ABUSE TRACKER

UNITED STATES
The Daily Beast

A chilling documentary about the Vatican’s sexual-abuse scandal gives voice to its victims. Barbie Latza Nadeau got an early look at the film the Holy See doesn’t want you to see.

Even if you think you know the sordid details of the sex scandal concerning predatory priests in the Roman Catholic Church, director Alex Gibney’s Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God is eye-opening.

In fact, it should be compulsory viewing for all Catholics, whether they blame or defend the church, for its clarity and insight into just who holds responsibility for decades of child abuse at the hands of clergy. Gibney does not rely on the usual broad strokes of anti-priest propaganda that has come to define this scandal. Instead, he meticulously attends to the details of the biggest cases, giving voice to the victims and even revealing the rarely heard frustration by the “good priests” who tried to stop the sins of their colleagues.

Gibney opens with scenes that any Catholic will recognize immediately: crisp white dresses of little girls making their first communion, burning candles as altar boys prepare for mass, the haze of smoke so familiar one can almost smell the incense. Then he reveals what’s going on. He uses family movies, faded pictures, and actors to paint a portrait of how innocent children were offered up like sacrificial lambs to known “devils in disguise” by unwitting parents who blindly trusted a church they believed would protect them.

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CANADA
Radio Canada

Des centaines d’Autochtones sont réunis mardi et mercredi à Saskatoon dans le but entre autres de trouver des solutions au nombre jugé trop important d’enfants sous la tutelle de la province.

La Fédération des nations indiennes de la Saskatchewan (FSIN) attend avec impatience la mise en application de changements proposés dans le rapport d’un comité d’experts sur la protection de l’enfance publié en 2010.

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CANADA
Aboriginal Multi-Media Society

By Shari Narine Windspeaker Contributor OTTAWA

The “general language” used by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in its recently released interim report is a disappointment to Clement Chartier, president of the Métis National Council.

“The report itself speaks in general terms. When one reads it, one would not think that Métis generally were excluded (from the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement),” said Chartier. “Canadians, I don’t think, would understand the specifics of this.”

One of the 20 recommendation calls for the parties to the IRSSA “to address the legitimate concerns of the former students who feel unfairly left out.”

In the preamble to Recommendation 12, the TRC discusses hearing from students who attended schools not on the prescribed list or students who attended residential schools but as day scholars. Métis students are not mentioned as a group.

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WORCESTER (MA)
Telegram & Gazette

By Linda Bock TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
lbock@telegram.com

WORCESTER — Two gay Sutton men plan to file a lawsuit in Worcester Superior Court today against Affirmation Inc., an affiliate of the Diocese of Worcester, and other parties.

Worcester law firm Carvajal & Nielson will hold a press conference at 11:30 this morning at the courthouse, 225 Main St., to make the announcement.

James Fairbanks and Alain Beret, who live in Sutton, were pursuing the purchase of Oakhurst, a 44-bedroom mansion in Northbridge, owned by the Diocese of Worcester. The couple had searched for two years for property for the renovation project, and hoped to turn the estate into a banquet facility. Previously, the pair had transformed mansions in Vermont and Barre into similar businesses.

The asking price of $1.4 million was negotiated to $1 million. On May 18, the pair signed an offer to purchase with a $75,000 deposit.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune

August 21, 2012

By Jennifer Delgado, Chicago Tribune reporter

A Cook County man filed a lawsuit against the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago and Cardinal Francis George on Tuesday, alleging that a now-deceased Augustinian brother who worked at St. Rita of Cascia High School molested him several times in the late 1970s.

A lawsuit filed Tuesday claims Brother Christopher J. McCartney, a former high school dean at St. Rita’s, sexually attacked him in the dean’s office when he was a student. The complaint alleges the Archdiocese of Chicago was careless and negligent because it didn’t investigate sexual abuse reports against McCartney while he worked at the all-boys Catholic high school.

However, according to an official with the Augustinians of the Midwest, McCartney, who died in 2002, was employed by the Augustinian religious order that runs the school on Chicago’s South Side, not the archdiocese, as the lawsuit claimed.

An archdiocese spokeswoman declined to comment, saying she hadn’t seen the lawsuit.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Colm Kelpie

Monday September 10 2012

ACCUSATIONS levelled at the head of the church’s child protection watchdog by a bishop were yesterday branded “immensely insulting” by a leading abuse support group.

Bishop of Down and Connor Noel Treanor has apologised and withdrawn an “assertion” he made concerning the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church and its chief executive Ian Elliott.

Bishop Treanor said the matter that arose between the diocese and the board was a procedural issue, which “required attention”.

He said matters were brought to his attention by third parties and were informally raised with the board. It then instigated a formal complaints procedure.

Reports yesterday stated retired Supreme Court Judge Catherine McGuinness was tasked to investigate allegations that Mr Elliott had indulged in spin against the church hierarchy in off-the-record briefings with journalists. She subsequently concluded the accusations were unfounded.

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IRELAND
BBC News

The Bishop of Down and Connor has apologised for an accusation he made against the head of the Catholic Church’s child protection watchdog.

The Sunday Times reported that Bishop Noel Treanor made a complaint that Ian Elliott was briefing journalists against the Catholic Church hierarchy.

An investigation was carried out and a report cleared Mr Elliott of the allegations.

Mr Treanor said he accepted the findings of the report.

A statement, issued by the Down and Connor Diocese on behalf of Dr Treanor said: “The matter which arose between the diocese and the National Board for the Safeguarding of Children in the Catholic Church (NBSCCI) was a procedural matter, which required attention.

“It did not in any way affect or interfere with safeguarding practice.

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IRELAND
RTE News

One in Four Director Maeve Lewis has described as “staggering” revelations that the Bishop of Down and Connor made a complaint against the head of the National Council for the Safeguarding of Children in the Catholic Church.

In a statement, Bishop Noel Treanor said he accepted the findings of a report that found there was no basis for his complaint.

Ian Elliott is head of the Catholic Church’s watchdog, which was set up to monitor and report on how child protection guidelines are being implemented.

But newspaper reports revealed that Mr Elliott was the subject of a complaint last year from a senior member of the Catholic hierarchy.

The Sunday Times reported that Bishop Treanor complained that Mr Elliott was engaging in spin against the church during media briefings.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
YouTube

Published on Sep 7, 2012 by KCPTOnline

BISHOP GUILTY: Kansas City Bishop Robert Finn is found guilty in a Jackson County courtroom of failing to report an abusive priest to state authorities. Finn is the first Catholic bishop in the country convicted of failing to report suspected child abuse.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

PAUL CULLEN

THE CATHOLIC Church has been accused of attempting to muzzle its child protection officer after it emerged that he was the subject of a complaint by a senior bishop.

Bishop of Down and Connor Noel Treanor confirmed yesterday that he had apologised to Ian Elliott, chief executive of the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church, over what he termed a “procedural matter”.

One in Four director Maeve Lewis said it was “incredibly insulting” of Bishop Treanor to challenge Mr Elliott’s integrity given the latter’s track record and the balanced reports he had produced into child protection practices in Catholic dioceses. The church was attempting to “muzzle” Mr Elliott, she said.

The Sunday Times reported yesterday that the apology was made for accusing Mr Elliott of indulging in spin against the hierarchy during off-the-record briefings with journalists.

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WORCESTER (MA)
Boston Globe

By Lisa Wangsness
Globe Staff / September 10, 2012

James Fairbanks and Alain Beret, married business partners from Sutton, had been searching for the perfect property for nearly two years when they discovered Oakhurst, an aging mansion on 26 beautiful acres in Northbridge. The former retreat center, which was affiliated with the Diocese of Worcester and had been on the market for some time, would be the ideal spot for their next venture: an inn that would host weddings and other big events.

When the Diocese of Worcester unexpectedly dropped out of negotiations with them in June, Fairbanks and Beret were shocked — and flummoxed. Then, they say, a church attorney inadvertently forwarded their broker an e-mail from Monsignor Thomas Sullivan, chancellor of the diocese, advising a church broker that he was no longer interested in selling to Fairbanks and Beret “because of a potentiality of gay marriages” there.

Beret, 59, and Fairbanks, 57, plan to file a lawsuit Monday morning in Worcester Superior Court against Sullivan, the bishop, the church’s real estate agent, and the nonprofit retreat center, the House of Affirmation, alleging they discriminated against Beret and Fairbanks on the basis of sexual orientation in the course of a real estate negotiation, violating state law.

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CANADA/BELGIE
Gazet van Antwerpen

Al zes keer is het proces tegen de eskimo-pater Eric Dejaeger (65) uitgesteld. De openbare aanklager geeft vandaag een overzicht van de 77 klachten van misbruik in Canada.

Of we Dejaeger vandaag te zien krijgen in de rechtszaal in Iqaluit, in het noorden van Canada, is nog maar de vraag. De pater maakt er een gewoonte van om de rechter tegen een lege beklaagdenbank te laten spreken.

Volgens de lokale krant Nunatsiaq News wil de openbare aanklager de 77 klachten samenvoegen tot één gezamenlijke aanklacht. Lieve Halsberghe, de vertegenwoordiger van de slachtoffervereniging SNAP: “Ik weet dat er slachtoffers zijn die nog niet naar buiten durfden komen. Hopelijk doen ze dat nu wel.”

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CANADA
The Chronicle-Herald

September 10, 2012 – By MICHAEL GORMAN Truro Bureau

More than 100 residential school survivors will gather in Dartmouth next week for the Atlantic Regional Indian Residential Schools commemoration event.

Themed From Victim to Survivor, the three-day event at the Dartmouth Holiday Inn from Wednesday to Friday will bring together survivors, their families, members of First Nations communities and non-aboriginal people to learn about the history of the schools and Mi’kmaq culture, and focus on healing and ways to move forward.

“What we’re not trying to do is paint a picture of victims,” said Violet Paul, a member of the event’s organizing committee.

“We’re asking the non-native people to come in to listen to us, to join us and be with us and work with us as we move forward together.”

Planned events include open-forum discussions, sharing circles, sessions focused on traditional Mi’kmaq culture and recognition of survivors. Speakers include Chief Shawn Atleo of Assembly of First Nations, Phil Fontaine, a former national chief and residential school survivor, and Justice Murray Sinclair, chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada.

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UNITED STATES
Spiritual Politics

Mark Silk

Sep 10, 2012

To comprehend the immensity of Bill Donohue’s chutzpah, you need to click right over to dotCommonweal and read Grant Gallicho’s demolition of his defense of convicted Kansas City Bishop Robert Finn. And even then, you will miss some of the egegiousness of the president of the Catholic League’s Apologia Pro Finna Sua.

To wit, his declaration that the Catholic League “supports harsh penalties for child sexual abusers, and for those who cover it up.”

Unless, of course, the latter happen to be Catholic bishops. OK, I haven’t searched through the entire corpus of Catholic League press releases to see if Donohue has ever urged that a bishop be harshly penalized for covering up sexual abuse. If anyone finds that he has, I will be happy to do penance.

But for starters, let’s take the grandaddy of the episcopal coverups–that of Boston’s Cardinal Bernard Law. Let the record show that the Catholic League did not so much as address the culpability of that prince of the church until he resigned his see in December 2002, nearly a year after the Boston Globe began reporting on his malfeasance. Then, what Donohue had to say was:

Most Catholics are greeting the resignation of Cardinal Law with a sigh of relief and sadness. While no one blames Cardinal Law for the entire scandal in the Church, his departure nonetheless represents an important step towards recapturing the trust of the laity. Now the mending process can proceed with alacrity.

