOANNE MCCARTHY
Jan. 29, 2013

RETIRED Maitland-Newcastle catholic priest Lew Fenton has appeared in Newcastle local court
as the second Australian Catholic priest charged with concealing the child sex crimes of another person.

Mr Fenton, 81, did not enter a plea to a charge of misprision of a felony – concealing a serious crime -related to events in the mid-1980s.

He was supported in court by a small group of people and did not make a statement outside the court.

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TEXAS
Associated Baptist Press

An advocacy group says Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas, should explain why in the 1980s it failed to report a confessed child molester who recently avoided prison in a plea bargain for similar crimes in another state.

By Bob Allen

A mother who says her son was molested more than 20 years ago by a then-staff member at one of the Southern Baptist Convention’s largest churches says the congregation’s leaders need to come clean about what a victims’ advocacy group calls a cover-up of child sexual abuse by clergy.

The anonymous woman said her family endured “indescribable” hurt after learning her son was molested for months by John Langworthy, a staff member at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Dallas from 1984 until 1989.

Langworthy, who went on to serve 22 years as associate pastor of music and ministries at Morrison Heights Baptist Church in Clinton, Miss., recently received a 50-year suspended sentence in Mississippi for molesting multiple boys as young as 6 he met through local churches while a student at Baptist-affiliated Mississippi College from 1980 until 1984

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

Calcagno and Sandri could substitute Nicora and Tauran in the commission which controls the Vatican Bank. Former director Gotti Tedeschi’s dismissal is still being disputed

Andrea Tornielli
Vatican City

Last June, the appointment of a new president of the Vatican Bank (IOR) in September 2012, after the Pope returned from his trip to Lebanon, was said to be a dead cert. The new president will succeed banker Ettore Gotti Tedeschi who was dismissed in a way that had never been seen before in the history of the Holy See. Then the appointment was postponed to the end of the year. Last 10 December, the Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus, Carl Andersson – a member of the IOR’s board of lay members and author of the harsh indictment against Gotti Tedeschi, which was deliberately leaked to the press – said it was up to Cardinal Bertone to decide and that the new president would be nominated in January. Now that January is almost over there is word going round that the president will be appointed next month. But probably after the turnover of the Commission of Cardinals that oversees the IOR, which expires on 23 February. The Secretary of State explained that this is a routine change that takes place every five years as in the dicasteries. In this case the turnover could be of crucial importance to the choice of Gotti’s successor.

On 23 February 2008, Benedict XVI renewed the Cardinals’ Commission that oversees the Institute for Works of Religion for another five years, appointing Secretary of State and Camerlengo, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone and Attilio Nicora – who was president of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (APSA) at the time – as its heads. Cardinals who were chosen again included Frenchman Jean-Louis Tauran (President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue), Telesphore Placidus Toppo (Archbishop of Ranchi, in India) and Odilo Pedro Scherer (Archbishop of São Paulo, in Brazil). In September the following year, 2009, cardinals renewed the IOR’s board of lay members which elected Ettore Gotti Tedeschi as the bank’s president. Gotti Tedeschi was called to develop the bank’s objective of transparency and bring it in line with international anti-money laundering laws as requested by the Pope and Cardinal Bertone.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Manchester Evening News

A police sex abuse probe at a top Catholic school has now uncovered more than 50 possible victims and witnesses.

As the sheer scale of the investigation became apparent, the detective leading the enquiry into St Ambrose College in Hale Barns said he was determined to ensure ‘justice is done’.

Police have received a steady stream of former pupils alleging they were sexually abused by teachers from the school since the M.E.N. exclusively revealed the probe last year.

Some ‘old boys’ who have been in touch with officers have alleged they were molested both in the school and at the homes of teachers.

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Tribune-Democrat

JOHNSTOWN — The Franciscan friar who was the subject of an alleged sex scandal at Bishop McCort Catholic High School died from a single knife wound to the chest, an autopsy showed.

Blair Coroner Patricia Ross said Brother Paul Stephen Baker used a knife long enough to puncture his heart, an injury authorities believe quickly killed him Saturday.

He suffered no other injuries, Ross said.

Baker, 62, was living at St. Bernardine Monastary, Hollidaysburg, when a resident found him fatally injured Saturday.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Republic

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
January 28, 2013

PHILADELPHIA — Jurors in a church-abuse case in Philadelphia have gone home Monday without a verdict, but first asked about a missing trial witness.

The jury wants to know why the accuser’s brother did not testify as planned for the defense.

The accuser, a 24-year-old policeman’s son, says two Roman Catholic priests and his sixth-grade teacher raped him, starting at age 10. He blames the abuse for his descent heroin addiction.

He testified that he first tried drugs at age 11 when his brother took him to a party.

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CALIFORNIA
Channel 3000

Author: William R. Wineke, Special to Channel 3000

Published On: Jan 28 2013

Just keep this in mind before you read further: Retired Los Angeles Archbishop Roger Mahony will be one of the Roman Catholic prelates who chooses the next pope should Pope Benedict XVI die before 2016.

Why is that important? Because, according to documents released during the past couple of weeks, Cardinal Mahony actively conspired with his chief adviser on sexual abuse to hide diocesan priests from criminal prosecution.

The fact that Los Angeles was a hotbed of predator priests is not news. The archdiocese has already committed $616 million – more than a half-billion dollars! – to compensate victims of that abuse. But church officials tried strenuously to keep their records of child abuse secret and, at the least, to have names of church officials dealing with the offending priests blacked out from public view.

Now we know why.

The records show that the cardinal and his chief adviser on sexual abuse, one Monsignor Thomas Curry, were well aware of what their priests were doing and that those activities were illegal.

They didn’t just ignore the abuse; they sent the offending priests for psychiatric treatment at an out-of-state center – but they did make sure that any therapy done was not done in California, where the therapist would be mandated by law to report the crime.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Barbara Dorris on January 28, 2013

KC’s Catholic bishop is criticizing the one religious publication that has heroically protected kids, exposed corruption and deterred wrongdoing – the National Catholic Reporter.

No church publication – and few secular ones – has done more than the NCR to make innocent kids and vulnerable adults safer. And few bishops have done more than Bishop Finn to endanger families and deceive parishioners.

Bishop Finn wants to have his cake and eat it too. When forced, he issues, through his public relations staff, a terse and vague apology for enabling Fr. Shawn Ratigan to sexually violate more children. But most of the time, he continues his pathetic quest to deflect attention and blame others – therapists, journalists and even victims – for his own irresponsible, selfish secrecy.

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FLORIDA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Barbara Dorris on January 28, 2013

We are glad that Fr. Neil Doherty was given the maximum sentence possible. Kids are always safer when predators are behind bars. Given that Fr. Doherty has been accused in dozens of abuse cases over the past decade, it is clear that kids in Miami are better off now that he is off the street.

While we are glad that Fr. Doherty has been brought to justice, the sad fact remains that top diocesan staff who repeatedly ignored warnings and allegations have escaped punishment. Only when those who enable child sex abuse are punished alongside the abusers will the epidemic begin to wane.

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FLORIDA
Sun Sentinel

By Rafael Olmeda and Tonya Alanez, Sun Sentinel
12:20 p.m. EST, January 28, 2013

A retired priest convicted of molesting a young boy and accused of preying on dozens of others was sentenced Monday to 15 years in Florida State Prison.

Neil Doherty, 69, pleaded no contest earlier this month to criminal charges brought against him on behalf of one victim, a man who grew up across the street from St. Vincent’s Roman Catholic Church in Margate, where Doherty was the pastor. The man accused Doherty of drugging him and having sex with him.

As part of a plea negotiation, Doherty faced a maximum 15-year prison sentence, though he pleaded for leniency through his lawyer, David Bogenschutz, who argued that Doherty’s age and frail condition made him unlikely to offend again.

Broward Circuit Judge Kenneth Gillespie was unmoved, sentencing Doherty to the maximum allowable term.

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FLORIDA
WSOC

The Associated Press

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. —

A retired Roman Catholic priest accused of sexually abusing dozens of boys for decades has been sentenced to 15 years in prison in Fort Lauderdale court.

Father Neil Doherty was sentenced Monday after pleading no contest in a deal that reduced the sex abuse charges from a capital felony to a second-degree felony. He will also have to register as a sex offender.

The plea comes after several other alleged victims came forward and were planning to testify.

Attorneys for the victims say Doherty befriended troubled young boys for years, plied them with drugs and alcohol then sexually abused them.

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CANADA
Winnipeg Free Press

By: The Canadian Press

MONCTON, N.B. – A former judge says his final report on sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests in the Moncton, N.B., area will be delayed until at least March because more alleged victims are coming forward.

Michel Bastarache was hired last year by the Archdiocese of Moncton to conduct a reconciliation and compensation process for alleged victims of sexual abuse involving a former priest from Cap-Pele.

The confidential process has since been expanded to hear complaints about any priests from the diocese.

Bastarache says he has already approved payments to about 50 people, ranging from $15,000 to $300,000 each.

The allegations that have been made have not been proven in a court.

