ABUSE TRACKER

A digest of links to media coverage of clergy abuse. For recent coverage listed in this blog, read the full article in the newspaper or other media source by clicking “Read original article.” For earlier coverage, click the title to read the original article.

June 14, 2012

Sartain and the monumental log in his eye … investigating the LCWR?

UNITED STATES
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on June 14, 2012

When Vatican officials selected a bishop head the effort to go after the American nuns of the LCWR and accuse them of wrongdoing, you might guess they’d be very careful to pick a prelate to who is clearly beyond reproach.

Guess again. The church hierarchy – taking the suggestion, some insiders say, by disgraced Cardinal Bernard Law – tapped Seattle Archbishop Peter Sartain to head up the “investigation” into the largest group representing Catholic sisters, the Leadership Council of Women Religious (LCWR).

But it’s Sartain, not the nuns, who should be investigated.

Let’s focus on two clergy sex abuse and cover-up cases Sartain handled back when he was the bishop of Joliet Diocese. But before you assume I’m digging up ancient history, please notice that each of these cases took place within the last three years (long after America’s bishops pledged they’d have “zero tolerance” for clergy sex offenders and “openness and transparency” in clergy sex cases).

Case #1

In the spring of 2009, a Joliet diocesan seminarian named Alejandro Flores was caught with porn, prosecutors say. (According to one news account, “Though the website posted a disclaimer saying the people involved in the sex acts were not minors, a prosecutor said Catholic officials were concerned some of the images appeared to be those of young boys.”)

Months later, in June of 2009, Sartain ordained Flores anyway.

And six months after, in January 2010, Flores was arraigned on charges of molesting a boy twice earlier that month.

In September 2010, Flores pled guilty.

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.

Vatican report critical of culture and ethos of Irish College in Rome

ROME
The Irish Times

PATSY McGARRY, Religious Affairs Correspondent

A REPORT carried out by the Archbishop of New York for Pope Benedict XVI, which expressed concern about “the atmosphere, structure, staffing and guiding philosophy” of the Irish College in Rome, contained “significant errors of fact”, Ireland’s four Catholic archbishops have said.

Pope Benedict announced an apostolic visitation of some dioceses, as well as seminaries and religious congregations in 2010. The visitation to the Irish College in Rome last year was led by then Archbishop Timothy Dolan, who has since become a cardinal.

A copy of the unpublished visitation report, which was presented to the Congregation for Catholic Education in Rome, has been seen by The Irish Times.

It has called for “substantial reform” at the college.

The four archbishops, who were the college’s trustees, were criticised in the report as seeming to be “disengaged from college governance, with meetings, minutes, agenda and direct supervision irregular . . . The general rule of governance is ‘Let’s keep doing what we have been for the last 35 years’,” it said.

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.

Judge’s Ruling Sets Off Fireworks in Archdiocese Sex Abuse Case

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Priest Abuse Trial Blog

Ralph Cipriano

It was another slow and foggy afternoon in Courtroom 304, as Judge M. Teresa Sarmina handled one question after another from an inquisitive panel of jurors.

Then, the jury in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia sex abuse case, now in their eighth day of deliberations, asked the judge this question: If the charge of EWOC — endangering the welfare of children — is the result of a criminal conspiracy, does it have to be the object of a criminal conspiracy?

In other words, do the conspirators have to operate with criminal intent?

The judge said no, setting off a free-for-all among the lawyers in the case, and a temper tantrum from a prosecutor that the judge just sat and watched.

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.

Eighth day of deliberations end with more questions from jury in clergy-sex abuse trial

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By John P. Martin
and Joseph A. Slobodzian
INQUIRER STAFF WRITERS

Jurors at the clergy-sex abuse trial of two Archdiocese of Philadelphia priests ended their eighth day of deliberations Thursday with a new set of questions that suggested they may be shifting their focus from one defendant to the other.

Convening for the first time since Tuesday, the panel of seven men and five women asked to see evidence related to the landmark child-endangerment and conspiracy case against Msgr. William J. Lynn, the archdiocese’s former secretary for clergy.

Specifically, jurors asked for files of the Rev. Thomas Wisniewski, a priest who remained in ministry after admitting to Lynn that he had a sexual relationship with a teenage boy in the 1980s.

The panel also asked Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina for still more guidance on the conduct and intent required for conspiracy and child endangerment.

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.

N.J. Assembly panel approves bill abolishing 2-year time limit for sex abuse lawsuits

NEW JERSEY
NJ.com

[A2405]

By Susan K. Livio/Statehouse Bureau

TRENTON — Todd Kostrub said his seventh birthday was “a big deal” because that was the day he became an altar boy, just like all his classmates at Holy Assumption Elementary School in Roebling.

But later that day, a priest led him to a back room and told him to take off his clothes. “I asked why. He said, ‘You’re becoming an altar boy. This is part of the procedure,’” said Kostrub, 47, who solemnly described to the Assembly Judiciary Committee in Trenton Thursday the sexual abuse he endured until he turned 18. “I was so confused and shook up I went home and climbed into a closet and stayed there for 10 hours.”

When Kostrub was 31 and ready to tell his story, he learned New Jersey law set a maximum of two years to sue from the point victims realize sexual abuse has damaged them. The law prevented him from suing the priest and the church leaders who protected him.

The Surf City resident was one of more than a dozen victims of childhood sexual abuse who begged the committee to approve a bill (A2405) that would allow them to file suit no matter how much time has passed, against individuals and institutions — public, private, for-profit and non-profit. The committee cleared the bill 5-2.

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.

Irish College staff in Rome given no right of reply

ROME
The Irish Times

PATSY McGARRY

OPINION: There is not a court in the world where a case based on such ‘evidence’ would even be heard

WHAT IS most striking about Cardinal Timothy Dolan’s visitation report on the Irish College in Rome is its ferocity towards staff at the seminary.

Its core conviction is that the college had an “anti-ecclesial bias” when it came to the theological formation of students. In other words, it was not orthodox enough for the cardinal or his team. There seemed to be a “tilt” there towards “theologians somewhat ambiguous on church teaching,” it said.

His report noted, for instance, that one lay lecturer at the college favoured a text which asserted that “the renewal of Vatican II has been clawed back . . . theologians have been made to suffer”.

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.

Cardinal Dolan statement

ROME
The Irish Times

Statement from Cardinal Dolan in response to questions from ‘The Irish Times’ last week

“While obviously others do not consider themselves bound by the promised confidentiality – so necessary and understandable to assure a fair and honest gathering of information – requested by the Apostolic See, I certainly do.

“Thus, I am unable to comment upon the report, other than to stand by the diligence of the six visitors, and the accuracy of the data we found – both of positive and challenging nature – and presented to the Congregation for Catholic Education in Rome.”

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.

Irish Archbishops’ response

IRELAND
The Irish Times

to Irish Times’ query about Pontifical Irish College, Rome, June 11th, 2012

MATTERS RELATING to the apostolic visitation are the responsibility of the Holy See, as was stated at the outset of the visitation process.

The trustees of the Pontifical Irish College, Rome: Cardinal Seán Brady, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, Archbishop Dermot Clifford and Archbishop Michael Neary, do not comment on information from anonymous sources.

As part of the process involved in the visitation to the Irish College, Rome, the trustees were given an initial report by the Holy See. This initial report contained some serious errors of fact, including named individuals. Attentive to the importance of applying due process, and respecting the rights of those named in this initial report, the trustees made a detailed and considered response to the Holy See.

With regard to seminaries, the Summary of the findings of the Apostolic Visitation in Ireland, published on March 20th, 2012, contained the following main observations by the Holy See:

“1) The visitation was able to establish that there are dedicated formators in Irish seminaries, committed to the work of priestly training. The seminarians themselves were generally praised for their human and spiritual qualities and for their motivation and commitment to the church and her mission. Studies are taken seriously, and attention is given to human and spiritual formation.

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.

The report’s authors: who they are

ROME
The Irish Times

CARDINAL TIMOTHY Dolan (62) is of Irish-American background and received his red hat from Pope Benedict last February. He is regarded as something of a rising star where this papacy is concerned.

The eldest of five children, he was born in St Louis, Missouri, and ordained in 1976.

On completion of postgraduate studies, he returned to St Louis and served in parish ministry until 1987 when he was appointed secretary at the papal nunciature in Washington.

In 1994 he was appointed rector of the North American College in Rome, the US equivalent of the Irish College in that city.

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.

Apostolic visitation: Quotes from Cardinal Dolan’s report

ROME
The Irish Times

“The trustees of the college – the four archbishops of Ireland, the actual owners – seem disengaged from college governance, with meetings, minutes, agenda, and direct supervision irregular.”

“Some of the graduate priests are less than positive examples of priestly life and are not attentive to even the minimum demands made upon them.”

“The dress of the students borders on the sloppy and excessively informal . . . ”

“The apostolic visitor noted, and heard from students, an ‘anti- ecclesial bias’ in theological formation.”

“The staff is critical about any emphasis on Rome, tradition, the magisterium, piety or assertive orthodoxy, while the students are enthusiastic about these features.”

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.

Irish college suffers from unjust ‘gay’ reputation’, says prelate

ROME
The Irish Times

PATSY McGARRY

CARDINAL TIMOTHY Dolan’s report on the Irish College in Rome has found that “the college suffers from the reputation of being ‘gay friendly’, however unjust such a reputation might be.” It said that “a recent series (four by the Apostolic Visitor’s count) of homosexually directed improprieties have been reported at the college.”

The Apostolic Visitor “carefully examined each episode with the aggrieved student and the rector. Knowledge of these episodes, as well as of some others from the past, is widespread among the seminarians, and the priests and bishops back in Ireland, giving an unfortunate and undeserved reputation of ‘softness’ on homosexuality at the College.”

It said that “recent episodes (of the last year-and-a-half) build on allegations from years past” which were reported to the visitation team by a named priest who investigated them at the request of Cardinal Seán Brady and the college rector.

It continued that “some past students – none of whom are now at the college – admitted to the priest who investigated the matter at the time “that they had frequented ‘gay bars’. A former rector from decades ago is now unwelcome at the College as a result of allegations of impropriety.”

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.

Cardinal critical of clerical attire

ROME
The Irish Times

PATSY McGARRY

GRADUATE PRIESTS: CARDINAL TIMOTHY Dolan’s report was scathing about priest graduates at the Irish College and seminarians’ dress.

It stated that “some of the graduate priests are less than positive examples of priestly life, and are not attentive to even the minimum demands made upon them”.

They needed “a clear rule of life . . . The lack of vigilance and continued formation over these new priests is of concern”.

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.

All four priests at college opted to leave

ROME
The Irish Times

PATSY McGARRY

DEPARTURES: ALL FOUR OF the seminary staff who were at the Irish College in Rome when the visitation team, led by Cardinal Timothy Dolan, arrived there in January 2011 have left or are on their way out.

This is in line with the recommendation in Cardinal Dolan’s report “that there needs to be a change in the staff” at the college.

He noted that one priest had already let it be known he was leaving and commented in the report: “This is good.”

It said the presumption was that this priest’s successor should not be either of the two men expected to fill he post. “Neither of these men should be appointed,” he said.

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.

National- Bishops launch public relations drive; SNAP responds

UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on June 14, 2012

America’s Catholic bishops, Reuters reports, are launching a major new public relations campaign.

It’s ridiculous.

Each bishop has long had a PR department. The US Conference of Catholic Bishops has long had a PR department. Almost every Catholic institution of any size – school, university, non-profit – has long had PR staff.

The problem is a lack of substantive reform, not a lack of professional spin-meisters. If bishops would listen more often and take more decisive action – especially in clergy sex abuse and cover up cases – they wouldn’t have to worry about public relations.