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GEORGIA
The Brunswick News

By NIKKI WILEY
The Brunswick News

Andy Chambers is on a mission to prevent child sexual abuse.

He wants to train 3,000 Glynn County adults in recognizing and reporting child sexual abuse because he thinks if 5 percent of the county understands the signs of sexual abuse and how to report it, local children will be better off.

“The belief is that when 5 percent of culture changes behavior, you see a cultural shift,” said Chambers, pastor at Frederica Presbyterian Church on St. Simons Island.

That’s why he’s conducting child sexual abuse prevention training along with the Golden Isles Children’s Center.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Independent

Jonathan Wheeler

An inquiry by the Archbishop of Canterbury has shed further light on the scandal which lies at the heart of the Church of England diocese in Chichester.

Police investigations have uncovered further evidence of sexual crimes against children, which leaves the impression that a paedophile ring has been operating at the highest levels of the diocese for years.

One has to admire the courage of these children – now adults – who have come forward to report such crimes. They should, I hope, be galvanised by the Church’s response as it now seeks to deal with the mess it made of child protection.

Three new arrests of priests from the Chichester diocese this year have provided a backdrop to this historic inquiry – the first for 100 years – by the Archbishop. His report charts child protection failures and a “profoundly negative culture” and says that “fresh and disturbing” evidence keeps coming to the surface about the way abuse claims have been handled in the past. The Archbishop will now oversee all appointments and deal with safeguarding issues, effectively sidelining the diocese’s own efforts. Last May, Baroness Butler-Sloss was asked to produce a report on the growing crisis and she found a disturbing lack of understanding of the seriousness of child abuse which she felt might be reflected elsewhere.

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AUSTRALIA
NEWS.com.au

Newcastle Anglican diocese defrocks retired dean Andrew Duncan and reverends Bruce Hoare and Graeme Lawrence

THREE Anglican priests have been defrocked and several clergy are under investigation over allegations of “serious sexual misconduct” in the Newcastle diocese.

Newcastle Bishop Brian Farran says the Anglican Professional Standards Board (PSB) has considered the conduct of four priests and one lay person.

As a result of the board’s recommendations, Bishop Farran has removed retired dean Andrew Duncan and reverends Bruce Hoare and Graeme Lawrence from holy orders.

Cardiff Rector Graeme Sturt received an order banning him from exercising any ministry for five years, and school teacher Greg Goyette has been banned from holding any office with the church.

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CathNews

Published: September 09, 2012

BY MICHAEL MULLINS

In his homily at St Joseph’s Newtown yesterday, Sydney priest Peter Maher pointed to the role of the “culture of clericalism” in sexual abuse. Publishing the text on his blog, he said there’s an absence of “any form of dialogue that might privilege the victim’s stories. Yet this is the first step in healing and reconciliation”.

[It] has left the vulnerable unprotected and unhealed by a leadership too willing to be hoodwinked by the doctrine of a priesthood that places priests above other human beings and what they call “the good of the church”. …

Church representatives are still trying to address this tragic abuse from a position of power … I think it’s time to be more real and recognise that it is primarily an institutional failure: a failure to recognise that unfettered clerical power created a climate in which on-going abuse could go on unabated.

At v2catholic.com, David Timbs analyses Cardinal Raymond Burke’s exercise of clerical power and his conviction that “external forces of evil have infiltrated and dangerously contaminated ecclesial life”. Timbs’ explanation:

Cardinal Burke’s approach to Law strongly reflects that of the Anglo-Saxon-Celtic mentality. Culturally these peoples have been historically and perversely fascinated with and dominated by the power of laws and regulations.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

[with video]

By Giselle Wakatama

Newcastle’s Anglican Bishop Brian Farran has defrocked three priests over child sex allegations, including a member of the upper echelons of the church.

Bishop Farran has acted on an Anglican Professional Standards Board recommendation to defrock the revered former dean of Newcastle, Graeme Lawrence, along with reverends Bruce Hoare and Andrew Duncan.

The board found there was misconduct in relation to several sexual allegations.

Bishop Farran announced the defrockings to the ABC.

“There will be people in Newcastle who will be extraordinarily angry with me, but unfortunately the processes must be followed,” he said.

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UNITED STATES
Screen Daily

10 September, 2012 | By Anthony Kaufman

With the stories of several deaf men in Wisconsin who were sexually abused as children by their priest in the 1970s, documentary-maker Alex Gibney finds a particularly powerful and resonant anchor in which to investigate the injustices perpetuated by the Catholic Church. Indeed, what better way to highlight the Vatican’s appalling culture of silence than by following an opposing group of people who cannot talk?

Mea Maxima Culpa – which translates as “my most grievous fault” in Latin – presents a well-constructed and poignant argument, full of outrage and ample evidence, about the heinous crimes and cover-ups that have taken place in the Catholic Church.

Fortunately, Gibney, an Oscar-winner for Taxi To The Dark Side and maker of Enron: The Smartest Guys In the Room, never belabors the cruel irony that he has employed to structure the documentary. Successfully balancing the intimate stories of the deaf men with a wider, investigative expose of global proportions, Gibney has made a powerful and affecting film, which could galvanize audiences, both theatrically in limited release as well as TV outlets around the world. (HBO will broadcast it in 2013.)

There is another more rhetorical reason for focusing on the story of Milwaukee priest Father Lawrence Murphy, and the alumni of the St. John’s School for the Deaf who fought to expose him: According to the documentary, their struggle, which began in the mid-1970s, is the first known public protest against clerical sex abuse in the United States.

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AUSTRALIA
SBS

Several Anglican clergy in Newcastle are under investigation over child sexual allegations.

Three Anglican priests have been defrocked and several clergy are under investigation over allegations of “serious sexual misconduct” in the Newcastle diocese.

Newcastle Bishop Brian Farran says the Anglican Professional Standards Board (PSB) has considered the conduct of four priests and one lay person.

As a result of the board’s recommendations, Bishop Farran has removed retired dean Andrew Duncan and reverends Bruce Hoare and Graeme Lawrence from holy orders.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC – PM

[with audio]

Samantha Donovan reported this story on Monday, September 10, 2012 18:14:00

MARK COLVIN: Newcastle’s Anglican Bishop has defrocked three priests over what he says are “disturbing” allegations of child abuse. The alleged abuse occurred in the 1970s and 1980s. Another priest has been banned from the Ministry for five years.

No charges have been laid but the Professional Standards Board of the Anglican Diocese accepted the alleged victim’s evidence. The alleged victim says he’s relieved that the Bishop of Newcastle has taken action.

Samantha Donovan reports.

SAMANTHA DONOVAN: The Professional Standards Board of the Anglican Church of Newcastle accepted that the former dean of Newcastle, Graeme Lawrence and reverends Bruce Hoare and Andrew Duncan engaged in sexual misconduct against the alleged victim, known as M, when he was a teenager.

Newcastle’s Anglican bishop, Brian Farran, admitted it was a difficult decision to defrock the priests.

BRIAN FARRAN: This is a decision is about the misuse of power. And the complainant was originally a younger person. What I’m, what the decision has been, that’s been taken really says is that people cannot misuse power when they are given a position of great privilege and trust.

And so we’re upholding the sense that everybody has to feel safe within the church.

SAMANTHA DONOVAN: Graeme Lawrence and another priest Graeme Sturt had challenged the professional standards board investigation in the New South Wales Supreme Court but were unsuccessful. Bishop Farran said the board had accepted that Graeme Sturt played a lesser role in the alleged abuse. He’s banned him from the ministry for five years.

In an exclusive interview with the ABC today Bishop Farran said the investigation had been a long and difficult process.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

Newcastle’s Anglican Bishop Brian Farran is today expected to announce he will defrock several priests, including the former Dean of Newcastle, Graeme Lawrence.

The Church’s Professional Standards Board recommended the Bishop defrock Reverend Lawrence, along with Reverend Graeme Sturt, Reverend Bruce Hoare and another priest Andrew Duncan.

The board found there was misconduct in relation to several allegations.

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BOSTON (MA)
Boston Catholic Insider

The Boston Globe today published two articles about the matter of unresolved cases of clergy sexual abuse. The articles were troubling for a number of reasons.

Sexual abuse of children by clergy, in and of itself, is very troubling. It simply should not happen–period. When credible accusations of abuse have come forward and have been verified, priests should be removed from ministry. It seems to BCI that if a priest sexually abuses a child and there is no question as to the veracity of the claim, regardless of the civil or criminal penalties, the priest should also be laicizied. Sexual abuse cases have cost the Catholic Church in the U.s. $3 billion, according to The Economist. Imagine those funds put to use on evangelization, programs to support great priests, saving and maintaining beautiful church buildings destined for the wrecking ball, adult catechesis and faith formation, vocations, seminaries, and building the kingdom of God instead!

But the articles in the Globe were troubling for more reasons beyond even these. It seems to BCI that the cost, time delays, and process for resolving sexual abuse claims are all problematic.

Cost: $22.5 million on salaries and benefits

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UNITED STATES
Press TV (Iran)

Pressure is mounting on the highest ranking U.S. catholic official yet to be convicted of covering up clerical child sex abuse to resign from the church.

Bishop Robert Finn was found guilty Friday of failing to report suspected child sexual abuse to authorities, prompting calls for him to step down or be booted from office.

Advocates for the victims of clerical sex abuse have challenged the Vatican directly, calling on the Pope to step in and dismiss Finn from his position as bishop of the diocese of Kansas City-Saint Joseph.

But despite a growing campaign to force his ouster, church officials have maintained that he isn’t going anywhere – despite the conviction.

“The bishop looks forward to continuing to perform his duties, including carrying out the important obligations placed on him by the court”, diocese spokesman Jack Smith said in a statement.

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UNITED STATES
New Jersey Newsroom

Sunday, 09 September 2012

BY PAT SUMMERS
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

COMMENTARY

This week’s news highlighted two different states and two different states of mind within leaders of the American Catholic Church. Both cases involved “canon law” — the body of laws and regulations governing the organization and its members.

In Connecticut, the Archbishop of the Hartford diocese came down hard on Michael DeVito, a priest who last month had participated in his cousin’s same-sex marriage. In Missouri, the bishop of the Kansas City-St. Joseph diocese got a slap on the wrist after being indicted last year on a charge of failing to protect children.

Canon law was cited in both cases. In Connecticut, it gave the archbishop reason for reprimanding the priest, who had worn his Roman collar and done a reading at the wedding, according to the Hartford Courant. Same sex marriages are contrary to Catholic teaching.

In Missouri, the bishop had violated both canon law and civil law in not reporting the Rev. Shawn Ratigan, who was found to have hundreds of images of child pornography on his computer. For five months, Finn had protected and covered up for the priest, who took photographs that included a girl’s “naked vagina, upskirt images and images focused on the crotch,” according to the New York Times.

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PHOENIX (AZ)
KFYI

by Ted Houston

A longtime teacher at Brophy College Prep in Phoenix is under arrest, accused of molesting several male students in the 1980s.

According to Phoenix police, Dan Whitehead, 71, was arrested Saturday morning and booked into jail on charges including sexual assault, attempted sexual abuse, furnishing harmful items to a minor, and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

Last November, Brophy administrators contacted police after the school was contacted by some former students who said Whitehead had touched their private parts while they were visiting him at his home during the time that they were students at the school.

According to the victims, Whitehead had invited them to his house for various reasons, such as for tutoring or to find out about taking care of his house while he was away. While they were there, they said Whitehead showed them pornography and supplied them with alcohol. He then allegedly fondled or attempted to fondle them.

