ABUSE TRACKER

MILWAUKEE (WI)
Fox 6

[with video]

Posted on: 7:56 pm, October 15, 2012, by Jenna Sachs

MILWAUKEE — A break down in talks between Milwaukee’s Archdiocese and victims of sex abuse by priests means they’re all headed back to court — as the Archdiocese approaches its second year of bankruptcy.

The church and its 575 victims have been in court-ordered mediation since July, trying to hammer out what one judge called “astronomical costs.”

An advocacy group for those abused by priests says the Archdiocese has refused to accept responsibility.

“This is a really sad day for victims and their families. What this is about — and what it’s been about since they day they filed bankruptcy — is secrets,” John Pilmeier with Survivors Network for Those Abused by Priests said.

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

UNITED STATES
What They Knew

In our previous post we examined former Chicago Provincial Robert Wild SJ’s reaction or inaction when it came to reports of his “mentally unbalanced” priest. Now a year after those reports, in 1991 we have Donald McGuire SJ and Robert Wild SJ talking about the real issue, sexual abuse of children and young men by Don. Fr. Wild decided to let McGuire take a walk on this charge.

In the documents below, Fr. Wild received a call from an alert Christian Brother. In February of 1991, The Chicago Province was contacted by Br. Ricardo Palacio, Director of the Christian Brother Retreat House in St. Helena, California. McGuire had been at the center conducting a retreat to a youth group from Kolbe Academy, a private Catholic school in Napa Valley.

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

AUSTRALIA
ABC Ballarat

[with audio]

By Margaret Burin

Father Paul Bird has been ordained as the new bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Ballarat. He hopes to improve the image of the Catholic Church by showing it has changed the way it handles abuse allegations.

Sworn in with the presence of 30 bishops and 95 priests from around Australia and abroad, Father Bird is the eighth Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Ballarat.

His leadership role oversees a large part of central and western Victoria.

Music written by father Bird was used in the ordinance ceremony, which ended with a welcome parade outside St Patrick’s Cathedral.

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

AUSTRALIA
Australian Teacher Magazine

PERTH, Oct 16 – A former school chaplain on trial for child pornography offences has told a court he believes someone set him up but denied he was trying to implicate three men connected to the school.

Matthew David O’Meara, 42, is on trial in the WA District Court on four child pornography charges related to explicit images and video files on two thumb drives.

The married father of two had been working as a chaplain at Perth College for nearly eight months in 2010 before he was charged and fired from the school.

The court has heard that one thumb drive was found by a teacher on her desk in August 2010 and the other was seized by police from O’Meara’s trouser pocket during a search of his office.

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

AUSTRALIA
WA Today

October 17, 2012

Rania Spooner
Court and crime reporter

The wife of a chaplain accused of collecting child pornography while working at an elite girls’ school has taken to the stand in defence of her husband.

Karina O’Meara described her husband Matthew O’Meara, 42, as an “honest”, “dignified” and “respected” man who preferred to avoid conflict, speaking at his Perth District Court trial today.

Mr O’Meara has pleaded not guilty to four counts of possessing child pornography in relation to two portable thumb drives discovered at Perth College in August 2010.

The father-of-two was linked to one device – found on a neighbouring teacher’s desk – when scanned copies of his electoral roll forms were found inside one of its folders – next to thousands of images of illicit material, the court has heard.

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

UNITED KINGDOM
EADT 24

Colin Adwent
Wednesday, October 17, 2012

A 71-year-old retired priest today admitted six indecent assaults on two youths dating back to the 1990s.

Father John Haley Dossor, of Kirton, near Felixstowe, denied a further eight indecent assaults – including one on a third male, and another charge of sexual assault by touching.

Dossor’s pleas were accepted by the prosecution when he appeared before Judge David Goodin at Ipswich Crown Court.

Three of the assaults Dossor pleaded guilty to were on a victim aged between 13 and 15.

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.

MILWAUKEE (WI)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Jerry Topczewski of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee said this week that Catholic Church officials “remain hopeful a consensual resolution will ultimately be reached” in the dispute between the archdiocese and sexual abuse victims despite the failure of court-ordered mediation. We share that hope if the result serves the twin causes of truth and fair compensation for victims.

As it is, with both sides returning to bankruptcy court to continue what one observer has described as a scorched earth battle, resolution of the issues will only be further delayed. That does not seem to do anyone any good, least of all victims who have waited years for justice.

Nothing against lawyers or the work they have done so far, but with attorney fees already beyond $7 million and rising, and the archdiocese on the hook for those, it seems to us that reaching a just settlement would best serve both the archdiocese and victims.

Because of court orders, no one can say why the talks broke down, and those outside the fight don’t really know what’s in the claims and court documents. So it’s difficult to judge whether victims’ attorneys are pushing for too much, perhaps including frivolous claims in an effort to get even more money, or whether the church is dragging its feet to keep its secrets intact, perhaps to make this bankruptcy proceeding so difficult that victims elsewhere won’t try that venue.

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

UNITED KINGDOM
Huddersfield Daily Examiner

A retired priest has admitted a series of sex assaults on youths over more than a decade.

Father John Haley Dossor, who retired as priest-in-charge at St Mary at the Elms in Ipswich, Suffolk, in 2007, pleaded guilty at Ipswich Crown Court to six indecent assaults against two boys aged between 13 and 17.

The 71-year-old, of Kirton, near Felixstowe, had denied a further nine charges relating to attacks on men and boys.

These will remain on the file but prosecutor Charles Myatt said a decision had been taken not to proceed on these counts.

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.

PHOENIX (AZ)
The Arizona Republic

[Phoenix diocese]

by Michael Clancy – Oct. 16, 2012
The Republic | azcentral.com

The Catholic Diocese of Phoenix on Tuesday released a list of 29 clergy members accused or convicted of abusing children, becoming one of fewer than 30 dioceses in the United States to have published a list of child-abusing priests.

While considered a significant step in transparency related to the scandal that rocked the Catholic Church a decade ago, clergy-abuse experts say the list is far from a comprehensive report on abusive priests in the Valley.

“It’s hopeful for me that the bishop (Phoenix Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted) is doing what is right,” said Phoenix attorney Robert Pastor, who is representing several clergy-abuse clients. But he said he is aware of priests who have not been accused publicly and do not appear on the list.

The Phoenix Diocese’s list comes a few months after the 10th anniversary of the Dallas Charter, the church’s landmark document to address the sexual-abuse scandal and protect children from abusive priests and deacons. The charter, known formally as the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, was approved by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2002 after the scandal ignited nationwide.

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.

PHOENIX (AZ)
Daily Reporter

[Phoenix diocese]

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
First Posted: October 17, 2012 –

PHOENIX — The Catholic Diocese of Phoenix has released a list of clergy members who have been accused of abuse.

The Arizona Republic reports (http://bit.ly/WwrQSI ) the list contains 29 names of clergy members who have been accused or convicted of abusing children. The release brings to 25 the number of dioceses in the U.S. who have made such a list public.

The newspaper reports the list does not include names of priests who had died by the time accusations were leveled against them.

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.

PHOENIX (AZ)
Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix

When a criminal charge involving a minor is filed or a credible accusation against a member of the Church concerning a minor is established, the Diocese of Phoenix immediately alerts the public through a Community Notification Statement on its website.

•Former priest Louis Ladenburger
•Fr. Jorge Cordova
•Former Jesuit priest Donald J. Mcguire
•Fr. Loren Riebe
•Deacon Maxwell Rollin (Ron) Pelton
•Former priest Dale Fushek
•Fr. John “Jack” Spaulding

List of Diocese of Phoenix priests and deacons who have been laicized and/or removed from ministry due to sexual misconduct with a minor.

List of Diocese of Phoenix Priests and Deacons who have been accused of sexual misconduct with a minor and have a Canonical case in process.

List of priests of religious communities who have served in the Diocese of Phoenix and have been laicized and/or removed from ministry by their communities due to sexual misconduct with a minor.

List of priests from other dioceses who may no longer serve in the Diocese of Phoenix due to an accusation of sexual misconduct with a minor.

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.

PHOENIX (AZ)
ABC 15

•By: ABC15.com staff

PHOENIX – The Catholic Diocese of Phoenix has released a list of 29 clergy members who have been accused or convicted of abusing children.

The Phoenix diocese is the 25th in the nation to release a list like this one.

The list is broken down into four parts. The first list contains the names of those who have been removed from their posts because of sexual misconduct with a minor.

You can see the complete list here .

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.

PHOENIX (AZ)
The Arizona Republic

By Michael ClancyThe Republic | azcentral.com
Tue Oct 16, 2012

The Catholic Diocese of Phoenix has released a list of 29 clergy members who have been accused or convicted of abusing children, becoming one of only 25 dioceses in the United States that has published such a list.

The publication came on Tuesday as part of a release about the 10 years of the Dallas Charter to protect children from abusive priests and deacons.

The list includes 29 names, including at least one that had not been public before. But it does not include the names of priests who were deceased at the time of accusations against them.

Among those in the latter category is former Bishop James Rausch, who died in 1981.

A Republic listing of those accused of sexual abuse includes 39 names, 40 after the previously unknown priest, Harry Morgan, is added. It includes those who died prior to the accusations. …

RELATED INFO
Diocese of Phoenix list of abusive priests

George Bredeman
Joseph Briceno
Patrick Colleary
John Doran
Laurence Florez
Dale Fushek
John Giandelone
Harold Graf
Mark Lehman
Joseph Lessard
Harry Morgan
Maxwell “Ron” Pelton
George Pirrung
Wilputte “Lan” Sherwood
John T. Sullivan
John Spaulding
Neil Emon
Joseph Henn
Louie Ladenburger
Paul LeBrun
Karl LeClaire
Jorge Ortiz Lopez
Lawrence Lovell
Donald McGuire
Richard Ohlemacher
Henry Perez
Jorge Cordova
Sung Lam
Lawrence Riebe

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.

CROATIA
AFP

ZAGREB — A Croatian priest has run off with almost one million euros ($1.3 million) after illegally selling church property, officials said Tuesday, amid media reports the Catholic clergyman had fled with a married woman.

Franciscan priest Sime Nimac earlier this year signed a deal with a local firm to sell a plot of church land, the Split archdiocese said in statement.

Nimac, 34, the former parish priest of Baska Voda on the southern Adriatic coast, in May withdrew more than 980,000 euros in cash from the parish’s account “without a valid explanation why the money was taken and what it will be used for,” the archdiocese added.

Local media have reported that the priest, described as a handsome aficionado of expensive clothes and luxury goods, had fled the country with a young woman who is a married employee of the bank from which the cash was withdrawn.