If bishops, as Reuters reports, are worried they “are perceived as too confrontational,” then here’s a suggestion: stop attacking victims, witnesses, whistleblowers and others who expose child sex crimes and cover ups.

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.

Archbishop: ‘Fortnight’ about religious freedom, not politics

ATLANTA (GA)
National Catholic Reporter

Jun. 14, 2012
By Dennis Sadowski, Catholic News Service

ATLANTA — Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore acknowledged Wednesday that the U.S. bishops’ “fortnight for freedom” campaign has come under heavy criticism in the secular media, in the blogosphere and by some Catholics as being a partisan political effort. …

At a news conference following the afternoon session, Lori said the bishops’ religious liberty campaign was funded by the Knights of Columbus, the Knights of Malta, Our Sunday Visitor and “many other groups as well.”

“[The Knights of Columbus] have been generous to a whole variety of causes including this one,” he said.

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.

More priests, brothers express support for LCWR

UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Jun. 14, 2012
By Joshua J. McElwee

Two orders of priests and brothers have sent separate letters of support to the leaders of the group representing the majority of U.S. sisters expressing “appreciation” and “deep gratitude” for the work of the sisters in the wake of the Vatican’s crackdown on their group.

Taken together, the letters represent the third and fourth such sign of support for the sisters from male orders and seem to indicate there may be ongoing discussions among other men religious about how to respond to the Vatican’s move.

News of the letters comes two days after representatives of the sisters’ group, known as the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), met in Rome with Cardinal William Levada, the head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which in April ordered to group to revise and place itself under the authority of three bishops.

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.

Rabbi’s sex-abuse trial delayed because yeshiva keeps ignoring requests for information

NEW YORK
New York Post

By JOSE MARTINEZ

Last Updated: 3:35 PM, June 14, 2012

The start of a sex-abuse trial for a prominent Williamsburg rabbi was delayed today because a yeshiva keeps ignoring requests for information from his defense team.

The case of Nechemya Weberman, an ultra-Orthodox rabbi charged with molesting a 12-year old girl over three years, was pushed back to July 18 as a judge weighs whether to slap contempt of court charges against the United Talmudical Academy.

“I was trying to avoid doing that to give the school an opportunity to respond,” Justice Ruth Shillingford said.

The 53-year-old accused child molestor is affiliated with the yeshiva, where his alleged victim — who was supposed to be mentored by him about religion — was a student.

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.

Oregon court opens Boy Scouts ‘perversion files’

OREGON
Reuters

By Teresa Carson

PORTLAND, Oregon | Thu Jun 14, 2012

(Reuters) – The Oregon Supreme Court on Thursday ordered the release of 20,000 pages of confidential Boy Scouts of America records, dubbed the “perversion files,” documenting suspected or confirmed sexual abuse by the group’s leaders and volunteers.

The state high court ruled that the names of the victims and those who reported abuse be redacted before the six cartons of documents are made available to the public. Attorneys said it was not immediately clear whether the identities of accused perpetrators would remain secret.

The documents came to wide public notice when they were admitted as evidence in a 2010 civil trial in which an Oregon jury found the Boy Scouts of America (BSA), headquartered in Texas, liable in a 1980s pedophile case and ordered the organization to pay nearly $20 million in damages.

Child protection advocates have said the files proved that like the Roman Catholic Church, the Boy Scouts exposed children to sexual predators for decades.

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.

OR- Scouts must turn over child sex records; SNAP responds

OREGON
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on June 14, 2012

This is a huge victory for kids, victims, parents and law enforcement. We are grateful to the brave Scout victims whose courage and compassion have led to this impending disclosure.

It’s helpful and healing every time society learns more about adults who commit or conceal devastating child sex crimes, especially institutions where the crimes and cover ups are likely to continue.

Scout lawyers are dead wrong. The release of these records will not deter abuse reporting. It will, however, deter cover-ups of heinous child sex crimes.

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.

MA- Boston Cardinal wants more PR help; SNAP responds

UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on June 14, 2012

The LA Times reports that some of America’s bishops feel they need more professional public relations help. Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston apparently agrees, saying “We need more help and sophistication in our messaging.”

We think that’s ridiculous. Shame on O’Malley for backing this irresponsible notion.

Each bishop has long had a PR department. The US Conference of Catholic Bishops has long had a PR department. Almost every Catholic institution of any size – school, university, non-profit – has long had PR staff.

The problem is a lack of substantive reform, not a lack of professional spin-meisters. If bishops would listen more often and take more decisive action – especially in clergy sex abuse and cover up cases – they wouldn’t have to worry about public relations.

O’Malley’s right that last year’s bishop report on abuse, done with the help of a few individuals at John Jay College, was no public relations coup for church officials. That’s because it was largely a “garbage in-garbage out” document, devised and done primarily with public relations in mind.

An honest, independent accounting of the crisis – paid for by bishops but conducted entirely by independent professionals – would certain be “good PR” for the prelates. But we’ve yet to see that and no one’s pushing or planning for that.

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.

Friend Of The Devil

UNITED STATES
Firedoglake

By: TBogg Thursday June 14, 2012

Jill at B&B wonders why Jerry Sandusky and the administrators at Penn State get the breathless front page coverage while pedophile enabler Cardinal Timothy Dolan schmoozes with politicians and the media while attempting to set American health policy:

It wasn’t all that long ago that we heard about the massive scale of the child sex abuse scandal in the Catholic church. It’s obvious to anyone who has a brain that this was clearly a cover-up on a massive, massive scale — and yet how many perpetrators were actually put on trial in a civil, not church, court? Sure, there have been lawsuits, but a lawsuit is not the same as a criminal trial.

At a time when the Catholic Church is trying to hold undue influence over American health care policy regarding contraception, and when politicians from both sides of the political spectrum are giving this church all kinds of unwarranted deference simply because its clergy and its history claims some kind of direct conduit to the Great White Alpha Male in the Sky, I think it’s worth asking what kind of moral authority a church hierarchy that has behaved like a massive criminal enterprise where child sex abuse is concerned can claim to have, and why anyone is even considering building policy around what these people want.

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.

No verdict on Day 8 of Pa. priest-abuse talks

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

By MARYCLAIRE DALE
The Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA — A jury has deliberated for an eighth day without reaching a verdict in the landmark clergy-abuse trial of two Philadelphia priests.

The jury is asking repeated questions about what’s needed to convict someone of “conspiracy” and “child endangerment.”

They are the two charges facing Monsignor William Lynn. He’s the first U.S. church official charged for his handling of abuse complaints. Prosecutors say he helped the church hide complaints from the public and keep abusers in ministry.

A judge has explained that jurors must find the “object” of the conspiracy was to endanger children. But the defendants didn’t have to know their conduct was criminal.

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.

Seattle man sues Spokane’s Gonzaga Prep

WASHINGTON
The News Tribune

The Associated Press

Published: 06/14/12

SPOKANE, Wash. — A Seattle man has filed a civil lawsuit against Spokane’s Gonzaga Preparatory School, saying the Jesuit-run school failed to protect him from a priest who was a serial sex predator.

The victim, identified in court papers as P.V., filed his case Thursday in Spokane County Superior Court. The lawsuit also names the Jesuits of the Missouri Province, the order that employed the priest, as a defendant.

The victim’s attorney, Tim Kosnoff, says the behavior by the Missouri Province was particularly egregious and represented a grave failure to protect 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: Bishop Moyer Suspended by the Anglican Church in America HOB

UNITED STATES
Virtue Online

By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
June 13, 2012

According to a highly placed source, David L. Moyer, a bishop in the Anglican Church in America, has been suspended from the denomination by unanimous vote of the ACA House of Bishops. He is no longer a member in good standing of the House of Bishops. This has been verified by Presiding Bishop Brian Marsh.

The Anglican Church in America (ACA) is a Continuing Anglican church body in the United States, a branch of the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC) whose former Archbishop John Hepworth resigned from the TAC following a failed attempt to lead the TAC into the Roman Catholic Church. He was rejected as unsuitable by Rome for the Pope’s Ordinariate for his status as a former Catholic Priest, who joined another denomination, and subsequently married twice. He was offered laicization instead. He rejected Rome’s offer.

Moyer had tied his fortunes to Hepworth following his being deposed by the Bishop of Pennsylvania, Charles E. Bennison, and evicted from the church. His first flight was to the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, then under Bishop Robert Duncan, and then the Anglican Province of Central Africa under its archbishop Bernard Malango.

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.

Perhaps we need some help with PR, say Catholic bishops in U.S.

ATLANTA (GA)
Los Angeles Times

By Mitchell Landsberg

June 14, 2012
ATLANTA — There’s no doubt that America’s Roman Catholic bishops have had their share of what might quaintly be called bad press. The priest sex-abuse scandal, a Vatican crackdown on nuns, a head-knocking fight with the president of the United States over contraceptive coverage — none of these would qualify as good news.

On Thursday, the bishops said they’ve had enough. It is time, they said, to beef up their public relations arsenal.

“We need more help and sophistication in our messaging,” said Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, who decried the “latest debacle” of bad PR over the treatment of American nuns (which involves an investigation by the Vatican, not the American bishops).

O’Malley observed ruefully that when John Jay College released a landmark study last year of the causes and handling of the church’s sex-abuse crisis, it “should have been a good moment for the church, and yet it was another black eye.”

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.

British historian: Church has not learned from abuse in past centuries

UNITED KINGDOM
National Catholic Reporter

Jun. 14, 2012
By Jonathan Luxmoore, Catholic News Service

OXFORD, England — A top church historian said the Catholic church has failed to learn lessons from sexual abuse by clergy and cited evidence the problem also was mishandled in previous centuries.

“Unlike his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI has seen the necessity of reacting strongly to abuse, but the Vatican still isn’t facing up to the reasons for it — in particular, its connection with universal clerical celibacy,” said Diarmaid MacCulloch, professor of the history of the church at Oxford University.

“Rome is still vehemently denying any such connection, but to me as a historian it’s blindly obvious. The church will be in trouble if it doesn’t tackle the root causes,” MacCulloch told Catholic News Service on Monday.

He said complaints of a cover-up of sexual abuse had been widespread in 17th-century Italy, when celibacy was made compulsory for all Catholic priests during the Counter-Reformation.

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.

The Vatican Bank Is Reportedly Under Investigation For Laundering Millions For A Mafia Godfather

VATICAN CITY
Business Insider

Samuel Blackstone|Jun. 14, 2012

New reports detailing widespread corruption and money laundering in the Vatican are coming out again, this time linking the Vatican with Sicilian mafia bosses, the Telegraph reports.

Sicilian mafia Godfather Matteo Messina Denaro and Father Ninni Treppiedi are the two names being mentioned in this episode.

Treppiedi, formerly the cleric of Aclamo, the richest parish in mafia safe haven Sicily, was relieved of his duties earlier this year when his bank’s transactions attracted the attention of anti-mafia investigators. The transactions, which date back to 2007-2009, are said to involve millions of euros, according to RT.

Prosecutors believe the transactions may have been attempts at laundering the riches of Mafia Godfather Denaro. Denaro is said to be one of the most wanted men on earth, and has something of a celebrity status in Italy (he appeared on the cover of l’Espresso in 2001).

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.