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CALIFORNIA
Daily Breeze

By Tracy Manzer and Dana Bartholomew, Staff Writers
sgvtribune.com
Posted: 01/26/2013

The case files of Father Santiago Tamayo and Father Angel Cruces read like lurid dime-store novels.

Appropriately enough, the tales of how Tamayo, Cruces and five other priests sexually assaulted a 16-year-old girl were fodder for the tabloids in the 1980s, which dubbed it “Snow White and the Seven Priests.”

The tale went public when victim Rita Milla came forward after becoming pregnant at age 19. Milla, a parishioner at St. Philomena church in Carson, told church officials in 1983 she was pressured by Tamayo to have an abortion, and she eventually went to the Philippines to have her daughter.

One of the documents in the newly released files includes a denial by Tamayo that he encouraged an abortion.

Also included is a letter the teen gave to church officials in 1983 but never sent to the priest who she believed fathered the child, Father Valentine Tugade. Tugade’s paternity was finally proven by a DNA test in 2003, but in 2007 Milla’s attorney, Gloria Allred, told reporters they did not know if he was still alive. | Related: Exhibit 50, Page 3

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IRELAND
National Catholic Reporter

by John Cooney | Jan. 28, 2013

Dublin —
An estimated 250 protesters demonstrated Sunday evening in Dublin at a vigil outside the papal nunciature in support of the restoration to ministry of Irish Redemptorist Fr. Tony Flannery.

A letter addressed to the papal nuncio, Archbishop Charles Brown, was handed in by the Irish branch of the We Are Church lay movement.

The protesters were mainly in their 60s or older, and two-thirds of them were women. They carried a banner that read “Dialogue Yes. Silence No.” and sang the 1960s protest song of the civil rights movement, “We Shall Overcome.”

The letter stated that the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had acted unjustly in its treatment of Flannery and should now restore him to his full priestly ministry.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
Los Angeles Times

By Matt Pearce
January 28, 2013

Bishop Robert W. Finn wishes the independent National Catholic Reporter weren’t so independent.

Finn is the bishop of the Roman Catholic diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph in Missouri. The National Catholic Reporter is a 59-year-old not-for-profit newspaper based in Kansas City.

Finn was convicted in September of shielding priests from sexual-abuse allegations — prompting editorials from the newspaper calling for his resignation. Now, Finn, who is on probation, has taken to his own diocese’s journalistic bully pulpit to denounce the paper.

“In the last months I have been deluged with emails and other correspondence from Catholics concerned about the editorial stances of the Reporter: officially condemning church teaching on the ordination of women, insistent undermining of church teaching on artificial contraception and sexual morality in general, lionizing dissident theologies while rejecting established magisterial teaching, and a litany of other issues,” Finn wrote this weekend in his diocese’s newspaper, the Catholic Key.

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FLORIDA
NBC Miami

A South Florida priest accused of molesting several boys was sentenced to 15 years behind bars Monday after pleading no contest to several charges earlier this month.

Neil Doherty, 69, was sentenced to the maximum prison term after pleading no contest to six counts of lewd and lascivious acts upon a child.

The retired priest had been charged with eight counts including sexual battery against the victim, who alleged Doherty drugged and raped him multiple times as a young boy.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Nassauische

Die Bistümer Limburg, Fulda und Mainz haben mehr als 300.000 Euro an Entschädigungen für die Opfer von sexuellem Missbrauch in der katholischen Kirche gezahlt.

Fulda/Limburg/Mainz. Die Bistümer Limburg, Fulda und Mainz haben mehr als 300.000 Euro an Entschädigungen für die Opfer von sexuellem Missbrauch in der katholischen Kirche gezahlt.

In den drei Kirchenbezirken auf hessischem Gebiet seien bislang 64 Anträge auf Entschädigungen gestellt worden, wie eine Umfrage der Nachrichtenagentur dpa ergab.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Main Post

Die Auseinandersetzung um das vorerst gescheiterte Forschungsprojekt zum Missbrauch in der katholischen Kirche nimmt an Schärfe zu.

Der Kriminologe Christian Pfeiffer und die Bischöfe beschuldigen sich gegenseitig, daran schuld zu sein. Dem Würzburger Bischof unterstellte Pfeiffer jetzt in einem Gastbeitrag für diese Zeitung „ein gestörtes Verhältnis zum 8. Gebot“ (Du sollst nicht falsch Zeugnis reden wider deinen Nächsten). Damit reagierte der Forscher auf die Kritik des Bischofs, der Pfeiffer in einem Gastbeitrag heftig attackiert hatte. Darauf antwortete Pressesprecher Bernhard Schweßinger: „Es drängt sich nicht nur im Bistum Würzburg die Frage auf, ob bei Professor Pfeiffer die Grenzen zwischen Dichtung und Wahrheit fließend sind. Das Verhalten zeigt, wie richtig die Feststellung der Bischöfe war, aufgrund des zerstörten Vertrauensverhältnisses die Zusammenarbeit zu beenden.“

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DEUTSCHLAND
Main Post

Christian Pfeiffer, Direktor des Kriminologischen Forschungsinstituts Niedersachsen, wendet sich in einem Gastbeitrag gegen Bischof Friedhelm Hofmann.

Nach dem Lesen des Beitrags von Bischof Hofmann (gemeint ist der Gastbeitrag von Würzburgs Bischof Friedhelm Hofmann am 19. Januar auf der Meinungsseite dieser Zeitung, Anmerkung der Redaktion) habe ich mich gefragt, ob er ein gestörtes Verhältnis zum 8. Gebot hat: „Du sollst nicht falsch Zeugnis reden wider Deinen Nächsten“. So hat er den Vorwurf, ich hätte verbindliche Zusagen nicht eingehalten und wäre nicht in der Lage, zeitnah Informationen zur Vorgehensweise zu liefern, offenkundig frei erfunden. Meine unmittelbaren Kooperationspartner der Bischofskonferenz haben mir das jedenfalls nie vorgehalten und hätten dazu auch keinen Anlass gehabt.

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FLORIDA
CBS Miami

MIAMI (CBSMiami) – A former South Florida Catholic priest who pled no contest earlier this month to charges that he drugged and sexually assaulted a Margate boy in the 1990s will be sentenced on Monday.

During his time with the Archdiocese of Miami Doherty, 69, had served at several South Florida churches, including St. Vincent’s in Margate, St. Anthony in Fort Lauderdale and St. Phillip in Northwest Miami-Dade.

Doherty has a long list of accusers who say he used his position of power to sexually assault them. In several cases, Doherty is accused of slipping drugs into drinks to make boys sleepy and molesting them while they were unconscious.

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AUSTRALIA
Indigenous Times

Descendant of the Palyku people of the Pilbara region of Western Australia, Professor Helen Milroy has been appointed as one of the Commissioners to the Federal Government’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

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IRELAND
Association of Catholic Priests

Response on 13 September 2012 to Document received from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

1. Regarding the Church, Fr. Flannery should add to his article that he believes that Christ instituted the Church with a permanent hierarchical structure. Specifically, Fr. Flannery should state that he accepts the teaching of the Second Vatican Council, as found in Lumen Gentium n. 9-22, that the bishops are the divinely established successors of the apostles who were appointed by Christ; that, aided by the Holy Spirit, they exercise legitimate power to sanctify, teach and govern the People of God; that they constitute one Episcopal college together with the Roman Pontiff; and that in virtue of his office, the Roman Pontiff has full, supreme and universal power over the Church, which he is always free to exercise.

I acknowledge and accept the teaching of the second Vatican Council. I have studied Lumen Gentium and it is clear from the teaching of the Council that the Lord Jesus set the church on its course by preaching the Good News. The Council also accepts the teachings of the First Vatican Council which declares that Jesus Christ, the eternal shepherd, established His holy Church, having sent forth the apostles as he himself had been sent by the Father; and he willed that their successors, namely the bishops, should be shepherds in His Church even to the consummation of the world. The Council also teaches that Jesus placed Peter over the other apostles, and instituted in him a permanent and visible source and foundation of unity of faith and communion. Vatican 2 states that “all this teaching about the institution, the perpetuity, the meaning and reason for the sacred primacy of the Roman Pontiff and of his infallible Magisterium, this Sacred Council again proposes to be firmly believed by all the faithful.” I submit to this teaching in faith.

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UNITED STATES
U.S. Catholic

By Bryan Cones

The New York Times’ Frank Bruni turns the sharp edge of his pen against the Roman Catholic priesthood in today’s column, invoking Garry Wills, whose next book, Why Priests? A Failed Tradition, will no doubt expose, as Wills’ often does, the problematic underbelly of this quintessentially Catholic institution (shared also with the Orthodox and Anglicanism). Bruni doesn’t tackle the theological dimension of priesthood–one assumes that Wills most likely does–but its insularity. Exhibit A: Cardinal Roger Mahony.

The LA archdiocese this week released the personnel files of priests accused of abuse, which time after time shows Mahony’s abject failure to protect innocents or turn over offenders. It wasn’t until 2006 that Mahony started meeting with victims, some 20 years after he started first dealing with cases–and a full four years after the Boston scandal broke. Before those meetings, Mahony claims in a statement released by the archdiocese, he “remained naive myself about the full and lasting impact of these horrible acts”–a statement to which we must add “willfully,” just before naive.

