ABUSE TRACKER

PENNSYLVANIA
Standard Speaker

By Bob Kalinowski (Staff Writer)

Published: June 16, 2012

A Roman Catholic priest from Wilkes-Barre who has served in Hazleton sexually abused an altar boy for six years while serving as pastor of a Tioga County church, state police charged on Friday.

The Rev. Thomas P. Shoback, 66, is facing 32 counts of child sex abuse, including involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, attempted involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, indecent assault, endangering the welfare of children and corruption of minors, police said.

Investigators with state police at Mansfield say the alleged sexual assaults occurred between 1991 and 1997 at the rectory of St. Mary’s Parish in Blossburg, where Shoback was pastor, and at a nearby private cabin.

Shoback would later serve at various Northeastern Pennsylvania churches in Exeter Township, Jermyn, Hazleton, Plains Township and Plymouth. In addition, he was a faculty member at the former Bishop Hoban High School in Wilkes-Barre.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Priest Abuse Trial Blog

Ralph Cipriano

Judge M. Teresa Sarmina began the day by reversing herself.

On Thursday, the judge instructed the jury that Monsignor William J. Lynn did not have to act with criminal intent in order to be found guilty of conspiring to endanger the welfare of children.

On Friday, the judge said that Msgr. Lynn did have to act with criminal intent in order to be found guilty of conspiring to endanger the welfare of children.

Confused? Obviously, so are the jurors, who finished their ninth day of deliberations without reaching a verdict.

On Friday, the judge gave a complicated set of jury instructions that laid out the conditions for finding Msgr. Lynn guilty of conspiring to endanger the welfare of children.

In order to find Lynn guilty, according to the judge, the jury would have to:

— Find that the monsignor intended to promote or facilitate the committing of the crime of endangering the welfare of children.

— Find that “Lynn intended to act jointly” with other conspirators so that “a crime would be committed,” namely endangering the welfare of children.

— Find that Lynn and other conspirators had to know that their conduct would result in the danger of harm to children.

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MALTA
Malta Independent

Defence lawyer Giannella de Marco said victims of priestly sexual abuse met and agreed on the case to try and get as much financial gain as possible from those who gave them so much during their upbringing.

Two priests were last August found guilty of sexually abusing minors under their care, and were jailed for six years and five years respectively.

Carmelo Pulis was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment after being found guilty of abusing nine boys. Francesco sive Godwin Scerri was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment after the court found him guilty of sexually abusing two boys. He was cleared of raping one of the boys because the victim alleged the case had happened in Marfa, and later explained it had happened at St Joseph Home.

The two priests were defrocked last year following investigations the Vatican carried out.

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

GENEVIEVE CARBERY

IRISH COLLEGE: CRITICISM LEVELLED at the Irish College in Rome by a Vatican report does not reflect the experience of some former seminarians.

Among these is Fr Brendan Cooney who said the report, as detailed in The Irish Times, made for “painful” reading.

He found it “almost laughable” that the staff could be accused of not being devoted to Rome.

Fr Cooney, of the Kiltegan Fathers, had “very happy” years at the college as a student in the 1960s. More recently he had a “close relationship” with and “great admiration” for the college.

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

PATSY McGARRY

MISSION: THAT THERE should be “substantial reform” at the Irish College in Rome was just one of a number of opinions expressed by Cardinal Timothy Dolan in his visitation report.

His “major conclusion” was “that the bishops of Ireland must reaffirm the identity and mission of the college as first and foremost, a house of priestly formation for seminarians from Ireland, with the presence of non-Irish seminarians and graduate priests from Ireland and elsewhere, never allowed to dwarf the primary mission and identity, as he fears it now does”.

His “strong concern” was that “in reality, the Irish seminarians are only a minority subset in the house (18 in an enrolment of 56, less than one-third!). The clear identity of the college as primarily an Irish seminary is thus compromised”. He felt that “the presence of Orthodox students in the house, as well as of the Eastern Rite Catholic men not preparing for the celibate life”, was an added complication.

He noted that “one prelate asked the wisdom of having the bishops of Ireland subsidise a house for predominately [sic] non-Irish seminarians and priests”. He also recommended that “the graduate priests ordinarily come from Ireland and that their number be fewer than that of the seminarians”.

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

PATSY McGARRY

APOSTOLIC VISITATION: CARDINAL TIMOTHY Dolan concludes his somewhat bruising 17-page report on the Irish College in Rome with unexpected warmth.

Speaking of himself in the third person, as he did throughout, he said “the apostolic visitor left the college filled with affection and admiration for the students, and, notwithstanding his criticisms, appreciation for the sincerity and hard work of the staff”, who he had just recommended be changed.

He also said he was “warmly welcomed by the rector . . . his staff, seminarians, and student priests. The visitor enjoyed his stay and appreciated the hospitality of this community”.

He outlined 19 “positive observations” about the college. These included an atmosphere that was “warm, inviting, hospitable”, and a physical environment that was “comfortable, while not opulent”.

In general, the seminarians were “sincere”, “earnest in their desire to be priests after the heart of Christ” and took their academic work seriously. The four staff were “visible, available, and engaged . . . ” while the presence of student priests was “of some benefit in their example”.

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

PATSY McGARRY, Religious Affairs Correspondent

THE ASSOCIATION of Catholic Priests has responded strongly to details of a visitation report on the Irish College in Rome which was prepared for the Vatican by the Cardinal Archbishop of New York, Timothy Dolan.

Details of the report were published in The Irish Times yesterday. Among its main recommendations was that priests on the staff at the college’s seminary be replaced.

The association called on Ireland’s four Irish archbishops, trustees of the college, and bishops of the priests concerned, “to publicly repudiate this report in the strongest possible terms and to support the priests involved in seeking to restore their reputations”.

They protested “in the strongest possible terms against the methodology and conclusions” of Cardinal Dolan’s report and said it had “effectively destroyed the reputations of priests, who have given lifelong service to the Irish Catholic Church, without giving them a right of reply to the allegations made against them”.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Washington Post

No verdict in Philadelphia priest-abuse case after 9th day of deliberations; more talks Monday

By Associated Press, Updated: Friday, June 15

PHILADELPHIA — A Philadelphia jury has failed to reach a verdict after nine days of deliberations in a groundbreaking priest-abuse case.

Several jurors appeared upset when they broke for the day Friday. But the panel has not signaled a stalemate and continues to ask for evidence from the three-month trial.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
NECN

Jun 15, 2012

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Jackson County prosecutors are seeking access to transcripts of interviews conducted by a Kansas City law firm investigating how the local Roman Catholic diocese handles reports of child sexual abuse.

Attorneys for the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph on Friday countered that records of interviews by the law firm of former U.S. Attorney Todd Graves are protected by attorney-client privilege. The diocese had commissioned the investigation.

Bishop Robert Finn and the diocese are charged with misdemeanor failure to report suspected abuse to the state after learning of suspected child pornography on a priest’s computer. Finn has acknowledged learning about the photos in December 2010, six months before the Rev. Shawn Ratigan was arrested on state and federal porn charges.

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BROOKLINE (MA)
Pokrov

Author: Theodore Kalmoukos
Date Published: 6/15/2012
Publication: The National Herald (USA)

BOSTON, MA – A sexual abuse scandal has arisen at Holy Cross Theological School in Brookline, MA involving a 50 year-old married student who reportedly abused a teenage girl sexually on campus.