The Grave Truth Threatening Orthodox Communities

NEW YORK
Huffington Post

Chaim Levin

This past sunday, a townhall meeting was held in Crown Heights to raise awareness regarding the epidemic of child sexual abuse within Orthodox communities and their problematic responses. The event hosted by Eli Federman, a long time community activist and champion of these important causes, and included incredible panelists: Rabbi Yosef Blau, a vocal advocate and supporter of survivor’s rights; Irwin Zalkin, an attorney for survivors of clergy sexual abuse; Norman Siegel, a civil rights attorney; Mordechai Feinsten, a survivor and advocate; and Zvi Gluck, community activist and founder of Our Place, a safe space for survivors. Along with the panelists, the Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes spoke. He attempted to justify his legally dubious and controversial practice of keeping confidential the names of religious Jews prosecuted for these heinous crimes, adding “I created a system that keeps the names of offenders out of the public only to protect victims, and I’ll be damned if I change that.”

Perhaps, he should be. The Orthodox community is his most powerful voting block, and his policy protects Orthodox offenders and complies with the community’s general suppression of sexual abuse, which the D.A. himself acknowledges involves more “intimidation [than] in organized crime cases”. The Orthodox community, especially leaders and educators were conspicuously absent from this event, but, three weeks ago, they had come out en masse.

On May 20th 40,000 religious Jews gathered at Citi Field to discuss the “grave” threat the internet poses to their religious lifestyle. From the moment I found out about this event, I was dumbfounded. I simply could not understand how a rally on the “dangers” of the internet was rational, productive or even fair — not just fair to all the real issues ignored in these religious communities, but also to the people themselves, who were blindly following their religious leaders.

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.

Filipino archbishop shares Asian church’s experience with clergy sex abuse

IRELAND/PHILIPPINES
National Catholic Reporter

by N.J. Viehland on Jun. 14, 2012 NCR Today

MANILA, Philippines — Leading theologian Archbishop Luis Antonio Tagle of Manila presented delegates and officials of the 50th International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin with a view of clergy sex abuse problem in Asia.

Tagle explained to clergy, religious and laypeople packed in the workshop hall Tuesday the Asian bishops’ perspectives and approaches to developing deep appreciation of and a comprehensive response to the problem of sex abuse by priests and religious. The workshop covered the theme “Communion in Marriage and Family.”

Tagle said deeper issues underlie explicit sexual behavior. Asian bishops developing guidelines for addressing cases of sexual abuse must examine and appreciate spiritual, theological, anthropological and pastoral dimensions of abuse, he added.

Tagle, chairman of the Office of Theological Concerns of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences, said Asian bishops are concerned about pastoral care of victims and their families, of the wounded community, of the priest offender and his family, and of the rest of the clergy.

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Michael Harris trial is a go …

CALIFORNIA
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on June 14, 2012

The Michael Harris trial is scheduled to begin on Monday, June 18 at 9am. Barring any last-minute settlements, you’ll see me at Dept. CX103, Orange County Supreme Court.

It should be a barn burner. Get ready to see some diocese dirty laundry.

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Pfarrer soll Ehrenbürgerschaft verlieren

OSTERREICH
Tirol@ORF

Der verstorbene Pfarrer von Thiersee wird beschuldigt, jahrzehntelang Kinder missbraucht zu haben. Eine mögliche Aberkennung der Ehrenbürgerschaft sorgte für Wirbel im Dorf, der Bürgermeister will sich jetzt für die Aberkennung einsetzen.

Es kann nicht sein, dass jemand, der Kinder missbraucht hat, als Ehrenbürger geführt wird, argumentieren die Opfer des verstorbenen Pfarrers. Bisher kamen sie damit nicht durch. Der Gemeinderat stimmte lediglich darüber ab, dass über den Antrag gar nicht abgestimmt werden solle.

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Säkularität durch Zufall

OSTERREICH
Humanistischer Pressedienst

WIEN. (hpd) Der Wiener Kardinal und Vorsitzende der Bischofskonferenz, Erzbischof Dr. Christoph Schönborn, wird bald auf ein Privileg verzichten müssen. Der österreichische Nationalrat hat am Mittwochabend beschlossen, Diplomatenpässe nicht mehr so großzügig zu verteilen wie bisher.

Christoph Schönborn wird seinen Diplomatenpass bald abgeben müssen. Das sieht zumindest das neue Passgesetz vor, das der Nationalrat am Mittwochabend beschlossen hat. Außer Diplomaten sollen nur mehr Regierungsmitglieder und Abgeordnete, die für die Republik im Ausland unterwegs sind, sowie EU-Abgeordnete das begehrte Dokument bekommen. Schönborn fällt unter keine dieser Kategorien.

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US-Bischöfe ziehen Bilanz zum Missbrauchsskandal

VEREINIGTE STAATEN
kathweb

Washington, 14.06.2012 (KAP) Zehn Jahre nach der Verabschiedung eines Aktionsplans gegen sexuellen Missbrauch haben die katholischen US-Bischöfe eine Bilanz gezogen. Im Umgang mit dem Skandal und der Hilfe für Opfer habe es eine “beachtliche Verbesserung” gegeben, hieß es in einem internen Report, aus dem US-Medien am Donnerstag zitierten. Das Papier halte aber auch fest, es sei “noch viel Arbeit zu tun”. Die Bilanz der 2002 verabschiedeten “Charta von Dallas” war Thema während der derzeit in Atlanta tagenden Vollversammlung der US-Bischofskonferenz.

Wie Medien unter Berufung auf den Report berichteten, erhoben in den vergangenen zehn Jahren mehr als 15.000 Personen Vorwürfe sexuellen Missbrauchs gegen Kirchenmitarbeiter. Bis 2004 seien 4.392 Kleriker sexueller Vergehen beschuldigt worden; seitdem seien 1.723 hinzugekommen. Die Vorfälle, auf die sich die Anschuldigungen bezogen, seien in den 1960er-Jahren angestiegen. In den 1970er-Jahren hätten sie ihren Höhepunkt erreicht. In den 1980er-Jahren sei die Zahl der Übergriffe zurückgegangen.

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Länder verweigern Hilfe für Missbrauchsopfer

DEUTSCHLAND
Der Tagesspiegel

von Claudia Keller

2011 haben sich Bund und Länder auf die Einrichtung eines Hilfsfonds für Opfer sexueller Gewalt verständigt. Doch seitdem ist nichts passiert. Der Missbrauchsbeauftragte macht jetzt Druck.

Im November 2011 haben sich Bund und Länder auf die Einrichtung eines Hilfsfonds für Opfer sexueller Gewalt verständigt. Doch seitdem ist nichts passiert. Am Dienstag appellierte der Unabhängige Missbrauchsbeauftragte der Bundesregierung an die Länder, „endlich ihren Beitrag zu leisten“. „Die Länder sollten sich noch vor der Sommerpause mit dem Bund einigen“, sagte Johannes-Wilhelm Rörig in Berlin. „Eine weitere Verzögerung ist den Opfern nicht zuzumuten.“ Am morgigen Donnerstag steht das Thema auch auf der Tagesordnung beim Treffen der Ministerpräsidenten mit der Bundeskanzlerin in Berlin.

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Hungerstreik von Nobert Dennef (Netzwerk B), 7. Tag

DEUTSCHLAND
IG Burger denken mit

Der Hungerstreik von Norbert Denef sorgt für ein immer stärker anschwellendes Echo bei Medien und Betroffenen. Fünf Betroffene sind bereits in den Hungerstreik getreten und immer mehr Betroffene entschließen sich zu außergewöhnlichen Aktionen, um auf ihr Leid aufmerksam zu machen.

In diesem Sinne ist es nicht verwunderlich, dass auch viele Betroffene und Nicht-Betroffene bei der SPD (explizit bei Frank-Walter Steinmeier) nachfragen, warum es bis zum Hungerstreik von Norbert Denef kommen musste.

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Norbert Denef im Hungerstreik

DEUTSCHLAND
Norbert Denef im Hungersteik

14. Juni 2012

SCHARBEUTZ. (hpd) „Ich bin im Hungerstreik, weil die Bundestagsfraktion der SPD nicht dazu bereit ist, sich im Deutschen Bundestag für die Aufhebung der Verjährungsfristen von sexualisierter Gewalt einzusetzen, gleichwohl sich die Delegierten des Bundesparteitages der SPD am 6. Dezember 2011 eindeutig dafür ausgesprochen haben.“

Die Nachricht kommt per Mail, und sie stimmt. Es ist Freitag, der 8. Juni 2012, Norbert Denef spricht am Telefon über die Hintergründe. Für die SPD ist dieser Freitag heute, Brückentag zwischen Fronleichnam und einen Juni-Wochenende, kein glücklicher Tag, um der Presse offizielle Auskünfte zu erteilen. Zu viele der SPD-Dienststellen sind gerade nicht in voller Besetzung oder schwer erreichbar.

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POLITICS OF CHILD CRUSADERS

UNITED STATES
Catholic League

[Bishops Defend Fight Against Obama’s Policy on Birth Control Coverage]

Bill Donohue comments on the push to revise the statute of limitations in civil cases involving the sexual abuse of a minor:

There is a front-page story in the New York Times today on states that are considering laws that would loosen the statute of limitations in civil cases involving child abuse. However, two of the persons cited as defenders of children have actually promoted legislation that allows for child abuse to continue: Marci Hamilton and Joan Fitz-Gerald.

Fitz-Gerald, the former president of the Colorado Senate, introduced legislation in 2006 to lift the statute of limitations in these cases. She is quoted today saying she was horrified to learn of opposition to her bill by the archdiocese [of Denver]. “It was the most brutal thing I’ve ever been through,” she said. “The politics, the deception, the lack of concern for not only the children in the past, but for children today.”

In fact, Fitz-Gerald was responsible for turning a blind eye to the sexual molestation of children, and assisting her was Hamilton. To wit: Hamilton worked with Fitz-Gerald in drafting a bill that intentionally allowed molesting public school employees to escape with impunity (because of the doctrine of sovereign immunity, victims of abuse in the public schools have only 90 days to bring suit). In other words, because the bill was aimed only at private institutions, the target of which was the Catholic Church, it did not apply to the public schools. Not surprisingly, when another bill was introduced that was inclusive of public institutions, the public school establishment went nuts and successfully killed the bill.

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Jury labors to reach verdict in Philadelphia church case

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Reuters

By Dave Warner

PHILADELPHIA | Thu Jun 14, 2012

(Reuters) – Deliberations headed into their eighth day on Thursday in the child sex abuse trial of a Roman Catholic monsignor, with sparks flying in the courtroom and signs of what one attorney called a jury “struggling” to reach a verdict.

Monsignor William Lynn, the highest-ranking church official to stand trial in the wide-ranging pedophilia scandal, is accused of conspiracy and child endangerment.

Prosecutors say in his job overseeing hundreds of priests in the Philadelphia Archdiocese, Lynn covered up child sex abuse allegations, often by transferring priests to unsuspecting parishes.

Also on trial is the Reverend James Brennan, accused of child endangerment and attempted rape of a 14-year-old child in 1996.

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Green Bay diocese wants new clergy sex abuse trial

GREEN BAY (WI)
Chippewa Herald

Associated Press | Posted: Thursday, June 14, 2012

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Green Bay has requested a new trial after a jury awarded $700,000 to two victims of clergy sex abuse, claiming one juror in the case was biased.

Todd and Troy Merryfield alleged that the diocese falsely misrepresented the safety of former priest John Feeney when it installed him as pastor at Freedom’s St. Nicholas Church in the 1970s. The Associated Press generally doesn’t reveal the name of sex-abuse victims, but the Merryfield brothers have previously granted AP permission to use their names.

Feeney was convicted in 2004 for the sexual assaults and has already served his prison sentence.

Jurors deliberated for about five hours last month before awarding $475,000 to Troy Merryfield and $225,000 to Todd Merryfield.

