ABUSE TRACKER

AUSTRALIA
NEWS.com.au

Prime Minister Julia Gillard has announced a royal commission into institutional responses to allegations of child abuse in Australia.

Speaking at a press conference shortly before 6pm, the prime minister announced the royal commission against a backdrop of “too many revelations” which had placed the subject before even greater public scrutiny in recent times.

“Too many have suffered … too many other adults have let them down,” she said.

“Child abuse is always wrong, always heartbreaking, always distressing.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

Malcolm Farr
From: AAP
November 12, 2012

A ROYAL commission will be held into “vile and evil” child sexual abuse after cabinet today approved Julia Gillard’s plan for Australia’s most extensive inquiry into the protection of minors.

It will look at the history of religious groups, sporting organisations, Scouts and Guides, schools and state institutions.

Ms Gillard said too many children had suffered abuse and too many adults had let them down.

“Any instance of child abuse is an evil and vile thing,” she said.

“It is appropriate for there to be a national response through a royal commission. This, I hope, will help with the healing.”

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AUSTRALIA
Illawarra Mercury

By STEPHEN JONES
Nov. 12, 2012

I believe the federal Government should set up a Royal Commission into systemic child abuse, and cover up by churches and others. I don’t rush quickly to the call for Royal Commissions. They have great investigative powers which, when combined with the constant scrutiny of the mass media, can alter the course of public opinion and personal reputation well in advance of any findings and recommendations being recorded. I believe they should only be used where it is clear that policing and judicial determination have failed. It appears that this is such a case.

This is not because there is some grand conspiracy between police, courts and church organisations. I don’t believe this is the case. But what is clear, and in some instances admitted, is that the Church organisations actively sort to cover up their offences.

Cardinal Pell attempted to explain this in an interview with The Weekend Australia:

“It wasn’t just the Catholic Church that hoped (an abusive priest) would amend their conduct and give them a home somewhere else,” he said.

“Back in those days, they were entitled to think of pedophilia as simply a sin that you would repent of. They didn’t realise that in the worst cases it was an addiction, a raging addiction.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

[Submissions – Parliament of Victoria]

By Paul Mulvey
From: AAP
November 12, 2012

SOME Catholic priests have used guns, knives and dogs in their sexual assaults on children and women, an inquiry has heard.

Victoria’s parliamentary inquiry into child sexual abuse heard stunning evidence on Monday, including claims of bestiality, hospital chaplains raping patients, student priests being sexually assaulted in the seminary, a priest carrying a gun around a school playground and boys on altar boy camp being assaulted for a week by seminarians in charge of the camp.

Helen Last, the director of advocacy group In Good Faith, says abuse victims have told stories of priests keeping guns and knives in their presbytery, while one told her that some clergy “introduced dogs into assaults of children”.

Ms Last told the inquiry the Catholic Church took 15 years to deal with priest Peter Searson, now deceased, who was accused of carrying a gun with him in the playground in the mid 1990s, while another priest kept a pistol in his glovebox.

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AUSTRALIA
Armidale Express

By Barney Zwartz
Nov. 12, 2012

THIS journalist has used up a few dead trees in criticising politicians for tardy and inadequate responses to clergy sex abuse of children. So it is with real pleasure that I and surely most Australians congratulate Prime Minister Julia Gillard and her cabinet for calling a royal commission into institutional responses to child sex abuse.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, who some cruelly claim takes his orders directly from Cardinal George Pell, also deserves credit for offering the bipartisan support needed to smooth its path.

The details, including the terms of reference, have yet to emerge, but Gillard’s announcement of the scope it will cover – all religions, state care, not-for-profit organisations, schools, child welfare agencies and police – is encouraging.

It’s also encouraging that the PM suggested the inquiry would take as long as it needed. In Ireland the process took nine years but was deeply cathartic. South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission had a similar role.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian (United Kingdom)

Alison Rourke in Sydney
guardian.co.uk, Monday 12 November 2012

Australia is to hold a wide-ranging judicial inquiry into child sex abuse in the country, including investigations into religious organisations, state care facilities, schools, not-for-profit groups and the responses of child services agencies and the police.

The royal commission follows growing pressure for a national inquiry after a senior police officer last week alleged that the Catholic church had covered up evidence involving paedophile priests. However, the inquiry’s scope is expected to cover a wide range of institutions involved in the care of children.

“Child abuse, child sex abuse is a vile thing – it’s an evil thing done by evil people,” said prime minister, Julia Gillard, announcing the royal commission on Monday.

“It’s not just the evil of the people who do it. There has been a systemic failure to respond to it. The allegations that have come to light recently about child sexual abuse have been heartbreaking. These are insidious, evil acts to which no child should be subject. There have been too many revelations of adults who have averted their eyes from this evil.”

The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference released a statement saying it supported the royal commission and that child abuse was an issue for the entire community, not just the Catholic church. While the statement acknowledged there were significant problems in some Catholic dioceses and religious orders, it rejected suggestions there were systemic problems of sexual abuse in the church.

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AUSTRALIA
WA Today

[with video]

November 13, 2012

Michelle Grattan and Richard Willingham

PRIME Minister Julia Gillard has announced a sweeping royal commission into child sex abuse that will probe organisations ranging from the Catholic Church and state authorities to the Boy Scouts and sporting groups.

The inquiry into institutional responses to abuse will not just look at perpetrators. It will also cover those who were ”complicit” – for example, in alleged offenders being moved around – or who by ”averting their eyes” committed acts of omission. It will also look at how police have responded to the problem

Ms Gillard said the allegations that had come to light recently were heartbreaking. ”These are insidious, evil acts to which no child should be subject,” she said.

The victims deserved the ”most thorough of investigations” and to have their voices heard, she said.

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AUSTRALIA
Yahoo! News

Sky News

Australia’s prime minister has announced a royal commission that will look at institutional responses to alleged child sex abuse after a series of scandals involving paedophile priests.

Julia Gillard’s comments follow claims by a senior policeman that the Catholic Church in an area of New South Wales destroyed evidence and silenced investigations.

The country’s leader had faced increasing pressure to establish a national inquiry after the recent allegations as well as an ongoing inquiry in Victoria state, but said the probe would be broader than just the Catholic Church.

Ms Gillard said: “There have been too many revelations of adults who have averted their eyes from this evil. I believe in these circumstances that it is appropriate for there to be a national response through a royal commission.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Hindu (India)

The investigation will target religious and state institutions, schools and community groups such as sporting clubs and will also look into police responses to abuse allegations

Australia’s prime minister ordered a federal inquiry on Monday into allegations of child sex abuse in religious institutions, state institutions and community groups following a string of sexual abuse accusations against priests and claims of a Catholic Church cover-up.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard had faced mounting pressure to order a wide-ranging investigation after the New South Wales state premier, last week, ordered an inquiry into allegations of a sexual abuse cover-up by Catholic priests in the Hunter Valley region north of Sydney. Victorian officials are also investigating a separate series of priest sex abuse allegations in their state.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

Susie O’Brien
From:Herald Sun
November 13, 2012

WHY is the Catholic Church continuing to protect and forgive paedophiles?

That is the only way to interpret the church’s desire to allow allegations of abuse made in the confessional to be exempt from mandatory reporting to police. Bowing to public pressure, the church has agreed with mandatory reporting of child abuse by priests and church officials. That is long overdue.

We need an urgent change to state laws to ensure mandatory reporting includes priests and other religious figures. At present, it’s confined just to doctors, nurses, teachers and police.

But mandatory reporting by priests is absolutely meaningless unless claims made in the confessional are included.

You would think the Catholic Church wouldn’t want to absolve paedophiles, but to hand them over to authorities. And yet the church wants to allow confessions by child abusers, or confessions by those involved in the cover-up of child abuse, then take no further action than a few Hail Marys.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

PATSY McGARRY, Religious Affairs Correspondent

A new Catholic lay organisation agreed a “statement of objectives” at its first general meeting at the weekend, committing it “to the pursuit of a reform and renewal agenda in the Irish Catholic Church based on the letter and the spirit of Vatican II”.

About 350 people attended the meeting of the Association of Catholics in Ireland (ACI), which also agreed to set up a website and governance structures, with elections to be held at an agm next year, when there will be a formal launch and a recruitment campaign.

In the interim a steering committee set up in Dublin last May will prepare the organisation’s next steps. It was agreed the ACI would maintain its close relationship with the Association of Catholic Priests (ACP).

Its statement of objectives also said the ACI believed “the spirit is present in the voices of all the baptised” and in “the consequent right of all the baptised to have their voices heard in the formation of church teaching and to participate fully in the life of the church, including decision-making” at all levels.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

AAP
November 12, 2012

KEY independent MP Tony Windsor will tell Prime Minister Julia Gillard the government needs to do something about allegations of child sex abuse inside the Catholic Church and attempts to cover them up.

The MP has also called on the nation’s most senior Catholic priest to show some leadership on claims of pedophilia within all religious organisations.

Mr Windsor says he will write to the prime minister on Monday, expressing his concerns about the “enormous number” of people affected by the allegations of abuse.

“They feel as though the system is letting them down,” he told ABC radio.

“My advice to the prime minister and others … is it is probably better to deal with this sooner rather than later.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

Ken McGregor
From: News Limited Network
November 12, 2012

PRESSURE is mounting on Julia Gillard to launch a Royal Commission into child sex abuse within the Catholic Church following public demands from key independents, and the Greens.

The calls, from Greens leader Christine Milne, Independents Tony Windsor, Nick Xenophon and Craig Thompson, come amid calls from the Prime Minister’s own backbench to support a Royal Commission.

There are already state based commissions into sex abuse within the clergy currently underway in New South Wales and Victoria.

A Royal Commission would give investigators national and expansive powers to expose any alleged cover ups.

A victims group will today present to the Victorian government inquiry a list of 18 convicted pedophile priests who were moved from parish to parish or further away, where they continued offending.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

Josephine Tovey
State Political Reporter

FORMER prime minister Malcolm Fraser has joined independent MP Tony Windsor and Senator Nick Xenophon in calling for a national royal commission on sexual abuse by religious groups and other institutions, following claims by a senior police officer last week that the Catholic Church was still covering up the crime.

New South Wales premier Barry O’Farrell announced a special commission of inquiry to examine the police investigations of paedophile priests in the Hunter region but resisted the call for a royal commission, as have federal politicians from the major parties.