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PHOENIX (AZ)
ABC 15

[with video]

•By: Patrick Lancaster

PHOENIX – A former Brophy College Preparatory teacher who was fired in November 2011 amid allegations of sexual advances from two former students was taken into custody on Saturday.

Dan P. Whitehead, 71, was booked into the Maricopa County Jail, said Phoenix Police Sgt. Tommy Thompson in a news release.

He was charged with Sexual Assault, Attempted Sexual Abuse, Furnishing Harmful Items to a Minor and Contributing to the Delinquency of a Minor.

Thompson said several adult victims and witnesses had come forward to police, which allowed investigators to conduct their investigation into incidents that occurred in the 1980s.

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PHOENIX (AZ)
AZFamily

by Jennifer Thomas
Video report by Crystal Cruz

Posted on September 8, 2012

PHOENIX — A high school math teacher who was fired in November amid sexual misconduct allegations has been arrested on child molestation charges, according to the Phoenix Police Department.

Dan P. Whitehead, 71, was arrested Saturday morning and booked into the Maricopa County Jail.

Whitehead, who is also known as Daniel Whitehead, was charged with one count of sexual assault, two counts of attempted sexual abuse, two counts of furnishing harmful items to a minor and four counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

In November, two former Brophy College Preparatory students who are now adults told school officials that Whitehead had touched them on their private parts against their will while at his home during the 1980s.

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PHOENIX (AZ)
Green Valley News and Sun

Associated Press

Phoenix police say they’ve arrested a former math teacher at Brophy College Preparatory School on child molestation charges.

The Phoenix school fired 71-year-old Dan Whitehead in November after two former students came forward and said he had molested them in the 1980s. The students did not want to contact police.

Phoenix police investigated anyway and said Saturday they were able to find several adult males who said they were victims or witnesses to molestations by Whitehead in the 1980s. Police say Whitehead would invite students home, ply them alcohol and then fondle or try to fondle the boys.

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PHOENIX (AZ)
The Arizona Republic

by Cecilia Chan and Eugene Scott – Sept. 9, 2012
The Republic | azcentral.com

Phoenix police on Saturday arrested a former Brophy College Preparatory teacher on suspicion of sexually abusing several past students.

The arrest came nine months after Daniel Whitehead, 71, was fired from the private Catholic school after two former Brophy students, now adults, accused him of inappropriate sexual advances. Whitehead had been a lay faculty member since 1967.

Whitehead most recently taught math, said Sgt. Tommy Thompson, a Phoenix police spokesman.

Whitehead faces charges of sexual assault, attempted sexual abuse, furnishing harmful items to a minor and contributing to the delinquency of a minor, according to police.

Brophy Principal Bob Ryan released a statement on Saturday that said the school will continue to cooperate with the police and the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office in the investigation. …

The 17-acre Jesuit campus on Central Avenue has roughly 1,290 students and 85 teachers, according to the school website. The annual tuition for the current school year is $13,200.

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IRELAND
Vatican Insider

The Catholic bishop of Clonfert has publicly apologised for moving two priests to another parish after they were accused of committing sexual abuse against minors in the 90’s

Giacomo Galeazzi
Vatican City

Moving the two priests on to another parish was “a grave mistake”. The decision was completely inadequate given the seriousness of the accusations against him – John Kirby now admits -. “I was not aware at the time of the sinister nature and repeat behaviour of the abuser or of the life-long damage caused to the child,” the Irish bishop said.

So it seems the “unfaithful clergy” crisis has not yet come to an end, as Benedict XVI reiterated in his concluding video message for the International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin.

After a thousand-year-old history of loyalty to the Gospel, Ireland and the Irish Catholic Church have “recently been shaken in an appalling way by the revelation of sins committed by priests and consecrated persons against people entrusted to their care.”

The Pope denounced their actions, stating: “Instead of showing them the path towards Christ, towards God, instead of bearing witness to his goodness, they abused people and undermined the credibility of the Church’s message.” Under Benedict XVI, the Holy See’s response to the plague of paedophilia in the Catholic Church of Ireland has been tough.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By David O’Reilly
Inquirer Staff Writer

A year after the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia passed into his hands, Archbishop Charles J. Chaput is arguably within his rights when he avows, “It’s hard to say I love it here.”

Since his installation on Sept. 8, 2011, the drama has been unremitting.

He has: closed nine parishes and 27 schools; laid off 18 percent of the archdiocesan administrative staff and shut down the 117-year-old newspaper to shrink a $17.5 million operating deficit; turned over management of the high schools to a private foundation; sold the cardinal’s mansion and put the retired priests’ Shore villa up for sale; led a fervid religious-freedom crusade against President Obama’s health-care law; seen his chief financial officer convicted of embezzling nearly $1 million; weathered the child-endangerment trial and conviction of the former head of the clergy office; removed seven sexually abusive priests from ministry – and in his words, “It’s still not finished.”

The problems have been so grave that any one of them “would be enough for one year, without being all in one year,” Chaput said recently.

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BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe

[CORRECTED ONLINE VERSION – The Boston Globe posted this story online with 1,246 words missing, including the account of the second survivor to accuse Foley. This material appeared in the print edition, but not in the online edition. The incomplete posting also omitted a photo caption which stated that “Cardinal Joseph A. Ratzinger, then head of the Vatican office dealing with sexual abuse and now the pope, recommended that Foley be given an opportunity to defend himself.”

The Globe corrected its online version at approximately 10:25 a.m. on September 9, 2012, to include the omitted material. In order to view the complete article, click on the link above and refresh your browser window.]

September 9, 2012
By Lisa Wangsness

[Excerpt from the omitted portion:]

As the second alleged abuse victim describes it, there were any number of reasons why he didn’t bring an abuse claim to the archdiocese when so many other victims did, in 2002 and 2003. It was a time when he was busy establishing himself in his profession, and in his family life.

He also did not recognize what had happened to him as sexual abuse, he says. He blamed himself for allowing his relationship with Foley to continue for so long, into young adulthood.

But a couple of years ago, the man found himself reading the website of Bishop Accountability, an online archive of the abuse scandal, and came across the first complaint about Foley. It sounded so familiar. [See the material regarding the first allegation in BishopAccountability.org]

Foley had also approached him gradually, he said in an interview with the Globe, asking the then 12- or 13-year-old boy to show him his developing body, including his genitals.

The second alleged victim came from a large, working-class family. He was highly intelligent, and Foley could talk to him about academics in a way his parents couldn’t. The priest lavished him with attention and advice.

“He was like a teacher, he had real power,” the man said. “Especially because I was really believing all the church stuff.”

Foley began to take him into his private room at the Holy Name rectory and molest him, the man said. He cast the sessions as part of confession, saying they were necessary so that “there are no barriers between us.”

The man recalled standing in Foley’s private sitting room in the rectory one afternoon, staring at a closed door to the hallway, as Foley abused him. He was no more than 13.

“If someone even opens that door a crack,” he says he remembers thinking, “they are going to see me standing right here with no clothes on.”

But no one, he says, ever did.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Globe

15 Boston priests facing abuse allegations have awaited a verdict for years, leaving both sides mired in a frustrating legal limbo

By Lisa Wangsness
Globe Staff / September 9, 2012

The Archdiocese of Boston has spent more than $22.5 million since 2000 on salaries and health benefits for clergy awaiting a resolution of their sexual abuse cases from the church’s internal legal system.

The majority of cases, which can determine whether a priest is restored to ministry or cast out for good, have been concluded. But some have sat unresolved for more than a decade. And the cost of supporting accused clergy continues to mount.

The archdiocese attributes the delays in part to the inherently slow penal process in the church’s justice system, known as canon law, and the deluge of cases after the church’s sexual abuse coverup was exposed.

But the long waits have delayed a resolution for both priests and victims, prolonging the crisis.

Fifteen Boston priests who were removed from ministry in 2004 or earlier still await the conclusion of their canonical cases, in the meantime earning as much as $40,000 a year, plus health benefits. One — the Rev. Paul F. Manning, who turns 72 this year — has not worked in the ministry since 1996.

In each of those cases, an archdiocesan investigator has made an initial finding that at least one abuse allegation against the priest appears credible, and the priest has been suspended from public ministry pending the outcome of his canonical proceeding.

Nicholas P. Cafardi, a prominent canon lawyer and professor at Duquesne University School of Law in Pittsburgh, said that trials conducted by the Catholic Church should not take more than three or four years.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Globe

By Lisa Wangsness
Globe Staff
September 09, 2012

The Rev. James J. Foley Jr.’s fall from grace came swiftly. In 1999, while on temporary assignment in New Mexico, he was ordered to return home to Boston right away: A former parishioner had accused him of sexual abuse. Within days, Foley was removed from public ministry, then placed on leave.

Thirteen years later, he is a practicing attorney in the secular world — and still on the church’s payroll, having earned about $400,000, plus full health benefits, while his case has languished in the church’s internal legal system.

Foley, now 60, has survived in a kind of purgatorial state for years. The church has not yet decided whether to dismiss him.

Casting himself as an innocent victim of the church’s zero-tolerance policy on sexual abuse, he has fought removal from ministry relentlessly.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Chichester Observer

Published on Sunday 9 September 2012

A retired priest appeared in Chichester Magistrates’ Court on September 5, after being charged with 29 counts of sexual offences against three boys under the age of 16.

Reverend Robert Coles, 71, of Upperton Road, Eastbourne, is alleged to have committed 13 sexual assaults in Chichester on a boy then aged between 15 and 16, from 1982 to 1984, Sussex Police said.

There are a further 16 counts regarding two other boys aged between ten and 13 in West Sussex, Cornwall, Devon, Somerset and the Isle of Wight.

Mr Coles will appear in Chichester Crown Court on October 26, and remains on conditional bail until that date.

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IRELAND
Irish Central

By
DARA KELLY,
IrishCentral.com Staff Writer

Published Sunday, September 9, 2012

The Irish Catholic newspaper has predicted a 75 percent decrease in Ireland over the next 30 years, which means only 450 priests will be serving in Irish parishes by 2042.

According to TheJournal.ie, the figure was reached by examining imminent retirements and current ordination rates. Currently, there are 1,965 priests serving Ireland’s 26 dioceses.

Just 12 men entered the national seminary in Maynooth last month. On average, 50 percent of these men would be expected to drop out of the program.

The president of Maynooth said “massive changes” will be necessary within the church due to the lack of priests.

Right now there are 32 priests under the age of 34 working in Ireland, which is just 1.6 percent of the total number of active priests.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Bishop Kirby’s remarks bring into question the kind of man who is called to the priesthood, says Emer O’Kelly

When I was about 12, I was sitting on a crowded bus not paying too much attention, when a voice said: “Sorry, excuse me.” It was a pleasant looking man wearing a dog collar.

He was gesturing to my skirt which was spread a bit wide. “Sorry, Father,” I apologised and tucked it in. “That’s okay,” he said. “I just didn’t want to crush it.” Then, as he sat down, he smiled and said, “Actually, it’s Rector.” And he buried himself in his newspaper.

Back home, I was repeating my embarrassment at my assumption. A friend of my mother’s was there, a retired hospital matron who had spent her working life in England.