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

UNITED STATES
News Hounds

In addition to “Fox News bishops” there is a Fox News priest. Fr. Jonathan Morris is not your average parish priest. He joined Fox News when he was stationed in Rome as a member of the disgraced “Legion of Christ” and very close pal of the order’s pedophile (and baby daddy) founder, Fr. Marcial Maciel who pandered to the rich and famous. While Morris is officially stationed at NYC’s Old St. Patrick’s Cathedral, he finds time to go on various international junkets with his very special pal, Cardinal Dolan whose opposition to the president’s birth control mandate has received reverent validation on Fox by Morris and Fox hosts. Despite other clergy who occasionally make appearances on Fox, Morris has a weekly Sunday gig during which he validates GOP right wing talking points that reach a vast Fox News “parish.” So it was no surprise that Morris would support the bishops’ “rebuke” of Joe Biden over his debate remarks about the mandate. And given that the bishops are implying that Biden is a liar, it wasn’t surprising that Morris suggested the same thing!

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.

CROATIA
The Telegraph (United Kingdom)

A Croatian priest bedevilled with “insatiable egotism” has gone on the run with more than £1 million pocketed from an illegal land sale and in the company of a married woman, according to reports.

By Matthew Day
7:47PM BST 16 Oct 2012

Franciscan priest Father Sime Nimac disappeared after withdrawing the money he had made from selling a piece of Church land near Split without authorisation from the local diocese.

“The property was sold without the explicit written consent of the competent ecclesiastical authority,” the local Catholic Church said in a statement, adding that it had filed a lawsuit to nullify the sale.

“At the same time we express our heartfelt understanding for the public revulsion caused by the insatiable egotism of the individual in question,” the statement continued. “We offer a sincere apology on behalf of all Friars of the Franciscan Order.”

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.

MILWAUKEE (WI)
WTAQ

MILWAUKEE (WTAQ) – The Milwaukee Catholic Archdiocese still hopes that a settlement can be reached with hundreds of sex abuse victims, after a court-ordered mediator failed to strike a deal.

Both sides said Monday that their mediation – which Bankruptcy Judge Susan Kelley ordered in late July – had broken down.

About 575 people have filed financial claims against the Archdiocese, saying they deserve compensation after being sexually abused by priests a number of years ago.

The church filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in January of 2011, saying it needed to compensate the abuse victims while having enough money left over to keep operating the 10 county archdiocese.

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

VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

After personally choosing Archbishop Tobin in August 2010 as Secretary of the Vatican’s congregation that oversees one million religious men and women worldwide, Pope Benedict has now reassigned him to head the Indianapolis archdiocese

Gerard O’Connell
Rome

Pope Benedict XVI has appointed Archbishop Joseph William Tobin, the Secretary of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated life, as the new head of the archdiocese of Indianapolis in the USA.

While the move is likely to be warmly welcomed by the 246,000 strong Catholic community in Indianapolis archdiocese, it will certainly sadden many of the almost one million men and women religious, not only in the USA but also elsewhere in the world, sources in religious orders told Vatican Insider earlier this week.

Tobin flew to Indianapolis on Monday 15 October. Rumors predicting this change began circulating soon after the publication in April 2012 of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s highly critical report of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious in the United States. At the time, it was widely known that Tobin was not happy with that report and, it seems, had not been consulted on 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.

MILWAUKEE (WI)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on October 16, 2012

Wisconsin abuse victims push to open files
Hundreds of pages may implicate NY’s Cardinal

Hundreds of clergy sex abuse victims are vowing to push for the disclosure of thousands of pages of secret Catholic Church documents – some of which likely involve then-Archbishop Timothy Dolan, who now heads the New York Archdiocese – in the wake of failed settlement talks in Milwaukee.

The victims say they will also look closely at millions of dollars which were transferred off the church’s books into trusts – again, largely on Dolan’s watch.

“We really have no choice now but to do everything we can to expose the complicity of several top church officials,” said John Pilmaier SNAP Wisconsin Director. “The Catholic hierarchy sought bankruptcy protection to keep its secrets secret. But we have a duty to shine the light of truth on the full cover up; by Dolan, Weakland, Sklba and others. The Milwaukee archdiocese has already spent $7.2 million to keep their sex abuse files hidden from Catholics and the community”. Pilmaier adds “with the failed mediation the archdiocese has signaled to victims that they plan to spend whatever it takes to keep the clergy sex abuse cover-up firmly in place”.

Court documents from the Milwaukee bankruptcy case have already revealed that Cardinal Dolan, then Archbishop of Milwaukee, secretly paid sexually abusing priests $20,000 as an incentive for them to voluntarily leave the priesthood.

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

UNITED STATES
Catholic League

Bill Donohue comments as follows:

Mark Thompson is slated to start next month as the new president and CEO of the New York Times Company. He comes in under a cloud of suspicion. Almost a year ago, a decision was made at the BBC to kill a “Newsnight” investigation into what is now becoming the most astonishing sexual abuse scandal in the history of the United Kingdom: Thompson was the director general at the BBC from 2004 to 2012, and serious questions have been raised about his role in squashing the investigation. He denies wrongdoing. The person of interest is suspected child rapist and serial predator Jimmy Savile, a celebrity icon who worked at the BBC for more than 25 years. His predatory behavior extends back six decades, and some of his sexual abuse took place on the premises of the BBC.

I have personally collected a great deal of information on this subject and will have much more to say about my findings. My interest is twofold: both the BBC and the New York Times have been among the harshest critics of the homosexual scandal that took place more than a quarter century ago in the Catholic Church. Let’s see how they react to a little “sunshine,” as they like to call it. I’m just beaming.

We know the BBC is already in deep trouble over this issue—two internal investigations are under way—but it cannot be trusted to report on itself. Indeed, contradictory accounts have already been offered, involving what Thompson knew and when he knew it. British Culture Secretary Maria Miller has called off an independent inquiry, but she may not have the last word. We support British Labor chief Ed Miliband’s call for a probe.

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.

CROATIA
NDTV

Agence France-Presse | Updated: October 16, 2012

Zagreb: A Croatian priest has run off with almost one million euros ($1.3 million) after illegally selling church property, officials said on Tuesday, amid media reports the Catholic clergyman had fled with a married woman.

Franciscan priest Sime Nimac earlier this year signed a deal with a local firm to sell a plot of church land, the Split archdiocese said in statement.

Nimac, 34, the former parish priest of Baska Voda on the southern Adriatic coast, in May withdrew more than 980,000 euros in cash from the parish’s account “without a valid explanation why the money was taken and what it will be used for,” the archdiocese added.

Local media have reported that the priest, described as a handsome aficionado of expensive clothes and luxury goods, had fled the country with a young woman who is a married employee of the bank from which the cash was withdrawn.

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

AUSTRALIA
The Telegraph

Anglican Catholic Church leader says Peter Slipper ‘absolutely not’ welcome to be priest

THE church which ordained former Speaker Peter Slipper as a priest has washed its hands of the problem-plagued MP.

Father Michael Pope, leader of the Anglican Catholic Church in Australia (ACCA), said the “disgraceful” politician was “absolutely not” welcome despite claims to the contrary from a former archbishop.

“He is not a priest in good standing in our church,” Fr Pope said.

“I certainly don’t want him back and I don’t know anyone who does.”

The Acting Vicar-General said Mr Slipper, now an Independent MP in the seat of Fisher, had never had a licence to practise as a parish priest.

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

VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

The Archbishop of New York’s comments at the Synod of Bishops: humility is not a strategy but the right attitude. A video on the rise of Islam presented by Cardinal Turkson has triggered a dispute

Alessandro Speciale
Vatican City

The Church is not afraid to admit to its own mistakes. This was the Archbishop of New York, Cardinal Timothy Dolan’s message to journalists this morning, during the Synod of Bishops on the New Evangelization. Exuberant as always, Dolan mentioned a television debate he recently took part in, speaking about the reaction to the paedophilia scandal in the Catholic Church and about other mistakes the Church has committed in the past.

One believer, referring to the television series The Borgias – which paints a gloomy picture of the intrigues of the Curia and the Roman nobility during the Renaissance period – asked Dolan: “How do we defend the Church with stories such as that involving Pope Alexander VI who had a lover?” Dolan’s reply was: “No, he did not just have one lover, he had many! The Church – he added – is not afraid to admit to its own mistakes.”

For the American cardinal “being humble isn’t just a pastoral strategy. It’s an evangelical demand” to ensure the Church fulfils its mission. “The new evangelisation – he added – is to do with conversion of heart and interior renewal.” Returning to the paedophilia scandal, Dolan spoke about Cardinal Marc Ouellet’s “mea culpa” for the sexual abuse committed by priests against minors, pronounced at the shrine of Lough Derg, on the occasion of the Eucharistic Congress which took place in Ireland last year.

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

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Barbara Dorris on October 15, 2012

Apparently, Chaput has unilaterally revised the American bishops’ child sex abuse policy. For years, it officially was “one strike and you’re out.” Now, in Philly at least, it’s become “one strike and you’re in.” Chaput is putting Fr. Joseph DiGregorio back on the job, in part, because “no other complaints were reported.”

And on paper, that ten year old policy says nothing about credibly accused predator priests being restored to active ministry if a church shrink says he’s ok. But Chaput has evidently unilaterally made this change too. He’s putting DiGregorio on the job again because, in part, a “clinical evaluation” supposedly says the priest is no threat to children.

Finally, the church’s abuse policy mandates “openness and transparency” in child sex abuse cases. But Chaput won’t “explain how (Fr. DiGregorio) violated behavioral standards,” according to the Inquirer.

So in three ways, Chaput is violating the very church policy he and his brother bishops so often brag about.

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

UNITED STATES/AUSTRALIA
What They Knew

On the heels of a report released by the Victoria Police in Australia, newly uncovered documents show Jesuit priest and convicted child sex abuser Donald McGuire SJ traveled frequently to Australia from the 1980s to the early 2000s with the approval and knowledge of his superiors at the Chicago Province of the Society of Jesus, including taking victims on these trips. According to McGuire himself these trips over the span of two decades brought him to:

■Canberra
■Melbourne
■Sydney

The documents show the itinerant Jesuit priest Donald McGuire SJ traveled to Australia at least annually, if not more frequently. These transnational transfers occurred after his superiors had become aware of his sexual abuse of minors, restricted his ministry after he had been sent to two treatment centers in the US for sexually abusive priests and was facing criminal investigations in Chicago in 2002.

To date no investigation has been conducted to determine whether the American Jesuit priest, now convicted and imprisoned, abused any local children or vulnerable adults while in Australia. Testimony from victims at criminal trials and documents prepared by Jesuit superiors (below) show these trips included victims from the US accompanying him and alleging abuse occurring in Australia.

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

AUSTRALIA
ABC News

The Catholic Bishop of the Diocese of Wagga Wagga, Gerard Hanna says he believes a local woman who alleges she was abused by a priest in Italy in the 1970’s.

Anna Pratelli from Wagga Wagga went public last week, alleging she was abused as a teenager by a Salesian priest in Sicily who is now dead.

Ms Pratelli has refused an offer of $20,000 from the Catholic Diocese of Wagga Wagga to fund a return to Italy, citing concern about wording in the deed of offer that the order of assistance came from the Vatican.

Bishop Hanna says the Diocese has provided Ms Pratelli with pastoral care for more than two years.

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.