Mr Fraser said the Catholic Church should have nothing to fear from a royal commission if it had nothing to hide.

”Isn’t it time we laid the issue at rest and made sure that all the institutions in Australia have procedures in place that will protect children?” Mr Fraser asked.

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AUSTRALIA/NEW ZEALAND
The Age

November 12, 2012

Rory Callinan
Investigative journalist

MORE than 70 per cent of the brothers in the St John of God order are suspected child abusers and Sydney Archbishop George Pell should immediately shut the order down, says a psychologist employed by the order to meet with its scores of abuse victims.

Dr Michelle Mulvihill, who met more than 120 of the order’s child abuse victims during compensation negotiations between 1998 and 2007, said on Sunday that Cardinal Pell had been aware of a loan made by the Catholic Development Fund to assist the order which was facing financial problems because of the compensation claims from victims.

She also alleged that the order had never properly supervised suspected paedophile brothers and hid documents relating to the child abuse around its properties in Australia in places where police ”would never find them”.

Almost 200 victims have sought compensation after alleging they were abused in special schools and homes run by the brothers in Victoria, New South Wales and New Zealand.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Josh Halliday
The Guardian, Sunday 11 November 2012

Victims of child abuse may be afraid to speak out for fear of being attacked by the media as part of a “sensationalist witch-hunt”, a former children’s minister has warned.

Tim Loughton, Conservative MP for East Worthing and Shoreham, said he worried that victims would fear they would be “taken out to dry” by the media in the scramble to name public figures as paedophiles.

“We’re forgetting that this whole issue is not about the management of the BBC, it’s not about the Leveson inquiry, and it’s not about celebrities or politicians. It’s about the fact that a lot of children have been abused over many years and many of them have never had their stories believed or investigated,” Loughton said.

“The media has made it into a sensationalist witch-hunt rather than focusing on what are horrific levels of abuse over many, many years.”

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AUSTRALIA
Armidale Express

By STEPHEN JEFFERY
Nov. 12, 2012

NEW England politicians have joined calls for a national royal commission on allegations of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church.

The state government announced a special commission of inquiry into the police force’s handling of child sex abuse allegations against priests in the Hunter on Friday.

Although it will have the powers of a royal commission, the inquiry’s focus has been described as a ‘decoy’ and too narrow in scope.

State Member for Northern Tablelands Richard Torbay and federal Member for New England Tony Windsor claimed a national inquiry, rather than one focusing on a single state or region, was required.

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IRELAND
The Nationalist

Speculation is mounting this evening that the passing of the Children’s Referendum could be challenged in the courts.

It follows the Supreme Court ruling just 48 hours before polling day, which found that the government’s information campaign was one-sided in favour of the Yes campaign.

The controversy has sparked questions about whether the Referendum Commission should have been solely responsible for the production and distribution of information on the ballot.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

AOIFE CARR

Children’s rights campaigners have warmly welcomed the referendum result, describing it as an historic day for children.

Barnardos chief executive Fergus Finlay said he was delighted by the outcome.

“We’re not going to wake up tomorrow morning and discover that every child in Ireland is suddenly healthier, happier and safer than they were yesterday. There’s a lot of work to be done. This is the start of the work, this is the first piece of the jigsaw. But it’s a really really important piece of the jigsaw.

He criticised the “ferocious scaremongering” carried out by the No side saying it didn’t surprise him in the slightest that people ended up alarmed and confused.

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AUSTRALIA
Eureka Street

Michael Mullins November 11, 2012

If there is anything amusing about the Iraq War, it is the reality-defying propaganda broadcasts of President Saddam Hussein’s information minister Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf, otherwise known as ‘Comical Ali’. As the Americans were closing in on Baghdad in 2003, he extolled the invincibility of the Iraqi Army and the permanence of Saddam’s rule.

Those paying close attention to media coverage of clergy sexual abuse might find Cardinal George Pell’s defence of the Church hard to swallow. He suggested to The Weekend Australian on Saturday that the Church has been unfairly vilified, and is no worse than other organisations. ‘Anti-Catholic prejudice is one of the few remaining prejudices … among some circles’.

Then in his Sunday Telegraph column yesterday, he wrote: ‘It is hard to name any other Australian organisation that has done more to produce a safe environment for young people [than the Church]’.

When you are being attacked by the media, it is natural to defend your turf, especially if you’re a Church leader and you firmly believe that the good the Church does far outweighs the evil.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Michael Brennan

Sunday November 11 2012

THE Government can breathe a sign of relief that it has got a result from the children’s referendum campaign.

But it is a far from complete victory, with the low turnout, the defeats in several constituencies and the Supreme Court judgement slamming its €1.1m information campaign as unfair and unbalanced.

It is a reminder that getting the attention of the public is harder than ever – and especially so when there are few compelling arguments to rouse their passions.

The key message of the Government’s campaign was that the children’s rights referendum would help to protect vulnerable children. But the low turnout figures show that this did not strike a chord with the public.

Many people seem to have decided that whatever about vulnerable children, their children were fine and therefore there was no need for them to turn out and vote. Put bluntly, there was nothing in it for them and they had shopping and other things to do on Saturday. If the referendum was about cutting child benefit, you could safely predict a much better turnout.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Sunday November 11 2012

IF the anaemic turnout for the children referendum proves anything, it proves that the Irish find social change hard to deal with.

If this is what we are like for a referendum, backed by all political parties and almost all established civic society and children’s rights groups, what will we be like when we have to confront perennially divisive issues such as abortion, IVF treatment, stem cell research or equality for same sex couples?

Both the Government and the extraordinarily well funded Yes side must examine why their information campaign did not yield a higher turnout.

The No side (miniscule in comparison) will congratulate itself on the benefits of guerilla marketing and the rule requiring a 50/50 playing field on television and radio.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Fionnan Sheahan

Sunday November 11 2012

THE children’s rights referendum has been passed by a narrow margin, with final counts from all count centres across the country showing a result of 58pc in favour versus 42pc against.

The turnout varied in different constituencies but overall reached a very low 33.49pc.

In real terms, 1,066,239 people voted – out of a total electorate of 3,183,239.

The number of invalid papers was 4,645, meaning a valid poll of 1,061,594

The number of votes in favour of the referendum was 615,731. The number against was 445,863.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Sunday, November 11, 2012

Three of Ireland’s 43 constituencies voted against Government plans to enshrine children’s rights in the constitution.

Donegal South West, Donegal North East and Dublin North West were the only areas to reject the referendum.

While the No vote in the Dublin constituency was marginal – with only 137 votes of a difference – the northern county was more resolute in its rejection of the reforms.

Donegal South West recorded a 56% No vote, with Donegal North East even more resounding with a 60% rejection.

Voter turnout in the county was relatively low, at 24%.

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IRELAND
RTE News

The Children’s Referendum has been passed, though not by as wide a margin as had been expected.

With results in from all 43 constitutencies, the Yes side vote had 58% to 42% for the No side.

Three constituencies rejected the amendment; Donegal North East, Donegal South West and Dublin North West.

There was a low voter turnout of 33.53%, the lowest since the 1996 referendum on bail.

Key Points:

– The referendum has been passed by 615,731 votes (58.01%) to 445,863 (41.9)

– The margin of victory was 169,868 votes

– Donegal South West, Donegal North East and Dublin North West voted No to the referendum

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AUSTRALIA
The Canberra Times

November 12, 2012

Chris Goddard

Across the globe, the organised crimes of serial child rapists have been met with disorganisation by careless institutions.

THE stories from around the world are eerily similar. Children raped by perpetrators who are then sheltered by the organisations that gave them access to their victims. The names of the organisations are almost interchangeable.

In the US, one of the coaches of Penn State University football team has been found guilty of more than 40 counts of sexual assault against 10 boys over 15 years. Jerry Sandusky used his influence as a coach, and his own charity, to choose his victims.

Then, just weeks ago, the so-called ”perversion files” from the Boy Scouts of America went online. The Los Angeles Times is establishing a database of thousands of perpetrators over nearly a century, expelled from the scouts because of actual or suspected child sexual assault.

In Britain, two more inquiries have been ordered into the organised abuse of children in children’s homes in North Wales. The first will review the original inquiry by Sir Ronald Waterhouse in the 1990s. It is alleged that Waterhouse ignored allegations about at least one senior political figure. The other inquiry will investigate police responses, or lack thereof, to the crimes reported.

Then there is Jimmy Savile, the late BBC entertainer. Scotland Yard is pursuing more than 300 lines of inquiry into sexual assaults. Savile, it is alleged, used his position as a ”charitable” celebrity to gain access to victims in hospitals, schools and children’s homes. The BBC itself is under scrutiny, with its director-general George Entwistle quitting his post at the weekend.

Here in Victoria, the parliamentary committee of inquiry into child abuse in religious and other non-government organisations is sitting, an inquiry savaged as ”secretive” and ”shallow” by The Age’s religion editor, Barney Zwartz, on this page last Wednesday.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

A PLANE flying over Lower Hunter skies yesterday towing a banner saying ‘‘Royal Commission now’’ spoke volumes for victims of Catholic paedophile priests.

The plane was organised by Anthony Stevens, a brother-in-law of the late John Pirona who committed suicide after saying he could no longer deal with the painful memories inflicted by priests who abused him as a child.

Mr Stevens said he wanted to send a message about the church’s refusal to recognise its wrongs, despite Premier Barry O’Farrell announcing a special inquiry into the matter on Friday.

Other church child sexual abuse victims yesterday agreed they wanted the investigation broadened into a royal commission.

Clergy Abuse Network co-founder Bob O’Toole, Salt Ash man Rob Lipari and ‘‘Susan’’, a victim of serial paedophile priest Denis McAlinden, all said the inquiry announced on Friday was a good start, but nowhere near enough to deal with a massive problem.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

KILIAN DOYLE, AOIFE CARR and GENEVIEVE CARBERY

The children’s right referendum has been passed by a margin of 57.4 per cent to 42.6 per cent.

The proposed constitutional amendment looks at a number of areas of children’s rights including adoption, protection, State intervention in neglect cases and giving children a say in their own protection proceedings.

Scroll down for interactive map of results by constituency below, detailed table of constituency results, and live blog coverage.

