ABUSE TRACKER

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
BishopAccountability.org

We are pleased to announce the launch of our Philadelphia archdiocesan archive. The first installment comprises 195 pages from the file of convicted former priest Edward Avery. Each month we will post additional documents, until by year-end the entire 5,780-page collection will be online.

These documents, which became public when they were entered into evidence at the 2012 trial of Msgr. William J. Lynn and Rev. James J. Brennan, offer a rich sample of the archdiocesan files that formed the basis of the work of three Philadelphia grand juries. Those men and women were impaneled under District Attorneys Lynne Abraham and Seth Williams, and the reports that they produced in 2003, 2005, and 2011 are the gold standard of investigative work on the Catholic abuse crisis in the United States.

The 2005 Philadelphia Grand Jury Report in particular is remarkably comprehensive, dealing in an integrated and forceful way with aspects of the crisis that are too often examined in isolation. The abuse itself is described in harrowing and meticulous detail. But the report also studies the mismanagement of the crisis and the cover-up of the abuse, and it clearly explains the holes in current secular law that sometimes make it difficult or impossible to punish abusers and enablers. In a remarkable essay for the National Catholic Reporter, Michael Newall shows the level of engagement that this work required, and the toll that it took. Lastly, the 2005 report demonstrates that the abuse crisis cannot be understood without drawing on many sources of information – long conversations with survivors, and work with priests who are willing to help, and hundreds of hours spent in the archives, poring over assignment histories, memos, letters, and intake reports.

It is that kind of reading and immersion that we invite you to do in this archive. Reading these documents will be difficult, but you will gain from the experience a deep understanding of the culture within which the abuse was done and kept secret. You will emerge with a haunting sense of the harm for which the abusers and enablers are responsible, and the courage of the survivors and their families and loved ones.

The Avery file was posted to the internet on January 22, 2013. Improvements to the presentation of the Avery file will continue for several days, and the most recent updates and changes to the Philadelphia Archive will be noted here. If you’d like to receive announcements when we add priest files to this archive, please subscribe to our Monitor newsletter, which will be sent twice a month.

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

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

[The Philadelphia Archive – BishopAccountability.org]

John P. Martin, Inquirer Staff Writer
Posted: Wednesday, January 23, 2013

A watchdog group that runs an online clearinghouse of clergy-sex abuse allegations began publishing Tuesday the first of 5,700 pages of documents about past claims against Archdiocese of Philadelphia priests.

The group, BishopAccountability.org, culled the documents from evidence introduced at last year’s landmark child-endangerment trial of Msgr. William J. Lynn.

The records include confidential church memos, e-mails, psychological evaluations, and correspondence among archdiocese officials, accusers, and more than 20 priests who served in area parishes over the last half-century.

The allegations are not new – all were aired in two grand jury reports or at Lynn’s trial – and the accused priests they mention are dead, defrocked, or removed from ministry. But the website offers the first unfiltered public look at details of those claims, and of documents locked for years in what the archdiocese called its Secret Archives.

Many were drafted by Lynn and approved by Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua or by their predecessors. They chronicle what church officials knew and did after a priest was accused of abusing a minor.

Terence McKiernan, the president of BishopAccountability, said the records add a layer of public understanding to the grand jury investigations and prosecution of Philadelphia-area priests, which he said were unlike any others in the country.

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

NEW YORK
The Jewish Daily Forward

By Paul Berger

Published January 22, 2013.

The stunning 103-year prison term imposed on Brooklyn ‘therapist’ Nechemya Weberman for sexually abusing a girl has unleashed fierce debate, with many members of his ultra-Orthodox community saying the harsh sentence is unfair especially compared with punishment meted out to other notorious criminals.

Critics claim the long sentence will deter future abuse victims from coming forward — but victims’ advocates and prosecutors insist seeing justice done will only encourage others to report crimes to secular authorities.

Weberman, an unlicensed therapist, rabbi, and prominent member of the Satmar ultra-Orthodox community, was hit with the lengthy sentence on January 22. He was found guilty in December of 59 counts related to the abuse of the Orthodox girl over a period of three years from the age of 12.

“The community looks at a 100-year-sentence and says, ‘Whoa, murderers don’t get anywhere near 100 years,’” said Ezra Friedlander, CEO of The Friedlander Group, a public relations firm that caters to many ultra-Orthodox clients.

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

NEW YORK
New York Daily News

The statement read by the sexual abuse victim in the Nechemya Weberman case:

Thank you Honorable Justice Ingram for your role during this trial (and beyond). A very special thank you to Assistant DA Kevin O’Donnell and the staff at the DA’s office for your endless hard work and sleepless nights through the trial in order to see justice served.

Standing here, I think back to those years throughout my ordeal where I suffered great psychological damage and fell into severe depression. I clearly remember how I would look in the mirror and see a person I didn’t recognize. I saw a girl who didn’t want to live in her own skin. A girl whose innocence was shattered at the age of 12. A girl who couldn’t look at her own reflection without feeling repulsed knowing what abuse that tortured person was continuously experiencing. A girl who couldn’t sleep at night because the horrifying images of the recent gruesome invasions which had been done to her body kept replaying in her head. A girl who numbed her feelings and froze her emotions every minute of every day in order to stay sane. A girl who was forced to lose any respect for herself. A girl who lost the right to say NO, to an abuser who used and abused her repeatedly for years that seemed like forever and ever. A sad girl who so badly wished she could have lived a normal young teenage life but instead was stuck being victimized by a 50-year-old man who forced her to experience and perform sickening acts for his sick sense of pleasure again and again. I saw a girl who didn’t have a reason to live.

I would cover up the burn marks inflicted on the body he used to serve his sadistic pleasures. Every time I would look at it, I would get flashbacks and feel my body burning all over again. I would cry until my tears ran dry.

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

NEW YORK
New York Daily News

Joanna Molloy

The victim looked like a typical teenager in her peach sparkly top, short black skirt, tights and Ugg boots —a stylish getup that somehow still satisfied Hasidic rules of modesty. But the 18-year-old may as well have been wearing a cape as she confronted her sexual predator at his sentencing in Brooklyn Criminal Court Tuesday.

Nechemya Weberman, her trusted counselor, had sexually molested her as often as four times a week —starting when she was 12, when she should have been worried about nothing more than the homework in her teddy bear backpack.

But thanks to her slimeball counselor, the “normal young teenage life” the little girl longed for was replaced with repulsion every time she looked in the mirror.

Instead of her reflection, she told the courtroom she saw “a sad girl” who was stuck being victimized by a 50-year-old pervert —her forthright tone turning to tears when she spoke his age. She saw the sickening acts she was forced to perform for his pleasure again and again.

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

LOS ANGELES (CA)
National Catholic Reporter

[links to the documents – Anthony DeMarco, Jeff Anderson & Associates]

by Joshua J. McElwee | Jan. 22, 2013

Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony and an auxiliary bishop shielded archdiocesan priests known to be sex abusers from law enforcement during the 1980s, even suggesting they leave the state of California to avoid prosecution, according to a series of church records released Monday.

The records, which were filed as part of a civil lawsuit against the archdiocese and were first reported Monday by the Los Angeles Times, indicate Mahony and Los Angeles Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Curry intentionally sent abusive priests to out-of-state treatment facilities as protection from arrest.

L.A. county prosecutors “will review and evaluate all [newly released] documents as they become available to us,” Sandi Gibbons, a public information officer for the L.A. County District Attorney’s office, said in a brief statement.

The release of the files, which concern 14 priests, comes as the archdiocese is preparing to release records of at least 75 more accused abusers under the terms of a separate 2007 civil settlement with more than 500 clergy abuse victims.

While the files of the 14 priests are almost three decades old — coming from long before the U.S. bishops started to address the wider issue of sex abuse by clergy in 2002 — the revelations they contain point to lingering questions about the accountability of bishops, says a former chairman of the U.S. bishops’ National Review Board for clergy sex abuse.

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

AUSTRALIA
The Australian

Ehssan Veiszadeh
From: AAP
January 23, 2013

FORMER head of the Uniting Church in Australia James Haire says the royal commission into child sex abuse must move as quickly as possible.

Reverend Professor Haire, who is now the executive director of the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture in Canberra, says the inquiry will be a good opportunity to get to the heart of criminal behaviour.

“We have to clean the thing up,” he said on Wednesday.

“It’s criminal behaviour on behalf of the perpetrators and it’s criminal behaviour on behalf of any of those who at any time tried to hide it or not let the public gaze in.”

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

CALIFORNIA
MarketWatch

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif., Jan. 22, 2013 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ — In response to today’s Los Angles Times story Mahony Tried to Conceal Abuse, John Manly, an attorney who has deposed former Cardinal Roger Mahony in sex abuse cases involving the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, issued the following statement:

The documents revealed in court demonstrate clearly and without question that the Archdiocese was engaged and remains engaged in an alleged conspiracy to protect pedophile priests and the Roman Catholic Hierarchy. Cardinal Roger Mahony is at the center of this conduct. The question that needs to be answered is, “Did law enforcement, and specifically its leadership in Los Angeles, either completely miss these crimes or did they ignore them?” These documents have been in the possession of the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office for years and yet no action, and little, if any criticism has been leveled against Cardinal Mahony and the Hierarchy.

It is reasonable to ask why and how such an alleged miscarriage of justice was allowed to occur. Cardinal Mahony has been deposed on three separate occasions by me and my law firm. In addition, we have deposed Bishop Curry, the Archdiocese’s chief advisor on sex abuse cases, who features prominently in the documents released last week. A review of these depositions demonstrates substantial inconsistencies with their sworn answers and the conduct illustrated in the documents.

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

LOS ANGELES (CA)
Los Angeles Times

By Harriet Ryan, Ashley Powers and Victoria Kim, Los Angeles Times
January 22, 2013

Over the last decade, there have been numerous calls to prosecute Cardinal Roger M. Mahony and his top aides for their mishandling of clergy sex abuse. At least three grand juries, two district attorneys and a U.S. attorney have subpoenaed documents and summoned witnesses. None of those cases resulted in charges against the archdiocese’s hierarchy.

The release this week of a trove of internal church records showing a concerted effort to hide abuse from police triggered new demands from victims and church critics that Mahony and his advisors be held criminally accountable.

The Los Angeles County district attorney pledged to review all the files and evaluate them for criminal conduct, but legal experts consulted Tuesday said the reams of new documents were unlikely to lead to charges, let alone convictions.

A nearly insurmountable barrier is the statute of limitations, the experts said. A quarter-century has passed since Mahony and his chief aide for sex abuse cases, Msgr. Thomas J. Curry, wrote memos outlining strategies to prevent police investigations of three priests who had admitted abusing boys. The 1986 and 1987 letters fall decades beyond the three-year statute of limitations for felonies such as child endangerment, obstruction of justice and conspiracy to commit those offenses.

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

LOS ANGELES (CA)
Los Angeles Times

By Steve Lopez
January 22, 2013

Every time we learn something new about the molestation scandal in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, it becomes more obvious why Cardinal Roger M. Mahony and his minions have fought so tenaciously to keep things under wraps.

Not to protect the privacy of victims or the rights of suspected abusers, as the church hierarchy has contended. But to hide the unconscionable deception by church leaders, who repeatedly did more to protect their own image than to help the victims of horrific crimes.

This week’s revelations of deliberate efforts by Mahony and others to shield abusers from law enforcement authorities are deplorable yet entirely unsurprising. It all fits the M.O. that’s was in place at least through the 1980s.

Conceal the church’s dirty secrets at all costs. Don’t notify the police when abuse is reported. Keep prosecutors at bay with legal challenges. Avoid reforms until public pressure mounts. And, when all else fails, have Mahony issue a carefully scripted “apology.”