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How a Mom Helped Stop Skip ReVille

SOUTH CAROLINA
Patch

By Adam Crisp

Ten years passed and 35 victims piled up before someone stepped up to stop prolific child molester Louis “Skip” ReVille from continuing to harm young boys.

Ministers, school administrators and college officials could have stopped him, prosecutors say. Those officials had clues of his illicit misconduct, but they failed to act.

In the end, an alarmed mother, who had no real connection to ReVille, was the one who shined the light on his misdeeds, prosecutors said Wednesday when ReVille pleaded guilty to 48 counts of various sex charges from Charleston, Berkeley and Dorchester counties.

It all started when the mom overheard her child and his friend discussing something that just didn’t seem right, prosecutors say.

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Jury Request Denied As Deliberations Continue In Clergy Sex Abuse Trial

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CBS Philly

By Tony Hanson

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — The jury in the clergy sexual abuse case was back at work for an 8th day on Thursday. They were told to rely on their memories in response to questions about critical trial testimony.

As expected, the judge told the jury it can not re-hear days worth of testimony from of several key witnesses, including two men who testified they were abused by priests charged in this case.

One priest, James Brennan, has pleaded not guilty. Another former priest, Edward Avery pleaded guilty and is now in prison.

In addition to the time factor, the judge told the jury reading such lengthy testimony would not be fair to either side since she indicated there is more to reading the credibility of a witness than just the words.

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Second woman sues Crookston diocese over sex abuse claims involving priest on loan from India

MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Posted by: Rose French Updated: June 14, 2012

A Catholic priest on loan from India who served in the Diocese of Crookston is accused in a lawsuit filed Wednesday of sexually abusing a minor girl in 2005.

The plaintiff in the new suit, identified as Jane Doe 122, is the second woman to sue the diocese over claims of abuse by the Rev. Joseph Jeyapaul. The priest was serving at the Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church in Greenbush when the alleged abuse occurred.

Attorney Jeff Anderson, who’s represented hundreds of victims in clergy sex abuse cases, announced the lawsuit filed in Roseau County court at a news conference Thursday at his law offices in St. Paul.

Anderson said Jane Doe was in her mid-teens at the time of the abuse, which occurred at the church rectory. She has also reported the charges to police authorities in Roseau County, Anderson said.

The Diocese of Crookston could not immediately be reached for comment about the lawsuit on Thursday.

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Judge Denies Lawyer’s Call for Mistrial in Priest Abuse Trial

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
NBC 10

By Dan Stamm and Maryclaire Dale
Thursday, Jun 14, 2012

The jury was back to work Thursday, after a day off from deliberations, as they deliberated the fates of two priests accused in a landmark case but while jurors deliberated the lawyer for a priest accused of sexually abusing a boy argued for a mistrial.

James Brennan’s lawyer, William Brennan, who has no relation to his client, argued Thursday morning for a mistrial since Common Pleas Judge M. Teresa Sarmina allowed jurors to hear the priest’s accuser’s testimony from a 2008 church trial during deliberations Tuesday even though the evidence wasn’t entered during the current trial.

The judge shot down Brennan’s request and further requests by the jury to hear even more testimony saying that the jury needs to use their own recollections while deliberation the case against James Brennan, 48, and Monsignor William Lynn, 61, who served as secretary for clergy at the Philadelphia archdiocese from 1992 to 2004.

Lynn, 61, is the first U.S. church official to be charged for his handling of clergy abuse complaints.

As of 10:45 a.m. Thursday, the jury continued Day 8 of deliberations without final decisions.

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No mistrial over reading of church trial testimony in Philly priest-abuse case, jury meeting

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Republic

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
June 14, 2012 –

PHILADELPHIA — A Philadelphia priest accused of molesting a teen won’t get a mistrial over the use of testimony from his church trial.

A judge has denied the request from the Rev. James Brennan.

The jury is deliberating for an eighth day, after hearing the accuser’s testimony from the canon trial this week.

Defense lawyer William Brennan, no relation, has asked for a mistrial Thursday. He says the jury should not have heard the testimony during deliberations when it was not aired at trial.

However, prosecutors say the transcript is in evidence, and the judge agreed to have it read Tuesday.

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Judge rules priest abuse trial jury can’t rehear testimony

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By John P. Martin and Joseph A. Slobodzian
Inquirer Staff Writers

The judge in the clergy sex-abuse trial told jurors Thursday that they will not get to rehear days of testimony from crucial witnesses in the case as they requested.

“I know it is a long, long time ago when we started with all the evidence,” Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina told the seven men and five women on the jury as they began their eighth day of deliberations. “You are going to have to rely on your memory.”

Sarmina ruled after lawyers for the defendants, Msgr. William J. Lynn and the Rev. James J. Brennan, argued that the jury’s request was cumbersome and amounted to retrying the case. In particular, jurors had asked to hear nearly two days of testimony from a man who has accused Brennan of trying to rape him when he was 14, and from the accuser’s mother.

They also sought a read-back of the key witness in the case against Lynn, a former altar boy who claimed he was sexually assaulted in a Northeast Philadelphia church by Edward Avery. Prosecutors say Lynn endangered the boy because he failed to take steps to remove Avery from ministry after another abuse allegation. Avery has pleaded guilty.

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Child-Sex Fallout

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Daily News

John Baer

In the wake of the Catholic Church pedophile scandal and the Jerry Sandusky child-sex charges, their are sweeping changes in child abuse laws — already adopted or being considered.

They mostly concern reporting periods and statutes of limitations that, for example, prevented charging numerous Philadelphia priests and supervisors who covered-up abuse as detailed in a graphic 2005 grand jury report.

At the time, state law required victims to report abuse by age 23. So the report concluded that “as a result, these priests and officials will necessarily escape criminal prosecution.”

(It was only because other victims falling within the deadline came forward later that a new grand jury was able to charge Msgr. William Lynn with allowing predators to stay active in the priesthood.)

When the 2005 report was issued, I wrote a three-line column that read: “Know what I hope? I hope all those Catholic priests are right. I hope there is a hell.”

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Victims to testify to lawmakers

NEW JERSEY
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Mark Crawford on June 14, 2012

■Victims to testify to lawmakers
■ They push to reform child sex laws
■Bill would give them more time to take legal action
■New Jersey’s Catholic bishops oppose the measure

The NJ Assembly Judiciary Committee will meet this morning in Trenton to hear testimony and consider a bill to make it easier for child sex abuse victims to take legal action against predators.

The hearing is set for 10 a.m. at the NJ State House in committee room 16, 4th floor of the annex building.

Several survivors and supporters who belong to a self help group called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, will testify in support of bill A2405 which eliminates the statute of limitations for child sexual abuse.

The Catholic Conference is expected to be there opposing the measure.

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Church assisting paedophile priests

AUSTRALIA
The Age

Richard Baker and Nick McKenzie
June 15, 2012

The archdiocese has disclosed to The Age that it is providing significant financial support to four clergy released from jail after serving sentences for child sex abuse.

Victim support groups say more clergy found either by police or internal church investigations to have abused children are likely to be receiving financial support from different Catholic orders outside the Melbourne archdiocese’s control.

A spokesman for the Melbourne archdiocese said church law required the bishop to ”ensure appropriate financial support is provided to all priests”. ”The archdiocese contributes to rental support and health insurance for four priests who have had their faculties to function as a priest withdrawn, been convicted of child sex offences and completed any term of imprisonment imposed by the courts.”

A fifth paedophile priest within the Melbourne archdiocese, Victor Rubeo, was also receiving financial support until his death in December last year, on the day he was to face a committal hearing in the Melbourne Magistrates Court over 30 fresh child sex abuse charges.

Director of victims support group In Good Faith and Associates, Helen Last, said the generous financial support to paedophile priests was unjust compared with the financial, physical and emotional hardship endured by those who have been abused.

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Rome Notebook: Lefebvrites, Vatican Bank, and is the hierarchy abusive?

VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

by John L Allen Jr on Jun. 14, 2012 NCR Today

* * *
Civilità Cattolica is usually described as a “quasi-official” or “semi-official” Vatican organ, because although the bimonthly journal is published and edited by the Jesuits, it’s read by the Vatican’s Secretariat of State prior to publication.

While that doesn’t mean that every word carries a stamp of approval, it does suggest that in a big-picture sense, Civilità Cattolica is usually a reliable guide to the thinking of officialdom.

That makes an essay in the June 16 issue especially interesting, published under the deliberately provocative headline, “Is the Church’s Hierarchy Abusive?”

The essay, by Jesuit Fr. Giandomenico Mucci, is not a reflection on specific alleged abuses by the hierarchy, such as its handling of the sexual abuse crisis or the Vatican’s recent crackdown on a nuns’ group in the States. Instead, Mucci argues that the hierarchy of the Catholic church necessarily attracts scorn and resistance, quite apart from its specific policy choices, because it cannot help but seem “abusive” to the basic presuppositions of the post-modern world.

The result, Mucci asserts, is that the media is fascinated by dissent, and exalts the dissenters as the “true, mature Catholics,” as opposed to the church’s power structure.

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Pinoy priest in New York kills self over sex scandal

PHILIPPINES
GMA News

A New York-based Filipino priest named in a multi-million lawsuit in 2008 filed by an alleged female lover took his own life in April during a visit to the Philippines, the Filipino Reporter has learned.

Fr. Elvis Elano reportedly found it too much to bear after his family and community “shunned” and “despised” him over an alleged seven-month sexual liaison with a woman that resulted in the filing of a $25 million suit against him and his Queens parish.

In a suicide note dated April 11 and addressed to his sister, Elano reportedly sought the forgiveness of the people he offended before hanging himself in his native Tabaco City in the province of Albay.

He reportedly flew to the Philippines in October last year to visit his ailing mother.

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Galway priest silenced by Vatican is set to return to public ministry

IRELAND
The Connaught Tribune

June 14, 2012

By Bernie Ní Fhlatharta

A Galway Redemptorist priest who was silenced by the Vatican because of his criticisms of the Church in relation to their response to clerical sex abuse in Ireland will be returning to public ministry next week.

Fr Tony Flannery, who is based in the Redemptorist Monastery in Esker, will be welcomed back by his congregation and colleagues there on Tuesday with the start of the Order’s annual Novena.

Fr Flannery, along with two Redemptorist colleagues, Fr Brendan O’Rourke and Fr Patrick O’Keeffe, will be preaching at the Novena, which focuses on the virtues of living a good Christian life.

The Attymon native publicly supported Taoiseach Enda Kenny’s call in the Dáil for the Catholic Church to apologise for its handling of clerical sex abuse. Fr Flannery was a regular contributor to the Redemptorist magazine Reality, in which he aired his views and support of the Taoiseach.

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New priests’ group hopes to preserve vision of Vatican II

FLORIDA
The Tampa Tribune

By MICHELLE BEARDEN | The Tampa Tribune
Published: June 14, 2012

TAMPA —
The Rev. Peter Ruggere began his seminary training when Roman Catholics were still celebrating Mass in Latin.

By the time he was ordained a priest in 1968, the church had gone through massive changes with Vatican II, a council which sought to align the centuries-old religious institution with the modern world and brought sweeping reforms to Catholicism.

One of those was implementing English in Mass, making it more accessible and participatory for Americans.

“The Latin Mass is something I never had to do,” says Ruggere, priest in residence at Corpus Christi Catholic Church in Temple Terrace. “All those changes that made the church open and welcoming were positive, as far as I was concerned.”

But with the tradition-minded Pope Benedict XVI at the helm of the 1 billion-member church, there’s been a slow shift toward returning to some of the old practices and structure.

That’s a concern for some clergy.