INDIA
Hindustan Times

A Christian organisation, Dhanya Mother Teresa Mahila Shakti Parishad, has demanded an enquiry in a case of alleged rape of a tribal woman by a Christian priest. President of Dhanya Mother Teresa Mahila Shakti Parishad, Sheela Santiago, said the tribal victim approached her for help, complaining of rape by a Father (priest).

The victim used to work at pastoral centre located opposite to St Joseph Co-ed School, near 11 number bus stop. The case is of year 2009 when she was working there as a maid servant. She was allegedly abused sexually for months by a priest at the pastoral center. When people of pastoral centre came to know about the incident, she was thrown out of job, said Sheela.

“We took the victim to the Bishop and complained against the accused priest but Bishop said he will save the clergy member and would not take any action against him,” said Sheela. We also complained to other Christian authorities including the highest order in Italy. We have been trying to get the victim president, Mahila Shakti Parishad

justice for last two years internally through Christian forums but when justice was denied, we have made written complaints to Mahila police station, Ajak police station and inspector general of Bhopal range, added Sheela.

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

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By John P. Martin
Inquirer Staff Writer

Archbishop Charles J. Chaput said Monday that he had reinstated a Philadelphia priest whose case city prosecutors cited as proof that the archdiocese failed to properly investigate clergy sex abuse or misconduct.

The Rev. Joseph DiGregorio had been accused of molesting a teenage girl in the late 1960s. His case was a focal point of the scathing 2011 grand jury report about the handling of abuse cases by the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, and he was among the first of 26 priests placed on leave as church officials reexamined allegations against them.

But DiGregorio’s case stood out for other reasons. The allegations were among the oldest against any cleric, and were leveled by a single accuser. He was also the only suspended priest to publicly deny wrongdoing.

Noting the public attention to the case, Chaput said the archdiocese enlisted more than 20 child-abuse experts to review it. The examiners concluded that DiGregorio had violated church standards for priests’ behavior, but also found “compelling evidence” that he was suitable to return to ministry, Chaput said.

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

HAWAII
Hawaii Reporter

BY ANGELA BARAQUIO GREY – Fr. Maurice McNeely was the pastor at my parish school, Holy Family Catholic Academy in Honolulu, Hawaii when I was in junior high. I attended the school from 1988-1990, and I served as our Student Body President.

I saw Fr. McNeely daily at morning mass, which I attended with my family. “Fr. Mac”, as he was lovingly called by all the parishioners and students, was by far the coolest and most down-to-earth priest that had a knack for spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ to all he met, in a way that anyone could understand and appreciate. A true visionary, he began what is known as “Stereo Mass” every Sunday night at 7pm, which was popular with the youth.

Fr. Mac could be found celebrating Mass on the beach at Waikiki, where all were invited to attend. He was fearless in spreading God’s word and always had time for anyone who sought help, guidance, or assistance. …

I am shocked and saddened to hear about the allegations he is currently facing in a civil lawsuit brought against him in federal and state court by a Colorado man. I cannot fathom the accusations being true, given the long history we have had knowing Fr. Maurice McNeely. He has been nothing but wonderful to my family and me, and I pray that the truth comes out in the end.

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.

TULSA (OK)
Fox 23

Reported by: Adam Paluka
Email: apaluka@fox23.com

Days after the attorney for two Victory Christian Center staffers charged with Failure to Report Child Abuse filed a motion to dismiss those charges; a national group is slamming the employees. On Friday, the attorney for VCC Youth Ministers John and Charica Daugherty filed the motion in Tulsa County District Court. Monday afternoon, the Executive Director of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests or SNAP, said the motion to dismiss was “ridiculous.”

Barbara Blaine, the Executive Director of SNAP, didn’t mince words.

“It’s disappointing that one more time, church officials are trying to weasel out their responsibility for their crimes,” she said.

The motion to dismiss the charges against the Daugherty’s says the two suspects in this case Chris Denman, who has been charged first-degree rape of a 13-year-old girl, and Israel Castillo, who has pleaded not guilty to charges of making a lewd proposal to a child and using a computer to commit a sex crime, have not been charged with child abuse. The attorney for the Daugherty’s says that means his clients can’t be charged with failure to report child abuse.

“I don’t understand what the technicality is that would somehow allow a child to be raped and then somehow say that wasn’t abuse of the child. That’s ludicrous,” Blaine said.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
NECN

MILWAUKEE (AP) — The Archdiocese of Milwaukee has failed to reach a settlement with victims of sexual abuse, sending both parties back to U.S. Bankruptcy Court.

The archdiocese and its creditors have been in court-ordered mediation since July 20. Most of the creditors are victims or alleged victims of sexual abuse by clergy or church workers. Nearly 500 men and women claim they were sexually abused as children.

Both sides confirmed Monday the settlement talks had failed. But they declined to elaborate, citing the confidentiality of the proceedings.

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UNITED STATES
TheMediaReport

Dave Pierre

Is the anti-Catholic group SNAP running out of Catholic clerics to target and resorting to attacking innocent men? It sure seems like it. Even though an abuse accusation against Wheeling, West Virginia, Bishop Michael J. Bransfield was thoroughly debunked and discredited months ago, SNAP is trying to drum up some more publicity for itself by trying to put a spotlight on the bogus case.

A proven false accusation

Last April, during the high-profile Philadelphia clergy abuse trial, a witness claimed on the stand that 40 years ago in the 1970s that an admittedly abusive priest motioned to a car carrying Bransfield and some boys and told him that Bransfield was abusing “the one in the front seat.”

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
MinnPost

By Brian Lambert | 10/15/12.

That other very expensive battle for the Catholic Church, all those sexual abuse cases, isn’t getting any cheaper in Wisconsin. Annysa Johnson of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports: “The court-ordered mediation between the Archdiocese of Milwaukee and victims of sexual abuse has failed, sending the parties back to the U.S. Bankruptcy Court to resume what one court official has called a scorched earth legal battle. The church and victims — at 575 members, they represent the largest class of creditors in the bankruptcy — have been in court-ordered mediation since July 20. Victims attorney Jeffrey Anderson [of St. Paul] confirmed Monday that the mediation had failed but declined to elaborate on the sticking points, citing the confidentiality of the proceedings. He said victims would now move forward to force the disclosure of thousands of pages of documents now under court seal, and to scrutinize the transfer of millions of dollars off the church’s books into trusts in the years before the bankruptcy.”

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AUSTRALIA
Green Left

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

By Chris Peterson, Melbourne

Members of the Forgotten Australians rallied in Melbourne on October 13 to demand a Royal Commission into the sexual abuse, emotional and criminal assault, and torture of children in church and government-run homes, orphanages and foster care homes. The term Forgotten Australian refers to children who were placed in care outside of their family home during the 20th century.

The Australian Mental Health Human Rights and Law Reform Coalition’s Greg Oke said: “The aim of today is to highlight the lack of resources provided to Forgotten Australians to get some justice for the absolutely hideous crimes that were committed while under state care.

“Many Forgotten Australians are still living in appalling housing conditions. Many are still suffering from disabilities and traumas inflicted on them by the institutionalised and systemic abuse while under the care of the church and the state. So far nothing has been put in place to help these survivors improve their quality of life.”

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MALTA
Times of Malta

The Church yesterday announced the setting up of a board tasked with directing victims of sexual abuse by clerics to therapy.

The Therapeutic Evaluation Board, made up of a psychologist, a psychiatrist and a social worker, will determine the sort of therapy needed by the victims and refer them to the people who can help.

The service will also apply to adults who were abused when they were minors, with the bill being footed by the relevant ecclesiastical authority. The news comes after the spokesman for a group of men who suffered sexual abuse in the late 1980s, at the St Joseph’s home for boys, said the victims were willing to speak to the Church on the possibility of receiving counselling.

He pointed out, however, that none had been provided in the past 10 years.

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MALTA
Malta Independent

The Church authorities in Malta have set up a therapeutic evaluation board for victims of sexual abuse who are minors, without prejudice to the Church’s position in civil processes which may arise and without the Church renouncing its rights of defence.

The board is made up of professional people – psychologist Anthony Gatt, psychiatrist Anthony Dimech and social worker Julian Xuereb. They have been appointed for three years and have to present an annual report about its workings to the Maltese Episcopal Conference.

The board is to evaluate and determine the therapeutic assistance which may be needed by a victim of sexual abuse committed by a pastoral operator, refer the victim to a professional person who may help, or approve the choice of professional person a victim may select and, together with the professional person chosen and the victim, follow the progress and need of the therapy being given. The cost of therapy will be borne by the ecclesiastical authority involved.

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CALIFORIA
Daily Breeze

By City News Service
dailybreeze.com

Oct 15:

INGLEWOOD – A judge today found sufficient evidence to put an Inglewood pastor on trial for nine felony sex-related counts involving an underage girl, a judge ruled today.

Inglewood Superior Court Judge John Meigs ruled there was sufficient evidence to require Gordon Barrington Solomon, 50, of Christ’s Community Church, to go to trial on seven counts of committing a lewd act on a child, and one count each of continuous sexual abuse and oral copulation of a person under the age of 14.

The criminal complaint alleges that the crimes occurred between June 1, 2010, and July 1 of this year.

Solomon was arrested on July 4 by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, and has remained jailed in lieu of $3 million bail. He pleaded not guilty to all charges on July 6.

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MOBILE (AL)
Fox 10

Updated: Monday, 15 Oct 2012

MOBILE, Ala. (WALA) – Jury selection began on Monday for a former preacher who is expected to face trial for sex abuse charges in Mobile.

Cedrick D. McMillian, formerly a pastor at New Birth Baptist Church, is charged with second-degree sodomy and sexual abuse against a girl who authorities said was 14 at the time.

Both sides are hopeful that they will be able to strike a jury and begin the trial as soon as the afternoon of Monday, Oct. 15.

McMillian turned himself in in August 2011 on the charges, which prosecutors said took place in 2007 and 2008 in Mobile County. Mobile County Assistant District Attorney Nicki Patterson said in 2011 that McMillan had been text messaging a 14-year-old relative.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
NBC 10

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia has reinstated a priest placed on leave after a February 2011 grand jury report into child sexual abuse.

The diocese said Monday that Archbishop Charles Chaput decided the Rev. Joseph DiGregorio is suitable for ministry.

Church officials say an investigation found the 72-year-old DiGregorio violated The Standards of Ministerial Behaviors and Boundaries more than 40 years ago, but they did not say how.

They say there’s compelling evidence that makes him suitable for ministry and that there’s no evidence he poses a danger to children. He had been suspended after the grand jury report, but later said in a radio interview the allegations against him were “a lie.”

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on October 15, 2012

A Catholic priest who faces at least seven allegations of sexual harassment is scheduled to speak tomorrow at religious conference in Orlando.

Fr. Dan Ward, a monk from St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville, MN, was accused last week of abusing five men and two women while he was a teacher at St. John’s in the 1970’s. The offenses alleged range from unwanted physical contact to threats of failing students for not complying with his advances.