More than 3.1 million people were eligible to vote, but the low-key campaign failed to capture the public imagination. The turnout was just 33.5 per cent.

Despite the low turnout, Minister for Children Frances Fitzgerald said it was a “historic day” for children’s rights in Ireland.

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IRELAND
Bray People

A referendum to enshrine children’s rights into the constitution has been passed with a Yes vote of 58%, final figures have confirmed.

The majority was not as big as the Government had hoped, with a low turnout of 34% of the electorate.

Children’s Minister Frances Fitzgerald said it was a “historic day” for children’s rights in Ireland.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

Pia Akerman
From:The Australian
November 12, 2012

STEPHEN Woods would be among the first volunteers to give evidence at any royal commission into child abuse within the Catholic church.

As a Catholic school student in Ballarat in the 1970s, he suffered 3 1/2 years of abuse at the hands of Christian brothers, including Robert Charles Best, who has been convicted of numerous child-sex offences and now awaits the outcome of an appeal.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

Investigate church abuse, Julia Gillard told, as government MPs, independents push for royal commission

Sid Maher and Milanda Rout
From:The Australian
November 12, 2012

JULIA Gillard faces growing calls for a royal commission into child sex abuse in the Catholic Church after Labor backbenchers joined the Greens and independents in demanding a national inquiry.

The Greens demanded a royal commission after independent MP Tony Windsor said he would write to the Prime Minister to discuss an inquiry. Former Labor MP Craig Thomson, who now sits as an independent, said he would back any inquiry, while former Liberal turned independent Peter Slipper said the issue was “clearly a matter of concern”.

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AUSTRALIA
Roman Catholic Diocese of Newcastle-Maitland

Last Thursday, November 8, 2012, The Newcastle Herald published an article entitled “Top cop attacks church – Detective’s letter alleges sex abuse cover-up”. The Herald also printed an open letter to NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell written by the same officer, Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox, headed “Don’t block your ears to abuse, Mr Premier”.

The article, “Top cop attacks church” begins by saying “The Catholic Church covers up the crimes of paedophile priests, silences victims and hinders police investigations, one of the Hunter’s most experienced detectives alleges in a letter to Premier Barry O’Farrell in the Newcastle Herald today,” (Newcastle Herald, Thursday November 8, 2012).

The Newcastle Herald did not offer the Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle an opportunity to respond before printing such damning allegations. As comments on the present practices of this diocese, these allegations, made in the present tense, are not true.

The diocese reports all allegations of criminal conduct to the Police, whether or not the person making the complaint wishes to have contact with Police themselves. The diocese reports all complaints of reportable conduct to the Ombudsman.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

CATHOLIC congregations in the Hunter were read a letter from their bishop yesterday defending the way the church deals with child sexual abuse at the hands of priests.

The letter, by the Bishop of the Newcastle-Maitland diocese, Bill Wright, was also posted on the diocese’s website on Friday.

A spokeswoman said the letter was written before Premier Barry O’Farrell’s Friday afternoon announcement of an inquiry into aspects of the controversy.

It was distributed with instructions to be read at yesterday’s services but the spokeswoman could not say whether it was read out at every church. In his letter, Bishop Wright referred to a Newcastle Herald article of last Thursday that accompanied an opinion piece by Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox, in which he called on the premier to establish a royal commission into sexual abuse by Catholic clergy.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Telegraph

AAP
November 12, 2012

A VICTIMS group on Monday will present to the Victorian government inquiry into sex abuse by priests a list of 18 convicted pedophile priests who were moved from parish to parish or further away, where they continued offending.

Helen Last of In Good Faith, a consultant for the Melbourne Victims Collective, will present the evidence to the state inquiry into how the churches handled sex abuse by priests, Fairfax says.

It comprises men who have been convicted in criminal courts or found by the Catholic Church’s own investigation to have had credible complaints made against them.

Ms Last said the church has known through its Pastoral Appointments Board and its bishops that there have been problems with the conduct of all these priests previously reported to them.

She said the placements gave these priests access to primary and secondary schools, hospitals, orphanages and other care institutions.

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IRELAND
RTE News

Official results are coming in for the Children’s Referendum, with an overall result expected by mid-afternoon.

Key Points:

– Yes vote likely, with vast majority of constituencies voting Yes

– Donegal South West and Donegal North East have both voted No to the referendum

– The National Count currently stands at: Yes 56.3% No 43.7%

There is a health warning in that many constituencies around the country have no tally operation, while others have only a limited one in place, so predictions have to be treated with caution.

However, the indications do suggest that there will be a Yes vote – but that it will be a lot closer than opinion polls during the campaign suggested.

In many areas, particularly in working class areas and along the border, opposition to the amendment has been stronger than anticipated – though not strong enough to defeat it.

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

IRELAND
Irish Times

IRISH TIMES REPORTERS

Early indications show the children’s right referendum will be passed but by a much narrower margin than had been expected.

The proposed constitutional amendment looks at a number of areas of children’s rights including adoption, protection, State intervention in neglect cases and giving children a say in their own protection proceedings.

Counting in the referendum got under way at 9.00am and the result is expected early this afternoon.

More than 3.1 million people were eligible to vote, but the low-key campaign may have failed to capture the public imagination. Government sources estimated last night that the turnout would be around 32 per cent.

Indications are that the referendum will be passed by a majority of about 60 per cent to 40 per cent.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Sunday, November 11, 2012

The referendum to enshrine children’s rights in the constitution looks set to pass, early results have indicated.

The first wave of results from the 43 constituencies suggested the Yes camp would win through at around 55% – a narrower margin than had been expected by the Government.

Among the earliest confirmed results, protest votes were recorded in both Donegal constituencies, similar to the experience in last year’s European referendum.

Donegal South West recorded a 56% No vote with Donegal North East even more resounding with a 60% rejection.

Both constituencies saw low voter turnout of 24%, however.

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GREEN BAY (WI)
Green Bay Press-Gazette

Written by
Scott Cooper Williams
Green Bay Press-Gazette

A former Catholic priest convicted of sexually assaulting a young boy is living in a Green Bay apartment building despite a city board’s action prohibiting him from living there.

Donald Buzanowski, 69, who served seven years in prison, has moved into an apartment at 2258 Imperial Lane, about one block from a public park with playground equipment.

City officials say Buzanowski found a loophole in the city’s ordinance after the Sex Offender Residence Board this summer rejected his request to live in the Imperial Lane apartment.

The loophole stems from the fact that Buzanowski was convicted under a state law that is now outdated and, therefore, is not cited in the city ordinance as a reason for restricting where sex offenders can live in Green Bay.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

November 12, 2012

Barney Zwartz

A VICTIMS’ group has uncovered the trail of 18 paedophile priests moved around the Catholic Church in Victoria from parish to parish or further away, where they continued offending.

Helen Last of In Good Faith, a consultant for the Melbourne Victims Collective, will present the evidence on Monday to the state inquiry into how the churches handled sex abuse by priests.

The list was far from complete but comprised men convicted in criminal courts or found by the church’s own investigation to have had credible complaints made against them, Ms Last said on Sunday.

”The church has known through its pastoral appointments board and its bishops that there have been problems with the conduct of all these priests previously reported to them.” …

Father Barry Robinson, who admitted having sex with a teenager in the rectory of his church in the US in 1994 and was returned to Australia when police were about to interview him, was assistant priest at Williamstown and even last year the church attempted to place him as a relief priest at Healesville – a parish that has had several problem priests – but parishioners protested.

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AUSTRALIA
The Sunday Telegraph

Cardinal George Pell
The Sunday Telegraph
November 10, 2012

Church officials will co-operate fully with the Special Commission of Inquiry into the handling of sex abuse in the Hunter.

Such a commission has enormous powers, very similar to those of a royal commission.

Bishop Bill Wright of Newcastle diocese is on record as supporting this inquiry. I support it also. It is a measured and justified response.

My advice as archbishop to Catholic priests and people is the same as it always has been during my time as archbishop. Comply with the law; tell complainants to go to the police. In NSW allegations of child sex abuse have to be reported; an obligation since the early 1990s.

Much of the public discussion is about how the church dealt with cases 20 or so years ago. Critics talk as though earlier inadequacies are still prevalent. Major procedural changes in dealing with these matters have been implemented since 1996.

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NEBRASKA
Lincoln Journal Star

By ERIN ANDERSEN / Lincoln Journal Star

Bishop James D. Conley has 2,413 friends on Facebook.

His Twitter profile sports a picture of Herbie Husker with a Jayhawk head.

Clearly, the new leader of Lincoln’s Catholic diocese is not your average cleric.

But when it comes to his faith, make no mistake, Bishop Conley is a man of firm conviction and religious principles.

Conley, the ninth bishop to lead Lincoln’s 125-year-old diocese, officially took the helm on Nov. 7 — the morning after the re-election of President Barack Obama.

Conley will be installed formally at 2 p.m. Nov. 20 in a ceremony at Cathedral of the Risen Christ Church. To date, 38 bishops from around the country have RSVPed to attend.

Conley, 57, replaces retiring Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz, who led the diocese for 20 years. …

And Bruskewitz is proudly ultra-conservative in his views of God’s word and the expectations of the Catholic Church.

Those principles have earned Lincoln the reputation as the nation’s most conservative diocese. It is the only diocese in the country not to allow girl altar servers. And it is the only diocese not participating in annual sex abuse audits instituted by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to address the issue of sexual abuse by clergy.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

CLAIRE HARVEY AND BARCLAY CRAWFORD
From:The Sunday Telegraph
November 11, 2012

THE Catholic Church is not sheltering paedophiles – and Cardinal George Pell says he’s confident a Commission of Inquiry into sex abuse claims won’t expose any ongoing offending by priests.

Cardinal Pell has instead fired back at Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox, who investigated claims of sexual abuse in the Hunter Region, accusing him of “smearing” him with the allegation the church obstructed sex abuse claims against priests.

Although Australia’s most senior Catholic cleric admitted the church had “started from well behind scratch” on the issue of child sex abuse, he said major reforms since the mid-1990s had stamped out the culture of secrecy.

“We have very good procedures in place. There is wide public awareness of this problem and within the Catholic community, teachers and children to some extent have been alerted against it,” he said.