This week, about 240 priests from around the country are meeting at Saint Leo University in St. Leo for the inaugural assembly of the newly formed Association of U.S. Catholic Priests. Among its goals: To be a “voice of hope” and to “celebrate and implement the visionary concepts of Vatican Council II.”

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Symphysiotomy victims accuse doctors of forcing procedures to fight birth control

IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Lyndsey Telford

Wednesday June 13 2012

DOCTORS who forced a brutal medical procedure on pregnant women as recently as the 1990s did it to fight the crime of birth control, it has been claimed.

Victims of symphysiotomy, a practice in which doctors broke women’s pelvises to ease childbirth without their consent, have called for Dail support in their bid for justice and compensation.

Campaigner Marie O’Connor accused medical professionals of depriving women of a caesarean section, which they regarded as an artificial form of contraception.

“Doctors were using a scalpel to control women’s reproductive ways, stopping them from having a much safer caesarean section,” said Ms O’Connor.

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Bishops Defend Fight Against Obama’s Policy on Birth Control Coverage

ATLANTA (GA)
The New York Times

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN

Published: June 13, 2012

ATLANTA — Ten years after a raging scandal forced the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops to adopt a package of policies for combating sexual abuse, the prelates on Wednesday heard a generally positive assessment of their progress at their annual meeting, and turned their attention to their newest overriding concern: their campaign to protect religious liberty.

The bishops acknowledged that the effort had become a lightning rod for criticism that they had exaggerated the threat to freedom and aligned the church with the Republican Party in an election year. And they sought to debunk the notion that their campaign was fixated on their opposition to artificial birth control, saying that the Obama administration forced the issue by mandating that even Catholic institutions like hospitals and universities must provide insurance coverage for birth control and sterilization for their employees.

“It is not about parties, candidates or elections, as some others have suggested,” said Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore, the chairman of the bishops’ religious freedom committee, who noted that the bishops have faced hostility “even from some Catholic commentators.”

“In the face of this resistance, it may be tempting to get discouraged, to second-guess the effort, to soft-pedal our message,” Archbishop Lori said. “But instead, these things should prompt us to do exactly the opposite, for they show us how very great is the need for our teaching, both in our culture and even in our own church.”

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Former Plainfield pastor found guilty of sexually assaulting 2 girls

NEW JERSEY
The Star-Ledger

By Julia Terruso/The Star-Ledger

ELIZABETH — As a sheriff’s officer led their former pastor away in handcuffs today after he was convicted of sexually assaulting two young girls, the victims’ parents wiped tears from their eyes.

George Benbow, who had stood in the pulpit at Christian Fellowship Gospel Church in Plainfield, preaching right and wrong, had betrayed their trust, they said.

“I’m glad it’s over and my daughter doesn’t have to go through this anymore,” the mother of one of the girls said, her voice breaking. “This has devastated a community.”

A jury in Superior Court in Elizabeth convicted Benbow of two counts of sexual assault for encounters with two girls between the ages of 9 and 13 — incidents that occurred on church property and in his home next door. He did not react to the verdict except to confer with his lawyer.

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Procedure ‘used to fight birth control’

IRELAND
The Irish Times

Doctors who forced a medical procedure on pregnant women to widen the pelvis as recently as the 1990s did it to fight the crime of birth control, it has been claimed.

Victims of symphysiotomy, a practice in which doctors broke women’s pelvises to ease childbirth without their consent, have called for Dáil support in their bid for justice and compensation.

Campaigner Marie O’Connor accused medical professionals of depriving women of a caesarean section, which they regarded as an artificial form of contraception.

“Doctors were using a scalpel to control women’s reproductive ways, stopping them from having a much safer caesarean section,” said Ms O’Connor.

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Church influenced birth procedure, says report

IRELAND
The Irish Times

CARL O’BRIEN, Chief Reporter

A DRAFT report commissioned by the Government into the use of a controversial childbirth operation says one of the reasons it was used was to obey laws influenced by the Catholic Church that banned contraception and sterilisation.

It is estimated up to 1,500 women underwent symphysiotomies – an operation to widen the pelvis – between the mid-1940s and mid-1980s. The procedure has since been linked with lifelong health problems such as incontinence, chronic pain and mobility problems.

A draft report to be published by the Department of Health this week will show use of symphysiotomies was at its peak in Ireland when it had declined in the rest of Europe.

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Who will hang when it comes to WAs institutional abuse?

AUSTRALIA
Care Leavers Australia Network

Anne Louise Brown
WA Today
13th June 2012

The last man to hang in Western Australia, Eric Cooke, was institutionalised in Fremantle Prison as a juvenile.

Ronald Ryan, the last man to hang in Victoria, was a ward of the state, sent to the Salesian Order’s school for orphaned, wayward and neglected boys aged 11.

And Glen Sabre Valance, the last man hung in South Australia, spent his formative years in and out of state-run orphanages and boys’ homes.

Coincidence? Perhaps not.

In Western Australia the dark reality of abuse committed in state, church and charity operated children’s institutions is slowly bubbling to the surface.

And, it seems, the only way to heal the scars of the past is to hold a royal commission into what happened in these institutions now, for the future, so it never happens again.

Mick Hilder was aged between 13 and 14 when he was sexually abused by WA’s most notorious paedophile, Dennis McKenna, at St Andrew’s boarding hostel in Katanning.

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8 Ugly Sins of the Catholic Church

UNITED STATES
AlterNet

By Valerie Tarico

June 11, 2012

Did the Catholic Bishops wince last week when their leader, anti-contraception Cardinal Timothy Dolan, was exposed for paying pedophiles to disappear? One can only hope. After all, these are men who claim to speak for God. They have direct access to the White House, where they regularly weigh in on issues ranging from military policy to bioethics, and they expect us all to listen – not because of relevant expertise or elected standing, but because of their moral authority.

Ahem.

If pedophile payouts weren’t enough to convince you that this “moral” authority is often anything but moral, take a look at some of their other sins against compassion and basic decency.

1. Excommunicating doctors and nuns for saving lives. In 2009, a 27-year-old mom, pregnant with her fifth child, was rushed to a Phoenix hospital, St. Josephs, where her doctors said she would almost certainly die unless her pregnancy was aborted immediately. The nun in charge approved the emergency procedure, and the woman survived. The local bishop promptly excommunicated the nun. “There are some situations where the mother may in fact die along with her child. But — and this is the Catholic perspective — you can’t do evil to bring about good. The end does not justify the means,” said Rev. John Ehrich, the medical ethics director for the Diocese of Phoenix.

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Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley laments discord on nuns

ATLANTA (GA)
Boston Globe

By Lisa Wangsness
| Globe Staff
June 14, 2012

ATLANTA – Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Boston, said Wednesday that he is worried and saddened that the controversy over the Vatican’s rebuke of a US nuns’ group may have fostered a perception the church is inhospitable to women.

O’Malley spoke for the first time about the situation in an interview at a gathering of bishops, as supporters of beleaguered nuns protested outside. Earlier this week, Vatican officials met with leaders of the nuns’ group, but they did not resolve their differences.

“It’s a great concern,’’ he said. “The last thing the church needs is more controversies. As we try to evangelize people, we are trying to get them to focus on the centrality of Christ and trying to promote family life and service to the poor, and I see these things as great distractions sometimes.’’

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Ex-educator gets 50 years for abuse

CHARLESTON (SC)
The Item

BY BRUCE SMITH
The Associated Press

CHARLESTON – Former teacher and coach Louis “Skip” ReVille was sentenced to 50 years in prison Wednesday after pleading guilty to nearly two dozen child sex charges at a hearing where a victim called him “a demon who rapes angels.”

ReVille, who worked at schools, camps, churches and recreation programs in the Charleston area, was arrested in October and pleaded to 22 counts involving victims in Charleston, Dorchester and Berkeley counties dating back a decade.

The charges included criminal sexual conduct, committing a lewd act on a minor, criminal solicitation of a minor and dissemination of obscene material. ReVille received 50 years on the most serious charge, first-degree criminal sexual conduct with a minor, in this case, a boy who was only 10 years old. He could have received life on that charge.

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Second woman to sue Crookston diocese over alleged abuse

MINNESOTA
Grand Forks Herald

By: Stephen J. Lee, Grand Forks Herald

A second woman plans to sue the Catholic Diocese of Crookston over what she says was sexual abuse in 2005 by the Rev. Joseph Jeyapaul, according to the attorney representing her.

Jeffrey Anderson put out a news release Tuesday saying he would hold a news conference today in St. Paul.

The woman hasn’t been named and no criminal charges against Jeyapaul involving her have been filed.

Known for winning hundreds of millions of dollars in sexual abuse lawsuits, often against Catholic Church entities, Anderson represented Megan Peterson. Last year, Peterson, now 22, settled a $750,000 law suit against the Crookston diocese over what she said were violent sexual assaults by Jeyapaul in her parish in Greenbush, Minn., when she was 14 and 15.

Jeyapaul came to the diocese in late 2004, on loan from his bishop in India. Complaints against him involving Peterson and another girl came to the diocese’s attention in August 2005, but Jeyapaul had returned to India by then, saying he had to visit his ailing mother.

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2nd Woman to Sue Crookston Diocese Over Alleged Sexual Abuse

MINNESOTA
WDAY

(WDAZ-TV) – A second woman will sue the Crookston diocese over what she says was sexual abuse by Reverend Joseph Jeyapaul in 2005.

The woman has not yet been named and there have not been any new criminal charges against Jeyapaul.

Last year, another woman settled a $750,000 lawsuit against the Crookston Diocese over what she said were violent sexual assaults by Jeyapaul in the Greenbush, MN, parish when she was around 15.

In the new case, the woman, who was 16 at the time, exchanged letters with Jeyapaul in which he indicated he acted improperly with her, but loved her.

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Diocese asks for new trial in Feeney case

APPLETON (WI)
Post-Crescent

[with video]

Written by
Jim Collar
Post-Crescent staff writer

APPLETON — Attorneys for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Green Bay are asking for a new trial in the Outagamie County civil lawsuit won by two childhood victims of clergy sex abuse based on new information they say shows a juror was biased.

A jury last month awarded brothers Todd and Troy Merryfield a total of $700,000 in the fraud case. The brothers claimed the diocese fraudulently misrepresented the safety of former priest John Feeney when it installed him as pastor at Freedom’s St. Nicholas Church in the 1970s.

Feeney molested the boys, then ages 12 and 14, in 1978. He was sentenced to prison for the sexual assaults in 2004.

Attorneys for the diocese filed a motion for a new trial last week citing a juror’s “incorrect responses” on a questionnaire provided in advance of the trial and “lack of candor” during and after the May 14 jury selection process.

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Louisville Catholic priest, facing sex charges, dying of skin cancer

KENTUCKY
WHAS

LOUISVILLE (WHAS11) – The trial of a Louisville priest accused of molesting two teenage boys has been delayed because doctors say the priest is dying.

Malignant melanoma -those two words have stalled a court battle that spent years in the making. A doctor’s letter filed in court confirms that Father James Schook is dying of stage four skin cancer.

Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP spokesman Cal Pfiefer said, “I hate that he’s going through that. Absolutely. But, again, if that was me and I was innocent, I’d want to defend myself while I’m still alive.”

Schook, the former pastor of St. Ignatius Martyr Church, is accused of sexually abusing two teenage boys in the ‘70s. He’s facing seven charges of sodomy. Pfiefer has been in contact with one of Schook’s alleged victims who is reeling from the news of yet another setback.

