ABUSE TRACKER

LOUISIANA
What They Knew

There is another Jesuit priest we know very well on this site who almost escaped to Louisiana back in the early 1980s, notorious child sex abuser Donald McGuire SJ. In an exchange of documents between then Chicago Provincial Leo Klein SJ and the Roman Catholic Bishop Joseph Sullivan of Baton Rouge, a notorious abuser of children himself.
—
Bishop Joseph Sullivan knew he wanted Donald McGuire SJ closer to him

In the suit, a Houston man alleged that Bishop Joseph Vincent Sullivan abused him from 1978 to 1982, nearly two years of which he spent in the Corpus Christi Minor Seminary. The man, now 42, was a teenage students in the Baton Rouge minor seminary and transferred to Corpus Christi after schools closed in Baton Rouge and Lumberton. Sullivan remained bishop in Baton Rouge but would visit the boy at the Corpus Christi Minor Seminary, a high school for boys aspiring to the priesthood. A third accusation in 2005 named the diocese as a co-defendant with Sullivan in a civil lawsuit filed in Hawaii. It accused Sullivan of sexually abusing a minor during visits to Hawaii from 1969 to 1977.

Sullivan died in 1982.

But in 1981 Bishop Sullivan, a now named pedophile himself, sought to have Donald McGuire SJ transferred to Baton Rouge where he could work with students at Louisiana State University (LSU) or at a parish in Baton Rouge and help out at Mother Angelica’s fledgling EWTN TV. The exchange between the Chicago Province and the New Orleans Province and Bishop Sullivan is below. What is obvious from these letters, is that both the Chicago and New Orleans Provincials knew Donald McGuire SJ had serious enough problems that he would not be allowed to go to Louisiana.

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

WEST VIRGINIA
What They Knew

Wheeling Jesuit University, in West Virginia but run by the Society of Jesus of the Maryland Province, has been in the news again, and if it’s on this site, it’s not for the right reasons. Plus it gives us a chance to recap one of our favorite topics

…a Federal investigation of Jesuits

Former Wheeling President Julio Giulietti SJ went on to work in Viet Nam as representative of Loyola University-Chicago in developing programs of nurse and physician education.

Chronological list of Wheeling’s Sex, Crime & Dishonor after Fr. Julio’s Jesuit based administration was slammed shut:

10/14/9 – WJU picketed by SNAP (Survivor’s Network of those Abused by Priests) because of WJU’s ongoing harboring of accused predator Thomas F. (Tommy) Gleeson, S.J.

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

LOUISIANA
What They Knews

[with FEMA document]

The Fortunate Sons of St. Ignatius
vs
Department of Homeland Security FEMA

In a newly discovered document obtained by this site, the New Orleans Province of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) are being investigated by Homeland Security over accusations arising from an audit that outlines misuse, fraud and failure to handle FEMA grant funds in violation of federal law involving post Hurricane Katrina construction.

Living in “The Big Easy” post-Hurricane Katrina was not easy for most people. But it was much easier for Jesuits. Unlike most people, who worry about death and taxes, Jesuits have to worry about neither. They pay no federal taxes and are not even required to outline their wealth to the IRS as a religious organization “who has taken the vow of poverty”. Yet when Hurricane Katrina didn’t spare the New Orleans Jesuit Province and their school Jesuit High, the Jesuits deftly swooped in to seize over $11 million in federal tax payer funded relief from FEMA in the form of grants. That in and of itself is not shocking. What is shocking and likely criminal is what the Jesuits then did with that free federal tax payer money. Read all 10 pages and look at the numbers below.

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JAPAN
The Japan Times

By MICHAEL BRADLEY

It is over three years since it was revealed that an Irish Catholic priest had abused several children in Japan. His victims here are probably still unaware their tormentor was a serial offender.

Position of trust: Father Patrick Maguire’s 13-year stay in Japan ended when the Columban Fathers spirited him back to Ireland in 1974 following a “problem” with “young male children.” He went on to abuse dozens more minors in the U.K. and Ireland. AP

Father Patrick Maguire worked in Japan between 1961 and 1974, during which time he has admitted to abusing at least 13 boys, 10 of them in 1973. The priest subsequently went on to abuse dozens more children in Britain and Ireland, and has been convicted (and imprisoned) on separate counts of indecent assault in both jurisdictions. He has never been held to account for his actions in this country.

“Bishop Hirata was most understanding but said that it would be best that Pat slip out of Japan quietly.” So wrote a fellow priest in Maguire’s Columban Fathers to the society’s head in Ireland in 1974. The reason for Maguire’s hasty exit was a “problem” involving “young male children” and “a danger that the weekly magazines would latch onto a thing like that and blow it up out of all proportions.” So, fearing adverse publicity, the Church spirited him back to Ireland. For his Japanese victims, that was probably the last they heard of Father Maguire.

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

TEXAS
DFW Catholic

Tyler, Texas, Oct 1, 2012 / 01:08 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- In a rare move, Pope Benedict XVI has named Monsignor Joseph E. Strickland, the vicar general of the Diocese of Tyler, as the next bishop of the same east Texas diocese he has served as a priest for over 25 years.

“I know it’s a tremendous task that I’m given. But I’m here with family,” Bishop-designate Strickland told a Sept. 29 press conference in Tyler.

He thanked God for his “wondrous blessings” and thanked the Pope “for his expression of confidence.” He also expressed his gratitude to his parents and his siblings, who were not present.

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PHILIPPINES
Inquirer

Cebu Daily News
9:08 am | Tuesday, October 2nd, 2012

If he had his way, Cebu Archbishop Emeritus Ricardo Cardinal Vidal would have National Geographic Magazine writer Bryan Christy declared persona non grata or unwelcome in Cebu for his “Ivory Worship” article that linked a Cebu priest to the illegal ivory trade.

Vidal’s reaction was reported by ABS-CBN TV Patrol Central Visayas, which said the prelate was upset by Christy’s artlcle that quoted Msgr. Cristobal Garcia as naming ivory carvers of Sto. Nino icons n Manila and giving tips on how to smuggle them to the United States, allegations which the cardinal said were misquotations and pictured Catholic devotees as “idolaters”.

“He (Christy) deceived us and he deceived the people whom he interviewed when he said he was trying to publish something about the devotion (to the Sto. Niño),” Vidal said during the TV interview.

(Technically, persona non grata status is a declaration for unwanted diplomats made by the host State although the term is commonly used to mean a person who is ostracized or rejected.)

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CHILE
El Mostrador

Las declaraciones del arzobispo de Santiago, Ricardo Ezzati, sobre casos de abusos sexuales fueron refutadas este lunes por el abogado Juan Pablo Hermosilla, que representa a las víctimas en el caso Karadima, consignó Radio Cooperativa.

El prelado hizo eco ayer a los dichos del obispo de Rancagua, Alejandro Goic, quien afirmó que la Iglesia Católica no tendría los recursos económicos para destinarlos a posibles reparaciones a las víctimas. Al respecto, Ezzati aseguró que las indemnizaciones “dependen de lo que las víctimas hayan pedido y dependen de las posibilidades reales que existan de pagar (…) las culpas son siempre personales, no institucionales. Por consiguiente, quienes están llamados a responder por sus delitos son las personas, y la Iglesia es una institución, no una persona”.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By Conor Ryan, Investigative Correspondent

Monday, October 01, 2012

Education Minister Ruairi Quinn has criticised religious orders for failing to pay their share of the compensation bill for abuse victims as the total nears €1.5bn.

With internal memos showing the child abuse redress package will now cost an extra €110m, it has emerged negotiations with the religious in the past year have hit the rocks.

Internal memos show the bill for dealing with child abuse in residential institutions has risen to €1.47bn, up from €1.36bn in 2011.

However, writing in today’s Irish Examiner, Mr Quinn has admitted that taxpayers are picking up the majority of the tab.

“I believe there is a moral obligation. I believe that fairness demands such an approach,” he said.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By Ruairi Quinn

Monday, October 01, 2012

Religious congregations must meet 50% of the cost of the State’s response to residential abuse, writes Ruairi Quinn

IT IS over three years since the Ryan Report shocked our nation. The litany and scale of child abuse in institutional settings and the anguished voices of the victims and survivors amplified through that report caused us all, as a people, to hang our heads in shame.

It was only right that the State apologised to those whose childhoods were stolen and who, in many instances, could not live full lives as adults and citizens.

Those who managed the institutions failed those children and the State, through it’s agents, failed in its duty to protect its most vulnerable citizens.

The victims have been able to seek redress and receive compensation from the Residential Institutions Redress Board since 2002. This will not give them back their childhoods, but it is an acknowledgement of the pain and abuse they suffered. It is expected some 15,000 former residents will have received awards when the board completes its work.

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

ILLINOIS
Southtown Star

Some evil is simply wrong. Sometimes it’s also illegal.

The law is not mysterious. The law usually says what it means.

Thus we are perplexed how a massive spiritual entity such as the 15,000-member First Baptist Church of Hammond did not know that adults taking children across state lines for sex was a crime. It’s been a crime for more than a century.

When the leadership of the church fired pastor-in-chief the Rev. Jack Schaap last summer for that activity and turned his case over to police, they seemed puzzled about the law. At his sentencing, Schaap also expressed surprise that what he did was a crime.

They all know better now, but what gap in their civic education led them to miss the crime? Willful naiveté? Deliberate ignorance?

So Schaap is now sentenced to 10 years in prison after admitting the crime and taking a deal. It’s a gift to him. He could have gotten life

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

[with documents]

By Conor Ryan, Investigative Correspondent

Tuesday, October 02, 2012

An appeal to 17 managers of schools and homes where children were abused has failed to illicit a single additional contribution to the €1.47bn redress bill.

The institutions accou-nted for 13% of initial complaints to the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse in Residential Institutions.

They were run by patrons or religious orders who remained outside the 2002 indemnity deal and so were not obliged to make a direct contribution to redress.

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MISSOURI
KMBZ

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests says it’s ready to fight back in Jackson County court. Father Michael Tierney, removed from his duties at Christ the King last year, faces several sex abuse lawsuits.

His lawyer Brian Madden has asked the court to hold the group in contempt, saying it has only provided incomplete and redacted information. But SNAP director David Clohessy says the organization has given up plenty and can’t risk revealing the identity of alleged victims in cases that are decades old.

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VATICAN CITY
MinnPost

By Nick Squires | 10/01/12.

The Pope’s personal butler will be cross-examined by a Vatican court on Tuesday in a closely-watched trial in which he is accused of stealing highly sensitive documents, some of them from the desk of Benedict XVI himself.

The trial opened on Saturday in a wood-paneled court room in a Vatican tribunal within the walls of the tiny city state. The case inevitably has garnered headlines given that it revolves around the great mystery cliche: “Did the butler do it?” Or rather, “was it only the butler who did it?”