Rev. Nicholas Triantafillou, president of Hellenic College – Holy Cross, told TNH that “the only thing I can tell you is that the School took immediate and appropriate action [regarding the suspect and the victim and her family].”

Triantafillou refused to discuss the girl’s condition or whether the authorities had been notified. Despite TNH’s persistence for further comment, he said “I cannot say anything else at this moment, the issue is legal and the lawyer has told me to be careful.”

The suspect has five or six children and belongs to the segment at the School that considers priesthood as a second-chance career and go to the Theological School at an advanced age to study to become Greek Orthodox priests. The girl’s family lived on campus as well because her father was a student at Holy Cross and already an ordained priest.

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BROOKLINE (MA)
The National Herald

BOSTON, MA – A sexual abuse scandal has arisen at Holy Cross Theological School in Brookline, MA involving a 50 year-old married student who reportedly abused a teenage girl sexually on campus. Rev. Nicholas Triantafillou, president of Hellenic College – Holy Cross, told TNH that “the only thing I can tell you is that the School took immediate and appropriate action [regarding the suspect and the victim and her family].”

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TENNESSEE
Times-News

By Kacie Breeding

Published June 15th, 2012

BLOUNTVILLE — A judge has refused to overturn a former Kingsport priest’s July 2011 convictions for raping an altar boy three decades ago.

William Casey, 78, 740 Shakerag Road, Greeneville, was sentenced in November to 15 to 20 years for first-degree criminal sexual conduct and two concurrent 20-year terms on two aggravated rape counts. His convictions stemmed from allegations he sexually abused a young altar boy shortly after becoming priest of St. Dominic Catholic Church in Kingsport in the 1970s.

During the trial, the victim, Warren Tucker, now 46, testified Casey raped him twice — once when he was 13 and once when he was 14 — and performed oral sex on him in his mother’s trailer shortly before his 15th birthday, with Tucker saying he “felt obligated” to reciprocate the act. He described feeling powerless to resist a man he believed to be “representative of God on Earth.”

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

by Joshua J. McElwee on Jun. 15, 2012 NCR Today

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The latest pre-trial hearing in the first criminal case against a sitting bishop in the decades-long clergy sex abuse scandal was held Friday afternoon, with attorneys for Bishop Robert W. Finn and his diocese arguing with prosecutors mainly over issues of discovery.

Both Finn and his Kansas City-St. Joseph, Mo., diocese face trial this September in Jackson County, Mo., over separate criminal misdemeanor charges of failure to report suspected child abuse concerning their actions regarding a priest arrested last year for possession of child pornography.

Friday’s hearing before Jackson County, Mo., Judge John Torrence concerned a number of motions filed by attorney’s in the cases over the past months.

Primarily before the court was a motion filed by prosecutors requesting discovery of a large number of diocesan files regarding its handling of a number of other priests who have been previously accused of sexual misconduct.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Berger’s Beat

June 15, 2012 1:20 pm | Author: Jerry Berger
SNAP has released a “dirty dozen” list: 12 bishops who they say have acted “recklessly, callously and decptively” in pedophile priest cases over the last decade, since church officials pledged to do better with sex cases. Three of them worked here: New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan, K.C.’s Robert Finn and retired Cardinal Justin Rigali who now lives in Tennessee with former local priest/Knoxville Bishop Richard Stika.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

A former Ham Lake church youth director was acquitted Thursday on all charges of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl.

An Anoka County jury spent more than a day deliberating before acquitting Damian Burkhalter, 47, of Blaine, of six counts of criminal sexual conduct.

The charges, filed last June, alleged that he abused the girl at his home and at youth camps, saying the first incident occurred about two years ago. Authorities were notified when a child protection worker in Kandiyohi County learned of the allegations from the girl.

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MINNESOTA
KAAL

ANOKA, Minn. (AP) – A jury has acquitted a Ham Lake church youth director on all charges alleging he had sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl.

The Anoka County jury spent more than a day deliberating before acquitting 47-year-old Damian Burkhalter of Blaine on six counts of criminal sexual conduct.

The charges alleged that Burkhalter abused the girl at his home and at youth camps more than a year ago and that sexual incidents continued afterward.

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MINNESOTA
ABC Newspapers

By Eric Hagen on June 15, 2012

A 48-year-old Blaine man was acquitted yesterday (Thursday, June 14) by an Anoka County District Court jury of all six felony criminal sexual conduct charges he was facing.

Damian Blake Burkhalter had been accused of having improper relations with a then 14-year-old girl, but a jury found him not guilty.

Burkhalter was charged in June 2011 with three counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct and three counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Saarbrucker Zeitung

Herr Dr. Müller, was ist von Seiten der Kirche nach dem Missbrauchsskandal im vergangenen Jahr geschehen?

Wunibald Müller: Die Kirche hat sich auf einen Weg der Erneuerung begeben. Im Bereich sexueller Missbrauch Minderjähriger durch kirchliche Mitarbeiter sind wichtige Initiativen in die Wege geleitet worden und Beschlüsse gefasst worden, die deutlich machen, dass die Kirche es ernst meint, wirklich zuerst die Opfer sexuellen Missbrauchs zu sehen und alles zu tun, zum Beispiel auch durch Präventionsmaßnahmen, um in Zukunft sexuellen Missbrauch in ihren eigenen Reihen zu verhindern.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Pocono Record

June 15, 2012

A priest who served at a Monroe County parish was arrested Friday on a charge of sexual abuse in Tioga County.

According to the Diocese of Scranton, the Rev. Thomas P. Shoback had charges filed over a complaint of sexually abusing a minor. He faces 32 counts, including involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, indecent assault and endangering the welfare of children.

According to court records, the incidents occurred by 1991 and 1995.

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UNITED STATES
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

By DAVID CRARY
The Associated Press

NEW YORK — While many Americans are riveted by the Penn State sex abuse trial, it has been particularly wrenching — and sometimes heartening — for those who were themselves victims of abuse in their youth.

Unlike the witnesses testifying against Jerry Sandusky, most of them never got the chance to confront their abusers in court, so the trial has been cathartic as well as troubling.

“It’s vicarious justice — the closest many survivors will ever get to a courtroom where the perpetrator is held accountable,” said Claudia Vercellotti of Toledo, Ohio, who says she was molested for years in her adolescence by a Roman Catholic youth minister.

Vercellotti, a 42-year-old hospital employee, has immersed herself in news reports of the trial, mesmerized by the past week’s often-graphic testimony from eight young men who said Sandusky, a former Penn State assistant football coach, had abused them.

“It takes raw courage to get up there and face their abuser,” she said. “They are liberating other victims of sex crimes who have not been able to speak up. There are people across this country saying, ‘Me, too. Me, too.'”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Republic

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
June 15, 2012 – 3:13 pm EDT

PHILADELPHIA — A Philadelphia jury is deliberating for a ninth day in the trial of a Roman Catholic priest charged with molesting a teen and a monsignor charged in an alleged church cover-up.

The jury Friday has asked for defense exhibits, including correspondence between the late Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua and his underlings.