She nodded knowingly, “Of course,” she said through pursed lips. “Up to no good. A priest would have sat somewhere else.” The old bag is long dead, but I can’t help wondering how she would have dealt with the scandals in the Catholic Church which have destroyed thousands of lives. Sadly, I think I know.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
God Discussion

[Stipulation of Testimony – via BishopAccountability.org]

In Kansas City, Missouri, Bishop Robert Finn, of the Roman Catholic Church, was convicted for not reporting suspected child abuse. He is the highest-ranking American Catholic clergy criminally charged with not reporting child sexual abuse by clergy, as well as found guilty. The jury acquitted him on a second count of not reporting child abuse.

However, Finn will serve two years probation, suspended, and his record will be free of charges if he adheres to conditions that include “mandatory abuse reporting training, setting aside $10,000 in diocese money for abuse victim counseling, and instructing all diocesan agents to report suspected criminal activity involving minors”. Reporters say this is an unprecedented decision by the judge.

The verdicts came after a short nonjury trial in Jackson County Circuit Court. Judge John Torrence immediately sentenced Finn to two years’ of probation, then suspended the imposition of the sentence. That means that if Finn finishes the probation without incident and completes nine steps as part of his sentence, the bishop’s criminal record will be expunged.

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TUCSON (AZ)
BishopAccountability.org – Assignment Record

Summary of Case: A priest of the Tucson diocese, Robert Trupia was promoted twice during the sixteen years after the first complaint of child sexual abuse was made against him. Reports that Trupia was molesting boys were for years repeatedly dismissed by diocesan officials. Trupia held a number of chancery positions and was named “Monsignor”. He was awarded a scholarship to pursue a doctorate in Canon Law from Catholic University. He taught sex education and ran a “Come and See” program for high school boys considering the priesthood. Trupia is said to have sexually abused at least 30 boys, and was nicknamed “Chicken Hawk” by other priests of the diocese due to his reputation as a child predator. He was finally suspended in 1992 after the mother of an alleged victim appealed to Santa Fe’s Bishop Sanchez in a letter and sent a copy to Tucson’s Bishop Moreno. Trupia threatened to expose the sexual improprieties of high-ranking Tucson diocesan officials if he wasn’t allowed to retire on his own terms. The diocese later called Trupia a “notorious and serial sexual predator” and sought his laicization. He moved to Maryland and worked as a consultant for the Monterey, CA diocese; that contract was terminated in 2001, just after Trupia was arrested on charges of molesting children in AZ in the 1970s. He was jailed but released after one night due to the expiration of the statute of limitations. Although he fought it for twelve years, Trupia was laicized in 2004.

Ordained: 1973
Incardinated: Tucson

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UNITED STATES
dotCommonweal

September 8, 2012

Posted by Grant Gallicho

It has never seemed the best hill to die on, but apparently Catholic League president Bill Donohue doesn’t know how to quit defending Bishop Robert Finn, who was found guilty this week of one misdemeanor count of failing to report suspected child abuse. (Be sure to read David Gibson’s post on the devastating Times story.) Back in November, Donohue declared that Finn was “an innocent man,” and flew all the way to Kansas City just to show how much he meant it. “In an ideal world,” Donohue claimed, “there would have been no charges whatsoever: there was no complainant and no violation of law.” Yes, and in an ideal world, when a U.S. bishop learns — nearly a decade after the 2002 wave of scandals broke — that one of his priests has crotch shots of kids on his computer, after having learned about a detailed letter of complaint about the guy from a Catholic school principal, the bishop would report the priest to the proper authorities, in accordance with civil and canon law. But that’s not the world Bishop Finn was living in. So now he stands convicted of failing to report suspected child abuse. In other words, Finn is not an innocent man. That’s why he issued a statement — both through his lawyer (.doc) and on his own behalf (.doc) — that contains apologetic-sounding words arranged in a way that avoids actually accepting responsibility for his failure to report the pornographer priest Ratigan. (Do yourself a favor and read Mark Silk on that and more here.)

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

He is misguided but Bishop Kirby doesn’t deserve a Chinese whispers campaign, writes Eilis O’Hanlon

Think of it as the Irish bishops’ raffle. Every month they all put their names into a hat, then whoever’s name is drawn out has to say something incredibly stupid to draw the ire of the anti-Catholic brigade and take the heat off the rest for a while.

This week’s losing raffle ticket belonged to Bishop John Kirby of Clonfert who, in the course of apologising for moving two paedophile priests to different parishes in the Nineties where they went on to abuse further victims, tried to explain his decision by saying in retrospect: “I saw it as a friendship that crossed a boundary line.”

His words naturally provoked howls of protest, not only from victims of clerical abuse, who have every right to be outraged, but also from a host of the usual suspects who really should try harder to conceal their glee at fixing another Catholic priest in the firing line lest it start to look as if they’re enjoying the blood sport too much. They wanted Bishop Kirby to resign. They wanted him censured. Some even wanted him sent to jail. How, they demanded to know, could a bishop fail to understand the difference between child abuse and an inappropriate friendship?

The short answer is: of course he knows the difference. He’s not an idiot. When he spoke to Galway Bay FM about the cases in Clonfert which have been brought to light by the internal audit into the handling of child abuse recently carried out by the National Board for Safeguarding Children, that’s exactly what he was talking about: the two specific cases which came to his attention during the period in question: “I literally thought … that if I separated the priest and the youngster, that it was a friendship that crossed the boundary line. I literally thought if I separated them I would have solved the problem. I have learnt sadly since that it was a very different experience.”

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UNITED STATES
SCNow

By: Ellen Meder | SCNow

Published: September 08, 2012

CHERAW, S.C. —
When the movie “The Prince of Tides” debuted in the early 1990s, Dr. Mary Gail Frawley-O’Dea’s phone started ringing off the hook.

Frawley-O’Dea is a licensed psychologist, psychoanalyst and trauma specialist who serves as counseling director at the Presbyterian Samaritan Center in Charlotte, N.C. “The Prince of Tides” is the Hollywood version of Pat Conroy’s best selling novel about a dysfunctional South Carolina family with a dark secret to hide.

The connection?

Frawley-O’Dea’s practice deals primarily with patients who suffer from long-repressed memories, so a movie about someone revealing their buried secrets unleashed a flood of memories in Frawley-O’Dea’s patients.

It sounds a little strange but the human mind is a strange place. Frawley-O’Dea said a variety of sensory experiences can trigger memories of childhood trauma that the brain didn’t record normally, and she has seen them come into play many times. In her work with victims of clergy sexual abuse, the smell of incense, the sight of candles at the altar or the sounds of organ music have triggered painful memories of assault.

The concept of repressed traumatic memories has been coming back into the psychoanalytic lexicon during the past two decades, and since 2000 more scientific research has appeared supporting the theories behind it. But the concept remains a source of debate.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
The Kansas City Star

By LAURA BAUER and JUDY L. THOMAS
The Kansas City Star

Bishop Robert Finn stood before a circuit court judge last week and said he was sorry for the pain that children in his diocese had suffered.

Then, moments before the judge sentenced him to two years of probation for failing to report suspected child abuse, Finn said he was grateful the case was over.

Yet child and family advocates, as well as sexual abuse therapists and investigators, say they don’t want it to be over. They want the impact of Finn’s guilty verdict, and the frank dialogue it has spurred, to create a culture where adults finally stand up for children who can’t speak for themselves.

It’s not just Kansas City, where Finn and other church officials failed to immediately report a priest who took pornographic pictures of young girls.

It’s Philadelphia, where a monsignor was sentenced in July for covering up the sexual abuse of children by priests.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

BY JESSE BOGAN • jbogan@post-dispatch.com AND TIM TOWNSEND • ttownsend@post-dispatch.com

KANSAS CITY • Before a Mass started early Friday morning at St. Patrick Parish, the Rev. Justin Hoye pulled an elderly woman to the side and asked her to take her time when reading from St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians to the small congregation.

Hoye planned to frame his homily from the Bible passages.

So when it was time, the woman stood, walked to the front of the chapel, and read slowly from Scripture used worldwide Friday in Roman Catholic churches:

“It does not concern me in the least that I be judged by you or any human tribunal; I do not even pass judgment on myself; I am not conscious of anything against me, but I do not thereby stand acquitted; the one who judges me is the Lord.”

Hoye went on to preach about judgment, saying people are incapable of admitting the absolute fullness of their own sins.

What he didn’t do was mention Bishop Robert Finn, shepherd of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph. On Thursday, a judge in Jackson County found Finn, 59, guilty of one misdemeanor count of failing to report suspected child abuse, including the fact that Finn knew child pornography was on the computer of the Rev. Shawn Ratigan, who used to be pastor of St. Patrick’s.

But it was clear that Hoye’s caution against judgment and prayers for healing were about Finn and the wounded congregation.

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STATE COLLEGE (PA)
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

September 8, 2012

The Associated Press

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — A new Catholic center on the Penn State campus has been dedicated to Sue Paterno, wife of veteran football coach Joe Paterno.

A local bishop on Saturday blessed the Suzanne Pohland Paterno Catholic Student Faith Center, which then celebrated its first Mass with Sue Paterno and her children and grandchildren in attendance.

The Rev. Joseph Adamec, bishop emeritus of the Altoona-Johnstown diocese, praised Sue Paterno and her late husband for helping to raise money for the $6.5 million center.

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UNITED STATES
The Guardian (United Kingdom)

By Matt Williams and agencies
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 8 September 2012

Pressure is mounting on the highest ranking US catholic official yet to be convicted of covering up clerical child sex abuse to resign from the church.

Bishop Robert Finn was found guilty Friday of failing to report suspected child sexual abuse to authorities, prompting calls for him to step down or be booted from office.

Advocates for the victims of clerical sex abuse have challenged the Vatican directly, calling on the Pope to step in and dismiss Finn from his position as bishop of the diocese of Kansas City-Saint Joseph.

But despite a growing campaign to force his ouster, church officials have maintained that he isn’t going anywhere – despite the conviction.

“The bishop looks forward to continuing to perform his duties, including carrying out the important obligations placed on him by the court,” diocese spokesman Jack Smith said in a statement.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
U.S. Catholic

[Stipulation of Testimony – via BishopAccountability.org]

Saturday, September 8, 2012

By Bryan Cones

Today in The New York Times, Laurie Goodstein provides both an excellent summary of the evidence that led to the conviction of Kansas City, Missouri Bishop Robert Finn, noting that he is the first bishop in the U.S. to be held “accountable” for his failure to report a credible allegation of abuse to authorities. That accountablility, limited to a short, suspended term of probation, will leave him with a clean record when it’s completed.

I’m not sure that’s “accountability” for a failure of this magnitude–and if you doubt Finn’s full knowledge of Father Shawn Ratigan’s behavior, just read Goodstein’s account of the submitted testimony that both prosectuion and defense agreed to. What is still lacking is Finn’s canonical accountability. In short, we must wonder why the man is still the bishop of Kansas City.

As canonist and former National Lay Review Board member Nicholas Cafardi points out, both in his interview with U.S. Catholic and in comments to Religion News Service’s David Gibson, there is ample evidence that Finn violated canon law, specifically canon 1389, which provides for removal of a bishop for dereliction of duty. (Recall, for example, that even after Finn had assigned Ratigan to a women’s monastery as chaplain, he still allowed Ratigan to preside at youth event liturgies connected to the monastery.) Since the norms on sex abuse adopted by the U.S. bishops in 2002 have the force of canon law, and Finn clearly violated them, I see no reason why he shouldn’t be removed on those grounds, as I argued in my August 2010 column.