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Church Battles Efforts to Ease Sex Abuse Suits

UNITED STATES
The New York Times

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN and ERIK ECKHOLM

Published: June 14, 2012

While the first criminal trial of a Roman Catholic church official accused of covering up child sexual abuse has drawn national attention to Philadelphia, the church has been quietly engaged in equally consequential battles over abuse, not in courtrooms but in state legislatures around the country.

The fights concern proposals to loosen statutes of limitations, which impose deadlines on when victims can bring civil suits or prosecutors can press charges. These time limits, set state by state, have held down the number of criminal prosecutions and civil lawsuits against all kinds of people accused of child abuse — not just clergy members, but also teachers, youth counselors and family members accused of incest.

Victims and their advocates in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and New York are pushing legislators to lengthen the limits or abolish them altogether, and to open temporary “windows” during which victims can file lawsuits no matter how long after the alleged abuse occurred.

The Catholic Church has successfully beaten back such proposals in many states, arguing that it is difficult to get reliable evidence when decades have passed and that the changes seem more aimed at bankrupting the church than easing the pain of victims.

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U.S. bishops focus on sex abuse crisis, contraception mandate

ATLANTA (GA)
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

BY TIM TOWNSEND ttownsend@post-dispatch.com > 314-340-8221

ATLANTA • The U.S. Catholic bishops who gathered in Atlanta for their annual spring meeting spent Wednesday morning grappling with the sins of the past, marking the 10th anniversary of the clergy sex abuse crisis that crippled the church.

In the afternoon, they turned toward the future, and a looming battle with the federal government over an issue they say could cripple its mission in a different way.

In June 2002, the bishops met in Dallas as the abuse scandal, which first erupted in Boston, was raging across the country. What became known as the Dallas Charter was a set of norms the bishops agreed to that they hoped would stop the crisis and prevent the future abuse of children by priests, deacons and bishops. At the time, the bishops also founded a National Review Board, a committee of lay men and women who would study the issue and collaborate with the bishops to help prevent future abuse.

In a progress report released to the bishops Wednesday, the National Review Board said that a decade after the crisis, “There has been striking improvement in the Church’s response to and treatment of victims.” But it also acknowledged that “much work still needs to be done.” …

Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of BishopAccountability.org, said in a statement that the National Review Board in its report had “gratified the bishops but failed their fellow Catholics.”

“The last thing bishops need is more flattery,” Doyle said. “They need a tough national review board and tough diocesan review boards to challenge them on their continued dangerous practices.”

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What Penn State…

UNITED STATES
Verdict

What Penn State, Horace Mann, the Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Community, the Roman Catholic Church, and the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints Have Taught Us: We Need Child-Sex-Abuse Whistleblower Laws

Marci A. Hamilton

The latest child-sex-abuse debacle is the cover-up involving a series of men who abused children at the elite New York private school Horace Mann. Add that to the now well-known stories of powerful men covering up abuse at Penn State, within the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn, within the Roman Catholic Church, and within the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and it is safe to say that there is something very wrong with the way in which men in power at male-dominated institutions have handled child sex abuse.

In each of these cases, the men in power have learned about heinous child sex abuse, and then simply sat on their hands.

Some Examples of the Failure to Zealously Prosecute Child Sex Abuse

Most recently—in fact, just this week—we learned that, in 2001, in a series of emails among Penn State’s then-President Graham Spanier, Gary Schultz, and Tim Curley, the three decided that the “humane” thing to do was not to go to the authorities about Jerry Sandusky’s sexual abuse of children. That is to say, they left Sandusky at large, unidentified as a child predator, in the midst of circles of children, from the Penn State/Second Mile football camps to the local high school football teams. This rings of the Catholic bishops’ practice of forgiving abusers, and then shuttling them from parish to parish.

Prosecutors also have, at times, been less than aggressive in going after abusers in religious communities. For decades, it was commonplace for district attorneys to decline to prosecute Catholic priests who were accused of abuse, out of respect for the bishops who asked not to have their dirty linen aired in public. The D.A.s, along with anyone else who learned about such abuse, believed at the time that the bishops would do what was best for children.

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Attorneys squabble over stalled jury in clergy-sex abuse trail

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By John P. Martin
and Joseph A. Slobodzian
INQUIRER STAFF WRITERS

Keep the jurors late.

Order them to do their job.

Give them what they want.

Those were options defense lawyers and prosecutors asked Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina to consider Wednesday as jurors took a day off from deliberations in the landmark clergy-sex abuse trial.

The panel of seven men and five women asked for the break because of graduations and family commitments. On Thursday, they are due to begin an eighth day deliberating child-endangerment and other charges against Msgr. William J. Lynn, the former secretary for clergy in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, and the Rev. James J. Brennan.

The shape of those talks remains unclear. No one could be sure whether the stream of questions from the jury room since it got the case June 1 came from one juror or 11. After she sent jurors home Tuesday, Sarmina told the lawyers she was reluctant to grant the panel’s latest request: to have days’ worth of testimony read to it.

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Catholic bishops meet in Atlanta

ATLANTA (GA)
WABE

[with audio]

[National Review Board report]

By Denis O’Hayer

The nation’s Catholic Bishops are meeting here in Atlanta this week. At their first session Wednesday, they heard a review board report that allegations of child sex abuse by clergy have dropped sharply since the bishops adopted a child protection charter ten years ago.

The review board, made up of lay people, sound what it called “striking improvement” in the church’s response and in the treatment of victims in the past decade. However, board chairman Al Notzon, III told the bishops that much work still needs to be done.

“Many of the faithful believe that sexual abuse by clergy is occurring at high level, and is still being covered up by bishops. This suggests a trust problem,” said Notzon.

The review board outlined several recommendations, including independent audits down to the parish level, to ensure child protection policies are being followed.

Despite these talks, the review board findings received bad reviews from protesters outside of the Hytt Regency in Atlanta, where the bishops are meeting.

Some protestors spoke.

“My name is Barbara Blaine…I was sexually abused by a priest growing up in Toledo, Ohio in the late 60s and early 70s,” said one protestor.

Barbara Blaine is now the President of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. As she stood amid childhood photos of alleged victims, Blaine called the review board report inadequate and said church leaders have not done enough to remove abusive priests and report them to the civil authorities.

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June 13, 2012

“Was mit uns gemacht worden ist, das wünscht man keinem”

DEUTSCHLAND
Sueddeutsche

Von Dietrich Mittler

Sie wurden geschlagen, im Keller eingesperrt und mussten Erbrochenes essen: 80 ehemalige Heimkinder berichten im bayerischen Landtag von ihrem Martyrium. Sie werfen den Behörden vor, versagt zu haben, Hilfe aus der Politik lasse noch immer auf sich warten.

Die Anhörung von ehemaligen Heimkindern im bayerischen Landtag hat am Dienstagmorgen noch gar nicht begonnen, da unterbricht eine Frauenstimme das Gemurmel im alten Senatssaal. “Wir wollen endlich für voll genommen werden, wir lassen uns nicht länger an der Nase herumführen.” Es ist die Stimme von Marie-Louise Weinhold aus Oberstdorf, die demnächst 70 Jahre alt wird. Als sie als Vollwaise ins Heim kam, war sie drei Jahre alt.

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Conference focuses on challenges facing Catholic Church

ATLANTA (GA)
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

By Shelia M. Poole
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The pope’s personal representative to the United States said Wednesday that the Catholic Church in the U.S. is living in a “particularly challenging period of its history.”

His words underscored the issues being tackled by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which is holding its spring General Assembly in Atlanta.

The gathering of the nation’s top Catholic leaders included discussions of threats to religious liberties and sexual abuse by clergy. …

There were other issues as well. Barbara Blaine, president of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), criticized an update on the child safety policy.

“Where do they get the audacity to claim everything is fine?” she said. “There are so many breeches of their policy. Notice how all their discussions are about dealing with the priests. What about the children?”

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Accused priest James Schook dying, might not stand trial

KENTUCKY
The Courier-Journal

Written by
Peter Smith
The Courier-Journal

A Roman Catholic priest facing sodomy charges has terminal skin cancer, likely giving him only months to live and possibly preventing him from ever standing trial, a court document says.

That has raised concerns from a victim’s advocacy group who fear they may never see justice for the two men who say the priest abused them when they were boys in the early 1970s.

The Rev. James Schook, 64, was scheduled to face trial in May, but Judge Mitch Perry postponed further hearings until December. Schook has been released pending his trial.

Jefferson County Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney John Balliet, the prosecutor in the case, said at the time of the May hearing that he had a scheduling conflict because he was prosecuting another case at the same time.

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Catholic bishops told to follow their own policies against sexual abuse

UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Jun. 13, 2012

By David Gibson, Religion News Service

Amid continuing headlines about cover-ups of child abuse in the Catholic Church, an oversight board of lay Catholics on Wednesday (June 13) warned the nation’s bishops that they must follow their own policies against abuse more rigorously if they hope to restore their fragile credibility.

“If there is anything that needs to be disclosed in a diocese, it needs to be disclosed now,” Al J. Notzon III, head of the bishops’ National Review Board, told some 200 prelates gathered in Atlanta for their annual spring meeting. “No one can no longer claim they didn’t know.”

The meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops comes 10 years after the hierarchy met in Dallas and passed a series of reforms to respond to a siege of bad publicity about sex abuse by priests. It also comes as a jury in Philadelphia weighs the fate of a high-ranking priest who’s facing criminal charges of concealing abuse by clerics, and as a bishop from Missouri awaits trial on charges that he failed to report a suspected child molester to authorities.

In his review of the church’s track record over the past decade, Notzon did not mention the Philadelphia or Missouri cases by name, nor any of the other periodic lapses by bishops over the 10 years since the USCCB passed the so-called Dallas Charter.

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Former priest, convicted child sex offender denied to live in Green Bay

GREEN BAY (WI)
WTAQ

GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ) – A former Green Bay priest and convicted child sex offender has had his request to live in the city of Green Bay denied. The Sex Offender Residency Board denied Donald Buzanowski’s request. Buzanowski was convicted in 2005 for sexually assaulting a young boy in 1988. He was sentenced to 32-years in prison. But due to changes in recent statute of limitations law in the appellate courts, the 69-year-old was released early from prison in May.

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Church report: Children safer from abuse; more work to do

ATLANTA (GA)
CNN

By Eric Marrapodi, CNN Belief Blog co-editor

(CNN) – Children in the Catholic Church are safer 10 years after the church initiated reforms in the wake of the priest abuse scandal, but there is still work to be done, according to a report delivered to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Meeting in Atlanta, the bishops heard from Al Notzon III, the chairman of the National Review Board, on the progress made 10 years after they tasked the lay group with “advising the bishops on the handling of sexual abuse of minors by clergy.”

Notzon delivered the report to the clergy leaders in a morning session. “There has been striking improvement in the Church’s response to and treatment of victims,” the report said. “Children are safer now because of the creation of safe environments and action has been taken to permanently remove offenders from ministry.”

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It’s Not Really About Sex Abuse: More Proof of SNAP’s Hidden Agenda

UNITED STATES
TheMediaReport

Dave Pierre

More proof has just emerged that the anti-Catholic group SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) is really more about advancing a left-wing agenda than fulfilling its purported mission “to provide support for men & women who have been sexually victimized by members of the clergy.”

This past March, Barbara Blaine, the founder of the SNAP, was a featured speaker at the “Women•Money•Power Forum” hosted by Feminist Majority, a powerful, radical, pro-abortion activist group.

Other speakers at the event included radical liberal voices such as Eleanor Smeal, Sandra Fluke, and Dawn Laguens (a VP at Planned Parenthood). (See screenshot outlining the event.)

The Feminist Majority says it promotes causes including “non-violence,” “reproductive health,” and “non-discrimination on the basis of sex, race, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, religion, ethnicity, age, marital status, nation of origin, size or disability.”