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CALIFORNIA
The Oakland Tribune

By Tracey Kaplan tkaplan@mercurynews.comcontracostatimes.com
Posted: 06/15/2012

Father Jerold Lindner always pitched his tent far from everyone else on religious camping trips in the Santa Cruz Mountains. That way, his accusers later said, no one could hear his young victims whimper.

But more than 30 years later, one of those accusers is striking back — in a rare way chosen by only one of the 16,000 Americans who are known to have been sexually molested by Catholic clerics. Will Lynch, who says he was raped by the man he knew as Father Jerry on a camping trip in the mid-1970s, is accused of beating up the priest — and he is now using his own assault trial to try the cleric in the court of public opinion.

On the eve of his trial in San Jose, an emotional Lynch talked in an exclusive interview on the 15th floor of a San Francisco hotel about why he’s willing to put his freedom on the line to protest a legal system that never made Father Jerry pay.

Even though the Jesuits have doled out millions of dollars to settle cases brought by Lindner’s victims, the priest was never prosecuted because Lynch and others reported the abuse after the brief window of opportunity set by the statute of limitations at the time slammed shut.

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PENNSYLVANIA
YNN

By: Web Staff

TIOGA COUNTY, Pa. — A Pennsylvania priest faces a number of charges following an investigation into child sexual abuse.

State Police say they launched their investigation into Thomas Shoback, 66, after a former altar boy at St. Mary’s Parish in Blossburg went to the diocese with the abuse allegations.

Police say the abuse happened between 1991 and 1997 when the boy was between the ages of 11 and 17, both at the Parish Rectory and at a private cabin in Farmington Township.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Times-Leader

Edward Lewis – elewis@timesleader.com – 570-970-7196 – Twitter: @TLEdLewis

A Diocese of Scranton priest who formerly was assigned at Bishop Hoban High School and parishes throughout Luzerne County was charged in Tioga County with sexually assaulting an alter server.

The Rev. Thomas P. Shoback, 66, of Wilkes-Barre, was charged by state police at Mansfield with multiple sex offenses involving the boy, who is now an adult.

State police said the alleged assaults took place from 1991 through 1997 while Shoback was assigned at St. Mary’s Parish in Blossburg, Tioga County.

Shoback was suspended by the Dicoese in November when allegations of sexual misconduct surfaced. State police filed a total of 32 sexual offenses, including involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and indecent assault, on Monday with District Judge James Carlson in Blossburg.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WETM

Reported by: George Kastenhuber
Email: gkastenhuber@wetmtv.com

Mansfield, Pa. – Pennsylvania State Police in Mansfield have charged a former Blossburg Priest with various sex crimes.

Father Thomas Shoback is charged with sexually molesting a minor from 1991-1997. Shobach was priest at St. Mary’s Perish during that time.

The Dioceses of Scranton had reassigned Shoback several times after is tenure in Blossburg.

The Dioceses was informed last November of the allegations against Shoback and contacted the Tioga County District Attorney’s Office to start a criminal investigation. Shoback was suspended by the Dioceses at that time.

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ATLANTA (GA)
Catholic News Agency

By Michelle Bauman

Atlanta, Ga., Jun 14, 2012 / 01:20 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore argued that it is an “injustice” to imply that the Knights of Columbus’ support for defending religious freedom creates a sense of partisanship.

At a June 13 press conference at the U.S. bishops’ spring general meeting in Atlanta, the archbishop was questioned by Jerry Filteau of the National Catholic Reporter about funding for the bishops’ campaign to defend religious liberty.

Filteau said that he had heard “rumors” that much of the funding for the bishops’ effort is coming from the Knights of Columbus, whose head, Carl Anderson, is a former Reagan administration official.

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INDIANA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on June 15, 2012

A Terre Haute judge has ruled that a clergy sex abuse and cover up case against the Indianapolis archdiocese’s most notorious predator priest can move forward. Victims are applauding the decision.

The civil case involves a now-defrocked serial pedophile named Harry Monroe (who is believed to be living in TN). It charges, and the judge’s order mentions, that top Indy archdiocese staffers quietly sent Monroe to a Terre Haute parish, knowing that he’d been credibly accused of molesting kids before, and refused to notify or warn parishioners or the public or even the parish’s pastor.

“We’re grateful to this brave victim and this wise judge. For safety, healing and justice, it’s crucial that citizens and Catholics get to hear – under oath, in open court, the full truth about how vigorously high ranking Catholic officials ignore and conceal horrific child sex crimes,” said Barbara Dorris of SNAP. “It’s sad that even now, Indy Archbishop Buechlein continues to try to exploit legal technicalities to keep clergy sex crimes and cover ups covered up.”

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INDIANA
National Survivor Advocates Coalition

June 15, 2012

by Patrick W. Noaker | Blog: Anderson Advocates

(Terre Haute, Indiana) In what is believed to be the first childhood sexual abuse case against the Archdiocese of Indianapolis ever argued in Terre Haute Indiana, Hon. Michael Lewis gave the green light to a Terre Haute man to present his case to a Vigo County jury. In the case John Doe CD v. Archdiocese of Indianapolis et al., the Archdiocese argued to have the case dismissed because too much time had passed since Fr. Harry Monroe had sexually abused a boy in 1981. The Court disagreed. According to the Court’s Order, there was evidence that the Archdiocese concealed that it was aware that Fr. Monroe was a child abuser and moved Fr. Monroe to St. Patrick’s parish in Terre Haute anyway. The Court noted that when Fr. Monroe was in seminary he was arrested for indecent exposure. The Court also cited to confidential internal Archdiocese documents that there were some aspects of Fr. Monroe’s conduct that the Archdiocese “didn’t care to put it in print.” Strikingly, the Order indicates that the Archdiocese even kept the Pastor of St. Patrick’s parish in the dark about Fr. Monroe’s abusive past placing Terre Haute children at risk.

While in Terre Haute, the Order reports that Fr. Monroe “began providing alcohol, cigarettes and marijuana to CD and then became sexually inappropriate with CD.” CD was thirteen years old at the time.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
Ms. Magazine

A judge has ordered the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City- St. Joseph into arbitration to determine if the diocese violated a 2008 settlement with victims who were sexually abused by priests. In the 2008 settlement, 47 plaintiffs settled their claims with the diocese for $10 million and an agreement that the diocese would make 19 specific changes, including taking steps to meet state child abuse reporting requirements and implementing sexual misconduct policies. Last year, 42 of the plaintiffs demanded arbitration, alleging these requirements had not been met.

In a press release, Barbara Dorris, Saint Louis outreach director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) wrote, “We are grateful for this ruling. We’re confident it will mean that dozens and dozens of KC area victims are a step closer toward healing and closure. We hope it will mean that Bishop Finn and other Catholic officials really will start implementing the 19 prevention steps they promised victims they’d take four years ago.”

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Times-Tribune

Child sex charges have been filed against an area priest who served at various Northeastern Pennsylvania churches and at the former Bishop Hoban High School, state police at Mansfield, Tioga County, said Friday.

State police say the Rev. Thomas P. Shoback, 66, of Wilkes-Barre, sexually abused an altar boy at St. Mary’s Parish in Blossburg, Tioga County, from 1991 to 1997 while Shoback was the pastor there. The abuse occurred at the parish rectory and at a private cabin in Farmington Township, Tioga County, police said.