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OSTERREICH
Katholische Kirche in Osterreich

Neue Website kirchenfinanzierung.katholisch.at legt Finanzgebarung der Kirche in Österreich offen – Gesamteinnahmen liegen bei rund 500 Millionen Euro – Kirchenbeitragshöhe beläuft sich auf 395 Millionen Euro

Wien, 07.09.2012 (KAP/Katholisch.at) Das Gesamtbudget der katholischen Diözesen in Österreich beträgt rund 500 Millionen Euro pro Jahr. Der Kirchenbeitrag macht dabei rund 393 Millionen Euro aus. Rund 107 Millionen Euro an Einnahmen stammen aus Miet- oder Pachteinnahmen und aus staatlichen Leistungen zur Abgeltung von NS-Schäden. Diese Zahlen sowie weitere Kennzahlen zur kirchlichen Finanzgebarung nennt die Website kirchenfinanzierung.katholisch.at. Die seit heute freigeschaltete Seite informiert im Namen der österreichischen Bischofskonferenz über die finanzielle Lage der Kirche, über ihre Einnahmen, aber auch über ihre Ausgaben.

Haupteinnahmequelle für die neun katholischen Diözesen ist demnach der Kirchenbeitrag. Er erbrachte im Jahr 2010 rund 393 Millionen Euro – was einem Anteil von rund 80 Prozent am kirchlichen Gesamtbudget entspricht. Daraus werden laut Website “die Kernaufgaben der Kirche” in den Bereichen Soziales, Bildung, Kultur und Entwicklungszusammenarbeit finanziert.

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SOMERVILLE (MA)
WBUR

By The Associated Press September 8, 2012

SOMERVILLE, Mass. — A Boston priest, formerly of St. James Episcopal Church in Somerville, was arrested Friday on sexual assault charges involving a child who was once a parishioner along with his family at the Somerville church, authorities said.

The Rev. Paul A. LaCharite, 65, was arrested on one count of assault to rape a child and three counts of indecent assault and battery on a child, Middlesex District Attorney Gerry Leone and Somerville Police Chief Thomas Pasquarello said in a news release. They alleged the abuse occurred over a 10-year period, beginning in the 1990s when the child was in elementary school. The victim told authorities this week of the alleged abuse. …

A man who answered a phone number for LaCharite and identified himself as Bruce Shaw said he does not expect LaCharite to be released from police custody until Monday. He said the abuse allegations are false.

“I don’t believe a word of it,” Shaw said.

Shaw said he has been LaCharite’s partner for 31 years and they have been married for six.

He said LaCharite was nothing but kind to the boy, who Shaw said came from a troubled family.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
dotCommonweal

[Stipulation of Testimony – via BishopAccountability.org]

September 8, 2012

Posted by David Gibson

In the New York Times, Laurie Goodstein has the chronology and narrative of the Father Ratigan case in Missouri that led to Thursday’s conviction of Bishop Robert Finn for failing to report a suspect abuser. Most of the facts have been public, but set out like this they tell a devastating story that sounds like it was discovered in a time capsule buried pre-2002.

But it was in December 2010 that Finn and diocesan officials were told about suspected child porn on Ratigan’s laptop — and that news came after they had received repeated warnings about his behavior. Following the pornography discovery, Ratigan attempted suicide. And yet…

He [Ratigan] left messages apologizing to his family for “the harm caused to the children or you.” When he survived, he was sent first to a hospital, and then to Dr. Rick Fitzgibbons, a psychiatrist in Pennsylvania selected by Bishop Finn. The bishop testified that he was told by the psychiatrist that Father Ratigan was not a risk to children, and had been falsely accused by the school principal.

During this period, two women on staff in diocesan headquarters were urging their superiors to turn Father Ratigan in. Rebecca Summers, then the director of communications, told Monsignor Murphy to call the police, according to the testimony. And Julie Creech, the technology employee, said in a deposition in a related civil suit that she went to see Bishop Finn in his office to make sure he understood what she had seen on the laptop. …

I’m not sure how the bishops can regain their credibility unless Bishop Finn resigns, but in my RNS story on Finn’s fate his spokesman says the bishop intends to stay. The Vatican declined to comment, and Bishop Conlon, the USCCB point man on abuse, reiterated the hierarchy’s commitment to following the civil and canon law requirements that Finn violated.

My sense is that the powers that be are waiting to see how the public and diocese will react. Maybe they will act quickly. Maybe they hope it’ll blow over sufficiently to allow Finn to stay on, or to be “promoted” some place in a couple years to save face.

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SOMERVILLE (MA)
My Fox Boston

A former Somerville priest has been arrested amid allegations that he indecently assaulted a child over a span of several years.

Massachusetts officials announced that Reverend Paul A. LaCharite of Boston has been arrested on assault to rape a child and indecent assault and battery on a child charges.

In a press release on Friday, District Attorney Leone explained the allegations.

“We allege that this defendant, holding a trusted position within the Episcopal Church, indecently assaulted and touched the victim over several years, only ending his 10 year long predatory abuse of the victim when the defendant left the church,” said District Attorney Leone. …

The diocese released the a statement on Friday night that reads in part:

“The diocese is cooperating fully with the investigation, and is making arrangements for pastoral care for the congregations where Paul LaCharite had affiliations. The Episcopal Church’s canonical disciplinary process has been initiated, and we remain committed to making our congregations safe through transparency, diligence, care for victims and due process. We face this situation with real sorrow and concern for everyone affected.”

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on September 07, 2012

Below is a copy of a letter that leaders of SNAP are sending to Pope Benedict, urging him to step in and punish Bishop Finn following his conviction yesterday on child endangerment charges.

*****
Dear Pope Benedict XVI;

Yesterday, Kansas City Bishop Robert Finn was found guilty of endangering kids by refusing to report suspected child sex crimes to police.

He and his lawyers admitted, in a written court filing, that several top diocesan staff saw, knew about or suspected that Fr. Shawn Ratigan had or created child porn photos of young girls at the parishes where he worked.

The secular justice system has spoken. Now you must act.

When wrongdoing is ignored, wrongdoing is repeated. When top Catholic officials refuse to punish complicit bishops, complicity is encouraged.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By David O’Reilly
Inquirer Staff Writer

St. Joseph’s University announced Friday that it would acquire the cardinal’s residence on City Avenue from the Archdiocese of Philadelphia for $10 million.

The stone mansion, on 8.9 acres, has served as the home of the archbishops of Philadelphia since 1935, when the church bought it for Cardinal Dennis Dougherty for $115,000.

Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, who assumed leadership of the archdiocese one year ago, put the 16-room residence on the market in January. In June, he reported that the archdiocese faced a $17.5 million operating debt.

Sources said Chaput, a Franciscan Capuchin friar, was not comfortable living in a baronial-style mansion as he was preparing his flock for school and parish closings to trim the deficit. He has also put the retired priests’ summer home in Ventnor, N.J., up for sale, with an estimated value of $6 million.

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CANADA
Metro

REGINA – The head of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission says former students at two Metis boarding schools in northern Saskatchewan should be afforded the same recognition as residential school survivors.

Ottawa refuses to place the boarding schools that operated in Timber Bay and Ile-a-la Crosse under the list of facilities approved in the Indian Residential School Agreement.

Chief Commissioner Murray Sinclair says the TRC is even coming back to Saskatchewan for hearings next week to give those Metis a chance to be heard.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

By Deborah McAleese
Saturday, 8 September 2012

A Catholic priest has been arrested and charged with defrauding his diocese out of almost £150,000 over a two-year period.

Fr Conleth Byrne (78) allegedly made a number of payments to a woman with funds belonging to the Diocese of Down and Connor.

He was parish priest in the village of Loughinisland, Co Down, at the time of the alleged fraud.

Fr Byrne appeared before Downpatrick Magistrates Court and was remanded on bail to appear before the town’s Crown Court next month.

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UNITED STATES
Right Wing Watch

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Fri, 09/07/2012

In another shameful episode of the Catholic League’s Bill Donohue apologism of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, Donohue played down the crimes of a Catholic priest, who in August “pleaded guilty to four counts of producing child pornography and one count of attempting to produce child pornography using girls as young as 2 years old,” and the Bishop who was convicted yesterday of shielding the priest. “The case did not involve child sexual abuse—no child was ever abused, or touched, in any way by Father Sean Ratigan,” Donohue said. “Nor did this case involve child pornography.” Following Bishop Robert Finn’s conviction, Donohue claimed that the “chorus of condemnations targeting Bishop Finn” are “as unfair as they are contrived.”

Let’s get rid of some myths. Bishop Finn was not found guilty of a felony: he was found guilty of one misdemeanor, and innocent of another. The case did not involve child sexual abuse—no child was ever abused, or touched, in any way by Father Sean Ratigan. Nor did this case involve child pornography. Here’s what happened.

On December 16, 2010, a computer technician found crotch-shot pictures of children, fully clothed, on Ratigan’s computer; there was one that showed a girl’s genitals exposed. The next day Ratigan attempted suicide. The Vicar General, Msgr. Robert Murphy, without seeing the photos, contacted a police officer about this matter. The officer, after consulting with another cop, said a single photo of a non-sexual nature would not constitute pornography. After a few more of the same types of photos were found, an attorney rendered the same judgment: they were not pornographic.

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MISSOURI
The Turner Report

In an order issued today, U. S. District Court Judge Irma Carrillo Ramirez rejected a request from a Texas family suing Branson-based Kanakuk for the names and addresses of sexual abuse victims of former Kanakuk camp director Pete Newman.

It was not a complete victory for Kanakuk however. Judge Ramirez ordered Kanakuk to send letters to the parents of Newman’s victims “that advises of the current litigation and provides the contact information for the parties’ attorneys. The parties shall confer regarding the form of the letter, and the final draft or drafts must be submitted to the Court for approval before it is sent.”

The attorneys for the plaintiff had argued that the names were needed to find more information about the patterns of Newman’s abuse and what Kanakuk officials might have known during the decade that Newman had access to the children.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
The New York Times

Editorial

The verdict was long overdue in the pedophile priest scandal, but a Roman Catholic bishop has become the highest-ranking church official found criminally guilty of shielding a priest known to be a threat to children. In a brief nonjury trial, Bishop Robert Finn, head of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Mo., was pronounced guilty on Thursday and sentenced to two years of probation for failing to alert law enforcement authorities about a predatory priest he knew was addicted to taking lewd photos of schoolgirls.

The conviction was evidence of the growing resolve of secular authorities, however belated, to venture up the hierarchical ladder in their search for accountability. The scandal has led to the dismissal and criminal investigation of more than 700 priests, even as their superiors have been spared — despite years of diocesan scheming to buy off victims and rotate rogue priests to new parishes.

Bishop Finn’s conviction was hardly encouraging for the cause of reform, however, since it involved very recent misdeeds — years after church leaders promised tough new policies aimed at preventing cover-ups.

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SOMERVILLE (MA)
Boston Globe

By Melanie Dostis, Globe Correspondent

An Episcopal priest in Somerville was arrested this afternoon on charges of repeated indecent assault of one of his child parishioners over a 10-year period, the Middlesex District Attorney’s office said.

Reverend Paul A. LaCharite, 65, of Boston was arrested on one count of assault with intent to rape a child and three counts of indecent assault and battery on a child, said the district attorney’s office.

“We allege that this defendant, holding a trusted position within the Episcopal Church, indecently assaulted and touched the victim over several years, only ending his 10-year-long predatory abuse of the victim when the defendant left the church,” Middlesex District Attorney Gerald T. Leone Jr. said in a statement.