Whether “Catholicism’s Curse”–as Bruni titles his column–is indeed priesthood itself is a question worthy of debate, but the insular system by which priests are made–residential seminaries more or less totally remote from Catholic parishes, families, and their children–is certainly a part of the problem that must be eliminated. Indeed, while I don’t see a direct connection between celibacy and child sexual abuse, I do see a connection between celibacy and the inability to identify and empathize with children and families, and I wonder how different the church’s response to the sex abuse crisis would have been if the priests and bishops responding were themselves fathers of children. For some reason I don’t think it would have taken 20 years for Mahony to grasp the impact of sexual abuse on children if he had a child of his own.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
RealClearReligion

By George Neumayr

“I have a 3 x 5 card for every victim I met with on the altar of my small chapel. I pray for them every single day,” retired Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony said after the court-ordered release of personnel files detailing his elaborate efforts to hide abusers from the police. How comforted the victims must feel knowing their names appear on his 3 x 5 cards. How big of him to entrust the victims of his pedophile-shuffling to the efficacy of his prayers.

Such acts of chutzpah come naturally to the cardinal. At the height of the abuse scandal, even as he retained an army of lawyers and publicists to conceal his own complicity in it, he had the gall to join the media in calling for Boston Cardinal Bernard Law’s resignation. Referring to Law, Cardinal Mahony piously told the press that “he would find it difficult to walk down an aisle in church if he had been guilty of gross negligence.”

Meanwhile, Cardinal Mahony was unleashing his attack dogs on anyone who probed his staggering negligence. Until the media furor of 2001, he had been planning on making a pedophile long known to him and residing in his living quarters, Father Carl Sutphin (with whom he had gone to seminary), associate pastor of the archdiocesan cathedral. “I can’t believe a cardinal keeps a pedophile on staff,” said one of Sutphin’s victims.

Long before Leon Panetta joined the Obama administration as CIA director, he had scented out Cardinal Mahony’s misdeeds. He “has done tremendous damage to his reputation and the archdiocese,” said Panetta after his spell as a member of the National Review Board, a watchdog group formed in the wake of the scandal. Panetta recalled a meeting at which Cardinal Mahony turned up with “more lawyers in the room than I’ve ever seen.”

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UNITED STATES
In the Light of the Law

Edward Peters

Bp. Robert Finn (KC, MO) has a very good column on a local bishop’s responsibility over local media in regard to the promotion and protection of the Catholic Faith. Most folks, however, will likely skim the first part of the essay, and go right for Finn’s critique of the National Catholic Reporter in the second.

In my opinion, Finn was too kind to them.

NCRep has carried on a steady tirade against ecclesiastical authority in general, and against numerous Church teachings in particular, for several decades, but the last few years have seen a shrillness that should discomfort even its dwindling number of friends. Besides my own efforts to reply to them (e.g., July 2010, October 2009, March 2009) Fr. Z’s blog has long served as a clearing house for reasonable, Catholic responses to the NCRep (what a thankless task that is).

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

by Thomas C. Fox | Jan. 27, 2013

Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph Bishop Robert Finn wrote Friday the National Catholic Reporter is undermining church teachings. He cited coverage of women’s ordination, artificial contraception, sexual morality in general, and the “lionizing” of dissident theologies.

His remarks appeared in a column entitled “The Bishop’s Role In Fostering The Mission Of The Catholic Media.” It was posted in the online edition of the official diocesan newspaper, the Catholic Key.

The bishop praised the work of the Key and went on to write:

In a different way, I am sorry to say, my attention has been drawn once again to the National Catholic Reporter, a newspaper with headquarters in this Diocese. I have received letters and other complaints about NCR from the beginning of my time here. In the last months I have been deluged with emails and other correspondence from Catholics concerned about the editorial stances of the Reporter: officially condemning Church teaching on the ordination of women, insistent undermining of Church teaching on artificial contraception and sexual morality in general, lionizing dissident theologies while rejecting established Magisterial teaching, and a litany of other issues.

My predecessor bishops have taken different approaches to the challenge. Bishop Charles Helmsing in October of 1968 issued a condemnation of the National Catholic Reporter and asked the publishers to remove the name “Catholic” from their title – to no avail. From my perspective, NCR’s positions against authentic Church teaching and leadership have not changed trajectory in the intervening decades. …

Finn seems to imply NCR has had bad relations with its local bishops since 1968. This has not been the case. Bishop Helmsing’s successors – Bishop John Sullivan and Bishop Raymond Boland – had cordial relations with NCR. Once Boland came to our Kansas City office and blessed our building as we consulted with him about use of new emerging media technologies. Later Boland spoke at NCR’s 40th anniversary ceremony in Washington, D.C.

In an email former NCR Publisher Sister of Saint Anne Rita Larivee, who was publisher at the time of Finn’s early years as diocesan bishop, remembers having respectful meetings with Finn. She wrote:

I personally visited with him in is office to welcome him to the diocese. We had a fine conversation. But during his first year, he made many significant changes within the diocese that caused many concerns for various groups. Because of these shifts in previous policies, NCR wrote a story about this period of transition – Dennis Cody (now NCR Editor) wrote the story. Again, I visited with Bishop Finn in his office to assure him that this was a story about the changes that had taken place, as NCR does with other diocese, but that it was not an article about him personally. …

After a local judge found Finn guilty last year of failing to report suspected child abuse involving a local priest NCR published an editorial calling on Finn to either resign or be removed from his position. NCR and other local news outlets, including the Kansas City Star provided ongoing coverage of the incident.

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PENNSYLVANIA
GoErie

ASSOCIATED PRESS

PHILADELPHIA — The civil case alleging that a Franciscan friar sexually abused students at a western Pennsylvania high school will go on despite the friar’s suicide over the weekend, attorneys representing some of the accusers said Sunday.

Brother Stephen Baker, 62, was found dead of a self-inflicted knife wound at the St. Bernardine Monastery in Hollidaysburg on Saturday, according to Blair Township police.

He had been named in recent legal settlements involving sexual abuse allegations at a Catholic high school in northeastern Ohio three decades ago, and the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese said it had received allegations of abuse at Bishop McCort High School in Johnstown in the 1990s.

When Baker was the school’s athletic trainer, 20 former students allege that he assaulted or molested students under the guise of providing therapeutic treatment or medical care for treatment of sports injuries, said attorney Michael Parrish, of Johnstown, who represents the accusers.

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CALIFORNIA
Contra Costa Times

Monica Rodriguez, Staff Writer
sbsun.com
Posted: 01/27/2013

Join Los Angeles News Group City Editor Harrison Sheppard and reporters Susan Abram and Tracy Manzer in a live chat Monday at 11 a.m. to discuss this report.

Amid scrutiny of its neighboring diocese’s response to the sexual abuse of children, the Diocese of San Bernardino has been swift to notify authorities of such allegations, a diocese spokesman said.

Others don’t see it that way.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, says the leadership of the diocese is still slow to move when it is notified of sexual abuse allegations.

“We have not seen any real strides,” said Joelle Casteix, the regional director for SNAP.

Since 2002, the diocese has been following the directions spelled out in the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, which the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops issued that year, said John Andrews, a spokesman for the diocese.

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CALIFORNIA
Press-Telegram

Special Report

Thousands of pages of court documents show how the Archdiocese of Los Angeles for decades knowingly shielded more than a dozen priests suspected of child sex abuse.

A Los Angeles News Group special report offers an in-depth look into how and when the church knew about the abuse and chose instead to move accused priests from parish to parish, even allowing the most abusive to move out of the country.

Church officials in some cases tried to get priests into therapy, but at the same time took steps to keep the horrific accusations from ever surfacing or being reported to authorities. Victims and their families pleaded for justice, only to fall on deaf ears. This report details the depth of secrecy and covert actions taken by top church officials to keep the accusations in the shadows.

In the decades since, archdioceses everywhere have taken steps to recognize and stop such abuse from happening again.

In the meantime, victims feel the weight and still live in the shadow of abuse.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
The New York Times

[Archive of Los Angeles Archdiocesan Documents – BishopAccountability.org]

Editorial

No member of the Roman Catholic hierarchy fought longer and more energetically than Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles to conceal the decades-long scandal involving the rape and intimidation of children by rogue priests. For years, the cardinal withheld seamy church records from parents, victims and the public, brandishing endless litigation and fatuous claims of confidentiality.

The breadth of Cardinal Mahony’s cover-up became shockingly clear last week with the release in court of archdiocese records detailing how he and a top aide concocted cynical strategies to keep police authorities in the dark and habitual offenders beyond the reach of criminal prosecution.

“Sounds good — please proceed!” the cardinal, now retired, instructed in 1987 after the aide, Msgr. Thomas Curry, cautioned against therapy for one confessed predator — lest the therapist feel obliged to tell authorities and scandalize the archdiocese. The two discussed another priest, Msgr. Peter Garcia, who admitted specializing in the rape of Latino immigrant children and threatened at least one boy with deportation if he complained. Cardinal Mahony ordered that he stay out of California after his release from a New Mexico treatment center out of fear that “we might very well have some type of legal action filed in both the criminal and civil sectors.” Monsignor Curry worried that there might be 20 young people able to identify the priest in “first-degree felony” cases.