Investigators were alerted to the case in November 2011 by officials from the Diocese of Scranton after they received claims that Shoback had inappropriate sexual contact with a minor, police said.

State police have charged Shoback with involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, attempt to commit involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, indecent assault, endangering the welfare of children, and corruption of minors.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Wall Street Journal

By Peter Loftus

Frayed nerves and confusion abounded in a Philadelphia courtroom, as jury deliberations continued in the case of a Roman Catholic monsignor charged with failing to protect children from alleged molestation by priests.

The tension erupted late Thursday afternoon in the trial of Monsignor William Lynn, who served as a personnel director of priests in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia from 1992 to 2004 and was responsible for investigating abuse allegations.

Outside the jury’s presence, Assistant District Attorney Patrick Blessington was addressing Judge Teresa Sarmina when he was interrupted by Msgr. Lynn’s defense attorney, Thomas Bergstrom.

“No! No! No! No! Enough! Sit down!” Mr. Blessington shouted, pointing at Mr. Bergstrom a few feet away. Mr. Blessington volunteered that he has seen “better manners in a barnyard” than those of Mr. Bergstrom and other defense attorneys for Msgr. Lynn.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

A Roman Catholic priest from Wirral who admitted sexual activity with an underage boy has been jailed for five years by Liverpool Crown Court.

Father Peter Hooper, 55, admitted 10 charges of sexual activity with the teenager, and inciting him to engage in such activity, at an earlier hearing.

Bishop of Shrewsbury, Revd Mark Davies, said the Catholic community felt sorrow and horror at Hooper’s offences.

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NEW JERSEY
The Star-Ledger

By Star-Ledger Editorial Board

The Assembly Judiciary Committee advanced a bill on Thursday that would remove the statute of limitations for victims of long-ago child sex abuse to sue their attackers and the institutions that allowed it.

It’s a measure that is actively opposed by the Catholic church – which testified against the bill.

Pat Brannigan, executive director of the New Jersey Catholic Conference, which represents the state’s bishops, warned of the lawsuits that would be triggered: “It would be a windfall for lawyers … and will not help a single child.”

Convenient stance for the church, which has spent some $2.5 billion on legal fees, settlements and prevention programs since the scandal began to erupt a decade ago, according to a New York Times report this week. The same article revealed the church is fighting similar legislation around the U.S.

In New Jersey, lawmakers have dropped another piece of legislation that has the backing of the church and its bishops. Why? That bill eliminated the statute of limitations on child sex abuse cases, but only those in the future. Past victims? They would be out of luck – and the church and its leadership would be off the hook for costly legal fees and settlements.

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VATICAN CITY
Spiegel

By Fiona Ehlers, Alexander Smoltczyk and Peter Wensierski

The mood at the Vatican is apocalyptic. Pope Benedict XVI seems tired, and both unable and unwilling to seize the reins amid fierce infighting and scandal. While Vatican insiders jockey for power and speculate on his successor, Joseph Ratzinger has withdrawn to focus on his still-ambiguous legacy.

Finally, there is clarity. The Holy See has cleared things up and made the document accessible to all: a handout on checking whether apparitions of the Virgin Mary are authentic.

Everything will be much easier from now on. The Roman Catholic Church has taken a step forward.

This “breaking news” from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) reveals the kinds of issues the Vatican is concerned with — and the kind of world in which some there live. It’s a world in which the official Church investigation of Virgin Mary sightings is carefully regulated while cardinals in the Roman Curia, the Vatican’s administrative and judicial apparatus, wield power with absolutely no checks and the pope’s private correspondence turns up in the desk drawers of a butler.

It’s a completely different apparition of the Virgin Mary that has pulled the Vatican and the Catholic Church into a new crisis, whose end and impact can only be surmised: the appearance of a source in the heart of the Church, a conspiracy against the pope and a leak code-named “Maria.”

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CALIFORNIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on June 15, 2012

Calling a jury decision “a watershed moment for children’s safety in the Jehovah’s Witnesses,” a self help group for men and women who were molested by denomination members is praising the child sex abuse victim who took her case to court this week in California.

Yesterday, Bay Area jurors awarded $21 million in punitive damages – on top of an earlier $7 million in actual damages – to an Oakland woman who was sexually assaulted as a child by a now-convicted Jehovah’s Witness.

“Until now, a jury has virtually never held the JW national headquarters responsible for repeated heinous child sex crimes and cover ups by church members or officials,” said William Bowen of Nashville, who founded and heads a support group for those molested by Jehovah’s Witnesses (270-703-2257, bowen@silentlambs.org) “This is a ground-breaking case and a watershed award against an especially callous group of church bureaucrats.”

“The Jehovah Witnesses have the most dangerous abuse policy on the planet – requiring two eyewitnesses to a child sex crime before an accusation can be deemed ‘credible,’” said Bill Bowen of Kentucky, who founded and heads a support group for for those molested by Jehovah’s Witnesses (270-703-2257, bowen@silentlambs.org) “So justice and prevention isn’t happening within the church, and that’s why this decision is so crucial. We hope it prods more JW victims to report child sex crimes to secular authorities and take legal action to expose predators and protect kids.”

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DEUTSCHLAND
Erzbistum Berlin

[click]

„Schuldig oder nicht schuldig“

Zum kirchenrechtlichen Verfahren bei Verdacht auf sexuellen Missbrauch

Wird ein Kleriker des sexuellen Missbrauchs verdächtigt, leitet die Diözese unabhängig von staatlichen straf- und zivilrechtlichen Verfahren zunächst eine kirchenrechtliche Voruntersuchung ein, die schließlich zu einem Verfahren führen kann. Was das Ziel des kirchlichen Verfahrens ist und wo seine Grenzen sind, darüber hat unsere Zeitung mit dem Generalvikar des Erzbistums, Monsignore Tobias Przytarski, gesprochen.

Herr Generalvikar, als Offizial, Verantwortlicher für die kirchliche Gerichtsbarkeit im Erzbistum Berlin, waren Sie „qua Amt“ mit Vorwürfen von sexuellem Missbrauch gegen Geistliche befasst. Wie ist das in Ihrem neuen Amt als Generalvikar?

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DEUTSCHLAND
Spiegel

Von Peter Wensierski

Sie protestieren mit ihrer Unterschrift: 177 Priester und Diakone fordern in einer Erklärung die katholische Kirche auf, erneut verheirateten Geschiedenen künftig das Abendmahl zu gewähren. Deutschlands Katholikenchef Zollitsch droht den Rebellen mit harten Sanktionen.

Der deutsche Katholikenchef Robert Zollitsch droht, gegen mehr als 177 Priester und Diakone seines Erzbistums hart vorzugehen. Seine Untergebenen hatten sich erst vor wenigen Tagen in einer Erklärung offen zum Ungehorsam bekannt. Dabei geht es den rebellischen Priestern vor allem darum, dass sie Katholiken, die nach einer Scheidung erneut geheiratet haben, das Abendmahl austeilen wollen. Dies ist laut Kirchenrecht verboten, in Wahrheit jedoch gängige Praxis in vielen Gemeinden und nur eine von vielen Reformforderungen, die vom deutschen Papst Benedikt XVI. in Rom abgelehnt werden.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Katholisches

Freiburg (Mai 2012)
Das Netzwerk katholischer Priester weist die Forderung des o.a. Aufrufs, „wiederverheiratete Geschiedene“ zur Heiligen Kommunion zuzulassen, entschieden zurück. Diese Praxis verstößt nicht nur gegen das geltende kirchliche Recht, wie es von den Verfassern des Aufrufs auch offen zugegeben wird. Ein derartiges Vorgehen verdunkelt auch das Eintreten der Kirche für die sakramentale und unauflösliche Ehe, es trägt Verwirrung und Spaltung in die Pfarreien und ist ein schwerwiegender Angriff gegen jene Ehegatten, die sich nach einer schmerzlichen Trennungserfahrung um ein Leben nach den Weisungen der Kirche bemühen.