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SOUTH CAROLINA
Patch

By Andrew Moore

Bob Jones University has hired an ombudsman to examine sexual abuse allegations and whether or not the school has responded appropriately to them, FoxCarolina.com reports.

Bob Jones University announced this week that hired an organization known as GRACE – Godly Response To Abuse In the Christian Environment – to investigate whether the university had responded adequately to abuse allegations in the past.

BJU, a private Christian school in Greenville, has received an increasing amount of attention over sexual abuse allegations, most recently from then-student Chris Peterman, who drew the university’s ire when he publicly called for the resignation of trustee Chuck Phelps, who allegedly forced a woman at a church in his native New Hampshire to ask her congregation for forgiveness and made her move after the abuse resulted in pregnancy. Peterman was later expelled for various offenses the university said was not directly related to his protests.

Claims of abuse on the BJU campus itself are backed up by Department of Education records, which show nine separate incidents of sexual assault occuring on campus in 2011 alone.

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AUSTRALIA
Adelaide Now

THE Australian Greens have joined a growing chorus demanding a royal commission be set up to investigate claims of child abuse in the Catholic Church.

Greens leader Christine Milne on Sunday said she would be urging the federal government to establish a national commission when the Senate resumes in just over a week.

A national response was needed to a national problem, as certain evidence or records about alleged crimes may be beyond the scope of a state inquiry, Senator Milne said.

Only the coercive powers of a royal commission would expose the “systematic failings” that have allowed the church to hide abuse for decades.

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AUSTRALIA
The Canberra Times

November 12, 2012

Its treatment of sexual abuse allegations has been negligent, Matt Stevens writes

The Catholic Church’s system of canon law applies to its clergy in Australia and internationally.

Because it lacks the binding force found in most countries’ legal systems, it sits alongside the law of those countries, with which it occasionally conflicts.

Irrespective of the application of Australian criminal law, the Catholic church’s negligent treatment of allegations of sexual abuse by members of its clergy represents a clear breach of its own legal code.

Early legal documents of the Catholic church started to be codified around 1200AD, through to significant revisions published by Pope Benedict XV in 1917, arising from the First Vatican Council of 1869-70. These were further overhauled following the 1962-65 Second Vatican Council called by Pope John XXIII.

This resulted in the 1983 Code of Canon Law published by Pope John Paul II. Of the 1983 Code’s 1752 canons (laws), Canon 915 is pertinent to Catholic Church’s systemic obfuscation of investigations into sexual abuse among its ranks, including those alleged on Thursday on ABC TV’s Lateline program by senior NSW police detective Peter Fox.

Canon 915 reads: ”Those who have been excommunicated or interdicted after the imposition or declaration of the penalty and others obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to holy communion.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Canberra Times

November 12, 2012

Editorial

The push for a royal commission, at federal or state level, or both, into child sexual abuse from within the Catholic Church may well become irresistible to politicians. One can see that by the speed with which NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell switched from opposing to ordering an inquiry. Those considering the need, and those vigorously promoting it, must decide early what they can hope to achieve before they commit themselves to an open-ended and expensive process with the potential to cause as many difficulties as it resolves. For the many victims of such abuse, the very exposure of the truth can be a very good thing, helping them on a path to healing and to reconciliation with an innocence and trust that was shattered. The exposure of perpetrators, with what follows from that, is also in the public interest. So is finding reliable information about the scale of abuse, the number of victims and of perpetrators. Probably as important is a critical review of how the church’s practices and cultures responded to what appears to have been an epidemic of such abuse, particularly from the 1950s on. It is clear that some officials responded with denial, cover up, active frustration of inquiries, and, often, the removal of perpetrators from scenes of investigation to places where they might well offend again. Later, different parts of the church began to appreciate the size and enormity of the problem, and to respond with more victim-focused approaches, including modest compensation. But some of these measures are still being criticised as too defensive, and still rather more concerned with the church’s reputation than with the well-being of the victims. It seems the incidence of abuse is falling, but any incidence at all is too much.

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CALIFORNIA
Modesto Bee

[with timeline]

By Sue Nowicki
snowicki@modbee.com

Attorney John Manly said many Stockton Diocese parishioners continue to insist the Rev. Michael Kelly is innocent of sexually abusing children because the diocese has not been forthcoming with the truth. As evidence, his office sent The Bee copies of two internal diocesan documents regarding Kelly.

One shows a chronology from March 12, 1999, to Jan. 31, 2000. It includes a handful of unspecified concerns by parishioners related to Kelly and the resulting action by the diocese. It says Kelly was “shocked” by the first complaint about the way he related to a 4-year-old child and “asserted he never had nor ever would do anything to hurt a child.”

It further says Kelly was “very cooperative” and agreed to be evaluated and treated by a psychologist in 1999 and again in 2000, when he was sent to St. John Vianney Institute in Pittsburgh for a four-day “in-depth evaluation.” Kelly also was told not to be alone with children, and later was instructed not to visit families with children while undergoing counseling.

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CALIFORNIA/IRELAND
Modesto Bee

By Sue Nowicki
snowicki@modbee.com

A third lawsuit filed last week against the Rev. Michael Kelly by a former altar boy at a Calaveras County church brought a swift response from the priest, who now lives in Ireland.

“The allegations are completely and totally false. They NEVER happened. Never. They are utterly untrue,” Kelly wrote in an e-mail sent Thursday morning.

The first lawsuit, filed by Travis Trotter and alleging sexual abuse by Kelly in Stockton, was settled in April for $3.75 million. A second lawsuit was filed Sept. 11 by another former Calaveras County resident. All three plaintiffs are clients of Vince Finaldi and John Manly, Southern California attorneys who have won large clergy abuse settlements from the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

The most recent lawsuit comes on the heels of a series of letters from Kelly supporters received by The Bee. The letters say many current and past parishioners from Sonora, Tracy and other places where Kelly worked over four decades received phone calls from a woman who wanted to know if Kelly had molested their children.

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UNITED STATES
National Conference of Catholic Bishops

By Dennis Sadowski
Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) — Statements on preaching and ways that bishops can respond using new technologies to modern-day challenges to their teaching authority are among the items the U.S. bishops will consider when they gather in Baltimore for their annual fall assembly.

Set for Nov. 12-15, the assembly also will consider a statement on work and the economy proposed by the Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development as a way to raise the profile of growing poverty and the struggles that unemployed people are experiencing.

The document on preaching that the bishops are to consider encourages preachers to connect the Sunday homily with people’s daily lives. …

The bishops will devote time to discuss whether to revise the norms governing fundraising as covered by Canon 1262 in church law. The discussion is expected to focus on the need to clarify when a bishop would have to approve any appeal to raise funds based on from where the fundraising appeal originated.

Existing norms on fundraising were approved unanimously by the bishops in 2002 and received approval from the Vatican, or “recognitio,” in 2007. …

The bishops also will vote on a new treasurer and chairmen of five committees. Those elected will begin three-year terms during the bishops’ 2013 fall general assembly.

The bishops will choose a new treasurer; the two candidates are Bishop Robert J. Cunningham of Syracuse, N.Y. and Bishop Kevin J. Farrell of Dallas. The treasurer serves as chairman of the Committee on Budget and Finance.

New chairmen of the committees on Consecrated Life and Vocations, Divine Worship, Domestic Justice and Human Development, Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth, and Migration also will be chosen.

Members of the boards of the Catholic Legal and Immigration Network, Inc. and Catholic Relief Services also will be elected.

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UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

Another brilliant posting by Jerry Slevin, which asks what will happen now with the leadership of the Catholic church, after a geo-political strategy which absolutely required it to defeat the current U.S. president has just failed spectacularly in the 2012 U.S. elections. Here’s Jerry’s response to that question:

The Catholic Church is in a deepening worldwide crisis precipitated largely by the current Vatican’s failure, inability and/or refusal to deal effectively and openly with the expanding scandal of priest sexual abuse of children. Its aged and apparently rapidly declining 85-year old pope will likely soon be replaced, ending hopefully a long era of almost dictatorial rule. The Vatican’s modern-era geo-political strategy has just fatally failed with the re-election of Barack Obama, which the pope tried hard to prevent. The related implications of Obama’s victory are beginning to become clearer for the American Catholic Church, for the worldwide Catholic Church and for the spreading scandal of priest sexual abuse of children.

I. ARE THE BISHOPS AND POPE NOW CHASTENED BY OBAMA’S VICTORY ?

President Barack Obama has won re-election by a clear MAJORITY of all American voters, of all Catholic voters, of all women voters and of all states. The almost half trillion dollar amount spent trying to defeat Obama, mainly by some tax-averse plutocratic Republican supporters from the top 0.01% financially, including some major Catholic donors supported by various U.S. bishops, was evidently wasted money. All plutocrats must now pay their fair share of American taxes, and all Americans will now have to accept Obamacare, as the top Republican, U.S. Speaker of the House and a Catholic, John Boehner, has just done. The Nuns on the Bus surely left the popemobile in the dust on election day!

The pope’s and U.S. bishops’ political prestige in American elections has just been permanently diminished, if not completely destroyed. The modern-era papal geo-political strategy is in shambles. It is time to let Caesar, not the pope, be Caesar, as the U. S. Founding Fathers wisely intended.

After making such an unprecedented electoral effort to try to elect Republicans and ban gay marriage in the U.S.A., the Catholic hierarchy has very little to show for it. The anticipated lame excuses, such as poor catechetics, insufficient zeal, changing demographics and even the weather, are already circulating, but few find them credible. A majority of Americans just reject completely the social policies that the Catholic hierarchy and their favored Republicans were urging.

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TULSA (OK)
San Francisco Chronicle

JUSTIN JUOZAPAVICIUS, Associated Press
Updated 11:58 a.m., Saturday, November 10, 2012

TULSA, Okla. (AP) — The mother of a teenage girl who was sexually assaulted at a south Tulsa megachurch says she believed she was doing the right thing by sending her daughter to a place where she would learn traditional Bible Belt values, but now accuses leaders of the 17,000-member congregation of attempting to manipulate the child.

In an interview with The Associated Press, the 32-year-old single mother of three said she regrets placing a blind faith in Victory Christian Center, with the hope that it could shield her children from the evils of a secular world.

“It was something positive. I was sending them to church; they were going to learn morals and values,” the mother of the 13-year-old said during a 45-minute interview with The Associated Press at her workplace. “And for them to turn around and have this happen, it’s just a huge slap in the face.”