Read: MyFoxTwinCities

Leaders of an international support group called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, are upset that Catholic officials are letting Fr. Ward lead a seminar despite the multiple allegations against him, and are calling on officials Maryland-based The Resource Center for Religious Institutes to stop Ward from speaking at their conference this week.

“Once again, despite all the bishops’ promises of alleged reform, another credibly accused predator is still on the job in the church and being given a position of prestige,” said David Clohessy, SNAP Director. “This, of course, rubs salt in to the already-deep and still fresh wounds of his victims and which enables him to earn the trust of more unsuspecting Catholic families.”

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

by NCR Editorial Staff | Oct. 10, 2012

Editorial —
It was a telling coincidence (whether providential is open to question) that in the same week that Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Ill., declared implicitly that Catholics who vote for President Barack Obama, a pro-choice politician, risked the loss of their souls, a Pew Research Center poll showed that Obama was experiencing a surge of support among Catholics.

Sometime in the not-too-distant past, Paprocki’s words would have had some shock value. But the words aren’t shocking, save for their imprudence, because the public has been treated to similarly over-the-top assertions from bishops repeatedly in recent years. Catholics have become numb to the rants of culture-warrior bishops. As episcopal ultimatums fail to persuade, threats also fail to threaten.

Recall that Bishop Joseph Martino, then bishop of Scranton, Pa., was hurling thunderbolts from his episcopal throne during the last presidential election, threatening to bar candidates from Communion and comparing a vote for a pro-choice candidate to an endorsement of “homicide.” Not long after that election, Martino, said to be suffering an undisclosed illness, was dispatched to teach in a seminary far west of his perch in Scranton, an overwhelmingly Catholic region that went overwhelmingly for Obama.

It has been clear for some time that U.S. bishops have been unpersuasive in making the case for any number of political positions and strategies, from abortion to the death penalty. The reasons may be many, but certainly one of them is the fact that the bishops are saddled with the hypocrisy of their own behavior in the sex abuse crisis. Their version of pick-and-choose morality in the abuse crisis, relativistic in the extreme, makes it difficult for them to pronounce as moral authorities with any credibility.

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Mercury

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia announced Monday that Father Joseph DiGregorio, who was accused of violating the Standards of Ministerial Behavior more than 40 years ago, is suitable for ministry.

The report against DiGregorio, 72, was investigated by the Multi-Disciplinary Team as well as the Archdiocesan Review Board after the 2011 Grand Jury report by the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office.

“A rigorous investigative process involving more than 20 experts in child abuse did find that Father DiGregorio violated The Standards of Ministerial Behaviors and Boundaries more than 40 years ago but that there is compelling evidence that makes him suitable for ministry,” read a press release from the archdiocese.

“The MDT reports stated that that there have been no complaints about Father DiGregorio in more than forty years, there is no evidence that he poses a danger to children, and there is no indication he had or would engage in a pattern of behavior that would necessitate his removal from ministry,” the press release read.

Father DiGregoriowas ordained in 1966 and served at the following parishes and schools: Our Lady of Loreto, Philadelphia (1966-1970); King of Peace, Philadelphia (1970); Bishop McDevitt High School, Wyncote (1970-1971); Saint Anthony of Padua, Ambler (1970-1971); Saint Thomas Aquinas, Philadelphia (1971-1976); Saint Mary Magdalen de Pazzi, Philadelphia (1976-1977); Annunciation, B.V.M., Philadelphia (1977-1982); Saint Paul, Philadelphia, (1982-1987); Saint Maria Goretti High School, Philadelphia (1983-1988); Epiphany of Our Lord, Philadelphia (1987-1988); Military Chaplain, United States Army (1988-2005); Saint Martin of Tours, Philadelphia (2005-2010); Stella Maris, Philadelphia (2010-2011); placed on administrative leave (2011).

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia announced today that Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap., has made a final decision in one of the cases of priests placed on administrative leave following the February 2011 Grand Jury Report.

Archbishop Chaput has decided that Father Joseph DiGregorio is suitable for ministry based on reports of the Multi-Disciplinary Team (MDT) led by veteran child abuse prosecutor Gina Maisto Smith and a further examination by the Archdiocesan Review Board which had similar findings. A rigorous investigative process involving more than 20 experts in child abuse did find that Father DiGregorio violated The Standards of Ministerial Behaviors and Boundaries more than 40 years ago but that there is compelling evidence that makes him suitable for ministry.

The MDT reports stated that that there have been no complaints about Father DiGregorio in more than forty years, there is no evidence that he poses a danger to children, and there is no indication he had or would engage in a pattern of behavior that would necessitate his removal from ministry. Based upon recommendations of the MDT and the Review Board, Archbishop Chaput made the final decision.

Announcements were made this weekend at Stella Maris Parish and St. Martin of Tours Parish, both in Philadelphia. Counselors were present. Unlike the resolution of other cases which have already been announced, greater detail was provided in this case due to its already public nature. In order to protect the individuals involved in this matter though, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia is unable to provide further information about this case.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By John P. Martin
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

Archbishop Charles J. Chaput has reinstated a 72-year-old priest suspended last year after a Philadelphia grand jury report questioned how the Archdiocese of Philadelphia investigated allegations that he molested a teenage girl four decades ago.

After what the archbishop called a “rigorous investigative process” involving 20 child sex abuse experts, Chaput concluded that the priest, the Rev. Joseph DiGregorio, may once have violated behavioral standards for a priest but is not a danger to the community.

“Based on the facts of Father DiGregorio’s case, a thorough external investigation, the fact that no other complaints were reported in an atmosphere where the public was largely aware of the situation, and that thorough clinical evaluations from competent outside authorities indicate he poses no danger to minors, I found him suitable for ministry,” Chaput said in a statement.

The statement did not explain how he violated behavioral standards. Church officials in the past said violations can include such conduct as inappropriate language or what they call “boundary violations” between adults and minors.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By Annysa Johnson of the Journal Sentinel

Oct. 15, 2012

The court-ordered mediation between the Archdiocese of Milwaukee and victims of sexual abuse has failed, sending the parties back to the U.S. Bankruptcy Court to resume what one court official has called a scorched earth legal battle.

The church and victims — at 575 members, they represent the largest class of creditors in the bankruptcy — have been in court-ordered mediation since July 20.

Victims attorney Jeffrey Anderson confirmed Monday that the mediation had failed but declined to elaborate on the sticking points, citing the confidentiality of the proceedings.

He said victims would now move forward to force the disclosure of thousands of pages of documents now under court seal, and to scrutinize the transfer of millions of dollars off the church’s books into trusts in the years before the bankruptcy.

The lack of a resolution “puts us back to where we were, ready to move forward with all the issues and battles that need to be fought.”

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
WTAQ

MILWAUKEE (WTAQ) – Settlement talks have broken down between the Milwaukee Catholic Archdiocese and about 575 victims of sex abuse by its priests.

Victims’ attorney Jeffrey Anderson Monday confirmed a breakdown in the court-ordered mediation process. He told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel he would not elaborate on the reasons for the breakdown, because the proceedings were meant to be confidential.

The financial claims from the abuse victims were part of the church’s effort to reorganize its finances under Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

The 10 county Milwaukee Archdiocese filed for bankruptcy in January of last year. It said it was the only way to fairly compensate abuse victims, while maintaining the church’s ministry.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, (VIS) – The Holy Father accepted the resignation from the pastoral care of the diocese of Duitama-Sogamoso, Colombia, presented by Bishop Carlos Prada Sanmiguel, in accordance with canon 401 para. 2 of the Code of Canon Law.

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UNITED STATES
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on October 15, 2012

Patrick Marker from BehindthePineCurtain broke this blockbuster story:

The organization representing lawyers practicing Catholic Church “law” recently allowed a man with numerous allegations of sexual abuse to speak to its membership at its Chicago conference.

The Canon Law Society of America (CLSA), the organization charged with “promotion of the study and application of canon law in the Roman Catholic Church,” hosted speaker Fr. Daniel Ward, OSB, a Benedictine monk and priest with at least five allegations of sexual abuse. The group did this despite being warned in a letter that the Benedictines had launched an investigation and that Marker had collected statements from the victims.

Ward’s presentation: A Diocese, a Parish, a Religious Institute, a Member: An Exploration of Canon and Civil Law is telling—his “exploration of Canon and civil law” seems to be a study on how to hide assets when a diocese is rocked by a sex abuse and cover-up scandal.

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TULSA (OK)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Barbara Dorris on October 15, 2012

It is extremely distressing how church officials at Victory Christian Center have handled this case revolving around the rape of a 13-year-old girl on church property.

First, they delayed for two weeks before notifying authorities. Second, they went into damage-control mode instead of trying to figure out why Chris Denman, the alleged rapist, was allowed access to the building and was able to victimize the young girl. Finally, they are now seeking to absolve themselves of liability using legal technicalities.

The simple fact of the matter is, in every instance in this case, John and Charica Daugherty acted improperly and out of fear for their own well-being and reputation instead of concern for the rape victim. Despite supposedly being “Christian ministers,” these two officials have acted in the least Christian and most selfish ways possible.

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VATICAN CITY
The Atlantic

Alexander Stille

Since posting our article on the “Vati-leaks” case, Paolo Gabriele, the Pope’s former butler, was convicted by a Vatican court of misappropriating papal documents and leaking them to the Italian press. Almost immediately, Father Federico Lombardi, indicated that it was “very likely” that the pope would, at some point, pardon Gabriele.

The court sentenced Gabriele to three years in prison, but reduced the term to 18 months, citing the remorse the pope’s former attendant had shown. Explaining his actions, Gabriele told the court that “he felt the strong conviction deep inside to have acted exclusively for love, a visceral love, for the Church” and the pope.

The trial, held just four months after Gabriele’s arrest in May, was part of the Vatican’s recent efforts to be, and appear to be, transparent in its handling of the scandal. The court hearings were technically public, but only a very small number of selected members of the press were allowed to attend them. There was no video coverage. Wider public understanding, then, is based on a handful of press accounts of what took place.

The trial was very brief, lasting just a week, and it contained few surprises. But there were a few points of genuine interest. At one point, Gabriele described the Pope as easy to manipulate, because he was not always well-informed about important matters. “I started believing that it is easy to manipulate a person that has such power in his hands,” Gabriele told the court, according to a Reuters report. “Sometimes the pope asked questions about things he should have been informed about.”

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
SNAP Wisconsin

CONTACT:
Peter Isely, SNAP Midwest Director (Milwaukee), 414.429.7259
John Pilmaier, SNAP Wisconsin Director, 414.336.8575

Statement by Peter Isely, SNAP Midwest Director

The Archdiocese of Milwaukee has once again raised false hopes of a settlement with victim/survivors and a resolution to the clergy sex abuse and cover up crisis.

The Archdiocese of Milwaukee, which filed for bankruptcy protection in January of 2011, was ordered into mediation this summer with nearly 570 victim/survivors of clergy sex crimes by Federal Bankruptcy Judge Susan V. Kelley. At the time Kelley was clear that “we need to do what we can to get this thing resolved”. That “thing” is now the largest, and likely to be the costliest Catholic bankruptcy in U.S. history.