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CALIFORNIA
Press-Telegram

By Susan Abram, Brian Day, Andrew Edwards and Phillip Zonkel, Staff Writers
dailynews.com
Posted: 01/27/2013

Join Los Angeles News Group City Editor Harrison Sheppard and reporters Susan Abram and Tracy Manzer in a live chat Monday at 11 a.m. to discuss this report.

On the first Sunday after a flood of newly released documents showed how Catholic leaders shielded priests accused of child sex abuse, parishioners at churches across Los Angeles and beyond said they were troubled by the revelations but remained strong in their faith.

At the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in downtown Los Angeles, Archbishop Jose Gomez had been quiet about the issue all week, but spoke out briefly about it during his morning sermon.

“This has been a challenging week for all of us in Los Angeles because of the abuse of many by priests,” Gomez said somberly to the hundreds of parishioners who had filled the sanctuary.

“Today we want to especially pray for anyone who has been hurt by the church. We also want to renew and strengthen our policies on the protection of children within the diocese.”

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
The Kansas City Star

[The Bishop’s Role in Fostering the Mission of the Catholic Media – The Catholic Key]

By ALAN BAVLEY
The Kansas City Star

The bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph is expressing public frustration with the editorial stances of the National Catholic Reporter, a Kansas City-based independent newspaper that has called for the bishop to resign over his handling of sex scandals in the church.

In a column posted Friday in the online edition of the official diocesan newspaper, Bishop Robert Finn said the National Catholic Reporter was “undermining” church teaching on contraception and the ordination of women, while praising “dissident theologies.” Finn also raised questions about whether the newspaper should call itself “Catholic.”

“I have a responsibility as the local bishop to instruct the Faithful about the problematic nature of this media source which bears the name ‘Catholic,’ ” Finn wrote.

“Bishop Finn clearly feels our voice is not a Catholic voice,” said National Catholic Reporter publisher and former editor Tom Fox. “We are a Catholic publication, but independent of the church structure. That’s one of the keys to our credibility.”

Fox said the National Catholic Reporter is a member of the Catholic Press Association, which is sanctioned by U.S. bishops. The newspaper has consistently won awards for general excellence and investigative reporting.

Its investigative reporting has included coverage of allegations of sex abuse by members of the clergy, an issue the newspaper had been addressing since 1985, Fox said. The issue took on a high profile in the Kansas City-St. Joseph diocese in recent years, leading to further coverage.

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UNITED STATES
Current

[with video]

David Clohessy, executive director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, joins John Fugelsang on “Viewpoint” to assess the ongoing sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church, including news that the retired archbishop of Los Angeles, Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, hid evidence that clergymen were molesting children.

“This is a monarchy, and as much as this scandal has tarnished the Catholic hierarchy, the men at the top of the pyramid still have faced little, if any, consequences for their dreadful wrongdoing,” Clohessy says. “For that reason, their power remains intact, and for that reason, I think, we’ve seen so little change on their part.”

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
dotCommonweal

January 27, 2013

Posted by Paul Moses

Bishop Robert W. Finn has used the occasion of the Feast of St. Francis de Sales, patron saint of journalists, to upbraid Kansas City-based National Catholic Reporter, which is located in his diocese. The critique he published in his diocesan newspaper says not a word about the important service to the church that NCR offered through courageous coverage over nearly three decades of the existence and cover-up of clergy sexual abuse.

This comes as no surprise from Finn, who continues to remain as bishop even after his conviction in September, as NCR put it, of “criminally shielding a priest who was a threat to children.” Bishop Finn is in no position to level accusations against NCR. It’s not surprising that many have called for his resignation; his conviction makes it impossible for him to do his job credibly.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

More than 150 people picketed the residence of the Papal Nuncio in Dublin this afternoon in protest at the Catholic Church’s treatment of well-known Irish missionary Fr Tony Flannery.

Last week Fr Flannery said he had been censored by the Vatican for his views on homosexuality and women priests, and called the Vatican’s systems “unfair and unjust”.

The 800-strong Association of Catholic Priests previously warned that forcing Father Tony Flannery to stop writing for a Redemptorist Order magazine would fuel belief of a disconnect between Irish Catholics and Rome.

Fr Flannery, a founder of the association, had his monthly column with the religious publication ‘Reality’ discontinued on orders from Rome.

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PENNSYLVANIA/OHIO
WKBN

At least two attorneys, representing victims, are planning legal action against the Youngstown and Altoona-Johnstown Catholic Diocese, Bishop McCort High School and others who were in charge of supervising Brother Stephen Baker while he was working with students.

On Sunday afternoon, Boston attorney Mitchell Garabedian, offered this statement:

“Well, unfortunately Brother Baker passed away but I will be pursuing cases on behalf of my clients against the supervisors of Brother Baker while he was sexually molesting children. Brother Baker’s death does sadden many of my clients. It’s a very emotional complicated situation that has now become more emotionally complicated.”

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PENNSYLVANIA
WKBN

Civil cases will proceed despite Brother Stephen Baker’s suicide.

Attorney Michael Parrish Junior of Johnstown, representing some of the former students alleging abuse by Baker, said the cases will move forward.

Baker was found dead at the St. Bernardine Monastery in Hollidaysburg on Saturday. He had been named in legal settlements involving abuse allegations at JFK High School in Warren and allegations have also surfaced of abuse at Bishop McCort High School in Johnstown in the 1990s.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Houston Chronicle

By RON TODT, Associated Press | January 27, 2013

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The civil case alleging that a Franciscan friar sexually abused students at a western Pennsylvania high school will go on despite the friar’s suicide over the weekend, attorneys representing some of the accusers said Sunday.

Brother Stephen Baker, 62, was found dead of a self-inflicted knife wound at the St. Bernardine Monastery in Hollidaysburg on Saturday, according to Blair Township police. He had been named in recent legal settlements involving sexual abuse allegations at a Catholic high school in northeast Ohio three decades ago, and the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese said it had received allegations of abuse at Bishop McCort High School in Johnstown in the 1990s.

When Baker was the school’s athletic trainer, 20 former students allege that he assaulted or molested students under the guise of providing therapeutic treatment or medical care for treatment of sports injuries, said Attorney Michael Parrish of Johnstown, who represents the accusers.

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IRELAND
The Journal

ABOUT 120 PEOPLE have attended a protest outside the residence of the Papal Nuncio to Ireland, in Cabra in Dublin, over the treatment of Fr Tony Flannery.

The liberal Redemptorist priest, who founded the Association of Catholic Priests, has been taken out of ministry while the Vatican investigates his involvement with the group.

The body has been outspoken in its calls for an end to clerical celibacy and the right of priests to marry – as well as seeking an overhaul to church teachings on sexuality and on the method of selection for bishops.

The 66-year-old has been ordered to sign a document confirming his adherence to Church teachings before he will be put back into active ministry – but he has refused to do so, saying this week he would be unable to look at himself in the mirror if he did.

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IRELAND
Association of Catholic Priests

The Association of Catholics in Ireland [ACI] expressed concerns in relation to the Fr. Tony Flannery case via a letter to the Irish Times on Wednesday 23 January. Unfortunately the letter has not been published to date – see text below.

In light of comments from Fr. Tony during the week which clarified the chronology of events and the role of the CDF in the controversy in recent months the ACI deemed it appropriate to address an ‘open letter’ to the Papal Nuncio which is also published below.

Letter to the Irish Times

Dear Sir,

We, the members of the Steering Group of the ‘fledgeling’ Association of Catholics in Ireland [ACI], view with great sadness the impasse which has developed between Fr. Tony Flannery and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith [CDF]. In this week of prayer for Christian Unity, when Catholics are encouraged to enter into dialogue with members of other churches, it seems extraordinary that the CDF has refused dialogue with one of our own priests. We have sympathy too for the leaders of the Redemptorists in Ireland and abroad in the dilemma in which they have been placed.

The position of the Irish bishops is not known. Since they have insisted on the right of politicians to follow their consciences in a free vote on the abortion legislation issue, surely consistency and coherence must demand that they champion the right of a priest to follow his conscience? As the present Pope, then Cardinal Ratzinger, wrote: “Over the Pope as the expression of the binding claim of ecclesiastical authority, there still stands one’s own conscience, which must be obeyed over all else, if necessary even against the requirement of ecclesiastical authority.” (Commentary on Section 16 of Vatican II’s Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World.)

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Daily News

MENSAH M. DEAN, Daily News Staff Writer deanm@phillynews.com, 215-568-8278

Posted: Sunday, January 27, 2013

JURY DELIBERATIONS began Friday afternoon in the trial of a Catholic priest and a former Catholic-schoolteacher who are accused of sexually assaulting the same altar boy in the late 1990s.

The Common Pleas jury got the case after hearing closing arguments from Assistant District Attorney Mark Cipolletti and defense attorney Michael J. McGovern, who represents the Rev. Charles Engelhardt, 66.