His latest was perhaps his most odious and offensive, with Mahony saying he didn’t fully appreciate the hell victims had been put through until many years later.

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

DEUTSCHLAND
Main Post

Der aktuelle Streit um die Aufarbeitung des sexuellen Missbrauchs in der Kirche macht mich sprachlos und wütend. Wütend machen mich vor allem die Ausführungen des Würzburger Bischofs Friedhelm Hofmann. Er spricht von transparenter Aufarbeitung, von einem beispiellosen finanziellen Entgegenkommen. Das ist lächerlich, wenn man bedenkt, dass ein Opfer einmalig 4000 Euro Entschädigung bekommt und der Täter ein Ruhestandsgehalt von monatlich 6000 Euro. Ein Missbrauchsopfer bekommt nicht formlos eine Entschädigung oder einen Zuschuss für eine Therapie. Man muss einen Fragebogen ausfüllen und seinen Therapieplan offenlegen. Das ist absolut unzumutbar. Mein Therapieplan geht niemanden etwas an. Soviel zum Thema Datenschutz, der der Kirche ja angeblich so wichtig ist. In Wahrheit geht es ihr dabei nicht um den Schutz der Opfer, sondern um den der Täter.

Abgründe tun sich auf

Zudem sorgt sich die Kirche nicht wirklich um unser Wohl. Ich spreche hier nicht von harmlosen Befindlichkeiten, sondern von Menschen, deren Leben kaputtgemacht worden ist. Von Kindern, die erst als Erwachsene merken, woher ihre Ängste, ihre Probleme, ihr Scheitern kommen. Manchmal braucht es nur einen kleinen Anlass, und sie brechen komplett zusammen. Dann tun sich plötzlich Abgründe auf.

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

ARIZONA
Washington Post

Ariz. Attorney General Horne says criminal probe under way into Warren Jeffs polygamous sect

By Associated Press
Published: January 22

PHOENIX — Law enforcement in a town dominated by one of the nation’s largest polygamous sects has been preventing women from leaving, leading to a criminal probe of the church run by its jailed leader Warren Jeffs, Arizona’s attorney general said Tuesday.

Attorney General Tom Horne held a news conference in Phoenix to announce that a 26-year-old woman had been granted temporary custody of her six children and had fled the town of Colorado City, Ariz., the home base of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

He said she was forced by Jeffs to marry her brother-in-law at the age of 14, and had since been virtually held captive in the town on the Utah-Arizona border, along with many other women who want to leave.

“What they do is say, ‘Everybody watch her so she won’t run away.’ Then she can’t leave,” Horne said. “Women who wanted to escape have been forcibly held by the marshals against their will.”

He said a criminal probe of the FLDS and the Marshal’s Office, which serves as a small police force in the twin polygamous towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, is currently under way. He declined to provide details.

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

PENNSYLVANIA
Citizens Voice

By Robert Swift (Harrisburg Bureau Chief)

Published: January 23, 2013

HARRISBURG – Lawmakers should look at a major rewrite of state child protection laws from the perspective of a child seeking help and not necessarily because of what adults are suggesting, the chairman of a special task force told a joint House committee hearing Tuesday.

The Judiciary Committee and the Children and Youth Committee started a review of proposals to overhaul a statewide child protective services system under scrutiny in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal.

“Look at this from the child’s point of view,” said David Heckler, the Bucks County district attorney and former senator who chaired the Task Force on Child Protection. “I think it will give you a perspective you might not have otherwise.”

The task force has recommended strengthening the legal definition of what constitutes child abuse, expanding the list of individuals required to report child abuse, improving the state-run ChildLine reporting hotline and toughening penalties for the crimes of endangering the welfare of a child and child pornography.

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

PENNSYLVANIA
Seattle PI

By MARK SCOLFORO, Associated Press

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — State lawmakers began Tuesday to debate potential changes to how child abuse is reported, investigated and prosecuted in Pennsylvania, an effort that was launched after the Jerry Sandusky child molestation scandal exposed shortcomings in existing law.

The state House’s Judiciary and Children and Youth committees held a three-hour hearing that featured witness testimony from lawyers and doctors who served on the Pennsylvania Task Force on Child Protection. The task force issued a detailed set of recommendations two months ago.

Legislative leaders said some of its suggestions are likely to pass quickly, while other proposals will need more time.

“There isn’t one easy answer, or one bill that will do it,” Children and Youth Committee chairwoman Kathy Watson, R-Bucks, said afterward. Her committee will meet again on the topic in two weeks, and the Judiciary Committee has a similar schedule. Senate leaders have said the issue is also among the priorities in that chamber.

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

PENNSYLVANIA
PhillyBurbs

Posted on January 23, 2013

by Gary Weckselblatt

Bucks County will ultimately have a major say in how Pennsylvania changes its laws to stave off child predators such as former Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky.

The Pennsylvania Task Force on Child Protection, charged with conducting a comprehensive review of the laws and procedures relating to the health and safety of children after the Sandusky child molestation scandal, is chaired by David Heckler, Bucks County’s district attorney.

On Tuesday, he and several doctors and attorneys testified about their 427-page report before the House Children and Youth and Judiciary committees. Children and Youth is chaired by state Rep. Kathy Watson, R-144, of Warrington.

“They gave us a real blueprint on where they think we should make legislative changes and where we should be going,” Watson said following the three-hour hearing, where witnesses spoke about “breaking down those walls that exist currently” between groups and agencies tasked with child protection.

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

CANADA
Oshawa Express

An alleged relationship between a 26-year-old Whitby man and a 14-year-old girl has resulted in several sex charges against the man.

According to police, at the beginning of December 2012, the Sexual Assault and Child Abuse Unit began investigating an alleged sexual assault involving a 14-year-old (now 15-year-old) girl. The investigation revealed she and the accused had known each other for sometime through personal contact at Dominion Miracle Centre, a church in Ajax. They also communicated via social media.

Recently, the relationship had intensified to the point where they met privately. It was during these times that the alleged sexual activity took place, police say.

Although the accused is not officially involved in the church, he is heavily involved in programs at the church, police add. On January 15 police arrested the accused at his home and now want to ensure there are no other victims.

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

LOS ANGELES (CA)
The New York Times

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN

Published: January 22, 2013

Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, for more than 25 years the savvy shepherd of the Roman Catholic Church in Los Angeles, retired nearly two years ago to a renovated yellow house behind his childhood parish, pledging to stay in the spotlight by continuing to fight for the rights of immigrants.

But the cardinal now finds himself in a most unwelcome spotlight, one that he sought for years to avoid. Internal church personnel files released this week as part of a civil court case reveal that he and his top adviser knowingly shielded priests accused of child sexual abuse from law enforcement. In one letter, the cardinal ordered a clergyman to stay in New Mexico, where he had been sent for treatment, to avoid the possibility of being reported to the police in California.

Lawyers for the Los Angeles Archdiocese fought for years to prevent the release of the files, but a demand for transparency was a primary goal of the more than 500 victims of clergy abuse who signed a record settlement for $660 million with the archdiocese in July 2007. When a judge ordered the files to be made public despite the church’s objections, the archdiocese fought to be allowed to redact names and identifying details. But it recently lost that battle and now awaits an imminent cascade of 30,000 more documents that could further tarnish Cardinal Mahony’s legacy.

“He played a very prominent role as social and spiritual leader,” said William Deverell, the director of the Huntington-University of Southern California Institute on California and the West. “He’s a native, knows greater Los Angeles exceedingly well and presided over an already globally changed city, leading it into the next phase. He earned a great deal of ecumenical trust and leadership, which is now going to be re-examined.”

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

VIRGINIA
WAVY

[with video]

Mila Mimica

SUFFOLK, Va. (WAVY) – A youth leader from Suffolk’s Gates of Heaven Church was charged with sexual assault as a juvenile and police are keeping his identity under wraps.

The man is now 18 and is facing allegations of sodomy and aggravated sexual assault. He was arrested Dec. 14. Police say the abuse occurred while he was a juvenile.

WAVY.com visited the man’s neighborhood, where residents openly spoke of his personality but wanted to keep their identities hidden.

“It really is shocking,” the neighbor said. “I would never suspect [that]. I’ve never seen that in his character. That’s why it was shocking to me.”

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

OHIO
Youngstown Vindicator

By John W. Goodwin Jr.
jgoodwin@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

An advocacy group says allegations against Franciscan Brother Stephen P. Baker have prompted others to come forward with abuse claims against someone still working for the Catholic Diocese of Youngstown.

Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests is calling for any other victims to come forward and file police reports. SNAP also has asked Mahoning County Prosecutor Paul Gains for a grand-jury investigation of the diocese, but Gains explained at a Tuesday meeting and news conference that victims must first go to civil authorities in the jurisdiction where any purported abuse took place before his office can get involved with a probe.

Judy Jones, a representative of the advocacy group for victims of sexual abuse, said two people have come to the organization claiming abuse by someone still working for the six-county diocese based in Youngstown.

She said the purported abuse took place years ago, but the recent stories about Baker motivated them to come forward.

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

OHIO
Tribune Chronicle

January 23, 2013

By VIRGINIA SHANK – Staff reporter (vshank@tribtoday.com) , Tribune Chronicle | TribToday.com

YOUNGSTOWN – Mahoning County Prosecutor Paul J. Gains said that an investigation into alleged sex crimes involving anyone connected with the Catholic Diocese of Youngstown cannot be launched unless victims file a formal complaint.

Gains said that when he learned that Judy Jones, Midwest Associate Director for SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests), intended to hand-deliver a letter to him on Tuesday, he asked her to meet with him.

“I advised her that the prosecutor’s office, any prosecutor’s office, can only seek indictment against someone after a complaint has been filed with the appropriate civil authority, and the police or appropriate authority collects the evidence and presents it to the prosecutor,” Gains said Tuesday afternoon.

Jones, who traveled to Youngstown from St. Louis, said her goal was to urge Gains to investigate the local Catholic diocese in light of recent allegations by former Warren John F. Kennedy High School students.

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

LOS ANGELES (CA)
Religion Dispatches

Post by Joanna Brooks

Today, Los Angeles Times published a front-page story reporting that Archbishop Roger Mahony of Los Angeles sat on reports of felony-level sexual abuse of children by priests for almost 15 years before he took action, and that the Los Angeles Catholic diocese waited at least 14 years before reporting abuse to law enforcement.

The LA Times report was based on letters written by Mahony in 1986 and 1987 recently entered as evidence in a civil suit. More documents will be disclosed in the coming weeks.

Here at RD, I have argued that it was the feminist movement’s emphasis on bearing witness to sexual abuse that raised consciousness and created critical mass among Catholic laity towards breaking the abuse scandal open.

And it sure doesn’t take a degree in gender studies to see how a hierarchical patriarchal institution will protect its own before it protects children.

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

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Big Trial

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

By Ralph Cipriano
for bigtrial.net

“Billy Doe” never underwent any drastic personality change while attending St. Jerome Catholic School.

That was the testimony today of five of Billy’s former teachers from St. Jerome’s who paraded through the witness stand as the defense began presenting its case at the Archdiocese of Philadelphia sex abuse trial.

Billy Doe is the pseudonym in the 2011 Philadelphia grand jury report for a ten-year-old altar boy who was allegedly raped in fifth grade by two priests who lived in the St. Jerome rectory — Father Edward V. Avery and Father Charles Engelhardt. The following year, Billy was allegedly raped by his sixth grade teacher at St. Jerome’s, Bernard Shero, after the teacher supposedly offered Billy a ride home.

The prosecution has alleged that after being raped by three predators, Billy changed from a happy-go-lucky extrovert into a dark, depressed loner. But that’s not what the faculty at St. Jerome’s saw.