The documents at the heart of the case have lifted the lid on corruption at the highest levels of the Roman Catholic Church, which is still battered by revelations of clerical cover-ups of child sexual abuse. With this case, the Vatican is trying to showcase greater transparency, allowing a pool of journalists to cover each meeting. Experts, however, say that the latest saga does not help the Vatican’s already damaged image.

“It is certainly embarrassing for the Vatican but I’m not sure it will resonate that much among ordinary Catholics around the world,” says Alessandro Speciale, Vatican correspondent forReligion News Service. “The Church was already badly tarnished by the pedophile sex abuse scandals. That was much more serious.”

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MISSOURI
St. Joe Channel

[with video]

By: Safiya Songhai

Updated: October 1, 2012

(KANSAS CITY, Mo) He is the first leader in the Catholic Church to ever be convicted of concealing a sexual abuse crime.

Now some members of the church not only want Bishop Robert Finn to resign his position as leader of the Kansas City-St. Joseph Diocese, they are putting their names on the dotted line.

Nearly 90,000 people have signed an online petition urging Bishop Finn to resign.

The petition is posted on the website change.org and organizers hope to appeal to the top leaders of the church, all the way to Italy.

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CANADA
Metro

By Staff The Canadian Press

IQALUIT, Nunavut – A trial date has been set for a former Arctic priest facing dozens of sex abuse allegations.

Eric Dejaeger has pleaded not guilty to 76 charges stemming from his time in Igloolik, Nunavut, between 1978 and 1982.

Most of the charges are for the alleged sexual abuse of boys and girls.

Dejaeger is also charged with bestiality and for failing to show up for a required court appearance in 1995.

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CALIFORNIA
Courthouse News Service

By MARIA DINZEO

SAN FRANCISCO (CN) – Catholic leadership tolerated a priest’s repeated sexual abuse of boys and at least one girl in parishes and schools across the state, a former student claims in court.

The plaintiff in a Superior Court lawsuit, identified only as a 25-year-old male, says Father Don Flickinger sexually abused him when he was about 10 years old.

He claims Flickinger was allowed to work with children for nearly 50 years, beginning in 1964 when he was a chaplain at San Joaquin Memorial High School in Fresno. Throughout his career, Flickinger was transferred 20 times, from Fresno to Santa Clara University and the University of San Francisco, to parishes in Napa, Monterey, San Jose and Oakland. He is currently assigned to the New Bethany Residence in Los Banos, a residential living facility where he is supposedly retired, but was seen assisting in performing mass in last August, according to the 55-page lawsuit.

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CANADA
Nunatsiaq News

DAVID MURPHY

Eric Dejaeger, the Oblate missionary accused of sex crimes against Inuit children alleged to have occurred in the late 1970s and early 1980s, appeared before the the Nunavut Court of Justice in Iqaluit Oct. 1 to plead not guilty to 76 charges.

That not-guilty plea is something Crown prosecutor Barry Nordin said he expected.

Now, a 10-week trial will start Oct. 28, 2013, and is expected to continue until early 2014.

There are 41 complainants on the 76-count indictment. Hearing all the evidence from the complainants and a variety of other witnesses will take at least eight weeks, Nordin said.

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CANADA
CBC ews

A Roman Catholic priest charged with multiple sex-related offences has pleaded not guilty on all counts.

Eric Dejaeger appeared in the Nunavut Court of Justice in Iqaluit Monday. He faces 76 charges, most of which stem from his time as a Catholic priest in Igloolik between 1978 and 1982.

The case involves 41 complainants and dozens of witnesses. His judge-only trial is set for Oct. 28, 2013, and is expected to last 10 weeks.

Dejaeger said only two words to Justice Robert Kilpatrick in court: “thank you”.

Defense lawyer Malcolm Kempt said in court it was the intention of his client to plead not guilty from the outset.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Comedy Central

Oct 1, 2012 03:25 PM by Ilya Gerner

One rare locus of agreement between congressional Democrats and Republicans concerns the Department of Homeland Security’s Transportation Safety Administration. Yes, it’s a corrupt boondoggle that does little to keep Americans safe, but it’s our bipartisan corrupt boondoggle that does little to keep Americans safe, so long may it grope.

Fortunately, the TSA has redeeming features. Americans looking for career advice are always being told to “do what you love,” and in the case of one alleged pedophile, the TSA made dreams come true…

About four months after being defrocked by the Diocese of Camden in 2002, Thomas Harkins had a new job as a security officer, including patting down passengers, with the Transportation Security Administration at Philadelphia International Airport.

The TSA hired the former priest before completing a background check, the agency recently confirmed. According to a church document, the diocese revealed to the TSA in 2003 as part of the background check that Harkins had been removed from ministry because of allegations he had molested two grade-school girls. Harkins was never criminally prosecuted, but the diocese settled civil lawsuits for $195,000.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

Big changes, new appointments and transferrals. A new season of challenges is about to begin, with the United States taking centre stage

Marco Tosatti
Rome

Some excellent changes are going to be taking place in the Vatican reliable voices say. And apparently, these new nominations will be further proof that Benedict XVI and his main collaborators see the United States as one of the main “fronts” of comparison in terms of secularisation and as the source of energy for the solution of problems.

The current secretary of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, Joseph William Tobin, should – as always, when speaking about decisions of this kind it is essential to use the conditional because neither Benedict XVI nor the Secretary of State appear Napoleonic in this field – return to the U.S. He will probably be sent to an important diocese; possibly Indianapolis.

Is this a promotion? Possibly, but it seems he was recalled by the U.S. Catholic Church who did not appreciate Tobin’s role in clearing up misunderstandings with the LCWR’S “rebel” nuns. American bishops did not find his conciliatory statements very helpful as they were hard at work trying to resolve a difficult problem. Indeed, they saw his attitude as a break with the position taken by the previous Prefect, Franc Rodé, who was concerned about the “new age” drift of many U.S. nuns. The identity of Tobin’s potential successor is unknown; it could be a cleric given that the Prefect of the Congregation is not.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
Americans United for Separation of Church and State

October 2012
AU Bulletin

A high-ranking Kansas bishop has been convicted of failing to report suspicions of child abuse, affirming the church hierarchy’s accountability in its infamous child sex-abuse scandal.

On Sept. 6, Bishop Robert Finn, head of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, became the highest-ranking U.S. Catholic official convicted as a result of the child sex-abuse scandal. Finn was found guilty because of his handling of the Rev. Shawn Ratigan, who stored hundreds of lewd photos of young girls on his laptop computer, the Kansas City Star said.

Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker was pleased with Finn’s conviction.

According to the Religion News Service (RNS), she said, “The bottom line today is that finding by the court, a finding of guilt, means the diocese and whoever is its leader must adhere to the very clear legal requirements regarding protection of children.”

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CALIFORNIA
Loyolan

To the Editors:

It was with a sense of relief that I read (“University Investigates Alleged Molester,” 9/20/12) both of President Burcham’s decision to undertake an investigation into all aspects of the 15-year presence on our campus of alleged sexual predator Brother William Farrington, S. J. and of the President’s commitment to making public the results of this investigation.

My tenure does not overlap with that of Farrington, who was a staff member from 1987-2002. I cannot, therefore, take responsibility for his perhaps dangerous and damaging presence on our campus. I do, however, assume a shared responsibility for the way in which our University responds to the information about Farrington that has only lately been made available to the wider LMU community.

I thus wish to express my sympathies to any current or former members of our University community, as well as to their families and friends, who may have suffered on account of Farrington’s presence. I want, in addition, to express my outrage at the individuals who shielded from public view the accusations levied against Farrington prior to his LMU appointment and residency in the Jesuit Community. Whether or not the investigation of his presence at LMU turns out to yield the results we all fear, there is no sparing a sense of dismay at the fact that his coming to our University was at the least an imprudent decision on the part of those responsible for the move and at worst an unconscionable act of blatant disregard for the well being of LMU students.

As many of us know well, sexual abusers frequently target the already vulnerable and often muffle their voices in a cloak of silent shame. Let us not add to the sum of silence by failing to demand an accounting. At the very least, let us hope that our Jesuit Community or the California Province of the Jesuits will not only express publicly the sadness associated with the evidence thus far come to light, but also decry the structures that allowed Farrington to spend 15 years among our students.

Sincerely,

Anna Harrison
Associate Professor, Department of Theological Studies

Co-signers:
Roberto Dell’Oro, Professor, Theological Studies
Marie Anne Mayeski, Professor Emeritus, Theological Studies
Charlotte Radler, Associate Professor, Theological Studies
Thomas P. Rausch, S.J. , T. Marie Chilton Professor of Catholic Theology, Theological Studies
Daniel L. Smith-Christopher, Professor, Theological Studies
Tracy Sayuki Tiemeier, Associate Professor, Theological Studies
John R. Connolly, Professor Emeritus, Theological Studies

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UNITED STATES
hoodiemonks.org

By John Cavanagh – August 12, 1939 – September 9, 2012

In the 1950’s and until the mid ’60’s, the abbot of the Trappist monastery I’d entered in ’59 was recruiting barely legal colts for his stable. Boys aged roughly seventeen to twenty were being accepted as novices, an age generally considered too young by the Order’s standards elsewhere. These boys would often go on to become the abbot’s lovers, and because he conducted himself discreetly, the clandestine affairs very possibly could have gone unnoticed indefinitely. But he dropped them as they got older, and eventually there was a row over the ensuing favoritism and how the place was being governed.

In the Spring of 1964 this brought in a tribunal of two abbots from elsewhere in the Order to investigate the cause of the friction. But even after two weeks of listening to everyone’s grievances, these investigating abbots were still openly puzzled about what the real stakes were. Encouraged by the spirit of aggiornamento we saw being implemented in the case, four of us went to them as a bloc and described what we had seen and heard, signing notarized affidavits, etc., which we agreed to do only after being promised immunity from any retaliations in return for our sworn testimony. I want to emphasize here as strongly as possible that we were assured that the whole investigation was being closely monitored by the Sacred Congregation for Religious, and that the promise of immunity they extended to us had been pre-authorized from Rome.

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UNITED STATES
Patrick J. Wall

Every once in a while, real religious history is written. Those of us trained in religion know this firsthand—we have read thousands of pages of hagiography that simply skim over the truth, avoid scandal and paint a rosy, unquestioned picture of religious history.

Then there was John Cavanagh.

John Cavanagh was a former Trappist monk who blew the whistle on his Abbot and the Abbot’s boy toys in the monastery. The Abbot was removed. But he wasn’t the only one punished: the whistleblowers were also pushed out of the monastery. With the troublemakers gone, the Order could create a perfect cover story.

The reason to read this story is to see how John Cavanagh found a deeper spirituality after he lost his religion. His evocative and personal story was published the day before he died.