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Bishop Joseph A. Ferrario

UNITED STATES
BishopAccountability.org – Assignment Record

Summary of Case: Joseph Ferrario was ordained a priest of the Sulpician order in in 1951 and started his career in Mountain View, CA.
In 1957 he was sent to Hawaii where he taught at a minor seminary and became a parish pastor. He held numerous leadership positions in the diocese, including Vocations Director, CYO Director, and Director of Scouting. Ferrario was elevated to Auxiliary Bishop of Honolulu in 1978, and to Bishop in 1982. He was accused in 1985 of having sexually abused a 15 year-old boy beginning in 1975 and continuing for years, including while he was bishop. Ferrario denied the allegations. The boy is said to have initially gone to Ferrario for counseling. His accuser claimed Ferrario paid him for sexual encounters. Ferrario is also said to have solicited sex from young seminarians. An internal church investigation deemed the accusations “groundless”. Ferrario retired in 1993 and died in 2003.

Ordained: 1951

Retired: 1993
Died: Dec. 12, 2003

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Media Statement

UNITED STATES
National Survivor Advocates Coalition

National Review Board Report to the USCCB on the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People

We couldn’t be more disappointed in the National Review Board’s report and its accompanying huge loss of a special opportunity for genuine, effective protection of children at this 10 year anniversary point of the Charter.

The National Review Board chose to speak to and comfort its constituency which is, of course, the Bishops, instead of taking on the prophet role and speaking truth to power.

The job of Catholicism is to change the world, radically confront the culture, and afflict the comfortable. The National Review Board decided to take a pass.

We cite a few examples:

– there is not even a slap on the wrist for Bishop Finn of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph for sitting on information for at least six (6) months regarding Father Shawn Ratigan and child pornography;

– there is no mention that there are no teeth in the audit system, but somehow in the 2012 audit process diocesan officials are going to “robustly” provide documentation. How will anyone know if the information is complete or accurate? There is no subpoena power or anything close to it – auditors get the information bishops want to give them.

– there is no mention, let alone an urgency to move on the issue of accused priests whose cases have been sent to the Vatican for laicization. These cases have languished at the Vatican while Catholics continue to pay salaries and benefits to these priests.

– the board recommends annual “dialogue” between the bishops and religious superiors regarding sexual abuse in religious communities saying mildly that 10 years is too long for this huge loophole of non-reporting to remain open. The recommendation is to talk. There is no recommendation for consequences, no use of hierarchial authority, no teeth recommended, let alone urged.

– the National Review Board touts numbers in training programs in parishes. We remind Catholics that it was not lay people who created this crisis and that fingerprinting only pulls up in law enforcement’s computers those who have records — priests and religious brothers and religious sisters who were never reported to police will never turn up in a fingerprint check.

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Einige rufen: Skandal!

DEUTSCHLAND
Sueddeutsche

Da ist zum Beispiel das schockierende Geständnis von Pater Alfredo Moreno, dem Sekretär von Marcial Maciel, des 2006 wegen sexuellen Missbrauchs mit Amtsverbot belegten Gründers der Legionäre Christi. Am 19. Oktober 2011 um 9.30 Uhr trifft Moreno den Sekretär des Papstes. Er gibt zu, Dokumente über Maciels Schandtaten vernichtet zu haben. Er enthüllt aber vor allem, dass er bei Papst Johannes Paul II. kein Gehör fand, als er 2003 von diesen Taten berichten wollte. Warum, bleibt ein Geheimnis. Moreno war ein glaubwürdiger Zeuge, er war viele Jahre Maciels treuer Schatten. So aber mussten noch Jahre vergehen, bis der Skandal ans Licht kam.

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Kalter Kaffee, lau aufgewärmt – Bayerischer Landtag hörte Heimopfer

DEUTSCHLAND
Readers Edition

Unter Ausschluss der Öffentlichkeit bekamen laut „WELT ONLINE“ 80 ehemalige „Heimkinder“ am 12. Juni Gelegenheit, dem Sozialpolitischen Ausschuss des Bayerischen Landtags über ihre Erlebnisse in überwiegend kirchlich geprägten Kinder- und Jugendheimen zu berichten. Es ging um physische, psychische und sexuelle Gewalt in den drei Nachkriegsjahrzehnten, die der Sozialwissenschaftler Prof. Manfred Kappeler, Berlin, zusammenfassend resümierte: „Diese Kinder und Jugendlichen wurden zu Ausgelieferten. Sie hatten keine Chance, sich zu wehren.“

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Scham und Reue bleibt

IRLAND
domradio (Deutschland)

Die diplomatischen Beziehungen zwischen dem Heiligen Stuhl und Irland waren nach dem Skandal um sexuellen Missbrauch zerrüttet. Beim Eucharistischen Weltkongress setzt Rom auf versöhnliche Töne. Der päpstliche Gesandte traf Opfer und bekundete “Scham und Reue” für die Vergehen.

Der persönliche Vertreter des Papstes beim Eucharistischen Weltkongress in Dublin ist mit Opfern sexuellen Missbrauchs zusammengetroffen. Im Auftrag Benedikts XVI. bitte er um “Vergebung von Gott und den Opfern für die schwere Sünde des sexuellen Missbrauchs von Kindern durch Kleriker”, sagte Kardinal Marc Ouellet laut einer Mitteilung der Irischen Bischofskonferenz vom Mittwoch.

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Pfarrer bleibt trotz Übergriffe Ehrenbürger

OSTERREICH
Tiroler Tageszeitung

Von Wolfgang Otter

Thiersee – Die Vorwürfe gegen den vor drei Jahren verstorbenen Thierseer Pfarrer und Ehrenbürger sorgen für hitzige Diskussionen im Passionsspieldorf. Der Geistliche wird beschuldigt, Burschen zwischen zehn und 14 Jahren betatscht und sexuell belästigt zu haben. Anschuldigungen, die von mehreren Betroffenen erhoben wurden und – obwohl die Ereignisse viele Jahre zurückliegen – von der Ombudsstelle für Opfer sexuellen Missbrauchs und Gewalt in der Erzdiözese Salzburg als glaubhaft eingestuft werden. Daher reiste Prälat Johann Reißmeier vor wenigen Tagen höchstpersönlich nach Thiersee, um bei einem Gottesdienst die Pfarre über die sexuellen Übergriffe zu informieren und sich für die Verfehlungen des Verstorbenen zu entschuldigen. Außerdem gab es ein Gespräch mit betroffenen Thierseern. Laut Pressestelle der Erzdiözese werden dadurch weitere Fälle von der Ombudsstelle untersucht. Zudem sei am 11. Juni ein Informationsabend über das Thema geplant. Dabei geht es allgemein um die Frage von pädophilen Handlungen durch Priester.

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40 Millionen Euro Entschädigung für Ex-DDR-Heimkinder

DEUTSCHLAND
Stern

Ehemalige DDR-Heimkinder werden künftig für erlittenes Unrecht in staatlichen Erziehungseinrichtungen aus einem Hilfsfonds mit 40 Millionen Euro entschädigt. Einen entsprechenden Beschluss billigte das Kabinett, wie die Bundesregierung mitteilte. Der Fonds wird demnach zum 1. Juli eingerichtet und je zur Hälfte von Bund und Ländern getragen.

Eine entsprechende Vereinbarung hatten Bund und Länder zuvor in einer Arbeitsgruppe erarbeitet und auch schon eine Satzung formuliert. Ein Bericht zur Heimerziehung in der DDR kam demnach zu dem Schluss, dass die Erlebnisse in den Heimen zu massiven Beeinträchtigungen im Leben der Betroffenen geführt haben, die über den Heimaufenthalt hinaus zum Teil noch bis heute nachwirken. Auch leiden viele Betroffene an schlechten beruflichen Chancen, Stigmatisierungen und psychischen Traumatisierungen.

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Tweede Kamer, 94e vergadering, 12 juni 2012

NEDERLAND
Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal

Vragenuur

Vragen van het lid Gesthuizen aan de minister van Veiligheid en Justitie over het bericht “KLOKK schort bestuurlijk overleg met het bestuur van de Stichting Beheer & Toezicht, voorheen Hulp en Recht, op”.

Mevrouw Gesthuizen (SP):
Voorzitter. Iedereen vindt het heel erg belangrijk dat de rooms-katholieke kerk, die jarenlang niet heeft ingegrepen terwijl duizenden kinderen werden misbruikt, de slachtoffers recht doet die dit is overkomen. Deze slachtoffers hebben recht op een welgemeend excuus van de kerk, op erkenning, op bestraffing van de daders en natuurlijk ook op compensatie. De kerk maakt er echter een potje van. De Stichting KLOKK, waarin veel slachtoffers zich hebben verenigd, heeft geen vertrouwen meer in Stichting Beheer & Toezicht, de stichting die voor de kerk de slachtoffers moet ontvangen en begeleiden en onder wiens regels de compensatiecommissie voor genoegdoening moet zorgen.

Nu moeten slachtoffers zelf een causaal verband aantonen tussen bijvoorbeeld de verkrachtingen waarvan zij als kind slachtoffer zijn geweest en de destructieve impact die dat later op hun leven heeft gehad. Zelfs als eerdere klachten al gegrond zijn verklaard, moeten mensen opnieuw een aanvraag indienen. Zij moeten dan weer door die molen en weer alle ellende opnieuw herhalen voor de commissie. Als toppunt is het niet duidelijk of zij de juridische bijstand die zij daarbij nodig hebben wel vergoed krijgen. Wat vindt de minister hier nu van? Wil hij, samen met de staatssecretaris van VWS, proberen om deze problemen op te lossen? Is hij bereid om bij mevrouw Peijs na te vragen hoe het kan dat zij een halfjaar nadat zij als bestuursvoorzitter van de Stichting Beheer & Toezicht hier in de Kamer en tegenover de slachtoffers heeft gezegd dat zij zou aanpakken en doorpakken, dat nog steeds niet heeft gedaan en dat slachtoffers nog altijd bungelen? Ik vraag de minister om ervoor te zorgen dat de compensatiecommissie echt de ruimte krijgt om voor slachtoffers te doen wat zij moet doen en dat deze niet door de kerk wordt beperkt in wat zij mag.

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Closing of Blue Cloud Abbey ends era in state

SOUTH DAKOTA
Argus Leader

Written by
Jon Walker

Blue Cloud Abbey will close this summer after 62 years as a home for Benedictine monks and a spiritual oasis for visitors seeking solitude in a modern world.

The monastery is a northeast South Dakota landmark that has kept the tiny burg of Marvin on the map. It became a jumping-off point for brothers in the Catholic faith to minister to communities in the Dakotas and eventually fell to the same fate shared by those it served. The decline hit its critical point in May, when its 14 monks voted to close the doors. A farewell gathering will be Aug. 5.

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Priest facing sex charges dying of cancer

KENTUCKY
UPI

LOUISVILLE, Ky., June 13 (UPI) — The sex abuse trial of a Roman Catholic priest in Kentucky has been delayed while he has treatment for what is likely to be terminal cancer, a prosecutor says.

A doctor’s letter included in court files said the Rev. James Schook has stage IV malignant melanoma, an aggressive form of skin cancer, The (Louisville) Courier-Journal reported Wednesday.

Schook, who may have less than a year to live, was to have gone to trial last month but a judge ordered a delay. Jefferson County Commonwealth’s Attorney John Balliet said Schook might face trial in December if he is in better health, even if the improvement is only temporary.