Die perfide Behauptung, dass eine solche widerrechtliche Praxis der Zulassung zu den Sakramenten ein Gebot der Barmherzigkeit sei, weisen wir entschieden zurück – wie auch die anmaßende Feststellung, dass das Heil der Seelen (salus animarum) von „wiederverheirateten Geschiedenen“ in Gefahr sei, wenn sie nicht zur Kommunion gehen dürften. Das Gegenteil ist der Fall.

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DEUTSCHLAND
netzwerkB

Mein Name ist Wilfried Fesselmann und ich bin selbst Missbrauchsopfer der katholischen Kirche. Als ich 11 Jahre alt war (1979), hat ein Kaplan in Essen mein Vertrauen missbraucht, mich sexuell missbraucht und meine Seele ermordet. Danach war ich in der Kirchengemeinde der einzige Schuldige, denn wegen mir musste der tolle und liebe Kaplan sich in Therapie in München begeben. Den Kirchenmitgliedern wurde erzählt, dass er seinen Job nie mehr ausüben könne. Diese Versetzung hat der damalige Erzbischof am 15.01.1980 unterschrieben und den lieben Kaplan schon nach 3 Wochen wieder in den Gemeindedienst entlassen. Es hat 30 Jahre gedauert, wie bei vielen Opfern, bis ich überhaupt darüber reden konnte. Im Jahre 2006 wollte ich die Sache öffentlich machen und niemand hat mir geglaubt. Im April 2008 suchte mich, veranlasst durch die Kirche, die Polizei zu Hause auf und ich sollte durch ein Gerichtsverfahren mundtot gemacht werden.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Frankfurter Rundschau

Sexueller Missbrauch durch den Geistlichen, Schläge und Zwang zur Kinderarbeit durch die Nonnen: Zwei Zeitzeugen erzählen von ihrer Kindheit in den 1950er Jahren im katholischen St. Antoniusheim in Wiesbaden.

Die Angst der Jungen erreichte ihr Höchstmaß, wenn abends im Flur noch einmal das Licht anging. Dann wussten sie: Der Pfarrer ist wieder unterwegs. Gleich würde er ihren Schlafsaal betreten, den der Kleinen im damaligen katholischen St. Antoniusheim in Wiesbaden. Gleich würde er sich einen der sechs- bis zehnjährigen Jungen greifen. Meist einen, der den Nonnen tagsüber unangenehm aufgefallen war. Er würde ihn auf den Arm nehmen und hinaustragen. „Mir hat er dann Nachthemd und Unterhose ausgezogen, und ich musste mich so auf seinen Schoß setzen“, sagt Hans Kloos.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Sudthuringen

Von Lilian Klement

Suhl – Das barocke Kloster Ettal in Oberbayern ist eingebettet in eine traumhafte Landschaft und ein begehrtes Ziel von Wallfahrern und Touristen. Doch vor zwei Jahren bekam das Ansehen der berühmten Benediktinerabtei einen gehörigen Knacks als bekannt wurde, dass im Internat der dazu gehörigen Klosterschule über Jahrzehnte hinweg Kinder von geistlichen Erziehern körperlich und seelisch misshandelt oder sexuell missbraucht wurden. Das geschah fast zur gleichen Zeit, als ähnliche Vorfälle am Berliner Canisius-Kolleg und an der Odenwald-Schule publik wurden. Ettal mit seiner traditionsreichen 1905 gegründeten Eliteschmiede – ein Hort der Grausamkeit? Unvorstellbar.

Das Schweigen der Mönche

Das Geschehen machten die Journalisten der Süddeutschen Zeitung Rainer Stadler und Bastian Obermayer öffentlich, als sie ihre Gespräche mit betroffenen ehemaligen Schülern, die zum Teil heute noch traumatisiert sind, in einem Beitrag für das SZ-Magazin schilderten. Ihre Recherchen führten sie auch hinter die Klostermauern, wo ihnen eisiges Schweigen der Mönche entgegen schlug. Sie wollen bis heute nicht reden über das Geschehen, obgleich die Vorfälle zurück reichen vom Ende der vierziger bis Mitte der neunziger Jahre.

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ROM
Berliner Morgenpost

Angesichts der Berichterstattung über die “Vatileaks-Affäre” hat Papst Benedikt XVI. die Medien heftig kritisiert. Bei der Eröffnung eines Kongresses der Diözese Rom zum Thema Taufe verurteilte er eine “Kultur der Lüge, die sich als Wahrheit und Information präsentiert”. Dabei zählten “nur das Gefühl und der Geist der Verleumdung und der Zerstörung”.

Benedikt beklagte insbesondere eine “Kultur des Bösen”. Diese verberge sich heute vielfach hinter einem Moralismus, der die Wirklichkeit zu verfälschen suche.

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OREGON
Catholic League

As a result of an Oregon Supreme Court decision, 20,000 pages of files kept on suspected perverts by the Boy Scouts of America have been released. Bill Donohue comments on the news:

The most striking aspect of this disclosure is the timeline: the data show the sexual abuse that took place from 1965 to 1985. This is exactly the same period when priestly sexual abuse in the Catholic Church peaked. It also shows the role played by homosexuals.

The sexual revolution began in the mid-60s as a direct consequence of the radical liberal agenda—genital liberation was the goal of libertines. It ended in the mid-80s because of fear: AIDS was uncovered in 1981.

The John Jay Report last year on the “Causes and Context” of sexual abuse by priests found that “three quarters of the priests whom we have data had sexual relations with an adult and/or minor after ordination.” Also, “Priests with pre-ordination same-sex sexual behavior who did sexually abuse a minor after ordination were more likely to have a male child victim than a female child victim.” Moreover, when distinguishing between pre-seminary and in-seminary gay sex, “only in-seminary (not pre-seminary) same-sex sexual behavior was significantly related to the increased likelihood of a male child victim.”

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MALTA
Times of Malta

A judge this morning defied an umpteenth bomb threat at the Law Courts as he continued to hear submissions on the appeal filed by two defrocked priests who were found guilty of sexually abusing teenage boys who lived in a residential home in Sta Venera in the 1980s and 1990s.

Godwin Scerri and Charles Pulis, both members of the Missionary Society of St Paul, were sentenced to five and six years in prison respectively for sexually abusing 11 young boys in their care.

Mr Pulis and Mr Scerri were defrocked in July and October last year following the independent Vatican investigation.

Presiding over an appeal sitting, Judge David Scicluna heard defence lawyers Giannella de Marco and Joe Giglio make their submissions on why the Appeals Court should overturn the decision by the Magistrates’ Court and free their clients from the charges brought against them.