“A Modern Monk’s Tale,” by John Cavanagh.

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CHILE
Publimetro

En entrevista con TVN, el obispo de Rancagua y ex presidente de la Confederación Episcopal, Alejandro Goic, negó la posibilidad de alguna compensación económica para las víctimas de abusos sexuales del sacerdote Fernando Karadima.

“Sin duda alguna reparación deberíamos dar, pero económica, no sé dónde, ya que la diócesis no contaría con los recursos necesarios para esto”, aseguró Goic.

Las declaraciones del obispo de Rancagua, fueron respaldadas por el arzobispo de Santiago, Ricardo Ezzati, quien comentó “que las indemnizaciones dependen de lo que las víctimas hayan pedido y dependen de las posibilidades reales que existan de pagar”.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By Conor Ryan, Investigative reporter

Monday, October 01, 2012

THE State’s exposure to the child abuse redress bill is growing but efforts to coax religious orders to accept half the costs have failed.

One by one, the 18 congregations have told the Government its desire to split the bill on a 50:50 basis was too much; they would not allow the redress process to bankrupt them.

Negotiations are ongoing on an alternative plan, to sign over school sites, but there has been no resolution and the process has staggered.

The immediate effect is that the State will now have to find at least €1.1bn to fund its portion of a compensation and inquiry scheme that was expected to cost €240m when the indemnity deal was signed in 2002.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Barbara Dorris on October 01, 2012

It is distressing that the man who has been heading the scandal-plagued Archdiocese of Philadelphia for over a year now still seems unwilling to recognize the depth of the clergy sex abuse epidemic. By blaming reports of abuse on “media bias,” Archbishop Chaput only makes himself appear silly, especially given that his archdiocese has suspended numerous priests this year and was the home of the first ever Catholic official, Msgr. William Lynn, convicted of a felony for covering up sex abuse.

Instead of blaming the problem on the media, Chaput should look inward at the way he and his predecessors have dealt with child predators. Even today, church officials continue to endanger kids by failing to take proper steps with child predators. Recent situations in Joliet, IL and Fall River, MA indicate that this is not a problem in one or two dioceses, but persists across the country.

We think that Archbishop Chaput should stop blaming the media, but rather blame his brother bishops who hide behind policies that they tout in their own press releases but fail to actually follow when it matters. Instead of whining about bias, Chaput should take a serious look at how every abuse allegation is handled, and in the future should allow secular authorities to verify the claims instead of secretive internal processes.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

September 30, 2012|By Harold Brubaker, Inquirer Staff Writer

The fortunes of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and its more than 250 parishes are deeply and torturously entwined.

The archdiocese, the central organizing force for 1.46 million Catholics in Southeastern Pennsylvania, depends on money from member parishes to pay for churchwide activities and to shift money to weaker parishes.

But that formula is broken: Too many parishes have seen attendance fall and offerings shrivel, rendering them unable to support themselves. Ten have been shuttered in the last year, including Ascension of Our Lord in Kensington, which is closing Sunday.

There is no easy way out.

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CHILE
Cooperativa

El abogado Juan Pablo Hermosilla, que representa a las víctimas de abuso sexual del sacerdote Fernando Karadima, consideró una “falta de respeto” que el arzobispo de Santiago, Ricardo Ezzati, cerrara la puerta a cualquier indemnización por parte de la Iglesia Católica.

La necesidad de una reparación fue planteada en una entrevista emitida ayer, domingo, por el obispo de Rancagua y ex presidente de la Conferencia Episcopal Alejandro Goic.

“Sin duda que alguna reparación deberíamos dar, pero económica, no sé de dónde”, ya que “las diócesis no contarían con los recursos necesarios para esto”, dijo Goic en “La entrevista del domingo” de TVN.

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UNITED STATES
America Magazine

A bishop makes a case for expanding the diaconate.

Emil A. Wcela | OCTOBER 1, 2012

C an women receive sacred orders? Let us consult several authoritative sources. Canon 1024 of the Code of Canon Law states, “A baptized male alone receives sacred ordination validly.” In 1994 Pope John Paul II said, “I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.” And the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has weighed in on the issue more than once. A statement in 1995 read, “This teaching requires definitive assent, since, founded on the written word of God and from the beginning constantly preserved and applied in the tradition of the Church, it has been set forth infallibly by the ordinary and universal magisterium.” And in 2010 the doctrinal congregation stated, “both the one who attempts to confer sacred ordination on a woman, and she who attempts to receive sacred ordination incur a latae sententiae [automatic] excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See.” And so the issue is settled.

Or is it?

Development of Early Church Ministries

Jesus chose the Twelve and others to help spread the word that God was working in the world uniquely through him. After his death and resurrection, local communities of believers formed; and within them leaders emerged or were chosen. In a natural way, the shape of such leadership was often borrowed from contemporary society. There were episkopoi, or “overseers,” in synagogues, who managed finances and sometimes settled disputes, and overseers in the civic world responsible for community projects, like the building of a road. There were presbyteroi, or “elders,” councils of men who formed administrative boards in synagogues and other religious institutions. Adopted by the Christian communities, these offices would develop into the episcopate and priesthood.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Cormac McQuinn

Monday October 01 2012

A SENIOR figure in the Association of Catholic Priests (ACPS) has said he agrees with a distinguished Italian cardinal who has said that the church is 200 years out of date.

Co Mayo priest Fr Brendan Hoban, one of the leaders of the organisation, has spoken of how the church needs to face its current crises such as the series of child sex abuse scandals and the fall in vocations.

And speaking ahead of two conferences aimed at increasing the participation of lay Catholics, he said bishops and priests can’t solve the church’s problems on their own, that it needs the help of ordinary Catholics.

Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini died at the end of August but in an interview given two weeks before his death, he said the Catholic Church is “200 years behind the times”.

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NEW YORK
The New York Times

By SHARON OTTERMAN

Published: October 01, 2012

New York’s most powerful politicians have lined up to call for the resignation of Assemblyman Vito J. Lopez, the onetime Brooklyn Democratic kingmaker, since news broke in August that an ethics panel censured him for what it said was the sexual harassment of two female employees earlier in the summer.

But there has been a conspicuous silence from religious leaders who have regularly cooperated with him politically in Brooklyn, notably Bishop Nicholas A. DiMarzio, head of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn. The bishop went as far as recording a robocall in 2009 in support of a City Council candidate Mr. Lopez was backing, and when he was recently asked, through a spokesman, what he thought about the allegations, he responded with a carefully worded statement.

“There is no place in our society for sexual harassment,” said Bishop DiMarzio, who has led the diocese, which also includes Queens, since 2003.

“In our nation, the courts determine whether someone is guilty of a crime,” he added. “Voters are charged with determining the suitability of individuals for elected office. As a priest and bishop, my primary concern is for the salvation of those souls in my care. My responsibility is to remind us all that we are called to seek repentance and forgiveness.”

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SLOVAKIA
Chiesa

Anna Hušcavová defends the correctness of her actions as administrative adviser of the archdiocese of Trnava. But the Vatican authorities hold firm their negative judgment, which has led to the removal of Archbishop Bezák

by Sandro Magister

ROME, October 1, 2012 – The article from www.chiesa on the removal of the archbishop of Trnava has vigorously rekindled, in Slovakia but not only there, the controversy ignited by the Vatican decision:

> The Case of the “Bishop with a Human Face” Dismissed by the Pope

In particular, reactions were prompted by what was written on www.chiesa – in reporting the results of the inspections by the Vatican authorities – concerning the administrative disorder of the assets of the archdiocese placed under the management of the commercial companies Ninett and Hanalex by deposed archbishop Róbert Bezák.

The directors of these companies, Ondrej Studenec and Anna Hušcavová, have asked www.chiesa for a correction of the allegations made against them, which they both call “false and unfounded.”

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CALIFORNIA
Loyolan

Posted: Sunday, September 30, 2012

The Department of Public Safety (DPS) sent a letter to the Loyola Marymount University community late Wednesday regarding an instance of alleged sexual assault on campus. Two students were arrested by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and, according to DPS Chief Hampton Cantrell, the LAPD’s investigation is ongoing.

According to the letter sent, a female LMU undergraduate student called DPS to report that she was the victim of a sexual assault. She claimed it occurred at approximately 3 a.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 26 in an on-campus residence hall. She named two male LMU students as the perpetrators.

In response, LAPD was called to campus and, after conducting a number of interviews, they arrested the two male students.

The LAPD refused to comment on this story, instead referring the Loyolan to DPS. LAPD, DPS and Judicial Affairs all declined to release the names of the students arrested or the location of the alleged assault, other than that it occurred in a residence hall on campus.

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AUSTRALIA
Brisbane Times

October 1, 2012

Neda Vanovac

AAP

The cancer death of a priest accused of sexually assaulting a boy and covering up other sexual abuse in the Catholic Church has left alleged victims feeling robbed of justice, a support group says.

Father Tom Brennan, 74, died on Sunday at the Hunter Valley Private Hospital after battling cancer for several years.

The priest was the first member of the Australian Catholic clergy to be charged with covering up sex abuse by another priest and was also charged with sexually abusing a young boy.

He was too unwell to face Newcastle Local Court on a total of 14 charges last Tuesday.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Giselle Wakatama

The first Australian priest to be charged with covering up clerical sex abuse will never face prosecution after dying in hospital.

Hunter Valley priest Father Tom Brennan had been gravelly ill for some time, suffering from cancer.

Last week the 74-year-old was too ill to attend Newcastle Local Court for his first appearance after becoming the first person in Australia to be charged with failing to report sexual abuse by another priest.

The charges stemmed from his time as a principal at a Newcastle Catholic high school.

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PHILADELHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By Barbara Boyer
Inquirer Staff Writer

About four months after being defrocked by the Diocese of Camden in 2002, Thomas Harkins had a new job as a security officer, including patting down passengers, with the Transportation Security Administration at Philadelphia International Airport.

The TSA hired the former priest before completing a background check, the agency recently confirmed. According to a church document, the diocese revealed to the TSA in 2003 as part of the background check that Harkins had been removed from ministry because of allegations he had molested two grade-school girls. Harkins was never criminally prosecuted, but the diocese settled civil lawsuits for $195,000.

The TSA took no action as a result of the disclosure.

“An allegation alone does not warrant dismissal or automatically disqualify applicants from employment with the TSA,” spokeswoman Ann Davis said.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

THE first Australian priest to be charged with covering up sex abuse by another priest has died in hospital before his matter could be heard in court.

Hunter Valley priest Father Tom Brennan was too unwell to appear when his case was due for a first mention in court last week.

He died last night following a long battle with cancer, the ABC reported.

Earlier this year, the 74-year-old became the first member of the Australian Catholic clergy to be charged with failing to report sexual abuse by another priest.