A church janitor, Chris Denman, 20, has pleaded guilty to raping the 13-year-old girl in a church stairwell, bringing to an end only one part of a sexual abuse scandal that engulfed the religious community in August. Five other church workers are accused of failing to report the rape allegation in a timely manner, and another janitor is accused of making a lewd proposal to a child.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

Updated: 08:01, Sunday November 11, 2012

Australia’s most senior Catholic, Cardinal George Pell, is reportedly deeply ashamed at child sex abuse perpetrated by members of the church but doesn’t believe a royal commission is warranted.

The Archbishop of Sydney accepts that children were abused by priests and that the crimes were covered up by other clergy but believes the Catholic church is no worse than other organisations, News Limited reports.

‘It wasn’t just the Catholic church that hoped (an abusive priest) would amend their conduct and give them a home elsewhere,’ he told the Weekend Australian.

‘Back in those days, they were entitled to think of pedophilia as simply a sin that you would repent of. They didn’t realise that in the worst cases it was an addiction, a raging addiction.’

The church had rid itself of ‘a great deal of moral cancer’ after abuse claims came to light, he said.

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VATICAN CITY
Irish Times

A Vatican court today found Claudio Sciarpelletti, a computer expert, guilty of obstruction of justice in the investigation of leaks of sensitive papal documents to the media by Pope Benedict’s former butler.

The same court, which last month convicted Paolo Gabriele, the Pope’s former butler, gave Sciarpelletti a two-month suspended sentence.

Sciarpelletti had been charged with aiding and abetting Gabriele in leaking the document.

But the court decided that he was guilty only of obstruction of justice because he had changed his version of events several times during the investigation.

Sciarpelletti’s sentence was reduced from four to two months because he had no criminal record and suspended because of his long service with the Vatican. The defence said it will appeal.

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VATICAN CITY
The Associated Press

By FRANCES D’EMILIO, Associated Press

VATICAN CITY (AP) — A Vatican court on Saturday convicted a Holy See computer technician of helping the former papal butler in the embarrassing leak of confidential papal documents and gave him a two-month suspended sentence in the last trial in the scandal.

Claudio Sciarpelletti, a 48-year-old Italian who is a computer program analyst in the Vatican’s Secretariat of State, testified that he had played no role in helping to leak the documents, which later formed the core of an Italian journalist’s book alleging corruption in high ranks of the Vatican bureaucracy.

Last month, Paolo Gabriele, who served Pope Benedict XVI his meals and helped him dress for ceremonies, was convicted in a separate trial for the theft of the documents from the papal apartment and is serving an 18-month prison sentence in Vatican City.

Gabriele and Sciarpelletti are the only Vatican employees to be formally investigated in the case, which distressed the pope, embarrassed the Vatican hierarchy and left many wondering about the competence of the Holy See’s security apparatus.

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NEBRASKA
National Catholic Reporter

by Joshua J. McElwee | Nov. 10, 2012

Lincoln, Neb. —
The meeting doesn’t come across as anything abnormal.

Eleven people sit on couches and wooden chairs in a friend’s front room. The furnishings are typical, if a little orthodox. On one of the walls, painted a cool purple, hangs a painting of Mary and Jesus, Christ wearing a crown of thorns, blood flowing down his face.

As you enter, across from the doorway hangs a silver crucifix. It features an emaciated savior, a miniature replica of the style seen grasped by Blessed Pope John Paul II in photos from around the world.

These are not details that would immediately indicate that several people in the group have been deemed by their bishop to be excommunicated from the Catholic church.

The 11 in the room are members of Call To Action Nebraska, the state-level affiliate of the 25,000-member national church reform group. They come from each of the three dioceses of the wide state, marked by rolling hills in the east and the open fields of the plains to the west.

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CONNECTICUT
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Barbara Dorris on November 09, 2012

Easton officials have made a smart and sensitive move by agreeing to take the name of an accused serial predator off of a park. There’s no need to rub salt into the wounds of child sex abuse victims by honoring a man who has repeatedly been accused of molesting kids.

Nothing that city officials can do will hurt or help the accused predator, Stephen Toth. He’s deceased. But they can help bring healing and closure to those he hurt, by removing his name. We applaud them for taking this simple, helpful step.

By changing the name of this park, Easton officials are making it more likely that other child sex abuse victims – those hurt by Toth or other pedophiles – will find the courage to report child molesters in the future.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Dearbhail McDonald and Fiach Kelly

Saturday November 10 2012

THE Government was forced to shut its children referendum website for a second time — despite a Supreme Court ruling that “extensive passages” in its booklet and website were not “fair, equal or impartial”.

The website was shut down for several hours last Thursday following the Supreme Court decision, an embarrassing setback for the State which has set off a blame game within Government about how its €1.1m information campaign went wrong.

The website, www.childrensreferendum.ie, was back online within hours — this time including only “basic information” on the wording and outlining the scheme of the adoption bill.

But Chief State Solicitor Eileen Creedon had to make arrangements with the Department of Children and Youth Affairs (DYCA) for the website to be taken offline again yesterday after further complaints by engineer Mark McCrystal, who successfully challenged the Government’s information campaign.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Lyndsey Telford and Ed Carty

Saturday November 10 2012

VOTING is under way across Ireland as the public determines if the Government’s plans to enshrine children’s rights in the constitution should be accepted.

Polls opened at 9am on the back of a politically-damaging Supreme Court ruling over the misuse of public funds to inform the electorate about the campaign.

More than 3.1 million people are eligible to cast their ballot with polling stations open until 10pm.

However, voting is reported to be very slow so far. Although it is difficult to compare with previous referendums because it is a Saturday, it looks like the move to a weekend is not having the hoped-for effect of increasing numbers – at least so far.

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CHILE
Terra

El escritor Jorge Edwards revela que sufrió abusos sexuales cuando era menor

El escritor Jorge Edwards, Premio Cervantes 1999 y actual embajador de Chile en Francia, reveló que un sacerdote de un prestigioso colegio religioso de Santiago en el que estudiaba abusó sexualmente de él cuando tenía once años.

“La pedofilia de los curas es un tema que ha salido en Estados Unidos, en Austria, en todos lados. Ha salido lo de (Fernando) Karadima acá y me dije por qué no voy a contar esta historia”, confesó en una entrevista difundida hoy por Televisión Nacional.

Edwards se encuentra en Chile para presentar este sábado en la Feria Internacional del Libro de Santiago el primer volumen de sus memorias, “Los círculos morados”, donde al parecer hace alusión a este episodio.

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CHILE
Radio Santiago

El escritor nacional Jorge Edwards reveló a la edición central del noticiero 24 Horas haber sido abusado sexualmente por un sacerdote a los 11 años, cuando estudiaba en el colegio San Ignacio.

Esta revelación la hace a 70 años de haber sido abusado por un religioso de apellido Cádiz.

“La pedofilia de los curas es un tema que ha salido en Estados Unidos, en Austria, en todos lados. Ha salido lo de Karadima acá y me dije ‘por qué no voy a contar esta historia”, confesó.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

IRISH TIMES REPORTERS

Polls opened this morning in the children’s rights referendum with the Government under pressure to explain the blunder in its information campaign which has led to confusion among the public.

More than 3.1 million people are eligible to cast their ballot with polling stations open until 10pm.

Voters will be asked a simple Yes or No, whether they agree with all the changes included in the 31st amendment of the Constitution. The proposed constitutional amendment looks at a number of areas of children’s rights including adoption, protection, State intervention in neglect cases and giving children a say in their own protection proceedings.

Documents that will be accepted as proof of identity at polling stations include passport, driving licence, employee identity card with a photo, student card issued, a travel document containing name and photograph, a bank or credit union deposit book

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

November 11, 2012

Heath Aston
Sun-Herald state political editor

THE Bishop of Maitland and Newcastle, Bill Wright, has agreed to attend the launch of a book detailing the rape of an altar boy by a Catholic priest who later died in jail.

The book, Holy Hell, has been written by Patricia Feenan, one of the Hunter region’s campaigners for a full royal commission on sexual abuse by the clergy in NSW.

The foreword to the book has been penned by whistleblower cop, Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox, who will also attend the book launch at the Catholic Church complex in Newcastle on December 6.

Ms Feenan’s son Daniel was raped by Father James Patrick Fletcher and suffered other sexual atrocities at the hands of the paedophile priest in the early 1990s. Fletcher was jailed for ten years in 2004 but died in custody 18 months later.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

by Jason Berry | Nov. 10, 2012

Atlanta —
Diane Dougherty, 67, who has short silver hair and stands barely 5 feet tall, became a fleeting media sensation Oct. 20 with her ordination in the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests.

The forces that drove Dougherty to profess priestly vows are a parable of today’s church, as divided in America as in Europe, where 144 theologians in Germany, Austria and Switzerland signed a 2011 declaration defying Pope Benedict XVI in support of women’s ordination. Dougherty, who spent 23 years as a nun earlier in her life, followed a pull of conscience to “the same basic calling” in violation of church law.

Five other women, well along the road of middle life, were ordained as deacons in the same Mass held at First Metropolitan Community Church, which historically serves gays and lesbians. Bridget Mary Meehan, a bishop affiliated with the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests, came from her home in Virginia to preside. About 300 people attended, among them relatives of the newly ordained, a few scampering grandchildren; groups from Florida, Georgia, Ohio, Kentucky and Louisiana; 15 other women priests in the movement; and two women in black robes of the Episcopal clergy. …

“It means that excommunication takes place immediately,” New Jersey canon lawyer Fr. Kenneth Lasch told NCR.

“There is a hitch, though,” said canonist Dominican Fr. Tom Doyle. “Automatic excommunication basically means that it is not publicized. Only the excommunicated one knows it for sure and is obliged in conscience to observe the penalty. … Most of the women priests I have helped were concerned [about the excommunication] and then got to the point — a healthy one, I think — where it did not matter.”

Legion battles

The same Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith document singles out clerics who molest children “to be punished according to the gravity of his crime, not excluding dismissal” from the priesthood. In 2006 the Vatican ordered the Legion of Christ founder, Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado, a notorious pedophile who fathered children with two women, to “a reserved life of prayer and penitence.” Maciel, who died in 2008, was never excommunicated.