“He was a happy child,” said Joann Hayes, a teacher at St. Jerome’s who taught Billy art and music from second grade through eighth grade. “I never had any problems with him,” Hayes said. She remembered Billy as part of the cast in a 1999 school musical, “Christmas Show Around The World.”

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

AUSTRALIA
The Australian

JARED OWENS
From:The Australian
January 23, 2013

A FORMER Catholic priest accused of sexually abusing three young girls in northern NSW was this morning charged with 35 new offences relating to six altar boys, all aged between 11 and 12, in the early 1980s.

The former priest, who cannot be named for legal reasons, appeared in Armidale Local Court to be charged with the new offences, which allegedly occurred in Moree between 1981 and 1984. He was also charged with one count of not having approved storage for a firearm.

The 59-year-old was already facing 25 child sex offences against three girls aged as young as five, which allegedly took place over 13 years, dating back to 1975.

The former priest moved between a number of parishes in northern NSW during the 1980s and ultimately to the Sydney diocese of Parramatta, before being removed from public ministry. The decision to remove him followed a 1992 meeting with three current senior clerics, at which it was alleged he had sexually abused children.

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

LOS ANGELES (CA)
KPCC

[links to the documents – Anthony DeMarco, Jeff Anderson & Associates]

Ruxandra Guidi | January 22nd, 2013

While former L.A. Catholic Cardinal Roger Mahony tries to address the latest revelations implicating him in coverups of priest sex abuse, angry survivors of abuse say the church still has not suffered enough for its past actions.

Sixty-five-year-old Tony Carone was abused 56 years ago when he was an altar boy. He sighs deeply as he tries to describe coming forward about a taboo he’d kept silent about for years.

“If you talk about it, a lot of people don’t like you, especially Catholics. He says his wife was “disgusted that I would bring it up.”

Things got so bad that Carone separated from his wife two years ago and moved into his parents’ house.

In 2008, Carone received part of the 660 million-dollar settlement from the LA Archdiocese—the largest payout in a sex abuse scandal. Sitting next to him, 70 year-old Udo Strutynski, another abuse survivor, nods when Carone talks about how difficult it was to receive that cash. Strutynski calls the settlement, “blood money”. He says he eventually left the church, and joined the Southern California chapter of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

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

CALIFORNIA
Ventura County Star

[links to the documents – Anthony DeMarco, Jeff Anderson & Associates]

By Tom Kisken

Catholic Bishop Thomas J. Curry offered a public apology Tuesday, a day after the release of church personnel records showing he played a role in protecting priests accused of molestation.

The records of 14 priests — expected to be followed eventually by a huge wave of records on more accused priests — include correspondence showing Curry, retired Archdiocese of Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony and others worked to shield priests and the church.

Curry, then vicar of clergy, is now auxiliary bishop of a region in the archdiocese that includes Santa Barbara and Ventura counties.

“I wish to acknowledge and apologize for those instances when I made decisions regarding the treatment and disposition of clergy accused of sexual abuse that in retrospect appear inadequate or mistaken,” Curry said in a prepared statement.

“Like many others, I have come to a clearer understanding over the years of the causes and treatment of sexual abuse and I have fully implemented in my pastoral region the archdiocese’s policies and procedures for reporting abuse, screening those who supervise children and abuse prevention training for adults and children.”

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

AUSTRALIA
7 News

By Peta Carlyon, ABC
Updated January 23, 2013

The Victorian Government is being urged to introduce swift legislation to force members of the Catholic Church to report child sexual abuse within its ranks.

Giving evidence at the Parliamentary Inquiry into abuse within the Church and other institutions today, former Catholic Priest Phil O’Donnell accused the Melbourne Archdiocese of repeatedly covering up abuse allegations since the 1950s.

Mr O’Donnell told the inquiry he lived and worked with two serious offenders, at parishes in Gladstone Park and Sunbury, in the 1970s and 80s.

He said he became aware young boys were being ‘ruined’, but when he and one of the families affected raised their case with the then Archbishop Frank Little, it was ignored.

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

AUSTRALIA
Big Pond News

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

A former Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne became hostile and evasive when confronted with an allegation of sexual abuse involving a priest, a parliamentary inquiry has heard.

Archbishop Frank Little was told of allegations against a priest in the 1970s, former priest Phil O’Donnell told the Victorian parliamentary inquiry on Wednesday.

Mr O’Donnell said the parents of the child spoke to Archbishop Little about the abuse.

‘It is fair to say that they received a very cold welcome,’ he said.

Mr O’Donnell said the parents described the response from Archbishop Little as ‘evasive’, while a lawyer and magistrate also went to the archbishop and he was ‘hostile’ towards them.

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AUSTRALIA
Catholic Leader

Published: 27 January 2013
By: Paul Dobbyn

A REPORT commissioned by the bishops of Parramatta and Armidale into how Church authorities dealt with a priest who allegedly sexually abused boys for nearly a decade in the 1980s and ’90s in those dioceses has revealed severe deficiencies in procedures at the time.

The subject of the report, Fr “F”, removed from ministry in 1992, was believed responsible for multiple cases of sexual abuse of boys in parishes in Armidale and Parramatta dioceses.

Two of Fr F’s alleged victims suicided at the age of 28.

However, former Federal Court judge Antony Whitlam QC, who conducted the inquiry, said “had the procedures for reporting child abuse laid down in that document (the Church’s Towards Healing protocol) been in force in 1984 and observed in Moree at the time, ‘Fr F’ would have been stopped in his tracks”.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Times LIVE (South Africa)

Reuters | 23 January, 2013

Victims of paedophile priests called for renewing a criminal investigation into the role of Catholic Church leaders in Los Angeles, including Cardinal Roger Mahony, in covering up child sexual abuse as revealed in newly released Church records.

Documents made public on Monday showed that Mahony, then archbishop of the nation’s largest Catholic archdiocese, worked with a top adviser to shield known molesters in the clergy from law enforcement scrutiny in the 1980s.

According to the internal Church personnel records, Mahony and a monsignor who oversaw sex abuse cases in the archdiocese, Thomas Curry, arranged with other Church officials to send paedophile priests out of state to avoid prosecution.

Mahony and Curry also tried to keep priests sent away to a Church-run paedophile treatment center from later revealing their misconduct to private therapists who would be obligated to report the crimes to police, the documents showed.

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

AUSTRALIA
Armidale Express

A former Catholic priest has today been charged with 35 additional offences relating to alleged historical child assault offences in the 1980s.

The 59-year-old man faced Armidale Local Court today (Wednesday 23 January 2013) on 25 charges relating to alleged child-sex offences against three female children in the 1970s and 1980s.

During his appearance, the man was additionally charged with 35 offences relating to alleged assaults against six boys, aged 11 and 12, between 1981 and 1984.

They include nine counts of sexual assault; 25 counts of indecent assault; and one count of common assault. The boys were all altar boys at the Moree Diocese at the time of the alleged assaults.

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

AUSTRALIA
The Telegraph

Annika Smethurst
Herald Sun
January 23, 2013

THE Catholic Church is incapable of the radical reforms necessary to resolve child abuse by clergy, a parliamentary inquiry has heard.

Former priest Phil O’Donnell said the Archdiocese of Melbourne had known about allegations of sexual abuse by clergy since the 1950s but failed to protect children in its care.

“How do we understand an adult male and particularly a priest, having sex with kids,” Mr O’Donnell said.

“Apart from the obvious personal damages to the victims and their families, which is obviously immense, this scandal has been the cause of much distress to the priests, religious and lay people of the church.”

Mr O’Donnell said the problems were caused by a group of “predatory clergy” and that most Catholics were horrified by the evidence of child abuse.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

The man who is now Australia’s most senior Catholic failed to remove an alleged pedophile priest who teachers said posed a danger to children at a Melbourne primary school, a parliamentary inquiry has heard.

Cardinal George Pell, who was then a bishop, was told in the early 1990s about Father Peter Searson, who was suspected of sexual molestation and seen visiting the boys toilets several times a day, the Victorian parliamentary inquiry into abuse in religious organisations has heard.

A group of teachers from Holy Family school at Doveton visited Pell, who was then bishop for the southern area of Melbourne, to make the complaint, one former teacher Carmel Rafferty told the inquiry on Wednesday.

“The principal authorised the three year five and six teachers to make a deputation to the area bishop for the south eastern area at the time, who was Bishop Pell, to advise him of danger to children and the need to remove the priest,” she said.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Press TV (Iran)

Reports of newly released files showing concerted efforts by a major US Catholic church to conceal child abuse by its priests has prompted fresh demands from victims to bring church officials to justice.

Despite numerous calls over the past decade to bring the church’s top leader Cardinal Roger Mahony and his top deputies to criminal prosecution for actively trying to hide sexual abuse of children by its clergy, none of the several legal efforts on such cases resulted in “charges against he archdiocese’s hierarchy,” The Los Angeles Times reports Wednesday.

“At least three grand juries, two district attorneys and a US attorney have subpoenaed documents and summoned witnesses,” the report emphasizes, adding that all the legal measures failed to win conviction for officials of the California church.

While the Los Angeles County district attorney vowed to review and evaluate all of the newly-revealed documents “for criminal conduct,” the daily cites “legal experts” as insisting that the massive quantity of files “were unlikely to lead to charges, let alone convictions.”

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
NBC Los Angeles

[with video]

By Jonathan Lloyd and Olsen Ebright

Tuesday, Jan 22, 2013

Church abuse victims Tuesday made a renewed call for criminal prosecutions following the release of confidential files that show top Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles officials tried to cover up the allegations.

“We’ve always been called ‘alleged victims.’ I think today the word ‘alleged’ will be left out and I think today you guys you will truly see and understand that we were victims — truly victims of manipulative men who made cold, calculated decisions as how to protect themselves and save face in the community,” said Manuel Vega, who was abused from age 10 to 15.

The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) held a late-morning news conference at Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in downtown Los Angeles. Victims spoke about the recently released documents and called for an end to legal maneuvers that they say have delayed the release of more documents.

“We demand justice and we deserve justice, on behalf of the children we all were when we so terribly hurt,” said Joelle Casteix, SNAP Western Regional Director.

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

SPRINGFIELD (IL)
CBS St. Louis

Bishop of the Springfield Diocese has issued an official explanation about a rather bizarre 9-1-1 call made by one of his parish priests.

The statement from Bishop Thomas Paprocki was distributed after all the Masses this past weekend at St. Aloysius Church in Springfield.

It said Father Thomas Donovan of St. Aloyius Parish in Springfield is suffering from a psychological condition called non-sexual self bondage. It’s a condition where a person deals with the extreme stress in their live through self bondage.

“As described in the transcript of Father Donovan’s 911 call and in the police report, both of which have been released to the public, Father Donovan had bound himself in handcuffs and called for assistance when he was unable to remove them,” Bishop Paprocki said. “The police officers state that he was alone and fully clothed when they arrived at the rectory. There was no indication that anyone else had been present. No crime was committed, no one was arrested, no alcohol or drugs were involved.”

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
CBS News

By Bill Whitaker

(CBS News) LOS ANGELES – There is new evidence that leaders of the Catholic Church in Los Angeles maneuvered secretly to shield priests accused of sexually abusing children.

Documents just released indicate they never told parishioners — or the police — what they knew.

“What we’re seeing in these files is but a glimpse into a very, very dark, and endless tunnel of secrecy, of abuse, of silence,” said Raymond Boucher, a former altar boy and current lead attorney, representing some 500 victims of sex abuse by priests in the archdiocese of Los Angeles.

The documents offer the strongest evidence yet of a cover-up that reached to the very top of Los Angeles clergy: Then-archbishop, now-retired Cardinal Roger Mahony.

“That has always been paramount for the church for decades: Protect itself from scandal,” Boucher said.