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AUSTRALIA
IOL (South Africa)

October 1 2012
By Sid Astbury

Sydney –

The first Australian priest to be charged with covering up sexual abuse inside the Catholic Church has died before facing court, news reports said on Monday.

Cancer patient Father Tom Brennan died on Sunday in a hospital in Newcastle, 160 kilometres north of Sydney.

The 74-year-old was too ill last week to attend court to answer a charge of failing to report to police claims of sexual abuse by another priest.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Catholic Philly

Archbishop Charles Chaput

In early September, the Gallup Organization found that 60 percent of Americans – a record high — have little or no trust in the mass media’s ability “to report the news fully, accurately and fairly.” The sharpest decline in trust occurred among political independents, the least partisan American voters.

This isn’t much of a surprise. Media coverage of religion, for example, has been eroding in both quality and fairness for years, as tracked by excellent web sites like getreligion.org. But the shift to social advocacy and the decay of professional standards have hurt the credibility of journalism on a whole range of issues. For Gallup, the trend “poses a challenge to democracy and to creating a fully engaged citizenry.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Daily Times

Opinion

Published: Monday, October 01, 2012

Archbishop Charles Chaput, in his latest weekly column written for the 1.5 million Roman Catholics in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, seems to blame the media for the church’s recent problems.

He refers to a Gallup Poll in which 60 percent of Americans have little or no trust in the mass media’s ability “to report the news fully, accurately and fairly.” He claims media coverage of religion “has been eroding in both quality and fairness for years” and contains “a disdain for Catholic belief.”

The fact of the matter is, if it were not for the media, Americans would most likely never have known the extent of the clerical sexual abuse that has occurred nationally and internationally in the Roman Catholic Church over at least the last five decades. More importantly, church officials might still be covering up this abuse by handling complaints on their own and not contacting civil authorities, thereby allowing suspected pedophile priests to have continued access to children of all faiths.

Before 2002 when the child molestation conviction of a Boston priest first broke the scandal open nationwide, church officials handled abuse complaints by sending suspected predator priests to church treatment clinics, then often sending them to new parishes where the faithful had no knowledge of the suspected pedophile’s history. This pattern was documented in the last 10 years by two Philadelphia grand juries. They found that not only did church officials fail to turn suspected pedophiles over to law enforcement officials, they ordered other priests and nuns to leave matters to them if child abuse was suspected.

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UNITED STATES
Melodika

Sunday, 30 September 2012

The Justice Department’s Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering, and Tracking (SMART) recently announced that Pennsylvania and the U.S. Virgin Islands are the latest jurisdictions to implement the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA), Title I of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006.

Since the passage of SORNA, which establishes a comprehensive national system for the registration of sex offenders, a total of 16 states, three territories and 36 tribes have met the requirements for implementation. The Act is named in memory of Adam Walsh, a 6-year-old boy, who was abducted from a mall in Hollywood, Fla. on July 27, 1981.

In addition to Pennsylvania and the U.S. Virgin Islands, the states of Alabama, Delaware, Florida, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Wyoming, and the United States territories of Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, have also substantially implemented SORNA.

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ETATS-UNIS
Nouvelle Observateur

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Pendant vingt ans, les Boy Scouts d’Amérique ont omis de faire connaître aux autorités plusieurs centaines de cas d’abus sexuel commis par leur personnel encadrant, rapporte dimanche le Los Angeles Times après avoir passé en revue 1.600 dossiers confidentiels.

Selon cette enquête menée par le journal sur des dossiers de la période 1970-1991, les responsables de l’organisation n’ont eu dans la majorité des cas connaissance d’abus sexuels commis qu’une fois qu’ils avaient été signalés à la police.

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BOSTON (MA)
CBS Boston

BRAINTREE (AP) — The Boston Archdiocese says it raised $1.2 million at its annual dinner to benefit the Clergy Funds, which pay for the care and well-being of its priests

The archdiocese said more than 1,300 people attended the 4th Annual Celebration of the Priesthood dinner Wednesday at the Seaport World Trade Center in Boston.

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Patriot-News

Published: Friday, September 28, 2012

By MONICA VON DOBENECK, The Patriot-News

Members of the investigating grand jury found disquieting similarities between the deaths of Betty Jean Schirmer in 2008 and Jewel Schirmer in 1999.

Both died of traumatic brain injuries. And both were married to pastor Arthur Schirmer at the time of their deaths.

Arthur Burton Schirmer already is facing trial for homicide in Monroe County for Betty’s death. Now he is also charged with the murder of Jewel in Lebanon County.

In the grand jury report, the jurors wrote, “We find it particularly disturbing and difficult to believe that both of A.B. Schirmer’s wives could have suffered such horrific injuries by accident.”

Schirmer, 64, was pastor of Bethany United Methodist Church in Lebanon at the time of Jewel’s death and, as noted by Lebanon County District Attorney Dave Arnold, “well-known in the community.”

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PENNSYLVANIA
Pocono Record

By Andrew Scott
Pocono Record Writer

September 29, 2012

Earl Goodman stood in the front doorway of his Skyline Drive home Friday in North Lebanon Township and looked across the quiet, residential street at the split-level house where his former neighbors, the Schirmer family, had lived until 1999.

“I couldn’t believe what I heard,” said Goodman, wearing a Good Samaritan Health Systems volunteer T-shirt.

He had heard earlier that morning that Lebanon County authorities had charged his former neighbor, Arthur “A.B.” Schirmer, now 64, with murder in the April 23, 1999, death of his first wife, Jewel Schirmer, 50.

Arthur Schirmer is already awaiting a January trial on murder charges in the 2008 death of his second wife, Betty Jean Schirmer, in Monroe County.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Huffington Post

Arthur Schirmer, Retired Pastor, Killed Both Wives, Jewel Schirmer And Betty Jean Schirmer: Cops

By MICHAEL RUBINKAM 09/29/12

LEBANON, Pa. — Retired Pennsylvania pastor Arthur “A.B.” Schirmer was a serial philanderer, preying on women in his church who were having trouble in their own marriages, court documents say.

Yet adultery might have been the least of his sins.

Charged two years ago in the death of his second wife, Schirmer now stands accused of killing his first wife, too, after a grand jury concluded her injuries weren’t consistent with a fall down the stairs, Lebanon County prosecutors announced Friday. He intends to plead innocent, and his children say they support him.

Schirmer, 64, has long claimed he was out for a run on April 23, 1999, when he returned home to find Jewel Schirmer’s body in a pool of blood at the bottom of the basement steps. Although she had suffered a fractured skull as well as injuries to her face, body, arms and legs, the coroner made no determination as to whether her death was an accident or a homicide, and the case was closed.

That decision never sat well with her brother.

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PHILIPPINES
Inquirer

Cebu Daily News
9:13 am | Sunday, September 30th, 2012

In the furor over ivory icons and a priest’s dark past that has resurfaced after 28 years, close friends and supporters of Msgr. Cristobal Garcia wait for the storm to pass.

Santiago “Sonny” Academia, head of the Bukas Loob sa Diyos community in Cebu, said their members were alarmed to read about the controversies in the newspapers this week.

But after the initial shock, they have banded together to hold prayer vigils for Garcia, withhold judgment, and stay in touch.

“We are communicating with him through e-mail. He is talking about the cross that he has to carry,” said Academia in an interview.

“We do not believe in all these things being said. Personally, between 1,000 accusations and one word from Cris, I still believe in Cris. He has been a good shepherd to me,” said Academia who is “shepherding” five BLD districts in Cebu, Dumaguete, Tagbilaran, Ormoc and Cagayan de Oro.

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PROVIDENCE (RI)
Boston Globe

By MICHELLE R. SMITH
Associated Press / September 24, 2012

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — A Rhode Island Superior Court judge heard arguments Monday on whether to unseal documents in a lawsuit contesting the will of an elderly widow who gave some $60 million to the Legion of Christ, a disgraced Roman Catholic religious order.

Bernard Jackvony, a lawyer for the niece of the late Gabrielle Mee, argued to Judge Michael Silverstein that it is in the public interest to release the documents, while Joseph Avonzato, a lawyer for the Legion of Christ, said that would compromise the order’s right to a fair trial. The judge didn’t immediately issue a decision.

Pope Benedict XVI took over the Legion in 2010 after a Vatican investigation determined its founder, the late Rev. Marcial Maciel, had sexually molested seminarians and fathered three children by two women.

Silverstein this month threw out the lawsuit, saying the niece, Mary Lou Dauray, did not have standing to sue, though he wrote in his decision that Mee had been unduly persuaded to give the Legion her money.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Erie Times-News

By DANA MASSING, Erie Times-News
dana.massing@timesnews.com

Just a few months ago, Monsignor Lawrence T. Persico was a parish pastor who tended a vegetable garden in the summer and shoveled snow from parish sidewalks before morning Mass in the winter.

By the end of Monday, he’ll be a bishop and the leader of a 13-county Roman Catholic diocese with about 221,500 parishioners spread out over 10,000 square miles. Persico will take an oath of fidelity at vespers tonight and be installed and ordained during an invitation-only Mass on Monday.

What does Persico want people in the Catholic Diocese of Erie to know about their new bishop?

“That he’s a nice guy,” he said with a smile. …

Persico had served as pastor in New Alexandria since 1998, but that was one of only several positions he held in the Greensburg diocese. His other roles included vicar general, moderator of the curia, chancellor and bishop’s delegate for clergy sexual abuse.

He said he believes the sex-abuse scandal led the Catholic Church to do a great deal to rectify such problems by implementing training for clergy and others who work with youth.

“Even dioceses, today, are audited by an outside firm to make sure that each diocese is in compliance with the Charter (for the Protection of Children and Young People),” Persico said.

He encouraged Catholics not to abandon the church because they’re upset with it over sex abuse or disagree with its stance on abortion, contraception, same-sex marriage or female ordination.

“I would tell them not to walk away from it, but to seek, to learn, to pray and to try to deepen their relationship to Jesus Christ,” Persico said. “Because without Christ, what are we?

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CALIFORNIA
BishopAccountability.org – Assignment Record

Summary of Case: Rev. Michael Stephen Baker has been called by authorities one of the Los Angeles archdiocese’s most prolific child molesters, with estimates of at least 23-28 victims, one of whom is known to have been as young as age 5. Baker told Cardinal Mahony in 1986 that he had sexually abused children. Mahony sent Baker to treatment, then allowed him to return to ministry. Baker is accused of molesting many more children after 1986. He was removed from active ministry in early 2000, when the archdiocese learned of a pending lawsuit against him. He was defrocked in December of that same year. Baker pleaded guilty in 2007 to the sexual abuse of two young brothers, and was sentenced to 10 years and 4 months in prison. He was released early, in October 2011. Within weeks he was arrested on a parole violation. In August 2012 he was arrested again when caught violating parole. Two more cases against Baker were scheduled to go to trial in November 2012.