The Legion, which now functions under a unique Vatican receivership, faces a lawsuit in Connecticut over alleged incest by Maciel. Another lawsuit in Rhode Island, accusing the order of defrauding a widow of $60 million, was recently dismissed; the complainant is considering an appeal.

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VATICAN CITY
NBC News

By NBC’s Claudio Lavanga

ROME — A Vatican computer expert charged with helping the pope’s former butler Paolo Gabriele to steal and leak papal documents to a journalist was given a suspended, two-month prison sentence Saturday.

Claudio Sciarpelletti was initially given a four-month sentence, but it was reduced immediately to two months because of his clean record and later suspended.

In reading the verdict, chief judge Giuseppe della Torre said Sciarpelletti was sentenced for “obstructing justice.”

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IRELAND
Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio) Irish voters are being asked to decide on a change in the Constitution which the government says will give stronger rights to children. Those in favour of the amendment say it will strengthen child protection legislation, but some opponents of the measure claim it will hand too much power to Government agencies.

“I suppose the main issues would be, you know, for people who might be a bit sceptical about it, is it needed and would it give the state too much power of intervention in the lives of families… The proponents of it say it’s necessary because the state at the moment can’t offer sufficient protection to children who are in very bad situations”, says David Quinn, from the Dublin based Iona Institute for Religion and the Family.

Polls opened at 9am local time Saturday morning despite a last-minute challenge from the Irish Supreme Court.

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IRELAND
Fingal Independent

Saturday November 10 2012

Voting has got under way across Ireland as the public determines if the Government’s plans to enshrine children’s rights in the constitution should be accepted.

Polls opened at 9am on the back of a politically-damaging Supreme Court ruling over the misuse of public funds to inform the electorate about the campaign.

More than 3.1 million people are eligible to cast their ballot with polling stations open until 10pm.

But Justice Minister Alan Shatter said be believed the amendment would be passed with the public grabbing the chance to contribute to the further protection of children.

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IRELAND
WTVC

November 10, 2012

DUBLIN (AP) — The Irish are voting on a referendum that would insert stronger rights for children into the constitution, making it easier for state agencies to protect children from abuse and for neglected kids to be adopted.

Ireland’s 1937 constitution can be amended only through national referendums. All opinion polls indicate voter approval for Saturday’s referendum, in part because of Ireland’s scandal-plagued record on child protection.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Sarah MacDonald

Saturday November 10 2012

THE Association of Catholic Priests, which represents over 1,000 reform-minded Irish clergy, has set up a support group for clerics who have to leave ministry while allegations of abuse by them are investigated.

The new advisory board includes psychologist Dr Marie Keenan, who has been appointed chairperson, Maeve Lewis of victim support group One in Four, Ian Elliot of the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church and a number of prominent clergy.

It will hold its third meeting in December ahead of the first general meeting for members next January.

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VATICAN CITY
AFP

VATICAN CITY — A verdict was expected Saturday in the trial of a Vatican computer technician accused of helping Pope Benedict XVI’s butler leak confidential papers.

Claudio Sciarpelletti’s trial comes just weeks after the disgraced former butler, Paolo Gabriele, was sentenced to 18 months in prison for engineering the leak of secret papal documents.

Sciarpelletti, 48, has worked for the past 20 years in the Vatican’s Secretariat of State — effectively the government of the Roman Catholic Church — and was responsible for maintenance on all the computers of Vatican employees.

The leaks, which were published in a book by an Italian journalist, revealed infighting in the highest echelons of the Catholic Church and allegations of fraud in the running of the Vatican, the world’s smallest state.

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VATICAN CITY
The Province

By The Associated Press
November 10, 2012

VATICAN CITY – A Vatican court has convicted a Holy See computer technician of helping the former papal butler in the theft of confidential papal documents and given him a two-month suspended sentence.

Claudio Sciarpelletti, an Italian who is a computer program analyst in the Vatican’s Secretariat of State, had testified earlier Saturday that he had played no role in helping to spirit out confidential documents in a scandal involving alleged corruption in the Vatican bureaucracy.

Pope’s former butler, Paolo Gabriele, was convicted last month in a separate trial for the theft of the documents and is serving a 18-month prison sentence in Vatican City.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

Rory Callinan
Investigative journalist

A GROUP of 15 religious brothers led by an “alpha paedophile” is suspected of the unreported deaths of two boys and the sexual abuse of more than 40 others.

The victims – abused over three decades – include wards of the state cared for by the brothers in homes for the mentally impaired, a state parliamentary inquiry into child abuse is expected to be told. Seven are believed to have committed suicide.

The suspected paedophile brothers from the Hospitaller Order of St John of God have never been charged in Victoria because of a lack of police resources, says the submission’s author, Dr Wayne Chamley, a researcher for Broken Rites, the support group for church sex abuse victims.

While most of the suspected paedophiles are dead, Fairfax Media is aware of three who have left the Catholic order and moved away but are in roles where they could have access to children.

The allegations relate to the order’s operations at Cheltenham and Lilydale, where it provided homes for wards of the state, orphans, boys given up by their parents and those with intellectual disabilities from the 1950s to the 1980s.

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UNITED STATES
SB Wire

Carrabelle, FL — (SBWIRE) — 11/09/2012 — The Universal Life Church World Headquarters, two years ago embarked upon a rather controversial subject matter and that is background checks on and/or third party endorsement of their Ministers. Amidst sexual abuse claims against Ministers or Priests ordained by other churches, the Universal Life Church World Headquarters took it upon themselves to be the pioneer of such a bold initiative. Initially some backlash was received, however now after two years it has paid off and proved to be the right move.

The President and the Presiding Bishop, the Most Reverend Michael J. Cauley, OSM, when asked about it had this to say:

“We had two objectives for implementing background checks and/or 3rd party endorsement, to separate our faith based, professional Ministers, from other online ordination assembly lines with similar names who ordain anybody and everyone.”

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AUSTRALIA
Stuff

A group of religious brothers led by an ”alpha paedophile” are suspected of the unreported bashing deaths of two boys and the sexual abuse of more than 40 wards of the state and others at homes for the mentally impaired over three decades in Victoria, an inquiry into child abuse is expected to be told on Friday.

The 15 suspected paedophile brothers from the Hospitaller Order of St John of God have never been charged in Victoria because of a lack of police resources, said Wayne Chamley, a researcher for the church sex abuse victims group Broken Rites.

While the majority of the suspected paedophiles are dead, Fairfax is aware of three men who have left the order and moved away, but are in roles where they could have access to children.

The allegations relate to the order’s operations at Cheltenham and Lilydale where they provided homes for wards of the state, orphans, boys given up by their parents and those with intellectual disabilities from the 1950s to the 1980s.

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AUSTRALIA
Adelaide Now

CALLS for inquiries and royal commissions have become so ubiquitous for anyone with a grievance that it is easy to grow deaf to such appeals.

But when it’s a grievance as serious as the alleged cover up of child sexual abuse within two of society’s most important and venerated institutions, it pays to stop and listen.

To his credit, Barry O’Farrell has done this in setting up a special commission of inquiry into the allegations about child sex abuse among Catholic clergy in the Hunter – albeit only after he was brought under full media scrutiny for not having acted.

Likewise he has made a wise choice in the selection of Margaret Cunneen SC to head it. Ms Cunneen has a deserved reputation as a fearless and dogged legal mind unbeholden to the many vested interests that permeate Sydney life.

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NEW JERSEY
MyCentralJersey

ELIZABETH — Plainfield is a deeply religious city, with some estimates listing more than 100 churches managing to find a home in an area not much larger than six square miles. And leaders of those churches aren’t just men and women of God: they’re counselors, confidants, friends and family — all rolled into one.

It’s why what George Benbow did hurt so many, so badly.

The former city pastor, founder of Christian Fellowship Gospel Church, was sentenced to 11 years in state prison Friday for sexually assaulting or otherwise touching at least five young girls during a span of nearly a decade.

“As I give thought to how the actions of George Benbow Sr. (have) affected my family and myself, it would be untruthful to say that this man was not influential in my life, or that he did nothing for me. He did a lot for me and my family,” Kristina Tucker, the mother of one victim, wrote in an impact statement to presiding Superior Court Judge Stuart Peim. “This is one of the major reasons why it was so devastating to hear what he had done to my daughter. His actions affected not only my family, but were destructive to a church and a community.”

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MINNESOTA
KARE

Written by
Jana Shortal

MINNEAPOLIS – Pastor Ryan Muehlhauser, 55, was charged with eight felony counts of criminal sexual conduct on Monday.

He is accused of abusing two young men who had sought out the member of the clergy to help them with personal issues.

The first victim told authorities that he met Muehlhauser in October of 2010 at a Called of Darkness event sponsored by Outpost Ministries.

On the Outpost Ministries website it states that one of its functions as an organization is to assist individuals who want to break away from the gay lifestyle.

In a statement given to KARE 11 on Friday, a spokesman for Outpost Ministries said:

“Outpost Ministries is deeply grieved over the allegations regarding Ryan Muehlhauser. Outpost fundamentally stands against sexual abuse and exists, in part, to minister to those who have been wounded by such violence.

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BELIZE
7 News Belize

On Wednesday’s Newscast, 7News showed you 46 year-old Julio Cesar Garcia, the purported pastor from Franks Eddy Baptist Church who is in prison for allegedly having sexual intercourse with an 11 year-old female, a member of the church.

The 11 year-old alleged that Garcia had intercourse with her once in the church house and on another occasion at his home.

As a result, police arrested and charged him with 2 counts of unlawful carnal knowledge and he was arraigned and remanded to prison on Wednesday.

It is a heinous case of abuse of authority and trust, and the community is trying to recover from this betrayal.

But if you noticed, we used the word, “purported”, because the Baptist Association of Belize says that Garcia is not the pastor of the church, in fact, they don’t even know if he is a pastor at all.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Harry McGee

Analysis: Attorney General will now have to explain where it all went wrong

On Thursday after the Supreme Court delivered its thunderbolt that struck down the Government’s information campaign on the children’s referendum, senior spokespeople from the Coalition were able to hide behind the fact that the court had decided to give a short judgment without setting out its full reasoning, beyond a 500 word precis.

But short though the ruling was on Thursday, there was no doubting its import.