As it has done so many times in the past, church officials have falsely elevated the hopes of victim/survivors and their families by clearly indicating that real talks and even a settlement was underway. When granted the first of two mediation extensions, Archbishop Listecki’s Chief of Staff Jerry Topczewski, even though talks were confidential, told the press that “much progress” had been made during the course of negotiations. It looks like there was no reason for this declaration, other than to imply to Catholics that the archdiocese was seriously attempting to discuss a global settlement when they were not.

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CIUDAD DEL VATICANO
Provicia

Ciudad del Vaticano, Roma, Italia.- Benedicto XVI aceptó la renuncia anticipada del obispo colombiano Carlos Prada Sanmiguel, de la diócesis de Duitama-Sogamoso, acusado judicialmente por uno de sus sacerdotes de injuria.

En una breve nota la sala de prensa de la Sede Apostólica indicó que la renuncia del prelado fue aceptada según el artículo 401.2 del Código de Derecho Canónico, la ley fundamental de la Iglesia católica.

El pasado nueve de este mes también fue aceptada la renuncia anticipada de Marco Antonio Ordenes Fernández al puesto de obispo de la diócesis de Iquique, en Chile, quien es investigado por abusos sexuales contra menores.

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COLOMBIA
Semana

El papa Benedicto XVI aceptó la renuncia del obispo de la diócesis de Duitama-Sogamoso, Carlos Prada Sanmiguel, quien fue enjuiciado bajo la acusación de calumnia e injuria por un sacerdote.

En el escueto comunicado de la sala de prensa del Vaticano, emitido este lunes, se especifica sólo que el papa ha aceptado la dimisión de acuerdo con el canon 401 párrafo 2 del Código di Derecho Canónigo, es decir, por enfermedad u otras causas graves.

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VATICAN CITY
The Windsor Star

By The Associated Press
October 15, 2012

VATICAN CITY – The pope has accepted the resignation of a Colombian bishop accused by one of his priests of slander, the latest bishop to be removed after mismanagement or other accusations became public.

Bishop Carlos Prada Sanmiguel of Duitama-Sogamoso is two years shy of the normal retirement age for bishops. The Vatican said Monday he was resigning under the code of canon law that says bishops should step down if they’re sick or because a “grave” reason makes them unfit for office.

Colombian news reports have said Prada Sanmiguel claimed a priest had a relationship with a woman. The priest in turn accused the bishop of slander in a court case that is ongoing.

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CANADA
CBC News

A handful of Nova Scotians from the Indian Brook First Nation are preparing to travel to the Vatican this week to witness a ceremony for the first ever First Nations person from North America to ascend to Catholic sainthood.

Kateri Tekakwitha, a Mohawk woman, is set to be canonized at the Vatican’s St. Peter’s Basilica on Sunday — 300 years after her death.

Tekakwitha’s canonization is being celebrated by the survivors of church-run residential schools — an unusual group given the terrible legacy of residential schools in Canada, where physical and emotional abuse was common.

“It’s part of our healing process as a community and we need to heal to go farther in life,” Catherine Innis told CBC News.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The New York Times

By BILL KELLER

Published: October 14, 2012

Sandusky you know; the predatory Penn State football coach was sentenced last week to spend his remaining years in prison for raping boys who looked up to him. Savile you may have missed; a venerable British TV personality who died last year, he is now at the center of a posthumous scandal unspooling in London. His appetites ran mostly to adolescent girls, but otherwise the parallels are striking. In both cases, the story is not just one of individual villainy but of the failure of a trusted institution, if not a flaw in the wider culture.

Perhaps you’ve had your fill of these sordid accounts — the celebrity gropers, the pedophile priests, the fondling in the locker room shower, the witnesses who look the other way. But Savile’s case is worth mulling, if only because the institution in which his serial child abuse took place is one of the most respected media organizations in the world, a putative shrine to truth and accountability: the BBC. And in the early days of the scandal the revered broadcaster has faced the same questions of dereliction or outright cover-up that dogged Penn State and the Catholic Church when they experienced their respective outbreaks of infamy.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Association of Catholic Priests (Ireland)

Michael Kelleher of Cork & Ross represented the ACP at the meeting of our English association last week. He sends this account of the meeting, and suggests that further information can be found on their website.

I attended the public meeting of the ‘A Call to Action’ group (see: acalltoaction.org.uk) at Heythrop College on Wednesday last, October 10th . By going to the website you will see the story of the development of this group. Having been part of the journey of the A.C.P. from its initial meeting at Portlaoise, through diocesan meetings in Cork, to the day in the Regency, I wondered what would be similar or different at this meeting.

Dialogue.

The meeting began with a now familiar experience. The attendance was much bigger than expected and we had to cross Kensington High St. to the welcome of the St. Mary Abbot Church. Instead of an anticipated 200 people over 400 turned up from all over England.

The introductions followed outlining the lead up to the meeting. We were told that the priests organising the meeting had visited Archbishop Nichols a few days earlier to brief him on their plans. He indicated to them that he agreed that there are many issues that need to be addressed. At the end of the meeting Fr. Tom O’Loughlin, of the organising group, made it clear that his years working at the Corrymeela Community had convinced him of the value of dialogue, of having safe, respectful places to speak and listen.

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CANADA
Truth and Reconciliation Commission

October 12, 2012

TRC Chair Justice Murray Sinclair and Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa will be featured speakers at We Day Vancouver on Thursday, October 18. Archbishop Tutu chaired South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and was an early supporter of the TRC in Canada. See his letter to Justice Sinclair in May 2010, just before the TRC’s first National Event in Winnipeg.

Join 20,000 youth, educators and friends Thursday, October 18 at We Day Vancouver. Or watch online at www.weday.com!

TRC Announces Three Ontario Hearings

October 12, 2012

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) will host a hearing at M’Chigeeng First Nation on Manitoulin Island on Thursday, October 25 and Friday, October 26.

The hearing will take place at the M’Chigeeng First Nation Community Complex. Additional program details will be posted here prior to the event, where the hearings will also be streamed live.

As with every TRC Hearing, participants will have the option to provide a public or private statement.

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CALIFORNIA
Orange County Weekly

By Gustavo Arellano
Mon., Oct. 15 2012

Well isn’t this nice: after spending a couple of years in his Orange lair refraining from day-to-day blogging so he can suck from the government teat he so loves to bash, the reprehensible Matt “Jerbal” Cunningham has decided to reenter the Orange County political blogosphere to blog about my beloved hometown of Anaheim, a city in which he doesn’t live in nor he gives a shit about other than whether he can make some money off of us one way or another.

And you know the GOP is desperate to win in this city when they dust off this discredited pendejo.

Cunningham, for those of you not familiar with OC politics, is a longtime GOP hack who started OC Blog, the county’s first truly popular political blog, in 2004. He wrote under the pseudonym “Jubal,” which allowed him to congratulate himself by Jubal saying Cunningham wrote a good piece on another blog, a pathetic circle jerk we exposed and that he’s been whining about ever since (shortly after that piece came out, Jubal asked me via email why were were picking on him–this was back in the days when we got along. He once also called Moxley in a panic after I left a cryptic comment referring to the days when he went to our former editor, Will Swaim, to get Mox fired–good times!).

People tolerated Cunningham for his hackery because it was so entertaining to watch, but he lost all credibility for anything in 2007, when he decided to stick up for John Urell, the priest who protected numerous pedophile priests in his leadership capacities for the Catholic Diocese of Orange. Cunningham’s excuse for turning his political blog over to church matters was that Urell–his then-priest at St. Norbert in Orange–was a good man who was being demonized by the press, but his love for the pedophile protector was such that he outed sex-abuse victims of the priests Urell protected, a move so stupid that Cunningham himself eventually apologized (in fact, one of those victims was a man Cunningham personally knew. Um, AWKWARD…)

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IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

The Vatican is set to make Cardinal Sean Brady pay the price of the recent scandals surrounding him by announcing his successor within two months.

The Vatican and the Papal Nuncio, Dr Charles Brown, are advancing plans to replace Dr Brady as Primate of All Ireland.

It’s all part of an effort to finally put two decades of scandal behind the church here.

Senior Vatican sources said his successor — most likely to be a bishop from abroad — will be named before Christmas.

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MALTA
Times of Malta

Saturday, October 13, 2012 by
Mgr Joseph Farrugia

It is regrettable that Martin Scicluna felt offended when I said that, during the recent Church debate organised by The Times, he was “boringly repetitive”. Of course he was. Grudgingly he even admits it, though on most, not all, the points.

The fact is that Scicluna did not just keep repeating himself. He also kept repeating others, as when time and again he parroted Desmond Tutu’s “speaking truth to power” catchphrase. I do not recall hearing him crediting the Anglican archbishop with this phrase. I also do not recall him putting any nuance to his use of the archbishop’s axiom.

I do, however, recall thinking how unfair it was to trivialise a phrase that defined a struggle to overcome a deadly “power”, that of apartheid, which refused to face the “truth” of the dignity of every human being, white or black.

In his desire to put down the hierarchy and structures of the Catholic Church in Malta, Scicluna went into overkill and invested himself as Malta’s Tutu, that is, as Malta’s brave speaker of truth to power, this “power” being the all-powerful, inept, obtuse and – for these reasons and more – diminishing Church.

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MALTA
Times of Malta

The Church has a problem with the language it uses and must do something about it, according to Malta’s new Auxiliary Bishop, who has described the institution’s public relations as a “total disaster” at times.

In an interview with The Sunday Times today, Mgr Charles Scicluna says: “We have a product which is extraordinary and we have to get our act together to bring it to as many people as possible. The way we do things at times is a total disaster and we have to be humble and say, ‘we need to do better’. We need to start using language that people understand.”

He says the Church acknowledges it could have done a better job in the divorce debate, and that it has learnt from it: “We need to tell people we are not here to impose, but that we are here to propose.”

He also says that priests must not deviate from the line set by the Archbishop and that this will be one of his tasks.

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MALTA
Times of Malta

Monday, October 15, 2012 by
Christian Peregin

Maltese victims of clerical sex abuse have criticised new Auxiliary Bishop Charles Scicluna for saying compensation should be paid to them by the priests who committed the abuse, not the Maltese Church.

“He is too soft to penetrate the Maltese Curia,” said Lawrence Grech, the spokesman of the group of Maltese abuse victims seeking compensation. “We are upset because he had promised to help us,” he added.

“I expected this to happen, because when you deal with the Maltese Curia, you always have to wait. He joined the Maltese Curia and he is now using their words.”

He said the Church should be held responsible because it had ways of knowing about the abuse and took no action to stop it when one of the priests returned from Canada, amid headlines.

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TULSA (OK)
Yahoo! News

Associated Press

TULSA, Okla. (AP) — Two youth ministers at a Tulsa megachurch say misdemeanor charges of failing to report child abuse against them should be dismissed because no one in the case has been, nor can be, charged with child abuse.