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Report praises U.S. bishops’ work to stop child sex abuse

ATLANTA (GA)
WBFO

(2012-06-13)
(Reuters) –
By Stephanie Simon

ATLANTA (Reuters) – New allegations of child sexual abuse against U.S. Roman Catholic priests have declined, and children are safer due to measures taken to protect them, a national review board said on Wednesday in a generally positive report to U.S. bishops meeting on a range of divisive issues facing the Church.

Al Notzon III, chairman of a lay review board set up by the bishops to deal with child sexual abuse, praised the progress even as he acknowledged that some dioceses have failed to comply with the church’s new policies on sexual abuse, including regular reviews by external auditors.

He did not spell out any consequences, only that bishops should “continue to take seriously the harm done to the church” of non-compliance.

Victims’ support groups sharply criticized the reports’ findings as ”

David Clohessy, director of the victims’ support group SNAP, said the bishops’ discussion “was sad, predictable and disappointing.” He pointed to several cases in recent years, and even recent weeks, where church authorities did not discipline or remove priests who have pleaded guilty to sexual abuse or had credible allegations made against them.

“As long as those who conceal child sex crimes get absolutely no punishment, nothing will change,” Clohessy said.

Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of another victims’ advocacy group, Bishop Accountability, called the report “feckless” and “timorous” for failing to impose tough consequences.

“With their gutless report today, National Review Board members gratified the bishops but failed their fellow Catholics,” said Doyle.

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Another clergy sexual abuse allegation lawsuit filed under recently enacted Hawaii law

HAWAII
The Republic

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
First Posted: June 13, 2012

HONOLULU — Another lawsuit against the Diocese of Honolulu has been filed under a new Hawaii law providing a two-year window for claims of sexual abuse against minors to be made, even if the statute of limitations has lapsed.

Attorneys for an unnamed Los Angeles man filed a lawsuit Tuesday claiming he was sexually abused by two priests while a boy growing up in Hawaii. The suit claims that as a child, he was sodomized in 1973 by Rev. Joseph Henry at St. Anthony’s in Kailua. The suit says the boy reported the abuse to several years later to Rev. Joseph Ferrario, who also sexually abused him.

In 1982, Ferrario was installed as Bishop of Honolulu. Both priests have since died.

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SNAP’s “Dirty Dozen” Bishop List

UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on June 13, 2012

Below is a list of SNAP’s list of worst bishops in the past decade, based on their actions since the adoption of the Dallas charter.

Archbishop J. Peter Sartain of Seattle (formerly of Joliet)

• Ordained Fr. Alejandro Flores in the Diocese of Joliet, who was known to be “sexually troubled” while in Seminary and had been caught with “young-looking” porn.

o After ordination, it was found out Flores had been abusing a young boy for at least 5 years.

o Despite Sartain supposedly “keeping a close watch” on Flores, the priest attempted suicide in the church

o BishopAccountability.org

• In a separate instance, he hid allegations against two priests for at least five months. He only made the claims public after SNAP had already outed them.

o Months after the fate of these two priests was decided, Sartain continued to keep parishioners in the dark, refusing to disclose details of the allegations, investigations, and results.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York (formerly of Milwaukee)

• Last year, Fr. Jaime Duenas was arrested for repeatedly abusing a 16-year-old girl over three days at her parish job. Then, Dolan posted on his blog a statement essentially attacking the girl and questioning why she went back to work the second and third days. Despite SNAP’s protests, Dolan’s callous post is still up.

o BishopAccountability.org

• Last year, the public learned that there was child porn on a Bronx assistant principal’s school computer. At that time, it was also revealed that Catholic officials – including Dolan – had kept silent for nine months about the child porn, giving the criminal and his supervisors ample time to destroy evidence, fabricate alibis, intimidate witnesses, threaten whistleblowers and thwart law enforcement.

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Lise Hand: Bishop weeps as he laments the suffering of little children

IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Lise Hand

Wednesday June 13 2012

Given the sporting week that’s in it, an apt description of the event taking place in the RDS is that it’s a Congress of two halves.

On one hand, every day finds groups of pilgrims singing hymns while gathered around picnic tables in the grounds of the Dublin 4 complex, or attending music-filled Masses in the arena.

There is a relaxed, festival feel (albeit a sedate festival largely consisting of senior citizens), as the pilgrims wander in and out of the myriad workshops or browse the maze of stalls.

But in another room yesterday a discourse on the dark side of the Catholic Church was taking place, dealing with the clerical sex abuse scandals which have cast (and which continues to cast) a long, sorrowful shadow over the organisation.

And the prelate selected to grasp this thorny topic was the Archbishop of Manila, Antonio Tagle.

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Charter progress report details success dioceses have in abuse cases

ATLANTA (GA)
Catholic News Service

By Dennis Sadowski
Catholic News Service

ATLANTA (CNS) — While the Catholic Church has taken major steps in addressing allegations of clergy sexual abuse, it must continue to be vigilant in assuring that victims and their families will receive the attention and care they deserve, said the chairman of the National Review Board.

In a report marking the 10th anniversary of the “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People,” Al J. Notzon III told the U.S. bishops June 13 at their spring meeting that transparency remains a crucial component of building and maintaining credibility among the Catholic faithful as well as the general public.

He credited the country’s bishops for developing more pastoral responses, rather than being concerned primarily with legal issues when allegations are made.

“In the long run, the strictly legal response caused more pain, did more damage and cost more money,” Notzon said. “The lesson learned by the church is clear: We must treat those making allegations of sexual abuse with compassion and care. It is not only the best solution, but the right thing to do and an integral part of the church’s spiritual mission.”

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BREAKING: Former Hawaii bishop accused of molesting boy

HAWAII
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on June 13, 2012

For immediate release: Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Hawaii bishop accused of molesting boy
New sex abuse and cover-up lawsuit is filed
This is the 2nd victim to name Ferrario as offender
Diocese knew and covered up allegations, lawsuit says
New state law lets victims expose abusers & protect kids

In a new civil lawsuit using an unusual new state law, a former Hawaii bishop and one of his priests are accused of molesting a boy and Catholic officials are accused of ignoring or concealing their crimes.

A California man says he was sexually violated as a ten-year-old in 1973, first by Fr. Joseph Henry and then by former Honolulu Bishop Joseph Ferrario. At the time, the boy attended mass at St. Anthony’s parish in Kailua. Both alleged wrongdoers are now deceased.

The lawsuit is one of the first filed under a new Hawaii law that lets child sex abuse victims use the courts to expose predators, protect kids and seek justice, even decades after they were assaulted.

The victim, who grew up in Hawaii and now lives in California, is suing the Honolulu Diocese, which employed both clerics.

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Papal Legate to Eucharistic Congress meets abuse victims

IRELAND
BBC News

The Papal Legate to the 50th International Eucharistic Congress has met a group of survivors of clerical child abuse in Ireland.

The two hour meeting took place during a pilgrimage to Lough Derg by Cardinal Marc Ouellet.

Each survivor told the legate about the abuse they suffered and its impact on their lives.

The group included men and women from across Ireland.

Cardinal Ouellet undertook the penitential pilgrimage on behalf of Pope Benedict XVI as a public expression of penance and repentance for the abuse of children by clerics in the Irish and universal Catholic church.

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Pope’s personal rep to Eucharistic Congress meets survivors of clerical sexual abuse

IRELAND
The Journal

THE POPE’S PERSONAL representative to the International Eucharistic Congress has met with a group of survivors of clerical sexual abuse – and asked them for foregiveness for the abuse.

Cardinal Marc Ouellet met with the victims, from both sides of the border, during a two-day pilgrimage to Lough Derg.

After the meeting Ouellet celebrated Mass at St Patrick’s Basilica where he said Pope Benedict XVI had asked him to come to Lough Derg and ask for God’s forgiveness for any instance where someone had been abused anywhere in the Church.

“I come here with the specific intention of seeking forgiveness, from God and from the Victims, for the grave sin of sexual abuse of children by clerics,” he said in his homily.

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Abuse survivor criticises papal envoy

IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

A survivor of institutional abuse has today criticised the Pope’s envoy for meeting victims in secret during a pilgrimage.

Papal Legate Cardinal Ouellet asked for forgiveness during his penitential pilgrimage to Lough Derg in Co Donegal on behalf of Pope Benedict XVI.

Men and women from both sides of the border who suffered at the hands of clergy spoke of the impact it had had on their lives during a two-hour meeting with the senior churchman.

A spokesman said he was deeply moved by his meeting with the survivors of abuse and would be reporting on the meeting to the Pope on his return to Rome from the 50th International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin.

But one leading campaigner, who requested time with the Cardinal, said he was outraged that he was not part of the group.

Michael O’Brien, former Mayor of Clonmel, said he and survivor Christy Heaphy made several calls and sent emails to church administrators for time with the cleric.

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Pope’s envoy apologizes to Irish victims of clerical sex abuse

IRELAND
CNBC

DUBLIN (Reuters) – An envoy for Pope Benedict has apologized in person to child victims of sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests, a gesture that highlights the Vatican’s concerns over its deteriorating status in Ireland.

Senior Vatican Cardinal Marc Ouellet travelled to the island of Lough Derg, in a remote corner of Ireland, on Tuesday to speak with victims in a meeting which lasted two hours.

The Church in predominantly Catholic Ireland has been rocked by a series of cases of child sex abuse stretching back decades and by church leaders’ complicity in covering them up.

Ireland announced last year it would close its embassy to the Vatican, one of the Catholic country’s oldest missions, after relations hit an all-time low over the Church’s handling of the sex abuse cases.

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Papal legate meets abuse victims

IRELAND
The Irish Times

CHARLIE TAYLOR

Papal legate Cardinal Marc Ouellet has asked for forgiveness from victims of clerical child abuse during his visit to Co Donegal.

The papal legate, who is representing Pope Benedict XVI at this week’s International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin, met victims of abuse yesterday while on a pilgrimage to Lough Derg.

The meeting lasted two hours, during which survivors spoke of his or her own personal experience of abuse and its impact on their lives.

After the meeting, the former archbishop of Quebec celebrated Mass in St Patrick’s Basilica on the island with about 100 pilgrims.

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Papal legate’s Lough Derg homily

IRELAND
The Irish Times

Homily of Cardinal Marc Ouellet at Lough Derg

Dear brothers and sisters,

Pope Benedict XVI asked me, as His Legate to the 50th International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin, that I would come to Lough Derg and ask God’s forgiveness for the times clerics have sexually abused children not only in Ireland but anywhere in the Church.

Lough Derg in Ireland is the symbol of conversion, penance and spiritual renewal. Many people come here to pray, to fast and to apologise for their sins. According to a long tradition, they follow the steps of Saint Patrick who evangelized the country in the fifth century.

I come here with the specific intention of seeking forgiveness, from God and from the victims, for the grave sin of sexual abuse of children by clerics. We have learned over the last decades how much harm and despair such abuse has caused to thousands of victims. We learned too that the response of some Church authorities to these crimes was often inadequate and inefficient in stopping the crimes, in spite of clear indications in the code of Canon Law.

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Papal Legate meets a group of clerical abuse survivors on Lough Derg

IRELAND
RTE News

Papal Legate to the 50th International Eucharistic Congress Cardinal Marc Ouellet has met a representative group of survivors of clerical child abuse.

The meeting, which took place during the Legate’s pilgrimage to Lough Derg, lasted two hours during which each survivor spoke of their personal experiences of abuse and its impact on their lives.

The group included representatives of institutional and clerical abuse, both men and women, from different parts of the island of Ireland.

Cardinal Ouellet undertook the penitential pilgrimage on behalf of Pope Benedict XVI as a public expression of penance and repentance for the abuse of children by clerics in the Irish and universal Catholic church.

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