Defense attorney Burton Rose, who represents Bernard Shero, 50, gave his closing argument Thursday.

Cipolletti said there was no doubt about the defendants’ guilt and asked the jury to give their accuser justice by convicting them.

The accuser, now 24, testified that beginning at age 10, when he was an altar boy at St. Jerome’s Church in the Northeast, he was sexually assaulted by the two defendants and by defrocked priest Edward Avery, 70, who pleaded guilty last year and is serving 2 1/2 to 5 years in state prison.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

Joseph A. Slobodzian, Inquirer Staff Writer

Posted: Sunday, January 27, 2013

After 81/2 days of testimony and closing arguments that brought the alleged victim to tears, a Philadelphia jury has begun working toward a verdict in the child-rape trial of a Philadelphia Catholic priest and ex-parochial-school teacher.

The Common Pleas Court jury of eight men and four women met for two hours Friday before breaking until Monday.

The Rev. Charles Engelhardt and Bernard Shero are charged in one of the most salacious episodes in the 2011 county investigating grand jury report on child sex-abuse in the Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia: the serial rape of a 10-year-old Northeast boy.

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IRELAND
Galway News

January 27, 2013

The residence of the Papal Nuncio in Dublin is to be picketed today, in protest against the Catholic Church’s treatment of well-known Athenry-based Fr. Tony Flannery.

Last week Fr. Flannery revealed on Galway bay Fm how he had been censored by the Vatican for his views on homosexuality and women priests, and called the Vatican’s systems “unfair and unjust.”

The protest has been organised by the group ‘We Are Church Ireland’.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Tony Flannery is an unlikely heretic. An Irish Redemptorist priest, he is now being threatened with excommunication from his own church.

So who cares? According to some media reports last week, a new survey of Irish public opinion ranks religion last among 119 priorities. But the survey and the reports about it were misleading.

Rome has let Flannery know that his opinions on the priesthood, and on the role of the laity, “are clearly contrary to the defined teaching of the Church” (as Rome sees it). He was stripped of his column in the Redemptorists’ Reality magazine, forbidden to administer the sacraments and now has one last chance to recant before being excluded from the institution to which he has given his life.

Some have linked his predicament to Enda Kenny’s criticism of the Vatican. Flannery’s brother Frank has long been a leading light in Fine Gael. Rome was not happy with the Taoiseach’s criticisms, and it was whispered by some that Fr Flannery had a hand in Kenny’s controversial speech of 2011. When Fr Flannery first heard that whisper, he thought it was a joke. He says: “I had absolutely nothing to do with the speech. I keep well away from politics in my profession.”

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Gerard O’Regan

Saturday January 26 2013

THIS past Christmas Eve, as befits some people who come under the banner of that cringe-inducing phrase ‘a la carte Catholics’, I attended a Gospel Mass in St Francis Xavier’s Church in Dublin’s Gardiner Street.

I had never been there before. But a friend spoke fervently about its gospel choir. “We always go there at Christmas. For some reason the church can be very atmospheric and spiritual at that time of year. But you have to arrive early so as to get a seat. It’s normally packed on Christmas Eve,” he warned.

And so, we arrived in plenty of time, and got a spot near the choir in one of the front pews, when the building was still quite empty. Then slowly and steadily came the soft footfall of people arriving out of the December night. Sure enough, almost without warning, the church was indeed “packed”.

As I looked around at this varied mix of humanity – the young, the old, the married, the single, the healthy, the infirm, the happy, the depressed, the believers and the non-believers – I could not but contemplate the embrace 2,000 years of Roman Catholicism has had on the very soul of Ireland.

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AUSTRALIA
Macedon Ranges Weekly

By DAN MOSS STATE PARLIAMENT EDITOR
Jan. 28, 2013, midnight

A VAST majority of Catholics were “horrified” and “overwhelmed” by reports of child sexual abuse and “want something done”, former Gladstone Park priest Philip O’Donnell has said.

Mr O’Donnell, who also served in Sunbury, told a Victorian Senate inquiry into how the churches handle child sex abuse that “countless thousands” of victims in Victoria had not yet come forward and reported abuse at the hands of church representatives.

A former priest who served from 1969-99, Mr O’Donnell said he “knew” sexual abuse of children occurred, and he reported it. But he faced years of the claims being deferred and “swept under the carpet”.

The ‘Melbourne Response’, a protocol that the Catholic church used to deal with reports of sexual abuse against priests and other church staff, should be disbanded, he said.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Eilis O’Hanlon

Sunday January 27 2013

Since it was first published, Why Men Don’t Listen And Women Can’t Read Maps has arguably saved more marriages than Relationships Ireland.

The format has been flogged to death at this stage, with more sequels than Police Academy, but its central thesis – that men and women are just different and we should learn to live with it – remains as relevant now as ever.

What’s odd is that, considering how awful they are at responding to other people’s emotional needs, men were the ones who got to be priests.

Women are much better at empathising, listening, communicating. They really should’ve been doing the job all along. The Pope, in turn, would surely contend that, had Christ wanted women priests, then he would have invited them to sit around the table at the Last Supper rather than doing the waitressing – and it is for challenging this view of the priesthood that Redemptorist Fr Tony Flannery has now been threatened with excommunication.

The precise sequence of events remains muddled, despite a slew of media interviews; the details are still being haggled over by supporters and detractors alike. Some of the headlines about priests being silenced by a latter-day version of the Spanish Inquisition were mischievous, to say the least.

But it does now seem incontestable that, having originally irked the church by saying that Jesus did not “ordain” the Apostles as such, the priesthood merely developing over time in response to historical circumstances, he has now been asked not only to state that Christ laid down a particular hierarchical template for the church, but that it can never include women. Something he can’t do, because he doesn’t believe it. The question then is whether the church’s response to that challenge is a wise or appropriate one.

Conservative Catholics argue that Fr Flannery joined a club and should either abide by its rules or get out. …

Priests have raped children and not been excommunicated. Bishops have covered up the rape of children and been promoted. It’s still not a heresy to believe that unbaptised children may burn in Hell; the church would rather priests didn’t believe it, but they won’t stop you if you do.

That may be a crude caricature of the church’s attitude to cherishing children, but it’s a real and powerful one. To counter it, the church needs to establish a narrative which is equally as compelling. Instead, it seems to have become increasingly insular, talking to themselves rather than to the world. Ultimately, that can only damage the church.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

January 27, 2013

By Ann Rodgers / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Brother Stephen Baker, a Franciscan friar accused of sexually abusing dozens of teens in at least three states, has committed suicide in his monastery in Newry, Blair County.

The accusers include more than 25 students at Bishop McCort High School in Johnstown in the 1990s.

Blair Township Police Chief Roger White said an autopsy by the Blair County coroner found that 62-year-old Brother Stephen Baker killed himself with a knife Saturday morning. Chief White declined to say whether he left a note.

Brother Baker lived at St. Bernardine Monastery. Another resident of the monastery discovered Brother Baker in his room not breathing and called Blair County 911 at 7:35 a.m. He was pronounced dead at the scene. The autopsy by county Coroner Patricia Ross found he died shortly before his body was discovered.

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UNITED STATES
The New York Times

By EMILY BAZELON

Published: January 24, 2013

The detective spread out the photographs on the kitchen table, in front of Nicole, on a December morning in 2006. She was 17, but in the pictures, she saw the face of her 10-year-old self, a half-grown girl wearing make-up. The bodies in the images were broken up by pixelation, but Nicole could see the outline of her father, forcing himself on her. Her mother, sitting next to her, burst into sobs.

The detective spoke gently, but he had brutal news: the pictures had been downloaded onto thousands of computers via file-sharing services around the world. They were among the most widely circulated child pornography on the Internet. Also online were video clips, similarly notorious, in which Nicole spoke words her father had scripted for her, sometimes at the behest of other men. For years, investigators in the United States, Canada and Europe had been trying to identify the girl in the images.

Nicole’s parents split up when she was a toddler, and she grew up living with her mother and stepfather and visiting her father, a former policeman, every other weekend at his apartment in a suburban town in the Pacific Northwest. He started showing her child pornography when she was about 9, telling her that it was normal for fathers and daughters to “play games” like in the pictures. Soon after, he started forcing her to perform oral sex and raping her, dressing her in tight clothes and sometimes binding her with ropes. When she turned 12, she told him to stop, but he used threats and intimidation to continue the abuse for about a year. He said that if she told anyone what he’d done, everyone would hate her for letting him. He said that her mother would no longer love her.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Democrat

Kathy Mellott
kmellott@tribdem.com

HOLLIDAYSBURG — Robert Hoatson spent Saturday afternoon and evening dealing with alleged victims of Brother Paul Stephen Baker, the Franciscan friar who committed suicide earlier in the day.

“At this point, they’re numb. They’re trying to figure out how they feel,” said Hoatson, a victim advocate who is founder and president of Road to Recovery of Livingston, N.J.

“They called him ‘Bro.’ There is shock and numbness.”

Baker, 62, had resided in Blair County since his early 2000s departure from Bishop McCort Catholic High School, where he worked on behalf of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johns­town as a religion instructor and in the athletic department.