Many of the documents are correspondence between Mahony and Monsignor Thomas Curry, his chief adviser on sex abuse. One concerns whether to allow Monsignor Peter Garcia to return to his duties in L.A. He had secretly been sent away for treatment in New Mexico for sexually abusing as many as 17 youngsters.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

Joseph A. Slobodzian, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

Posted: Tuesday, January 22, 2013, 7:05 PM

Lawyers for a Philadelphia priest and an ex-parochial-school teacher on Tuesday began a two-pronged defense to convince a Common Pleas Court jury that their clients’ personalities were inconsistent with those of men who would rape a 10-year-old altar boy.

Lawyers for the Rev. Charles Engelhardt and Bernard Shero called a series of character witnesses who testified about the pair’s reputation in the community for being peaceful and law-abiding.

Engelhardt’s lawyer, Michael McGovern, also called seven current and former teachers from St. Jerome’s parish school in the Northeast to tell the jury their memories of victim-accuser “Billy Doe.”

It is not known whether either Engelhardt, 66, or Shero, 49, will testify in his own defense.

Billy, now 24, alleges he was serially raped by Engelhardt, Shero, and one other priest during the 1997-99 school years, when he was in fifth and sixth grades.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Catholic News Agency

Los Angeles, Calif., Jan 22, 2013 / 04:00 pm (CNA).- As former priests face litigation in Los Angeles over sexual abuse, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles has renewed its commitment to protect the young people of the Church.

“No institution has learned more from mistakes made decades ago in dealing with priests who have abused young people than the Archdiocese of Los Angeles,” said a Jan. 22 release from the archdiocese.

“The past cannot be changed, but we have learned from it. We are justifiably proud of our record of child protection in the 21st century, and we remain vigilant against all that would harm our children and young people.”

The Los Angeles Times published a story Jan. 21 saying that 25 years ago, in the late 1980s, archdiocesan officials tried to hide sex abuse cases from police.

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CONNECTICUT
Stamford Advocate

Michael Mayko

Updated 7:24 pm, Tuesday, January 22, 2013

HARTFORD –The money just kept rolling in.

There was $50 for a hit; $60 for a quarter gram; $575 for an eight-ball (3.5 grams); $1,000 for 7 grams.

From August to December, Kevin Wallin, the Catholic priest dubbed “Monsignor Meth,” took in more than $300,000 selling crystal meth mostly from his Waterbury apartment, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick Caruso.

So much for any vow of poverty Wallin, may have made.

On Tuesday, the 61-year-old Wallin who once advised two Bridgeport Diocese bishops, appeared in federal court before U.S. Magistrate Thomas P. Smith to plead not guilty to seven federal charges: participating in a conspiracy to distribute crystal meth and making six sales to an undercover police officer.

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AUSTRALIA
New South Wales Police Force

Former Catholic priest charged with 35 additional offences – Strike Force Glenroe

Wednesday, 23 January 2013 11:25:35 AM

A former Catholic priest has today been charged with 35 additional offences relating to alleged historical child assault offences in the 1980s.

The 59-year-old man faced Armidale Local Court today (Wednesday 23 January 2013) on 25 charges relating to alleged child-sex offences against three female children in the 1970s and 1980s.

During his appearance, the man was additionally charged with 35 offences relating to alleged assaults against six boys, aged 11 and 12, between 1981 and 1984.

They include nine counts of sexual assault; 25 counts of indecent assault; and one count of common assault. The boys were all altar boys at the Moree Diocese at the time of the alleged assaults.

The man was also charged with not having approved storage (for a firearm).

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

UNITED KINGDOM
Vatican Insider

British daily “The Guardian” has published an article on the Vatican’s “secret property empire” in the UK. The Vatican Secretary of State, Fr. Federico Lombardi, claims this has been public knowledge for 80 years

ANDREA TORNIELLI
Vatican City

British daily newspaper The Guardian published an article today on the list of prestigious Vatican properties in London. From the Bulgari store on New Bond Street to a building on the corner of St. James’ Square and Pall Mall. The real owners of these extremely valuable London properties are not easy to trace as the individuals identified as reference points for getting information on the identity of the buildings’ owners hid behind the right to keep this information confidential when the newspaper asked questions. The Guardian article goes on list a number of similar properties in Paris, suggesting that this real estate empire was built using millions of lira (the equivalent of 65 million Euros in today’s money) “originally handed over by Mussolini in return for papal recognition of the Italian fascist regime in 1929,” as compensation for the properties the Italian State confiscated from the Pope 59 years prior to this. Thanks to this money which was invested by those in charge of the Vatican’s finances at the time, the Vatican now finds itself in possession of 500 million pounds sterling, according to The Guardian’s estimates.

The director of the Vatican Press Office, Fr. Federico Lombardi, had the following comment to make in response to the newspaper’s claims: “I am astonished by the article published in The Guardian; it seems the person who wrote it is living in the clouds. This information has been public knowledge for 80 years now. The newspaper has revealed nothing that was not already known.” Lombardi advised people to read a booklet written by the dean of Italian Vatican correspondents, Benny Lai (the only one who has an accreditation card in the Vatican Press Office signed by the then Substitute to the Secretary of State, Giovanni Battista Montini, who later became Pope Paul VI). Last year, Lai, who has written a number of books on the subject, published a small volume entitled “Vatican Finances”. The volume which was available for the public to read, was in Lombardi’s hand as he commented on The Guardian’s article to journalists.

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

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
TheMediaReport

Dave Pierre

At the annual conference of SNAP last July in Chicago, one individual whom the group proudly celebrated was Philadelphia Assistant D.A. Mark Cipolletti, a leading prosecutor in the current clergy abuse trial.

It is no surprise that the anti-Catholic group welcomed the lawyer, as he already had an established record of animus against the Church. During a pretrial conference just last year in the trial of Msgr. William Lynn, Cipolletti actually asserted that the Archdiocese of Philadelphia had been “supplying [an accused ex-priest] with an endless amount of victims.”

That’s right. Cipolletti actually accused the Catholic Church of “supplying” abusive priests with victims, as if the Archdiocese wished to harm the children in its care. It was the truly unhinged thinking of an overheated prosecutor.

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CALIFORNIA
Press-Telegram

By Barbara Jones, Staff Writer
dailynews.com
Posted: 01/22/2013

Los Angeles County prosecutors said today they will begin reviewing internal documents released by the Los Angeles Archdiocese which show that retired Monsignor Roger Mahony and other church leaders maneuvered to protect priests accused of child molestation from law enforcement.

The revelations were contained in thousands of pages of documents released Monday by the attorney for a man who claims he was abused by a priest and has filed suit against the church. The flood of records from the personnel files for 14 priests reveal publicly for the first time how the Catholic Church handled abuse allegations, and the elaborate strategies for keeping molestation secret.

The files of about 75 additional priests are slated to become public in the next few weeks under the terms of a 2007 settlement with more than 500 victims, who received a record payout of $660 million.

A lawyer for about 30 of the priests fought to keep the records sealed, but a judge recently ordered their release without redacting the names of church leaders.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Catholic Online

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) – In front page news, Cardinal Roger Mahony was skewered as the Los Angeles Times published a review of documents that reveal that then-Archbishop Roger Mahony knew about child sex abuse in his archdiocese and actively worked to cover it up.

The revelations are part of a document dump ordered by a Los Angeles Superior Court judge. Documents were released on Monday.

According to the Times, the documents contain the best evidence to date to show that Cardinal Mahony and others actively worked to cover up the scandal. In addition to Mahony, memos he exchanged with Msgr. Thomas Curry were disclosed. The memos discuss things such as keeping an accused priest out of the state for fear of arrest and prosecution, both criminal and civil, as well as discussions related to priests who were known pedophiles.

Several pedophile priests were sent to rehabilitation programs in the 1980s. Authorities were never contacted.

Some priests even deliberately targeted the children of illegal immigrants and threatened to report those families if they talked. When informed of these heinous crimes, Cardinal Mahony’s response appears to have been to cover up the incidents.

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

LOS ANGELES (CA)
Los Angeles Times

[Father Santiago Tamayo 1987 – via Anthony DeMarco, Jeff Anderson & Associates]

[exhibit 50]

By Patt Morrison
January 22, 2013, 1:34 p.m.

I had to look twice at the date on the newspaper to make sure I wasn’t having a time-warp moment.

I’d heard this before. In a way, I’d covered this before.

My colleagues Ashley Powers, Victoria Kim and Harriet Ryan have dropped a doozy on Southern California with their story of memos recounting how, a decade and a half before the scandal emerged about Roman Catholic priests’ sexual abuse of young people, future Cardinal Roger Mahony and an advisor planned to hide these molestations from law enforcement, going so far as to move the suspect priests out of California.

In a word, a cover-up.

But long before those memos that The Times found about concealing priests’ misconduct, the church apparently was doing the same thing in the face of a lawsuit by a young woman named Rita Milla. I wrote the stories about her suit against seven Filipino priests working here, and the archdiocese, for $21 million in 1984. Her suit said that:

•For four years, beginning when she was 16 and a parishioner at a Wilmington Catholic Church, first one and then all seven priests had sex with her, beginning when one who fondled her through a broken confessional screen. Two of them assured her that “it was morally, ethically all right for her to have sexual intercourse with them … that by doing so, that she would be helping them and helping herself.” Milla was 16 when all this began; the age of consent in California is 18, but no question of criminal charges was evidently pursued in this matter, perhaps because of the statute of limitations.

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MISSISSIPPI
WLOX

By David Kenney

JACKSON, MS (Mississippi News Now) –
A former Clinton Minister of music has entered guilty pleas on multiple child sexual abuse charges, but 50-year-old John Langworthy will not serve any jail time.

Langworthy, who pled guilty to five charges of gratification of lust involving five males, received ten years for each count, which was suspended. He received five years probation, and will have to register as a sex offender.

Langworthy was facing eight counts of sexual gratification. The crimes took place between April 8 of 1980 and Dec. 31 of 1984.

Defense attorneys had argued that the statute of limitations had run out, which prosecutors say led to the light sentence plea agreement.

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MISSISSIPPI
WAPT

[with video]

JACKSON, Miss. —Former Clinton High School choir director and music minister John Langworthy avoided prison Tuesday after pleading guilty to five of eight counts of gratification of lust.

Langworthy was sentenced to 10 years on each of the five counts, but under the plea agreement, he will not go to prison. Hinds County Circuit Court Judge Bill Gowan suspended the 50-year sentence.

Langworthy, 50, was accused of molesting five boys between the ages of 6 and 13 between 1980 and 1984. The incidents happened while Langworthy was babysitting each of the children at his sister’s home in Jackson and at his dorm room at Mississippi College, according to the indictments.

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MISSISSIPPI
Clarion-Ledger

Written by
Ruth Ingram

Guilty pleas this morning by a former Clinton church music minister and school choir director charged with sexually abusing young boys brings full circle a two-plus year period of allegations, investigations and legal wrangling.

During a hearing this morning before Hinds Circuit Judge Bill Gowan, John Langworthy pleaded guilty to five felony counts of gratification of lust. As part of a plea agreement between Langworthy and the Hinds County District Attorney’s office, Langworthy will not go to prison.

Gowan sentenced Langworthy to 10 years suspended on each of the five counts, for a total of a 50-year suspended sentence. He also received five years of supervised probation, is forbidden to have contact with any of his victims, and must register as a sex offender.

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MISSISSIPPI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Barbara Dorris on January 22, 2013

Today, a disgraced Baptist minister has pled guilty to charges that he molested five boys in the 1980’s.