December 11th, when the full judgment is published, will be a deliverance day for the Government with potentially serious questions for the Minister for Children Frances Fitzgerald, Attorney General Máire Whelan, and for the Government as a whole.

The chronology of the crisis had its beginning in the failed referendum campaign of October 2011. Following the failure to give parliamentary committees more power, the Government commissioned research to find out why people voted against the measure. One of the key findings was that voters felt there had been a lack of accessible information despite the presence of the Referendum Commission and its information campaign.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

PATSY McGARRY, Religious Affairs Correspondent

How can today’s young people be invited “to commit themselves to a male-dominated, authoritarian institution which suppresses dissent and attempts to control what its members may even discuss?” social justice campaigner Fr Peter McVerry has asked.

The founder of the Peter McVerry Trust for homeless people was speaking in Dublin last night at the first annual general meeting of the Association of Catholic Priests (ACP). The meeting continues today.

He said there were “many priests and religious . . . who experience only condemnation, exclusion and marginalisation by the very church which was mandated by its founder to reach out to all in compassion, love, and tolerance”.

The church established by Jesus “was to be a community of brothers and sisters, free of all domination”, he said. Jesus warned against “replicating the relationships of power that existed in the wider society”.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

ELAINE KEOGH

A priest who sexually abused boys in the Diocese of Meath, including at two parochial houses, has been jailed for two years at Trim Circuit Criminal Court.

Fr Raymond Brady (77) from Baltrasna, Oldcastle, Co Meath, acted “like a predator”, said Judge Michael O’Shea.

Brady admitted indecently assaulting 10 boys – some of them brothers – at different locations including the parochial houses in Drumconrath and Kilbeg. He also admitted attempted indecent assault on another boy. Assaults also took place in a caravan in Bettystown and in the priest’s car as he took the boys to and from funeral Masses.

Most of the victims were altar boys and they were aged between 11 and 17.

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AUSTRALIA
Devonport Times

SEAN NICHOLLS, JOSEPHINE TOVEY

10 Nov, 2012

A SPECIAL commission of inquiry with the powers of a royal commission will examine claims of interference in police investigations of alleged paedophile priests in the Hunter region and could lead to a state-wide examination of clergy child sex abuse.

The inquiry, announced by the Premier, Barry O’Farrell, on Friday, will be headed by the NSW deputy senior Crown prosecutor, Margaret Cunneen. It comes amid calls for the resignation of the Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, George Pell, over the way he has handled the issue.

”What I’m determined to do is ensure those who have robbed young children of their futures are brought to justice,” Mr O’Farrell said.

But the senior police officer who prompted the inquiry, Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox, said it was inadequate.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

By Emily Bourke, ABC
Updated November 10, 2012

The NSW Government’s decision to establish a special commission of inquiry into the police force, rather than the Catholic Church in relation to allegations of sexual abuse by priests, has been labelled a decoy.

The by Premier Barry O’Farrell came in response to who claimed the church actively and systematically hampered police investigations into paedophilia in the New South Wales Hunter region.

The allegations have prompted renewed calls for the resignation of Catholic Cardinal George Pell and a nationwide royal commission to investigate decades of sexual abuse of children and alleged cover ups by the Catholic Church.

The New South Wales inquiry will look at how police handled claims of sexual abuse by priests in the Hunter region.

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AUSTRALIA
Adelaide Now

INDEPENDENT senator Nick Xenophon says allegations of child sex abuse and systemic cover-ups inside the Catholic Church warrant a national royal commission.

“The days when we allow the Catholic Church to be its own investigator are well and truly over,” he said in a statement on Saturday.

The senator was responding to calls for a NSW royal commission by a senior police detective who claims evidence of paedophilia has been destroyed by Catholic priests.

Senator Xenophon said the allegations of Detective Inspector Peter Fox were so grave only a national royal commission could get to the truth.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

by Joshua J. McElwee | Nov. 9, 2012
NCR Today

The leaders of the group which represents the majority of U.S. Catholic sisters are to meet Sunday with three U.S. bishops appointed by the Vatican to oversee their organization.

Four officers of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which represents some 80 percent of women religious in the U.S., will meet with Seattle Archbishop Peter Sartain, Springfield, Ill., Bishop Thomas Paprocki, and Toledo, Ohio, Bishop Leonard Blair.

Sartain, who met previously with the LCWR’s board following the group’s annual meeting in August, was appointed by the Vatican in April to be the group’s “archbishop delegate.”

In a formal report announcing the move April 18, known as a “doctrinal assessment,” the Vatican’s powerful Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith alleged there was a “prevalence of certain radical feminist themes” in LCWR’s programs. It gave Sartain wide authority to revise LCWR’s statutes and review its plans and programs.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Updated: November 9, 2012 – 3:21 PM

A Catholic priest who pleaded guilty Thursday to molesting two underage brothers is banned from “ever exercising priestly ministry,” according to a statement from the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

The Rev. Curtis C. Wehmeyer will remain a priest, but cannot perform any duties of the church.

Wehmeyer, 48, pleaded guilty in Ramsey County District Court to 20 counts, including one count of second-degree criminal sexual conduct, two counts of fifth-degree criminal sexual conduct and 17 counts of possessing child porn. He did not receive a plea bargain.

His sentencing is scheduled for February.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
St. Joe Channel

By: Lauren Rauth

Updated: November 9, 2012

(KANSAS CITY, Mo.) A support group for clergy sex abuse victims is urging the bishop of the Kansas City-St. Joseph Diocese to skip the annual meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Leaders from the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, wrote Bishop Robert Finn a letter, urging him to skip next week’s meeting.

The letter asks Finn to show contrition for acting “recklessly, callously and deceitfully” with his failure to report the crimes committed in the case involving former St. Joseph priest Rev. Shawn Ratigan.

Bishop Finn was convicted last month of child endangerment for the Ratigan case. He is the first American Bishop to be convicted of such a crime.

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IRELAND
The Guardian

Henry McDonald, Ireland correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Friday 9 November 2012

The UK should follow the Republic of Ireland by preparing to make the reporting of alleged child abuse mandatory in law, according to the Dublin-based Children’s Rights Alliance.

Ireland is holding a referendum on Saturday that aims to enshrine the rights of children in the country’s constitution.

Since the 1990s Ireland has undergone a painful catharsis regarding widespread child sexual and physical abuse in what were once revered institutions of church and state. The republic has published 14 high-powered and damaging reports into the abuse and exploitation of children in church-run orphanages, industrial schools and parishes.

Tanya Ward, the chief executive of the Children’s Rights Alliance, whose offices are just a few hundred yards away from the gates of the Irish parliament, said the UK could learn a lot from the Irish experience of dealing with a legacy of systematic child abuse.

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IRELAND
Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio) Ireland’s government is asking voters to insert stronger rights for children into the constitution, a measure designed to make it easier for state agencies to protect children from abuse and for neglected children to be adopted.

But the campaign to secure a “yes” vote in Saturday’s referendum has taken a last-minute surprise hit from the Irish Supreme Court. The five-judge court ruled that the government’s information booklet urging a “yes” vote, mailed to every household in this country of 4.6 million, was not fully accurate and violated referendum laws. The government apologized but urged voters still to vote yes.

The Irish Bishops have given a cautious welcome to the referendum, encouraging Catholics to vote yes. “It is definitely a step in the right direction” says Bishop John McAreavey of Dromore Diocese in an interview with Emer McCarthy. “The Irish bishops believe that the constitution has an important role in signalling the priorities and fundamental values of our society. One of those priorities about which there is an enhanced sensitivity is the rights of the child”. Listen:

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IRELAND
The University Times

Graham Murtagh
Staff Writer

When you look back on the history of this rocky Atlantic outcrop, children, for all our blather about equality and respect, never really got much of a look in. Undoubtedly, traditional sensibilities viewed children as something to be seen and not heard and to be heard only when spoken to. Where such consequential conversation was deemed necessary, it should at least be mercifully brief. The proclamation, held aloft, to ‘cherish all children of the nation equally’ seemed to produce an unanswerable gulf between those under and over the age of majority.That culture produced one of the greatest scandals of modern times – the Cloyne Report into abuse in Catholic institutions is but one tome that details a history of menacing, dangerous abuse and recalls lost innocence. The pleas of children went unaddressed and attended to, and the humiliation was allowed to continue relatively unchecked. Our sense of traditionalism outweighed our sense of duty towards children, to their cost and to ours – an unwillingness to intervene because it was ‘none of my business’.

That approach simply doesn’t wash today. Tomorrow, Saturday, you will be asked to vote in a referendum on an amendment that, if passed, will place children’s rights front and centre for the first time. This is our time to truly give effect to the intent of our forefathers, and the insertion of Article 42A will provide for greater protection for those in our society who arguably need it most.

The amendment consists of four parts, and provides for the deletion in its entirety of Article 42, and its replacement with Article 42A. The first provision of the new section is a statement of intent – Article 42A.1º provides for an explicit recognition of the rights of the child. These rights are natural and imprescriptible, and therefore cannot be lost under any circumstances. The section amounts to a consolidation of existing Constitutional rights that apply to all citizens, this time tailored to be absolute in their protection of children specifically. This is a long overdue provision – for too long, we failed to accept that children, while possessing intelligence and independence to be themselves and to make their voices heard, are not adults and so deserve explicit protection. That is the protection that Article 42A.1º gives.

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IRELAND
Herald

Friday November 09 2012

Q What is the Referendum about?

AVoters are being asked to agree to a new Article 42A. The Government says the Amendment is needed to recognise children in their own right within the Constitution. It contains five key parts which you are being asked to pass or reject in a single question.

Those in favour say it will protect children, support families and treat all children equally.

Children already have constitutional rights, but if the wording is passed, the Constitution will, for the first time, contain explicit fundamental rights provisions for them.

Q Why is change to the Constitution necessary?

AThe Constitution is the fundamental law of our State. A change to it will ensure more child-centred laws and influence judicial decisions into the future.

For decades we have had a legacy of failing Irish children. Expert groups over the past 20 years, ranging from the Kilkenny Incest Investigation of 1993 to the Joint Committee on the Constitutional Amendment on Children (2010), have urged dedicated provisions for children in the Constitution. If adopted, the change will introduce an explicit statement to protect and vindicate the rights of children.