Victory Christian Center ministers John Daugherty, his wife, Charica, and three other employees were charged in September for allegedly waiting two weeks to notify authorities of the reported rape of a 13-year-old girl by a former employee in a stairwell on the campus of the 17,000-member church. All have pleaded not guilty.

The motion, filed Friday in Tulsa County District Court, states that state law defines child abuse as an act committed “by a person responsible for the child’s health safety or welfare.”

The document says that 20-year-old Chris Denman, who is charged with first-degree rape of the girl and other sex crimes, was not a church employee at the time of the Aug. 13 assault, was not responsible for the girl and cannot under state law be charged with child abuse.

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VATICAN CITY
Sault Star (Canada)

VATICAN CITY– The Roman Catholic Church must strengthen safeguards against any further sexual abuse of children by its clergy, a Canadian bishop said in a speech to hundreds of his peers at a Vatican conference.

Bishop Brian Joseph Dunn, who was auxiliary bishop of the diocese of Sault Ste. Marie for a year, also said the the role of women in the Church also needs to be expanded.

In his address to the Synod of Bishops, convened to discuss how to battle dwindling numbers of practising Catholics in the face of growing secularisation and dissent against its teachings, Dunn called on the Church to “become more authentic in our contemporary world.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
Commentary Magazine

Jonathan S. Tobin | @tobincommentary 10.14.2012

The unfolding scandal about sexual abuse at the BBC can be viewed as yet another blow to the image of the media. The network’s suppression of a story about a longtime show host’s alleged crimes ought to put a fork in the myth of the Beeb being the gold standard for impartiality and integrity. The fact that the BBC killed a story on its “Newsnight” broadcast while at the same time running tributes to the late Jimmy Saville, the man accused of molesting and raping several teenagers will haunt it for a long time to come.

But as much as this story tells us about the BBC, this latest tale of sexual misconduct is not dissimilar from other abuse scandals. Like the pedophilia outrages that rocked the Catholic Church and the Penn State University football team, there is a familiar pattern at work here. Powerful individuals used their positions to exploit young people in their charge while institutions looked the other way and then did what they could to ensure that no one found out. Investigators will, no doubt, discover what officials at the BBC knew about Saville and when they knew it. It is also to be hoped that the “journalistic decision” to spike the story about the investigation will also be fully explored. However, this episode ought to remind us that such crimes are not solely the province of Catholic priests or football coaches but can also be discovered at those institutions run by the supposedly enlightened classes.

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TULSA (OK)
Tulsa World

By KENDRICK MARSHALL World Staff Writer
Published: 10/15/2012

The number of child-abuse cases reported in Tulsa is on the rise, and Sgt. Brandon Wyckoff of the Tulsa Police Department’s Child Crisis Unit has come to grips with the sobering reality that he has arguably the dirtiest job in law enforcement.

The unit handles an average of roughly 1,500 cases of child physical or sexual abuse a year, according to police data, and so far this year, the unit has investigated more cases than in all of 2011, Wyckoff said.

Last month alone, the unit investigated 147 reports of child physical or sexual abuse. In August, 160 such cases were investigated. …

Also last month, Chris Denman, 20, and Israel Castillo, 23, were fired from Victory Christian Center, a Tulsa megachurch with 17,000 members and a worldwide presence through television and Internet, after allegations arose of sex crimes involving minors.

Denman was arrested Sept. 5 and later charged with first-degree rape, forcible sodomy and lewd molestation on an allegation that he sexually assaulted a 13-year-old girl before a church service Aug. 13.

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MALTA
Times of Malta

The Church has set up a Therapeutic Evaluation Board for victims of sexual abuse.

The decision was taken by Archbishop Paul Cremona and Bishop Mario Grech in agreement with the superiors of religious orders.

The Curia said the service is considered part of the Church’s pastoral and spiritual role and is without prejudice to its position in civil cases and without the Church renouncing its rights to defence.

The board is composed of psychologist Anthony Gatt, psychiatrist Anthony Dimech and social worker Julian Xuereb.

The board will evaluate and determine the therapeutic assistance which victims of sexual abuse may require and direct the victims to the people who could provide such help.

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MALTA
Malta Today

Matthew Vella

The Maltese archdiocese has established a board of medical professionals for therapeutic evaluation, in response to the abuse of minors by members of the clergy.

The announcement comes just hours after Malta’s new auxiliary bishop-elect Charles Scicluna, until recently the Vatican’s chief prosecutor of priests accused of sexual abuse, said that it should be the former MSSP priests and not the archdiocese to pay the victims of the St Joseph Home compensation for the abuse they suffered.

The new board, established by both archbishop Paul Cremona and Gozo bishop Mario Grech, was agreed with the conference of superiors of religious orders, as a service offered to victims irrespective of any civil or ecclesiastical proceedings that might be ongoing.

The board’s members are psychologist Dr Anthony Gatt, psychiatrist Dr Anthony Dimech, and social worker Julian Xuereb, who have been appointed on three-year, renewable basis. The board will present an annual report to the Maltese episcopal conference.

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MALTA
Gozo News

The Church authorities have established a professional therapeutic evaluation board for victims of sexual abuse.

The decision was taken at the Maltese Episcopal Conference (Archbishop Paul Cremona and Bishop Mario Grech) in collaboration with the Conference of Major Religious Superiors.

The Church said that “the service is offered by the Church as part of its spiritual and pastoral mission and without prejudice to the position of the Church in any civil processes that may arise and without waiving the rights to defence.”

The Board is made up of psychologist Dr Anthony Gatt, psychiatrist Dr Anthony Dimech and social worker Mr Julian Xuereb. They have been appointed for a period of three years with the possibility that this could be extended.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

PATSY McGARRY, Religious Affairs Correspondent

MORE THAN 350 attended the Association of Catholic Priests (ACP) regional assembly in Cork where speakers warned against accusations that they were against church teaching.

One of the leadership team, Fr Brendan Hoban, said “there are those, we know, who for different reasons would like to pretend that we’re left-wing, radical, raving extremists, that we’re trouble-makers and dissenters, that we’re out to destroy the church.” But, he continued “let me put the record straight”.

He recalled the Orlando Figes’ book The Whispers, Private Life in Stalin’s Russia. It was about a situation where a fearful people had to whisper their criticism.

“We’re the whisperers now but we have to do more than whisper, we have to find our voice, to stake a claim for the right and the responsibility to speak our truth about the church we love.”

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ESPANA
El Pais

El juez que investiga el robo de un bebé en la clínica Santa Cristina de Madrid en 1982, Adolfo Carretero, ha tomado declaración hoy, en calidad de testigos, a cinco doctoras que trabajaban entonces en el centro sanitario: Ana Elisa López Delgado, María Rosa Acero de Pablo, María Teresa del Olmo Mombiedro, Carmen Sánchez Calvo y Olga Fadón Pérez. Esta última ha declarado, según fuentes jurídicas, que sor María Gómez Valbuena, imputada por un delito de detención ilegal permanente y otro de falsedad documental, “tenía un poder absoluto sobre las adopciones”.

Una de las doctoras, según las mismas fuentes, ha declarado al juez que veía a sor María capaz de “chantajear” a una madre para que diera a su niña en adopción.

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SPOKANE (WA)
Roman Catholic Diocese of Spokane

The Diocese of Spokane has attempted to resolve on a confidential basis disputes with the Paine Hamblen law firm relative to the way the diocese was placed into bankruptcy and the manner in which future claims provisions were handled. Unfortunately, overtures to resolve this on a confidential, mediation-based approach were rejected.

As a result the diocese has been forced to file a legal malpractice action against the Paine Hamblen law firm.

Robert Gould, a Seattle area attorney, is representing the diocese in this matter. There will be no further public comment from the diocese in the hope these matters can be resolved through negotiation and mediation.

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SPOKANE (WA)
Roman Catholic Diocese of Spokane

[Queridos Feligreses]

Bishop Blase J. Cupich

October 13, 2012

Dear Parishioners:

By now you may have seen reports that the Diocese of Spokane has attempted to resolve, on a confidential, mediation-basis, issues related to the way the diocese was placed into bankruptcy and the manner in which future claims provision were handled. Unfortunately, our overtures with the law firm representing the diocese during and after the bankruptcy were rejected.

While we will not be making any further comment on the issues raised in the malpractice action we were forced to file this past week, I would like you to know three things by way of background.

First, many of our concerns expressed in our filing with the court came to my attention during the recent 18 month mediation period, which ended in successfully resolving the pending future claims against the diocese and the related threats of foreclosure facing a significant number of our parishes and schools.

Second, when these concerns were brought to my attention, I took my time and consulted with experts locally and nationally to determine the most prudent course of action.

Third, I also reviewed these concerns and the advice I received from these experts with leaders in our diocese, both lay men and women and clergy. My preference has always been to resolve these issues quietly and through mediation, so as to avoid further unnecessary publicity for the Church. Yet, when faced with the rejection of our offer to enter into mediation to resolve these serious issues, I could not ignore an important and compelling point impressed upon me by my advisors, namely that I have a fiduciary responsibility to you, the people of the diocese, for the sacrifices and support you have been called on to make over these past few years.

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SPOKANE (WA)
NWCN

by KREM.com
NWCN.com

Posted on October 14, 2012

SPOKANE, Wash. – Bishop Blase Cupich explained in a letter to parishioners of the Catholic Diocese of Spokane why he’s suing the lawyers who represented the diocese in the priest sex abuse bankruptcy and settlement and why parishioners won’t be hearing much about it as the lawsuit presses forward.

The malpractice lawsuit was filed last week and seeks more than $12 million from the Spokane law firm Paine Hamblen Coffin Brooke and Miller.

The Diocese said in court documents that its bankruptcy lawyers, Greg Arpin and Shaun Cross, failed to explore other means of ending the abuse scandal. It also blames the lawyers for writing a bankruptcy plan that failed to adequately fund the risk of new claims.

The Diocese declared bankruptcy in 2004 and eventually settled with 180 people who claimed they were sexually abused by Catholic clergy. The settlement cost the Diocese and insurers $50 million.

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IRELAND
The Association of Catholic Priests

Troublesome priests?

Obedient to ‘revisionist’ trends, do those who were immersed in the Second Vatican Council’s teachings during seminary years now forget everything they once embraced? In the interests of ecclesiastical careerism, do they become sudden enthusiasts for the so-called ‘hermeneutic of continuity’, turning their backs on the Council’s impetus for reform? Do they transfer previous enthusiasms to uncritical promotion of the best (and the worst) of the ‘new movements’?

In recent years, priests across all continents have been galvanised to initiate projects of reform and renewal within the Catholic Church. The media has often reported these initiatives either as strident rebellion or groans of the depressed, leading nowhere. Is this a global conspiracy on the part of disgruntled priests to undermine the Church’s restorationist thrust? Or are more complex driving forces at play? Many of these priests’ initiatives are in early stages of development, so what follows can only be a snapshot of what many clergy see as a longer term project.