We are glad that some justice has been served in the case against John Langworthy. While it is likely that more truth would have come out if this case had gone to trial – including what other church officials knew about Langworthy’s crimes, and when – we are glad that the victims in this case are spared the pain of having to testify. We are disappointed that as a condition of this plea that Langworthy will not be sent to jail because kids are always safer when predators are behind bars. We are grateful, however, that he will be made to register as a sex offender, which will allow parents and community members to know that he is a potential danger and will prevent him from freely interacting with children.

The victims in this case deserve praise for coming forward and reporting their abuse to police. It is a very difficult thing to admit to others that you were sexually abused as a child, but by coming forward these victims have helped keep other children safe from Langworthy and hopefully deterred other predators from committing similar crimes. Silence is a predator’s best weapon, and we are grateful to those who broke their silence to ensure that justice is served.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Los Angeles Times

January 22, 2013

Standing a few feet outside the doors of the Los Angeles Archdiocese headquarters, clergy abuse victims who settled with the church in a landmark $660-million settlement called for the release of the documents it agreed to make public in 2007.

The demands come in the wake of internal Catholic church records released Monday in a separate claim. Those memos, written in 1986 and 1987 by Archbishop Roger M. Mahony and Msgr. Thomas J. Curry, then the archdiocese’s chief advisor on sex abuse cases, displayed a concerted effort by officials to shield abusers from police.

Flanked by people who said they were abused by clergy, Joelle Casteix, western regional director of Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, demanded the release of the files. She also called for the immediate removal and punishment of any abuser still in the church.

DOCUMENT: Los Angeles Archdiocese priest abuse files

Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles must end his silence, Casteix said, and release the unredacted documents of those involved in molesting children, as well as those who helped cover it up.

“They must be held accountable to the same laws that everyone standing behind me here is held accountable to,” Casteix said. “We are victims of clergy sexual abuse and supporters. We demand justice; we deserve justice.”

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Southwest Riverside News Network

By City News Service, on January 22, 2013

Victims of sexual abuse by priests in the Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles demanded today that former Cardinal Roger Mahony and other high-ranking officials be publicly admonished for trying to cover-up clergy molestations.

Diocese officials said, however, they have apologized for actions of the past and taken wide-ranging steps to prevent abuse and report it quickly if it does occur.

The exchange came in response to internal church documents that were released Monday as part of a pending civil lawsuit against the archdiocese.

“We are here in response to the hundreds of pages of documents that were released yesterday that showed that Cardinal Roger Mahony had personal involvement in the cover-up of childhood sexual abuse in the archdiocese,”

Joelle Casteix of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, said outside the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in downtown Los Angeles.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Lez Get Real

[links to the documents – Anthony DeMarco, Jeff Anderson & Associates]

Posted by: Bridgette P. LaVictoire on January 22, 2013.

Evidence showing that the Catholic Church protected Monsignor Peter Garcia and several other priests sexually abused children. The evidence is in the form of letters filed in the civil case leveled against Father Nicholas Aguilar Rivera.

During his decades long ministry, Garcia targeted illegal immigrants. In at least one case, he threatened to have one boy deported if he went to the authorities. One monsignor documented the case in a letter sent to one of the archbishops stating “The priest took him to the jail and instructed him to either behave or else he would end up either in jail of back in Mexico. He was supposedly told if you talk, I have lawyer friends and I will surely have you deported.”

Garcia died in 2009 and never faced prosecution. He did, before he died, admit to raping boys since he was ordained in 1966. The letters describe Garcia’s behavior, and document incidents including him tying up a young boy and raping him. In 1986, former Archbishop of Los Angeles Roger Mahoney discussed discussed strategies to protect Garcia from prosecution.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Salzburg 24

US-Kardinal Roger Mahony soll laut “Los Angeles Times” pädophile Priester gezielt vor Strafverfolgung geschützt haben.

Laut kircheninternen Dokumenten von 1986 und 1987 entwarfen Mahony als Erzbischof von Los Angeles und der für Missbrauchsfälle zuständige Referent Thomas Curry eine Strategie, um drei Priester, die sexuellen Kindesmissbrauch gestanden hatten, Ermittlungen der Polizei zu entziehen. Curry, heute Weihbischof für Santa Barbara, riet laut demnach seinem Vorgesetzten Mahony, die pädophilen Geistlichen von Besuchen bei Therapeuten abzuhalten, aus Angst, dass diese die Behörden verständigen könnten. Zudem hätten sie den straffälligen Priestern Aufgaben außerhalb Kaliforniens übertragen, um Nachforschungen der bundesstaatlichen Behörden zu verhindern.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Los Angeles Times

Newly released L.A. Archdiocese records showing how officials handled the priest sex abuse scandal have prompted a new call for law enforcement action.

The documents released Monday show that then-Archbishop Roger M. Mahony and a top advisor plotted to conceal child molestation by priests from law enforcement.

The archdiocese’s failure to purge pedophile clergy and reluctance to cooperate with law enforcement had previously been known. But the new memos offer the strongest evidence yet of a concerted effort by officials in the nation’s largest Catholic diocese to keep abusers from the attention of police.

DOCUMENTS: Los Angeles Archdiocese priest abuse files

The SNAP Network, an activist group that works on behalf of abuse victims, released a statement Monday calling on authorities to look into the new documents.

“We urge law enforcement to carefully evaluate all of these files and do the best they can to deliver criminal indictments to anyone who abused or knowingly endangered a child. It is only when criminals are punished to the fullest extent of the law that children are kept safe from abuse,” the group said.

In the confidential letters, which the archdiocese fought for years to keep secret, Msgr. Thomas J. Curry, then the archdiocese’s chief advisor on sex abuse cases, proposed strategies to prevent police from investigating three priests who had admitted to church officials that they had abused young boys.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
The Philly Post

Joel Mathis

In a scene no doubt hauntingly familiar to many Philadelphians, Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles on Monday apologized for mishandling sex abuse allegations that emerged in the archdiocese between 1986 and 1997. Newly released documents from that era show Mahony and other officials made a “concerted effort” to keep police from finding out children had been abused by priests.

Mahony released a statement, which read in part:

Various steps toward safeguarding all children in the Church began here in 1987 and progressed year by year as we learned more about those who abused and the ineffectiveness of so-called “treatments” at the time. Nonetheless, even as we began to confront the problem, I remained naïve myself about the full and lasting impact these horrible acts would have on the lives of those who were abused by men who were supposed to be their spiritual guides. That fuller awareness came for me when I began visiting personally with victims. During 2006, 2007 and 2008, I held personal visits with some 90 such victims.

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NEW YORK
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Barbara Dorris on January 22, 2013

A rabbi who abused a young girl who came to him for spiritual advice has been sentenced to 103 years in prison for his crime.

We applaud this sentence against Nechemya Weberman. Such a strong sentence sends a clear message that Weberman’s crimes were unspeakably heinous and deserving of harsh punishment. By betraying the trust of a 12 year old girl and forcing her to do such disgusting acts as “acting out scenes from pornography” in the guise of deepening her faith, Weberman proved how much of a monster he was.

It is alleged that he may have abused as many as ten other women who came to him for help. Our hearts ache for these women and the pain that they went through. To have gone out in search of spiritual help or guidance only to be used like an object is unbelievably painful, and we hope that this sentence will help these women on their healing journey.

It is important to once again note the immeasurable courage shown by the girl who came forward to tell the world about Weberman. Not only was it brave of her to make an initial report, but she continued on her path despite in-court threats from Weberman’s cronies and threats from her abuser himself. Because of her unwavering commitment to protecting other girls from Weberman, this victim has likely saved the innocence of countless other women in the Satmar community. She deserves the utmost respect and universal praise.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
KPCC

Archbishop Emeritus of Los Angeles Roger M. Mahoney has again apologized for his involvement over twenty years ago in concealing child molestation by priests from law enforcement, including keeping clergy out of California to avoid prosecution. Mahoney’s apology came as his previously confidential correspondence from 1986 and 1987 recently became public evidence in a civil court case.

Mahoney has been questioned under oath in previous depositions numerous times about his handling of molestation cases, but the newly released memos written by Mahoney and other church administrators provide the strongest indication of a concerted effort by leaders in the nation’s largest Catholic diocese to protect abusers from police. Last week, Anthony De Marco, the attorney representing a plaintiff in the lawsuit filed against the archdiocese asked a judge to order Mahoney and others to submit to new depositions “regarding their actions, knowledge and intent as referenced in these files.” In an apologetic statement, Mahoney confessed that memos written in those years “sometimes focused more on the needs of the perpetrator than on the serious harm that had been done to the victims.”

Why did it take years for these memos to be released and made public? Is the archdiocese still trying to hide evidence that may incriminate current and former clergy? How responsible is Mahoney for the sexual abuse of children? How can victims of this abuse best recover and move on with their lives?

Guests:

Harriet Ryan, reporter with the Los Angeles Times who co-wrote the Times cover story

Barbara Dorris, outreach director of SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests)

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Los Angeles Times

This post has been updated.

The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office said Tuesday it plans to review newly released records from the late 1980s that show then-Archbishop Roger M. Mahony and a top aide worked to conceal pedophile priests from law enforcement.

The office “will review and evaluate all documents as they become available to us,” a spokeswoman for Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey said.

[Updated at 12:13 p.m.: Internal Catholic church records released Monday show that 15 years before the clergy sex abuse scandal came to light, Mahony and a top advisor discussed ways to conceal the molestation of children from law enforcement.

The records offer the strongest evidence yet of a concerted effort by officials in the nation’s largest Catholic diocese to shield abusers from police. The newly released records, which the archdiocese fought for years to keep secret, reveal in church leaders’ own words a desire to keep authorities from discovering that children were being molested.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Los Angeles Times

By Paul Thornton
January 22, 2013

About a dozen readers have sent their reactions to The Times’ front-page story Tuesday reporting that Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, archbishop of Los Angeles from 1985 to 2011, plotted to conceal child molestation by priests from law enforcement. While several of the letters raise legal questions for Mahony, many also call out the former archbishop for his moral failure to protect children. Others blame Roman Catholic Church policy for setting the conditions that led to child sex abuse.

Here is a selection of those letters, some of which may be printed later this week on The Times’ letters page. Check latimes.com/letters this week for more reader reaction.

Melonie Magruder of North Hollywood says Mahony acted as if protecting the church was more important that protecting children:

“Mahony’s claim that clergy weren’t ‘legally required to report suspected child abuse until 1997,’ and, therefore, he was absolved from responsibility to do so, is staggeringly self-serving. It’s as if he’s saying, ‘It was other people’s job to report child sexual abuse,’ with the implicit caveat that his responsibility was to protect the institution he served.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
CBS Atlanta

By GILLIAN FLACCUS
Associated Press
LOS ANGELES (AP) – Prosecutors will review internal priest personnel files kept by the Los Angeles Roman Catholic archdiocese that show retired Cardinal Roger Mahony and other top church officials worked to shield molester priests.

District attorney spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons said in an emailed statement Tuesday that the office will “evaluate all documents as they become available to us.”

Thousands of pages of confidential records from the files of 14 priests accused of sex abuse were made public Monday.

The documents show how the church handled abuse allegations for decades and provide the strongest evidence to date that Mahony and a top aide consulted about how to handle molester priests and protect the archdiocese from scandal.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
NBC Los Angeles

[live video]

By Jonathan Lloyd

Tuesday, Jan 22, 2013

Clergy abuse victims plan Tuesday to discuss church personnel files that show how top Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles officials shielded molester priests and conducted damage control to cover up allegations of abuse.

The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) scheduled an 11 a.m. news conference at Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in downtown Los Angeles. Victims plan to speak about the recently released documents and call for an end to legal maneuvers that they say have delayed the release of more documents.

The files are attached to a motion seeking punitive damages in a case involving a Mexican priest sent to Los Angeles in 1987 after he was brutally beaten in his parish south of Mexico City. Parents in LA complained about the priest, but he fled to Mexico, according to court documents.