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SOMERVILLE (MA)
Boston Herald

By Richard Weir
Saturday, September 8, 2012

An Episcopal priest was arrested yesterday on charges he sexually assaulted a Somerville parishioner over a 10-year span that allegedly began when the young boy was in elementary school, prosecutors said.

The Rev. Paul A. LaCharite, 65, former longtime rector of St. James Episcopal Church near Teele Square, turned himself in to Somerville police who booked him on one count of assault to rape a child and three counts of indecent assault and battery on a child. He faces life in prison if convicted.

LaCharite left St. James in 2005 after 16 years and recently served as priest associate at the Old North Church in Boston’s North End. …

The Rev. Canon Mally Lloyd of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts said church leaders were not aware of the investigation until learning of the priest’s arrest.

She added: “We take these allegations very seriously. … We don’t know who the victim is but we offer our apologies. It’s a terrible thing to happen to any child and family.”

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CHILE
Emol

SANTIAGO- El fiscal de la zona Oriente, Ignacio Pinto, que investiga las denuncias por presunto abuso sexual en contra del sacerdote John O’Reilly, decidió interrogar al suspendido capellán del Colegio Cumbres de Las Condes.

Según informa hoy “El Mercurio”, el persecutor accedió a la solicitud realizada por el propio abogado defensor del religioso, Luis Hermosilla, al inicio de las indagaciones.

El matutino informa que si bien el persecutor oirá el testimonio de O’Reilly, aún no decide en qué momento de la investigación realizará la diligencia.

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NEW YORK
WHEC

By: Lynette Adams | WHEC.com

One of the victims of a former church leader convicted of molesting three boys is speaking out.

On Friday, Joe Flowers was sentenced to one and a third to four years in state prison. He was sentenced to seven years on Thursday for taking one of the victims across state lines to Florida and abusing him. Flowers is currently in prison for abusing one of the boys from his church. In total, he’ll serve 14 years in prison.

The young man that News10NBC spoke with Friday had left Rochester and was in college when he heard people were questioning the story of the nine-year-old victim who came forward last spring. He says he broke his silence to support the boy because he too had been molested by the pastor for four years.

Joachiem Bradley closed a chapter in his life. In Friday in a Monroe County courtroom, Joe Flowers was sentenced for molesting him and his brother. He told the court how the former pastor used the word of God to win him over.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
Fox 4

[with video]

September 7, 2012, by Michelle Pekarsky and John Pepitone

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — There are renewed calls for Catholic Bishop Robert Finn to step down after his conviction for failing to report child abuse.

“It matters to us less what sanctions the pope issues, it matters to us more that the pope take some action against a proven criminal,” said David Clohessy, executive director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

Some Catholics are divided over who should be leading the diocese in Kansas City-St. Joseph now that Bishop Finn is the highest ranking Catholic leader ever to be convicted as part of the church’s child sex abuse scandal.

Defenders of the bishop say they are relieved the criminal case against him is finally over. But opponents say they will continue to push for change in the Catholic church as victims of abuse move forward with civil suits against the diocese.

Bishop Finn’s apology in court wasn’t enough for families who say their children were victims of sexual abuse at the hands of one Finn’s priests, Father Shawn Ratigan. It was Bishop Finn’s failure to report suspicions about Ratigan in a timely manner that led to his criminal conviction.

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APPLETON (WI)
Post-Crescent

APPLETON — A lawsuit brought by two childhood victims of clergy sexual abuse against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Green Bay will go before a jury for the second time next year.

Judge Nancy Krueger this week scheduled a May trial in Outagamie County Court in the civil case brought by brothers Todd and Troy Merryfield.

A jury found in the Merryfields’ favor in May and awarded the brothers $700,000. Krueger, however, granted the diocese a new trial after concluding that one of the jurors was biased. The Wisconsin Court of Appeals this week declined requests from both sides seeking review of decisions made after the verdict.

The Merryfields claim the diocese knew the Rev. John Feeney had a history of sexual misconduct when it installed him as a priest at Freedom’s St. Nicholas Church and falsely portrayed him as safe even though church officials knew he was a danger to children.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Rye and Battle Observer

[interim report]

Published on Saturday 8 September 2012

THE Archbishop of Canterbury has slammed the local diocese for its child protection failings claiming many lives have been “blighted”.

The report branded the child abuse as “wicked and shameful”.

Former Brede vicar Roy Cotton died before he could face fresh charges relating to child abuse, but there was outrage that he was allowed to carry on as a priest, by the Church of England, despite the fact the church knew of earlier criminal convictions for child abuse.

Cotton served at Brede and Udimore for a number of years and had access to the village primary school.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
The New York Times

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN

Published: September 7, 2012

On the surface, the Rev. Shawn Ratigan was just the kind of dynamic new priest that any Roman Catholic bishop would have been happy to put in a parish. He rode a motorcycle, organized summer mission trips to Guatemala and joined Bishop Robert W. Finn and dozens of students on a bus trek to Washington for the “March for Life,” a big annual anti-abortion rally.

But in December 2010, Bishop Finn got some disturbing news: Father Ratigan had just tried to commit suicide by running his motorcycle in a closed garage. The day before, a computer technician had discovered sexually explicit photographs of young girls on Father Ratigan’s laptop, including one of a toddler with her diaper pulled away to expose her genitals.

The decisions that Bishop Finn and his second-in-command in the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Msgr. Robert Murphy, made about Father Ratigan over the next five months ultimately led to the conviction of the bishop in circuit court on Thursday on one misdemeanor count of failing to report suspected child abuse. It was the first time a Catholic bishop in the United States had been held accountable in criminal court in the nearly three decades since the priest sexual abuse scandals first came to light.

Both Bishop Finn and Monsignor Murphy, as ministers, were required by law to report suspected child abuse to the civil authorities. But they were also required to report under policies that the American bishops put in place 10 years ago at the height of the scandal — policies that now hold the force of canon law.

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SOMERVILLE (MA)
Boston Globe

SOMERVILLE, Mass. (AP) — Authorities say an Episcopal priest, formerly of St. James Episcopal Church in Somerville, has been arrested on sexual assault charges involving a child.

The Somerville police chief said the 65-year-old Rev. Paul A. LaCharite of Boston was arrested Friday on one count of assault to rape a child and three counts of indecent assault and battery on a child. Authorities allege the abuse occurred over 10 years. The child and his family were parishioners at the church.

Police would not say if LaCharite was in jail Friday evening.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
The Globe and Mail (Canada)

BILL DRAPER

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Associated Press

Published Friday, Sep. 07 2012, 7:24 PM EDT

Calls for Bishop Robert Finn’s resignation intensified the day after he became the highest-ranking U.S. church official to be convicted of a crime related to a child sexual abuse scandal.

Soon after a Missouri judge found Bishop Finn guilty Thursday of one misdemeanor count of failing to report suspected child sexual abuse to the state, unhappy Roman Catholics began discussing ways to get the bishop out of office on a Facebook page titled “Bishop Finn Must Go.”

Among the posts was one that listed contact information for the Vatican and urged parishioners to voice their displeasure with Bishop Finn at the highest levels. Pope Benedict XVI alone has authority over bishops. Through the decades-long abuse scandal, only one U.S. bishop has stepped down over his failures to stop abusive clergy: Cardinal Bernard Law – who, in 2002, resigned as head of the Archdiocese of Boston.

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SOMERVILLE (MA)
WCVB

SOMERVILLE, Mass. —
An Episcopal priest, formerly of St. James Episcopal Church in Somerville, has been arrested and accused of abusing a child.

The Rev. Paul A. LaCharite, 65, of Boston, was arrested Friday on one count of assault to rape a child and three counts of indecent assault and battery on a child.

“We allege that this defendant, holding a trusted position within the Episcopal Church, indecently assaulted and touched the victim over several years, only ending his 10-year-long predatory abuse of the victim when the defendant left the church,” Middlesex District Attorney Gerry Leone said.

The victim and his family were longtime parishioners at St. James Episcopal Church. In the 1990s, beginning when the victim was in elementary school, LaCharite began inappropriately touching the victim in his office, police said.

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SOMERVILLE (MA)
CBS Boston

SOMERVILLE (CBS) – A former Somerville priest was arrested Friday on child rape charges. Reverend Paul LaCharite, formerly of St. James Episcopal Church, is alleged to have abused a child for more than 10 years.

“We allege that this defendant, holding a trusted position within the Episcopal Church, indecently assaulted and touched the victim over several years, only ending his 10 year long predatory abuse of the victim when the defendant left the church,” District Attorney Leone said.

Authorities say the victim and his family were longtime parishioners at the Somerville church, and the priest began inappropriately touching the victim in his office during the 1990s. The abuse is alleged to have progressed over a ten year period to include several indecent assault and batteries and assaults with the intent rape a child.

The victim says the abuse ended when he was a teenager and left the church.

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UNITED STATES
Irish Times

THE FIRST American bishop criminally charged in the US clerical sex abuse scandal was found guilty of a misdemeanour count of failing to report suspected child abuse, a conviction described as “historic” by campaigners.

Catholic Bishop Robert Finn was acquitted on a second count.

He received two years of probation but that sentence was suspended and will be wiped from his record if he adheres to conditions that include mandatory abuse reporting training, setting aside $10,000 (€7,800) in diocese money for abuse victim counselling, and instructing all diocesan agents to report suspected criminal activity involving minors.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Previous reports into child abuse by clergy showed poor children were especially vulnerable. But the latest audit indicates that the middle classes were also at risk, writes CARL O’BRIEN

THEY ARE BASTIONS of privilege that for generations have taken in the sons of Catholic middle-class families and moulded them into the leaders of tomorrow. The Spiritan Congregation, formerly known as the the Holy Ghost Fathers, runs schools – including Blackrock College, St Michael’s, St Mary’s and Templeogue College in Dublin, and Rockwell College in Co Tipperary – that have produced lawyers, doctors, politicians, senior members of the judiciary and other members of the establishment.

For some people they are schools that have represented academic excellence, sporting endeavour and moral guardianship over the past century or more. For others they are schools that have bred a rock-solid certainty and confidence among students that to outsiders can seem like arrogance.

“Fearless and bold,” reads the title of a recent book celebrating Blackrock’s 150th anniversary. That reputation makes this week’s revelations of abuse at the schools all the more jarring.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By Joseph A. Slobodzian
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

Philadelphia prosecutors confirmed Friday that they were considering calling defrocked priest and admitted pedophile Edward Avery as a witness in the trial of a Philadelphia priest and a former Catholic schoolteacher accused of sexually assaulting a 10-year-old altar boy.

The information was made public at a hearing where the delayed Sept. 4 trial of the Rev. Charles Engelhardt and teacher Bernard Shero got a new date – Oct. 22 – and a new judge in Common Pleas Court, Ellen Ceisler.

Avery, 70, is serving a 21/2- to five-year prison term after pleading guilty to sexually assaulting the same 10-year-old altar boy in 1999 when Avery, then chaplain at Nazareth Hospital, lived in the rectory of St. Jerome’s parish in Northeast Philadelphia.

But of more significance to Engelhardt and Shero is the prosecution’s allegation that Engelhardt, the parochial vicar at St. Jerome’s, first molested the child in 1998 and “passed him along” to Avery and then Shero.

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SOMERVILLE (MA)
Patch

By Chris Orchard

A former minister at Saint James Episcopal Church in Teele Square has been arrested and accused of sexual assault on a child, according to an announcement from the Middlesex District Attorney’s office. The alleged assault began in the 1990s and took place over the course of 10 years, the announcement says.