In Austria, Ireland, England & Wales, and the United States, common themes emerge in the various clergy associations, even if the starting points vary according to local contexts. The Austrian Pfarrer Initiative was one of the first to challenge current Catholic conservatism. Representing more than 500 clergy it is fronted by Vienna archdiocese’s former Vicar- General, Helmut Schüller. Previously President of Caritas Austria and very much an ‘institution man’, the emergence of Schüller as a reform activist surprised many. He has stood firm on the 2011 Austrian priests’ Appeal to Disobedience, which notes that “the Roman refusal to take up long-needed reforms and the inaction of the bishops not only permits but demands that we follow our conscience and act independently.”

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IRELAND
The Association of Catholic Priests

My name is Brendan Hoban. I¹m 64 years of age. I¹m a priest of Killala diocese. I¹m almost 40 years ordained.

Over two years ago I was part of a small group of priests who founded the Association of Catholic Priests.

We did that to give priests a voice, to provide a platform for responding to a church in crisis; because authority is collapsing, vocations are in free-fall, practice is declining, the average age-level of priests is now 64; and we felt in desperation that someone had to do something.

In less than 2 years we had 1000 members so we knew we were on the right track. What we wanted was to start a conversation about what was happening to our Church; about what needed to be done; and, in these strange and difficult times, to attempt to plot a track into the future.

We realised quickly that we shouldn¹t and couldn¹t do this on our own, that many lay people ¬ forgive the use of that disrespectful term ¬we realised that many lay people felt as strongly as we did about it, that the reforms envisaged by the Second Vatican Council had been modified, resisted, rejected by popes, bishops, priests and sometimes people too.

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PHILADELHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Priest Abuse Trial Blog

Ralph Cipriano

The district attorney says a defense motion to reconsider bail in the case of Msgr. William J. Lynn, based upon allegations of a false confession by an alleged co-conspirator, former priest Edward V. Avery, is “utterly frivolous,” and should be denied.

The Commonwealth’s answer to a motion for reconsideration of bail was filed Sunday in the Superior Court of Pennsylvania, Eastern District, by Assistant District Attorney Hugh J. Burns Jr., chief of the district attorney’s appeals unit. In his answer, Burns says the best evidence against the notion that Avery gave a false confession came from the former priest himself.

In an attachment, Avery’s “written guilty plea colloquy” says that on March 22, the day he pleaded guilty, Avery signed his name on a document that says, “I admit I committed the crime[s]” of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and conspiracy to commit endangering the welfare of a child … “Nobody promised me anything or threatened me or forced me to plead guilty. I, myself, have decided to plead guilty. I know what I say today is final.”

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CANADA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Barbara Dorris on October 12, 2012

We are grateful any time clergy sex crimes and cover ups are publicly discussed. We applaud Bishop Dunn for raising this issue before his fellow church officials.

But we’re way past the time for talk. Talk protects no one. Only action protects kids. And until we see action – proven, public, and powerful action – will we begin to believe that just maybe, kids are now safer in the church.

We should never confuse words with deeds. We should never even feel more hopeful because of church officials’ words. Kids need us to be vigilant. They need us to keep pushing for real reform, and not settle for comforting promises.

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DEUTSCHLAND
MissBiT

Trier. Wegen sexuellen Missbrauchs von Kindern und Jugendlichen sind im Bistum Trier seit Februar 2010 gegen 17 Priester kirchenrechtliche Voruntersuchungen eingeleitet worden. Elf dieser Vorverfahren seien vom Bistum abgeschlossen, die anderen sechs liefen noch. Diese Zwischenbilanz zog das Bistum Trier am Freitag. Nach Angaben eines Bistumssprechers hat die Mehrheit der 17 Geistlichen die Vorwürfe eingeräumt. Die genaue Zahl konnte er zunächst nicht nennen. Bis auf einen Fall sind die mutmaßlichen Taten aus den 1960er bis 1980er Jahren strafrechtlich bereits verjährt.

Gegen einen Priester in Lebach ermittele die Staatsanwaltschaft Saarbrücken. Er wollte angeblich Anfang Juli einen Jugendlichen für sexuelle Handlungen bezahlen. Der Geistliche hat die Vorwürfe nach Bistumsangaben bestritten. Eine kircheninterne Bestrafung ist bislang in einem Fall erfolgt: Ein Priester wurde aus dem Klerikerstand entlassen, weil er fünf minderjährige Jungen missbraucht haben soll. In allen anderen Fällen laufen die Verfahren innerhalb der katholischen Kirche noch.

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INDIA
Zee News

New Delhi: Jagadguru Kripalu Ji Maharaj and organisations functioning under his guidance have denied any connection with Swami Prakashanand Saraswati who has been declared a criminal in America, his trust said in a statement here.

Reacting to some media reports, the Jagadguru Kripalu Parishat-Shyama Shyam Dham said the guru is strictly against the practice of making disciples.

“Maharaj Ji has never ever made disciples and has never given initiation to anyone,” it added.

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SAN FRANCISCO (CA)
What They Knew

San Franacisco – by Joey Piscitelli

$ 10,000 REWARD OFFERED

For credible information leading to the details of the murder of a sexually abused child near St. Ignatius Catholic Church in San Francisco during the early 1980′s. Several anonymous callers have contacted victims advocate Joey Piscitelli concerning allegations of sexual abuse misconduct by 2 or more catholic priests that reportedly led to the death of a young boy who was given a drink laced with alcohol and/or narcotics.

This information was turned over to San Francisco Homicide 2 years ago. There is no “statute of limitations” on murder. If you know of any incident of sexual misconduct by any priests at that time, or any time, whereas children were given “kool-aid / tang” laced with controlled substances please contact the numbers below.

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UXBRIDGE (MA)
Worcester Telegram & Gazette

By Susan Spencer, Shaun Sutner and Thomas Caywood TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
ssutner@telegram.com

UXBRIDGE — At first glance, the Christian Church of the End Times seems like any of a number of small, evangelical churches preparing for the Millennium, the biblically prophesied second coming of Christ. Legally it operates like any other church too; it doesn’t pay taxes or have to report financial information that other nonprofits do.

But some family members and people formerly associated with the nondenominational church and its leaders, brothers David H. Stanley and Dennis H. Stanley, say it’s a cult fueled by sex, lies and lavish lifestyles.

“They want to have a harem of women. They want to have all the sex they can and do it in God’s name,” said Stephanie Stanley of Worcester, a former church member whose husband is a cousin of David and Dennis.

The Stanleys’ mother, Andrea Gault, says her sons began acting hostile toward her and essentially excommunicated her two years ago when she said she criticized their increasingly abusive behavior toward girls and women in their church.

“They look for the people they can control. They prey on them,” Mrs. Gault said in an interview at her home in Rutland. “It’s like they really are possessed.”

The Stanley brothers — a thickly muscled duo who favor tight, embroidered shirts unbuttoned to the sternum, engraved silver belt buckles, reptile skin Western boots and long hair in ’80s rock star style — reject such characterizations.

David Stanley, 40, tells followers he is an anointed prophet and an archangel and that his brother, 36, is a “half-breed” angel, according to Dennis’ wife, Beth.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

by John L. Allen Jr. | Oct. 13, 2012 NCR Today

Sisters Under Scrutiny

In commenting on the Vatican’s standoff with the Leadership Conference of Women Religious in the United States, the Vatican’s new doctrinal czar said today the right question is not who’s wrong, but “who respects revelation and its essential elements?”

Archbishop Gerhard Müller, 64, said he “looks with sympathy” on groups such as LCWR, but at the same time that “no group can set itself up as the source of authentic interpretation” of church teaching.

That role, Müller insisted, belongs to “the pope and the bishops in communion with him,” who expect “substantial fidelity” from the rest of the church.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

by John L. Allen Jr. | Oct. 12, 2012

Synod of Bishops 2012

Benedict XVI raised some eyebrows last night when, addressing a crowd in St. Peter’s Square recalling Pope John XXIII’s famous “discourse on the moon” on the eve of the Second Vatican Council fifty years ago, he said the church’s joy today is “more sober” than it was then, because in the meantime “we have learned and experienced that original sin exists.”

“We have seen that even in the Lord’s field there is discord,” Benedict said, “that even in the net of Peter we find bad fish, that human weakness is present even in the church.”

Though the pope didn’t say so out loud, it’s difficult not to imagine he had the child sexual abuse scandals at least partly in mind when he crafted those lines.

Today, awareness of the impact of the church’s “bad fish” found a clear echo in the Synod of Bishops on the New Evangelization, in the form of a speech delivered by Bishop Brian Dunn of Antigonish in Canada. The diocese has been among the epicenters of the scandals, in part because Dunn’s predecessor, Bishop Raymond Lahey, was charged in 2009 with having child pornography on his laptop as he tried to reenter the country. Lahey eventually pled guilty in 2011, and was laicized by the Vatican in May.

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IRELAND/VATICAN CITY
Irish Independent

By Garry O’Sullivan

Saturday October 13 2012

HAD it not been for his part in a 1975 canonical process that essentially resulted in child abuser Fr Brendan Smyth going on to abuse more children, Cardinal Brady could have been basking in the knowledge of a job well done.

He had maintained that as a canon lawyer he was only doing his job when he passed on details to his superiors, but failed to inform the police.

His position was that it was up to his bishop and the head of the Norbertine Order to take action against Fr Smyth.

But Smyth victim Brendan Butler laid ruin to this excuse when he told the BBC last May that he gave the names and addresses of other victims to the then Fr Brady. Hauntingly, at the end of that documentary, Mr Butler turned to one of the other victims, whom Smyth continued to abuse and, now 40 years on, said: “I thought I saved you.”

Not even dinner with the Pope on Thursday night can have assuaged the conscience of Cardinal Brady, who must ask himself if he could have saved those children.

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VATICAN CITY
Irish Independent

By Garry O’Sullivan
Rome

Saturday October 13 2012

THE VATICAN is set to make Cardinal Sean Brady pay the price of the recent scandals surrounding him by announcing his successor within two months.

The Vatican and the Papal Nuncio, Dr Charles Brown, are advancing plans to replace Dr Brady as Primate of All Ireland.

It’s all part of an effort to finally put two decades of scandal behind the church here.

Senior Vatican sources said his successor — most likely to be a bishop from abroad — will be named before Christmas.

Dr Brady has up to now refused to resign despite the revelations about his mishandling of abuse allegations about the notorious Fr Brendan Smyth.

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 Central

By
PATRICK COUNIHAN,
IrishCentral.com Staff Writer

Published Saturday, October 13, 2012

Ireland’s top cleric Cardinal Sean Brady is set to be axed in the fall-out from recent sex abuse scandals.

The Irish Independent reports that the Vatican has lined up Cardinal Brady’s successor after his mishandling of abuse allegations. The report states that Papal Nuncio Dr Charles Brown is leading the plans to replace Cardinal Brady within the next two months.

The Church has decided to install a new Primate of All Ireland in a response to two decades of scandal. The plans center on the appointment of an Irish Bishop from abroad before Christmas according to the Irish Independent. The Vatican will overlook Irish based Archbishops in the search for Cardinal Brady’s successor.

Dr Brady has been in the eye of a media and public storm over his handling of various child sex abuse scandals. He has been heavily criticized for the Fr Brendan Smyth case but has steadfastly refused to resign.