The priest remains a fugitive.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Los Angeles Times

Cardinal Roger M. Mahony doesn’t appear to have changed much in retirement.

He and his legal protectors have continued to fight the release of damning documents every step of the way. When that fails, and his role in the cover-up becomes more clearly documented, he issues an apology.

It’s a little too late for apologies, if you ask me. The latest apology is perhaps more insulting than previous ones.

DOCUMENT: Los Angeles Archdiocese priest abuse files

Mahony continues to suggest that not enough was known about pedophilia in the mid-1980s to guide him toward the protection of victims. And not until 2006, when he began meeting with victims, did he have a “fuller awareness” of the devastating effect the abuse and cover-up had on those victims.

That’s an insult to all the victims and to any sense of decency.

Children were raped. Priests were shuttled, covered for, reassigned, and they abused again.

Lives have been ruined, faith destroyed, and Mahony is at the center of this scandal, his unconscionable efforts to shield perpetrators now on the record, and still he seems more concerned about protecting his own image. If he’s the caring, born-again reformer he claims to be, why do his misdeeds have to be forced out of him time after time?

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
National Catholic Reporter

[links to the documents – Anthony DeMarco, Jeff Anderson & Associates]

by Catholic News Service | Jan. 22, 2013

Los Angeles —
As the Archdiocese of Los Angeles released church records on clergy sexual abuse, Cardinal Roger Mahony again apologized to abuse victims, saying he was naive about its impact on their lives.

The cardinal, who retired as archbishop of Los Angeles in 2011, also said in a statement Monday that he prays for victims of abuse by priests daily as he celebrates Mass in his private chapel.

“It remains my daily and fervent prayer that God’s grace will flood the heart and soul of each victim, and that their life journey continues forward with ever greater healing,” he said, explaining that on his altar he keeps cards with the names of each of the 90 victims he met with from 2006 to 2008.

“As I thumb through those cards I often pause as I am reminded of each personal story and the anguish that accompanies that life story,” Mahony said.

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CALIFORNIA
CalCoast News

[Monsignor Peter Garcia 1984 – via DeMarco, Jeff Anderson & Associates]

[Monsignor Peter Garcia 1987]

[exhibit 54]

A Los Angeles priest used bondage and targeted illegal immigrants in his decades long practice of raping Southern California boys, Catholic church records released Monday show.

Confidential letters filed as evidence in a civil case against Father Nicholas Aguilar Rivera reveal that church leaders protected Monsignor Peter Garcia and several other priests who sexually abused boys.

Garcia threatened to have one boy deported if he came forward to law enforcement with sexual abuse allegations. A monsignor documented the case in a letter to an archbishop.

“The priest took him to the jail and instructed him to either behave or else he would end up either in jail of back in Mexico,” the letter reads. “He was supposedly told if you talk, I have lawyer friends and I will surely have you deported.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

Joseph A. Slobodzian, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

Posted: Tuesday, January 22, 2013, 1:27 PM

Lawyers for a Philadelphia priest and ex-parochial schoolteacher today began calling character witnesses to convince a Common Pleas Court jury their reputations were inconsistent with men who would rape a 10-year-old altar boy.

It’s not known if the Rev. Charles Engelhardt or Bernard Shero will testify in their defense.
Five witnesses, mostly relatives, were called by lawyer Michael McGovern to testify about Engelhardt’s reputation. Shero’s attorney Burton A. Rose called Shero’s mother and sister to testify before the trial broke for lunch.

Bonita Shero testified that her son was born with congenital cataracts in his eyes and underwent 23 surgeries in the first seven months of his life. Shero said her son is blind in one eye and has limited vision in the other.

Shero said her son excelled in school though he endured nonstop bullying by other children because of his thick glasses and his appearance. She said her son needs to hold papers extremely close to his face to read and is a “close talker” who typically “invades the personal space” of others in conversations.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CBS Philly

By Tony Hanson

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — The prosecution wrapped up its case today in the trial of two men — a priest and a lay teacher — charged with sexually abusing a Philadelphia schoolboy more than a decade ago.

Father Charles Engelhardt and former lay teacher Bernard Shero have pleaded not guilty to charges they sexually assaualted the same boy in 1999 and 2000 (see related stories).

Today, the prosecution closed its case with the testimony of a pediatrician who testified to various maladies suffered by the alleged victim at about the time of the alleged assaults.

The alleged victim testified earlier that he suffered testicular pain, nausea, coughing, and other similar ailments.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
The Catholic World Report

January 22, 2013

By Catherine Harmon

In the wake of the release of confidential documents showing how leaders of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles conspired to keep priests who sexually abused children out of jail, Cardinal Roger Mahony—archbishop emeritus of Los Angeles—has apologized for his role in “the archdiocese’s long struggle with the sexual abuse of minors.” Mahony claims he was “naïve” about the impact of abuse upon the priests’ young victims.

That archdiocesan leaders failed to report to the police priests who admitted abusing children was already known; Mahony admitted as much in a 2010 deposition. The documents posted yesterday on the L.A. Times website, which are part of the on-going civil case against the archdiocese, demonstrate a coordinated effort on the part of archdiocesan officials—specifically Cardinal Mahony and his then-vicar of clergy Thomas J. Curry (now an auxiliary bishop for the archdiocese)—to keep abusive priests away from law enforcement. From the Times report:

The newly released records, which the archdiocese fought for years to keep secret, reveal in church leaders’ own words a desire to keep authorities from discovering that children were being molested.

In the confidential letters, filed this month as evidence in a civil court case, Curry proposed strategies to prevent police from investigating three priests who had admitted to church officials that they abused young boys. Curry suggested to Mahony that they prevent them from seeing therapists who might alert authorities and that they give the priests out-of-state assignments to avoid criminal investigators.

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NEW YORK
CBS New York

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) – An unlicensed counselor in Brooklyn’s ultra-orthodox Jewish community was sentenced to 103 years in prison Tuesday for the sexual abuse of a girl who came to him with questions about her faith.

Nechemya Weberman was convicted in December of sustained sexual abuse of a child and other charges.

Weberman was not a licensed counselor but spent decades working with couples and families in his community.

The girl, now 18, testified for days about the abuse. She said it started when she was 12 and lasted until she was 15. She had been questioning her faith and her teachers felt she was straying from the right path, so they sent her to Weberman for guidance. Instead, she said, he molested her.

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NEW YORK
New York Post

By JOSH SAUL
Last Updated: 11:59 AM, January 22, 2013

Nechemya Weberman, the prominent Hasidic counselor convicted of sexually abusing a young girl, was sentenced today to 103 years in prison for his heinous crimes.

Weberman is now doomed to die behind bars for his years-long abuse of a now-18-year-old woman. She was only 12 when the abuse began.

The kiddie-sex fiend was found guilty on all 59 counts of abuse by a Brooklyn jury in December. He’s been in jail ever since, awaiting today’s sentencing.

Weberman’s trial tore apart the incredibly private Satmar Hasidic sect, pitting the defendant’s fierce loyalists against the victim’s supporters who claimed the community turned a blind eye to abuse.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

By Oren Yaniv And Larry Mcshane / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Tuesday, January 22, 2013, 11:53 AM.

A prominent Satmar Hasidic counselor was sentenced Tuesday to 103 years in prison for his repeated sexual abuse of a teenage girl during a three-year stretch of depravity.

Nechemya Weberman, 54, said nothing as the stunning jail term was handed down after his victim delivered a heart-wrenching statement inside a Brooklyn courtroom.

“I remember how I would look in the mirror,” the victim recounted. “I saw a girl who didn’t want to live in her own skin. A girl whose innocence was shattered at age 12.

“A sad girl who wanted to live a normal life, but instead was being victimized by a 50-year-old man who forced her to perform sickening acts again and again.”

Weberman, who served as a counselor for members of the ultra-Orthodox Satmar sect, was convicted last month on 59 counts of abuse for the repeated attacks that occurred from 2007 to 2010.

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NEW YORK
Wall Street Journal

By Pervaiz Shallwani

A prominent ultra-Orthodox Jewish counselor was sentenced to 103 years in prison in connection with the sexual abuse of a teenage girl in the insular Brooklyn community.

Nechemya Weberman, 54 years old, was found guilty in December on 59 counts of sexual abuse and child endangerment, the most serious that he sexually abused the young woman for three years beginning when she was 12.

The victim, now 18, spoke for five minutes Tuesday, at times crying as she read from a prepared statement.

She described herself as “a sad girl who wanted to live a normal life but instead was being victimized by a 50-year-old man who forced her to perform sickening acts again and again.”

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NEW YORK
Washington Post

NY Orthodox counselor convicted of abusing girl who questioned faith gets 103 years in prison

By Associated Press

Updated: Tuesday, January 22, 11:37 AM

NEW YORK — A respected religious counselor in New York City’s ultra-orthodox Jewish community was sentenced Tuesday to 103 years in prison for molesting a girl who came to him with questions about her faith.

Nechemya Weberman was convicted in December of 59 counts, including sustained sexual abuse of a child, endangering the welfare of a child and sexual abuse.

The trial put a spotlight on the ultra-orthodox community in Brooklyn and its strict rules that govern clothing, social customs and interaction with the outside world. Both Weberman, 54, and the girl belonged to the Satmar Hasidic sect.

The girl and her family have been harassed and ostracized, reflecting long-held beliefs that any conflict must be dealt with from within. During the trial, men were arrested on charges they tried to bribe the girl and her now-husband to drop the case. Others were accused of snapping photos of her on the witness stand and posting them online.

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IRELAND
Limerick Leader

THE REDEMPTORISTS have come out in support of the former head of the order in Limerick who says he is at risk of excommunication if he does not recant his liberal views.

Fr Tony Flannery, who is a former rector of the Redemptorists on Mount St Alphonsus, has been barred from ministry since last year and says he now faces being dismissed from his order outright.

As an author, Fr Flannery has long questioned official church teaching on women priests, clerical celibacy, homosexuality and other issues. But he has written this week of his belief that it was his role in setting up the Association of Catholic Priests, an independent grouping of clerics, in 2010 that brought him to the attention of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the powerful Vatican office formerly headed up by Pope Benedict XVI.

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SPRINGFIELD (IL)
Quincy Journal

From wmay.com:

The Springfield Catholic Diocese is releasing new details on the sensational case of a parish priest who is on a leave of absence after having to call 911 for help when he became trapped in a pair of handcuffs.

Bishop Thomas John Paprocki has issued a statement which he says is intended to clarify “misinformation” about the case of Father Thomas Donovan. The statement confirms that Donovan did bind himself in handcuffs and required assistance to get free, but says the incident was not sexual in nature, and was an example of “non-sexual self-bondage”… a psychological disorder as a result of stress. The bishop says Father Donovan was under stress because of factors such as lack of sleep, poor diet, and unreasonable expectations of himself as a pastor.

The statement says Donovan is on indefinite leave and is receiving medical and psychological care. His case will be reviewed by an independent panel before he is allowed to return to ministry.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Daily Times

Published: Tuesday, January 22, 2013

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Philadelphia prosecutors are wrapping up their case in the abuse trial of a priest and former teacher charged with abusing the same boy in about 1999.

The defense could begin to call witnesses Tuesday after testimony from the accuser’s childhood doctor.

The accuser says he complained of genital and stomach pain, but did not tell the doctor he had been molested.

Years later, he told a drug counselor he’d been sexually abused by two Roman Catholic priests and a teacher.

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SPRINGFIELD (IL)
Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield in Illinois

January 19, 2012

There have been many stories circulating in the media and on the Internet about the 911 call for assistance made on November 28 by Father Thomas Donovan, Pastor of Saint Aloysius Parish Springfield, Illinois. Since some of those stories are untrue and even defamatory, I wish to provide as much factual information as possible about what happened and how it is being addressed.