According to the announcement, Somerville police are investigating the case and are asking that anyone with information contact them at 617-625-1212 x 7220 or the Middlesex District Attorney’s child abuse unit at 781-897-8400.

No one answered the phone at Saint James Episcopal Church Friday evening.

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SOMERVILLE (MA)
Wicked Local Somerville

By Staff reports
Wicked Local Somerville

Posted Sep 07, 2012 @ 07:21 PM

Somerville —

The following is a press release:

An Episcopal Priest, formerly of St. James Episcopal Church in Somerville, has been arrested on assault to rape a child and indecent assault and battery on a child charges, Middlesex District Attorney Gerry Leone and Somerville Police Chief Thomas Pasquarello informed the public today.

Reverend Paul A. LaCharite, 65, of Boston, was arrested this afternoon on one count of assault to rape a child and three counts of indecent assault and battery on a child.

“We allege that this defendant, holding a trusted position within the Episcopal Church, indecently assaulted and touched the victim over several years, only ending his 10 year long predatory abuse of the victim when the defendant left the church,” District Attorney Leone said. “Our office will continue to prosecute those who harm or exploit children, as they are our most vulnerable victims and most deserving of our protection.”

Somerville Police Chief Thomas Pasquarello said, “The Somerville Police Department will continue to work with the District Attorney’s Office as we investigate these serious allegations.”

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
The Olympian

By BILL DRAPER | Associated Press • Published September 07, 2012

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Calls for Bishop Robert Finn’s resignation intensified a day after he became the highest-ranking U.S. church official to be convicted of a crime related to the child sexual abuse scandal.

Soon after a Missouri judge found Finn guilty Thursday of one misdemeanor count of failing to report suspected child sexual abuse to the state, unhappy Roman Catholics began discussing ways to get the bishop out of office on a Facebook page titled “Bishop Finn Must Go.”

Among the posts was one that listed contact information for the Vatican and urged parishioners to voice their displeasure with Finn at the highest levels. Pope Benedict XVI alone has authority over bishops. Through the decades-long abuse scandal, only one U.S. bishop has stepped down over his failures to stop abusive clergy: Cardinal Bernard Law, who in 2002 resigned as head of the Archdiocese of Boston.

Jackson County Judge John M. Torrence sentenced Finn to two years of supervised probation. If the bishop abides by a set of stipulations from the judge, the conviction will be wiped from his record in 2014.

“Now that our justice system says he’s guilty, he has lost his ability to lead our diocese,” Kansas City Catholic Patricia Rotert said Friday. “He’s lost his credibility. There is turmoil and angst around him and I don’t think he can bring people together.” …

“I said for years that we wouldn’t be in the mess we were in today if about 30 bishops had said ‘I made a mistake, I’m sorry, I take full responsibility and I resign,'” said the Rev. Thomas J. Reese, a senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University. “I think we’re at a state in the life of the church when a bishop is convicted of a misdemeanor, found guilty of not doing what he was supposed to do, I think he should resign for the good of the diocese and the good of the church.”

Support for Finn’s resignation is far from unanimous. Some say they agree he made a mistake, but it’s not one that should force him out, especially with even more stringent safeguards in place to protect children.

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UNITED STATES
The Age (Australia)

An American Roman Catholic bishop was found guilty on one count of failing to report suspected child abuse, becoming the first US bishop in the decades-long sexual abuse scandals to be convicted of shielding a paedophile priest.

In a hastily announced bench trial in Kansas City that lasted a little over an hour, a judge found the bishop, Robert Finn, guilty on one misdemeanour charge and not guilty on a second charge, for failing to report a priest who had taken hundreds of pornographic pictures of young girls. The counts each carried a maximum penalty of one year in jail and a $US1000 fine, but Finn was sentenced to two years’ court-supervised probation.

The verdict is a watershed moment in the priest sexual abuse scandal that has plagued the church since the 1980s. Bishops, eager to turn the page on this era, put in place extensive abuse prevention policies, including reporting suspected abusers to law enforcement authorities. But this case has served as a wake-up call that the policies cannot be effective if bishops do not follow them.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
USA Today

By David Gibson

(RNS) Catholic Bishop Robert W. Finn was found guilty Thursday of failing to tell police about a priest suspected of sexually exploiting children, an unprecedented verdict that is being hailed as a landmark in the effort to bring accountability to the church’s hierarchy.

Finn, leader of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph and an outspoken conservative in the American hierarchy, was convicted of a single misdemeanor count for not telling police that one of his priests, the Rev. Shawn Ratigan, had taken hundreds of lewd images of children in Catholic schools and parishes.

But even as he became the first U.S. bishop ever convicted in criminal court for shielding an abusive priest, Finn’s standing inside the church appears uncertain, and the subject of intense debate.

Should he stay or should he go? Finn has indicated that he wants to tough it out.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Times Online

Associated Press

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia is selling the cardinal’s residence to an adjacent Roman Catholic university for $10 million.

Saint Joseph’s University announced Friday that it signed a letter of intent with church officials to acquire the nearly 9-acre property. The purchase is expected to close in a few weeks.

The land includes a three-story main building with more than 23,000 square feet, and two additional buildings. The university did not specify how the property would be used.

The residence is one of several properties being sold by the archdiocese as it tries to close a budget deficit. Next week, officials will auction a sprawling beachfront villa in New Jersey that had been used as a vacation home for priests.

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CONNECTICUT
Greenwich Times

David Hennessey

Published 11:05 p.m., Thursday, September 6, 2012

The former pastor of a Greenwich church sentenced in July for federal obstruction of justice has reported to a Brooklyn, N.Y., prison, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

Michael Moynihan, 59, who was sentenced to five months in jail followed by two years of supervised release, is now at the Metropolitan Detention Center.

Located near the Gowanus Bay, the prison is classified as an administrative facility, a type of institution intended for the detention of pretrial offenders, dangerous or escape-prone inmates, or for treatment of inmates with medical problems, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

The Brooklyn facility is capable of holding male and female inmates in all security categories.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
Washington Post

Trial switch of bishop guilty of protecting priest was PR move to help the church, critic says

By Diana Reese

The switch from a jury to a bench trial for Bishop Robert Finn, convicted Thursday of trying to protect a priest by failing to report suspected child abuse, was a “masterful” public relations move to resolve the

Finn, the highest-ranking Catholic cleric in the United States to face criminal charges in the church’s child sex abuse scandal, was found guilty Thursday of on one misdemeanor count of failure to report suspicions of child abuse and was acquitted on a second count. He was sentenced to two years’ probation, which will be suspended under specific conditions.

On the plus side, the joint move by the defense and prosecutors to switch the trial with just 24 hours’ notice spared victims and their families the agony of testifying at a long, drawn-out jury trial that had been predicted to go on for two weeks or longer later this month.

But David Clohessy, the St. Louis-based director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), said he believed the bishop’s motive was to spare himself more humiliation.

“This was masterful public relations by a desperate bishop,” Clohessy told me. “It was clearly designed to minimize public input and public awareness.”

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
Star Tribune

Article by: BILL DRAPER , Associated Press
Updated: September 7, 2012

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Parishioners in Missouri and observers across the U.S. say Bishop Robert Finn should resign after being convicted of failing to report suspected child sexual abuse to the state.

Supporters say Finn made a mistake, but not one that should result in him being booted from his role as leader of the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph.

Finn was found guilty Thursday of one misdemeanor charge and sentenced to two years of probation. If he abides by all the conditions, the conviction will be removed from his record in 2014.

Congregation member Patricia Rotert says Finn has lost his credibility and should step down.

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UNITED STATES
Anti-Catholic League

By David Fortwengler

Let’s get rid of some myths. The Catholic League is not a civil rights organization as they claim. The Catholic League does not “defend the right of Catholics to participate in American public life without defamation or discrimination” as they claim.

That is because there is no discrimination of Catholics to participate in public life. The two vice-presidential candidates are Catholic, six Supreme Court justices are Catholic, dozens of U.S Representatives and Senators are Catholic (including the Speaker of the House who is third in line to the Presidency), and thousands of other elected officials across this country are Catholic. If Cardinal Dolan or Bill Donohue want to run for office they are welcome to try.

When Donohue and his league of misguided membership refer to defamation and discrimination what they really mean is some people disagree with them. They hate that.

With that being said, the least of my problems are the fabricated rants of a delusional organization and their bombastic leader. My problem is the deliberate pain he inflicts on survivors of sex crimes committed when they were minors, including me. Donohue is free to manipulate his own mind when it comes to portraying the Catholic Church as a victim of an anti-Catholic conspiracy regarding the sex abuse scandal. But when he LIES about the facts he offends and rightly outrages all who don’t practice his form of mental gymnastics.

Today Donohue published his response to yesterday’s conviction of Kansas City Bishop Robert Finn for failing to report suspicion of child sexual abuse. In Bill’s press release titled “Assessing Bishop Finn’s Guilt” he concludes the “condemnations targeting Bishop Finn to be as unfair as they are contrived.” Why would it be unfair to be disgusted and outraged at the actions of Bishop Finn? He was not targeted, he was convicted. The facts weren’t contrived, they were stipulated to by Finn’s own attorney’s. (paid for by the fine catholics of Kansas City)

I will now take a deep breath and detail the absolute, dangerous, and hurtful LIES Donohue spews in release. His comments are in blue and my response follows in black.

The case did not involve child sexual abuse—no child was ever abused, or touched, in any way by Father Sean Ratigan. Nor did this case involve child pornography.

Father Shawn Ratigan has been convicted of possessing and producing child pornography which was on the computer that Bishop Finn was aware of. According to the stipulation of facts when a computer technician examining Ratigan’s computer on December 16, 2010 discovered alarming pictures, they included close up photos of a little girls naked vagina. The series of eight photos showed the girl’s panties being moved aside in each picture. The girl was estimated by police to be three or four years old. Does Donohue think she moved the panties herself to give Ratigan a better shot?

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OHIO
The Plain Dealer

By Plain Dealer staff

CLEVELAND, Ohio — The Rev. Samuel Ciccolini was re-sentenced this afternoon in federal court — ending up with a six-mohth jail term and $830,000 fine after having an earlier sentence overturned, officials said.

Ciccolini, an an associate priest at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Akron, appeared before U.S. District Judge Games Gwin just after noon today.

Ohio.com reported that Gwin also sentenced Ciccolini to two years of supervised release and probation following the prison stay.

The report said that Gwin fined Ciccolini $584,272 on an income tax charge and another $250,00 on a bank fraud charge.

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NEDERLAND
Reformatorisch Dagblad

UTRECHT (ANP) – De Congregatie voor de Geloofsleer heeft besloten een 59-jarige priester, die voor misbruik van kinderen is veroordeeld, uit de clericale staat te zenden en hem dispensatie van al zijn ambtelijke taken op te leggen. Voor een priester is dit de zwaarste kerkrechtelijke sanctie, aldus het aartsbisdom Utrecht vrijdag.

De priester zit 10 maanden gevangenisstraf uit wegens misbruik van een 12-jarige jongen uit Oldenzaal vorig jaar op een camping in Frankrijk. De man was op dat moment voornamelijk werkzaam als legeraalmoezenier.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Welt

Die 51-Jährige zieht damit die Konsequenz aus Ermittlungen der Staatsanwaltschaft wegen Alkohols am Steuer. Käßmann war am Samstagabend mit 1,54 Promille Alkohol im Blut am Steuer ihres Dienstwagens in Hannover angehalten worden.