Ordained: 1974
Incardinated: Los Angeles
Defrocked: 2002

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UNITED STATES
The New York Times

By JUDITH LEVITT

Published: September 29, 2012

REFORMERS within the Roman Catholic Church have been calling for the ordination of women as priests. The Vatican, however, refuses to consider the possibility and uses its power to silence those who speak out. Catholic clergy in Europe, Australia and the United States who have voiced public support for female ordination have been either dismissed or threatened with removal from administrative posts within the church.

For those who disobey the prohibition, the consequences are swift and severe. In 2008, the Vatican decreed that any woman who sought ordination, or a bishop who conferred holy orders on her, would be immediately “punished with excommunication.” It went a step further in 2010, categorizing any such attempt as delicta graviora — a grave crime against the church — the same category as priests who sexually abuse children.

Despite the official church position, clergy and laity have been fighting for the ordination of women since the early 1970s, hoping to expand upon the Vatican II reforms. And according to a 2010 poll by The New York Times and CBS, 59 percent of American Catholics favor the ordination of women.

In the last 10 years the Vatican has had to contend with a particularly indomitable group of women who seem to be unaffected by excommunication or other punishment offered by the church. The movement started when seven women were ordained by three Roman Catholic bishops aboard a ship on the Danube River in 2002. The women claimed their ordinations were valid because they conformed to the doctrine of “apostolic succession.” The group that grew out of that occasion calls itself Roman Catholic Womenpriests. There are now more than 100 ordained women priests and 11 bishops.

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VATICAN CITY
Reuters

By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY | Sat Sep 29, 2012

(Reuters) – Pope Benedict’s butler, accused of using his access to the pope to steal papers that he thought would expose Vatican corruption, suffered a blow on Saturday’s first day of his trial when judges refused to admit evidence from the Church’s own investigation.

Gabriele’s arrest in May, after police found confidential documents in his apartment inside the Vatican, not only threw a spotlight on allegations of malpractice but also pointed to a power struggle at the highest levels of the Church.

The 46-year-old Paolo Gabriele, an unassuming man who served the pope his meals and helped him dress, looked pale at his first public appearance since May. He smiled as he chatted with his lawyer but often staring into space during a hearing that lasted just under two and a half hours.

His lawyer, Cristiana Arru, had asked the court to allow as evidence the results of an inquiry by a commission of three cardinals who questioned Vatican employees, including prelates, about the leaks of the documents to Italian media.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

Two days from the trial of former papal butler, Paolo Gabriele, experts explain the Vatican’s criminal justice system in a briefing

Alessandro Speciale
Vatican City

The trial of Benedict XVI’s former butler begins Saturday. This may be an unprecedented case, but thanks to the Vatican’s rather lenient penal code – which copies Italy’s liberal penal code of 1913. Before that, it copied the notorious Rocco code introduced by the Fascist regime – Paolo Gabriele risks quite a mild sentence.

“Between 6 months and 3 years” but “if aggravating circumstances are added to this, it could rise to 4 years,” Professor Giovanni Giacobbe, Promoter of Justice (i.e. Public Prosecutor) in the Court of Appeal of the Vatican City State, the second of three levels in the justice system of the world’s smallest State. Today Giacobbe held a briefing with journalists to explain the Vatican trial procedure.

The main difference with Italy’s current criminal justice system is that it is the judge – in this case it will be the group of three judges led by Justice Giuseppe Dalla Torre del tempio di Sanguinetto, rector of Rome’s LUMSA University – and not the prosecution and defence who conduct the debate. He will interrogate the accused (Gabriele and Claudio Sciarpelletti, a Secretariat of State computer technician, accused of aiding and abetting a crime, which entails a one year prison sentence) upon the request of the parties present.

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NEW YORK
Irish Central

By
MOLLY MULDOON,
Irish Voice Reporter

Published Saturday, September 29, 2012

A former Bronx priest is suing the New York Archdiocese for libel in a landmark lawsuit, claiming sex allegations brought against him were false.

A once influential Catholic monsignor, Charles Kavanagh, was defrocked from the priesthood in 2010 for the sexual abuse of a minor, after he was convicted in a 2006 canonical trial. An appeal to a second church tribunal also found him guilty in 2010.

Last Wednesday, lawyers for Kavanagh, now 75, filed the lawsuit in Federal District Court in Manhattan, after the priest’s accuser, Daniel Donohue, told a federal judge last April that he had not been truthful about his allegations.

“No one has ever handled a case of this nature,” Kavanagh’s attorney, John Dearie, told the Irish Voice.

“The significance of this is that the person who made the allegations 30 plus years ago has retracted it, apologized to the person and has asked that the archdiocese reconsider their decision to remove him from his ministry,” Dearie said.

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VATICAN CITY
The New York Times

By ELISABETTA POVOLEDO

Published: September 29, 2012

VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI’s former butler, Paolo Gabriele, went on trial on Saturday on charges of stealing the pope’s confidential papers and leaking them to the press, an unprecedented security breach that set off an embarrassingly public airing of back-room intrigue and allegations of corruption at an institution known for its secrecy.

Mr. Gabriele appeared tired but serene throughout the two-hour hearing, which was held in a sparsely furnished, wood-paneled courtroom in a Vatican City palazzo behind the apse of St. Peter’s Basilica.

The morning was taken up with legal formalities, and the civil court — formed by a panel of three judges — upheld motions to strike some of the evidence gathered against Mr. Gabriele and to split off the trial of a co-defendant, a Vatican computer expert charged with aiding and abetting.

A spokesman for the Vatican, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said the atmosphere in the courtroom was “serene.” Television cameras and recording equipment were not admitted, and a pool of eight reporters allowed inside briefed other journalists after the hearing.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Service

By Carol Glatz and Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — A Vatican tribunal determined the two suspects indicted for their parts in the VatiLeaks’ scandal should be tried separately.

During the opening session of the trial Sept. 29, the judges said the trial against Paolo Gabriele, the papal assistant charged with aggravated theft, would continue Oct. 2. A separate trial for Claudio Sciarpelletti on charges of aiding and abetting Gabriele will be scheduled at a later date, they said.

Giuseppe Dalla Torre, the presiding judge, said four more sessions “next week should be sufficient” for completing Gabriele’s trial.

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VATICAN CITY
Aljazeera

The trial of Paolo Gabriele, a former butler to Pope Benedict XVI, has been adjourned until Tuesday.

Gabriel appeared in court on Saturday to face charges of leaking confidential Vatican memos that revealed clandestine politics among the closest aides of the Roman Catholic Pope.

Gabriele faces up to four years in prison for aggravated theft in a trial that is unprecedented in the modern history of the world’s smallest state.

The judge told the court in the city-state that he hoped to finish the hearing by the end of next week.

Gabriele said he grew disgusted by the “evil and corruption” he witnessed. He told investigators he was acting as an “agent” of the Holy Spirit to help the pope put the Roman Catholic Church back on track.

Using the codename “Maria”, he is accused of meeting Gianluigi Nuzzi, an investigative reporter, earlier this year and passing him copies of secret papers.

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VATICAN CITY
Deutsche Welle

A Vatican court trying the pope’s ex-butler for allegedly stealing confidential papers has adjourned its proceedings until next Tuesday. The former aide could face four years in an Italian jail.

The trial of Pope Benedict XVI’s former aide, Paolo Gabriele, opened on Saturday in a 19th century courtroom behind the apse of St Peter’s basilica which is normally off-limits to the public within the small Vatican city-state.

Gabriele did not speak at the trial opening, but is expected to testify next Tuesday. Television cameras were largely excluded from the courtroom and only eight journalists were allowed to observe proceedings throughout. They later briefed other journalists.

The court comprising three Italian law professors ruled that only evidence provided by a Vatican prosecutor and Vatican police would be admissible. The court declared that the results of a separate probe carried out by cardinals was not admissible.

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VATICAN CITY
Business Recorder

Saturday, 29 September 2012 18:27
Posted by Muhammad Iqbal

VATICAN CITY: Pope Benedict XVI’s personal secretary, Georg Ganswein, will be called to testify in the trial of the pontiff’s former butler Paolo Gabriele for leaking confidential Vatican documents.

Ganswein, 56, was Gabriele’s direct superior and confronted the butler about the leaks early in May after being tipped off by the Vatican police. He has already given investigators evidence about his former charge’s conduct.

The first hearing in what is the Vatican’s biggest court drama in decades lasted just over two hours and mainly addressed preliminary legal questions, after which the court fixed the next hearing for Tuesday, October 2.

The court also accepted a request for the trial of Claudio Sciarpelletti a Vatican computer technician who is accused of abetting Gabriele’s crime to be conducted separately, though no dates were set.

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VATICAN CITY
Chicago Tribune

8:36 a.m. CDT, September 29, 2012

By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY, Sept 29 (Reuters) – Pope Benedict’s butler, accused of using his access to the pope to steal papers that he thought would expose Vatican corruption, suffered a blow on the first day of his trial when judges refused to admit evidence from the Church’s own investigation.

Gabriele’ s arrest in May, after police found confidential documents in his apartment inside the Vatican, not only threw a spotlight on allegations of malpractice but also pointed to a power struggle at the highest levels of the Church.

The 46-year-old Paolo Gabriele looked pale at his first public appearance since May, smiling as he chatted with his lawyer but often staring straight into space during a hearing that lasted just under two and a half hours.

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VATICAN CITY
Boston Herald

By Associated Press
Saturday, September 29, 2012

VATICAN CITY — The pope’s once-trusted butler went on trial Saturday for allegedly stealing papal documents and passing them off to a journalist in the worst security breach of the Vatican’s recent history — a case that embarrassed the Vatican and may shed some light on the discreet, internal workings of the papal household.

In its first hearing in the case, the three-judge tribunal threw out some evidence gathered during the investigation of butler Paolo Gabriele, who is charged with aggravated theft. It also decided to separate Gabriele’s trial from that of his co-defendant, a computer expert charged with aiding and abetting the crime.

Gabriele is accused of taking the pope’s correspondences, photocopying the documents and handing them off to Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi, whose book “His Holiness: The secret papers of Pope Benedict XVI,” was published to great fanfare in May.

Nuzzi has said his source, code-named “Maria” in the book, wanted to shed light on the secrets of the church that were damaging it. Taken as a whole, the documents seem aimed primarily at discrediting Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican secretary of state and Benedict’s longtime trusted deputy. Bertone, 77, a canon lawyer and soccer enthusiast, has frequently been criticized for perceived shortcomings in running the Vatican.

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VATICAN CITY
Rome Reports

[with video]

September 29, 2012. (Romereports.com) This morning, at the Pope’s former butler walked into the Vatican’s civil court room to start off his trial hearing. He faces a charge of aggravated theft, for his alleged involvement in the Vatileaks case.