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AUSTRALIA
The Standard

By TOM McILROY
Nov. 10, 2012

DAMNING reports of historic sexual abuse by Catholic clergy in the Ballarat and Warrnambool regions was included in evidence to a state inquiry yesterday.

Representatives of the Broken Rites victims’ advocacy organisation detailed around 50 cases of abuse by clergy, including cover-ups of abuse by paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale and offences committed by Father Paul David Ryan in Penshurst.

The group has also provided the inquiry with records of abuse by convicted Christian Brother Robert Charles Best in Ballarat.

Information passed on from The Standard sparked the police inquiry in 1995.

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IRELAND
Financial Times

By Jamie Smyth in Dublin

Dublin is holding a referendum on Saturday to give explicit constitutional rights to children in an effort to draw a line under a series of sexual and physical abuse scandals, which have exposed how church and state failed vulnerable children over decades.

The vote follows a turbulent few years, which have seen Ireland close its embassy to the Vatican following reports exposing revelations of church cover-ups of abuse by priests and state negligence in protecting children at risk. It takes place against a backdrop of deep budget cuts to services supporting children and families as a result of Ireland’s financial crisis, prompting allegations of government hypocrisy.

“The most important part of this referendum is that it will give children a voice, which they haven’t had up to now. In the past children who suffered abuse and spoke out were often not believed,” says Marie Collins, a survivor of clerical child sex abuse.

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NEW YORK
National Catholic Reporter

by Tom Gallagher | Nov. 9, 2012
NCR Today

Embezzlement by people working in Catholic-sponsored enterprises continues to be a hot topic in the news these days. In Buffalo, N.Y., a nun is accused of stealing more than $125,000. In Bonneauville, Pa., a parish priest is accused of stealing more than $350,000. In Fort Kent, Maine, a priest suspected of embezzling parish funds will not face a prosecution by the state’s attorney.

But the most sordid case of embezzlement is without question the case of Cecilia Chang, a 30-year employee and dean at the Vincentian-run St. John’s University in Queens, N.Y.

Chang, 59, was facing two 205-count indictments and was in the middle of one trial in Brooklyn federal court for accusations of stealing more than $1 million from the university.

One report noted that “there was virtually no oversight of her activities by former school President the Rev. Joseph Cahill, who is dead, or current President Donald Harrington.”

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MINNESOTA
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis

Date:
Friday, November 9, 2012

Source:
Jim Accurso

The Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis learned yesterday that Curtis Wehmeyer, a priest of the archdiocese, entered guilty pleas to all charges of criminal sexual conduct and possession of child pornography brought against him earlier this year. Sentencing has been set for February 1, 2013.

With his guilty plea, in accord with policy of the archdiocese and the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, Wehmeyer is now prohibited from ever exercising priestly ministry.

In June, the archdiocese was informed of Wehmeyer’s misconduct with a minor and immediately reported the situation to the St. Paul police. The archdiocese cooperated fully with the ensuing police investigation, and Wehmeyer was immediately removed from his ministerial duties.

The archdiocese deeply regrets the pain caused by Wehmeyer’s criminal action and continues to offer support and assistance to all concerned.

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By Emily Gurnon
egurnon@pioneerpress.comtwincities.com
Posted: 11/09/2012

The Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis announced Friday, Nov. 9, that it has prohibited Rev. Curtis Wehmeyer from “ever exercising priestly ministry.”

The written announcement came on the heels of Thursday’s guilty plea by Wehmeyer to sexually abusing two boys and possessing child pornography while he was the priest at Blessed Sacrament in St. Paul.

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

He pleaded guilty Thursday in Ramsey County District Court to all charges against him: three counts of criminal sexual conduct and 17 counts of possession of child porn.

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UNITED STATES
Jeff Anderson & Associates

Jeff Anderson & Jared Shepherd

This year has been filled with disturbing revelations of trusted institutions failing to protect children across the country. The utter failure of mandatory reporters to follow their mandate is part and parcel of this year’s numerous sex abuse scandals. As a recent example, this week in San Jose, California, a jury convicted Lyn Vijayendran, the former principal of O.B. Whaley Elementary School, of failing to report child sexual abuse.

The charge against Vijayendran stemmed from a report by a second grader that a teacher, Craig Chandler, while alone in the classroom with her, blindfolded her, made her lie on the floor, and put a salty tasting liquid in her mouth. Vijayendren took Chandler’s word when he informed the principal that the incident was merely part of a lesson about Helen Keller. On Thursday, a judge sentenced Ms. Vijayendran to two years probation, $602 in fines, and 100 hours of community service. Vijayendran’s community service will include training other educators in the proper reporting of suspected child abuse.

Luckily, prosecutors have begun pushing back, utilizing state mandatory reporter laws to draw a line in the sand. In addition to Vijayendran’s conviction, this year also saw the convictions of Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas City, Missouri for failing to report suspicion of child abuse and Monsignor Lynn of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, who was sentenced to 3-6 years in prison for felony child endangerment. While these prosecutions are an importoant step toward accountability and help raise awareness of the lack of reporting, one wonders why those on the front lines of child protection, such as educators, youth leaders, and clergy, are not fulfilling their mandate under state laws.

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

Posted by David Clohessy on November 09, 2012

A support group for clergy sex abuse victims is urging controversial Kansas City Bishop Robert Finn to stay home next week and “show contrition” – for acting “recklessly, callously and deceitfully” in clergy sex abuse cases – by skipping the annual meeting of America’s Catholic bishops.

Leaders of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, are writing Finn and urging him to withdraw from the meeting of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops” in order to show remorse for the way he has mishandled clergy abuse in his diocese of Kansas City.

Last month, Finn became the first American bishop to be convicted of child endangerment, and has, SNAP maintains, repeatedly acted slowly and improperly in cases involving child sex abuse. The most recent and well-known example of Finn’s wrongdoing is the Fr. Shawn Ratigan case, in which he withheld evidence from police for over five months that showed Fr. Ratigan both had and created child pornography. Finn kept secret about that information and refused to protect kids from Fr. Ratigan despite a detailed report about Fr. Ratigan’s suspicious and inappropriate behavior from school officials and parents who worked with him.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Failed Messiah

It appears that the long simmering haredi sex abuse scandals in Great Britain – allegedly long simmering primarily because of the active coverups by haredi rabbis – are in process of boiling over.

An arrest was made yesterday near Manchester, England of a haredi rabbi, allegedly on charges related to sexual abuse. The rabbi, thought to be T.G., has long been rumored to have been committing these crimes. Victims didn’t go to police, however, in part because other haredi rabbis allegedly protected T.G. and ordered them to be silent.

The Jewish Chronicle briefly reports the arrest:

A member of the strictly Orthodox community was arrested in Salford on Wednesday on suspicion of sexual assault.

The 47-year-old man has been bailed by Greater Manchester Police to return in early December.

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UNITED STATES
Voice from the Desert

Bob Hoatson

Some reflections on last night’s election and VOTF (Voice of the Faithful – a lay Catholic group that has three goals – 1) supporting abuse victims, 2) supporting priests of integrity, and 3) promoting change in the Catholic Church):

Please excuse my cautious optimism after a night of watching the elections results, and thanks for allowing me to use your email account to communicate a few thoughts.

I can’t help but compare last night’s results and the “mandate” of the American people to the mandate “fleeing Catholics” have been giving to the bishops of the Roman Catholic Church. And, I sincerely believe it is time for all Catholics, young and old, to act decisively if they want to rescue their church from the clutches of dysfunctional men who do little to nothing to promote Gospel values. For example, at least three bishops in the Midwest and Mid-North forced pastors last week to read letters that were full of venom, threats, and anti-Gospel values. Essentially, the bishops instructed voters to elect Mitt Romney because he would help maintain the “rich white man’s” grip on power and authority, a perfect “fit” for mostly white, Euro-centric bishops who are used to a preferred aristocratic state. Americans rejected that in last night’s vote. And American Catholics joined the rest of the electorate in rejecting the bishops’ outdated, mean-spirited, power-abusing policies. How?

1) By electing the first openly gay woman to the US Senate – Bishops can continue to try to demean homosexuals but it will result in more and more people fleeing the Church. Did you see the poll that indicated that younger people categorically refuse to participate in organizations and institutions that continue to treat gay people as if they were objects? If only bishops would recognize their own homosexuality and heterosexuality in healthy ways!

2) By choosing gay marriage as voters in Maryland did – Bishops must realize that gay marriage is here to stay. Young Americans are more interested in healthy relationships be they hetero or homosexual.

3) By rejecting candidates who demean the intellect and power of women – Candidates Akin and Mourdock went down to defeat – they should have been thrown off the Republican ticket after demeaning statements and positions. …

In light of the above, I would urge all of us to:

1) Stop patronizing any institution and/or organization that demeans anyone. We must stop feeding the beast that is the bishops conference. The USCCB fights legislation that would give clergy sexual abuse victims their day in court; it spends Catholic money to defeat same-sex marriage legislation; it tries to demonize Obamacare by claiming it violates religious freedom, which simply is false. Catholic Charities is 80% government money, at least. So, what do bishops spend money on? They close inner city Catholic schools, so the commitment of the Church to education of the poor is nearly non-existent. So, on what do bishops spend the “pew money? Well, one Archbishop of a large NY metropolitan archdiocese spent 2 million dollars when he arrived to:

a. Air-condition “HIS” cathedral so he “would not sweat while celebrating liturgy.”

b. Place a chandelier in his suite ($20,000.00 for the chandelier) that looks like a mini-palace.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Sky News

Sky News Reporter

A former City lawyer who said his life had suffered as a result of sexual abuse he endured at the hands of a Roman Catholic priest has been awarded £54,923 in damages by the High Court.

Patrick Raggett, 54, had been asking for £5m, claiming that he had lost earnings as a result of what happened to him as a schoolboy, and although Mrs Justice Swift said he had been the victim of an “insidious form of abuse”, she said he was not entitled to such a large amount of money.

The High Court hearing in London had been told how Mr Raggett was sexually abused between the ages of 11 and 15 by Father Michael Spencer, a priest at a Jesuit training college in Preston, Lancashire, who died 12 years ago, aged 76.

Between 1970 and 1974, Father Spencer, who was Mr Raggett’s form tutor and football coach, watched him naked, filmed him, photographed him and touched him, although he never carried out any penetrative act or physically harmed him.

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