As described in the transcript of Father Donovan’s 911 call and in the police report, both of which have been released to the public, Father Donovan had bound himself in handcuffs and called for assistance when he was unable to remove them. The police officers state that he was alone and fully clothed when they arrived at the rectory. There was no indication that anyone else had been present. No crime was committed, no one was arrested, no alcohol or drugs were involved.

I was first informed of this incident on December 6th. On December 8th, I met with Father Donovan and Monsignor Carl Kemme, my Vicar General, in my office at the Catholic Pastoral Center. Father Donovan said that he was mortified by what happened and acknowledged that the information that had been reported to me was basically accurate. He insisted that he had been alone the whole time of this incident and denied that there was any sexual component to this.

Following our discussion, Father Donovan requested a leave of absence, which I granted. Monsignor Kemme celebrated the Masses at St. Aloysius Church on the weekend of December 15-16, informing the parishioners of Father Donovan’s leave of absence and my appointment of Monsignor David Lantz, Pastor of St. John Vianney Parish in Sherman and St. James Parish in Riverton, as temporary parochial administrator of St. Aloysius Parish. Monsignor Kemme also read a statement to the parishioners from Father Donovan in which he said, “While I have not been involved in anything illegal or anything otherwise jeopardizing the safety, welfare, or morals of other persons, I have been responding to the stresses of priestly ministry in a way that has come to compromise my own personal safety and welfare. I am under the care of a doctor to get the assistance that I need.”

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SPRINGFIELD (IL)
The State Journal-Register

By DAN PETRELLA (daniel.petrella@sj-r.com)
The State Journal-Register

Posted Jan 22, 2013

The pastor of St. Aloysius Catholic Church in Springfield has been placed on “an indefinite leave of absence for an extended period of professional help and spiritual renewal,” Bishop Thomas John Paprocki of the Springfield Catholic Diocese announced today.

The Rev. Bernard Thomas Donovan, who has been on a leave of absence since mid-December, is seeking treatment from a clinical therapist for “non-sexual self-bondage,” according to Paprocki’s written statement released on Tuesday.

Donovan called 911 about 4:45 a.m. Nov. 28 after he became trapped in a pair of handcuffs he had put on himself, according to a police report and a recording of the 911 call.

The priest, who was ordained in 2005, told the 911 dispatcher that he was “going to need help getting out before this becomes a medical emergency.”

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SPRINGFIELD (IL)
KHQA

SPRINGFIELD, ILL. — Bishop Thomas John Paprocki of the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois has issued a statement regarding a Catholic priest on leave from his church after police found him handcuffed inside the church rectory in Springfield.

Bishop Paprocki said he was first informed of the incident on December 6th. “On December 8th, I met with Father Donovan and Monsignor Carl Kemme, my Vicar General, in my office at the Catholic Pastoral Center. Father Donovan said that he was mortified by what happened and acknowledged that the information that had been reported to me was basically accurate. He insisted that he had been alone the whole time of this incident and denied that there was any sexual component to this,” Bishop Paprocki wrote in the statement.

Bishop Paprocki granted Father Donovan a requested leave of absence and acknowledged in his statement that, with Father Donovan’s consent to disclose patient information, “he is being treated by a clinical therapist and is receiving appropriate medical care.”

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CANADA
CBC News

Another sexual assault charge has been laid against George Smith, a retired Roman Catholic priest.

The paper work was filed Tuesday in Corner Brook.

Smith was supposed to be sentenced in Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court this morning on 40 charges related to the abuse of young people.

However, the additional charge has delayed proceedings.

The offences date from the 1960s through to the 1980s.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

The schedule for a Study Day titled “The Code: A Reform Desired and Requested by the Council” was unveiled Tuesday to journalists in the Vatican Press Office. It will take place on 25 January, in the Pius X Hall, Rome, marking the 30th anniversary of the promulgation of the Code of Canon Law.

The study day has been organized by the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts and the International Institute of Canon Law and Comparative Studies of Religion in Lugano, Switzerland and is sponsored by the Joseph Ratzinger (Benedict XVI) Vatican Foundation and the John Paul II Foundation. Participating in the conference were Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio, president of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, Bishop Juan Ignacio Arrieta, secretary of that dicastery, and Msgr. Giuseppe Antonio Scotti, president of the Joseph Ratzinger (Benedict XVI) Vatican Foundation.

Cardinal Coccopalmerio began his address with the recollection that Blessed John XXIII, in his speech convening Vatican Council II in 1959, explained that the Council’s legal scope was to bring about the awaited revision of the 1917 Code. “In his broad perspective, the Pope saw clearly that the revision of the Code had to be guided by the new ecclesiology that emerged from an ecumenical and a global summit such as the Council.” Blessed John Paul II, under whose pontificate the Code was promulgated, also repeated that “the council’s ecclesiological structure clearly required a renewed formulation of its laws”.

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IRELAND
U.S. Catholic

By Bryan Cones

Another priest bites the dust, or may soon: Father Tony Flannery, an Irish Redemptorist priest and founder of the Irish reform group the Association of Catholic Priests, has broken the silence demanded of him by the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith by publishing an op-ed in the Irish Times. In it, Flannery chroncles his interactions with the Vatican through his Redemptorist order. The CDF’s terms were that Flannery no longer speak publicly about reform issues in the church, specifically, “Either I sign a statement, for publication, stating that I accepted teachings that I could not accept, or I would remain permanently banned from priestly ministry, and maybe face more serious sanctions. It is important to state clearly that these issues were not matters of fundamental teaching, but rather of church governance.”

Flannery doesn’t say specifically which church teaching he must sign his assent to, but the work of the ACP has largely centered on issues of church governance and the new English translation of the Roman Missal. Flannery notes that a woman reading the gospel at Mass drew sanction against the priest who permitted it, and the role of women in the church’s ministry remains a neuralgic point for the Vatican. Either way, Flannery has decided that he cannot accept the Vatican’s demands and now awaits his fate, which could include expulsion from the community that has been his home since 1964. One hopes that Flannery does not suffer the same fate as former Maryknoll priest Roy Bourgeois.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Los Angeles Times

January 22, 2013 | 6:51am

Internal Catholic church records released Monday show that 15 years before the clergy sex abuse scandal came to light, then-Archbishop Roger M. Mahony and a top advisor discussed ways to conceal the molestation of children from law enforcement.

Times reporters Harriet Ryan and Victoria Kim will join L.A. Now Live at 9 a.m. to discuss the records.

Ryan, Kim and staff writer Ashley Powers reported that the records offer the strongest evidence yet of a concerted effort by officials in the nation’s largest Catholic diocese to shield abusers from police. The newly released records, which the archdiocese fought for years to keep secret, reveal in church leaders’ own words a desire to keep authorities from discovering that children were being molested.

The records contain memos written in 1986 and 1987 by Mahony and Msgr. Thomas J. Curry, then the archdiocese’s chief advisor on sex abuse cases. In the confidential letters, Curry proposed strategies to prevent police from investigating three priests who had admitted to church officials that they had abused young boys. Curry suggested to Mahony that they prevent the priests from seeing therapists who might alert authorities and that they give the priests out-of-state assignments to avoid criminal investigators.

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CALIFORNIA
Orange County Weekly

[exhibit 49 – Michael Buckley – via Anthony DeMarco, Jeff Anderson & Associates]

By Gustavo Arellano
Tue., Jan. 22 2013

Yesterday, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles released thousands of pages of personnel files that confirms what those of us who have followed the Catholic Church sex-abuse scandal have known for a good decade but which the vast majority of Catholics refuse to acknowledge: that their leaders, for forever, not only knew about the pedophile priests in their ranks but actively sought to cover up the rapes.

So why should we care about what happens in LA? Because some of those personnel files involve priests who raped in Orange County back when we were part of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, which we’re going to display in the coming days. And, unsurprisingly, because part of the coverup up in LA involved the Diocese of Orange and our own former, perpetually bumbling bishop, Tod D. Brown.

In today’s episode of How the Brownie Protects Pedo-Priests, we turn our attention to disgraced priest Michael D. Buckley. We had previously written about Buckley in 2005, when information at the time revealed Buckley molested at least eight boys while at Immaculate Heart of Mary in SanTana, back when it was a part of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Information at the time on Buckley’s perversion was hard to find, though, namely because his personnel file hadn’t been released by then-Cardinal Roger Mahony, and it was technically an Archdiocese of Los Angeles case and thus out of my beat.

Now that his case file is out, though, it turns out that Buckley was a monster in Orange County–and that not only LA diocesan officials know, but that Brown never bothered to alert Immaculate Heart of Mary parishioners after hearing from the victims who finally brought Buckley down.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
KABC

[links to the documents – Anthony DeMarco, Jeff Anderson & Associates]

Q McCray

LOS ANGELES (KABC) — Church sex abuse victims and their supporters are expected to blast the Roman Catholic Archdiocese and retired Cardinal Roger Mahony during a rally in Downtown Los Angeles Tuesday.

The protest is over newly released documents detailing a pattern of cover-ups.

Victims are demanding action in Tuesday’s conference and asking current Archbishop Jose Gomez to publically admonish former Cardinal Roger Mahony for knowingly covering for molester priests.

The newly released documents reveal that retired Cardinal Roger Mahony and other top officials with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles tried to conceal the molestation of children from law enforcement decades ago.

The files show church leaders moved abusive priests out of state, handled damage control and consulted with accused priests behind the scenes.

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DEUTSCHLAND
kath.net

Der «Anwalt der Kirche» habe einen Antrag vor dem Hamburger Landgericht zurückgezogen

München/Bonn (kath.net/KNA) Im Streit um die kirchliche Missbrauchsstudie hat die Deutsche Bischofskonferenz laut «Süddeutscher Zeitung» (Dienstag) offenbar einen Rückschlag hinnehmen müssen. Der «Anwalt der Kirche» habe einen Antrag vor dem Hamburger Landgericht zurückgezogen, der dem bisherigen Leiter der Studie, Christian Pfeiffer, kritische Aussagen über die Rolle der Kirche bei der Aufarbeitung des Missbrauchsskandals untersagen wollte. «Damit ist dieser erneute Zensurversuch gescheitert», zitiert das Blatt den Kriminologen.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Spiegel

Von Barbara Hans

Die Missbrauchsstudie der katholischen Kirche mit dem Kriminologischen Forschungsinstitut Niedersachsen ist gescheitert – aber wer trägt die Schuld? KFN-Chef Pfeiffer wehrt sich im Interview gegen Kritik an seinem Vorgehen und sagt: “Es ist der größte Frust meines gesamten Wissenschaftlerlebens.”

2010 erschütterte der Missbrauchsskandal die katholische Kirche: Immer mehr Opfer brachen ihr Schweigen, anhand immer weiterer Fälle wurde deutlich, wie die Kirche auf die Übergriffe durch Geistliche jahrelang reagiert hatte – indem sie die Kirchenleute versetzte, die Taten vertuschte. Die Glaubwürdigkeit der Kirche war ramponiert.

Gemeinsam mit dem Kriminologischen Forschungsinstitut Niedersachsen (KFN) wurde im Juli 2011 ein Forschungsprojekt aufgelegt, das die Personalakten Geistlicher untersuchen sollte. Nun, rund anderthalb Jahre später, ist das Projekt gescheitert.