The case is getting world wide attention and it’s not just because of the scandal. This also marks the first judicial process in recent history to take place inside Vatican territory. Three Italian lay judges will preside over the case and they will follow a Penal Code that was established in the 19th century.

The Pope’s butler, 46 year old Paolo Gabriele was arrested in May. He wrote a letter to the Pope where he reportedly appoligzed for his involvement in the leak of documents.

If found guilty he could face up to 4 years in prison. Along with him, a computer programmer who worked at the Vatican’s Secretariat of state, is facing a lesser charge of adding and abbeting, which could lead to a year in prison. He was not present at the trial hearing, but he was represented by his lawyer.

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VATICAN CITY
The Guardian (United Kingdom)

Jo Adetunji and Tom Kington in Rome
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 29 September 2012

Benedict XVI’s former butler has gone on trial in the Vatican for stealing and leaking private documents while in the pope’s employ.

Paolo Gabriele, 46, who dressed the pope and travelled with him on public occasions, faces up to four years in jail after Vatican police discovered piles of stolen letters in his apartment, as well as gifts meant for Benedict, including a cheque for €100,000 (£80,000) and a gold nugget.

Gabriele had leaked the choicest letters to an Italian journalist, lifting the lid on accusations of kickbacks paid to win Vatican contracts, infighting among cardinals and claims the pope’s secretary of state started rumours of homosexuality against a hostile newspaper editor.

Placed under custody in a secure room at the Vatican, the father of three confessed but claimed he was an agent of the Holy Spirit, seeking to expose and root out the “evil and corruption”. An expert appointed by his lawyer suggested Gabriele was a victim of “restlessness, tension, rage and frustration”.

Gabriele’s case is being heard by three lay judges within the Vatican’s wood-panelled court and is likely to shed light on the secret world within the world’s smallest state. It is being held on a Saturday, because it is when the judges, who work in Italy’s court system, have a free day.

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VATICAN CITY
Yahoo! News UK

The chosen few are taken to a Vatican courtroom under tight security.

Eight journalists are permitted to attend the trial of the Pope’s former butler, Paolo Gabriele, in one of the more embarrassing episodes in recent Vatican history.

Once one of the Pope’s most trusted of aides, he says he wanted to clean up corruption in the Roman Catholic Church.

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VATICAN CITY
RTE News

The court trying Pope Benedict’s former butler on charges of aggravated theft has ruled that the results of a separate investigation carried out by cardinals will not be admitted as trial evidence.

The court rejected a defence request to include the cardinals’ inquiry on the first morning of Paolo Gabriele’s trial.

Mr Gabriele is charged with stealing and leaking sensitive papal documents alleging corruption in the Vatican.

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VATICAN CITY
Buenos Aires Herald

Pope Benedict’s former butler went on trial on Saturday for using his intimate access to the pope’s desk to steal and leak explosive documents in what he said was an attempt to clean up corruption in the Vatican.

The 46-year-old Paolo Gabriele, who served the pope his meals and helped him dress, was being tried along with a Vatican computer expert in the city state’s little-used tribunal, a small, wood-panelled room with a papal emblem on its ceiling.

Gabriele was arrested in May after police found confidential documents in his apartment inside the Vatican, throwing a global media spotlight on an institution battling to defend its reputation from allegations of graft.

A three-judge panel will decide the fate of Gabriele, whom the pope used to call “Paoletto” (little Paul), now described in Vatican documents as “the defendant”.

The self-styled whistle-blower, who says he was trying to expose graft at the headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church, is charged with aggravated theft for stealing and leaking the pontiff’s personal papers, and could be jailed for four years.

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VATICAN CITY
The Telegraph (United Kingdom)

Vatican gendarmes investigating the theft of compromising documents by the Pope’s butler, Paolo Gabriele, took away 82 boxes of material during searches of his apartment and other addresses, the first day of his trial heard on Saturday.

By Nick Squires, Vatican City
1:18PM BST 29 Sep 2012

In one of the biggest scandals to shake the seven-year papacy of Benedict XVI, Gabriele is accused of the “aggravated theft” of confidential papers, some of which were taken from the desk of the Pope himself.

In an indication of the scale of the alleged thefts, the court heard that some 82 cases of documents were taken away during searches conducted at Gabriele’s grace-and-favour apartment and also at the Pope’s summer residence, the Castel Gandolfo.

Gabriele, wearing a light grey suit and looking pale but smiling often, did not speak at the first session.

The trial was adjourned until Tuesday, when he will be questioned. The trial heard that a total of 13 people had been listed to appear as witnesses, including the Pope’s private secretary, the deputy head of the Vatican’s Swiss Guards, and the head of the Vatican Gendarmerie.

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VATICAN CITY
Irish Examiner

Saturday, September 29, 2012

A Vatican judge has adjourned the trial of the Pope’s former butler, who is accused of giving stolen letters to a journalist.

Paolo Gabriele faces up to four years in prison if convicted of aggravated theft.

He has said he wanted to expose what he calls “evil and corruption” in the church.

The case – which began this morning – will continue on Tuesday.

Father John Wauck, who is in Rome, said the attention on the case was frustrating.

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NEW BEDFORD (MA)
South Coast Today

By NATALIE SHERMAN
nsherman@s-t.com

September 29, 2012

NEW BEDFORD — City councilors have upped the pressure on the Fall River diocese to reverse its decision to close historic St. John the Baptist Church, requesting a meeting with the bishop and faulting the parish priest for not fighting on behalf of the parishioners.

“You know what could really strengthen this whole thing is if we had a priest who would stand up for the church, for the parishioners,” At-Large Councilor Brian Gomes said at the City Council meeting Thursday night. “Tonight I put Father Jack on the line.”

The Rev. John J. Oliveira, who is pastor of both St. John the Baptist and Our Lady of Mount Carmel churches, where St. John’s parishioners will attend, has deferred requests for comment to the diocese.

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UNITED STATES
Culture Shocks

Since the news broke last year of alleged sexual abuse of minors by Penn State University ex-Iassistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, the likeness with the clerical sexual abuse cases in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia have been apparent. David Clohessy of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests talks about those similarities.

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VATICAN CITY
WPVI

NICOLE WINFIELD Associated Press

VATICAN CITY (AP) – September 29, 2012 (WPVI) — A Vatican tribunal has thrown out some evidence gathered in the investigation of the pope’s butler, who is accused of stealing the pope’s papers and passing them off to a journalist in the worst security breach in the Vatican’s recent history.

The court also decided Saturday during the first hearing of the case to separate the trial of the butler, Paolo Gabriele, and that of his co-defendant, a Vatican computer expert.

Gabriele faces up to four years in prison if he is convicted of aggravated theft. He has already confessed, saying he leaked the documents to shed light on what he called the “evil and corruption” in the church, and asked to be pardoned by the pope.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

By Christian Red / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Friday, September 28, 2012

Travis Weaver said he found himself “pinned on the bed” of a Philadelphia hotel room held down by former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky after the 14-year-old had come out of the shower.

“I told (Sandusky) I was going to call the cops. He just laughed at me,” Weaver said on the “Dr. Phil” TV program Friday. “(Sandusky) told me no one was ever going to believe me over him. I was scared. I believed him.”

Weaver’s graphic account of the abuse he says he suffered at the hands of Sandusky was part of his interview with Dr. Phil McGraw Friday. Weaver appeared alongside Greg Bucceroni, a Philadelphia native who has said in several interviews with the Daily News that he was sexually abused by now-deceased Philly businessman Ed Savitz during the late ’70s. Weaver first went public with his story in June — shortly before Sandusky was convicted on 45 counts of sex abuse of minors.

Bucceroni told The News in July that he met Sandusky at a Second Mile fund-raiser in 1979, two years after Sandusky had founded the organization. Earlier this month, Bucceroni sent emails to Poly Prep Country Day School in Brooklyn claiming that the school’s late football coach, Phil Foglietta, paid him to have sex with him in 1979, and that Foglietta was part of a pedophile ring that included Savitz and Sandusky.

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TEXAS
Victoria Advocate

Caty Hirst
Originally published September 28, 2012

The Victoria man arrested on child pornography charges Thursday was a volunteer with the children’s ministry at Faith Family Church.

Officers arrested Joshua Almeida, 32, of Victoria, about 9:20 p.m. and charged him with possession of child pornography with intent to distribute.

Stephanie Petrash has been going to Faith Family Church with Almeida for about 15 years. She also volunteers with him in the children’s department.

Petrash said she has never seen Almeida try to be alone with children or witnessed children acting uncomfortable around him.

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FALL RIVER (MA)
Herald News

By Marc Munroe Dion
Herald News Staff Reporter

FALL RIVER —

Two members of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, Peter Pollard and David O’Regan, came to the city Friday to stand outside the bishop’s residence and talk to Diocesan Spokesman John Kearns about what the two originally said was a form sent home with students in diocesan Catholic schools relieving the diocese from responsibility if students are abused.

Kearns denied the allegation, saying the form, designed without the knowledge of the diocese, was sent home by Our Lady of Victory in Centerville and pertained only to a Faith Formation Program held by the church for people of all ages.

“It was not a universal form,” Kearns said. “We didn’t know they were using it.”

Kearns said the form is no longer in use.

“The Faith Formation Program involves a gathering three or four times a year,” Kearns said. “There’s a meal and then they break up into discussion groups.

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VATICAN CITY
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

By DAVID GIBSON • Religion News Service

VATICAN CITY • When some American Catholics worry that the hierarchy is tilting toward the Republican Party, or taking the church back to the 19th century (or earlier), they often point to Cardinal Raymond Burke as Exhibit A.

That’s understandable, because love him or loathe him — and few are on the fence — Burke’s many pronouncements on politics and the culture wars have given both fans and critics plenty of ammunition for their respective views.

Back when he was archbishop of St. Louis in 2004, for instance, Burke touched off a fierce debate by declaring that Catholic politicians such as John Kerry who support abortion rights should be denied Communion.

Voters who supported them were in grave peril, too, he added. He later said former New York Mayor Rudy Guliani, a Republican, who was running for president and supported abortion rights, should also be denied Communion. …

Another of his U.S. protégés, Bishop Robert Finn of Missouri, was found guilty in September of covering up for a priest suspected of child abuse — the first bishop ever convicted in the long history of the clergy abuse scandal. When asked to comment about Finn at a September meeting with journalists, Burke demurred. “It wouldn’t be proper,” he said.

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PHILIPPINES
Asia One (Singapore)

AFP
Saturday, Sep 29, 2012

MANILA – Philippine authorities looking for religious statues made from “blood” ivory were prevented from entering a church where the banned items were allegedly kept, a government investigator said Saturday.

A joint team from the Justice Department’s investigation bureau and the Environment Department were denied entry to the Shrine of the Black Nazarene in the central island of Cebu when they visited on Friday, a member said.