Baker died early Saturday of a self-inflicted stab wound.

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CALIFORNIA
Ventura County Star

Church personnel records made public last week reveal how badly some officials with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles bungled the response to priests accused of molestation.

And the decades-old records, totaling about 3,000 pages, are just the tip of the iceberg. Roughly 30,000 pages of documents are expected to be released in the near future as part of the Los Angeles archdiocese’s $660 million settlement in 2007 with clergy-abuse victims.

The newly released documents show church officials expressed great concern about keeping alleged molesters from facing criminal and civil charges. Deliberate steps were taken to keep them beyond the reach of prosecutors.

But, with only a few exceptions, the records contain scant evidence of official concern about the victims of abuse or taking steps to help them deal with the psychological and emotional scars from abuse.

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WISCONSIN
SNAP Wisconsin

CONTACT:
Peter Isely, SNAP Midwest Director, 414.429.7259/John Pilmaier, SNAP Wisconsin Director, 414.336.8575

It has been learned that last week Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki quietly returned to ministry a twice reported, twice removed and now twice reinstated Roman Catholic priest after separate reports of sexually assaulting teenagers. An announcement was made to parishioners on January 17th at St. John Neumann parish in Waukesha that their pastor Fr. John Schreiter had been officially reinstated. According to the announcement Schreiter has left for Arizona and is expected to return in the spring.

In 2004, Schreiter was removed from his previous position as pastor of St. Bruno Church in Dousman following a first report that he had sexually assaulted a teenager. The Saux County District Attorney’s Office was unable to consider the case because it fell under the old statute of limitations. Cardinal Dolan, then archbishop of Milwaukee, returned Schreiter to ministry, stating that his handpicked review board had found the sexual assault report to be somehow “unsubstantiated”.

Then, in June of 2012 a new report from a second alleged victim of Schreiter’s was received through the Milwaukee Archdiocese bankruptcy filing. Schreiter was removed as a pastor, this time from St. John Neumann’s. Now Listecki and his handpicked review board has returned him to ministry again. The review board appears to have never directly heard from either of the victims.

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UNITED STATES
The Daily Beast

David Sessions

A pastor whose family was murdered in New Mexico belonged to a large association of evangelical churches that, critics allege, stands behind misbehaving pastors and looks away when they are accused of sexual abuse and other misdeeds.

Greg Griego, who was slaughtered along with his wife and children, allegedly by his 15-year-old son, Nehemiah last week near Albuquerque, was a beloved minister. A born-again gang member, he seemed to serve anywhere he would be had: as a minister in Albuquerque’s fire department, at a detention center, and in the prison ministry at Calvary Albuquerque, a megachurch affiliated with the Calvary Chapel network of over a thousand similar churches. After allegedly committing the horrific crimes, Nehemiah reportedly spent hours hanging around Calvary Albuquerque, telling church members his family died in a car accident.

The Albuquerque massacre wasn’t the first time lately that a Calvary Chapel-affiliated church found itself part of a grim news cycle. Calvary is one of several large evangelical denominations beginning to draw national attention as lawsuits pile up over abuses allegedly covered up by pastors and church leaders. Over the past decades, Calvary has been plagued with accusations ranging from unaccountable leadership to covered-up sexual abuse, raising questions similar to those faced by Roman Catholic hierarchy about what kind of role the church’s top leaders were playing behind the scenes.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Tribue-Democrat

Kathy Mellott kmellott@tribdem.com

JOHNSTOWN — A Franciscan Friar who worked for a decade at Bishop McCort Catholic High School committed suicide on Saturday.

But stories that emerged about alleged sexual abuse by Brother Paul Stephen Baker have caused others abused by the clergy to relive the incidents that altered their lives and brought back pain they sought to forget.

John Nesbella, 50, formerly of Lilly and now living in Nanty Glo, was a student at Bishop Carroll High School in the 1970s when he repeatedly was abused by a Catholic priest.

As a child, Brian Gergely, 43, of Ebensburg, was an altar boy who was repeatedly abused by a Catholic priest in 1981-82.

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Altoona Mirror

January 27, 2013

By Russ O’Reilly (roreilly@altoonamirror.com) , The Altoona Mirror

HOLLIDAYSBURG – The Franciscan friar accused last week of sexually abusing dozens of Bishop McCort High School students during in the 1990s died from a self-inflicted stab wound to the heart Saturday morning, Blair County Coroner Patty Ross said.

He left a note, Ross said, but it is totally confidential.”

Baker was found in his room Saturday morning at St. Bernardine Monastery by another friar, Blair Township Police Chief Roger White stated in a press release. He was 62.

White, state police and the county coroner were dispatched at 7:35 a.m. to St. Bernardine Monastery at 768 Monastery Road, where they investigated until a medical van carried away Bakers covered body minutes before a distant noon church bell rang.

Baker allegedly abused dozens of young boys, according to allegations that began surfacing recently in Ohio and Pennsylvania. He spent the mid-1980s teaching and coaching in Ohio, then at McCort from 1993 to 2000.

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CALIFORNIA
Daily Bulletin

By Tracy Manzer, Staff Writers
gvtribune.com
Posted: 01/26/2013

It’s been more than 10 years since the Catholic Church faced the pinnacle of its sex abuse scandal, one which many refer to as the church’s greatest crisis since the Reformation.

In this last decade, church leaders and members say, they have had to come to terms with feelings of anger, confusion and shame over the dark history of child molestation and the cover-up.

But they take comfort, they say, in the knowledge their church is not the same organization it once was. There has been not only a change in policy, but a change in culture.

“When you look at our past and compare where we are today you see a progression, you see a different response to these issues, and you see, I think, a completely different church,” said Tod Tamberg, spokesman for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

One outgrowth of that change is an overhaul of how Los Angeles churches treat reports of abuse, including new extensive education for clergy, parishioners and children. There are also background checks and training for those connected with a church who may come into regular contact with children.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Tallmadge Express

HOLLIDAYSBURG, Pa. (AP) — A western Pennsylvania police chief says the death of a Franciscan friar named in Ohio sex abuse settlements and under investigation in Pennsylvania abuse allegations was a suicide.

Blair Township Police Chief Roger White told the Associated Press on Saturday that an autopsy by the Blair County coroner had confirmed that 62-year-old Brother Stephen Baker died of self-inflicted wounds.

White said officers were called at about 7:35 a.m. Saturday to St. Bernardine Monastery, where another resident had found Baker not breathing. He declined to say how Baker died or whether he left a note.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Los Angeles Times

By Hector Becerra, Ashley Powers and Harriet Ryan, Los Angeles Times
January 26, 2013

On a Sunday night at Dodger Stadium in 1986, Archbishop Roger M. Mahony celebrated Mass in flawless Spanish. In an era when immigrants in Los Angeles were routinely derided as parasites and criminals, the archbishop told the crowd of 55,000 that whether they were born in Puebla, San Salvador or Managua, they were part of his flock.

“The Catholic Church is your home and I am your pastor,” Mahony said.

But even as cheers of “Rogelio! Rogelio!” rained down from the upper decks, Mahony was covering up the sexual abuse of some of the most vulnerable in the church, including in his beloved Latino community, church records show.

Over the last four decades, hundreds of people have come forward to say they were abused by priests in the archdiocese. Children were victimized at parishes across the L.A. area, in poor neighborhoods as well as wealthy ones. But internal church documents released last week shined a spotlight on Mahony’s mishandling of two pedophile priests who abused the undocumented — a group the prelate often described as society’s most in need of protection. Mahony worked to make sure the priests got therapy, found new jobs and stayed out of prison. For the child victims, little was done.

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CALIFORNIA
Pasadena Star-News

[Archive of Los Angeles Archdiocesan Documents – BishopAccountability.org]

By Barbara Jones and Tracy Manzer, Staff Writerss
gvtribune.com
Posted: 01/26/2013

When the Most Rev. Roger Michael Mahony was tapped by Pope John Paul II to be the shepherd of Los Angeles’ 3 million Roman Catholics, a local priest called the choice “a breath of fresh air for the archdiocese.”

Within months of his installation as archbishop on Sept. 5, 1985, the North Hollywood native had advocated for immigration reform, encouraged interfaith communication and launched plans to expand spiritual and social programs for the region’s Hispanic Catholics. Mahony quickly became a fixture in Los Angeles as he ministered to the region’s disenfranchised residents and rubbed elbows with its civic leaders.

“We must realize that Christ came as the son of God not only to spend his time in the synagogue, but also to involve himself in the daily life of the people,” he said in an interview at the time.

“We as his disciples must realize the Gospel must speak to actual, current situations.”

For Mahony, those situations would include complaints that scores of his priests were abusing children — altar boys, students in parochial schools, sons and daughters of their parishioners.

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CALIFORNIA
The Record

By The Record

January 27, 2013

Retired Cardinal Roger Mahony said again this week how sorry he is.

In a slightly different way, the word sorry can also be used to describe Mahony as a person and as a one-time leader of the nation’s largest Catholic enclave, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

Confidential files just made public clearly show that Mahony, for five years bishop of the Stockton diocese before moving to his Los Angeles post in 1985, shielded numerous molester priests.