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ROME
The Herald (Ireland)

By Clodagh Sheehy

Friday June 15 2012

THE Irish College in Rome has a “gay friendly” reputation and a series of homosexual incidents have been reported there, according to a report carried out for Pope Benedict.

The report, by the Archbishop of New York, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, has called for substantial reform at the institution which educates students for the priesthood.

Cardinal Dolan found that the college “suffers from the reputation of being gay friendly, however unjust such a reputation might be”.

His report says “a recent series of homosexually directed improprieties have been reported at the college”.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Independent

Kim Pilling

Friday 15 June 2012

A priest has been jailed for five years after committing a string of sexual offences against a young boy.

Father Peter Hooper, 55, from St Luke’s Church in Bebington, Wirral, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to 10 counts of engaging in sexual activity with the teenager when he was aged 14 and 15 and inciting him to engage in such activity.

He was appointed priest at St Luke’s in 2006.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

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

Jurors are back in court this morning for their ninth day of deliberations in the landmark clergy sex-abuse trial of two Archdiocese of Philadelphia priests.

They started an hour behind schedule after a juror showed up late.

They began the day with Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina re-instructing them on the landmark conspiracy and child endangerment charges against Msgr. William J. Lynn, the archdiocese’s former secretary of clergy.

It appears that based on their questions the jurors have changed their focus to Lynn after considering attempted rape charges against his codefendant, the Rev. James J. Brennan.

The jurors have spent more than 30 hours behind closed doors since deliberations began June 1, and have peppered the judge and lawyers with 25 questions and evidence requests.

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MANSFIELD (PA)
Corning Leader

By John Zick
Corning Leader

Posted Jun 15, 2012 @ 11:18 AM

MANSFIELD, PA. —

A former Mansfield-area priest has been arrested on more than 30 charges accusing him of molesting an altar boy over a six-year span in the 1990s.

Fr. Thomas Shoback allegedly abused the boy from 1991-97 when the boy was 11-17 years old. At the time, Shoback was the parish priest for St. Mary’s Parish in Blossburg, about 10 miles south of Mansfield.

Pennsylvania State Police in Mansfield said the alleged abuse occurred in the parish rectory and at a private cabin on Lost Lane in Farmington Township.

Shoback, 66, was charged with seven counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, a first-degree felony; a single count of attempted involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, a first-degree felony; a single count of felony endangering the welfare of a child and seven counts of misdemeanor child endangerment; eight counts of misdemeanor indecent assault; and eight counts of corruption of minors, a first-degree misdemeanor.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Click Liverpool

by Chris Bradley. Published Fri 15 Jun 2012

A Roman Catholic priest who told police he had been “emotionally raped” by a 15 year-old boy whom he was caught performing a sex act on has been jailed.

Father Peter Hooper was sentenced to seven years in prison after admitting 10 counts of sexual activity with a child during a “clandestine” period of abuse on the boy.

It began in December last year, when the victim, who cannot be named, was just 14 years-old.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

by John L Allen Jr on Jun. 15, 2012 All Things Catholic

Cardinal William Levada, prefect of the Vatican’s ultra-powerful Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, is a devoted disciple of his boss and mentor, Pope Benedict XVI, in virtually every way save one. While the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was a celebrity as a Vatican official, Levada, who turns 76 today, keeps a much lower profile, preferring to operate behind the scenes.

Levada rarely gives interviews, and when he does, it’s because he has something to say, not because he simply enjoys the exercise.

As a result, when Levada agreed to an exclusive one-on-one interview this week to discuss the Vatican’s dust-up with the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, you can take it to the bank that it wasn’t a casual choice. Instead, it amounted to acknowledgment that the LCWR dispute has stirred enormous discussion, much of it critical of the Vatican, and this was Levada’s effort to respond.

For instance, Levada knows well that the move has been perceived as an attack on religious women across the board, and insisted that those perceptions miss the mark.

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UNITED STATES
U.S. Catholic

Thursday, June 14, 2012

By Bryan Cones

Yes, he did. After listening to an address by the current chair of the National Lay Review Board, Al J. Norton, exhorting the bishops to stick to the requirements imposed by the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, Dolan thanked him for “challenging us to keep up the good work.” I’m sure Dolan was thinking of the excellent examples of Justin Rigali, Francis George, and Robert Finn, among others, sitting in the assembly before him. (You can review our special section on the sex abuse crisis, along with our June feature about the success and failures of lay review boards for a more accurate account of the past 10 years.)

Spare me: Patting the bishops on the back for following the charter is like thanking your landlord for installing smoke detectors after your apartment building burns down. The bishops as a body deserve little credit for responding at least 10 years too late when the combination of public and financial pressure finally forced them to respond to the crisis of clerical sexual abuse. Even then the bishops gave themselves the equivalent of a free pass.

Of course, Dolan is simply continuing the march toward an Orwellian echo chamber at the USCCB, where the bishops hear only themselves and few handpicked laypeople about the condition of the church. Further sign of 1984, Catholic Church edition, was the objection raised by some bishops when Bishop Stephen Blair of Stockton, California suggested an election year message on poverty. Several bishops worried about appearing to criticize the GOP in an election year–wouldn’t want that–so the bishops have decided to draft a message for release AFTER the November elections (see the link above, end of the story).

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GALESBURG (IL)
WGIL

A self-proclaimed priest accused of fraudulently obtaining funds to keep his former Galesburg church afloat is now allowed to leave the state.

Judge Paul Mangieri altered 59-year-old Ryan Saint Anne Scott’s terms of bond in Knox County Circuit Court Thursday. Assistant State’s Attorney Erik Gibson says his motion to reinstate and increase Scott’s bail was denied.

Scott posted ten-percent of a $75,000-dollars bond in March, one week after being extradited from Saint Louis County– which is where he claims residency. Previous bond terms prevented Scott from leaving Illinois.

He’s been charged with three counts of financial exploitation of an elderly person, three counts of theft, and one count of deceptive practices. Gibson alleges Scott borrowed large sums of money from an elder in 2009 and 2010 to keep the Holy Rosary Abbey church in business. Prosecutors contend Scott failed to ever repay those debts.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 15 June 2012 (VIS) – The Holy Father:

– Appointed Bishop Valery Vienneau of Bathurst in Canada, Canada, as metropolitan archbishop of Moncton (area 12,000, population 223,000, Catholics 116,400, priests 48, permanent deacons 1, religious 265), Canada. He succeeds Archbishop Andre Richard C.S.C., whose resignation from the pastoral care of the same archdiocese the Holy Father accepted, upon having reached the age limit.

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UNITED STATES
National Survivor Advocates Coalition

Editorial

It’s hard to know whether to laugh or cry at the news out of Atlanta that the Bishops of the United States are going to spend the hard earned money of United States Catholics for an image makeover and an “always available” spokesperson.

We’re not kidding, here are the links:

Reuters – “Bishops Plan PR Campaign to Soften Image” LINK

Los Angeles Times – “Perhaps We Need Help with PR, Say Catholic Bishops in the US,” LINK

Does anything say counter cultural better than having your very own public relations guy or gal?

We imagine the logo behind the Bishops’ eternally on call presence at a podium will be “In PR We Trust” superimposed on a cathedral cupola edged in lace, of course.

“ We need someone who is going to be able to strategize this better for us,” said Bishop William Murphy of the Diocese of Rockville Centre in Long Island, N.Y.