Security guards at the shrine, set up by a priest allegedly linked to the illegal smuggling of ivory, told investigators they would have to speak to the priest’s lawyers first, said Eddie Llamedo, an Environment Department spokesman.

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PHILIPPINES
Inquirer

By Connie E. Fernandez
Inquirer Visayas
6:07 am | Friday, September 28th, 2012

CEBU CITY—Embattled Msgr. Cristobal Garcia can find strength in a Catholic charismatic group that has been under his spiritual guidance for the last 20 years.

Members of the Bukas Loob sa Diyos (BLD) have been holding vigils and synchronized prayer brigades for Garcia since Wednesday after the monsignor has been linked to the illegal smuggling of ivory by the National Geographic magazine October cover story “Ivory Worship.”

The vigils and prayers at the Vicente Sotto School of Nursing building on Osmeña Boulevard here would continue even after the BLD members have been informed of the reason behind Garcia’s removal as their spiritual director.

Garcia was suspended and stripped of his positions at the Cebu Archdiocese on orders of the Vatican pending the Holy See’s investigation of charges of child abuse for allegedly molesting two altar boys in the United States 20 years ago.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Wales Online

Teacher Jeremy Forrest who went missing with his teenage pupil Megan Stammers will not fight extradition proceedings against him and has agreed to return to the UK “as soon as possible”, his lawyers say.

The 30-year-old was arrested on suspicion of child abduction after the pair were found in the French town of Bordeaux on Thursday.

Phil Smith, from Tuckers Solicitors, said in a statement: “He has agreed to return to the UK as soon as possible without the need for protracted extradition proceedings.”

Fifteen-year-old Megan is expected to travel back to her hometown of Eastbourne, East Sussex, more than a week after she went missing with her 30-year-old teacher.

Forrest, Megan’s maths teacher at Bishop Bell C of E School, in Eastbourne, remains in police custody in France.

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VATICAN CITY
Channel 4 News

The former butler of Pope Benedict XVI goes on trial today in relation to the leaking of sensitive Vatican documents to the media.

Paolo Gabriele (pictured bottom left) is charged with the aggravated theft of hundreds of documents which alleged corruption in the Vatican’s dealings with Italian companies, and detailed power struggles between cardinals.

Mr Gabriele, who was arrested in May and is currently under house arrest, explained his actions by saying there was “evil and corruption everywhere in the Church” and that “a shock, perhaps by using the media, could be a healthy thing to bring the Church back on the right track.”

Many of the stolen documents appeared in the book His Holiness: Pope Benedict XVI’s secret papers by Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi. Despite originally denying the theft, Gabriele later confessed to passing the documents to Mr Nuzzi.

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VATICAN CITY
The Independent (United Kingdom)

Michael Day
Saturday 29 September 2012

Rarely if ever in recent history can one person be said to have played so many roles in a single court case. The individual in question is Pope Benedict XVI, who will be the supreme judge, the victim, and according to the accused, the intended beneficiary in the Vatican leaks trial that begins this morning at the Holy See.

Benedict’s former butler, 46-year-old father-of-three Paolo Gabriele, is accused of stealing sensitive documents and passing them on to a journalist whose subsequent book and TV programmes appeared to lift the lid on tawdry back-stabbing and corruption at the Vatican.

Today’s trial will take place in the Vatican courtroom, employing a 19th-century penal code in place in Italy when the Vatican state came into being. The Pontiff himself will not be present. But a panel of three judges, headed by Giuseppe Dalla Torre del Tempio di Sanguinetto, has the power to send Mr Gabriele to an Italian prison for four years if the accused is found guilty of aggravated theft. The only other person on trial is Claudio Sciarpelletti, a 48-year-old Vatican computer expert, who faces charges of having helped Mr Gabriele.

Reinforcing Vatican claims that Mr Gabriele was a light-fingered rogue employee are the additional charges that he stole gifts intended for the Pontiff including a gold nugget, a 16th-century copy of The Aeneid and a cheque made out to Benedict for €100,000. Before his arrest, however, on 23 May this year, Mr Gabriele, with his face hidden from the camera, told the reporter Gianluigi Nuzzi that there were “at least” another active 20 whistle-blowers at the Vatican seeking to expose corruption.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Blackburn News

The Diocese of London is supporting the Silence of Hope project with a donation of $80,000.

The project offers services to survivors of male sexual abuse in Windsor, Chatham, Sarnia and London.

Project Coordinator Tom Wilken says the Diocese is currently their only funder. “We started way back six years ago where they funded us $30,000 a year and that steadily grew until it steadily grew to $80,000.”

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KENTUCKY
Herald-Leader

By Valarie Honeycutt Spears — vhoneycutt@herald-leader.com

On the Sunday that followed the arrest of a former youth leader on sex-related charges, the lead pastor at Southland Christian Church addressed the issue with the congregation.

Chris Hahn, the lead executive pastor, said Southland Pastor Jon Weece talked about the “sadness we feel over what’s gone on in the last week.” During the sermon Sunday, Weece reminded the church of Southland’s procedures for hiring employees and accepting volunteers, Hahn said.

Jonathan David Hall, 29, of Danville is accused of sending sexual emails and text messages to a 15-year-old girl he met through church. Hall, who was released from his role as a youth leader at Southland Christian Church’s Danville campus, was arrested Sept. 18. He faces charges of unlawful use of electronic means to induce a minor to engage in sex.

Hall’s case is the most recent example of a persistent problem at churches in Kentucky and across the nation, officials said.

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NEW JERSEY
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Barbara Dorris on September 28, 2012

It is ironic that, mere days after a report is released that lauds the new policies the BSA has adopted to prevent abuse, another Scout leader is arrested on child porn charges. The fact that cases like these continue to pop up is why we constantly push for action from the outside as opposed to policy reform from within.

The fact that the police have uncovered chat logs that show Gerrett Conover abused a boy for at least seven years while he was a scout leader is disturbing. We urge scouting officials in Valley Forge, PA to reach out to all those where who in scouting at the same time as Conover and urge those who may have seen or suspected his crimes to come forward to police.

Given the evidence uncovered by police, it is difficult to believe that Conover has only ever abused one child. We find it difficult to believe that there were no warning signs that Conover was disturbed, and are interested to see what the response from Scouting officials will be on this situation. We hope it is more honest than their most recent press move.

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CHILE
Bio Bio

Publicado por Javier Cisterna | La Información es de Luis Cabello

José Andrés Murillo, víctima del Fernando Karadima, declaré en el juicio oral que se sigue en contra del sacerdote curicano acusado de presunto abuso sexual, Francisco Cartes.

El profesional, uno de los primeros en denunciar al párroco de El Bosque en 2003, se presentó a la instancia producto de su contacto y conocimiento de una de las presuntas víctimas.

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WASHINGTON
HeraldNet

By Aaron Swaney, Herald Writer

EVERETT — The interim head football coach at Archbishop Murphy High School agreed to be placed on paid administrative leave while officials explore issues raised about his hiring, the school announced Friday.

The move came after school officials consulted with the Archdiocese of Seattle about information regarding Michael Allison’s teaching career in Oregon, which ended after he stipulated to an inappropriate relationship with a female student.

Allison was hired by Archbishop Murphy to be a physical education teacher. He was named football coach earlier this week.

“Mr. Allison agreed to voluntary paid administrative leave to give the school time for a review of the issues that have been raised in media accounts,” Greg Magnoni, director of communications for the Archdiocese, said in an email. “He denies the allegations and feels that by stepping back it will give the school administration an opportunity to resolve the matter and move on.”

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CALIFORNIA
Loyolan

Dear LMU Community:

I write to you in light of recent media reports that have highlighted credible sexual abuse allegations against Brother William Farrington, S.J. While the alleged abuse did not occur at LMU, Brother Farrington is a former member of LMU’s staff and Jesuit community. Several efforts are being undertaken to assure you of our unwavering commitment to a safe and healthy environment for all, as well as to gather additional information.

The alleged abuse occurred when Brother Farrington worked at two Jesuit high schools in Northern California. This was prior to his 1987-2002 tenure at LMU, during which time he worked in the Admissions Office and lived in the Jesuit community. To the best of our knowledge, when the Jesuits assigned him to LMU in 1987, the University was not informed of any past allegations, issues or limitations respecting Brother Farrington.

Furthermore, we are not aware of any allegation of improper conduct on the part of Brother Farrington during the 15 years he worked at LMU. Nonetheless, in 2002, his Jesuit provincial assigned him to the Jesuit Retirement Community in Los Gatos, California, following a complaint made to the provincial of the California Province by one of the alleged Northern California victims. The focus of the complaint had nothing to do with Brother Farrington’s conduct at LMU.

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MISSOURI
TheMediaReport

Dave Pierre

Since David Clohessy, the National Director of SNAP, has repeatedly flaunted judges’ orders to produce documents related to an important Missouri abuse case, lawyers for an accused Catholic priest have requested that the Circuit Court of Jackson County, Missouri, hold SNAP and Clohessy “in contempt of Court.”

[Click to read the court documents]

Lawyers for the accused priest have repeatedly requested that SNAP and Clohessy produce documents that they possess related to cases involving the discredited theory of “repressed memory,” as the bogus theory plays an important role in their current case.

After displaying a timeline of events supporting their motion, the lawyers add that SNAP and Clohessy have repeatedly sought writs in the Missouri Court of Appeals and Supreme Court to oppose court orders and have repeatedly been denied. The lawyers then declare, “SNAP and Clohessy have failed to comply with every Court-ordered deadline for discovery.”

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TEXAS
KTRE

By Jeff Awtrey

NACOGDOCHES, TX (KTRE) –
Three former Nacogdoches residents are suing the Roman Catholic Diocese of Beaumont over allegations that they were sexually abused as teenagers 35 years ago by a priest who died in 1996.

The three men, listed in the complaint as John Doe 104, John Doe 105 and John Doe 106, say Father Ronald W. Bollich used to provide them alcohol while they were between the ages of 13 and 15 and touch them inappropriately and even have them give him oral sex.

The lawsuit, filed in Jefferson County District Court, provides details into several instances of sexual assault and Bollich’s relationship with the boys between 1976 and 1977.

The plaintiffs’ attorney, Tahira Khan Merritt, who is out of Dallas, specializes in sexual abuse cases and is asking that anyone who has pertinent information about Bollich when he was assigned to Sacred Heart Parish to come forward and report the abuse.

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NEW JERSEY
KSN

[with video]

WOOLWICH, New Jersey (NBC) — A former Pennsylvania Boy Scout leader in jail, accused of child pornography.

Federal investigators say they also found conversations on Gerrett Conover’s home computer that led them to believe Conover may have also had an inappropriate relationship with a young scout.

From 1999 to 2001, Conover was a leader of Troop 284 in Radnor, according to the Boy Scouts of America organization based in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.