Käßmann erklärte am Mittwoch in Hannover, sie haben einen “schweren Fehler” gemacht, den sie “zutiefst” bereue. Amt und Autorität seien beschädigt. Respekt und Achtung vor ihrer eigenen Person hätten sie zum Rücktritt bewogen. Sie bleibe aber Pastorin der evangelischen Landeskirche, sagte sie.

Mit Bedauern reagierte Günther Beckstein, Vizepräses der Synode der Evangelischen Kirche in Deutschland (EKD) und ehemaliger bayerischer Ministerpräsident. “Es ist ihre Entscheidung, die ich respektiere”, sagte Beckstein.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic Culture

By Phil Lawler | September 07, 2012

So now an American bishop is a convicted criminal. Do you suppose there’s any chance the other bishops will finally get the message?

Bishop Robert Finn has been convicted in a court of law for doing what scores of other American bishops have done in the recent past. It’s true that Bishop Finn will not serve actual jail time, and his criminal record will be erased after he completes a term of probation; but the judge had the authority to put him behind bars for a year.

In Pennsylvania, meanwhile, Msgr. William Lynn is already behind bars, for doing what his cardinal-archbishop apparently told him to do.

Some intelligent observers argue that Bishop Finn (and Msgr. Lynn, for that matter) should not have been convicted. But I am inclined to accept the judgment of the courts—as Bishop Finn, at least, has apparently done. Any loyal Catholic should also be troubled by the prospect of a secular court passing judgment on a bishop’s exercise of episcopal ministry. But in this case there is no doubt in my mind that civil officials are emboldened to police the bishops because the bishops have so calamitously failed to police themselves.

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IRELAND
Irish Central

By
CATHY HAYES,
IrishCentral Staff Writer

Published Friday, September 7, 2012, 1:10 PM

The Bishop of Clonfert Dr John Kirby has admitted he made out-of-court settlements in the 1990s to two victims of sexual abuse at the hands of a Catholic priest in his diocese.

Kirby spoke yesterday after the publication of seven reports by the National Board for Safeguarding Children (NBSC) into child safeguarding practices in the Catholic Church. He said, as he remembers, the payments were made in 1994 and 1998. Including legal fee they totaled “circa IR£130,000”.

Earlier this week Kirby shocked with comments about his understand of what pedophilia was. He said he had thought this sexual abuse was just “friendship that crossed a boundary line”.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
Jeff Anderson & Associates

Gregg Meyers

Today, Jackson County Judge John Torrence found Bishop Finn of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph guilty on one count of failing to report child abuse. Bishop Finn’s trial arises out of his own actions and the Diocese’s actions surrounding the December 2010 discovery that a Diocesan priest, Rev. Shawn Ratigan, produced child pornography with young parishioners of the Diocese.

This verdict follows the disturbing report last week that when Bishop Finn was first alerted by a Diocesan staffer about the child pornography found on Shawn Ratigan’s computer, he reacted by merely saying, “boys will be boys.” As a further indication of the Bishop’s callous indifference, Bishop Finn and the Diocese sat on this crucial information and did not report it to law enforcement for six months.

For Finn’s key role in protecting a known child predator to the detriment of children in the Diocese, Judge Torrence sentenced him to two-years of suspended probation with eight conditions. This sentence is light given that Finn was facing a maximum sentence of one year in jail and a $1,000 fine.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
ABC News

By MARYCLAIRE DALE Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA September 7, 2012 (AP)

Prosecutors have subpoenaed an imprisoned former Roman Catholic priest to testify for the government at an upcoming church-abuse trial in Philadelphia.

The rape trial of the Rev. Charles Engelhardt and a former Catholic school teacher has also been rescheduled for next month before a new judge.

Engelhardt and ex-teacher Bernard Shero are charged with raping the same boy in the late 1990s at a northeast Philadelphia parish.

Defrocked priest Edward Avery is in prison after admitting he sexually assaulted the boy. Prosecutors disclosed Friday they’ve subpoenaed Avery to testify at the upcoming trial.

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CHILE
La Tercera

Niegan perito privado y mantienen secreto de investigación por supuesto abuso de colegio Cumbres

por Felipe Passi y Paulo Muñoz – 05/09/2012

La investigación que realiza la Fiscalía Oriente a propósito del presunto abuso sexual ocurrido en el recinto en contra de un menor del colegio Cumbres tuvo hoy un nuevo capítulo en el Cuarto Juzgado de Garantía de Santiago.

La defensa del sacerdote del colegio, John O’Reilly, acusado como el autor de los delitos y quien fue separado de la institución, pidió la revisión de medidas cautelares que apuntaban al secreto de la investigación y que un perito del equipo de abogados de O’Reilly esté mientras se le hacen pericias a la supuesta víctima.

Ambas solicitudes fueron negadas por el tribunal encaabezado por la jueza Daniela Guerrero.

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CHILE
Emol

Por Andrea González Schmessane, Emol

SANTIAGO.- El Cuarto Juzgado de Garantía de Santiago ordenó este miércoles mantener el secreto de la investigación respecto a las indagatorias que realiza la Fiscalía Oriente sobre el presunto abuso sexual contra una menor ocurrido al interior del Colegio Cumbres.

Esto, luego que la defensa del sacerdote John O’Reilly -quien es sindicado como responsable del hecho- solicitara la revisión de cautelas de garantías para pedir tener acceso a la carpeta de antecedentes y que un perito privado esté presente al momento de la declaración de la supuesta víctima.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

September 8, 2012

Barney Zwartz

MELBOURNE and Sydney’s most senior rabbis are at loggerheads over the unexplained sacking of a rabbi from Melbourne’s Yeshivah Centre, with Melbourne leaders accused of ”desecrating God’s name”.

The centre’s chief rabbi, Zvi Hirsch Telsner, has defied an order by the Sydney Beth Din (the rabbinical court) to stay the sacking, prompting an ultimatum from the court to back down by Tuesday or be shamed worldwide.

According to Jewish community figures, Rabbi Telsner overruled the injunction and instructed Yeshivah Centre chairman Don Wolf to sack Rabbi Mordechai Engel, 42, who has nine children, including a newborn baby, and has worked there for 14 years.

The Yeshivah Centre – the headquarters of the Orthodox Chabad movement, with two schools and many other facilities – has been controversial within the Jewish community for its handling of sexual abuse allegations from the 1980s to the present. Police were highly critical of community leaders in the Melbourne Magistrate’s Court last year.

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UNITED KINGDOM
West Sussex County Times

[interim report]

The Bishop of Chichester has said he is ‘profoundly ashamed’ of the church in Sussex following the publication of a report on the safeguarding of children in the diocese.

The report by the Archbishop of Canterbury’s office comes after an internal inquiry prompted by the convictions of Roy Cotton and Colin Pritchard who abused children in Diocese of Chichester in the 70s and 80s.

This year three other former priests were charged with child sex abuse offences, of which cases are still ongoing, and Lambeth Palace is now overseeing all clergy appointments in Sussex ‘until better practice can be assured’.

Dr Martin Warner, the new Bishop of Chichester, agreed with the report that there was ‘dysfunctionality’ in the structure of the Diocese of Chichester and said that all bishops needed to work together better and said he will seek reconciliation with all survivors.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Church Times

Posted: 07 Sep 2012

Managing people decently is an essential part of Christian work – no a bureaucratic luxury, argues Jon Kuhrt

The organisational dysfunction exposed by the Archbishop of Canterbury’s commissaries’ interim report on the diocese of Chichester is shocking. This case is focused on safeguarding children and vulnerable adults, but in many ways it is an extreme example of a wider problem in the Church: that of poor management of people.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Church Times

by Ed Thornton

Posted: 07 Sep 2012

“DYSFUNCTIONALITY” within Chichester diocese is preventing adequate child-safeguarding, and must be “urgently addressed”, the interim report of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s commissaries, published on Thursday of last week, says.

The archiepiscopal visitation, the first for more than 100 years, is being carried out by a former Bishop of Chelmsford, the Rt Revd John Gladwin, and Canon Rupert Bursell QC (News, 30 December).

The Archbishop of Canterbury said in a statement, issued the same day as the report, that there remained “several areas of concern” in the diocese, and that he had therefore decided that the visitation “should continue, and that both safeguarding and appointments matters should be conducted under the supervision of this office until uniformly better practice can be assured”.

The interim report says that “dysfunctionality . . . continues to impinge upon the adequacy of safeguarding within the diocese.” Such dysfunctionality – which includes clerics’ officiating without permission – demonstrates “a failure to appreciate the connection between safeguarding and the proper structures of the Church”.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Huffington Post

Jonathan Wheeler

A human response from the C of E hierarchy contrasts with the attitude of the Catholic Church

The Rt Rev Dr Martin Warner, the Bishop of Chichester, has said he is “profoundly ashamed” by the fact that the Church’s safeguarding procedures failed vulnerable children in the Chichester diocese. He said an apology to the victims was “too light a word”, and that he will do all he can to ensure that such vile practices do not happen again within the Church.

The Bishop’s comments come days after an interim report was issued by Lambeth Palace, following an inquiry into a paedophile ring within the diocese which has seen five arrests (three this year) and two former priests convicted for a string of sexual offences against children. The Archbishop of Canterbury’s response to the report was also one of deep regret that matters had been so badly handled in Chichester. He expressed hope that the victims will believe that the Church of England would take their experiences seriously. He said:

“We owe them not only our words of apology but our best efforts to make sure that in the future our churches will be safe places for children and vulnerable people of all ages”.

The Archbishop admitted that the report showed “many and longstanding failures in implementing a robust and credible safeguarding policy in the Diocese of Chichester” and he assured those individuals affected that the Church was committed to learning lessons from the past.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
Waiting for Godot to Leave

There’s something about Christ and how we fail Him that we can learn from Kansas City / St. Joseph Bishop Finn.

Here’s what Bishop Finn did –

He was informed by letter by a Catholic School Principal at St. Patrick’s Parish in Kansas City that parents and teachers were concerned about the behavior of their pastor, Fr. Ratigan, who was trying to spend time alone with students, who insisted on giving a little girl a massage at a church event, who was taking a lot of pictures of little girls, and in whose garden a pair of little girl’s underwear was discovered. Bishop Finn ignored the letter.

A year later, a computer technician finds hundreds of photos on Fr. Ratigan’s computer – photos of little girl students at the parish school, and one of a sleeping two year old, with her diaper moved to the side to reveal her genitalia – all taken by Fr. Ratigan. In fact, the photos of the students were taken surreptitiously on the playground, at the cafeteria and elsewhere, and included close-ups of girls’ crotches, and some where their underwear or genitals were showing. Also on the computer were links to sites that sell spy cameras. The computer is taken to Msgr. Murphy, the vicar general, who before seeing the photos, (that’s right, before seeing the photos) calls an off-duty police officer and asks him if a few photos of a mostly-clothed children could be pornographic. The off-duty police officer says, “Maybe.” This is the only contact the diocese makes with the police, until they are forced to contact them again six months later. Some of the photos are downloaded from the computer by the chancery, but Bishop Finn gives the computer to a relative of Fr. Ratigan’s, who then promptly destroys it.

Fr. Ratigan attempts suicide but survives. He is sent to a counselor in Pennsylvania for a very brief evaluation. The counselor says, “This man is fine. He just needs the principal of the school to stop picking on him.” Bishop Finn does not allow the parishioners to know what has happened; they are only told of the suicide attempt. No effort is made to determine who the victims were. No effort is made to contact their families, to see if the children were physically assaulted as well as photographed. No counseling or outreach or intervention of any kind is offered. The victims and their families are kept entirely in the dark.

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