Drum roll, please for the understatement of the decade.

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NEDERLAND
IJmuider Courant

ZANDVOORT/AERDENHOUT – De Zandvoortse rooms-katholieke pastoor Dick Duijves, die deze maand met emeritaat gaat, pleit voor een vrijwillig celibaat.

Duijves zegt dat in een openhartig interview, afgedrukt in een afscheidsglossy die is samengesteld door enthousiaste parochianen. Uit het feit dat Duijves bij zijn vertrek een kleurig magazine meekrijgt, kun je afleiden dat hij zich mag verheugen in een grote populariteit.

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WASHINGTON
The Spokesman-Review

John Stucke
The Spokesman-Review

A Seattle man has sued Gonzaga Prep for failing to protect him from a Catholic priest who he says sexually abused him as a student in the 1960s.

The lawsuit filed Thursday also names the Jesuits of the Missouri Province, which employed the priest and sent him to Spokane to recruit students for a religious summer camp.

That priest, the Rev. John “Jack” Campbell, has been implicated in more than a dozen other abuse cases.

Al Falkner, president of Gonzaga Prep, said the Spokane high school should not be blamed for the actions of a Jesuit priest who was never hired by the school nor had teaching duties.

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ARIZONA
Tucson Citizen

by Michael Clancy on Jun. 14, 2012, under Arizona Republic News

A father who says his son was abused has sued the Diocese of Phoenix, Bishop Thomas J. O’Brien and the Rev. John “Jack” Spaulding, claiming his son’s death was the direct result of the abusive relationship with the priest.

David Michael Pain Sr. filed the suit late Wednesday, almost two years after the death of his son, David Jr.

The elder Pain, who goes by Michael, alerted the diocese of the abuse claim just weeks after David died when Michael shot him in self-defense.

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UNITED KINGDOM
ITV

A paedophile priest from Wirral is due to be sentenced for abusing a teenage boy.

Father Peter James Hooper, 55, is expected to be jailed.

The priest, from St Luke’s in Bebington, began abusing the boy when he was 14. Father Hooper stands convicted of 10 child sex crimes.

Hooper tried to blame his victim when he was arrested. He claimed the boy was “manipulative” and “demanded” sexual activity.

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IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

By Eamonn McCann
Friday, 15 June 2012

Springsteen is more popular than Jesus. The Italian-Irish troubadour from New Jersey who still comes on with bags of cred after more than 30 years on the road has sold out two shows at Dublin’s RDS arena next month.

Some of the reasons for the poor turnout are obvious. The credibility of the Church has taken a hammering from the exposure of the extent of its cover-up of the crime spree against children.

The general secularisation of Irish society. The fact that Séan Brady is no match for Peter Aiken when it comes to promoting a gig. The football in Poznan.

Even so. This was no mere Rosary rally but a gathering-in of the Catholic faithful of Ireland to bear witness to the core belief and defining doctrine of the Church, the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. And they didn’t pack the pews.

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IRELAND
Catholic Herald (United Kingdom)

The Irish government is going to make it a criminal offence for a priest not to tell the gardai when a sex offender confesses his crime: I say, bring it on

By William Oddie on Friday, 15 June 2012

“It has to be made clear to everyone, including the main Church in this State, that the rights of children and the laws of the land come first,” Senator David Cullinane was reported by the Irish Times as saying earlier this week in Seanad Éireann. “Priests should know that they cannot use the confessional seal as a reason for not coming forward with information on abuse.”

And that is what the government of the Irish republic has now reaffirmed. According to the Minister for Justice, Alan Shatter, if a priest or a bishop, prosecuted under the legislation he intends to introduce, were to claim entitlement to “some form of privilege”, the courts might be called on to decide the issue, since the special position of the Catholic Church has been removed from the Constitution. He did not, he went on, believe that where a child or a vulnerable adult had been a victim of abuse, the Irish courts would hold that it was “of benefit to the State” that those who knew of the abuse should conceal it.

And so, there we are. They are really going ahead with this. Last month, Shatter announced the publication of his bill, which will make it a criminal offence for a priest who learns while hearing a confession about a case or cases of child abuse, from the abuser himself, not to break the seal of the confessional and inform the civil authorities of what he knows. The Criminal Justice (Withholding of Information on Offences Against Children and Vulnerable Persons) Bill is, says the Irish government, one element of a “suite of legislation to protect children and vulnerable adults to which the Government is committed”.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
The Kansas City Star

By MARK MORRIS
The Kansas City Star

A courts reporter usually can predict with uncanny accuracy that a criminal defendant will plead guilty before trial.

It’s no trick because most of them do.

That’s not a bad thing. Already deliberate, our courts would grind to a standstill if every burglary defendant insisted on going to trial.

But recent developments in the criminal cases against the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph and its clerics suggest that they’re likely headed for trials in August and September.

Like teachers cleaning their classrooms before summer vacation, lawyers involved in the cases against the Rev. Shawn Ratigan, Bishop Robert Finn and the diocese have used the late spring to tidy up legal issues in ways that point to trials rather than pleas or other accommodations.

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VATICAN CITY
Chiesa

That is, forced by the pope to leave their posts for immoral acts, administrative faults, or other serious violations. They number in the dozens. Their names have disappeared from the Annuario Pontificio. Here they are

VATICAN CITY, June 15, 2012 – The old-timers of the curia remember a quip that one cardinal loved to repeat: “Among the apostles one out of twelve betrayed, and today among the successors of the apostles the average is certainly no better.”

Today, without counting the other Christian denominations, the Catholic bishops who are the heirs of the apostles number about 5200, and so by applying to them this “evangelical” proportion, there should be more than 400 emulators of Judas Iscariot in the Church of Rome. A figure that may be too optimistic in the eyes of the Lefebvrists, or from the opposite perspective, of the progressive ecclesial galaxy, but certainly much higher than the number of prelates who in various ways have been punished in recent years by the only person who has this power, the pope.

There are no complete statistics in this regard, in part because beyond the most spectacular cases, it normally happens that a bishop who is asked to leave the leadership of a diocese for doctrinal or moral reasons, or because of ecclesiastical or administrative mismanagement, is convinced to hand in his resignation to the pope before reaching the retirement age of 75, on the basis of paragraph 2 of canon 401 of the code of canon law, which states: “A diocesan bishop who has become less able to fulfill his office because of ill health or some other grave cause is earnestly requested to present his resignation from office.” And the pope accepts his resignation very quickly.

Normally, this paragraph 2 of canon 401 concerns churchmen afflicted by physical or psychological “ill health,” but there is no lack of cases of “other grave cause.”

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Editorial

Thursday June 14 2012

Yesterday’s meeting between the papal legate Cardinal Marc Ouellet and victims of clerical sex abuse was a welcome but insufficient gesture of contrition on the part of the papacy. During a visit to Lough Derg, Cardinal Ouellet stated that Pope Benedict XVI had asked him to come to the pilgrimage site to ask God’s forgiveness for the abuse of children by priests and religious.

“I have 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”, Cardinal Ouellet said in his homily.

He went on to say that: “In the name of the church, I apologise once again to the victims, some of whom I have met here in Lough Derg.”