The troop met at the Wayne Presbyterian Church.

According to the statement from federal investigators, in addition to pornographic images found on Conover’s computer, they also, uncovered was an additional Internet chat in which Conover acknowledged having a long-term relationship with a boy while the boy was 10 to 17 years of age.

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

PHILIPPINES
Sun.Star

By Bernadette A. Parco

Saturday, September 29, 2012

CEBU Archbishop Jose Palma has declined to comment further on the issues involving a Cebuano priest who is facing probes in relation to a child abuse case and alleged involvement in illicit ivory trade.

He explained to Sun.Star Cebu that this is to give due respect to the legal and church procedures involved in such cases.

Despite the church’s silence and after the announcement that separate investigations are conducted by church and government agencies, statements of support continue to pour for Msgr. Cristobal Garcia.

The former Archdiocesan Commission on Worship chairman was also the business manager of the archdiocesan newsletter, founder of the Society of the Angels of Peace and the spiritual director of World Apostolate of Fatima or WAF and Bukas Loob sa Diyos (BLD).

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

FALL RIVER (MA)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David O’Regan on September 28, 2012

We’re here today for 3 reasons. First, we want to urge everyone who saw, suspected or suffered clergy sex crimes and cover ups in the Fall River area to come forward and to call police, expose wrongdoing, protect others and start healing. When victims, witnesses and whistleblowers stay silent, predators walk free and kids get hurt. But when we find the courage and strength to step forward, at least there’s a chance for healing, justice and prevention.

It is almost always possible to recover from childhood trauma. It is sometimes possible to get justice in the civil and criminal courts. And it’s sometimes possible to prevent future child sex crimes and cover ups.

But staying silent isn’t the way to do this. This can only happen when victims speak up.

Second, we want Fall River’s bishop to take three steps regarding the self-serving and callous waiver that parents were given to sign – at one local parish, possibly more – relieving Catholic Church and school officials of responsibility for harm to kids.

The bishop should

–discipline the persons responsible for it.
–explain how this happened.
–promise, in writing, that he won’t use that waiver again.

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

KANSAS CITY (MO)
Catholic Moral Theology

By: Julie Rubio

A few weeks ago, Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas City, MO became the first U.S. bishop to be held accountable for the child abuse by priests. Though I regret the lateness of this post, I did not think that this event should go by without comment from our blog. In the New York Times, John Eligon and Laurie Goodstein reported:

“The case began when the Rev. Shawn Ratigan, a charismatic parish priest who had previously attracted attention for inappropriate behavior with children, took his laptop computer in for repairs in December 2010. A technician immediately told church officials that the laptop contained what appeared to be pornographic photographs of young girls’ genitals, naked and clothed.

Father Ratigan attempted suicide, survived and was sent for treatment. Bishop Finn reassigned him to live in a convent and ordered him stay away from children. But Father Ratigan continued to attend church events and take lewd pictures of girls for five more months, until church officials reported him in May 2011, without Bishop Finn’s approval. The bishop was found guilty on the charge relating only to that time period.”

According to the same article, the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests was happy to finally see a conviction of a bishop, but remains convinced that only jail time will bring about lasting change.

Perhaps many Catholics see the group’s demands as extreme, especially since significant attempts to correct the problem have been made in recent years. However, as Frank Bruni points out, “the case of Father Ratigan postdates all of that — by many, many years. It suggests the tenacity of willful ignorance and deliberate evasion, even when the price is nothing less than the ravaged psyches of vulnerable children.” It’s not over, not by a long shot.

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

NEW YORK
The Associated Press

By BRETT J. BLACKLEDGE, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Before the Sept. 11 attacks, the Rev. Carl Keyes was a little-known pastor of a small New York City congregation searching for members and money.

When the twin towers fell, his fortunes changed.

Donors poured $2.5 million into the minister’s charity to help 9/11 victims. More opportunities to raise relief money would come later, with at least another $2.3 million collected for efforts along the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast, in the poorest corners of West Virginia and Tennessee, and even in remote African villages.

Tens of millions more flowed through his fingers from the sale of church properties.

But Keyes, a one-time construction worker, did more than help the needy with the millions donated — he helped himself.

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

VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

by John L Allen Jr on Sep. 28, 2012 All Things Catholic …

Tomorrow, the Vatican’s “trial of the century” begins. Paolo Gabriele, the 46-year-old former butler to Pope Benedict XVI, is charged with aggravated theft for allegedly being the mole at the heart of the Vatileaks scandal. (Also on trial is another former lay Vatican employee, Claudio Sciarpelletti, who faces a more minor charge.)

Italian news agencies are reporting that among the potential witnesses are Msgr. Georg Gänswein, the pope’s personal secretary, and the four consecrated women belonging to Memores Domini, part of the Communion and Liberation movement, who make up Benedict’s private household. They were interviewed during the preliminary investigation, and it will apparently be up to both the prosecution and the defense to decide whether they’re called to testify during the trial itself.

The $64,000 question, of course, is whether others were involved in the leaks, and if so, who are they? Whether the trial will deliver a convincing answer remains to be seen, but based on conversations with colleagues during Benedict’s recent trip to Lebanon, it seems clear that most of the world’s vaticanisti (for sure, the Italians) are convinced that the Gabriele trial — not the Synod of Bishops for the New Evangelization, not the “Year of Faith” or anything else — is destined to be this fall’s blockbuster Vatican story.

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

UNITED KINGDOM
Eastbourne Herald

Published on Friday 28 September 2012

Bishop Bell is hoping to welcome back Megan Stammers after the teenager, who ran way with her maths teacher, was found safe and well in France.

The 15-year-old has been taken into protection and her maths teacher, 30-year-old Forrest, has been arrested on suspicion of child abduction.

The pair, who ran away together nine days ago, were found hand in hand in Bordeaux at around lunchtime today (Friday).

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

PHILIPPINES
Inquirer

By Connie E. Fernandez
Inquirer Visayas
1:31 am | Saturday, September 29th, 2012

CEBU CITY—Heritage experts and conservationists cooperated with National Geographic writer Bryan Christy when he told them that he was writing about Cebu’s devotion to the Holy Child Jesus.

But they felt betrayed after they had read Christy’s article online linking the veneration of the Sto. Niño to the killing of elephants for their tusks, one of the sources of ivory.

“If we knew [that he was writing about ivory icons], we would not have cooperated with him,” said Trizer Dale Mansueto, a Cebu-based historian involved in heritage conservation.

“We cooperated because we thought the story was about the devotion,” he said. “He never mentioned that he was writing about ivory.”

Christy sent Mansueto an e-mail on Sept. 25, explaining that he did not seek to call attention to ivory smuggling in the Philippines, but to make readers think about the many kinds of devotion, including to wildlife.

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

UNITED STATES
Religioscope

Richard Cimino – Religion Watch
28 Sep 2012

The effort to reform the Catholic Church along liberal lines may result less in changing the church than in generating new movements and churches completely outside of official Catholicism. That is one of the conclusions of the new book Underground Church (Brill), by sociologist Kathleen Kautzer of Regis College in Massachusetts.

The book provides a rare and comprehensive examination of liberal and radical Catholic groups and movements in the U.S. The book is based on extensive fieldwork among such reformist groups as Corpus (consisting of former priests), Dignity (gay Catholics), Women’s Ordination Conference (WOC), and Voice of the Faithful (a group that formed over the priest sex abuse crisis in the American church), as well as more radical groups that have made a complete break with the church (such as schismatic parishes and some feminist groups).

In tracing the histories of these groups, Kautzer notes how they have gradually evolved from optimistic efforts of reform of the church based on a liberal interpretation and appropriation of Vatican II to a far more contentious and eventually pessimistic stance regarding the possibility of significant change in the church. Of course, the level of demands for liberal reform vary with each group. The author shows that the Voice of the Faithful (VOTF), the most moderate of the groups she studied, was able to exert pressure on dioceses and other church structures to make some policy changes, at least on the pressing issue of clergy sex abuse.

The abuse issue had given the reform movement a “second wind,” but groups such VOTF were “dealt a fatal blow,” when Pope Benedict XVI became more active in addressing issues related to the crisis and meeting with victims. In other words, the issue that had galvanized reform groups (and given them a good deal of publicity) was co-opted by the mainstream church, making their activism less necessary.

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

VATICAN CITY
The Atlantic

Alexander Stille

Sep 28 2012

Some institutions may not adapt to 21st-century radical transparency. The papacy’s turn to inflammatory rhetoric while hit by a series of damaging leaks suggests that it’s struggling.

Strange things have been happening at the Vatican this year. Beginning in January, documents written by high-level figures in the Catholic Church began finding their way into the Italian press, many of the letters to the pope denouncing instances of corruption and complaining about the direction and management of the Church.

When a book full of leaked documents, Sua Santità (His Holiness), was published in late May, the Vatican took the extraordinary step of arresting the pope’s butler, Paolo Gabriele, a humble but trusted member of the papal household, and announced that officials had found numerous papal documents at Gabriele’s apartment within the Vatican. At the same time, the Vatican Bank, under investigation for money laundering (charges the Vatican denies), fired its president, a respected Catholic banker, listing among the reasons for his dismissal allegations that sounded a lot like leaking: “Failure to provide any formal explanation for the dissemination of documents last known to be in the President’s possession.” Immediately after his firing, the former bank president hired his own bodyguard service and wrote a private memorandum to the pope, which he wished to disseminate “in case something should happen to him.”

Power struggles and scandal are nothing new in the Vatican. Pope Alexander VI, for one, was accused of poisoning his enemies and sleeping with his daughter, the infamous Lucrezia Borgia. But until now the pope had been able to count on the loyalty and discretion of his inner circle and a hermetically sealed culture of silence, discretion, and secrecy that has often been compared with that of the Kremlin at the height of Soviet power. Now the last and most ancient of the world’s absolute monarchies is suddenly in the fishbowl culture of the 21st century, where the most-trivial and the most-important details alike become transparent.

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

UNITED STATES
BeyondOpinion.com:: Christian Apologetics Ministry

Posted on September 27, 2012 by Mark Webster

My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.
(1 John 2:1-6 ESV)

Here are excerpts and links to some very important articles dealing with sexual abuse in churches. If you attend a church please read and see if any of the advice can be implemented where you attend. It is discouraging to see how sexual predators get away with multiple offenses when fellow church members,deacons,and elders should be spotting their aberrant behavior. Ignorance is not bliss.

Here is an excerpt to an article dealing with the profile of a religious leader who is a predator –

What are the characteristics of the ministers, pastors, priests, rabbis and other clergy responsible for sexually abusing just over three percent of women who regularly attend religious services?

The perpetrators of this pervasive adult sexual abuse are likely to be charming, even charismatic and apparently self-assured while actually driven by an unquenchable need for attention, affection, admiration and control.

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