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.

WISCONIN
Milwaukee Film Blog

Mea Maxima Culpa: Subject Arthur Budzinski, Director Alex Gibney, Subject Patrick Kuehn and his son Hercules. (Photo credit: Jennifer Johnson)

The Milwaukee Film festival is proud to announce the 2012 Allan H. (Bud) and Suzanne L. Selig Audience Award Winners:

Best Feature Film: Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence In The House Of God (dir. Alex Gibney)

Best Short Film: Magic Piano (dir. Martin Clapp)

The festival hosted the U.S. Premiere of Oscar-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney’s newest documentary, Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence In The House Of God, with Gibney and several subjects of the film in attendance. Centering on four courageous students at St. John’s School for the Deaf in St. Francis, WI, the film exposes the clerical sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church and a cover-up that leads all the way to the highest offices of the Vatican. The HBO Documentary Films production Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence In The House Of God received this year’s coveted Allan H. (Bud) and Suzanne L. Selig Audience Award for Best Feature Film. Past recipients of this MFF award include Waiting for “Superman” and Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire.

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
National Survivor Advocates Coalition

[Mark Vincent Healy is a campaigning abuse survivor. Read his full report and response to the NSBCCCI audit into the Holy Ghost Fathers here.]

The Catholic Church should be actively looking for victims of abuse and offering support, writes survivor Mark Vincent Healy.

Mark Vincent Healy was abused while he was a student at St. Mary’s College, a Dublin school run by the Congregation of Spiritans (formerly the Holy Ghost Fathers). He has been campaigning for years for the Catholic Church to actively seek out more victims of abuse so the correct rescue response can be administered.

IT MAY SEEM obvious that in the aftermath of a serious accident or natural disaster, the necessary emergency and rescue services should respond. But strangely, that is not what has happened in the case of clerical child sexual abuse in Ireland.

Clerical child sex abuse can be compared to a crash – except there are thousands upon thousands of victims at the scene. Already, the Ryan Report published in May 2009 showed that 15,000 children came forward out of the estimated 120,000 to 130,000 children sent to the various Irish institutions examined by Justice Ryan.

The only figures on the numerous organisations of the Irish Missionary Union have now been published, representing even more victims. The National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church have completed their audits on child protection for the Congregation of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart (MSC), the Congregation of Dominicans and the Congregation of Spiritans.

There were 91 members in the three missionary congregations against whom allegations have been made between 1 January 1975 and the date of the review. The total number of abuse allegations raised was found to be 255. These figures only represent what is included in the files kept by the orders.

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

VATICAN CITY
Rappler

by Agence France-Presse

Posted on 10/12/2012

VATICAN CITY – Vatican prosecutors may appeal the 18-month jail sentence handed to Pope Benedict XVI’s former butler for theft of confidential papers once the full judgement has been published, a Vatican spokesman said Friday, October 12.

Paolo Gabriele was found guilty on Saturday of stealing secret papal documents which revealed fraud scandals and intrigue at the heart of the Church. He is not appealing the verdict, but his immediate fate is still unclear.

“It’s all still open, there has been no delay,” Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said when asked why Gabriele is still under house arrest. The Vatican has no prison, so should he go to jail he would have to serve time in Italy.

Lombardi was unable to give any precise timetable for the publication of the judgement or the prosecution’s decision over whether to appeal or not.

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UNITED STATES
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on October 12, 2012

Some of the Boy Scouts of America “perversion files” are going to be posted online next week. The documents – in which all victims’ names will be redacted – will outline the more than 80-year history of sex abuse and cover-up in the Boy Scouts.

The list of “ineligible” volunteers – men who had allegedly abused young Scouts – is already posted. The leadership of the Scouts knew that these adults were predators, yet didn’t call the cops, didn’t warn parents, and didn’t follow up to ensure that these predators didn’t volunteer in other troops.

The list has 1900 NAMES and is 138 PAGES LONG. You can read it here.

On to my proposal: Disband the Scouts

It’s the same thing that I think should happen to Orange County’s All American Boys Chorus. The chorus was founded in 1970 by pedophile Richard Coughlin (a predator priest sent to Orange County from the Boston Archdiocese, where he molested numerous boys in Massachusetts and New Hampshire). In his 23-year history with the choir, Coughlin (public records show) abused at least 9 All American Boys Chorus members. I personally know seven more Coughlin victims who could never come forward because of lapsed statues of limitations. Coughlin was not the only predator who worked at the AABC.

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MINNESOTA
My Fox Twin Cities

COLLEGEVILLE, Minn –
Two monks from St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota are under investigation for sexual misconduct allegations that date back decades.

At this point the investigation to look into the two monks, Father Mel Taylor and Father Dan Ward, is being conducted by an attorney hired by the Abbey, not law enforcement.

The two have been with associated with the Abbey since the 1960s.

In June, the St. Cloud Diocese announced Father Taylor would return from the Bahamas, where he had spent the previous 20 years, to take over as priest of St. John the Baptist Church in Collegeville.

That is when one allegation involving a St. John’s student from the early 1980s, and another from his time in the Bahamas involving another monk, surfaced.

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ESPANA
YouTube

Madrid, 9 oct (EFE).- Las testigos han confirmado hoy ante el juez que investiga el presunto robo de una niña en la Clínica Santa Cristina en 1982 que la religiosa María Gómez Valbuena, conocida como “sor María”, era la responsable de las adopciones casi en exclusiva y tenía un poder omnímodo.

Las doctoras Ana Elisa López Delgado, María Rosa Acero de Pablo, María Teresa del Olmo Mombiedro, Carmen Sánchez Calvo y Olga Fadón Pérez han comparecido hoy ante el titular del Juzgado de Instrucción número 47 de Madrid, Adolfo Carretero.

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MALTA
Times of Malta

[with video]

Victims of clerical sex abuse should receive compensation, but from the perpetrators rather than the Church as a whole, Malta’s new Auxiliary Bishop Charles Scicluna tells The Sunday Times in an interview that will be appearing tomorrow.

Mgr Scicluna, who in his role as Promoter of Justice at the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith had a frontline role in uncovering some of the most difficult abuse scandals, had spoken on the need for compensation after the Maltese bishops’ decision not to make a pay out to victims last year.

When asked if he would be supporting calls for the victims to be compensated, Mgr Scicluna says: “I hope they (receive compensation). When I said previously they deserve compensation I was referring to the principle of natural justice which is personal responsibility. That is, a person who does damage to somebody is liable to pay for that damage.

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VATICAN CITY
Asia News

Vatican City (AsiaNews) – The suffering of Nigeria’s Christians, victims of bloody attacks, was at the centre of today’s Synod proceedings, which ended in a luncheon during which the pope met Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the Primate of the Anglican Communion, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, as well as the Council Fathers who are in Rome to mark the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council.

In addition to expressing participants’ solidarity towards Nigeria, the Synod addressed yesterday afternoon and this morning the issue of evangelising among sex abuse victims, the need to inform Church members about the “open opposition” of the mass media to Christianity, the need to adopt an approach based on pastoral charity towards divorced people who have remarried, and the new for a simplified enunciation of the principles of Christianity.

Today’s assembly opened with a meditation by Mgr John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan, archbishop of Abuja. This gave Mgr Nikola Eterovic an opportunity to show “closeness, sympathy and concern for the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria’s desire to find a path towards dialogue and promote peace in justice with regards to the disturbances that have caused violence in their country, especially in the north.” In Mgr Eterovic’s words, let us “pray that religions not be used and manipulated for the aims of groups and parties but act as the basis of understanding, cooperation and peace.”

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

In his speech at the Synod today, Canadian bishop Brian Joseph Dunn endorsed “appropriate changes in some structures of the church” and a “deliberate and systematic involvement of women”

Vatican Insider staff
Rome

The theme of this morning’s session of the Synod on the new evangelisation which is underway in the Vatican was the issue of clerical sex abuse against minors.

“How can we evangelize those who have been deeply hurt by men of the church involved in sexual abuse?” asked Canadian bishop Brian Joseph Dunn of Antigonish in Canada. “Jesus took care of the disillusioned , listening carefully to the disciples’ stories, restoring in them a new awareness of his presence. Jesus’ example shows that the new evangelisation which is taking place right in the midst of the sex abuse crisis, is carried out in at least four different ways.”

Firstly, “providing a real opportunity for people’s stories to be listened to and for a common discernment, in order to understand the depth of the pain, hatred and disillusionment triggered by this scandal. This ministry of listening could become part of the ministry of every diocese, in the form of a meditation office, where people can express their pain and search for an “ideal form of reconciliation.”

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NEW MEXICO
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Barbara Dorris on October 12, 2012

A former organist was today given 7 ½ years behind bars for spreading child pornography.

We applaud this sentence, and the swift actions taken by the New Mexico police and prosecutors against Peter Railsback. Child pornography is a serious crime that perpetuates the abuse of children, and we are glad that it was treated with grave consequences in this case. We hope that this sentence deters others who would consider creating or spreading child porn and will hopefully spare another child the shattered innocence that comes with childhood sexual abuse.

We urge anyone who may have seen, suspected, or suffered abuse in the Archdiocese of Santa Fe – whether by Railsback or any catholic employee – to immediately come forward and make a report to the authorities. Hopefully this sentence will encourage anyone who may have been suffering in silence to stand up, report what they have gone through, and help protect others.

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VATICAN CITY
Chicago Tribune

By Naomi O’Leary

VATICAN CITY, Oct 12 (Reuters) – The Roman Catholic Church must strengthen safeguards against any further sexual abuse of children by its clergy and expand the role of women in the Church, a Canadian bishop said on Friday in a speech to hundreds of his peers at a Vatican conference.

In his address to the Synod of Bishops, convened to discuss how to battle dwindling numbers of practicing Catholics in the face of growing secularisation and dissent against its teachings, Bishop Brian Joseph Dunn called on the Church to “become more authentic in our contemporary world”.

Synod documents have so far largely focused on the role of external factors like consumerism and secularism in eroding belief, and its concluding document will be scrutinised for any mention of failures within the Church itself.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Service

By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — A Canadian bishop whose diocese was rocked by clerical sex abuse crises told the Synod of Bishops that the new evangelization must address the reality of distrust and disappointment the scandal left in its wake.

With the sex abuse crisis, Catholics have experienced “a great disorientation that leads to forms of distrust of teachings and values that are essential for the followers of Christ,” Bishop Brian J. Dunn of Antigonish, Nova Scotia, told the synod Oct. 12.

The Diocese of Antigonish has sold hundreds of properties in an effort to raise the money necessary to cover legal settlement and sexual abuse lawsuit costs from before Bishop Dunn’s appointment. In 2011, the previous bishop, Raymond Lahey, pled guilty and was jailed on charges of importing child pornography. The former bishop was laicized by the Vatican in May.

The Catholic Church cannot ignore the need to find a way to “evangelize those who have been deeply hurt by clergy who have been involved in sexual abuse,” Bishop Dunn told the synod.

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