Much of this has been suspected if not conclusively known for years, but memos written in 1986 and 1987 by Mahony and Monsignor Thomas J. Curry, then the archdiocese’s chief adviser on sex abuse cases, offer the strongest evidence yet of a concerted effort by officials in the nation’s largest Catholic diocese to shield abusers from police.

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UNITED STATES
Pope Crimes & Vatican Evils…

Paris Arrow

Opus Dei Bishop Finn is a convicted criminal and he should be excommunicated immediately. Bishop Finn is the shame and scandal of the Vatican Catholic Church in the USA and he is the evil Achilles Heel of Benedict XVI, his fellow criminal whose crimes against humanity are pending at The Hague.

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OHIO/PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune Chronicle

January 26, 2013

Tribune Chronicle | TribToday.com

Police say a Franciscan friar accused of sexual abusing students at schools in two states killed himself at a western Pennsylvania monastery.

Blair Township police Chief Roger White tells the Associated Press an autopsy by the county coroner confirmed that 62-year-old Brother Stephen Baker died of self-inflicted wounds. He declined to specify the type of wounds or say whether a note was found. …

Dr. Robert Hoatson, who leads the New Jersey-based Road to Recovery, Inc. said in a release that Baker’s death is “unfortunate.”

“Victim/survivors have stepped forward in significant numbers to bravely report that they were harmed as children and would like to heal,” the release states. “That healing will continue despite the news that has come out of Pennsylvania today.”

Hoatson goes on to say that Baker’s death is “in no way the fault of any of the courageous men and women who have contacted advocacy agencies, attorneys, or law enforcement agencies.”

He also extends condolences to the family and community members of Baker.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WJAC

By WJAC Web Staff

Police said the Franciscan brother accused of sexually abusing several former Bishop McCort High School students in the ‘90s is dead.

Blair Township police told 6 News Brother Stephen Baker who lived at a monastery near Hollidaysburg died this morning. They said they were called at 7:35 Saturday morning and he was dead upon their arrival.

Police said the cause of death is under investigation and an autopsy will be conducted Saturday afternoon.

It’s now been a week since allegations surfaced against Baker in Cambria County.

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PENNSYLVANIA
CBS Pittsburgh

HOLLIDAYSBURG, Pa. (KDKA/AP) — Police say a Franciscan friar accused in the alleged sexual abuse of students at schools in two states took his own life at a western Pennsylvania monastery.

Blair Township Police Chief Roger White tells the Associated Press an autopsy by the county coroner confirmed that 62-year-old Brother Stephen Baker died of self-inflicted wounds.

According to the Associated Press, White said officers were called to St. Bernardine Monastery in Hollidaysburg on Saturday morning after another resident had found Baker not breathing.

Baker was named last week in legal settlements with 11 men who alleged he sexually abused them at a northeast Ohio school three decades ago. A Pennsylvania school said it has also received molestation allegations involving Baker.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Democrat

BY PATRICK BUCHNOWSKI PBUCHNOWSKI@TRIBDEM.COM

The Franciscan friar at the heart of a high school sex scandal in Johnstown is dead.

Brother Stephen P. Baker, who had been accused of sexually abusing boys when he taught at Bishop McCort Catholic High School, died today.

A spokesman for St. Bernardine Monastery of the Franciscan Friars Third Order Reagular near Hollidaysburg issued a statement confirming the death.

“We regret to announce that Brother Stephen Baker died this morning,” said Father Patrick Quinn, TOR, minister provincial.

“The matter is under investigation by the authorities.”

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PENNSYLVANIA
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

A Franciscan friar from Cambria County accused of sexually abusing dozens of teens in at least three states — including more than 25 at Bishop McCort High School in Johnstown in the 1990s — has committed suicide.

Blair Township Police Chief Roger White said that an autopsy by the Blair County coroner found that 62-year-old Brother Stephen Baker killed himself with a knife. Chief White declined to say whether he left a note.

Another resident of the monastery discovered Brother Baker in his room not breathing and called Blair County 911 at 7:35 a.m. He was pronounced dead at the scene. An autopsy directed by Blair County Coroner Patricia Ross found he died shortly before his body was discovered.

The Diocese of Youngstown, which was among three parties that reached a settlement with 11 victims earlier this month, released a statement on its website earlier today about his death.

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YOUNGSTOWN (OH)
Roman Catholic Diocese of Youngstown

STATEMENT OF BISHOP GEORGE V. MURRY, S.J., BISHOP OF YOUNGSTOWN, ON THE DEATH OF BROTHER STEPHEN BAKER, T.O.R

JANUARY 26, 2013

The Provincial of the Third Order Regular Franciscans, Father Patrick Quinn, announced this morning that Brother Stephen Baker had died. At this time, the circumstances of his death are under investigation.

Let us continue to pray for all victims of abuse, for Brother Baker’s family and the repose of his soul.

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OHIO
Youngstown Vindicator

Associated Press

HOLIDAYSBURG, Pa.

Mike Munno said he knew there would be some strange days ahead when he and a fellow Warren John F. Kennedy High School graduate discussed the sex crimes they say Franciscan brother Stephen Baker committed against them in high school, but Brother Baker’s death isn’t the outcome he wanted or expected.

“I don’t think it’s the closure we expected. I would have not thought it would have gone to this extreme,” Munno of Cortland said Saturday after police in Hollidaysburg, Pa., found Baker dead in his room at St. Bernadine Monastery in Newry, Pa., about 90 minutes east of Pittsburgh.

“No matter what it is, you don’t wish death on anybody,” Munno said.

Baker’s body was found at about 7:30 a.m., and an autopsy was scheduled for Saturday afternoon. Officials from the Youngstown Catholic Diocese and Brother Baker’s Franciscan order said the circumstances of his death are under investigation.

“Let us continue to pray for all victims of abuse, for Brother Baker’s family and the repose of his soul,” Bishop George V. Murry of the Youngstown Diocese said in a statement.

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Altoona Mirror

January 26, 2013

By Russ O’Reilly
roreilly@altoonamirror.com

HOLLIDAYSBURG – Franciscan friar Stephen Baker, who faced brewing litigation for alleged abuse, died Saturday at St. Bernardine Monastery in Hollidaysburg. His death was ruled a suicide by Blair County Coroner Patricia Ross.

Blair Township Police Chief Roger White said the cause of death was a self-inflicted knife wound. He said the investigation into Baker’s death was closed.

An autopsy was conducted Saturday afternoon at Nason Hospital in Roaring Spring.

Baker was pronounced dead at the monastery by Blair County Deputy Coroner Brian Reidy.

At 7:35 a.m. today, the Blair Township Police Department, Hollidaysburg EMS and the Pennsylvania State Police were dispatched to the monastery located at 768 Monastery Road, Hollidaysburg.

Baker was discovered in his room by another resident of St. Bernardine’s, who then made the initial call for assistance to emergency services.

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PENNSYLVANIA
LALATE

ST LOUIS (LALATE) – Brother Stephen Baker, an accused Franciscan friar, has committed suicide, officials tell news. Brother Stephen Baker was found dead Saturday January 28, 2013 days after he reached a settlement for alleged conduct against former male students.

Local police confirm that Brother Baker was found dead of a purported suicide. Officials indicated to news that Baker suffered a self inflicted wounds earlier Saturday morning. Blair Township Police Chief Roger White confirmed that Baker was found inside St. Bernardine Monastery earlier today. White would not confirm if Baker had shot himself.

Later today, Youngstown Bishop George Murray issued a new statement about the suicide. “Let us continue to pray for all victims of abuse, for Brother Baker’s family and the repose of his soul.”

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PENNSYLVANIA/OHIO
Fox Youngstown

The Catholic Franciscan friar accused of sexually molesting students at Warren’s John F. Kennedy High School and Johnstown, Pa.’s Bishop McCort High School committed suicide with a knife early Saturday morning, police officials in Blair Township said.

Blair Township Police Chief Roger White said the results of an autopsy conducted at 2 p.m. Saturday by the Blair County Coroner’s office at Nason Hospital in Roaring Spring, Pa. showed Brother Stephen P. Baker, also known as Paul Stephen Baker, committed suicide by way of a self-inflicted knife wound. He was 62.

White said in a statement that Blair Township police, state police and Holidaysburg emergency personnel were called at about 7:30 a.m. Saturday to St. Bernadine’s Monastary in Hollidaysburg, where Baker had been staying under strict supervision since 2000, when Franciscan officials first learned Baker was accused of sexually abusing students.

A resident at the monastery found Baker not breathing and called 911. He was pronounced dead at the scene by deputy coroner Brian Reidy. The autopsy found Baker’s death was just prior to the 911 call.

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OHIO
Youngstown Vindicator

YOUNGSTOWN — Franciscan Brother Stephen P. Baker, accused in the sexual abuse of at least 11 men who attended Warren John F. Kennedy High School, is dead, according to a statement from the Youngstown Diocese.