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YOUNGSTOWN (OH)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

WHAT
Holding signs and childhood photos at a sidewalk news conference, clergy sex abuse victims and their supporters will hand deliver a letter to the Mahoney County District Attorney urging him to investigate the Youngstown Catholic Diocese for clergy sex crimes and cover ups. They will also disclose that

–they believe at least two more credibly accused predator priests are still being kept in ministry, and
–a just “outed” credibly accused child molesting cleric worked at another Catholic school.
And they will
–urge victims to contact secular authorities, not church officials, and
–beg anyone who may have seen, suspected, or suffered clergy crimes in Youngstown to come forward, call police, expose wrongdoing, protect kids and start healing.

WHEN
Tuesday, January 22, at 1:00 p.m.

WHERE
Outside the Mahoney County District Attorney’s office, 21 West Boardman St. (corner of Phelps) in Youngstown, OH

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NEW YORK
Gothamist

This week, Nechemya Weberman—the ultra-Orthodox Jewish counselor who was found guilty of sexually abusing a teen girl in Brooklyn starting when she was 12—will finally be sentenced. Weberman, 54, was found guilty of 59 counts of sexual abuse after a long trial that included illegal courtroom photos, bleach attacks, and damning testimonies. Now, the News reports that Weberman allegedly sexually abused at least 10 more teens and married women who he counseled.

The News says the stories of the other woman who were allegedly abused by him matches up with that of the now 17-year-old woman who testified against him in court for four harrowing days in November. That woman had been forced by her school to meet with Weberman, who is not a licensed therapist, for counseling after she started questioning the strict rules of her ultra-Orthodox Hasidic Satmar sect.

Other women, who told the News they were sexually abused by Weberman, said they were too afraid of retribution from the community to speak out. He allegedly told one young victim, “That ‘I learned Kabbalah and we were a couple in another incarnation,’ ” said a friend of the woman. Rabbi Yakov Horowitz, who runs a Jewish youth program, said he had heard stories like that before from young women who had been sent to meet with Weberman: “The intimate acts he was performing were intended as a form of repentance for sins committed in their previous lifetimes,” said Horowitz.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
BishopAccountability.org

The long-awaited Los Angeles archdiocesan documents are beginning to appear. Already we see strong indications that Cardinal Mahony and his management team acted deliberately to prevent abusers from being apprehended by the police. We urge the U.S. Attorney and the Los Angeles County District Attorney to examine this evidence, and if Cardinal Mahony, Bishop Curry, and their associates conspired to obstruct justice, then indictments should follow. We urge prosecutors also to consider the evidence in the Aguilar files of international cooperation between bishops to help a known child molester evade criminal prosecution. These documents and other files that will be released in coming months offer a basis to determine whether priests were transferred in violation of federal law.

Terence McKiernan
President
BishopAccountability.org
508-479-9304 cell

About BishopAccountability.org
Founded in 2003, BishopAccountability.org is an online library with more than 100,000 pages of church records, legal documents, and media reports. Its mission is to give the public one-stop access to information pertaining to the crisis in all U.S. dioceses and throughout the world. An independent non-profit, BishopAccountability.org is an archive and data center. It is not a victims’ advocacy group nor a reform group.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
KABC

[with video]

Leslie Miller

LOS ANGELES (KABC) — Confidential personnel records are now offering a glimpse into the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal. They detail a pattern of cover-ups within the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles. For years, victims have been clamoring to get their hands on these documents.

The documents are part of a lawsuit seeking damages in a case involving a Mexican priest accused of abusing at least 26 children after he was transferred to Los Angeles in the 1980s. The documents include personnel files of 13 other clerics as well as notes written by Cardinal Roger Mahony and other church leaders.

The newly released documents reveal that retired Cardinal Roger Mahony and other top officials with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles tried to conceal the molestation of children from law enforcement decades ago.

The files show church leaders moved abusive priests out of state, handled damage control and consulted with accused priests behind the scenes.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Alabama’s 13

Patrick Rimmer
Published: January 22, 2013

Documents released as part of a lawsuit against the Los Angeles archdiocese show the recently retired Cardinal Roger Mahony and other church officials shielded abusive priests from investigation to protect the church from the engulfing scandal.

The files show leaders moved priests out of state, handled damage control and consulted with accused priests behind the scenes.

Those types of details have emerged elsewhere, but the LA documents also contain criticism from a top official who condemned leaders for keeping followers in the dark rather than protecting children.

The pages were filed with a motion seeking punitive damages for the alleged victim of another priest.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CBS Philly

By Tony Hanson

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – The prosecution is expected to rest today and the defense will begin in the trial of a priest and former lay teacher charged with sexually assaulting the same boy back in 1999 and 2000. Both men have pleaded not guilty, but it’s not known whether either or both the defendants will testify.

The prosecution is expected to present medical testimony about physical maladies suffered by a then young boy after he was allegedly sexually assaulted by Father Charles Engelhardt and former lay teacher Bernard Shero in 1999 and 2000.

Then the defense will begin. There will be character and fact witnesses, even the alleged victim’s own brother could be called to testify and the defendants could testify.

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WISCONSIN
Legacy

Obituary

Age 64 ~ Originally of Milwaukee, WI On January 4, 2013 Preceded in death by mother Rose (nee Emanuele); father Joseph; and sisters Carmela Campanaro and Antoinette. Survived by brother Carmelo “Mel”; brother-in-law Paul Campanaro; many nieces, nephews, relatives, and friends. Father Joe touched many lives in service as a priest and will be deeply missed. Memorial service 2pm on Saturday January 12 with visitation one hour prior to service at O’Connell Family Funeral Home, 520 11th St. S., Hudson, WI. 715-386-3725

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WISCONSIN
Patch

January 8, 2013

The Rev. Salvatore Joseph “Father Joe” Collova A.A.C., 64, of Hammond, died Friday, Jan. 4, 2013, at the American Heritage Care Center in Hammond.

Father Joe served as a Roman Catholic Priest in the Milwaukee Diocese for such churches as St. Rita’s Catholic Church. Later, he dissolved his association with the Roman Catholic Church and become affiliated with the American Apostolic Catholic Church.

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NEW YORK
Las Vegas Sun

The Associated Press

Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2013

A religious counselor in New York’s ultra-orthodox Jewish community is facing 25 years in prison after he was convicted of sexually abusing a 12-year-old girl who came to him for help.

Nechemya Weberman (nuh-HEHM’-yuh) is scheduled for sentencing Tuesday. He was convicted in December of sustained sexual abuse of a child. The trial put a spotlight on the insular Satmar Hasidic sect and its strict rules governing clothing, social customs and interaction with the outside world.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

If it wasn’t already clear to fair minded people, the judicially ordered release of the Los Angeles Archdiocesan secret, at times obscene, priest abuse files, after years of stonewalling by Cardinal Mahony, just makes clear once again how the U.S. Catholic hierarchy flouts laws and treats easily managed local criminal justice officials as complete morons. And the hierarchy so far has gotten away with it.

Recently, experts at the Vatican conference on priest abuse of children reportedly estimated that so far over 100,000 children in the USA alone have been sexually abused by priests. Yet to date not a single U.S. bishop has been held criminally responsible for the crimes the LA files confirm once again the Catholic hierarchy routinely facilitates. With declining numbers of domestic priests, and women and married men needlessly excluded from the potential priest pool, more sexual deviates will likely be ordained needlessly and more predators will likely be retained criminally. It’s just arithmetic, you know! Priests are paid little, but generate per capita considerable revenues for the well fed Catholic hierarchy.

The LA files, like the Boston, Philly, Milwaukee, and many other U.S. dioceses’ previously released secret files, make clear, this is no coincidence. Rather it appears clearly to be a worldwide personnel policy orchestrated from the Vatican that is clearly anti-children.

What is holding up President Obama? Why doesn’t he step up here? Please see my statement, “Why Does the Pope Play the USA as a Fool”, accessible at: http://wp.me/P2YEZ3-ey

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CONNECTICUT
The Daily Beast

Jan 22, 2013

Amid reports of cross-dressing and having sex in the rectory, “Monsignor Meth,” was nabbed on charges that he used an adult novelty shop to launder a transcontinental drug enterprise. Michael Daly reports.

Sex toys, ruby red slippers, drug paraphernalia, and a Roman collar!

Those all were to be elements of The Land of Oz & Dorothy’s Place, a combination adult novelty shop that Monsignor Kevin Wallin apparently planned to take over and move to a new location after he was suspended from his Bridgeport, Conn., parish amid reports of him cross-dressing and having sex in the rectory.

Add methamphetamine to the list, according to the government, which alleges that the 61-year-old cleric now dubbed “Monsignor Meth” used the store to launder proceeds from a transcontinental drug enterprise.

That charge is in a criminal complaint federal prosecutors filed after Wallin was arrested on Jan. 3. He had been just hours from departing on a 12-day trip London, imparting to his latest flock a new sense of needing a priest.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Main Post

Streitthema: Zensur-Vorwurf an die Bischöfe

Christian Pfeiffer kann Zensur-Vorwürfe gegen die Bischöfe bei der Aufarbeitung von Missbrauchsfällen in der katholischen Kirche aufrechterhalten. Der Verband der Diözesen Deutschlands (VDD) wollte dem Direktor des Kriminologischen Forschungsinstituts Niedersachsen das per Einstweiliger Verfügung beim Landgericht Hamburg verbieten lassen.

Nun habe der VDD – wohl nach einem Hinweis des Gerichts über die Aussichtslosigkeit des Vorhabens – seinen Antrag zurückgezogen, sagte Pfeifer am Montag im Gespräch mit dieser Zeitung. Pfeiffer sieht sich „in der Sache bestätigt“.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

David Leigh, Jean François Tanda and Jessica Benhamou

The Guardian, Monday 21 January 2013

Few passing London tourists would ever guess that the premises of Bulgari, the upmarket jewellers in New Bond Street, had anything to do with the pope. Nor indeed the nearby headquarters of the wealthy investment bank Altium Capital, on the corner of St James’s Square and Pall Mall.

But these office blocks in one of London’s most expensive districts are part of a surprising secret commercial property empire owned by the Vatican.

Behind a disguised offshore company structure, the church’s international portfolio has been built up over the years, using cash originally handed over by Mussolini in return for papal recognition of the Italian fascist regime in 1929.

Since then the international value of Mussolini’s nest-egg has mounted until it now exceeds £500m. In 2006, at the height of the recent property bubble, the Vatican spent £15m of those funds to buy 30 St James’s Square. Other UK properties are at 168 New Bond Street and in the city of Coventry. It also owns blocks of flats in Paris and Switzerland.

The surprising aspect for some will be the lengths to which the Vatican has gone to preserve secrecy about the Mussolini millions. The St James’s Square office block was bought by a company called British Grolux Investments Ltd, which also holds the other UK properties. Published registers at Companies House do not disclose the company’s true ownership, nor make any mention of the Vatican.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Anna Pha

The terms of reference and selection of Commissioners for the Royal Commission (RC) into institutional responses to allegations and incidents of child sexual abuse have been widely welcomed. The terms of reference reflect the sensitive nature of the issues and the difficulties many will have in recounting their experiences. They also give the RC considerable flexibility in how it conducts the inquiry.

For years calls by victims’ support and advocacy groups for a national inquiry have fallen on deaf ears as the cover-ups and atrocities continued. No government had the courage to stand up to the powerful church forces that stood in the way of justice. But the pain did not go away; the wounds could not even begin to heal without acknowledgement and justice. Lives continued to be destroyed. At last there is hope that their voices will be heard and appropriate action taken.

The trigger for the inquiry was the strength of public opinion following the ABC’s Lateline TV program on November 8, 2012 in which detective chief inspector Peter Fox put his life and job on the line in an interview with Tony Jones.

“I can testify from my own experience the Church covers up, silences victims, hinders police investigations, alerts offenders, destroys evidence and moves priests to protect the good name of the Church,” Fox said in a letter to the NSW Premier. (The Guardian 21 -11-12)

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