While we welcome Cardinal Ouellet’s visit to Lough Derg and his apology, the church still hasn’t gone far enough. In order to begin to undo the damage caused by clerical child sex abuse, it is the head of the Catholic Church, Pope Benedict XVI, who must apologise.

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ATLANTA (GA)
Washington Post

By David Gibson| Religion News Service, Published: June 14

The nation’s Catholic bishops, gathered in Atlanta this week for their annual spring meeting, have discussed various issues of great import for the church, from their policies against sexual abuse to their campaign on behalf of religious freedom.

But the suggestion on Thursday (June 14) that the hierarchy consider hiring a chief spokesperson for the first time ever prompted the most intense soul-searching so far. The debate reflected a tension between the historic reluctance of individual bishops to cede their own pulpits and the recognition that the bishops have been losing the media war in recent high-profile controversies.

“We need more help and more sophistication in our messaging,” said Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley. O’Malley strongly endorsed the proposal to hire a chief spokesperson for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which is the hierarchy’s Washington-based organizational and public policy arm.

The cardinal noted in particular the public relations “debacle” resulting from the Vatican crackdown on a leadership group of American nuns, Rome’s censoring of another nun’s theological writings, the USCCB’s investigation of the Girl Scouts for alleged ties to Planned Parenthood, and the bishops’ fight against the Obama administration’s contraception mandate.

All those things played into the narrative that the church is waging a “war on women” — a meme that clearly leaves many bishops frustrated given the high stakes of the controversies and their desire to improve their public standing after a decade of playing defense in the clergy abuse scandal.

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NEW JERSEY
The Record

[A2405]

BY COLLEEN DISKIN
STAFF WRITER
The Record

Child sexual-abuse victims told state lawmakers Thursday that they were denied the chance to exact justice from the churches, schools and other organizations that failed to protect them because of a two-year limit on their rights to file civil cases.

After the sometimes tearful testimony, the Assembly Judiciary Committee voted 5-2 in favor of a bill that would lift that time limit for such lawsuits against alleged abusers as well as the institutions that employed them. The bill also would establish a two-year window for anyone to refile a suit that was dismissed because the statute of limitations had expired.

Critics – including the Catholic Church – argued that the measure could lead to a flood of lawsuits from people who claimed to have been abused decades ago, cases that would be hard to prove and expensive to litigate.

Supporters said the only way victims can make organizations responsible for improving their screening and supervision of employees who work with children is to allow victims to pursue civil judgments against them.

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IRELAND
Cork News

Cork victims of Church abuse react to Brady apology

Priests involved in the cover up of clerical child abuse need to be held accountable before apologies are made, according to the director of Cork’s Sexual Violence Centre. As the Catholic Primate of All Ireland Cardinal Seán Brady apologised for the clergy’s failure to respond to victims of child sexual abuse at the International Eucharistic Congress yesterday, Thursday, Mary Crilly said she believed that Church authorities are “still minding themselves”.

“While I welcome the apology, change needs to come from within. They can say sorry for what happened and say that it will never happen again but it’s not enough… action is needed,” she told the Cork News. “There are still people out there that aren’t being listened to and still don’t see changes. There needs to be real transparency and action taking.”

Ms Crilly stated that this included the resignation of Cardinal Brady, who last month distanced himself from an inquiry into one of the country’s most dangerous paedophiles. It was claimed that Dr Brady failed to warn the parents of victims, or the gardaí or police after hearing allegations of abuse against Fr Brendan Smyth. However, the head of the Catholic Church in Ireland has continually insisted that responsibility for the scandal does not lie with him.

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OREGON
The New York Times

By KIRK JOHNSON

SEATTLE — Oregon’s highest court cleared the way on Thursday for the release of thousands of pages of documents detailing accusations and investigations of sexual abuse or other improprieties by Boy Scout leaders around the nation from the mid-1960s into the 1980s.

The files played a central role in a civil case in 2010 over the abuse of six boys by a scout leader in Portland, Ore., in the 1980s. That trial ended with an $18.5 million punitive judgment against the Boy Scouts of America, the largest ever by far against the organization in a sex case jury trial.

The “perversion files,” which the Boy Scout organization said were kept as a way of weeding out bad leaders and preventing abuse, instead became evidence in the trial. And the state judge in the case, John A. Wittmayer, ruled that as evidence, the files should be released to the public under the open records provision of the Oregon Constitution, but with the names of possible victims and people who had reported accusations redacted. Thursday’s ruling by the Oregon Supreme Court rejected an appeal by the Boy Scouts of America, and said the judge had not exceeded his authority.

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VIRGINIA
WCYB

By Brian Bishop
June 15, 2012

WASHINGTON COUNTY, Va. — A local minister is facing felony charges of sexual assault and stalking, but some of the charges have now been dropped.

John Wesley Price, who is the pastor at Temple Baptist Church, is accused of four felony sexual assault charges as well as several misdemeanor charges of stalking.

The juvenile court dropped the assault charges Thursday, but the Commonwealth’s Attorney says this case is not over. “Not as far as my office is concerned,” Commonwealth’s Attorney for Washington County, Virginia Nicole M. Price said. “There is substantial evidence of multiple felonies that he perpetrated against [a] young lady, both while she was a juvenile and after she became an adult. So I will be presenting indictments to the grand jury.”

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ATLANTA (GA)
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Written by Ann Rodgers

Summer meetings of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops tend to be rather slow and newsless — so much so that I rarely cover them. But this year’s June meeting in Atlanta was so packed with news on Wednesday that reporters couldn’t even get summaries of it all into their stories.

The Post-Gazette, therefore, opted to cover their plan to write a letter about jobs and the economy, and their 10-year review of their child protection charter for Thursday’s paper, and make the religious freedom story wait a day so we could give it decent space in Friday’s paper.

But there are always interesting moments at the bishop’s conference that don’t get into my stories, either because they’re more inside baseball than news or because they require so much explanation that I can’t justify the space. So while I’m waiting in the Atlanta airport I’m going to go through my notes and put down as many of those odds-and-ends as I can before my flight for Pittsburgh boards. …

In an address to the bishops on the 10th anniversary of their child protection charter, Al Notzon, the Texas layman who chairs the National Review Board that oversees their response to allegations, spoke of issues they must address in the future.

One difficult area is “boundary violations” that don’t amount to sexual abuse but can appear suspicious, either rightly or wrongly. In some cases they can be “grooming behavior,” a prelude to sexual abuse of a minor. In other cases they may be entirely innocent, he said, citing the example of a priest who tickles a baby that he is holding in his lap.

Reports of boundary violations are increasing, he said, saying that the psychologists and pediatricians who serve on his committee consider them a “murky area” for action.

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FORT WORTH (TX)
Fort Worth Star-Telegram

By Darren Barbee
DBarbee@star-telegram.com

FORT WORTH — A man identified as Doe 26 is the latest to reach a settlement with the Fort Worth Roman Catholic Diocese over accusations that he was sexually abused by Monsignor James Reilly, a chronic molester.

The amount of the settlement, reached through mediation, was not disclosed at the victim’s request, the diocese said. No lawsuit was filed.

Doe 26 was a fourth-grader and altar boy at St. Maria Goretti Catholic Church in Arlington when the molestation began, said his attorney, Tahira Khan Merritt of Dallas.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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”.

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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.”

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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.

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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.

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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.”

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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.”

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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”.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.”

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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.

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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).

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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.

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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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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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