“The Provincial of the Third Order Regular Franciscans, Father Patrick Quinn, announced this morning that Brother Stephen Baker had died,” said a statement from Bishop George V. Murry, posted on the diocese’s website. “At this time, the circumstances of his death are under investigation.”

The statement continued: “Let us continue to pray for all victims of abuse, for Brother Baker’s family and the repose of his soul.”

Baker taught, coached baseball and served as athletic trainer at the school from 1986 to 1991. Since word of settlement of a lawsuit on behalf of the 11 men earlier this month, other men in Pennsylvania and other areas have come forward with stories of abuse by Baker.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Huffington Post

By RON TODT 01/26/13

PHILADELPHIA — A Franciscan friar accused of sexually abusing students at Catholic high schools in Ohio and Pennsylvania killed himself at a western Pennsylvania monastery, police said Saturday.

Brother Stephen Baker, 62, was found dead of self-inflicted wounds at the St. Bernardine Monastery in Hollidaysburg on Saturday morning, Blair Township Police Chief Roger White told the Associated Press. He declined to specify the type of wounds or say whether a note was found.

Baker was named in legal settlements last week involving 11 men who alleged that he sexually abused them at a Catholic high school in northeast Ohio three decades ago. The undisclosed financial settlements announced Jan. 16 involved his contact with students at John F. Kennedy High School in Warren, Ohio from 1986-90.

The Youngstown diocese previously said it was unaware of the allegations until nearly 20 years after the alleged abuse.

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UNITED STATES
The New York Times

By FRANK BRUNI

Published: January 26, 2013

“I HAVE nothing against priests,” writes Garry Wills in his provocative new book, “Why Priests? A Failed Tradition,” and I’d like at the outset to say the same. During a career that has included no small number of formal interviews and informal conversations with them, I’ve met many I admire, men of genuine compassion and remarkable altruism, more dedicated to humanity than to any dogma or selective tradition.

But while I have nothing against priests, I have quite a lot against an institution that has done a disservice to them and to the parishioners in whose interests they should toil. I refer to the Roman Catholic Church, specifically to its modern incarnation and current leaders, who have tucked priests into a cosseted caste above the flock, wrapped them in mysticism and prioritized their protection and reputations over the needs and sometimes even the anguish of the people in the pews. I have a problem, in other words, with the church’s arrogance, a thread that runs through Wills’s book, to be published next month; through fresh revelations of how assiduously a cardinal in Los Angeles worked to cover up child sexual abuse; and through the church’s attempts to silence dissenters, including an outspoken clergyman in Ireland who was recently back in the news.

LET’S start with Los Angeles. Last week, as a result of lawsuits filed against the archdiocese of Los Angeles by hundreds of victims of sexual abuse by priests, internal church personnel files were made public. They showed that Cardinal Roger M. Mahony’s impulse, when confronted with priests who had molested children, was to hush it up and keep law enforcement officials at bay. While responses like this by Roman Catholic bishops and cardinals have been extensively chronicled and are no longer shocking, they remain infuriating. At one point Cardinal Mahony instructed a priest whom he’d dispatched to New Mexico for counseling not to return to California, lest he risk being criminally prosecuted. That sort of shielding of priests from accountability allowed them, in many cases across the United States, to continue their abusive behavior and claim more young victims.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Big Trial

Friday, January 25, 2013

By Ralph Cipriano
for bigtrial.net

It was a telling sign in the prosecutor’s closing statement that he spent as much time attacking a social worker for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia as he did the two defendants in the case.

But Assistant District Attorney Mark Cipolletti had to address glaring discrepancies between what “Billy Doe,” the alleged victim in this sex abuse case, told the social worker, Louise Hagner, back in 2009, and what he subsequently told law enforcement authorities.

Cipolletti also had to call into question the testimony of former priest Edward V. Avery, who showed up in court in a prison uniform last week to tell the jury that he never touched Billy Doe.

Avery may have pleaded guilty last year to involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with the former 10-year-old altar boy, the former priest testified, but he only did it because he was facing 20 years in prison, and the prosecution offered him a sweetheart deal — 2 /12 to five years in jail. Incredibly, nobody ever asked the 70-year-old defrocked priest if he actually was guilty of committing the crime he pleaded guilty to until last week.

The assistant district attorney also had to explain away another factual discrepancy between what Billy Doe told this jury, and what he told a detective in the district attorney’s office.

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UNITED STATES
Vatican Insider

The shocking case involving a Catholic hospital in Cañon City has occurred just as the annual March for Life is taking place

Alessandro Speciale
Rome

Just as anti-abortion activists celebrate the annual March for Life in Washington, the American Catholic Church finds itself in a rather embarassing situation: a Catholic hospital in Colorado defended itself against a wrongful death lawsuit, stating that a foetus is not the same as a person.

This stance is in direct contrast with the position of the Church which has fought for years for the rights of unborn children and the rights of the hospital in question which in its statute states that the sanctity of life should be defended from conception until natural death.

In court, however, the lawyers representing Catholic Health Initiatives – the chain of hospitals which St. Thomas More in Cañon City is part of – claimed the opposite. A woman who was pregnant with twins died in St. Thomas More hospital on New year’s Eve in 2006, partly because according to her husband, the on-call obstetrician who was supposed to assist in the operating room did not turn up.

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GERMANY
Vatican Insider

A study on Germany’s Catholic community reveals the discontent of faithful with the ecclesiastical institution. But proposals for solutions are lacking

Alessandro Alviani
Berlin

The Pope’s ecclesiastical policies are “backward-looking” and suspected of trying to take the Church back to the pre-Second Vatican Council period. As for the Church’s leaders, they are “cut off from reality, reactionary and obstructionist.”

This is the opinion German faithful have of Benedict XVI and the Catholic Church according to a study by Sinus Institute and consulting agency MDG (which the German Church controls). In-depth interviews were conducted with 100 Catholics from different social backgrounds. According to the study, which picks up on a similar one carried out in 2005, German faithful are convinced that today’s Church finds itself in a “desolate situation” and the most obvious manifestation of this is the sex abuse scandal.

The authors of the study wrote that the scandal seriously damaged the image of the Church, even in the eyes of the most fervent Catholics, whose faith was deeply shaken. The scandal was seen as confirmation of the Church’s “modernization deficit”. The Church lost a great deal of credibility not just as a result of the accusations of paedophilia made against it but also because many believe it dealt with the abuse issue inadequately.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Main Post

Der Begriff „Opfer sexueller Gewalt“ bedürfe einer „differenzierten Betrachtung“. Mit diesen Worten hat Bernhard Schweßinger, Pressesprecher der Diözese Würzburg, auf einen Gastbeitrag des Theologen Bernhard Rasche in dieser Zeitung reagiert. Rasche, der aus Bischofsheim (Lkr. Rhön-Grabfeld) stammt, hatte den Umgang der katholischen Kirche mit Missbrauchsfällen in den 70er Jahren im Internat Lebenhan (Lkr. Rhön-Grabfeld) scharf kritisiert.

Schweßinger erklärt: „Einen solchen Gastbeitrag sollte besser jemand schreiben, der tatsächlich missbraucht wurde, nicht jemand, der Zeuge war.“ In der aktuellen Diskussion würde der Opferbegriff, so Schweßinger, „zunächst die direkt betroffenen Opfer sexuellen Missbrauchs“ bezeichnen. „Darüber hinaus können Zeugen sexuellen Missbrauchs oder Angehörige von direkt betroffenen Opfern im weiteren Sinne auch Opfer sein“.

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CONNECTICUT
My Fox NY

By DAVE COLLINS
Associated Press
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) – To onlookers, Monsignor Kevin Wallin’s fall from grace at his Connecticut parish was like something out of “Breaking Bad,” the television series about a high school chemistry teacher who becomes a methamphetamine lord.

The suspended Roman Catholic priest was arrested on federal drug charges this month for allegedly having methamphetamine mailed to him from co-conspirators in California and making more than $300,000 in drugs sales out of his apartment in Waterbury in the second half of last year.

Along the way, authorities said, he bought a small adult video and sex toy shop in the nearby town of North Haven named “Land of Oz & Dorothy’s Place,” apparently to launder all the money he was making. He has pleaded not guilty, and jury selection in his trial is scheduled to begin March 21.

On social media sites, people couldn’t help but compare Wallin with Walter White, the main character on “Breaking Bad” who was making so much cash that he and his wife bought a car wash to launder their profits. He has also been dubbed in some media as “Monsignor Meth.”

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IRELAND
Evening Echo

THE ordination of the Diocese of Cloyne’s new bishop on Sunday will be streamed online amid unprecedented interest in the appointment.

Canon William Crean will be ordained at St Colman’s Cathedral in Cobh on Sunday during an invitation-only ceremony at 3pm.

Parishes throughout the diocese have been restricted to 25 places for parishioners at the ceremony due to the demand to be present for the event. The Diocese of Cloyne has 46 parishes, 107 churches and 150,000 parishioners.

Up to 150 priests will attend the ordination, as will Papal Nuncio Archbishop Charles Brown, the Archbishop of Cashel and Emly, Dr Dermot Clifford and Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Diarmuid Martin. St Colman’s Cathedral has a capacity of approximately 600.

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